#The whole jaded; sick of the world and it's tricks thing works so well

[saturnsorbits]

A match made in heaven – In this piece Kitten offers us an achingly raw exchange between two people who really do seem cut from the same cloth. Dealing with qualities that others may find abrasive or off-putting, these two bat at each other like cats, circling closer and closer to what will inevitably be a whirl-wind of a relationship.

The opening of this piece brings us in perfectly. It wastes no time in telling us exactly what this piece is going to be about. Pulling us in, we're told all we need to know and are even treated to the first insights into Reader as we're allowed to bask in her thought processes. These thoughts: 'He messaged you first! He wanted you to be his sugar baby so badly it makes him look stupid! Although Bakugo Katsuki is anything, but stupid.' are the foundation from which we then begin the story.

Kitten's writing shines here. The depth of her characterisation as she deals with ugly emotions and jaded views of the world grants the entire piece of reality as we're allowed to see the best and worst of these two people. The narrative voice granted to Reader is strong, and it shows. Her personality is shaped through this and exposes her as a real and detailed character – something that is perfectly matched. The juxtaposition of Reader's opinions on men (The line 'A man often times doesn't want to actually fill the lonliness... They just want to relieve the ache in their cock' is not only a wonderful example of this, but just a down right brilliant line. You can feel the emotion, how Reader makes it genuine and there's a sense of poetry to it that is truly wonderful), her glossing over of her person to appear attractive to these men and Bakugo's blatant honesty is fun, creating a dance between the two that feels both electrifying and exciting.

Of course, on the other hand, we have Bakugo, who thwarts her attempts to categorise him as the other men she has dated at every turn. His knowledge of the bleach pen and willingness to call her out is brilliant ('Now gimme the ones you're actually wearing, Princess'), as is the call back it gives us to Reader's earlier destain at men believing her rouse – 'Been worn all damn day 'just for him'. Fuckig gag.' It's a wonderful juxtaposition and one that is also played out through the page. While we know a lot of Reader, including her inner monologue, we're kept in the dark with Bakugo. He's mysterious, with 'a deep fissure of discoloured skin from just over his eyebrow cutting through his eye flaring over his cheek before tapering off at his throat before it meets another deep scar that's hidden under his shirt.' and a plan for Reader that remains a huge question mark in the plot – 'I need you for somethin' else'. - Which is the ultimate fucking hook, the way my eyebrows shot up because what has this man planned? Will she go along with it? It's brilliant.

Quick side note, the description of Bakugo's scarring is lovely. On the page it leaps out, plain and poetic at the same time, but it manages to forge a description so clear that it is impossible not to picture it in your minds eye. It's a wonderful detail and it's brilliantly applied here.

After a date turned sour, we're left still excited as we wonder just what will come of these two... The message leaves intrigue, a thousand questions unanswered making us desperate to see just what's next and, as we're told: 'Bakugo Katsuki always kept his promises.'

Men suck! So why not drain their bank accounts for wasting your time?! It would be foolish not to. Even more foolish to push the buttons of a very powerful man in the underground world of Tokyo.

But hey wait! He messaged you first! He wanted you to be his sugar baby so badly it makes him look stupid!

Although Bakugou Katsuki is anything but stupid.

It was supposed to be an easy mark. He followed all of the rules of the unspoken game between sugar baby and sugar daddy. He reached out to you first. He set the time and place for the first date and he asked about your pricing.

To which you told him was a steep two thousand consultation.

Immediately there was a notification with your fee plus a little extra for the expedited meeting in your bank account before he messaged you again.

Wear somethin nice.

His profile was vague as most marks were. Choosing to keep their identity a secret, embarrassed to have to buy a woman's time with their endless cash flow for one reason or another.

Some because of their looks, some their abhorrent attitude, some because they were too busy drowning in their work and some because they just couldn't be bothered for much of anything real only to fall in love after the third date thinking they could buy your heart like they did everything else.

Because at the end of the day all of these marks had something in common. Something to exploit.

They were all terribly lonely.

And despite how forward this mark is, like others have been before him, he was no exception to this rule.

You roll your eyes as you doll up for tonight's meeting. You always wore something nice and appropriate for the setting yet undeniably sexy. Something that made every eye rove over you with the heated gaze of envy. Something that made you everything those men wanted you to be.

A trophy, a status symbol, a yes I'm fucking that.

Scrolling his profile or lack thereof, a little bit more in an attempt to be his perfect baby girl. Knowing that to have a good long lasting con to afford you the luxuries you sat in now, you had to shed your true skin and stuff yourself into something two sizes too small.

Because all men expected that of all women. Of anything of their desire. One must cut away the truest, deepest parts of themselves in order to hold a man's attention span for longer than five minutes. The second you start to look anything relatively human and anything more than a walking sex kitten or cock sleeve is the second they lose interest.

A man often times doesn't want to actually fill the loneliness, not with anything long term, they just want to relieve the ache in their cock.

At least that's all you've ever known and so who was anyone to judge you to exploit them how they exploited others.

Smiling at your reflection as you apply dark eyeliner to your lid, dragging it across your lash line as you go for a more noire mysterious look since you cannot find out much about your potential benefactor. Not that that worried you, you'd worn many skins before.

A recently divorcee, a 'single mom', but most benefactors liked a heavy power imbalance. They lived for the broke college girl act. Showing up in threadbare dresses that were still cute in an old shit box car you'd borrow from a friend and some classical piece of literature those fucks could recognize but knew they'd never read.

Mostly you figured they enjoyed that broke college girl act because they felt they were "helping you build a solid future" all while neglecting their own real daughters at home that they constantly compared you to. Showed you pictures of, similar in age to you and you'd have to stamp down the disgust at these men who probably didn't even know their real baby girl's favorite color.

Absolving themselves of guilt you supposed.

However this new benefactor was something to be excited about, mostly because of the unknown that he seemed to shroud himself in. No interests filled in, no movies or hobbies or songs that he likes.

Not even a profile picture or his name. Just GZ for now and when you checked the banking information on your wire in, it didn't give you any real leads. Received from a business or estate account that google results had no address or number for.

Only his age, 32. Three years your senior.

Which wasn't too bad of a gap well to you anyway, he saw your age as 25 because anything older than that, even one fucking year, men's interest dropped by sixty percent.

Another message comes through the little app.

GZ: Give me your number.

Aggressively forward as you giggle to yourself reading the message, let the read receipts show your interest when you lock your phone and don't reply. Taking the time to apply a nice dark shade of lipstick that made your mouth absolutely sinful as you wore a skin much too close to the real you. Going to your closet for your dress, knowing he was taking you to a very expensive, very highly rated restaurant, most likely to both flaunt and prove he has money.

Zipping up the velvet body con dress with a halter top, the hem stopped just above the knee and you knew it would ride up when you sat down or walked in your black heels with the pearl strap. Pulling on bicep length lace gloves and putting on an onyx ring on your middle finger before adding your pearl necklace to make a suggestion of what he could do to you at the very steep price of seven thousand dollars.

Some men even paid it and even asked to do it in the parking causing them to pay an expedited fee of four thousand. It meant nothing to you and every bit of power they thought they held over you to them.

Opening a drawer to your vanity all with unused pairs of underwear. Choosing a black lacey pair where the ass would be half exposed by lace and strings digging around for the to go tide pen so you could lightly bleach the crotch to make it seem as if they'd been worn all damn day "just for him"

Fuckin gag me.

Your phone pings again, another notification from the SDSB app.

GZ: I don't like waiting, Sweetheart, give me your number.

This time you reply but only after looking over your outfit in the mirror, debating if he'd be into stockings and ripping them before you realize it might make you look a little too conservative for his tastes.

Bbgrl: tell me what GZ stands for and I'll give you those special digits

GZ: I don't barter

Bbgrl: Everything comes at a cost. You know this otherwise you wouldn't be messaging me.

You watch the bouncing bubbles pop up before his quick reply.

GZ: Ground Zero

GZ: Now give me your fuckin number Princess.

Bbgrl: maybe in person, Mr Zero.

Not giving away your actual number was your number one rule and because the last sugar daddy you cut off went full tilt you had to disconnect your other phone and just hadn't had a chance to get a burner yet.

Picking up a small clutch purse you shove inside your lipstick for the night, your phone, the doctored pair of underwear and you don't even bother to bring any sort of wallet.

Walking to a public place a block or so from your luxury condo before you flag down a cab giving them the address as the man smiles down at your cleavage. Enjoying the view in the rearview and it's a wonder he doesn't crash and kill you both. Leaning down to meet his gaze with a disarming smile, wearing a skin to protect both you and him from harm as you force a giggle.

"Eyes on the road silly." When really you wanted to take the knife strapped to your ribs and slit his throat for thinking he even deserved to stare at you like that.

You wore this dress for attention yes but there is a fine line between appreciation of a body and straight up eye fucking you.

And just because you wore this dress didn't give him the right to stare. Counting down from ten as you have pretty visions of gouging his eyes out only for him to pull up right to the restaurant, acting as if he was going to get out and help you.

"No need." You smile politely, "And the fare?"

You look at the triple zeros and his eyes flash to it in embarrassment, so busy eating you alive with his eyes he forgot to start it.

"On the house for a pretty lady."

Forcing a smile as you give him a thanks, leaving the cab as quickly as you can before you walk inside, twenty minutes late for the date.

Tardiness was a big part of the game, whether it agitated them or made them anxious, it would certainly place a little more power on your initial interaction. Gaging their reaction to your power play always determines how you'll respond. Clueless, lost, down right stupid.

The hostess gives you a warm smile as she welcomes you into the restaurant asking of your party size. You're quick to tell her you're here for GZ.

"Or maybe under the name Ground Zero if the initials are too vague." You smile and watch the hostess blanche a moment before she fixes her face.

"Right this way." Expect she doesn't lead you all the way over there, stops just before the darker corner of the restaurant making a gesture with her hands and you chalk it up to nerves. That maybe he owned the whole fucking restaurant.

Watching his large palm swirl a bourbon straight, watch his other heavily ringed hand card through his ash blonde locks.

"Mr Zero?" You ask with a cat like smile, coming to stand beside the table. He glares up at you either oblivious or acting it as you wait for him to pull out your chair.

"Yer fuckin late Princess." He doesn't wait you out though can tell from a glance you'll stand there with your sexy ass heels rooted to the hardwoods of the restaurant before you'd ever sit down. He doesn't give in, this just happened to give him a chance to show his stature. He slams his drink down, clattering the water glasses and your wine glass filled with a pinkish color. Most likely something sweet. For a moment it makes you wonder if he read your profile considering most men didn't bother and showed it often on their first dates that they hadn't when they ordered you red wine. Which you had as your top dislike.

When he rises he's much much bigger than you. Tall enough you have to crane your head up to look at him, broad shoulders and now that he's fully facing you you can see his scarred face. A deep fissure of discolored skin from just over his eyebrow cutting through his eye flaring over his cheek before tapering off at his throat before it meets another deep scar that's hidden under his shirt.

He didn't even bother with a dress jacket, only a dress shirt, black, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows exposing his tattoos and even more scars, his black vest if swirling velvet on the front only emphasizes his broad chest and tapered waist.

He stands there a moment watching you take him in and he cannot lie he is surprised. Most women cowarded at his size especially when they see his scar and his half clouded bromine eye but you just smile. Maybe even a bit of excitement flashed in your eyes but you stand unmoving still that fuckin cat smirk on your dark stained lips.

"My chair, Mr Zero." You remind him and he snarls, leaning in close to your face tipping your chin up to him. It's here you realize how large his hands are, especially when the other settles at your ribcage a moment. You just hope he doesn't feel the knife nestled there and take it as a threat to himself.

"I told you I didn't like waiting." He growls, "So what makes you think Imma continue this date?"

"You're still here aren't you? Besides," You half guide him by moving your face gently from his grip, stepping towards your chair and he follows, "You wouldn't want to cancel a date with such a pretty girl would you?"

"A pretty woman." He corrects with a growl, pulling back your chair and shoving it in roughly when you sit, leaning behind you to whisper in your diamond clad ear, "Yer no girl that's for sure."

As if to say a predator recognizes a predator but you feign ignorance.

"Year?" You ask, smelling your wine before taking a sip. It's fruity, peach you realize with hints of citrus and angel food cake.

"Didn't ask." He bites waiting for you to ask where the menus were, he makes eye contact with the waiter to signal to start their meals. Oblivious, you take another sip of this amazingly delicious wine.

"Bit of a dessert wine isn't it?" You comment, usually men would blunder by now realizing they aren't as prestigious or well versed as they pretended to be but this man proves to be different once again.

"Peach pairs well with spicy and smokey." Glaring right back at you before a mean smile curls his lips, "Unless ya lied twice on your profile."

You set the wine glass down thanking the waiter when they leave fresh bread. Zero is faster than you grabbing for the crusty pre dinner treat as he butters the rich white center before placing the slice on your plate before starting his own.

"Hmm, I haven't lied on my profile." You refuse to touch his offering for now.

"Sweetheart, you may look twenty five but I know that you're closer to thirty than what you want to admit." There's that cruel smile of his again.

"It's quite rude to make a woman seem older than what she is. Touchy subject ya know?" Going back to sipping your wine as you've decided you may need a buzz to endure this date, "Or maybe you don't have a lot of experience with women. Is that why I'm here?"

Smirking over the vein protruding from his throat but the satisfaction only lasts so long, thoughts rounding back to wondering how the fuck he knew your real age and so quickly.

Suddenly you feel his fingers wrapping around the back of you knee as he pulls you forward leaning over the table.

"Haaah? Ya think I don't have experience with women? Oh sweetheart I could have you begging to take my cock in this bathroom in under ten minutes. But I need you for somethin else." He lets his bruising grip go when he sees a flash of the real you, sees your pretty lip snarl in disgust before you fix your face so quickly it would have him wondering if he ever saw that snarl or not.

He thinks he likes this version more than what his right hand picked out from your profile.

Your profile was vague but your photo album was filled with a lot of photos that men could easily project on or imagine themselves with you. Looking demure, easy going, a submissive.

Really Bakugou can tell you're a fucking brat at best and far from demure.

"Is that true Mr Zero? Sex on the first date is quite expensive." You smile cutely, make it a giggle all while the steak knife whispers to you that it belonged shoved through his hand on the table.

"I bet it is sweetheart." He spits back.

"So…our contract?" You're ready to rush this along thinking that maybe this benefactor isn't going to work out and that you'll have to save your underwear for another time.

He leans back, finally looking a little more relaxed as you bring up business as if contracts and dealings were part of his expertise. Taking a sip of his bourbon as he looks you over in that fine velvet dress he imagines on the floor of his expensive bedroom.

"Dunno can ya behave long enough to talk about it?" Deadly smirk on his lips now, one that makes your stomach clench.

"I always behave, Mr. Zero." A purr, one that changes the tone of the entire dinner, at least for now.

A light scoff but he's smiling, genuinely and he looks so handsome like that. His eyes catch something you don't see before the waiter comes over with two starter salads.

You look down at the fresh bed of greens matching his and try not to grimace that he's most likely ordered dinner for you. Hating when benefactors took it upon themselves as they never paid enough attention to order even remotely right.

"Let's see how dinner goes first yea, princess? Gotta make sure I like it before I buy it." A clear taunt and stab at you to which you give a tight smile. Him placing himself above you but you were determined at the very least to secure the after dinner deposit fee from him that was clearly stated on your profile.

Any dinner lasting longer than two hours or is set after eight thirty pm is considered to be equal to two consultation fees.

He already violated the time since he messaged you at exactly six pm tonight and you were always sure to take your time getting ready.

But you had to finish the fucking date first.

"Okay." Agreeing without issue as you bite your tongue. Finishing your salad and your wine, asking him to order you another glass. Batting your eyelashes and for a second you see his face flash with something other than his gruff nature. Standing with the brief explanation of "freshening up."

Annoyed as you enter the ladies room, looking at your reflection as if to share a what the fuck glance with a friend before rooting around in your bag. Touching up your lipstick, spraying yourself with a bit of your perfume that made all the men insane for you before turning your attention to your hair.

Making sure it was still in perfect placement as you angle your pretty face this way and that. Clutch open on the vanity, the dummy pair of underwear threatening to fall out. Checking your account to see if the rest of this date was worth it when you see your stipulation fee is sitting in your account despite the date only being an hour long thus far.

Figuring you'll make this date worth it now, mostly curiosity getting the best of you over what is going to make this contact so fucking special he's more than willing to pay everything upfront.

To deal with your more cheeky side you used to scare off weaker men.

Clawed fingers curling around the soft pair of underwear, rubbing them between your hands vigorously to make them warm to the touch. To have him thinking that this sexy lingerie style underwear was nestled right to your cunt.

Balling them up as you make your way out of the bathroom while the waitresses gossip over the fact that some violent ringleader was dining there tonight and that he was "dangerously hot." Hushing when they see you pass the refreshment nook before you make your way back to the table.

Thankfully his left hand with all his rings is resting on its side on the table giving you more than enough space to press the warm fabric into his palm and curling his fist around it before sitting back across from him. Giving a flirtatious smile to the large blonde who turns his hand to see what you placed into his palm. Smirking and shaking his head as he looks down at the fabric.

Unfurling it with his large hand and seeing the pair of underwear with a little spot on the crotch that makes him chuckle.

You look over your meal that's been set out, can tell he was polite enough to wait for you as the aroma of spicy smoked meat sits before you. Breathing deeply and hating to admit that you'd actually like this dish. Picking up your fork as you let him become dumbfounded over the thought that you were bare under your dress when that was far from the truth.

Bakugou leans over the very expensive meal on the small table. Grabbing at your jaw a bit tightly so he can turn your face to husk in your ear.

"Now gimme the ones you're actually wearing, Princess." He growls, pulling back to hold out his hand expectantly.

Feigning innocence you look up at him and bat your eyelashes since that worked earlier, even letting your eyes get a little glassy.

"Wh-what are you talking about Mr. Zero?" Voice soft and going softer still when you add, "Those are my underwear. I wore them just for you."

He laughs loudly in your face and his grip tightens, mouth back at your ear with a deadly tone. A mix of playful flirtation and restrained anger.

"Now Princess, 'fore I get mad."

It sends a chill down your spine and a jolt to your cunt. Breaking your facade entirely when you let sharp nails bite into his thick wrist as you yank away your face. Looking around trying to come up with an excuse that this was too much of a public place before he adds.

"We're secluded enough." Letting his fingers wave impatiently with his palm up. Your eyes widen as you see how serious he is. Unable to hide the snarl on your lips or the flash of deep seeded anger in your eyes as you obey a benefactor's command instead of tricking them into thinking they had control.

Shimmying up your little bodycon dress, hooking sharp clawed thumbs into the band of the underwear to bring it down past your thick thighs that part for just a moment exposing your pretty mound to Bakugou by accident. It makes saliva coat his tongue and his cock twitch in his expensive pants.

Quickly fixing the hem of your dress that still tries to ride up thanks to your hips and thighs, balling up the black underwear and slapping it into Bakugou's waiting palm harshly. The corner of his lip curls up as he realizes it's a thong, much better than the dummy pair you gave him moments ago.

"You're such a fuckin pervert." You cross your arms over your chest, pushing up your tits giving the ash blonde a snarling pout. Wholly forgetting about your dinner now as you look away from him, can't believe he's won this round.

"Yea? Who's fault is that? Yer the one who gave me a clean pair of underwear to make me love sick for ya so I'd cough up all my cash." He makes no move to pocket the thin pair of underwear you've just given him, making your eyes dart to look for the approaching waiter, "This work on most men Sweetheart?"

"Tsk, yes." You scoff, "Then they send me whatever I fuckin want."

Pushing away a bit, thinking of leaving from how condescending his tone is. Inspecting the first pair you've given him now that he has the actual pair you'd been wearing, looking closely at the crotch.

"Did ya use a bleach pen on these 'fore ya came in?" He laughs when he watches your face blanch, most men couldn't tell. Just thought it was real and went with it, asked for more.

The waiter starts to come back to the table with another glass of Bakugou's bourbon and your wine, trying not to crack. Shoving down the panic and letting your nails bite into your palm letting crescent moons form in your soft skin. To try not to shove his hands into his lap to save you the embarrassment because the last thing you want him to know is that he's actually getting under your skin. He looks over his shoulder to follow your gaze, feral smile on his mouth.

"Besides, who's the real pervert here, Me for enjoying a pretty girl's time," He rolls the dark fabric around in his hand, still warm from your cunt and when he gets to the crotch it's damp, sticky, "Or you, for getting off to playing some dumb ass men outta thousands."

"I'm not-"

"Not what? Wet?" He laughs, letting his thumb slide through the slick of your underwear, uncaring that the waiter is here now. Setting down the drinks and forgoing asking how the meal was quickly slipping away in hopes of not bothering Ground Zero.

"Sweetheart I bet I could run my fingers through that sticky cunt and everyone in this restaurant would hear it." Bringing his thumb up to his mouth licking at it as one would to get sauce off their fingers, his eyes flutter and suddenly your cheeks burn.

"You're insufferable." You hiss, crossing your legs now, still unable to look at him.

"Ya know, I hate liars." He tosses your fake pair of underwear, pocketing the thong you wore with one hand while the other swirls his drink, "Ya've lied three times now."

"I have not."

"Ya have. Yer age, yer whole personality, yer underwear." He lists them on his fingers and funny enough you chose to die on only one of those hills.

"I am twenty five." You hiss, grabbing at your wine and downing it in three swallows.

