#I’m working with no color so I’m purely using the tones and vibes

[imaginedisish]

Heroes (Logan Howlett x Fem!Reader)

A/N: I think I used David Bowie's "Heroes" for another fic when I first started writing on this blog. Oh well. We're using it again bc it inspired this fic. This is a combo request fic: Co-teachers/Logan having a nightmare/smut. Hope you guys enjoy!

Summary: You and Logan are assigned by Charles to co-teach a class to learn how to work as a team. You expect Logan to be cold, distant, short. What you don't expect is the way you find yourself needing him, and him needing you.

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI!!! SMUT! Dry humping, Oral (f!receiving), Fingering, Unprotected PIV (wrap it up), multiple orgasms, overstimulation, soft!Logan, cocky!Logan (always), softdom!Logan vibes, implied age gap (Logan is obvi older), frenemies to lovers, feelings, some violence (Logan accidentally hurts the reader while having a nightmare), reader has regenerative powers, fluff, hurt to comfort (literally), reader has family trauma, afab!/f!reader, cursing, def some grammatical errors, I think that's it!

Word Count: 5,267 kinda wanna do a part 2 this was cute

“I work better alone Charles. You know that.” 

You and Logan Howlett never did see eye to eye. 

“Yes, Logan. Which is why I’m giving you this challenge.”

He was always cold. 

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Always distant. 

“Hence why it is an excellent idea, Logan.”

But you never thought he’d be this resistant to teaching a class with you. 

“I’m fine with it,” you say, your eyes flitting between Logan and Charles. “It doesn’t faze me at all.”

Logan’s leather jacket crinkles and he puts his hands on his hips. He furrows his brows. “You’re fine with this?” He asks, cocking his head to the side. 

You shrug your shoulders. “I don’t see why not.” Your eyes find Logan’s, but you can’t make out the expression on his face. Can’t tell if it’s dislike, pure hatred, or something else altogether. 

“This can’t happen,” Logan insists, tearing his eyes away from yours and turning towards the Professor. His words sting and you’re not quite sure why—not sure why you should care about this at all. 

“It is too late,” Charles’s voice booms. “I have already decided. You will co-teach a history class for...” Charles trails off, choosing his words carefully. “Younger students.”

You smile, but Logan rolls his eyes, his brows still furrowed. “How young?” You say in unison, although in starkly different tones. You whip your head to face Logan and find that his eyes are already on you.  

“Ages six to seven,” Charles explains. “This will be a smaller class, given how rare it is for children of that age to show their abilities, and the course will be incredibly simple.” He rolls away from behind the desk and approaches you and Logan in the center of the room. “I have faith that the two of you can handle this.”

Logan exhales deeply but doesn’t say a word. “We can,” you answer, your stare breaking away from Logan and turning to the Professor instead. “I look forward to teaching the class,” you pause, “with Logan.”

Something in Logan’s glare softens. His frown slowly disappears, melting away. His jaw relaxes, and his shoulders go slack. “Fine.” He’s curt, but something about the resolve in his voice gives you an ounce of hope that maybe, just maybe this will go well. 

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This is, in fact, not going well at all. 

Agreeing on the curriculum was not a problem. Logan, having experienced most of U.S. History, believes in telling history as it happened. No rose-colored glasses. No murky half-truths or prettily wrapped white lies. No weird Christopher Columbus-themed arts and crafts. Having seen multiple wars and experiencing the power of government exploitation firsthand—not surprisingly—has made Logan progressive.

So, you had designed an age-appropriate, honest, curriculum. You were shocked at how well you and Logan worked together. You shared quiet hours in the library, passing scribblings and notes back and forth while pouring over books. You actually felt quite confident. 

That is, until the very first class. 

You and Logan had only just introduced yourselves—written your names on the board. 

“We are going to have a fun, educational year,” you finish, smiling widely. “Does anyone have any questions?”

A young girl in the center of the room raises her hand. You nod towards her, and she smiles sheepishly. “Are you two married?”

You’re taken back, your brows furrowing. “Oh, um—”

“No,” Logan cuts you off, his arms crossing tightly against his chest. His shortness hurts more than you’re willing to admit. “Absolutely not.” 

The little girl’s eyes widen. “But then why do you look at her like that?”

“Excuse me?” Logan asks, his voice a little too harsh. “Like what, kid?”

“Logan,” you whisper, turning to face him. “She’s six. Let it go,” you chide. “Professor Logan and I are friends and co-teachers. That’s all.” You turn back to the little girl, who nods, but she doesn’t look convinced. 

The rest of the class goes relatively well. It’s very introductory—teaching the children how mutant history and human history are intertwined. You and Logan are able to simplify things for the children so that they can understand. And, as the class goes on, Logan seems more comfortable with the children. 

The period is almost over when a little boy raises his hand, and Logan calls on him. “My older brother told me people like us are scary,” he says shyly. His eyes are sad—too tired for a six-year-old. “He told me that we shouldn’t exist.”

Your stomach drops, tears burning behind your sinuses. You think back to your own family, back to the trauma of being disowned for something you couldn’t control. You’re too heartbroken to tackle the question. Logan’s eyes flicker between you and the little boy. 

“Your brother is wrong,” Logan answers, crossing the room to stand next to you. He brings a hand to your lower back. It’s the ghost of a touch, but it’s a lifeline. “You’re special,” Logan says, and you know he’s talking to you, too. “You all are. Don’t listen to what they say. You’re more important than you’ll ever know. More extraordinary than they can understand.”

The bell rings, and the children stand, collecting their belongings. “See you all tomorrow,” Logan shouts over the shuffling and ruckus in the hallway. The children file out the door, jumping and cheering as if nothing happened. 

“They’re so resilient,” you say, shaking your head and watching them leave. You look over to Logan—his face close to yours, his palm still pressed against your back. 

“So are you,” he whispers, smiling softly, rubbing up and down your back. “You did great.”

“Yes, she did. And you did too, Logan,” Charles says, suddenly in the doorway to the classroom. “I forgot to drop off the roll call this morning,” Charles explains, holding out a sheet of paper. You cross the room to meet him, taking the sheet into your hands. “It has the list of names of the children in your class, as well as their abilities.” Charles backs into the hallway. “Excellent work, you two. You make a better team than you realize.”

“Thank you, Professor,” you say. Logan mumbles a soft Thanks, and heads towards the door once Charles is gone. 

He scratches his head, almost nervously. “Got another class to teach,” he husks. “Meet up later to go over tomorrow’s lesson plan?” 

You nod your head. “Sounds good.” Logan smiles and walks through the doorway and down the hall. 

You look at the roll call, and your eyes widen. Your heart beats out of your chest. You find the name of the little girl who had asked if you and Logan were married. 

Claire Teller—Precognition, Clairvoyance, shows signs of potential telekinesis.

The paper falls from your hands and drifts slowly to the floor. You look down, your lips parted in shock. Did she see you and Logan—

“You alright, sugar?” Rogue’s voice snaps you back to reality. You look up, and she’s standing in the door. 

“Y-yeah,” you stutter, shaking your head. “I’m fine.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rest of the week goes smoothly. You and Logan meet each night to discuss the lesson plan for the following day. The classes go well. Claire always seems a bit distracted, her eyes flickering between you and Logan, but she does just fine in class. 

In fact, you’d say this was going better than well. You and Logan, despite his hesitation in the beginning, were growing closer every day. 

It’s written in secret, stolen moments—hands accidentally brushing, glances across the room. But you can feel it, the way your lives are being sewn together. You find ways to spend time alone outside of class—ordering dinner and grading together, practicing in the Danger Room as partners and not opponents. You had become something of a team.   

Tonight, you’re alone with Logan, sitting on the floor of his room, grading the small quiz you had given the children on the branches of government. Logan had picked the background music—60s and 70s rock. 

You hum along to Evil Woman by Electric Light Orchestra as you write “100%” at the top of a student’s quiz. 

“Pretty voice,” Logan rasps, looking up from his last quiz. Before you can react, before you can even process what he says, he’s moving on. “You almost done?”

“Just finished.” You write another “100%” and look up at Logan. He’s on his side, resting his head in his hand, balancing on his elbow. He smirks and stands up, striding over to you. He reaches his hand out, and you tilt your head, confused. You take his hand all the same, and he pulls you up. 

Logan’s hands find your waist, and he sways you from side to side. You giggle, shakily bringing your arms up and around his neck. Your heart thunders in your chest as you dance with him. 

“Didn’t take you for a dancer,” you murmur. Evil Woman fades out and Heroes by David Bowie starts up.  

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Logan husks. He pulls you in tighter, his chest pressed to yours. 

“Yeah?” You ask, letting your head rest in the crook of his neck. Your eyes flutter closed. “Like what?”

He’s suddenly silent, and you can feel the tension thicken in the room. “When Charles came to us about the class…” He trails off, searching for the right words to say. “I was nervous,” he admits. 

You lift your head from his neck. “Why?” You question, smiling softly. 

Logan presses his forehead to yours. “Because I—” But then there’s a knock at the door. “Logan?” It’s Charles on the other side. Logan huffs, his eyes closing defeatedly as he loosens his hold on your waist and walks over to the door. 

“There has been an emergency,” Charles says the second the door is open. “I need you to go on a mission immediately. This is a dire situation.”

Logan looks across the room to you. “Okay,” he says, his eyes still trained on yours. 

Charles nods and heads down the hallway. “Meet me downstairs. Hank is readying the jet now.” 

“I have a bad feeling about this,” you confess, fighting the tears brimming at the corners of your eyes. You can’t quite place where the feeling is coming from—why you’re suddenly so nervous about Logan leaving. A month ago, this sort of thing would’ve felt routine, normal. There’s always a crisis somewhere. 

Logan swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I’ll come back,” he promises. “And we can talk then.” He strides over to you, wrapping you in his arms, and pulling you into his chest. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.” 

“Logan?” Charles calls from downstairs. “We need to leave at once!” 

Logan squeezes you tightly before letting go. He works his jaw, his teeth gritting as he backs out of the room and down the hallway. Your heart drops as you listen to his footsteps echoing against the stairs. By the time you muster up the courage to follow him, it’s too late. The door to the mansion slams just as you make it to the bottom of the steps. 

You can still hear Heroes faintly playing from Logan’s room. 

And the guns, shot above our heads (over our heads) And we kissed, as though nothing could fall (nothing could fall) And the shame, was on the other side Oh we can beat them, forever and ever Then we could be Heroes, just for one day

You sit on the bottom step, your head falling into your hands.

“Oh, sugar,” Rogue whispers as she walks into the foyer. She settles next to you. “I didn’t know you and Logan…” She trails off, shaking her head. “He’ll come back. He always does.” She hangs her arm around your shoulder, tugging you into her chest. 

You hope she’s right. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, Logan is still gone. You’re forced to teach the class alone. As you’re starting roll call, a young boy raises his hand. 

“Yes, Jimmy?” You call, arching your brows. 

“Where’s Professor Logan?” He asks curiously, tilting his head to the side. 

You swallow harshly, inhaling deeply. “He has something to take care of,” you explain. “It’ll just be me teaching today. Is that alright with you?” You try to sound light, jovial, plastering a fake smile across your face. The kids buy it, giggling and nodding. Jimmy smiles widely and nods, too.

But Claire—the little girl who can seemingly see into the future, stares at you sympathetically. It sends a chill down your spine. It’s like she knows how you’re feeling—can see it in her mind’s eye. You shake the feeling off, proceeding with the lesson. The material is distracting enough—the U.S. voting system, carefully explained so that the children can understand. 

The rest of the class goes off without a hitch, and the bell finally rings. The session felt longer than usual without Logan, and certainly harder to get through, but not impossible. The class picks up their belongings and files out. You grab your papers, readying to leave, assuming that everyone is gone. 

“He’s going to come back,” a small, familiar voice whispers. You look up from your materials, and there’s Claire, standing in front of the desk. Her deep, brown eyes twitch back and forth. She closes them tightly and smiles. “You don’t have to worry,” she assures. “He’s safe. He’ll always come back to you.” She pauses. “All I see is happiness.” The veins in her temples grow thicker, and you can tell she’s working too hard to look to the future.

“Claire,” you say, your hand grabbing her shoulder. “Don’t hurt yourself, my love. You don’t have to do that for me. I’m okay.”

Her eyes fly open, and she smiles widely, as if nothing happened. She steps away from the desk, your hand falling from her shoulder. “Didn’t hurt at all!” She calls as she skips out the door. “See you Monday!”

You shake your head. Resilient, you think to yourself. So goddamn resilient. 

The rest of the evening is slow. You try to keep yourself busy—grading papers, listening to music, going for a run, training in the Danger Room. But all you can think about is Logan. 

After dinner, you get ready for bed, changing into a pair of panties and an oversized t-shirt. You sit alone in your room, on your bed, reminding yourself of what Claire had told you this afternoon. 

He’s going to come back. You don’t have to worry. He’s safe. 

You lay back on your pillows, bringing the covers up to your chin and closing your eyes. You repeat her words over and over again in your head as you fall asleep. He’s safe. He’s safe. He’s safe. 

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You wake up a few hours later, your bedside lamp still on. Your alarm clock reads 1:45 AM. You groan, rolling over and shutting your eyes tightly, trying to force yourself back to sleep. But it’s no use—you’re awake, thinking of Logan already. 

You push yourself to sit up, swinging your legs over the side of the bed, and pressing your feet into the cold wood floors below. You walk to your door, twist the knob, and head out into the hallway.  A lap around the mansion might make you tired—might relax you. 

You walk down the hallway slowly, noticing instantly that Logan’s door is closed. You can’t help but pick up your pace, striding towards Logan’s room. 

You stand in front of his door, your hand on the knob, ready to twist and push. You stop yourself, wondering if this is crossing a line, tearing down a carefully constructed boundary. But all you want is to see him breathing, lying on his bed. You need to know he’s in there—safe. 

You knock once, but there’s no answer. You swallow nervously, twisting the knob and pushing the door open. 

Your heart stops. There he is. He’s home. He’s safe. He’s breathing. You let out a sigh of relief, smiling softly as you start to close the door. 

But then his head snaps to the side, and he grunts. “Logan?” You call, opening the door slightly. He doesn’t answer. He grunts again. You quickly notice the way his fists white-knuckle his sheets. 

You step inside his room, closing the door behind you. “Lo,” you whisper into the darkness. He tosses and turns, his head whipping from side to side. He must be having a nightmare, You think to yourself, your heart breaking in two, watching pain wrack his body, his mind. 

You meet his side, placing a hand on his shoulder and shaking him softly. “Logan,” you say, your voice louder, stronger this time. “You need to wake up.” But he doesn’t. He groans, his brows furrowed, sweat beading his forehead. 

“Come on,” you plead, climbing into the bed, and straddling him. You hold him down by his shoulders, stopping him from writhing. Now that you’re closer, you can see the tears streaming down his cheeks, can see the agony etched into the lines of his face. “Logan!” You yell. “You gotta wake—”

His eyes fly open, and you feel cold metal pierce your leg. Your jaw drops as pain stings sharply in your thigh. “Oh fuck,” Logan curses, sitting up and retracting his claws. Tears brim in the corners of your eyes as the pain worsens. “Shit!” He cries out, grabbing at your thigh, blood spilling into his fingers. 

You close your eyes as your powers take hold. Your skin slowly stitches up, putting yourself together again. You groan, and Logan wraps his arms around you, holding you tight against his chest. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbles into the side of your head, pressing soft, gentle kisses there. “I love you, I’m so sorry sweetheart.”

What did he just say?

“W-what?” You ask, the pain fading away as those three words echo in your mind. 

Logan’s breathing only quickens as he realizes what he said. “A-are you okay?” He asks, ignoring your question. 

You nod. “It’s already gone,” you whisper, nodding to your thigh. “But what did you just—”

“I love you,” he interrupts, saying it again. You pull back a bit to look at him. You can see the seriousness in his eyes, the adoration, the honesty. “I love you.” 

You bite your lip, your eyes widening as you process what this means. Logan loves you. It’s everything you ever wanted. Everything you could have asked for. It just makes sense.

“I love you too,” you confess, choking on your words. “I was so worried. I didn’t know when you’d come back, or if you’d come back at all. I saw your door closed, and I just had to see you. I needed to know that you were okay, that you came home.”

He presses his forehead to yours, his eyes closing. “Before I left,” he pauses, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I was going to tell you why I didn’t want to work together.” His eyes open again. “I was scared to get close to you,” he explains. “I knew I wanted you the second I saw you. Knew I had to have you. I’ve never felt that way before. You opened something inside me that I thought I didn’t have. Turns out it was just locked, waiting around for you.”

“Logan,” you breathe, his lips just inches from yours. “I wanted you too. Wanted you this whole time.” You need him to kiss you—to take you right here and now. “I thought you didn’t like me,” you admit, giggling softly. 

He shakes his head, smirking. “I liked you too much,” he rasps. “Didn’t know what to do about it. You were driving me crazy, sweetheart.” You can feel his erection straining in his boxers, and you can’t help but grind down on him, your core rocking against his cock. “Fuck,” he groans, gripping your hips. “Slow down, pretty girl. Are you sure you’re okay?”

You nod emphatically. “Already healed,” you assure him. “Just need you, Lo.”

“Need you too, sweetheart,” Logan groans, rolling your hips against his, tugging you down his length. “Can feel you soaking through those panties already,” he grunts. And he’s right. The heat pooling between your legs is uncontrollable. 

You groan as your clit drags across his erection. “F-fuck,” you stutter, his fingers digging into your hips. You bring your hands to the waistband of his boxers, tugging at them. But before you can get anywhere, Logan is flipping you onto your back and crawling down your body. 

“Next time, sweetheart,” he coos, hiking your shirt up and smirking when he sees you aren’t wearing a bra. He palms your breasts, tweaking your nipples before sliding down further. “Wanna take care of you this first time.”

Your heart flutters in your chest at his words. You can see the hunger in his eyes as he kisses down your stomach, going past the hem of your panties, stopping at your clit. He takes a deep breath. “Can smell that pretty pussy. Know she needs me, darlin’.” 

He hooks his fingers into your waistband, and tugs the thin lace down your legs, revealing your aching cunt to him. He settles between your thighs, his lips pressing a soft kiss to your clit. 

“L-Lo,” you choke. “Please.”

He smiles against you, breathing you in again. “Please what, princess?” He asks, looking up at you under hooded eyes. “Tell me what you need.”

“You,” you beg. “Need you. Always gonna need you.” 

His smile meets his eyes as he licks a long stripe through your folds, his tongue pushing through your entrance, tasting you, savoring you. He hums against you, the vibration of his voice rocking your core. “Tastes so good,” he mumbles, licking another long stripe. “Perfect pussy. Knew you’d be this sweet.”

You watch as he laps at you, drinking you in. Logan’s tongue finds your clit, drawing tight circles into the bud. “F-feels so good,” you stutter. 

“I know, beautiful” He soothes, his fingers trailing up your inner thigh, drawing closer to your heat. “You look so pretty when you let me eat you out,” he praises, his fingers prodding your entrance. “You want more?” He teases, slipping just past your slit and quickly pulling out. 

“Yes,” you whimper, pleasure coursing through your veins. “Need your fingers, Lo. Please.”

He wastes no time—suddenly thrusting inside you, his long, thick fingers splitting you in two. Your walls flutter around him, sucking him in, taking him deeper. “So tight,” he coos, pulling out and sliding back in. “So fucking wet.”

Logan wraps his lips around your clit, his cheeks hollowing as he sucks, hard. He releases, his teeth grazing the bud lightly. Your walls clench around his fingers at the sensation. “Fuck,” Logan curses, smirking against you. “You like that?” He teases. “Like when I’m rough with you?” His tongue flits out, lapping flat strokes across your clit. 

You moan a soft Yes in affirmation, your back arching off the mattress. You’re already close, ready to let go. But Logan isn’t letting up, his fingers slamming into you, taking your clit back into his mouth and sucking harder, rougher this time. He swirls soothing circles into the bud, pushing you to the edge. 

“Logan,” you whine, your hips squirming as he drags his tongue harder against your heat. “I’m so close.” 

Your muscles contract and release around his fingers as he hits that sweet spot inside you, pump after pump. “I know, pretty girl,” He soothes, his free hand wrapping around your hip and holding you down to the mattress. “Look at you,” he praises between harsh sucks. “So beautiful like this.” His tongue circles your overstimulated clit. “Already fucked out, aren’t you?” 

“Yes,” you mutter, your hips squirming helplessly against his grip. It’s all too much, his hushed whispers, his praises, the way his tongue flits against you, his deep thrusts dragging along your walls. “Logan, I’m gonna…” 

“That’s it, pretty girl,” Logan coaches, his tongue still lapping at you ravenously. He’s starving, unwilling to stop. He needs more. “Should keep you in my bed so I can taste you whenever I want.” He grunts against you. “Want you to come on my fingers, darlin’. Wanna taste it. Let go.”

It’s all blazing, white-hot heat, raging through your body, searing your skin. Your eyes stay trained on Logan as he works you through your orgasm—ravaging you, lapping up every last drop of your release. His fingers pump in and out, slowly, before he pulls out completely. But his face stays buried against your cunt, his tongue pushing through your folds. 

“Logan,” you whine, lacing your fingers through his hair. “Need you up here.” 

He looks up from your heat and licks one more long stripe before climbing up your body. He tugs his boxers down his legs, his eyes not leaving yours. His cock springs free, bumping against his stomach. 

Logan settles on top of you, balancing on his forearm as his free hand wraps around the base of his cock. You instinctually spread your legs, as if it’s second nature, as if you’ve been here before. “Such a good girl,” Logan praises, sliding his tip through your folds. “All spread open for me.” His cock nudges against your clit and slides back down. “You need me, sweetheart?”

“Yes,” you choke. “More than you can—”

And then he’s plunging inside you, bottoming out with just one thrust. “Fuck!” You cry out. He stays inside, unmoving, letting you adjust to the size of him. 

He presses his forehead to yours. “You okay?” He asks. His cock throbs, pushing against your walls, searching for more. His hand slips between your bodies and finds your clit. 

“Y-yes,” You stutter, sighing in relief as his fingertips draw gentle strokes into the bud. “S-so big.”

“I know,” Logan soothes, sliding out only to shove himself back in, down to the hit. Your back arches off the mattress, your chest coming flush with his. “Gonna work you open.” His voice is gentle, calm. “I’ve got you. Relax for me, sweetheart.” 

Logan pulls out and thrusts in again, his lips swallowing your moans with a kiss. His fingers swirl around your clit as pleasure pulses through your every nerve ending. “Feels so good,” you murmur as he picks up his pace, his hips rolling against yours. 

He grunts. “So perfect,” he praises. “Fucking made for me.” He pumps in and out of you harder, faster now, letting himself go. He pinches your clit, rolling the bud under his fingertips. “Never gonna want anyone but you, you know that?” He twitches inside you, and your walls flutter around him. 

You curse under your breath. “Yes,” you cry out. “Only gonna want you, Lo. Only you.”

