#I used all my energy for render so the background sucks

[bella-studio]

◾️Some soft Nuzi for my tired soul <3

[bluginkgo]

Quick announcement (before the diarrhea of information):

I'm gonna go on a semi-hiatus for a week or so. I'll still be around, just not posting any drawings. Need to replenish my energy and drawing reserves cause I'm dead >_<

Sleep behind scenes!

So... Ginkgo why the hell did this take you so long? Sorry, sorry 😅 Here's what happened. I got burned out after like 10 pages (specifically the manor backgrounds killed me, plus having the full gang in the story) and then got sick and was not feeling all that great. Working through the burn out, sick, AND college work on top was quite hard not gonna lie though, but I wanted to finish it ^^

Alright, now as for little unnecessary Easter eggs, I added as nods to the show and my other interests. ^_^

1. Undertale save point. Undertale had me sucked in for a good long while, and for some odd reason decided to re-emerge in a form of the star save. Made it purple for Uzi's effect over N. She made him more rebellious, so he started to question why is it his memories and dreams are strange/corrupted/missing instead of just going with the flow.

2. Ep3 nod. V and N have history, history that I wish we get to see. V was nicer, kinder, in my opinion, prior to the absolute solver going rampage. So it makes sense for them to have some sort of friendship at the VERY least. So I decides to give it a small spin to it too. A direct quote from ep3 ^_^

3. Ep 2 + 5 nod. I kinda pulled the moment when James dismissed N from ep2 together with events that follow after N leaves library in ep5. Chronologically, these events don't fit together, seeing as ep2 is when N first meets Cyn and ep5 is when she's already set up the massacre. But this is exactly what I was going for. N's memories are jumbled at best, so I took liberty in mixing, matching, and editing his memories just as the admin program would probably.

4. Absolute Solver symbols nod. My chats with @absolute-solver (sorry for annoying you with tag 😅) made me realize that the absolute solver ought to have more presence now. It's activated and running systems in the background for Uzi. Whiiiiich means that drawing absolute solver should start now. BUT, it's rudimentary at best. Symbols don't really make sense and are not completed for most of the time. Not until Uzi at least sees the error message in ep2, when she truly starts questioning what that weird symbol on her visor is. I headcanon that N does know or at least feel that the absolute solver symbol is familiar, hence the little comment.

5. Absolute Solver Nori. Why is there so many absolute solver Nori around? I'm certain she went back to normal, just like in pictures Khan showed us in ep4 post core collapse. But I connected the solvers together here. Uzi's absolute solver string is up and running, and because the solver is a hivemind, it'd connect the memories and warp them a little. So that's why Uzi's doodle of her and Nori at the end (and during memory recall) was so full of absolute solver. It's slowly taking root, whether she wants it to or not.

Personal touches/added/cut ideas:

N's tail wrapping around Uzi like a hug. Originally, Uzi was supposed to look more nervous, but not for the reasons you might think. I cut the nervous look to a more upset look so it wouldn't be confused for fear. Uzi's never scared of N (yes, I don't count ep2 either, that was a lot of events at once and very little time to process them). The nervous look was more of a "Why are you butting in?" type, you know? Being a loner makes you cautious, so when N prods at feelings, I figured Uzi would be a bit defensive.

Cyn is fully rendered and yet I glitched her so much I felt bad. So here's full absolute solver Cyn eldrich monster thingy. ^_^

I pulled a Hazbin hotel moment. Did you see it? Abracadabra GONE! All the scraps from first couple pages with NUzi chatting POOFED out of the existence. Did I get lazy and tired? Yes, that was the tell tale sign of burn out, when I stopped keeping track of background details and just kept the pod.

These progress shots show pretty well how the story boarding goes and how I change my mind too easily. 😅 storyboard is still as much of a mess as ever, sketch shows you I was gonna keep Uzi's hat, but decided against it in final product. I figured this. Nori gave Uzi the jacket whenever Uzi got a bigger body + hair. These are the same jacket and hair Uzi has in canon. Uzi's body is just upgraded again and her hair gets shorter in that regard. The jacket would be big on her, and cover her hands, but what's up with the fluff if I draw canon jacket more spiky? And where's the death battery drawing? I headcanon Uzi drew those on once she got into the angsty teenager stage. The jacket is more spiky from wear and tear.

Fun fact! You can sorta tell who's gonna show up in the comic by what memes I post prior. Here's some examples ^_^ Cyn showed up, and that was first practice with maid outfits and Cyn's eldrich form. Closely followed by manor gang, the second/final form of maid and butler outfits and prime practice for those scenes. This example is a bit spoiler for a meme I'm working on right now! I've never drawn Nori before, so I quickly sketched out the idea and continued on with the comic (otherwise, I'd lose my steam and procrastinate on it again). Memes are filler for you guys while I work on the actual projects (comics), and along the way, they give me practice and change in drawing style ^_^

Is it a coincidence that this comic is called Sleep with the release of a certain horror game? Actually, yeah pure coincidence 😅 I had this drafted allll the way back in November, and didn't take particular interest in poppy playtime until I saw lanky boi, which was actually during a stream I watched on release day of the chapter.

(I didn't know tumblr, or at least the phone app, had a tag limit of 30, BOY was I surprised @brookiedaaroacecookie that must have been THE tag city, sorry 😅)

Next comic is Loneliness 1 and 2

This one is split into 2 POVs from both Uzi and N side, thus its 2 separate comics. That one will be more NUzi centered, too, a slight angst and comfort spin to it. That will come... sometime. I have a few more projects I wanna finish up with prior to starting on these guys ^_^

Why are you still reading this? Omg, have a cookie 🍪 you made it. Have a nice day now ^_^

[otomegema]

title: Convergence Theory pairing: Gojo Satoru x Reader summary: You are a lesser family member of the Gojo clan, so far removed you don't even carry the name, but you carry the Limitless ability and thus the potential to be a bride to the future head of the clan— a fact you patently reject at fifteen. Twelve years later you are a second grade sorcerer struggling to obtain first grade status when the object of your deepest objections offers you a deal. rating: Mature for now, explicit later most likely because WHY NOT tropes: fake dating/engagement, rivals to lovers, slow romance Link: Archive of Our Own

August, 2005.

That summer had been oppressively warm, a layer of heat trapped beneath a layer of moisture that made even the light fabric of your yukata stick to your sides. It was the kind of weather that made your body beg for relief, to lay shivering and sweltering under the barest breath of cool air.

Your mother had opened the outside screens in the room, letting you sit on the porch overlooking the small garden at the center of the expansive, traditional home. The view was lovely, overlooking a manicured garden, a small koi pond bubbling pleasantly even as the night air chirped with the sounds of insects.

The main house was equipped with air conditioners in some of the rooms— just like your parent’s own home, only a short distance away, but somehow so far removed from the atmosphere of this place it felt miles away. Centuries. The clock on the wall seemed suspended in time, halted too by the weight that fell over this place.

There was nothing to be done. When the head of the Gojo family called, even the smallest vine, hanging from the tiniest branch, curled in. Your great grandmother had bore the Gojo name before she married, a detail of minor significance that had not effected your own family until your birth. You had often heard your parents discussing the main family in hushed voices when they thought you were not listening. First with excitement and eagerness and then with worry.

There had been a phone call, an order disguised as invitation.

Gojo Satoru, heir to the name, barer of the Six Eyes, was turning sixteen in December, a scant four months away.

Six Eyes. Two words that managed to leave the bitterest taste of bile in your throat.

It had been thought the next Six Eyes would be born in your generation, your parents hopeful at one point that you were the one so blessed. A hundred years of waiting ended by the birth of another child, honored above all other sorcerers. Your had been born with the Limitless, that much was certain and an extra unnaturally keen ability of foresight… the signs were there. The possibility that the the massive potential of the Limitless was within your grasp if you could only prove to possess the fabled Six Eyes…

You were hailed for a short time as possibly a true child of the Gojo blood, a blessing. A boon. And then not even a short year later that boy was tested. No two Six Eyes could exist and it was him, not you, who was truly blessed.

You ran your hands up the back of your neck, dislodging the hair stuck your heated skin.

And worse yet, now you would suffer the indignity of being paraded around with every other eligible girl with a single drop of Gojo blood diluted enough to be proper for marriage.

Gojo Satoru needed a betrothed and only the best would do, naturally.

You were to be polite, courteous and docile. Laugh at his jokes, bat your eyes. Play the role of the pursued for the pursuer.

Did you even want to be selected? Once hailed as the promised child, now degraded to probable broodmare ?

You sucked your teeth, holding back a feral shriek somewhere deep in your throat. There was a knock on the wooden frame of the room, lazy and slow. The door slid open before your mother could get you to return inside to the low tables and too hot tea laid out.

You were all but deaf to the sounds of stilted, forced polite conversation, but could not ignore the sudden presence of a young man who came to sit down hard at your side.

Gojo Satoru was not an unattractive young man. He had the signature Gojo coloring, his eyelashes even as pale as driven snow. You yourself had even inherited two streaks of white in your hair, framed near your face and standing in contrast against the rest.

But that handsomeness was hard to enjoy when his expression was one of such utter indifference. He did not even bother to remove the dark glasses that shaded over his eyes, but you hardly were offended. It would have been all the worse to have to look at the very thing you coveted most in this world. Taunting you. Dismissing you.

How many girls had he been forced to sit with today? Judging by his bored expression, too many.

“This is the part where you tell me your name.” He said, voice amused, yet slightly condescending. Behind you both, his parents spoke with your own, but that too was part of the charade. All eyes were on you. All ears tuned to your words.

“You know my name.” You said with a thinly veiled sigh. His attention shifted just a fraction and you noticed with an indignant flush he was wearing his school uniform. Shirt untucked, jacket unbuttoned. You had been forced to spend hours getting ready for this meet-up.

He tilted down his glasses to give you a halfway appraising look and you turned away.

“Goin’ for the aloof angle then? Some other girls tried it too. As if you pretend hard enough that you aren’t interested somehow I will be.”

How fucking arrogant.

Your fists clenched in your lap.

“It won’t work.”

“I’m not working any ‘angle’.” You grumbled, “I was told to be here so I’m here. That’s all.”

“You expect me to believe that, huh?”

“I don’t care what you believe.” You spat back, turning to shoot him a piercing glare.

There was silence then, even the voices behind you seeming to falter and lower as if worried they were missing out on some secret hushed conversation.

“Ohhh, wait. I remember now! I do know your name.” Gojo continued, taking off his sunglasses and wiping off some smudge or dust from the lens, “Aren’t you that girl they thought was gonna have the Six Eyes in her?”

Your fist clenched tighter.

“I get it now. Sour grapes and all. Tell ya what…” he spoke softer and leaned in until you felt his breath against your ear, “If you ask me really nicely, for one night, you still could."

The only sound that came after that was the harsh strike of skin against skin. The contact of your palm connecting to his cheek stunned not just the adults inside, but you.

No self respecting sorcerer with the Limitless ability would have been taken by surprise and yet here you sat, having successfully struck the heir to the Gojo name right across his smug face.

You drew your hand back. His pale cheek had turned a throbbing red so quickly, his smirk raised as his glasses slid down the bridge of his nose and revealed how his blue eyes danced with open amusement.

***

September, 2017.

The uproar that followed that moment twelve years ago had been profound. Your parents had spent the remainder of the visit profusely apologizing and demanding explanations… and the entire time Gojo had stared only at you. Blue eyes wide and engulfing, a smirk etched in the corner of his mouth even as he got up and strode out without another word.

You remembered he had whistled as he went. As if it were all according to plan.

No betrothal was agreed to that night nor any night since. You were never summoned to the main house again.

It had been the most freeing moment of your young life, opening the world from the one pinpointed hope you’d be born with the Six Eyes or wed to the one who had it into a kaleidoscope of possibility.

You attended Jujutsu Tech’s Kyoto branch, keeping far out of the way of the rising star of the Gojo clan.

Well.

Sorta.

So the problem with having an inherited technique that allowed you to “see” curses and cursed energy users from great distances? Gojo Satoru. The man was such an expansive supernova of energy that when you opened your mind and utilized your gift of telemetry to try and pinpoint targets you had to navigate around his massive, dominating aura.

It was like counting stars against a sunlit sky. The ability, that should have been astronomically useful, rendered inert if Gojo Satoru was on the field.

You tried not to have your own missions line up with his. Which meant keeping tabs on him. Which meant having to live with this gnat, this buzzing fly of cursed bullshit constantly humming in the background when you used your gifts.

You wished everyday you had swatted him harder.

Missions in Tokyo were the worst, but you accepted them without complaint. The fact you’d even managed to rise to second grade despite your public humiliation of the main family’s golden child was a miracle in itself and not one you would squander.

The task was simply. There was a cursed entity that was utilizing the signal within electric devices of all things to move from device to device, rapid as an electrical pulse. It had already killed five non-sorcerers in surge related house-fires in two days. The risk of it causing a massive firestorm in any district rising.

The air had begun to cool in Tokyo, the heat of the summer giving way to fall. You sat on a bench, wireless com already clipped to your ear, the only sound so far the faint static of the open radio and the sound of your breath. The air had that crispness already, the bare cusp of autumn. You steadied your thoughts and began to shut down your senses.

The cursed energy of the young sorcerer students around you began to glow in your mind’s eye, the rest of the world fading into shades of imperceptible grey. Blurring. Distorting.

If you had the Six Eyes, you would be able to see it all. But instead, you blinded yourself to everything but the cursed when you utilized your skill.

You shut your eyes and with a soft breath you whispered, “Cursed technique— Limitless Telemetry: Grey.”

The city revealed itself to your five senses like a massive overflowing of information. Had you not taken the time to adjust, quickly shutting down your hearing, sight, taste, smell and touch in order to compensate, the mental load would have stunned you into a comatose state for several hours. Another thing a Six Eyes user would never need to do. You mentally chastised yourself for allowing the distraction of a deprecating thought, and focused instead upon your sixth sense. The one that tracked beyond the physical.

You were effectively helpless in this state, but within your mind you breezed through the city like a thumb pressed over the pages of a book. Flipping at your leisure as you focused in upon the fastest moving pulse of cursed energy.

In your “peripheral vision” or what acted like a sort of peripheral vision, you could sense the constant presence of Gojo. It was far away, diluted. You wondered if perhaps he was overseas for the barest moment until your senses snapped together and fell upon your target.

You spoke. Your words falling on your own deaf ears as you gave the location into the com. You perceived the movement of the three students. Good kids, fast learners. One boy was even a scion of another great house and the one girl among them possessed a cursed technique of extreme value. The other boy, the pink haired one, you had yet to understand, but his cursed energy output was impressive.

The entity moved. You adjusted, giving new instructions. The curse had not yet caught on to the fact it was being tracked, a fact you would use to your advantage as long as possible. If the curse sensed you, it could easily close the distance and attempt to seek you out… which was why sitting in a park, far from any electrical devices other than your battery powered radio was the safest place you could be.

And if worse came to worse, at least it would be drawn out in the open.

The entity jumped again, following the planned route the three had decided upon to box it further and further into a section of the city that they had already prepared to shut down. Without power, the curse would have to break free of its hiding place within the electric current.

How did a curse even get into the power grid? Too many lost football games on TV? You chuckled a bit to yourself without thinking, providing the newest coordinates as you watched, like an omnipresent spectator as the energies of the curse and the students moved.

This is why I score the highest at Pac-Man…

Everything was going according to plan. You had begun to even let your thoughts wonder, your focus softening just the barest fraction as the students rounded the final corner and blocked the curse into the chosen spot.

And now here comes the switch…

You braced for the surge of cursed energy you expected to feel from it’s ejection…but the power stayed on. You had to stifle the sensation of panic that sparked through your heart, your cursed energy rising a fraction.

And there it was. You felt the shift, the sudden adjusting of the entity. The students flared bright, attacking to try and ward off its escape, but without the power shut off they were waiting for, the curse easily vanished, pulsing through the city and heading now straight ahead… to you.

It’s fine. Fine. Nothing electric by me, so no fast travel.

It couldn’t pass through the coms. It would need to branch off into another grounded circuit and then physically come out to face you in the empty park.

You could hold unto the technique a little longer. Guide the students a little longer. You snapped information in quick short terms. Watching the cursed energy approach closer and closer until it reached the last building at the far end of the park.

And then, inexplicably, it jumped again.

The force in which you were propelled did not immediately register to your mind as your senses flickered and began to come back on line one by one.

The first was touch.

And thus pain.

Your muscles contracted, shot full with an electrical pulse. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, the strike coming indirectly as if someone had forced the curse away. Something blinding and bright exploding over the far-reaching vision of your Limitless technique before your ability snapped off like a cut thread.

Your hearing came back first from sheer force of will. Sight returning in blurry, slowly filling shapes. You forced yourself up from the ground, feeling scrapes biting along your palms.

“You fucking dick.” You managed to hiss, your vision returning just in time to witness the exorcism of the curse by none other than Gojo Satoru.

***

“You used me as bait!”

Your voice reverberated off the hallway walls, your mild injuries tended to but your grievances still in desperate need of airing.

You were only comforted by the fact his students had not been involved in the deception, having also thought Gojo was away while they worked under her guidance in the meanwhile. You were no teacher, but you had taken enough students through missions to be adequate at “babysitting”.

Gojo grinned easily, eyes hidden behind his blind fold as he ran a hand up his neck, feigning a bashfulness you knew had not an ounce of genuineness to it.

The bastard had quietly set up a god damn daisy chain of extension cables into the park, ending plugged into a cheap TV set… right next to you. And he’d done it only after you’d entered your Limitless, taking advantage of your lack of senses to literally bait you like a god damn fish hook and then swoop in to destroy the curse.

His students had been a distraction. A means to force the curse into seeking you out and getting into the open where it could not easily run again. It was the most convoluted, infuriatingly, ridiculous brilliant bullshit you had heard in a long while.

“Pretty clever, yeah? I’ve been practicing my multi-layer tactics.”

“That wasn’t a tactic, it was a gamble and a shitty one at that!”

“Yeah, yeah, but did you die?” Gojo asked, tilting his head to the side. His voice was tinged with amusement and you wondered for a moment if he even remembered you and this was some elaborate “gotcha” twelve years in the making… or if this kind of backhanded backstabbing was common place for him.