"But yer not." He chuckles, eyes flicker to your face, you don't have foundation on, going for a mostly natural look, and Bakugou has good eyes where most men didn't, "Ya've got crows feet sweetheart. Seems like ya've smiled a lot in your life."

Reflexivity you go to hide the corner of your eyes, they crease heavily when you really smile. Everyone who knew you, actually knew you, always made the comment of "you smile with your eyes."

"Ah come on they're barely noticeable and nothin to be ashamed about." He chuckles, pulling at your wrists so he could see your face again, "Gimme a smile."

"Fuck off." You hiss waving him away dismissively trying to regain control, "The contract Mr Zero."

He sighs, annoyed as he leans back, "We haven't finished dinner."

"I'd like to skip to dessert." A snarling hiss as you push away what was probably the best meal you could've ever had.

"Oh would you?" Deadly smirk, "I could skip to dessert iffin ya want. In my car or the bathroom, your pick Princess."

"Again you're fucking insufferable." You make motion to stand, to leave, only for his strong hand to catch your wrist and pull you into his lap making this somehow worse.

"What's wrong? Embarrassed now?" He tilts your chin to him and you squeeze your eyes shut in defiance he chuckles lowly, "Tell me yer real age and I'll stop teasing, for now."

You open your eyes to glare at him for a long, long time. No judgment in those bromine eyes as he patiently waits for your answer. You sigh, scratching roughly at his undercut with your long nails whether it was a strategic move or your fingers having a mind of their own, you weren't sure. The only thing you were sure of was that this man was trouble.

Big trouble.

Yet you answer honestly anyway.

"Twenty nine." It's soft, genuinely this time as if you might be a little embarrassed about it when you know you shouldn't. He smiles up at you, letting his thumb linger at one of the corners of your eyes before he lets his fingers trace your face down to your jaw.

"See, won't so bad to admit it was it?" Genuine gentle tone, his hand on your hip squeezing at the fat there.

Your heart races and that foreboding feeling creeps up your throat as you're slowly realizing that you are no longer the one who was hunting.

No, no, now you were being hunted.

Nails bite harshly into his nape as you stand, snarl to your lips and all he can do is chuckle at your flippant attitude.

"M leaving." Holding out your manicured hand, "Give me my underwear back."

"No, I paid for it." He growls really spurring on your temper now.

"All you men are the same. Pigs who want to keep their dicks wet." A scoff as you snarl your pretty lips.

"And I can say all women are the same. Bitches who want to keep their pockets full." He retorts forcing your sharp claws to grab onto the cheeks of what you don't realize is the most powerful man in the entire country.

Even making sure your nails bite into the skin of his cheeks, "I don't need your fucking money."

"Then why're ya here sweetheart?" He smirks up at you, grabbing onto your wrist tightly.

"Fuck you. You don't know me." Shoving his face and escaping his tight grip before you begin to stomp from the restaurant with your head held high.

"You'll be crawling back to me, princess." He calls out with a chuckle.

"I won't!" You send a snarling growl back, unable to get through the too quiet dining room to the exit of the five star place.

Hissing through your teeth with an echoing groan as the night air hits you doing little to cool your temper while you hail a cab.

Pulling up the sugar baby app on your phone going to his profile to block him but before you can a message pops up.

GZ: See ya in two months sweetheart.

You'd never blocked a mark faster in your entire life.

But the thing you don't know about him yet is that Bakugou Katsuki always kept his promises.

A/N: yay! You've gotten to the end! Thank you so much for reading! Now I have plans to make this a series however I'm not very good at long term things if I'm being honest. Lmfao but please! If you liked or loved this reblog it! I'd love to hear in my inbox or in the body of the reblog or even in your tags of your reblog what you thought of this!

[princess-of-the-corner]

Okay so...

I'm kinda curious, how would "The Storm" and "The Blue Spirit" play out in the Avatar!Ty Lee AU?

Both fun episodes!

The Storm:

So some initial things are different plot-wise to kick us off. Mostly because like.

While we, the Audiance, knows about the whole thing of 'Raava didn't know when Aang would wake up, but she did know the world needed an Avatar, so she 'split' and got a new Host'. To the rest of the world?

To them, it seems like the Air Avatar died in the initial attacks, or soon after. They reincarnated into the Water Tribe, then the Earth Kingdom and then the Fire Nation. But after that the cycle was assumed broken until Ty Lee and Aang show up.

So in the beginning when they're talking to the grumpy old man, he isn't blaming the Avatar for disappearing. He's just old and jaded about the whole idea of the Avatar bringing peace because it didn't end well for the past bunch.

It still ends up triggering Aang's guilt. Some of it is his canon guilt. That he ran away and got frozen for a century and so many people died because he wasn't there to do something about it.

But there's also guilt specific to this AU. Because, thanks to him being frozen, the cycle broke. There wasn't a proper Avatar. They were given the burden that should have been his, but they didn't even have the proper ability to do that job because of him. If he didn't run, maybe he could've stopped things. Even if he had died, then maybe the next Avatar would've been better because they had their full power.

And now he's back, but they can't reverse things. He can't even take full responsibility for his actions because they're still split. Ty Lee still has that burden of being the Avatar and he can't take the weight from her shoulders.

So everyone is sympathetic but it's mostly Iroh who can really help talk him through this one.

Just telling him that, even for an adult, a war can be too much to bear. Aang is a kid. He shouldn't have to deal with that. None of this is his fault.

Sometimes you make bad decisions. Even adults can make bad decisions. Some decisions are much worse than others. And you often wish you can go back and change it. Even if it's a situation like this, where a different decision leads to a similar or even worse result, you still wish you had made what was the 'right' choice in a situation.

But you cannot go change the past. All you can do is to work and make the future better.

-

The Blue Spirit:

Well after the last episode being bittersweet and hopeful. We have something different!

Various members of the group start getting sick. And honestly none of them are doctors. So they still end up with the 'hm we need to find some kind of medicine'.

Aang and Ty Lee are the most mobile on their own. Like. Speed my dudes. So they go seek out the herbalist and meet Miyuki, the cat of many warcrimes.

Similar to Canon, they're ambushed while collecting the frogs. Aang manages to escape, but Ty Lee isn't quite as up to speed with the speed trick, so she gets captured.

Aang isn't dumb enough to rush in on his own so he goes back to the rest of the group to get whoever isn't off their rocker with the sickness.

The 'Blue Spirit' thing is less for hiding their identities, and more Zuko being a dramatic bitch like 'who wants to put on theatre masks and become cryptids that the soldiers freak out about?'

Which like. It works.

Of course they're on their rescue mission and they meet Ty Lee half-way because she was half-way through rescuing herself and also punching Zhao in the dick for good measure but you know.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

on one hand I get that Andy is Bitter and Jaded™ but on the other hand Nile is already pretty scared about the whole situation and I don't know anyone who would take finding out that they are a new immortal by dying well so I'm like "andy pls be nice she is just a wee one" also nicky and joe have completely stolen my heart and I'm only 40 mins into the movie help

okay I was the earlier anon (if tumblr didn't eat my ask) and I finished the movie and I understand more and hope I didn't sound like I was unnecessarily bashing on andy for being "mean" to nile if that makes sense

Oh, not to worry, I didn’t take it that way at all!  Honestly it’s one of the things I love most about The Old Guard (what am talking about, everything is what I love most about this movie): it’s an action movie, a superhero movie, that does the jaded tired mentor trope without making that person intolerably unkind.  Andy is really bitter!  She is really jaded!  And she has every right to be!  She’s fought the good fight for thousands upon thousands of years, and she has never once been in a position to see real payoff.  Without any evidence that she’s been making a difference, she’s still marched into battle and stood up for what she thinks is right, even though the mortals she’s been protecting have done horrible things--to each other, to her people, to her.  Of course she’s so goddamn tired that she’s finally, finally, reaching the end of her rope.

But...

The Guard loves Andy!  The scene of her meeting Joe and Nicky at the beginning, where she cups Nicky’s head in her hand and Joe spins her around while she thumps him on the back???  The affectionately wry way Booker keeps assuring Nile “that’s not the signal,” in the tone of someone who’s been watching Andy wreck shop for two centuries and kinda loves her for it???  I mean, goddamn, Nile and Andy are at odds for half the movie, but even so, Nile throws herself in front of bullets and off buildings without hesitation, for a woman who embodies the total destruction of her life!  Nile brings Andy’s labrys to the lab, because Andy might be mortal and she might’ve been shot but Nile refuses to give up on her until she sees proof positive that Andy doesn’t need that axe anymore.

And I think it’s because Andy is still so affectionate, that it works for me.  I’m honestly sick to the teeth of the jaded tired mentor trope, because it so consistently just presents as--Naive Young Character Is Berated And Insulted For A Whole Movie And Bears It Stoically And Eventually The Mentor Sees The Light, or more commonly the alternative ending of Naive Young Character Is Broken And Jaded And Understands That Mentor Was Right All Along.

And this isn’t like that.  Andy is sharp with Nile at first, hard on her, but like--goddamn, I really understand why.  First of all, “well, you can’t die and neither can I and if you go back and admit that to your superior officers, they will make you a lab rat forever, so how about instead we go to France” is...a hard sell.  I get why she went for Show over Tell, with that being the situation on the table.  I mean, damn, I bet she stabbed Booker, too.  But second of all, Andy is just off the worst case scenario.  Her family was tricked into exposing themselves, on purpose, to someone who wants that information for purposes yet unknown but certainly nefarious.  She doesn’t have time to bring Nile in gradually.  She could’ve been nicer!  But she couldn’t have been slower.

And then--once Andy is back on steadier ground, in a safehouse with people she trusts, she’s not--softer.  But she’s not cruel.  She doesn’t berate Nile for wanting to speak to her family, she doesn’t call her stupid and naive for not knowing how to handle this.  When Nile says she won’t go with them to get Joe and Nicky, that she doesn’t want to kill people, that she wants to spend time with the people she loves, Andy lets her go.  It’s not a test, it’s not some reverse psychology bullshit, it’s just--

Andy sees that Nile is young and scared and hopelessly out of her depth, and she decides I don’t want to break this girl, I don’t want to hurt her, I don’t think this is a good idea but I want her to live her life with as much joy as possible.

Andy is bitter and jaded and tired and old, so fucking old, but she’s not unkind.  She shows love freely, she feels everything down to her bones, she looks at Nile (she’s only a baby, she says, heartsick over the picture Joe draws) and she doesn’t make Nile prove herself, just instantly and unflinchingly extends her family to include this new lost orphan of mortality.  

I think the thing that makes me love Andy in all her world-weariness is that, even after all her thousands of years of exhaustion, she is the kind of person who, against her better judgement, puts her secret, her family, her immortal freedom at risk, because she wants to save some kids.

[swindlersstole]

@nedryn-laughs guess what we’re doing it like this because this first prompt alone is now at 8 pages and 3295 words and frankly that’s probably how they’re all gonna be

7. birthday

Jade’s birthday came without much fanfare. That was how she wanted it; even without the thought of Mordegon still looming over them all, high in his castle, Hendrik could confirm that she had never been one for the fancy parties of nobility, and despite Sylvando’s half-hearted cries for extravagance, the day passed by in quiet celebration.

Even so, Nova spent most of the day on the forge. It was far from the first time he’d made Jade or any of them something new to wear, but never anything quite so regal. “She’s always looking at dresses in town,” he’d told Erik, “but she never gets herself anything. I want her to have something nice.” He’d put out all the stops, and used every smithy trick he’d picked up to make his sister the raiment he felt she deserved. 

It was definitely a feeling Erik understood well, so he did his part by keeping Jade away until Nova’s work was done. And when Nova brought the dress out at the end of dinner that night, she was noticeably touched. Jade was stoic and unfazeable, to an even further degree than Nova was, but when she saw the effort he’d put in for her, there was no hiding the graceful, true to form princess smile on her lips. 

She wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye, and pulled her brother into a grateful hug without a word.

It was a sweet moment, and a moment of relative peace they all needed--Erik could let himself feel that way, now that he knew Mia was safe and sound and waiting for him. Still, that didn’t keep him from flicking his gaze over to Serena every now and then, watching the shadows in the hull act as her mask.

~

“--Shine, bright morning light--”

Erik awoke to the sound of a harp.

Well, not “a” harp--there was only one harp on the Stallion, and it was one that had woken him up before many times over the course of their adventure. Not that Serena played loudly, of course, he'd always just been prone to sleeping light. Especially so when things were on his mind.

“--Keep your eyes on me, now we’re on the edge of Hell--”

Judging from the melody coming from the deck, Serena must have had things on her mind as well.

Unsurprising, Erik thought, but he could take a good guess on what she was feeling. Any one of them could, probably. But circumstances given, Erik might have been the only one right now Serena could talk to, and have it truly mean something to her. Not that she had a bitter bone in her body--Serena wasn’t like him--but he knew Nova wasn’t blind to this sort of thing, and that if he hesitated to help another, it was for good cause.

Well. That was all fine with Erik. And that was the truth. Serena wasn’t Mia by a long shot, but he still knew a thing or two about having a little sister.

~

Dave had dropped anchor hours ago, so by logic, only Erik and Serena would be awake. Of course, Serena didn’t know he was awake yet, and more than likely wasn’t expecting any company so late in the night. In the long run, this would probably be for the best. One on one talks worked better when it really was one on one; Erik told himself he’d rope Nova into one again someday, but for right now, he had bigger fish to fry.

He opened the door to the deck open more loudly than probably necessary, but with two mugs of cocoa in his hands, Erik didn’t have much of a choice otherwise. It earned the result he’d wanted, though; no sooner had the first hinge began to creak had the harp stopped playing. He thought he heard Serena squeak.

Erik stepped out into view; Serena stared back at him with wide eyes, clutching her harp almost like she’d been caught doing something wrong. He almost frowned at the sight, but managed to will it away. This was going to be a good talk, damn it.

“Hey,” he raised one mug up in offering, “Thought you might be thirsty.”

She wasn’t flustered, no, but surprise had taken Serena miles away it seemed. After a brief moment, she seemed to snap back to reality, and nodded. “I… yes. Thank you, Erik.”

He took that as his invitation, and made his way up the stairs. Serena had scooted to her left to make space for him on the step, and Erik handed her one mug before sitting down beside her. 

“Sorry it’s not cake. Should be more than enough marshmallows in there to get a feel for it, though.”

Serena laughed her quiet little laugh. “You know me so well.”

“I’m attentive. Part of the job description.” He waited for her to drink, before going on, “New song you’re working on?”

She breathed in, deeper than normal, like a gasp nearly escaped her, but Serena let that breath go as a sigh, and bowed her head with a hum. There wasn’t much point in keeping secrets from him now--and to tell the truth, Erik had never really been able to keep secrets from Serena, either. They had an understanding.

“Mm… not quite. Just… thinking.” She glanced back up at him with a bashful smile. “I do apologize, if I woke you.”

Erik waved it off without a thought. “Hey, don’t sweat it. I could think of a lot worse things to wake up to.” He gestured forward with his mug. “Cocoa for your thoughts?”

She frowned. “You probably already know what’s on my mind.”

“Probably,” he admitted, “but that’s not the same as you talking about it.”

The look Serena gave him at that was curious at best, and dumbfounded at the worst, and Erik’s only response was a single, silent nod. He was asking her, he wanted her to know, he was putting the direction of this conversation into her hands. 

It was a simple thing, the power of agency. But it could make all the difference in moments so delicate.

Serena stared at him a moment longer, but then she smiled, and it took a great deal of self-restraint on Erik’s part not to sigh in relief. “Ah, no. I suppose it’s not the same, is it?”

She took another sip of cocoa--downing two marshmallows whole, Erik noted, because he counted how many he put in--before turning her gaze away from him to look forward instead.

“I was just thinking… birthdays are going to be a bit lonely now, aren’t they?”

Serena spoke with a solemn acceptance of the situation. And Erik knew it was acceptance, because if it wasn’t, he wouldn’t be looking at her with cut hair now. But he didn’t say a word, and let her speak to her heart’s content.

“It’s a silly sort of thing to think about now, I know… and it’s certainly not fair to Jade for me to be so glum. It’s hardly something any of us can control.” She sighed, and rested her chin in her hand. “Still… I hadn’t been giving much thought to life after… after we’ve won.”

An ocean’s breeze passed them by, and Serena reached for her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “...you know, I talked a great deal about this to Nova, back then. I said I was going to stand on my own, and see this all through, and live my life to the fullest. For Veronica. And I am, and I knew it would be hard when I said it--but I don’t think it really struck me how different the little things are going to be. Birthdays, or holidays, or even being sick… I never once thought about doing any of that alone.”

She turned back to look at him. “Have you thought about it, Erik? What you’re going to do, afterwards?”

He nodded. “Sort of. I always told Mia we’d go out and see the world one day. When she’s up and ready for it, I think a proper treasure hunt’s in order.”

“Really?” Serena smiled behind her hand. “That’s sweet. If a little surprising--I always thought you were going to stay with Nova.”

“No one’s saying I can’t do both. It’s a plan in progress” His cheeks turned the faintest bit pink, and he could tell this, because Serena laughed at him, and he gave her one firm pat on the back. There wasn’t any point in getting too embarrassed about it. He couldn’t keep a secret from Serena. “But, I’m not the one we need to worry about right now... is that what you’ve been up to out here? Thinking about the future?”

“Something like that, yes.” The far off look in her eyes returned as she thought. “Before everything, I wanted to open a cake shop in Arboria--I’m not sure I could call it a dream, exactly, but it was always such a happy thought, it made me excited to grow up. But, Veronica… we both excelled in one kind of magic rather than both, you see. She wanted to teach her magic to others. And now that I have her magic with me… I couldn’t help but wonder, if I would be wasting it, if I didn’t use it?”

Serena held out her hand, and snapped her fingers; the tip of her pointer finger sparked a flame, and she let it burn a moment before snapping it away once again. 

“It was her last gift to me. And… I didn’t want it, but I’m glad she gave it to me. So I don’t think I can just run away from it when we’re done. I have to use it as best I can. For her sake.”

“Hey, Serena?”

When she looked back up at him, Erik raised his mug, and knocked her softly on the forehead with the rim. “No.”

“Wh--hey!” Serena rubbed at her head with a pout. If there was any doubt that she and Veronica had been related, that face she made squashed it to pieces. “I’m being serious, Erik!”

“Yeah? Well, so am I.” He raised a brow. “Trust me--I know a thing or two about running away, and you’re not running from anything.”

Erik paused, to take a swig, before continuing. “Living for another person doesn’t mean you have to literally live their life for them. I mean, hell, look at Jade. She’d been living every day for Nova all her life, and she’s still her own person. Veronica wouldn’t want you to hold yourself back on her account.”

He placed a firm hand on Serena’s shoulder. “If you want to open that cake shop? Open that cake shop. If you want to play music with Sylvando in the circus, or help Nova and Jade rebuild their homes, or--hey, if you wanted to come look for treasure, too, I don’t think Mia would mind. Long as she gets the biggest cut, but--gah, I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“My point is, Veronica left you her magic because she knew you’d put it to good use, no matter what you did. There’s nothing you could do that would disappoint her. She believes in you--we all believe in you.”

Serena stared at him with wide eyes as he spoke. 

“...look. You’re going to feel alone for a while. You’re going to feel that way, and it’s going to seem like you’ll feel that way forever. I know what that’s like. But I also know it doesn’t last forever. One day… believe it or not, you’re gonna laugh at a joke. You’re going to eat a cake, and it’s going to make you feel happy. You’re gonna get there, Serena. I don’t know how, but I swear, you’re gonna get there. And we’re going to be right behind you when it happens.”

Erik’s hand slid off her shoulder in the silence that followed. “You’re never as alone as it seems. Takes a while to learn that, but. It’s the truth.”

Serena’s eyes wavered; it was hard for Erik to get a grasp on her emotions in the beginning, with her expressions always cheery and carefree. Tragedy had left her more vulnerable, more readable, and in ways, more alive. She wasn’t going to cry--no tears until this was all over, she’d said--but the softness in her eyes told Erik that he’d gotten through to her.

She laughed, and it sounded like her harp, airy and light.

“Goodness me, Erik. When did you get so smart?”

“Hey!” He tried to sound offended, but he was laughing right along with her. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’ve always been smart!”

“I carry Veronica’s magic and will in me,” and here, Serena winked at him, “I’m rude now.”

“You brat.” Erik bumped against her shoulder playfully, and she bumped right back--much harder than he was expecting, at that. Serena was a younger sister, but it seemed like he forgot that she wasn’t as young as Mia. “Glad you’re feeling better, though.”

“Mmhm… thank you, Erik. Really. Birthdays might still be lonely from here on… but I know you’re all looking out for me. Celebrating for two won’t be so dreadful, when you have good company.”

“As good a plan as any.” Erik agreed, but it wasn’t without a twinge of rue. Birthdays had been the whole reason for Serena’s sadness, and while he could ease her pain on much of her worries, he couldn’t really change that. It had been easier for him not to think of Mia’s birthday, there were plenty of distractions in the world, but for a twin, there wasn’t much of an escape, save of just throwing out the whole day. 

“I’d give you mine, if I could.”

“Huh?” Serena looked at him, curiously, and it was at this moment Erik realized he’d said that outloud. “‘Give me your’...?”

“Oh--my birthday.” He shrugged. “Until you could celebrate yours without feeling off about it, I mean. You still have to have the day, right? And it’s not like I’ve been using it much.” Pause, take a drink. “But, I don’t know what the day is, so I suppose that idea’s out the window.”

“Hmm… I wonder.”