“Doing so good for me,” he husks between hard thrusts. “Taking me so well.” His hips snap against yours, his fingers circling your clit rapidly, adding more pressure. His lips find yours again, biting, kissing you bruisingly, fitting against you like a puzzle piece. 

Your chests heave together, the sound of his skin slapping against yours echoing against the walls of the room. “You’re so perfect,” he whispers, his lips suddenly at the shell of your ear. He bites down on your pulse point, his tongue flitting out to lick the pain away. “So fucking beautiful.” 

Your walls contract around him, squeezing him as he sinks deeper inside you, hitting exactly where you need him most. You’re so close, ready to come undone. “Fuck, Logan,” you whine as he pounds into you. “I’m gonna—”

“Me too, pretty girl,” he rasps, twitching inside you. You wrap your legs around his waist, keeping him close as he plunges deeper. He lifts his head from the crook of your neck and presses a chaste kiss to your lips. “Don’t wanna stop. Don’t wanna…” He trails off, his cock throbbing inside you again. You know he can’t hold back.

You tighten your legs around his waist. “Don’t stop,” you beg. “Stay inside.” 

He groans, his forehead pressing to yours. “You want me to fill you up, sweetheart? That what you’re asking for?”

“Y-yes,” you stammer, his fingers pinching your clit and stroking relentlessly. “Please,” you choke, begging, tears brimming in the corners of your eyes. 

“Fuck,” he curses. “Wanna feel you come on my cock, sweetheart. Wanna make you mine.” 

“Already yours,” you whisper, your muscles contracting around his length again, your legs trembling as stars flood your vision. Logan moans your name, and you can feel him spilling inside you. You come together, your orgasm crashing into you, more intense, more powerful than the last. 

“Love you so much,” he whispers as he finishes, painting your walls. 

“Love you too, Lo,” you say back, your heart beating out of your chest as you come down from your high. 

His fingers drag against your clit, swiping gently before running up your body, slipping under your back, and pulling you into his chest. His hips are still, his cock unmoving inside you. He finally pulls out, and rolls off you, taking you with him. He tugs you into his chest, holding you tightly.

“Are you okay?” He asks softly. “Need anything?”

“J-just you,” you stammer. His fingertips trace patterns along your back, soothing and gentle. 

“Let me clean you up, sweetheart,” Logan whispers, pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead and moving to sit up. But you stop him, wrapping your arms around his torso and holding him down. He smirks, letting you pull him back. “I’m just gonna grab a towel, yeah? Wanna take care of you. I’ll come right back.”

You nod, letting him go. He slips out of the bed, strides over to his bathroom, and grabs a towel from inside without turning a light on. Within ten seconds he’s back in bed, just like he said he would be. 

Logan brings the towel between your legs and wipes you clean. His touch is gentle, soothing, careful not to be too rough. Once he’s done, he throws the towel to the floor and reaches over to his nightstand. When he turns back to you, he has a glass of water in his hand. He extends the glass out, bringing it to your lips. The water feels cool as it slides down your throat. You drain the glass, and Logan smiles as he pulls it from your lips. 

He places the cup back down on the nightstand and pulls you into his arms again. You bury your head into the center of his chest, listening carefully to his heartbeat. It’s even, steady, constant. Just like him. 

“Never felt like this before,” he whispers into the silent darkness of the room. 

“Like what?” You mumble, your voice muffled against his chest. 

You can hear the smile in his voice as the words leave his lips. “Happy. Safe.”

Tears—happy tears—free themselves from your eyes, sliding down your cheeks. 

“Can’t let go of you,” he hums, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Don’t wanna go back to before.”

“You don’t have to, Lo,” you pant. “I’m yours. Always.” And you know you mean it. You know it’s true. It’s already been decided, already played out. Already etched into the future. 

Are you two married? Claire had asked. 

He’ll always come back to you. All I see is happiness, She had promised.

And she was right. 

“I love you,” Logan husks. 

“I love you, too.” 

tags: @afw5 @wolviesgirl @the-ruler-of-death @Ifdybadgirlsdiw @xtwistedchaosx @wittyjasontodd @wolverinesslut @galacticglitterglue @silversprings-mp3 @zxaera @spiderset @figsnpassionfruits @alastorssimp @alsoprettyinpink @prettyseaveins @ilysmdovie12 @evasmlp @derbygracie @rammakela @honeyfewr @ricefordays-blog1 @manipulatour

[dlstmxkakwldrlarchive]

Genie Music K-pop Exploration Team's listening session — O (Circle) PICK by Kim Yoon-ha, Kim Young-dae part ii

part i x | source x

about ‘Paradise’

YOON: [...] Anyway, ‘Anywhere’ is a song that you can listen to it more comfortably

YOUNG: And it feels more like a club, it’s more like that if we compare it to the next song

YOON: Oh! That’s right. Isn’t ‘Paradise’ more funky?

YOUNG: No, ‘Paradise’ is just funky while ‘Anywhere’ is more a club tune. [...] ‘Paradise’ starts with a guitar right? (YOON: Yeah, that’s right, the guitar comes out first) So, the guitar comes out first and the drum beat doesn’t feel club-like, does it?

YOON: It’s not the usual club vibe we think

YOUNG: The more I try to explain, the more I feel like I’m in a labyrinth... (pause) Okay, I’ll do it like this; ‘Anywhere’ is a car with a lid on it, I don’t care about the lid, ‘Paradise’ is little slow, a car with the lid open and the beach spread out next to it (YOON laughs), if I say it like this you’ll understand? There are two types of city pop: night city pop and beach city pop. ‘Paradise’ is beach city pop and ‘Anywhere’ is night city pop

YOON: No, no! I laughed because you were acting like me while explaining 

YOUNG: Lee Jinki. Jinki Myeongki [note: one of Onew’s nicknames which means skillful/fascinating Jinki], is a great voice. Some of his very natural aspects come out in his music, that’s why they call him like that

YOON: So taking everything that has been said, if we think about Onew’s voice best usage is (YOUNG: Paradise!) I think it’s between ‘Anywhere’ and ‘Paradise’

YOUNG: If it’s between them, it’s ‘Paradise’

YOON: No, it’s ‘Anywhere’

YOUNG: Oh, really. What did I just hear?

YOON: If you listen to this album as a whole, you’ll think “This artist can be moist and even dry”, and I think he’s a vocalist who can take any genre, who can go from urban to natural, but, also, you can find voices that suit your taste and, after I heard it all, this is the part. This is my favorite album section.

YOUNG: This part?

YOON: Yes. ‘Paradise’-’Anywhere’ have Onew’s slightly rich voice and... pureness? It’s hard to use that word for a male vocalist 

YOUNG: Oh, but with Onew you can, you can use it

YOON: Onew’s a unique vocal tone which has this young transparent feeling and is the most efficiently revived in these two songs

YOUNG: It’s different from boyishness

YOON: Subtly different. This is more fresh, as in natural? It feels like I’m immersed in nature [...] The most attractive texture of Lee Onew’s voice is in these songs, so please listen to this section.

‘Caramel’ ‘Anywhere’ ‘Paradise’ play

YOUNG: So good to hear it again.Because this is also the part where the ego as a critic and an evaluator and the ego who just likes Onew’s voice collide. I always think that this part, especially ‘Caramel’ ‘Anywhere’ ‘Paradise’, is kind of a good core for this album but it’s not easy?

When I listen to them I don’t have any kind of complaints about it (YOON:The quality is high); I think this is one of the strange points of a full album, if you listen to [the songs] individually, they’re good but they might or might not work with the overall album feeling. (YOON:  Oh?) Anyway this album section gives me a strange feeling. Well, most of the albums are like that, the more you go farther the more you’re closer to the essence of it. (YOON: You mean the front tracks?) Yes. There’s a little change in the middle part and then it ends with a totally different color. 

YOON: But the music flow works, in the end we’re talking about a full album

about ‘No Parachute’ ‘Expectactions’

YOUNG: It’s a perfect match. Reunited? In the first part I was feeling a bit depressed (YOON: The second part is kind of the caramelization?) and the third part is filled with songs that are suited for people who like k-pop, the sophisticated SHINee and SM music. (pause) Then, it’s like this, the front tracks [tracks 1,2 & 3] are what Onew wanted to show through this album (YOON: Jinki rather than Onew!) Isn’t “Jinki” a little later? The middle part [tracks 4 5 & 6] is SHINee, the “Familiar Onew”, here lays ‘Jinki’, tied to SHINee and Onew. It’s like a perfect match between the new Onew and the Onew we knew musically, the familiar one.

YOON: If we look it like that, you’re discussing all aspects of Onew, right?

YOUNG: Yes, he has many aspects, the last bunch of songs are SM color. I think people who listen to SHINee and Onew’s songs found them familiar 

YOON: I think ‘Expectations’ and ‘No Parachute’ are representive

YOUNG: It’s an approach we listen a lot in SM music

YOON: Right, for example, the way Onew uses his voice in the chorus part to create tension while in the background there’s a flap sound. ‘No Parachute’ is a chic and sophisticated and it’s a bit retro

YOUNG: Retro tendecies that SM showed a lot 

YOON: When I listen to Onew’s voice in this song, I think “Oh, this is the voice of a veteran who’s being through all the k-pop prenatal training”. I think I heard this song the most between these two

YOUNG: Strangely, I like ‘Expectations’, it feels like I’m winding people up.

YOON: This song is totally Kim Youngdae’s taste. There’s no part where you get excited? The song goes on calmly and persuades you through its sound 

YOUNG: That’s right, that’s right

about ‘Walk With You’

YOON: We’re going to continue with other two tracks. The 9th track is ‘Walk With You’

YOUNG: ‘Walking on Memories’ [’Walk With You’ korean title] title is a bit different from the previous songs (YOON: It was all english) All of them were just one word: ‘Anywhere’ ‘Paradise’ ‘Caramel’ ‘Circle’ ‘Cough’ and, here, ‘Walking on Memories’. [note: since he’s discussing the korean title, I kept the literal translation of the title!], it suddenly goes to a literary and essayist approach. There’s a bit of an indie vibe.

YOON: The flow between ‘No Parachute’ and ‘Walk with you’ is a bit of like memory stimulation, that feeling made me talk about these two songs together on the same line. Should I say their retro feeling leads to a story?

YOUNG: I think ‘Always’ and ‘Walk With You’ are in line

YOON: But in my opinion ‘Always’ has a completely different sentiment 

YOUNG: It actually feels like a completely different song, considering the flow of the album

YOON: ‘Walk With You’ is a pop number that can be heard in general and the lyrics stimulate some kind of memory you can’t grasp. 

YOUNG: ‘Walk With You’ is a song about a 20 year old genius and his guitar, you know what I mean, right? Don’t you think it’s a song that’s going to become a hit and be quoted indefinitely on social media?

YOON: I got what you mean, it’s a song by a singer-songwriter who has a fresh feeling that will end up in playlists

YOUNG: That’s right. The rhythm itself is trendy these days. DOOm DOOM Doom Doom. It’s a latin vibe, right? (YOON: Very refreshing!) It has  refreshing latin vibes. I think you can listen to this comfortably without getting in the way of the album

YOON:That’s right. These days we talked about instagramable, tiktok-cable, (YOUNG: Social Media pop, yeah): this song is instagramable and tiktok-cable, I hate that word but I keep using it. We’re gonna listen to these three songs right now, I really like the songs in this part , too. While listening to this album, I wanted to listen to every song in a very good sound system, I’d like to recommend you to listen to it with the best device you have

‘Expectations’ ‘No Parachute’ ‘Walk With You’ play

YOUNG: What I was going to say was, as expected, a quaint voice. Yes, it’s a masterpiece

YOON: We listened to Onew’s O (Circle) today. This album, like all the other albums we covered in our listening session, is filled with good songs so we talked about it. I think it’s an album you can approach easily, it’s something recommendable to k-pop listeners [...] Maybe it’s not something we’re used to but it’s still good, the music quality is very high and the most surprising thing about it is if you listen to it carefully, Jinki actually uses a wide rage of vocal techniques

YOUNG: Interestingly, it doesn’t feel that wide (YOON: He makes it simple); if the high and medium low ranges are too dramatically divided, I’m singing the high notes right now. If you intentionally emphasize it, it’s a bit tiring? But the sound, if you think about it it’s ‘atmospheric’. The voice itself doesn’t feel like the vocalist is forcing you to sing 

YOON: I think it’s general review for this album. Overall, I felt it after hearing it; an artist that wants to work on his solo album in a variety of ways. I like it. And when I listen to this album, I think it’s natural that I need to love that voice to really cherish this album

YOUNG: His voice is a very good instrument

YOON: Yes, and the composers, lyricists and A&R who participated in this album did their best to make this voice stand out the most naturally. That’s why I recommend it. “Enjoy the unique voice of the vocalist Onew” and “Listen to the efforts of many people to make it stand out like this”

YOUNG: I think it was worth waiting for (YOON: You’ll enjoy listen to this), it’s goos as background music and each song has its own charm

about ‘Always’

YOON: Normally, ballads are just ballads, and if you think about it the fact this song is the last track... [...] in an idol album there are times when we go into the last track with the feeling that there should be a ballad like this

YOUNG: That’s not it, that’s not it! Rather is a shining moment in this album

YOON: I think so too (YOUNG: What is that?) I think it’s really the highlight. I have a lot of thoughts. In the end, we always talk about k-pop albums... It’s a unique combination called love but it’s love within k-pop 

YOUNG: What is love? I don’t think it’s basically the love area that ordinary people can feel, but only in k-pop. Only those who do k-pop can know the area of love in this song. The love we’re talking about could be between two people [who know each other], but also between a fan and an artist

YOON: It’s one-sided, but it’s both sides. It’s actually a complicated song and in a way it’s a serenade for me to sing to a loved one but it also felt like praying in a quiet night. It’s basically a very calm piano performance and a contemplation of the night

YOUNG: Yes, I think it’s a sincere moment. In terms of message, too. And if you go into the technical aspect, there’s a way to end it. A ballad... It could’ve ended in a cute way, social media pop, but he didn’t choose to end it like that,. He ended it with a lot of weight? In fact, he emphasized it one more time and ended it

YOON: And it’s an album that ended with a lot of things that were slightly ignord by other songs, so in a way, this full-lenght album is aimed to general public and it’s an album about fans who have been watching over him for a long time. And it’s a good track to end with a heavy message.

YOUNG: Our movies are like that too, right? If you make a good ending you’ll have a strong impact, it doesn’t matter if it’s a happy or a sad one

YOON: It lingers

YOUNG: It does. After listening to ‘Always’, the last piano note disappears and then it turns off, right? But it feels like the melody and story are continuing in my head? It gives you that illusion

YOON: It’s a feeling that only a full lenght album can give you and it can’t be found in a 5-6 song album [...] Don’t you like these lyrics? “When love sometimes doesn’t seem to be the answer / I’ll give you an unshakable  answer that you’re right” It’s a song bound to touch your heart, and for those who have loved like this, it’s a song that will make your heart cry. I’ll play the song and wrap it up. Last words?

YOUNG: Through this album, I really got to listen Lee Jinki, a great vocalist, amazing vocals 

YOON: In my case, I’d suggest you to, (pause) this album is a little longer than what we usually listen but (YOUNG: Little longer. It’s less than 40 minutes), but the feeling of listening to the first song O (Circle) again after ‘Always’ is also charming

YOUNG: It feels like a reincarnation 

YOON: Kind of like that? So I recommend it

YOUNG: I hope you listen to it continuously

‘Always’ plays

[thatwitchyaunt]

Makeup for Magick/Ritual p8: Yule - The Winter Solstice

And finally, Yule! The Winter Solstice! We’re almost done, people… Let’s get it started!

All the colors of Christmas applies to Yule/Winter Solstice, since it’s one of the holidays the church “borrowed” from.

I know! Shocker!

But as a reminder, my notes have the Yule colors as :

Red

Orange

Yellow

Gold

Silver

White

Blue

Green

First up, Give Me Glow (plus singles).

Christmas Morning Palette: Not sure if there’s a holiday palette with a better curated color story. You have the beautiful gold for the Sun and solar magick, pine green for evergreens and prosperity, warm cinnamon and cranberry reds, and warm toned silvers and deep greys.

Single Shadow “Add-Ons”

Low Battery: neutral toned medium-dark red matte

Emerald City: emerald green metallic

Patty: slightly warm toned medium green matte

Cream Please: ultra creamy ivory matte

Glamourous: extremely high foiled pale gold

Halo: metallic white with baby blue and gold shifts

Icy Frap: icy warm champagne metallic with taupe undertones

Icicle: icy white metallic

Marshmallow: pure white matte

Satellite: aluminum foil silver metallic

Dirt Road: deep black brown matte

Valentines Red: cranberry red metallic

Now for Juvia’s Place!

The Afrique: Toasty reds, golds and greens. It’s definitely more suited for Yule than Samhain. It’s similar to Christmas Morning in terms of color magick, but I definitely prefer the GMG palette.

The Warrior: If you’re focus is the rebirth of the sun, the golds and gold-toned browns in this palette is the way to go. A work safe color and subtle enough for people still in the broom closet.

This is the last time, I promise! For now, anyway… Our lord and savior, Coloupop!

Just My Luck: Green for the evergreens, celebrating life even in the long, dark cold winter; and for prosperity, abundance and luck.

Main Squeeze: Reds for strength, health, and physical energy for those of us with seasonal depression; and for the fire that keeps up warm and alive during the icy winter.

Blue Moon: Speaking of icy… Blues for the ice, snow and cold outside.

Frozen II: Elsa: Seriously, fuck pressed glitters. This is another “going with the vibes” palette. The icy blue, silver and purple, and the berry shades scream winter. It’s based off of Elsa, so I’m not surprised.

Next, BH Cosmetics!

Poison Shock Ghost Pepper: Like all the Poison Shock palettes, the depth of the mattes are lacking. But if you ignore the pink shades, it could lend itself to some holiday glamour magick. I feel like the Poison Shock palettes can be paired with a Colourpop monochrome palette . So yeah… what I wrote for CP Main squeeze applies here too.

Poison Shock Absinthe: Again, depth isn’t great, but everything from the CP Just My Luck palette applied to this one.

Poison Shock Sub Zero: The depth is slightly better in this one. Again, all things from the CP Blue Moon palette applies to Sub-Zero.

Naughty Palette and Miss Claus: The Lit List Palette: If you have either of these BH holiday palettes, you have options. I like the size of the pans in the Naughty palette because it makes it easy to also use them as blushes, and the quality is worth ignoring the two pressed glitters. The only look you can really do with this palette is an icy blue one, since it’s more toasty and cozy. The Lit List palette is the Naughty palette’s brighter little sister, and it thankfully only has one pressed glitter. This one will give you an icy December weather look, and it has an abundance of golds if you’re aiming for the rebirth of the sun. To be honest, you have them both, you’re pretty much covered.

Smitten in Switzerland: These colors lean more to the icy side, but with a bright golden yellow pop. Another “vibes” palette for the list. If you’re going for Jack Frost covering everything with a layer of ice, this will have you covered.

Passion in Paris: I included this for the winter berry shades. The reds and blues specifically.

Love in London: This palette’s here specifically for the metallic blue, purple, grey and gold. And no other reason.

Blueberry Muffin: Another good icy palette, with its cool toned blues, greys, white and silver.

And finally, we have the singles from Shroud, Terra Moons, and Looxi Beauty.

Shroud:

World Eater: an intense true red metallic shimmer

Vigil: a golden yellow metallic

Artifact: a grungy olive green metallic with a slight gold shift

Terra Moons:

Skyfall: a pale cool toned blue metallic with blue and lavender shifts

Meteorite: a golden, pink shimmer with hints of green

Nightfall: a deep blue metallic with hints of cerulean blue and gray

Spiked: a warm, dark red metallic

Hot Spiced Cider: a unique gold-green with hints of brown metallic

Dark Matter: a turquoise brown shifting metallic

Looxi Beauty:

Dream On: a pale aqua blue shimmer

Money Bags: a green with shifts of gold and blue

Honey Pot: a golden orange with shifts of copper, yellow and purple

Snow Angel: a light iridescent shimmer with shifts of gold, pink and bluish purple

Winter Moon: an azure blue shimmer with subtle shifts of gold and olive green

Chilly: a baby blue shimmer with shifts of pink and purple

Cupid: a warm peach shimmer with shifts of gold, orange and pink

Donner: a blue with green and gold duochrome

Rudy: a burgundy red with shifts of gold and orange

Adonis: a metallic powder blue with shifts of silver, blue, turquoise and purple

CASHmere: an emerald green with slight shifts of blue and gold

Noir: a steel blue with a lavender shift

Firefly: a red metallic with a copper/orange/gold shift

Lady Luck: a bronze gold with shifts of green, red and brownish purple

Nebula: a light violet metallic with undertones of silver

Vibin’: a periwinkle shimmer with a lavender shift

As usual, if you have anything to add, 100% please do so! Share and inspire!

And the sabbat series is officially finished! It’s done! Holy crap…

[my-craft]

MCC Pride 2022: Red Rabbits!

Patterns now have banner sized additions going forward, feel free to use with credit!

(Edited the background just a bit)

[latte-to-go]

the art of loving you [alcina dimitrescu]

summary ━━━ sometimes, it was difficult for you to tell if what you and lady dimitrescu, or alcina as she has allowed you to call her, had was love. it remained a lingering thought in your mind as her daughters continued to call you their mother’s ‘human play-thing’ and most days, you let it not get to you. but, it was difficult to ignore that fateful night and the lady of the house had easily noticed something was upsetting her little pet.

pairing ━━━ alcina dimitrescu x reader.

words ━━━ 1612

fandom ━━━ resident evil.

warnings ━━━ pure fluff, honestly. but, it has some hints of nsfw vibes but it doesn't go into them.

author's note ━━━ lady dimitrescu owns my heart and I have spent so much time reading fanfics about her that I just needed to write one of my own. who knew a tall sexy vampire lady would be what broke my hiatus and brought me back to tumblr? but, I am here to stay and I am so excited to write more reader inserts! and to continue to fill requests! for now, my requests are open! but, I will probably write a lot more for alcina as well! so, I haven't finished resident evil village yet because of how busy I am with work and that might make the characters a little out of character! but I couldn't wait to write about alcina! hopefully, I will have the game finished soon! some things have been spoiled for me already, but a lot of the game is still unknown because I am still in the very beginning of the game where ethan just gets to the village. but, I still hope you all enjoy this one-shot! it's just fluff between the reader and our lady!

DARK CLOUDS LOOMED AGAINST THE HORIZON, matching the catastrophic thoughts that lingered in the back of your mind as you numbly flipped the pages to the book you had tried so hard to distract yourself with. But, your mind had not retained any of the words written on the yellowed pages as your mind stayed on the woman that held every inch of your heart. With a sigh, you turned your gaze out the window instead. The window pane was cold to the touch, courtesy of the snow that remained a constant of the land.

