#I wish I had the picture in a better quality though

[feroshgirlsims]

Chapter 7.3 - You Can't Go Home

As they filter off the train, the smell of iron gets further away and Akira finally begins to relax.

He asks her a ton of questions, partly because he's curious and partly because he wants to keep the focus off himself. Alice is in the middle of talking about her class when her body goes rigid.

Akira scans for a threat but comes up empty. Train stations are generally pretty clear of supernatural creatures, except low-level spellcasters and baby vampires at night. They aren’t much use when you can transportalate, turn into a bat, or run for miles in wolf form. And the fae avoid them altogether. 

“You good?” 

She flinches when he reaches for her hand. “I-I’m fine,” Her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Do you smoke? Weed, I mean, not cigarettes. I…I think I’m gonna smoke. Do you wanna come with me?”

“I thought you said you had to turn this assignment in,” he reminds her.

She stares across the platform, but he still can’t figure out what she’s looking at. 

“I’ll do it later. And you don’t have to come. That was weird of me to peer pressure you,” her laugh comes out high-pitched and wrong, “You're probably busy. I’m good. I’m gonna go. And you’ll go, and I’ll just see you later.”

She's babbling and her hands are shaking. There is no universe where he just leaves her like this.

“Yeah, I smoke," he takes her hand and leads her to the exit. "And I got time. No classes, remember?”

Akira has been to the Commons a few times (for creeper reasons), but he's never climbed the tower. The air is especially crisp, but Alice doesn't seem bothered by it.

Despite resisting earlier, he finds himself wishing she would extract some promise from him—some commitment to keep him tied to her. It's a terrible idea. He knows better. Akira has always been careful not to break one of the rules he’d learned by brute force.

“This is a shit weed,” he coughs.

“Hey!” Alice playfully points an accusatory finger, “I invite you to my secret perch and share my paltry stash, and you insult me?”

“You need a new dealer if this is your stash.”

“And a new bank account!” She laughs. “Try to chillax, my dude; you are working against the medicinal benefits.”

He tries. His lungs fill, but it takes three more rounds of coughing before he evens out. Alice, meanwhile, is a professional. She barely coughs, though she's had twice as much as him. He's not even sure she's high.

"Why photography?" he asks when she joins him on the bench.

"Most of the time, I get asked about painting; no one even thinks about photography."

He shrugs, "Your focus isn’t Fine Arts. Why am I gonna ask you about something you don’t do? You want me to guess?" When she nods, he waves a hand across the sky, pretending to paint a picture. "Art lets you remake the world in a more pleasing image, which is kind of nice because the world is shit. But you do photography because you want the shitty stuff upfront. No lies. You'd rather tango with the truth."

She straightens, suddenly alert. "Maybe. Kind of. But photography is also lies. All you do when you snap a picture is capture a moment in time. You can still tell yourself a story about the emotion you saw or what really happened. It's just a different kind of lie from painting."

The weed is definitely kicking in, but he likes her explanation.

"So what are you studying?" she asks.

Direct questions are the hardest to dodge. Especially now when he feels like he’s floating a hundred feet in the air. "I'm studying nothing," he says honestly. "I just follow what interests me."

"Why?"

"Because I have a lot of time." Infinite, actually, if he kept his head attached to his body and didn't end up on the wrong side of a curse.

"If I had time, that's what I'd do too. And catch up on back seasons of 7 Wild Dates."

Akira laughs, "Stop. I changed my mind. That show is moving to the bottom of my watch list."

“Don’t be mean!” Alice sticks out her tongue, "That's quality programming you're missing."

They smoke more and talk about nothing, which feels like talking about everything because Alice leaps from topic to topic. She knows a little about a vast number of subjects, like knowledge for her is a series of wading pools and she's just hopping from one body of water to another.

It's how Akira operates too. Once he gets the gist of something, he's ready to move on.

“Tell me one thing about you so you can stop accusing me of hanging out with a stranger," she says, "Where are you from?”

A flash of pink sky. 

A veil that never seems to part.

A home he can’t get back to.

The yearning is so real he jolts. “What if I told you that nothing about me or my life is what it seems? And because I don’t want to lie to you, you’re probably gonna find I won’t answer all your questions. Maybe any of them.”

Alice thinks for a minute. “I guess I’d say tell me what you can, not what you can’t.”

Akira wants to praise her wordplay. He wants to kiss her. He does neither.

“I love horror movies,” he confesses, “When I was like, 10, I snuck into the Moonlight Massacre Marathon at the theater downtown, and I was fuckin’ hooked.” 

The whole story comes tumbling out, even the part about Titania being a little shit and ratting him out to their parents. Alice laughs and complains about her step-sibling, and Akira viciously guards every drop of information she shares with him.

“I like horror movies too. If I throw in Moonlight Massacre II, will that elevate 7 Wild Dates on your watch list?”

His phone buzzes with a reminder about tonight’s job. He gets to his feet. “Next time,” he tells her.

“You promise?”

A promise is a dangerous thing. 

—A binding thing. 

A vow. 

No promises. 

Akira nods, “Yeah, I promise.”

PREV | NEXT

(Part 3 of 4)

[erensfeed]

Everyone wished they had a relationship like yours and Zayne’s.

You were the kind of couple people watched with faint fond smiles, whispering to each other on how deeply in love you two looked.

The way Zayne’s steady calmness balanced with your playful energy, and how he’d give you soft smiles whenever you teased him, made nearby people admire you both dearly.

What was there not to like?

With what is said on opposites attracting? You were the perfect example because the two of you effortlessly made the impossible look easy wherever you went.

Zayne’s coworkers had noticed the change first—the way he’d started smiling more when his phone buzzed, or how he didn’t mind when they teased him about whatever text you’d sent that left him blushing.

He hadn’t been like that before. You didn’t know how much you’d pulled him out of a shell most people assumed he’d never leave. You could say you had some idea but not the full extent.

Whenever you would come visit, his coworkers would joke in a quiet, almost reverent way, about how different Zayne had become since he started dating you. At work, he’d always been that quiet guy who only spoke when he was spoken to. But after you? He was different. He smiled and even laughed more, even at jokes he would never. Genuine, full laughs that were so warm and inviting, prior to his cold and stoic reactions — until one got to know him at least.

Hanging out with both you and Zayne always felt like something also worth remembering.

There was a time at your favorite ice cream shop, you’d invited Greyson and Yvonne to tag along with you both. It was supposed to be a casual quick dessert hangout after work, but you thought it would be one of those moments that would be better shared with others.

Zayne had just finished a quick call that cut through your light conversation a bit, and you’d barely waited for him to put his phone back in his pocket before you sneaked your spoon toward his ice cream dish. With an instinctive and quite effortless flick, he caught you in the act, his spoon blocking yours.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t think I would catch that?” Zayne narrowed his eyes at you, as he was watching your face shift into a shocked expression with a small smirk.

You’d almost forgotten that your boyfriend had such a sweet tooth and you were playing a dangerous game.

“Hey, I was testing the quality control!”

“Oh, really?” While you were distracted by looking at him, he took advantage of the opening and scooped a generous bite from your bowl instead. “How’s this for quality?”

You watched, even more amused, as he took a chunk of your ice cream with a tiny victorious smile. “You did not.”

As his smile grew, he shrugged innocently, the spoon sliding back into his mouth before you decided to go for an even bigger scoop from his. But he caught you again, once more blocking your move with such swiftness.

“No, you are so gonna pay for that,” You laughed as you basically just declared a dessert war on him, making everyone at your table laugh along.

What followed was a tiny duel of clinking spoons, your mock battle ever so intense, that your friends couldn’t help but watch with endearing smiles. It didn’t matter if their own desserts would melt because they didn’t mind. They loved seeing Zayne like that.

They loved seeing you both like that.

｡𖦹 ° . ⋆

Zayne glanced down at his phone on the same restaurant’s table, the lock screen lighting up with a picture of you lovingly pressing a kiss to his cheek, staring back at him. A notification buzzed through—perhaps something mundane—but he couldn’t bring himself to open it.

It’d been a year.

Nothing could ever be as important.

Even though the ice cream didn’t taste the same anymore since he lost you, he finished it in silence anyway. Before leaving, he left a generous tip on the table, then stepped out into the autumn drizzle.

The air was crisp, cool against his face, and tinged with rain.

This was the exact kind of weather you used to love.

The kind you would’ve shared a kiss in, or maybe even played around together with him in, until you caught a cold when it started raining and he had to take care of you, despite his warnings about how terrible of an idea it would be.

At the thought, the ghost of a smile tugged at his lips before it slowly vanished again.

As Zayne slipped into his car, the rain began to pick up, hitting the windshield in a familiar, rhythmic pattern. He glanced at the passenger seat, the space you used to occupy still empty, making him look ahead once more as he started the car.

He drove aimlessly for a while, the streets blurring in the rain. He passed the street where you’d first bumped into him, spilling your drink all over his jacket in the most chaotic yet loveable way. He remembered how embarrassed you were, how quickly you apologized, how beautiful you were when flustered.

How he…

He trailed off in his thoughts. Then he let out a shaky exhale before swallowing hard, trying to think of any other thing. He couldn’t help himself as he looked outside the window.

You really would’ve loved the weather today.

Gloomy yet soft, with just the right amount of rain to make you sigh contentedly and lean into his warmth.

He knows you would have.

He would’ve also loved the chance to experience that moment with you.

At work, his coworkers had long noticed it. They’d started whispering again too. They’d noticed how he’d stopped smiling again, how the sharpness in his eyes had returned, how he barely spoke unless absolutely necessary. How he was here but not really here.

It was now like every part of him had locked up.

For good this time.

They had never seen him like this before—not even before you. He’d really shut himself off completely, the only thing left of him being the rigid, distant exterior he had perfected in the years before you ever came into his life.

“Dr. Zayne?”

Greyson’s voice pulled him back to the present as he held the coffee cup he got him. Greyson’s eyes searched his face for a sign of recognition, but all he found again was the same cold, empty look Zayne had been wearing for months now.

“Oh, thank you,” he accepted the drink, stiffly, then gently settled it down on his desk, never meeting Greyson’s worried gaze.

Greyson watched him for a beat too long, waiting for something — maybe a sign that Zayne was still in there somewhere. But Zayne didn’t meet his eyes. He couldn’t.

If he looked… if he acknowledged the concern there, it might break him.

So instead, he focused on the screen in front of him, typing mechanically, anything to drown out the silence between them. Taking that as a cue to leave, Greyson softly nodded and did so, knowing that any attempt to try to talk would once again be a fail.

When Greyson walked outside, he met the eyes of the hospital coworkers gathered outside Zayne’s door. They shook their heads, exchanging sad, disappointed glances.

Another day without a full conversation with Zayne.

Another day of keeping everyone out.

Another day without you.

Zayne knew it all and it hurt him.

But he also knew that it was easier this way. Easier to keep everything locked down. Easier to pretend he didn’t feel the ache in his chest every time he thought of you, especially after they asked how he was.

Easier to be the Zayne everyone used to know, the one who never showed any sign of vulnerability.

And yet, he also knew that you wouldn’t have wanted this for him. You wouldn’t have wanted him to shut the world out. Not for you.

You always believed in him, knew how strong he was. How mentally stronger than he thought he was. You’d never quit reminding him in all your moments together.

But now, as he sat there in the silence, it felt impossible to hold onto any of that.

The truth was he didn’t know how to do this — all this anymore.

He didn’t know how to keep pretending.

The moon was out again tonight, the same one you used to talk to him under, on those long, quiet summer nights when you two would lie on a blanket in the grass in your backyard, your head resting on his chest.

He hated how it felt to look at it now.

So far away, so unreachable.

He remembered how you used to compare him to the moon, even though he felt otherwise. He always thought of you as his light in the dark, which made him start calling you his moonlight too.

At the memory, he stared into the serene night sky as the moon cast a pure pale glow, his eyes glimmering, holding back the storm of emotion within.

“I miss you,” he managed to whisper, his voice breaking on the words. “So much.”

But the moon didn’t respond.

And for the first time in a long time, Zayne wasn’t sure he could keep going without you.

It’d been a year, after all.

A year since he lost his moon.