“It was interesting to see your technique in action. I could probably give you some tips on how to make it more effective, but they’d be pretty useless to— well. You. So I figure I’ll just make the tweaks and practice it myself!”

You stayed silent.

“What did ya call it? Limitless Telemetry?”

You turned and walked in the opposite direction.

“Whoa— hold on.”

Your exit was cut off, the grinning face you wanted nothing more than to connect your fist into coming back into view.

“I’m kidding. Don’t run off and cry now, we got some other business I wanna discuss.”

“If you’re planning on pitching another mission to me, I pass.”

“Nope. Well— yes. But not like this one.”

You sighed, side stepped, and continued around him again.

“I’ll buy you lunch!”

You stopped.

“And maybe even some kakigōriiiiiiii—“ he continued, his voice lifting to a sing-song tone as he stretched out the word. Your stomach twisted and grumbled in response. Using your Limitless always took so much out of you… a side effect you wondered if he experienced to.

You turned to look back at the man who hadn’t so much as glanced your way in years and wondered again if he was so stupid he didn’t remember who you were or if he was hatching some new plot.

He smiled in what you assumed he thought was a disarming and charming way.

“Fine.”

***

You had settled for a sweet plum flavor, dipping your small wooden spoon into the shaved ice and enjoying the way it melted across your tongue. Flavors always felt more pronounced after you used your Limitless, smells more intense. The sights sharper. It was probably just a placebo effect from being without them, even for a short amount of time, but regardless you enjoyed the sweet flavor and the fruity smell of the different syrups… most of which were coming from Gojo’s own cup.

He had gotten every flavor. The shaved ice in his cup a rainbow of color and tastes as he scooped several together at a time.

The lunch he promised had yet to come, but the treat was enough for now as the sugar helped give a little more pep to your body and your mood. The amount of calories you expended using your gifts was another thing entirely.

The two of you walked a ways in silence, giving you time to observe him for the first time in over a decade.

He had changed, that much you could tell. There was something less harsh in his general demeanor and he had grown considerably since he was fifteen. The boyishness of his face had sharpened, the man overtaking his features. He was broader, less lanky than his teenage self and while his easygoing and devil-may-care attitude was still present, there was something less— edged about it. Less angry.

“Your hair is shorter now,” Gojo said suddenly, “And your chest is bigger.”

You immediately frowned. A look of open disgust flashing over your face. Gojo laughed.

“Thought I forgot about ya, didn’t you?” He slid a thumb over his cheek, the gesture making you flush at the memory of what it felt like to slap the smirk off his face.

“Honestly? Yes.” you answered shortly, taking another bite of your ice.

“Nah. I remember, just figured there was no point in makin’ nice. You seem to be doing fine on your own these days. Second grade, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“As short worded as ever.”

He strode off, forcing you to match his pace. He found a park bench and sat down, sprawling out lazily. You sat next to him at his insistence, knocking your knee into his own until he closed his thighs a bit more with a chuckle.

“Thought you’d be a first grade by now.”

“I have not been recommended.”

He snorted, “Bet you know why.”

You clenched your teeth, holding back a sharp word and an even sharper desire to toss your kakigōri right in his face. Arrogant as ever. Some things, you guessed, did not get better with age.

“The great and fabled Six Eyes holding a grudge over a love tap? How trite.” you said, trying to keep your words indifferent.

“Is that what it was? I had a bruise ya know.”

“You could have stopped my hand before it ever even touched you. You wanted me to slap you so you could get out of having to do anymore meetings.”

His laugh was all the confirmation you needed.

“Is that what you’ve thought all this time?”

“It’s what I know.”

Gojo turned his attention back to his shaved ice, the two of you sitting in silence long enough for the weight of it to become uncomfortable for you. Finally you shifted and scrapped your spoon down the ice, leaving trails of melting syrup.

“What is it that you want?” Because that was what this was about wasn’t it? He wanted something. The main family never disdained to speak to the lower members without a need and Gojo Satoru was not about to be the exception.

“I’m going to recommend you for first-grade sorcerer status.”

You scrapped your spoon through so harshly a chunk of colored ice fumbled down the side of the paper cup and down your hand. You dodged just in time to avoid it landing with a wet smack on your pants.

You gaped openly at him, but Gojo kept his attention fixed on his ice, happily stirring it up into a soupy, syrupy mess.

“… and yet again I ask, what is that you want?”

Gojo leaned back, tilting his face towards you with an easy grin. You wondered if he saw the world the way you did with your Limitless with his eyes shaded. Seeing only the impressions of energy and sensation. Could he see your expression? The confusion in the downturn of your mouth or the suspicion in the narrowness of your eyes?

“Nothing too crazy! Just need a fiancée.”

The breath punched out of your lungs.

***

You waited outside the small convenience store across the street, feeling your cheeks beginning to lessen in redness from both anger and embarrassment at your sudden outburst.

When Gojo returned from inside, his hair was still wet… and there was still some redness from the syrup stuck to the strands. You hadn’t been able to control the impulse to throw your kakigōri at him, the breaking of your composure having flowed directly down your arm. It could have been worse, you supposed. You could have punched him.

He had needed to rinse off his blindfold, the fabric now folded and tucked into his back pocket. He had replaced it with the dark glasses you recognized from his youth, giving you a glimpse of the bright blueness of his eyes every once and awhile.

Gojo sighed and tossed a damp paper towel into a bin and turned to you expectantly. You gingerly handed him back his own dessert, having minded it for him while he went into the men’s room to clean up. It was practically soup now and you winced when he lifted it to his lips and drank it.

“As I was saying—“ he began with a smack of his lips.

“No—”

“—it’s a pretend engagement.”

Your mouth hung open, half ready to utter another refusal, which you swallowed back in as he waited expectantly for you to cease interrupting him.

“You let me take you on a few dates, we put on a show of my courting a potential betrothed and in exchange I green light your promotion.”

You narrowed your eyes, biting the corner of your lip into your mouth in obvious consideration.

“For how long?”

Your directness didn’t seem to offend him. Quite the opposite actually. Every time you curtly dropped a single or few word sentence he seemed to only smile brighter.

Gojo shrugged, “A few months. Maybe more. Until I figure out a permanent solution.”

“Your parents want you to get married?”

“The whole clan wants me to get married, sweetheart. I am the strongest.”

And now came the obvious question.

“Why me?”

Gojo shrugged, “You were one of their first picks to start with, so they’ll approve. And there isn’t a risk of you falling for me…”

His lips upturned into a sly grin, “… too quickly.”

You scoffed.

“Family will back off. I get a bit of peace until I have to kick you to the curb, and you get to be a first-class sorcerer. Everyone wins.”

“I’m not going to fall for you.”

Gojo gave a sad little nod, like he was agreeing with a deluded person in order to keep them calm and reasonable.

Granted, you did just effectively hurl a slushy at him a few minutes prior.

“This seems a bit extreme, even for you. Why do you think I’d even say yes? You know exactly why you got slapped. Can I expect that same level of charm from our future ‘dates’?” you asked, kicking yourself for having implied in your words you knew him well enough to even know what was extreme for him. The comment did not go unnoticed, even with his half expression hidden you could tell his interest was piqued. The last thing you wanted to do was to explain to this insufferable man how his very presence was as constant as the sun. Always nagging in the back of your mind and in your abilities.

You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“That was awhile ago. Most girls find me pretty charming these days. As to why you’d say yes— given it is probably your best chance at getting to first grade sorcerer status, I can’t think of a reason you wouldn’t.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. Fifteen year old you would be outraged, furious. She would not have considered this offer for a second. She would have stamped her foot and told him exactly where he could stick his offer.

But twenty-eight year old you had learned that very often principles were made to be damned.

“And the fact I can tell you are just dying to say yes.”

There was that arrogance again.

“You still buying me lunch?” you countered and the smile he gave you was a bit different than the ones before.

“Wow. No one will even question how I could have been charmed by such a talented freeloader.”

“I am exceedingly charming.”

“And what an arm. You play softball or you just start a lot of food fights as a kid?”

“I want sushi.” You said, the finality of your voice inarguable. You thought he might have rolled his eyes, but nevertheless you got your lunch and even managed to bargain a single day to think about the offer.

[mitigatedchaos]

[ @arcticdementor ]

What I want is for you to give up. To take all those dreams of a high-tech transhuman future… and abandon them entirely, knowing that events have placed such futures forever outside of humanity’s reach. I want you to give up  on the idea of defeating the woke before they (irreversibly) collapse our civilization, and give up on any hope of a recovery from the dark age to follow. I want you to feel anxiety and dread in the pit of your stomach every time you think of the future, knowing that each coming year will certainly be worse than the prior (and perhaps, faced with that ever-worsening future, maybe conside whether it’s worth bothering living through it at all). I’m Arctic Dementor, and I’m here to suck all light and joy from things. When I’ve sucked all light and joy out of you, and left you utterly despairing, then I’ll be satisfied.

If you want to criticize Transhumanism because all of your worst outcomes are on the other side of The Singularity (whether that's in 2030 or 2300), might I suggest you instead use that gigantic IQ of yours to write about

Reproductive alignment, potential for value drift in the event of the technological commoditization of childbearing

The effects of evolution with effectively 'unlimited' 'investment capital,' through the combination of AI and fusion power, potentially rapidly consuming new surplus as soon as it is created

The apparent "Babel Limit" our civilization may be hitting, where concentrations of truth-production become nodes to be subverted, and information-faking technology increases at pace with information-finding technology

Risks in rendering so much mass human survival so heavily dependent on industrial technology (already an issue in late modernity)

...instead of trying to, I dunno, do psychological warfare on someone that's in a better position on that front than you. (You can skip covering the Electric Demon Hypothesis since you don't believe in it.)

Future new models who fundamentally depend on high industrial technology as part of their reproduction process might give in to total despair at the thought of a crash of industrial society, but, like...

I'm human. The whole "paramilitary cyborg manufactured by the defunct military of the former North American government" thing is just a bit - even if it's based on certain real elements of my background (related to this country's postwar dominance) - so like

My ancestors lived through the medieval era. My last name has a different meaning in this era, but I know what it meant back then.

I'm not going to have my brain broken by having to live like it's the 1700s, and steam tech is not particularly advanced - like yeah you need blast furnaces but those are ancient Chinese technology, and yeah you need machine tools but the first planes for that were creating by putting blue dye on metal plates and rubbing them together. Iron is 5% of the Earth's crust and you can get carbon from charcoal if you need to.

"But the transition back to 1700s tech would be hell" - Yeah I'm sure it would, and I might not even survive it, but how would curling up into a ball be helpful here? I mean for fuck's sake even if we get life extension tech I don't expect to live forever.

One of the nice things about camping - part of why I recommend it - is that shitting in an outhouse in the woods without a phone, and having to travel entirely by foot without car, helps reset your expectations of "normal" and understand on an intuitive (rather than purely academic) level what all of that energy and infrastructure in society is doing for you.

"what if you had to go on a camping trip for the rest of your life" "what if you had to farm every day" "what if there was a famine and you had to fight off the Communists" "what if there was no air conditioning" "what if you had to make brutal, tough decisions"

In what way are these supposed to be brain-breaking considerations?

Are you sure you don't have me confused with someone else, someone who has never touched a pocket knife before?

"but what if the Communists stay in power" - The Soviet Union managed what, 70 years? Mao was Chairman what, 27 years?

[aizawaskittenwhore]

internal affairs

pairing: shota aizawa x poc!reader

words: 5.6k (LMFAOOOO I GOT CARRIED AWAY ENJOY) lowercase vv intentional

warnings/kinks: alcohol, swearing, degradation, praise, spit if you squint, breeding kink???ish sorta kinda yeah, begging, use of the pet name kitten, bondage, caught while masturbating

synopsis: aizawa thinks sex is generally a waste of time and energy. after finding you, (his close friend and coworker) in a...compromising position one night when he’s returning something to your dorm, he learns some information that has him wanting to waste some time with you..and energy. ;)

a/n: it’s been forever since i’ve written smut let alone with a poc reader so go easy on me LMFAOOOO

nsfw below the cut, let’s get it!

shota aizawa could, honestly, live without sex.

he just didn’t see the necessity of it, all the exhaustion and sweat just for a sudden rush of dopamine that lasts all of a minute before the stickiness sets in. before exhaustion settles over every muscle and renders you immobile, confined to the infamous postcoital wet spot while you make plans to wash your sheets—

as soon as you can regain control of the burn in your lungs, that is.

in between teaching during the day, patrolling in the evenings while still managing to grade papers, establishing lesson plans, taking care of his cat yuki and occasionally having to watch over his more “at-risk” students (cough midoriya cough) sex just didn’t take enough priority in his life for him to be interested in it. his right hand did the job just fine most nights, and he didn’t see the need to involve another person when it came to something he was more than proficient at handling by himself. he had no shame in the way he chose to live his life, it was practical and didn’t interfere with any of his responsibilities; a perfect setup.

at least, until he told you this same information over drinks one friday.

“please say you’re joking.” you chuckle, brows aloft in amusement. your fingertips dance along the rim of your shot glass before you raise it to your lips, the bitter and potent sake you ordered beginning to blossom warmly across your cheeks. “i’m serious. the hell would i gain from having some complete stranger try to learn how to please me when i can just do it myself?” aizawa queries, index finger and thumb taking residence along the upper neck of his beer bottle, grimacing harshly as he takes another swig. “i always get this shit every time we come here, and every time it’s always terrible.” he sets the bottle to his left, reaching for a shot glass instead to wash down the acrid taste. the bar is moderately populated today, with other pros scattered among tables and booths while engrossed in their own conversations; the background noise serving as the perfect buffer for the x-rated nature of your conversation.

you normally hate drinking after work, it always made you sluggish for the rest of the night, but aizawa owed you a favor after you took on the grading process of 1-a’s exams while he went out on patrol a few nights ago. he hadn’t wanted to ask so much of you as you were already training class 1-b and doing presentations for general studies that week, but after seeing the state of exhaustion the man was in you’d insisted, suggesting he get the bill next time the two of you hung out to make up for it. “but don’t you get tired of it? you know....masturbating?” you pry, right hand coming up to make a crude jerking motion to emphasize your point. “ i mean...you already know what you like, and the quickest way to get yourself there. there’s no exploration, no variety, you don’t get to really try anything new.” a teasing smile already settled across your lips.

aizawa falters for a moment, mouth pulled into a tight stance that signals his contemplation. head low, shoulders hunched, appearing to deeply ponder your question and how to answer it. you worry, for a moment, that you may have overstepped in your attempt to get a rise out of your quiet friend. however, worry soon liquifies into a fierce heat as a low chuckle rattles through him; shota glancing up at you through rebellious strands of hair that, regardless of his quirk, never seem to stay in place. “and what, y/n , would you happen to know about sexual exploration?” he shoots back, two slender fingers and a calloused thumb sending another shot down his throat with ease.

you flush, all your nerves on high alert as his rich, onyx irises seem to detect the growing arousal settling between your thighs, pleased at the reaction his question emitted. “i-i’m just saying that it’s got to get boring sometimes...just doing the same old routine whenever you’re in the mood!” you stutter, clearing your throat after you choke on the last syllable of your sentence. “that wasn’t my question.” he remarks, eyes slicing through any attempt at keeping your composure, yet you don’t budge.

“well, if you just have to know aizawa -“ you drag out the final consonant to mock his inquisitive nature, before continuing your tangent, “-sex doesn’t always have to be about the orgasm. i mean sure, it’s a pretty fucking fun part of it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s the foreplay, the newness of being with someone you haven’t been with before that really just...ties it all together. figuring out what they like, having them explore what you like, letting them take you in new and different ways...” you trail off, a blush now having settled across your cheeks, albeit impossible to clock thanks to the deep brown reach of your skin complexion.

“it’s worth the effort, is what i’m sayin’. you never know, you might like things that you didn’t think you would...like getting tied up or spit on or something..” you finish, now feeling his gaze settle over you like a blanket fresh out of the dryer. you quickly busy yourself with thanking your bartender as she slides you the tab, trying checking out the damage so you wouldn’t have to make eye contact with aizawa after that very honest admission. he quickly swipes the little book from your reach, depositing the black card inside with minimal resistance and returning the tab to its original position with a “don’t. i owe you, remember?”

damned cat-like reflexes.

fuck pro-hero training.

fuck the growing amount of slick saturating (and ruining) the simple maroon panties you’d chosen when getting ready for work today.

and most of all, fuck shota aizawa for being able to make your blood run hot by paying a fucking tab and giving you a look or two.

“right. thanks, by the way. but if i can’t get up for that meeting nezu’s holding tomorrow, i’m blaming you.” you’re hoping a bit of humor will distract you from the way your body is overheating from being within such close proximity to him, and the way your core is pulsing around nothing as if it were fiending for his presence. “not my fault you’re a lightweight, so blame me all you want sweetheart.” shota dryly rebounds, a mirthful smile on his face in response to the way you roll your eyes and suck your teeth, flipping him off.

“if you wanted to fuck me, you could’ve just asked.”

you’d pale, if you could.

your jaw collapses, eyelashes batting double time while you struggle to process what the fuck just came out of his mouth. six seconds go by before you begin babbling, voicing your opposition to his prior statement with phrases such as “wait wait wait, what did you sayyyy?” and ”bye because that didn’t even come out my mouth i-“

while he just...laughs. he finds your attempts to clarify your alleged non-existent sexual attraction to him hilarious, and even mentions that he finds it adorable as the two of you begin to make your way back to the teachers’ dorms. he holds the door open for you as you head inside, chuckling to himself as you continue to playfully curse him out while you walk to the women’s side of the building.

that was seven hours ago.

it’s currently 12:47am, and you’re struggling to catch even a wink of shuteye. you’re starting to regret having that sake earlier, since alcohol always fucks with your sleep schedule, but that isn’t what’s keeping you up tonight.

no, no, that would happen to be the unprofessional and honestly straight up shameful thoughts you’re having about your friend and coworker, shota. vivid images of those slender fingers sliding into you one by one, each one filling you more than the last, float past your lids every time you close your eyes. daydreams of his tongue on your clit, tracing patterns into the sensitive nerves while he calls you his good girl, his kitten, his slut, hands forcing your thighs apart as they shake from each and every time you cum around those devilish lips of his. fantasies of his capture weapon binding your hands behind you, fingers dangling helplessly while his hand rests on the small of your back to serve as leverage for each and every time he slides in. face pressed into the mattress as he fucks into you slowly, not wanting to give you the satisfaction of having him so deep so quickly. voice hoarse, tone pleading when you beg him to take you deeper, harder, promising to take it like a good girl would if he would just keep hitting that spot that makes your toes curl, yes right there, fuck-

you flip your pillow over in an attempt to cool the sweltering heat below the waistband of your panties, but it’s no luck. you should've been asleep two hours ago. staring hopelessly at the ceiling, lost in your mind as you watch the streetlights’ beams flicker through your window, streams of light disturbed by nearby tree branches. right hand slowly sliding down your body, from your breasts to the curves of your waist before settling right on the top of your panties. your fingers begin to flutter above your dripping core.