It had only been two years since you had arrived at Castle Dimitrescu ━━ a mistake, truly. At least, at first, it had been as you stumbled across the maidens that the grandiose home belonged to. It should have been the last night of your life, but the lady of the house had taken a keen interest in you. You had not understood it at first, but you had grown attached to Alcina Dimitrescu and her… mysterious ways. Perhaps, you would even go as far as to call it love at first sight. And, you had thought she had felt the same way with her sweet words and burning touches. But, then doubt had become to creep into the dark crevices of your relationship with the woman.

It was often her daughters teased you, complaining about how they couldn’t stand to hear the beat of your heart. But, their mother had explicitly forbidden them from touching you. Though, you did not feel unsafe around them and had grown to trust and like each of them. But, their words tended to hurt whenever they referred to you as their mother’s play-thing. It was as if there was a timer on your life and it wouldn’t be long till Alcina grew bored of your presence and decided it was your time to join the dead.

“The day has come and gone and you have yet to leave our bedroom,” the regal voice belonging to Alcina echoed throughout the room, startling you at your spot in the window sill. She stood tall with her golden eyes watching your every move, making you hold your breath as you waited for her to speak. With long strides, she quickly reached the window as she looked down at you with an unreadable expression. Regardless of your height, you always dwarfed in comparison to her as she stood taller than most she came across. But, she looked even taller whilst you sat. She leaned down, placing a gentle kiss against your lips. When she pulled back, her gaze met yours. “Has something happened?”

“No,” the word quickly left your lips as your felt your cheeks burn at the sudden closeness. Her scent of her old vintage lavender perfume with hints of blood filled your nose ━━ the old mixture had become a comfort for you. With a clear of your throat, you continued to speak. “Everything is fine.”

A hum left her red lips, seemingly vibrating every sense of your being. With two fingers, she trailed against your jaw as she continued to stare at your parted lips. “You should know better than to lie to me, my darling.”

“I do not wish to bother you with my human problems,” you muttered bitterly, pushing her fingers off your skin. For a moment, her eyes flashed with an unknown emotion but she did not utter a word as she took a step back to create space between the two of you.

“So, something has happened,” Alcina commented, standing to her feet as she towered over you again. It made you feel small in every sense as a wave of tears made their presence known. Hiding them from her was futile as she continued to watch, making you sniffle as you tried to wipe them away. “Tell me, who has hurt you?”

“No one.” It wasn’t like you to throw her daughters underneath the bus because of some harsh words. After all, you needed to be stronger than that.

Her hand reached forward, wiping away the stray tear with her thumb before she caressed your cheek. It took everything in you to not lean into her touch, refusing to place a kiss against her tender skin. Despite your lack of reaction, Alcina moved closer as she took a seat on the window sill. It was difficult due to her size, but she made it work as she continued to run her thumb against your cheek. “Then, why the tears?”

She waited for you to speak, listening to the shaky breaths that left your lips as you tried to gather your thoughts. “I’ve been having doubts,” you confessed, biting the inside of your cheek as you met the woman’s eyes. “About… us.”

“What do you doubt about us?” She asked softly. And, for the first time, you could hear worry in her tone as she slowed her movements. Her sharp gaze had softened, lingering on your saddened expression.

With a deep breath, you took her hand off your cheek as you held it close. Her hands were larger than an average person’s, but you still fit perfectly in them. “I fear that you do not love me the way that I love you,” you whispered, keeping your eyes on your interlocked hands. “I feel as if I am something that you use to pass the time. Someone to warm your bed at night for the time being before you get bored and move to the next.”

“People say I’m heartless,” she started off slowly, taking your words deep into her heart as her gaze flickering to your hands as well. “They call me a monster ━━ a frightening legend that mothers tell their misbehaving children. And, for a long time, I believed in those legends that painted me as a cruel vicious beast. That is, until I met you, my darling.”

Her words made you look up, daring to meet her eyes as she stared at you unblinking. Her beauty had always taken your breath away, making her perfect to you at anything that matters. Still, you remained quiet.

“Perhaps, I did not love you at first,” Alcina confessed, ever so slightly tightening her grip on your hand as she let out a heavy sigh. “But, you came into my life like a storm and I had learned how to dance in the rain. Regardless of what you think, my love for you is true. My darling, you make me feel whole ━━ the missing piece I had unknowingly been searching for.”

“Do you really mean that?” you asked softly, barely finding your voice as you faced the woman. Her words were like honey, dripping sweetness onto your tongue as you tried your hardest to believe her.

Her free hand caressed your cheek, moving closer to you before she left a chaste kiss against your forehead. “Have I ever lied to you before?”

“No, but…”

“Cease your doubts, my love,” Alcina said, staying inches away from your lips as her breath fanned against your cheeks. She whispered your name, letting out a deep sigh as she took in your scent. “What can I do to convince you that my love for you is true? To convince you that I want to spend the rest of our days together? To convince you that my heart yearns for you and only you?”

"Alcina…” you whispered softly, closing your eyes as her lips hovered over the skin of your neck. She didn’t move, waiting for some indication from you. “I love you more than anything in this world and… I wish to spend the rest of my life with you. If you would have me, that is.”

The soft words caused Alcina to open her eyes as she faced you, showing no emotion as usual. It made it hard for you to predict her next move as you waited for her to say anything. But, then a soft smile presented itself to you as she leaned in close. “Of course I would have you, my darling,” she whispered, meeting your eyes. “I would do anything for you.”

Her words brought a smile to your lips, pushing you forward as you engulfed her lips with your own. She was quick to pull you into her lap as she held you close, kissing back with the same intensity that you gave her. It made you feel warm with her love as any doubts you had begun to vanish as she held you. There was no doubt that Alcina Dimitrescu was hopelessly in love with you as you were with her. Yet, the sweet moment had ended too soon.

There was a knock at the door, causing a deep growl to leave Alcina’s lips as she pulled away from yours. It left you breathless as the two of you looked to the door to see Cassandra. She wore a sadistic grin, moving deeper into the room as she regarded the two of you. “Forgive me for interrupting,” she cooed, stealing a glance at your flushed expression with playful vice. “But, he’s back.”

A frown marred your features, causing you to glance back at Alcina and see the irritation blooming. “Who is back?”

With a sigh, Alcina looked to you as she forced a smile to her lips. She moved forward, leaving a chaste kiss against your lips that had become stained the same color as hers. “Only a nuisance that you needn’t worry about,” she whispered softly, moving to stand to her feet. “I shall be back soon, my love.”

At her words, you smiled. “I will be here waiting for your return.”

[blu-eh]

after school summons

[AO3] 

or: Danny gets summoned. He doesn’t like it.

It starts with a tugging feeling in his very core.

Danny Fenton pauses. If there’s one thing he’s learned in the last year, it is not to ignore random things that are definitely ghostly in origin. He has just enough time to place his pencil on the desk from where he had dutifully been doing his homework—for the first time in two weeks, mind you—before his vision goes white, he hears a snap, and suddenly he’s not in his room anymore.

For a moment he’s weightless, lost in the feeling of falling. Then, his body jerks and he has just enough time to think, oh fuck—before he’s slammed to the ground hard.  His knees buckle under the unexpected weight and he goes down, clumsily, and trying not to throw up what little he’d managed to eat between homework packets.

“Ow,” Danny says.

He lies there, just for a moment, taking in the cool concrete underneath him. He tries to steady his breathing just enough so his mind can process what the hell just happened in the last thirty seconds. He’s still blinking stars from his eyes when he hears the hushed whispers echo around him and a heavy pair of footsteps approaching him. All in all, very bad signs when mysterious (and somewhat painful) things happen to you suddenly.

A gruff, questioning voice asks, “A child?”

“Oh, man,” Danny says, because that definitely does not sound good. Then he forces himself to his knees and looks up.

The first and foremost thing Danny notices is that he’s not alone. He’s on some sort of altar or platform, elevated a foot or so above the ground. A couple feet away, a group of no more than a dozen people surround him in a semi-circle, faces all covered by tattered cloaks. Another cloaked figure, dressed in much more formal robes with gold trimming, stands on the platform a mere couple feet from where Danny is. They all seem to be staring at him, waiting.

Danny hastily gets to his feet. He shifts a little into a sloppy fighting stance, just in case things were to get messy.

The dimly-lit warehouse room and the head covers don’t give him much to work with in the facial feature department, but he’s pretty confident that none of them are ghosts. Mostly from the fact that none of them are glowing and/or ranting about how much of a pain in the ass he is, but it still pays to be wary. Especially when Danny’s situations tend to quickly dissolve from bad to oh my god there are ghosts lose in Amity Park and also he maybe-sort of-possibly died in the process.  

Which brings him back to his next brilliant deduction; he’s definitely in ghost form. He definitely was not in ghost form before this. His ghost form is rather obvious considering he sticks out like a glow stick in darkness of the warehouse. He doesn’t even feel the need to check his hair color, this time, but that’s more due to the fact that he doesn’t want to take his eyes off the weird people who managed to summon him from his bedroom and forced him to change into his ghost form.

(He desperately hopes that they hadn’t seen him change—weird warehouse people are not people that Danny generally associates with secret keeping.)

“Is this a cult thing?” Danny asks before any of them can speak. He takes in white line that surrounds him, and the red liquid (which he very much hopes is not blood) used to paint runes and symbols that circle him, and their weird cloak-like robes, and says, “This is definitely a cult thing. Oh my god, did you summon me? Seriously—”

Before this, he hadn't even known he could be summoned. It's just the little ghostly things learned via accident, sometimes, that truly take the icing on the cake.

There’s a tiny spark of anxiety in his gut, but honestly there’s a large difference between humans threatening him and ghosts threatening him. On one hand, he’d take weird cultist over Skulker’s lair any day. On the other hand, pure white walls and experimentation tables aren’t super high on his to visit list either. Worst comes to worst—before they sacrifice him to some ancient gods, more likely—he puts on his scary face (and maybe adds a couple of explosions) and slips out before they even notice he’s missing.

“Silence, creature,” the robed man snaps. Danny zeros in on him and immediately deduces him to be leader from vibes alone. Also the gold trimming on his robe, which very much screams leader of weird cult that summons ghost kids.

“I—okay, you know what? That was just rude,” Danny says. He points to the white line that surrounds him, “Is that cocaine?”

Danny has a feeling he doesn’t want to know the answer to the mysterious red liquid and painted symbols, so he doesn’t ask.

“It’s salt,” one of the other cloaked figures answers, like it should be obvious.

(It’s not actually obvious, and actually leaves Danny with more questions than he started with. Mostly in the realm of how did a group of cultists summon him with salt. He knows salt is supposedly an anti-ghost measure, but Danny is pretty convinced it has little to no effect on him considering the amount of Nasty Burger fries he’s consumed haven’t taken him out yet.)

“Salt,” Danny repeats. He pauses, then awkwardly tags on, “That’s good, I guess, because drugs are bad. Uh, don’t do drugs.”

A cultist quietly, and a little slowly, answers back, “We, uh, don’t.”

“Right,” Danny says. His eyes catch another section of weird in this already weird, cultist warehouse. At the base of the platform sits a variety of bones, so fresh that some of the muscle still clings to them. “Are those bones? Oh my god, did you sacrifice someone? That’s not cool! Murder isn’t cool!”

“Those are goat bones,” another follower says.

“Oh,” Danny says. “Well, I mean, that’s still fucked up on a variety of levels, but I guess that’s better than murder. Unless it's considered goat murder? Uh.”

For a second, there’s silence. The nature of the interaction is so awkward and oppressing that he almost goes invisible just to save himself the scrutiny of these random people and get the hell out of dodge. His curiosity is the only thing that holds him back—that, and the fact that he’s not quite sure if any of these people are secretly hiding ecto-weapons.

Danny very much does not want to be shot tonight.

He looks around the room, eyes taking in every inch of the sparsely decorated warehouse. There’s nothing that immediately grabs his attention, nor anything that really screams danger but it pays to be suspicious of his surroundings in his line of work. A few of the cultists notice this, and start shifting awkwardly as Danny looks over them as well.

Then, Danny’s eyes flicks back to the lead cultist and he says, “I’m going to be real honest here and say that I have no idea what the heck is going on.”

The leader makes no inclination that he acknowledges any word that comes from Danny’s mouth. Instead, he brings an old, wrinkled hand up to his face, like he’s thinking about some complex problem. The leader circles Danny once, then again, and Danny feels something inside him defensively coil like a spring.

He tries not to be bothered when people treat him as something lesser—it’s not, exactly, uncommon for him to encounter. He dealt with being shoved into lockers long before he died, anyways. It doesn’t stop his shoulders from tensing just the barest amount.

Instead of showing this, he brings his feet up to his chest and crosses them mid-air, and fakes a yawn for good measure. A few of the other cultists gasp in wonder and fear. The leader simply stops his prowling and turns to face Danny.

“So this is the fabled Ghost King,” the man says, like he expected better.

Danny feels he should almost be offended if it isn’t for the tiny detail that these cultists—who summoned him by using salt and goat bones—assume he is the ghost king. “…Did you seriously confuse me with Pariah Dark?”

The man pauses, and asks, “Pariah Dark?”

“Yes! He’s like fifteen feet tall, has a huge sword, is a pain in the ass, and has, like, an entire ghost army. I have, I dunno, pre-calc homework in my bag. We are not the same.”

Some of the followers in the background shift uneasily. Danny bares his teeth in their direction, just to see them squirm. A couple take worried steps back and Danny fights off a satisfied grin.

Hey, poke a bull and get the horns. In this case, summon a ghost-teenager and get the ecto-powers.

(He’s slowly becoming more and more aware that these people have no idea what they’re doing.)

“I see,” the leader says. From his tone, he definitely does not see. “It doesn’t matter. Our book summoned the King of Ghosts and that is you, so you will do as we tell you and your pain will be lessened.”

“I am still not the Ghost King,” Danny tells him. “And no thanks. I’ve already used my yearly cult sign up and I can’t say I’m thrilled to join another. If you’re going to hold an initiation ceremony, at least decorate a bit first. Uh, not counting the goat bones and salt, of course.”

“You have no choice,” the leader snaps and steps a bit closer to him. Danny merely raises an eyebrow. “We are the Followers of Infernal. We have summoned you to serve us. You are bound to our will and bound to our grace, as the book foretold. Now bow, demon, for we are your new masters.”

There’s a very large portion of Danny Fenton that is convinced any good karma he held in life did not pass with him during his death a mere year ago. An even larger portion of him is convinced that these guys are no more serious than the GIW is. Danny does not tell the cultists this.

Instead, he squints and says, “Alright. I definitely failed US Government, but I’m pretty sure that’s not legal. Don’t you guys need like, a permit to summon undead beings of mass power?”

“It thinks it’s funny.” The leader’s face is mostly hidden by his robe, but Danny can imagine the sneer there from his tone alone.

“Trust me, I’m not the one who’s a joke right now,” Danny says. He looks back over at the dozen or so followers and grins at them. They don’t seem too keen that he’s not following their master’s orders and bending to their will. He turns back to the leader. “What’s in it for me?”

“What?”

“If I follow you and stuff, what’s in it for me?”

The leader pauses, then says, “You will be spared of punishment.”

“Hmm, that’s not good enough,” Danny says. He angles his body so he's once again looking at the followers and points at one in the middle. “Hey, you! With the cloak. No, not you, the other dude. To the left. Yeah! You. What do you have to offer me?”

The follower looks so startled that he cowers for a second. Then, seeing as he hadn’t been reduced to a pile of ashes from Danny’s gaze alone, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out something small and silver. “Uh, I have a paper clip, your ghostliness.”

“A paper clip,” Danny repeats. “Yeah, sure, fine. Whatever. That sounds neat.”

“You’ll submit to us?” the man sounds so hopeful that Danny almost feels bad for being a jerk. Then, he remembers that they summoned him out of his nice, warm bedroom at ass-o’clock in the night and feels significantly less amounts of pity.

“No, dude, I’m not being your sack of potatoes for a paper clip. Man, you guys are stupid.” Danny rolls his eyes and floats just a bit higher. The other followers shuffle around again, uncomfortable. In front of him, the leader remains impassive as ever. “Where even am I?”

“The lair which you will spend the rest of your afterlife,” the leader says.

“Okay, this is definitely a warehouse, firstly. And secondly, dude, I meant what state.”

“…Wisconsin,” the man allows because of course everything terrible happens in Wisconsin.

“You chose the worst state to have your crappy lair,” Danny tells them. Now he has to fly a couple hundred miles home and hope he gets there by morning, all the while avoiding his creepy, obsessed arch-nemesis. He wonders if Vlad is even aware there’s a ghost-obsessed cult in his home state. Probably not. “Nothing good ever comes from Wisconsin. You can take that as, like, ghostly wisdom or something.”

“Hey,” one of the cultists says, offended. “The Packers are in Wisconsin.”

“Nothing good,” Danny repeats, firmly.

“Enough of this nonsense,” the leader says. “It’s trying to distract you because it fears control. Briar, bring me the orb.”

“Yes, sir,” one of them says.

The followers mutter to themselves and teeter around in their positions. The woman who spoke, on the end, bows and scurries off. Danny watches as she runs through the darkness of the warehouse, footsteps echoing around them, until he can no longer see her among the darkness.  

“Hey, if they already listen to you then why do you need me?” Danny asks. The leader doesn’t answer, so Danny floats a bit on his side and puts his arms behind his head. “What kind of orb are we talking about, anyways? Like one of those Spirit Halloween ones? Or is it more like orbeeze? I can’t saw I’m super excited from your ominous it fears control statement, but—"

“Silence, beast,” the leader says.

Danny huffs. “I’m just asking. No need to be so snippy.”  

The man ignores him which, rude. Danny’s just about to see how far he can test this guy’s patience when Briar comes back, just as quickly as she had disappeared. She jogs through the warehouse and up the steps of the platform. Danny can’t see her face, but from the way her hood moves to glace at him every so often, he figures that she’s probably nervous. Specifically about him lounging around in a circle full of salt.

“Father Johnathan,” Briar says and bows. In her hands is a glowing, silver orb. It really did look like a generic orb one would find in a Spirit Halloween. “The orb.”

“Your name is Father Johnathan?” Danny asks. He eyes the orb for a second, but doesn’t feel the tingle of ghostly energy from it, so he ignores it. He turns right back to the leader, not able to keep the grin off his face. “Your name is really Father Johnathan?”

Father Johnathan gently takes the orb in his hands as Briar scurries off towards the rest of the followers. Then, he sighs and says, “Yes, creature, my name is Father Johnathan and I shall be your new master.”

“Oh my god,” Danny says, positively gleeful. “I meet real life Papa John and he summons me with salt and threatens me with a Spirit Halloween orb.”

“Laugh all you want,” Papa John says. The nervous air shifts into something a bit more predatory. “You will not be laughing much longer.”

The cultists break into applause and talk amongst themselves loudly. They shift forward, eagerly, as if they want to watch the spectacle up close. They’re only a foot or so away from the platform when Papa John waves at them to halt.

Papa John holds up the orb. It swirls, the silver fog inside consolidating and then dissipating. Something inside it starts to glow the barest amount.

Danny pauses, just for a second, and watches it. There's still no tingle of ghostly energy coming from it. If he hadn’t already thought these guys are a joke, he definitely would’ve been a tad more nervous. As it stands, he thinks nothing of it—no ghostly energy means no control over ghosts.

(Unfortunately, he knows the feeling of ghost-controlling objects quite well. It’s not an experience he’s eager to repeat.)

The orb glows brighter, and brighter, swirling more furiously. The chatter of the cultists picks up to the point where they’re almost shouting, jeering at him. Papa John draws closer and closer, orb outstretched. He holds it through the salt line and touches it to Danny’s chest. The shouting from his followers almost becomes unbearable.

And then….nothing. The orb stops glowing. The fog inside stops swirling. It simply dies in Papa John’s hand.

“Was that supposed to do something?” Danny asks.

Papa John touches him with the orb again, a tad more forceful, so Danny assumes it was supposed to do something. From the panicked whispers around him, it definitely was supposed to do something to him. Danny’s honestly not sure if the outcome is due to him being a halfa or these guys being a joke.

(He’s willing to bet it’s the latter.)

“I think your LED batteries died,” Danny tells him. “Or maybe you mixed up your Spirit Halloween orbs. Better luck next time.”

Papa John stops furiously pressing the orb to his chest and if Danny could see his face, he has no doubts that Papa John’s expression would be livid.

“You will obey us,” Papa John says.

“No,” Danny says. “I won’t.”

“You will—”

Danny swings his feet down so hard that he cracks the very ground he now stands on. Dust kicks up around him as he stands tall, even though Danny’s at least two feet shorter than the leader in front of him. His eyes burn a brilliant green and he crosses his hands over his chest in an effort to look intimidating. The cult thing is interesting and all, but it's late, he still has homework to do, and Jazz has definitely noticed him missing by now so it's probably better to end this before they can get another object from a Spirit Halloween and try that instead.

It works, if the half-step back from Papa John is anything to go by.

“Listen,” Danny says, flatly. “Get a hobby and leave me alone or else you won’t like what I’m going to do.”

He makes his form flicker and the temperature drop in the room, just for dramatic effect.

Some of the followers in the background shift uneasily. A couple take panicked steps back. More than a few look ready to bolt for the door and leave this cult business behind forever.

Danny takes notice and stares at them, smiling wide enough that they could see his slightly-toothy grin. He makes sure his eyes flare, just a touch, and says loudly, “Boo.”

To say the cultists are startled would be an understatement. More than a few stumble back, a couple falling onto their asses. One trips on their robe and is sent tumbling. Another one yells and cowers. Papa John has no time to reign in the situation before two scatter completely.

“Peace!” Papa John shouts over the chaos of a dozen panicking followers. Those that remain do settle down enough to hear his words. “Stand down, there is nothing to fear. It is only trying to scare you into letting it free. It is trapped whilst it remains in the circle.”

Danny snorts. “I can leave any time I want.”

“You cannot leave here, demon—”

Danny raises one single eyebrow and dutifully steps out of the summoning circle.

The warehouse erupts into chaos.

The cultists are yelling now, but this time there’s only because of fear. They scatter over each other, running and tripping over their obnoxiously long cloaks. A couple trample the goat bones to the point where several loud snaps are heard over the pandemonium. It only adds more fuel to the fire as less than a dozen people scramble to get as far away from the platform—and subsequently the ghost-kid—as possible.

“Do better than a paperclip, next time!” Danny calls out to them. They only seem to run faster at the sound of his voice.

Papa John is the only one who doesn’t run. He had stumbled off the platform and away from Danny the second that Danny made it over the salt line. However, in the disarray, he had been knocked to the ground, his orb lay broken at his feet, and his robe’s hood had been yanked off and left on the ground beside him. He sits, frozen, but Danny doesn’t know if it’s from shock or from fear.

Danny takes a step closer to him.

“How…?” Papa John whispers. He’s not looking at Danny—only his old, wrinkled hands. He’s bald, with brown eyes. He looks like nothing more than any generic old man that Danny would see at a grocery store on Sunday afternoon. “We followed the book. We…we took every precaution the book said. We were supposed to have the perfect slave, bound to our every word. We…”

“That didn’t work out too well for you, huh?” Danny says and crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s ‘cause you forgot the dunce cap when you decided to be the class clown.”