©2024 ERENSFEED. all rights reserved

[goldenhypen]

｡⋅✴︎｡⚬⋅ WHAT ARE WE?

syn. the way you and riki act as best friends has everyone questioning what you two really are.

riki x reader ⋅ fluff + best friends acting not so platonically? ⋅ 0.6k ⋅ 100% based off a dream i had recently- enjoy! :’>

laughter. riki’s favourite sound. and not just any laughter. your laughter.

with your eyes half shut, head swung back and tummy hurting in pure bliss, sounds of joy left your lips, all because of something silly riki had said that you already barely remember. you don’t even know why you found it funny, but perhaps that’s a quality that ran in your close friendship with riki: any crazy, ridiculous thing your best friend would do or say could so easily elicit laughter from you. he likes to call it a talent, and you just roll your eyes at the thought.

you and riki weren’t the only ones at the table. on the other side of you was jake, and sitting across was sunoo and jungwon as you all shared a nice, warm meal together that jake had ordered earlier. and there you five sat on their empty practice room floor after a long day.

a satisfied sigh finally left your lips once you recovered and got control of your breathing again. realizing you were full, you turned to your side and faced riki with a grin. he looked at you through the sides of his eyes but didn’t question your motives. and before he knew it, his body was being pushed away slightly as you adjusted the position of his legs that were once crossed, now spread apart.

already knowing what you wanted, he opened up his arms for you, and you sat yourself right in front of him, back facing his body, and you leaned against him, letting your weight fall onto his.

his arms wrapped around and encapsulated you before you brought yours out from under his, your hands easily finding their way to his wrists.

“you better not fall asleep,” he said quietly beside your ear, almost sending a rush down your spine. his tone was as though he was offering you some sort of deal, that if he were to let you do this with him, the only condition would be that you don’t fall asleep.

and so you nodded but decided to be a little rebellious, closing your eyes anyway, despite it being against what he had told you.

the few minutes that went by weren’t enough for you to fall asleep yet, and suddenly you heard sunoo and jungwon giggling across from you. you were still fully conscious, just unable to see behind your eyelids, and you could hear as they snapped a picture of you because someone forgot to turn their phone’s sound off. you only continued to pretend to be asleep as you heard and felt riki chuckle against you as he found you cute and funny.

however, you lulled into such a relaxed state that you eventually did fall into a nice–though short–slumber, content in riki’s arms.

the way he brushed your hair from your eyes, and the way he watched you adoringly went unnoticed by you who was asleep in his arms, and is something you’ll never be aware of… that is until you see all the pictures and videos sunoo took but were not long lived as his giggles were a dead giveaway and had riki stopping him (not only because he was embarrassed but also because he didn’t want anyone to wake you).

just know that riki adores you–and he’ll never let this reach your ears, but… he wishes that you’d use him like this more often.

A/N. had a dream that was exactly like this and so i decided to write it for y’all to experience it too :’> idk why it was riki and NOT JAKE THO???? but i think it turned out pretty cute so :D hope you enjoyed! letting me know you did would mean a lot to me <3 thanks for reading!

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[kozachenko]

[Click for better quality]

Ok yay I'm back from my vacation yipeeeeeee. I started this drawing of Keiki before I left and I was half considering just giving up on it.... until I did a short study of facial planes and then got motivated to work on this again! I'm glad I didn't give up on it though, as I'm actually really happy with this one!

Artist's Notes;

So as I mentioned in my last post about Touhou 17, I wanted to finish this by the game's five year anniversary but with how progress was going I didn't want to rush this so I decided to take a long break from it. Mainly because of the face. For a while now I was kind of feeling like I was stagnating with my drawings, not really in the clothing but in the bodies. There was something about the way I was rendering them that I just wasn't happy with, and after talking with someone else about this issue, I realized that the reason I felt this way was because the faces were too flat and didn't match the rest of the drawing and that I needed to find a way to make the rendering of the face feel consistent with everything else. So after doing a short study of the plains of the face (I used this 3D head model from art station as a reference for my short study, please go give this person some love as they are a lifesaver) I went back into this drawing and applied what I learned here. It was only after that that I finally became motivated to finish the piece, and while it started off as just a simple character sketch like Saki and Yachie's were, the moment I added in Keiki's little fire dragon I knew I had gotten in too deep and now here we are with a full on background. OK it's not super crazy or anything, but it gets the job done and it's better than there just being an empty void behind her. It's rare moments like this when I use brushes other than the Clip Studio Default Charcoal Brush and use the Clip Studio Default Paint Brushes as well (god bless the oil paint and dry gouache clip studio brushes, they were amazing). I don't know why but painting fire has always been really fun for me, there's something oddly satisfying about it y'know? I do think that another reason for this problem was because I was drawing faces like I would in my more sketchy style that didn't mesh well with my lineless style, so I'm glad I've started remedying that.

After adding in the fire dragon I had an idea to kinda make it feel like splash art in the way the composition works... probably because I have been playing Reverse 1999 again and it has taken over my brain. I do feel like Keiki's tools get a little lost in the composition, and I didn't fully render the metal parts of them mainly because I didn't feel like they needed it, but that's just something for me to improve on later down the line.

If you guys are wondering where I went for my vacation, I went to New York and got to go to the MET and the Museum of Natural History. In both places I found Kofun period stuff and I was so happy to see it you have no idea. I remember one of the Haniwa I saw had some neat face paint under the eyes that I tried to replicate with the makeup under Keiki's eyes in my drawing, though I think I'll gave to figure out how to draw makeup on characters because this reads more like blush to me than anything. While drawing this I also looked up some references of Kofun period jewelry and really liked the stuff I found, which also meant that now she has proper Kofun earrings instead of earrings shaped like Kofun tombs. I put some of the things I referenced with a closeup of Keiki's face as well down below. I made her outfit more reminiscent of the outfit I gave her at the beginning of the year with the buttons and all, though I do want to try and draw her in some more period accurate clothing like the Haniwa I took a picture of at the Museum of Natural History. I wish I could find a way to make her handercheif look better though as I wish I made it a little bit bigger, though I think I'm saying this because I've looked at this drawing for too long lmao. Once again something to work on for when I next draw her. Also want to get better at rendering hair, as some details (like the little strands in front of her ears) kinda got unreadable due to the similarities in colour lol.

Now you may have also noticed the little cracks I added onto Keiki's face, and that's because I have fallen in love with the idea of Keiki's body being made from ceramic and that she crafted her body herself. While they aren't very visible I also tried to add some doll joints to her body, which is an idea I played around with in the past but never went to far with. I also want to get better at rendering cracks in ceramic, porcelain, etc, as I'm not sure how those read in the drawing. I also have a headcanon where the cracks in Keiki's face show up because of heightened emotions, and while Keiki is aware of this and does her best to make sure her face doesn't break off.... she will still end up with at least a few cracks during any given day, and she can often forget to repair her own body quite frequently so Mayumi has to remind her quite a lot. Mayumi even taught herself some basic sculpting techniques to help repair parts of her body that are so badly damaged to the point where Keiki can't repair them herself, i.e. if both her arms broke off, Mayumi would put them back together for her so Keiki can at least have something to repair herself with rather than nothing. I also like to imagine that if Keiki created her own body, if you took a look at Keiki from the beginning of her life she would look completely different compared to now.

BTW If you guys are wondering what a very very angry Keiki looks like....ok in order for this to make sense have any of you read volume 11 of Land of The Lustrous? Am I bringing back some memories for those of you that have? Ok good, glad we all got that mental image brewing in our minds, I'll probably draw a version of Keiki that is somewhat inspired by that one day as it's an idea I've had for a little while now. And to those who haven't gotten to that volume yet and are confused.... don't worry about it, just keep reading :)

[ladyloveandjustice]

A Ranking of the '4 Days of Ohtori: Someday My Revolution Will Come' Revolutionary Girl Utena Game Endings

I was commissioned to do a post ranking the endings of the Revolutionary Girl Utena dating sim based on quality and enjoyment! I did a liveblog for it for it a while ago, see here. If you know nothing about the game, I think you should read it and then come back to this post. It's a fun liveblog!

I was also asked to talk about if any of the endings work out well for the main character (who I call Purple Pigtails).

Basically all of the endings aren't ideal for Perfect Pigtails. Her dad is sick enough she has to leave Ohtori to help him iirc, she doesn't ever get to reconcile with Chigusa even though she badly wanted to (it's implied she had a crush on her despite everything, but she had to basically kill her). She also knows her dad's a piece of shit now, and that both her parents lied to her. I doubt she'll ever trust them again. She may even hate her Dad now. Her family was a lie, and that's very sad. On top of that, several of the endings imply she may come back to Ohtori which is honestly not a good thing for her!!! So none of them really work out for her, but I'm going to talk about which ones work out for her the least and the most as I rank the endings.

My favorite endings of the Utena video game, from best to worst:

Juri Ending

So, after much deliberation my favorite ending is the Juri one. The fact that her response to Purple Pigtails falling in love with her is "sorry, can't just enter a healthy lesbian relationship because I am super committed to this toxic one. You know that girl I painfully pine over while starting at her in my locket? That locket I wish I could throw away? Well I'm giving you your own pining locket to torment you with MY picture. We can be sad lesbians together."

It's just so Juri. Has to spread her unhealthy behavior everywhere. I don't think she knows any other way to deal with this stuff except to put it in a locket, keep it a secret and stare at it longingly. So she assumes Purple Pigtails needs that too. It's just...incredibly funny but also incredibly sad.

Does this ending work out for Purple Pigtails? Not really, no, she has to leave her crush behind and mirror Juri's unhealthy behavior. As long as she has that locket she can never move on or find a girlfriend. I will say she's better off than Juri though, because at least her crush doesn't try to actively torment her every chance she gets. I also think she's more likely to eventually put away the locket than Juri. She only knew Juri four days and isn't quite as fucked up as her. But then again, I could see her go on a similar quest to find Juri someday, like Utena did for her prince...but I don't think Juri will ever be in the position to be what she needs, even if she's healed and moved on. Because no real princes exist.

Then again, the fact Purple Pigtails was able to leave Ohtori at all means she was able to grow up and move on herself. She's accepted that her childhood was never what she thought it was...so maybe such a quest is unlikely. Maybe she will move on pretty quickly. Or maybe being obsessed with Juri means she will be welcomed back to Ohtori soon...

Anthy ending

My second favorite ending is the Anthy ending. The only reason it's lower than the Juri ending is that the washing each other's back scene is a little uncomfortable to watch, knowing Purple Pigtails has no trouble coercing sexual favors from Anthy. Whether this is all part of Anthy's plan or not, she is likely not enjoying this...and yet it's framed fairly comedically, which feels weird.

But otherwise? God it's perfect, so wonderfully absurd, so wonderfully Anthy. Her plan here is so elaborate and there are so many layers. There's also the question of why the hell she even did all this, which is so intriguing.

The way she's so direct with Purple Pigtails, her resentment and cynicism coming out, is great. Purple Pigtails is pretending she wants her, but she only wants power.

She also actively sabotages Utena in the fight in order get with Purple Pigtails. Why?

But after that, she also sabotages Purple Pigtails, deliberately keeping her up all night with uh. possibly sex, (again, uncomfy) to ensure she'll be too tired to concentrate the next day. But she does this so PP will lose to Utena even though Utena doesn't have a sword anymore.

Anthy played PP so thoroughly, but again, why? My theory when I first played this was Anthy was feeling guilty about her inevitable betrayal of Utena and was trying to get with Purple Pigtails, only to immediately realize there's no way PP could become a prince so she goes back to Utena.

But there are a lot of options. Maybe Anthy and/or Akio needed PP to be taken out. She was upsetting their plans somehow, so she needed to be defeated so humiliatingly she'd never try to get with Anthy again. It could explain why PP eventually left in the other endings, maybe she actually hadn't moved on, maybe Akio felt she was too much of a risk (possibly by how things got so complicated with Chigusa, too much of a distraction for the duelists) and kicked her out.

Or maybe this was all to test to find out where she was a prince candidate, and she was found wanting...considering you have to order rose tea as a prerequisite, this one's very possible.

