#I took out another credit card specifically for this plan

[jjkamochoso]

Hii!! I'm always hanging out in your askbox, sorry about that! I've got another Feitan request! A Feitan x Female Reader who, similar to my other requests, is normally an outgoing person with a girly personality, but behind closed doors she really appreciates a peaceful atmosphere. Maybe the two of them decided to stay together off troupe duty at a rented place or hotel, and she's less bubbly than Feitan is used to her being with the troupe around. Not that she's any less smiley, just a lot more quiet than she usually is. Bonus points if it's raining outside and they can enjoy the sounds of it together in a dimly lit room! Sorry if that was really specific, feel free to change it up if you like!! Thank you!

I LOVE that you’re always requesting omg don’t apologize!! I love writing for you guys and talking with you all about anything and everything so feel free to keep sending in whatever, whenever!!😁🫶❤️ this idea is SO good and I’m grateful you entrusted me with another wonderful request!❤️ thanks so much and I really hope you love this!!

Lightning Strike of Love

Fluff

Feitan Portor x f!reader

Warnings: slight mentions of violence

“So we’ll meet back up in a few days, right?”

“That’s right. Don’t have too much fun on your off time without me,” Phinks replied to you, shooting you a playful wink.

“We have free time?” asked Shizuku, confusion etched on her features.

Machi sighed. “Yes, Shizuku. You’ve know about this for weeks, remember?”

The girl’s big eyes blinked behind her large glasses. “No.”

Machi pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers in exasperation. You giggled as you listened to your fellow Phantom Troupe members talk about what they were doing in the upcoming down time allotted. You were sad that you weren’t going to be spending more time with them because they truly were your best friends and closest thing you had to a family. You were, however, looking forward to the peace and quiet of not being on a mission for once.

“Where you going?”

Feitan, stealthy as ever, made you jump involuntarily with the sound of his voice right near your ear. He snickered at your reaction, cocking his head as he awaited your answer.

“I rented a hotel room in the quiet part of the city. I figured it’s a good place to relax for a bit,” you said. “How about you? What’s your plan?”

“Nothing. I stay here.”

“At the base? By yourself? On our vacation?!” you asked incredulously.

“Tch. What else I supposed to do? I wait for you all to come back.”

“But won’t you be lonely?”

He shrugged nonchalantly.

“Why don’t you stay with me?” you suggested, stunning him completely. You leaned in towards him, smiling sweetly and lowering your voice. “I enjoy your company, Feitan. I’d really miss you if you weren’t there.”

Feitan’s heart wasn’t used to beating as quickly as it was and his cowl wasn’t doing any favors to cool his neck that was burning from your saccharine words. He wanted to accept your offer but if you kept gazing at him with that honeyed expression, he’d never survive the trip.

“Tch. You sappy,” he remarked, shoving his fidgeting hands in his pockets.

You checked the time on your phone. “So, wanna join me? The taxi will be here in about 10 minutes.”

“Fine, I go with you. But I not paying for anything,” he teased.

“Neither am I. A dead guy’s credit card will get you anything you want,” you told him, grinning triumphantly. “Now, go pack! We don’t want to keep the driver waiting!”

A suitcase, a suspiciously small duffel bag, and a taxi ride later and you and Feitan had arrived to the hotel.

“Why so fancy?” Feitan wondered, staring up at the old building with curiosity. Columns and arches were in abundance and the weighty, gold handled doors to the lobby were at least double his height. As you checked in, he took note of the indoor fountain and scoffed.

She out of her mind. This place ridiculous.

“C’mon, Fei! Our room is ready!” you called, beckoning him over. He obliged, still shaking his head at your go big or go home tendencies. You were always so bubbly and were attracted to sickeningly pretty things (hence the choice of hotel). He never understood how you two got along so well; you were polar opposites.

“I’m so excited to see our room!” you squeaked, clasping your hands together in anticipation as the elevator brought you up to your floor. Feitan couldn’t lie, he was looking forward to having you all to himself for the next few days, no longer losing your attention to the other Troupe members. He smiled from under his cowl.

Our room. With my girl.

You pulled out the key and opened the door. When you saw the room, you almost started crying. It was absolutely beautiful! The fluffy beds were calling your name and right after you put your suitcase in the corner, you kicked off your shoes and laid down, closing your eyes and quietly enjoying the silence that had filled the room. After a while you heard Feitan ruffle through his bag before lying down on the other bed. You peeked an eye open and saw he was reading a book.

“Oh, that was a good idea. I should’ve brought a book, too,” you said thoughtfully.

“I have extra in bag. You can get one.”

“Thank you! That’s very kind of you.”

His bag, filled only with books, made you screw your nose up in slight disgust.

“Where are your extra clothes?” you asked, afraid to hear his answer.

“I no bring. These fine for a few days.”

You grabbed the first book you saw, deciding to deal with that situation later. “Trevor Brown? I don’t know any of his works.”

Feitan chuckled. “Just look at it. You might like.”

After a few pages, you had seen enough.

“It’s a little too dark for me,” you explained, putting it back, which caused Feitan to laugh harder. “I know there’s a bookstore around here somewhere. That might be fun to do tomorrow.” You paused. “And I’ll take you shopping.”

After you resumed your position on the bed, Feitan enthralled in his book, you felt a chill blow through you. Since the hotel was older, the windows let in cold air so you were grateful that there was a fireplace in your room. With a click of a button, a warm fire began to roar and you smiled to yourself at how perfectly domestic this whole situation was. Having Feitan all to yourself in a place like this was a dream come true to you. You snuck a glance at the man as he read, his hair slightly hanging over his face, his lips, no longer covered by the cowl, pursed in concentration; he looked handsome beyond belief. Not wanting to disrupt him with your staring, you changed gears and grabbed the comforter from your bed, wrapping it around your shoulders. You then pulled a chair in front of the window and stared at the beauty outside, getting lost in your thoughts.

Feitan, on the other hand, was looking forward to you starting your cheerful chatting like usual. He was patiently waiting to hear your voice chirp up, talking animatedly about things that happened that day or what was on your mind. If anyone else spoke as much as you did, he would’ve sewn their mouths shut, but he tolerated—no, genuinely liked—your incessant jovial jabber.

“Why you no talk?” he asked, pulling you from your daydreams.

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“You never stay quiet, you always talk.”

“Are you complimenting me or insulting me?” you joked, but Feitan was looking at you with such a serious face that you immediately stopped teasing.

“Around the others, all day long, talk, talk, talk,” he said, opening and closing his hand in a gesture to mimic you speaking, “but with me, you silent. Why?”

“That’s easy,” you replied, wearing a soft smile, “you make me feel relaxed. At ease. I love to speak with everyone, yes, and I especially love talking with you, but when it’s just me, or just us, like this… I like the calming environment.”

“Oh.”

Feitan was clearly embarrassed by his assumption, although he did think it was good to learn that you two weren’t total opposites after all, since he cherished his quiet time as well. You were completely unbothered by his question but you still tried to reassure him in your own way without making him feel silly. You picked up the big black book that was resting on the nightstand and took up the spot next to Feitan on his bed, your arm brushing up against his.

You opened the book to a menu. “How about we order some room service?”

After ordering and eating practically everything from the menu, you and Feitan were happy as could be. You two shared nice conversations over dinner, Feitan ecstatic at hearing your bad jokes and sparkling laughter, and you were feeling grateful that you were going to be able to share moments like this with him for the next couple of days. When the last of the empty plates were left outside your hotel room door to be picked up, you locked the door and got your pajamas on since nighttime had almost arrived. You exited the bathroom in your cozy attire and sat on your bed once more, feeling Feitan’s gray eyes watch you the entire time.

“Yes?” you asked, wrapping yourself in the comforter again.

“Nothing,” he blurted out, tearing his gaze from you. You giggled, browsing through a magazine provided by the hotel. You were about to turn on the lamp to continue reading when all of a sudden, you heard tapping on the window. You peeked out and saw rain had begun to fall. The last remnants of the sun’s rays were snuffed out by dark clouds hovering in the sky above you and your stomach fluttered at the change of weather. Hearing the droplets hit the building was sending you into a state of pure bliss and there was only one thing that could make it even better.

“Feitan?”

There was no answer but you knew he was listening.

“Come lay next to me.”

Again, no answer.

“Please? I don’t bite.”

“I do.”

Your eyes found his in the dark but he showed no sign of yielding to your request. “Forget I said anything. I’m sorry for pushing it.”

You weren’t going to force him to do something he didn’t want to do. You knew he had an aversion to any sort of touch that wasn’t tortuous, but you thought for sure he would at least sit on the same bed as you. You sighed wistfully as you leaned against the headboard, wondering if Feitan knew of your romantic feelings for him and this was his way of rejecting them. To your total surprise, you felt your bed dip as another body climbed on the mattress.

“You no apologize, don’t be stupid.”

This time it was Feitan who brushed his arm against yours as he climbed into the warmth of your comforter, leaving goosebumps where he touched. You two sat together, no sounds to be heard except for the falling rain and far off thunder. The hotel room was dimly lit by the fireplace and you were admiring the flicker of flames that highlighted Feitan’s profile. The tranquility you were experiencing was unmatched by anything else on this earth and you wished life could be like this all the time. You didn’t know what possessed you, or what wrath you were about to face, but your body moved on its own in its reach for Feitan’s hand.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” you whispered, your rationality catching up to your actions. Right as you were about to grasp his hand, a loud clap of thunder had you pulling back in shock.

“I no say stop,” said Feitan, closing the space between you by placing his hand on top of yours. You turned to look at him fully and he met your gaze for only a second before studying the fireplace instead. In that second, though, you saw more than just flames blazing in his irises—

You saw love.

Taglist: @killuagirly

[dummie-writes]

the party walkers

self insert ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* school bus graveyard

words: 4.38k

previous part: a rescue mission

note: heyyyyy guyssss I'm back. the rot consumed (the rot is sbg), and even though it took longer, I have a chapter for you :3 also, if you guys would like a tag list, lemme know? I've never really done a long term fan fiction over tumblr, so, uh, yeah? also if you wanna be on the tag list but don't wanna follow me, that's absolutely fine. I don't mind either way lol. just lemme know. anyway, I hope you enjoy :D thanks for your patience

iii. over a horizon, somewhere

the air in the hallway smells like dust and makes your skin crawl with chill. as your eyes dart to and from everywhere you can see, your breathing again is as silent as you can make it. you've had to practice breathing invisibly way too much for your liking. you're lucky this house is the same layout as your real life home, because even though everything has gone to shit, at least you were able to check which parts of the floor creak over here. did your parents give you an odd look for shifting your weight and stepping on and off seemingly random parts of the floor? maybe. but if a weird look was the price of survival, it was cheap and worth buying.

your foot was so light on that first step that you almost thought you hadn't actually put it down. no noise - good. actually, you hadn't seen or heard any of what everyone else had been referring to as phantoms in a good while. probably a night or two - mainly because you weren't looking to escape, you, we're just trying to survive at that point. you felt kind of stupid, not being able to buy proper medical supplies for your bathroom to take care of your injury - but you didn't have an independent credit card, and your parents could see all your purchases. they were kinda weird, they didn't like letting you access your money. it was obnoxious. and deadly, and this case.

but that was beside the point right now.

you had gotten to your bedroom door, which was torn entirely off of its hinges, splinters of poorly painted wooden fibers scattered thoughtlessly in the carpet. peeking inside revealed no monster, not from you could see, at least. to further muffle your footsteps, you had worn thick socks to bed. your shoes were in your backpack, and you wouldn't have time to put them on until you got to… wherever their base was? they never actually explained it. just said something about a bus. but, that's ashlyn banner for you.

(it's not, actually, she had wanted to go much more into depth on it, but you all had gotten so busy making a plan to not die that the specifics of the place got muddled.)

your backpack was neatly placed on you bed, where you had left it before “falling asleep”. you wasted no time in tip toeing to your closet and grabbing all the jackets you could find, throwing them on to save space before swinging your bag on both shoulders, tying the loose adjustable ends together to secure it, even if just slightly. grabbing all the blankets you could before you left, your next destination was the kitchen. your mom had stocked up on lunachbles the other day! this made things convenient for you, so you grabbed as many as you could, stuffing them in your pockets. glancing out the window for a second, the street is an eerie quiet. the sky, red, per… well, per what you assume would be usual. stranded vehicles in their driveway, the pavement unbothered by time.

a head appears in the window, upside-down as it swings like a pendulum on top of the roof.

“OH MY G- aiden! what the fuck!”

“haha got you.”

despite your shaking hands and the buzzing of surprise in your legs, you open your window, pushing out the screen and pulling the blonde in as quickly as you could manage.

“what are you doing here? you guys aren't supposed to be here for another ten or so?”

“I got sent ahead to make sure you weren't alone if something attacked you,” he says with a wide smile. as goofy as aiden can be at times, he has yet to not be on your side in this situation. his nose wrinkles in the slightest way when he grins like that. his odd smile freaks you out sometimes, honestly, but right now it brings you more comfort than anything else.

“oh. ashlyn let you go? like, alone? without ben?”

“no, lol, I sent me. I was getting bored.”

this earns him a dumbfounded blink, and then you sigh, pinching your nose as you open your mouth to criticize his poor decision.

“duck!”

some sort of primal instinct pushes you down, the hair on the back of your neck prickling as a collectable figurine goes flying through the air, and the hiss of pain behind you let's you know that something has found you.

“shitshitshitshitshitshitshit-” you're skittering to the window before your brain actually loads in to the situation, and it does when you're halfway through the window. aiden secures his stance, like he's about to fight this thing! that idiot!

you grab his arm, pulling him backward as hard as you can, hearing his shoulder pop and a small “ow :(“ as the two of you clamber through the opening. the imprint of the window frame leaves a red cent in your shoulder, and you hiss as you fall onto your back. aiden rolls his shoulder back without missing a beat, his lips now pulled back into the more energetic lines they usually are. he pops up, putting his palms flat on the glass and pulling down, closing it.

“fuck! are you okay?”