“Please,” Papa John says. “Spare me.”

There’s something wrong about this—seeing a human beg for his life at Danny’s feet. Danny doesn’t want to be feared. He never has wanted to be feared.

He presses his lips together and takes a single step back. Some part of him, though, knows that he desperately needs to make his point clear to avoid another situation like this (likely with more weapons, next time).

“I warned you,” Danny says softly. His voice echoes around the warehouse. The man below him shivers in terror. “Do not summon me again, or I won’t be so nice next time.” He pauses, just for a second and can't help but tag on, "Papa John."

He lets his threat linger and hopes the man takes it seriously enough that he won’t get summoned again. Then, the cool strings of invisibility wrap around his body and he disappears from sight. Danny takes one look at the man left on the floor before he shakes his head and shoots up into the Wisconsin night sky. He doesn't hear the shouted response of it's Father Johnathan from several hundred feet below him on the warehouse floor.

Danny waits about all of thirty seconds before he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone.

"Jazz? Hey, yeah, I'm fine. Yes, seriously, I'm fine but you are not going to believe what I just went through—"

[nctwd127]

What Could Have Been?

Part Four. (Smut)

Several weeks later.

After what happened with Ten, you decided you didn’t want to mourn the loss of someone close to your heart anymore. You just wanted to move on and put all of that behind you.

So you decided it was the perfect time to indulge in your feelings for Johnny.

Ever since the breakup, you spent a lot of time talking to each other. Whether it was over text or phone calls, it was a constant thing. From morning to night.

At work, you worked with him the most because you did everything you could to do so. And even though he would never admit it, he did too.

The people around you were starting to notice the little things that kind of hinted that there was something more going on between the two of you.

They noticed the loud giggles, the handsy moments, the longing stares from across the room. The twinkle in your eyes and the playful smirks. Some have even accidently passed by when you were having flirty interactions.

But everyone had doubts because they all knew Johnny and what he was like. It would have been out of his character to get involved with someone at work, especially so publicly.

While everyone was in doubt, Johnny and you were having a great time together.

The first time you had him over again, he was really just there as a friend. Nothing more happened besides a light make out session for a couple of minutes.

You spent most of the time talking and getting to know each other more. He really opened up to you about his past and the history he had with girls.

Johnny felt like he could really trust you, he had no reason to think otherwise. And because of that, he really opened up to you. He told you his struggles in life, the ones he had before he even got where he was now.

He also told you the struggles he was going through at the moment and how hard everything has been on him. The pressure of being present for the fans and everyone around him was really draining him.

He almost felt like he had no escape right now. But you, you made everything just a bit better. You listened with no judgement, with no expectations of Johnny from Nct.

Because to you, he wasn’t Johnny from a famous boy band. He was just Johnny, a sweet kind hearted guy from Chicago who you wanted to get to know more of.

Slowly but surely you were getting there.

The third time Johnny came around, things were different. The energy and the vibes weren’t the same. There was something tense in the air, you could feel it radiating off your bodies.

You drank and watched a movie like always, at least you started too. But the feelings were too strong to ignore.

Before you knew it, you were straddling Johnny shirtless on the couch yet again, much like the first time. Hands were touching everything and anything they could reach, squeezing what they could. His shirt came off not too long after yours.

His face was buried in your chest, sucking on your boobs as hard as he could. His tongue played with your nipples as he pushed you more into his mouth.

Your nails were digging into his shoulder blades scared you were going to break skin but the pleasure was too much. You grinded yourself down on him harder feeling everything he had to offer.

“Johnny.” You moaned, throwing your head back, letting the passion consume you.

With his mouth still on your breast, sucking away and licking with need, his hands slide down your back into your underwear, groping your thick skin.

He pushed you down harder on his crotch, wanting to feel more of you, so much more. You moved with his body, with what he wanted.

“Let’s take this to my room.” You whispered in his ear.

Johnny pulled away from you and looked you in the eyes, “If we pass that door (Y/N), I am going to devour you whole. So make sure that is what you want.”

“Ravish me Johnny, I beg you.”

And just like that, you went from being on the couch in the living room to being thrown on your bed with Johnny climbing in between your legs without missing a beat.

Once that door was crossed, all hell broke loose and you saw a side of that man that will have your mouth water every time you think about him from now on.

Tongues were deep in each other mouth’s trying to savor every taste possible, teeth were knocking into each other at the force your lips were meeting. Hands were mixed together trying to unbutton pants.

You were fumbling around with his belt when he pinned your hands with his own above your head and pulled away from your mouth.

“We’re very eager for more, aren’t we?” He teased softly biting your earlobe.

You tried hard to keep your breath elevated to not give away just how much you wanted this to happen, how much you wanted him but it was very much not working.

Johnny heard your light panting and chuckled seductively in your ear, “Don’t worry baby girl, I’ll give you what you want.”

He sat up letting go of your hands, checking out your semi-naked body with his lip caught between his teeth, his eyes eating you whole.

The wild things that were running through his mind made him excited beyond his control, he could feel his fingertips itch with the need to feel you, to touch you. He wanted all of you.

Johnny looked you in the eyes and placed his hand on your cheek, “But not yet, there’s so much I want to do to you first.” He traced his finger from your lips down to your chest, to your stomach, to the waistband of your shorts.

He ripped off your shorts and laid down in between your legs just enough for him to be face to face with your aching core. You could feel his soft breath on your skin, goosebumps breaking out all over your body.

You were fully exposed to him for him to do anything and everything he desired with your naked being. The air was heavy and your mind was clouded with lust.

In the one breath, your legs were thrown over his shoulders and his face was buried in the depths of you pussy, savoring all the juices that were dripping off your hot skin.

His tongue licked up your folds, his nose rubbing against your nub for a split second, “Mmm, exactly what I thought you’d taste like.”

You shadowed his hands as his fingers dug into the soft flesh of your hips. Heavy breathing and soft moans were leaving your mouth needing more.

“More Johnny, please” You begged pushing his head deeper into your core.

One of his hands left your hips and moved down to penetrate your walls. One finger went in first to feel you out but you still felt empty.

You hurriedly begged him for more, it wasn’t enough.

He slipped another finger inside, pumping them slowly just to tease you. He wanted to keep hearing you beg for him, it was doing wonders for his dominate side.

“Stop teasing Johnny.”

Your tone sounded very order like despite your heavy breathing. Something in Johnny flipped like a switch, no one gave him orders, especially not in the bedroom.

“What did you say?” Johnny seized all actions and hovered over you causing a small whine to escape your lips.

When you started, the look in his eyes were filled with hunger but now, there was a fire burning behind them. A part of you felt like you were supposed to feel scared maybe, if not a little worried.

But that wasn’t case. You weren’t exactly sure what risk you were running here but you wanted to find out. If he wanted to tear you from limb to limb right now, you would let him.

“I told you to stop teasing.”

For a second you swore his eyes turned pitch black before they went back to their normal color. Excitement began to radiate off your bodies when one of his hands wrapped around your neck tightly.

“You do not tell me what to do (Y/N). I tell you what to do and you listen.”

Fuck, your body was experiencing a heat you have never felt before, with anybody. You wanted him badly, all of him and everything he had to offer.

Without warning, Johnny shoved three fingers into your aching pussy. His speed now was nothing compared to what he was doing earlier.

Your hands wrapped around his wrist with massive strength, trying to stop your body from shaking off the bed. There was sounds that wanted to escape your throat but they couldn’t. Your vision was turning white

Words were being spoken to you but they were barely audible, your brain was mush and could not make sense of anything going on around you.

Johnny tightened his grip around your neck harder and forced you to focus on him, “Is this what you wanted? You wanted me to finger fuck you this hard?”

“Look at me.” he ordered, burying his fingers deeper in you and curling them right at your sweet spot, his thumb rubbing circles on your nub.

He wanted you to ride his fingers while you came, he wanted you to feel everything inch of his fingers.

“I’m gon-” You moaned, throwing your head back into the pillows with pure pleasure, your nails digging into his skin. Your legs were trying hard to close around his hand before he pushed them open with his elbow.

Your body couldn’t hold it any longer, you shook uncontrollably and let go. You gushed of sweet relief, there was an ache in your throat and you were sure you were screaming his name but just couldn’t hear yourself.

After what felt forever, the wave of pleasure finally faded and your body went completely limp. Your nails no longer dug into Johnny’s skin, your eyelids couldn’t stay open, and your breathing was decreasing.

Johnny got off the bed to get a cloth to wipe his hands and to clean you up a bit. While doing so, he was gentle and you laid with your eyes still closed.

Once he was done, he threw the cloth to the side and then kissed your cheek, “You haven’t said anything since you squirted everywhere, you okay?”

You laughed and nodded yes, not having any real energy to use your voice. You finally opened your eyes to look at Johnny in the eyes.

He had a smirk plastered on his face, feeling overly satisfied that he had you this drained from only fingering you. He couldn’t wait to see how you’d be after he was fully done with you.

“You think you can handle more or you want to tap out here?” Johnny asked, tracing his finger down your neck.

With your voice raspy and a smirk on your lips, you answered, “Fuck me Johnny. Fuck me hard.”

What Could Have Been?

~~

Hey guys! Sorry for the long wait on this chapter, I've just been dealing a lot this last month. But hopefully I'll have this whole month to get back to where I was before.

Really hope you enjoy this chapter!

[strandedcrow]

thoughts on the glass animals album dreamland? (info dump welcome)

YES hi hello thank you

I talked like,, a lot so I’m sparing y'all with a cut

The album itself is just so well organized and executed it’s insane. The entire album just captures the feeling of taking a nostalgic trip through your own life and the way that it ends up forgotten in a way, sickly sweet and vague, subdued, and so easy to get completely lost in. And part of what makes it so well done is the pure authenticity it’s completely drenched in. The album itself didn’t exist until quarantine hit, they had been taking a break after a band member was injured and had to recover, and that isolation had that same impact on them as it did on most of us, and the result was this extremely genuine album embodying nostalgia itself.

As a band they’ve always done such an incredible job of maintaining a theme throughout their album that is consistent without becoming repetitive. The song Dreamland does such a perfect job of pulling you into the album, easing you into a subdued album, fuzzy around the edges but clear once you can hone in on the details, on what’s being said, perfectly reflective of the theme it’s introducing you to. While it’s doing that it’s also providing a smooth shift from the last song on the album before it, HTBAHB. Agnes leaves that album off on such an extremely a somber, desperate, and lost note, which Dreamland picks up, just as lost in itself, taking off so beautifully from Agnes’ “You’re gone but you’re on my mind, I’m lost but I don’t know why,” and getting into the why. But it does so by warning you first, “You see in kodachrome, you see in pink and gold.” This album is distorted, it’s not right, the colors are wrong and everything is sweeter than it should be. At the same time, it sets up for the songs to follow, like “That worst thing you said” for It’s All So Incredibly Loud and “You were ten years old, holding hands in the classroom, he had a gun on the first day of high school” for Space Ghost Coast to Coast.It’s those vague, unconnected memories that you haven't quite grasped onto yet in full, but you know you’re going to get lost in them once you do. You’re stepping back from the overload of information and action today to visit who you used to be and what made you who you are now.

Right after it, Tangerine does something that Life Itself did for HTBAHB, it smoothened the general sound’s transition between albums. Just as Life Itself, with its beat similar to the album before its own could have fit into ZABA with no issue, Tangerine could have been on HTBAHB without disrupting the album. The “retro” vibe, the themes revolving around both the nostalgia of Dreamland and those of past relationships deteriorating because of missed opportunities and growing apart fits so well into both albums, it’s such a great transition from the past album to the current. The “I’m begging, hands knees please, tangerine” is also a common expression used (often as a double entendre) by them, again like in Life Itself, with its chorus being “Come back down to my knees, gotta get back, gotta get free, come back down to my knees, lean back now, lean back and breathe,” which just sets up for a really smooth callback to previous songs and album. Something else that Tangerine establishes is something that’s been a running theme with Glass Animals since ZABA: fruit. There is a lot of fruit here. It used to be a running joke that Glass Animals wasn’t actually a band, but a cryptic pineapple worshipping cult (no amount of music made will fool me, this is definitely a pineapple cult). This album uses fruit to remind you of the sugary sweetness of nostalgia, but there’s more history and, well, fan specific nostalgia that goes with that metaphor, too.

Hot Sugar is similar to a later song, Waterfalls Coming Out Your mouth, in that it’s about someone who is so cool that they aren’t actually cool. The person isn’t genuine, the idea of them isn’t actually them, but this was someone that you still want to be anyways, because who wouldn’t want to be that cool? The song doesn’t have much deeper meaning underlying it compared to some other’s because that depth doesn’t exist here, with this person. You know they’re “faking it,” but it doesn’t really matter beyond deciding if you actually like them or if you just want to be them, and the answer is the latter. This song is also similar to another, later song, Tokyo Drifting, introducing the listener to this person that he wants to be like, referencing “Hot rubber on the tar,” and setting the stage for the later song to tell you more about what he wanted to be like. Also, once again, through a mention of watermelon, fruit continues to be a recurring theme in the earlier tracks on this album, when the trip through nostalgic memories is still more sweet than bitter.

Right after we get introduced to this idea of who he wanted to be, we move onto what became of someone he knew closely, shared a lot with, and very suddenly lost touch with through Space Ghost Coast to Coast. The music itself is reminiscent of the music he listened to at the time. This song, being a telling of something that actually happened, is so authentic and raw in how it ends up, all still told through the layer of confusion, hurt, and again, that sweetness of nostalgia, with “You look bizarre in the apricot” establishing a deceptively sweet but confused tone over something heavy through yet another fruit metaphor. This song also manages to hit on other songs from the album when he tries to delve into why his friend did what he did, “Were you bored of gender norms,” matching with Dreamland’s “Go ask your questions like “What makes a man?”,” “… of being alone,” matching Heat Waves’ “I don’t wanna be alone, you know it hurts me too,” and “… no mama home, a bad divorce” matching pretty much the entirety of Domestic Bliss. Like Hot Sugar, this song sets up for Tokyo Drifting, with his idea of who he wants to be but isn’t, with “Remember when you stole mom’s old Geo Metro, you wore her old bathrobe, too small to see the road.” There’s also more blatant references being made to both past shooters (Black cap back with a trench coat, ay) and the arguments afterwards of what motivated them (Playing too much of that GTA, playing too much of that Dr. Dre). While he still wants to understand his old friend, and what happened for him to change so abruptly and dangerously, he does not want anything to do with him anymore. It’s a song about a loss of innocence and the understanding that sometimes you just won’t understand why someone does something. It’s just a complete banger in general.

Which then takes us to Tokyo Drifting, which absolutely slaps. The song itself revolves around what he wanted to be like, singing from a new persona rather than his own (Cane Suga from HTBAHB was done through the same persona). It breaks the pattern of referencing to fruit, instead focusing on drugs and alcohol, dropping the sickly sweet lens of nostalgia for something more fitting of the song’s specific theme. Don’t worry, though, dragonfruit was used extremely heavily in this songs promotion as a single, so the fruit is still there, just not directly, and that lack of directly referring to a fruit in the song itself fits with the way that the song breaks from nostalgia of things that have happened and people he knew into something that was never real. There is no rose colored glasses needed for something that never even happened. I don’t have much else to say on it, it just goes hard, this was my most listened to song two years in a row lmao.

Melon and the Coconut is just sheer Glass Animals. It’s weird, it’s fun, and it sounds great. It cleanly splits the album in half, splitting the POV’s straight down the middle while making a reference to its own position in the album, “Sometimes B-sides are the best songs.” Needless to say, there are some super subtle references to fruit in Melon and the Coconut, the song about two fruit.

Then, the second half of the album kicks off with Your Love (Deja Vu), a song extremely similar in theme to previous songs about missed timing, like ZABA’s Pools and HTBAHB’s Pork Soda. Instead of fruit, “juice” is mentioned in this song. It takes the turn from thinking about people you were friends with, what you wanted to be like, to people that you were with, and things that just didn’t work out.

And then there’s Waterfalls Coming Out Your Mouth. It’s such a clean parallel to looking back on things with nostalgia and seeing them through the fake sweetness that time brings, with this song being about the rose colored glasses that were present in the moment, the time when you start getting to know someone but you aren’t actually getting to know them, you’re getting to know this other, more impressive version of them instead, and they get the exact same experience of you on their own end. He’s letting this other person have their own version of him while he has his own version of them in his head, and he knows their version of him is wrong, so he also knows whatever he thinks of them is going to be wrong, too. He knows them, but at the same time he doesn’t. He’s realizing here, that this person, like the Hot Sugar person, is too cool, and they aren’t real, it’s all just talk, and it’s all fake like the “chemical warfare, red lips and television eyewear, raspberry soda hair, in the pool with a blow up gummy bear.” It’s sweet, sure, but it’s also fake. “Chat shit but where’s the real you? Never seen The Price Is Right, I’m a liar been on that shit since ’99. You make me look like a clown, clap clap, you’re a clever clever cookie now” has no right go that hard, and yet it Does.

Then, abruptly, we get to It’s All So Incredibly Loud. The song itself is subdued, it’s that point in your trip through your own memories where you remember why things went wrong. You get shaken from your train of thought and lose your place in it, because you aren’t there anymore, you’re here and you can’t go back, you can’t fix anything, all that’s left for you to do now is mourn the wrongs and accept them, even though its painful. This is remembering what Dreamland meant by “That worst thing you said,” the realization that you have to break someone else’s heart, and how much that hurts.

((home movie: rockets)) is the longest home movie audio in the album, and creates a smooth transition back into childhood, journeying back through a sound similar to that of their first album, ZABA, on the way there for the album to transition into Domestic Bliss. This time, with someone else entirely’s perspective falling back onto knees, but this time under an entirely different tone, “Fight for me. We can leave I’m begging, please, on my on my knees.” These two songs back to back continue the downward spiral that too much nostalgia can leave you falling into, the wrongs, the regrets, this trip down memory lane has lasted too long, now.

Which drops us off at Heat Waves, which returns back to his own perspective after Domestic Bliss focused on a friend of his. It fits the bittersweet feeling in nostalgia, the understanding and acceptance that you can’t go back, you just have to keep going forward and separate instead for everyone’s sake, a followup less to the tangent in thought that is Domestic Bliss, and more to It’s All So Incredibly Loud. It also wraps up those previous album’s songs, Pools and Pork Soda in a way, bringing a sense of closure to the nostalgic feelings, as well as to the entire album.

And finally Helium, the bookend opposite to Dreamland. This song flawlessly embodies that feeling of when you realize you’ve just been sitting and staring at a photo album for an hour now, and you finally take a look around you, feeling the air conditioning on your skin, hearing the sounds of the world around you, snapping back out of your train of thought and into real life again. Things didn’t work the way that you used to think they would, but that’s a good thing. It is such a perfect ending to the nostalgic journey that is this entire album. Fading back into the melody that started this journey of sickly sweet memories of people you looked up to, when you learned for the first time that people can change and you might not ever understand why, ideas of who you once wanted to be, finding something light that you can laugh about, realizing how similar so many things in your life have been to each other, the realization that the people you used to look up to might not have actually been that impressive the whole time, your regrets, times you wish you could have done more, and the understanding that sometimes you shouldn’t have done so much.

I love this album so much man

[kingofthewilderwest]

Continuing with Amphibia liveblog.

I watched “Escape to Amphibia.” It may not be fully fair to compare it to “Not What He Seems” in Gravity Falls - especially since I haven’t finished Amphibia, and especially since different shows will have different narrative desires. I’m going to compare them anyway. I hope people forgive me for comparing apples to crab apples.

“Escape to Amphibia” appears to be the major action turning point, the drama, the reveal, the showdown where lots of which has been built up breaks loose. We’ve been waiting long for the return to Amphibia. Here it is. That’s similar to “Not What He Seems,” where everything breaks loose, and we get the season-and-a-half built up reveal of what Stan is hiding and who the Author is. Functionally, it seems these two episodes intend to operate the same way.

However, “Not What He Seems” comes off better from a satisfaction standpoint. This is because it’s the buildup of mysteries that we’ve always had. Literally from Episode 1. We’ve wanted to know who the Author is. We’ve wanted to know what Stan is up to. GF has always promised that this would be in the scope of the show. Fans are at their wit’s end to get the explosion and reveal.

But that isn’t the case with Amphibia. We didn’t get introduced to Mr. X, a major antagonist of S3, until S3. We didn’t expect an urban-centered showdown with a group of friends we’d never met ‘til S3. So it can’t compare to the excitement, investment, relief, and thrill of “Not What He Seems.” It doesn’t feel as natural or as much of a payoff.

Now, both shows introduce FBI agents late in the game. GF works because they aren’t main antagonists. They don’t overdo their presence. Their simplicity is their strength. They’re more “background” and means to an ends (rather than the flamboyant personality and direct, ongoing antagonist Mr. X is).

In GF, the FBI reinforce what the heart the show has always been - character relationship investments (Stan, Dipper, and Mabel’s love and trust). They add tension to the mysteries central to the show. But Mr. X is both too colorful a personality, distracting us from the emotional tensions Amphibia introduced us to (Anne, Sprig, Hop Pop, and Polly’s love for each other, which wasn’t touched in “Escape to Amphibia”), and Mr. X is too “basic” - a straightforward villain type. So the FBI becomes more intrusive to the narrative of Amphibia, rather than reinforcing the emotional centers.

To be clear, Mr. X would be a cool character in other shows. I could see him in many cartoons where people would fall in love with him. I would, too! But he doesn’t match the tone of a show that was initially about the rural, daily lives of talking frogs.

And to be clear, the group coming together to bust the frogs out of the FBI compound was fun. It was cool to see everyone we’d befriended in S3 become relevant. It also highlights the diversity Amphibia S3 has intentionally included (ex: racial diversity, and intentionally placing women in scientific positions). The diversity feels natural and nicely done. For instance, Amphibia has always been a story where women are central and important, and they set it up that way with Anne and her two girl friends. I loved that. The trio of characters isn’t the overdone “two boys and a girl” cliche that drives me batty. It’s about three girls, which feels very real to me. I am always stoked when children’s media have girls’s relationships highlighted and central.

Now. Despite this being a complete tonal shift, I admit I loved the Star Wars vibe when Anne fought the FBI agents with the pseudo-lightsaber. It just looked cool. Black suit. Red saber. Heck yeah. Also, it feels more relevant, not just because Anne and her parents sparred earlier in the episode (so dorky! so pure!), but because we’ve seen Anne fighting with swords before. It’s an established skill she has. It’s a skill she’s grown in Amphibia, though if the show had shown the learning curve more, this moment might have been even MORE satisfying. But it was fun! It hit at guilty pleasures, so I couldn’t complain.

