#Despite a few gags to the contrary in there

[undercityrezident]

My Commentary on Pokemon Scarlet

Way back in���wait, when was it… April, May? February even?—whenever it was we saw the first trailer for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, I was gobsmacked because I absolutely did not expect to see a new Pokemon game so soon. I was taken so by surprise by it that I was almost confused. I was thinking to myself, “Man, it feels so soon after just getting done with Pokemon Legends: Arceus that I’m still coming down from it. And there’s already another one coming on the horizon. Is it too soon? Did they even have enough time to make this game?”

Yes, as a Pokemon fan, I was asking myself: am I getting too many Pokemon games too quickly?

It feels like there’s some measure of absurdity in that, but having read and written work about crunch time in the video game industry (not on this blog, but for school), I feel like the cost for Game Freak putting out another game would be too high. And I don’t mean monetarily. I’m sure they’re raking in the green, but I’m talking about other costs: the costs to the sanity of developers and the costs to customers on the quality of game they’re getting for modernly full-priced triple-A games. I could also cite the cost of Game Freak’s reputation but I don’t know if that’s worth mentioning in the same breath as the former two. Plus, I’m starting to worry the franchise and the Pokemon Company no longer have the esteemed reputation they once had for putting out great quality games.

Okay, let me try and turn the tracks on this train before it becomes a full-on rant on my annoyances with video game industry standards and my tendency to wax on at length about where the Pokemon franchise is going. I’m here to review Pokemon Scarlet. Yes, just Scarlet. I’m only paying for one of these games. I’m a student and don’t have money to burn on both versions. Given what I saw, especially toward the end of the game, maybe there are some differences in Violet that make for a different tone in the story, but I won’t be able to account for that in this review.

I should also list out where I am in the game so that folks know exactly where I’m coming from when I write this review so I can get flamed in the manner of: “Oh Rez! You need to do this, this, and this to get the full experience of the game!” I do think I’ve completed most of the actual substance in the game to make what I feel is a legitimate review. But, like my other reviews, this is largely something for me to just get my feelings about the game on some medium so I can properly look back at it later and either cringe or feel some sort of justification for my struggles, frustrations, or feelings of accomplishment. At any rate, listed below are what I’ve done so far for context so that you, my few-and-far-between readers, can see the context from which I’m coming at this assessment of Pokemon Scarlet. Suffice to say, from this point on, there’ll be major spoilers:

·       I’ve completed the main three storylines.

·       I’ve finished the Area Zero arc that comes after the three storylines.

·       I’ve gotten about 320 or so out of 400 pokemon in the pokedex.

·       I’m still working on the four ghosts Professor Raifort tasked me with finding.

·       I still need to find another Sweet Herb Mystica for Professor Saguaro.

·       I did my victory lap with all the gym leaders.

·       I finished my first School Tournament.

·       I’ve peeked into just about every nook and cranny in Paldea’s huge map.

Ok? We good on establishing where I am? Ok, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this review.

The World of Paldea

Pokemon, especially in more recent generations, has been notoriously slow to start their games and hook me in. Lengthy tutorials and exposition are the names of the game with Game Freak. I can’t entirely blame them, as they have to make introductions that help new fans integrate into the game while also cementing established or new features for veterans. That said, it takes quite a while for us to get to a point where we feel like we’re finally being unleashed on this promised open world.

Pokemon Scarlet has this problem too, unfortunately. Grant you, I’m an obsessive explorer who has to see everything available to me—side content and every little hiding spot on the map—before I push forward in the plot. Still, I think streamlining the introduction up through to when the treasure hunt starts would make the start of the game feel a lot less dull for me. My interest wasn’t truly seized until I finally found myself starting on the game’s three main quests.

That said, this world is expansive and, at least at a distance, pretty to look at. Paldea has some great vistas and I definitely wouldn’t mind settling down to live there if I had the chance. Compared to other open-world games that can feel quite empty, this one feels pretty lively from the differing environment types and the fact that pokemon… are… everywhere. You won’t go more than 20 meters before you see another lone pokemon, or even a swarm, that either draws your interest or force you to change course to avoid them.

On top of that, Paldea has a littering problem that certainly needs addressing. There’s a wealth of items both visible and less so scattered around the region. If you’re one to build up your stock of potions and other battle-item essentials, you’ll barely have to spend money at stores, as the world itself seems to provide it in abundance for the obsessive explorer such as myself. I usually only had to restock on pokeballs at stores, mainly due to my obscenely bad luck with pokemon catch rates.

And exploring has other perks too,  such as how I was able to catch my adorable ghost pupper, Greavard, early due to a Tera Raid Battle in the first area. That was a nice find and a treat to start with.

Beyond the starting area, the game offers a diverse landscape. From grasslands to a scorching desert to a, chilling mountain, Paldea mixes up its environments. Admittedly, it seems mostly green and grassy at the start, but the diversity comes when it’s needed: toward the middle and the end of the game. Sorry, no fiery volcano level for you fire-type lovers, though the fire types themselves aren’t absent in this game, so don’t worry.

Of course, there are barriers to this exploration. Compared to some other open-world games, you can’t just go anywhere immediately, at least not without consequence to you and your feeble starting team. While you can choose how you explore, either east or west from the main city, or both if you want to be like me and inflate your playtime, the pokemon levels in the zones increase from area to area. I had hoped that levels would scale with you and the number of badges, titans, or squads you’d bested, but sadly, that level of dynamic world adaptation was not programmed into this game. I think it would’ve greatly enhanced the fluidity of game completion if you were able to truly go about and do this game in any order you wanted, but maybe there were some logistical issues that I wasn’t aware of that necessitated the existing system.

Barriers also exist in the form of what capabilities your ride pokemon, the legendary Koraidon (or Miraidon if you’re playing Violet) is capable of. While I don’t recall anything essential to game completion being put firmly off-limits (except for the final titan requiring surf) by these mechanics, it does open up new, more convenient, and more fun ways to explore the landscape. Once you’ve unlocked the ability to dash, high-jump, surf, glide, and climb, the world really opens up to you and you feel like an absolute badass as you explore even the roughest, most remote regions of Paldea… even though it’s your ride pokemon doing all the work.

That said, for all my praise, there are a few issues I find with this world.

I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss one of the big things that have been on everyone’s mind when it comes to this game: the graphics. I’ll try not to dwell on it too long, as countless people on the internet already have. But, as I said before, the game looks great… at a distance. Get up close though, and that’s a different story.

Like in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, the textures leave something to be desired, and the framerates for characters, pokemon—or any moving object in the distance, such as a windmill—are absurdly choppy until you get close enough for the game to decide to start rendering them at an acceptable rate. While I’d thought Legends would be a tech test for this generation and thus would improve on its performance, I found the graphical quality and framerate issues to be even worse in this game. I would even caution those with any sort of epileptic condition to prepare themselves for flickering lights in places where shadows keep appearing and disappearing without apparent cause. I know I found it a bit of an eye strain at times.

Admittedly, I recognize a lot of these issues stem from the fact Scarlet and Violet are ambitiously large games and their zones aren’t rigidly segmented like in Legends, but we’ve seen other games from earlier in this console cycle perform much, much better—cough, Breath of the Wild, cough. Again, I chalk this up to the obscenely short development time on the game. There are clearly optimization issues and other ways this game could’ve been smoothed out if the proper time and care had been taken. But Game Freak seems quite obsessed with the idea of putting out a Pokemon game every year. And this isn’t the only part of the world that suffers as a result.

While there’s a diversity in landscapes in Paldea, there’s very little creativity in the naming of these regions. The towns and a few specific areas get names: Glaseado Mountain, Asado Desert, and Casseroya Lake just to name the ones I can recall off the top of my head. But the great majority of areas and regions don’t even have a name. Now, if this were an unexplored, unestablished region, that would make sense. But Paldea, as noted in the game’s own history class, is a region that’s been inhabited for thousands of years by a once-powerful empire and is now a modern country. You’d expect some great naming conventions for the areas in-game. Instead, all we get are descriptors along the lines of “South Province: Area One” or “North Province: Area Two.” While I understand the Great Crater of Paldea being named Area Zero for dramatic effect and the idea that it’s generally been a place humanity has not been able to colonize or explore until recently, I don’t think that naming theme did any favours outside of that forbidding place. I think so much character could’ve been added if they’d named these areas properly. And yes, I know we’re talking about a franchise that routinely names areas “Route 17” or “Route 22,” but this is a game that’s supposed to defy standard conventions of the franchise with its open-world concept. The naming of its areas should reflect that initiative as well. Again, this lack of polish in even the naming smells of the limited development time the game was put under.

That all said, I do think Paldea is an amazing place and I’m happy to have been able to explore every little cave and cliffside. Exploration of the massive landscape is even encouraged from an in-game perspective, with flight points gained from finding Paldea’s ten famous landmarks. From Cortondo’s Olive Fields to Glaseado’s Peak, the world is fun to explore, and I actively encourage you to do so, especially if your goal is to fill your bag with potions or to fill your PC with mons.

How We Play in Paldea

The gameplay in Pokemon Legends: Arceus gave us a new way of looking at how a Pokemon game could play—or even should play. It was tailored for a new paradigm and design philosophy that I hoped the franchise would take: give the players the choice in how they approach exploring the world and catch pokemon. You could chuck an endless stream of balls at pokemon after creeping around in the grass and luring them over with bait to ensure a better catch rate. Or you could dive into battle and capture them the conventional way. It was liberating to have the ability to choose.

In that regard, Pokemon Scarlet took a step backwards.

I will wholeheartedly admit, discovering couldn’t catch pokemon in the same way as I did in Legends put me off the game at the start, probably contributing to my dislike of the game’s introduction. Instead, I was forced to get into a battle, weaken the wild pokemon, and throw balls until I get it while my poor team members soak hits for every failed catch attempt—not something enjoyable as someone with shit luck when it comes to catch rates. Now, I won’t say that the system in Legends was perfect, but, thinking Legends was a tech test for this generation, I figured that the system would be improved upon. The fact it wasn’t implemented at all was disappointing, considering how they decided to iterate on the open-world concept that Legends brought to the table. I got over it as I played, but the wish for this more dynamic way of approaching how I filled out my pokedex was something that teased the back of my mind the whole time I played. At least quick balls are still in the game, thank Arceus.

One thing that I’m fine with being left in the misty past of Legends was the new battle system. It was intriguing and a nice departure from the main series’ methods, but I found it rather unpredictable, especially combined with the absurd power and tendency towards revenge KO’s that littered Legends. The traditional way of doing battles still seems more balanced to me, though I’m not opposed to Game Freak trying their hand at the other system again when they inevitably try to do another Legends-type game. Maybe they’ll refine it enough next time that I’ll like it over the current system. But, in the meantime, the main-line battle system works well enough, and I still enjoy it.

Imported, to some degree, from Legends, is the ride pokemon system. While you had several different pokemon that could help ferry you around Hisui’s landscapes, in Paldea, you have one legendary pokemon you get near the start of the game. As you complete tasks in the titan pokemon storyline, your legendary ride, Koraidon, gains the ability to dash, high jump, surf, glide, and climb. What’s more, it ties almost neatly into the story being told in the titan storyline, making it feel both rewarding and helping to cement your bond with your goofy lizard on whose back you’re on the majority of the game. I have and will continue to advocate for the riding pokemon model, as it’s far superior to the HM system from the days of yore and fits very well into world traversal in Paldea.

That said, crossing Paldea is not without its own set of pitfalls, and not due to the adverse weather conditions you’ll face—and believe me, with the majority of your battles, even gym battles, taking place outside, you’ll be dealing with plenty of that. I’m talking about, yet again, something that’s taken the internet by storm: the glitchy and scuffed way you interact with the world.

Now, I knew going into this game that it wasn’t polished, so I set my expectations low. I also knew that the internet has a way of blowing things way, way out of proportion. I’m pleased to say that I didn’t encounter anything game-breaking, nor any goofy character model glitches, and I had only full-on game crash (though plenty of slowdowns that had me spamming the save feature for fear that I was on the cusp of one). I didn’t even fall through the world once! But I did freak out when I saw a whole squad of Golduck come out of a cliff wall to try and assault me. And there were plenty of times I saw pokemon simply standing partly inside a wall, reminding me of poor Han Solo in his slab of carbonite from The Empire Strikes Back.

I wasn’t always completely fortunate in avoiding glitches and issues though. As battles tend to reposition your character for space, my character was placed on a slope that ended up having me slide ingloriously into the sea after the battle was done, and there were plenty of times I couldn’t even see my pokemon battle since it spawned into a wall as a part of the battle arrangement. And I can’t forget the time I skidded around Levincia City on Koraidon stuck in his downward falling animation until the game decided to black out and reset me. I’ll be honest, all these instances made me laugh out of the sheer absurdity of it. None of these glitches caused me too much delay or caused a loss of progress, but these are all things that could’ve been handled so much better and allowed me to immerse myself in the game that much more deeply if the game had been allowed to bake for another six months to a year.

Another thing that could’ve benefitted from that time is something I find a lot more damning and frustrating though: the user experience. What do I mean by this? Well, to start, menus were laboriously slow to load sprites of pokemon, particularly in the box menu. Considering how often I went into this menu, I feel like I could’ve shaved several hours off my play time for time spent loading the pokemon in the boxes. As well, I found myself rarely changing my look and clothing because my character model took twice, or even thrice as long to load as my pokemon in their boxes. I find myself confused by why menus are so slow, considering that they have nothing to do with the world, which I imagine is what takes up most of the processing power. Again, this might be an optimization issue that isn’t as easy to resolve without more time. Worse yet, sometimes menu elements would overlap in annoying ways, such as experience screens popping up over status bars in double battles, or prompts overlapping pokedex text when I’d caught a new mon. And then, on top of this, about 10% of the time I picked up a new item and it popped up a text box to explain what it was, it would disappear before I pressed anything else, leaving me no chance to read it and have to play a game of “What’s this new item that’s popped up in my inventory!” Not fun when your back is stuffed full of goodies already.

But another thing I should mention that frustrated me was how the world didn’t pause when you did. I found it interesting, and perhaps even charming at first, to bring up my menu to muck around with my team while wild pokemon wandered up to me and made their cute little noises as they looked at me with all their curiosity and wonder. But later in the game, I found it an absolute pain, since most pokemon were aggressive, and would actively camp your spot while you were paused, so that the moment you vacated your menu, you would be thrust into a battle you didn’t want. Heck, even during battles the world continued to move around you, which I have to admit, was kind of cool. I loved the idea of drawing a crowd of pokemon to witness our battles in the wilderness. But even that got tiresome as the fifth Tauros charged me immediately after I finished with its companion’s battle, leaving me in a chain of endless battles that, more likely than not, left my team a wreck as I tried and repeatedly failed to run away from them. In a sense, it almost resembled griefing from MMOs I used to play, and that didn’t leave a great taste in my mouth.