“yeah I'm good.”

well, that was that, then. you stand there for a moment, your hands on your knees as you pant, trying to relax the tension in your legs from a moment before. you didn't actually have much time, you guys needed to get out of there. your fingers weakly paw at the spilled items on the floor from your backpack, which tore when you guys fell out of your room. stuffing what you could back into it, someone grabs your arm and pulls you up before you even look at who it is. your other arm swings back, your gaze shaking as you hear a deeper voice, tyler's, specifically, gasp and pull back, rubbing his cheek.

“you guys need to not do that, oh my gosh.”

tyler sharply looks at you, eyebrows scrunched up in irritation, before his face gravitates to look at aiden in the same manner. “you are in such big trouble, that annie wanna-be is worried. and also pissed. really, really pissed.”

aiden mocks a shocked face.

“omg she's worried about me?? I knew she cared.”

tyler is unimpressed by this to say the least, grabbing your arm and yanking you up to your feet, holding your shoulder stiffly as he examines you, making sure your not injured. for the first time, you notice the softness in his eyes and cheeks, and while his hand is holding you still, it isn't too tight as to hurt you. he's being.. gentle. which you haven't actually ever noticed from him. you take the time to look him over too, for the same reason. regular scratches and bruises, but nothing to be all too concerned about. his hair looks so soft, does he use taylor's hair supplies? it's very well taken care of. a thought pops into your head.

“oh, yeah, by the way, I got a-”

“there they areee,” aiden cheers, his smile lacing his voice. turning your head, you see ashlyn, logan, taylor and a mildly panicked looking ben running to the three of you. the green eyed girl runs up to you, her eyebrows high as she scans you the same way tyler did. “you okay?”

you nod a confirmation, and she deflates with relief before turning to aiden. “could you not? you freaked everyone out! you're lucky a phantom didn't find you on the way here!” her hands are squishing up her hair as she gives the blonde a blank stare, and then cringes. she looks nauseous for a second, and then looks toward the house. her hands now covering her ears.

“... unless… a phantom.. did, find you on your way here?”

“haha, no, that would be silly. it was already in the house-”

the gray creature darts around the corner, and a chorus of screams and shoes pounding the dirt as you guys start running as fast as possible, ashlyn leading the charge. your chests are heaving, you feel your mouth drying up and salivating all at ones, and your head is pounding with your heart.

looking beside you is your newfound party, you find that everyone has weapons that you didn't really notice before now. you feel the taddest bit useless if you're being totally honest. making a few random turns and quick corners that nearly trip you up, and would have if ben didn't catch you and pull you along in time. at this point, you're holding his hand to keep up. somehow, you all ended up in the forest beside the neighborhood. this was probably the fastest way to get to ashlyn's house, and clearly, she knows it well enough to guide everyone through. meanwhile, the phantom is slowed down by the terrain.

as the trees thin out to the other side of the neighborhood, your legs are beginning to hurt. however, you do see a giant gray wall now, the one that the bus always picks ashlyn up by. this must be the graveyard everyone was talking about.

“time?!”

“eight minutes!”

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

ashlyn skids to a stop inside of the wall, the phantom gaining on us by the second. tyler squeals slightly, before yelling to close the gate, his voice slurring with how quickly he spoke. with a loud thudding of everyone making it in, she slams her hand on the button as hard as humanly possible. the phantom does it's best to squeeze through the wall opening, but it shuts too quickly for it to come in. it starts hitting the wall, the structure echoing loud banging. ashlyn tenses, clenching her jaw as everyone stands in a outward facing circle, adrenaline still pumping through your arms.

“alright,” ashlyn says, dropping her hand a little and huffing. “let's head to the bus.”

“bus?” you ask, wrinkling your nose in confusion, looking around. there were… a lot of busses, actually. you thought this place was a graveyard?”

“oh, it's uh-”

“HAha. no one explained that. oops!” aiden cuts taylor off, giggling, in his own little world before turning to bother ashlyn. taylor side smiles at aiden, before turning back to you and continuing. “school bus graveyard. ash's family owns it,” she explains. there was probably more going on, but for the two of you, exhausted and filthy, it works well enough. a thumbs up from you later, taylor throws her arm around you. oh! friendship! that was fast. smiling at her, you return affection, throwing your arm around her shoulders too. she stinks, but you do too, so you have no moral high ground. what would you even say? ‘ugh, you just ran a mile here to there and back to save my life, disgusting. go shower’?????? no, that would be rude.

a yelp of surprise leaves you as aiden joins you guys, throwing his arm around taylor's other shoulder.

“you stink.”

“you do too.”

“I also stink. triplets!”

your trio laughs as you make your way to the empty school bus deemed hideout. a collective groan leaves everyone, sitting in seemingly designated spots. you shuffle awkwardly, looking around for a seat, before taking a seat behind tyler, beside logan, who smiles and waves at you before letting his head roll back onto the seat. tyler flops into his own seat, and you can hear his back pop as he groans and rubs his eyes.

“that sucked.”

“yeah, I agree.”

tyler tilts his head to look at you slightly, and you realize maybe he isn't actually perpetually angry, maybe he just has a resting bitch face. and also lacks sleep and proper communication skills. the way he again looks you over to make sure you're okay tells you he at least wouldn't leave you to the wolves in an instant.

ash leans over, and you frown as you hear her pop her foot. fair enough, but also ew.

“ah,” she starts, her head gently leaning on the seat in front of her. “the banging stopped.”

you didn't hear it after you guys had walked away, but also, ben told you about her having better hearing than the rest of you all. so that, of all things, wasn't too wild.

“it probably gave up, or-” tyler sighs, his eyes opening to look over to the freckle-faced girl. “- someth…” he's interrupted by ashlyn shooting to sit straight up. a second passes, and it looks like maybe she's just listening more intently than before, and then a shiver rolls up her spine and her shoulders tense. her eyes scan sideways, a nauseous feeling crawling up her ribs and into her throat. bus seat, window, bus seat, window.

fingers over the door frame, a dark skeletal looking head peering over.

your heart drops into your stomach, simultaneously jumping into the veins of your neck. everyone stands, almost synchronously backs up to cover each other. you find yourself in almost the very back, behind ben and logan. you glance at the twins, tyler slightly shielding taylor with his arm even though he's trembling.

the air stands perfectly still, nobody's lungs dare to move. it's like you're encased in stone. your shoulder blade throbs, and you wish you were some superhuman like the rest of them seemed to be. none of them were even seriously injured or anything, that could probably mostly be attributed to having five other people watching other people's backs at all times, and the medical supplies in the corner, but still.

no, you're no superhuman, but ash seems to be. she's the first to start trying to figure out what you guys can do. forcing her gritted teeth open, she hisses a question to you. “can we open the back door?”

“it's blocked!” you whisper, and your chest begins to hurt from how tight you're making your muscles. glancing to Logan, who's started crying in panic doesn't help much either. the own tears pricking at your eyes want to pull themselves down your cheeks, and your vision is fuzzy because of them. you decidedly rub them out of your face before they can be any worse.

“what do we do??” logan asks, his voice catching for a second, his fingers shaking and pulled up to his chest.

aiden replies nonchalantly, shrugging slightly and earning a loud thwack to the back of his head from tyler and an “aiden!” from taylor.

the floor creaked and the phantom makes a lunge for the party. you drop down, arms crossing to cover your face as your back meets the wall behind you, and a scream rips through the group.

beep, beep, beep.

your body lunges backward into your mattress, and you practically punch yourself in the jaw to cover yourself again. your forearms hurt and your legs feel sore. it takes a moment for you to really believe that you aren't in the bus anymore, your stomach heaving in your breathing. slowly, your arms start to come lay on your chest. slowly, your shoulders start to stop shaking so hard, and slowly, your breathing becomes deeper. you can feel trickles of tears, but you let them fall this time. you don't really have the energy at this point to scratch them away.

soreness tingles all along your body, your throat feels raw, and you don't really know why. you didn't scream all that much, did you? your phone pings, and you let the air rest for a second before even thinking of picking it up.

logan

everyone okay??

ashlyn

👍

aiden

lol that was close.

taylor

physically yes

tyler

mentally no.

you put your phone down, resting your head and grunting at the crack it gives.

you

yeah, aiden,

please don't die

aiden

lame.okay

ben

i think you gave

everyone a mini heart

attack when you said

that

aiden

everyone was

already having a heart

attack lmao.

you're looking for a gif or meme or random picture from your camera roll to respond with, when ben starts asking the important questions. no, actually, you hadn't done the homework. you had messed around with it for about an hour before bed, you were too nervous for finishing it and only answered a couple of the questions asked.

you “👎” the question before scrolling on a random app of your choosing, your eyes begging for sleep but your brain screaming to stay awake. the small twinkles of adrenaline from earlier aren't really in your system anymore, but you feel like they're crawling up in your arms. up your calves and up your neck. you keeping seeing things in the corner of your room, your mind making up eyes in the darkness. you don't want to keep your light on all night and run up the electrical bill, but it would certainly help if the places where the light from your phone doesn't reach quite as well would stop shifting. you feel.. watched. you're not, obviously, you know that. you know it's the part of your brain trying to keep you alive, but you're pretty sure sleeping is also part of staying alive.

you eventually turn onto your stomach, your palm pulling back the skin of your face and rubbing your eye. the small clock in the corner of your screen reads four something in the morning. after you stopped replying, the conversation eventually died out in the group chat, and even though you could see someone else was online, you didn't really want to bother any of them. luckily for you, you didn't have to.

taylor

hey, i forgot to check

up on you! u doin ok?

your eyebrow raises before you even process the message fully. why is she awake? of all people, you kinda got the feeling that she took care of herself more than the others in this scenario. then again, people who take care of others tend to neglect their own needs. maybe she didn't want to text anyone else, and texting you gave her an excuse to be awake?

you

im okay, you?

taylor

well, yk, as good as

we can be atp lol

hmm. you send her a random video because you have nothing else to talk about. she sends one back, and you spend the next hour sending them back and forth until you inevitably pass out. it's funny how much more comfortable you are when you aren't entirely lonely. that goes for both the phantom world and this one. it pulls you out, in a way. the way you have to flip-flop between normal life, and the terror that awaits you for seven minutes each night. the fact that the times don't line up still bothers you. it messes with your head, and your perception of time. how much passes and how quickly. you're not alone anymore, sure, but that doesn't lessen the effect of the situation any less.

except, maybe it does. maybe your body relaxing isn't just the natural melatonin, but the ever soft taste of safety. the satin touch of a cool breeze from your window before your mind drifts to a sea of unconscious landscape.

your alarm goes of an hour and a half later. lucky you, you no longer ever miss your alarm, and instead shoot up the second it goes off! yeah, the blood rush to your head and immediately grabbing the baseball bat you have near your bed before realizing what's going on isn't the best feeling in the world, but you're not late to school anymore, so that's a plus.

you don't really look at yourself in the mirror anymore, not while you brush your teeth and hair, not after you shower. a part of you cringes at the thought, even as you glance yourself over to make sure you're reasonably well prepared to head out. the eye bags you've developed don't compliment you as well as you would've hoped, and they contrast brightly against your skin going pale. there's a tired to your eyes that you can't seem to rub away, even as you fill your thermos with coffee before you jump on the bus. didn't help that you were honestly a little paranoid that you would see a monster in the mirror if you looked too long.

you sit down in the seat beside where ashlyn's seat is, sighing as you place your bag by your feet to make room for anyone else. your chin is in the palm of your hand, and you don't feel tired in the slightest. you will in about half an hour, when the fear factor that is waking up fades off, when you fingers stop tingling, and when your jaw stops clenching so hard. you take the moment to try and release some tension as ashlyn gets on the bus. she nods at you, looking you over before sitting down in the other seat. it's a habit you've noticed she picked up with the others, even though at the time you didn't know why. she would stand there for just an extra second, like she was checking them for stains. now, she did it for you, too.

this bus ride feels like it's taking forever, seriously. maybe everyone is just groggy this morning. isn't it odd, that you too would be groggy like the rest of them? normally, you'd be sitting with your friends, maybe even texting lunarmoon, your online friend. normally, you'd be up until early hours of the morning playing games, reading, doom scrolling, not because eyes would make themselves up to stalk you. laughing was now dry, hyperventilating now a more common pass time than giggling and memes, the dull pull of sleep more enticing, yet an aversion like never before overtakes that desire. the tips of your fingers are playing with the bracelets loosely dangling from your wrist. it's a blue one with a dice charm, one you got when you turned seven from an acquaintance at your party. it was the only thing your newly seven year old self didn't end up losing or destroying. now the question would be, would it remain?

a jab to your shoulder makes you jump, and you flash around to squint at a softly grinning aiden.

“hey, don't know if you heard me, do you need the homework?” he asked, twirling the pieces of paper in his fingers, and then they promptly fell apart and into your seat. you sat there and stared at them for a second, before laughing through your nose and picking them up. “yeah, I'll take them, if you don't mind.”

aiden gives you a thumbs up, ben beside him has his earbuds in and is looking out the window like you were doing a bit ago. he looks tired, but that's not new. everyone looks tired; but you've gotta admit, it's probably exhausting to keep an eye on aiden at all times. sometimes, only just sometimes, he makes you think of a class pet that has a habit of jumping off counters. you all look after each other, but ben has a tendency to be the older brother aiden seemingly needs. you're own older brother was off at college, but the two of you had never really been close. you can say the same for your younger sibling too. they never really interacted with you outside of the occasional conversation. it was honestly…really quiet at your house.

you pulled out your own earphones, opening your music app and sending ben a music party link, adding a couple songs to it yourself before turning to look at him. you can see the moment he hears the notification, even if you don't, and then checks his phone, tilts his head and looks up at you. you smile at him, wiggling your fingers in greeting, and he does an awkward little wave back, before pressing the link and joining, adding his own music.

regardless of whether or not your music tastes align, you enjoy hearing each other's pallet. it's refreshing to not pick all your own music, especially when the other person also has an excellent music taste. and the bus ride is all to short for you to really complain, anyway.

you're in class before you realize it, unlike your other… is friends the right word? coworkers at this point? peers? survival partners? you could probably consider yourself friends with taylor, at this point. everyone else was more an acquaintance. that being said, they did all risk their lives to save your own from living in the bathroom for the rest of eternity. that feels a little closer than acquaintances. maybe the right term is party members. like a dungeons and dragons party. yeah. you like that.

anyway, you're a lot more energized, and everyone else falls asleep within ten minutes of class starting. it takes you fifteen. now that everyone else is present, it's easier to feel slightly safer. even after the bell nearly has you tripping over yourself to wake up, and you could've sworn you felt breathing on your shoulder.

you can see everyone talking in the corner of your eye, but you walk over to ashlyn, who's packing up her seat. she makes eye contact with you, again, looking over you before she continues. she acknowledges you with a hum, and you stand there waiting for her to be done before speaking.