The moment where Anne opened the portal with her blue powers was epic and cool (the blue powers I’ve always liked, btw - well-established magic in this world, plus tying back to the music box we’ve always known about and wanted to learn about). And when the frogs stared out at a changed Amphibia, it was heartbreaking. It shows there’s no going back to the idyllic norm of S1. That makes me sad because S1 is what got me invested in the show, but it’s extremely well-done, and I give kudos to the writers for shoving wrenching emotions in.

If I read this episode right - and I’ve only been writing qualifiers to be careful - it’s a good analogue to “Not What He Seems,” and maybe I can write a more confident, robust analysis later.

P. S. Sprig with his red hair tuft and beanie - his human clothes - were always real cute.

P. P. S. I ship Hop Pop x Avocados.

[thetravelerwrites]

Eikichi and Sterling (Lemon)

Rating: Explicit Relationship: Female Human/Male Oni/Male Tiefling Additional Tags: Exophilia, Polyamory Negotiations, Polyamorous Character, Oni, Tiefling Content Warnings: Sex, Double Penetration, Oral Sex, Power Bottom, Light Bondage, Light BDSM Words: 4990

 A commission for @faeryamber​! A woman and her oni boyfriend search online for a third to add to their relationship. They end up meeting a perfect gentleman who completes them.Please reblog and leave feedback!

The Traveler's Masterlist

“What would we even say on our profile?” You asked your boyfriend, Eikichi. The two of you had been dating for almost five years and had an open relationship, but recently the two of you had been talking about adding a third.

Eikichi was an oni who had immigrated from Japan several years ago. He had been the kami, or god, of an old town that no longer existed and presided over construction for his parishioners for several hundred years. Laborers and carpenters from that town used to come to his temple to pray to him for success in their ventures. When the town died out, he was left homeless and joined the human society when other yokai from his region decided to do so. He was no longer a god, but being the CEO of his own construction company was just as good, he said, and he was just as happy now as he had been when he lived in the temple.

Despite a significant age difference, the two of you had fallen in love over tea and books, and the fact that he was gorgeous. Six foot five, two hundred and fifteen pounds of pure muscle, ivory colored horns rising up out of his white hair, red skin like ripe cherries, and yellow eyes. He was stunning. It still amazed you that he chose you to fall in love with. How would you get that lucky twice?

“Just be honest,” He said, his Japanese accent fairly heavy. “That we’re poly and looking for a male to complete our family. Make it clear we’re not looking for a unicorn.”

“A real unicorn or a figurative unicorn?” You asked jokingly.

“A figurative one,” He said with a smirk. “A real one might actually be cute.”

“Real unicorns welcome,” You typed. “Hehehe.”

“Are you being purposefully vague again?” He asked, putting tea next to you on the desk.

“It’s my favorite thing,” You replied.

“I thought I was your favorite thing,” He shot back, kissing the top of your head.

“Close second,” You said, laughing. “Don’t you have work soon?”

“I’m the owner, I can go in whenever I feel like it,” He retorted. “Are you working today?”

Eikichi owned a construction business, and you sold handmade clothing online by commission only.

“Not today,” You said. “I’ve been putting the housework off and I really should get to that mountain of laundry.”

“We could just throw it all away and buy new clothes,” He suggested.

“Don’t tempt me,” You replied, shooing him. “Go on. What are you thinking for dinner?”

“Spaghetti?”

“Again?”

“What? I like the way you make it.” He gave you a kiss on the forehead, cheek, and lips before picking up his jacket. “I’ll be home a bit early. It’s expected to rain.”

“Okay. Be safe.” You hugged him and saw him out of the door.

You sighed and looked around the house, demoralized by the sight of the housework you’d been neglecting. Both you and Eikichi were a little slovenly, you had to admit, but it was an acceptable amount of clutter. Usually.

Before you could bend down to pick up a pair of pants Eikichi had shucked off the day before as soon as he got in the door, you heard a ping on your phone. Looking down, you’d been matched with someone.

“Already?” You asked. You unlocked it and pressed the notification from OkCryptid. You saw who had matched with you and your jaw dropped.

“No way.”

It was, indeed, a unicorn, although he listed his race as tiefling. Where Eikichi was devastatingly handsome, this man was breathtakingly beautiful in a completely different way. He was thin, slightly taller than you but much shorter than Eikichi, and as pale as milkglass. His hair was long, white, and shimmery like spidersilk. A single horn spiraled out of the crown of his forehead. Pointed ears stuck out from under his hair, and his eyes were indigo in color. In his picture, he was dressed in an elegant, pale lavender suit that complemented his skin perfectly.

“Whoa,” You said under your breath. You took a screenshot and sent it to Eikichi. >You’re not going to believe this.

>You’re kidding! He replied quickly. >I was just joking!

>Me too! Should I message him?

>Hell yeah, he’d be perfect, look at him!

>He’s prettier than I am!

>Not possible. But he is gorgeous. Message him and see if he wants to meet up.

>I will.

You switched back to the app and started typing out a short message.

Hi. My boyfriend and I are in an open relationship, and you matched with us. Would you be okay meeting up sometime? We’d both love to get to know you.

You bit your lip as you hit send. You hoped he wasn’t the type who thought he was better than you or Eikichi because he was pretty or wore suits and such. You put your phone back in your pocket and returned to your housework, putting the lovely tiefling out of your mind.

A few hours later, while you were folding some very large boxer briefs, you got another ping. There was a message from the tiefling. With your heart in your throat, you opened it.

Hello! I’m Sterling. I’m very much open to the idea of an open relationship. I’m free this weekend on Saturday, if that works for you and your partner. Please let me know as soon as you can.

Your heart jumped and you felt giddy. You immediately texted Eikichi.

>He wants to meet us Saturday! You don’t have plans then, do you?

>I do now. Tell him we’ll be happy to meet him. You want to do that Japanese cafe?

>You just like that place because that kitsune owner and his girlfriend are pretty and you like looking at them.

>So?

>Maybe we shouldn’t ogle other people while were wooing someone.

>Perhaps you’re right. Sigh. Okay, then the Italian place you like.

>Ooh, I’m always happy with that.

>I know you are. LOL

You smiled. He did know you pretty well. You switched back to the app and messaged Sterling again.

That Saturday, you and Eikichi waited at your favorite restaurant, sipping some wine, when Sterling arrived. He was dressed in a suit again, though a dark burgundy one this time. His bright, gossamer hair was pulled back into a tight plait. Gods, he was pretty.

“Hello,” He said, his voice lilting. “I assume the two of you are my dates tonight?”

“We are,” You said, standing up. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

He took your outstretched hand and folded it into both of his, smiling sweetly. “Very nice.”

“Eikichi,” Your boyfriend said, holding out his hand in turn.

“Well, aren’t you strapping?” Sterling said with a grin, shaking Eikichi’s hand firmly. “Let’s sit, shall we. Oh, thank you for ordering me a glass as well.”

“Of course,” Eikichi said.

“So, tell me about yourselves,” Sterling said, taking a sip of his wine and raising his eyebrows appreciatively. “What am I getting myself into?”

The two of you told him about your jobs and life together and he listened attentively. “What do you do, Sterling?” You asked. “I would hazard a guess that it’s something to do with fashion, given how you dress.”

“Very astute of you,” He replied, pleased. “I’m a tailor, in fact. I own a menswear shop downtown.”

“Really?” You said with interest. “I’ve only ever made dresses, never suits.”

“Well, we will have to compare techniques, then, won’t we,” He said with a charming smile.

“Fashion is something that’s well over my head,” Eikichi said. “But you work with your hands. That’s something we all have in common, even if my profession gets me a little dirty more often.”

“You look good dirty,” You said in a flirty tone. “And even better all soaped up.”

He snorted. “You’re supposed to be flirting with our date, not me.”

“No reason she can’t do both,” Sterling said reasonably, sipping his wine. “So, would I be dating one or both of you? I’ll mean, I am bisexual and you’re both very attractive, but I want to know where my boundaries are.”

Eikichi nodded. “Both. We’re both bisexual and have outside girlfriends. Those relationships are casual and we both prefer it that way.” He gestured at you. “We’ve both met each other’s girlfriends. The four of us sat down and discussed all of us dating each other, but we ultimately decided against it.”

You leaned forward. “Have you ever been in an open relationship?”

“No, not as such,” He said. “I’ve only dated casually before. I’m not opposed to the idea of commitment, it just… hasn’t happened for me yet.”

“It could,” You replied. “Maybe you just haven’t met the person for you. Or persons.”

“Are you insinuating you two are said persons?” He asked with a smirk.

You shrugged and grinned. “We could be. Why don’t we find out?”

He matched your smile.

“We make decisions together,” Eikichi said. “We’ve got a contract, you might say: she’s what you would call a power bottom. She likes taking the submissive role, but she also likes to tell me what to do, and even though I’m what could be considered a dom, I like taking orders. It’s a little unorthodox, but it works for us.”

“How would I fit in?” Sterling asked.

“That depends. What position do you play, so to speak?”

“Whatever is best at the time. I guess I’m a switch? Though, I have to admit I haven’t been very adventurous.”

“We’ll teach you, if you want to learn,” You said, leaning closer so that your fingertips touched his arm.

“It’s not just about sex, though,” Eikichi said. “We want someone to love us as much as we’ll love them. If you decide you’d like to be casual, that’s fine. We can keep you casually and just continue looking for our third. Honesty and openness is the most important thing in any relationship. If you decided to be in the relationship with us, that would apply to you, too.

“And your impression of me so far, if I might ask?”

“You seem genuine and intelligent, and you’re very good looking. I don’t get any bad vibes of you. So far.”

“So what would be your recommendation?”

“Well, the date just started,” Eikichi said. “Let’s get to dessert before we make further plans.”

“And what does the boss say?” Sterling asked, turning to you.

You side-smiled at him. “Dessert first. But let’s just say you passed the application process.”

The three of you spent another two hours talking over dinner and dessert. Sterling was funny and smart and surprisingly nerdy, once he opened up. He loved manga, anime and collecting Funko Pop Vinyl figures. He had quite the collection. He had spend several years in Japan learning about Japanese fashion after college and ended up having a lot of tastes in common with Eikichi, reminiscing about food and drink brands they couldn’t get in the states.

With you, he talked about fashion and sewing and wanting to branch out. And all three of you had similar tastes in music, books, and movies.

After dinner, the three of you went to a small, comfortable pub that you and Eikichi were familiar with and continued your conversation well into the night. At one point, Sterling even loosened his tie and unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt, which you thought was a great sign. He seemed comfortable and open. And you got to peak at his collarbone.

Eventually, the bar closed, and the three of you reluctantly decided to call it a night with plans to see each other again soon.

“I really liked him,” You said in the car on the way home.

“I could tell,” Eikichi said with a smile. “You were practically in his lap by the time the night was over.”

“You like him, too,” You said shrewdly in response.

“I do like him,” Eikichi admitted. “There was definitely a connection between all of us. I think he might be the one we’re looking for.”

“Me, too,” You said, bouncing in your seat slightly. “I can’t wait to see him again.”

Eikichi smiled at your enthusiasm, but you knew he was just as excited.

A few days later, the three of you met up for drinks and continued talking. You felt that flushed, rosy feeling when you first start dating someone and it’s going really well, and you thought Sterling was feeling it, too. He was soon holding hands with both you and Eikichi in turn, being flirty and physically affectionate.

You were trying to go slow and not jump into things head first, but there was a real, tangible attachment between the three of you that was hard to ignore. You could see it on both men’s faces when they looked at each other, and when they looked at you.

That night before you parted ways with Sterling, he kissed you full on the lips. It wasn’t just a peck, either; it was long and open-mouthed, with just a hint of tongue. You were surprised but delighted, and reciprocated happily. When he parted with you, he pulled Eikichi down and kissed him, too.

“Why don’t we meet at our house next time?” You asked him. “I think you’ll have a good time with us.”

He grinned. “I have no doubt I will. Sounds wonderful.”

You bit your lip and smiled. “Until then.”

The night of your home date, you were jittery. You wanted to look cute, hot, sexy, and intimidating, but couldn’t decide what to wear that reflected all of those things. You stood inside your closet wearing only your nicest pair of panties.

“You could just answer the door naked,” Eikichi suggested.

“All of your solutions involve nudity,” You snorted.

“That’s why they’re clearly the best solutions,” He replied.

“You are absolutely no help to me,” You said, switching between two different dresses in front of the mirror.

“That black sheer one with the lace, then,” He replied as he watched. “It’s a nice preview.”

“Oh, but I only wear that one for you. Won’t you be jealous?” You asked playfully.

“Nah,” He said, coming up behind you and putting his hands on your stomach. “If we’re going to share, then there’s no point in keeping things from each other. He should enjoy it just as much as I do. Besides, I’m going to wear that black shirt you like so much.”

“Oooh, the one with the subtle feather pattern on it?” You asked as he helped you into the dress. “I do like that one. Leave the top two buttons undone in that way that I can see your collarbone.”

“You and your obsession with collarbones,” He said, snickering.

“Hey, we all got our own things we like. Don’t kinkshame me in my own house,” You joked. “I don’t poke fun at you for your pregnancy fetish.”

“You’re the one who decided no kids,” He said grumpily, checking his watch. “He’ll be here soon. I’ll finish up dinner .+while you get dressed.” He kissed your neck. “You look delicious no matter what you wear.”

He could always make you blush, even after five years. He walked back out to the kitchen and finished up the okonomiyaki and tsukune balls. Eikichi wasn’t exactly a gourmet cook, but he knew how to make plenty of his favorite dishes from home. He thought Sterling might like some Japanese food to remind him of his time there.

Sterling arrived later wearing a black suit with a blood red tie and pocket square. His hair was pulled back in an elegant french braid with red ribbons threaded throughout. He stood at the door with roses, wine, and a bright smile.

“Well, I guess we were all of one mind this evening,” He said as he looked at the both of you both wearing black. He gave you the roses and the wine, which actually turned out to be plum sake.

“Umeshu!” Eikichi said. “I haven’t had this in ages! Come in, come in, sit! I’ll pour us all a cup.”

“How was your day, Sterling?” You asked him, offering to take his coat.

He shrugged it off and gave it to you with a gentle smile. “It was pleasant. I made a few good sales and I have an order for a bespoke three piece double breasted suit with a shawl lapel. Someone is going somewhere fancy, which is my favorite thing to work on. So much gossip during fittings.”

You put the roses in a vase as Eikichi poured the sake. Sterling sat at the table, which was beautifully set, and you placed the roses in the center. Eikichi handed both of you a traditional choko sake dish, one of the few relics he’d brought with him from his old temple.

“Ah, this takes me back,” Sterling said, sipping delicately.

“Me too,” Eikichi sighed happily.

“I’ve never been to Japan,” You said. “Eikichi keeps talking about us taking a vacation there, but he’s such a workaholic that it never ends up happening.”

“We will go! I promised, didn’t I?” Eikichi protested.

You grinned at him playfully. “I’ll believe it when it happens, mister.”

“I would love to take some time off and go back,” Sterling said wistfully. “Some of the best years of my life were spent on that island.”

“Maybe you may be more successful in talking Eikichi into putting in some vacation time,” You said, winking.

“I will endeavor to try,” Sterling said, putting a hand out and resting it on the back of Eikichi’s. Eikichi flipped his and grasped Sterling’s hand briefly, smirking at him, before standing up to finish dinner.

“Tsukune?” Sterling said in a pleasantly surprised tone.

“Yep,” Eikichi said. “And okonomiyaki. I thought you’d appreciate it.”

“The two of you are spoiling me,” Sterling said, a hand to his heart a little dramatically, which made you snicker.

Dinner went amazingly. Sterling praised Eikichi’s cooking and he adored your dress, even more so when you told him you’d made it yourself. He actually got down on the ground so he could look at the stitching on the hem.

You smiled to yourself, looking at the top of his head from your chair. Your eyes flicked to Eikichi, and his smile was mischievous. He knew exactly what you were thinking.

You slid off your shoe and began tracing your toe up from his knee, where he knelt on the ground, and up his leg to his waist, managing to pull his shirt out of his pants and tickling the skin of his stomach.

He looked up at you, smirking, but didn’t stop you or say anything. Eikichi silently slid out of his chair and disappeared into the bedroom for a moment, returning with a length of soft cotton rope before sitting back down at the table and watching with a fond smile. Sterling took your foot and kissed the top of it, working his way up your legs with his hands and lips.

You tilted your pelvis forward as his hands went up your skirt and pulled at your underwear.

“These are pretty,” He said as he slid them off.

“Only the best,” You replied with a grin.

“The safe word is ‘Enokida’,” Eikichi said idly from his seat where he was watching, lightly tapping the rope against his thigh. “Don’t stop until she says it, even if she screams and begs. Her rules, not mine.”

“I understand,” Sterling said, though he looked at you with an inquiring eyebrow. You nodded acquiescence and bit your lip.

He hiked your dress up to your waist, exposing you to the air. He kissed the inside of your thighs, working upward until he was breathing on your most sensitive place, stroking it lightly with one long finger. You hissed and sucked in a breath, your body stretching and flexing. His finger teased around your pearl without actually touching it, and he pulled up to kiss your mouth, biting and sucking your bottom lip. Ooh, he was good at this.

The first stroke of his tongue on your slit sent electricity though your body, and you moaned. He vocalized in return, sending vibrations through your skin. Eikichi set the rope on the table next to you and began caressing your shoulders and pulling lightly at your hair, tilting your head back to meet his kiss as Sterling continued his ministrations, looking up from his position on the floor to watch you and Eikichi make out and fondle each other.

Eikichi pulled your dress off and lifted your arms, starting to wrap your hands with the rope.

“Not tying her to the chair?” Sterling asked.

“Don’t stop!” You hissed, looking down. Sterling snickered and went back to work.

“She can get out if I tie her to the chair,” Eikichi said. “I don’t know how, but she can get out every time. What good is tying her up if she can just free herself anytime she wants? Again, her words, not mine.”

Sterling snorted, but continued. You were reaching your peak quickly, having been turned on all through dinner. Eikichi finished tying your hands and left a leash connected to it that he could control. He pulled your hands over your shoulder and held them against his chest while he used his other hand to massage your breasts.

Your thighs began to shake as you moaned loudly, unable to move. You crashed into that wall of pleasure at the speed of a freight train, but he kept going. You tried to push him away with your feet, but he held your legs back against your chest. Eikichi put your tied hands around his neck and grabbed your ankles, pulling them up. Sterling continued, pulling another orgasm from you almost immediately. You were a sweating, swearing mess at this point, but it was so good. You fought against the restraints and their firm grips, but the two of them held you in place rather effectively.

You were still shivering from the aftershocks of the last orgasm when another one sent you contracting off the chair. Eikichi, with his sheer brute strength, was the only thing that kept you from falling sideways.

“Enokida! Enokida!” You screeched, and Sterling finally pulled away and you were left boneless and gasping in the chair. Eikichi lifted you up bridal-style and carried you to the bedroom with Sterling following behind.

“Do you need a break?” Eikichi asked, petting your sweat soaked hair away from your face.

You nodded. “You two have fun while I catch my breath.”

Eikichi grinned at you and slid off the bed, catching Sterling by the waistband of his trousers and pulling him roughly toward him, kissing him passionately. Sterling responded favorably, kissing Eikichi back just as soundly and unbuttoning Eikichi’s shirt.

You spent your break slowing down your heart rate and watching the two of them undress each other and make out. It was pretty hot, you had to admit. Sterling pushed Eikichi on the bed and got on top of him, grinding against him as they kissed. Sterling found his way down Eikichi’s body, just like he had done with you, and started sucking Eikichi’s cock right next to you, where you could watch. Sterling kept switching eye contact with you and Eikichi in turn and moaning. Eikichi grunted and his legs flexed in pleasure.

Your hands were still bound, but you touched yourself as you watched them, and Sterling reached underneath him to fondle himself while he continued sucking. At some point, Eikichi tapped out and put Sterling on the bed, sucking him in turn.

“I’m ready again,” You said. “Eikichi, do the thing I like.”

“You got it,” He said, getting up on his knees. His massive dick swayed upright between his thighs. He took the leash part of the rope and pulled your legs back up, tying your knees up around your ribcage, giving you enough room to breathe but not enough to buck. He also put your arms around his neck, so that you couldn’t move them.

He picked you up and presented you, tied and splayed, to Sterling. “You go first.”

Sterling smiled and gripped your hips, lining his organ up with your entrance. Where Eikichi was all girth, Sterling’s was long and curved upward. He pushed himself into your dripping slit and you groaned. He didn’t waste time in being slow and gentle; he rammed straight into you and you screamed. He railed you fast and hard, every so often either kissing you or Eikichi over your shoulder.

As Sterling’s body slapped sharply against yours with every thrust, the pressure and pleasure continued to build until you burst, and your brain blanked, with you going limp in Eikichi’s grasp.

“Wait, hold up,” He said to Sterling, and Sterling stopped immediately, though he didn’t pull out. “You okay, babe?”

“Mmm,” You said. “Water.”

Sterling did withdraw then, grabbing a water bottle that was on the bed. Because you were tied, you couldn’t take the bottle so he opened it and helped you sip it.

“Better?” He asked.

“Yeah,” You said. “Thanks.”

“You want to keep going or take another break?”

“I don’t think I need a break, but let’s take it a bit more slow. I loved what you were doing, but I think I’m overstimulated.”

“I got you,” He said, slipping himself back inside you more slowly and gently. Eikichi held you so that your head lay on his chest and he put his arms around you, holding you in place but also embracing you, kissing your neck and shoulders.

After some time, you said, “I want both.”

“You got it, babe,” Eikichi said. “There’s some lube in the dresser, Sterling, could you grab it?”

“Of course,” Sterling said. He stopped and pulled out, reaching over to opened the drawer and retrieve it. Reaching underneath you and taking Eikichi’s cock in his hand, Sterling slicked it down with the lube, which made Eikichi hiss, and then lead it to your pucker. Eikichi pushed himself inside you slowly, very slowly, until he was all the way inside and stopped. Sterling took his place back in front of you and took himself in his hand, stroking twice, and pushing back into you.

Ever so slowly, the two of them began to thrust in rhythm. Sterling caressed your face, then took a fistful of your hair, gripping it tightly as he went in and out, his other hand had your breast in it’s grasp. Eikichi grunted and bit the lobe of your ear, whispering dirty things and moaning, blowing his breath across your skin.

The three of you moved in unison, crying out and gasping, sweating, swearing, screaming. Soon enough, they were both ramming you as hard as they could, and you were reveling in the full feeling, the incredible pressure, the feeling of being sandwiched between them.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” You shouted, cumming for possible the twentieth time. Sterling pulled out with a strangled groan and came all over your stomach and legs. Eikichi took another few seconds, but finished inside you, roaring and bucking into you from behind. Then the three of you collapsed in a pile.

“Eikichi, the ropes,” You said breathlessly.

He reached up and snapped them effortlessly, allowing them to slip off. Then you managed to move so that you were lying in between the two of them, arms and legs everywhere. Then the three of you just lay there and breathed for about ten minutes.

Sterling was the first to rouse. “Well,” He said, still a little out of breath. “That was definitely a good time, as promised.”