It's all so fascinating. Maybe I should have put it as favorite...ok, let's say it's this and Juri tied.

Obviously this doesn't work out at all from Purple Pigtails Perspective. She becomes a supervillain, she's humiliatingly defeated, and she very well may be stuck at Ohtori for a long time...and fact she doesn't appear in the anime implies she's no longer friends with any of them. Maybe Akio made everyone forget about her. Maybe she was so bitter she rejected them all.

Utena's ending (Romantic Version)

(As a PS... it's very obvious the girls aren't allowed to kiss on the lips in this game, likely because of outside pressure, both Saionji and Miki get lips, while Utena and Juri do the princely forehead kiss (but you could also argue it's because they are the most "princely characters...and imitating the prince kiss is 100% in character for Utena. Also kissing a girl on the lips at this point in the story would pretty much short circuit Utena. Send her into such a lesbian crisis her heart might give out)

This ending is so sweet on the outside, but then you peel a layer back and see how fucked up it is. Utena very deliberately imitates her "prince" here, and that will someday horrify her, that she imitated Akio and got another girl obsessed with princes. And obviously that's very bad for PP too, since the thesis of Utena is the chivalrous prince who will save you is a lie.

Utena's words imply they will meet again and there's not a lot of outcomes that are good for that. One outcome is that PP goes back to Ohtori to find Utena, only to find she's already gone. But then Akio has a replacement Utena, right there. I'm not sure that would even matter, with Anthy gone, there's no way he can like, use her for anything...but he might take his anger at Utena and Anthy out on her. The better option is PP finds Utena in the real world, and sees that she and Anthy are officially girlfriends and have become healthier people. That might be good for her, actually--I'm sure Utena would encourage her to move on, find her own identity, and Utena would still want to be friends. Or she could ignore Utena andsink into bitterness and jealousy.

One of the most screwed up things about this ending is that PP basically loses her individuality and has become a copy of another person. It's not great for her that she's so wrapped up in Utena that it's her identity now. It's very sad just like it was with Anthy in the manga.

So no, I don't think this ending goes well for Purple Pigtails at all. She loses who she is, becomes obsessed with something that's just a false patriarchal idol, and that makes her vulnerable to Ohtori. Her only hope is finding Utena in the real world, and Utena making up for her past mistake.

Miki's ending

It was such a chore to get to this ending, but it's worth it for how funny it is. Purple Pigtails immediately deciding she actually wasn't in love with Miki after all (hint it's because she's a lesbian hint) and just. blowing him off, pretending she has a boyfriend back home. Legendary of her, and honestly Miki kind of deserves it. From his perspective it must feel like she really played with his feelings, though.

Because it doesn't exist, Miki!!! It was never real!!!!

She does say she "likes younger boys" after this, but that's just what she's telling herself. Someday she'll realize. Hopefully.

I think its interesting that Miki is the only one in this game who explicitly actually has feelings for her. He is able to move on from his sister (sort of. I mean at the very least iirc he never compares PP to Kozue that I can remember. Which is HUGE for him), but none of the rest can move on past their obsessions.

I actually think this works out pretty well for PP. She's not too attached to Miki, so she's unlikely to go back to Ohtori, and it doesn't break her heart to leave him, she's still herself, and I think she'll be able to move on.

Touga Ending (italicized since I haven't seen the whole route)

I haven't fully watched this route, so I don't know what it takes to get there. If I did it might affect my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. But while this ending is so mean and horrible, it is also so darkly funny. Touga distilled. He's such a asshole that it is impossible to get any thing positive from your ending with him even in a dating sim, and that's amazing. You think you've won but you lost. You lost the second you decided to date Touga.

Basically, Touga promises he will write PP every single day, and he will come visit her too, and she's ecstatic.

And then he goes and burns her address, calling her stupid, because of course he fucking does. Thus PP is totally ghosted, left despairing and wondering why.

It is also very interesting he's the only love interest she does NOT get a kiss from, unexpected since Touga has not problem kissing girls he does not give a shit about. Either he just, genuinely hates her guts THAT much or he's ---

ahhh shit. I just looked it up. You can have PP have sex with him. In fact you have to actively avoid it if you don't want to. So that's why he doesn't need a kiss. Her already got what he wanted. That actually makes this ending so much more heartbreaking, a lot of girls place a lot of importance on their first time, and PP was treated so cruelly with hers. This goddamn prick.

It is horrible, but it is exactly what I'd expect Touga to do (esp since this is set so early in the story) and I think it's incredible the game was so true to his character that you just get a straightforward unhappy ending when you date him. The others at least APPEAR a little happy, though they're quite sad when you think about them for long, but the game makes no pretenses with Touga. It just goes "no, you got nothing good out of this relationship, this man is trash, he played you like he does everyone"

Obviously this is pretty sad for Purple Pigtails, who gets manipulated and ghosted, and, depending on your choices, gets to have the lovely experience of a horrible older boy manipulating her, fucking her, and throwing her away at the tender age of 14. But, assuming she is able to move on (I hope so?) this might be happier than others for her in the long run (especially if she avoids having sex with him). Touga ghosting her means he won't be able to torment her further, and that's better than any other option with him. Unless, of course, she goes back to Ohtori to get an explanation...

Perfect Ending

I do like the perfect ending bc of the funny interactions the council get in--Juri teasing Miki about liking older girls and Miki getting extremely flustered, Touga being so fucking annoying especially when he insists on calling Saionji BEST FRIEND over and over until Saionji is like "can you shut the fuck up''...

The goodbye with Utena is fairly generic though, just the tiniest bit gay. One thing that is interesting for this ending is PP wanting to learn fencing.

It's ambiguous who she's talking about here, she could even mean Chigusa despite the fact she's deader than dead, or it could be "we don't know which person she's most attracted too ooooh".

As far as working out for Purple Pigtails? She escapes romantic trauma, which is great for her, but she seems really determined to go back to Ohtori in this one, and as has been said many times, that is not good for her.

Akio Ending

I considered rating this higher bc it's so funny how PP calls Akio on his bullshit.

But there's the fact that PP's particular Akio ending is even more uh, rape-coded than any other Akio car ride, IIRC? It's not only the fact she's underage, but she actively begs Akio to stop. But of course that motherfucker doesn't listen.

It's honestly so sad so that kind of ruins any fun. Which doesn't make it bad, but i don't like thinking about that part.

This is the second worst ending for PP. Just like the Black Rose and Anthy endings, she's still at Ohtori and has no friends, but there's the sexual assault aspect on top of that. She will be so traumatized, and on top of that she lost humiliatingly, while Akio basically called her worthless.

Saionji ending

Saionji's ending is both kind of boring and vaguely interesting. (And I'm ranking it like this on the assumption Saionji never hit her, which I assume he didn't from the Youtube comments. While he would definitely be cruel to a gf in multiple ways if she stuck around enough, I think it's possible the only person he would physically abuse while dating is Anthy. which is. something to analyze.) Saionji is (blessedly) silent during most of this ending. only saying "I owe you a lot" when he gives her the present (implying she's been kind of for caring for him, wet pathetic dog that he is, which does fit with the snippets I've seen of this route and echoes his relationship with Wakaba)

Saionji does give her his little leaf (apparently the only present he's capable of making?? like if he can carve this leaf he must know how to carve other things, right??? maybe it's just the carving he's best at) but PP knows he's too obsessed with Anthy (and Touga. the obsession with Anthy is just an extension of an obsession with Touga lets all be honest here) to return her feelings and they're both pretty honest and open about things. But THEN she claims she'll come back and make him look her way someday.. AND THEN she just plants one on him out of nowhere. Girl, you forget about consent!

Honestly Saionji just seems extremely confused and freaked out about it, even his expression afterwards, which makes me feel bad for him, something I'd never thought I'd say in my life. It's kind of interesting to see him like that. But...it doesn't stand out too much other than that. It's kind of just like. okay girl. calm down.

This one does not work out perfectly for PP since she seems pretty determined to come back to Ohtori and make Saionji love her, which is definitely never going to happen. But she doesn't lose her identity, doesn't get a pining locket, Saionji is surprisingly nice to her, unlike Wakaba she knows she doesn't have a chance right now, so she wasn't hugely disappointed...so it could be worse.

Utena Friendship Ending

Basically the same at the perfect ending, except we never get to see any fun interactions between the group. Boring.

Black Rose Ending

This one claims PP is obsessed with books, which has never come up in the game before, so it feels out of nowhere and like it wasn't properly developed. There's not much to dig into, when there should be. And her defeat is basically the same as the Akio endings, so it doesn't add much.

(Utena is being so mean here!!!! You know she's brainwashed why are you being an asshole about her skill!)

One the worst endings from PP's perspective, her mind is messed with, she literally has no friends, and she's stuck at Ohtori.

Game over

Obviously a Game Over is pretty boring. The game just ends. Bye.

I think PP would disappear from the world in the game over ending, just like Chigusa wanted. So this is the worst ending for her, she not only dies. she's erased from existence. At least in the other endings she gets to live.

(also I think either this one or the perfect ending are canon for the anime. The game over ending makes a lot of sense, since they would all forget PP and all that happened with her ever existed, and that would be the explanation for why she's never mentioned in the anime. But the more optimistic take is that the perfect ending is canon, and nobody ever mentions her because she just doesn't come up.

So there's my favorites ranked from best to worst.

NOW let's rank the endings from worst to best for Perfect Pigtails!

Game Over (she dies)

Akio Car Ending

Black Rose Ending

Anthy Ending (it's possible for her to have friends in this one)

Touga Ending (provided a) he has sex with her and b) she is unable to move on from what happened. Without those two factors though, it's under Utena's in the long run)

Utena Ending

Juri Ending

Saionji Ending

Perfect Ending

Miki Ending is the best one for her, weirdly! (Or at least my interpretation of it. She got out unscathed and has no desire to return to Ohtori!)

---

And those are my rankings! I hope everyone who read this far enjoyed the rambling.

[kitkatscabinet]

All I want for Christmas

For my lovely wife @juvenillia as a part of the secret Santa exchange. I'm sorry it took so long love

Simon Riley x f! reader

Summary: Your holiday plans are thwarted when the task force is abruptly called away for a mission.

Word count: 3.2k

A/N: reader celebrates Christmas.

You’d always been ambivalent towards the holidays, especially the christmas season. The wonder that had illuminated your childhood at the lights, the decorated trees and the general spirit people exuded had long since faded. While you didn’t hate the holiday season, it was hard to muster up the same level of excitement and magic that children seemed to naturally conjure. 

When it came down to it, you supposed the issue in truth was your family, or rather the lack thereof, most of the remaining members of your jagged family being low, to no contact completely. Atleast, that was the case until your old lieutenant, John Price, had dragged you into his new off the books task force. Sergeants Kyle Garrick and John Mactavish were hard people to hate, not that you’d tried, and both had very quickly wormed their way into your heart through the high stress situations you’d endured together over the years. 

Though given the way Soap had seemingly latched on with both hands and refused to let you go, dragging you to his concernigly empty home in Scotland to spend the holidays together a few years back let you know that he was likely just as lonely. Kyle had hosted the next, Captain Price had been bullied into opening his apartment for the third, and then when it became apparent this would be a 141 tradition, surprisingly Laswell and her wife had welcomed you all with open arms into their home. 

It was through your team, your family, that you started to once again regain that childlike wonder for the holidays. Even Simon, grinch that he seemed to be was always present, glass of Eggnog in his hand as he watched his teammates engage in childlike behaviour from the corner. Soap had tried to pester the large man into wearing the matching pajamas that you, Kyle and him all now proudly wore but that was apparently a step too far. 

You weren’t fooled by his nonchalant persona though, not when you could still so clearly picture the shock and vulnerability that had settled over his pretty unmasked face the first time you’d handed him a full stocking decorated painstakingly with his name in silver thread. The stockings you’d made for your team were incredibly shoddy, a labour of love not skill. Yet even two years later, frayed and chunky, they were still in use. Johnny had been genuinely aghast when you’d tried to take them back, to buy them new, better quality ones. 