‘this is wrong. i shouldn’t do this.’ you chide yourself, but your body has already made up it’s mind.

and soon a cord wound so tightly within your body it could suffocate you...snaps.

the tip of your middle finger dips down to your pussy to collect the slick gathered there, and you groan at the sheer amount of it.

he really got you fucked up.

thinking of how he would tease, you circle your throbbing clit, touch feather light to the point where it feels like borderline torture. middle finger and ring finger conjoined to shallowly dip inside you once, twice, then three times before filling you completely.

but it’s not enough.

it’s not him.

you sigh at the way the tips brush against your g-spot, beckoning them forward until you physically arch into your hand as though it were connected to the subject of your little self love session.

“fuck...”

shota’s pov

he’d taken a short break from his current grading session to stretch, and grab a small snack when he noticed it.

you’d left your id tag with him when you’d turned in for the evening, as the two of you had used his id to get on to school grounds since your hands were full with your work bag, your purse, and takeout from the bar. he must have forgotten to give it back to you after you asked him to hold it, he was too busy admiring how cute you looked while trying to prove you didn’t want to fuck him.

not that he would mind if you did, of course.

he’d developed something of a crush on you over the past few weeks since you’d been working more closely together as hero course teachers, and he got to know you outside of a strictly work environment.

you’re funny, intelligent, clever (which is a turn on for him since he needs someone he can bounce off of), and it doesn’t hurt that you’re easy on the eyes.

really, really easy on the eyes. fuck.

he scratched the back of his neck as he felt the familiar flush begin to creep up his face, hoping the pain would will away the consistent hard-on he got whenever he focused too much on your smile, or the way your shoulders shake when you laugh, or the curve of your hips and how they look like they would be a perfect fit for his vice grip as he eased you onto his dick, looking you right in the eyes before drilling up into you. eyes shimmering with such pretty tears from how sensitive she was, neck littered with marks from his earlier ministrations, voice shaky as she begged him to fill her, pump her full of every last drop cause she’s been so so good-

‘damn it shota. just go give her the fucking tag, she’ll need it tomorrow morning.’ he snapped internally, looking at his tented black sweats with dismay. it took everything within him not to make a sly comment on how getting himself off is never boring when it’s to a different fantasy of you each time, but if there’s nothing else he prided himself upon, it was his self discipline.

forcing himself to remember the time he caught hizashi shaving his left testacle and only the left one to make his erection less obvious, he grabbed her id and his own, and made his way to the women’s wing of the hero course dorms. it was old school, men weren’t allowed on the women’s side and vice versa on campus, however with this being the hero course some were granted special admin privileges should there ever be an emergency.

he happened to be one of them.

making quick work of finding your room, he leaned against the threshold, left arm poised to knock when he heard a soft hiss. a little rustling, and another sound, indiscernible thanks to your door.

“fuck...”

body stiffening at the swear, he paused, wondering if maybe you had been hurt or perhaps injured. it was in his nature to, despite his sarcastic and faux-apathetic disposition, be a hero no matter what. using what little force he could in an attempt to not frighten a possible intruder or make a bad situation worse, shota silently swung your door open and scanned the room for any possible threats.

he didn’t find any.

instead he found you, lacy black panties around your left ankle as you curled your middle and ring finger inside of you, moans bubbling out of your throat with a hand twisting and pinching your pretty brown nipples as you went. still completely unaware of his presence you sigh before letting out the prettiest and neediest little whine that went straight to his dick.

“mm...shota..please baby~“ you keen, fingers quickening their pace inside of your pussy, the streetlights from the nearby sidewalk casting a copper toned glean on the strings of slick connecting your fingers to the soaked paradise that was between your thighs. he freezes, thinking you’ve noticed his presence when it hits him-

you were fucking your fingers as if they were his own.

you’d said his name.

you wanted to fuck him just as badly as he wanted to fuck you.

and despite being a pro and having been in life threatening situations, instances where he’s had to make split second decisions without worrying whether they were right or not....here he has absolutely no idea what to do. he feels dirty, watching you in such a...compromising situation. even though you just said his name with about two-

now three-

-soaked fingers sliding in and out of your cunt, he knows he shouldn’t be here. out of respect for you, he takes about two steps backwards and tries to leave the room as silently as he came in, willing the universe to just let him have this as a pleasant memory for when he gets into bed tonight. but, like most times in his 31 years of existence, he can never get a moment of peace.

so he manages to trip over your shoes from earlier right as he was about to hit the hallway.

oh, and drops the id tags, of course.

y/n’s pov

the noise sends a chill through each and every nerve of your body, eyes firing open only to be greeted with the sight of a very flustered aizawa vehemently cursing out a pair of your boots, two id tags pooled at his feet. “what the fuck?!” digits wrenched from your body and hands clawing for your duvet in a last ditch attempt to preserve what little modesty you had left. “i- i just came to give you your id, and i heard you swear so i thought you might’ve been hurt or something, i didn’t see anything!” aizawa spat apprehensively, while simultaneously cursing his dick for choosing this particular moment to get incredibly aroused, and thanking himself for tucking his erection into his waistband earlier before he’d walked over in case he ended up talking to you. “oh my god. oh..my god i am so fucking sorry i-i know it was wrong and i totally understand if you don’t wanna be friends anymore just please don’t tell nezu i really really love this job-“ you begin to wail, teardrops nestling into your waterline before finally pooling over and breaking you, causing you to cry even more.

“i’m not mad at you y/n.” aizawa coos softly.

“-and i know i crossed so many lines and it’s selfish for me to ask that of you but i don’t know what i would do without UA-“

“y/n.” he calls, sitting beside you on the pillow soft mattress, his capture weapon pooling to the floor and briefly reminding him he’d brought it with him to begin with.

“-and if i’m being honest i’ve had a crush on you for forever and i was just too much of a coward to come and tell you myself so instead of being a woman about it i kept having these fantasies and i’m so fucking sorry aizawa-“

“shota. call me shota.” he tilts your chin up with his right hand so he can see your pretty brown orbs swimming in tears, before taking his left hand and thumbing away the still-wet tear tracks. you blink away your tears, brows furrowing in confusion at why he’s not angry, why you’re not packing up your dorm and turning in your letter of resignation right now. “it sounded so pretty when you’d said it earlier, why stop now?” he murmurs, those powerful ebony eyes taking you in by the gallon, half lidded as he looks you up and down.

so he did see everything.

and he wasn’t mad.

and you swear on everything you love that you just saw his length twitch through those black sweats, so he definitely shared the same sentiment.

“s-so you’re sure you’re not mad?” you sniffle, hands reaching to cover his as you lean into his lithe form, needing to feel his warm and comforting embrace. “positive.” he looks down at the way you’re nuzzled into his chest, arms shifting so that they’re wrapped around your back as you let out a sigh of relief. he softly taps you after a few minutes, needing to shift to a more comfortable position as his dick is pressing into his stomach this way, and it’s only making him firmer.

“can...can i kiss you?” he asks gingerly, heart fluttering at the way your eyes meet his and your head slowly nods, fingers fumbling to find his hand so you can hold it. his lips slot against yours, moving tenderly at first before the kiss begins to increase in intensity, your tongue moving fluidly with his, pulling away only to breathe before diving back into one another.

“those pretty lips taste so sweet...makes me wonder if you’re sweet all over, hm?”

you preen at the compliment, body craving his touch, his energy, his undulations, everything about him.

“tell me you don’t want this, and we’ll stop.” he mutters against your neck, soft kisses quickly turning to him sucking marks into your collarbone. it drove him insane, watching the reddish purple hues blossom across your skin mingling with the mocha of the rest of your body.

you didn’t have any intention on stopping though.

not for a fucking second.

“please...need you so bad.” you sigh close to his ear, taking his earlobe between your teeth and dipping a hand between the two of you to paw at his throbbing length. that seemed to do the trick just fine, his pulse spiking before he flipped the two of you with a quickness you’d only seen him use in battle. hands reaching for the nape of his neck as he tugged his shirt over his head, you watched in awe; you’d known sho was fit as he patrolled nightly, along with the consistent training he’d engaged in with his students. you just didn’t expect a simple long sleeve sweater to give way to toned abdominals, slender yet powerful arms in addition to a thick black happy trail that dipped below his waistband.

it wasn’t until he’d tugged down the lace covering your slit, (so hard it ripped), that you realized just how much he craved you. gazing at your core intently he spread you apart with his middle and forefinger, eyes nearly rolling out of his head with how you were dripping so much for him. you tried to shift your hips in an effort to get him to do something, anything, but that was shut down with a hand forcing your right thigh outwards and spreading you even wider.

“no no. keep them spread. let me watch you try to keep them open while you’re shaking...let me watch you fall apart..” he demands, head diving between your thighs to lap at your aching clit like a man starved. your legs rise only to settle on his shoulders, ankles crossed behind his head while your toes curl in euphoria. there were men before him, but none of them ever took care of you like this, never looked you in the eyes as their fingers started to curl in just the right places, never sighed in content at your taste as their eyes rolled back. never pried themselves away from your cunt just to add a pornographic amount of spit to your southernmost lips, strings of saliva connecting your twitching hole to his deliciously long tongue.

shota was unlike any man you had ever met before.

and that was what made him so intoxicating.

“ah..s-shota, please-” you whine, sensing your climax within reach. “please what, kitty? i won’t know if you don’t tell me.” he remarks, dipping back down to suck harshly at your swollen bud as he adds a third finger, length throbbing at the way you arch into his tongue. “m-make me-ah-make me...feel good...please sho” you stutter, face burning. “mm. i thought i was already making you feel good love? unless...there’s something else you want..” he trails off, smirking. your thighs are quivering now, muscles burning as you strain to keep them from crushing shota’s head, although with the way he’s devouring your pussy whole right now he doesn’t seem to mind one bit.

“i need you..to make me cum..” you whimper, winding a few fingers into his unruly mane of hair while your other hand settles above your mouth, trying to hide the obvious embarrassment on your face from being so exposed.

“well why didn’t you say so baby? after all, you did exactly what i told you to, and good girls get whatever they ask for.” he grins before working double time to bring you to the edge, hero stamina and strength coming out in full force with the way his fingers never cease in their abuse on your g-spot, refusing to quit until your thighs finally tighten around his head and your breath catches. his tongue replaces his fingers and you briefly pout at the slight change in fullness, but it doesn’t matter the second he coils his tongue upwards and rubs into your sensitive bud at a steady pace. you cum all over his face, and you never thought you’d see such a typically serious and stoic man look so...elated, a permanent beam stuck to him with superglue as he swallows as much of your essence as he can. chest heaving, body weightless, you sit up.

you gently coax him back up your body, shota’s arms caging you to your bed as you kiss him deeply, fingers fumbling to palm him through his sweats. “s’ my turn...wanna show you how much i like you..”

he nods, opting to trade places with you whilst helping you slide his sweats and boxers down his thighs, length springing up in anticipation. you’d had a inkling of how big he was from small glances on occasion, but you didn’t account for a solid eight and a half inches down your esophagus. his dick was pretty, a few veins running up and down the length of it, and tip just as pink as his kiss-swollen lips. the only thing that intimidated you was how thick it was. but you’d cross that bridge when it came to it.

saliva floods your mouth and you grasp his dick at the base, eyes wide as you track a bead of precum rolling it’s way down his tip before licking it up in one long hot stripe. “hm. tastes good.” you giggle, eyes locking with his before you relax your jaw and swallow as much of him as you can comfortably fit in your mouth, a shot of electricity running through you when shota lets out a deep throaty groan. “fuck...such a good fucking girl. you look so pretty like this.” shota sighs, left hand working it’s way through your coils and tightening its grip, but never pushing. he lets you work at your own pace, his own cheeks flushing when you interrupt the bobbing motion you had set to coyly circle your slick tongue around his tip. your mouth is hot and slick, encapsulating his dick in a velvety vacuum seal while you work him over and over; you haven’t had an insane amount of experience, but you’re observant of what motions garner positive reactions. it’s a combination so dangerous that it has shota’s right hand grappling your comforter for stability, breath quickening as he wonders how the hell he’s managed to last this long.

“you’re gonna suck me dry kitty...” he moans.

at least until you take not one, but both hands, add an amount of spit so copious it’s obscene, and begin to stroke his length slowly and effortlessly whilst maintaining eye contact.

with that little stunt, you’ve officially opened pandora’s box. and there’s no closing it now.

“come here.” aizawa commands, sitting up straighter to pull your hips into his, and before you know it you’re on your stomach, wrists pinned to your black sheets by agile hands. “if you wanna stop here tell me now baby.” he croons in your ear, feather light kisses pressed into your shoulder. “we can watch a movie, cuddle, whatever you’re comfortable with. but if we keep going like this-”

his length presses into your ass and a shiver shoots down your spine.

“-i can’t promise you i won’t ruin you y/n. fuck you full of my cum, pounding into you until i leave you drooling and sloppy just for me, have you scream my name so loud even the League knows who you belong to. you’d be all mine. my pretty kitty. is that what you want?” shota asks, one of his calloused hands sliding down the curves of your body to grip at the soft, tender skin of your ass.

“shota.....please. it’s all i want, just take me already-“ you sob, voice gathering in your throat. a sensual chuckle, and then you feel it: inch after inch slipping into your tight warm walls, the stretch causing your eyes to brim with tears born from more pleasure than actual pain.

“ah! you’re stretching me out so much...” you keen, eyelashes fluttering in ecstasy. “aw kitty...i haven’t even started yet.” shota teases, stretching to his right to grab his capture weapon, and bringing both your wrists behind you. “now..you’ve been so good for me tonight, i think you deserve a reward. earlier, i believe you mentioned something about being tied up?” he binds your arms, leaving your digits to flail helplessly right above the small of your back, where his hand has now come to rest.

“f-fuck me! please...i’m tired of waiting- i just wanna be yours!” you beg, hips jolting back in impatience and need, your pussy throbbing at the sensation of his tip nudging the deepest parts of you. “so fucking needy. i’ll give you exactly what you’re craving sweetheart.” he smirks, before dragging his hips as far back as he can, length retreating from your warm walls before slamming right back in. one hand on your shoulders to keep your face pressed into your pillows, the other taking reign on your hips as a guide to rut against you. your back arches so deliciously for him, ass jiggling on every thrust as he watches your body impale itself on his length. he’s so deep, his tip consistently ramming into your cervix over and over and over; your body is so overwhelmed and so needy, so full but not full enough. it’s too much, but you want more. “fill me up sho! i want it— i need it so bad” you cry, tears spilling over and staining your pillowcase. “wouldn’t you love that, having me fill this pretty pussy up with all my cum hm?” “no wonder you’re moaning for me like a whore, you want everyone to know who’s doing this to you.” shota pants, quickening his pace. “yes! i’m yours all yours!” you moan, pussy throbbing at his fierce pace, you can feel the sweat gathering between your body and the sheets but you don’t care. you use the leverage from your shoulders to push back onto him, chasing your high.

“that’s it, come on, fuck me back. come on kitty it’s your dick after all~” he breathes, grinning at the way you’re drooling and how your eyes are rolling at the way he’s fucking you.

“fuck, you must really wanna cum again hm? such a greedy, slutty girl” you nod, head spinning as he tightens your restraints and strokes into you as deep as he can. you feel the familiar quivering of your legs, a tell tale sign you’re close to cumming. “sho—ah!-sho please! i wanna cum please i’m so close-“ you plead, voice unsteady. “well since you asked so nicely...of course kitty” he acquiesces, a hand slithering between your folds to softly rub your clit while he drills into you, and your body nearly self destructs. “f-fuck! ah—thank you shota, oh god, mmm you’re so good to me” you babble, body floating through space as he rubs you through your orgasm.

and once again, the ball is in his court. you shudder, head leaning over your shoulder with lidded eyes to try and look at aizawa. his hair is down now, and a deep blush has taken residence across his cheeks, chest heaving as sweat glistens on his chest and slowly drips down his toned stomach. he hasn’t stopped fucking you, but this time his rhythm’s gotten sloppy, and his teeth have sunken into his bottom lip so hard you think he’ll pierce through it.

he’s close, and you want every last drop.

“make me take it shota—show me what you do to good girls~” you purr, eyes widening when he loosens your restraints and turns you over, and practically folds you in half. your ankles are by your ears now as he pounds into you, and everything is so much deeper than before. your pussy tightens at the new angle, and you feel another orgasm beneath the surface, though you don’t know if you can take it. “it’s too much! i can’t take it—“ you whine, tits jiggling as he swoops down and paws at one, making you cry out. “yes you can baby, just one more, come on make me proud just give me one fucking more” he growls, the heat of his order hot against your ear. “god i’m gonna paint these slutty little walls white—gonna fill you up so good” he moans, shota’s dirty confession egging you on as your fingers toy with your achingly sensitive bundle of nerves. “that’s it. play with it, show me how you do it when i’m not there-“ and that slick fucking comment is what sends you tumbling off the edge for your third time tonight. “fuck! i’m gonna cum—i’m gonna make you all mine, all for me” you grin before raking your nails up and down his back to encourage him. “give it to me, i don’t wanna have anyone else kiss me without knowing what you taste like~” and soon hot spurts of cum paint your insides and flood you with a warm, thick feeling. shota immediately crashes his lips onto yours, holding you tightly. you can’t really explain the current state of your emotions, but you feel full, and content. meanwhile the current object of your affection is nuzzled into your neck, peppering kisses over all the love bites he’d inflicted earlier as a means of apology, though you didn’t mind.

it would be a pain in the ass to cover up tomorrow, but you could always just wear a scarf or a turtleneck to compensate due to the colder weather. it wasn’t until the two of you had cleaned up and rehydrated that he spoke: “by the way, i like you too. and have. for a while now. just in case that wasn’t clear.” he stated, arms wrapped around your middle as he began to doze off.