You laughed and pulled him into a kiss. “I’m glad we could live up to our promises.”

You thought Eikichi was almost asleep, except he said groggily, “Are you staying the night, Sterling?”

“I’d planned to,” Sterling said. “I closed the shop for the next two days. I wanted to be sure I had enough recovery time.”

Eikichi barked a laugh. “You might need another few days. This one is insatiable.” He jerked a thumb at you while his eyes were still closed.

“Sounds good to me,” Sterling said, laying his head on your breast and sighing contentedly. “I haven’t had a break since I opened the store. A mini-vacation is exactly what I need.”

“Hey, maybe you might actually get us to Japan, like Eikichi promised.”

“I said we would,” Eikichi protested sleepily, throwing an arm around you and pulling up the covers.

Sterling snuggled in, kissing the middle of your chest before settling. “I’ll see what I can do.”

One year later, you stepped out of the airport in Kyoto, bundled up against the cold. Eikichi stood next to you, carrying most of the luggage, and Sterling took out his phone to call a cab to take you to the apartment the three of you had rented for your vacation. On your left hand, you wore two interlocking engagement rings, one sterling silver, and the second rose gold.

You breathed in the crisp air. “I can’t believe we’re really here.”

“Believe it,” Eikichi said. “The spring wedding will be amazing.”

“And we came with plenty of time to get things in order,” Sterling said, hanging up. “Cab is on it’s way.”

“Thank you,” You said sultrily, pulling Sterling toward you for a kiss. “I also can’t believe the two of you actually said yes when I asked you if you wanted to get married.”

“I’d have married you years ago, babe,” Eikichi said, bending down to get his kiss. “I just didn’t know it was something you wanted.”

“Well, now you know,” You said, winking up at him. “And I can’t think of a better place.” You took a couple of the bags as the cab pulled up. “Now let’s get going. Our future is waiting.”

Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider buying me a Kofi or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist

The Exophilia Creator’s Masterlist

[marshmallowprotection]

Kait’s Emotional Crisis and Analysis on Saeran’s After Ending

That’s right. it’s here folks! You’re here because we’ve managed to survive the waiting period that has been two-years in the making. Are we all happy that we have made it this far and survived the wait? Yes, yes, we are. You wouldn’t still be listening to me babble about how much I love Saeran Choi if you weren’t. We all know what we’re here for, so let’s get down to business. 

THIS IS A VERY LONG POST. I’m not even joking this time. It’s a very long post. 

Spoilers for Ray Route and Another Story!

I’ve been having to control the flappy hands when I see this photo so forgive me if my thoughts are all over the place as I talk about everything that has been on my mind. I literally had to pinch myself when I woke up to a flood of messages on the matter. 

It’s him. It’s my boy. It’s my boy.  It’s my boy! Mom, holy fuck! It’s my boy and he looks great. I’ve had a lot on my mind since I first saw the title screen so let’s get down to what I have to say about that. First of all, I’m in love with MC’s outfit. I’d wear that, that’s the fucking mood tonight. I’ve been frothing at the bit to be able to draw my MC wearing this outfit and I didn’t even wanna start doing something like that until they gave the official release to us. 

What can I say? I’m a sucker for really frilly tops. Those pink jeans are a really nice shade of pink too. It’s not hot pink, it’s a nice bubblegum which is a good contrast to Saeran’s hair, haha! I just like seeing all the pinks around this boy and his MC, of course, has to be cloaked in those colors as well. It just makes me really happy. I love some of the other outfits that MC gets to wear in the game but oh, God, oh, Fuck. This has to be my favorite outfit that we’ve been able to wear thus far. 

The little necktie? Perfect. Those sleeves? Iconic. The hand-holding? PURE AS FUCK. THE VIBES? CHECKED. 

Now that I’ve covered my bases with MC, let’s go onto the Choi brothers and talk about them. I actually like that they’ve been drawing Saeran in more brown and pink outfits. It just feels very right for him. 

It goes to show that his mental state is much better than it was in recent years, like, from Ray to Suit Saeran and to Unknown, we all know that they would dress in black and darker themes if they were given the chance. Ray’s outfit was given to him by Rika to wear, and Suit Saeran was the one that picked his suit out to wear. Unknown walked out of the clearance bin at Hot Topic and added those cowboy boots to enrage me. But, I digress. I’ll fight Unknown at a later date about that. 

The natural and earthy tones that they’re going for here with him are very nice to see. He seems like he’s a lot comfier with himself here. He’s got a cozy little old sweater on and his posture is better than I’ve seen it in many photos. If his style is just cozy sweaters, then, well, I can vibe with that. I can see him working in the garden wearing that and I think that’s the point that they’re making with this style of his. 

The loose collar is also nice. I’m used to seeing his clothes buttoned up and out of the way, making sure that he isn’t showing his body. So, seeing him play with his style and wearing something much looser against his body is a good thing as well. I think I saw someone call him a comfy grandpa in one of the posts that I’ve seen floating around. I chuckle at that mention. 

Saeran doesn’t care that much about fashion, to be honest with you. He would, of course, choose something that’s minimalist and comfortable. These browns work with him very much so. I’m happy to see it! It’s in line with the style that I’ve had in mind for him after the Ending! 

Can you see the way that he’s gazing at the player, though? Can we talk about the way that he’s looking at us?

The longing in that gaze... the way that it looks like he’s been getting some good sleep for once in his life because the discoloration of purple is gone! The way he has that tiny smile that only we know is a smile because he only shares that side of himself with us? His MC? God, I’m in love with you, you fucking bastard man why is your smile making me cry so much?

I could talk about his smile for hours. His expression. The longing. The way that I love you cannot be contained in words, Saeran. It’s far too strong. Just know I’m the person that can feel what’s going on his body from looking at him. He looks to be in a good place. 

Anyways, onto Saeyoung. 

Oh, my darling, Saeyoung. I’m used to seeing you in green palettes. It’s just a tried and true theory with your red hair and you lean heavily into being a walking Christmas palette. It’s rare to see you without your glasses, and I’m sure that a lot of people are swooning over you for that. You know you’re handsome and you will use that against those MCs that love you. I don’t have a lot to say about his outfit but I do think it’s really fitting for him. 

It seems like a muted pull-over and some worn jeans, which seems in line with everything that I would style him in. He knows plenty about style himself and he knows how to make my head spin. 

What is this somber look in his eyes? There’s a smile on his lips but there is this feeling to me that it doesn’t meet his eyes. Is he happy that we’re with Saeran or is he weighed by the fact that he wasn’t the one to save Saeran? Does he know what happens with Rika? Does he feel angry over that? What are we going to tell the RFA and him about this? I know that he would be happy that we saved his brother...

But the guilt in his heart is nothing to scoff off. He always blames himself for what happened to Saeran even though Rika is the one that broke his trust for good and forever. I feel like there’s something bittersweet in his eyes. Does he think that Saeran and the player are going to live happily while he’s not there? 

I always intended to imagine Saeyoung living with Saeran and the player, because they can’t be separated again. 

But does he feel like a weight and a third wheel? I don’t know. I’m scared to think about how he may feel like Saeran is happy now without him and he’ll try to pull away instead of adding anymore trauma onto Saeran’s life. I know that it’s not going to easy for recovery for either of them, but I want to have faith and care for the two of them. 

Saeyoung, you better not self-deprecate. I’ll smooch your forehead too. I just really don’t know how I feel about that look in his eyes. It’s just matching the smile in my opinion. 

I’m still screaming. I’ve been a pit of screaming for nearly three hours now and I know that I’ve still got plenty more to say today on the matter. But, I know why you’re here for real, you want me to analyze what I see in this picture and what I think will be in the AE from what we’re shown. I’ve had a few days to think it over and I’ve got my ideas. 

Where are you Saeyoung? This title screen is not confirmation that Saeyoung is alive. For all we know, this photo could be more inspiration for the theme and the emotion that takes place in the After Ending. 

I have to remind people that when we first played Saeyoung’s AE, it was a rouse and we were treated to a happy dream sequence that sought to talk about Saeran living with us and Saeyoung as he made a toy store. There’s a possibility that in the midst of the search for Saeyoung, we’re confronted with dreams and nightmares on Saeran’s end in regards to his brother. 

It’s my biggest fear that Saeyoung isn’t alive. We don’t know if the Prime Minister took him or if an enemy took him, or if it was the agency, or a combination of all three of these options. I don’t know how I feel about it. I’ve considered that we won’t have the answer until the After Ending itself comes out but I’m interested to know what the answer is. 

If it was Saejoong, well, I fear for Saeyoung’s health if we do find him alive. His emotional state... God, that was always his biggest fear. His and Saeran’s biggest fear that their mother always whispered. She was a monster to the two of them with her abuse but the unknown of what their father would do to them had to be even more frightening. Their mother always said that Saejoong would kill them if he caught them. 

But, he could have honestly done a lot of horrible and twisted things. They could have become political pawns and a sob story that Saejoong could have sold if he wanted quite easily, and their mother could have been killed to silence that story. There was a lot of worse case scenarios. Saeyoung knows and has thought of all of them. 

So the idea that he’s living his worst nightmare? 

The fact that Saejoong could have killed Saeran without him being able to protect him?

The fact that he’d not be able to talk to V? 

He sent a frenzied message to the chatroom for us to contact V for him. This only implies that he was trying to warn V to protect Saeran at the last minute, so it feels like it could only be Saejoong that took him. He panicked hard. He had to make sure that Saeran was protected even if he died. I think that was what he did with his message in the chatroom. 

But, we all know how it turned out. 

I felt like that sacrifice of panic on his part was.... it still hurts me to think about all of it. 

My worst case scenario is a dream sequence and Saeyoung not... not being alive anymore. I don’t know what that would do to Saeran. He wants to make things right with his brother, he really does. The gaslighting and manipulation done by Rika is going to take some time for them to work past, and I know that he can make progress in therapy and as he challenge his intrusive thoughts as we stand by his side. He can see it through. 

He is hopeful for his brother. 

However, it’s going to be tested when he actually faces his brother in the game and that’s the real test. Therapy is one thing. Facing your fears is even harder than talking about them. Saeran is going to... be overwhelmed with everything and he may need to step away when push comes to shove. 

I want Saeyoung to see us together holding hands and let him have that moment realization that even though Saeran went through a lot of harm while they were separated, he wasn’t alone through all of it. He never wanted Saeran to be alone in any way. If Saeran has to step away, then well, that would leave us with his brother in the process.

I can’t say how much I’d choke up if he thanked us for loving his brother. The guilt in his eyes as he cries and we reassure him. I think that’s one thing that I want the most with Saeyoung. I want him to know freedom from his chains and I want to help him too. There’s a lot that I want out of that and there’s so much of this potential that we can talk about in the AE.

There’s a lot with Saeyoung that I want to think about but so much of it makes me wanna cry. 

I also fear for V and I’ve discussed many of my fears on that matter. I’ll repost my thoughts right here.

Now, in regards to what I sincerely don’t want is a repeat of what went down with V’s After Ending.

I’ve shared my feelings on that matter before and I understand that Cheritz was going for that moral high-road that many people take where they say that it’s better to forgive on your path to healing, and while that can be good for some people, it can leave a sour taste in the mouth of people who don’t pick to forgive the people that hurt them.

I don’t choose to forgive the people that hurt me in many cases. That doesn’t make me a bad person. The problem with the Forgive/Judgement ending is that it can make you feel ashamed for not forgiving someone who quite literally, took funds from the RFA’s first two parties (that’s the only way she could’ve gotten the money to fund Mint Eye, even coercion and manipulation of people on the level that Rika does wouldn’t give her that much ability), manipulated and gas-lit Ray and Saeran for years, deceived and drugged countless people, so on and so forth.

I hate that she’s never punished for her actions. She needs to be rightfully punished for what she did. I want her to get therapy, and I want her to learn that she was wrong for what she did to everyone. I want her to be able to get better for her own health, and I don’t think she should ever be contact with anyone in the RFA ever again. But, that’s up to the RFA if they choose to speak with her or interact with her, not mine. I don’t want her to die, I want her to learn what she did was wrong.

It’s not Mika (Rika Behind Story Spoilers) who went through the cult. Rika had every chance to stop while she was ahead but she kept doing it. I would not forgive Rika, and I would never want to be around her ever again if I were in the position of the RFA when the truth is made known.  

The only action that Rika ever took that could be looked at with the filter of self-defense was when she panicked when the boy’s mother tried to get close to her and harm her in a drunken rage. She acted to protect herself in that situation, but that’s the only thing that she’s ever done that someone could look at and say, she was protecting herself. She felt threatened. She panicked, she blacked out and protected herself from harm.

Don’t get me started on V. I love V, he’s not perfect, he fucked up a lot and he shouldn’t have gone back to Rika. It feels like he saw us love, forgive, and stand by Saeran and thought that he could be able to do the same for Rika, but that is not what will help him or Rika. They don’t need to be together again. They need to be fair away. Rika and V literally burned down the boy’s childhood home and V was wearing his sunglasses, so I can only presume that Rika harmed his eyes after he went to her.

Saeran himself says that he wants to tell everyone about Rika and V, but he needs to be able to discuss it with V. Even Saeran understands that V is a victim to some degree and he wants to help him. 

That was a big fucking comment on his part and I was proud of him for that. 

But, V left for Rika and we don’t know if we’ll ever see him again. So, I really don’t know how that’s going to be handled in the slightest, Anon.

I don’t want Rika and V together, like, ever again.

I want Rika to be punished for her actions and caught. I want V to get away from her and start to learn to love himself again and grow. I believe in him but he’s in need of someone to cheer him on when that abusive relationship ends. I really don’t want a repeat of V’s After Ending.

Don’t make me forgive Rika. 

Don’t make Saeran forgive her, either. 

That’s my worst case scenario fear. I want Saeran to be able to grow and get healthier, for sure, but his final confrontation with Rika should be the last time that he ever thinks about her. He made his mind up and he made it clear that she was wrong and he would never be tricked by her again.

I want him to stand his ground on that. I’ll stand by him no matter what he chooses to do, though. So, I want this to be about Saeran and Saeyoung coming together again, and helping V get out of that relationship with Rika, as well as Rika facing punishment for her actions. 

But, that might be asking a bit too much, haha.

Ideally, I want Saeran and the player to be able to reach out to V and help him get away from Rika as she’s taken down as well. We don’t know if she left Mint Eye for sure, we don’t know if she and V ran away. Who is running the Cult? Is the cult put to a stop or did Rika put somebody else in charge? It’s hard to say on that front and I’m still not sure how that’s going to end up. 

V can open up and work out everything that’s going to fall out here as it did in the events of V Route with Rika. He’ll need to work out everything with Jumin and the others, but I have hope for him to be able to face what went wrong and not only get the help he needs, but get the support of his support circle behind his back as everyone rallies behind him. 

I would love he and Saeran to be able to work out everything, Saeyoung as well, because even Saeran is willing to work with Jihyun. Rika to get some therapy, get punished for her actions and that to be dealt with is great. It never happens so. That would be a nice change.

Saeran knows that V is a victim in all of this too. So, it remains to be seen how this is going to be handled. I can only pray that Jihyun is able to be rescued as we rescue Saeyoung (hopefully, fingers crossed.) I’m still so proud of Saeran for doing that. 

God. 

I’ve talked about Choice and Saeran before in regards to the Secret Ending and his Good ending and... well, I’ll direct you to that post. To read about how important it was for Saeran to be able to choose what  he wanted to do with his life instead of having options forced on him. 

Can we discuss this photo as well from the Special Believer Box that I’m nearly about to buy at this point with whatever comes out with AE cause I need it?? I’m gonna go fucking broke. For you. Saeran. For you. I was saving my money for Christmas and now I’ve got a reason to live. 

I still don’t know if this is the implication of what will happen in the AE or if it’s something that will just exist as a standalone image. I still don’t know why Saeran would be dresses as his brother for some reason, unless there’s a twin switch-a-roo plot somewhere in all of this? I mean, bold choice, but I don’t know. I just think I needed to say again how cute that I think Saeran is in Saeyoung’s outfit. He’s so tiny and slender in comparison to his brother. 

I’m gonna fucking smooch his forehead. I don’t know, I want the CG title screen and this photo here to imply that the Choi boys will be alive and happy together once all is said and done. I can’t say that I know where we’re heading but there is bound to be an adventure to hunt down Saeyoung, but I’m not sure where it will take us. 

A wild-goose chase alongside whatever mystery is left. I can’t wait. 

My ideal ending is one where we get to live in a little house by the sea with a garden with Saeran and Saeyoung where we can visit and chat with the RFA whenever we want. But, we’ll have to see what happens. If you want to read more about some of the things that I think he wants to do with his MC now that he’s free check out this post. 

Anyways. 

Kait’s gotta go cry now. 

[pastelpaperplanes]

Quick question about shading, I know to never shade with black, but does that mean that the shading color should not be darkened? Also, what lighting would cause a shadow to be saturated, and what lighting would cause a shadow to be more gray-ish? Thank you in advance (^_^)

I should have been more specific my bad! I didn’t mean NEVER shade with the color black, just it’s not visually appealing to shade every single color with it.

like here’s a few examples of with alternatives to just black that work well with the flat colors shown (yellow, purple, and pink)

of course this is just a visual and there’s nothing wrong with choosing pure black as your shade, it’s just other colors can work well with different palettes. You’re not just limited to one, experimenting is FANTASTIC practice to figuring out what works/looks good to you!

The color you choose to shade can absolutely be darkened! Again just be sure you look at what kind of mood you’re trying to put out if you do choose to go with darker toned colors instead of vibrant ones.

To answer your question about ‘What lighting could cause a shadow to look more saturated?’ I’m gonna refer to a lighting practice thingy that I did a while back to try and help explain! ((Ft. The Beloved German Boy 🙏✨))

looking at numbers 2 & 4, both settings use vibrant AND dark colors to put off more saturated shadows.

For 2, I was trying to mimick what would be a shadow cast of neon lights or colored spotlights, like ones you’d maybe find on a stage or a club! Here I chose both a completely saturated color (red and pink) and two solid but stark darker colors (blue and royal blue) to mimick this kind of vibe.

For 4, I mimicked the style of tfa’s ep1 lighting on the Nemesis. I chose a strong dark blue and purple to cast the main shadows, and a fully saturated almost neon violet for the highlights. This lighting puts off an eerie, but also classic cartoony evil villain lair kind of look.

In both of these cases, vibrant and fully saturated colors were used to cast shadows. While yes, I chose to explain the direct situation these kinds of shadows came about, the purpose of this practice was supposed to allow the viewer to imagine for themselves what kinds of senario Blitzwing was in, ALL BASED ON COLOR!

For you question on ‘What lighting would cause a shadow to be more gray-ish?’ I’m gonna focus on numbers 3 & 5

3 was supposed to mimic a dramatic situation, like maybe telling a spooky story with a flash light to the face, or having an interrogation spotlight cast down on Blitzwing. The gray-ish shadow was created with using black!! I REALLY wanted to let the viewer focus on the parts with the most color (where the highlight shines on the face) so black was my best choice in directing that attention to that place. The bleak shadowed areas allow for a strong scene, maybe something that is suspenseful or solemn, less saturated colors for shading helps to achieve those kinds of moods.

For 5, I was trying to create a night-lit scene. Here I did NOT use black to shade, only a very dark blue, and pure white for added highlights. Again, less color into your shadow -> starker lighting difference. This kind of lighting can be used for a more serious kind of scene, then again the shadows aren’t casted SUPER SUPER dark, so it can be used for other moods as well.

In summary: saturated colors are nice for spunky lighting, darker colors work well with more dramatic lighting!

haha full disclosure right here: I have not been taught/trained in color theory let alone professional art classes. All of these tips are regurgitated information from tutorials I’ve studied/my own experimentation with my work and mimicking others styles of art! I apologize if these tips are disagreeable, this ask was directed towards me and my own opinion/recommendation so I just went for it.

Please feel free to comment/add on any tips you’d like so share :D

[bangingoutthetunes]

Snowfall.

A drabble in which you walk home with your boyfriend in the snow and get to cuddle + braid his hair. 

Word count: 2.3k

tags: hair braiding, fluff, bokuto is a human puppy 

~

“Come on, (name)-kun! It’s literally so cold out here I might die!” Kotarou pulled your hand forward and you almost tripped at the sudden jerk. He looked back over his shoulder, puppy-dog eyes wide and shining. A cheerful grin had found itself onto its face at your smile. 

“It’s not like I want to be out here in the cold, Kou! I just need to catch my breath, we’ve been running for the past ten minutes and although you’re wearing pants, I’m wearing a skirt and tights. Gimme a break!” If just for a moment, you felt burningly jealous of the pants the Fukurodani’s boys uniform required; they would’ve definitely kept you warm. Panting from the exhaustion, you trembled in his grip a little bit. He walked over to you and pulled you into his chest, chin resting on your hair and arms wrapped around your waist. He smelled like soap and vanilla and like the best parts of cold December afternoons. 

Peering to the left of his arm, you took in the scenery around you; snowflakes had begun to blanket rooftops and adorn the naked trees, minivans would drive by full with mothers and their children’s friends, bike riders would exhale dragon puffs of condensation, and some other classmates were huddling at a corner shop to pick up some hot chocolate and coffee to continue on their way. 

Having moved from the Miyagi prefecture in early March of this year, you hadn’t gotten to experience snow in a small town on the outskirts of Tokyo. This was of the first times you got to enjoy the gentle fall of friendly snow without having to worry about negative repercussions, and in this moment you wouldn’t rather be anywhere else or with anyone else than Bokuto Koutaoru, the six foot puppy that wanted to take you to his house through the long route so you could catch sight of all the wonderful sights his town had to offer. It was bitter cold outside, but the warmth inside of your chest, slowly spreading to your limbs, was enough to keep you running. 

“Are you ready to keep going, princess?” he mumbled into your forehead, absentmindedly doodling on your back with his mitten-covered fingertips.  

“Yeah, I’m all warmed up now!” You smiled into his chest, burying your nose into his vest and planting a kiss there as a silent thank you. 

“Great, because tag,” he booped you on the forehead with his index finger and stepped back,” you’re it! Last one home owes a cherry soda!” He laughed, brilliant like the sun stretching its fingers through the clouds. The corners of his eyes crinkle and he wrinkled his nose,  clearly pleased with himself. 

“Oh, it’s on!” You chased after him, having committed the route to memory from walks home so many times before. You ran at a quick pace, but your legs were so much shorter and his training was so much more intense that you could barely stay at fifteen feet behind him. Damn  him and his stupid volleyball captain gig! 

He slowed down, if just for a moment, to let you catch up to him. He stretched his hand out to you, beckoning for you to hold it. “Come on, let’s get there quicker!” Once you laced your fingers into his own, he yanked you forwards. In no time, you made it to his doorstep. He fished for his keys in his coat pocket and unlocked the door with his left hand, tugging you into the warmth as soon as the door flew open. A gust of hot air flew out of the house, peppering your face in kisses and very welcomed heat. Kotarou stepped inside, and you followed suit behind him, the two of you placing your bookbags on the floor. You began to kick your uniform shoes off when he sneaked up behind you, wrapped his hands together at your belly and pulled you up into the air. “H-hey!” He laughed at your surprise and pulled your back into his chest,  waddling with you towards his room. 