Serena had pulled her legs to her chest, and was resting her chin on her knees; her brows were furrowed in deep concentration. Erik looked at her with a raised brow of his own. “Hey, don’t hurt yourself, now. It was just a random--”

“No, that’s it!” She jumped up in her seat, her eyes alight with excitement, and Erik near recoiled back from surprised. Serena smiled at him like she smiled at the finest sweets Gondolia had to offer.

“Erik, let me give you mine.”

He blinked. “...come again?”

“My birthday.” Serena repeated, still pleased as punch with the idea. “You and I--we can share it. And it’s not to take it away from Veronica, never. It will always be our day. But…” 

She reached for his free hand, and took it in her own. “If I’m able to share the day I was born with my good friend Erik, then I won’t feel so lonely about it at all. Because I know he’s looking out for me, just as much as Veronica is.”

Erik gaped, and she released his hand. It hung there in the air for a moment, before he pulled it into his hair, rubbing at the back of his neck. It was suddenly very hard to look at Serena now, but he definitely caught wind of the titter she held back watching him fall bashful.

“...I mean,” He started, his hand falling to his lap, his smile sheepish, “if you think that’ll help?”

“It will.” And Serena sounded so sure of herself, more sure than she had this whole talk, that Erik could not think of a reason not to. And she said once more, “Celebrating for two won’t be so dreadful, when you have good company.”

“I… well. Alright, then.” He did his best to play it cool, but even Erik doubted he pulled it off on this one. It didn’t really matter this time, though. “I guess we’re sharing a birthday, now.”

Serena clapped against her mug, delighted. It truly was a miraculous turnabout on her mood. Erik hadn’t expected the talk to go as smoothly as it did. “Wonderful! It’ll be a fun day, you’ll see. And--oh! You’ll have to tell me your favorite dessert.” 

“And why, pray, do I have to do that?”

“It’s an old wives’ tale, in Arboria, that your family makes you your favorite sweet for good luck for the rest of your year. Veronica would always have her brownies with cayenne, and I would get my lemon meringue cake. So, if I’m going to be celebrating with my brother now, I need to know what to make him.”

There was much about the last bit of that sentence he needed to react to, but Serena didn’t give him the chance. Before Erik could even get out the “Br--” in “Brother?”, she grinned at him--and rather deviously so when she added, “I want to make sure I get it right. He’s a rather fussy eater, you know.”

Erik was still touched, and perhaps still outwardly so, but that didn’t stop the way he sputtered. He wouldn’t go so far as to call Serena rude, even if she’d made the joke, but she’d certainly become sassier. Or maybe, she’d always been like that, and was just now letting it show. 

Either way, this slander would not slide, even if it was true, and even if he was laughing about it. “Oh, you just let me polish this thing off,” he raised his mug with a shake of the head, “I’ll show you ‘fussy’.”

Serena giggled again behind her hand, unthreatened and airy, and before Erik brought his mug to his lips for a chug, she raised her mug alongside his.

“From here on out,” She declared. “Happy birthday to us.”

Not a typical toast for a number of reasons, Erik thought: not using alcohol was supposed to be bad luck, he’d heard, and furthermore, it wasn’t even the birthday in question, so doing this now seemed silly. Still, no one in this ragtag group had ever been one for traditions or norms, and fortune found them as it did--and this moment was one such fortune. Everyday, he added more and more memories to his heart, each one more precious than gold, and Serena, cheering him on for the rest of their years was another one for the books.

Erik knocked his mug against hers. “Happy birthday to us.”

Serena beamed, and pulled her mug away to drink--but not before letting out a rousing cry of, “Skull!”

She’d only barely raised the mug to her lips when she stopped, deterred by Erik’s rowdy laughter. “Ah--what? Erik, what is it?”

“‘Skull’?” He gasped between laughs. “Do you mean ‘skol’?”

Confusion fell away from Serena’s face, and in its place was a blank expression of dawning realization. “...Is--is that how you say that?”

“Yes!” Erik cried, slapping at his knee. “Why would you toast with a skull?”

“I--I don’t know!” She pouted, cheeks red, and smacked him on the arm. “How could I have known? I’m not from Sniflheim--don’t you laugh at me!”

Erik managed to wind his laughter down to snickers--funny as it had been, he wasn’t about to embarrass Serena further by risking anyone else waking up on them--and when Serena turned away from him with a loud “Hmmph!”, he swung an arm over her shoulders in a tight, half-hug.

“Sorry, Serena,” he said with a grin, “but if I can’t make fun of my sister, who can I make fun of?”

[ill-skillsgard]

Smoke & Money, Part 5 - Bill Skarsgård

Title: Smoke & Money

Warning: 100% NSFW, some drug use, swearing, sex/fetish/kink type situations

Description: A young sex worker gets tangled in the dangerous web of a wealthy entrepreneur whose tastes push her past all of her known limits.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Sex was this shapeless yet intricate form of power that I had learned to wield at a young age. From my first discovery of softcore porn on late-night basic cable to the figuring out that I could use my pussy as a form of mind-control to hypnotize high school boys into buying me things. I didn't care if I was being manipulative or if some guy's ex-girlfriend called me a slut. There were many worse things one could be besides a slut. I had this natural power and I was unashamed to use it. At the time, it felt like pure magic. It used to be magical to me until sex became real work. I would clock in- check in at a dirty motel- do my time and clock back out, making sure my customer was satisfied and that I got paid for the performance. Over and over. I had been inside almost every out-of-date, no-star hotel in the entire county and afar, doing sexual favors for men who had no will or means to get laid by anyone who would do it for free. Sex had officially lost its luster to me until I met Bill. I thought that I would never want to engage in real sex ever again, not after all of the shit I had seen and definitely not without getting paid for it. I thought the entire idea of allowing another human to penetrate me had been jaded for good but I found myself wanting it more than ever. This was a new kind of torture and I wasn't sure how it was sitting with me. I had always been the one on the giving end, always the one with something to withhold. Now I was the victim and even though my cage was gilded and I had money practically flowing out of my fingertips, I knew I had willingly wandered right into a trap. Bill did not come for me or call me or send one of his people to talk to me about anything. The only thing I received was a package that contained a brand new cell phone the morning after our last encounter. I looked down at the staunch white packaging and then over to my old phone that I held in my palm. He had told me to get rid of my cell phone, so I did. I broke the screen with the heel of my shoe and when that wasn't enough I threw it in the kitchenette sink and ran it under a raging stream of hot water. He wanted nobody contacting me. No more clients. No more men. No more tricks for me because I had pulled the ultimate one. The fabled Sugar Daddy to end them all was now mine and me, his. It was a strange sensation to be done with it, to devote myself to only one person. But it started to get lonely up in my gilded cage and I longed for human contact. I had been having breakfast, lunch, and dinner all by myself at the Miramira Cafe for days upon days. I had sucked down every type of cocktail they offered on their menu and when I got bored of that I ordered room service. After the food was no longer a comfort I started to route around the Penthouse to see if I could find anything of interest. My hopes were to find something that belonged to Bill, but there was nothing. Every morning a pair of maids came in to take away my used towels, change the bed sheets and clean the bathroom and kitchen. They weren't enough to satiate my appetite for interaction however and their arrival only signified to me that another day without Bill had come and gone. Strange how it works, when you're constantly bombarded with people and their requests, you start to live in contempt of it but as soon as all that is taken away, the only thing that can set your mind at ease is the very thing you started to loathe in the first place. I was reaching a breaking point when I woke up one morning and realized that Bill hadn't come for me in almost two weeks. I looked through my new phone and there were no contacts. I had no pictures, no apps, no texts, and no calls. It was then I started to deeply regret destroying my old phone. At least on that one, I had some games to play and pictures of myself with old friends. That was it, I thought. I should meet up with an old girlfriend. Surely Bill didn't expect me to have zero contact with the outside world completely. After all, he hadn't made any effort to contact me in any way. So that was that I decided. I downloaded a messenger application and started going through to see who I wanted to talk to. I invited an old friend of mine out to lunch at a restaurant that was a few blocks away in the fashion district. At first, she declined, claiming she didn't have the money to spend fourteen dollars on a beer but I offered to pay for everything and she quickly changed her tune. Funny how call-girls flipped the switch whenever something free was involved. Oh well, I wouldn't hold it against her. I was just happy to be getting out of the hotel and into the city for some good old-fashion girl talk. I put on a nice new Versace dress, one of those super-tight tubes of material that zipped all the way from the hem to the neck and a brand new pair of violet crushed velvet Louboutin's with the classic red outsole. With my new phone and wallet thrown into a purse, I was ready to leave. Outside the door, there was nobody to be seen. It had been a few days since a bodyguard had been posted at the door. I had no more fear that my life was in danger and Bill must have thought so too. That was okay, I thought, I didn't want to have to explain to my friend why some big buff dude was following me around. In fact, after having given it some additional thought, I suspected that maybe my whole outfit was a little much too. I didn't want to give away too much information and she was the type of friend to poke and pry into anyone's business. Oh well, I thought, better keep my mouth closed. She was very happy to see me when we met at the restaurant. Her name was Paula and I had known her since high school. She taught pole-dancing and gymnastics at a studio in the downtown area so she was quite fit and always appeared as though she were being propped up on a stick. Of course, she made a big deal about my appearance as well. "Look at you, are those knock-offs?" She pointed at my glistening new shoes. "I wish they were," I replied. "Holy smokes, I don't remember you being so fancy looking. What happened? Did you marry an old rich guy?" Oh, if only you knew what I have been up to, sweet Paula. "There is a rich man in my life, let's just leave it at that." There was no point in me lying because in this day and age anyone could find out anything. I figured I would just be as vague as possible when answering any questions about my newfound fortune. "Damn, you look so sharp these days. It's been so long since we last got together." Paula bubbled. "I know, far too long," I agreed. We took a table on the outside patio since it was a warm and bright day and I simply did not want to be inside if I didn't have to be. Paula turned her nose up at the menu and implored me to allow us to go to another restaurant. After ten minutes of insisting it was fine, that I would pay for everything she sighed, sinking down in her chair. It was such a gorgeous day and I relished the feeling of the sun on my skin. I loved the company and endless chattering with Paula. It felt so good to talk to another human being, one that was genuinely interested in what I had to say, who wanted to hear my stories and had their own to share. The eyes from around the patio that settled on me were welcome too. I felt radiant and glad that I could finally treat somebody else to all of the lavishness that I had been receiving. I almost forgot how good it felt to give. Halfway into a bottle of wine, I noticed there was a table of men at the other end of the patio and one kept staring at me until I would look over and catch him, then he would look away. All of the buzzes of the street and people walking by with their children or shopping bags started to create a whirlwind of confusion, or maybe it was just the wine. Paula was babbling on and on about some event she was hosting at the pole-house she worked at but I was tuning in and out, casually sipping my wine and letting my eyes jump from person to person, from car to car, building to building and so on until I saw something, or rather someone familiar. "What's up?" Paula asked me as I squinted to see across and further down the street. There was a shiny black BMW parked a few storefronts down and the driver I swore had been looking at me. By the time my eyes focused, a bustling tram car stopped in the street with a line of a dozen cars behind it just waiting to get a move on. Could it have been Bill's driver? I wasn't sure but something sick and suggestive inside my gut screamed that it was but by the time the tram moved the BMW had its tinted windows rolled all the way up and was signaling to merge into the street traffic. "J? What are you looking at?" "I don't know... I thought I saw somebody I know across the street." Paula craned her neck around and tried to see what I saw but it was too late. "Hm, weird." She said, sticking her fork into her bowl of ridiculously expensive green curry. When I concluded that it was all just in my head, a hand touched my arm and I gasped, causing Paula to gasp as well. I looked up and saw the person who was trying to get my attention and smiled. "Jack? Wow!" I burst. "J, is that really you?" He asked. I stood up from the table and threw my arms around him, hugging him tightly. Jack was an ex-boyfriend of mine from high school that had remained my friend up until graduation. I remembered him as always being very gentlemanly and polite. He had grown up with all sisters and a single mom which I attributed to his sensitivity and grace. "And Paula, do you remember me?" Jack asked her. "Yeah, you were the guy with the really bad emo haircut right?" Paula giggled. "Yeah," Jack shrugged. "Good times, huh?" "Wow, it's so good to see you. What are you doing here?" I asked. "Oh, just having some lunch with a couple of buddies right over there." Jack pointed across the patio to the table of suited men that I had noticed. "I thought I recognized you but I wasn't sure," I admitted. "I guess my eyesight is starting to go." "Well, good eyesight or not, you are looking fantastic. You too, Paula." Jack offered a compliment. "Thanks, so do you. I'm glad you outgrew the emo phase." Jack laughed and reached into his suit pocket. "Well hey, I'm going to get back to those guys but, I would love it if you gave me your number so we can catch up sometime if you're alright with that?" "Sure!" I exclaimed and then wished I could retract my eager response. "Well actually, I don't have a phone at the moment." Paula looked up at me with a raised eyebrow and Jack guffawed. "I mean, I do, but it's not working right now," I attempted to hide my nervousness by fake giggling. "I've always been kind of dumb with new technologies." "How about this," Jack suggested as he produced an ebony fountain pen from his jacket pocket. "We'll do this really old school, in the spirit of all this great nostalgia. I'll write my phone number down for you and once you have your phone figured out, you can shoot me a text message." "Sure! Sounds great." I agreed. Jack scrawled his phone number down on a napkin and handed it to me. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face until he left to go back to his table, but not before giving me another really tight hug and saying goodbye to Paula. "Wow, small world I guess." Paula mused. "Right..." I looked down at the phone number that was already starting to bleed black ink into the soft material of the napkin. Suddenly all I could think of was Bill. Would he be pissed if he knew about the exchange? I decided I didn't want to think about it and stuffed the napkin into my purse. After lunch, I thanked Paula for accompanying me and we went our separate ways. I hailed a cab and once I got into the back seat and the driver asked me where to go I blanked. I didn't want to go back to the penthouse, the fear of boredom was always waiting to greet me there so I decided to take the cab a few blocks down and go shopping by myself. 

~*~ 

It didn't take long before I grew bored of all my new things, taking hedonistic bubble baths by myself, eating French food off a pushcart in my silky underwear, playing online games with kids half my age. It was coming up on three weeks that I hadn't heard a thing from Bill and it was starting to feel really strange. Where was he? Did he forget that I existed? Was I just one of many birds he had locked up in different towers all over the world? The more I thought about it the more I convinced myself I was just part of some prurient collection of mistresses that all worshiped at the feet of Mr. Skarsgård. I had no way of contacting him. Even the guard that had watched over me for the first week of my stay was nowhere to be found. I had no contacts in my phone. Then I remembered how it had all started- with a simple little e-mail. I could easily log into my e-mail inbox and find the address he had used to contact me. Maybe a strongly worded electronic letter would get him to come to see me, or something. I wanted to but a voice inside of me was screaming to not bother with it. If I crossed him again he could easily have me dropped back off on the street and my whole new world of rich material and expensive wine stains would dissolve and the prospect of enticing my benefactor along with it. It was all so very maddening, laying around in a five-star hotel suite, staring out the windows and wondering when I was going to be called upon again. All the money in the world couldn't fill the need I had and it only got worse as the days dragged on. I wanted to touch and have human contact. I wanted sex. I had never gone that long without it since I lost my virginity. At that point, I would have even been happy giving some random John a blowjob just to be able to hear some fucking gratitude. But I stayed in the penthouse, only leaving to go somewhere else to eat. I had no other responsibility in the world other than keeping myself alive and even though I was sitting in the lap of luxury, it didn't feel so lively. A month went by and I was starting to become friends with the hotel concierge and all the ladies at the front desk. I wondered what they thought of me. Did they pity me? Envy me? Did they know what I was there for? Did they know Bill? Did they have a phone number on file that I could use to contact him? There were so many questions that I wasn't sure I wanted the answers to. All I got were smiles each time I came back with another pair of new shoes. I got fed up by the end of the month when the Summer started to melt away the Spring and I had been living in a hotel shut away from the world. I wanted to go to the beach or do something fun but I was afraid to reach out. All of my friends were sex workers and if Bill knew I was hanging out with them there was a chance he might go off. Even Paula was away on vacation and I had absolutely nobody else to talk to except for the voices of unknown twelve-year-old boys playing the same video games as I was and most of the time they just told me to go fuck myself. The odd time that I actually took their advice was lackluster as well. The most expensive and high-end sex toys were not enough to fill the void. Masturbation was starting to get boring too. I deduced that I must have been starting to lose it. I was driven to the point of desperation. I hadn't heard from Bill in so long I almost forgot what he looked like. Swallowing my pride, I decided to e-mail him. Just one short and concise e-mail to remind him that I existed.