And you know how that problem was solved in Legends?

You could—quite literally—move your character in battle and run away physically. How amazing would that have been? This was another feature inexplicably absent from Pokemon Scarlet that I loved. Moving your character in battles, even to the degree you could have yourself being knocked over by standing in the way of moves, was goofy and fun: feelings I have and want to continue and associate with the Pokemon franchise. It would’ve likely solved most or all of the problems I had with griefing pokemon and the weird battle position issues.

But, all of this aside, the classic core gameplay of pokemon is still present and still works very well. But that’s the thing: it’s just the classic stuff. In terms of gameplay, we had something great on our hands in Legends, even if it was an unpolished gem. I had so desperately hoped it would be refined and made to gleam in this game. But alas, that is not what we received. I’m hoping, as time and the series goes on, that we can revisit these new ideas and implement them into the main games to help the series evolve beyond the standard that’s been repeated for nine generations now.

The Distinct Stories of Paldea

Much as the introduction of the game is mired by a slow start in terms of gameplay (i.e. the delay of the true appearance of the game’s open-world nature), I found the opening of the game’s story to be equally underwhelming. I won’t say that I ever expect much in terms of story from the Pokemon games. The series has never been too well known for that sort of thing, barring a few exceptions like Gen 5’s attempts to cast a shadow over the concept of pokemon battling and ownership with N and Team Plasma. That said, even from the first trailer explaining the concept of the school academy angle the story was taking, I was not a fan of the idea. Having finished the game, I’m still not fond of the school angle.

While it’s certainly possible that a school setting can make for exciting narrative works, it fell flat for me here, and frankly, I don’t think it’s a great fit for pokemon games in general. It worked to a minor degree in Pokemon Sun and Moon’s anime, but I still would’ve liked Ash to have just travelled around Alola more as opposed to resetting to the school all the time. But this isn’t about what Ash did in the anime. This is about what school means for these games. And I think it really was wholly unnecessary since we ended up leaving school for an independent study/journey anyway.

To me, the initial school arc of the story was fodder, and all it did was set the stage for us to travel around the region on our treasure hunt and introduce us to the characters. Setting the stage for our adventure and introducing characters are admirable goals, but we didn’t need all the lengthy pageantry that came with our enrolment in school to meet these characters. Hell, we met Nemona, our rival and precious battling-obsessed cinnamon roll, at her house minutes after we set foot out of our own house and we didn’t need much more than that to realize what her character was about. I would’ve been just as fine with meeting Arven through a sandwich shop that could’ve doubled as a good way to tutorial us through the picnic system and learn about the titan/herb mystica quest from there. As for Penny, it’s harder to integrate her storyline without the school setting. Maybe the school could be a resource used on the side rather than being forced through it and the Starfall Street quest line could’ve been what introduced us to the school as an option for additional tips and interactions. I do love that the school seems to function on post-secondary rules in terms of when and how you enroll and how you take classes. As such, emphasizing that quality by making interacting with the school an option rather than something forced and contrived would’ve felt a lot better and more interesting to me.

That said, I do love all the teachers at the academy. They’re all rich with personality and zest, and it was perhaps the sole redeeming quality of the whole school concept. Feel free to let me know which professor you liked the best, and why it was Professor Raifort.

But, once you’re past that nonsense and finally get the chance to travel Paldea, the school angle tends to fall a bit into the background. Yes, you’re still on your treasure hunt, but the school angle is played down on two of the three questlines. The school setting constricted us, but thankfully, the freedom of travelling for our independent study feels a lot more liberating. I just wish we’d gotten to it a bit faster.

But, as I mentioned, and as most of you have no doubt heard from trailers and the like, the game is split into three quests. Now, in the way I played the game, I chose to complete the challenges levied by each questline in batches based on their area and level range. I’m not sure if you could zip through a single quest line without rapidly falling behind on your required levels, but it seemed to me that completing these quests a little at a time and swapping to another seemed to be the best way of going about the game while levelling at a steady pace. Swapping also helped to pace out each story, since there wasn’t a whole lot to each one: there are eight gyms, five titans/herbs, and five gangs affiliated with Team Star. Not quite enough to make each one feel like a deep, rich narrative if you chose to hyperfixate on one to the exclusion of all others.

But that’s fine! I feel like the intended method was to space out these encounters so that you could take in Paldea one province at a time and dip into these storylines little by little. I think it’s very much to the benefit of the game’s story to have separated these ideas into three distinct narratives because it gives some much-needed focus on certain story elements. The previous iterations of the Pokemon series lost out on this opportunity due to these elements being subjected to a homogenized blend of badge collecting versus intermittent interference by the games’ villainous teams. It made each of these smaller stories a little richer for it.

“Victory Road,” the game’s quest for collecting badges, pits you versus the gyms as you have in most previous Pokemon games. It’s simple, tried and tested, and true to form. And you get to see the lovable Nemona time and time again. There were times I wondered if she was stalking me, and there’s even a one-off comment she makes that plays on that worry, which did make it feel pretty funny in the moment. But that doesn’t stop Nemona from being endearing and adorable and one of my favourite rivals for her sheer exuberance and energy. You also get to talk with her a lot more than most of your rivals historically, so that in itself helps make her a more relatable and enjoyable character to see grow with you. Or rather, she tends to watch you grow and keeps testing you along the way, given she’s already at the top of her game. It’s an interesting angle to take on a rival, and an actively supportive one compared to most friendly rivals in previous games, and one I enjoyed very much. Also helps she’s cute as heck.

As to the gym leaders themselves, I’m happy to say that Game Freak has continued with the tradition of making interesting personalities and main/side-gigs central to their characters. There are some big hits and small misses in my opinion though. Iono is a standout for me, with her gym challenge showing off her personality and her very transparent need to get more views and subs as a streamer. In her case, I’m not sure if she was written like that to be a reflection of what the developers think of people in that profession or as a parody, but she’s easily one of the most memorable gym leaders.

Though… Grusha… I love that man. He’s so cool… But no really, the fact his background has him lecturing you about being reckless as a trainer as a way to emphasize the lesson he learned after an injury led to the end of his snowboarding career—and subsequently being so cold about it… haha—really speaks to great characterization in my books. It’s especially apparent when you beat him a second time that it was a hard lesson for him to learn and something hard for him to overcome.

And if we’re talking about personality in a gym leader, we definitely need to mention Ryme, the MC of RIP! She’s fantastic but suffers from what Piers did in Sword and Shield, that is to say… she, and a lot of people in this game, really need some voice acting. Especially when it comes to these musical gym leaders and characters, there’s so much awkwardness in seeing character swing and lip-sync to a beat but with no actual sound or song to back it up.

On the other end of the gym leader theming spectrum, I found Tulip to be an odd choice for the psychic type. The link between her personality, motivations, and the psychic type didn’t stand out for me as much as that with other gym leaders. Also, I think Tulip might’ve been abusing her friendship with Professor Dendra to get her to run the psychic gym challenge, but I might’ve been reading into it a bit much.

Also, on a minor note, I felt some of the gym challenges lacked the depth they had in Sword and Shield. I know that isn’t saying much, but a few of them felt… almost tacked on compared to others. Again, I bet this was a problem due to the limited development time.

Of course, at the end of this storyline, we had to take on the Elite Four and the Top Champion: Chairwoman Geeta. This was an interesting challenge in itself because it started with an interview where you had to pick a gym leader you had the hardest time with. For me, it had been Larry, the normal-type gym leader. And guess who was the third member of the Elite Four: LARRY! I thought, for certain, this meant that your choice in those questions actively influenced whom you’d meet in the Elite Four as your third challenger. Suffice to say, I was crushed when I found out it was a mere coincidence. I thought it was an absolute stroke of genius that these questions might influence how your elite four fight went since it was so odd to have an interview before the battles. The idea of disguising that one choice with all these other questions seemed so clever to me, especially for a Pokemon game. But nope… it was just Larry all this time. Which is fine, I love the guy, but how brilliant would it be if they brought in the gym leader you had the hardest time with? Ah, well, for a little while, I was awed at the idea of Game Freak doing that.

As an aside, I do want to compliment Pokemon Scarlet on the idea of making champions a level of trainer, rather than a distinct, singular trainer in this region. I think it makes a lot more sense and I hope it’s an idea they carry forward into future games.

But this game doesn’t just have the gym challenge; next, we have “The Path of Legends” questline featuring Arven, a young man who I was decidedly not a fan of to start until we learned his secret. That secret: he’s a softie for his dog for whom he’s going on a whole mythical quest to save. There’s a lesson here in narrative: if you ever want to make a character more sympathetic and relatable, have them pet a dog. No, but seriously, the moment we learned about Mabosstiff and Arven’s dedication to that big, good doggo was perhaps one of the most tender and heartfelt moments in the game. And then we got more of that as our dark-type dog friend got more and more of its vitality back with each new herb mystica we found. On top of that, each time we found one, it felt well-earned because each of the titans’ fights felt pretty epic, or at least fun and well-earned. It definitely felt reminiscent, perhaps even a bit old-hat, as it felt like we were fighting a mix of an alpha pokemon and a totem pokemon. But the encounters added more variety to the world and the story itself. And learning about Mabosstiff merited enough motivation on my end to look past the gimmick central to this storyline.

Finally, we come to “Starfall Street,” the third storyline featuring Penny, our adorable friend with their eevee backpack. Now, never let it be said that pokemon did anything with any sort of subtlety. This storyline’s twist is easy to see from a mile away. After encountering Penny when she’s accosted by Team Star thugs trying to be a bit pushy about getting her to join, we get a mysterious call from someone named Cassiopeia who puts us on a quest to dismantle the various squads making up Team Star: five in all. We take on the extremely entertaining and goofy personalities of the leaders of these gangs (Mela, Giacomo, Atticus, Ortega, and Eri) to have them surrender their positions as leaders and essentially dissolve the squads one by one. As we go on, we learn an intriguing and, at times, touching story about a group of students who were victims of bullying who come together to fight their oppressors. As someone who was bullied, I absolutely loved this idea and could only dream of something like this happening. It turns out they succeeded, but at a cost that had their big boss—no not the one from Metal Gear—disappear on them and leave the squads to grow out of control and become something of a menace. We learn more and more about these five leaders’ precious friendships and, in the end, I almost felt guilty for having to continue along our path and end Team Star.

Now, remember that plot twist I mentioned earlier? As it turns out, Cassiopeia was their big boss. And in another big, though easily foreseen twist, Cassiopeia was revealed to be Penny herself. As a shy, computer-savvy type, we got to see her little by little over the course of the story as someone who gave you supplies during your quest to end Team Star. Given this character development, it was easy to see that she would’ve been Cassiopeia, but it didn’t make the story any less impactful for me. Her bond with her allies made the final battle with her all the more enjoyable and climactic. Also, an all-eeveelution team? Ballsy, but I like it! Goes nice with your backpack, Penny!

I have to say though, one of the standout moments of that questline was the incredibly transparent attempts of Director Clavell, the school’s headmaster, to disguise himself as an outrageously pompadoured student. The fact the game lets you poke at the disguise through dialogue options was a great touch.

Now, despite having these individual questlines, if you want to reach the end of this game and Area Zero, you need to complete all three. I like this because all these stories diverged near the start of the game, and I love the idea of them converging again to help finish it off. Moreover, the new friend group formed by your character, Nemona, Arven, and Penny, has some quirky clashes in personality and dialogue that makes me want to see all four of them go on more adventures together. It makes me want to go out and find fic for all four of them just being goofy on their off-time.

However, despite this high note of companionship, the story’s ending left me feeling a bit off. The revelation of Sada’s work in the crater bringing back pokemon from the distant past (the incarnations of those pokemon very are cool and I love them) using a time machine felt a bit jarring after everything leading up to it. It felt like a bit of tone and genre whiplash to me, especially when the game revealed that Sada we’d been interacting with was an artificial intelligence of all things, even going as far as to say in dialogue that we don’t possess that technology yet, but the resources in the crater made it possible for all these things to happen.

Again, I know not to expect too much from a Pokemon narrative… but really? This felt so… forced and contrived. I don’t know… like… someone was forced to write this under really tight time constraints? Oh right, just so many other things in this game. I should’ve expected even Pokemon’s writing would suffer under those conditions. Now, for those who played Violet, and got to see futuristic pokemon and Professor TRON MAN, I imagine that this seems more on theme for a story involving the future and advanced technology (assuming it had the same story beats, I have no idea if it did or not). But for Sada and the theme of prehistoric pokemon… this seemed way off base for me. At the very least, the clash between your Koraidon and the opposing Koraidon that ousted it from the crater had a heartwarming ending, especially with it getting strength from your companions’ encouragement. But overall, the final moments of the main story felt unfulfilling to me after so much hard work put in to recover from the terrible start the game had in its story.

Overall, the story had many ups and downs. Still, for the most part, especially concerning the titan/herb questline and Team Star, there was more to sink my teeth into than in a lot of previous Pokemon games. I’m glad I was able to endure the start of it to get those parts, but it’s just a bit sad that the ending flopped for me. But it’s not just the story we’re here for when we play these games, is it? It’s the pokemon!

The Pokemon of Paldea

So having 400 pokemon in this game’s pokedex seems like a pretty good haul to me, honestly. I haven’t been privy to any debates, so I don’t know if there’s a fuss being made online about how not all the mons are in it again like they did for Sword and Shield. Whatever the case I’m pretty happy with the lineup we got… except for no Heliolisk and Helioptile. I got lucky with them in Gen 8, so I guess I’ll be thankful for that and their presence in New Snap.

That said, I love a lot of the new variants and mons that we got in general. I won’t dive too deep into all of them because this review is already getting long enough as it is, but I’ll say that when I played, I went for all new pokemon that were added in this game for a variety in my final teams.

They were:

·       Skeledirge

·       Pawmot

·       Arboliva

·       Squawkabilly

·       Garganacl

·       Mabosstiff

·       Rabsca

·       Tinkaton

·       Veluza

·       Annihilape

·       Clodsire

·       Cetitan

·       Baxcalibur

Not only did I have fun using all of these, but I thought most of their aesthetics and designs were top-notch. But I used plenty of others throughout my journey and loved all of them too. I won’t mention them all here, but shout-outs to my new favourite pun pokenames: Capsakid and Scovillain. My favourite new designs and concepts (aside from the above) were found in Naclstack, Lokix, and Brambleghast. Overall, I loved all the new additions and variants. Except for the new Dudunsparse… I mean, I’ve seen so many fan-evolutions of it that looked so much better and more creative than making it bigger and adding more sections to its body.