“Give me a sec, I’ve just gotta get the door-” he placed you down on the flooring while he fiddled with the handle and the door slid open at the kick of his foot. He ushered you inside. “Come, sit on the bed! Get comfortable and change out of the uniform, you’re probably freezing right?” Concern laced his voice as he walked over to where you sat and he cocked his head to the side. “I think I’ll get into something more comfortable, thank you baby!” You reached over to grab his hand and gave it a kiss behind his knuckles,  and you could swear you saw him shiver from the ghosting of your lips. 

“You’re welcome! I’ll be back in a bit, I’m just gonna get some clothes from the dryer and bring us some snacks. I went out with ‘Kaashi the other day and we picked out some things for you!” Before he walked out of his room, he turned back to wink and blow you a kiss. You giggled at him. God,  you’d be damned if he wasn’t the cutest thing to walk this earth. Stretching your arms above your head and wiggling out of the cold, you looked around his room to try and figure out where exactly he had his pajamas. You took a shot at his dresser, and it took a bit of digging but you found the perfect outfit: an oversized grey shirt with old sweatpants would do just fine to warm you up. You slipped out of your blazer and wiggled the skirt off while admiring the decorations in his room; he had some volleyball posters, some framed pictures of him with his sisters, and atop his dresser you saw some papers that made your heart flutter; he had your first movie ticket, Weathering With You, framed and the post-its you’d slipped into his locker decorating the outside of the frame. To the left, he also had a printed out picture he took of the two of you on his phone while you shared a chocolate ice cream cone (with extra sprinkles, of course). 

You’d been to Koutarou’s house before, but you hadn’t gotten the chance to walk around his room; since his parents were out working, you’d come after school (on the rare days he didn’t have practice) and cook with him. One of your favorite memories of trying to cook with him was when you tried teaching him how to finely dice scallions; the poor boy couldn’t cut thinly if his life depended on it, and whenever he saw the knife get close to his thumb he would flinch. 

You wiggled into his shirt and plopped onto his bed. He had a plush vabo-chan and a horned owl plushie resting in between his pillows. You kicked his throw blanket up so it could cover your legs and shut your eyes for a bit, nothing on your mind except for your angel’s smile and his kisses peppering your forehead. You could feel yourself slipping into a comfortable vibe and it was so nice to be able to rest your body after running in the snow for such a long while. At a knock on the wall, your eyes fluttered open and your gaze traced your boyfriend’s form, hair damp (but drying) against his forehead, long-sleeve shirt tight against his chest, eyes blown wide and smiling, and packs of sour gummies and dark chocolate in his hands. He bumped his body against the light switch to turn the lights in the room off, allowing only the soft glow reflected from white snow to enter from his window.

He ran over to the bed and threw the candies at its foot as he wrapped you in a bear hug. “You look wonderful in my clothes, baby!” He chirped, voice dripping with adoration, as he admired you in his clothes. He was so warm and soft against you, and you wrapped your hands together at the base of his neck and pecked his lips. They tasted like hot chocolate and chapstick and felt surprisingly soft for the cold weather. Even if his lips were chapped, you still wouldn’t have wanted to kiss anyone else’s. You pulled away from the kiss to gaze into his eyes, color reminiscent of sunflowers and sunshine, and your heart fluttered in your chest as his gaze lidded and his eyes smiled. 

“What do you want to watch, princess? After all, movie night was your idea!”

You thought for a second, “Hmm, I saw that there was a cool documentary on netflix about international chefs! We could learn a thing or two from it so we can cook the best meal ever, right?”

He threw his head back in laughter and scooched closer to you on the bed, wiggling his feet beneath the blanket and pulling it up so it could cover the two of you.  He turned the TV on, remote in hand, and clicked through the buttons until he saw the Netflix app. Flicking over to the Documentaries, he paused when he saw some about food. “Is it the Street Food one?”

“Yeah, baby. We can watch a couple of episodes, the order doesn’t really matter anyways.”

“Cool! I want to watch the one about Argentina! I’ve heard they have amazing steak down there.” For some reason, you hadn’t expected his favorite food to be steak and instead for it to be something more like pure sugar. It had nothing to do with his energy level…

In spite of the absolute fact that he was always riled up and lively, in this moment with his head rested on your right shoulder, he looked at peace. His eyes were glued to the screen (or so you thought, because his gaze was really fixed on your arm as he tried to count all of the freckles there), his breathing was even, slow, and his fingers were gently grazing against the side of your left arm. He really did look like an angel, a piece of expired heaven that fell into your lap and promised to be forever yours. You smiled down at him in a lazy fashion and bent your neck to give him a kiss on his scalp. It smelled crisp and clean, and your belly fluttered when he looked up at you from quirked eyebrows. His hair looked amazing when it was down and, if anything, you almost preferred it to the spiky owl look. 

He shifted his weight so he could instead lay his head on your lap. You laced your fingers into his two-toned hair and lightly scratched his tresses. He had been gifted with many things, and among them was a thick head of hair; his locks were silky and plentiful; every meander of your fingers led to more strands  resting between them. He seemed to lean into your touch and sighed contentedly when you scratched at a spot at his head that was left of center. He really seemed to like when you would twirl his locks on your fingers, and it made you wonder…

“Kou?”

“Hmm?”

“Could I braid your hair?”

He let out a hearty laugh and turned his head to look up at you. “I’d love nothing more, (name)-kun. Go ahead.”

You sighed, running both hands through his scalp and feeling the silk slide in between your knuckles was so unexpected but so so welcome. He leaned into the touch and tilted his head forward to let you play with more of his hair. 

“(name)-kun, it tickles!” He laughed at the foreign sensation and his eyes crinkled shut. He was the sun. 

Scratching his head with your fingerpads, you ran the fingers of your right hand up his arm to let him know that he was safe and that the  new sensation was just that, something he should begin to get used to. He leaned into your touch, trusting, peaceful, calm. You separated three locks in between your knuckles and began to twist the center and right pieces together. Then, you twisted the right and left ones together, then the left and center. It was difficult because of his shaggy layered haircut, but you could tell from his staggered breathing and the nuzzling of his nose into your thighs that he was absolutely loving this. The first braid looked so pretty because of the contrast between his black roots and silvery locks, and you took a scrunchie from your wrist to tie it in place. Granted, it took five twists and the braid looked SUPER clunky, but you felt like that gave it so much charm. You tugged on the hair behind his right ear and began to weave it together like Arachne weaving her master tapestries, and braid begot yet another until the right side of his head was all tied up in a knot that you would (hopefully) be able to detangle. Hair tucked behind his ear, you noticed that he had a dusting of freckles on the pinna that trailed down to the nape of his neck. The black dusting of freckles against pale skin looked like stardust. He was beautiful. 

His breathing steadied, and it seemed like he had fallen asleep at the behest of your touch. A smile was painted onto his face, his nostrils flared and his lips half-parted as if he were having a pleasant dream. This was too much, it was too cute. You shifted around for your phone and took a picture of him in your lap, face glowing from the chatter and brightness of an argentine street restaurant. He looked perfect. You sent his phone the picture and saw it buzz on the bed, screen illuminated with a picture of him giving you a kiss on the forehead. You began to smile, and a look out the window proved that the snowfall had gotten heavier.  Your own exhaustion from the day began to settle in and take you prisoner. In between the soft whirr of the heating, Kotarou’s steady breathing, the soft background noise of steak sizzling and Spanish chatter, and the delicate dance of the snowflakes outside, you began to slip into a peaceful slumber. This would be the first of many naps with Bokuto to come. 

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Back at it again with my self-indulgent comic posts. This time! It’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #3, perhaps the most tonally-distinct entry yet, with shades of The Twilight Zone. 

Spoilers!

So, as mentioned, this issue is the most deliberate in terms of both its pacing and its tone, IMO.

What is that tone, you ask?

To quote Alex Danvers, from “Midvale”: Hello, darkness.

THE STORY:

Kara and Ruthye are still looking for Krem Clues in the alien town of Maypole.

(Which is actually just Small Town, USA, complete with vintage 50s aesthetics.)

But the locals are clearly hiding something! So Kara and Ruthye continue to investigate, and they eventually discover what it was that the residents of Maypole were so keen to keep hidden. 

Genocide, basically. 

As I said, this issue struck me as very Twilight Zone; a genre story involving the build-up to a dark twist, all set against the backdrop of an idyllic small town. (Think, like, “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” but instead of focusing on the Red Scare, it’s classism and racism.)

The wealthier blue aliens kicked all of the purple aliens out of town, and when space pirates showed up to pillage and plunder, the blue aliens made a deal with them: the lives of the purple aliens in exchange for their safety.  

Which is where the episodic story connects to the larger mission; it was Krem who suggested the trade, and then joined up with the Brigands (space pirates) when he was freed by the blue aliens.

The issue ends with no tidy resolution to the terrible things Kara and Ruthye discovered, but they do have a lead on where to find Krem, now, as well as Barbond’s Brigands.

KARA-CTERIZATION:

Ironically, it’s here, in the darkest chapter yet, that we get the closest to what might be considered ‘classic’ Kara. 

Which I think comes down to that aforementioned deliberate pace--this issue is a little slower, a little quieter. It gives the characters some room to breathe.

That’s not to say Crusty Kara is gone. Oh no. She is still very much Crusty. XD 

But anyways. A list! Of Kara moments I loved!

I mentioned a few of these in a prior post when the preview pages came out: I like the moment where Kara blows down the guy’s house of cards, and I like that the action is echoed later in the issue when she grabs the mayor’s desk and tosses it aside. A nice visual representation of the escalation of Kara being, like. Done with these creeps. (Creeps is an understatement but you get the idea.)

Another one from the preview pages: Kara explains to Ruthye that her super hearing won’t necessarily help her detect a lie, especially if she’s dealing with an alien species she’s not familiar with.

It not only reveals her level of competence and understanding of her super powers, it also shows that, you know. She’s a thinker. She’s smart. 

Amazing! Showing, rather than telling us, that Kara is smart! Without mentioning the science guild at all wow hey wow.

(Sorry, pointed criticism of the SG show fandom.)

Anyways.

I dig the PJs! 

And Kara catching the bullet! Not only are the poses and character acting great, it’s also a neat bit of panel composition:

We start with Ruthye’s POV, and then move to the wide shot of the room. The panel where Kara actually catches the bullet is down and to the side of the wide shot panel--we move our eyes the way her body/arm would have to move to intercept the bullet. Physicality in static, 2D images!

Also, like. It’s a very tense moment, life-or-death, but. Ruthye’s wide-eyed surprise at the bullet in Kara’s hand? Kind of adorable. 

I was pretty much prepared for the page of Kara shielding Ruthye from the gunfire to be the highlight--it was one of the first pages King shared and I was like, ‘yeah, YEAH.’ But, shockingly? The TRUE highlight of the issue?

Where do I BEGIN?!?!

EVERYTHING. About this moment. Is lovely.

From Kara holding Ruthye above the bench to explaining the concept of a piggyback ride, to telling her:

“I’m going to hold my hands here, and these hands can turn coal into diamonds, so they’re not going to let go. I’m going to keep you safe.”

HNNNNNNNNNNNG.

Ruthye’s narration--about how Kara had avoided flying as she was concerned it would freak Ruthye out--just adds a whole additional layer of YES, GOOD, YES, and her line on that splash page is great: “You see, all that time, she was worried about me.”

HNNNNNNNNNNNG. AGAIN.

To say nothing of the STELLAR ARTWORK.

And SPEAKING of that stellar artwork, Evely and Lopes continue to knock it out of the park. Each issue is distinct and beautifully crafted, a true joy to look at.

Before I jump into more of the art, a few final notes of character stuff in general.

Ruthye is the one most affected by the experience in Maypole, as she can’t comprehend how a society of people that look so nice and gentle and peaceful could have been party to such a horrible act.

One of the big criticisms of the book thus far is that Supergirl is not the main character, and I guess I can agree with that observation. Typically, in Western media, the main character is the one who goes through the most change in the story. 

And, yeah. That’s Ruthye.

As I was reading the end, where Ruthye sits on the curb and Kara hugs her, I was imagining how the scene would’ve played, had King stuck with the original idea for the series: Kara as the one learning to be tough/experiencing all of this for the first time, and while I think that could certainly work...

I continue to appreciate that King literally flipped the script; that Kara, especially in this issue, is like, ‘I’ve seen this, I know this,’ as opposed to being the one going through a loss of innocence.

*Marge Simpson voice* I just think it’s neat!

Because Kara’s been a teen in DC comics for so long--ever since she was reintroduced to the main DCU continuity, actually--so this is all brand new territory, here. Having an older Kara who’s SEEN SOME STUFF.

(Alsoooooo, since Bendis made the destruction of Krypton not just inaction and climate disaster, but rather, genocide, and the subtext of a Kryptonian diaspora text, the waitress’ derogatory comment regarding the the destruction of Kryton, as well as Kara picking up the bad vibes the entire time, suggests not just a broad commentary on discrimination in all its forms, but specifically allegorical anti-Semitism. The purple aliens being forced out of their homes and into substandard living conditions, then the blue aliens--their neighbors and once-fellow residents--essentially allowing the space pirates to kill them, making them literal scapegoats, Kara discovering the remains of the purple aliens, and Ruthye’s horror at the ‘banality of evil’...yes. A case could be made, I think.) 

(Which would probably require a post unto itself and a lot more in-depth discussion, nuance, and cited sources.)

(Should mention that King has brought up that both he and Orlando--the other Supergirl writer he talked to--are Jewish, and for him personally, that shaped his views on Kara’s origin story.)

I guess my point is that this issue is perhaps not as out-of-left-field as some might think, and just because there isn’t as obvious an arc for Kara, doesn’t mean there isn’t some sharp character work at play. 

(I could be WAY OFF, of course, and I’m not suggesting it’s a clear 1:1 comparison. I’d actually really love to hear King talk about this issue in particular.)

Anyways.

Here’s the final page, which I think works, because as I mentioned before, there is no easy answer/quick wrap-up to the story of Maypole:

THE ART:

I mean. How many times can I just shout ‘ART! AAAARRRRRRRRRRRTTTT!’ before it gets old?

I dunno, but I guess we’re gonna FIND OUT.

There are some panels in this issue that I just. Like ‘em! From a purely artistic standpoint! Because they’re so good!

Like, I just really love the way Kara is drawn in that top panel. Her troubled, confused expression, the colors of the fading light, the HAIR. 

Evely draws the best hair. I know I’ve said this before. I don’t care. I will continue to say it, because it continues to be true.

The issue I find myself running up against when I make these posts is that I really don’t want to post whole pages, as that’s generally frowned upon (re: pirating etc.) but with something like this, you just can’t appreciate it in panel-by-panel snippets.

(Guided View on digital reading platforms is a BANE and a POX I say!)

Anyways.

LOVE the implied movement of the cape settling as Kara speeds in and stops. 

And, obviously, Kara flicking the bullet away is just. A+. 

And the EYES, man. LOPES’ COLORS ON THE EYES???!?! BEAUTIFUL.

Also, should note the lettering! The more rounded letters for the ‘WOOSH’ of Kara’s speed (and, earlier, the super breath) work nicely, and contrast with the angular, violent BLAMS of the gunshots. 

And, I gotta say, the editor is doing a really great job of not cluttering up the artwork with all the caption boxes. Which is no small task.

(I assume the editor is placing them, as editors usually handle word balloon/caption box placement, but I suppose it could be Evely? Sometimes the artist handles it. Either way, whoever’s taking care of all the text, EXCELLENT WORK! BRAVO!)

Okay I think that’s everything.

Ah, nope, wait.

MISC.

Just a funny observation, more than anything else: Superman: Red and Blue dropped this week, and King had a story in there, “The Special” (which was very good, btw.) Both Lois and the waitress swear a lot so I’m beginning to think that this is just how King writes dialogue for any adult character who isn’t Clark. XD

This is absolutely a personal preference but when Kara was like, “And my name IS Supergirl,” I was like nooooo. I know King is trying to simplify all of the conflicting origin stories and lore but I LIKE KARA DANVERS, SIR. XD

It’s almost assuredly a cash-grab/an attempt for DC to get all the money it can out of a book they don’t have much confidence in, but I like the cardstock covers! Very classy, much Strange Adventures.

(OH my gosh, can you imagine that issue 1 cover with spot gloss???? Basically the only way you could possibly improve on it.) 

Okay NOW I’m done. For real. XD NEXT TIME: Kara and Ruthye go after Krem and the Brigands!

[hot-wiings]

The One Where You're Stuck At A Work Christmas Party, But At Least You Have Your Cute, Charming Coworker At Your Side.

Edited: 12-8-2020

"Would you like to pay for that upfront, or at the end of the night?"

“Isn't this an open bar party?”

You stared at the bartender with confounded and bewildered eyes and she nervously shifted as she stood, her eyes looking at the counter, occasionally glancing at other people at the bar avoiding your eyes. You took one strong whiff in her general direction and you could get a good reading on her aura, her feelings.

Molten Cheese; Anxiety. Rotten Eggs; Nervousness. Formaldehyde; Fear. 

It was your quirk that gave you such access to her vibes. You could smell emotions and feelings, provided you were within smelling distance then you could release your on pungent scents and alter someone's emotions, however, the stronger the emotions of a person then sometimes it would alter your mood. When you were younger you couldn't understand it, you didn't understand these feelings you felt or why you could smell people so strongly, as you got older you realized what each scent meant, the more pungent the stronger the feeling, the more floral meant someone was in a positive mood, and the more putrid meant they were the latter. 

“I’m sorry ma’am, this is not an open bar.  I can make a tab for you...”

You had to roll your eyes. Your company was probably the only company not to spring for an open bar for a Christmas party. You knew it was to discourage drinking, but they had to understand, as a hero, you dealt with a lot of things on your average day. The people you don't save, the countless lives that were waste and killed, children and the elderly, the horrors you saw on the battlefield. Sometimes you needed to let loose from all it, and whom more responsible to drink than a party full of heroes? Your bosses would digress.

Of course, none of this was the bartender's fault, and you felt slightly bad for getting upset after you smelled her aroma. She was young, obviously new to her job, and nervous to be dealing with alcoholics and tipsy people for the first time. Even if everyone here was probably a hero, it could still be very daunting. You never knew how someone would react under the influence, especially someone you didn't personally know.

“This is your first day on the job isn't it?”

“Is it that obvious? It's not just my first day, it's my first job.”

The girl nervously chuckled while she scratched the back of her neck, still nervously avoiding your eyes. You tapped your foot against the floor, her strong nerves beginning to affect your mood, and take over your nervous system. This was a great quirk to use on the field, especially in hostage situations, it helped you understand villains and easily sway their decision to harm people, but your mood was so easily affected by other negative emotions. It was so draining to try and change someone's mood to stop you from being affected, you changed one person, and soon three negative auras replacing it.

“That explains a lot, you're perfume is so pungent."

"Oh! You're the smelly hero, oh gosh- I- uh..."

Her eyes lit up as she realized who you were and she smiled, but the smile quickly faded as she realized what she had called you. It wasn't the first time someone realized who you were and it wouldn't be the last but never had someone so horribly botched your hero name. Maybe it was the nerves, the anxiety, the embarrassment, and every strong negative emotion she was feeling being absorbed up into your mood, but you felt completely mortified. You felt embarrassed with her and suddenly, you were crossed with the anxious thought about whether that's what your coworker called you behind your back. You wanted to cry. It was so irrational, but that's what her vibes were making you feel.

Christmas Cookies; Joy. Pine Trees; Relaxation. Candy Canes; Energetic.

The new smells engulfed you. They surrounded you as if you were inside a bakery. They entered your lungs, with each breath out and each new intake of oxygen it was there, you couldn't escape it and you didn't want to. It was distinctly joyful, distinctly happy and laidback, distinctly him. No matter how his smells changed on a day to day basis, you would recognize his scent anywhere. It was so pungent, so strong, and you could smell a lingering scent of the ocean. The smells wrapped you up and shifted your mood, they took away every negative emotion coursing through your body and replaced it with those of positivity.

You looked over your shoulder with a smile on your face as you spotted him. The Stun Gun Hero: Charge Bolt. He had a grin on his face as he sauntered over to you at the bar and occupied the barstool next to you.

"Sunset rum for the lady, on me."

The woman scurried away to make the drink with an embarrassed blush on her cheeks. You turned to Denki and smiled. You didn't know if it was purely lack of brain cells, or what, but the man was always grinning. He was always smiling, he was always happy. Even on bad days, even when battling villains he seemed to reek of dopamine, serotonin, happy endorphins. You didn't know how he did it, but you were grateful for it. On days when you were stuck in the office doing paperwork or studying up on the villains you were tracking down, your coworkers seemed to bring you down. So many negative feelings from different people took hold of you, sometimes you couldn't handle all of them at once and you needed to escape it all.

That's when you discovered Denki Kaminari, a faint scent of happiness among the abyss of dark emotions. Sometimes you found yourself craving his scent, sometimes you found yourself just standing outside of his office door, just breathing him in. You were sure he'd find it weird that you stood outside his office door trying to get a whiff of his smell, but it was so much more than that. He helped you feel good, he helped the bad feelings go away and he didn't even know.

"You don't have to pay for my drink."

"But I want to, besides, I can tell you've had a pretty rough day."

“I'd rather be at home, management said I had to come, apparently I'm not social enough, and I need to strengthen my relationships with the other heroes.”

“What a pain. I came for the drinks, didn't realize they weren't free.”

The bartender set down your drink in front of you and you took a swig from it, letting the alcohol wash over your senses as you turned to Denki again. It was a strong drink and you could already feel it taking its toll, but Denki had paid for it, and wouldn't it be rude not to drink it?

“Fuck work parties, am I right?”

“Well, they're not all bad. The foods free, and I'm sitting here with a really beautiful woman.”

A blush makes way across your face, dusting your cheeks a pink color as you turn your gaze back to your drink. You thought about how to reply to his blatant flirting as you swirled the liquid around in your cup. He always threw comments like this towards you. After a training session, after you'd taken down a villain together, when you were stuck in the elevator, and even by the coffee machine. If it was anybody else but Denki, you would've filed a sexual harassment charge, but Denki was so kind and so nice about it. His smell wasn't hostile or putrid, it was always sweet. He never threw these compliments your way when you were alone, he always did it in the presence of others. He did that to avoid making you uncomfortable by giving you flirtatious attention alone, but you always took it as ungenuine feelings, but he did it so often, and so kindly, perhaps he did mean his words. Maybe it was his feelings affecting yours, or maybe it was the alcohol, but you flirted back in your own coy way.

“True’ and I have the pleasure of having the company of such a charming, handsome man.”