Where have you been? -J

I held my breath and pressed send. After the message left my outbox I set my phone down and hastily made it a point to distract myself with something else. I didn't want to sit around staring at my phone screen waiting for his reply. Instead, I played around on the grand piano even though I couldn't play a lick of anything even remotely song-like. When I gave up on that, I took a long steam shower. I assumed by the time I stepped out that he would have replied but when I checked I had absolutely no messages from him. I did, however, have mountains of unread e-mails from clients that I chose to delete without reading. I groaned and my dejected voice threw off the walls and came back at me, echoing my utter detachment from life and reminding me that I was so. Fucking. Alone. Bill did not answer me that night or the next. I dared not send another e-mail but after a couple more days I was ready to give up. I had gone out to buy a bigger suitcase just to pack all of my new stuff into. I thought if I just used his card to buy myself some prepaid credit cards I could leave it along with the phone he gave me and check out of the hotel. I could take a cab to wherever and forget about him as he had forgotten me. So that's what I decided to do. I threw all of my favourite shoes into the suitcase first and then all of my underwear, bras, lingerie, some comfortable outfits, a couple nice dresses and a bunch of toiletries stolen from the bathroom. It took some strength to get the suitcase zipped up but once I did it gave me a weird satisfaction. I dumped the contents of my purse on the bed and went through to make sure I wasn't taking anything that I didn't absolutely need. That's when I saw the bunched up napkin from the restaurant- Jack's phone number. A hundred different scenarios flooded my head and made it difficult to think straight. Maybe all I needed was one good lay and then I would be alright. I couldn't be expected to remain absolutely abstinent for Bill if he had no intentions of reaching out to me. It wasn't fair. Hell, it wasn't humane. I could not and would not deny myself my most basic needs. So I texted Jack. I was scared. But I was alone and being alone scared me more than Bill did. There was this mental itch that I couldn't scratch though because I was technically breaking his rule. I had to reason with myself when I got close to calling off my meeting with Jack. This wasn't a paid hook-up. In fact, Jack had no idea what I did for a living so there would be no pressure on either of us. Jack was good-looking enough to have a one night stand with. He was no Mr. Skarsgård but he would have to do if I were to remain of sound mind. I just wanted to be close to someone. I repeated a mantra over and over in my head on my way to meet up with Jack. It's going to be alright, it's going to be okay. I had told Jack to contact me on a messenger application instead of over text message. I didn't want to take any risks. I even went as far as to delete the previous texts from Jack and completely erase his contact information from the phone. Paranoia was beginning to bubble up inside of me, spilling over and making me think that what I was doing was wrong. No, I thought to myself. I am a grown ass woman and I deserve attention. Fuck Bill anyway. If he wanted to purposefully ignore me that was fine. It wouldn't have been the first time a client had had second thoughts about an arrangement. Although, I did get to thinking about the credit card and my indefinite stay at the Mira Hotel. If he was snubbing me, would I not have been informed that I had to vacate the penthouse? Or wouldn't the credit card have been canceled? Pushing all thoughts of Bill aside, I left in a cab bound for our meeting spot- a motel on the outskirts of town. Despite Jack asking me a dozen times to meet somewhere nicer for drinks, the decision was ultimately mine and I didn't want to waste any time with niceties and I especially didn't want him to think I was interested in dating him again. Sex was all I wanted and if I had it my way, I would be done and back at the Mira before the last call at the bar. I wasn't trying to be rude but there was no denying that I was succeeding at being selfish. The whole ride over was excruciating and I only thought about bailing a hundred times or more. I insisted that Jack check in and that I would meet him in whatever room he had. I even went as far as to ask the cab driver to drop me off a short distance from the actual motel so that I could walk the rest of the way. I knocked on the door of room eight and was greeted by Jack's smiling face but I was in no mood to exchange the courtesy. I walked straight in and closed the door quickly, much to his surprise. "Wow J, you really mean business. You sure I can't convince you to let me take you somewhere nicer? My buddy owns this really great bar uptown-" "No," I stated firmly as I locked the door behind me. Once inside I finally let my lungs deflate. Looking over at Jack, I could tell he was very confused and I didn't blame him for it. I had been incredibly blunt and devoid of any explanation. As if taking my sudden relaxation as a cue, Jack also let his shoulders drop, a smile creeping across his face. I stared at him, letting my eyes take every detail of him in from head to toe. Jack was handsome in that average way, with a symmetrical face and not the world's worst hairline but I couldn't help myself when I started comparing him to Bill. "I just want to be honest with you so that you know my intentions and you don't have to take any guesses. I really just need to get laid, right now. I don't want to pursue anything romantic... with anyone. Nothing against you, I'm just not in a position to be dating. Are you alright with that?" "Uh, yeah I guess," Jack said as he scratched the back of his head. I noticed his watch- knock-off. His suit looked decent from afar but up close I could tell it was department store brand. Why the fuck did I care? I tried to silence the fattened little bird in my head squawking out all sorts of pretentious drivel. He's not Bill. Bill's shoes cost more than his entire outfit. His eyes were dark brown and not at all like a captivating glass of expensive chardonnay. Fuck! "You do want to fuck me, don't you?" I asked him all the while trying to silence the stream of shit-talk silent monologue inside me. "Yeah... Yes. Definitely. Sorry, it's just... I've never done this before." "Never done what?" Jack laughed nervously. "I've never just met up with someone for sex." Throwing my purse on the table next to the bed, I turned towards him and smiled. "Don't worry, there's nothing to it. Now come here." When he started to kiss me I made a mental note of his stubble scratching me. He did not taste like cigarettes and liquor. He wasn't tall enough to have to bend down to reach my face. The bed squeaked like terrible violin strings when we sat down. All things I should not have been noticing. Shut up, shut up, shut up! After our clothes came off I kept my eyes mostly shut. Jack's fervor was not matched by my own. I laid on the bed and let him kiss my neck down to my chest and stomach. I thought, if I just kept my eyes closed I could imagine I was on that white stage of a bed back at the Mira Hotel and the person bestowing all the attention to my body was the person who had forced me into this situation. Yes, that could work. I could drift off like I always did. So I imagined Bill. It was not a crime. My legs were thrown over his shoulders and his face plunged down further. Bill was getting ready to eat me but not before pressing his lips to my inner thighs. I made the mistake of gazing down and it hit me hard that I was being a complete piece of shit. Jack was not unskilled but I just couldn't help myself wishing he would turn into Mr. Skarsgård. Pushing every thought aside, I tried to simply enjoy the sensation of somebody trying to get me off besides myself. It was difficult at first but once Jack flattened his tongue against my clit the sensation became strong enough to overpower most of my maddening inner struggle. That was until I heard something vibrating. Jack looked up at me, cheeks flushed and mouth glistening his work. I looked over towards the sound of the vibration and realized it was coming from my purse. I had never felt the blood drain from my face as hard and as fast as it did at that moment. "Oh shit," I said. "You want to get that?" I swallowed as much air as my lungs could hold and felt this sick wave of fear fill me up to the very brim, causing my feet to go numb and my hands to prickle. No, no, no, no. "J, what's the matter?" I could only focus on the sound of my phone vibrating at me with an imaginary vehemence. That sound that I had been craving for the last few weeks was suddenly one of the worst things that I could possibly hear. "N-nothing," I said when the vibrating stopped. "Are you sure? You look like you've seen a ghost." Then the vibrating started again. I was frozen, naked with my knees parted and unsure what to do. Jack was obviously not impressed by what was going on. "If you need to answer it just answer it already so we can get back to-" BANG. BANG. BANG. My heart slammed up against my ribs as though it were trying to escape my body. Jack had been startled as well and pulled away from me as I snapped my legs shut. "What the fuck is going on?" Jack demanded. "Open the fucking door, J." It was Bill's unmistakable voice booming from behind the locked door. "Oh my God. Get dressed now." I whispered to him. "If you don't open this fucking door now I will break it the fuck down." Jack scrambled into his pants angrily and didn't bother to fasten his belt. I could tell he was pissed at the intrusion by the way he approached the door and struggled with the lock. I did not move except to cover myself with the thin floral blanket of the motel bed. Once he had the door unlocked he was pushed back by the force of Bill entering the room, the driver of the BMW behind him, hand clutching something inside of his jacket. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, buddy?" Jack asked but was immediately shut down by Bill's agonizing stare. "If you don't get the fuck out of here in three seconds, my friend here will blow a bullet hole through your fucking face." Bill threatened. That was when I noticed that the driver had been clutching the handle of a gun in a body holster underneath his grey sport jacket. The driver looked at Jack with his strangely calm expression and that was enough to send him scurrying for the rest of his clothes. I watched as he scooped up his shirt and jacket, eager to leave the scene and me behind. "I'm not fucking paying for the room," was the last thing he said before throwing me a worried look and leaving. Once we heard the sound of his car pulling out of the gravel parking lot, the driver let go of the gun and instead laid his hand on Bill's shoulder. Bill looked at him and nodded, silently giving him permission to leave and shut the door behind him. I felt nauseous, to say the least, but with the gun out of the picture, I didn't quite feel like I was going to die. Although the fierceness of Bill's stare was enough to ensure my fear didn't dissipate too much. I could see Bill was searching for the right thing to say while he ground his teeth together, jaw muscles flexing with anger. "Who the fuck do you think you are?" He asked me quietly. I didn't answer. I couldn't. My mouth had gone dry. "ANSWER ME!" "I don't know what to tell you." I offered. "You better come up with something fast," Bill said as he removed his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair that was next to a small desk but not before removing a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from one of the pockets. I cringed back, stuttering and scared as he lit a cigarette. "You... You left me. I don't fucking know! You were gone for so long... I just couldn't," I tried to combine my thoughts but it was difficult when I was so obviously naked underneath the itchy blanket. "I said no more." "It wasn't a job. I asked him to meet me because..." "Because?" He urged as he exhaled smoke from his nostrils. "Because I was fucking lonely! I'm a person! I can't just hang around your big fucking fancy hotel all day and all night for days and days with no human interaction! I'm not a fucking pet!" "You're right because a pet would have more loyalty than you do, fucking whore." He spat. For the first time, that insult actually stung. Bill took a powerful drag off the cigarette one more time before stubbing it out on the particle board desk. "He wasn't paying me! I wanted to meet up with him." Bill scoffed. "Well, at least you had the decency to come to this filthy place to do your dirty work." "Dirty work? You want to talk about dirty work? You have people following me all over town! I can't go to a fucking restaurant without your little bellboy stalking me in the streets!" "And for good reason. I knew you wouldn't be able to honor our agreement. People like you are leeches. Sucking and sucking and sucking others dry until there's nothing left." "No, you're a leech! Worse than a leech... You expect me to pledge myself to you like you're God or something? Guess what? You're just a little boy with a nice piggy bank and no capacity for any human emotion. I am a fucking person with feelings and needs and I am not going to let you shut me away from the world because it amuses you! What kind of sick fuck does that?" "Your tone was entirely different when you were sucking my cum up off the floor like a trained dog." "Fuck you!" I shot at him. "This deal is fucking done." "Oh no it's not," He said as he started undoing the front of his pants. "I'm getting my money's worth from you." He ripped the blankets away from me, leaving me bare and exposed. I tried to grasp for them but he was too quick. Bill climbed up on the bed and I scampered backward to no advantage but to corner myself on the cheap wood headboard. He grabbed me by the neck and pulled me closer. "You want to get fucked? Is that all this is? You want someone to fuck you in this repulsive motel room? Hm?" He shook me but I couldn't answer. "You want somebody to make you cum?" I grasped at the hand closing around my windpipe. He didn't let go until my face was red. I gasped when he finally released me. "I can't leave you alone while I'm away on business or else you'll call up someone else to come take care of you? Do I mean absolutely nothing to you at all?" "No... I-" "I stopped by the room and saw you had all your things packed. You weren't planning on leaving, were you?" "I... I don't know." "You were going to leave with all of the beautiful things I bought you?" I looked away from him but he grabbed me by the chin and forced me to keep watching. "That is really, really mean. What happened to my good little girl, huh? Where's my nice, obedient girl?" The contempt I had been feeling for him was slowly starting to melt away. I stared into his eyes and instead of fear or anger, I felt something different. Something that I couldn't quite describe. It was driving me back to that feeling of lust for him. It made me want to do things for him that I would never do for any other man. Watching his lips and his face, being pinned by his body and unable to go anywhere or do anything besides sit there and listen to his voice was maddening in a way that made me wet. I wanted to be mad at him. I wanted to lash out but I could not. He pushed his hand into the front of his pants and I could do nothing but observe. His eyes burned holes into my own, one hand on the headboard, his long arm acting as a barricade between me and the door and the other hand working inside of his designer pants. I tried to reach out to pull him closer but he pushed his weight off the headboard and instead knelt in front of me, continuing to stroke himself without allowing me to see. "Tell me where my good girl is." "Here." "Tell me what my good girl wants." "You. I want you." "Tell me what you would do for me." "Anything. I would do anything for you, Daddy." "You've caused all of this drama simply because you want Daddy's cock so badly?" He dragged out the last two words, eyebrows raising in question. "...Yes." He hummed appreciatively and got off the bed and began unbuttoning his shirt. His pants fell low enough for me to see a light trail of hair that led my eyes further down. Once he was shirtless he beckoned me forth and I scooted my body towards the edge of the bed where he was standing. "Open that mouth for me." He whispered. I let my jaw hang open and watched as he pulled his hard cock out of his pants. I got closer, letting my tongue loll out of my mouth for him. He bit down gently on his bottom lip and slid his shaft over my tongue and then again slowly. I felt every pulsing vein and curled my tongue around what I could until he pulled away again. He leaned down and cupped my chin, keeping my mouth open so he could land a warm bubble of spit right on my tongue. I couldn't help but smile as he bounced the head of his cock off my dripping tongue a few times. "I'm going to fuck you." He stated. "Not because you deserve it. I'm going to fuck you because you are mine and I promise the next person that tries to take you from me will be one sorry son of a bitch, understand?" "Yes, Daddy." "Do you think I'm playing?" "No." "I am not a man that likes to be fucked with, J. I'm serious." "I know." He gazed at me as though he did not really believe that I understood but that didn't distract him much. He took my hand and guided me to standing, taking my place sitting on the bed. He kicked his pants the rest of the way off and for the very first time, I saw him completely naked. Before I could really admire his body, his long limbs, and his milky skin, he pulled me closer by my hips until I was forced to straddle him on the bed. I felt his hard cock touching my inner thigh and bristled with arousal. Feeling him slowly penetrate me was the most satisfying fullness I had ever known. Inch by inch I sank down on him, finally getting what I wanted- what I desperately needed. He purred from the sensation as well, looking up at me with his wide eyes, encouraging me, smirking at how quickly I abandoned all the walls of professionalism that I had worked so hard to build. I didn't care. I was beyond the point of trying to deny myself. This was something entirely different than any arrangement I had ever agreed to. Something magnetic about this man broke me down. Once he began thrusting up inside of me I lost all sense of the world around. Nothing existed but him and I. Not even the dinginess of the motel room was enough to distract me from the fact that his cock was filling me finally. None of my rules applied and apparently neither did any of his. We writhed together and moaned, both enjoying the snugness of a penetration that seemed long in the making. I felt his hands caressing smoothly down my back to rest on my ass, helping him push himself into me further until there was no room left. He leaned back a little to take me in, only stopping his thrusts to squeeze my breasts and pull my mouth to his. He stopped all movement besides what it took for him to kiss me with his hand threaded through my hair. Suddenly he flipped me over so I was on my back, pulling out of me. He stared down at himself and admired the wetness. "Look how much your pussy loves my cock. You're fucking soaked." I lifted my legs and held them apart, showing him that yes, my pussy was dripping wet for him. He knelt down and slowly ran his tongue over my juicy pink folds, lapping up liquid only to let it fall back down from the tip of his tongue. The sensation of that tongue gliding over my clit even once was shocking but when he drew little circles around it I couldn't control the way my nipples perked and my spine rose off the bed. It felt so fucking good. I had almost forgotten what it was like to get eaten out. The visual part of it, his gorgeously lush lips enclosing my most sensitive part as his murky eyes stared up at me was almost too much to handle. He knew how obscene he looked and made a show of flicking his tongue back and forth over it. "Don't tell me you want to come already?" He pulled back from me when my squirming got too uncontrollable. "I'm trying not to." His tongue snaked out and pushed inside of me. The feeling was hot and made me crave the deepness he had given me before. I longed for him to at least slip me a finger but I knew that we were playing completely on his terms. "Don't you dare come yet." I nodded and he rolled me over on my stomach, spreading me apart and sinking his middle finger inside of me. I groaned with satisfaction. "Your pussy is mine. You hear me? Your sweet, wet little dripping cunt belongs to me, doesn't it?" "Yes, daddy." I heard the sounds of wetness as he began working his finger in and out. Each time he came away with more and more wetness until he stopped and popped his whole finger into his mouth to suck off the juices he was eliciting from me. "Mm, pretty, tasty little pussy." I felt his weight shift the bed as he climbed over and pushed his cock back into me from behind. The feeling was unreal and unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I was no longer on auto-pilot the way I had been for years. The sensation was overwhelming. I had never wanted somebody as badly as I did at that moment. His thrusts got hard and violent and I cried out when he began striking my cervix with each forceful push. He grabbed both my wrists and held them together behind my back and I had no choice but to lift my head or have my face shoved into the motel bed as he fucked me ruthlessly. "My little fucking whore. My sweet little fucking cunt," Bill paused his movements, leaning over to whisper in my ear. "You're daddy's pretty girl, aren't you?" "Mhm... Yes, daddy." I breathed. He fucked me relentlessly, whispering the nastiest shit I had ever heard against my cheek. I had gone dumb, mouth open, moaning as I felt him pounding in and out of me with no signs of fatigue. "My pussy..." He seethed. "Yes." "My wet fucking pussy." "Yes, Daddy. All yours." "Nobody's cock makes you this wet." He suddenly pulled out and stood up from the bed again. I looked behind me before turning around to face him. He towered over me, cock flushed and levitating at my eye level. I opened my mouth, inviting him to use it as he pleased and he obliged immediately, grasping the back of my head and pulling me down so it all but slipped down my throat, completely depriving me of air for a few seconds. When I came back up I gasped and stared up at him like I was taught in every porno that existed. He knew that I could handle so much more than what he was giving me. It was as though he was just realizing what kind of salaciously distasteful acts I was willing to perform, had he only asked. "I am going to fuck you until you're begging me to stop. I'm going to use that pussy and that mouth to come in so many times that it will hurt and when it hurts, I'm just going to keep doing it." I nodded eagerly, obedient and willing to accept all the punishment that he was promising. "Then I'm going to make you come. All over my face, my dick... Everywhere. You're going to come when I tell you to and as many times as I want." I knew that I was in for a very long night.

[samayla]

Gemini Character Sketches

I wrote this instead of writing an actual scene today, but it was so much fun I decided to share it anyway. Under the cut because it's kinda long (there are a lot of characters, after all).

Bilbo - A hopeless romantic at heart, though it’s been buried by a whole lot of stuffy, proper Baggins nonsense over the years. He’s far too concerned with what everyone says and thinks about him and his family, and that comes from growing up in a small town. His mother was a wild wanderer, and his father doted on her. When she died, Bungo was devastated and scarcely spoke of her. Bilbo misattributed that to her Tookishness because of the nasty gossip that began flying thick and fast as soon as Belladonna wasn’t around to defend herself. He decided to be "proper" because proper hobbits seemed happier. Would do anything for his sister, even save her from herself, if he was able. Like his father before him, he does not tolerate slander of Bella’s reputation within his earshot, but just because he doesn’t hear it, doesn’t mean it’s stopped. Quite the opposite in fact. But all Bilbo can see is his sister seemingly determined to ruin herself.

Bella - Has always felt like an outsider, even in her own family. With either a poisonous weed or her disgrace of a mother as a namesake, Bella took her father’s withdrawal after her mother’s death as a declaration of war. The rumors about Belladonna’s misadventures and shenanigans were easiest to link to Bella, who is the spitting image of her mother. Everyone seemed to be just waiting for her to screw up, so she decides she might as well give them their money’s worth. She is fierce and reckless, almost to the point of self-destruction. Guarded among the Hobbiton hobbits, she is almost achingly open to outsiders, desperate for some sort of validation, some indication that she might fit somewhere in the world. She spends a great deal of time traveling in the Shire (and beyond it, on the sly), and most of that time either on her own or with her Took relatives. She always comes home to Bilbo though. She can see how he worries about her, and she would spare him what she could of that.

Gandalf - Means well, but he tends toward self-doubt. He’ll launch a grand master plot with the Big Picture in mind, only to remember that he actually likes all these little moving parts he’s wrangled into it, and they have dreams and plans and feelings of their own, and what if they get hurt, oh no, what have I done? This is not a failing, but a strength, but with Saruman looking down his nose at him all the time, he has a hard time seeing that. He takes comfort in the kindness shown by these people he’s drawn together. It’s enough to give him hope that it’ll all turn out in the end.

Thorin - Terrified of the madness in his line, but determined to face it. Views his fear as cowardly, so he feels like he must put himself in this position to test himself against the madness in order to prove he is stronger. Prove he is fit to rule. He has been there for his father and grandfather as they fell to the madness, knows what it looks like, and it is the stuff of his nightmares. He is terrified, but he will do this for his people because they deserve the best ruler.

Fili - Caught between childhood and adulthood. “The time has come to put aside childish things.” But has it really? Or is he growing up too harshly and too fast? He sees and takes on responsibility for so many things. Worries about so many things. But Kili always brings him back. Thorin gives him something to aspire to. But he hasn’t got his uncle’s all-consuming fear to provide that vicious undercurrent to his temper. He still loves life too much to be needlessly cruel. He is at his heart kind and gentle and fair. He will be a great ruler, though he does not see it yet.

Kili - The exuberant youth. Like a lab puppy. Everything is bright and shiny and new, and he is definitely the one who tries things just to see what happens. He loves discovery. He’s lived a relatively sheltered life in the Blue Mountains, born at the tail end of the Wandering Years. He has only a few travels to draw on, and those mostly just taught him how big the world must be, how full of things to discover.

Dwalin - Smarter than he thinks he is. Has been treated like a big, dumb brute for so long and by so many people that he’s come to believe it of himself too. Loyal to Thorin until the end because Thorin has always treated him as a friend, a confidante, an equal. To Dwalin, that’s what greatness is.

Balin - The responsible one. A curious mix of father-figure and older brother to both Thorin and Dwalin. He remembers when Thorin had Kili’s zest for life. Fears the princes will grow up too quickly just like Thorin. He fears the dragon sickness, just like Thorin, but he hopes the princes will help keep him anchored against it. A grim sacrifice… He sees everything, is the most elvish of the dwarves in that observation and careful weighing of options.

Ori - Older than she looks, but her soft manner, baggy, handmade clothes, and unkempt braids don’t help. There is just always something else to be doing. She doesn’t have the patience or the interest to do her hair up or dress in something more form-fitting. She writes and draws to capture moments, and then she knits and crochets to quiet her body enough that she can think about them. And she can sell those items as well for a little extra cash, which is nice. “Still waters run deep.” Very introspective and analytical. She’s another one who sees and understands a great deal more than she lets on. She pushes herself in earning her mastery in order to help her family. It’s only a matter of time, after all, before Nori gets into more trouble than she can handle, or Dori works herself to death.

Dori - Grew up far too fast after the death of her brother, but she hasn’t let it make her bitter. She has clawed and fought for every single thing her family has, working several jobs to make sure her sisters have food on the table and clothes on their backs. Ori’s schooling was a massive expense, but she does not grudge her one bit of it. Rather, she sees it as a mark of how far they’ve come, that Ori can pursue art and writing, instead of simple survival. Is made anxious by the chaotic, uncontrollable, often cruel world around her, so she structures her life around little rituals — doing her hair, making tea, etc — and uses them like tent poles, with all the rest of the mess of the world draped high and distant in between.

Nori - Grew up far too fast, faster than even Dori knows, and has become rather jaded. She embraces the chaos of the world, draws it in close, and slits its throat before it can slit hers. Would die for her sisters. Annoys Dori on purpose, because if she’s got the energy to cluck and fuss at Nori, then the rest of her life must be in pretty good shape. It’s when she stops fussing that Nori worries. Isn’t exactly clear on how she ended up with Bofur, but she’d die for him too. Tolerates Thorin and Dwalin only so long as their plans align with hers for keeping her sisters safe and happy.

Oin - Not as hard of hearing as he pretends. Quite possibly the smartest of the company, he’s figured out that people talk more freely and truthfully when they think he can’t hear. It is a boon in politics as well as his work as a healer. “I believe so that I may understand.” Sees science and faith as two sides of the same coin, and uses both in his work.

Gloin - Proud to a fault, and willing to fight to the death to defend his honor. It makes him hard to be around, but once you’re in with Gloin, his pride extends to you too. Woe to the person who insults him or his friends. Understands the real value of money - as in it means nothing if you’ve no one to share it with, and less than that if you’re dead - and so he spends and invests freely. But not foolishly. A shrewd businessman, he puts great stock in people’s reputations and intentions, as well as his brother’s divining. Least likely of all the dwarves to fall to gold sickness.

Bifur - A clever problem-solver at heart, he turned to toy-making after his injury because no adults could see past it. They either wrote him off as a waste of time, or humored him as if he were some trained animal doing a particularly clever trick. Children, though… they play it straight. They are honest and open, and the amazing toys he makes with his considerable skills make them happy. Not to mention, they put food on the table for his cousins, who’ve taken him into their lives, in spite of the expense of his continued treatment. He has also created his own style of Iglishmêk to cope with the practical limitations of the original. His version allows for more nuance and feeling and speed. Only Oin and his cousins can understand it fluently, but the other dwarves in the company know at least standard Iglishmêk, even if most of them are a little slow at it.

Bofur - Hardworking and earnest, with a wicked sense of humor. He says he’s along on the quest for the free beer, but really it’s for Nori and a chance at a better life. He’s been a poor miner for his whole life, like his father before him, but he doesn’t want to die a miner. He isn’t sure what he wants, but out in the world is as good a place as any to find it. And if he can help keep Nori’s head on straight, so much the better.