“you know you probably should’ve led with that-“

“shut up.”

so yeah, shota aizawa could live without sex.

question is: why the hell would he want to, when you’re here?

[sonicasura]

SonicAsura Doodles #14

"Well I be. This is the first time someone actually saw me! You know my older brothers are the ones who run the show, but I prefer to keep my presence down low. Chimeris is my name, glad to meet y'all the same." ~ Chimeris, Wonderworld Theatre's Songstress and Musical Prodigy.

A mysterious being that appeared in Wonderworld Theatre around 1000 years ago. Neither Balan or Lance know the very young Chimeris had shown up in their magical home but took turns raising her. Unlike the two Maestros, she isn't a Positi or Negati but a Neutra.

Neutra is a term for those who don't completely indulge in either positive emotions or negative, only a steady balance of the two. She can also speak normally if any guest requested. Although, she does swear in rhymes when peeved and not in the vicinity of any children.

Ex: "Come back and take your hit, ya lil shit! You think you are top brass, but all I see is a jackass! You know what goes well with a sandwich, punishing this conniving bitch!"

Chimeris likes helping others as much as she likes to cause mischief.

Various visitors, Negati, Tims and even both Balan and Lance had got caught in her impish pranks. These jokes range from water balloons, whoopie cushions, surprise scares, glitter boxes and the occasional paint bombs. If it doesn't cause any big harm, then it's good in her book.

Music you hear in Wonderworld is often orchestrated by her, each piece being based on an individual or various cultures. Chimeris only gets involved with her brothers' show if they do something stupid involving any human guests.

Despite being about a 1000 years old, it doesn't mean that the Neutra can't overpower Balan or Lance whenever needed. Chimeris' energy is bright green in color and has a unique property of neutralizing positive and negative energy. Something that can render her brothers' powerless for a good amount of time.

The youngest Maestro does care for the inhabitants and guests of Wonderworld but has a wanderlust when it comes to exploring outside the theatre. These little adventures often make her a cryptid to those who catch a glimpse of Chimeris flying about or dancing in the moonlight. Something that earned her the moniker: 9 Tailed Witch or Fox Dancer.

To those who encounter this particular Maestro are in for an interesting adventure.

Hey guys! It's been some time since I posted a doodle. So far, I love playing Balan Wonderworld and been having a blast. It sucks that Square Enix had to sabotage such an interesting and beautiful game. If you want to know what I mean then you should look for: Did Square Enix Sabotage Balan Wonderworld? Post that should be below this on my blog. You can also look at Jim Sterling's videos on Square Enix's screw ups too since this isn't the first they messed with '$60' games.

You know how much of a fresh breath air it is to a play a game not associated with saving the entire world. It's more of a rescue mission if I'm being honest but same difference.

Truth is that I had this little doodle for quite some time and wanted to build her a background of sorts before posting it.

Also, I'll be making some Balan Wonderworld fanfics and even some art. These will have very special tags considering how Square Enix shamefully screwed up Balan Company's first game.

# Fuck Square Enix #Balan Company's Innocent

A brand new small company can't really go against a big one like Square Enix but Balan Company did their best to give us a playable game alongside a novel for the full story. At least it isn't something like Bethesda's Fallout 76.

So you'll be seeing those tags a lot for anything Balan Wonderworld related. I'm almost done with the main story and I'll give my final review alongside favorite costumes, stages, bosses and music.

That's all I have! Until next time folks, see ya in Wonderworld.

[ducktracy]

185. porky’s hero agency (1937)

release date: december 4th, 1937

series: looney tunes

director: bob clampett

starring: mel blanc (porky, emperor jones), tedd pierce (gorgon, assistant), sara berner (porky’s mom)

the final porky cartoon for 1937, and what a busy year it’s been for him! hard to believe he had an entirely different voice, look, and demeanor just 8 months prior. even then, his character still had much to explore, as we see here—in this cartoon, he’s cast as a child again. curiously, bob clampett is often credited as the one who refined his personality into the one we know today (he did give him his iconic suit and tie), but, like everything else, it was more of a collaborative exploration by all of the directors.

the title card is one of the more interesting title cards in the warner bros. repertoire—it’s a photo of a porky statuette! bob clampett would make several statues during his time at WB and distribute them to his top animators. while the statue in the credits is painted over, you can view an unpainted model here!

here, porky dreams of the wonders of ancient greece, prancing around as the mythological messenger parkykarkus. however, a gorgon has her sights set on turning him into stone, and it requires some quick thinking from porky to weasel his way out of this mess.

bobe cannon animates the expositional sequence, with porky propped up in bed, sucked into a giant book full of greek myths. his mother (offscreen) tells him it’s time to go to sleep, but porky objects, protesting that he was just at the exciting part. cannon’s animation is easy to spot with his trademark buck teeth, yet the gestures he gives porky--finger points, turning the page, etc.--give him a nice dose of youthful energy as he recaps the story, telling tales of gorgons and “great great great” greek heroes.

nevertheless, a disembodied hand turns out the light, dismissing porky’s protests. he heaves a resigned sigh, lamenting how he wishes he could be a great greek hero. 

the cartoon doesn’t make any attempts to keep the dream sequence a surprise--instead, the face of the book’s cover takes up the entire screen, the pillars emblazoned on the front melting to life as we fade into ancient greece. and, as to be expected, our favorite porcine hero proudly stands in front of the building, proudly advertising “HERO FOR HIRE AGENCY -- PORKYKARKUS PROP.”

porkykarkus is a play on parkykarkus (”park your carcass”), a character on eddie cantor’s radio show “the chase & sanborn hour”. truck into porky’s services as he narrates over the specials:

“has anybody any eh-deh-deah-deah-dragons you want seh-seh-sleh-slay-slaye--rubbed out? or maybe ya have some, uh, fair meh-mai-meh-maide--honeys ya want rescued! it’s a peh-pleasure. is your daughter safe? phone eh-peh-porkykarkus at olympia 2222!”

porky’s narration, as always, is fun to listen to, and the physical advertisement has its own charm and appeal, with discounts and deals on certain rescues. not only that, but it’s a damn smart way to save money, having just the narration over the still frame. smart thinking!

conveniently, porky gets a phone call, sparking the tried and true “gear up for a big sprint but merely tinker on over to your destination” gag. as porky answers the phone, filling us in by repeating the hidden dialogue from the other line, we find out it’s the emperor--he wants one hero to go.

chuck jones’ layouts stick out quite strongly throughout this cartoon, especially in the human designs. porky’s statue of mercury is no exception--the bulbous nose and rounded body construction are all surefire trademarks of his work. porky grabs the messenger’s hat and winged shoes from the statue, never once taking a beat to stop as he hobbles along, dressing as he prepares to head out. woodblock sounds simulate the sound of his hooves clopping, but also add an extra jaunty jive to the merry score of “have you got any castles?” in the background, the cartoon’s motif. it would also be a merry melody courtesy of frank tashlin not even a year later.

with that, porky takes off, soaring in the skies like a pro with his winged shoes. if the scene wasn’t appealing enough with the overhead layouts, the animation of porky steadying himself is wonderfully smooth and fun--the cherry on top. he circles the palace where the emperor is located, swooping down to his destination. complete with airplane sound effects, of course.

“howdy, empy!” another bulbous-nosed jones character silences porky from behind his armchair. emperor jones (boy, who could that name reference, i wonder?) speaks in a ridiculously hilarious dialect, completed with a thick accent: “shh! i’m making a fireside chat with my sheeps!” his voice then slips into a rooseveltian draw as he coos “my friends, grecians and customers, this is emperor jones speaking...”

pan to the audience, which consists of a sea of smiling statues. this entire speech sequence is wonderful--not only is his terrible grammar terribly amusing, (”statistics show... what last season at this time was population in greece from 6,000 with 500 with 54 people, with 17 statues.”) but little touches such as one of the audience statues roasting marshmallows and later a hotdog over the fireplace, the emperor making his audience clap by pulling on ropes tied to their arms, and so forth make the entire charade highly amusing with lots of details to look out for. porky standing idly in the background, awkwardly fidgeting as he tries not to intrude is a great little piece of character animation as well.

the emperor gives the skinny, all while chowing down on a hotdog: a gorgon has been turning more and more people into statues, and they need a hero to steal her life-restoring needle in order to turn all of the statues back into humans again. the hero he has in mind is, of course, porky, who bashfully accepts the offer. when the emperor asks those in favor to raise their right hand, he pulls on a lever that causes all of the statues to raise their hands in unison, including a hand on a nearby clock. with a handshake, empy concludes “it’s a deal!”

one of the most impressive pieces of animation in the cartoon (i actually dedicated an entire drawing to it!) is when the emperor sends porky on his way, who waves goodbye as he flies through the air with his winged shoes. just as he tips his hat, he knocks into a pillar, which sends him tumbling upside down, but still airborne. the wings on his shoes form hands as they shake their fists in the glory of the good landing, with porky flashing a cheeky grin to the audience before spiraling lower in the air, regaining his balance, and barreling onward towards a smoldering volcano. the animation is full of life and character--though porky is consistently jolly in the B&W clampett cartoons, the grin towards the camera as he prides himself in his save is a great little touch of personality. slowly but surely, bits of character are now becoming more defined.

a gag that took me just now to recognize it--porky swoops into the heart of the volcano, where we spot the source of the black fumes pouring out the top: the gorgon statue factory. a merry score of “you’ve got something there” serves as some easy listening as we’re treated to a sign gag:

outside of the factory is a human picket fence, comprised of familiar faces: statues of bobe cannon, norm mccabe, john carey, bob clampett himself and chuck jones surround the area. directly outside of the factory is the frozen statue of a salesman with his foot in the door--the joke is not only amusing, but the pose is quite strong and readable, too. though nowhere near the dynamism of frank tashlin’s poses in the mid ‘40s, clampett’s poses in this cartoon are quite defined and exaggerated for the time period. this is especially sharp in the scenes with the emperor.

porky knocks on the door held ajar by the ceramic statue’s foot, holding out an envelope. “telegram for the guh-geh-gee-geh-gee-gor-geh--” a hand snags the envelope out of porky’s grip, causing him to mutter “aww, nuh-neh-nee-nuh-neh-neh-nut--shucks,” a phrase he echoed in clampett’s previous entry, rover’s rival.

we transition to the inside of the factory, where we see the gorgon herself, positioned in front of a camera, awaiting to take “pictures” of her models. tedd pierce voices the gorgon, whose vocal stylings are a parody of tizzie lish, bill comstock’s character on al pearce and his gang. interestingly, the cartoon before this, the woods are full of cuckoos, featured a caricature of lish as well, also voiced by pierce. 

clampett and pierce’s comedic timing is sharp--not nearly as sharp as tashlin’s timing in the woods are full of cuckoos, but abundantly amusing nonetheless. the gorgon asks for a boy--”a sorta young-ish one”--and in comes a decrepit old man who can hardly hold himself up. the gorgon waits for the man to assume his position on the podium where his picture will be taken, singing a pitchy rendition of “am i in love?“, another homage to the characteristics displayed by lish’s character on the radio.

the gorgon snaps her photo, which turns the shaky old man into a stone statue at once, cheekily labeled “ANTIQUE --  $60,000 (P.S.: 000,000)” before he’s yanked off of the podium with a cane. 

“now let’s try a group picture.” you know it’s a ‘30s cartoon if the three stooges come waddling in--they made their caricatured, cartoon debut in the 1934 film the miller’s daughter, notorious for being chuck jones’ first animation credit. as expected, they all beat the tar out of each other while on the podium, rendered immobile only through the power of medusa’s camera. they turn into the three wise monkeys, labeled “3 MONKEYS OF JAPAN -- MADE IN GREECE”. 

norm mccabe’s animation is easy to spot in the next scene with porky, characterized by his signature double eyebrows. porky knocks on a door, parroting a favorite catchphrase from the al pearce show that frequented many a clampett cartoon: “i hope she’s eh-eh-at home, i hope, i hope, i hope, i hope, i hope...”

porky shakes the hand of the assistant, unfortunately a blackface caricature (save for the voice, who is just tedd pierce speaking in a deep, suave voice) as he greets “welcome, stranger. won’t you come in?” before porky has time to answer, he’s yanked through the iron bars of the door and placed neatly in line for the photoshoot, where he peeks through the door to see the action inside.

a pile of men form a pyramid, where the camera turns them into a literal statue of a pyramid, with some slight imperfections. “aw, shucks!” laments the gorgon. “you moved!” she approaches them with her life restoring needle, allowing the men to form into the proper position, maintaining good balance. she gets her “genuine egyptian statue”, quipping “ought to make a handy paperweight!”

the assistant informs porky that he’s next. porky backs up anxiously, echoing a short-lived catchphrase of his from the joe dougherty era: “nuh-neh-no! eh-nn-nee-no! a-a thousand times no!” the decision to make his thoughts visible (his head is slapped onto that of a piggy bank’s) is playful, and also reflects just how big of an influence comics had on bob clampett’s work: comic artists such as milt gross and george lichty have been cited by clampett as inspirations. the george lichty influence is definitely noticeable in rod scribner’s animation under bob clampett, as we’ll discover in the coming years.

in the midst of his panic, porky backs into a statue of "dick a. powello” (dick powell and apollo), causing it to break. but, rather than fuss over the mess, porky uses the opportunity to hatch an idea instead.

in comes strolling porky, concealed by powello’s upper body and a blankett hiding his hooves. the triumphant score of “he was her man” and the gorgon’s smitten woos makes the scene hilarious as is, but the blanket falling off and revealing porky’s pudgy little hooves is the icing on the comedic cake.

porky perches himself on a conveniently placed couch, where the gorgon approaches him. “pardon me, is this seat taken?” she doesn’t wait a wink before snuggling right up to him, a heart symbolizing her affections popping in the air. though clampett would play with typography at times and maintain an overarchingly jovial mood to his cartoons, it’s an odd thing to see him play with comic-like visuals in this manner, such as porky physically envisioning himself as a piggy bank or the heart from the gorgon. i wish he had done it more in this nature!

with the gorgon too close for comfort, porky uses this as an opportunity to grab the gorgon’s life-restoring needle, dangling from her neck and lying against her body. it wouldn’t be a clampett cartoon without sexual innuendos--porky reaches aimlessly around for the needle, prompting the gorgon to let out a shriek, cooing “why, mr. a POWELLo!” 

she smothers the ceramic head in kisses, giving him a nice lipstick finish to boot as she pretends the statue has given her a ring. her ecstasy is hilarious and WONDERFULLY conveyed through strong, rubbery poses worth freeze-framing. picturing porky’s befuddlement is another humor within itself. 

finally, porky’s disguise is revealed when the gorgon literally crushes the statue in an embrace, stone crumbling around him as he desperately slips out of her grip. as the gorgon makes threats to call the cops, reciting the WB favorite catchphrase of “calling all cars! calling all cars!”, porky makes with the needle and jabs it in various statues, warning them “uh-geh-uh-get goin’! i-i-eh-it’s the guh-geh-geh-eh-geh-gorgon!”

as the gorgon chases porky with her camera, he continues to revive a barrage of statues: the antique, the famed discus thrower (who throws himself out of the scene rather than the discus), the man from the end of the trail statue, who exits riding his horse like a merry go round (a nod to friz freleng’s sweet sioux), a woman who marches off with popeye’s forearms--note the bobe cannon statue in the back here--and a mermaid who unzips her fin and makes a run for it. the highlight of the entire montage is when porky approaches two temples (the two of them together labeled “shirley temple”) and injects the needle into them, prompting the temples to use their pillars as legs and run for the hills.

the chase reaches its climax as the gorgon pursues porky with a movie camera, turning the crank ferociously as she runs. her plan works--porky slows down, freezing in mid-air as the gorgon cries “hold it!” thus, the gorgon pins porky to the ground, who tries his hardest to fight back, but ultimately flailing around as she commands him to open his eyes.  

we melt into the present, where we find porky’s mother in place of the gorgon, telling him softly to wake up. he does so, after she pries one of his eyes opens. relieved that it was all a dream, he embraces his mother, prompting a happy end and an iris out.

this cartoon has a soft spot in my heart--it was one of the first LT cartoons i saw on this whole venture. i thought i was the smartest person alive, understanding the three stooges, popeye, and shirley temple references. who knew just how much i had (and still have!) to learn! though even without my sentimental biases, this still stands as a very good cartoon.

as i mentioned previously, the poses in this are full of elasticity and energy, especially in the emperor and the gorgon. porky does a very nice job as well--little pieces of animation such as him fidgeting awkwardly while the emperor rambles on, swinging from side to side as he’s offered the job to be a hero, etc. etc. are full of charm and character. while his personality isn’t the most electric in comparison to characters like bugs and daffy, it’s the little things like these that really make porky stand out. with him, a little subtlety goes a long way, and that’s why he’s one of my favorites. he’s so reserved in comparison to such a wild cast of characters that his timidness actually shines through and sets him apart! (though, on the other hand, he can still have quite the personality, as we’ll discover!)

personally, the only gripes i have with this cartoon is the blackface caricatured assistant (which, in comparison to some cartoons we’ve seen and still have yet to see, is relatively mild, but uncomfortable nonetheless). the jokes, while corny at times, still hit, the animation is full of life and vigor, and the short as a whole has a lot of charm, whimsy, and personality. it has my seal of approval! go check it out!

link!