Denki lightly chucked at your words, flattered and surprised you flirted back. Through all his time knowing you, you just blushed and thanked him for the compliment. Truthfully, he was ready to give up on his attempts, but you had never told him you didn't like his subtle advances. His chuckle only increased the blush on your cheeks. You brought your cup up to your lips and emptied the remainder of the contents down your throat, letting the liquid courage wash over you completely, enhancing your sense of smell and making you slightly tipsy. You always had been a lightweight, and how were you to know sunset rum was eighty percent alcohol, that's sixteen times the amount of the average beer.

“So I- Are you okay?”

Your eyes were closed, making you look asleep. Leaning closer to Denki, trying to get a better whiff of him, you were practically falling out of your barstool. Denki stood up from his stool and gently pushed you back into yours so you wouldn't fall, but instead, you gripped onto his jacket and pulled him closer to you.

“I’m fine! You just- God! You smell like Christmas!”

Denki would have blushed or laughed at your words, but your tone had gotten louder and your words were slightly slurred. You were obviously drunk, or at least seriously tipsy. If he had known you were such a lightweight he would've ordered you a lighter drink. 

“Ma’am, can I have water?”

“Sure.”

“I don't need water, I'm not drunk.”

“Right, you want to jump my bones sober then?”

Your hands were still gripping Denki's jacket and your nose was in his neck, practically hugging him. In your defense, he was the one who made the first move by pushing you back in your chair. 

“I’m not trying to jump your bones! You just smell so good, you always smell good.”

You whined your words out and a deep blush came across Denki as your words entered his ears. Denki would never admit it to anyone, but the real reason he came here tonight was because he heard you would be there. Over the years of working with you, he had developed a small crush. You were so admirable, so amazing. You dedicated your career not to just saving people, but using your quirk to save the criminals, to understanding them and taking them down using pathos rather than violence. 

“I always smell good?”

“Yes! God yes. I love the way you smell, it makes me so happy and warm. Sometimes I walk by your office just to steal some of your serotonin.”

Your confession made Denki smile as the bartender set down a cup of water in front of you. Embarrassment flooded your body as you realized what you had said to him. When you were tipsy you could say some honest things, but this was a deep secret you'd been harboring.

“I shouldn't have drank, I can't believe I said that. I- I should go home.”

You stood up from the stool with your bag in hand, tripping slightly as you went. Denki quickly grabbed onto your wrist and tugged you towards him. Still buzzed, you didn't fight him and tumbled towards his chest. 

"Don't go, you're drunk. If anything happened to you, I wouldn't forgive myself. Have a glass of water."

"This is embarrassing. I'm not being creepy, I swear. Your happy mood, it helps calm me down."

“You know, my flirting isn't meaningless. I think your quirk is neat and special, I think you're neat and special. If smelling me helps you calm down, then by all means, next time come into my office."

You took the glass of water and took tiny little sips to help sober yourself up. A blush spread across your face again, Denki had just indirectly confessed to you. You thought his flirting was meaningless, you thought he didn't really like you like that. You had such a fear of rejection around him, scared he would find your smelling habits weird, but he didn't. You leaned up to Denki again, this time was not to smell him drunkly, but to place a quick, sweet, chaste kiss on his cheek.

"Think you can say all of that to me tomorrow when I'm sober?"

"Depends. Tomorrow's Christmas, do you want to see me tomorrow, or are you going to regret tonight? Regret accepting my drink, regret spending the evening with me."

Denki bit his lip, and a new scent came from him. A foreign one. You had never smelt such a thing coming from him. He had always been so happy, but now you could smell fear, anxiety, everything the waitress reeked of earlier. It appeared you were not the only one with worries and fear of rejection. Lacing your fingers with Denki's, you reassured him the only way your inebriated mind could think of, by using a pickup line.

"You wanna know what I told Santa I wanted for Christmas?"

"Hmm?"

"Told him I wanted you."

[liquidstar]

I'd love to hear some of your recommendations! And I'm good without any content warnings, but since you're posting this for all your followers to see probably best to add them

Alright sure! I’ll be general then and since you’re just starting out this will sort of be bringing up a lot of really popular ones, the really good ones where the general consensus is “you gotta see this!”, but I’ll also try to give ones from different genres so you have a variety of things to pick from, so this isn’t really a list of personal favorites but I’ll throw in a couple of those too lol, but generally think of this as a handy beginners guide with just a little personal bias.

I wrote a lot so I'm gonna put them under the cut here.

Fullmetal Alchemist

Fullmetal Alchemist is a franchise that’s considered a must-watch, it takes place in a world where alchemy is a borderline magical power, but is considered scientific in-universe and follows scientific laws, namely the law of equivalent exchange. Something can’t be made from nothing, to gain something of equal value must be lost. The story follows the story of two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who at the ages of 10 and 11 committed alchemy’s one and only unforgivable sin, human transmutation, in an attempt to bring their mother back to life. As a result, one brother lost his arm and leg and the other lost his entire body, leaving his soul bound to a suit of armor. However the brothers are resolute to regain their original bodies, and the older brother, Edward, joins the State Alchemists, a branch of the military, to try to gain access to research materials to help them achieve their goal. But was that really such a good idea?

Fullmetal Alchemist can be a bit confusing to get into due to the fact that there are two series: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009). The latter is a reboot with a different story that follows the original manga. They both have the same beginning, but diverge paths and tell very different stories. My recommendation for how to watch this show is: Watch 2003 first, and Brotherhood second. Everyone has a different opinion about which is better, but everyone agrees that 2003 has better backstory but a contrived ending, and Brotherhood has a rushed beginning (Because it works off the assumption that you’ve seen 2003) with a great and fulfilling ending. If you can’t do both I say just watch Brotherhood because it will leave you more satisfied and you don’t have to watch 03 to get into it.

For both series the biggest trigger warnings are: Parental death, child death, pet death, war, genocide, dismemberment, religious themes, and miscarriage. For brotherhood specifically: on-screen suicide, and for 2003 specifically: rape (not on-screen) and pregnancy from it. The 2003 series is also a lot darker than Brotherhood which has a more optimistic tone, so that’s worth noting too.

Soul Eater

A show I think is incredibly fun, and a good one for an October watch if you wanna save it. It takes place in a world where certain people have the ability to transform into weapons, and they team up with other people who become their meisters. The characters often travel around, but the main setting is Death City, a fictional city in Nevada based off of Las Vegas but with a huge Halloweentown vibe, and a school right at the top of it called the Death Weapon Meister Academy (DWMA) where a bunch of kids that turn into weapons learn how to hunt down witches and kishins (Beings that consume human souls). The school, of course, is run by the grim reaper, Lord Death himself.

Our main characters for the series are a group of 7 students. Our protagonist Maka Albarn and her weapon partner Soul “Eater” Evans, a scythe. A loud mouth assassin named Black✰Star and his weapon partner Tsubaki, who has many weapon forms. And the son of the grim reaper, Death The Kid, and his two weapon partners Liz and Patty Thompson, who are twin pistols. There are also a bunch of really lively colorful background characters and antagonists, and the cast of the show being as insane as it is really makes it, on top of the great atmosphere and of course the plot, which just builds more and more as the series progresses. Also Crona is there and we all love Crona.

Trigger warnings for this show include: Child abuse (Mental and physical), manipulation, snakes and spiders (The motifs of two major villains), some very surreal moments that can verge on unreality. Also, in the dub and most subs: misgendering of a canonically trans character. Crona is a character who is non-binary, but the dub and subs use gendered pronouns for them due to general ignorance about neutral pronouns in 2008, though this isn’t the fault of the original series and falls on the translators hands.

Also it’s important to note: that the first 3 episodes are prologues and they take themselves less seriously, there’s more fanservice in them than there is in the rest of the series (Except for Blair she stays the fanservice character :pensive:)

Zombieland Saga

Idol anime is really prevalent as a genre, the most popular being Love Live, but my personal favorite is Zombieland Saga. It’s an idol anime, but it’s also a comedy about zombie girls who become idols. It sounds ridiculous but there’s an insane amount of heart in it regardless, it wasn’t a show I expected to get emotional at but I did! It also made me laugh a lot too. The series itself can serve as a bit of a subversion on what idols are, not just because they’re literally zombies, but because of who the characters are.

Sakura Minamoto is a character who starts off as a more typical idol, a peppy pure girl, as the series continues her struggle with depression gets highlighted. Saki Nikaido serves as her initial foil, a delinquent girl with a criminal record who subvers the idea of pure perfect idols. Ai Mizuno, a former idol who has since undergone severe trauma (The way she died). Junko Konno who has ideals that seem very different on what idols “should” be due to the time period she died. Lily Hoshikawa, an explicitly transgender idol. Yugiri nolastname, a former high ranking courtesan, subvering the pure image of an idol by being a sex worker. And Tae Yamada, a completely nonverbal idol who’s still treated with the same amount of importance as the rest of the team. The premise here really is just that these girls don’t fit the incredibly rigid mold of what idols should be and yet they still all deserve love and they gain a fanbase by being their earnest selves.

Trigger warnings for this series aren’t incredibly severe but since they’re zombies there’s still talks about death and they way they died (Including motorcycle/car accidents, plane crashes, getting struck by lightning, and a heart attack), there’s also comedic dismemberment, as in their arms just sort of pop on and off and stuff like that. The most notable thing is the deadnaming of Lily, the trans idol, by her father, but it doesn’t appear to be malicious in any way.

Note: this series is in the middle of it’s second season right now, if you want to wait until it’s over it should be 12 episodes long and just aired it’s 3rd, so about 9 more weeks.

Death Note

This is also absolutely another series that gets recommended to people right off the bat, and for good reason, this show is an intricate game of chess between a serial killer and a detective trying to catch him, and it’s incredibly easy to get super invested in the suspense of what happens next. The story begins when a shinigami, a god of death, drops his “Death Note” into the human world out of pure boredom. A Death Note is simply a notebook where if you write someone's name in it… They die! And who better to pick up such a powerful object than Light Yagami, a prodigy praised for his genius and academy accomplishments as well as his charm and popularity, and with a very strong but juvenile black-and-white sense of justice, likely due to being raised by a cop.

So naturally Light begins his power trip as soon as he finds the notebook, he intends to “fix” the world by cleansing it of all the bad people, but truly he intends to become the world’s new god. Or the “God of the new world” as he puts it. But there’s one thing standing in his way, a detective resolute on catching him with the codename L. The series entire crux is a game of cat and mouse between these two, as they try to outsmart each other and the murders continue, Light loses more and more of his humanity, L becomes more resolute on catching him. There are more twists and turns than a cheetah race, and it’s honestly pretty addictive to see what happens next.

Trigger warnings here obviously include a lot of death and murder, including suicide, but in some cases it’s a forced suicide at Light’s hands. Also abuse, as Light loses his humanity he isn’t above manipulating and discarding people who love him. And one instance of near-rape on screen fairly early on, but the purpitrator dies before it happens and the victim escapes.

K-On!

Slice-of-life is an incredibly popular genre, and K-On! is the quintessential example of it. It’s a series that not everyone will like, because not a lot truly happens, and it can be overly saccharine or “moe” for a lot of people, and that’s fine. But I personally think that despite not a lot happening, the story has genuine substance, more than you may gather at first glance. It’s true that not much in the way of big plot really happens, it’s mostly life events, that’s why it's a slice-of-life. But it’s not about nothing. The real theme of the show is the fleeting nature of youth. It’s about how important the friendships you form at that time are, how they’ll stick with you for a lifetime, and how everything comes to an end. It’s sweetness even becomes a little bittersweet because you knew their after school tea time would end come graduation, and as they realize this it breaks their hearts a little, but they continue on, because they’re still After School Tea Time!

The series itself is simply about 5 girls in a band, Yui Hirasawa on lead guitar, Mio Akiyama on the bass, Ritsu Tainaka on the Drums, Tsumugi Kotobuki on the Keyboard, and Azusa Nakano on Rhythm Guitar (Who shows up later). They’re in a club at school called the light music club where they waste a lot of their time just drinking tea and eating cake, but they’re having fun and that’s what counts! The series has a lot of really great direction and expressive animation despite the fact that a lot of it is just sitting around and talking, it’s incredibly visually interesting so you don’t get bored.

I honestly don’t think there are any big trigger warnings I can give for this series, maybe that Sawa-chan can be a little too forceful when she wants to dress up the girls in cute outfits sometimes but it’s usually not presented as too creepy especially after season 1 where they tone it down due to straying from the manga.

Mob Psycho 100

This series is an absolute love letter to the art of animation as a whole, the artstyle itself may not seem like much to look at but the animation is some of the most expressive, fluid, creative, and vibrant out there right now, it’s the type of series that you can tell was made with a real passion for its medium and it’s story. It’s protagonist is Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed “Mob”, a term that literally means “Background character”. Mob is a middle school kid and an incredibly powerful psychic, like, insanely overpowered, but he’s currently working part time for a shady conman, Reigen Arataka. Though it may seem as if Reigen is just using Mob for his powers, their bond is actually a very sweet one and you can tell they care for each other, it’s a very important one at the heart of the series.

The core themes of the series itself are what really make it shine, it’s message is stated as clearly as possible in the opening songs, “your life is your own” and “if everyone is not special, maybe you can be what you want to be”. Put simply, you’re the protagonist of your own life, but the other important message of the series is that all the supposed background characters are just as important. The friends you make, the connections you have with other people and the way they impact you, they’re what make you strong. No one is born special, everyone is just a normal person, and everyone deserves kindness. It’s a series that I recommend incredibly strongly for just how powerfully it portrays this message.

Trigger warnings for this series include kidnapping, possession, a scene with a “man in a dress” joke, and a racist design for a background character. Also (spoilers) a scene where it seems like a child was murdered and a scene where it seems like Mob’s entire family was murdered.

Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War!

Hey, speaking of amazing animation, Kaguya-Sama is a romantic comedy series centered around the premise of two incredibly arrogant people falling in love. Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane are the vice president and president of the student council at the prestigious Shuchi'in Academy, they eventually develop feelings for each other but they’re both simultaneously too proud and too insecure to admit it, so the real crux of the series is the 3D chess they play with each other to try and get the other to confess first. Along with the scatterbrained secretary, Chika Fujiawara, the treasurer in desperate need of Prozac Yu Ishigami, the cast is incredibly fun and they all fit into the comedy great. Every single little game of “do you like me?” that they play is written like the most intense thing in the world, the insane animation absolutely adds to it, making it seem almost like a psychological thriller, the comedy comes from the absurdity of just how much they hyperbolize it.

It’s not pure comedy though, due to a lot of the series being set up around mindgames, the characters are actually fairly psychologically complex with a lot of genuine development stemming from their childhood to explain why they are the way they are. The series may be about mindgames, but the actual narrative frames them as a juvenile way to go about relationships, a way to try to protect yourself from getting hurt because you’re afraid to trust. The entire core theme is that communication in relationships of any kind is the most important thing and you cant replace it with clever little tricks, so the main pair only ever make actual progress when they’re actually upfront with each other. Even if it’s scary to be that vulnerable with someone, especially if you’ve been hurt in the past like they have, the relationships you build off of mutual trust and openness will be worth the risk, and they can help heal you. And one of the things I love about the series is that this doesn’t just apply to the main pair, but it places equal emphasis on the importance of friendship. All the characters' relationships with each other are unique and interesting and they all develop the same way, with trust and openness, and they become better because of each other.

Despite being generally a comedy, a lot of the characters deal with some really heavy things too so trigger warning for: child abuse (not on-screen), child abandonment (again not on screen), anxiety and panic attacks, suicidal ideation- initionally played off as a joke but it becomes very obvious the character in question is legitimately suicidal and in the manga he nearly attempts it but is stopped, this plotpoint will most likely be in the anime at some point as it’s also not complete.

Your Lie In April

Alright I gave you a funny show now I’m going to make you cry. In fact it’s hard for me to type this synopsis because I’m an absolute crybaby and thinking about this show gets me, but I think it’s absolutely worth checking out because it’s a very beautiful sadness. Your Lie In April is a series that follows the stress and trauma young musical prodigies face in their lives, as well as the people around them, and it’s a series about the beauty of music and art, and just how much it affects people. The music in the show is absolutely gorgeous, the way that they convey emotion through it is so beautiful and intricate that it just sticks with you. You feel the music, and you understand.

I’m actually going to give the trigger warnings right now instead of at the end because in order to explain the plot I’ll have to talk about them so tw for: Child abuse (phsyical and mental, on-screen), terminal illness, death, in depth depictions of PTSD, vomiting, panic attacks, the works.

The series follows Kousei Arima, a formal piano prodigy who hasn’t performed since the death of his mother two years ago. Kousei's mother was terminally ill, but she was also incredibly abusive. Kousei has incredibly complex feelings about his mother because of this. The trauma she instilled in him is severe, but because he was a child, he still is a child, and he loved his mom a lot, as any child would, and he didn’t want her to die and he blames himself for not being good enough. He wanted to make her happy, and the only way he knew how to do that was to play the piano. So he played and played and practiced until he was perfect, they called him the human metronome. But he would still get severely punished for being anything less than perfect. He had lost all the passion he once had, and after his mother died it was the final nail in the coffin, his trauma manifests now in a way that makes him unable to play. But all that changes one day in April when he meets a violinist named Kaori Miyazono, a girl full of life and passion for music, she’s someone who according to Kousei “Exists in springtime.” and she’s going to help him play again and refined that love for music whether he wants to or not! Teen drama happens of course, but there are much bigger roadblocks ahead.

Assassination Classroom

This series is thankfully generally more lighthearted… Most of the time at least. The premise is pretty simple, but incredibly ridiculous. An incredibly powerful octopus-like creature is the teacher of a classroom of middle school students tasked with the assignment of assassinating him in order to save the world. The series starts off very slice-of-life as it focuses on introducing the very large cast of characters inside of Class E, also known as the “end class”, but it quickly gains traction and gets a lot more intense as time goes on.

The octopus creature in question, Korosensei, is actually a very kind and genuinely good teacher to all his students. The real crux of the series is that it’s sort of a critique on the educational system, the students in the end class are there because they’ve been ostracized from the rest of the campus, far away in the mountains, to be made examples of. Why? Because they’re students that are considered worthless, instead of getting help they’re only pushed back further down in the system and left to struggle within it fruitlessly. They’re given up on, despite being children with so much potential, because they don’t fit a very rigid mold. That’s what Korosensei wants to help them with, and they’re able to grow as people together. As the series progresses you feel such a great sense of unity for the class, they’re like a family, they stick together and it’s very heartwarming. And watching them work as a team of assassins is so fun!

However the series can get heavy at times too, it doesn’t stray from heavier subject matter at all and i found myself incredibly shocked by it a few times, so trigger warning for: Child abuse (on-screen and off), both at the hands of a parent and a teacher and in one case a parent who is also the principal, misgendering of a character, sometimes as a “joke” but other times played dead serious at the hands of his mother, child death- specifically suicide, a successful one as well as 3 assassination attempts that doubled as suicide attempts by the main 3 characters (weird parallel they all got there huh)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Honestly this is a series that is good to go in blind for if you need to tws, it’s a deconstruction of the magical girl genre, but if you don’t want to know more than that you can stop reading here. If you want to know more, it’s a series that starts off very light-hearted and in tune with typical magical girl conventions at first, however by episode 3 it’s made painfully clear that these girls are being led to sign up into something they shouldn’t. It’s heavy, though not incredibly so, but it’s also a lot to explain in a summary. Madoka magica is… It’s Faust with magical girls.

I’ll explain as much as I can without giving too much away. The story begins when Madoka Kaname and her friend Sayaka Miki encounter a creature who calls itself Kyubey, who says it can grant a wish of theirs and in exchange they have to become magical girls and fight witches. Both the girls are hesitant, but Sayaka wants to wish for her childhood friend’s injuries to be cured so he can play violin again, while Madoka is content as she is and can’t think of a wish. Luckily they have a mentor, a magical girl named Mami Tomoe who helps introduce them to everything. However something is stopping Madoka from becoming a magical girl, a mysterious new student who is also one herself, Homura Akemi, is resolute on keeping Madoka from becoming a magical girl by all means possible, for reasons Madoka doesn’t understand. Things get even more complicated when a rival magical girl shows up, Kyoko Sakura, who becomes Sayaka’s new rival. As things get more heated between those two they discover a terrible secret about the nature of magical girls, and what they truly signed up for.

Spoilers ahead but trigger warning for: Child death, parental death (backstory only), decapitation (off-screen), needles, incredibly surreal imagery inside the witch’s labyrinths that may feel unreal, mind control, suicide, depression and despair expressed by young characters. Also don't bother with Magia Record

The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K.

Alright something lighthearted now, there are a lot of comedy anime I enjoy, a lot of series that have made me laugh, but none has made me bust a gut like this series has, it’s absolutely hilarious. It follows the life of a boy named Saiki Kusuo who has psychic powers. His powers are incredibly overpowered, and he absolutely hates them, in his eyes they cause him nothing but trouble. There’s not much in the way of a plot to describe, because there isn’t any, the series is comprised of 5 minute segments surrounding Saiki and an incredibly vast and colorful cast of characters that are just all completely insane, many serve as parodies as types of anime tropes because the series as a whole is very self aware and doesn’t shy from breaking the fourth wall a lot, but the characters surrounding Saiki are what make his life… Disastrous.

Like I said there’s not really a plot to describe but like FMA people may get confused with this one, there are 3 seasons but one of them is titled “The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K: Reawakened” as is a continuation of the first two with just 6 episodes in it. Also for some reason only the second season isn’t dubbed so if you’re planning on watching it that way you’d have to either stop or switch to subs for season 2

The only major tw I can give here is an ongoing joke about a character being into his sister, he’s treated as disgusting for it of course because he’s a parody of that trope but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable, luckily he doesn’t show up much.

Little Witch Academia

Little Witch Academia is a series I personally just adore, it takes place in a world where witches are common and well-known among the people, but the era of witches is over and magic is dying out. However that doesn’t mean passion of magic doesn’t exist, the protagonist is a young girl named Atsuko Kagari, or Akko for short. She’s resolute on being just like her icon, a witch known as Shiny Chariot, as she attends the same magic school: Luna Nova! Unfortunately Akko isn’t exactly a magical prodigy, in fact she can’t even fly a broom, but that’s not gonna stop her, nothing will. Just like Chariot said, believing in yourself is your magic.

Once at school Akko gets into all types of crazy shenanigans with her with her two roommates, Lotte Yanson and Sucy Manbavaran, and occasionally her rival, Diana Cavendish. Akko still struggles a lot in school, in fact her inability with magic is pretty explicitly handled as a metaphor for a learning disability, and though this makes it harder for her she’s still resolute. Though the series is generally episodic, a concrete plot starts to form by the second core. Along with the help of her guidance counselor, Professor Ursula, Akko learns that she needs to unlock 7 “words” to bring magic back to the world, each time she learns a new one it comes with an important lesson to her and ultimately relates back to each of the core themes of the series

The series is pretty lighthearted so the biggest trigger warning I can give is one for bullying, two characters in particular tend to target Akko for not being a good witch and it can really sting to watch. Other than that none come to mind