Bombur - A domestic god, he can make just about anywhere feel at least a little like home. Joined up following the adorably earnest thought that, “Hey, the Lonely Mountain will probably need a bit of sprucing up, and I’m pretty good at that.” The most hobbit-like of the dwarves, but will defend his people to the death, no matter how ill-matched the battle, like a fluffy house cat defending its Person from a doberman. Doesn’t mind staying out of the spotlight. Like the Greek goddess Hestia, quietly goes about his business, secure in the knowledge that it is vitally important in its own quiet way.

[wildernessuntothemselves]

Ex’s & Oh’s

Word Count: 3.8k Author’s Note: This song is part of the song drabble game and it’s inspired by Ex’s and Oh’s by Elle King. However, it ended up taking a different tone than that of the song but I think it’s for the best. I feel like I’ve invariably made this a “How I think BTS would be like in dating and in bed” in fic form fml. Please don’t be offended by any negative portrayals of the boys, this is just a silly fic, don’t take it seriously.  Oh, and there is a teeny bit of a twist at the end ;) You can read the first installment of the song drabble game by clicking on the following: Back To Black (Tae), It Will Come Back (Suga), Florida Kilos (Sana), and Je Suis Malade (Mina). 

The situation you were in was absolutely ridiculous. You felt like you were in a really bad drama. The most cliche kind, but here you were in real life, your parents demanding that you find a suitable suitor or else you would be cut off from the family fortune. What kind of fucked up situation is that?

You couldn’t protest much. After all, you were an adult now, and you shouldn’t still be relying on your parents’ money. But the way you think of it is that your parents are extremely well off. You’ll inherit enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your life, if not more, provided that you don’t have kids to waste your money on, and clearly, you weren’t planning to do that, not that you’d ever tell your parents, not until you absolutely have to anyway. So why toil through some thankless job and live your life in a constant state of misery and stress when you could just enjoy your life with the money you take from your parents?

And they were more than happy to oblige, saying that their money was made for you and your siblings anyway. But apparently, that money doesn’t come for free. There is a hefty price attached to it, your freedom. So much for unconditional parental love.

They say they’re doing it for you so that you wouldn’t spend your life alone. They’re not going to be by your side forever. Who’s going to take care of you when you’re sick? Blah blah blah.

They suggested finding a suitor for you if you didn’t want to do it yourself. Hah! as if you’d let them do that. You’re not a house cat they can pick and choose a mate for.  No, you’re just going to have to find a guy you tolerate enough to marry. Maybe you’d make it clear to him that it’s just for show.

But no, then he might blackmail you and try to get some money out of it. You can’t do that.

Maybe when your parents find you “happily” dating someone they’d forfeit the marriage thing and let you be. Afterall, they said they wanted your happiness, and that doesn’t necessarily mean marriage.

You wouldn’t have agreed to this whole absurd situation if you weren’t thinking about it yourself already. You didn’t have the best track record when it comes to dating but you were at that age where all your friends were starting to get married one by one. You woke up one day and suddenly everyone else had their own lives and families and you were all alone. Watching your friends interact with their partners, the subtle touches, the meaningful gazes… they rekindled a need within you, and you found yourself wanting what they have.

You needed a man from a good family, someone charming and classy, someone your parents would eat up, and that’s why you chose Jin.

He was a parent’s wet dream. He hailed from an old and respected family, who were very well off themselves. He knew exactly the right way to act in every situation. Every action he did was graceful and every sentence strung beautifully. He was also his family’s only son, set to inherit the whole business and he was leading it like he already did.

For your part, he was total eye candy. Tall, dark, and handsome. If he had lived long enough in the past, you would have easily believed that prince charming was inspired by him. He knew how to treat a woman, always respectful and thoughtful. He opened doors for you, pulled back your chair, never let you exert yourself. In short, he completely pampered you.

And damn, those shoulders on him! When you were wrapped up in his arms, you believed that nothing could hurt you.

But as the days went by, you realized the nasty power of nostalgia. It can make shit look like chocolate through its rose tinted glasses. Prince charming only looked good in the past, but if you bring him to the present, he’s just another sexist asshole in beautiful packaging.

To say Jin was old fashioned would be an understatement. Yeah he never told you to clean the house and make him a sandwich, he had servants for that, but he believed that a woman had her place and a man had his, and they should never overlap. Any questions you had about his business, just to make conversation, just to ask how he’s been, were quickly brushed off with a metaphorical pat on the head and an unsaid “Look, she thinks she’s people.”

In almost everything, Jin treated you like a queen, but he belittled your intelligence and doubted your abilities. You never really cared about work anyway, but being told you can’t do it… that was unacceptable. You had the right to choose and you were just as smart as him, you just chose not to utilize it.

The final straw was when he casually mentioned taking over your part of the company when you get married and after your parents die. He said it so matter-of-fact, like there was no question about it, that you couldn’t stop yourself from throwing your drink at him. It was red wine too. Good luck getting that stain out, asshole. Nobody talks about your parents dying, nobody tells you what to do with your parents’ hard earned money.

Maybe insulting his vanilla sex life on your way out was a bit too much, but it felt so good. You hadn’t politely faked way too many orgasms in order not to bruise his inflated ego, just to deal with this shit. You’ll miss his dad jokes though. They were stupid but only in the most hilarious way.

You needed someone different. Someone who would be the complete opposite of Jin, and you found that person in Namjoon.

Namjoon was an example of a hard worker. He came from a middle-class family but that’s not where he’ll stay. He was destined for great things. No one could challenge his work ethic and no one could match wits with him.

He made you strive to be a better version of yourself. He encouraged you to care about your family’s legacy and not to squander their efforts like that. Late night talks with him were always revealing, making you discover aspects of yourself you never knew existed.

You wouldn’t expect such an illustrious man to be such a beast in bed but oh god he was. He was all daddy-like and dominating. Pinning you with his smoldering eyes and giving a smirk that shows just a hint of his dimples. He ordered you around and punished you when you misbehaved. You’d think after Jin’s domineering attitude you would be turned off from dominant men forever, but Namjoon knew just how to play you so you’d willingly submit, beg for it even.

He was the perfect specimen.

Sadly, you yourself were very flawed. You just couldn’t keep up with him. He demanded more out of you than you were willing to give. You were a lazy bitch, you knew it, and it would do you no good to pretend that you aren’t. It would only make you burn out. So you had to let him go, He deserved to find his superwoman who would rule the world by his side.

New money, you could smell it on him from a mile away. Still, he was a breath of fresh air after the grind that was your time with Namjoon.

Taehyung lived a life of luxury, compensating for all the things he was deprived of as a child. Gucci was his favorite brand, perhaps the only one he knew. He dressed himself in it from head to toe. His phone case was Gucci, hell even his socks were Gucci. Overkill, he reeked of it.

But he knew how to dress, unlike so many others like him. He had a peculiar fashion sense, but it somehow fit him. It might be because he had the visuals of a god. You suspected he could make a trash bag look fashionable.

If Namjoon was a beast in bed then this boy was a freak. He always came up with the most perverted stuff. Apparently, he had nothing to do with his time pre-fortune other than coming up with creative ways to fuck the girls who were throwing themselves at him even then. He had learned quite a few tricks in his time.

You’d began avoiding him when you knew he would want to have sex, not because you didn’t enjoy it, but because it was always so intense you felt like it would kill you.

Taehyung never spared anything on you, showering you with gifts, taking you out for dinner in places even you have never been to, taking you on impromptu vacations on his private jet. You’d began expecting him to invite you over for marshmallows toasted over a bonfire made from stacks of cash, or taking you golfing where the balls are made with fist-sized diamonds.

Nobody would ever call you stingy, but you felt like you would have a stroke from watching the amount of money he could blow in a single day. You tried talking to him about it multiple times, but he wouldn’t listen. He suffered to get this far and he was going to enjoy it. Nevermind that by this rate he’d run through his entire fortune, and yours too if you marry him, soon enough. He was too blinded by the glamorous life to care.

Well, you weren’t going to marry someone just to have him spend your money for you. As for Taehyung, he was getting tired of you avoiding him, and soon enough you caught him in bed with not one but two women at the same time.

Caught is a strong word, it wasn’t like he was trying to hide it. To him, it was just another thing he could buy with his money.

You didn’t stick around long after that, but you didn’t leave without making sure to “accidentally” smash his favorite, really expensive camera.

You were done with business men, they were too jaded. You needed someone who hasn’t witnessed enough of the world to lose all hope in it.

Optimism lies personified in Hoseok. He’s truly an admirable person. He has dedicated his life helping kids growing up in less than ideal situations, channel their anger and fear into dancing. He was the reason a lot of these kids were still with one foot firmly in this world. He always knew what to do and what to say to make someone’s day. You must have saved a country in your past life to get someone like him to notice you.

He didn’t have a lot of confidence in himself but to you he was beautiful. His smile lit up the world, a contrast to his eyes that held a profound sadness you were scared to touch but that made him human and not the angel you sometimes mistake him for.

There was an intensity in his love-making that was reminiscent of his dancing in the way that they were the only aspects of his life where he was one hundred percent honest with himself. The emotional aspect of it touched you in ways that sometimes freaked you out, but that made the orgasms all the more soul-shaking.

His voice was raspy in the most soothing ways. Your favorite time of day was the early minutes of every morning he’d spend gearing you up to face the world ahead of you. He said the silliest things, things you’d roll your eyes at if they were said by anyone else, but he made them sound reasonable.

Until they didn’t. He dealt with every problem the same way, no matter its magnitude, as if every problem could be fixed with a smile and an unfounded belief that things will get better. Which was the cause of endless one-sided arguments with him, where you’d try to get him to be more proactive and he’d smile and nod then repeat to you one of his many feel good quotes.

You later realize that his optimistic attitude was more for his sake than anyone else’s. If he lives by it long enough then maybe he’d believe it. Fake it till you make it.

You tried to get him to open up. Knock down his brightly painted walls and get to the root of the problem but he resisted with all his might. You don’t know what exactly you would have done if he had actually let you in, you sensed that whatever was behind his sad eyes was way out of your scope. You tried anyway but you guess you’ll never know because soon after that he broke up with you.

You were disrupting his bubble.

To hell with dreamers. What this day and age requires is a man rooted firmly in fact.

Despite being a musician, Yoongi wasn’t the least bit inclined to their fanciful ways. he was a tell-it-like-it-is kind of person while still seeming to possess a secret key to an endless supply of creative genius.

With Yoongi, you learned for the first time the meaning of comfortable silence. You didn’t have to compulsively fill every pause in conversation with mindless chatter to avoid the creeping insecurity it inspires. You learned how to be partners and not other halves. You both lived your own independent lives that you shared together.

Yoongi was a man of few words but that only made the times he spoke truly count. He loved sharing his music with you. You could see that your wide eyed admiration really got to him. It made all his hard work seem worth it.

Yoongi came from a harsh background. He sacrificed so much for his craft. He gave it his all, and so seeing the woman he loves be so enamored with it felt like a divine reward.

He often bragged about his ‘tongue technology’ on his mixtapes, and you were blessed to know that this wasn’t only restricted to his rapping. Rumors about his laziness were completely unfounded when he could spend hours eating you out. His style of love-making was languid and easy going, not because he lacked the energy to go harder but simply because he loved to take his time and savor the moment.

To no one’s surprise, Yoongi eventually found success. Some would say he sold out, you knew better, but it still didn’t stop you from throwing those insults at him. With his newfound success, there was simply no time to spend on you. Even those comfortable silences you so enjoyed became too distracting for him because of your uncontrollable tendency to talk. Who could blame you? It was the only time you got to see him anymore.

In the end, you had to give him an ultimatum: Either he finds a way to spend a little bit of time with you or you part ways. You could see the pain in his eyes, but he was too good of a man to continue this relationship when he knew it would only be hurting you.

Yoongi taught you the meaning of 'The One That Got Away’.

You vowed to yourself that you’d never again love someone who wasn’t going to put you first.

Jimin loved in excess. He contained so much love in his tiny body enough for two people. He was a veritable teddy bear, the protagonist of a K-drama. Always writing you little love notes, bringing you thoughtful little gifts for no other reason than his happiness to have you around. He was incredibly considerate, no down, no matter how slight, was missed by him, and he made sure to never leave you upset by anything in the world.

Jimin was a true switch. He fit the role of a dominant, submissive, and everything in between perfectly. There was never a dull moment with him. He knew just how to mix it up. And that ass was sculpted by the gods. You’d often catch yourself staring at it like a hormonal teenager.

You never were a much of a fan of kissing, to the derision of all your friends, but you had a newfound passion for it with Jimin, a late awakening. He had the softest, most sweet lips of anyone who has ever existed, and you took the chance to kiss them every chance you got.

Jimin taught you the importance of communicating your feelings. He never left anything unsaid. And maybe that’s why the cracks in your relationship came to light much sooner than it would otherwise have. You see, for Jimin it was all or none, and he demanded the same of his partners. You gave him your all until you had nothing left to give but you still came up woefully lacking. He ran you dry. You just didn’t possess the amount of love he did. You’d come to know that some people just felt everything more strongly.

Unfortunately, for Jimin, he couldn’t tell the difference between that and you not loving him. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that not everyone was made like him. How could he possibly fathom your dearth of emotions when he himself had so much.

You weren’t sure who ended it. He who was convinced that you were withholding your love from him, or you who were beginning to think that there was really something wrong with you.

Jungkook was a desperate move on your part, you admit it, but he was a sweet guy, incredibly funny and smoking hot, smart and perseverant. He still retained much of the vigor of childhood in him and he taught you to let loose, to not rush yourself into old age yet. He made you feel connected to the world.

When that boy set his mind to something, he let nothing distract him, and that trait extended into the bedroom. He made it his mission to learn where all your buttons were and how to push them. He was insatiable. His eyes twinkled with mischief and he loved nothing more than to tease. Unpenetrable patience was the inevitable side effect of being with him.

Jungkook was a Jack of all trades, master of none. He was eternally flaky. And despite sometimes seeming to possess a level of maturity beyond his years, he was still a young adult after all, and you weren’t prepared to place your bets on him, just for him to decide he actually wants something else.

He took it badly. You now realize that you might have been his first heartbreak. Even though you were sad for him, and for yourself, you didn’t feel too guilty. Everyone needs a first heartbreak. He’ll learn much from it, about himself and about others.  

You appreciated the time you had with every single one of them and treasured everything they taught you, keeping it close to heart and making use of it to live your life to the fullest. But in the end, you were back to square one.

Your parents had witnessed it all, all the heartbreak you had experienced and caused, and they had since forfeited their order. But what use was it when you have already tasted love and now yearned for it?

Maybe you really weren’t destined for it, after all, you muse as you shift your eyes around the meeting you were currently in and obviously paying no attention to.  A pair of eyes catch yours, a stunning gorgeous pair of eyes that belong to an even more beautiful face. The face smirking at you from across the table is a familiar one. It belongs to an employee of a company you were doing business with.

The woman was alluring, to say the least. You always listened to her when she talked, everyone did, that’s why you weren’t listening today, she was silent, but she was apparently observing you. For how long, you didn’t know. Your face heats up. You hope you didn’t have a derp face on while you were zoning out, the last thing you want to do is to embarrass yourself in front of her.

She was the perfect woman. Smart, accomplished, confident, sexy, assertive, and ambitious. God, she intimidated you. You both loved and hated attending these meeting with her. You were always self-conscious around her, but you risked humiliation just to be near her and hear her unique voice once a week.

She raises an eyebrow at you and you realize you’ve been staring. God, why were you such an embarrassment to yourself! You put your cold hands on your cheeks, trying to soothe the flames contained in them.

Thankfully the meeting ends, and you get up and attempt to make a run for it, and hopefully, you’ll regroup and be prepared for next week’s challenge… but a voice stops you in your tracks.  

You scrunch your face, cursing your legs for not being more agile, then turn around towards her, offering her your best smile, trying to undo everything that happened in the last fifteen minutes with it. “Yes, Miss Kim?”

“Oh, you make me sound so old. Call me Hyuna, and I’ll call you ___. Deal?”

The sound of your name on her lips makes your knees turn to jelly and you hang onto the door to stop them from buckling.

“Deal.” You squeak, then clear your throat. “I noticed you didn’t say anything today. I normally look forward to your remarks and speeches. They’re very helpful. You’re very smart.” You babble, suddenly finding the doorknob very interesting.

To your surprise, she doesn’t tease you or make a snide remark about you saying you look forward to listening to her talk. Instead, she laughs sweetly and gushes, “You think so? It’s such an honor to hear that from the daughter of such an influential businessman.”

“Oh, that’s only my father’s work. I really know nothing about the business. It’s all him and my siblings.” You shrink back, ashamed.

“Hey, look at me.” Hyuna coaxes, and when you look up you’re startled to see her standing only a few inches away from you. “You’re capable of great things. I can see it in you. You just need to find something you’re passionate about.”

You flush, looking down and whispering, “Thank you.”

“And the first step to do that,” Hyuna says, lifting your chin up to look at her, “Is to never be afraid to look anyone in the eyes.”

You smile, but can’t really follow her order when she is biting her lip so enticingly. You shake your head and muster up every kind of strength left in your shaky body to say, “Hey, we have a cafeteria here on the third floor. It’s horrible, the worst coffee you’ll ever taste but, um, would you like to go down for a cup anyway?”

Her eyes light up in a way that screams 'Finally’. Or maybe you were just imagining it, but she smiles and says, “I’d love to.”

Author’s Note: This was written with the help of some great ideas from my lovely readers. It's really different than anything I’ve done before. I hope you guys liked it. Any kind of review is greatly welcomed. 

[clonerightsagenda]

I was looking at old tj posts trying to decide which to move to ao3 (a project I will deal with later) and like, the old ones had multiple scenes and some gesture at a narrative arc. Then the semester showed up and started kicking my ass. However, I tried to put a little more effort into this one with some type of character movement, but I ran out of time to really make that *work*. Obviously Aradia was perfect for Halloween. 

tuesjade prompt: Halloween

You've been exploring for a few weeks, and when you come back, the house's decor has changed. The leaves of the trees nearby have turned vivid colors. There are bright orange gourds set out on the front porch which, after you sample one, don't taste particularly good. There's also a cartoonish skeleton dangling from a hook on the front door. You give it a friendly nod as you walk inside.

Jade is the only one in the living room. "You're back!" she says. "Did you find anything interesting out there?"

"It's all interesting," you say. "Not as interesting as here right now, though. What's going on? Are we displaying one of our kills to intimidate the neighborhood? I thought we were taking a more conciliatory stance."

"Oh no." Jade frowns and sniffs the air. "Did Jaspers leave something dead outside again?"

"No, I meant the skeleton."

"Oh." She laughs. "It's for Halloween. That isn't until the end of the month, but we've started early. There was a lot of debate over that addition, actually. Some people thought it might be tasteless. But since it's the first time a lot of us have celebrated, we're going all out. You should see all the tacky shirts we've found at the store.” She taps her chest, which is currently emblazoned with the slogan, “Witch, please.”

Now you remember. Halloween is one of those seasonal human holidays. You've heard it mentioned before, but either it hadn't come up again or you'd been out in space when it had. If it involves decorating things with skeletons, you're all for it, although the gourds you could live without. "What is this tradition about, anyway?"

"I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask. I've never celebrated it myself. It's hard to trick or treat when you're living alone. But in general... it's a chance to get spooky!" She giggles. "And more importantly to dress up and eat yourself sick."

"A lot of your holidays seem to involve eating yourself sick," you observe.

"America is a culture of excess," she says, deadpan. "That is Rose's official position on the matter."

"What's yours?"

She purses her lips for a moment and then nods. "I'm new here, but I think it's kind of fun. I'm going to be Marie Curie. Roxy is going as Ada Lovelace, we will be classy and educational."

You frown, left behind. "Wait, you're going to *be* someone?"

"That's part of the point! Well, you don't actually "be" them." These clarifications are important. You've learned, in your attempts to communicate cross-species, never to assume understanding. "But you dress up and pretend to be someone else! That's part of Halloween, being in disguise. I think it goes back to trying to scare ghosts away by being scarier? But now it's just for fun. Younger kids go around asking for candy, it's called trick or treating."

Scaring away ghosts is a strategy you'd never considered. You'd tried to help, although as a young troll your abilities had been limited. Instead, you'd practiced being polite and understanding. The few times you could make things right (putting a warning sign up by a patch of crumbling cliff, retrieving a favorite token for a grieving moirail) even more spirits had crowded around you, desperate for aid or just someone to talk to. Had humans felt similar pressure, to make a whole tradition off frightening the dead away?

"We have something a little similar," you explain. "Normally it's a cullable offense to disguise yourself as another caste, but we have one day when it's encouraged. You can try to move up a few rungs and claim special privileges for a while. Of course, if your disguise isn't good enough and a highblood notices, they’ll still punish you, probably fatally. I guess that's our version of tricks or treats."

"It's not that high stakes here." Jade frowns. "Is every holiday from your planet that messed up?"

"More or less. At least then the disguises had a point.” You settle onto the back of the couch. Maybe you’re weightless off-planet, but it’s nice to sit down. “You do something similar, when you're younger. I'm not sure I understand why you'd keep doing it. Is the purpose to get away from yourself?”

Jade shrugs. “I guess some people might want to escape being them for a while. But I just like science, and Marie Curie made some important discoveries, even though I'm glad I won't get radiation poisoning. Looking back it's probably a good thing I went God Tier, otherwise all that uranium wouldn't have been good for me."

"I would be dead young myself," you say cheerfully. Jade's eyebrows draw together, and you guess you've misjudged your response, or your tone. That happens a lot. "Thanks for explaining this to me," you say, to move the conversation along. "It sounds interesting."