[rudysrings]

Adapt or Die (Prologue)

A/N: This is a new series I’m trying out. If it’s a go then yay! If not--Well, I’ll let it fade away into nothingness then, I guess... :(

Summary/Blurb Here

SO, the main character/reader was essentially inspired by Darwin from the Marvel comics/X-men. However, I will be adapting (HAHA adapting, get it? That was totally by accident I swear) the abilities and back story to fit what I’m writing; so, die-hard Darwin fans, please know I’m not trying to misportray (is that even a word? Eh, I don’t care. I think y’all know what I mean) the original character, but I simply wanted to draw from the bomb-ass root idea of what he can do. 

For those of you who don’t know who Darwin is, here’s a quick blurb from Wikipedia on what his abilities are:

Darwin has the power of "reactive evolution"; i.e., his body automatically adapts to any situation or environment he is placed in, allowing him to survive possibly anything; the exact nature and limits of his powers have not been revealed.

Examples of his powers include: gaining night-vision after a few seconds in the dark; functional gills after being submerged in water; fire-proof skin after being exposed to flame; increasing his own intelligence; converting his body into pure energy; no longer requiring oxygen after being sucked into space; morphing into a sponge when shot at with a weapon designed to destroy the subject's nervous system; and acquiring comprehension of the Shi'ar language merely by looking at written samples. His power may concern itself with more efficient methods of survival than Darwin himself might choose; for example, instead of continually increasing Darwin's powers when taking punishment from the Hulk, his body simply teleported him away from the fight.

His power can also work when dealing with non-immediately-life-threatening situations, such as rendering it impossible for Darwin to get drunk by allowing his body to process alcohol faster than humans would normally.

It’s pretty fucking cool, right? Let me know what you think. By the way, this part is pretty short because it’s the prologue, but I expect the other parts to be longer. 

Oh! I almost forgot: the reader is desi :) Thanks to @parkerpeter24​, who wrote an awesome Peter Parker imagine here for Holi, I felt inspired to post this WIP. 

I realize that makes the writing not truly an all-inclusive one, but I thought it would be cool to bring this aspect in. Obviously, you don’t have to be desi to read it and the whole thing won’t be about being desi. Just a little background I felt like adding to the character. If you absolutely hate it... then maybe don’t read it? :) please and thank you.

Anyways! Sorry for the rambling. Enjoy and thanks for reading if you’re still here <3

Warnings: There’s for sure going to be some swearing in this series :) Also, It’s gonna be a little steamy ;-; But it’s not revolved around smut and probably won’t be all that graphic. Probably. No promises O.O Only implied sexual happenings and for once, no swear words in this part.

Words: .957 k

ON WITH IT:

You blink your eyes against the startling light that is pouring through the thin curtains. Surprised that it’s morning, you sit up quickly, looking to your side to see no one there.

Ok, so that’s two surprises in the first ten seconds of the day. We’re off to a great start today, Y/N.

You sigh, brushing your hands through your unruly turquoise hair and swinging your legs out of the bed. You slip on your jeans and look around for your shirt. The black lacy thing you had worn the night before is laying over a lamp and you quickly shuffle over to it. Your eyes flick down to the nightstand and see a flip phone. Confused, you pick it up, opening it to see a single message from a private number.

We’ll be in touch.

Your stomach drops and you hastily pull your shirt over your head and clear the hotel room. Your better judgement tells you to get rid of the phone. Toss it in a river. Run over it. Throw it into a passing car.

For some reason, against that better judgement, you tuck it into your pocket and check out of the hotel.

You remember the previous night perfectly; the alcohol that had done absolutely nothing to dull your acute senses.

                                                                ~

You slam the shot back down on the bar counter, not even wrinkling your nose at the sharp taste of tequila that should have burned your throat.

The bartender gives you a look of obvious judgement. Next thing you know, he’s asking for your keys.

“I don’t have ’em. I walked here,” you lie.

“Wasn’t that you on the motorcycle?” There’s a smooth voice behind you and you turn to see a woman with fiery hair and an enticing smile.

“No.” You reply shortly.

She shrugs. “Hmm. I could have sworn…You know,k I always did have a thing for a woman on a motorcycle.”

She approaches the bar beside you and asks the bartender for some sort of fruity concoction.

She has an accent. Italian, maybe. It’s obviously fake. She’s doing a helluva good job of over-enunciating every single word an Italian would. However, no Italian who’s lived in London for more than a week would continue to cling to those pronunciations. So, you decide she’s either a tourist or a spy.

When you smell metal—vibranium—on her, but don’t see it, given it’s probably hidden underneath her tight-fitting clothes, you decide it’s the latter.

“Do you ride?” You asked her.

“Motorcycles? Nah. I just hang on to the one riding,” She flirts.

You finger the rim of your drink. You can hear someone speaking to her through her earpiece.

“You got her, Natasha. Close in.”

“Y/N.” You stick your hand out, unafraid.

Natasha takes it immediately, giving you a firm shake and lingering on your ring a little too long.

“Sienna.”

You can’t help but giggle out loud. Wow. She had to choose the most cliché Italian name to ever exist. You covered your outburst with a cough. “Beautiful,” you complimented her fake name.

“Classic.” She shrugged. “So, what’s a gal like you doing in a bar like this?” She asked, gesturing to how run down the area was. The bartender gave her an incredulous look, but even he probably knew the kind of reputation the place had. You had to admit that it was unkempt and clearly not maintained--not to mention the types of sleazes that seemed to frequent it.

“I could ask you the same.”

“Deflect,” said the voice in the earpiece. You furrowed your brows slightly; you could usually judge by the timbre of the voice what a person’s age was, but this one stumped you. The inflections were outdated for sure, but the man spoke like velvet, far too young to be using that old-time Brooklyn accent.

“You first,” Natasha pushed.

Shrugging, you replied, “It’s more low-key, don’t you think? Wouldn’t want to run into anyone I know when I’m clearly trying to escape the real world right now.”

The bartender slid over her drink in a cocktail glass and Natasha took hold of it, taking a sip and staining the edge of the glass a deep burgundy. “And what exactly has the real world done this time?” She asked.

You smacked your lips thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s more about what the real world hasn’t done this time. Or maybe about what it did the other time.”

“Oh,” Natasha said simply.

“Can you get her somewhere alone, Nat?” The wannabe 40s Brooklyn man in the ear piece asked.

You smiled, showing your teeth. “How would you feel about helping me escape the real world a little bit more, Sienna?”

She moved closer, brushing your elbow. “Y/N, are you suggesting we get out of here?”

You were a couple of inches taller than her and you leaned over, close enough that locks of your ocean hair brushed her forehead. “What I’m suggesting is that I know a hotel with nice sheets not too far from here.”

Natasha smirked. “Nice work, Romanoff.” 

Romanoff? Sounds more Russian than Italian, you thought.

                                                               ~

It wasn’t the first time that somebody had attempted to con you, be it for information or for money. You didn’t mind the game. So, you let it happen. Undeniably, you enjoyed the spy’s touch and the numbing feel of her pillowy lips on yours. 

However, you did not expect to fall asleep. That had never happened before. Your body didn’t do that. Your body never failed to do something that would strengthen you. You had never, not once, fallen asleep in the presence of another.

That scared you.

You had been careless.

You straightened your shoulders as you walked out onto the streets of Southwest London. No big deal, you just had to be a bit more careful now.

я иду за тобой Natasha Romanoff.

A/N: я иду за тобой = I’m coming for you (Russian) 

(I used google translate, which is probably wrong; so, if anyone catches a mistake in that, please let me know, and I will change it :) )

*PSST*: Isn’t Natasha so fucking stunning in that picture on my sucky ass moodboard? Those eyes? That barely there smile? I’m melting. 

[brandstonethings]

Forge of Souls

Following: Nemesis

It was like walking into the stomach of some menacing beast. Only, this beast was more machine, made up of steel, bones, and fire. The Forge of Souls. It was not a place Joe expected to wander into at any point in his lifetime, yet here he was with his lover and his friends.

The four crept cautiously across long walkways of steel, crossed in a web-like pattern. They were suspended by towering chains hung from the ceiling above, of which he could not see where it ended. The enormous cavern, hollowed out to house this twisted machinery, was dark and cold. What warmth they had seemed to only be sucked out of them by the cool steel. The only light and heat emanated from the braziers spread out along the walkways, the red glow of what appeared to be massive grinders spinning dangerously fast below, and the fires shooting out of the sides and top of floating spires, suspended in the same manner as the walkways. It was the central spire that the group was headed for.

The sounds of the hammering of an anvil echoed through the darkness as the group finally reached the spire. After hastily tracking down the robed woman who escaped them previously, they had at last caught up. The walkway turned and the four followed it up a ramp and into the spire’s platform. It was there where their eyes bore witness to a great fire dancing above them, only it was incredibly unnatural, floating and being fed by a fuel source unknown. Joe had never seen anything like it. Along with it, an undead drake was spotted flying overhead with its death knight rider. The robed woman was in the center, tending to the recovery of her master, Neregory... Joe’s nemesis.

Their fight began with a burst of speed and intensity, Lithvia, Genny, and Joe quickly became locked in combat against Neregory’s two apprentices while Tralaia did her best to suppress the master from the fight with her arrows and traps. Yet, he was not kept out of the fight for long.

“Enough!” Neregory shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing through the chamber as he freed himself. At the same time, a sheet of ice was blasted off in all directions, freezing everyone in the chamber, friends and foes. “Each of you, naught but wretches! Dying for a feeble man without the will to protect his own family!” He barked. “Fools, each of you. You have marched here to halt me, yet you have only marched to your deaths!”

Joe had stood over the drake rider, about to bring his axe down on him when he had been frozen in the ice. Yet, his gaze moved from the rider to Neregory now. His words had added to the fire of rage that already burned inside of him. Memories of the night his four-legged companion Hic had been brutally slaughtered by the same monster that stood before him flooded back into his mind. It was the same that night. Joe had stood unable to help, being trapped in a prison of ice. It was a lie, what he had said. Joe would die in an instant to protect his family, a fact he knew was true in his heart. His voice came forth with a growl and a deep rumble. “Say that again about me...”

It was then that the plated menace had begun to march toward him. Joe tried with all his might to break out of the ice, as he tried on that terrible night. He figured that if not with his pure strength alone, then maybe all of his rage would lend to it. It was not enough, Neregory was upon him now and took him in his grasp. “My weapons, my helm. Forged with the souls of innocents, the souls of those long dead. The souls of whose -children- could not help them!” The cold, gauntleted fingers found the back of Joe’s neck before he could even respond and launched him flying across the chamber. He landed hard and tumbled near the very edge of the platform, with what looked like the abyss below. Luckily, he did not fall off the edge, though he coughed up his own blood. Pushing himself back up with Tralaia’s help, the fight would then rage on relentlessly...

“Your struggling is pointless.”

Joe let out a cry of pain as Neregory’s sword came crashing down on his pauldron, sending him to a knee. “It’s not pointless... I’ll fight for my family to the death! Somethin’ you’d never understand! There was a time I loved you like a brother... but you betrayed me!” Joe reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out the crystal orb he had used to defeat Neregory before, preparing to use it once again. He was struck across the face but caught himself at the cost of dropping the orb, which rolled away, dangerously close to the edge.

“A brother? You speak of betrayal, yet it is -I- who have been betrayed. By all I knew. By you. By my closest friends... By the fucking -Light-! Where were you when my soul was tormented? Where were -you- when I was made into nothing but a vessel of darkness! No. I have seen the true way of things, Joseph. You’re all lost, for death is inevitable, and betrayal is hardwired into the heart of every man!”

Joe had slowly begun to stand against the weight of the sword crushing his shoulder. “It wasn’t me who tormented you! You were nowhere to be found! Part of me wept for your loss, despite our fight that night you wrecked my eye! You came back an’ betrayed ME!” He swung his axe wildly at the once noble paladin, biting into his plate and forcing him back. “You left me to die! That’s what you did! Worse than the wicked man that brought me back to this shithole! You abandoned me, you abandoned your parents! You’re a coward, Joseph! You’ll never be anything more than that! A drunken, useless, coward!”

Joe stopped to catch a break as the fight continued for his friends behind him, the both of them more focused on their fight with words rather than steel. “So... that’s why you came back ‘n tormented me. It weren’t jus’ for ‘entertainment’ as you put it... You wanted revenge on me?” He spat more blood. “You left by yourself without a damn clue for me to follow! I never left you to die! I never abandoned my parents!”

“Never? Then where were you when they were slaughtered! Where were you when their souls cried out in anguish! Where the -fuck- have you been?!” Neregory descended down the ramp the opposite side from which Joe and his friends had entered. He stretched his hand out and a string of unholy energy shot out to grasp Joe, tugging him closer and threw him over Neregory’s head where he was slammed onto the metal walkway behind. Still coughing up blood, Joe moved to stand, rage fueling his strength. He heard the faint sound of Genny crying his name back in the chamber, yet his stare remained glued to Neregory. “You’ll pay for tormentin’ them. I might be late... but I swear I won’t rest till I make you pay!”

“Will you, Joe? Do you really believe that?” The death knight turned, stepping down the ramp with a great swing of his blade. “Or will you finally perish! Useless and unloved?! These fools may be under your sway now but it’s only a matter of time before you turn your backs on them as well!” Joe parried that swing and used his momentum then to deliver a series of powerful swings of his own, letting the axe guide his steps as he simply followed it, hungering for blood. “I will never betray my friends! Unlike you, I don’t believe two wrongs make a right!” Their fight with steel resumed, now out of view from the others. In the background, Joe could hear the loud roar of the frostwyrm and the beat of its bony wings just before it landed. It wasn’t long though before he put that thought out of his mind. He was going to kill this husk of a man, he wanted to kill him a hundred times over. He had him on his back foot once again and now had caught Neregory’s sword in the hook of his axe. He was going to end him now.

It wouldn’t be that easy, however. The death knight used the catch to pull Joe off balance and into a block of ice that formed around his fist. The frozen chunk of glacier was slammed into Joe’s face, making him stumble back down the ramp, though he shook it off, unrelenting. He charged up the steps again with a bloodlust roar and hurled the heavy axe at Neregory, who managed to block the axe. Not slowing his charge, Joe came up behind the screen of the axe and grabbed onto the runed blade, attempting to wrench it away from the knight as he bashed his shoulder into him. Neregory was shouldered, but had an iron grip on his weapon and would not release it. Stepping around Joe, he wrenched the blade away from Joe as a hot blue flame danced upon it. It left Joe with a look of panic written on his face as the flame heated his gauntlets to the point he could feel his hands burning inside. He had many times smelled his own flesh burning as the result of torture. It was something he dreaded deeply. He frantically ripped the gauntlets off and threw them to the ground. “You wish to end our game, Joe! I will see it ended!” the knight called to him as he backed down the ramp. There was a loud crash behind him and a painful wail of the drake. Despite the burn he suffered, Joe charged recklessly at the knight, throwing his arms around him and clamping Neregory’s arms to his sides, rendering him unable to swing.

At that moment, Joe felt something shoot through him, yet it did not hurt. It was warm and made some of the pain that wracked his body go away. It wasn’t the same for Neregory. The beam of Light was sent by Lithvia who had rejoined him, along with Tralaia. The Light burned Neregory, who roared and broke free from Joe’s grasp with a burst of strength. He kicked Joe down and turned to deal with his friends.

Joe forced himself to stand, taking a moment to get his bearing of the situation. He saw Lithvia hung off the ledge of the walkway, clinging on for dear life as Tralaia clung onto her friend, trying to pull her up. He also saw Neregory approaching behind Tralaia with his blade ready. She had no choice but to hold on, otherwise leaving Lithvia to fall. Joe looked around for Genny, but she was nowhere to be found. Was she hurt? Or was she dead? The thought made him even angrier. He took a breath... one thing at a time. Joe rushed over to Neregory and clamped his arm around his neck as he kicked his runeblade free of his grip, clattering off the edge and falling to the abyss below. His helm was next. Pulled free, the lich fire in Neregory’s eyes instantly faded. He was struck again by a gauntleted fist, but it barely phased him. He charged him again, clutching his neck with his burnt hands and threw a series of wild punches at him while not letting go. He was panting by the time he threw his last punch. It took every ounce of him to keep his grip strong, gritting his teeth against the stinging pain of his palms. “You... You’re weak without your souls...” Joe lifted Neregory up and moved him over to the ledge, hanging him over it. Directly below awaited one of the massive spinning soul forges.

“Yet still stronger than you will ever be.” Neregory groaned as he produced something in his hand and held it out to Joe. “Joe I’m... My work in this world is not done. Destroy it, you’ll know of what I speak.” He forced a key into Joe’s palm. “Ironforge, my home there, from before...” He clenched his weak hands into fists, frustrated at his defeat. “Do me this last favor... brother.”

Joe stared into Neregory’s cold dead eyes as he listened to his last request. He quickly glanced down at the key before back up at Neregory. “Why should I do a favor for you? After all you’ve put me through?” He cackled, “Because this is not me, this is a husk, a shell. You won’t be doing a thing for -me- Joseph.” Joe growled, “Release my parents...” Neregory spat in return, “Destroy the helm.”

Joe glanced back at the helm which laid on the walkway, back down at the key, and then finally back up at the man he once trusted. He dared ask for a favor after tormenting him all this time. On top of that, he dared to call him brother.

“This is the end for you...” said Joe, his stare cold and unwavering. 

“I know.”

Joe closed his fist around the key and then threw Neregory off the ledge, his limp body torn and split into pieces in the great grinding forge below. At last, Joe let himself to shut his tired eye and out of his mouth escaped a sigh of relief.

It was finally going to be over...

@steelmantle @tidesage-crestwell @tralaia and Lithvia… THANK YOU so much for the epic RP and being a part of this!

[experimentaldata]

When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go

A Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood fic. 2748 words. Rated T - Smoking and alcohol mentions, war mention, mild language. Set in Season 1 roughly, pre Maes-Hughes-you know what. 

6:00 PM = Ed

   It was raining again. He hated the rain.