The prehistoric variants were killer though, especially Great Tusk, Scream Tail, and Sandy Shocks (I always had wondered what the magneton line would look like before modern times, if they even existed). Also, have you ever heard of a more metal name than Roaring Moon? Probably not. And I’ll admit, I still think Koraidon and Miraidon look goofy to me, but given that I’ve formed a bond with Koraidon over the game, I’ve been able to overlook it.

The Music of Paldea

I always have to talk about music in new Pokemon games. It’s practically a genre unto itself for me and one of my favourites to boot. I do like how they tackled overworld music in this game. They made a theme for each of the four provinces and then had different remixes and reorchestrations of it in different regions of each province, including towns and named areas like the Asado Desert. Some might think this could be lazy or uncreative, but I think it was well-executed, such that I enjoyed most iterations of each province’s tune. Heck, even the wild pokemon’s theme in that area was adapted from those themes too, which made musical transitions so smooth. I loved it!

Except for the south province’s tune. I got tired of that one very quickly. And I could see how people could easily get tired of any of the ones I liked if they spent too much time there or had negative experiences associated with the zone.

That said, you cannot hate the West Province’s theme. It’s objectively amazing in all its forms and you cannot convince me otherwise.

Of all the gym themes from previous generations, this one took me the longest to warm up to. But I did, and I’m glad they kept the final crowd-chanting version when the gym leader’s down to one pokemon as they did in Sword and Shield. However, while there generally is a crowd around your gym battles, I feel like the crowd chanting suited the big stadium settings of Galar more than it did here, so it didn’t feel like it belonged as much. That said, it didn’t detract from the experience.

Meanwhile, the Tera Raid theme was a banger (and one of the ones that Toby Fox contributed, from what I understand), as were most of the battle themes throughout the game.

Overall, the array of music in this game was very solid and well-composed. While many musical pieces were derived from each other, they helped link the world together and made for a fantastic experience for the ear that synced up to what you saw and did.

My Final Thoughts on Paldea

So, we’ve been through it all. The gyms. The titans. The squads. The sandwiches. Admittedly, I didn’t do much picnicking, but that’s something I might do more of later, but the few times I did it were charming.

Actually, that’s what this game has in abundance: charm. And I don’t mean the fairy-type move.

This game has a lot of faults, I won’t even try to deny that, nor should I. The fact that Nintendo has been offering refunds for this game is a damning spotlight on the poor condition of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet on its release. I didn’t go into this game with much hype at all because, funnily, we have too many Pokemon games. Almost one a year it seems like. It’s way too much. There’s something to be said about building up anticipation. Hell, I don’t even remember seeing this game very heavily promoted, which might speak to how crunched they were to get this done. I imagine they barely had time to do anything to advertise it, let alone finish it properly.

But below all that scuffed, unfinished woodwork that makes up this game, seemingly teetering on the edge of collapse as you see it creaking and bending sometimes, there’s a lot of heart put into it. Every time I play a Pokemon game, I can see that the developers behind it love what they’re doing it shows in the soul of the game. From the goofy pics you take after every major game accomplishment—Kofu’s stands out to me in particular in my mind—to some of the more ridiculous dialogue that either had me facepalming or laughing hysterically, there’s a charm in this game that I can’t ignore.

That’s what keeps me coming back. That’s what makes me love these games and put up with the other nonsense I’ve ranted about throughout this review. It speaks to that child in me and makes me smile as I sit on a couch in these cold winter months looking for entertainment.

Is this the best example of a top-tier Pokemon game? No. Is this the best example of what a Pokemon game could be? No. Pokemon Legends: Arceus still holds that prize for me. But it’s part of what I hope are just growing pains for this franchise as it struggles to transform into something new and incredible. I wonder how much more fun I would’ve had if I could’ve played this game like I’d played Legends.

But I still did have fun while playing this game. I did my fair share of shouting at the game for bullshit too, and some eye-roll moments at some technical nonsense, but that’s nothing new for this franchise. Hell, it’s nothing new for me with video games as a whole. But in the end, I did have fun.

What I want is to have more fun. I want to see this franchise take what it’s learned from SV and Legends and make a truly stellar game out of it next time.

And. I. Want. Them. To. Take. Their. Time. Doing. It.

That’s how we’ll get the incredible, technologically impressive, open-world Pokemon game that so many people have been pining for. And I’m willing to wait for it.

[wonysugar]

self indulgent drabble because 1. writer’s block is truly eating my ass and 2. i just got struck with an idea as i heard an audio and i need to get it out of my system before i lose my motivation.. AND WHAT BETTER WAY TO DO THAT THAN WITH BELLEEE?!?

cw!! cheating(??) just to be safe, fem!reader is dating someone that’s amab! mentions of threesomes, lots, lots of dick mentions and dick sucking, if you don’t like dick at all this isn’t for you i’m really sorry</3

psst, by the way, p/n stands for partner name!

you and your partner have an amazing relationship, and an even better sex life, that much was obvious. although you both were content, you couldn’t help but feel the desire to improve your technique in certain.. aspects, of your love-making, mainly in terms of oral sex.

google was definitely not helping, and you were a bit too embarrassed to go and ask your significant other on feedback after having sex with them (despite how normal that actually is, contrary to popular belief.)

so, naturally, receiving your friend annabelle in your apartment a few days after having scheduled a, in her wise words, ‘important meeting’ wasn’t at all a surprise for you, especially since you made sure that p/n wasn’t at home at that time.

“hii!” belle stepped foot into your home as soon as you opened the door, immediately giving you a warm hug, thankful you even called her in here in the first place.

after politely offering her a cup of water and a bowl of snacks as thanks, she quickly got to work.

“alright, you were too nervous to explain it through text, so go ahead. what are the specifics here?” she asked, comically very serious about this whole thing.

you sighed, feeling the embarrassment leaving with each breath you exhaled, “it’s just— i think i have a problem when it comes to… you know.. my gag reflex, and all.”

“ah, i see..” she hummed, “‘problem’ is definitely a strong word though, no? oral sex isn’t a requirement, you know that better than anyone else, considering you’ve been with your partner for a while with no issues. i’m assuming you just want to learn to get them more riled up, huh?”

you stared, almost innocently, then nodded at the words.

“have you ever sucked dick before?” she continued, speaking as if this were a real professional appointment.

she chuckled upon seeing you reluctantly shake your head, “don’t worry sweetheart, by the time that we’re done, you’ll be able to take cock better than any porn star has.”

reaching for her large, seemingly filled-up backpack you had noticed her holding whilst walking in before digging into it. after a few seconds of anticipation, you saw your friend pull out a medium sized dildo, a slightly longer one and a much larger and more girthy than the previous ones.

“y-you brought stuff!?”

noticing how your blood rushed to your now fully covered face, she giggled, “of course i brought stuff y/n, i don’t think you realize how serious i’m actually taking this.” proceeding to pull out one more interesting looking item, “come on, you asked me for help, right? no need to get embarrassed now, girl.”

so you listened, and watched as she finished up preparing the materials, placing them in a line.

“alright, listen up.” she zipped the bag closed, threw it somewhere on the couch you two were sat on and sat up straight, motioning for you to do the same, and pointed to the first thing, “this is throat relaxant spray, like the name suggests, it relaxes your throat and your gag reflex, making it easier. now, i don’t really use it considering my gag reflex is practically non-existent,” you nodded at her words, your eyes fixed on said spray.

“but i did bring it thinking you’d maybe wanna start off slow just to be safe? maybe get used to the feeling of it in your mouth before going in raw and everything, but it’s honestly all up to you and what you wanna do.”

several minutes of her overexplaining the reasoning behind bringing each sanitized and differently sized dildo later, you eventually chose the format you found most similar to your partner’s and decided to opt out of the relaxant spray, much to annabelle’s pleasant surprise.

it didn’t take long before she stuck the phallic object to your wall and instructed you to suck on it the same way you would any other day. “don’t be nervous, i’m here to help.” she said, and that was somehow enough to put you at ease.

you began to do what you were told, fully aware that her attention was set on you, and you only. your lips wrapped around the head, you sucked and left gentle kisses whilst she watched you work your magic on the dildo. you heard occasional hums from beside you as you kept your mouth around the same area of the dick.

“you’re doing good, but, aren’t you spending a little bit too much time on the head?” she placed, making you pull away from the object before you, “i know you’ll gag, but try to give some attention to the entirety of the dick. here, let me show you.”

she scooted towards you, and you simply stared at her, “oh— we’re using the same.. dildo?”

“..yeah? it’s just a little spit.” her lips formed a smirk, “just watch me, okay?”

you nodded and sat there, watching her demonstrate her blowjob technique and feeling yourself get… weirdly turned on by the sight, instead of feeling ‘taught’, in a sense. the way she slowly worked her way up from kissing and licking the head to fitting the entire shaft into her mouth, almost effortlessly, got you thinking about how she’d give your partner head, guiding you on how to pleasure them further than you usually do— alright let’s not get ridiculous, you internally scolded yourself, leave the dirty fantasies for later, when you aren’t trying to learn from her.

“see how i did that? you can’t just focus on the head forever, that’s why i like to slightly pump the shaft with my hand whenever i’m not throating.”

“honestly just sounds like you’re just trying to brag, at this point.” you joked, faking an annoyed expression. that earned a laugh from her.

then, after a constant cycle that consisted of her explaining things and you doing them, annabelle had taken the dildo off of the wall whilst wearing a mischievous expression on her face. “now, let’s kick things up a notch; get on your knees.”

your eyebrows furrowed and eyes widened ever so slightly at her words, you stuttered, “excuse… excuse me?—“

“i said, get on your knees.”

and despite getting no further explanations, you still, for some unknown reason, did exactly as you were told. now sitting on the ground facing the sofa, you waited for further instructions.

“you need to get immersed.” she paused, then held up the dildo, “so, i’ll hold it for you and thrust it into your mouth while you suck it, alright? i won’t go fast or anything, so don’t worry about that.”

and of course, you obliged.

upon her signal, you immediately applied everything that she’s been teaching you throughout this entire session onto your technique, fueled by her occasional praise.

“remember to use your tongue, y/n.” she reminded, thrusting the cock in and out of your mouth, slowly, watching you as if she could feel it.

“suck the tip and—“ you bobbed your head down onto the shaft, taking in as much length as you could without gagging. “—work your way down, that’s it baby, slowly.”

oh man, that pet name definitely elicited a reaction from you that you did not expect; you felt butterflies in your stomach, almost certain that a pool was growing in between your legs.

she definitely noticed it, too. how could she miss it when you’re looking up at her like she was the one you were sucking off?

“awe, you’re getting excited, aren’t you?” she bit her lip as she tucked your hair behind your ear, “such an eager girl, suck on it baby.”

she let out quiet, airy moans as you worked your magic, in hopes to get you more and more immersed, and while it did, it also did nothing but get you riled up to a great extent. hell, you were practically drooling onto her— the cock at that point. “look at you, not even a few hours in and you’re already doing so good. mmh, you look so pretty taking it, too.”

that went on for a while, and what she didn’t tell you was that that dildo in particular, was an ejaculating one, you found that out by yourself later on.

needless to say, you felt especially different when you eventually walked her out of your apartment an hour later, and she couldn’t help but notice how still visibly embarrassed you were from that weirdly intimate interaction, but she found it amusing, endearing, almost.

“next time, you’ll invite p/n to tag along, won’t you?”

[justaz]

arthur has always been suspicious of the tavern excuse for merlin’s absences, but he has no proof on the contrary and when confronted merlin either tells him outlandish tales of near death experiences that have no chance of being remotely truthful or he admits to and apologizes for slacking on his duties to get drunk. one day, he decides enough is enough and he and all the knights go to the tavern with merlin and arthur casually brings up merlin’s history in the tavern and says he could probably beat gwaine in a drinking contest. merlin tries to divert the discussion away from the idea but arthur is determined. they receive a round of drinks and arthur pushes a pint of ale into merlin’s hands with a look of challenge. merlin’s options are to either commit to the lie to hide his secret or admit to the lie and risk exposing his magic. he takes the former. merlin gives lancelot a Look and then slams back the pint of ale with a minor bit of gagging and pauses to breath. gwaine already finished his pint thirty seconds ago but its entertaining to watch merlin so he doesn’t say anything.

merlin (built like a twig, rarely drinks, lightweight) is proper sloshed. arthur is almost vindicated but he needs merlin to admit it. he orders two more pints and gives one to gwaine and the second to merlin, instigating the competition further despite the fact that gwaine won already. merlin grimaces and tries to do the same thing again but only gets a few gulps in before he folds. he slams the mug down and gives arthur a kicked puppy look before admitting and apologizing for lying. arthur is Vindicated. merlin is still wasted.

the nights wears on and merlin feels the effect of the ale more and more every minute that passes. he sits between arthur and lancelot and feels almost unbearably warm but that could be bc of the alcohol in his system, or the crowded tavern. merlin looks around and watches the people that pass their table by while the knights talk and joke and laugh amongst themselves. merlin feels relaxed and excitable now, his worries seem to have melted away and he cant seem to remember why he was always so stressed and worn down before. he sees a game of [insert game here] (i was gonna say darts but google says that game hasn’t been invented in canon time so ill leave it up to interpretation) going on and climbs over lancelot to join in.

the knights watch with amusement and anticipate merlin’s clumsy attempts at [whatever]. oddly enough tho, merlin is a fucking god at [game]. a small crowd gathers and betting pools form and then challengers approach and put money on the line to go against merlin and merlin absolutely demolishes them all. honestly if arthur didn’t know any better, he’d think merlin was using magic to win bc there was no way his bumbling fool of a servant was that good at…anything.

the challengers take their defeat with honor and grace. the audience is a huge fan of merlin and they keep buying him drinks but he just sends them to the table for the other’s to drink. many people come up to him and flirt, maybe motivated by all the money he won that night or maybe just bc he’s merlin, and when merlin responds to them he’s………..he’s a real good fucking flirt? like could put gwaine to shame and he’s rejecting them???? how can someone come across so flirtatiously while turning down offers to take various beautiful people to bed??

arthur was already itching to intervene when people were flirting with merlin but he seemed to have a handle on it so he let it slide, but then people started touching merlin and arthur’s hand had drifted to his hip where his sword was usually sheathed. however, again, merlin was very skilled at escaping the situations with little to no conflict and he came back to the table with his winnings. the knights cheer for him and order more drinks with his money which merlin is too inebriated to notice and truthfully doesn’t really care about. his eyes are on arthur and if arthur thought watching merlin flirt from afar was bad then having him up close in his personal space, hands brushing against his arms and dark eyelashes fluttering softly against his pale skin, breathing his name into the space between them and licking his full pink lips was absolute torture and the worst and best agony he couldn’t even dream up.