"Sure. Do you have anything you'd like to dress up as? I bet Alternia must have had some neat intellectuals, although most people would say that's a boring idea." Jade plucks at the fabric of her sleeve. "Mostly I just think it'll be easy to get a lab coat."

You touch your own shirt protectively. "I'm not so sure about that part. I'm happy as myself."

“Whatever suits you.” She picks up her phone. “I’ll let everyone know you’re here. Welcome back!”

 Apparently you didn't miss *all* the Halloween prep, because a few days later everyone makes a trip to the Halloween store. (Almost everyone. Calliope and Kanaya insist on making their outfits by hand and split off to the fabric store instead.) The building is noisy and filled with distractions, plastic skulls that laugh when you press a button, enormous coffins that swing open and closed. It seems like humans save up all their gruesome and grisly impulses and unleash them at once. No wonder the holiday has begun slipping outside its proper temporal bounds. One day isn’t nearly enough.

Everywhere, of course, are costumes. Jade is trying on a pair of fake wolf ears as a joke when Hal shows up with a silvery outfit in a package. You're nearby examining a bust with curled horns a lot like yours, so you overhear. "Check it out," he says. "Sexy robot. Do you think this would make Dirk regret we were born?"

"Halloween is an opportunity to dress up as something you want." Jade returns the ears to the shelf. "Do you want to waste that chance annoying Dirk?"

Hal scowls. He'll give you two the time of day as honorary members of the once prototyped club, but Jade has a tendency to not put up with his excesses. It's hard for him to carry on when she starts using the reproving voice. "I admit I'm not feeling the robo-tits," he says. "But the skirt ain't bad. Not like I can wear an outfit with pants."

"As someone who was a sexy robot for a while out of necessity, I'd vote against it," you say.

"Hmmm." He turns the package over in his hands. "I've got it, what about a Minion?"

Jade brightens. "Oh, those cute yellow guys from Despicable Me? I only ever saw the ads, the world ended before the movie came out. They looked nice, though."

Hal tosses the package back onto a nearby shelf. "That's right, you were spared before their reign of marketing terror. Only Dirk and Roxy would comprehend the full scale of horror. Maybe I'll split the difference, go as a sexy minion."

Jade rolls her eyes. "How about you go tell Dave the animatronic raven over there isn’t alive and he should stop trying to intimidate it.”

He retreats, and Jade wanders off. Before you move on, you reach out and slide the sexy robot costume far back on the shelf, where no one will see it.

 "I'm surprised you didn't come back with three bags of junk from that Halloween store," Sollux says. You've brought some food up for him, since he didn't come down for group dinner again, involved in some sort of project or Internet discussion. He’s accumulated a cult following online, even if he hasn’t made as many inroads as you here. That's not so different than before - back on Alternia he told you and the rest of his long-distance friends that most of his neighbors wanted to kill him. "It's stupid, but it sounds like the kind of intercultural thing you'd be into. No offense. It's even got your aesthetic."

"None taken. I do appreciate the more relaxed attitude toward the morbid. I think hangups like those are counterproductive. That part doesn't bother me." You bite into one of the rolls you brought up for him, and he grumbles and snatches the plate away. "It's the costumes I'm not sure about."

"Hell, you ran around dressed as Troll Indiana Jones half the time anyway," he says, through a mouthful of crumbs. "I don't think it's any different."

"I don't know. Maybe." You're not sure why it feels different now. Only that there's an aversion in you bone deep to pretending you're something you're not. "I'll think about it."

And you do.

Here is what it is to be a Maid: you are made. Grown in a society where you are told what you are and who to be, propaganda pushed from every angle. Reduced to a shade by a vengeful former friend with whatever feelings that were yours buried under the demands of the summoned dead. Game knowledge pumped into your mind accompanied by the reminders that you are meant to play a role and do what the game asks of you. All else is secondary. Even you. Your soul bound in circuitry with programming trying to guide your affections until you tore yourself apart. You'd betrayed friends and doomed timelines and watched thousands of copies of yourself get destroyed by a vengeful demon because you had to, and because so many forces beyond your control had set you on that path. So when you rose, transcendent, from a cracked disc of stone, you were done. No one else would tell you who to be. Especially not some human tradition fixated on hiding what you’ve worked so long to bring to the surface.

 The next time you pass through the common room, Calliope has taken it over with a sewing machine and newspaper patterns spread all over the floor. "Hello!" she says when she sees you, narrowly avoiding swallowing a pin. "Would you mind holding this flat for me?"

You hold two pieces of fabric steady while she guides them through the sewing machine. Several other brightly colored pieces have already been stitched together and piled up. "What are you making?"

"Jake and I are going as superheroes. I suppose we already are that, in a manner of speaking, but we're dressing as our characters from that comic we've made. If this silly hood will sew up right," she adds, as the sewing machine jams.

"Do you think they're better than you?" you ask as she wrestles with it.

She frowns, spitting out a pin onto the table. "What?"

"I don't understand why everyone is excited to pretend to be something else. Aren't you happy with being you?"

"Oh, I see where you're coming from." She pops open the top of the sewing machine and starts extricating a tangled mess of thread. "You know, I used to dress up all the time because I hated the way I looked. I wished I could be a troll, because I thought you were lovely, and I envied you the lives you led."

"You envied us?"

"I had a romanticized notion, to be sure, but anything was better than being chained to a wall." She yanks, and the thread snaps out. "I envied that you weren't alone."

"And you're not anymore."

"I'm not! And everyone has seen my face, and it no longer seems quite so monstrous. I'm not hiding it. That's not what this is all about. It's about... well, I guess it's almost about showing yourself off."

You glance at the sketch she's working from. "That neckline does look a little low."

"Oh, there's going to be a fabric insert, not that I have anything to flaunt. What I meant is, it's a chance to highlight something about yourself. What you like, what you care about. Something you created. It's not self-deprecation, it's self-expression." She flicks the machine on again. "Luckily in my case the skills are transferrable. Now, mind helping me with this last seam?"

You do, and she adds the component to the pile. It’s hard to tell how they’ll go together to form the outfit she’s sketched as a guide. It’s clear she’s put a lot of care into it, though. "I appreciate you trying to explain.”

"Happy to be of help. We're all learning about this world together." She smiles, an expression full of teeth, and you don’t know why she ever would’ve wanted to hide it.

 You never participated in the one day on Alternia when lowbloods went in disguise. It didn't seem worth the risk, and you had no desire to take your turn at bossing people around. You remember the atmosphere though, shot through with dread, people pretending to grasp at what they could never have. The wanting gave them away more than sloppy costuming. Those born into higher castes took it as their due.

The mood here is different. People mill around laughing and talking, running down the halls adjusting wigs or asking someone to zip them up. The doorbell rings over and over, and Jane's father has stationed himself there with a bowl of candy and an obligatory pair of disguise spectacles. Everyone is... happy. Even Sollux has emerged, dressed in what looks like formal wear and still using his husktop, which he's balanced atop a platter. "What are you doing?" you ask.

"I'm a web server," he says drily. "This is what happens when you don't volunteer any ideas."

"I thought you thought this was stupid."

"It is, but everyone else is doing it, and I got bored." He snickers. "You should see what KK got talked into. Bet it itches."

You take a look around, but you don't see Karkat. You do see Calliope in her finished outfit, beaming as Kanaya compliments her on her stitching.

"You're the odd one out, AA," Sollux says.

You roll your eyes and dash off.

 Jade is already in her lab coat costume. "Hey," she says when you approach. "How a-"

"I know it's last minute," you interrupt, "but can you find me a hat?"

"A hat?"

"The kind troll Indiana Jones wears." You shape the outline of its brim on your head. "A fedora, I think it's called."

"I don't think we have any in the house." She bites her lip and then snaps her fingers. "It's too late to go out and buy one. We'll borrow one for the night, but try not to damage it, ok?"

The hat appears in a flash of green, and you grab it out of the air. It'll sit awkwardly over your horns, but that's ok.

"So you've decided to do a costume after all, huh?"

"I used to do this one all the time." You have a jacket that'll work, and of course your whip is always on hand. "I misunderstood before. I thought it was about hiding yourself, but I get it now. You're expressing yourself even more than usual. It’s a day when you can put things in plain sight."

“That’s a nice way of putting it.” She reaches out and settles the hat evenly on your head, businesslike. “We’re going to see if anyone’s willing to give a bunch of teenagers free handouts. See you downstairs in five?”

“I’ll be there,” you say, and race upstairs.

[atamascolily]

Episode Review - Sinbad 2x13 - “A City Under Plague”

In which we learn Firouz has a thriving correspondence with a fellow scientist and they have the best science sexy talk ever. Also, crossbows are a pain for melee fighters to deal with, throwing knives are handy, and horses can be useful on occasion. And the whole "magic = agency for women" motif previously established on this show just keeps getting more and more fodder.

I'm actually quite charmed by this episode, which is such a relief after the... uneven quality of some of the preceding episodes.

(Photos from Far Far Away.)

We open on the boat, just outside the city of Scroff. Things look pretty quiet, but our heroes have more important things to do... like tease Firouz about the nature of his "correspondence" with a scientist named Velda and his eagerness to get off the boat and pay her a visit.

Come on, guys, she's NOT my girlfriend, Firouz insists. This is a matter of pure science! SCIENCE!

No one believes him, though. Firouz may be a genius but he also excels at self-delusion.

Meanwhile, in Scroff, a cat crawls into a crate and I am not sure why.

Sinbad and Firouz go and look for Velda. They find the marketplace deserted. Also, there are large red Xes on the doors of the buildings. This is never a good sign.

They find Velda's place. Velda is happy to see them, but warns them of a city-wide quarantine due to plague. We're only thirty seconds in and already I'm shipping this pairing pretty hard.

I mean, really.

Aren't they cute together?

Some dudes who are cleary Up to No Good bust in and want to arrest everybody on account of plague.

Dude, no, says Sinbad.

That's a rockin' jade plant (aka Crassula ovata) in a pot in the background, just in case you were wondering.

Firouz and Velda escape the guards while Sinbad creates a diversion.

Sinbad captures a horse. One of the themes of this season, apparently, along with fire and darkness and grittiness and leather pants, is that Sinbad rides a horse almost every episode, despite being a sailor. This time the horses have funny headgear, so you know they're different.

But it doesn't do much good because Firouz and Velda get surrounded and Sinbad is forced to surrender as well.

Back on the boat, everyone else is wondering what's going on with Firouz and Sinbad.

Suddenly, soldiers invade the boat, declaring it's punishment for violating the quarantine in Scroff. The crew puts up a fight but this time the soliders brought crossbows to a sword fight and the crew sensibly surrenders.

In the dungeons, Firouz and Velda are having a moment.

Aww.

Meanwhile, on the boat, everybody's chained up. Doubar fakes a seizure so they can lure the guards close, grab the keys, and fight their way free. Like you do.

The ruler of Scroff comes in. He's actually a decent guy and seems genuinely apalled by Velda's report of her treatment by his soldiers.

His younger brother, though, is a total jerkass.

Velda convinces the ruler to let Firouz and Sinbad go out of the city to gather foxgloves and use Velda's gear to find a cure, since she's stuck under quarantine because Jerkass insists. The ruler agrees, but Jerkass really doesn't believe their story or their agenda.

Dude, what the fuck, says his older brother, walking in. So the disagreement is shelved for the moment.

Bryn, Doubar and Rongar wander into Scroff but decide to split up... because that always works, right? Doubar gets stopped by soldiers using a wagon to cart bodies away. They share a laugh. Hahahaha!

Cut to Bryn about to be captured by a different set of soldiers.

All the prisoners under quarantine in the dungeons get stamped with a tattoo to indicate their status. This seems like real overkill, but Velda realizes that the tattoo is the source of the plague, because only the people who have it are actually sick or dying.

Bryn gets carted into the dungeons and put in the same cell as Velda..

... but the two guards decide it's a great opportunity for sexual assault. Things don't look good until Bryn's magic reasserts itself and Velda convinces the guards it's a sign of the plague. They hastily leave.

Sadly, this is a plot device to make the show "darker" and "edgier," as well as all too realistic for women in their situation. This show tends to sandwich its female characters into two archetypes - victim/princess/innocent and witch. Unlike other series, though, you can be young and pretty and still be a witch (and not necessarily evil). In fact, in the world depicted in this series, your life is actually BETTER if you're a witch - or at least you're more able to defend yourself and the people you care about.

Bryn and Velda establish that they both know Firouz and Sinbad, that the two men are outside the city looking for a cure, and that the tattoos are the real cause of the plague. They comfort each other.

Meanwhile, Firouz and Sinbad are outside, having successfully found foxglove. For the record, foxglove would be a good choice for heart ailments, but I would not recommend it as treatment for infectious diseases like the plague.

The jerkass brother tries to convince the city's ruler that Sinbad and Firouz are going to betray him.

A gang of soliders appear in the woods, slaughtering Sinbad and Firouz's minders. They know they've been betrayed by the jerkass brother. Happily, Dermott is there to help!

The pair concocts a plan to get horses so they can race back to the city. This plan involves Firouz creating a distraction while Sinbad jumps out of a tree. I approve of this plan.

Well, that was easy.

Bryn gets interrogated by the Jerkass Brother, but refuses to tell him anything useful.

Rongar, having found nothing of interest wandering around Scroff (really?), meets back at the rendezvous point, wondering where the hell everybody is.

Doubar drives up with a sweet new ride, courtesy of those dudes he met earlier. Go Doubar!

Bryn is dragged kicking and fighting to be tattooed with the tattoo of death. She knocks it over, but unfortunately, there are backups.

Sinbad swings in to save the day!

Firouz just wants to rescue Velda. She’s not there.

About damn time, Sinbad, Bryn yells as they finish fighting off the soldiers. But he does know how to make an entrance.

Cut to outside the ruler's palace (which is different from the dungeons because he's actually a civil leader and not a royal one, I think). It's guarded by some dudes with crossbows. Firouz wants to charge them so they can rescue Velda, who was taken inside.

No offense, Firouz, but that's a terrible idea, says Sinbad.

The ruler is upset with Velda for refusing to work, but she explains that the tattoo is actually the source of the plague.

Appalled, the ruler confronts his Jerkass Brother, who reveals it was a deliberate plot to get all the city's wealth for himself.

A riderless wagon approaches the gates. The guards come over to investigate...

Rongar and Sinbad jump out and kill them with distance weaponry! (Rongar uses a dirk and Sinbad uses a small sword.) An trick that never seems to lose its effectiveness. Sinbad stops to retrieve his swordlet, but Rongar doesn't.

When the good ruler continues to be appalled by his brother's evil activities, the evil brother decides to kill him! Velda backs into a corner, knowing she's next.

Fortunately, Sinbad knows how and when to make a dramatic entrance. Again.

It's just a flesh wound...

Anyway, Sinbad and the jerkass brother have a dramatic fight on the staircase. Of course, Sinbad wins. The grateful ruler invites the crew to return to Scroff whenever they're in the neighborhood. That might be soon, smirks Sinbad, as the group runs into Firouz and Velda, saying good-bye to each other.

Look at those shippers on deck there.

They're talking about ways to cure disease... like growing mold on bread.

Aww, yeah.

Talk nerdy to me, baby.

Wait for it....

So close...

Hey, what are you guys doing here, anyway?

Firouz hastily tries to pretend they weren't about to make out.

"Just kiss her, Firouz. That's an order from your captain."

Firouz is all too happy to oblige.

Very happy.

Whatever, dude, you'll be back on the ship hanging out with me for the rest of the season, Rongar is clearly saying here.

And that's how the episode ends!

So, admittedly, I am charmed by all the blatant shipping in this episode, and it's nice that the real ruler isn't actually evil, just being duped by his evil brother. Firouz hasn't gotten much of a spotlight this season, being mostly used for comic relief and bickering with Doubar. Also, he's barely invented anything this season, which is damn shame; he uses his healing skills if he gets to do anything at all. So it was nice to have a chance for him to shine for a while.

The scene with Bryn and Velda together again makes me wish there were more female characters on this show, who would talk and spend time together. It doesn't happen very often, but it's awesome when it does. I wish we could have seen some of that at the end, in addition to the make-out session.

One nice thing about the truly terrible episodes in this season is that everything else looks really good by comparison.

[oumakokichi]

When is it revealed that DICE is actually a real group that Ouma lead? Unless I missed something during live translation streams, in Ouma's motive video DICE is described as a group of talented criminals that went all over the world committing "funny" crimes with a creed of no murder. I don't recall anyone saying anything about this group actually existing outside of Ouma's TDR implanted memories. Could you clarify this? Thank you!

Thank you both for asking these! Considering how late in thegame the reveal comes, the information about DICE is still really fuzzy, andnow that I’ve picked back over all of Chapter 6 very carefully, I’m happy to beable to clear more stuff up about them!

As far as pre-game backstories go, neither DICE nor anyoneelse’s loved ones are confirmed to have existed or not existed! DICE is confirmedin Chapter 6 to be the real “organization” of which Ouma is the leader in-game.Rather than any super secret evil organization with 10,000 members, theyconsist of just 10, counting Ouma himself, and they run around committing “funny”or “laughable” crimes while their main motto is “we don’t kill anyone.”

Of course, just because their confirmation is limited toOuma’s in-game backstory doesn’t necessarily negate their importance. Both fromOuma’s motive video and from bits and pieces of Ouma’s dialogue throughout theplot and in his FTEs, we can kind of piece together and assume that he clearly “remembers”these people, but that he also considers them essentially dead and gone.

Whether it’s because they’re all dead and gone according towhat he “remembers” from his in-game backstory, or because he clearly knows thathis own memories have been tampered with and therefore will not allow himselfto think about these people as real, because having that kind of motive to killand get out of the school is exactly what the mastermind wants from them all,he won’t allow himself to think of them as potentially okay and alive. Thereare plenty of times at which Ouma alludes to having “no one who would be sad ifhe died,” and when Saihara questions him in his FTEs about if his organizationsubordinates will come rescue them, Ouma dodges the subject by saying hissubordinates are probably just “happy that he’s gone.”

And yet despite thinking of these people as either dead andgone if they really do exist, or else potentially having never existed in thefirst place, Ouma keeps his own motive video there in his room. If he’d trulywanted to discard of it, he could’ve just let Monokuma dispose of it the way mostof the other evidence is disposed of after each case. No one would have it, sono one else would be able to find out any vital or important information aboutOuma himself. If he truly thought it worthless or lacking in clues to his realidentity or pre-game backstory, I don’t think he would have kept it around.

Precisely because his memories (all of their memories,really) are so horrifically jumbled and messed up, and because he realizes theimplications of having nothing at all that he can trust or hold onto in asituation where he knows reality is very subjective and transient, I think hekept that video for something to connect with. DICE, according to that video,were his everything. They were hisvery best friends, “as close as family” to him, and I think Ouma himself wassmart enough to know that whether that attachment was real or implanted, it wassomething he wanted to hold onto, which is precisely why he clings to theirno-kill motto so much and so desperately as the one real pillar of support in anotherwise horrible situation that requires him to do horrible things. And it’swhy he becomes so jaded and tired and bitter when he has to break even thatparticular rule.

I’ve talked before in recent Tsumugi meta that I’ve writtentoo, but while there’s certainly no direct confirmation, I personally thinkthere are a lot of indications that Tsumugi was lying hardcore about all of thecharacters having “nowhere to go back to.” The easiest lies to make are oneswith some truth mixed in, after all. By trying to destroy any hopes that theyhad something to rely on even though their backstories and talents were fake,she was trying to make them submit to being in the killing game, and to theidea that the killing game was something that would keep continuing forever.

Just from little bits and pieces we can glimpse of the othercharacters, there’s nothing that really confirms their loved ones that theyremember didn’t exist pre-game in some way or another. While I’m sure theirbackstories were altered and catered specifically to the talents they weregiven, there are still things that stand out to me.

One is Amami’s particularly protective personality, whichstems from his in-game backstory being about how he’s an older brother toseveral siblings. He nails the onii-chan vibe, and tries to take the burden onhimself for nearly everything. One of his bonus mode interactions with Mukuroinvolves her commenting that he has a “little sister waiting for him to comehome,” and the two of them seem very capable of bonding over siblings. Being anelder sibling is vital to his character—and it seems to mesh perfectly wellwith his previous killing game history too, considering he chose to sacrificehimself for the sake of “hope,” and was thrown into another killing game aspunishment so that two survivors could go on and graduate.

If everyone’s siblings or loved ones truly didn’t existpre-game, I don’t see the need for foreshadowing these things, or keepingcharacterization consistent with a character between one killing game and thenext. Even the bonus modes wouldn’t need to mention anything about thesecharacters’ histories or loves ones, if they were all truly irrelevant—and yetthey do, and I think it’s very specifically for the sake of giving additionalclues.

A smaller and less important thing I found worth noting wasKorekiyo’s mask in the prologue. Pre-game Korekiyo can very clearly be seenwearing the same kind of medical mask worn commonly in Japan whenever there’s aparticularly bad virus or cold outbreak. It’s a very common Japanese trend andanyone who’s watched a lot of 90s anime has probably seen it at some point or other:these masks are worn everywhere because people believe that it will lower therisk of contagion.

Korekiyo wearing this sort of mask on its own means nothing,of course, but considering what little we do know from his in-game backstory about having taken care of his sister for a longtime, before she passed away due to poor health… Well, it’s just my theory butI think it would make a lot of sense if Korekiyo had had a sister in real lifewho perhaps either did pass away or was simply sick (maybe even from the samevirus Momota is implied to have), and if he was wearing that mask preciselybecause he was so afraid of the effects of it spreading, even if he and theothers were supposed to be immune to it.