With the way your eyes seemed to naturally gravitate towards Simon it would have been impossible not to notice the way he had flinched slightly at your suggestion, hands protectively clutching his stocking. Nor could it escape your notice that every year as the stocking frayed more and more, Simon’s still seemed to be in immaculate shape. Somedays you could swear it seemed to be better off than when you’d first gifted it, though that was probably wishful thinking.  

Your fifth Christmas with the team was rapidly approaching, a fact Johnny wouldnt let you forget, practically vibrating out of his skin at the exciting prospect of celebrating Christmas at your place. As you and Simon were the only remaining members who hadn’t hosted the onus had fallen on you even if you hadn’t volunteered. It seemed the entire squad had silently assumed it would be you, not the paranoidly private Simon, yourself included. 

The apartment you lived in was small but comfortable, and with two weeks until Christmas it was already decked out with lights, tinsel and a small tree covered in garish ornaments. You’d received some odd looks from people in the shopping centre but you were too excited to care. Presents had been bought, multiple for each of your teammates in fact when you kept finding better gifts. Or rather, you’d gathered an assortment of gifts for everyone but Simon. Nothing seemed to quite fit. Sure, there had been a few bits and bobs that you could have settled for, but in your mind nothing had been good enough for him, his gift needed to be perfect. An announcement that the centre was closing ringing through the stores PA system had you dejectedly walking back to your car, the determined promise of tomorrow for sure ringing through your mind. 

Tomorrow is thwarted when the phone you keep in the bedside drawer rings urgently at 3am, rousing you from the light slumber that was characteristic of all your nights sleep. It only takes a few minutes for the gorgginess to exit your system as Price’s grim voice filters through the speaker as you roll out of bed with a less than professional whine. Couldn’t the terrorists or whoever have waited until after the holiday season? Until March even?

Johnny’s just as pouty as you and though the two of you form a coalition to turn your best puppy dog eyes on Price to try and convince him to pawn whatever bullshit mission you’ve been called on to another squad, the captain apparently doesn’t find the act cute enough. Simon jokes that Soap’s ugly mug probably hindered more than anything and thus you were stuck between the two as a sacrificial lamb before things escalated. 

Between the early wake up call and the prospect of being called out so close to Christmas tensions were running a little high. The lack of decent intel further fraying the nerves of everyone bar the ever unflappable Ghost who sat rigid and alert as ever even when you slumped down in the seat next to him on the helo. You’d barely been given a few hours to prep before you were already getting shipped off to Chechnya where the team was then tasked with entering the country very illegally and covertly. In otherwords the whole thing was a shit show and a half and it was felt through the silent tension that thrummed in the air. 

Simon’s large muscled frame pressed lightly against your side, something you were increasingly aware of as the flight droned on. Heat emanating from his body and sinking into your skin. Pressed so closely, you could smell him before he was marred by sweat, dirt and blood, a rarity. He didn’t wear a nice cologne, smelling like simple soap and washing detergent, but it was nice nonetheless. It was nice because it was just so Simon. 

Exhausted already both physically and mentally, you quickly fall asleep to the lull of the whirring blades and warm pillow of muscle sitting to your left, head lolling to slump against his arm. Lost in your slumber as you are, you completely miss the way he tenses minutely at the sensation before quickly relaxing, shuffling just a little to ensure your maximum comfort. He spends far too long staring at your sleeping face, warm eyes committing every little detail to memory. It’s not until he reluctantly tears his gaze away from your peaceful visage that he sees Captain Price’s amused look, brow raised pointedly as he stares at his two subordinates. Not for the first time in his life Simon is thankful for the mask, leaving none of the pink blush marring his skin visible. 

The mission goes totally fubar almost immediately, because of course it does, the whole thing was fucked from the start. Somewhere in the back of the alarms whirring in your mind as you ran through the dense woodlands you recognise that maybe Kyle’s theory of foul play wasn’t so farfetched. 

Price is barking something over the gunfire that you don’t hear over the chaos and deafening ringing  in your ears, Johnny’s swearing over the comms as he switches between sniping and hightailing it down from overwatch to the exfil location. You’re half dragging, half carrying Kyle along as he mumbles deliriously, head slumped into the crook of your neck and left leg hanging nearly limply as you both blindly stumble. 

You’re fucked. You and Kyle are so unbelievably fucked it’s a little funny, and if it weren’t for the fact your lungs were burning and working overtime to expand and provide you with desperately needed oxygen you’d probably be laughing. 

You’re fucked. You’re probably going to die. You and Kyle, who’s useless without you, who’s relying on you to get him to safety. That’s the part that stings the most, that causes your lower lip to wobble traitorously and tears of panic to build in your lashline. Not the fact that you’ll die, forgotten and buried in a cover up orchestrated by your government, but the fact that you’ll take Kyle with you. Sweet, loyal, driven Kyle who wormed his way into your life and into your damn heart. Your confidante. The only person who knew how you really felt about… Simon. 

Simon Riley. The goddamned smug, cocky, bastard that had taken it a step further than the rest of your teammates when he smashed his way into your life. The man you eventually came to realise was nothing like the fear tinged rumours. Sure, the Ghost was scary and more than a little rough around the edges but Simon was kind, generous, gentle, funny, and looking back on it you suppose you’d been doomed from the start. 

You were going to die and he was all you could think about. Where was he? Was he hurt? Was he safe? What if he didn’t make it out? Would he die alone, bleeding out in the snow, not knowing that you loved him?

Moving on a cocktail of adrenaline, muscle memory and desperation you finally burst out of the treeline and towards the road where the exfil vehicles were already roaring to life. A quick head count has you sagging in relief despite the situation. Johnny. Price. Simon. They’re all waiting for you and Kyle, and though it’s impossible to gauge any injuries just yet, it seems that you and Kyle are the worst off by far. 

The relief abruptly leaves your body with a yelp as you take one step down the small hill towards the road only to immediately trip, legs giving way as you and subsequently Kyle fall forwards and tumble down through the slush. Between one blink and the next the shouting starts up again and you’re ceremoniously pulled up from the ground and tugged into a vehicle in a mess of confusion and limbs. 

When your vision finally focuses it’s to the sight of brown eyes crinkled with more concern than you’d ever seen surrounded by a signature skull mask. Trying to sit up, the world tilts precariously once more as a large hand pushes your sternum back down against the seats and a gravelly accent barks something at you. Any other time you’d be elated at the touch but right now you couldn’t even begin to think to appreciate it.

Simon’s yelling something that sounds vaguely like your name, as if trying to get your attention between whatever he’s screaming at who’s driving. Your head lolls to the side in an attempt to better gauge your surroundings but the movement does nothing but send your vision spinning, a sudden sharp burning pain radiating from near your collarbone. Clumsily one of your hands attempts to clutch the aching site, attempting to locate the problem. You end up missing in spectacular fashion, blinking in confusion at your sudden lack of motor skills until there’s a hand on your chin, tilting your face back up to look into uncharacteristically alarmed eyes. 

Simon’s other hand pushes down on your shoulder harshly and pain anew lights your nerves on fire as you scream, tears streaming down your cheeks as you thrash. All you achieve is further agitating your injuries and expending the very little adrenaline fuelled energy you still had. 

“-me. Look at me!” Your hearing suddenly kicks back just in time to hear the tinge of desperation in the Lieutenant’s voice, the black spots in your vision clearing just a little to allow you one last look into Simon’s eyes. Even when they’re wide with terror you can’t help but think how pretty his eyes are, the sentiment might even slip past your tingling lips though you can’t be sure as you abruptly lose the battle and your body shuts down into unconsciousness.  

It’s a steady, consistent beeping that your mind registers first, before your eyelids that feel like they’re weighed down with glue even open. Your lack of vision quickly becomes second on the list of priorities when you try to breathe, only to find yourself gagging and choking on an obtrusion in your throat. You struggle blindly for what feels like an eternity, panic mounting as you fight for oxygen and to get your leaden, useless limbs to cooperate. 

Suddenly hands are grabbing at you, firm voice speaking over the now rapid beeping of what’s probably the heart monitor. Your eyes burst open at the same instant the trachael tube is pulled out, leaving you to gasp and cough for air as a warm hand cups your cheek tenderly whilst helping you sit up. It takes a few more seconds for the blur in your vision to completely clear but when it does it’s to the visage of Simon’s soft brown eyes once again. 

He’s not wearing his mask, giving you the perfect view of his deep purple eye bags and greasy, dishevelled hair. “You look like shit,” your voice is a croaky rasp, throat like sandpaper and Simon’s handing you a styrofoam cup of water before you can even ask. You take small sips of the cool liquid, savouring the soothing nature. 

“Pot meet kettle” he grunted, slumping down into the far too small chair that had been pulled to your bedside. You watch in appreciate silence as he brings one arm up to rub the back of his neck, the muscles in his biceps flexing beneath the sleeve of his shirt. Though after a few more seconds of observation the corners of your lips dip into a frown, he seemed far too used to the room, almost as if he was used to it. Had he been watching over you? Waiting for you to wake up?

You don’t comment on it though, a sudden panic smacking you square in the chest as you sit up instinctively once more, ignoring the pain that shoots up the left side of your body once more as you suddenly remember, “Oh god Kyle-” 

“Garrick’s fine, already discharged. We’ve just been waiting for you to get your lazy ass up sleeping beauty.” You hate the way your traitorous heart skips a beat at his words, the monitor betraying your emotions and given the way Simon smirks at you it’s clear he noticed. 

Though the embarrassment is quickly flushed away by a second round of panic, “wait, what’s the date today? What happened? How long have I been out?” the questions fly out rapid fire. He answers all your questions calmly and with patience, not at all angry. You’d been shot, which certainly explained the fierce ache in your chest and arm even through whatever drugs they’d doped you up on. That made sense you supposed, but it was hardly as alarming as when the date registered in your mind. 

“Wait it’s the 26th?” devastation coloured your tone, “I missed Christmas?” It was such a silly, trivial thing to get upset over. You’d almost died, but that was nothing in the face of missing getting to celebrate with your team. Your lower lip starts to wobble dangerously before you can stop it as Simon’s eyes widen in alarm, standing so quickly the chair falls over with a clang that gets ignored as he hovers anxiously, taking your clenched hands in his own and rubbing calming circles over your pulse point in your wrist. 

“It’s ok lass, nobody’s upest with you. We’ll celebrate when you get discharged yeah?” Looking back on the memory you’ll laugh, but right now you’re too emotional to react logically. 

“S’not just that, I didn’t have time to get you a present! Everything was s’posed to be perfect and now it’s all ruined” you exclaim. The two of you must make quite the sight from an outsiders perspective, a near hysterical woman more upset over the prospect of missing Christmas than the fact she’d been shot and a hulking man in black hovering somehwat frantically in an attempt to soothe. 

“You waking up is the best present I could’ve asked for darlin’” he finally murmurs, so quietly that you almost don’t hear. His long, calloused fingers entwined with yours as he sat on the edge of the mattress, having finally disengaged the finnicky railing. 

“That doesn’t count” you weakly protest, once again cursing the heart monitor for giving away your internal struggle, “‘sides, Johnny and Kyle got three things.” Some of the humour has returned to the situation for Simon, and your pout only deepens when he smirks at you. 

“Did they now? You playing favourites?” You know he’s teasing but you still can’t help but squawk of indignation. “You’ll have to make it up to me,” he continues on, completely unphased even as you smack him on the arm like a child throwing a temper tantrum, “How bout a kiss? That should be enough yeah?” The heart monitor blares like thunder in the background in a way you’ll know will probably alarm the nurses but you can’t think about that. Can’t think about anything other than Simon. The baritone lilt of his voice that had trailed off as he dipped his head towards you, leaving enough of a gap for you to pull away if you wanted though the warmth of his breath still fans across your face. 

His lips are rough, chapped and the scruff of his unshaven face is uncomfortable against your skin but the kiss is perfect nonetheless. Even with the blaring monitor and the burning fire that consumes the left side of your body in agitation from your sudden movement you don’t pull back just yet. Both hands cupping his cheeks reverently as you all but threw yourself at him. Despite the pain and slight embarrassment, it’s perfect. 