[streda]

Buster Keaton

Born Joseph Francis Keaton on October 4, 1895, was an American director and actor who became famous for various comedy scenes that are still repeated in films today. You may recognize him from the nickname "the man with the stone face". He is known as a director, screenwriter and actor in famous silent comedies such as "The General" and "The Navigator".

Keaton was born into a vaudeville family in Piqua, Kansas. His name Joseph didn't come out of nowhere, it was a family tradition from his father's side. The nickname Buster was invented by Harry Houdini (a friend of his parents) when little Buster fell down the stairs and instead of crying or reacting in any way, he got up and moved on (The nickname was also a reference to the fact that he often caused trouble as a child). At the age of three, Keaton began performing with his parents in The Three Keatons. He first appeared on stage in 1899 in Wilmington, Delaware. The act was mainly a comedy sketch. Despite his run-ins with the law, Keaton was a rising and relatively well-paid theater star. He stated that he learned to read and write late and was taught by his mother. When he was 21, his father's alcoholism threatened the reputation of the family actor, 20, so Keaton and his mother Myra went to New York, where Keaton's career quickly moved from vaudeville to film. Keaton served with the American Expeditionary Forces in France in the United States Army's 40th Infantry Division during World War I. His unit remained intact and was not broken up to provide replacements, as had been the case with some other late-arriving divisions. While in uniform, he contracted an ear infection that permanently damaged his hearing. Keaton was such a natural in his first film, "Butcher Boy," that he was hired on the spot. Finally, he asked to borrow one of the cameras to see how it worked. He took the camera back to his hotel room, where he disassembled and reassembled it by morning. He appeared in a total of 14 Arbuckle shorts, running into 1920. They were popular, and contrary to Keaton's later reputation as "The Great Stone Face", he often smiled and even laughed in them. In 1920, The Saphead was released, marking Keaton's first starring role in a feature-length feature film. After Keaton's successful collaboration with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Productions. He made a series of 19 two-reel comedies, including One Week (1920), The Playhouse (1921), Cops (1922), and The Electric House (1922).

The more adventurous ideas called for dangerous stunts, performed by Keaton at great physical risk. During the railroad water-tank scene in Sherlock Jr. (gags written by Clyde Bruckman), Keaton broke his neck when a torrent of water fell on him from a water tower, but he did not realize it until years afterwards. A scene from Steamboat Bill, Jr. required Keaton to stand still on a particular spot. Then, the facade of a two-story building toppled forward on top of Keaton. Keaton's character emerged unscathed, due to a single open window. The stunt required precision, because the prop house weighed two tons, and the window only offered a few inches of clearance around Keaton's body. The sequence furnished one of the most memorable images of his career. Aside from Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), Keaton's most enduring feature-length films include Three Ages (1923), Our Hospitality (1923), The Navigator (1924), Sherlock Jr. (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The Cameraman (1928), and The General (1926). The General, set during the American Civil War, combined physical comedy with Keaton's love of trains, including an epic locomotive chase. Employing picturesque locations, the film's storyline reenacted an actual wartime incident. Though it would come to be regarded as Keaton's greatest achievement, the film received mixed reviews at the time. It was too dramatic for some filmgoers expecting a lightweight comedy, and reviewers questioned Keaton's judgment in making a comedic film about the Civil War, even while noting it had a "few laughs." it was an expensive dud, His distributor, United Artists, insisted on a production manager who monitored expenses and interfered with certain story elements. Keaton endured this treatment for two more feature films, and then exchanged his independent setup for employment at Hollywood's biggest studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Keaton's loss of independence as a filmmaker coincided with the coming of sound films (although he was interested in making the transition) and mounting personal problems, and his career in the early sound era was hurt as a result.

I guess that's it for Buster's success.

Keaton died of lung cancer on February 1, 1966, aged 70, in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles. Despite being diagnosed with cancer in January 1966, he was never told he was terminally ill. Keaton thought that he was recovering from a severe case of bronchitis. Confined to a hospital during his final days, Keaton was restless and paced the room endlessly, desiring to return home. In a British television documentary about his career, his widow Eleanor told producers from Thames Television that Keaton was up out of bed and moving around, and even played cards with friends who came to visit the day before he died. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California.

Keaton was presented with a 1959 Academy Honorary Award at the 32nd Academy Awards, held in April 1960. Keaton has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: 6619 Hollywood Boulevard (for motion pictures); and 6225 Hollywood Boulevard (for television).

Three Ages (1923)

Our Hospitality (1923)

Sherlock Jr. (1924)

The Navigator (1924)

Seven Chances (1925)

The Cameraman (1928)

Go West (1925)

Battling Butler (1926)

The General (1926)

College (1927)

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)

Spite Marriage (1929)

-¤-

[soupbabe]

I’m lowkey having lost boys brain rot so what about them (poly or separate) with a readers who’s a book worm? Love your stuff as always <3

The Lost Boys (Separate) with a Bookworm! Reader

ZIGGY THANK U FOR COMING THRU WITH REQUESTS LATELY 🛐 u literally keeping my blog alive !!

Taglists: @slaasherslut, @the-pinstriped-hood, @devil-doll13, @bugginbeetlew

Dwayne

- I've decided to rank these boys on best match to worst, starting with the best match

- He might be the only Lost Boy that reads frequently

- I can easily imagine him taking his chances and staying up to use daylight so he can see the pages better

- Head empty only Dwayne reading to you. Like his arm is around you while you're cuddled up beside him, falling asleep

- Small dates to the library or bookstore is near impossible with him though, he has a bad history of theft and overdue books (some are older than the librarians themselves)

David

- David absolutely teased you about reading a whole lot at first

- He called reading boring, definitely implied that you were boring too, etc, until you were able to get him to read

- He got fed up that some piece of paper was holding you back from going out to the boardwalk with him and so he stole it

- Morbid curiosity got a hold of him, he read a few chapters, and turns out that David is a fan of psychological horror! who knew

- Sadly though, he didn't give the book back until he was done with it and you lost your spot

Marko

- contrary to popular belief, Marko does read and has his own stack laying around the cave

- There's fashion magazines, books he stole from Dwayne, and comic books

- You once gave him a copy of "Vampires Everywhere!" as a gag gift and it's literally the best thing anyone has gotten him

- But despite his blossoming collection, he tends to steal or buy more than he can actually read

- I imagine there's a system to help out this dilemma: You can pick a book Marko and you haven't read, you read it, and if you like it? He reads it and keeps it. If you don't like it? He just tosses it out

Paul

- Lovingly refers to you as a dork

- I think the only way you can get him near a book is if you're reading to him

- Paul loves the high fantasy and action novels, you two are halfway through the Lord of The Rings series already

- Everytime there's some kind of book to movie adaptation happening, he's taking you to see it

- He typically groans at your "the book is better" comments, but if he didn't like the movie himself, he'll add onto on your sentiment intensely even though he's never read the original book

[ben-the-hyena]

Watched the first seasons of both Ghosts UK and Ghosts US

And super duper unpopular opinion : I prefer the US version. I find most characters in the UK version mean spirited and not believable as friends, I don't believe they like each other so the fact they act like buddies in the end of the last episode whereas they still couldn't stand each other during the beginning of the same episode annoys me ; in fact in the VERY end they go back into being annoyed at each other's existence. People call the US version "dumbed down, toned down" with more in the face humor etc and it is indeed a big plagiarism of a lot of gags in the UK version, but idk their evolution as friends feels much more natural and fun, and the characters themselve are more likable for the US version with a good soul, whereas most of the characters in the UK version are selfish and self centered and some ghosts should have gone to Hell long ago while the US versions implies it is a sort of Purgatory state and if you don't change your bad habits you go down but if you do you go up

So far just one season but the UK version made me like very few characters, I think I only love Pat as much as Pete from the US version but for everybody else I much prefer their American counterparts, people call them toned down but ironically I find them with more character on the contrary : Sam is cheerful and friendly but secretly anxious and self sabotaging and is much more interesting that edgy Alison who complains about everything and is always moody and trying to be what she isn't just because she found out she has 000.10 percent of noble blood. That doesn't make her endearing to me, especially when she risked everybody's life in the filming episode for thousands of pounds pissed me off. And as for their respective husband's I much prefer Sam's Jay who doesn't want to be here and misses his life in NYC but does a lot of efforts for her because he loves her and understands it's her family manor than Alison's Mike who just follows her where she wants and keeps signing the wrong papers withour talking with her about it first and signs without reading, 2 times already holy shit what a loser. The very fact he ate from a pot pourri thinking they are candies without even getting permission if it was actual candy in his first scene was already a sign

The group of ghosts as a whole is super annoying in the UK version, they are much more space invading, talkative and loud and take no hints when told things, they are essentially human minions ! And Sam's ancestor Hety is much more endearing despite her big flaws and has a clear character evolution rather Alison's Fanny who's just an old critical loud grump who sees whores everywhere. Also I hate that "romantic" ghost that Thomas guy who doesn't take no for an answer and tries to break up a married couple like a yandere and Julian who is a moralless murderous shamelessly scamming sex pest who does nothing without gaining anything in return, Trevor is a much better mix of them who at first passes a fuckboy but the more the season goes the more you see he secretly is a good guy with a façade and standards. Kitty is kinda cute but... idk I am neutral about her. Sometimes she is very funny, sometimes she is annoying af for being so stupid, so neutral. And the Captain, just... not funny, not likable, and a less interesting/fun closeted gay character as Isaac

The only things I liked in the UK version besides Pat and some gags that are super funny and got me laughing out loud are how the burnt peasant got a character development starting to see less Satan everywhere and starting to learn things, how the beheaded ghost feels much more like a character and is funnier than his American counterpart (seriously why the fuck do they never care or talk about Crash ? He doesn't even feel like a character), Robin is very funny and lovable I love him and the ghosts who had died from the Plague are better as a group who love each other and choose to be together in the basement rather than their counterparts who died from Cholera who are stuck there and hate their afterlife and are depressing to think about

But none of them are as good as Thorfin and Sass who are fucking great (ok, Robin is equal), and I really like Isaac X Nigel. Pat and Pete are exactly the same character I love them both, and Pat has the honor to be a real ray of sunshine in a place full of shit

[canyouhearthelight]

Nihilus Rex, Ch. 30: Meet the Andovers

Does this read like a fluffy chapter? Absolutely, especially after the previous chapter. However, this is absolutely essential to the plot, as we get to meet Nils' parents - more specifically his mother.

That being said, the side gag going on in this one may read like one of the sillier chapters of "The Miys", but I swear it was entirely @baelpenrose's doing.

Mama's hooked on Mary Kay

Brother's hooked on Mary Jane

And Daddy's hooked on Mary two doors down

Mary, Mary quite contrary

We get bored, so we get married

Just like dust, we settle in this town

On this broken merry go 'round

Kasey Musgraves, “Merry go round”

Lash

I fidgeted with my hair before inwardly cursing myself and forcing my hands to my side. “You promise your mother isn’t as bad as Dr. Andover?” I asked for what had to have been the thousandth time.  Nils meeting Mama and Baba had been spontaneous, something I had been delaying more for my sake than his.  But I knew almost nothing about his parents beyond the fact that their relationship was rough on a good day.

“My mother’s worst sin is that she’s a bit oblivious to how people without money tend to live - despite our church spanning pretty much every economic class in the city. She did, however, take your community’s part in the class action lawsuit against the city, or her firm did, and last I checked, they’re winning. She’s happy to see me putting myself out there again. You two will actually get along great.” I was still distracted from how my meeting with the Parsons had gone. “Oh, and uh. Quick note. My father wasn’t…happy at all with our little stunt with the media originally, but now he’s had time to think about it and he loves you. And the fact that we’re dating. Like actually. Just not for the reasons you’d want him to.” 

So, the rich lady is the nice kind, and the holier-than-thou doctor liked me.  I couldn’t actually figure out which was worse, but all in all they could hate me for a plethora of reasons, so I was taking what I could get. “And we’re having dinner with them? Please tell me it’s something I’m going to recognize.”

“Anything you grew up eating, they wouldn’t recognize. And to be so honest, if I grew up eating it, it’s probably too flavorless for your culture to grant it status as “food,” regardless of official classification. Things you and I have eaten together - actually remember that ritzy Mediterranean fusion place with the Ethiopian and Turkish sections on the menu as well as the southern European countries? The one I took you to a few months ago? That’s where we’re going.” Nils’ voice had shifted all at once from apologetic to confident, as though he knew that at least that, I’d actually like.

My mouth did start watering a bit. “The place with the bad spanakopita and the amazing dolmades?”

“Because where better to take a girl to meet your parents than the sight of your first date. That one. Yes.” He answered with a cocky grin. 

“I can face almost anything as long as I can eat,” I nodded, feeling more confident as I teased as our Uber slowed to a stop. “I’ll even use a fork, just for them.”

“Ah, yes, the table manners of the lower classes, a thing that has been of concern more recently than the long 19th century, that is definitely. What I was concerned about.” He offered me his arm. “Shall we?” 

I took the arm, and brushed my hair over my shoulder one last time. “Let’s…. I hate to say get this over with, but our history of meeting each other’s parents isn’t the best. And that’s considering that my family liked you before you were a hero.”

“My meeting with your parents was going perfectly well before an unpredictable event caused by outside factors with whom we have settled accounts.” Nils spoke in a sarcastic, almost parodical voice that would have been funny if applied to anything else. “No, though. You’re right. If it makes you feel any better, we’re the only terrorists at tonights’ venue. No, uh…my parents like you. My mom for good reasons, my dad for bad ones. Not anything creepy,” he said quickly, “More…deeply self-serving.” 

I tugged his arm.  “Okay, let’s go before I chicken out and make up a cold or something.”

“Oh, I never even considered ‘feign sudden illness’ when your parents were about to show up.” Nils led me into the restaurant, and when we made our entrance at a restaurant for wealthy people, fairly dressed up, we turned heads walking in. He whispered, “Take bets - do we look good, or are we just getting looks for being local heroes?”  He spotted his parents table and led me towards it, pulling out a chair for me and seating me before taking his own seat. 

His mother looked at me, and gave me a reassuring smile. 

“So,” Nils said, almost breathless. “Mom, Father, this is my girlfriend, Lash Botelho. I’m glad you’re finally meeting her formally. Lash, this is Dr. Michael Andover, you met him at the hospital, and this is Katherine Andover, attorney-at-law. Lash is a student of business and computer science, with a minor in graphic design - and she’s an excellent artist on a personal level. We’ve done a bunch of projects together.”

“So you guys met through school,” his mother seemed interested. “And Lash - business, computer science, and graphic design? That’s quite a lot. Heavy course load. I thought Nils was putting on a lot when he was doing computer science, political science, and history at the same time, but if I remember right your course load is even heavier.”