I feel like it’s exactly the same with DICE. Ouma’s faketalent is SHSL Supreme Leader, and his intended role in the game as written byTsumugi was essentially as SHSL Despair, taking on the role of a “Junkosuccessor.” And as I’ve stated before, I’m pretty sure SHSL Chessmaster wouldfit as his real talent, considering everything we know about him. But none of these talents, at all, accountsfor his prankster-like disposition and absolute love of stupid, silly tricks,unless it was just something innate to him and unaffected by his in-gamebackstory. And if DICE were some kind of equivalent to a real-life group offriends he had, and who he ran around trying to pull pranks with and avoiding gettinganyone hurt or killed, I think it would make quite a lot of sense.

Even in Ouma’s lab, where we can see the “criminal”organization set-up and the whole thing has a distinctly supervillain/Batcavesort of feeling to it, Saihara can’t help but comment upon examining some ofthe things in the room that it all feels rather like a kid playing pretend,rather than anyone even remotely malicious or evil. In addition to a hilariouslyridiculous Batmobile ripoff car, a working remote control helicopter, and afloating throne chair, Ouma’s lab ischock full of prank set-ups, including fake moustaches and prank glasses,walkie talkies, stupid wigs, clown masks, etc.

These things are all clearly associated with DICE, eventhough we don’t know much about what it was they did. But considering each andevery item associated with them is so based in pranks, and lighthearted fun, andconsidering they were limited to a group of 10 people, mostly kids judging byappearance, we can assume they were…well, harmless. The phrase used todescribe their crimes in Ouma’s motive video limits it to “funny” or “interesting”crimes/pranks, so we can assume they did pretty much anything harmless at all,whether it was stealing or putting on a show.

Whether DICE or any of the other characters’ loved ones didexist pre-game or not, and if they did exist, whether they’re alive or dead, issomething that’s currently in the catbox until Kodaka decides to give us sidematerials or a sequel. It’s all up to speculation—but precisely because we can’tdo much else other than speculate, I feel like it’s important to look at allthe possible clues and indicators.

If the motive videos and everyone’s memories of their timebefore the killing game were actually completely irrelevant to figuring out thereal truth of things, I don’t think they would have been included at all, inthe same way I don’t think Ouma himself would’ve clung to the information assomething to study and something to hold onto about himself.

Finally, something else I found of note was that when theother characters in Chapter 6 start asking Tsumugi to “put them back” using theremember lights, she says this can’tbe done. Remember lights can, according to her own words, only implantmemories, backstories, etc., not overwrite you into an entirely differentperson. Therefore, she says it’s impossible to make them “who they were before,”and that any attempts to add new memories would only be “adding more fiction.”

And yet, I feel this directly, noticeably contrasts withwhat she was just saying about all of their memories, even the ones unrelatedto their talents or the killing game, being fake. If remember lights can’t makethem into entirely different people, but only give them fictional addendums andbackstories, then how is it that their fictional personas currently are “entirelydifferent” from the people they were before, to the point that Tsumugi says “thosepeople no longer exist”? The only reasonable explanation I’ve found is thatTsumugi was lying, because she knew it would crush them.

In any case, DICE will probably remain a mystery untilKodaka decides to expand on them. I’d personally love to see more of them. Whenpeople first saw Ouma as a character, I don’t think “literal prank-loving clownwith a 12-year-old’s sense of humor” was anyone’s guess for what his realpersonality would be like, but the reveal was quite nice, and I’m very set ontheorizing that DICE has some kind of real-life importance to him in the sameway I think most of the characters’ loved ones and families must have some kindof real-life importance. It’s much harder, however, to know if they’re actuallyokay or not, the same way it was impossible to know about if the dr1 characters’loved ones were alive or not prior to drae giving some confirmation.

Again, thank you both for asking! I’m glad if I was able toclear things up at all!

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

In some ways, The Gallery began in 1992. My first experience in virtual reality was that year, with the aptly named Virtuality—an early VR platform steeped in the cheese of late-80s sci-fi design. It wasn’t a good experience, and honestly it left me feeling nauseous, but it was a bubbly and bulky dream for a future that technology simply wasn’t ready for. That’s when the obsession started; one day VR would be just like the movies.

By 2012, I was personally experimenting with approximating 3D vision in a virtual space. There were forums where people were just throwing ideas up against the wall, trying to figure out what hardware we would need to build VR the way we saw it. We developed simulators and collimated displays, all hacked together in our garages. Palmer Luckey was there too, and he had figured out a way to make a headset affordable using off-the-shelf components. He promised to send a few of us the parts to test his new schematic.

But then Palmer got quiet on the forums, and John Carmack’s name started floating around. We knew then that the formula was cracked, and it was time to start taking VR more seriously.

That year, I formed Cloudhead with two colleagues, Christopher Roe and Matt Lyon, with a vision to build a game specifically for virtual reality. We decided early on that, for VR to be the VR we imagined, we would need some sort of hand input as well. There was only one device at the time that we thought might work—a flat-game peripheral called the Razer Hydra, which tracked hand position using a weak magnetic field.

In the spring of 2013, we launched a successful Kickstarter, received our first Rift, and got to work.

Starting with DK1 meant that the development of The Gallery became defined by design iteration.

An early experiment in hybrid locomotion

First came overcoming motion sickness during artificial rotations. We introduced snap turns (“VR Comfort Mode”) as a way to skip the perceptual hiccup of seeing movement while the inner ear doesn’t feel it. The only way to skip it was to literally skip it; skip increments of rotation. (We found our sweet spot to be at 10-degree increments.) We consulted for the Perceptual Psychologist at Oculus, and they ended up including snap turns in their Best Practices guide.

Next was iterating hand interaction systems that just didn’t exist yet. We had to figure out how to manipulate, grab, carry, and use objects in a 3D space with virtual hands in a natural way. As well, we needed constraint systems. If you grab and turn a door handle in VR, for instance, your meat-space (aka real world) hand will move independent of that fixed object in virtual space, creating a cognitive disconnect. We found that we could trick the brain by giving the virtual hand some affordance to stick to the handle, even when the meat-space hand isn’t perfectly in place, and then unsnap it if it moves too far away.

That process repeated with DK2 and positional tracking. Technologies improved, our team grew in size, and every time we were introduced to new hardware capabilities, we had to rethink design fundamentals.

When Valve brought us to a secret summit in 2014, everything changed. The implementation of roomscale was a dramatic shift in design. On the one side, it was a huge wave of relief; tracked hand input and full, volumetric movement was going to be ‘a thing’ with commercial hardware. On the other side, we had to reverse-engineer our entire game and reconstruct its framework to fit roomscale VR. Not only that, but as soon as we crossed the 90fps threshold, perceiving VR became like looking into a true representation of reality. Even if you’re holding up something cartoony, the smoothness of the motion makes your brain think, “Oh, that’s a real thing, it’s just painted to look cartoony.” It also meant that smooth, artificial forward traversal could make people feel ill or uncomfortable because peripheral vection was more easily perceived—an issue that only affected artificial rotation beforehand.

Cloudhead Dan with the V Minus-1 Vive prototype

So, how do we move an entire room through 3D space without artificially pushing it forward? And what happens if the player only has the carpet in front of their TV as their play area? What if they only have the space in front of their desk? What if they have a full living room? All of these questions came before Valve had time to introduce chaperone as the VR standard.

Our solution was an elastic playspace and teleportation system which we called Blink. It began its life as a simple teleport—you point to where you want to go, push a button, and suddenly you’re there. We started adding layers of complexity, one by one. A reticle. A preview of your relative orientation. A preview of where your new boundaries will be. The ability to rotate your projected orientation. The ability to rotate your play volume itself. We wanted players to ideally orient their playspace to take full advantage of however much room they had, so they could comfortably move around in their volume without worrying about boundaries.

Finally, we added a cinematic fade to mask the “blink” between choosing your desired location, and ending up at the new location. Along with some naturally timed footfalls, we created a system where the further you teleport away, the longer the fade to black lasts and the more footfalls you hear. Added together, it created a form of locomotion that fit the world and the flow of the game, allowed full use of the player’s space, and—most importantly—wouldn’t make anyone sick.

The entire time we were building these new systems, and solving each new subsequent problem, we were also trying to ship a game. Valve and HTC had quietly given us access to one of the first Vive devkits with only one stipulation: Make something incredible. What we learned as we built our first roomscale demo was that smaller, more well-considered spaces with a tight narrative loop fit the format. We stepped back into the whole arc of The Gallery’s narrative and started to sculpt it down to be something more intimate.

An early iteration of the beach (Top) and the final beach scene (Bottom) in Call of the Starseed, redesigned for roomscale VR

Despite The Gallery being a fantasy experience at its core, every time we shifted direction, or a new piece of technology came online, we always went back to the beach—the level most grounded in reality. Having that real-world constant helped players better acclimate to the virtual environment, and better learn gameplay interactions without a sensory overload. It also made the transition to fantasy that much more wondrous. We ended up redesigning the beach numerous times before it became the opening level you see in Call of the Starseed. And even after launch, we iterated on the scene again to support Valve’s “Knuckle” controllers last fall.

When we launched Call of the Starseed alongside the HTC Vive in April 2015, we weren’t sure what the response would be. We worked countless long nights to meet that release date, and had to scope down many ideas that we just couldn’t make work in time. We knew that for VR to resonate with people, our experience had to not make them sick. Everyone within that first VR launch period knew that. But we also knew that we had to make our experience good. And, honestly, we didn’t know if it was.

The final sewer layout was fundamentally changed to better suit roomscale VR

At launch, the reviews were polarizing. There were comments that the experience was too short, or that we priced it too high at $29.99. Both were completely valid concerns from the public, but it was difficult for us to contextualize those comments, because every developer in VR had worked so hard and taken so many risks (financial and otherwise) to be there years prior. In the general Steam landscape, players expect that a game X hours long is worth X. It left us in a pickle, because we had to find a price to make a good ROI in a very small VR market. The playtime also varied; for many, Starseed was a 2 to 3-hour experience. But players more acclimated to VR were less likely to stop and touch the roses, and could finish it in half the time.

And then there were reviews that said Call of the Starseed was the first VR experience to make them cry, or the first to completely fill them with wonder. And it kept trickling in like that, with comments going so far as saying Starseed was the best gaming experience they’ve had in their entire life. Admittedly, I’m more jaded than most, but when you get reviews like those it’s hard to really believe them.

Still, they kept coming, and keep coming to this day. People approach us at events and reiterate those same sentiments. Eventually we realized that it was having the impact we really hoped it would—not just The Gallery, but the whole promise of virtual reality. Eliciting that sense of wonder in any medium is difficult, but virtual reality takes that up several notches. VR was enabling The Gallery to feel like a true memory of an event. A real moment in people’s lives.

Four months after launch, Valve and HTC reached out with the tremendous honour of including Call of the Starseed in the second Vive content bundle. By that time, our design motif of making an approachable VR experience that was comfortable and gradual was no longer feeling complex enough for some. That was partly our intention; we designed Starseed for everybody, in the same way that movies are for everybody.

Now, I am a massive, nerdy fan of all the Indiana Jones movies—even the bad ones. So, to me, virtual reality and The Gallery have always been about bringing 80s movies to life. Roomscale VR is about emulating a fantastical sci-fi future, rife with personal Holodecks. It’s about immersion, being taken to new worlds, and eliciting a childlike wonder. All the types of experiences I dreamt of growing up in the 80s, and have been teased with ever since.

With The Gallery, we wanted create that sense of adventure, fantasy, and freedom. To give people the chance to step into those characters and their journeys. People who have always wanted to participate in an adventure, but never could, for whatever reason.

It’s not often that you get to be there at the birth of a new medium, that you get to influence what it can become. That’s the opportunity that all of us understood—from the blood, sweat, and tears of the Cloudhead team, now nearly 20 strong; to the incredible passion of each and every developer and fan who’s been a part of this past year, forging the industry, and creating memorable experiences. Real moments.

VR isn’t just like the movies quite yet. But it’s becoming something much more important.

[readbookywooks]

The Confession of a Passionate Heart - in Verse

ALYOSHA remained for some time irresolute after hearing the command his father shouted to him from the carriage. But in spite of his uneasiness he did not stand still. That was not his way. He went at once to the kitchen to find out what his father had been doing above. Then he set off, trusting that on the way he would find some answer to the doubt tormenting him. I hasten to add that his father's shouts, commanding him to return home "with his mattress and pillow" did not frighten him in the least. He understood perfectly that those peremptory shouts were merely "a flourish" to produce an effect. In the same way a tradesman in our town who was celebrating his name-day with a party of friends, getting angry at being refused more vodka, smashed up his own crockery and furniture and tore his own and his wife's clothes, and finally broke his windows, all for the sake of effect. Next day, of course, when he was sober, he regretted the broken cups and saucers. Alyosha knew that his father would let him go back to the monastery next day, possibly even that evening. Moreover, he was fully persuaded that his father might hurt anyone else, but would not hurt him. Alyosha was certain that no one in the whole world ever would want to hurt him, and, what is more, he knew that no one could hurt him. This was for him an axiom, assumed once for all without question, and he went his way without hesitation, relying on it. But at that moment an anxiety of sort disturbed him, and worried him the more because he could not formulate it. It was the fear of a woman, of Katerina Ivanovna, who had so urgently entreated him in the note handed to him by Madame Hohlakov to come and see her about something. This request and the necessity of going had at once aroused an uneasy feeling in his heart, and this feeling had grown more and more painful all the morning in spite of the scenes at the hermitage and at the Father Superior's. He was not uneasy because he did not know what she would speak of and what he must answer. And he was not afraid of her simply as a woman. Though he knew little of women, he spent his life, from early childhood till he entered the monastery, entirely with women. He was afraid of that woman, Katerina Ivanovna. He had been afraid of her from the first time he saw her. He had only seen her two or three times, and had only chanced to say a few words to her. He thought of her as a beautiful, proud, imperious girl. It was not her beauty which troubled him, but something else. And the vagueness of his apprehension increased the apprehension itself. The girl's aims were of the noblest, he knew that. She was trying to save his brother Dmitri simply through generosity, though he had already behaved badly to her. Yet, although Alyosha recognised and did justice to all these fine and generous sentiments, a shiver began to run down his back as soon as he drew near her house. He reflected that he would not find Ivan, who was so intimate a friend, with her, for Ivan was certainly now with his father. Dmitri he was even more certain not to find there, and he had a foreboding of the reason. And so his conversation would be with her alone. He had a great longing to run and see his brother Dmitri before that fateful interview. Without showing him the letter, he could talk to him about it. But Dmitri lived a long way off, and he was sure to be away from home too. Standing still for a minute, he reached a final decision. Crossing himself with a rapid and accustomed gesture, and at once smiling, he turned resolutely in the direction of his terrible lady. He knew her house. If he went by the High Street and then across the market-place, it was a long way round. Though our town is small, it is scattered, and the houses are far apart. And meanwhile his father was expecting him, and perhaps had not yet forgotten his command. He might be unreasonable, and so he had to make haste to get there and back. So he decided to take a short cut by the backway, for he knew every inch of the ground. This meant skirting fences, climbing over hurdles, and crossing other people's back-yards, where everyone he met knew him and greeted him. In this way he could reach the High Street in half the time. He had to pass the garden adjoining his father's, and belonging to a little tumbledown house with four windows. The owner of this house, as Alyosha knew, was a bedridden old woman, living with her daughter, who had been a genteel maid-servant in generals' families in Petersburg. Now she had been at home a year, looking after her sick mother. She always dressed up in fine clothes, though her old mother and she had sunk into such poverty that they went every day to Fyodor Pavlovitch's kitchen for soup and bread, which Marfa gave readily. Yet, though the young woman came up for soup, she had never sold any of her dresses, and one of these even had a long train - a fact which Alyosha had learned from Rakitin, who always knew everything that was going on in the town. He had forgotten it as soon as he heard it, but now, on reaching the garden, he remembered the dress with the train, raised his head, which had been bowed in thought, and came upon something quite unexpected. Over the hurdle in the garden, Dmitri, mounted on something, was leaning forward, gesticulating violently, beckoning to him, obviously afraid to utter a word for fear of being overheard. Alyosha ran up to the hurdle. "It's a good thing you looked up. I was nearly shouting to you," Mitya said in a joyful, hurried whisper. "Climb in here quickly! How splendid that you've come! I was just thinking of you" Alyosha was delighted too, but he did not know how to get over the hurdle. Mitya put his powerful hand under his elbow to help him jump. Tucking up his cassock, Alyosha leapt over the hurdle with the agility of a bare-legged street urchin. "Well done! Now come along," said Mitya in an enthusiastic whisper. "Where?" whispered Alyosha, looking about him and finding himself in a deserted garden with no one near but themselves. The garden was small, but the house was at least fifty paces away. "There's no one here. Why do you whisper?" asked Alyosha. "Why do I whisper? Deuce take it" cried Dmitri at the top of his voice. "You see what silly tricks nature plays one. I am here in secret, and on the watch. I'll explain later on, but, knowing it's a secret, I began whispering like a fool, when there's no need. Let us go. Over there. Till then be quiet. I want to kiss you. Glory to God in the world, Glory to God in me... I was just repeating that, sitting here, before you came." The garden was about three acres in extent, and planted with trees only along the fence at the four sides. There were apple-trees, maples, limes and birch-trees. The middle of the garden was an empty grass space, from which several hundredweight of hay was carried in the summer. The garden was let out for a few roubles for the summer. There were also plantations of raspberries and currants and gooseberries laid out along the sides; a kitchen garden had been planted lately near the house. Dmitri led his brother to the most secluded corner of the garden. There, in a thicket of lime-trees and old bushes of black currant, elder, snowball-tree, and lilac, there stood a tumbledown green summer-house; blackened with age. Its walls were of lattice-work, but there was still a roof which could give shelter. God knows when this summer-house was built. There was a tradition that it had been put up some fifty years before by a retired colonel called von Schmidt, who owned the house at that time. It was all in decay, the floor was rotting, the planks were loose, the woodwork smelled musty. In the summer-house there was a green wooden table fixed in the ground, and round it were some green benches upon which it was still possible to sit. Alyosha had at once observed his brother's exhilarated condition, and on entering the arbour he saw half a bottle of brandy and a wineglass on the table. "That's brandy," Mitya laughed. "I see your look: 'He's drinking again" Distrust the apparition. Distrust the worthless, lying crowd, And lay aside thy doubts. I'm not drinking, I'm only 'indulging,' as that pig, your Rakitin, says. He'll be a civil councillor one day, but he'll always talk about 'indulging.' Sit down. I could take you in my arms, Alyosha, and press you to my bosom till I crush you, for in the whole world - in reality - in real-i-ty - (can you take it in?) I love no one but you! He uttered the last words in a sort of exaltation. "No one but you and one 'jade' I have fallen in love with, to my ruin. But being in love doesn't mean loving. You may be in love with a woman and yet hate her. Remember that! I can talk about it gaily still. Sit down here by the table and I'll sit beside you and look at you, and go on talking. You shall keep quiet and I'll go on talking, for the time has come. But on reflection, you know, I'd better speak quietly, for here - here - you can never tell what ears are listening. I will explain everything; as they say, 'the story will be continued.' Why have I been longing for you? Why have I been thirsting for you all these days, and just now? (It's five days since I've cast anchor here.) Because it's only to you I can tell everything; because I must, because I need you, because to-morrow I shall fly from the clouds, because to-morrow life is ending and beginning. Have you ever felt, have you ever dreamt of falling down a precipice into a pit? That's just how I'm falling, but not in a dream. And I'm not afraid, and don't you be afraid. At least, I am afraid, but I enjoy it. It's not enjoyment though, but ecstasy. Damn it all, whatever it is! A strong spirit, a weak spirit, a womanish spirit - what, ever it is! Let us praise nature: you see what sunshine, how clear the sky is, the leaves are all green, it's still summer; four o'clock in the afternoon and the stillness! Where were you going?" "I was going to father's, but I meant to go to Katerina Ivanovna's first." "To her, and to father! Oo! what a coincidence! Why was I waiting for you? Hungering and thirsting for you in every cranny of my soul and even in my ribs? Why, to send you to father and to her, Katerina Ivanovna, so as to have done with her and with father. To send an angel. I might have sent anyone, but I wanted to send an angel. And here you are on your way to see father and her." "Did you really mean to send me?" cried Alyosha with a distressed expression. "Stay! You knew it And I see you understand it all at once. But be quiet, be quiet for a time. Don't be sorry, and don't cry." Dmitri stood up, thought a moment, and put his finger to his forehead. "She's asked you, written to you a letter or something, that's why you're going to her? You wouldn't be going except for that?" "Here is her note." Alyosha took it out of his pocket. Mitya looked through it quickly. "And you were going the backway! Oh, gods, I thank you for sending him by the backway, and he came to me like the golden fish to the silly old fishermen in the fable! Listen, Alyosha, listen, brother! Now I mean to tell you everything, for I must tell someone. An angel in heaven I've told already; but I want to tell an angel on earth. You are an angel on earth. You will hear and judge and forgive. And that's what I need, that someone above me should forgive. Listen! If two people break away from everything on earth and fly off into the unknown, or at least one of them, and before flying off or going to ruin he comes to someone else and says, 'Do this for me' - some favour never asked before that could only be asked on one's deathbed - would that other refuse, if he were a friend or a brother?" "I will do it, but tell me what it is, and make haste," said Alyosha. "Make haste! H'm!... Don't be in a hurry, Alyosha, you hurry and worry yourself. There's no need to hurry now. Now the world has taken a new turning. Ah, Alyosha, what a pity you can't understand ecstasy. But what am I saying to him? As though you didn't understand it. What an ass I am! What am I saying? 'Be noble, O man!'- who says that?" Alyosha made up his mind to wait. He felt that, perhaps, indeed, his work lay here. Mitya sank into thought for a moment, with his elbow on the table and his head in his hand. Both were silent. "Alyosha," said Mitya, "you're the only one who won't laugh. I should like to begin - my confession - with Schiller's Hymn to Joy, An die Freude! I don't know German, I only know it's called that. Don't think I'm talking nonsense because I'm drunk. I'm not a bit drunk. Brandy's all very well, but I need two bottles to make me drunk: Silenus with his rosy phiz Upon his stumbling ass. But I've not drunk a quarter of a bottle, and I'm not Silenus. I'm not Silenus, though I am strong,* for I've made a decision once for all. Forgive me the pun; you'll have to forgive me a lot more than puns to-day. Don't be uneasy. I'm not spinning it out. I'm talking sense, and I'll come to the point in a minute. I won't keep you in suspense. Stay, how does it go?" * In Russian, silen. He raised his head, thought a minute, and began with enthusiasm: Wild and fearful in his cavern Hid the naked troglodyte, And the homeless nomad wandered Laying waste the fertile plain. Menacing with spear and arrow In the woods the hunter strayed.... Woe to all poor wretches stranded On those cruel and hostile shores! From the peak of high Olympus Came the mother Ceres down, Seeking in those savage regions Her lost daughter Proserpine. But the Goddess found no refuge, Found no kindly welcome there, And no temple bearing witness To the worship of the gods. From the fields and from the vineyards Came no fruits to deck the feasts, Only flesh of bloodstained victims Smouldered on the altar-fires, And where'er the grieving goddess Turns her melancholy gaze, Sunk in vilest degradation Man his loathsomeness displays Mitya broke into sobs and seized Alyosha's hand. "My dear, my dear, in degradation, in degradation now, too. There's a terrible amount of suffering for man on earth, a terrible lot of trouble. Don't think I'm only a brute in an officer's uniform, wallowing in dirt and drink. I hardly think of anything but of that degraded man - if only I'm not lying. I pray God I'm not lying and showing off. I think about that man because I am that man myself. Would he purge his soul from vileness And attain to light and worth, He must turn and cling for ever To his ancient Mother Earth. But the difficulty is how am I to cling for ever to Mother Earth. I don't kiss her. I don't cleave to her bosom. Am I to become a peasant or a shepherd? I go on and I don't know whether I'm going to shame or to light and joy. That's the trouble, for everything in the world is a riddle! And whenever I've happened to sink into the vilest degradation (and it's always been happening) I always read that poem about Ceres and man. Has it reformed me? Never! For I'm a Karamazov. For when I do leap into the pit, I go headlong with my heels up, and am pleased to be falling in that degrading attitude, and pride myself upon it. And in the very depths of that degradation I begin a hymn of praise. Let me be accursed. Let me be vile and base, only let me kiss the hem of the veil in which my God is shrouded. Though I may be following the devil, I am Thy son, O Lord, and I love Thee, and I feel the joy without which the world cannot stand. Joy everlasting fostereth The soul of all creation, It is her secret ferment fires The cup of life with flame. 'Tis at her beck the grass hath turned Each blade towards the light And solar systems have evolved From chaos and dark night, Filling the realms of boundless space Beyond the sage's sight. At bounteous Nature's kindly breast, All things that breathe drink Joy, And birds and beasts and creeping things All follow where She leads. Her gifts to man are friends in need, The wreath, the foaming must, To angels - vision of God's throne, To insects - sensual lust. But enough poetry! I am in tears; let me cry. It may be foolishness that everyone would laugh at. But you won't laugh. Your eyes are shining, too. Enough poetry. I want to tell you now about the insects to whom God gave 'sensual lust.' To insects - sensual lust. I am that insect, brother, and it is said of me specially. All we Karamazovs are such insects, and, angel as you are, that insect lives in you, too, and will stir up a tempest in your blood. Tempests, because sensual lust is a tempest worse than a tempest! Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side. I am a cultivated man, brother, but I've thought a lot about this. It's terrible what mysteries there are! Too many riddles weigh men down on earth. We must solve them as we can, and try to keep a dry skin in the water. Beauty! I can't endure the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. What's still more awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. I'd have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. But a man always talks of his own ache. Listen, now to come to facts."