“hey, um, I just wanted to say thank you. again. for coming and getting me. i get the feeling you're kinda group leader, well, okay, everyone at least looks up to you like that. and I know it was dangerous to come get me, and you didn't have to, but I really appreciate it. i won't be a pain, I promise I'll figure out something I can do to help so that it wasn't all for n-”

“ash! oh, hey, you too!” aiden interrupts you in the middle of your rambling gratitude and sort of apology? you don't remember, you kinda lost your point when ashlyn started to go slightly wide eyed at the confrontation. he's standing with everyone else, and holding his backpack over his shoulder with that evergreen grin of his. “we're all eating lunch together. y'know… to talk about stuff. you coming?”

[jazeswhbhaven]

🖤New Year, New Blog. Who dis?🖤 (not rly)

banner credit: @/omkookie

I realized that I was pretty much over halfway into the month and didn't make a damn monthly update lmaooo. I won't lie to ya'll I've been overly exhausted and trying to keep up the momentum so things may be falling behind as I'm still regaining my energy from being sick for pretty much a month straight. 😭

But as always I'm appreciative of all my followers and mooties who have stuck around and have been patient with me!!

Now as always, I gotta lay down the ground rules...especially since the pg14+ version is out.

🖤None, nada, absolutely no minors allowed here. Do not interact with me or my posts please. If I catch you, you will be blocked.

🖤Requests are slow, please be assured your reply is coming!

🖤No "he said, she said" bs in my DM's. I'm not a mediator. If it's important such as harassment/etc. that is something to alert me about so I can handle it.

🖤Feel free to brain rot with me in my inbox too even if it's about other things and not WHB!

🖤Any paid card content is either shared with me via moot/friend or an anonymous source. Please understand when asking me for specific things I have to gatekeep due to PB's warning last year. This doesn't mean I don't want to share for the sake of not sharing, I literally don't want trouble for folks who go out of their way to share in case someone feels like snitching...

My plans for January! (even though we're literally two weeks from it being over)

🖤Luci Blow, Satan Victory, Mammon Victory (Prologue in case I don't get him), Chapter 7 (Recap) React

🖤Completing Requests <3

🖤Finally finishing Satan Torture Rewrite fic!

With that being said, this is all subject to rollover into next month~ Even though requests are slow, please feel free to send them in still. They will be answered.

My thoughts on the "censored" version of WHB and what this means for this blog

I haven't downloaded it (and won't), but from what I'm seeing and hearing from various sources, they barely censored anything. Threw a band-aid on it took out the H-scenes. That's the bare minimum I saw when it was showed. Everything else still appears as if we were using the Google Play version which also didn't have much censoring.

When it comes to emailing the company they sort of just pick what to respond to and leave the rest in the dark. Another complaint about the 14+ version obviously would end up in the trash at this point.

What it means for this blog is, nothing. Nothing is changing. My boundaries are the same, I have never allowed minors in my spaces in the first place so the bare minimum I ask folks is to be honest. I get some of ya'll don't want to reveal your age for safety reasons, but this is literally important.

So there's not really much to update on this month! With all the new content out, things have been poppin' lately and I love that. Ofc this does mean here in a bit there's going to be some kind of event and I wonder if it will be an Abaddon one so we can get more Ronove, Phenix and Dantalian content! Those are the nobles I really would like to get more lore about.

Otherwise, whether you're a new follower or have been here a minute, stay awesome, stay lovely, and welcome to hell <3

-yourlovelyadmin Jaze~(～￣▽￣)～

[the12thnightproject]

After watching a random celebrity “What’s in Your Bag?” video, I got curious (or maybe just nosy, lol) and started asking everyone the same question. So, what’s in your bag? Or, if you’re not the type to carry one, what’s in your pockets?

Hi Anon!

That's a really fun question - thank you for the ask.

I am a backpack person... this one to be specific.

Basically, I just dumped it all out on the kitchen floor. In the front and top pockets we have the following items (not Potato, he just got curious and was checking to see if I had anything for him to eat in there):

These are all spare keys to my house, and my car. One set I am planning to give to a friend in case of emergency. Note the Mitsuhide keychain.

Also we have:

Three sets of headphones - one for my phone the other two I got the last time I flew (they do tend to pile up in my bag).

Receipt from the last time I took my cats to the vet.

Toothpaste

Lip balm

Lipstick (Tarte Tulip shade)

A package of sore muscle relief adhesives (highly recommended for back spasms after flying)

two different antibacterial gels (both were given free at some point and I just tossed them in the bag)

Three highlighters

KN95 mask

My work/student ID

Random business card from someone whose name I don't recognize.

Business card from a former cat sitter (Potato broke her, I should toss it out, she's not coming back).

Inside the bag is not really all that full - now that I work from home, I often just grab out my handbag if I am just running a few errands:

The handbag in question - I didn't dump it out, but it contains a checkbook, credit cards, driver's license, library card, insurance cards (heath & car), a token for the farmer's market, 45 cents, a whole bunch or receipts, baggage claim check, another pen, boarding pass (Minneapolis to Cleveland), more business cards, vaccine records, and two more sets of house keys (I... get locked out a lot).

My reading tablet, which has the memory crushing Love and Deepspace, several hundred ebooks, and a few other aps.

My writing tablet, which is an e-ink notebook I use to handwrite my fic and stuff. Prior to purchasing these two tablets, I would often travel with three or four books, and three or four notebooks.

Discharge summary from my last physical

prescription drug bag (which had cat medications in it)

Another mask, this one cloth

A pile of napkins, probably from my favorite coffeeshop

a crumpled straw wrapper

a felt tip pen

And a nickel

Thank you again for the ask, Anon. This was fun to look through and see what was in there.

[bronzecauldron]

I was planning to hold off on writing down my thoughts on Endwalker's MSQ until I had finished the remaining patch quests to review it in its entirety but my momentum has significantly slowed to a crawl while I focus on other objectives in game oh well, I officially beat 6.0 on February 6th and if I don't do it now I'll never get it done.

It's quite lengthy sorry, but I only really delve into certain areas and very few characters, and much of what happens among the main supporting cast I gloss over. I only expect 2 or 3 people at most to fully read it so this is REAL blogging.

I vocalize this every chance I get but I greatly dislike MMOs and playing games with other people in general. Especially if it's mostly comprised of strangers. The extent of my interest is usually contained within Animal Crossing co-op. For FFXIV to have made me sink nearly 600 hours of playtime is a massive feat in my eyes. I don't think I have it in me to ever want to play another MMO again but I'm willing to say I loved progressing throughout this game and I'm glad i chose to stick with it for once. I have previously tried playing twice within the last ten years and never made it to gaining my first job stone in either attempts. I'm not sure what clicked for me now but what a ride it has been.

Firstly I'd like to thank the development team for creating the most perfect antagonist Zenos it's like he was grown in a lab specifically to attack my brain neurons. I wish they'd release a Bring Arts figure of him already, preferably of both his SB and EW designs, to charge 200 real dollars to my credit card so I can gaze longingly at a plastic doll for my remaining 60 years or so I have left on this earth if I am lucky. Do no listen to online essayists who insist Zenos death was the perfect end to his arc I think he should return as soon as it is convenient for the writers to shoehorn him back inside my computer. In Portuguese myth it was once believed that King Sebastiao will return to serve the nation once again when he is needed most and I have been gripped by a similar fanaticism. Zenos will come back and him and my adventurer will chase each other across fields of Mars as they are wont to do. He was neither good nor kind but I still feel a swell of affection for his crazy ass.

I have more I wish to say about Zenos but then this post would really begin to drag on... The biggest strength of Endwalker is easily its music. Any song that spotlights the piano is my favorite. Out of all the music involved in FFXIV, Endwalker's tracks are ones I go out of my way to listen the most. I wish at some point in the future there is documentation of the process of creating FFXIV from initial planning, story boarding, 3D design and rendering, and how this process effected Soken and his team's compositions. I can only imagine the effort it took to create the soundtrack for Endwalker, it really was a treat to listen to.

Tangent: If anyone reading this loves the more majestic melodies in EW do yourself a favor and listen to Sufjan Stevens' Age of Adz album. I'm trying to build a bigger crossover of Sufjan and FFXIV fans please help me deepen this connection.

Fandaniel was a fun villain I really, really liked whenever he was on screen. I already felt positive about Asahi so introducing the new big bad in the skin of a previous character was cool considering I was disappointed Asahi (as far as I knew at the time) only appeared during Stormblood's patch quests and died shortly before Shadowbringers began. Asahi's final final exit was great, I'm glad I saw him speak as himself one last time. I appreciate even after killing himself as Zodiark, Fandaniel/Amon still had much to say later on in the dungeon before the Hydaelyn fight.

Old Sharlayan is a my least favorite location but not because it sucks on a game design level I just don't like its citizens, even before playing Endwalker I already made up my mind on how much I didn't like these bookworms who had abandoned their dope ass city in the hinterlands just because they didn't want to get involved with Garlemald and my opinion only soured after learning they fully intended to leave the world on the moon ship these guys suck so bad their food sucks and neutrality is so ugly. I wish at some point the MSQ spoke more in length on how being neutral and refusing to interfere in the troubles of Eorzea was a cowardly position I think Sharlayans should have felt a bit more shame just being in the presence of the Warrior of Light. Harrumph.

My cold reception to Sharlayan lead to a much warmer and brighter view of Thavnair, even in the beginning with the evil tower looming over it. Post-6.0 Thavnair is such a joy to fly around in and I love being in Radz-at-Han it's so gorgeous. I love the Matanga tribes so much they're so cute. Vtra using a puppet body of a child to hang out with his people because he's afraid to freak them out with his true form of a dragon is great, Thavnair is his nest and he freaking loves all his citizens to the point he was unwilling to harm them even as they began to deform during the return of the final days.

Garlemald I haven't much to say about: Camp Broken Glass is kinda uninteresting by itself, I enjoyed flying over the ruins of the capital city but that's the extent of my feelings. The cast of minor characters you meet in Garlemald definitely carry the experience. Watching Jullus go from being a good soldier to the empire to just trying to do good for his people was awright! He's growing, he's kind of a good guy now! I like him a lot.

Time to talk about Elpis. I still love the Ancients, I understand the grief Emet-Selch went through to restore his home but I think his behavior post-sundering fully sets in how strange and unappealing their society is. I'm mostly with Hermes on how careless Amaurotines act towards beings they think are lesser to them. I'm glad the player is sent to Elpis and not Amaurot, although I would have loved to roam the streets as it once were and not within the bottom of the sea. Elpis really highlights the Ancients attitude of treating their world like an ant farm. Ah well, but I have such appreciation for them regardless.... I think Emet-Selch's devotion to his old world endears it to me, and as I played along felt small remorse they would have to endure terror and an unmaking of their souls. I wish during the MSQ there had been some kind of confrontation between Emet-Selch and Venat who stood at wide opposition of the future of their star.

Emet-Selch's inclusion in Endwalker was so funny I loooove this grandpa. Comparing him in Elpis to his role in ShB just underscores that this is the same exact guy after 12,000 or so years. The first sacrifice, and recurring deaths to Zodiark encapsulates his willingness to perform acts of cruelty to save something he loves. He's so sick in the headddd and I wouldn't have him any other way I'm EmetSelchFan1996 his love did not make him greater it made him worse and worse and worse he was playing Emet-Selch's Civilization on the lives of the source and its' reflections for fun to achieve his goals. And when he leaves one last time after helping prior to the final fight, while encouraging the WOL to seek further travels and engage with the world they must save, he still insists this world sucks and he doesn't want to come back. Fucking asshole. My god.

Although my interest in gaming as a hobby is waning as I get older, I really hope Square Enix devise some kind of plan to publish an offline version of the Hydaelyn story arc to replay well into the future. It is sad to think there may be a time where such an experience is unavailable decades or so from now. I still enjoy replaying games I've beat before but I don't know if I'm willing to engage with every single MMO aspect of the story just to see it again...

Ok here's my ranking of each X.0 patch excluding Dawntrail:

Stormblood #1 baby 10/10 when I first finished SB and posted about it on tumblr it was such a small reaction so I'm going to say it here, having an expansion involving the WOL helping two differing nations resist Garlemald's grip on their livelihood felt sooo good I think it's awesome going from being the beloved hero of Eorzea and Ishgard to realizing there are people in the world who have worked untiringly to free themselves by the Garlean invasion for many years prior, and although it was the help of one adventurer backed by divinity to manage to turn the tides in their favor, it was ultimately the people of Ala Mhigo and Othard to stand and fight and keep the faith that they'll one day be free. Stormblood is so beautiful can they do it like Star Wars and release a novelization of it so I can have it by my side foreverrrrr

Shadowbringers at #2 I've already spoken a little more into detail about how I felt playing ShB here.

#3 Endwalker you'd think after how much I enjoyed EW I'd rate it higher but this is FFXIV at its most Marvel movie-esque and much of EW's higher moments rely on past knowledge to build up the emotional pay off. But it's a satisfying end and I wouldn't change a thing about it.

#4 Heavensward and A Realm Reborn are equally as good to me and I am a firm believer that ARR is enjoyable if you let it take you along for the ride instead of insisting 'it gets good 100 hours in' but I understand when it hits the bottom on personal rankings because it really is fucking long, and after I have completed it once I'm not inclined to want to do it all over again (as well as I have a bias against elves and I don't want to hang out in Ishgard any time soon.)