When your lips part neither of you pull away, and Simon rests his forehead against your own as you hum contentedly, the both of you leaning desperately into each other’s touch. It’s not until you hear a whooping holler and a series of whistles that you both startle and jerk away from each other in alarm. Kyle’s clapping and jeering alongside Soap whilst your captain simply sighs in exasperation at the scene, though there’s amusement detectable in his smile. 

“And here I was thinking ye’d need this” Johnny grinned mischievoulsy, waving around what you quickly realise is a bushel of mistletoe, causing you to roll your eyes at his theatrics as Simon huffed. 

“Just cause you need an excuse to get kisses doen’t mean I do Johnny” Simon quips and it’s your turn to laugh at the blatant offense that covers the Scotsmans face. The four of you are then promptly made subject to unintelligible Scottish blathering as Simon presumably gets cussed out. Your laughter is briefly interrupted when you feel fingers entwine with yours and you briefly shoot Simon a look from the corner of your eye before you squeeze his hand, face beaming as you turn back to look at Soap. 

It may have been a day late, but as you sat surrounded by your team, with Simon by your side, thumb stroking circles over your wrist you had to admit that it was the best Christmas to date. 

Taglist: @ghostslillady @bunnyreaper @tokusho@ohworm-writes @kmi-02 @dumb-fawkin-bitch @jumpofmyclif @tiredmetalenthusiast @Chibijustuff @cooliofango @101crows

[httpspedri26]

Your losing me (pt.2)

Angst fluff

Jude x reader

I’m still writing some requests but feel free to leave more!!

Your losing me (pt.1)

Jude hated himself because of what he did six months ago. These last months were the longest he ever went without you, without the sound of your voice, your laughter, Your scent still wonders around the house though, it’s everywhere, even though Jude has washed your pillow countless times or had another woman sleep on it. It serves as a constant reminder that you once in that house with him.

Every corner of the house holds memories of you both - the photographs on the walls, every time he wants to take the pictures of the wall he breaks down crying, so he figured it was better to leave them there.

He often wonders if you think about him too, if you miss him like he misses you. . The thought of you moving on, finding happiness with someone else, is both a source of pain and a glimmer of hope. Deep down, he wants nothing more than for you to be happy, but he can’t stand imagining you with another man.

This week, Real Madrid had agreed to cancel this week’s training for the holidays to spend some quality time with their families. Jude initially hadn't planned on returning to Dortmund, but he really wanted to see y/n, that’s all he had been wishing for these past 6 months just to hold her in his arms again.

That’s why he finds himself back in dourtmund back in the front door of his and y/n house. He didn’t really know how he got there, he wasn’t planning on showing up at your doorstep at this time, but all roads lead him here.

He can hear footsteps as soon as he knocks on the door. Jude’s heart drops as he sees a man, the complete opposite of him, standing in front of him. brown hair, light eyes, and fair skin.

"Hey, can I help you with something?" The man furrowed his eyebrows as he asked Jude.

Jude felt like his throat was closing and couldn't speak.

"I, um, no, sorry. I think I'm in the wrong house," Jude blurted out, as soon as he heard your voice from afar asking who it was.

✿

It’s been a few days since Jude appeared at Y/N’s front door. He had been staying at his parents' house in Dortmund, still alone as nobody was there yet. They were in Sunderland with Jobe for a few days before coming over to Dortmund, which brought Jude a sense of relief, not wanting his family to see him in that state.

A soft knock from the front door snapped Jude out of his thoughts. Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, he groaned and threw his head back as he stood up from the couch. Opening the door, your scent enveloped his mind.

“Hey, Jude.” Y/n shivered from the rain; she only had one rain jacket that barely covered her.

"Y/n, are you insane?" Jude exclaimed as he pulled her into the house, wrapping her in his arms. She smelled as she always did, her scent filling Jude's nose. He felt the urge to cry, to drop to his knees and apologize for everything. Y/n looked up at him, her eyes reflecting a mix of emotions.

Y/n looked up at him, her eyes reflecting a mix of emotions. The warmth of Jude’s embrace offered a temporary refuge from the cold rain outside.

“I was just walking around, needed some fresh air,” Y/n whispered, her voice barely audible over the raindrops tapping on the windows.

Jude tightened his grip, his heart heavy with unspoken words. “And you came here? How did you know I was here?”

“I saw you Jude, before you left my house, I was just scared to say anything”

After they pulled away from each other, Jude rushed to grab a towel for y/n, making sure she wasn't still shaking from the cold rain. As he wrapped the towel around her, Y/n looked around the living room, recognizing the unchanged details of a place. The family photographs on the wall, and also a picture of her and Jude kissing caught her eye, prompting her to break the silence.

“Why did you go to my house Jude?”

Jude met Y/n's gaze, sincerity reflecting in his eyes. "because I miss you, Y/n/n. These past six months have been the longest, and it's been horrible. It hurts when my friends, my parents, even Jobe asks about you. I want to fix this, to make things right between us."

Y/n sighed, her eyes reflecting a mix of empathy and sadness. “Jude, we broke up because our relationship wasn’t working anymore. You know that. It’s not just about the past six months; it’s about what led us here.”

Jude’s eyes pleaded for understanding. “I know I messed up, but I can change. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make things right, to be the person you need me to be. Please, give us another chance.”

Y/n hesitated, her heart torn between the memories they shared and the pain they endured. “Jude, it’s not that simple. We both need time to heal and figure things out.”

"Six months were enough for me, y/n. I don't need any more time to know that you're the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. I love you, and only you, you know how hard I tried to forget you? I went on thousands of dates, but I hated them all because nobody was you. please give me one more chance y/n/n”.

Y/n hesitated, the weight of those words hanging in the air. The scars from the past were etched deep, forgiveness wasn’t something Y/N was considering. After a moment of silence, y/n finally spoke, “It’s not that simple Jude, you really hurt me.”

Sighing in defeat, a tear traced down his cheek. Y/N smiled softly, delicately wiping his tears away. "But I can't live without you, Jude. I love you."

[rabesbabe]

intertwined, sewn together

Cassandra Webb x Reader

Summary: Your girlfriend, Cassie, has been away from you for too long. And now that she’s finally back around you she feels like you’re not giving her the attention she deserves. (alludes to smut but no actual smut)

Requests: Open!

A/N: I wanted to write a little bit of some insecure Cassie soo here’s that. Readers a little idiot in this but they get better towards the middle I swear. I hope you guys like this sorry for my shitty writing as usual!

Cassie rolled her eyes. She sat on the couch in the apartment you and her shared. She sipped at her wine while watching you laugh at a joke your friend, or so you said, made.

Your friend was gorgeous, she had brown eyes, freckles, blonde hair and somehow always looked like she came straight from the beach. So basically the exact opposite of your girlfriend, Cassie Webb.

Deep down Cassandra knew she shouldn’t be jealous. You were deeply devoted to her and she knew you’d never do anything to ruin your relationship. But, her surface feelings were greater than what her mind was telling her.

I mean, she had just gotten home from a week long trip to Peru and the most you had said to her since your friend arrived was “Good Morning”.

She couldn’t stand the sight of watching you two giggle while drinking wine and talking. Maybe she could’ve tried to join in the conversation but instead she got up suddenly and went into your shared room. She’d rather not watch her girlfriend be stolen away from her. So, instead she decided to go to sleep.

“Is she okay?” Your friend, Grace, said. You slightly raise your shoulders as if to shrug. And you look at her with a puzzled face. You had no idea why Cassie walked off so abruptly.

“It is getting late i’m sure she’s probably just tired,” You say looking down at your wrist checking the time.

“You’re right I should probably go home anyway.” Says the blonde.

“Sounds good i’ll see you later Grace.” You give her a sympathetic smile goodbye as she exits your apartment.

As you clean up the left over dishes you smile at the thought of finally being able to go to sleep next to your girlfriend after her being gone for so long.

But first you had to make sure she was okay.

Cassie has never really been a people person. So, you just assume that maybe having company drained her social battery faster than usual.

You walk over to your room to check on her.

“Cassie?” You say lightly before entering the room.

You take in the sight of her. She’s basically buried under the covers with just her head peaking out. She looks cute and you almost wish you could take a picture of her, but you knew better.

You sit down on the bed next to her and lift the covers up. “Are you okay babe?” You ask, while reaching over to fix her lopsided bangs.

She pushes your hand away from her face and mumbles out a barely audible “Yeah.” She turns away from you and pulls the covers back over herself.

You frown at her reaction and wonder if maybe she just doesn’t want to talk about whatever’s bothering her. Sometimes it takes her a while to open up and you wanted to respect that.

“Do you want to watch a movie maybe?” You ask hoping that maybe the topic change and the idea of relaxing together would cheer her up.

To your surprise she sits up and moves from under the covers. Glaring at you she snaps out, “Why? Wouldn’t you rather watch a movie with your friend Grace? I wouldn’t want to interrupt you guys ‘quality time.’” She says emphasizing the words quality time.

You widen your eyes at her accusation and even though she’s upset she moves closer to you silently begging for your attention. You finally start to realize that maybe, just maybe she was jealous.

You smile at her in a teasing way. She rolls her eyes at you, “What?” She says, struggling to stay mad at you when you have such a goofy smile on your face.

“Are you upset? About Grace and I hanging out?” You ask.

Cassie sighs and looks down realizing she was a little bit harsh. “No, It’s not her fault,” She shrugs “I guess I just wished you were paying attention to me and not her. I mean I haven’t seen you for a week. It’s like you didn’t miss me at all.” She admits running her hands through her hair.

“Cassie,” You whisper, not knowing what to say to her. You look at her and frown at how sad her beautiful blue eyes look. “I didn’t mean to make you feel ignored, you know I missed you. I spent the whole week thinking about when i’d be able to see you next,” She looks up at you, hopeful.

“I’m sorry my love. My focus should’ve been on you tonight.”

You lean into her for a hug and she opens herself up to you, accepting your apology.

She softly kisses you and when you pull back you notice a small blush over her cheeks.

“I missed you so much.” She admits.

“I missed you too Cassie.” You say and you lean back in to kiss her. This time more passionate than the last. She moves her hands down to your waist. Lightly trying to move your shirt up and you giggle. You pull away from her. “Ohh so you said all of that just to get lucky huh? Wow.” You say sarcastically.

She looks at you and laughs, slightly out of breath from kissing you. “You’re such an asshole.” She says, smiling through bruised lips.

“I know.” You say with a smile.

[dairy-farmer]

Okay but consider? Has Tim ever seen Ra's post-Critical Injury Lazurus Dip? Like not "oooh, I am back to my sexy Dilf-y glory~" but FULL ON "I have been Hard Reset back to the Prime Of My Life(tm), which statistically is early 20s, and am now a Young and Hot prowling bad boy. With no Grey in my hair and a SLIGHLTY higher voice, meaning while I sound familiar, you can't instantly place it like you usually could."

THAT sort of Hard Reset.

Bet he hasn't.

Bet he'd have an even HARDER time recognizing Ra's in a Masquerade mask. If Ra's had a smooth, freshly shaven, face. I mean... it's not like Ra's an assassin cult leader or anything. Him? Knowing how to DISGUISE himself? When in his centuries of life would he have had time to learn THAT?

So there Ra's is. Looking rich, dangerous, and slutty. As one does. Tight black pants, loose poet shirt, gold and gems dripping like honey down his skin. The very PICTURE of a WEALTHY young trouble maker. Blending in with all these wealthy fools, up too no good, some of them far more then others.

That's why the Bats are here.

For Intel.

But of COURSE, Brucie Wayne has aged out of this sort of scene. Tut tut. And his waste of a grandson is just a touch too young. A shame. So it's the Detective and a few others, leading the charge. But... ah, SUCH a big building! And can the Wayne's afford to be seen at such a disreputable event?

Of course not.

So they're in disguise. Layers upon layers, Detective. Masks upon masks. Delightful~

Ra's gets to watch Tim work the room. Prowl in magnificent heels. Dodge covetous hands so casually it seems by accident. Extract information people have DIED to protect. Blonde, tonight. He looks better with hair like the night.

Ra's smiles like a wolf.

And begins to hunt his prey though a sea of masks.

Which is how Tim meets a VERY rougish, tall, and delightfully muscled heir too...something. It's kinda obvious, given all the jewelry. Swordsmen too, from what he can feel of those INTERESTING and calloused hands. Tim knows he should focus... but...