Not as much as the Colonel, of course. It’s not like it rendered him totally useless. But losing his limbs had turned him into a human barometer. Each drop in the pressure meant that his stumps ached, and the the pain usually lasted until the weather changed. He’d woken up the night before from the pain, then slept uneasily until it was time to report for duty that morning, careful not to stir. He didn’t want Al to see how much it hurt him. Al had enough to worry about as it was. And he’d only blame himself. Ed could see the looks Al gave him when he thought he wasn’t looking. So he’d stayed still, and gotten up like he normally did, exuding only his typical amount of grumpiness. Thankfully, their day hadn’t involved a lot of moving around. They’d spent it in the East City library, reading and re-reading alchemy texts until Ed’s eyes ached almost as much as his arm and leg. Lieutenant Hawkeye had borrowed the Colonel’s car to drive them back to their hotel room, and left them with a picnic box for dinner, courtesy of the Hughes.

    Ed ate the entire crock of chicken soup and four whole wheat rolls despite himself. It had been a long day, and the warmth from the food sank into every crevice, warming him inside and out. He described the taste to Al, who added it to the “to eat after my body’s back” list. The pain receded to the background as he ate. In its absence, he felt hollowed out - the tension keeping him on alert had finally let loose. Then it hit him. The wall he had held up all day against fatigue was finally breached. That darned soup. He told Al not to wait up for him, he was just gonna finish some research in their room. And he tried, he really did. Sprawled out on the bed, his jacked and boots tossed over the chair in the corner, he willed his eyes to stay open. Just one more page. Maybe chaper 5 of Complete Biological Processes for Alchemists would have the answer. Maybe if he held his head up. Loosened his collar. Put his head on his arm. Rested his eyes just for a second.

8:00 = Al

    Al hadn’t heard from Ed in awhile. He wondered how long it would take him to fall asleep. Ed thought he could hide it, but Al knew it had been a bad pain day. He always knew. It must’ve been really bad for him to go to bed this early--usually he stayed up at least until he had eaten dessert. The double slice of cherry pie Mrs. Hughes had packed was still on the table though, next to the bottle of milk, both untouched. Al could only imagine how warm and fragrant that pie was. He scribbled a note about it in his food journal, then went to go check on his brother. As he suspected, Ed was sprawled out face-down on the bed, his head laying on his right arm. His shirt was hiked up a bit from tossing and turning, and one of his socks had fallen to the floor. Al shook his head. Sleeping with his tummy out again. And no blanket. He crossed the room softly and laid the blanket from his bed over his brother. Ed didn’t move. Out like a light, he thought.

    He sat down in the chair by Ed’s bedside. It would be nice to sleep himself. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to fall asleep. He remembered so much about what it was like to have a body - he could imagine the taste of foods he’d tried before, the feeling of his favorite clothes and blankets, even smells he liked. Falling asleep, however, was a memory that eluded him - it was something you felt by not feeling anything, after all. But about a year into heir quest to get their bodies back, he had developed a work-around. He couldn’t sleep anymore, at least not like other people. But he could dream. It had started as small bursts of deja vu during the lonely nights he spent watching over Ed. Over time, he had figured out how to enter his memories at will each night, reliving them in a daze until he lost track of time. It wasn’t quite as good as sleeping, but it took him away from this body, and this strange place they were living, if only for a few hours. He leaned back in his chair and looked inward, calling up whatever memory his soul decided to play back for him tonight. And then Winry walked into the classroom, and those boys were teasing her, and he was telling Ed not to--

10:00 = Riza

    Riza felt like a frayed rope. The week had been meetings on top of PT exams on top of paperwork Roy forgot to file. She’d strangle that man, Colonel or not, one of these days. All he had to do was sign his name and save the both of them from a week of heartache and a note to his file. But that might get in the way of his sucking-up time. Stupid state dinners, that sort of thing, she thought with a laugh. She poured herself another ounce of bourbon and sighed. It was getting late. Black Hayate was curled up in her lap, twitching in his sleep every so often. Probably hunting rabbits in his sleep, she thought with a smile. At least one man in my life never lets me down.

    She took a long sip of her drink and sighed, letting her head sink into the back of the chair. No end in sight to all this chaos. Roy’s ambitions of becoming Fuhrer and current position as colonel meant he was forever in strategy meetings, personnel conferences, and diplomatic events. And he always wanted the hawk’s eye there to watch his back. She could read a room faster than he could blink, and their five-minute post-meeting conferences proved more useful than weeks of departmental consulting. Never mind that she had her own men to attend to, and that she was stuck cleaning up the mess after Roy was inevitably late with something, again. And he wonders why I drink, she thought. Well, that was one reason. There were other reasons why she needed help from a bottle to sleep at night. But she wasn’t going to dwell on that. No need to remember the past, in all its technicolor gore and misery. That was then. This was now. Now was a fireplace, and an armchair, and Black Hayate snoring, and her clock chiming - ten o’clock already? Better head to bed, then. Early morning PT drill tomorrow, and she had some new recruits to beat some sense into. Slowly, she peeled herself up from her chair, swaying slightly as Black Hayate jumped down off her lap. She laughed at his little sleepy whine and--was that a hiccough? Damn. She’d had more than she thought. Oh well. Her head was going to hurt tomorrow regardless. She slunk back to her bedroom, undressed down to her undershirt and threw herself into bed.

12:00 = Jean

    What a night. First the cafe, a delectable steak and an even more delectable date. Damn, he thought, flipping over onto his back and pulling the blanket up. She was so hot. His eyes danced across the void of the ceiling as he traced the memory. From the cafe to that dive bar, where she had impressed him with both the quality of her conversation and the quantity of shots she could take down. She could drink him under the table, he thought, if they were going for that. But this was a Thursday night, so they left the bar and went instead to...a dance hall. Jean wasn’t exactly sure how that had happened. But he was sure of how he felt watching her move through the crowd. She had waist-length hair that tumbled down in waves to her waist, swaying as she did in time to the music. He chuckled to himself, and kicked his feet out from under the blanket. Still feeling the warmth from that one, he thought. He hadn’t wanted that night to end. But by eleven, the weeknight crowd had started to thin out, and in the absence of its energy, their conversation had stalled. A few minutes later, he was waving sadly at the bus as she sped off to her apartment. He stumbled back to his, alone.

    He didn’t know what it was about him. Every date he had had for the past long while started out well enough. They would talk, offer a cigarette, maybe get a coffee. Something would spark. They’d go out. And at about the 6-hour-of-acquaintance mark, she’d mumble some excuse about an early morning shift, or an elderly aunt, or...he thought one girl had even made up a kid sister she needed to babysit. Regardless, they’d thank him for the lovely evening, and there he’d be. Sleeping alone, like he always did. He heard the clock in his neighbor’s apartment strike midnight. Tomorrow morning was gonna be rough, he thought. He had to report at--0400? 0430? Sometime. The lieutenant would have his head on a plate if he was late one more time. Sleep. Now. Gotta focus on not focusing, Jean. Don’t focus on falling asleep. Just let it happen. Just breathe. In and out. In. Out. in. out. in...out...

2:00 = Gracia

    Being a mom is hard work, Gracia’s mother had told her. She remembered it well. That day when they had finally made it to her family’s hometown, six months after they found out they were going to have Elysia. Her mom had thrown a big party at her childhood home, and invited all the surrounding friends and relations to stuff themselves on her home cooking and wish the newlyweds well. Gracia joked that she was trying to make everyone as fat-looking as she was to save face. Her mom had just laughed. And that’s when she told her, her eyes blinking back proud tears, how hard it was to be a mom, and how proud she was that Gracia was going to be one. It was one of her favorite memories of her mother. Her mother lived just long enough after that to see her granddaughter one time, on her first birthday. Three generations of her family were under the same roof, for the first and last time she could remember. It was heavenly. With her mother there, it seemed like nothing could go wrong.

    What she wouldn’t give for some of that magical mom power right now, she thought. She could see Elysia’s outline in the doorway, lit from behind by the hall nightlight. Somehow she had woken up right as her daughter crossed the threshold of their room, though she couldn’t hear anything over Maes’ snoring. Must be that special sixth sense moms get. Elysia had thrown up, it turned out. Her little face was stained with tears. She had tried to clean it up herself with her blanket, then stood in the doorway until mommy woke up. She knew she would. She was right. One set of fresh sheets, a warm washcloth, and a changed nightgown later, and her baby girl was tucked into bed again. She looked up at her mother and tugged at her sleeve. Would mommy sleep with her tonight? Gracia sighed. Between the kicking, the stuffed animal tossing, and the sleep talking (she inherited this from her father), sleeping with mommy meant mommy not sleeping much at all. But those brown eyes looked up at her, and Gracia melted the same as she did the first time she saw them. Yes, mommy will sleep here tonight. And now, installed in the toddler bed with her daughter’s feet planted in the small of her back, there was nowhere else she’s rather be.

4:00 = Pinako

    Old age changes a person. It used to be, Pinako thought, shifting to her left side, that she could just look at a bed and fall asleep. A lifetime of hard work will do that to you. She had proudly worked her way through four years of uni, two more of automail training, and another two of apprenticeship without ever missing a night. Early mornings were when she got her best thinking done, anyway. And that’s how it had been for the past forty years. But as she neared seventy, things were changing. She slept fitfully now. Every small noise might wake her up, even the ones she was used to. Tonight, it was the dog barking at heaven only know’s what. She muttered some choice words and eased herself off of the bed. Better go shut that dog up before he wakes up anyone else.

     She found the dog on the porch, holding the freshly-killed mouse he had caught in his mouth. More like a cat, that one was. Well, it was good for him to earn his keep. She patted him on the head and sat down in her rocking chair. She had left her pipe on the end table beside it. Hmph. Getting forgetful in her old age as well as sleepless, she thought. She tamped down the bowl and lighted her pipe, blowing a test smoke ring out into the starry night sky. Yep, still got it. She smiled contentedly and smoked for awhile, the dog curled at her feet. It was quiet out here. A light breeze whispered in the apple trees her and Yuriy had planted so long ago. The pipe got a little too warm, so she set it down and just rocked for a while. Maybe I should just stay out here tonight, she thought. Not like I was getting much sleeping done inside. It was going to be time to get up in a few hours, anyway. Just stay here, keep rocking. Let the wind blow. Stay quiet. Be still. Rock back. And forth. and back. and forth.

6:00 = Roy

    Ishval. All he ever thought about these days was Ishval. The rain wasn’t helping. He had been stuck inside going to meetings all week. Mind-numbing stuff. This is not why he’d signed up to be a state alchemist. All these meetings and paperwork were getting in the way of...what? Sometimes, if he was being honest, Roy didn’t really know. At first, the path had been clear. Take this job, accept this assignment, fill out these forms. Drag yourself through enough mud, they’d assured him, and your gilded cage was waiting for you at the end. So he had, in central command, then at Briggs, and then - Ishval. There were some things you just couldn’t unsee, things that played out again and again on the blank wall you were staring at, trying desperately to put out the fires in your mind so you could sleep.

    Tonight, it was the hospital camp they had taken, early on in the conflict. His superior officer assured him that the wounded were to be taken alive, as prisoners, unless absolutely necessary for the safety of their men. The position they held was valuable, and wounded Ishvalans didn’t pose much of a threat. But of course there’d been complications. It was an ambush. The rebel troops burst at them from all directions, and the order was given to light up the camp. Together, he and Kimblee had reduced the entire area to ash and rubble. They’d celebrated that victory that night, bits of wheelchairs and stretchers littering the ground around their bonfire. Another victory like that might have killed him.

    Roy rolled over to his other side and willed himself to close his eyes. He hadn’t slept a wink all night. Make that the past three nights. Damn, this rain had to stop. He could hear it pattering merrily on the windowsill outside, mocking him. He felt so useless in the rain. Lately, he’d felt useless anywhere. What was this all even for? What was he trying to do? Could a country like Amestris really be saved? Could it come back from the brink of destruction? Could it ever atone for Ishval?

    Just as his mind had given up trying to solve that conundrum, he jerked awake. His clock struck 0600. Time to get up.

[cosmoclast]

Withdrawl

My life has been taken over with school applications and exam study.

 The good news is I have been accepted to every one I have applied to (that certainly did wonders for my self-esteem), the bad news is I feel overwhelmed because they will not leave me alone.

Here are a few of my loose thoughts:

Succinct || Syncopate || Sycophant

... Succinct sounds like Sect-synct or suc-synct…

It looks like it would be pronounced Suck-inkt

Suck ink-t? This is why I can’t spell worth a shit

Poinsettia || Poindexter || Poignant

… Why is that g in there, tho?

Why is this language like this?

Reading:

"Into The Gray" - A Neuroscientist exploring the border between life and death.

I have a predilection for this brand of existential non-fiction, so this fits in perfectly with my copies of “Ghost Boy” and “The Diving Bell & The Butterfly”...

Thus far:

The marriage of two neuroscientists has failed after one pursues psychiatric medicine, losing their passion for the science of the brain itself for the compassionate pursuit of treating the mentally ill. That ex-partner falls suddenly into a coma after an intense infection and became unresponsive in what is called a ‘vegetrative’ state. This leads to them to be a patient for the experimental research of the neuroscientist. Only through PET scans is it discovered that their brain is still sorting information into appropriate regions of their mind - indicating that they are consciously aware of everything but utterly unreachable.

Described poignantly as sending out a beacon into space and receiving a ping back from the void, it is aweing and terrifying there is something locked in the darkness desperate to make contact.

Years later the patient will recount:

   “... They said I could not feel pain, but they were so wrong…”

   “... I cannot tell you how frightening it was, especially the suctioning from the mouth into the lungs…”

   “Sometimes, I would manage to cry out but they only thought it was a reflex…”

I’m enjoying this book. There's something sharply fascinating about the unresolved substance of ‘consciousness’ and identity stripping process of dying, the twilight inbetween, something that brings us down to the morrow of what we are. It’s titillating in a uniquely horrific sense.

Transient Aphasia?

  Within the last few days I’ve found that when I cannot conjure a particular word, I can follow the blind-sight of another part of my mind and it guides me to write out the word… without my knowing beforehand what I am trying to spell until it is there in front of me. 

  It is probably exhaustion or stress.

 But, I’ve seen a similar phenomenon demonstrated in ⪻split-brain documentaries⪼ -  when the two hemispheres of the brain cannot communicate directly after mechanical separation. 

 In patients, when one eye is covered they may know the meaning of a word but not how to say it.

When the other is covered they may say the word but not know the meaning.

An experiment that demonstrates the communication between both hemispheres is as follows:  draw the left image with your left hand and the right image with your right - simultaneously:

  Most struggle to keep both hands drawing independently of commands coming from the other side. My information tends to cross towards the end, rendering something like this:

The two parts of my mind are not communicating effectively on particular parts of my lexicon.

 I hope it’s a lack of sleep.

 Depression

The word as phonetically innocuous as black ice.

 Why is the same term for the pressure that bends bedsprings meant to capture an experience more akin to being imprisoned in a windowless room as the temperature rises, until all mental energy is consumed with the thought of escaping..?

I am not    depressed.

 We are not a part of one another.

Depression is one of two scavenging birds fighting over my remains. Prying me open with stabbing maws, tearing my spirit from it’s cradle. My airway occluded, blood blooming into my lungs, I am embroiled in a battle for air within a battle for my purpose - a battle over what keeps me alive within a battle for why I want to live.

A note to Love through despair: 

Loving you is a sucking chest wound. Your embrace is like open heart surgery, a brutal, gory performance, a dangerous endeavour of killing a part of me to save the rest. 

Break open my unity with kissing claws and rescue what I haven’t burnt to the ground. Do I want to live through this excoriation of self?

Locked behind the veneer of white wall banality, waiting room chairs, my pressed shirts, triple zero lenses, I am undergoing a rearrangement of my soul as everyone waits on desert blossoms, his fingers lace into my hair.

Wrapped in his arms, a broken thing, denied the brutal salvation of natures order, perpetual purgatory,

Even your tender mercies are cruel…

Post-Depression:

It fell like sandcastles to ocean surf. I woke one day to find it had gone, like a regretful lover who didn’t leave me their number and I was glad.

 I’ve felt like a pumpkin left out past December, Autumn having passed me over, rotting in the solstice heat and forgotten, but rather than fading silently into the earth, I have begun to sprout and bud sunshine yellow trumpets,

   to my surprise - I am not dead at all... 

Day 2: Turning off my phone

It’s the second day I’ve utilized airplane mode.

I wish I could break the pretense and tell you it isn't your fault.

We have come to a temporary impasse; my nature & your persistence.

Your message has been received - You urgently need to advance.    

But, I am a mule, fighting the grander pullings of linnaean predisposition which I cannot abruptly suspend for an impromptu wrangling… even if it is ‘at my soonest convenience’.

Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t this way.

 But, my mind is like a steam engine, slow to warm then, a freight train rolling on coal with the momentum of an asteroid-  your disruption is like a dental extraction, graceless and jarring, hauled out of the depths of my study with such suddenness, the question sticks to my ribs -have you ever heard of decompression sickness?

I attempted to stumble out of the assiduous fugue, like waking from a furtive nap - dazey eyed and agitated,

    - God, what now- ...?

It’s not just you.

My connection is turbulent, every few minutes a device loses contact and unfailingly lets me know it;

⪻ DISCONNECTED CONNECTED RECONNECTING TRYING TO CONNECT DISCONNECTED RECONNECTING CONNECTED ⪼

This static in the background of every 15 minutes is excruciating...

Thinking of you,

You've crossed my mind every now and then.

It isn't that you deserve it.

In some way it's a betrayal to my own better sense, giving you the tiny space in my thoughts when something more consequential could occupy it.

After all, there's nothing I can do with my thoughts of you.

I turn wearily to them and think what a pity it is that you squander the tiny reprieves life’s given you, while others receive nothing.

I could use you to harden my heart or rationalize a distrust in those that have not earned it - but I won't.

We were only ever two ships crossing paths in the night, but when there is nothing but this vast tumultuous existence to traverse until it swallows us up, it’s strange that I still encounter others like you (having been here as long as I have), that still attempt to circumvent uncomfortable truths.

Surely, they should know by now that suffering is inevitable, that covering your eyes doesn't make it cease to exist.

I don't wish ill on the person you were.

It is not because I am unduly kind.

It is because I recognize vengefulness is a force too often shaping the world into something I would not want to live in. After reading "Reflections on the Guillotine", I can't quite find it within myself to see where that kind of barbarism fits in a just society. I wonder how great a transgression would have to be for me to shed my rationality and misconstrue such terminal brutality with justice.