Anyway if you made it this far,

[lumiolivier]

Good Boy

Day 5 of 31 of Kinktober

Prompt: Pet play

Word count: 1456

Light has a little present for a very good boy.

L knew from the beginning.  From the moment he laid eyes on Light, he knew he was Kira.  He knew what he was capable of.  He knew the extent of his killings.  He knew how far Light was willing to go.  And he knew that Light would stop at absolutely nothing to reach his end goal.  He would become God of the new world order whether L wanted him to or not.  And nothing would stand in his way.  And it only got worse as members of the task force were picked off one by one.  Soon, there was no one left.  No one left but L.

Light kept a comfortable penthouse tucked away in the skies above Tokyo.  High enough to reach the clouds.  Something about it felt very godlike.  To have the world look up to the skies and think of him.  But what the general public would never find out is exactly where that heaven was.  What their mortal god looked like.  But they didn’t need to.  As far as Light was concerned, he would always work from the shadows.  At least that was the plan after he finally defeated L.  However, in their time together, Light became attached.

Light couldn’t kill L.  Not really.  It’d take all the fun away from his new life.  He needed something, someone to bat around.  And who better than L himself?  Light didn’t exactly trust L home by himself, but that didn’t mean L didn’t get the same treatment Light did at the old task force headquarters.  Twenty-four hour surveillance was a necessity with L.  Every camera in every room in the penthouse was constantly locked onto L.  Whether Light was there or not.  Light made sure he had no blind spots, no places to hide.  No privacy.  If L so much as sneezed, Light knew about it.

But Light couldn’t stand constantly being away in his ivory tower.  At the peak of his Olympus.  So, he took a little walk down the street to mingle with his people he protected.  He wasn’t entirely heartless when it came to L.  In fact, he was out and about in search of a present for him.  The bell over the shop door chimed and Light knew exactly what he was there for.  It was the best specialty shop Light knew of to procure very specific items.  The cashier behind the counter smiled sweetly as she rushed to the back to get a special order Light had put in a couple weeks ago.  When he got the call of its arrival, he had to pick it up right away.

“And it’s just as I asked?” Light hoped, “Black Italian leather?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Genuine silver for the accents?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the name on the credit card,” Light asked, “Could you run that by me again?”

“Yes, sir,” the woman checked the computer and there it was on the screen, “L Lawliet.”

“Wonderful,” Light smiled, taking the long purple box off the counter, “Thank you so much.”

“You’re very welcome,” she chirped, “I hope he likes it.”

“Oh, I’m sure he will.”

“And,” the woman grabbed another long box, this one longer than the first, “It does come with coordinates.”

“Thank you,” Light gave her a nod and started heading back home.  On the way, he opened the app on his phone to check on L.  Sure enough, he was balled up on the couch, taking a nap.  It was the only way he could deal with himself anymore.  I’m going to hate to wake you up, L, but…It’s going to have to be done. 

When the front door opened, L immediately jumped.  Something he had unfortunately learned while living with Light.  He knew that the moment that door opened up, something was bound to happen.  And more often than not, it never boded well for L.  He saw it as eternal punishment from an angry little boy who still wanted to play God.  But L didn’t dare say that out loud.  He knew that mouthing off wasn’t going to get him kicked out.  It wasn’t going to get him killed.  It only fueled Light’s fire that much more.  In their time together, L wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.  Something about seeing Light all fired up both terrified and delighted him all the same.  But logic couldn’t piece that together if it wanted to.

L shut his eyes again, squeezing them tight, his back toward the door.  It wasn’t a position he liked much, but if Light thought he was still asleep, he wouldn’t bother him.  Right?  If only L knew what waited for him in that box.  And what waited for him.  He’s not going to bother with me tonight, is he?  I get to have a night of peace and quiet for a change.  I just need a gap in the door and I’m out.  I don’t know where I’d run to, but anywhere has to be better, right?  But there’s nowhere.  He knows all my aliases.  He can track all of my credit cards.  He’d find me. 

“L…” Light spoke softly, taking a seat on the edge of the couch, “Wake up.  Master has a present for you.”

Master?  He’s Master now?  L didn’t budge.  As far as Light knew, L was merely a heavy sleeper.  Which couldn’t be further from the truth.

“L,” Light’s voice took a darker tone, “Wake up.  I’m not going to ask you again.”

Still, L kept quiet.  He didn’t move.  He didn’t hitch his breathing.  He did his best to keep his calm, despite the monster he knew at his back.

“L,” Light growled, “I said, wake up.  I know you’re not dead.  I make sure of that.”

Despite wanting to fight him tooth and nail, L opened his eyes.  He blinked a couple times, a touch mesmerized by the soft gentleness in Light’s cheeks.  He knew how sinister those eyes were, but there was still a certain innocence to them.  That innocence was what fooled them all, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Light could feel L’s little present burning at his feet, “It’s so good you’re awake.  I have something for you.”

“What is it?” L wondered.  Light doesn’t give me presents.  Light gives me exhaustion and stomach pain…And anything else he gives me is for his own selfishness.

“It’s this,” Light handed L the smaller box of the two.

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

“That also didn’t sound like a thank you,” Light growled, “Did it?”

L let out a quiet sigh of exasperation, “Thank you, Light.”

“That’s better,” Light approved, running his hand through L’s hair, “Hmm…Maybe it’d be better given to you after a bath…”

“No,” L shot him down, hoping his wince wasn’t too noticeable, “Please, Light.  I can’t do another bath.”

“I didn’t say now,” Light settled him, “But later.  You’re going to want one later.  I promise you that.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Go on.  Open it.”

L still didn’t like where things were going, but he wasn’t going to fight him.  Although, when he opened the box, he wasn’t expecting to see a black leather collar sitting in it, “What’s this?”

“Come on, L,” Light teased him, “You’re one of the greatest minds of this last century.  You can’t tell me you don’t know what a collar is.”

“I know what a collar is,” L did his best not to roll his eyes, but let it be know that he really wanted to, “I guess the better question is why are you giving me this?”

“Because,” Light took it out of the box and wrapped it around L’s neck, “I think my cute little pet needs to have that reminder of who he belongs to.”

“I…” L felt his face go hot.  Hotter than it had ever gone before, “Did you just put a collar on me?”

“I did,” Light cradled L’s cheek in his palm, “Look, I know you’re looking to bolt the first chance you get.  I know you think I’m holding you captive.”

“I don’t think you’re holding me captive.” Hostage on the other hand?  That might be the more appropriate word for it.

“I won,” Light whispered in his ear, “I bet you weren’t thinking I’d claim you as my prize, were you?”

“No,” L felt his heartrate skyrocket.

“Good,” Light hooked the coordinating leash onto the D ring on L’s collar, “Come with me.  All fours.  To our bedroom.  We have a fun night ahead of us, L.  I just have one question before things get started.”

This is fucking humiliating, “What is it?”

Light couldn’t wipe the dirty smirk off his face if he wanted to, “Who’s a good boy, Lawliet…?  Who’s my good boy?”

[junipercreeps]

🔖 Day Nine - The Catch

I was never aware of how distant I was from my parents until now. I sat cross-legged in front of my phone, staring at the screen. Something was holding me back from dialling my mother's number. How could I bring up the topic that we belonged to a secret witch coven? How did you even ask such a question?

I rubbed my eyes and set my phone aside. Tomorrow, lectures would begin, and my greatest dream of becoming a psychologist and writing expert opinions for courts would gradually come closer. That meant I had to stay focused.

The day flew by, and as I walked back to the dormitory after dinner, I saw Corbin and Alaric waiting for me in front of my dorm building.

"There she is!" Corbin exclaimed as if he hadn't simply ignored me last night. As if we were old friends.

Alaric just looked at me and smiled. I smiled back and asked, "What's up? Another kidnapping planned?"

Corbin laughed exaggeratedly but then replied in his faux-charming tone, "Not today, my dear. We wanted to personally pick you up and invite you to a gathering. You don't have any plans, do you?"

I shook my head and simply said. "Just going to bed early. My classes start at nine o'clock tomorrow morning."

"Very diligent. So, we'll see you at ten o'clock then? We'll meet at the Trinity College Dining Hall."

I glanced at Alaric and nodded slowly. "Okay. I'll be there."

"Perfect, see you later," Corbin said before heading inside. But Alaric remained where he was, gazing at me with his light blue eyes, openly appraising me.

Corbin went ahead, but Alaric stayed where he was. Looked at me with his bright blue eyes, eyed me unabashedly. My boring outfit consisting of a brown wool dress and black wool tights with matching black boots.

"You look very pretty. But I could also get used to seeing you in my sweater more often."

I stood there with my cheeks turning red. Did he mean what I thought he meant?

With wobbly knees, I walked back to my room. I spent an hour choosing an outfit that was somehow more exciting than what I had been wearing in recent days. But when I thought of Audrey or Ophelia, I realized I couldn't compete. So, I decided to stick with the clothes I had worn for dinner. Perhaps I could buy some new things with my new credit card in the coming days.

It was already dark when I walked to Trinity College. The Dining Hall was located on the outer edge of the college—a long building without windows on the outside.

"Right on time. I like that." Corbin said as he stepped out of the shadows of a tree and approached me. I checked my wristwatch; it was five minutes to ten.

"Where are the others?" I asked, and Corbin shrugged. "Alaric should be here soon. The rest is probably already at the meeting point."

"I thought this was our meeting point," I replied.

He grinned; I could see that much in the light of the streetlamp. "Only for you. It's not often that someone is personally visited by the Mother of the Night."

I wondered what that meant. Had he lured me here specifically to ask me questions about my vision before the meeting started? "Who is the Mother of the Night, anyway?"

Corbin approached, unceremoniously taking hold of one of my hair strands and answering softly, "She is the primordial mother of witches—the woman who conceived children all over the world so that we could multiply, so that magic could spread."

I furrowed my brow and took a step back, allowing my hair to slip from his fingers. He seemed both surprised and amused, probably not used to rejection.

"Audrey will explain everything to you today. She's excited to meet you," he added. I refrained from commenting on that. Almost simultaneously, we heard footsteps, and Corbin took another step back from me. When Alaric arrived, it seemed as though his friend had never been to close to me.

"Well, you two, what are you doing here alone in the dark?" Alaric joked, and Corbin replied, "Waiting for you and composing poems about your silky hair and sparkling eyes."

Thankfully, it was dark. I blushed instantly.

We walked silently side by side, with Corbin leading by about a step, guiding us in the direction from which we had come after the initiation ritual. But nothing in the darkness seemed familiar to me.

Behind an old library building that had once been called the "Redshire Library," we turned into a courtyard. There was a hidden entrance next to a wall, marked with a symbol that Corbin touched, causing it to glow brightly. The wall revealed a stone staircase that we descended one by one. About halfway down, I heard voices. Some were laughing, and it sounded like the cafeteria where I had breakfast.

Full of life.

When we reached the bottom, I immediately recognized the vaulted cellar. I hadn't remembered the way out after the experience, but this place had etched itself into my memories.

It was a circular room with three descending flights of stairs. The centre, where we had sat back to back, was now empty. Except for five candles casting their warm light on the runes that had been carved into the stone long ago.

Corbin went straight to his sister and the friends she was talking to. Alaric stayed next to me and began to explain:

"The two students to the left of Audrey are named Rachel and Adina. They study law with Audrey and are deeply rooted in Samuin." And so, I heard all the names and family stories until Alaric got to the novices. One of them, whom I recognized as Nolan, happened to be looking in our direction. Alaric noticed this too.

"His family isn't particularly highly regarded. They've been trying to establish themselves for years. His father, however, is making bad deals, and his mother numbs her worries with medication, which has nearly destroyed her magic. Nolan got in only through the dissolution of his trust fund. His father hopes that Nolan will restore the Delvaux family to its former glory."

"Why do you have to buy your way into the coven?" I asked. "If our blood is magical, shouldn't we have the right to join a coven at any time?"

Alaric scrutinized me; I only noticed it when he didn't respond and I glanced at him.

"That's what other covens say too. But without money, you can't sustain any system, not even a witch coven," he finally replied.

"Hmm." I said and looked at Audrey Hawthorne, who was now descending the stairs to take her place in the centre, raising her arms.

None of those present wore black robes today. For the first time, I could see all their faces.

Audrey looked like a goddess as she made the flames of the candles shoot upward with her fingers and declared the gathering open. This was only the second time in my life that I had felt magic, and my body responded, feeling drawn to it. I looked at the other novices and saw that some of them felt the same way.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" Alaric whispered, and I nodded.

Audrey's speech, the history of the coven, and the magic—it all captivated me, like a net catching a butterfly.

[elementramarketing]

Why Travel Insurance Isn’t Just a Formality—It’s Your Journey’s Silent Guardian

Discover how travel insurance turns unexpected disruptions into manageable detours, not disasters.

Understanding Travel Insurance: More Than Just Paperwork

Planning a trip—whether it’s a much-awaited vacation, a business conference abroad, or a spontaneous adventure—can be exhilarating. You spend hours comparing flight prices, scrolling through dreamy Airbnb listings, and researching must-see spots. But amid all the excitement, one thing often gets pushed to the bottom of the to-do list: travel insurance. Many travelers see it as optional or unnecessary, especially when the journey is short or within familiar regions. But the truth is, travel insurance isn’t just a safety net—it’s your invisible co-traveler, offering peace of mind when things go wrong.

That One Trip That Changed My Perspective

A few years ago, I took a trip to Italy. Rome, Venice, Florence—it was all magical. Until my backpack with my passport, wallet, and some expensive camera gear got stolen in Naples. The panic that followed could have ruined my entire trip. Thankfully, I had opted for travel insurance, mostly because the airline’s website nudged me toward it. That “just in case” decision turned out to be a game changer. The insurance covered the stolen items, helped me get emergency documentation, and even compensated me for some extra accommodation expenses due to the delay in getting a temporary passport. From that moment on, I stopped seeing travel insurance as a formality. I began to understand its real value.