“It helps that I already do a lot of work with nonprofits,” I admitted. “So the computer science and graphic design were areas I already had a solid foundation in.  The business courses are the ones where I’m learning the most new information.”

“Nils says the same thing about poli-sci and computer science - lot of activist work. Doesn’t make it less impressive that you can balance all that with working outside school as well.” She said, quietly. 

Nils’ father broke into the conversation. “You work with nonprofits,” he said, suddenly much more interested. “Which ones?” 

Nils’ eyes got sharp. “Mostly ones that help poor people access resources they need.” 

I saw an opportunity and leapt in with both feet. “Right now, I do a lot with clean water initiatives, to help minimize exposure to insect- and waterborne illnesses. West Nile, Zika, even e.coli.  Things that are easy to prevent but devastating if you can’t afford treatment.”

I saw wheels turning in his father’s head. “Any particular foundations I should look at? Nils is always vetting my charity donations for me, and that sounds like a worthy one.” 

“I actually just took on a contract for one that has developed a straw that filters any water that is fifty-percent or less contaminants into potable water, without a need to boil it.  I’ll find the name and have him pass it on to you.  The proof of concept is just incredible.”

He grunted, with a tone that sounded like he was impressed against his will, and Nils looked back and forth between us, clearly nervous.

Mrs. Andover was back to talking to me. “So, what do you two work on together?”

Nils glanced at his parents. “Guys, you know, this is a lot less… ‘parents meeting my girlfriend’ than I thought it was going to be. Honestly you’re talking like you’re deciding whether or not to invest in a startup.” 

Mrs. Andover started laughing. “Well, Nils, honestly, you tell us basically nothing about this girl. All I know about her is that she’s beautiful, she’s clearly won you over, you two work together, she’s clearly brilliant based on what she’s studying and keeping up with, and now that she does work with some pretty impressive nonprofits. I’m trying to get to know her, and I figure asking about work is less likely to be too invasive.” 

Dr. Andover shrugged. “We also know her father works at the hospital. And that both her parents got hurt in the…”

Mrs. Andover glowered at him. “Wait, both of them? You didn’t…Nils, you didn’t tell me both her parents were hurt, and I suppose my husband couldn’t have for HIPPA reasons. Lash, how are your parents doing? I’m so sorry, I should have led with that.”

Grateful for something a little less formal, I relaxed. “Baba - my father - is home and doing much better than expected.  He lost his leg, but is very determined to learn to use the prosthesis.  His physical therapist actually threatened to take it away because he rubbed blisters from pushing himself too hard.” I gave a small laugh. “It’s good to see, though.  And Mama came home two days ago… she is still on breathing treatments, but off of twenty-four-seven oxygen - she had smoke inhalation damage.  She was very upset she still cannot shout at Baba when he is being stubborn, but my sister found an airhorn from somewhere and no one has had peace since.”  I stopped for a drink of water and noticed all eyes on me. My face flushed and I covered my mouth. “Oh my gosh, I was rambling, I’m so sorry.”

Nils grabbed my hand. “Don’t apologize, I love you.” He blinked. “When you talk about your family, I mean.”  

Mrs. Andover was watching us, oblivious to me trying to process that Nils had just said that, and she started chuckling, abruptly. “I can’t say airhorn is the method I’d have gone with, but…it’s good to know that men are stubborn like that across race, culture, creed, or birth.” Her voice took on the slight timbre of an old poem near the end.

Nils blinked. “Did. Did you just quote Rudyard Kipling at my Indian-American girlfriend?” 

“Pakistani-Indian,” I corrected absently. “And yes, but it’s still very true.  You’re just as stubborn as Baba, you just had more appropriate clothing on.”

His mother blushed, his father didn’t seem to recognize why what his wife had done might have been a faux pas, and I forged ahead to keep things from going south as Dr. Andover changed the subject. “Have either of you eaten here before? It’s a bit upscale from the places Nils prefers, normally.” 

Nils glowered. “I took her here for the first date.” 

Mrs. Andover smiled. “Oh, very nice.” The waiter came by and took our orders, refilling the glasses with water. “This place is really spicy, especially the Ethiopian side of the menu.”

Then his father asked a question, and Nils glared at him with absolute loathing. “So, Lash, you and Nils made quite the effective television appearance. You’re already doing a lot in public service, do you have any designs in a career there?”

Nils squeezed my knee under the table, but this was the one question I had been bracing myself for, thankfully. “Well, my goal is to set up a business that focuses on boosting the visibility of nonprofits, while contributing a significant portion of our revenue into areas where it can create the biggest impact: schools, literacy programs, health education, things like that.  Try to shore up the foundations where normal budgets may not be able to.”  And here’s hoping Nils doesn’t die trying not to laugh at that answer.

“Hm.” Mrs. Andover glowered at her husband as he continued, this was clearly an argument they’d had before, “And those are all worthy goals, but going directly into politics with your education and Nils’, together, you could directly impact all of those, and their budgets, far more direct power with what you can do, if you’re willing to get into the system together and change it.”

I shook my head firmly. “I understand where you are coming from, Dr. Andover, but I’m sure it surprises nobody here that I very much disagree.  Public office is far more restrictive than independent enterprise, foremost - I would have to balance special interests with what would be considered ‘pet projects’, whereas through my own business I can connect the charities with who needs them the most, while ensuring the charities are as visible as possible to maximize their operating budgets.  And besides, Nils doesn’t strike me as someone who would thrive in public office.” I turned to him and visibly squeezed his hand. “No offense.”

“None taken. My father has rarely, if ever, liked the idea of me going into policy rather than running for office, despite the fact that policy experts maintain far more freedom to operate in personal lives while having more influence than politicians - just much less prestige. Honestly I don’t know what led people to believe I’d be good at public office. I gave one very smooth speech on TV.” He took on that slightly mocking tone that I abruptly realized must have been from a lifetime of practice. “Which, to be fair, does seem like the majority of what voters expect. And Father - never try to push my girlfriend into your side of this argument again. I know the only reason you tried to do this is because you thought she’d help me with demographics I’d otherwise struggle with - nice code for ‘people of color that white boy extraordinaire Nils Andover can’t exactly relate to’ by the way.”

I let the silence that followed hang for a moment while the waiter set down our food, before giving Mrs. Andover an openly curious look. “Don’t worry, babe.  I am sure your mother strongly agrees.”  When she looked surprised, I casually gestured with my water. “After all, Mrs. Andover, you’re a non-name partner in a law firm prestigious enough to represent a class action lawsuit against not just the city, but the police, and yet I’ve never seen you run for office.  Surely with that kind of acumen, you would be a shoo-in for the public defender’s office, or the DA.  All the way up to Attorney General, easily.”  Nils looked at me in confusion, and I murmured “You seriously thought I wasn’t going to look up the law firm that is representing my community? She’s partner, Nils.”

“I’m aware how she ranks in her firm,” he murmured back, “I guess I didn’t put that together, good eye.” 

Mrs. Andover chuckled. “Oh, I like the two of you together. Good eye, Lash. People should stay where they think they can make the strongest impact in what they’re passionate about - if you don’t think that’s office, don’t run for office. Oh, and Lash, offhand - I can’t say why, but your community ought to start taking notes about any and all interactions with the police from here on out.” 

Nils smirked. “That means they’re going to be unhappy with the results of the lawsuit.”

Mrs. Andover flicked a wrist. “No, just that her and her community ought to be taking notes and keeping documentation. Any further statements cannot be made at this time.”

“Mama is a secretary,” I assured them. “Taking notes is a compulsion for her, and letting her know will give her something to do other than honk at us.”

“I’m glad. Let her know I’d be happy to speak to her directly as well.” She slipped me a card. 

Nils took a bite of his food, simply enjoying the blend of spices - and then turned to watch his father take a gulp of water. I had been training him to increase his tolerance, and almost certainly to flex he’d ordered one of the spiciest things on the menu. 

Granted, even my tolerance wasn’t that high, so he was almost certainly just hiding the pain to fuck with his parents. I just grinned and scooped up a bite of stew. “I don’t know exactly what they add to the okra stew to make it so good, but it is certainly in my top ten favorite dishes.  Mrs. Andover?” I had noticed she’d ordered the same - a very mild but extremely flavorful stew.

“Oh, it’s excellent. One of the reasons I love coming here. I’m glad Nils took you here for the first date. Means some of what I taught him stuck.” 

Nils blushed. “I mean…good food, good company?” He was dutifully eating his food, but I could hear him struggling not to choke, shifting between pleasure and agony with each bite.

His mother gave him a flat look. “Make a girl feel special, take her somewhere nice with a bunch of really good options.” 

Finally, I had mercy on both my boyfriend and his profoundly rude father and waved down our server. “I am really craving spiced buttermilk… any chance we can get four glasses of it?  I don’t mind paying extra if it has to be made special. I didn’t see it on the menu.”

“Absolutely not. We invited you,” to my surprise, Nils’ father spoke first. “We’ll cover. But yes, spiced buttermilk would be good.” 

In much less time than I expected, the server had returned with four glasses of thick, bright orange drink.  No sooner had he walked away than I took a long sip of mine, rolling my eyes in exaggerated pleasure. “Buttermilk with turmeric, ginger, saffron, cinnamon, and a chai infusion.  It compliments the food so well.”

Nils took a slow sip, clearly restraining himself from chugging, and took a breath. “It is excellent. Thank you for the suggestion.” He took another bite of the chicken, tasting the spice, the flavor, the heat, and then a slow sip of the milk. I could see a slight bead of sweat tracing down the side of his face, and wondered, briefly, about my boyfriend’s pain tolerance. And why he was doing this. 

Mrs. Andover took a sip of her own, eyes widening. “Oh, this is lovely!” She pushed the last glass closer to her husband. “It’s… The closest I can describe it is it’s like a glass of melted orange sherbet. You should try it.”

After the first sip, every ounce of Dr. Andover’s composure collapsed as he inhaled half the glass.  The facade was immediately put back in place however, as he sat up straight and set the glass down gently. “I agree, it’s quite the compliment to the food.  I may indulge in a second, but we shall see.”

Nils took another bite of the berber-slathered chicken, smiling at the taste, and took a sip of the milk before the wave of heat hit him - he seemed to have gotten the timing down, since the facade no longer looked quite so forced. “Excellent suggestion, Lash. Would anyone like to try each other’s dishes?”

Mrs. Andover blinked, but smiled. “Oh, does Lash’s family do that, too? I know the Parsons do, and since Lash and I ordered the same thing…Here, Lash, you can have some of my side if I can have some of yours.” 

I grinned, nodding. “My family eats communal meals, usually, so we all share, yes. But… I didn’t get to try the rosti last time and will gladly swap you for some of my dolmades - they’re not spicy, but very pickled.”

She smiled, and put some of the rostis on my plate and took some of my dolmades. I wisely turned down some of what Nils had ordered, and sensing my trepidation, so did his mother - though we both took some of his side, and gave him a bit of ours. His father blindly lunged ahead, clearly thinking the idea of swapping was ridiculous but not wanting to annoy his wife, and took a bit of Nils’ chicken, and Nils took a bit of the goat from his father, eating it with a smile. 

I could feel the malevolence in Nils smile as his father bit into the berber-slathered chicken and rapidly gulped the milk, all trace of composure gone. “How…how were you keeping your calm through eating that the whole meal?” He managed to get out between gasps.

“I’m dating an Indian-Pakistani girl. She’s been training my spice tolerance.” Nils’ voice was casual. 

Mrs. Andover seemed to be ignoring her son and husband’s antics, instead calmly gesturing with a spoon at her spouse’s meal. “How spicy is that?”  When I glanced at the men, she shook her head. “They’ve always been like that, it’s best not to engage.”

I glanced again, before staring at the goat and trying to remember what had been ordered.  Slowly, I answered. “It isn’t very spicy - I think it’s a bit bland, to be honest - but because it’s so fatty, the spice stays around and builds.  You’re supposed to eat it with a bread or some other carb, to help.”

Without asking, she scooped a chunk of goat onto each of our plates. “Okay, show me. I love trying new things.”

Hesitantly, I tore a piece of bread off, and proceeded to use it to pick a chunk of goat off the bone, sheer habit causing me to use my fingers. The piece came away cleanly, and I shoved the entire bundle in my mouth before realizing what I had done.

To my abject horror, I looked up to see Mrs. Andover - coiffed, coutured, rich Mrs. Andover - with her fingers in her mouth and a look of delight on her face. She chewed quickly and swallowed before I could apologize for my manners. “Oh, that is so nice!  And much easier than using a fork, no wonder he was struggling so much!”

“Ma’am, I am so sorry - “  I covered my mouth as she tore off another piece of bread and attacked the goat with gusto.

“I asked how it was meant to be eaten, Lash.” She gestured at herself, particularly her face. “Do I look like the kind of woman accustomed to eating spicy food properly?” When I was forced to shake my head, half surprised she’d asked like that, she added. “For God’s sake, Lash, do you think for an instant Nils got his sense of humor from his father?”

I glanced at Dr. Andover - still playing spicy-food chicken with his son and losing decisively - before shaking my head. “I just - Eating with fingers is not an American thing,” I finished lamely.

“As Nils will explain to you or indeed anyone at length - and has explained to me, and his father - that is very much an old world prohibition imported from upper-class Europeans, and lower-class Americans only developed issues with it when the average American became wealthy enough to have easy access to silverware. He will remind everyone who even tangentially brings this up how recent that is.” She gave a faint smile. “I wasn’t born wealthy, you know. I’m from the generation of Americans where one could work their way through college provided one started out merely middle class.” 

“ ‘Merely’,” I mused. “And trust me that I am the last person Nils will need to lecture about silverware.  He’s seen Baba eat palak paneer with his fingers and an extreme amount of dignity.” I paused and made a confused face. “I am still not sure how he keeps it out of his moustache, I’ll be honest. And it’s quite a moustache. He’s very proud of it.”

She chuckled. “Fair enough. I suppose I should have said, ‘I’m not judging’. My husband came from money, I did not. I think you and Nils are great together, by the way. I love the way you talk to each other.” 

“We do argue, sometimes,” I confessed. “But usually it’s cultural, and we find our way through pretty quickly.  My parents adore him, so there’s that.  Mori - my sister - tolerates him well enough, which is practically a glowing approval from her.”

“A young man like Nils should have a partner he argues with. If there’s no arguments with a personality like that, it means either one of you is totally bulling over the other by force of will, or both of you are taking turns manipulating the other. Working through arguments when they come up is a much better sign.” She shrugged. “I’m glad your parents like him. I like you - and as to my husband…you impressed him and he respects you and your family. That will, in the long run, be better than him just “liking” you.” 