Mystery Hot Guy is REALLY forward. Clearly in to him. And it's not like he's gotta marry the guy.

Did he mention the DELIGHTFUL rumble? His voice has a low rumbling quality to it, when he leans in close so he can be heard over the music. His hands are hot and gripping in that "just a bit too tight but not TOO too tight" sorta way? So yeah... he's gonna... uuuuh, go... "question so informants" real quick. Get back to you guys later!

Don't wait up!

And Ra's? Knows the chance of this working more then once is close to zero. So it has to be LEGENDARY. Life changing. Dick so good it ruins the Detective's LIFE. He's got to make sure the next time they meet, the Detective wants to kill him AND fuck him in equal measure.

After all, the Bats have a "no kill rule". Oh dear, Detective. Really only leaves you one option, then, doesn't it?

So Ra's goes to absolute TOWN on Tim. Sinks down to his knees and eats him out til his legs won't hold him. Carries him to the bed to the guestroom they're about to absolutely DEFILE, too use far too clever fingers, to stoke that burning NEED back up. Too stretch and tease, as his mouth worships that chest. That neck. That clever, clever mouth.

Runs his free hand along magnificent skin, wishes he could grip hair like the finest ink as he savors Timothy's mouth. It all feels decadent. Ra's is patient. Aaaand, there, Tim rocking against his hand has turned for lazy pleasure (savoring the glow of a good orgasm) to demanding.

His hands, his kisses, are growing hungrier. Commanding Ra's to give him what he needs. Spoil him like a pampered little prince. Either worship and adore him, or he will find someone else who SHALL. How can Ra's refuse? He'd be a fool too.

A fool not to suck and bite branding little marks upon that magnificent skin. A fool not to hike up those powerful hips a grind and tease with his length, until Timothy's sharp little nails dig into his flesh in warning. A gods forsaken incompetent, to NOT sink into that magnificent heat, pressed so close he can hear that breath taking little gasp of pleasure, as the thickness of himself presses wider and deeper then any BOY the Detective as ever taken.

Ra's AL Ghul is no fool.

But he IS a VERY giving lover.

Especially when he has something to gain from it. And oh, how it is a struggle not show the victory on his face. It would not do, to give the game away at the last moment. He knows better. So he moves his hips just so. Rolling at just the right angle. To grind with in as he thrusts, to grind against as he moves, his body angled just right to tease the Detective's clit.

Strong, calloused hands teasing what feels like EVERYWHERE. That deep rumbling voice monologing a god damned speech on how good Tim's body feels, how perfect he is, how sexy. That cock hitting everything over an over in a way marksmen would WEEP with jealousy at. Tim is pretty sure his brain is melting. Hook up too good, fuck why he came here actually. The others can handle it.

Will he later admit he fucked up? Probably. But that's when he gets the ability to reason again. Right NOW all he can think is a series of frantic porno noises and variations of the word "More". Turns out fumbling around with your teammates is NOT actually a good frame of reference for "what is Sex and how good does it feel?".

Tim doesn't even notice, two position changes and several orgasms later, when he loses his wig. His face is buried in Mystery Hook Up's shoulder, drooling and clinging, as he's worked up and down that mind melting cock like a toy. All that HE registers is that it feels nice to have that stuffy thing off and fingers running through his hair.

His family, though? Freaking out. Tim left with an "informant" (their ASS) and never showed back up. They've all HAD the traumatizing Honeypot Talk from Bruce. They KNOW Femme Fatales are a thing. Homme Fatales are a thing! Did someone send a sexy assassin after Tim!?

Soooooorta.

Dick, powered by the sheer force of Brotherly Murder-Panic and 👌close to showing the world why he and FUCKING DEATHSTROKE have a weird decade long "Thing(tm)" going, kicks down the door to waaaay too many random hook ups... until he eventually find the RIGHT hook up.

Where Timmy ain't got no bones. He be truely, magnificently, well fucked and boneless. A cooked noodle. Orgasm machine ran dry and he can see the shrimp color, Captain. He's cuddling a sex god and actively plotting to tattoo his phone number somewhere on this guy's body. Who CARES where he lives. Tim will MAKE it work. How you feel about breakfast?

Ra's is the exact flavour of Lounging Smug Bastard you imagine.

It's not even smirking "pleased with himself" territory anymore. It's full on "if a tiger were turned into a human, got revenge on the bastard who did it, and was lounging around feeling pleased with itself covered in blood" grinning. Because NOW, he has won.

Dick is, of course, going to break every bone in this Mystery Bastard's body. Jason. Hold him.

Which... just as Tim is about to throw a lamp in defense of his new Sex... something, Robin kicks the window open because "fuck it, I'm helping. Timothy may be an idiot. But he's OUR idiot and you've clearly seduced him with some sort of evil demonic sex magic, you fiend, time to fight." Etc etc.

Only then Hot Hook Up takes of his mask.

He.... He looks a LOT like Damian. A concerning amount. Like... if you were to say, take away the Wayne traits, he'd be almost identical.

Tim is ALSO not a fool.

That grin is very familiar. Those EYES are a shade he knows INCREDIBLY damn well. And oh sweet fuck on a stick he boned Ra's AL Ghul.

And it was amazing.

DAMN IT!!!

Does Tim absolutely HATE that Ra's was right? That Tim SHOULD consider sleeping with him? Yes. Is Tim going to do it again? According to the flashcard forcefully handed to him by his Father, ahem, "No. We do not sleep with Supervillians. We have self control." So... noooooooo, of course not. He would NEVER. Don't be absurd.

(Yes.)

-🐼🐼🐼

tim knows he shouldnt but also knows bruce has no moral highground to say 'dont sleep with supervillains 😭

[lady-harrowhark]

hello, can you explain to me in more clarity your “waxen” theory regarding Ianthe? I’m not picking up on what this implies but it’s making my brain itch.

Sort of! Totally fair question, I just don't have a lot of clarity myself in that I don't have a fully formed theory lol. There's definitely some links and parallels in verbiage that are pinging on my radar, so I do think something's funky, but I wouldn't say I'm fully on board with this yet. I'm just playing in the sandbox Tamsyn has provided us, tossing out ideas and thinking out loud. But I can go into some more detail, and add some more thoughts that have occurred to me since I posted that last night.

(Here's a link to the post in question, for context)

Anyway! So let's first lay out all the times we get someone described as some type of wax. At various points in HtN, we get the descriptions "a shoddy wax cast of some more beautiful sculpture," a "wax figure in a pink dolly dress," a "wax figure in pale purple chiffon," and "waxen face" for Ianthe. We also see that descriptor used a few other times for other people throughout the series. In GtN, Harrow's parents' bodies are called "waxy" and the first introduction of Protesilaus (as the beguiling corpse) says he was "waxen looking in the sunlight." In NtN, Kiriona's skin is said to have a "weird, waxy quality," then Naberius's skin is called "waxen" when they first meet up with Ianthe, and again a few pages later it again references the "waxen, handsome face". What I'm getting at here is that every time this sort of description is deployed, it's in reference to a dead body that's been preserved, manipulated, and is essentially masquerading as a living person... except for Ianthe.

We also know there are a multitude of times that she's described as looking like a poor copy of Coronabeth. There's that "shoddy wax cast of some more beautiful sculpture" line, her first introduction calls her a "starved shadow" of her sister ("or the first an illuminated reflection [of Ianthe]," and actually, off the top of my head I don't know that we ever see their descriptions framed that way again... I'd have to investigate this more later, but this might be the only time that Corona is described as a "better" version of Ianthe, rather than Ianthe being a "worse" version of Corona, which is interesting), there's a point where it says "The second twin was as though the first had been taken to pieces and put back together without any genius. She wore a robe of the same cloth and colour, but on her it was a beautiful shroud on a mummy," etc etc etc. I know there's more, but I'm too lazy to go pull the rest of the quotes and you get the picture by this point I'm sure. So nearly all of these situate her, at least visually, as a copy or approximation of Coronabeth, and one that doesn't quite live up to original at that.

So now let's pick apart this snippet of conversation we overhear between Silas and Ianthe at Magnus and Abigail's dinner party a bit. Ianthe says she was born via "surgical means," which I'm assuming is referring to a C-section delivery (or whatever the necromantic equivalent is) and notes that Corona is a few minutes older. Silas seems surprised (or perhaps concerned?) that they "risked intervention" and Ianthe says Corona had "removed [her] source of oxygen". At this point Silas says, "A wasted opportunity, I'd think." I had always taken this for him just being a dick and implying he wished she'd died in the womb, but coming back to it with this new angle... well. She says "Corona's birth put my survivability somewhere around definite nil." And I'm wondering if that doesn't tie to Harrow's comment about infant deaths generating "enough thanergy to take out the entire planet." Basically, could Silas have been implying that the Tridentarii's parents wasted an opportunity to use the thanergy from baby Ianthe's death to power up Corona?

Harrow says that twins are an ill omen, but the text hasn't come back to that as of yet. Given the difficulty necromancers experience with pregnancy, I'd imagine twins would could be especially dangerous and that in and of itself could be considered an ill omen. Ianthe's comments certainly suggest that their mother carried the pregnancy, although I don't think we know for certain whether she was a necromancer. I am so intensely curious about the Tridentarii's childhood and their parents; we get so many gestures towards some really twisted family dynamics, but very little in the way of concrete explanations. Particularly relevant here, I'd love to know more about their father wanting a "matched set" and how that came about. Did they intentionally plan for twins from the start? Was it only once they knew they were having twins that that became a factor? What's the significance there?

Outside of those "waxy" descriptors, Ianthe tends to be described as much more sickly looking than even other necromancers. We know that necromancers on the whole tend towards a phenotype of physical weakness, but even still, there's an emphasis on this with Ianthe beyond that. This might be due in part to narrator bias (coughGideoncough) or the direct juxtaposition between her and Coronabeth's vivaciousness, but what really jumps out at me as contributing to this effect is how frequently she's described as being colorless, pale, washed out, bloodless, pallid, anemic, etc etc etc. It very much makes me think of the way the color drains away from Colum (and even the rest of the room and the others in it) when Silas is siphoning. Silas himself is also often described as colorless ("mayonnaise uncle," "milk man") but not so much in a way that implies frailty as much as I read it as implying a stark coldness, in line with the very black-and-white moral authority he presumes to wield, a purported "purity", much different than Ianthe's colorlessness. With Ianthe, you get a sense that her palette ought to have been or perhaps was closer to Corona's, but the color's been drained away; where Corona's hair is described as golden, Ianthe's is "canned butter", for example. Almost like the life's been siphoned out, one might say.

So to kind of circle back around, do I actually think Ianthe is dead or a corpse like the other "wax" figures we've seen? Nah. Between Harrow and Palamedes, and especially Palamedes's medical necromancy, I think we would have heard about it by now if that were the case. But I do think it's entirely plausible that she's had a bit of a brush with death and that perhaps she's never quite fully come back from, and I do think she's being intentionally positioned as somewhat adjacent to death. If their parents were wanting twins from the outset, perhaps they used necromantic means to encourage the conception. Or if the pregnancy was as high-risk as I suspect it was, perhaps she'd died or nearly died at birth and been resuscitated. Their parents may have gone to extremes to keep her alive, to maintain their matched set. Given the themes of this series, I do feel it's necessary to draw a distinction between "resuscitation" and "resurrection" although they are curiously adjacent to one another. For all the text has grappled with dying and staying dead, dying and coming back, dying and choosing whether or not to return... we haven't touched on what something like a "near death experience" would look like. I'd imagine having that sort of experience, even at an incredibly young age, might lead one to be fascinated with, to use Ianthe's own words, "the place between death and life... the place between release and disappearance."

[thewritetofreespeech]

Could I request brothers of Obey Me with an s/o who's a medical expert?

Obey me Brothers + medical expert s/o

Lucifer

Finds it interesting.

He doesn’t know much about human anatomy or medicine, so it’s always interesting when someone knows more about a topic than he does.

Really has no interest in the physicality of humans or healing. Just interested in their knowledge and hobby.