What is Travel Insurance, Really?

Travel insurance is a financial safety shield that protects you against specific losses or disruptions while traveling. These may include trip cancellations, medical emergencies, lost luggage, flight delays, or even legal liabilities. The scope depends on the type of plan you choose, but the core idea is to keep unexpected expenses from becoming unbearable burdens. Especially when traveling abroad, where healthcare, accommodation, or transportation costs can be significantly higher, travel insurance helps you stay financially secure.

Common Misconceptions About Travel Insurance

One of the biggest myths is that “nothing will happen to me.” But the reality is, life is unpredictable. You could fall sick, your flight could get canceled, or your bags could go missing. Travel insurance for international travel is designed specifically to cover these unexpected hiccups. Another common belief is that your credit card or airline automatically covers everything. While some do offer basic protection, it rarely includes comprehensive travel insurance benefits like medical evacuation or coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Travel Insurance in India: The Growing Awareness

In India, awareness around travel insurance has grown, especially among international travelers. With more people traveling for leisure, education, and work, the demand for travel health insurance and international travel coverage has seen a surge. Indian travelers are beginning to see the long-term benefits of investing in a reliable travel insurance policy. In fact, the trend of buying travel insurance online has made the process more transparent and accessible than ever before. You can now compare policies, understand terms clearly, and make informed decisions without the need for middlemen.

The Different Types of Travel Insurance

There are various categories, each tailored to a specific type of traveler. Single-trip travel insurance is ideal for vacationers or business travelers heading out once in a while. Frequent flyers often opt for annual multi-trip travel insurance policies. Then there are student travel insurance plans, senior citizen travel insurance, and even group travel coverage. The choice depends on your travel pattern, age, destination, and specific requirements like adventure sports coverage or high-risk destinations.

Comprehensive travel insurance typically covers medical emergencies, trip cancellations or interruptions, loss or delay of baggage, and personal liability. Some also offer add-ons like flight accident coverage, hijack distress allowance, and coverage for adventurous activities. Knowing your own needs and reading the policy inclusions and exclusions carefully can help you pick the right plan.

Why Medical Coverage is the Most Crucial Component

Medical travel insurance is arguably the most critical part of any plan, especially if you’re traveling to countries where healthcare is expensive, like the USA or Canada. Imagine needing emergency surgery or hospital admission in a foreign country—without insurance, that could burn a massive hole in your finances. Travel medical insurance ensures you receive timely care without worrying about the cost.

Even if you’re a healthy individual, things like food poisoning, minor accidents, or allergic reactions can crop up during travel. Comprehensive travel health insurance can cover hospitalization, outpatient treatment, diagnostic tests, and even dental emergencies in some cases.

Travel Insurance for Students Studying Abroad

Studying abroad is a dream for many Indian students, but it comes with its own set of challenges. Many universities abroad require proof of student travel insurance as part of the admission process. Student policies usually offer extended coverage for things like medical emergencies, compassionate visits, study interruptions, and even laptop theft. Some plans are designed specifically for Schengen visa requirements, which include mandatory travel health insurance coverage.

This type of travel insurance for students is more than just a requirement—it offers parents peace of mind and ensures that the student can focus on their studies, knowing help is available in case of any crisis.

Trip Cancellation and Delay Coverage

One of the most overlooked features in travel insurance plans is coverage for trip cancellation or delay. Life doesn’t always go as planned. Sudden illnesses, natural calamities, or family emergencies could force you to cancel or postpone your trip. With trip cancellation insurance, you can recover a significant portion of your prepaid, non-refundable expenses. Similarly, if your flight is delayed for hours, travel delay insurance can cover costs like hotel accommodation, meals, and transportation.

Baggage and Passport Protection

Losing your baggage or passport in a foreign land can be stressful. Good travel insurance policies offer coverage for delayed baggage, lost luggage, and loss of travel documents. In some cases, they also cover emergency replacement expenses and provide guidance through the process. This aspect of international travel insurance often proves to be a savior in distressing times.

Travel Insurance for Family Holidays

When you’re traveling with your spouse, children, or elderly parents, a family travel insurance policy is the smartest choice. These plans usually offer combined coverage under one premium, and they ensure that each family member is protected throughout the journey. Travel insurance for family trips typically covers medical emergencies, personal accidents, and travel inconvenience like missed connections or hotel overbookings.

The Digital Edge: Buying Travel Insurance Online

Today, buying travel insurance online has made the process seamless and efficient. You can research multiple plans, compare features, read user reviews, and make an informed purchase—all from your smartphone. Whether you're looking for cheap travel insurance for a short domestic trip or comprehensive international travel insurance for a month-long Europe tour, online platforms have it all.

Moreover, managing claims has become easier. Most insurers now allow online claim submissions, and some even have mobile apps that guide you through the process step by step.

Real Stories of Real Travelers

A friend of mine was stuck in Tokyo for three extra days due to a typhoon. His travel insurance covered additional hotel costs and meals during the delay. Another acquaintance had a skiing accident in Switzerland—his medical bill could have ruined his budget, but his travel insurance policy saved the day. These real-life experiences are proof that the cost of travel insurance is minuscule compared to the support it offers when things go south.

Final Thoughts: A Small Price for Peace of Mind

Travel insurance may seem like just another expense in the planning phase of your trip. But it’s actually a tool that lets you travel smarter and with confidence. Whether you’re a solo traveler exploring offbeat destinations or a parent planning an overseas holiday for your family, travel insurance is a must. The cost is usually affordable, and the benefits far outweigh the price tag.

As travelers, we can’t control every twist in the journey. But we can certainly be prepared for them. And travel insurance helps us do exactly that.

Click Here.

[lookingupatthesamemoon]

F/Obruary Day 7 - Fairy Tale

pairing: Gogh + Kendall Roy

summary: Gogh and Kendall go dress shopping to prepare for their first big event as an official couple.

word count: 1.3k

divider by @/saradika :3

Gogh had never lived quite so lavishly as she did with Kendall. Granted, they had only really officially been together now for about a month, and the journey to boyfriend-girlfriend territory was a little treacherous, but Gogh was having a ball with him, getting to take part in his more luxurious lifestyle. She knew it was silly, but she just felt a little more valuable when she was covered in overpriced garments and jewelry.

Today, they were out shopping. Dress shopping, to be specific, for Logan’s fiftieth business anniversary. For reasons Gogh could barely wrap her mind around, Waystar had decided to throw a big bash of sorts to honor Logan and his fifty years of service to the company. It was a big deal, sure, but as far as Gogh was concerned, he was a rotten old bastard who deserved nothing more than a half-hearted “congrats” written on a dirty napkin. Still, though… She couldn’t deny that she liked having an excuse to try on a bunch of expensive dresses.

This was actually going to be the first big formal event that Gogh and Kendall would be attending as a proper couple – she had to make a good impression as “Kendall’s Girlfriend,” and not just as “Girl Who Works At Waystar.” She had to look the part. And if that meant buying an expensive evening gown on his platinum credit card? She didn’t have many complaints. She flipped through one of the several racks in front of her as Kendall scrolled on his phone, confirming that the plans for Dundee were good to go.

“Hey… Ken?”

“Yeah?”

“What color do you think I should go with?”

“Uh, I mean… You’re the one that'll be wearing it, so…”

“Well, yeah, but it’s this big event for your dad, I just thought you might wanna have some input.”

“Well, you know… No neons, nothing too sparkly, but, you know, that’s all stuff you already know.”

“Okay… Well, I was thinking either black, red, or blue.”

“Don’t go blue,” Kendall said rather quickly. “I mean, it would look fuckin’... Perfect on you, probably, but, I think Shiv’s planning for blue.”

“Can we not both wear blue?” Gogh chuckled.

“I mean, you can, just… I don’t know. Might look too matchy-matchy, you know? We don’t need the whole family looking like we just walked out of an Old Navy photoshoot, right?” he joked.

“Right, right,” Gogh nodded. “So that leaves red or black. I don’t know, though… I feel like the red might come off too…”

“Sexy?” Kendall asked.

“Sort of, yeah,” Gogh shrugged, a nervous chuckle escaping her lips. “I don’t know, I just don’t want your dad to think I’m just another rich skank or something, clinging to you for status and all that. I don’t even know why it matters so much to me, I can’t fucking stand the guy – no offense.”

“None taken. No one really can.”

“So… Black?”

“Black is good,” Kendall nodded. “Won’t stand out too much, looks classy… And, I mean, you’ll look fuckin’ sexy in it.”

Gogh blushed, turning her attention back to the rack in front of her, scanning for black fabrics. She was hoping for something silky and simple, which helped her narrow her options down. She took her time, eventually selecting two dresses from the rack before moving onto another one. She continued sifting through the dresses, her fingers lingering on each one, while Kendall sat and observed. He smiled to himself, finally putting his phone in his pocket as he watched his girl browse through each rack, quietly humming to herself. She looked so natural in this space, yet so full of wonder. It was as if she couldn’t believe who she was becoming, that she belonged there amongst the likes of the rich and famous. 

“Okay,” Gogh spoke, turning around again to face him. “I think I’ve got a few options. What do you think?”

Kendall stood up once again, taking a few steps closer to Gogh to examine the three dresses she had chosen. He touched the fabric of each one, gently, like he touched her skin. “Nice, nice… They all feel pretty thick, smooth… And you’ll be comfortable?”

“I think so,” Gogh responded. “I mean, I won’t know until I try them on, right?”

“Right, right,” Kendall chuckled, stepping back to take a seat again. Almost wordlessly, he summoned a floor attendant, sitting further back against the cream-colored couch as Gogh was led to a fitting room. Their eyes met before she closed the curtain, a smirk gracing Kendall’s face.

Gogh opened the curtain a few moments later, wearing the first dress. This one touched the floor, the satin fabric sweeping against the carpet as she stepped out. Kendall raised his eyebrows seeing her – the dress accentuated her curves, while remaining “modest” enough to fit in at Logan’s party. The halter neckline was perfectly suited to her, drawing Kendall’s eyes up to her face. There were no bells and whistles, just the fabric on its own against Gogh’s body.

“Would I be crazy to say we might’ve found the perfect dress on our first try?” Kendall asked, a smile stretched across his cheeks. 

“Ken,” Gogh mumbled, brushing her hair behind her ear. 

“What? You look fuckin’ killer,” Kendall told her. “I mean, I say we box it up.”

“I at least wanna try on the other two,” Gogh replied.

“Okay, yeah, you’re right,” Kendall nodded. He waved to the floor attendant, who was still standing nearby, letting her know that there was more to be done.

The next dress was just a bit shorter, a long slit running up against Gogh’s right leg. Kendall whistled as he watched her step out of the fitting room once more, his eyes trailing up the slit to the rest of the dress, his gaze lingering for an extra few seconds on the way the thin straps rested against her collarbone.

“So fuckin’ hot,” he said. “But… Maybe too hot?”

“Yeah, I was kind of thinking that, too,” Gogh agreed.

“But maybe we buy it anyway,” Kendall quipped. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Hell yeah.”

Gogh stepped back into the fitting room to try on the third and final dress. This one was a bit more embellished than the previous two she had chosen, with a bejeweled belt and neckline. Just looking at it in the fitting room mirror, she could tell it wasn’t exactly what she would want to wear to Logan’s celebration – but she did look damn good in it. She admired the attention to detail in the hem, its waves just touching the floor, as she turned to walk out of the fitting room once again.

Kendall stood up for this one, as he had wanted to do for the previous two, stepping closer to her for a more “hands-on” feel for the dress. Gogh was certain this gesture was just his way of saying that he wanted to get this done, but Kendall genuinely cared about her opinions on each of the garments, wanting to ensure she would be comfortable.

“I don’t know if I’d wear it to your dad’s party, but… Ken, I do really like it,” Gogh said sheepishly.

Kendall smiled. “Yeah? I mean… You look like a fuckin’ princess.”

He gently placed his hands on her shoulders, turning her around to face one of the many wall mirrors near them. He then wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder as he admired their joint reflection. “I feel like one too, sometimes,” Gogh mused. “I mean… Being with you is almost like a fairy tale sometimes, you know?”

“Yeah? You think it’ll have a happy ending?” Kendall couldn’t help asking.

“I hope so,” Gogh replied, her hand coming up to stroke his head. “Anyway, um… I think we should probably go with the first dress, yeah?”

“... For the party? Yeah. But, really, I was thinking maybe we just buy all three.”

[beelzlikes]

Tldr: just complaining

I dunno... I don't feel like killing myself, but I'm certainly not happy. I'm kind of more apathetic than anything else. I have "work" tomorrow which is honestly just participating in a meeting. Easy.

Wednesday I have a presentation that I took over from another coworker on leave and I've done nothing to prepare. I know we only have to do a short thing and at least one other person will be there to share the load, but I SHOULD be putting effort into it. Like... right now the plan is to wait till tomorrow's meeting and judge from the others how prepared THEY are, and if it turns out they have most of it under control, I won't worry.

But if they're like "Yeah I don't really know we'll just show up and play it by ear" then I'll go out and prep some stuff. Participation prizes and the like. I should learn to put in my gas expense and call the credit card company to send me a new business expense card. And I could do all that TODAY really, but here I am... not doing that.

Maybe tomorrow I can ask around about putting that shit in, maybe even call the credit card company during lunch. I'm more inspired when I'm out of the house. Which sucks because I rarely have excuses to leave the house.

Let me also say how I've been a bit paranoid lately cause suddenly two people from my past reached out to me, one more alarming than the other.

My former Oregon roommate, the one I've been kind of suspicious of. He was TOO nice, TOO accommodating, I felt like he was trying to manipulate me. And then he texts me out of the blue. I dunno dude, I still haven't grappled with if you drugged me or not. You didn't include that in your list of apologies, so I assume that means it didn't happen or you're not admitting to it. And maybe my memory is jaded and warped from the trauma of that experience, but I swear I have never in my life had a reaction like that before, nor since. You're not just strolling back into my life.