I caught Nils stabbing another chunk of hallucigenically spicy chicken, and snatched his plate and fork away with the same hand. “I am not going to coddle you later when that is just as spicy as it was going in,” I warned him calmly.  “Rice, sherbet, and buttermilk.”

Nils nodded. “Got it babe.”

Mrs. Andover pulled the dregs of the goat away from her spouse, pointing at me and Nils. “Same thing. Rice, sherbert, dairy. Lash is a lovely and clever girl, stop antagonizing our son, insert lecture here.”  With that, she rested her chin elegantly on her intertwined fingers, winking at me. “I think you and I are going to get along great.  You have my number, let’s set up a ladies’ day - invite your mother and sister.  I’ll treat if your family chooses the restaurant.”

One and a half out of two was a win in my books. “I’ll talk to them about it, see if we can schedule it before Mori heads back home.”

[gallowsheart]

@alwaysxinxtrouble

Jesse had no idea how long the woman had been in the camouflaged pit. He didn’t have time to check the twins' traps every day and knew they weren't exactly diligent about it either, despite repeated reminders that rotten meat that had been dead for days was no good to anyone. He guessed it was anywhere from a day or two to only a few hours. He’d had to bind her wrists and ankles and gag her to haul her out, but he’d removed the gag once they reached the slaughterhouse.

Nobody was going to hear her from in there, and he liked having someone to talk to while he worked, even if the conversations could be sort of one-sided. She didn't seem reassured by his promises that he would kill her so quickly she wouldn't even feel it, or that it was lucky he'd found her before the twins did. They liked to play with their food, no matter how many times Abram raged at them that fear and pain affected the flavor. Conversations could be sort of one-sided with them too. Their listening skills were highly selective.

Blood dripped from the edge of a sharp knife while he carved up meat at the counter. He wasn't trying to scare her more, but it was possible he didn't realize what a frightening scene that was. He was waiting for one of his brothers to get home to help with her. Contrary to popular horror movie myth, it was difficult to single-handedly butcher and preserve the meat from anything larger than a pig. Not impossible, but they didn't like to waste anything. The whole process would be smoother with another set of hands. Though Jesse had a tendency to run his mouth, that was not a detail he'd shared with his captive.

He didn’t look up from what he was doing at the sound of the sliding door, assuming it was one of the twins come to check on their haul, until Jed's voice snapped through the space. He had that oldest brother talent of commanding instant attention and making him feel vaguely guilty, even when he hadn't done anything wrong. Or maybe it was just that he was already shouting.

"What the hell are you doing? Jesse, what the fuck."

Jed was staring at Robin, bound on the floor, filthy and crying and looking like she'd just been pulled out of a pit, which, he realized with a sinking feeling, was probably exactly what had happened. He knew the twins had traps set up all over the property, and none of the locals ever made noise about the occasional missing hiker. But this was bad. This was bad. Robin wasn't just some random hiker. Locals were off limits. They never killed people they knew, and he’d already been seen in town with her on multiple dates. They couldn't just kill her, as Jesse had clearly been planning to do.

But they couldn't just let her go either. It was plain at a glance that she'd already seen and heard too much. Jesse never did know how to shut his goddamn mouth.

"Fuck!" He was still yelling, his younger brother's voice competing with his.

"What are you talking about? She was in the trap!"

"That's Robin! That's the girl I'm going out with! Goddamnit, Jesse!" He shoved him hard, heedless of the knife in his hand. It was no threat to him. The Ashworth brothers might infight from time to time, but they always stopped short of actually hurting each other.

"Well what the fuck, Jed! How was I supposed to know?"

Jed ignored him, moving almost on autopilot to Robin. He knelt by her, reaching to loosen the restraints on her wrists. He didn’t like seeing her like that, helpless and terrified. It was still relatively new between them, but he’d liked her. More than he’d liked anyone in a long time. And they would probably have to kill her now. Robin would die for nothing, and her disappearance would bring unwanted attention to the family. Shit.

[animecreator3000]

Every time I rewatch some episode of Boueibu HK I wonder again how the staff even planned this season. Like. Almost nothing meaningful happens with the characters

TLDR the characters with the most developement in HK are the monsters

Kyoutarou is there as a complete contrast to Yumoto while keeping the battle speeches so his characterization doesn't make much sense. Nanao is mere fujoshi bait. Taiju and Taishi have random bits of dialogue that hint at possible arcs for s2 but not enough to tell us what it really is. Maasa has an unfinished arc in his episode, where supposedly he's putting fatty butter in his cookies to make everyone else overweight because he resents Ichiro not defending him when they were little, but then his friends tell him it's fine and then he can move on??? This would work with Ichiro's theme of not wanting to be immature or dense anymore, except they only ever used this theme as a gag (misunderstanding the meaning of whatever the others have said) or to straight up humilliate him (ep4) and continue treating him like a stupid baby. At the end of the season Maasa and him have made peace somehow and that's it. Ata gets in my opinion the closest thing to a complete arc, even if it's just staring angrily at Kyoutarou for ten episodes, then explaining his problem while fighting him and finally getting his apology and reconcilliation. At least it's something. And poor Ryouma is just there to be the butt of a few jokes about how he lets Nanao and Kyoutarou use him, be in a couple of cute shippy scenes, and also for Ata to completely dismiss him from the flashbacks to the point where if they had first met in high school nothing would've changed.

The relationships barely have developement either. Love had anime episodes and manga chapters dedicated to the different close friendships solving their conflicts and becoming closer. There were also many instances of seeing how close the Hakone brothers-defense club and Beppu brothers' relationships were, and even though they didn't have any conflict between themselves, they made them strong sides for the final fight. Yumoto didn't get a character arc but through the entire anime he was revealed to be strong, considerate, forgiving and mature, willing to kindly befriend the Beppu twins for his brother but not let them walk all over him; contrary to how he was presented in the first episodes, like a stereotypical magical girl protagonist. Anyway in HK there's no meaningful conflict between any of them besides Kyoutarou and Ata. Taishi and Ichiro argue constantly but don't show to genuinely like each other after all like IoRyuu or EnAtsu did. Ichiro and Maasa never make any progress to be together again, Maasa hints once at liking Taishi and nothing comes from it, and Nanao and Taiju have the most artificial friendship in the cast that I just do not understand. They just ran an ice cream shop once with again unexplained success and make sassy remarks at each other ever since. And I guess Karurusu and Furanui had a bit of developement thanks to Kyou and Ata in ep12. Idk about the aliens, this time it's like they didn't do it completely well but also not as bad as with the rest of the cast. Maybe bc they didn't appear as much as the humans in most of the episodes

I'm realizing now that a few of these complaints are related to Nanao acting weird

Idk where to put this but I'd like to point out Kinshiro's principles of halting the fight with the Battle Lovers as soon as he finds out that the s1 conflict was set up for a reality show and actively defending them from an attack because they're Binan students, despite still not having received his apology from Atsushi. Ata might've done the same if the HK finale's events had gone in the same order (travelling to Honyalaland to fight Wao, then Kyoutarou apologizing to Ata), but he doesn't feel as a character as deep as Kinshiro in that sense bc they didn't really show him to be in other ways.

Love feels more like an actual group of people while HK feels like they were filling in friendship group roles or something

[thealmightyemprex]

Disney Month :Babes in Toyland

The 5th review of Disney Month is a request from @themousefromfantasyland ,the musical Babes in Toyland

In this 1961 film Mary Contrary (Annette Funnicello ) ia about to marry Tom Piper (Tommy Sands ) but the wicked Barnaby (Ray Bolger ) seeks to wed Mary for her large inheritance ,and sends two mercenaries Gonzorgo ( Henry Calvin ) and Rodrigo (Gene Sheldon ) to do away with Tom

So I didnt grow up with this one ,I first saw it a few years ago when I first got Disney + and decided to fill some of my gaps of Disney classics I hadnt seen .This is based on the 1903 opperetta (Very loosely from what I have heard ) and its been adapted a number of times ,the ones I have seen are the Shirley Temples Storybook adaptation with Johnathan Winters as Barnaby and of course the LAurel and Hardy 1934 version which is very much my favorite of the three I have seen (Which is homaged in this film as Gonzorgo and Rodrigo are very much inspired by Laurel and Hardy ) .As for Disney's version,I have now seen it three times.....And while enjoyable it is not as good as it could be

Lets start with what I do like :I very much love the set design and aesthetic ,it does go for an almost artificial feel, like you are watching a play or a cartoon.I think the cartoony effects are a bit much ,but love the elaborate sets and props anduse of puppets for menacing living trees and the talking goose Sylvester . I especially like the nursery rhyme town set it looks so good . The finale is amazing ,where a shrunken Tom leads an army of toys against Barnaby ,with some cool stop motion and some fun gags .

The three bad guys are the best part of the movie ,they get three of my favorite songs,and they are just so funny .The mercenary duo are played by Henry Calvin and Gene Sheldon ,best known for another Disney property , the TV series Zorro ,where Calvin played the bumbling Sergent Garcia and Sheldon played Zorros mute sidekick Bernardo .I have become a bi8g fan of Disneys Zorro ,so it is fun to see them here as lovable villains and it is also fun to see them as a duo ,as their scenes in Zorro tended to be fun .They get to show off their main talents ,Sheldon showing off his mime skills as the silent of the pair and Calvin getting possibly my second favorite song in the film ,showing off his beautiful baritone singing the darkly comic Slowly He Sank Into the Sea .They are very much diffrent then their Zorro characters ,Calvin getting to play a competent villain who despite being a thug speaks almost eloquently as Gonzorgo as opposed to the well meaning but not that bright Sergent Garcia who was often saddled with evil bosses in Zorro , and Sheldon while again playing a silent role is completely diffrent as Bernardo was a heroic intelligent character ,here he is the goofy character ....Who is also a little blood thirsty as Roderigo ,I kind of love it .Now the best piece of casting HAS to be song and dance man Ray Bolger as the main villain Barnaby who by consequence is the best part of the movie . On a meta level ,Bolger is most well known for another fantasy musical ,playing the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz ,so it is fun to see him go from a lovable character to a villainous one , but honestly they just struck gold with this casting.Bolger is a very physical actor(Makes sense since he was a dancer ),a lot of the character is in how he moves,so he know how to twirl his cape ,lurk about ,and just becme this creepy old miserly villain.He's also just a perfect comedic villain ,clearly having a ball playing this cartoonish bad guy ,but doesnt OVERDO it,he knows when to dial it back and be a threat ,he is the mustache twirling bad guy personified .I should also mention that villainous trio get a pretty fun villain song with We Wont Be Happy Till We Get It ,but I have to talk about Barnabys solo song.....Which might be my favorite scene in the film :Castle in Spain ,a villainous seduction song where Barnaby tries to woo Mary .Its a fun song on its own,sung wonderfully by Bolger ...But the best part: BOLGERS GOT MOVES .I'm not a dance person ,but even I am impressed by his dance solo in this film,and despite being 22 years after Wizard of Oz he hadnt lost a step

Well I think thats about it-Oh wait no the rest of the movie exists,gotta talk about that .OK I know that sounds harsh ,I honestly mostly like the movie but I'm sorry ,this movie has dull elements......And the dullest are the leads .Now Annette Funnicello does an amazing job ,and Tommy Sands has one fun song "Floretta ",but their characters are just cardboard and I dont like the kids who Mary looks after either .Honestly I could roll with that though,the appeal are the villains,the set design ,effects and the music , and that stuff is mostly good.....But then the film gets to Toyland which is the most boring part of the film until the climax

Toyland is just two guys in a toy shop ....And it stops being a fantasy film ,and becomes this weird science fiction comedy ,and its just underwhelming.Ed Wynn and Tommy Kirke do a great job ,Ed Wynn is always a hoot , but they feel so out of place (ALso the toymaker played by Wynn I feel is too mean to Grumio played by Kirke )and I am just not into the toyland setting

Overall I am split on the film,I ADORE parts of this film....And the other parts are kind of dull.I do reccomend it because the fun parts are so good ,it is enjoyable but it isnt perfect .Its an uneven film but some of the performances ,the music ,and aesthetic make it a good time

@ariel-seagull-wings @themousefromfantasyland @goodanswerfoxmonster @the-blue-fairie @angelixgutz @princesssarisa @amalthea9 @marquisedemasque @filmcityworld1

[fcllederage-moved]

Food and eating habits

Quick reminder that despite being 6'5, Hyacinthe is a very skinny queen. She barely reaches 154lbs. She can eat a bit of everything, but it does not mean she will. There are a few foods that she cannot eat.

One of them, to give an example, is red meat. She has a really hard time eating steaks, especially when it's done rare. It will make her gag so she avoids it at all costs and when she can't, she simply won't eat the whole dish. She'll leave the steak on the side and eat the rest.

However, at the age of twenty years old, she was diagnosed with severe food aversion that can sometimes affect her health, which is why she is often seen taking food supplements to avoid deficiencies. Often, she will end up unable to eat certain foods for weeks or months on end or, on the contrary, she will be focused on eating a certain type of foods.

In any case, Hyacinthe has a hard time eating in front of people and can quickly feel embarrassed. Overall, she'd rather eat on her own, unless she has no other choice - in which case, she won't have any drastic reaction, in general, she just becomes a slow eater - or trusts the people she eats with.

[kingdomlivingglobal]

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A life coach is all about finding and following one's passions and purpose in life. They will assist their clients in reaching their ideal goals by serving as accountability partners.

Conclusion

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[jimblejamblewritings]

the imprint or the blood singer | part 16.

Summary: Y/N Black. All about La Push. Shy girl unless you get to know her. Not one to make friends easily despite the fact that she very well could. Friends with her brother’s friends until one Bella Swan comes back to town.

Warnings for the Series: light violence, light smut

Pairing: Edward Cullen x reader, Embry Call x reader

Word Count: 1.8k

Previous Part | (Series Masterlist)

The last thing Billy ever expected was that he would let a Cold One anywhere near him. But here Edward was, sitting on the couch with you propped up in his arms. You had finally fallen asleep and when you did, Billy and Jacob felt okay to go to bed.

You were first in the house to wake up the next morning. Edward helped you take off the wrapping that held your arm against your chest. Your arm was completely healed, your shoulder and ribs still very damaged.

It took longer than you would’ve liked to take a shower and get dressed. When you walked out of your room Edward was in the kitchen cooking. He smiled when you hugged him from behind. The hug was partly out of affection, mostly to numb your ribs.

“Were you as good at cooking as you are at playing piano when you were human?”

“On the contrary, I was complete shit. But Esme was amazing, I asked her when you first started coming over.”

Jacob and Billy entered the dining room area watching the scene between you and Edward unfold. They wanted to awe and gag at the same time. Jacob walked past to grab a bowl from the cabinet. He looked down in confusion when a plate of breakfast was plopped in front of him.