I know eventually fate will kick us all in the teeth, there is no reason to force-fit inhumanity into a world view that must already accommodate for an overabundance of misery.

Instead of pain,  I have begun to wish wisdom on you.

It is it's own punishment.

Rather than trying to build a better world on thought-binding torment, I believe wisdom seeks to form a foundation on a recognition that none of us are that far from being the one crushed under the heel of abused 'justice'. And, that is the world I would rather live in - in spite of my natural appetite for retaliatory recompense.

Maybe, one day our paths will cross again.

I hope who I meet then is someone else.

I hope the person I meet has come to see the value of self-honesty, the necessity and dignity in humility, and the fallacy of feeding into powerarchies within a friendship.

And, if you don't, I hope I have the integrity to still treat you as what you are - someone just as lost and fallible,

someone standing where I could have stood.

[dukereviewsmovies]

Duke Reviews: Thor Ragnarok

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Where We Continue Our Look At The Marvel Cinematic Universe...

Where Today We Are Looking At The 3rd Outing For Thor And The Second For The Hulk In Thor Ragnarok..

This Film Finds Thor And Hulk On The Planet Sakaar Where They Must Escape So They Can Stop Thor's Sister, Hela The Goddess Of Death And The Impending Ragnarok, Will They Succeed?

Let's Find Out As We Watch Thor Ragnarok...

The Film Starts In Muspelheim, Where Thor Has Been Captured By A Being Named Surtur (Voiced By Mr. Krabs)...

I Wish I Were Kidding...

Anyway, Surtur Taunts Thor, Telling Him Not Only That Odin Is Not On Asgard But That In His Absence Asgard Is Vulnerable For Him To Unleash Ragnarok By Getting The Eternal Flame From Odin's Vault...

Calling Mijolnir To His Hand, Thor Breaks Out Of His Chains And Fights Surtur's Minions...

(Start At 2:53, End At 4:18)

(End At 1:37)

Returning To Asgard, Thor Meets Heimdall's Replacement, Skurge (Played By Leonard McCoy) Who Tells Him That Heimdall Has Been Declared An Enemy Of The People And Is On The Run. Upset By This News, Thor Goes To See His Father "Odin" Who Is Watching A Play About The Death Of Loki...

Which Has An All Star Cast Including, Luke, Brother Of Thor As Well, Thor, Dr. Alan Grant As Odin And Some Guy Jimmy Kimmel Never Has Time For As Loki...

Seeing Through "Odin's" Deception, Thor Forces Him To Reveal Himself For Who He Is And What A Shock, It's Loki. Taking Him To Earth, He Shows Thor Where He Sent Odin But Unfortunately The Retirement Home He Placed Him In Has Been Demolished...

Taking A Little Time To Talk With His Brother, We Learn As They Do Talk That Thor Broke Up With Jane, Saying That It Was A Mutual Breakup. However, Loki Is Sent Somewhere By Someone Who Leave A Card With An Address To The Sanctum Sanctorum...

Meeting Doctor Strange (Played By Smaug The Terrible) We Get A Version Of The Doctor Strange Mid Credits Scene That Involved Thor And It's Aftermath With Strange Discovering That Odin Is In Norway. Releasing Loki From Where He Sent Him, Strange Sends Thor And Loki To Norway...

Finding Odin, The 2 Brothers Discover That Odin Released Himself From Loki's Spell He Placed Upon Him But He Is Dying And His Time Is Limited As He Tells Them That Hela, The Goddess Of Death, Who Is The Sister They Never Knew Will Be Released From Her Prison When He Dies And That She Is More Powerful Than Both Of Them Combined...

So, Telling His Sons That He Loves Them One Last Time, Odin Dies, Transforming Into Pure Energy...

Angered At Loki For Causing Odin's Death, Any Thoughts Of Vengeance Are Set Aside For The Moment As Hela (Played By Cate Blanchett) Is Released From Her Prison But When The 2 Brothers Refuse To Bow To Her Hela Attacks Them Creating Spears To Fight Them...

Throwing Mijolnir At Her, Hela Just Grabs It And Shatters It As Loki Calls The Bifrost But During Their Return Trip, Hela Throws Both Loki And Thor Out Of The Bifrost. Making Her Way To Asgard, Hela Is Met By Volstagg And Fandral Who She Kills On Sight...

Well, It Makes Signing With The DCEU To Do Shazzam Easy, Right, Zachery Levi?...

Recruiting Skurge To Her Service, Hela Starts Her Takeover Of Asgard As We See That Thor Landed On A Planet Covered In Trash And Wormholes Called Sakaar, Where He's Confronted By Hostile Scavengers Which Thor Manages To Fight Off Till One Of Them Uses An Electrified Net On Him So They Can Beat Him To A Pulp..

But When A Spaceship Lands, A Drunk Woman (Played By Tessa Thompson) Says Thor Is Hers And Fires Her Ship's Guns At The Scavengers Obliterating Them...

Thanking This Woman, She Doesn't Reply And Just Places A Small Disc That Allows Her To Electrocute Thor And Render Him Unconscious At The Touch Of A Button Oh, It Also Prevents Him From Escaping...

Back On Asgard, Hela Faces Asgard's Armies, Led By Hogun Who Will Bow To Her Rule Even When She Tells Them About Odin's Death And That She Has Taken Care Of Thor And Loki, So She Kills Them All...

Wow, A Whole Army And They Couldn't Even Stop Her?!? Boy, Asgard Sucks!

Meanwhile On Sakaar, Thor Awakens To A Holographic Presentation (With Pure Imagination From Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory In The Background, Why?) About Sakaar And The Grandmaster (Played By Ian Malcolm)

Wait A Minute, Dr. Alan Grant And Ian Malcolm Are In The Same Movie And They Don't Have A Scene Together? I Want A Refund!

Anyway, The Grandmaster Is Not Only The Ruler Of Sakaar But Is The Host Of The Gladitorial Contest Of Champions. Buying Thor From The Drunk Woman, So He Can Pit Him Against His Champion In A Battle Saying That If He Wins He Will Earn His Freedom...

Still Restrained, Thor Discovers Loki In The Grandmaster's Company Who Tells Thor That He's Been There For Weeks Earning The Grandmaster's Favor And Is Fitting In Rather Nicely Apparently...

Thrown Into The Gladiator Quarters, We Meet The Funniest People In This Movie, Korg (Voiced By The Director Of This Movie, Taika Waititi) Who is A Kronan And His Friend A Bug Named Miek Who Has Scissors For Hands...

And I Absolutely Love Them!

Anyway, Despite Telling Thor That No One Has Beat The Grandmaster's Champion, Thor Gets Ready To Fight This Man....

Back On Asgard, Hela And Skurge Go To The Throne Room Where Hela Reveals By Destroying The Royal Mural, Another Mural Showing That She Used To Be Odin's Most Powerful Weapon In His Efforts To Create A Powerful Asgardian Empire, But When Her Ambition Outgrew Odin's He Imprisoned Her...

Going Down To Odin's Vault, She Declares Most Everything There To Be Fake, Before Looking At The Casket Of Ancient Winters, Surtur's Crown And The Tesseract Before Looking At The Eternal Flame Which She Uses To Revive The Fallen Soliders From Her Time And Her Pet, The Fenris Wolf To Help Her In Her Conquest...

As Thor Picks His Weapon To Fight The Grandmaster's Champion, He Runs Into The Drunk Woman That Sold Him To The Grandmaster Where He Realizes That She Is An Asgardian Valkyrie, But Unsympathetic To The Plight Of Asgard, Thor Calls Her A Coward Before Being Taken To Get His Hair Cut By Stan Lee...

Stan Lee Cameo!

Before The Fight...

Taken Out To The Stadium Afterwards, Thor Meets The Grandmaster's Champion, Who Happens To Be The Incredible Hulk To Loki's Displeasure And Bad Memories...

Overjoyed To See His Teammate, Thor Attempts To Negotiate With The Hulk But Makes A Mistake When He Accidentally Calls Him Banner...

Back On Asgard, Hela Sits On Her Throne and Talks With Skurge Stating That When Odin Was King She Was His Executioner And Now Skurge Is Hers...

Going To The Bifrost With Her Soldiers, Hela And Skurge Discover The Bifrost Sword Missing Which Means One Thing, Heimdall Has Returned And Has Taken It From Them, Stopping Hela From Conquering All The Realms For Now...

Attempting To Round Everyone Up To Discover Where Heimdall Is, Hela Sends Her Soliders Including The Woods But While Chasing Some People, Heimdall Arrives And Kills Hela's Undead Soliders Before Taking The People Back To His Hideout In The Mountains Where He Has Been Organizing A Resistance Against Hela...

Finding Himself In The Lap Of Luxury With A Naked Hulk...

Which Is Something I Never Wanted To See...

He Tells Thor That He Arrived In The Quinjet He Stole From Ultron In Age Of Ultron, And That He's Not Going Back To Earth As Here He Is Respected, Where On Earth...

Well, Let's Just Say The Bad Hulk Has Done On Earth Has Kind Of Outweighed The Good He's Done At This Point In The MCU...

Upset At This, Thor Tries To Leave But Gets Shocked By A Force Field On The Door Meant For Him. So, With Hulk Going To Train With Valkyrie, Thor Tries To Mentally Reach Heimdall Who Tells Thor Some Stuff I've Already Said, That He's Working On Evacuating People From Asgard And That They Don't Have Much Time...

Later That Evening, Thor Is Mad At The Hulk But It Eventually Leads To A Bonding Moment Between The 2 That Gets Hulk To Help Thor Talk To Valkyrie, To Try To Convince Her To Help Again And To Steal The Control Device So He Can Release The Disc On His Neck...

Breaking Through The Window, Thor Makes For The Quinjet (Which Is Still In Good Shape For What It Is) But The Hulk Starts Wrecking The Ship When He Doesn't Want Thor To Go...

Because If He Goes, It's Just Him And Valkyrie!

However, When Thor Comes Across An Old Video Of Black Widow Trying To Contact The Hulk From Age Of Ultron, Hulk Starts To Turn Back Into Banner Who's Been The Hulk Since Sokovia Which Leads Banner To Freak Out...

As The Hulk Had Completely Taken Over And He Has Absolutely No Memory Of The Past Few Years Which Has Him Start To Fear That If He Becomes The Hulk Again, Banner Won't Come Back...

Back In The Grandmaster's Chamber, He Gives Loki And Valkyrie Orders To Find Thor And The Hulk, But After Loki Shows Valkyrie A Vision Of Herself And Her Sisters Against Hela All Those Years Ago Which Ended With Only Her Surviving To The Point That She Drank To Try To Drown Her Misery, She Decides To Help Thor And Banner Escape...

Kidnapping Loki, He Tells Thor That His Favor With The Grandmaster Has Paid Off And That He Has All The Security Codes To The Grandmaster's System All They Need To Do Is Take Him With Them. However As Thor And Banner Decide To Take Loki Or Not Valkyrie Tries To Find A Way Back To Asgard But Thor Tells Her That The Only Way Back Is Through The Devil's Anus...

That Looks Absolutely Nothing Like Kathy Bates' Nude Scene From About Schmidt...

Only One Problem, Valkyrie's Ship Will Never Survive It Which Leads Them To Release Korg, Miek And The Other Prisoners From Their Cells...

But Despite Helping Thor Get To The Grandmaster's Luxury Ship, The Commodore Which He Only Uses For Orgies Apparently...

Aww, Man! Now I'm Going To Have That Image Of Jeff Goldblum At An Orgy In My Head For Hours, Thanks Thor Ragnarok!

Loki Betrays Thor, Sounding The Alarm As He Escapes But Knowing He Would Thor Placed The Same Disc That Valkyrie Placed On Him On Loki, Saying To Him That He Will Always Be The God Of Mischief But He Could Be More...

Going Through The Devil's Anus, They Arrive At Asgard Just As Hela Is About To Assault The Fortress Where Heimdall Is Hiding People From Asgard, But When Thor Calls Her Back To The Throne Room, Hela Faces Off Against Thor...

(Start At 1:22)

Realizing That The Destruction Of Asgard Was Inevitable, Thor Thanks Loki For Returning For Him And The 2 Brothers Reconcile, Before Taking The Captain's Chair And Assuming His Birthright As King Of Asgard With His Friends And Family By His Side As They Set A Course For Earth...

We Get A Mid Credits Scene Where Loki Wonders If He Will Be Welcome On Earth After Everything He Did In The First Avengers Movie But With Thor Telling Him That He'll Deal With Everything But Not Before Dealing With A Giant Spaceship That Will Ruin The Happy Ending That Came From This Movie...

We Also Get A End Credits Scene With The Grandmaster Confronted By The People Who Used To Be His Slaves As He Tries To Declare A Draw To No Success...

And That's Thor Ragnarok And It's The Best Thor Movie Ever!

The Story's Great, The Characters Are Great And Hillarious And I Like Hela As The Bad Guy But I Think They Shouldn't Have Had Skurge The Executioner In This Movie Without The Person He Actually Serves, The Enchantress (Yeah, I Know They Had A Character Called Enchantress In Suicide Squad But Marvel's Enchantress Is Alot More Sexier Than Her) But Aside From That Criticism I Defiantly Say, See It...

Till Next Time, This Is Duke, Signing Off..

[boss-babygirl-blog]

home

Let’s face it, the common connotation of school when it comes to us students is always “boring,” “tiresome,” and “stressful.” Who can blame us? We are brought upon this world without our consent, and the world expects us to spend our lives in schools to learn and then after that, we get sent to different institutions to live the life we didn’t even ask for. I used to have this same edgy mindset. For ten years, I’ve spent my academic life in a school that sucked the soul out of me. When I moved up from Grade 10, I was drained of passion and energy. I lost the love I used to have for studying. What once was exciting then felt like a cold chore. I almost lost hope, until I enrolled in the Technological Institute of the Philippines. I agreed with my parents because it seemed like the most practical choice. It was near, my cousin graduated there, and my parents could afford the tuition fee there.

The first few weeks went slow for me. I had trouble adjusting. I kind of felt left out because everyone already had someone to eat lunch with, and chit-chat. One of the first observations I had was the teachers there are REALLY good. I thought senior high school instructors would be tougher and more heartless but I was rendered wrong. All of my first semester teachers were clearly passionate about their jobs and they cared about our well-being.

Weeks passed and I made new friends. I started chatting and gradually, I was able to open up to them. I got very close to them and it felt new. It felt good. I came to a realization there that perhaps, this senior high life thing won’t be as cold as the last few years. I warm warm and motivated.

It was a family there, and the school made sure I felt it. The interactions were not limited to my fellow senior high schools only, there were the college students as well. There was this event that I’ll never forget: The Environmental Fair. It was held by the Supreme Student Council. I, together with two of my classmates, were chose to represent the HUMSS, which is our strand. We reviewed so well, and was fortunate enough to land 7th place in the overalls. 

Another important event was the Intramurals. My section was part of the Mining group. I was one of the members of the Bench Yell group. In the beginning, I won’t sugarcoat this, I really thought we’ll have difficulties in harmonizing with one another. We had differences and our first impressions weren’t all that good. But as we practiced, we ignored the ill feelings towards each other and focused on our goal: to be able to perform our piece well. There were few complications but we were able to overcome it. As we progressed, we became really close. That harmony and goal-orientedness was what brought us to a very well performance that placed us to 2nd place overall despite having no background of Bench Yell at all. Our team became close to the others as well, like the Basketball team. Our morale was very high during the championship of the Men’s basketball and the oneness was felt very deeply for me.

The most recent and so far, the best memory for me was the Red Cross Leadership Development Program. It was an event made to improve the leadership within us by making us perform team building activities. It made me realize a lot of lessons that I’ll surely take to grave. I also met and made friends there. It was hard at some point and the lessons weren’t given to us in an easy way. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it a lot and wouldn’t take it back if given the chance.

All these and so much more was given to by TIP and I’m more than grateful for it. I was blessed with experiences that taught and changed me. I was blessed with teachers who I learned a lot from in a way that helped me progress as a person. I was blessed with classmates that were like family to me. And ultimately, I was blessed with friendships that I’ll forever hold dearly to my heart.

The Technological Institute of the Philippines became a second home for me. It had given me a second set of parents and siblings, and even cousins. In the grounds of this school, it dawned upon me that learning doesn’t have to be so soul-sucking, sudden, and passive-aggressive. It can be fun, wholesome, and slow. Every school night, I spent sleeping at peace because I know that when I wake up, I’ll get to go to a school that is also a home to me. A place where I belong to.

that is all periodt

[thesunlounge]

Reviews 306: Cass. & Gianni Brezzo

I am a touch behind when it comes to covering Growing Bin Record’s 2019 output and throughout December I’ll be playing catch-up by publishing my long gestating reviews of Bartosz Kruczyński’s Baltic Beat II and Eleventeen Eston’s Delta Horizon (as well as taking a look at what’s been going on over at Glowing Pin). But in the meantime, I’d like to put down some reflections on one of the newest Growing Bin releases: Masala Kiss by Cass. & Gianni Brezzo. I bought the record without much thought, trusting that Basso, Brezzo, and Cass. would take me to exactly where I needed to be, but even still, I am completely taken aback by the LP’s immersive ambient universes. It’s an album I lose myself completely to while listening and one that I daydream about when not, as almost every moment is stunningly gorgeous and overflowing with emotional creativity. Cass. & Brezzo touch on so many of the sounds I love most, including these spectacular detours into sky-seeking post-rock, and throughout the eleven tracks, we see aquatic arpeggiations swimming through cymbal taps and rainfall; electronic textures imported from the fourth world flowing over hushed breaths and subdued tribal rhythms; e-pianos falling like a soft tropical storm and pads sighing like the wind; kosmische sequences percolating amidst industrial sound blasts; drumkits pounding against fuzz guitars, swooning pads, and gaseous idiophonics; chill out breaks vibing beneath synthesized dolphin songs and liquid bass guitar narcotics; and balearic paradises awash in hues of some impossible sunset. 