And that sucks EVEN MORE cause like... he's me. He's accepting a tactical amount of responsibility on to his shoulders, being contrite in a vague and guarded way. EXACTLY how I would do it. Try to play up how sorry I am and how deserved of punishment, and leave it implied but unspoken that time should have healed old wounds by now. Let bygones be bygones and forget about the SPECIFIC things I did wrong. It's precisely how I would attempt to worm my way back into their lives. And here it is, being used on ME. A taste of my own medicine.

So it sucks and it's miserable because if I can't bring myself to forgive this person and let our past be water under the bridge for the sake of a brighter future... If I can't hold myself to that standard, why should anyone hold that standard for me. It just offers more proof in my mind that it's hopeless to pine after old acquaintances. It's better to leave sleeping dogs lie, and to just shut up. I've done well to not talk to any of them, but I'm still thinking and talking about THEM. So can I say I'm really over it? I cannot. Not yet. I'm still healing, this wound is deep.

[mprimn]

It has been 3 days since I arrived in Japan.

They wouldn't allow students to enter the dorm until a specific date, so I flew on the day before as I didn't want to spend money on hotels. It was a late-night flight so it was mostly peaceful, except that one toddler in the far front who cried from time to time.

A girl in front of me decided to watch 2005 version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory so I just watched from her screen the whole flight. There were so many details and scenes that I have forgotten because I saw the movie when I was very young.

The flight attendants kept mistaking me and the Japanese lady's nationality during service which I found quite funny. They thought the Japanese lady was from my country, but when they realized she wasn't they somehow assumed I was also Japanese. I replied to them in Japanese anyway because why not. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When the plane landed it started raining, making the temperature a lot cooler than I expected. The immigration process took so long that once I got out of the airport I only have a few hours left to travel to the appointed destination. I went down to the train, but the ticket booth was super crowded that I'd have to wait for another train for almost an hour. The bus had only 1 trip per day to my destination won't be coming soon, so I bit the bullet and got on a taxi.

There is a reason why Japanese people avoid taxis.

The service was top notch, but it came with a price.

A ridiculously expensive one.

(And that I also told the driver to take the fastest route, so it costed even higher)

Dear my parents, if you're reading this, I'm so sorry I spent 50k yen on 2 and a half hour ride from Narita to Mito. I will make sure to find a part time job once I know of my study schedule.

After reaching the destination, I paid the driver with my credit card so I signed the receipt with my signature in my language.

Apparently, that's when the driver realized I'm a foreigner.

He seemed shocked and amazed because after apologizing (I asked him to repeat something, but he didn't make it sound easier to understand so I just nodded), he complimented my accent saying how natural it was.

It may have something to do with my appearance too since I'm Asian. Even the local students at the dorm said I look like a Japanese. It was kind of fun at first, but I'm starting to feel like it's more of a debuff because instead of yasashii nihongo, I will be hit with normal level speech that can be very hard to listen.

In the evening of the first day, me and other 2 students from my country went to 3 different supermarkets to find items for our dorm. They even rode bicycles to a Donki far deep in the city to buy pillows (only mattress is provided in the dorm), utensils, and so much more. There were only 2 bicycles available so I just waited for them at the lounge, praying for their safety because one said they almost crashed into a car.

The two bought lots of ingredients to cook food on their own while I mostly bought instant meals. I don't feel like cooking because I'll have to wash the dishes, so I bought different food and put them together.

Personally, I think it turned out great.

The students from my country came from the same university and one is a classmate of mine. They are a cheerful person and a socializer. They probably befriended most of the exchange students already at this point. Thanks to them introducing me to others, I was able to talk and make friends with more people. Everyone was really kind. Some students' Japanese or English skills might not be very strong, but nothing can stop any of them from having fun together.

Tomorrow after sending in our documents at the City Hall, the exchange students are planning to have a barbeque party. I also heard another party will be held after too. It hasn't been a week, yet everyone seemed to close to each other. From a view of someone who's socially awkward, I find that fascinating.

I hope to get to know more of everyone soon.

[pinkkop]

An Overview of Our Trip

Thailand trip

So me and Asta just got back from our trip to Thailand and in case other people were interested in or planning on travelling to Thailand, I wanted to share my experience and some advice from our trip.

I’ll split this into four posts:

1. An overview and my general advice for visiting Thailand (this post)

A deeper look at our trip and my thoughts about it with more specific advice, split into 3 sections:

2. Road trip of the Mae Hong Son Loop

3. Chiang Mai

4. Bangkok and Ayutthaya (coming soon)

So here's the overview!

What did we do?

We started out in Chiang Mai where we rented a car and did a road trip of the Mae Hong Son loop for about 6 days and ended up back in Chiang Mai (the article which inspired us to do this is here). After, we stayed in Chiang Mai for half a week, exploring the city and doing small excursions out of the city. We then took a sleeper train to Ayutthaya where we stayed a day and a night and then took the train further south to Bangkok, where we stayed for another half week and then flew back home from there.

In total our trip was just over two weeks.

Snap shot from our road trip.

When did we go?

We went at the end of January and beginning of February. This meant we left Chiang Mai before the burning season started and outside the rainy season which starts not long after the burning season ends and ends usually around October. It very much seemed to be the end of the season in Chiang Mai so I wouldn’t go much later in the spring.

Note: The burning season is when they burn off all their fields, usually from February to April which results in horrible air quality and visibility in Chiang Mai.

The two events that we planned our trip around were the Chiang Mai Flower Festival and the Chinese New Year.

Chinese New Year in Chinatown, Bangkok.

Where did we stay?

We stayed in a mix of hotels and airbnbs, which I think was a good choice. I think specifically on the road trip it was a good choice to stay in airbnbs. I’ll leave links to any of the places we stayed at that I’d recommend on the more detailed posts.

View of Doi Inthanon (tallest mountain in Thailand) from our Airbnb.

Favourite part of the trip?

The road trip was definitely my favourite part since it gave us the chance to explore Thailand on our own and go places off the beaten path. Most of the places we went didn’t have lot of tourists which meant we were just foreigners to the locals and not only a source of income. This made our experience of Thailand and Thai culture feel more genuine and not just an edited version created for tourists to consume.   

  Local festival in Mae Hong Son.

Advice for anyone travelling to Thailand

Always carry these things with you:

- Passport

Both to make sure you don’t lose it but also because you never know when you’ll need ID.

- Paper towels

Toilet paper isn’t widely used so it's useful to always have some on your person.

- Hand sanitizer and/or soap

Similar to toilet paper, there’s not always soap or even a sink when you go to the bathroom, so having hand sanitizer, at the minimum, is a lifesaver. We had both hand sanitizer and these soap leaves which was great because we could use either of them depending on the situation, and both didn’t take up a lot of space.

- Cash

We paid almost entirely in cash and only encountered problems with doing so once in a mall in Bangkok, while when we ran out of cash we realised how many places didn't accept credit cards.

It’s a good idea to bring both baht and a second currency which you can exchange to baht if you run out. Most banks will do that for you, just research which secondary currency would work best for you and remember your passport when going to the bank. We had dollars and euros because we’d be able to use those later on after the trip, that way we were guaranteed to not end up with a bunch of baht left over at the end of the trip if we guessed wrong on the amount of cash we needed for the trip.

General advice

- Learn the bare minimum of Thai.

A lot of people in Thailand don't speak English so it’s useful to know how to say:

"Hello", "Thank you", "Where’s the bathroom?", "Can you make it not spicy", counting to 5 and how to order, even in a very simple way.

- You can get a long way by pointing, saying singular words, using google translate or showing pictures on your phone.

- Don't trust open hours but it's a good idea to look them up.

Open hours aren’t always fixed, unless it’s McDonald's or a fancy department store, so don’t always trust what the internet says.

Some places close really early though, like a restaurant at 6 pm, so it’s still good to check when a place is said to be open.

- If you buy more expensive items during your trip, make sure to ask for a VAT form. This way you can get the tax money back at the airport.

Cultural/Religious advice

- Bring appropriate but light clothes!

When visiting temples and some historic sites you have to be dressed decently, otherwise they might not let you in. This usually means cover your knees and shoulders.

We wore a lot of below knee dresses with short sleeves because of this, but you can also pack some super light pants and a t-shirt so you can put them on before entering.

- Remember to take off your shoes

This counts for certain places in temples and places where you’d sit on the floor/ground, usually to eat.

I got yelled at for the second one at a market where they had a raised eating area.

There are often signs but also just look out for shoes by steps or staircase and keep an eye out for what other people do.

- In temples, stay below the level of the Buddha statues and if you can, and other local people are, stay below the monk present.

Often the Buddha statues will be up high enough that you don’t have to sit on the ground but if you’re in a room where you’ve taken your shoes off and other local people are sitting on the ground, especially if they aren’t actively praying, you should probably sit on the ground as well. You can still take pictures and enjoy the splendour of whatever temple you’re in, from the ground.

You probably won’t be yelled at for this one but it’s always good to be respectful.

Advice about mosquitoes and insects

Mosquito remedies: Bring good mosquito repellent and especially something to relieve the itchiness afterwards.

Malaria: If you’re going outside bigger cities and especially if you’re going to more rural places, you should probably consider getting

Malaria medicine: For malaria we had to take pills every day at a certain time and keep doing so a week after we left Chiang Mai.

Mosquito net: If you’re staying in a place with a mosquito net, set it up before it gets dark if you can. That way you’re more likely to not have accidentally trapped a mosquito or other insect inside the net.

Other bites: If you start getting bites that behave differently to mosquito bites, try and figure out what they are before you leave the place where you started getting them and especially before you leave for home. I believe the bed I slept in at our last airbnb had bed bugs which is really not anything you want to bring home, so figuring out which precautions to take is useful.

Hope this was useful and let me know if you have any questions!!

[mayakern]

hello!! if you don't mind me asking, what was your professional art journey like? (esp the earlier years) was MonsterPop! your first big project online? were you still taking client work when you opened up your shop? you're a very inspiring artist and I hope to be in a similar position as you one day! thank you so much for your time!

oh boy this is a doozy! and also a lot of this involves devin bc our success is completely intertwined

i went to art school (MCAD) from 2009-2013. i majored in comic art but had a secondary unofficial focus in illustration, specifically product design, and i interned at paper bicycle (the company of my product design teacher) my senior year, the same year they opened up light grey art lab. i mailed out a LOT of tarot decks. they didn't have a label printer so this took forever.

during that time i took some freelance illustration and comic gigs and also created some comics that got an amount of traction online (mostly on tumblr but i also got an io9 article written about me iirc). i also started making monsterpop (in 2012 i think?).

in 2012 i ran my first kickstarter to crowdfund an anthology of some of my short comics (how to be a mermaid, the little robot girl, fairyfail) and got my first taste of proper self publishing. sadly this was before i created redden (which was my senior thesis comic) so it wasn't included. i didn't have label printer so mailing out the books (i think i sold around 200) took forever and i ended up throwing a pizza party with my friends and having them help me.

after graduating i moved to the LA area in search of work. it honestly sucked ass and most things didn't pan out but eventually (2014) i got a remote job contracting for gaiaonline and i moved right back to minnesota bc i absolutely hated LA.

i met devin (my wife) 20 days after moving back to minneapolis. in 2015 i ran a kickstarter to fund printing the first volume of monsterpop and people bought almost 400 books. it was insane. i was dying under the stress of trying to mail it all out those packages and didn't own a label printer yet. between having to hand write the addresses, being both dyslexic AND slow, and getting headaches from the fumes, i could send out a max of like 10 packages a day. once again i was planning to throw another pizza party to have my friends help me out, but devin swooped in and got 100 packages done in just a couple hours and when i tell you that no one has ever done anything sexier for me in my life, i truly mean it.

at the time devin and i were both broke living paycheck to paycheck. gaia didn't pay well and the patreon money i got helped, but wasn't that much. i took some freelance/commissions and got some store and convention sales, but i was making around 22-26k and was constantly overworked. devin was in significant credit card debt and was barely scraping by between managing a gas station and school. i started making my very first skirts and then at the end of 2015 my arm, the thing that made me what little money i did make, gave out.

i couldn't draw anymore. this could have literally ended my art career, but instead devin stepped up. they took a look at all the things i was already selling in my store and figured out a way to repackage/bundle the items together in a way that was fun and appealing. and people actually bought the bundles! at that point the vast majority of my sales were at conventions and i wasn't very good at selling online, but that was the beginning of a new era. devin started working with me part time to manage the online store and go with me to conventions and things started getting better. at some point during this saga we finally bought a goddamn label printer.

by 2017 devin started working with me full time. we also got married and moved across the country to upstate NY. in 2018 we got a CPA and became an SCORP and monsterpop became a finalist for the prism comics award, which scored me an invite as a guest at SDCC. i really wish i had enjoyed that experience, but unfortunately i was dealing with some Bad Medication Issues and was extremely sick the whole weekend. otherwise it was great tho and devin had enough fun for the both of us. this is also around when i officially stopped taking freelance work. prior to that i'd only been taking a couple jobs a year, but the store was finally making enough that i could stop.

in 2019 i made the difficult decision to end monsterpop. this came with a lot of heartache but it was the right thing to do. i am much better now for it. i think 2019 is also when we became an SCORP.

we hired our first employee (lindsy) in, i think 2021. it might have been the end of 2020. and in 2022 we hired our second employee (ariel), who had been modeling for us already for a couple years bc she is our very close friend and actually the reason we moved out to NY in the first place. in late 2022 we started working with ash, who now manages our product supply chain and also is patterning new garments for us.

there's probably a bunch of stuff i've missed but this is roughly it! neither devin nor i were able to succeed until we started working together. our strengths and weaknesses complimented each other well and somehow things just worked out.

and if you take away nothing else from this, please leave with this info: if you sell and ship any amount of product online buy a goddamn label printer

[thessalian]

Thess vs "Help Desks”

Sweet blessed gods, if people are going to try to phase out and or cheap out on phone helpdesk staff for the sake of their bottom line, they could at least do it competently. I’ve been using automated phone trees of one type or another for a long time, since the days when “hold the line while we transfer you to an operator” meant “some people are still using a rotary dial phone”, and it’s amazing to me how they get smarter and yet somehow more ridiculous every time I turn around.