“There’s breakfast for everybody,” Edward said.

“Thank you?”

“Just take the plate Jacob, I’m never doing this for you again.”

You laughed a little until your ribs started to ache again. Billy accepted the food without complaint, knowing you would give him hell for it later if he didn’t. Edward removed your arms from around him and turned to face you with two plates.

“Embry’s outside. Slept there all night.”

You took the plates from Edward and grabbed some of Jacob’s clothes and went outside. The giant gray wolf on your front porch was still asleep. You set the plates down and shook Embry until the wolf woke up. Embry took the clothes you gave him and disappeared behind the house.

“You’re looking a lot better,” Embry said as he came jogging back around the house.

You both sat across from each other cross-legged on the deck.

“My arm’s fine. I’m going to Carlisle to check on the rest.”

Embry hummed in approval. He watched your careful and measured breathing. It wasn’t hard to tell you were still in pain even without the imprint.

“You stayed out here all night?”

“I couldn’t leave knowing you were hurt. I’m still your protector.”

“My fierce protector,” you joked.

Embry cocked an eyebrow at you before the two of you busted out laughing. He quickly mumbled sorry when you clutched your side.

“Don’t make me laugh,” you said once the pain subsided.

“You made the joke.”

Edward stepped out of the house. He held up the keys to your car and a small bag.

“Carlisle just called your dad. He wants you to stay overnight.”

“What are you not saying?”

“There’s an X-ray in Carlisle’s home office. He wants to monitor you properly and make sure you’re healing correctly, he’s worried the mid-shift is having your bones heal not fully human… he might have to re-break a few more bones.”

“Okay.” You nodded your head.

“I’ll just be in the car whenever you’re ready. Do you want me to pack anything else.”

“My art stuff. The markers and book are—”

“In the garage,” Edward said at the same time as you.

“If you could just read my mind why bother asking?”

Edward said nothing. He just laughed as he walked to the garage. Embry sighed as he watched the two interact. You looked at him shocked when he stole the bacon off of your plate. Embry grinned as he finished chewing. He reached his hand out and closed your mouth.

“He’s a good boyfriend,” Embry said out of the blue. You looked at him a bit surprised, this was coming out of nowhere.

“Embry you don’t have to pr—”

“I was so scared when you got hurt but I don’t think I saw anyone more scared than him. Maybe Jake… I’m not saying I like the leech or any of them but I want my imprint happy. He does that for you.”

“I’m sorry, Embry,” you got quiet.

“For what?”

“Edward. Not being able to love you in the same way. Not being what you want.”

Embry brushed some of your hair back that had fallen in front of your face. “After yesterday, you are everything I want and need just by being alive. We can’t control our imprint. A lover, protector, or friend. I think we all forget it’s just about our special person.”

You tackled Embry in a hug. Your friend laughed as he gently held you.

“Careful, careful, you’re still hurt.”

“You’ll find your person.”

“I know, but you’ll still be my best girl.”

“Is that a promise?” You held out your pinky finger.

“That’s a promise.” Embry interlocked his pinky with yours. Both of you kissed your thumbs, making the promise official.  

“Trampoline park when I get better? Just you and me. Plan?”

“Sounds perfect. Now, go get yourself healed. I can feel the pain, don’t even try to lie.”

You slowly sat up. “Em, did anyone tell you you’re the best person ever.”

“I know.”

You started to walk away when Embry stopped you.

“If the leech ever hurts you—”

“You’ll bite his head off?”

“It’s my job.”

“My fierce protector.”

Embry howled making you laugh before you walked towards the garage area. Your car was on the side. Edward started the car as you entered the passenger’s side.

“He’s not joking about my head is he?”

“You’ve lived a good one hundred and eight years.” You gave Edward a cheeky smile as he drove off towards the Cullen house.

~~

Your ribs were for the most part okay. Carlisle only had to re-break two. Once again you slept in Edward’s arm to numb the pain.

Edward and the rest of the Cullens came back from hunting to hear the shower in Edward’s bathroom running. He had left the minute you woke up, refusing to take a night hunt while you were still in pain. You had on music. The Cullens chuckled to themselves as they heard your voice and the speaker turned all the way up. You were clearly enjoying yourself.

Edward entered his room very loudly announcing his presence so you wouldn’t be scared when you left the shower, although he wasn’t sure if you heard over your music. He knew you did once he heard the singing suddenly replaced with humming. He sat down and picked up a book absentmindedly reading and occasionally looking at the steam escape from under the bathroom door.

Edward very abruptly lifted his head towards his bathroom door. He set his book down not believing the thoughts he heard. Once your thoughts appeared again, this time directly addressed to him Edward stood up.

“Everyone out,” Edward said, knowing the rest of the Cullen family would hear him.

You smiled as you heard the bathroom door open. Edward changed the playlist on your phone and lowered the volume a bit. The steam from your shower fogged up the glass. The blurry outline of your body became clearer as Edward stepped closer to the shower.

“You don’t want to enjoy your shower, little wolf?”

“I’d think I’d enjoy it more if you joined me.”

It was silent, except for the music. For a moment, you thought Edward would refuse. You smiled to yourself when the shower door opened. You turned around to face him. Heat rose to your face, this was the first time you’d seen him like this. The intimate moment was new to you, even with Embry it was never this intense. You shuddered as he ran his fingers along your shoulder. The contrast of your hot shower and his cold skin left your body feeling all sorts of ways.

“This is a waste of water,” Edward mused.

“It’s only a waste if you don’t clean up, I’ve heard sharing showers is very conservative. You just came from hunting anyway.”

You grabbed the washcloth and soap. Edward let you bathe him, he switched places with you and let the water wash down him. He removed the washcloth from your hand and hung it up. Edward kissed you slowly, enjoying the taste of your lips that he hadn’t had since graduation. You tried to place his hands on your waist but Edward wouldn’t.

“You’re still hurt.”

“Why’d you join me in the shower then?”

“Because I can’t say no to my little wolf.”

“Edward, I—”

His lips crashed against yours. Edward slowly kissed down your body, pausing and paying special care to your injuries. He smiled as you sighed enjoying the cool touch on your bruises. Edward looked up at you.

“Is this alright?”

“You already know what I think.”

“I want to hear you say it. Is this alright?”

“Yes.”

You leaned back against the shower wall. Edward revelled in how your thoughts were scrambled as he went down on you. His name was the only thing coming from your mouth. The imprint made everything more intense for you. It wasn’t just your pleasure you were feeling but his as well which just sent you over the edge. Edward held you up before your legs gave out on you. He stood up, his hands rested lightly on your hips as you still leaned against the shower wall.

You were breathing heavy as you slowly came down from your high. The scent of your blood flooded his senses. Edward kissed you hard to stop himself from wanting to bite you. With his lips still on yours, he reached over to turn off the shower. Edward finally pulled away when he felt in control.  

“I think we finished washing up a while ago,” he commented.

You eyed Edward up and down. He could hear your thoughts. Edward pressed his forehead against yours.

“When you’re fully healed.”

“But you didn’t…” you faltered off.

“Trust me, I’m satisfied… besides, and as a vampire we get… very rough. I don’t want to hurt you.” Edward laughed as he heard your thoughts. “I’m worried about your health and you’re excited?”

“I’m just curious how rough it can actually be.”

“Broken beds… you’re not scared little wolf… of course you’re not.”

“I’m cold… and hungry,” you deflected.

You and Edward got out the shower. You dressed in warm oversized clothes. You and Edward went downstairs to get you real food from the kitchen refrigerator. Edward sat on a high chair at the kitchen island watching you make your favorite snack. You stood on the other side of the island eating. The rest of the Cullens came in, saying hi to you. Emmett clapped his hands on Edward’s shoulders but kept eye contact with you.

“Did he do good, little wolf?”

Emmett laughed as you hid your face in your hands while Edward shoved him as hard as possible.

(Part 17)...

[captains-simp]

Can your write a longer version of the Romanov (Romanoff) teacher x fem reader and/or with Carol Danvers or Yelena Belova? (I know she is her sister but they aren’t really)

And I’ll buy you two cups of coffee. Or if u do All three characters, (not at once but maybe eventually in another story), I’ll buy u 4 cups 🥰

F-four cups?? Bdosskdskssosjs I'm on it!!

2.8k words

Warnings: teacher!Natasha X student!reader, teacher!Carol X student!reader, unhealthy power dynamic, dub-con (not really?? Putting it to be safe) age gap (R is 18), smoking, being caned, praise, degrading, strap on sex, oral on strap on, gagging and overstimulation

[ masterlist ]

Buy me a coffee ☕

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Your head fell back against the brick wall as you exhaled heavily and let the thick smoke escape your parched mouth. You stared up at the clouds amongst the perfectly blue sky and made out various shapes the clouds displayed, each telling their own story. You smiled when you spotted a laughing dragon.

"Y/n." Came a snappy voice that pulled you from your daydreaming. You recognised the voice instantly and clenched your teeth together as you dropped your joint to the floor and stepped on it.

"Yes, Miss Romanoff?" You rolled your eyes and glared at the teacher approaching you.

"You know smoking is not permitted on these grounds. Neither are the those." The redhead stated as she eyed the the packet in your pocket and held her hand out for it. You begrudgingly handed it over.

"Detention. 7 o'clock. Do not be late." She warned before heading back towards the old building. You continued to glare daggers into her back as you watched her leave, those damn hips swaying with every step.

You would be the first to admit your teacher was hot. With all those curves and a look to kill, yes you were attracted to her. But there was a lot of teachers at the school that were easy on the eyes. The difference with Natasha was she seemed spent on making your life at that school a living hell.

It felt like she was always out to get you, giving you detentions left and right and shouting at you for seemingly nothing. So being attracted to her while she played the role of the your own personal guardian devil wasn't easy. Plus: it was beyond frustrating being horny at a boarding school.

The day dragged by after that. Every time you looked up at the clock on a classroom wall it had barely changed. You just wanted the day to be over with.

Finally, 7 o'clock came and you dragged yourself to Natasha's classroom a few minutes late. You would be lying if you said you hadn't deliberately been late to piss her off. Not to mention you had made it quite the habit with your teacher. You were a sucker for tradition.

"I do hope that one day you'll learn the importance of being punctual." Natasha said from her desk where she didn't look up from marking.

"I guess today just isn't that day." You said as you slouched down in your seat in the back row.

You frowned as you noticed a workbook wasn't placed on your desk already. That was usually all your detentions consisted of, you doing more work. You looked up and saw Natasha watching you darkly. You struggled to hold her gaze for more than a couple seconds.

"On the contrary, y/n. I think today is exactly that day." She said with a small smile you didn't trust at all. You rarely saw her smile. Brief, forced ones towards her colleagues was all you thought she was capable of. But the one she gave you, it was hiding something.

"Come here." She said suddenly and you found yourself getting to your feet rather hastily.

You made your way down the room and stood infront of your teachers desk with some nerves. While you had never strived to piss off any teachers, their threats never seemed to scare you because you knew there was nothing they could really do. It never got any worse than a series of tedious detentions. But you found yourself not wanting to test your teacher that evening.

Natasha stood up from her chair and put the papers to the side before walking around the desk and past you. You didn't look back to see what she was doing but you could hear her open the door to her supply room. There was one in every room in the generously sized school. All stocked with books and alike, but you had never seen the inside of Miss Romanoff's supply room, it was always too dim.

Her heels clicked against the wooden floor as she made her way back to you. You still didn't dare turn around, maybe if you had Natasha wouldn't have pushed your back down with alarming force that had your front pressed against her table in less than a second.

You gave a startled cry in alarm and went to get back up but Natasha's hand stayed firmly between your shoulder blades and forced you to stay flat against the desk.

"Miss!" You called but she didn't respond. Instead, her other hand wandered up the back of your left thigh. Her touch was light as a feather and it brought out an involuntary shudder from you despite the screaming in your head.

Natasha then hiked your skirt up over your hips. You stayed silent at the act. In shock more than anything else. Perhaps part of you wanted to know what she was planning.

What you didn't expect was to feel a sharp sting across your ass and a cracking sound echo across the room. You cried out again and tried to get off the desk but your teacher was too strong.

"What the fuck was that?" You demanded as your ass continued to sting furiously.

"I thought some old school punishment would fit you better, y/n. Nothing else quite seems to suffice." She explained and brought the cane back down on your thinly covered ass. You jerked forwards and gripped on to the edge of the desk firmly as another cry was ripped from your throat.

She hummed in consideration for a moment, most likely pausing for an extra second just to taunt you, before dipping her fingers under the waist band of your panties and pulled them down your legs. You whimpered quietly and pressed your thighs tightly together, not wanting your teacher to see any possible and surprising signs of what her actions were doing to you.

When your panties were at your feet you breathing became more shallow and you awaited the next strike in fear.

"I think ten strikes will suffice." She declared and your eyes widened. "But let's not forget I also have to teach you the importance of punctuality. How many minutes late were you, y/n? Seven?"

"Please." Spilled from your lips. You weren't sure you could handle seventeen strikes from the devil crafted stick in you teacher's hand.

"You can take it, darling. After all," She started as she leant forward to whisper in your ear, "Daddy knows best." You shivered from her words and tried to ignore the way they seemed to travel through your body.

A harsh strike came down suddenly and you cried out pathetically and gripped on to the desk like a lifeline. The cane in harsh, random strikes after that, each one as unpredictable as the last and all of them hurting more.

Tears sprung to your eyes and yet every hit added to your arousal that filled you with shame. You were sure Natasha noticed it because every time you pressed your thighs together she kicked your legs apart again, surely seeing your wetness as she did so.

"That's it, sweetheart, it's done." Natasha cooed as she ran her cold hand over your throbbing ass. "You took it so well." You flinched from the contact but luckily she didn't linger too long on the broken skin, instead letting her hand drop further down.

You couldn't help the breathy whine that escaped your lips. "Perhaps too well." Natasha mused as her slender fingers glided over your glistening folds. You leaned back into her touch and was partly surprised that she let you, consequently slipping the tips of her fingers through your folds.

You whined louder at the teasing contact but Natasha withdrew her hands and instead smacked your pussy hard. You lurched forward and moaned at the impact.

"Come here." Natasha said but didn't give you much chance to respond because she gripped the back of your shirt and hauled you through the room. You stumbled the whole way but didn't dare question your teacher. She pushed you into the storage room, much to your confusion, until you stumbled into what felt like a table and the dim light flickered on.

Your breath caught in your throat as you caught sight of all the packed shelves around the room. There were more sex toys in the surprisingly small room than you could even process with more range than you could ever beging to fantasise about.