Cass. & Gianni Brezzo - Masala Kiss (Growing Bin Records, 2019) “Jaybo” opens with manic percussion beating through cosmic caverns…a minimalist world drum groove wherein echoing rimshots splatter into sea-spray. Trance inducing vibrato waves hover in the air as acoustic guitars descend onto the mix, working between subdued delay tapestries and bursts of emotional violence, with steel strings buzzing and smearing into fractal webs while kosmische leads melt through they sky. During a moment where the guitars fade, angels sing through deep sea hazes while bubble clouds flutter ear-to-ear and later, the drums wash out as bleary-eyed wavefronts smolder in the background, with single note leads howling and acoustic guitars generating crystalline gas clusters. Then in “Umberella,” e-pianos quiver, morph, and occasionally glitch out, with lush tremolo clouds trailing every chord. Interstellar sequences are bathed in reverberation as they flutter in the distance and voices speak expressive incantations amidst studio clatter. And later, pianos execute a jazzwise climb towards the stars, with the sounds of pounding keystrokes rendered louder than the notes themselves. Electric guitars weave galactic desert mesmerism in “Imence Sense” as synths pool like liquid light…the glowing currents suffused by laser approximations of birdsong, string machines from celestial oceans, and synthetic organs that glow like the sun. Dopamine guitar arps float, bass notes disperse like clouds of smoke, and hammer on leads scrape and squiggle as anthemic majesty is subverted into an ambient dream drift, one that pairs nicely with Gigi Masin’s & Jonny Nash’s recent Postcards from Nowhere. And sometimes, amidst the fragile space music mutations, streaks of polychrome synthesis break free…like dazzling currents of color seen just below the surface of some infinite ocean.

Arps flowing from the fourth world oscillate through dreamspace echoes in “Instabubu” while e-pianos evoke melting gemstones. Cymbals phase and chime strands sparkle like oceanic crystal while bulbous bass pads swell the heart. And later, cinematic melodic ascents smear into feedback synthesis and wailing strings generating tropical mirages as the mix continues to sparkle with seaside jazz spirituality. “Autoscooter Lover” follows with tribalist percussion effecting into a panorama of bubble mutations while piano chords lilt back and forth. Fragile synthesis wavers through the sky…these aqueous streaks of mermaid beauty progressively ring modulating into liquid abstraction…and vocal breaths push hot air across the mix as further pad layers scat on reversing jazz currents. Gaseous orchestrations diffuse in before dispersing and after a hushed pause, the mix explodes back to life, now with cymbal taps decaying across the spectrum and swooning melodies of paradise balearica transforming into alien psychedelia. And at some point, the mix reduces to sparse percussion and scraping guitar chords while indie basslines dance high on the fretboard…an enticing moment of daydream nostalgia. “Out of Mind” closes the A-side with layered Berlin school sequencing bouncing through a neon cosmos, with bending fluids and seabird mutations wiggling through the vacuum. Spiritual choirs sing out from the center of the universe, with voices smearing into static as polysynths waver through crystalline clouds. Psychosonic energy blasts whoosh across the spectrum and laser lights mutate into insect screams as black hole radiation bathes the spirit…all while the prog electronic sequences filter, flange, and phase into indistinction, moving from cosmic hypnosis to splattered sequential psychosis.

The extended intro of “Koli” portends some moment of cathartic power, with synth hazes swelling, e-bowed guitars refracting spectral light, and noa bells ringing in a gentle breeze. And eventually, a massive post-rock drum beat drops, with cymbals, snare, and backwards sucking kicks decaying into a void of heartache and kissed by a touch of slapback. The guitars wail into emotional bluescapes of whalesong psychedelia and golden waves of orchestral warmth evolve into a synthesized blur…all while arpeggiations flutter far in the distance. Then in “Helge,” sea vents spew out strange bubble formations and synthesizers ascend through anthem rave riffs while IDM cymbals crawl across the mix like some crazed insect. Slap bass robotics and pastoral guitars solo into jazz ethereality and the rhythms eventually filter into whispering shadows, with everything fading to nothingness as a demonic voice speaks unknowable incantations. Then comes “Der Däne,” wherein lounge jazz guitar chords bend like liquid over ultra-chill trip hop rhythmics, with electro-kicks vibing out and infectious clap patterns cracking on the soulful bounce. The background is woven through by psychedelic noise hazes and dolphin-generated sonar tracers as glacial streaks of orchestral majesty hover just out of reach. The drums pull away for a momentary breath and when they rush back in, they are joined by bass guitar threads recalling Douglas McCombs, with spindly slides and emotive hammer-ons moving through soft jazzfunk sensuality. And as the rhythms progressively filter and crunch, my mind drifts further towards Tortoise, as well as towards Mogwai…just pure post-rock perfection…though growing ever more balearic, with new age ocean atmospherics flowing into the stereo field and stoking visages of some gorgeous sunset panorama.

The first part of “Interlude” is alive with shouting street vendors, feet running on cobblestones, and secrets spoken in earnest as seagulls fly through the sky. Then, drone clouds wash the mix clean, bringing with them bursts of industrial static and swirls of spectral distortion run through by detuning orchestrations. A bell-tower rings in the distance, feedback lasers transmute into blinding fire, and towards the end, piano arps flutter on a seaside breeze, with everything smearing out beneath layers of insectoid noise. Whereas “Der Däne” celebrated the post-rock soundscapes of the mid-90s, closer “Paterson” revels in that style’s early 2000s rebirth, with mathy guitars singing together…their multitudinous layers bathed in cavernous verbs, dreamspace delays, and recalling for me Explosions in the Sky, especially their work on Friday Night Lights. Then it all breaks down, with cold guitars radiating through interstellar expanses and electronic beats dancing through hyperspace corridors while energy waves crash against the mix. Eventually, the swooning guitar majesties return and break free from the murk…singing towards a rural sunrise as the heart soars higher and higher. Rhythms of jazz electronica underly the layers of melodic majesty, with shuffling cymbals guiding the body through immersive e-bow environments. And entire orchestras of the sky are evoked by a few guitars and a bank of fx as synthesized fusion leads solo in support, bringing LSD visions of an exploding sunrise. Nearing the end, the mix devolves yet again, with decaying orchestrations surrounding strange synthetic arps. But rather than end here, a lone guitar ascends once more through the detritus and traces out further melodies of paradise magic before eventually fading away, leaving us afloat within avant-garde sonic environments recalling “Interlude.”

(images from my personal copy)

[thisismyghost-blog]

letter to my rapist

You did everything you could to convince me I was a fool and that you were the smartest person in every room.  You even convinced me I was somehow a bad person who deserved constant punishment and that you were a selfless saint. It turns out we were both selfless, only I turned outward sending my energy to other souls- While you, You turned inward, sucking in all the energy from those around you like a black hole.  You had me convinced that I could learn from you because you were confident and commanding while embodying all the values I seek. I thought my depression and timidity was a sign of weakness and that your arrogance and self obsession gave you strength. Now I see you were only impersonating me. I have nothing to learn from you but everything to see.  You are the darkness of the cold void which lends a background for anything truly luminous to show.

 You said I should be honored that you wanted me to write your speeches but now I write my own speech. You were playacting me the entire time, I already wrote you several speeches you played back to me inside out. You convinced me to worship you and to lock my soul in a punishing dungeon while you had your ways with me. No- you have no more power here. Nothing you say can hurt me. You promised me we would change the world together, we would make each other smarter and stronger and I would be your helpmate in the background while you gave inspirational speeches to thousands in a crowd and raised money for orphans.... What you gave me instead was so much better. You murdered my ego, blotted out the sun in my sky and put blinders on me to my value or possible connection to other human beings. You made me feel ashamed and for a while I hid. I hid myself away, while thinking in some way you were still better than me because everyone seemed to believe your attributes were more worthy of admiration and I was ignorable or mockable.

 You wrapped me in a cold tomb which I transformed into my warm cocoon. That’s the type of power I have and the failure than you will never cease to be.

You killed me and gave me the night... you sucked me into your blackened void and made it possible for me to see all the stars with no obfuscation. I died the ugly whore you broke and am reborn as the Angel you make yourself out to be.  I am empowered by the aggression you poured into me.  I was rebuilt impenetrable by all your insults and rendered impervious by all the bites you took from my flesh. I am impossible to deceive because of every moment you twisted everything against me.

 I am all you want to be…. and more than you can conceive.

 What you thought made me vulnerable actually lends me immortality. I cared so much what other people think, I was willing to sacrifice myself because I valued your happiness and the wellbeing of those you claimed to help.

 You value only admiration and submission in your present moment. If you aren’t receiving admiration from many people or lose your charm and supply of energy from others you will sit with your emptiness. As I lay in the gutter while people calling me a whore, a liar, a drama queen, I have never been so full in my life.  I not only have connected with my son in a way I never saw possible but finally feel reconnected with my father for the first time in over a decade since he passed away. You, I will never forgive. But after you I am only able to forgive when I look on any wrong done by people who love me. I have infinite peace. People like you should never be forgiven or forgotten because you don’t have the capacity to be a human being. You should only be alone, you should only ever be allowed to interact with others in an environment where you are always exposed for what you are. A dangerous hologram, a sirene song.

 When your body dies you will be dead and anything you cared about will cease to exist because you were all that mattered to yourself. When my body dies- I will live on in every person I connected with and nurtured some aspect of their soul into blossoming.  You fool many but you are more alone than alone because you are so turned inwards that you have become a vacuum. A pretty, snake tongued vacuum. You have no power here, in taking all of mine from me you gave me all of yours. I am the brilliant shining light of love you hold up for a mask and I have learned to give my own speech. You wish you were me… I would say I hope this makes you feel bad to be seen, or that I pity your endless painted empty gilded misery because you don’t even know what you are missing and maybe you never had a chance, but- I am indifferent.  Like you made me feel when you ignored me or talked over me or pretended to not see the pain you caused me- I am indifferent to you now but you were obsessed with finding ways to get a reaction out of me. You invested hours hacking into and watching my phone, you even spied on my family and friends. You learned everything about every inch of my soul and studied what made me tick like a watchmaker.

You joked about being a vampire who liked my taste when you forced hickies on me for others to see, yet again telling the truth inside out poetically, once again showing me the beauty of my poetry. You were empty and my blood was sweet.  I will never thank you but I am grateful for you murdering me.  If you hadn’t I never may have discovered my immortality.  If you took responsibility and didnt request your charges to be reduced to a misdemeanor I may never have been forced to choose between giving up and walking into the flames where I found my voice and my dragon flesh. You are literally nothing. You are a painted shell. You wish you were me.

Your cleverness to point at my stupidity only sharpened me. Your ambition to conquer only motivated me. You turned everything so upside down that you set me right side up and now you are the one on the floor and I hold the cold stare of contempt.  You will never beg or cry or bleed like my heart does but you already have a worse fate to suffer than anything you did to me. You don’t have the capacity to feel the joy I feel, to experience the end of aloneness in the awe-filled connection with another’s consciousness, to enjoy the warmth of another person loving you and not becoming a servant to your persona.   You can mime almost any human behavior but you are locked into the same experience. You may travel the world charming crowds and learning them inside and out but you will still only have lived one empty meaningless life. You will only experience the world as a first person video game and never truly live. How can I be angry at you? I am angry at anything that enables people like you, but I am not angry or scared of you.  You no longer mean anything to me. As you thought you were using me for self-gratification the results turned you into simply the means to an end for me- how I learned to tear off your mask and write my speech.

Nothing you can possibly contrive will ever again make me feel shame or win my admiration or submission. So don’t let your ugly designer shirt get snagged on your way out the door.

[nibscribs]

So uhhhh I drew a lot of RWBY this year... only two of these are non RWBY and tbh I could have just as easily put something RWBY for June Template

Retrospective under the cut bc it’s LONG 

RETROSPECTIVE January: First piece of the year! I still like this piece and I think it shows how much I improved from the original version of it. Also I just like looking at it bc it's soft content of my rare pair. I do think I made the rose look photorealistic which looks... bad esp with all the other more stylized flowers, and I got lazy with the bleeding hearts by just drawing one set and flipping them. Emerald's hair also could look better. February:  I made this around GNG week, which was a fun, good time, long before the server imploded on itself. I got really lazy with the backgrounds, obviously, but I do like the poses in this one, tho it helped that I based it off of screenshots from Young Justice. I also just really like how Merc looks in this one. March: March wasn't a very prolific month for art, I don't think I produced much besides this and one comic piece for GNG week. I'm not sure why exactly, I can't find any specific reason why I would be unproductive that month. I'm gonna just assume I was drained from work all the time and didn't have the energy to put out good art, and also I was getting into a slump bc all my art was starting to look same-y. This piece isn't very good, but I chose it because I did it without a reference, and at this point that was going out of my comfort zone. It's obviously not super dynamic, but at the very least you can tell I intended there to be motion to it. April: This also wasn't a very prolific month for art, not as bad as March, but for the same reasons. I was also really starting to feel burnout from the RWBY fandom, specifically wasps and conflict within the GNG server. This was also when the Art vs the Artist meme was popular, and I realized I didn't want to do that meme because my art was too similar and boring, which also brought me down a peg. Though I put out a few good chibis in April, I chose my Mercury redesign bc I was really proud of it. I could never get the Emerald redesign to mesh quite right, but I can say I'm really proud of how Mercury's came out. May: May had me bounce out of my art slump and in full force trying to expand my skills! Specifically exploring painting. Although May was about as prolific as April, what I did create I put a lot into. It was difficult to pick between this and my app of Edison, because I'm really proud of both, but in the end I went with this commission of Mercury because I pushed myself to try and use an interesting perspective for the piece instead of my usual stand still and face the camera pose. Because I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, this was one of the best things I made all year, and may be my favorite piece of the year. June: TIME TO STRESS OUT ABOUT CONNECTICON! So if you follow me on twitter, you might have noticed I made a lot of posts at the beginning of the year low key throwing shade at myself for drawing my oc's instead of more "important" art. Well, that important art that I was procrastinating was con merch, and con was the second week of July, so I really had to get my ass in gear to finish merch on time (spoiler, I didn't finish a lot of it on time). This piece and July's piece are both posters I made for Connecticon, and while I like July's much better, that doesn't mean I find this piece bad. I really should have known that no one at con would realize it was a goonies reference tho -_-; I also lost a lot of love for this piece after season 6 of Voltron, which I watched while I was about 60% of the way through this piece, so I had to force myself to finish it. July: I love this piece!!!! Don't get me wrong, I know it has flaws, but look at it! The lines are so crisp, the colors look good, Roman and Merc's expressions are mwuah chefs kiss, and I just love all of them!!! ... except for Neo. I really didn't do her justice in this piece, her hair is too fluffy, her head is way to oversized to the point that she looks like a bobblehead, and her eyes are too close together. Really if you take out Neo's head that whole problem goes away. I also love all the tiny details I put in this one, from emerald's chaps to roman's rose to Neo's lace parasol. You can tell I was way more passionate about this piece than I was about the Voltron piece.  August:  pretty sure this is when I quit my job cashiering, and thank god bc customers suck. If I was going off of sheer popularity, Chibi Pyrrha would have taken this slot no contest, and while I love chibi Pyrrha, I don't think it was the best of the month. I chose this little princess and the pauper au doodle because I tried a year ago to draw these two dancing, and it looked like dog shit. It was flat and ugly. But this has motion to it, and even looking at it now makes me feel warm and happy inside. It's just a good cute drawing of my otp. September: My piece for the RWBY tarot project! I have a lot of mixed emotions about this one. on the one hand, I love how mercury looks, his expression, the lighting, the visceral gore from his legs (ESPECIALLY THE VISCERAL GORE ON HIS LEGS) and the hands of the undead, all look stunning and I don't think I could be more happy with how they turned out. And then we get to the background. The caduceus isn't the worst thing ever, but it's severely lacking in quality compared to the rendering on mercury in front of it, and a lot of it is clearly pixellated from me trying to stretch and squash it just right. And the fire is a hot (no pun intended) mess. It's flat, incoherent, and doesn't lead the eye anywhere. It's a shame too because I wanted to do more with it, but I a) didn't have enough time or patience to figure out what I needed to do to fix it and b) didn't want to go outside of my comfort level, so I gave up and decided to be satisfied with what I had. October: October was another good month for art, I made a turnaround sheet for Moss, painted a full body (and slightly lewd) Rudy, and made a decent attempt at inktober. Ok, so I got like 2 days in, but I improved a lot on inking from last year! Fun fact! this piece was originally going to be fan art of Lindsay Jones, but after I did some thumbnails to figure out a pose, I thought it would suit White Diamond better, and I could also sell it as merch. I love this piece. I think I captured the sinister mood well, and conveyed the story I wanted to without any dialogue (at least the notes on Tumblr make me assume I did a decent job, lotta people really wigged out lol) I really worked hard to get the lighting right on this one, and I think it shows. My absolutely favorite thing about this piece funnily enough, is Amethyst. I think I just did a great job drawing her and I'm proud of myself ok. Stevens bubble and my trouble figuring out how to get WD's leg just right are the only things that I dislike about this piece, but I might go back and fix those. November: IM SO PROUD OF THIS COMMISSION!!!!!! I worked so god damn hard on this chef's kiss poifect,  and it really shows. I started using a new brush at this point, the Ojing series on Clip Studio Paint, which I recommend and have been using a lot since. I've also been using this shading technique since drawing this. I love how it sort of fades out but it's still really crisp. I also love all the little details that give this piece character, like her shoes and the stripes on her jacket. This piece really takes a lot of the stuff I learned over the year and combines it into one piece, and I could not be prouder of it. I have absolutely no problems with this one, though I do find the weapon a bit plain, but it's what the client described. December: AND NOW IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!! I had been working on this piece since August, going back to it every now and then and getting frustrated. I'm really glad I came back to it and finally finished it, since I love this pair and I put a lot of effort into it back in August. However, I'm also really glad I completely overhauled a lot of it, specifically the flowers. Though I'm not 100% happy with the mums in this one, they look a thousand times better than the mums I had originally sketched back in August, and were part of the reason I had such a hard time finishing this for months. I also thought it would be nice to end the year on the same note it started; with a flower couple. I've definitely learned a lot since January, and I hope to continue growing in 2019! 2019 GOALS!

Work on backgrounds for the love of god

Draw more stuff that isn't RWBY

Perspective

Make more speed paints and post more to youtube in general