There’s a thing I’ve been dealing with at the behest of my parentals regarding my state pension. Basically, over here, your state pension is based on your National Insurance contributions, and you have to have 35 years of full National Insurance contributions before you can get your full state pension. Thing is, because I worked as a temp a lot, there are a lot of years when I didn’t make a full contribution, and there weren’t National Insurance credits available for a lot of reasons. (It doesn’t help that I was allowed and in fact encouraged to use a temporary National Insurance number for years and it doesn’t look like those years count towards my state pension now, even though I paid above the odds those years. Ugh.) Now, theoretically, if everything goes to plan, I should be able to claim my full state pension because I’ve got fifteen years of full contributions as of this tax year and I’m not due to claim my state pension until 2044. Or later, because they might change the laws on that again; wouldn’t put it past the government as is. Anyway, point is, I should be fine. But it’s possible I won’t be fine, because I am, after all, disabled. Also, let’s face it - my luck with jobs has been made of dogshit for ... well, most of my life, if you think about it. My luck’s holding so far but shit does happen, often, and often to me. So anyway, the point of all this is that you’re allowed to make voluntary contributions towards your state pension for the last five years that a full contribution wasn’t made. My parentals intend to make that voluntary contribution to take five years’ worth of pressure off my quest for a full state pension. Which is nice of them.

Now, if they just didn’t make it so damn complicated to give them money in that way, that’d be great.

They tell you to go to the website and follow the instructions to pay online or by direct debit. They don’t tell you that you need an 18-digit reference number until the box requesting one is staring you in the face. You actually have to go to ancillary information sources (non-HMRC help sites) just to find out how to get that 18-digit reference number they’re apparently so hot for. There are apparently two options for getting one: write to them and wait two weeks while they send one back by post, or call.

However, their automated voice-recognition phone tree piece of bullshit does not understand the difference between National Insurance reference number and National Insurance number. There is a difference. One you get given on a card so you can write it down on tax documents (like a social security number); the other is a very specific number used only by HMRC internally to deal with voluntary National Insurance contributions. However, the automated phone tree does not recognise this difference, so giving it the key phrase “National Insurance reference number” is useless. So is “voluntary National Insurance contributions”, and similar phrases. It’s not that the automated phone tree doesn’t understand it to a point; it just doesn’t recognise it as something I literally need to speak to a human being to sort out. Thus it just says, “Our lines are busy, look up the information online, good-bye”, and hangs up. No option to ask to speak to an advisor, nothing. Just “Check our website; bye. *clik*”

It took awhile, but I finally figured out how to actually speak with a human being in this instance. Every time it repeated the Google-perfect phrase I gave it and asked, “Is that correct?” ... I said “no”. Even if it technically was. See, at that point, deliberately playing obtuse is the only way to go, and even then it was a nightmare. First they just let me try again - “Is this correct?” “No.” Then it suggested some key phrases I could give it as search terms. I picked one that sounded close-ish but no cigar - “Is this correct?” “No.” Then it gave me even simpler verbal options that really did sound like basic Google search terms - “Is this correct?” “No.” Finally, they gave me a number menu, and at the end of that list was “To speak to an advisor, press 4″. They went all the way around the houses to make it as hard as possible to speak to a human being, because every one of the options I was given in the first three tries were designed to point you at the website and hang up on you. I know because I tried them on and off for a fair bit of last week.

Then I spent over an hour on hold. I can’t blame them that much because we are coming on to tax season but especially when you consider how hard that phone tree works to shunt all callers to the website ... fucking hell. All of that for an eventual conversation with a pleasant lady who asked a couple of questions, seemed grateful I had all the information she wanted to hand, and dealt with the whole thing in three minutes.

Don’t even get me started on the power company. On one hand, it’s a little easier to get to the “please hold for an advisor” stage. Not much, but a little. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure they outsource most if not all of their call center and web help staff overseas. Leaving aside the whole “You’re just outsourcing this work overseas so you can get a service while drastically underpaying your staff ... more than you can get away with here, anyway” problem, the other issue there is that if you’re providing call centre services to a company that does business in an English-speaking country ... it might be good if you at the very least made sure the staff providing the services can actually speak English to a reasonable degree. It’s hard to say that without worrying that I’m judging these people for not speaking English, but I swear I’m not judging. I don’t expect them to speak English because I’m fairly sure they’re not in England, or in any other country that speaks English as its first language, come to that. This is bad enough when it’s the web chat help system, where it’s pretty obvious that the person at the other end just copy-pasted your question into a FAQ search and then copy-pasted the result back to you without necessarily knowing what it said; it’s worse when it’s a human being and you need three tries for what effectively boils down to “I want to check my balance” but is a bit more complicated than that.

I’m sure that companies were wetting themselves in sheer joy when technology allowed for the automation of something vaguely resembling a help desk. Thing is, as my brother-from-another-mother says, computers are just very fast idiots. They will do exactly what you tell them, and only exactly what you tell them, and if your request deviates even a little from their parameters of what a request looks like, they will throw a fit. As for outsourcing overseas ... like I said, I don’t blame the people on the other end of the phone or web chat who don’t speak English very well. I blame the people who hire them on at ludicrously low pay and horrific hours and then setting them up for hours of abuse from customers who are a lot less polite than I am about their understandable inability to speak fluent English when they live in a country that doesn’t.

I think this pisses me off to a greater degree than usual these days because of a certain piece of rhetoric regarding jobs and people in this country doing them since the fucking Brexit referendum. They yell about “foreigners taking our jobs” while throwing ones that would actually be perfect for people in this country on a work-from-home basis - for the disabled, carers for small children or vulnerable adults, even for second jobs that wouldn’t require even more time spent on commuting - at places with fewer employment rights and minimum wage laws, which only results in a worse service and more stressed staff. If the xenophobes in this country don’t want “foreigners taking our jobs”, maybe they should demand that we stop throwing 'our jobs’ at ‘foreigners’ in a massively exploitative model that does nothing but fatten the profit margins of the CEOs. And also maybe don’t throw it at computers that require a certain specificity to function in a helpful way, when help desks are generally called by people who don’t have specifics - THAT IS WHY THEY ARE CALLING FOR HELP.

I mean, I think a lot of this boils down to “stop using technology to exploit people in the name of The Great God ECONOMY, you shitheads”, but with specific examples and a lot of frustration.

[damiano-mylove]

Movie Night

Pairing: Damiano David x fem!reader

Wc: 2.6k (sorry)

Cw(s): SMUT, bit of angst, swearing ofc, long for some reason, begging, not proof read

*Masterlist*

Work is a healthy habit to get into - to a certain extent. If you work to avoid your problems, that's not particularly one of the most healthy things to do. The only problem working can fix is if you're poor, but really minimum wage doesn't fix that either.

But your Damiano wasn't poor, he wasn't being paid minimum wage. You knew how much he loved working on music with his friends, but he was barely home and you missed him. Being without Damiano almost felt like being without your left arm - especially since it had been so abrupt, going from him spending a few hours writing, to spending almost a full day in the studio.

Tonight was supposed to be movie night. That Damiano had suggested. To make up for lost time.

So, you found yourself, alone, on your velvet red couch, watching Alice in Wonderland, with your cat on your lap. His purrs filled whatever wavelengths were left empty by the film, but you didn't mind that at all. Your fingers found their way into his incredibly soft fur, which felt like silk between those fingers of yours.

The clock soon struck midnight, and the film hit the end credits soon after. Damiano was still not home from the studio, which almost worried you. Almost. In the earlier days of him spending all of his time at Vic's for writing or in the studio, you had thought he'd run off with someone else. You woke up the next morning with him next to you, but that never really put that specific worry to rest.

"Romeo, Baby," you whispered to the silver tabby cat on your lap. He flicked his tail to let you know he heard you. "Dad's not home yet and I'm tired, we gotta go to bed. C'mon." Romeo only lifted his head to lay his grass green eyes on you once you stopped scratching his neck. You smiled to him, though his eyes didn't return it. "You've got half a minute before I move your furry tush."

To no one's surprise, Romeo took more than half a minute so you picked him up like a baby over your shoulder. Your palm cradled his soft feet. Like the lazy cat he was, Romeo fell back asleep on your shoulder on your short walk to your bedroom that you shared with the one and only, Damiano. He used to be a god to you, but now he was basically a roommate who you shared a kiss with every once in a while.

With Romeo asleep on the bed before you finished putting on pyjamas, you slunk off to brush your teeth. The door unlocked. Your heavy eyes cast unto the clock on the wall which read nearly half midnight.

Damiano came in like a whisper in the wind, save for the closet opening so he could deposit his coat. Shaking you head, you just finished brushing your teeth. Your mouth felt dry even though you'd just rinsed it with water.

"Cara mia," Damiano purred once his eyes caught your figure in the lamp light from the bedroom. You smiled at him and went into the bedroom to curl up with your cat and go to sleep. You had work in the morning and customers didn't appreciate workers who look like sleep-deprived zombies.

This was the first time in a long time that you didn't immediately greet him once he came through the door. So Damiano could sense a shift in the mood of the flat; really, he felt it as soon as he walked in and smelt chocolate and strong tea.

His footsteps never gave away where he was, but you could feel his presence enter the room. The bed dipped on the end just as Romeo curled further into you. When Damiano's hand held your ankle, Romeo let out a soft meow.

"What's wrong, Amore?"

"Did you forget or did you do it on purpose?" You immediately sat up as you asked the question. You were tired and to act like it was fine just wasn't in the cards tonight. Damiano's eyebrows drew together. You began to nod. "Movie night? You said you'd come home early to watch a film with us."

Damiano's face darkened in realization. You pursed your lip balm coated lips. Even Romeo could sense the tension and decided to stand up and sit square on your thighs, facing your boyfriend as if to protect you. Damiano looked to his hands which rested in his lap.

After a second, he said, "I-I thought that was tomorrow."

"Tonight was Tuesday night, now it's Wednesday morning," you muttered. Your fingers found the reassuring warmth of Romeo's fur once again and Romeo let out a rather sad sounding meow. "Oh, Romeo, don't worry. Dad just has to tell us he's sorry then we can sleep."

Both you and your cat looked to your boyfriend with tired but expectant eyes. Damiano's eyes never tore from his hands. Then it was like he was speaking to himself. "I was going to buy you flowers. And let you pick the film. And you were supposed to fall asleep on my shoulder, on the couch."

"It's okay, Dami, it's just a movie night," you told him. But your conscience caught you before you continued. Why the fuck were you reassuring him when he was the one who fucked up? Tell you that he'll be home in time for a sort of date night, then skip out. "We'll do it another night, it's all good."

"It's not all good, Y/n." One thing you could agree on tonight, though you'd never say that out loud. Finally, Damiano lifted his eyes from his soft hands. You noticed his eyes shimmer in the lamplight. "I really fucked up your night and for no good reason. I'm really sorry."

Leaning forward, you patted his arm. "Forgiven. We're adults and life gets in the way of romance."

"Not always, and not for us. I'm supposed to be the best boyfriend in the world but I've barely been a boyfriend to you at all lately, and I apologize." His words were stringing together faster in faster as he kept trying to keep his tears at bay. "It's just with the new album and everything, I'm finding out how shitty I am at balancing my life." Damiano came closer to you, holding your hand that once held his arm. "How can I make it up to you, Y/n? You're the love of my life and I don't want us to fizzle out."

For some reason, a little chuckle escaped your lips. His passion for you warmed your heart as you caught a glimpse of how you first had your heart captured by the man sitting before you. The light glittered in your eyes, for Damiano and Damiano alone. "We're not going to fizzle out over one missed movie night."

"Yes, but I've missed many of our nights, whether we made plans for them or not," Damiano rebutted. Your lips pressed together in a flat line. There was a certain ounce of truth to that statement. Damiano pressed a kiss to the back of your hand without maintaining eye contact. "Cara mia, nights are for the lovers, and I seem to have forgotten that."

His warm breath tickled the back of your hand just before his pressed more kisses to the back of your hand, then wrist, then fingers.

Sensing the warming room, Romeo left your lap. He threw you a final glance, seeming like he was making sure you didn't need him in the room to which you slightly nodded at the tabby. Romeo turned on his paws and left the room - leaving two starry-eyed partners who were still most ardently in love.

Without another word, you joined your lips with Damiano's. It had been a long while since a kiss such as this one had occurred. In the place of the usual passing kisses, this one made the love shared prominent. This kiss felt as if your Damiano was once again yours and totally yours; not as if he ever wasn't, but this was a much needed reminder of that.

Holding your face in his large hands, Damiano deepened the kiss by turning his head ever-so slightly. His tongue slid into your mouth with a passionate fervour. There was no battle for dominance, but a mutual exploration of each other's mouths.

Damiano tenderly laid you down against the pillows on your side of the bed, though his lips parted from yours which was an unhappy fate. "Do you want to go further, Cara mia? I know this doesn't equal forgiveness."

"I've never wanted anything more, Dami, my sweetest love," you promised him. Damiano smiled at your admission. He began to place gentle, loving kisses to your neck. "Only if you want to."

"Oh, trust me." Damiano nipped your collarbone, resulting in a yelp from you. You could feel his smirk against your warming skin. "I want to."

Damiano's bites roamed the skin of your chest that your tank top allowed, before you sat up to take it off. Your fingers found Damiano's soft hair as he left sloppy, wet kissed all over your now exposed chest. A bitten back moan escaped your mouth just as his tongue began to circle the tender skin of your nipple, making your back arch into the man above you.

This was an admission of your pleasure, so Damiano's mouth fully encircled your nipple as his hand that once caressed your hip, now cupped your other breast. His warm palm massaged you firmly, having Damiano's name fall from your lips. It had been a while since he'd touched you like this, with such care and attention. Every fiber of Damiano's being was now focused on making his love for you known.

When his warm mouth left your breast to be exposed to the chill of the room, his teeth grazed your sensitive nipple, having goosebumps multiply on your skin at a sky high rate. His mouth then was turned to your other breast as his other hand twisted and pinched the exposed nipple.