You admired as many as you could in the time Natasha stripped herself of her clothing and stepped infront of you to pick out a dildo to attatch to the harness she wore. Her eyes raked over the large collection and landed on one of the biggest with a confident smirk on her face. She grabbed the toy and some lube and stepped behind you again where she attatched the toy and prepared it with the lube before tangling her hand in your hair to hold you against the oak table.

"You like my collection, sweetheart?" Natasha asked as she ran the strap through your folds. You hummed vaguely, too caught up in the thought of her using the toy on you.

"Answer me, slut." Natasha said lowly and thrust the strap in.

You moaned loudly as your teacher pushed more of the inches in and you squirmed beneath her. She gave another harsh thrust and burried the rest of the strap in to your pussy.

"Well?" She asked teasingly as she withdrew the toy only to slam it back forwards harshly.

"Yes!" You cried out as you squeezed your eyes shut.

"Yes what?" She tested.

"Yes, daddy!" You moaned in bliss and desperation.

"Fuck, this pussy's so tight." Natasha smirked above you, no doubt knowing the slight buzz of pain you were feeling at the stretch of her toy. You moaned in response as she continued to thrust the toy in at a merciless pace.

You were so lost in the overwhelming pleasure Natasha was giving you you were unaware if anything that wasn't her or the toy. Even the cold surface of the table pressed so harshly against you had slipped from your mind. So it was no surprise you didn't hear the heavy footsteps entering the room.

"Evening, Danvers." Natasha greeted and your eyes snapped open. You tried to look back at who ever Natasha was talking to but she gripped your hair tighter and held your head down against the desk making you whimper.

"You finally did it, huh." Came the voice from behind you that you definitely recognised. "And I thought you were chicken shit." She mused.

You whimpered when you felt a hand snake down to your clit and rub the neglected spot slowly. But it was gone barely a second after it came.

"Wait your fucking turn, Danvers." Natasha spat at the blonde but you whined desperately.

"Please, daddy!" You begged, missing the contact instantly.

"I think the little whore wants me more." Carol chuckled and Natasha snapped her hips particularly hard at her words.

"Oh but she's going to cum all for me now, aren't you, y/n?"

"Please, please!" You begged more as Natasha's pace increased and you moaned more frantically, still trying to get a look at the blonde.

"Fucking cum." She demanded and at that, you lost all control. You clenched around the fake cock and trembled on the table as the brutal waves if your orgasm washed over you again and again.

But to your distraught, Natasha pulled the strap out as you came and effectively ruined the full effects of your high. You whimpered again at the loss but your legs felt too numb to fully do anything about it.

"Don't be so ungrateful." Natasha warned as she slapped your pussy making you jump slightly.

Carol stood infront of you as she started to unbuckle her belt and freed the strap she had been packing underneath.

"You're gonna use that slutty mouth to get my cock ready for your pussy now, Princess." Carol explained as she tapped the head against your cheek. You happily obliged and opened your mouth for the strap that Carol wasted no time in easing in.

She held your head in place where Natasha had let go and pushed the strap against your gag reflex. You coughed around the toy but the blonde shushed you as she kept pushing forward in a thoughtful silence, admiring the tears that sprung to your eyes.

"You look so pretty with my cock in your mouth." Carol muttered as she withdrew the strap slightly only to snap her hips forwards to effectively fuck your mouth. "You want it in your slutty hole now?" She asked with faux sweetness.

"She'll take whatever you give her." Natasha mused. You looked up and saw her in a dark red chair against the wall facing you, her eyes glued to your form.

Carol slipped the strap from your mouth when she deemed you had done a good enough job. It glistened in the dim light and disappeared from sight when your other teacher strolled back behind you.

You locked eyes with your red headed teacher as you felt Carol's presence behind you. Natasha pulled something from the cabinet besides her that you instantly registered as your amateur cigarette and the little tobacco that was still in the bag. She chuckled at the rookie joint you had made yourself but you didn't have much chance to feel any embarrassment or annoyance because the woman behind you gripped onto your hips tightly and pushed the entirety of the toy in in one thrust forward.

You moan was bordering on a scream at the action. Carol set about a merciless pace that rivalled your other teacher's and had you trembling instantly. You gripped on to the edge of the table tightly and babbled incoherently about how good it felt and pathetic pleas not to stop, all of which Carol had no issue aiding. She pounded the strap into you and revelled in your pleasured cries all while you tried desperately to hold eye contact with Natasha.

The red head was looking through her cabinet again until you brought out a box of Humidor cigars that probably cost more than a year at your school. Your cheap tobacco had been thrown to the side as she lit the expensive cigar all while smirking at you and your limited responses to her.

She brought it up to your lips with a knowing smile but you had no energy or ability to make an annoyed comment about how unfair the teacher student hierarchy was because Carol's pace seemed to increase.

"Don't stop!" You managed to cry out to the blonde. You clenched around the strap desperately as your breathing increased and.you could feel your high approaching at a fast rate.

"Cum, slut." The blonde ordered and with that, you fell apart again. You bucked back against the strap as Carol fucked your through your orgasm and kept going. You were becoming sensitive from the intense pleasure you had been feeling and all of a sudden it became too much.

You thought Carol stopped when she pulled out, but she swiftly flipped you on to your front and sunk the strap back in. Your head threw back as you moaned lowly and instinctively wrapped your legs around your teacher's waist to help you handle her deep thrusts.

"I want to see you cum this time." Carol said as she eyed you greedily.

You felt a pair of soft lips meet your exposed neck and turned your head away more to give Natasha's wandering lips further access. Her hands crept up under your shirt and massaged the soft skin contained by your bra. She pinched your nipples as she sucked and lightly nipped at your neck, all while the blonde continued to fuck you into your next orgasm.

You gasped before giving a long moan in relief as your third orgasm washed over your body. You trembled in the women's gripped as they guided you through your high that had you seeing stars.

Your head fell back against the table with a light thud as you tried to steady your breathing.

"Fuck." Carol smirked as she combed her hair back away from her face and grinned down at your body arrogantly. "We're going to have to do that again." She sighed as she pulled the strap out slowly making you whine.

"You want that baby? You want to be our secret slut?" Natasha muttered into your ear and bit down gently. You groaned and nodded your head in response.

"Please." You whispered, your voice going hoarse.

"That's a good girl." Natasha praised as her hand wandered down your body again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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[elegiacmarquise]

My thoughts about Princess Peach character in the upcoming Mario Movie

I don't usually like to vent about media. I feel like it's pointless rambling most of the time. In the past I did twice and both times defending characters widely hated in their respective fandoms, one of these being Princess Peach.

I'm a fan of Peach as first as I saw her in my very first Mario game, when I was a kid: she was always a role model to me as she was one of the few characters who I saw overcome their physical weaknesses with great emotional strengths. Princess Peach is an unapologetically classy and feminine girl capable of a great spectrum of emotions and even capable of using them to protect herself. I always saw the Princess, at the contrary of what I read everywhere on the Internet, as a complex and unique character. The only thing she ever needs is a more consistent writing to fully showcase her awesomeness.

So, I have a lot of contrasting feelings with how she seems to be portrayed by the trailer of the upcoming movie.

Her character design is GORGEOUS, and her dress seems so floaty and cute: maybe her face needs a slight touch up but she looks cute nonetheless. I won’t express myself on Anya Taylor-Joy’s voice acting, since I’m not an expert in the matter nor I’ve seen her previous roles to compare her voice range.

Seeing the princess leading her reign melted my heart, so seeing her training Mario and joining him on adventure! It's I always liked to see her more of these moments in the games. I’m looking forward to see how the Princess and the Plumber’s relationship will be handled, it seems to have quite the potential.

But I admit I was kind of disappointed by how the trailer seems to depict Peach almost as a... soulless contemporary female lead role deprived of a lot of things that made her compelling in the videogames. This may be an hot take but I hope that the halberd scene will only be relegated a gag or some character's power fantasy: the one depicted in that scene didn’t resemble Peach at all, instead she seems an impersonator of hers. Peach is the kind of person who despite she can actually fight, she wouldn’t use any conventional weapons and would instead be happy to fight in a dress and a parasol.

In general, Princess Peach can have everything that could make an unique AND strong character: imagine a bubbly and kind princess, who likes to bake cakes and is somewhat naïve but when she's in danger she could lead a reign and she would fight, with pans and literally anything she picks on the ground. This is Peach: she doesn’t have to be kidnapped anymore but she needs  to retain these strong feminine attributes that help her facing her situations, like a mahou shoujo, a Disney/Barbie princess or a Ghibli Movie heroine.

We must, everyone in this site, in the Internet, the society as a whole, needs to aknowledge that like there isn’t a single type of intelligence, there are multiple types to strenghts as well, emotional being one of them.

Also, repeat with me: FEMININITY IS NOT WEAKNESS.

This may be an extremely hot take but giving masculine outfits or weapons DON’T give automatically a personality to a character. Instead, it almost looks that the writers want to deprive women (also men and everyone who don’t feel neither) of traditional femininity in order to be accepted by society while it’s just as valuable as virility. It’s just a way to express oneself that shouldn’t be shunned upon. I don't mean to hate to actual tomboys, though, as everyone deserves to be happy in their own skin and I also like fictional ones, like Daisy.

Peach is the type of character who can perfectly lead the kingdom with a whole lot of tact and intelligence, the Princess is perfectly fight for her kingdom, despite her physical weakness, as she is selfless enough to be willing to sacrifice herself for them. No need to ripped cloth, no pants. no need to show over the top weapons. Her sweet personality speaks for herself. Remaining kind and empathetic while in difficult situations is as strong as slaying thousands thousands as enemy: sometimes violence isn’t even a solution to an actual problem.

I hope to see this post age like milk: luckily, already from the trailer, we’ll see Peach using some of her traditional means to pave her way through the Mushroom Kingdom and I hope that this trailer would be assembled for the specific purpose to not turn off the probable person who dislike Peach’s personality in the games. Actually it seem that the scene I was heavily criticising is quite disconnected by the rest of the trailer, so I second the possibility of a one moment gag. At least, we’re seeing Peach in her suit in its rightful context again in the Mario Kart segment.

In general, I prefer to keep a cautiously optimistic stance on the matter, until I’m definitely proven otherwise.

I’m sorry to had to ramble that much, Princess Peach is one topic I feel strongly about. I may delete this post later.

[inf-ew]

Looking ahead

I know it will happen. I don’t know when exactly it will happen. But I know how it will happen. Because it has already happened in my mind, dozens of times. And I know that it will happen.

I’m not a psychic. But you don’t need to be a psychic to know that a ball on top of an inclined plane will roll down when you let it go. I’ve seen it time and time again: pictures and stories in my head moving from “I would never ever do that!” to “I did it!” and even further to: “Been there, done that. Boring! What else you’ve got?”

There was a time when I thought I would never – never ever ever! – do anything sexually related outside the safety of my apartment. I enjoyed watching pictures and videos of girls flashing their tits or pussies outside. But that wasn’t for me I thought. It wasn’t worth the trouble.

Actually, I thought it wasn’t worth the risk of being caught. My inhibitions are strong. Very strong. I’m often frustrated by the gap between what I would like to do and what I’m capable of doing. Socialization is hard to overcome. But now I know that there is something stronger than my inhibitions. Something slowly grinding them away, patiently, but inexorably.

When an idea, a picture, a fantasy excites my cunt, first thing she does is hooking the thought in my mind. My inhibitions are not easy to overcome, but my cunt has an impressive stamina. The little nub is like a toddler, constantly begging, constantly demanding attention, constantly assuring that the risk is really not that great, wearing the responsible parent down. The nub is hooking the thought in my mind, screwing it in, riveting it, welding it shut. It always has the upper hand in the long run.

The idea I would never do anything sexually related outside of my apartment went out the window about eight years ago on a summer vacation when I went out without wearing panties. Looking back, it’s adorable how excited I was despite the long skirt that made it virtually impossible to “get caught”. Since then, the skirt got shorter, and I also lost the bra.

The first time I edged outside it was very quick, with my hand in my sweatpants. It felt good, but somehow not right. A few weeks later I exposed my tits while rubbing myself to a quick edge. As the next step I took of my top completely. Then I edged totally naked outside for the first time. I flashed my tits near a railroad track as a train passed. I stood there naked while feeling the draft from the train on my exposed skin. I kneeled between the bushes and rubbed myself to an edge, or even two when a long train came by.

I went out gagged under the mask when they were mandated. I took walks with my tits tied hard hidden under a wide sweater or jacket. I clamped my labia, bound my clit, plugged my ass, and enjoyed nature and my nature. I sat with a suction dildo fixed to a park bench deeply impaling my cunt, hidden under a wide skirt. I went for a walk with a crotchrope rubbing my pussy sore. I edged on a balcony and did some selfbondage in an abandoned house.

The only condition my mind insists on is that whatever I do it must be reasonably safe. I’m horny and excited, but not reckless. Over time I discovered quite a few protected, secluded, and deserted areas not that far from my apartment. There is some risk of getting caught but it’s negligible. Once my mind is convinced something is safe to be done it’s only a matter of time until I do it. It only takes the time to degrade my inhibitions.

So, what is going to happen one of these days? Well, there are several ideas brewing in the back of my mind in several stages of readiness to act upon them. But one is in the lead, and that’s why this is what I predict looking ahead:

One of these days my boss will tell me that I need to work overtime, but it won’t bother me, on the contrary, I will smile because I know now the time is right. I will go to the office restroom, remove the panty liners, take off my panties, and stuff them into my already leaking cunt. I want them soaked for what’s to come. It will be hard to focus for the rest of the workday. But the hours will pass, and I’ll be on the train to go home.

This time I’m not only going home, but I’m also doing another step down the edging addiction spiral. The train is not very full at that time of the evening. I take a few deep breaths and head for the train restroom. I’m past the quick guilty edging. This needs to be done right. Part of the thrill of this idea is that train toilets are disgusting. They smell, used paper towels are lying around, sometimes there’s water and piss on the floor. But to edge right I need to be naked and on my knees. So, I strip and kneel on the dirt or in the mixed fluids.

At this point, I’m inexpressible disgusted by myself. I can’t believe what I’m doing. But feeling this disgust and self-hatred and doing it nevertheless will convince me that I’m longer in control. I have undeniable proof. I pull my panties from my cunt, and they are soaked in thick whitish cunt juice. She’s in control. Always is. Always will be. She pushes the panties into my mouth to make me taste her victory.

Then I will edge. The train ride takes about 40 minutes. I hope I won’t be disturbed. I will feel the disgust, but also triumph and liberation. It’s a triumph that more inhibitions are gone, another low is reached, another part of myself erased, another part expressed. These edges, when a border is torn down, when the primeval cunt clearly wins over the sophisticated mind, are among the best and most intense. One of these days …