[oumakokichi]

not meta really, but do you have any headcanons for what the v3 kids were like personalitywise before the brainwashing?? we see a little of them in the prologue but it's very vague, and i haven't seen any headcanons aside from my own so i'm interested in seeing what you think

I have a few, yes! Coming up with headcanons for what theywere like beforehand is really fun in my opinion. I know a lot of people wereupset by the twist because they felt like either they “never really got to knowthe real characters,” or else that the characters we see in-game had theirpersonalities “completely made opposite” from how they were beforehand, but I don’treally feel like that was the case.

I’ve gone over it in a few posts, but I’m pretty sure thatwith most of the characters, their core personalities were definitely leftintact. Ouma was an exception to the rule, and Tsumugi attempted to twist himfurther than anyone else, specifically because she wanted him to be the bad guyin her game—a perfectly manipulated, amenable pawn of despair to her plans soshe could set herself and everyone else up to be “Hope” and Ouma would be “Despair.”But as for the others, who weren’t supposed to be cast into a villainous rolefrom the start, there really wasn’t any need for her to try to twist them thatfar, and I think a lot of their basic interests, hobbies, inclinations, etc.are all very similar to how we see them behave in-game.

The fact that their given likes and dislikes don’t alwaysmatch up perfectly with their given talents is proof of this. Despite thebrainwashing and the fake talents, their actual personalities, and the thingsthey either like or don’t like, are still theirs.Angie, for instance, really doesn’t like moisture—aninteresting thing to note, considering in-game she’s portrayed as being from amost likely tropical island, and is an artist who works with paints and ink, noless. And Tenko’s likes include nunchakus, which have absolutely nothing to dowith aikido but sound very fitting for someone who perhaps before entering thegames was just interested in martial arts in general.

What I think was changed about them for the game per se wasmostly what they wanted out of the game directly. Tsumugi is an otaku at heart;she’s very open about this, really. Even once she’s been outed as themastermind, it’s very clear that she views absolutely everything through a lensof fiction, and this includes wanting certain “tropes” or “genre twists”applied to various characters within the game. This means that she’s reallyjust going to find it boring if she gives them all what they want directly whenthey audition.

And so characters like Saihara, who ask to be a “cooldetective who can get away with closed room murder tricks,” are “subverted” byher instead, and given a backstory based on insecurity, tragedy, and the fearof ruining everyone’s lives with the very thing that a detective seeks most:the truth. But at heart, Saihara is clearly the same person. He wants to be adetective, he enjoys mysteries. He has a natural curiosity about the worldaround him and he likes doing armchair detective reasoning more than anything.He loves novels—and it’s easy to tell in hindsight that he really loved the DRnovels all along.

I’ve talked before about how even seeing that some of the characterssigned up for the audition willingly or knowingly while talking about killingpeople doesn’t necessarily mean that they were a horrible person or a bully. Itall depends on what society is actually like in the ndrv3 universe—and everythingwe know about the outside world and how society must have rebuilt itself afterthose catastrophes suggests that it’s awful. If the killing game reality showhas been going for 53 seasons and is a deeply engrained pastime andentertainment hobby, that’s not something that would ever occur in a normal society. It sounds much moreHunger Games-like to me, where the idea that this is “normal” and that thesekids (kids without talent) “deserve it” is so inherently beaten into societythat it goes unquestioned, even by the kids who sign up for it themselves.

Therefore even for characters like Momota, who was shownsaying on his tape that he wanted to kill people and win the game for money, it’simportant to remember that Tsumugi wanted to use those audition tapes for shockvalue. In my opinion, she wanted to use the tapes to create the impression thatthe survivors were all drastically different people than who they used to beback when they auditioned, because that would be the thing that would breaktheir spirits and convince them that they were little more than “fictionalexistences.”

In any case, a character like Momota, who was actually sickfrom before, would have more reason than most to enter a killing gamewillingly. He was already going to die anyway, and knew he had nothing to lose,and the idea of winning a game so clearly meant for entertainment and prestigeand “looking cool” was probably appealing under those circumstances.

My headcanons for most of the characters is that theyprobably acted very similarly, but with a few subversions. Tenko, for instance,I could easily see being the same very excitable, very easy-to-read emotionalsort of person. I think she must have really had a love for watching martialarts, but didn’t really know a lot about them, and that explains why she wasgiven a title like SHSL Aikido Specialist when she really just thinks nunchakuslook cool. But she was still a person who wants to “be strong” and wants to “protectothers”; she just didn’t always know how to go about it the best way, just asshe doesn’t always know how to do so with Himiko.

Kaede is fairly similar. The Kaede we see in her ownaudition tape describes herself as a cynic and someone who can’t really trustothers easily. Considering the bleakness of the outside world and society inndrv3, and what we see of Kaede’s flashbacks to being kidnapped in theprologue, this fits pretty well. But also she undeniably wanted to be a leaderfrom the start. She wanted to be someone who could trust others, and inspirethem, and serve as a hopeful, reliable sort of figure. This means that even ifshe felt actually putting it into practice might have been impossible for her,because of how cynical she was, she still had those feelings there all along.Kaede would never have made for the “perfect protagonist” figure that she wasif she hadn’t had that kind of potential in her all along.

Miu I definitely see as having been extremely similar to howshe is in-game. Most likely she went into her audition specifically asking tobe some “high and mighty inventor,” and she wanted to be able to invent supercool stuff all the time and have everyone think she was awesome and incredible.But since Miu is ultimately a character who’s almost all bark and no bite, andwho backs down quickly when given the same treatment she tries to force onto others,even in-game she retains this sort of quality, and her genius inventing abilitiesare still subverted by the fact that she really lacks basic common sense abouta lot of other things.

In the prologue, we see her saying things like “Why’re youtalking like someone who’s got talent?!”, implying that talent clearly existsin ndrv3 society and that those without it are regarded pretty lowly, or likethey shouldn’t be giving their opinions about things. And this is definitelyhow the Miu we see in-game acts a lot, so it follows her thought process.

You probably get the idea—most of the characters I thinkfollow this sort of pattern where how they would behave or talk to others isreally similar, except that perhaps they were slightly more or less excitableor confident or jaded. And that’s pretty normal, actually, in my opinion.Rather than thinking of them as entirely separate from their in-game selves,with most of them it feels a lot more like comparing the same person but withfive or ten years of experience in-between, because experience can also changea person and how they think without changing who they are at their core.

With Ouma…the question is a little more complicated, becauseOuma’s situation was more complicated. He was given the most messed up talentout of the bunch, because Tsumugi wanted him to be her pawn more than anything.We don’t see much of him in the prologue to compare to, either—he has exactlyone speaking line, and all we can really glean is that he looks really, reallynervous, and that he has never heard of himself (or the others) having any “sealedtalents” which the Monokumerz keep talking about.

Tsumugi confirms that his DICE group actually existed, andthat they did “laughably small crimes,” meaning that they most likely wentaround pulling pranks and maybe petty theft at most. I’d say this confirms thatOuma has definitely always been mischievous at least, but certainlywell-intentioned.

If my own theory that ndrv3’s society in general is basedaround those with SHSL Talents in the real world perpetuating fiction like DRand running the killing game show in order to take things out on those withouttalent is true, then I would bet Ouma and his DICE group were probably a realpain in the ass. A group of kids running around and pulling pranks andgenerally making these very talented people at the top of society in thissituation where talent is everything and it’s all up to “survival of thefittest” must have seemed like a real slap in the face, moreso if the wholepoint of DICE was that “no one ever got hurt or killed.”

My own headcanon (meaning no one has to agree with it) isthat Ouma looks so shocked and nervous in the prologue precisely because he’dbeen getting away with all these kinds of pranks and jokes before, andeverything seemed like a game and everything was going fine—up until he thoughthe “got caught.” Then suddenly he realized that he was in really hot water and that something definitely wasn’t right aboutthe situation he was in.

His personality being “imbued with despair” even feels alittle more intentionally like a punishment than anything that’s given to theother characters. If he and his DICE group had been making a point of playingthese pranks, getting away with these harmless crimes in order to point andlaugh at a talent-based society that was based around slaughtering off thosewithout talent because really, these super-talented people are not as smart asthey think they are, well…that’s a subversive message.

And it would make sense that Tsumugi and the producers wouldwant to make sure that he was the villain, and that he was given thispersonality and role based around the idea of “hurting others” and “getting offto human suffering,” because that’s what she wanted him to be. That’s whatJunko was, after all. But it speaks a lot to Ouma’s core values as a person,that even when that’s something he was twisted into and to some degree,something he did believe he’d become, he still maintained his hatred forkilling and suffering. He knew thingswere off about the killing game, and about his own memories and talent becauseof how much dissonance there was between what he could remember and the disgusthe actually felt when he saw human suffering.

Anyway, these arejust my headcanons! This got a bit long but it was really fun to talk about. Iknow a lot of people are still tripped up by the misinformation that thecharacters’ personalities are all “completely opposite” from how they werebefore, but knowing that that’s not really the case gives a lot more room forspeculation and ideas based on what we do see of them in-game, and I find itreally fun.

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

In some ways, The Gallery began in 1992. My first experience in virtual reality was that year, with the aptly named Virtuality—an early VR platform steeped in the cheese of late-80s sci-fi design. It wasn’t a good experience, and honestly it left me feeling nauseous, but it was a bubbly and bulky dream for a future that technology simply wasn’t ready for. That’s when the obsession started; one day VR would be just like the movies.

By 2012, I was personally experimenting with approximating 3D vision in a virtual space. There were forums where people were just throwing ideas up against the wall, trying to figure out what hardware we would need to build VR the way we saw it. We developed simulators and collimated displays, all hacked together in our garages. Palmer Luckey was there too, and he had figured out a way to make a headset affordable using off-the-shelf components. He promised to send a few of us the parts to test his new schematic.

But then Palmer got quiet on the forums, and John Carmack’s name started floating around. We knew then that the formula was cracked, and it was time to start taking VR more seriously.

That year, I formed Cloudhead with two colleagues, Christopher Roe and Matt Lyon, with a vision to build a game specifically for virtual reality. We decided early on that, for VR to be the VR we imagined, we would need some sort of hand input as well. There was only one device at the time that we thought might work—a flat-game peripheral called the Razer Hydra, which tracked hand position using a weak magnetic field.

In the spring of 2013, we launched a successful Kickstarter, received our first Rift, and got to work.

Starting with DK1 meant that the development of The Gallery became defined by design iteration.

An early experiment in hybrid locomotion

First came overcoming motion sickness during artificial rotations. We introduced snap turns (“VR Comfort Mode”) as a way to skip the perceptual hiccup of seeing movement while the inner ear doesn’t feel it. The only way to skip it was to literally skip it; skip increments of rotation. (We found our sweet spot to be at 10-degree increments.) We consulted for the Perceptual Psychologist at Oculus, and they ended up including snap turns in their Best Practices guide.

Next was iterating hand interaction systems that just didn’t exist yet. We had to figure out how to manipulate, grab, carry, and use objects in a 3D space with virtual hands in a natural way. As well, we needed constraint systems. If you grab and turn a door handle in VR, for instance, your meat-space (aka real world) hand will move independent of that fixed object in virtual space, creating a cognitive disconnect. We found that we could trick the brain by giving the virtual hand some affordance to stick to the handle, even when the meat-space hand isn’t perfectly in place, and then unsnap it if it moves too far away.

That process repeated with DK2 and positional tracking. Technologies improved, our team grew in size, and every time we were introduced to new hardware capabilities, we had to rethink design fundamentals.

When Valve brought us to a secret summit in 2014, everything changed. The implementation of roomscale was a dramatic shift in design. On the one side, it was a huge wave of relief; tracked hand input and full, volumetric movement was going to be ‘a thing’ with commercial hardware. On the other side, we had to reverse-engineer our entire game and reconstruct its framework to fit roomscale VR. Not only that, but as soon as we crossed the 90fps threshold, perceiving VR became like looking into a true representation of reality. Even if you’re holding up something cartoony, the smoothness of the motion makes your brain think, “Oh, that’s a real thing, it’s just painted to look cartoony.” It also meant that smooth, artificial forward traversal could make people feel ill or uncomfortable because peripheral vection was more easily perceived—an issue that only affected artificial rotation beforehand.

Cloudhead Dan with the V Minus-1 Vive prototype

So, how do we move an entire room through 3D space without artificially pushing it forward? And what happens if the player only has the carpet in front of their TV as their play area? What if they only have the space in front of their desk? What if they have a full living room? All of these questions came before Valve had time to introduce chaperone as the VR standard.

Our solution was an elastic playspace and teleportation system which we called Blink. It began its life as a simple teleport—you point to where you want to go, push a button, and suddenly you’re there. We started adding layers of complexity, one by one. A reticle. A preview of your relative orientation. A preview of where your new boundaries will be. The ability to rotate your projected orientation. The ability to rotate your play volume itself. We wanted players to ideally orient their playspace to take full advantage of however much room they had, so they could comfortably move around in their volume without worrying about boundaries.

Finally, we added a cinematic fade to mask the “blink” between choosing your desired location, and ending up at the new location. Along with some naturally timed footfalls, we created a system where the further you teleport away, the longer the fade to black lasts and the more footfalls you hear. Added together, it created a form of locomotion that fit the world and the flow of the game, allowed full use of the player’s space, and—most importantly—wouldn’t make anyone sick.

The entire time we were building these new systems, and solving each new subsequent problem, we were also trying to ship a game. Valve and HTC had quietly given us access to one of the first Vive devkits with only one stipulation: Make something incredible. What we learned as we built our first roomscale demo was that smaller, more well-considered spaces with a tight narrative loop fit the format. We stepped back into the whole arc of The Gallery’s narrative and started to sculpt it down to be something more intimate.

An early iteration of the beach (Top) and the final beach scene (Bottom) in Call of the Starseed, redesigned for roomscale VR

Despite The Gallery being a fantasy experience at its core, every time we shifted direction, or a new piece of technology came online, we always went back to the beach—the level most grounded in reality. Having that real-world constant helped players better acclimate to the virtual environment, and better learn gameplay interactions without a sensory overload. It also made the transition to fantasy that much more wondrous. We ended up redesigning the beach numerous times before it became the opening level you see in Call of the Starseed. And even after launch, we iterated on the scene again to support Valve’s “Knuckle” controllers last fall.

When we launched Call of the Starseed alongside the HTC Vive in April 2015, we weren’t sure what the response would be. We worked countless long nights to meet that release date, and had to scope down many ideas that we just couldn’t make work in time. We knew that for VR to resonate with people, our experience had to not make them sick. Everyone within that first VR launch period knew that. But we also knew that we had to make our experience good. And, honestly, we didn’t know if it was.

The final sewer layout was fundamentally changed to better suit roomscale VR

At launch, the reviews were polarizing. There were comments that the experience was too short, or that we priced it too high at $29.99. Both were completely valid concerns from the public, but it was difficult for us to contextualize those comments, because every developer in VR had worked so hard and taken so many risks (financial and otherwise) to be there years prior. In the general Steam landscape, players expect that a game X hours long is worth X. It left us in a pickle, because we had to find a price to make a good ROI in a very small VR market. The playtime also varied; for many, Starseed was a 2 to 3-hour experience. But players more acclimated to VR were less likely to stop and touch the roses, and could finish it in half the time.

And then there were reviews that said Call of the Starseed was the first VR experience to make them cry, or the first to completely fill them with wonder. And it kept trickling in like that, with comments going so far as saying Starseed was the best gaming experience they’ve had in their entire life. Admittedly, I’m more jaded than most, but when you get reviews like those it’s hard to really believe them.

Still, they kept coming, and keep coming to this day. People approach us at events and reiterate those same sentiments. Eventually we realized that it was having the impact we really hoped it would—not just The Gallery, but the whole promise of virtual reality. Eliciting that sense of wonder in any medium is difficult, but virtual reality takes that up several notches. VR was enabling The Gallery to feel like a true memory of an event. A real moment in people’s lives.

Four months after launch, Valve and HTC reached out with the tremendous honour of including Call of the Starseed in the second Vive content bundle. By that time, our design motif of making an approachable VR experience that was comfortable and gradual was no longer feeling complex enough for some. That was partly our intention; we designed Starseed for everybody, in the same way that movies are for everybody.

Now, I am a massive, nerdy fan of all the Indiana Jones movies—even the bad ones. So, to me, virtual reality and The Gallery have always been about bringing 80s movies to life. Roomscale VR is about emulating a fantastical sci-fi future, rife with personal Holodecks. It’s about immersion, being taken to new worlds, and eliciting a childlike wonder. All the types of experiences I dreamt of growing up in the 80s, and have been teased with ever since.

With The Gallery, we wanted create that sense of adventure, fantasy, and freedom. To give people the chance to step into those characters and their journeys. People who have always wanted to participate in an adventure, but never could, for whatever reason.

It’s not often that you get to be there at the birth of a new medium, that you get to influence what it can become. That’s the opportunity that all of us understood—from the blood, sweat, and tears of the Cloudhead team, now nearly 20 strong; to the incredible passion of each and every developer and fan who’s been a part of this past year, forging the industry, and creating memorable experiences. Real moments.

VR isn’t just like the movies quite yet. But it’s becoming something much more important.