Provides them with as many resources as possible if they wish to learn demon medicine as well. But only if they want to.

Mammon

Probably says a lot about him that he finds it so hot….

Hearing them talk about medicine, and take authority in an emergency, gets his blood going.

He has no idea what they are talking about, as he’s pretty think with anything biology or health related, but it sounds impressive.

Makes jokes about wanting to play doctor, but gets too flustered & embarrassed if they take him up on it to follow through.

Levi

Finds it interesting, but only for fact checking games or his otome fanfic needs.

He got really into medical information when Hataraku Saibō came out. However he quickly lost interest when he had to actually learn stuff and look at pictures of blood.

Levi has a slight Hemophobia complex.

Will go ask them things like “how quickly does the human body drain of blood?” “what’s the difference between a laceration and a hematoma?” “could someone live if they were stabbed in the stomach 13 times?” For literary purposes only.

Satan

Of course loves anything to do with knowledge, and the amount of reading required to become a medical expert is just a bonus.

Satan also has an interest in medicine and medical information due to his love of mystery drama, which are his favorite type.

Forensic knowledge has a great crossover. So he spends a lot of time speculating with s/o on the cause of death or suspects in a book before it reaches the end.

Finds a lot of obscure medical books & journals to share with them, should they cross his path.

Asmo

Says he’s interested, but only to play doctor.

A lot of it really goes over his head as Asmo is only interested in figures. Not literal anatomy.

He does like to listen to them though, as they always get so passionate when they talk about some medical marvel of obscure fact. He’s always found passion to be a person’s sexiest quality.

Dresses up like a nurse a lot to surprise them. Thinks it’s helpful.

Beel

A lot of it is too technical for Beel too, but he tries to pay more attention than Asmo.

He is actually really interested in anatomy. Particularly as it relates to kinesis and physicality.

He asks a lot of questions on how to move his body better to improve his results. Or avoid injury.

Injuries do happen though, as it’s inevitable with sports or the high intensity work outs, he’s doing. Goes to s/o to have them bandage him up and take care of him. They always have to ask if he’s running a fever as well with how much he blushes.

Belphie

Belphie is a bit of the medical expert too. He had a lot of time to read when he was locked up in that attic, and anatomy was actually always an interest of his before s/o.

He plays dumb though and acts like he doesn’t understand things, so they’ll reteach him. Mostly just to hear them talk.

He also plays sick a lot so they’ll take care of him. Not necessarily a Munchausen, just needy.

It usually works. However there are sometimes when the treatments get a little….intense, and more than he bargained for. At least they haven’t tried surgery on him yet.

[robintherobiner]

This is an interactive story. The next part will be based on what you guys choose.

Warning, the story heavily revolves around dark topics, like suicide, abuse (all types), bullying, all that jazz. It's an au, HEAVILY canon divergent. So, idk proceed carefully

"If you're watching this, it means I'm dead."

Suddenly, Jason wished he'd never bought the sticker covered camera. He'd seen it in a charity shop, looking all lonely on it own little table. All the other camera were old, and had dents and scratches, but this one looked almost new and bursting with personality.

It had cost a lot, of course, and Jason had considered putting it back down. After all, he didn't need a camera. He was pretty sure Bruce had one at home anyways.

But then he'd seen a sticker, right under the shutter button, and he'd recognized his own costume. Whoever had owned this camera had liked Robin, his Robin, with curly hair and freckles instead of tanned skin and sparkly shorts. He had to buy it now, he thought, and so he did.

Jason pressed the play button again, and stared at the kid on the screen. He looked pale, and far too skinny for someone who, if his Bristol accent was anything to go off of, clearly had enough money to buy food.

"Sorry. I realize that was probably, like, a really big thing to say. Or, not big, I guess, it was only eight words. Tough? No.. Eh, whatever." The kid shrugged. "Point is, sorry. You picked up my camera though, so you have three options."

The whole situation is bizarre. He sort of assumed there would be pictures of nature, or videos of some cool tricks if the skateboard stickers are anything to go off of. Not a fucking death announcement.

Still, Jason is curious. Is the kid in danger, and thats why he thinks he's going to die? Or is he sad? Jason lived on the streets, he's not a stranger to people who's heads are clouded, people who think things will never get better. He's never felt that way personally, but he's known lots of people who ended up hurting themselves.

"First, you could just throw the camera away. A bit of a waste, since it's pretty good quality, but whatever. Second, you could delete everything on here and just use it yourself. I'd be okay with that. Photography is fun. Or, if you wanted, you could watch these videos."

Here, his cheeks flush, as though embarrassed. Its hard to hear, but Jason thinks he can hear the boy mutter something along the lines of what a dumb thing to say.

"Even though I'm going to die, I still sort of want to do cool things. Have a coming-of-age movie moment, you know? But I can't have one, so the next best thing is to try give it to someone else." Camera Kid paused. "I think coming-of-age movies are only for teens, though. It would be cooler if I, like, changed the life of someone who's already an adult. Cuz people my age aren't fully developed. That's shaping a life, not changing it. Changing a life would be much harder than shaping one."

Hm. Maybe Jason should give the camera to Dickhead. He's an adult, legally. Give the kid, whoever he is, his wish to try change a life.

Jason would never admit it, but he can't help but snicker. There's no way some random kid can shape or change a life. Especially not with a... Jason checked. Not with a one and half minute video.

"But if that doesn't happen, it's fine. Not like I'll know anyways. I like this camera, so I'll only give it away just before I die. Unless I come back as a ghost who's like, tethered to this camera, I'll never know if anyone watches these videos."

With those words, Jason sobered. It didn't feel funny once he remembered that whoever this kid was, dumb hopes aside, was clearly certain he'd die. If what he said was true, then he already was. That made Jason feel really bad for laughing, and even a little sick.

He'd seen dead bodies before, even his own mom's. He'd watched, smelt, and heard people die. He'd talked people off the ledge, both metaphorically and literally. But this? Holding the beloved camera of a boy who was most likely dead? It made death feel melancholy in a way Jason had never felt before.

"So, yeah. You have three options." The boy says, and reaches out to end the video.

Jason didn't know what to do. Really, he has four options.

[desertdollranch]

Opening my first Bonnie & Pearl doll

I'm back with yet another obscure, rare, or defunct doll brand I never thought I'd own!

Bonnie & Pearl will probably be unfamiliar to most of you. They were based in the UK, producing a line of seven beautiful and high-quality 19 inch dolls and clothing.

They had wigged hair, blinking eyes, and had a variety of hair and skin colors. After they went out of business, I knew that finding any of these dolls secondhand in the States would not be easy. So I put them out of my mind and moved on.

What made me remember and reconsider them was the fact that I've been extremely lucky lately to find all sorts of dolls that were on my wish list but I never thought I'd actually find my own. Encouraged by my success, I searched again for a Bonnie & Pearl, and struck gold by finding two of them from American sellers. One was in original form, and the other was someone's unfinished project doll. I bought them both, so that I could decide which one I preferred and resell the one I didn't.

The one that I chose to keep was in almost new condition and came with her original box, clothes, and extras.

The box is beautiful and sturdy. Bonnie & Pearl's commitment to reducing packaging gave them the unique idea to make a box that could be turned into a bed for the doll.

Keep reading to see what's inside........

...........

The bed is decorated with pictures to be colored in.

More box details. It's interesting that I'm being prompted to give her a name when there's already a name on the front of the box?

Here's the doll's pink purse and hairbow. And a doll bed is incomplete without a pillow, so that's included as well.

There's a little pamphlet talking about how to care for your doll's hair and body, and additional outfits available for purchase.

The seller included the doll's original sleep eyes, which she replaced with stationary glass eyes. She included some extra 16 mm eyes for smaller dolls (they won't fit this doll). These were a nice freebie surprise, since I have a Hearts for Hearts doll who needs an eye replacement! The rest will be put into my doll parts stash.

All Bonnie & Pearl dolls come dressed in this beautiful ensemble: a floral skirt, a white shirt with pink buttons on the placket, white underwear, and matching shoes. The skirt has an attached tulle crinoline.

Now let's get to the good stuff.

Here she is! Her original name is Charlotte. I very often keep my dolls' original names and ethnic origin in tribute to their heritage, but I already have an English modern character. This girl will get a new name and backstory.

I can tell right away she's lovingly and beautifully made. She feels very sturdy, and her vinyl skin has a lovely matte finish that looks very much like porcelain. Her wig is fabulous, so soft and just the right thickness. The only thing not original about her are her glass eyes, but I actually prefer them to the blinking eyes. These look more realistic and give her a more childlike appearance.

I adore her. 10 out of 10. She is perfection from head to toe. I wish

Now let's do some comparisons.

She has a vinyl breastplate and soft tummy. She's a bit taller than an American Girl doll, but her proportions are very similar.

They can share clothes easily, with the biggest difference being that B&P's shoulders are a little less broad than AG's.

Shoes are a bit more different. B&P's feet are more meaty at the top, even though their length and width are almost identical. So she would do better wearing American Girl brand sandals rather than closed-toe shoes. AG can wear B&P's shoes easily.

Her anatomy is much like a Karito Kids doll, but B&P is a few inches shorter.

Since she was a project doll, her wig wasn't glued down, and the seller included the piece of her scalp that was cut open in order to change the eyes.

I superglued it back into place, and then put the wig back on.

I also glued on some soft brown eyelashes. I did try darker eyelashes on her first, but they were a bit too intense, and so I prefer the more subtle look of the lighter brown lashes.

And a bonus picture of her wearing an American Girl brand dress and posing with Nareen, my My Imagination doll. I get the vibe that they'll be good friends.

I'll reveal her name and show more pictures in an upcoming post! I won't be showing the other B&P doll I bought since I won't be keeping her after I fix her flaws.

[thecat620]

Who Kept Fizz and Blitz apart?

We've got at least three candidates on who could've kept Fizz and Blitz apart after the fire though I have at least one extra theory considering the medical professionals in Sloth.

In the episode Oops, Blitz mentioned that "they" said Fizz didn't want to see Blitz while Fizz was told by "them" that Blitz never came to see him in the first place. Someone was keeping these two apart intentionally and it makes their split even more tragic since Fizz would've forgiven Blitz or not been as angry at Blitz if he had been allowed to see Blitz. And Blitz probably would've had a better support system if he was allowed to see Fizz.

I want to put arguments for and against each theory to see where we could go from here and what we'll eventually learn about the truth when these two learn it.

Culprit 1: Mammon

Argument: Considering the placement of this sign in the episode Oops, it would be very easy to predict that Mammon would be the one that could have kept these two apart but also have a motive. Let's say he got word of Fizz's talents at the Buckzo Imp Circus through word of mouth and talent scouts. He probably had an eye on Fizz and would've recruited him to be his latest cashcow. He would have the money to give Fizz prosthetics that would help him perform again. Or hire Ozzie to give Fizz the prosthetics which would give a reason on how they met and fell in love. He wouldn't want Fizz to get distracted so he probably ordered any nurses in Sloth or wherever he was recovering to keep anyone out and isolate Fizz, making him easy to manipulate.

Counterargument: Mammon can be a bit of a dumbass so if Fizz auditioned to be his next star after he got his prosthetics, he probably treated him nice to start but the abuse would gradually happen over time. We don't know exactly how long Fizz was working for him but it's enough to make Fizz feel self-conscious about still being good enough to work for him. And he probably would've said something if he knew about Blitz trying to see his former friend. Mammon probably met and had Fizz working for him after he recovered.

Culprit 2: Cash Buckzo

Argument: I love this jackass but he's still a greedy jackass that cares very little about his own son while treating Fizz like the golden child. BUT I could see his ONE redeeming quality that he cares very deeply for his wife, Tilla. Using his son to steal riches from the Goetia and emotionally manipulating him so they could get treasures that he could sell to keep their family afloat. And I'll give him credit that he was disturbed enough by Paimon wanting to buy his son (at first) for Stolas. But his favoritism for Fizz and neglect of Blitz (we don't know how he treated Barbie) could've manifested into resentment for the accident his son caused with the fire. Buckzo not only lost his livelihood and wife but the kid he wished was his son was damaged so he could've kept the two of them apart out of spite and grief from losing the woman he loved.