Your hands began trying to get his deep red shirt off, to bring his warmth to you. But before Damiano would let you have what you wanted most, he bit the sweet spot beneath your boob, no doubt leaving a mark that would be apparent the next day.

As Damiano leaned up to pull his shirt over his head, you nearly melted underneath him. His hair was already beginning to become delightfully fucked up and the look in his eye was absolutely dark. The look he gave you before joining your lips once again was full of love, accompanied by lust and desire. Damiano slid off his tight leather trousers while he was at it, allowing you to palm him through his briefs.

The kiss shared was now hungry and feverish. The nails of the unoccupied hand scratched down his back, resulting Damiano bucking his hips into your hand. You removed it, which finally gave you the glorious friction that you so completely craved. Damiano no doubt sensed this as he grabbed the back of your thigh as he continued to grind right into the thin layer that separated you both.

"Damiano, please," you nearly cried. The chuckle that came from Damiano was low and only made your panties become even more wet.

"Please what?"

"You know what I mean." He was killing you. Once the words left your lips, Damiano ground his hips into you again. "Fuck me. Fuck me, please. Please."

"See, was that so hard, Amore?" Damiano purred as he lowered the waistband of your pyjama bottoms. He threw them somewhere in the room before pressing his index finger against your clit. You tried to pull him in for a kiss, but Damiano resisted. "Ah, ah, I want to see just how much I effect you."

"You're the fucking-wow-devil himself."

Damiano's laugh bordered upon an evil one. "You love me."

"I love you, I love you so fucking much," you moaned. Damiano smiled as he lowered your grey panties. Those were discarded somewhere along with your pyjama bottoms, but you couldn't give half a fuck because Damiano's perfectly manicured finger found it's way inside of you. You bucked against his hand, making Damiano laugh.

His finger drew circles inside of you while his thumb still played with your clit. God, Damiano was so much better than your own fingers. Without a warning, another finger was added, making a sort of porn-esque moan leave you. Damiano groaned at the sound as well as the sight in front of him. Even his dreams of you weren't as good as this.

It wasn't as if he could help himself from leaning down once again and attaching his mouth to your erect nipple. Your eyes crossed at three parts of your body were on fire with immense pleasure. The flames of rapture enveloped most of your body, even your soul.

"I'm-m-m gonna cum," you cried out. Damiano smiled against your breast as his fingers began going faster. "No, no, let me cum on your cock." Damiano looked up at you with a bit of surprise. You'd never said something like that without prompt.

The needy look that painted your face was all Damiano had to see before he complied. His briefs were off in the blink of an eye and he began to pump himself just to prepare. Your legs were spread wide as you could already feel yourself drip onto the sheets below which made Damiano groan with barred teeth.

He lined himself up with your entrance and gave you one final questioning look. You nodded adamantly before he pushed himself through your folds.

Truly, you could feel your soul ascend as you remembered just how big he was. You big your lip so hard you nearly broke skin while Damiano hissed an intake of breath. He came down to your lips to taste your minty mouth just as his hips began rocking into you, first at a slow pace, then began to get closer.

Damiano's hips snapped into yours quickly, and the sound of smacking skin filled the room, along with the scent of sex and sweat. The combination of both of your moans filled each other's mouths. The bedroom was incredibly hot but somehow you were in a cold sweat, save for where your body joined with Damiano's in sweet harmony.

"Fuck, Y/n, you're so fucking tight," Damiano huffed. You clenched around his cock, only making Damiano cry out with pleasure. Your nails drew down his back, clinging him closer and closer to you with every thrust against your g-spot. Tears brimmed your eyes as a knot formed in the lower part of your stomach.

"Soon, I'm cumming soon."

"Cum on my cock, Baby, just like you want."

You could tell his thrusts were getting sloppy because he was closing in on his release as well. But you couldn't help but cum first as the knot suddenly exploded within you.

Your walls spasmed against Damiano as your release washed over you. Your legs tingled and your toes went a bit numb. Damiano then hit in you a few more times before his own seed seeped into you. It was warm and you felt incredibly full as Damiano stayed within you for an extra few seconds, before falling next to you.

"I know you said this wouldn't equal forgiveness but I'm feeling very forgiving," you sighed. Damiano chuckled and looked over at you. Your skin glowed in orgasmic radiance and your hair was completely fucked out. Damiano's heart swelled at the sight and he couldn't help but kiss you again.

He cleaned you both up after, with a warm wash cloth, and got you new pyjamas. Romeo reentered the room once the sex smell was gone and you were in Damiano's arms once again. Your cat curled between both of you in the dead of night, like the beginnings of a family.

Damiano came home Wednesday afternoon with a massive bouquet that must have cost a pretty pence, a box of Belgian chocolate and a bag of cat treats. It seemed a movie night was in order.

[vynegar]

vyn RRG card story, part one

guess who got seduced by vyn into translating another card story -_-

i didn’t plan on doing this, but after reading the story, there’s too much juicy information for me to just let it go. also, it felt too appropriate as a follow-up to electrifying night. again, PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THIS CARD ALREADY EXISTS.

disclaimer: this is a fan translation and i am not fluent in chinese, so keep in mind that there will be mistakes. feel free to let me know if you have questions, concerns, or comments.

do not repost without explicit permission. if you want to quote this or reference small parts of the translation, credit and link back to me.

more specific notes under the cut.

notes:

The title of the card has been translated as “Brewing Thoughts” by tiramisiyu. I also think “Fermenting Thoughts” would work.

Most proper nouns and location names are just the romanization of the Chinese characters, or my best guess. These will almost certainly be wrong, and I’ve included the original names in the endnotes for reference.

The major exception is “Porto Gundy”, which is based on jokertrap-ran’s translations of Vyn’s RRG route (their ToT masterlist is here).

Note that Porto Gundy’s original name ( 波多艮第 boduo gendi ) is very similar to the transliterations for Bordeaux (波尔多 bo’erduo) and Burgundy (勃艮第 bogendi). Both are regions in France that are famous for their wines.

timestamps go along with the card video here. it’s not mine, please support the uploader Hikari Sherry Gaming by liking/commenting/subscribing.

[PART ONE]

(1:46) Outskirts of Porto Gundy

It was a beautiful spring day, and the rolling hills were lush and verdant. Vyn and I sped along in a car past this greenery.

On both sides of the road, rows of grape trellises stretched as far as the horizon, and tiny pale grape flowers bloomed among the young vines and leaves.

The refreshing breeze blew gently past, its sweet fragrance drifting by.

MC: No wonder Porto Gundy is the “wine center of the world”, there are so many grape vines! Who knows how many wineries are here.

Vyn: I’m not sure how many wineries are in this area. If you’re asking about the total number of wineries in Porto Gundy, there are probably at least four thousand.

MC: That many!

MC: Oh right, Dr. Richter, what’s the name of your friend’s winery?

Vyn: Feilu Winery.*

MC: Feilu?!

I had very limited knowledge of wine and wineries, but the name “Feilu Winery” was one that everyone recognized.

Feilu Winery was a world-class winery with the highest reputation and also the world record-holder for the highest ever auction price for alcohol.

MC: (I didn’t think that the friend Dr. Richter was talking about would turn out to be the owner of Feilu Winery…)

I couldn’t help but think back to a few days ago, when he first mentioned the winery.

(2:38 flashback) Vyn’s house

The day before we were to leave for Barosk*, I went to Vyn’s house to help him tidy up his garden.

MC: Dr. Richter, I’ve already checked all the sunshades, there’s no issues.

Vyn: Thanks. This way the sunshades and watering devices can all be controlled remotely.

Vyn: You’ve worked hard, I’ll go prepare some black tea.

Ding dong – just as Vyn finished speaking, the doorbell outside the garden rang.

Two sharply-dressed men were standing outside the garden looking at us. Behind them was a refrigerated vehicle.

When they saw Vyn approaching them, the older one of the two men stepped forward.

???: Is this the residence of Mr. Albert? May I ask if Mr. Albert is currently here?

Vyn: That would be me.

MC: Huh? Isn’t Dr. Richter’s English name “Vilhelm”?

As I was thinking that, I saw the middle-aged man respectfully make a slight bow toward Vyn.

Auction House Director: I’m the director of Sulunshi Auction House, I’m here to deliver some goods to you.

The young staff member next to him promptly took out a well-packaged box from the refrigerated vehicle behind him with care.

Auction House Director: 1992 Feilu Winery dry red wine, 1990 La Romanee-Conti dry red wine, and 2006 Chateau d’Yquem dry white wine.**

Auction House Director: Would you please find a suitable place to confirm these?

Vyn: There’s no need, here is fine.

Auction House Director: Here?

The auction house director was surprised for a few seconds, but then quickly nodded and had the staff member open up the box.

Vyn simply scanned the wine as the staff member opened up the box, then signed on the tablet that the director handed over.

The auction house director respectfully bowed again, then left with the staff.

MC: Dr. Richter, why did that man just now call you Albert? Isn’t your English name “Vilhelm”?

Vyn: Albert is my middle name.

MC: Oh, I see. That’s right, did you buy all of this wine?

Vyn: No, someone else sent this to me.

Although I didn’t understand wine, something wrapped and packaged so thoroughly, and delivered by the director, must be quite valuable.

Speaking of, before when I talked about a wine appraisal video with Vyn, he was very knowledgeable about wine.

And now, there was someone specially sending him precious wine…

MC: Dr. Richter, you really like wine, don’t you?

Vyn: I do enjoy winetasting.

MC: That’s what I thought!

MC: Dr. Richter, we’re going to be passing by Porto Gundy on our train trip!

MC: I heard there are lots of wineries there, tourists can visit and learn about how it’s made and winetasting.

MC: Unfortunately it’s not autumn right now, or else we’d be able to pick our own grapes and make wine from them.

Vyn: Are you interested in wineries and wine culture?

CHOICE: “Yes” or “No”

MC: Yeah! After all, Porto Gundy is known as “wine center of the world”.

MC: The past few days while I’ve been making travel plans, I kept coming across a lot about wineries, and after a while I became interested.

MC: And…

CHOICE: “Yes” or “No” (3:10 at this video; again, not mine, please support this uploader)

MC: I’m not particularly interested in it.

MC: It’s just that Porto Gundy is called the “wine center of the world”, it just seems like it’d be a shame if we didn’t visit a winery.

MC: And…

Vyn: And?

And, I also want to try out the things that you like.

MC: Nothing. The more things you understand, the more beautiful life becomes. I just want to learn some more.

Vyn: Then once we get to Porto Gundy, let’s go visit a winery.

Vyn: I just happen to have a friend there who owns one, I’ll give him a call.

(5:19 end flashback)

And so, when Vyn and I arrived at Porto Gundy, we paused our train trip.

Vyn’s friend was kind enough to specifically send a car to the train station to take us to his winery.

(5:28) Feilu Winery

After several turns, we saw a magnificent, classic castle not too far away.

Verdant ivy climbed up the walls surrounding the castle, and the wrought-iron gate was engraved with the family crest.

Our car slowly entered the gate and stopped in front of the castle.

A handsome young man in an impeccable suit smiled warmly at us as he walked over to us.

Winery Owner: Vilhelm, you’re finally here.

Vyn: Long time no see, Raphael.***

After a quick exchange of greetings, Vyn introduced me and Raphael to each other.

Vyn: Raphael has been my friend for years. This winery is his family business, and currently he’s managing it.

MC: (Dr. Richter has a really large circle of friends…)

MC: (Now that I think about it, there was Feilu wine in the box from before. Was it him who sent that do Dr. Richter?)

I concealed my curiosity and politely greeted Raphael.

Raphael: I’ve already arranged for your rooms and your butlers. You can rest first or tour the estate, whichever you prefer.

Vyn looked toward me.

Vyn: Are you tired?

MC: Not at all, are you?

Vyn: Me neither. Sitting on the train for so long made me want to take a stroll. Shall we walk together?

MC: Okay.

Seeing that we made our decision, Raphael instructed a nearby butler to take our luggage to our rooms. Then he smiled at Vyn.

Raphael: You’ve already been here so many times, you don’t need me to arrange for anyone to guide you around, right?

Vyn: Of course. How’s the greenhouse?

Raphael: I’ve already prepared what you asked for, you can directly go there.

Raphael: Miss MC, please explore the winery to your heart’s content. If you feel restricted in any way, it would be my failure as a host.

MC: Mr. Raphael, you’re too kind.

Raphael nodded at me with a smile, and left.

MC: Dr. Richter, is the greenhouse you mentioned just now…?

Vyn: It’s where they grow grapes that are out-of-season.

MC: Huh? Wineries grow grapes out-of-season?

Vyn: It’s a distinguishing feature of Feilu Winery, and also a hobby of the first owner.

Vyn: The greenhouse is divided into different areas by season, and each area has different varieties of wine grapes.

Vyn: That way, no matter which season a guest visits the winery in, they can learn about the differences between various kinds of wine by personally experiencing the grapes.

Vyn: The winemakers of this winery will sometimes also use these grapes for wine brewing experiments.

Vyn: Earlier when I called him on the phone, I confirmed with Raphael that there happened to be grapes ready for picking during the days we would be visiting.

Vyn: Even though it’s not autumn, we can still personally pick grapes and make wine.

Vyn: If you still want to learn winetasting, I consider myself a decent wine critic.

That time I was only mentioning it on a whim…

MC: Thank you, Dr. Richter.

Vyn: Thanking me makes it feel like we’re so distant. I’d rather you say, “I’m so happy.”

MC: Yes, I’m so happy!

Vyn: It’s my honor.

Vyn smiled and offered me his arm, motioning for us to walk arm-in-arm.

Vyn: Let’s go visit the greenhouse.

 [END PART ONE]

[PART TWO]

*Locations: Feilu斐露Winery; Barosk 巴罗斯科 (baluosike); Sulunshi苏伦士Auction House

**Aside from Feilu Winery, the other two are real brands

***His name is 拉斐尔 (lafei’er) but I’m PRETTY SURE I got this transliteration right