Counterargument: He's also a bit of a dumbass and the alcohol might've scrambled his brain enough where he wouldn't be able to think of keeping Blitz and Fizz apart. And from the phonecall Blitz had in the episode Unhappy Campers, Blitz does seem to be on speaking terms enough with his father that he'd actually call him to try and figure out where Barbie was. And I think Buckzo would've been dealing with the loss of the circus as well as his wife so as much as he probably would've wanted to get back at his son and protect Fizz from getting hurt worse (since I think he does care about Fizz in some capacity), the grief he was going through probably would've made him unable to actually do it.

Culprit 3: Barbie Wire

Argument: We know very little about Barbie and what we do know is from the few mentions of her we've had in the show and pictures. But I think if her attitude towards her brother is anything to go by, I could believe she tried to separate Blitz and Fizz because of her own issues. We know she wasn't there during the fire and Blitz mentioned to Fizz that Fizz was all he had left. He lost his mother, his father neglected him, and there was probably a growing separation between Blitz and Barbie that hurt Blitz deeply, no doubt her drug addiction. When the fire happened, it seemed to happen when Blitz and Fizz were in their mid to late teens. Barbie could've either been sent away to rehab or gone off on her own, not being happy with the circus life. Maybe she felt resentment that her mother was close to Blitz and wanted to find her own path that isn't being a twin. Maybe she was manipulated by her father into seeing Blitz as the weak link in the family. Or maybe she felt anger that Blitz couldn't save their mother even though he was there when she wasn't there. It's hard to say if she was close to Fizz like Blitz was but if she got her father's attitude, she probably could've kept both boys separated out of spite and grief. She's familiar enough with the staff at the rehab center in Sloth that she could tell them to keep Blitz and Fizz separated "for their own good". And she purposefully used Blitz's old name even though she started with his preferred name when they saw each other, intentionally hurting her brother. Who's to say she wasn't capable of hurting him before? Maybe she felt resentment at how close Blitz and Fizz were and thought Fizz deserved better. Or maybe the drugs caused her to act out.

Counterargument: I don't want to throw Barbie under the bus since we only got a brief appearance by her and I hope she and Blitz will reconcile in some way. If Blitz can make up with Fizz, he can certainly make up with his sister. Since she wasn't around during the fire, maybe her anger at Blitz not being able to save their mother as well as anger at herself for not being there. I could see her deflecting her own feelings of guilt and grief onto her brother, blaming him for everything like her father did. But I could also see her wanting to run away from her feelings; she probably wants to get close to her brother but she just can't face him since I think deep down, she knows that isn't fully Blitz's fault. An accident is still an accident and they were basically children when it happened; Blitz has suffered enough and Barbie probably is trying to cope on her own. Maybe there's even some resentment of being a twin to someone that isn't as good or the lesser twin, feeling like she has to be better than him. If that's the case, she probably would want to separate herself from her old life and lashes out whenever Blitz tries to reach out.

Culprit 4: Sloth's Medical Staff

Argument: Okay this one might be a bit of a stretch (and I'm only using Barbie's nurse to make a point) but despite how nice and relaxing Sloth is and it being a hub for medical care and rehab, it's still a ring of Sin. They have a lot of drugs and use people like Barbie to get drugs from Earth to Hell. They're going to have their selfish parts to them too. It takes five years to get a Hellbies shot for Loona and they have staff that are really lazy that Blitz was ready to shoot them when he was losing his patience. And while people do give Barbie's nurse the benefit of the doubt in wanting to keep Barbie from falling off the wagon by trying to talk Blitz out of seeking her out, even using his preferred name, they don't seem very good at keeping people in rehab that should still be there. Verosika got out because she was still "famous" but it's very likely she got out because the staff were neglectful and got paid off. Who's to say they didn't get paid off to keep Fizz and Blitz separate, saying that Fizz didn't want to see Blitz or Blitz never came to visit. and they only seem to really get their asses in gear when a high profile demon is seriously hurt (ie, Stolas). Since Fizz is famous, they probably could've kept him guarded away where Blitz couldn't visit.

Counterargument: As much as her methods were harsh, Barbie's nurse did seem like she was looking out for Barbie and Blitz in a way. And the goat doctor was probably the nicest character we've seen in Sloth even if he used a needle that scared poor Loona. Whether there's actual malicious intent or just incompetence, we still don't know too much about this ring or the medical practices in Sloth but it's at least interesting to think about.

[marciaillust]

Hey! I just wanted to say I’ve been following you forEVER now, and that your art has been inspiring me since i was a teenager. I was wondering if you could share a little about your rendering process? How did you improve it over the years, what did you learn you wish u knew sooner, stuff like that?

(Thanks anyway, and definitely getting myself ur new comic)

Hi! oh wow thank you so much for the kind words!

My rendering process hmmmm.... I will try to sum up the thoughts that come to my mind as I'm writing this, though I might be missing some proper vocabulary

The first thing that surfaced in my brain is exposition within a picture. This is what the picture focuses on - things in the light, or things in the shadow, and how much details each of these two receive rendering wise.

It's basically like taking a photo with a phone - if you click on a bright thing (say, a window), the phone will automatically adjust the exposition and all the other bright things will be visible(lotta detail), but the shadows will become turbo dark (no details). Alternatively, if you click on a dark shadow, all the dark things will become visible (details) but the hypothetical window will become blown out and turbo white (no details). You can basically have one or the other but never both. (or I guess you can who am I to tell anyone how to make art yanno no rules up in this house)

anyway, so for example, this pic^ focuses on the things in the dark, meaning everything in direct light receives no details.

and this pic^ focuses on the light and so all the cast shadows are pitch black.

One other thing that I learned a longass time ago was that edges(and shapes) are arguably the most important part of an object within a picture. Clean edges immediately call for focus, while softer or vague edges allow things to fade in the background and communicate the idea of a thing rather than showing you the thing itself. On a related note note, clean edges also make work in progress appear about 25% more finished.

I guess this all has to do with contrast and contrast can be created in many ways - edges (soft/sharp), colours (eg. red fish in a blue sea), spacing (objects being grouped vs. a single object), the amount of detail per object etc etc etc. and all of these can be controlled to solve specific issues within a picture.

In short, if a thing is important aka the focal point, make it stand out - sharp edges, details, specific colours and a lighting situation that make it pop. And if a thing isn't too important leave it vague, communicate the idea of it rather than focusing on drawing it.

On the note of things being sharp, a thing that I always swore by is, if there are eyes in the picture those eyes better be d-o-n-e. Pristine. People will look at the eyes, eyes communicate 90% of emotion, the eyes are the it girl of the picture forever and always, nobody will look at the wonky foot, they will look at the eyes and judge the quality of the picture. If the eyes are shit the picture is shit. (I'm exaggerating but fr. eyes are a big deal.). They don't have to be turbo rendered or physically mad sharp but they need to be done. Whatever that means, take what you will from my word soup.

One thing that I've become a big fan of over the years is the concept of wear and tear. This has to do with texturing things in pictures and I looooooooooooooooove thinking about ways items are used in order to create bumps and scratches that can be featured.

It always makes things look like they belong to someone?? It makes them real? Like the tip of that bone. that bone has been places. That belt has seen use. That bag carried things. Like yanno?? I looove things that chip and have nicks. Give me wood and I'll put a dent in it I swear.

And I thing the latest thing that I'm trying to incorporate within my art, though I haven't had much time or opportunity to do it in personal art because of work, is colour variation within each element.

Like his face. His skin is obviously "beige" but you will see red, and blue and yellow and green in there too. Stuff like that yanno? I'm quite interested in taking this further in my future paintings. I'm still learning how to push what, where and how but ayyy issa journey I'll happily embark on.

And of course apart from all that it's the usual jazz, working on anatomy composition perspective doing it a lot over and over again babababababa and so on and so forth.

I haven't had much opportunity to paint since I started working on the comic last year but it had it own set of challenges for me. Linework is a completely different kind of rodeo and I've improved in different departments a lot and I'd be happy to bring those things into my paintings when I have the chance. I feel like I'm at a point where I know a lot more than what I've had the opportunity to put on paper, it feels exciting!

I hope at least some of my ramblings were of interest to you!! Again, that you for the nice message and have a nice day :)

[liketwoswansinbalance]

we could see that rafal can sing in rise, (the song about vulcan) but how would he sound like?

He strikes me as someone who would sing with a "Whatever. There's nothing to lose. Hell is empty and all the devils are here. So I'm performing for all these people who have poor taste anyway" mentality.

I don't think he would be head-turningly exceptional as a singer because I don't see the arts as his domain and I can't think of a reason as to why he would be professionally trained, so he's probably either an average singer or can sing better than most fellow amateurs.

The reason why I wouldn't automatically assume he's a bad singer is that he at least seemed attuned to sound? Though, I'm not sure if his having acute hearing/perception is canon in the prequels, even if it is canon in TLEA, so I could be wrong. And, he was able to maintain Fala's accent over a long period of time, so he can modulate his voice decently, I would think.

I don't think he singing would feature many or any random vocalizations either. He'd probably make sure he'd have substance to his lyrics and would keep strictly to the lyrics, even if he were improvising them. I also do not think he'd ever show any loose soulfulness like Hozier's style. He'd probably control his voice for emotional excess.

A note on accents: accents are often "neutralized" (Americanized) when people sing, meaning, Rafal would most likely lose his accent if he had a non-American one.

For potential representations of his voice, I've found some songs (some of these I've mentioned before):

"No Love in LA" by Palaye Royale - Like a anthem about there being no such thing as love in these Woods? Conveys his superior attitude well, especially at some points if he's in a cynical mood. Abrupt, combative, rarely melodious and continuous. I think there's also a kind of dryness or disparaging, spat-out tone to it, like a half-vicious/vitriolic, half-resigned, "[sigh] I'm done with all this" quality to it.

"Careful What You Wish For (the doctor said to)" by Jack Harris - Devoid of emotion or sung numbly at times. Abrupt. But it sounds too much on the verge of tears for him. Ominous.

"Who's In Control" by Set It Off - Very matter of fact and stative. Some kind of loftiness is present. Nearly everything in this song fits him, including the pitch I'd attribute to him. Neither too emotional nor too saccharine. Trying to get a grip on his situation. Starts out blasé, turns desperate.

"Innocently Annoying at 3am" by Elysewood - I've mentioned this one before. It's very close to how I think I'd imagine his voice.

"No Friends" by CADMIUM and Rosendale - About the right pitch. Even some of the lyrics, not all, fit him.

"Rule #27 - Drunk on Pride" by Fish in a Birdcage - I don't think he'd seem too mournful/sentimental with his voice. But the pitch seems about right to my mind, even if it's sometimes too high pitched to fit him?

"Rule #24 - Man-O-War" by Fish in a Birdcage - Emphasis on the flatness or speech-like quality. Probably, an example of a shanty (like the Vulcan song!). I just don't picture his voice as this deep or as accented like this.

"Rule #34" by Fish in a Birdcage - Sultry. Feels uptempo. If he's doing his villainous equivalent of playing with prey, I feel like this would be it. At the same time, I don't think he is that type of villain. He really does hop to it, and doesn't emphasize bark over bite. He bites without warning a lot of the time (e.g., killing Rufius). He conceals his motives and acts without anyone else being able to anticipate what he'll do. So, I guess this could also be singing for a theatrical and pragmatic purpose, like he did for his Vulcan song, to both serve as a distraction and to taunt. I feel like this song couldn't be entirely sincere since we've never technically seen him in love though.

"I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie - A love song if he's actually sincere? Seems unlikely, but if he wanted to seduce someone, I suppose this would make sense. Right out of the gate, there's death. I'm not sure if the pitch is quite right.

"Villainous Thing" by Shayfer James - Focus on not the voice itself but the (potentially) mocking tone: "Oh dear"—the drawn out sounds. We'd probably have to interpret this with a dose of sarcasm. Actually, this one reminds me of Sophie in TLEA as if he's addressing her. Eventually, I think it gets too ahem... lascivious for even him because his whole act (or actual nature) is that he's gentlemanly when he wants to be and can afford to be, and acts honorably in his typically skewed, perverse way.