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jiminiecrickets · 1 year ago

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jeon jungkook ♡ series masterlist

wc. 2k

tags. smut | dom top!m!reader, in an alleyway, exhibitionism + getting caught, jealousy, rough sex, biting, crying

thursdays at a nightclub – most would expect a half-alive sort of creature, mostly empty and a little dull. but the nights never sleep and neither do its people, and the building is warm with electric bodies and the sweet, heady scent of spilt alcohol.

jungkook squeezes out of the crowd on the dance floor, releasing a lungful of thick air as he meanders towards the bar. he'd lost you a few minutes ago, and nothing was as fun as grinding on his boyfriend in a dark room full of strangers. he takes a seat and orders a drink.

not a second later, a presence slides up behind him. "what's a looker like you doin' all alone?"

his welcoming smile vanishes. that's not you. he glances over his shoulder at the young man, who looks so generically attractive that jungkook feels as if he's an instagram filter become reality.

he turns away, disinterested. he scans the crowds. "i'm not alone. here with my boyfriend."

"really? where?"

there's a grating smugness to his words. he's probably never had anyone say no to him before. "we got separated. this place is pretty big."

the guy hums, leaning against the bar next to jungkook. "that's true. he probably won't find you for ten minutes, maybe more. not thinking of spending all that time sittin' alone at the bar with just a whiskey to warm you, are you?"

"i am, actually."

"well, maybe i could interest you in something else," he suggests, "to pass the time."

jungkook lifts the glass to his lips, throwing it back. he hisses at the pleasant burn. "yeah, no. i'd rather watch paint dry."

"oh, i'm not that bad," he jests. his fingers slide over jungkook's bicep, gorgeously accentuated by the neckline of his black racerback tank. it's fitted and cropped – he did it himself – and shows off his tight stomach and defined apollo's belt. "you wouldn't even have to look at me, y'know. those hands of yours would make a nice necklace, don't you think?"

he glances down at his many silver rings and bracelets. "oh. oh. uh, i don't think you're reading me right. um, i don't swing that way."

the man's brows furrow. "what? you said you had a boyfriend."

"i do." jungkook clears his throat, carefully sliding off of the barstool. the other man's eyes follow him up; jungkook has a few inches over him. "i, uh..."

"there you are, baby. thought i'd never see your face again."

jungkook positively lights up at the sound of your voice, smooth and pleasant. it's the kind of voice that cuts through boardroom chatter like a hot knife through butter, carrying with it a natural, easy assertiveness that ceos wish they had.

"hyung," he coos, giggling as you drape an arm over his shoulder and tangle that hand in his long, messy curls, tugging slightly to press your lips to his cheek. he lets you move him around like a doll, grinning up at you adoringly. "hi."

"hi," you reply, amused. your eyes flicker over to the other man, whose face is slowly turning red. your eyes narrow slightly. "sorry, i don't think we've met. i'll be stealing him for a minute."

you're usually so polite – but this time, you didn't even add an 'if you don't mind' to that second sentence. jungkook nibbles on his lower lip. are you angry? are you angry at him?

"hyung?" he asks when you lead him outside into the alley, the cool breeze soothing his hot skin. "what's up?"

you turn on him. his eyes widen. "he was flirting with you, wasn't he?"

"what?" he fumbles. "w-well, i mean, yeah, but you know i wasn't gonna do anything if that's what you're worried about—"

"i don't care about that." something in the back of jungkook's mind swoons at the knowledge that you're so secure in his affections for you that it doesn't bother you in the slightest. you lean in, pressing a hand against the rough brick wall and pinning him in. his heart begins to race. "i care that he thought you were available. all this skin you're showing and not a single mark defining you as mine?" a slight growl marks that last word. jungkook gasps softly. "we'll have to fix that."

"now?" jungkook stammers, glancing around. the alley's dark, and the streets on either side are mostly quiet. a few haggard-looking youths stumble by every so often. "but what if someone sees? my dignity, hyung, you're gonna rip it to shreds."

"i'm 'gonna'?" you lift a brow, eyes glittering. "you sound as if you want this."

he swallows. "i – i do, i always do, but i don't want anyone getting an eyeful of my ass..." he hooks his fingers through your belt loops. "that's just for you, hyung-ah."

you hum, leaning in. you press your lips against his and he moans softly, tugging your hips flush against his. "that's right, baby. you're just for me. all this..." you squeeze his ass roughly over his black cargo pants and he whimpers out a moan, arching his spine into your touch. "all mine. why?"

"'cause you fuck me the best," he gasps, wrapping his arms around your shoulders as your hot kisses travel down his jaw and collar. his cock stirs. "you fuck me so well, baby. i could never want anyone else when i have you. i belong to you – hey!"

you yank his teasingly tight pants down over his thighs, pinning him in place easily with your own body. he's already half-hard – has been for the last hour in the club – and you hum appreciatively, gently turning him over. he obliges, arching his spine as he gazes watchfully over his shoulder, pink lips parted and palms pressed against the wall.

your hand runs over the tight silver-ringed harness that cradles his chest and shoulders and emphasises his tiny little waist. you nearly growl at the sight, nails digging into his skin.

he presses his ass into the front of your pants, round eyes sparkling with anticipation. "you're being so rough," he breathes as you nip at his neck just below his ear, tugging the fitted neck of his top down to reveal more of him. "did that really touch something tender? ah!"

he jerks as your teeth clip his soft skin, indenting the shape of your teeth as a red bruise. his heartbeat thuds faster as your palms glide over the mounds of his chest, perfectly sculpted by his tight shirt and harness, and dance over his cock to stroke his sensitive inner thighs. they tense under your touch.

he's wearing a pair of tiny black jocks with a rainbow elastic that cups his ass. you stifle a laugh, trying not to break character.

"what?" he mumbles, blushing. "shut the fuck up. they're cute."

"oh, i agree." you give them a light smack and he moans sharply at the impact. "wonder what that guy would think if he saw you in these – if he saw how pretty you are, spreading your legs for me..." one hand strokes his taut stomach, passing below his hips to cup the cute bubble in his jocks. he whines softly as you squeeze. "be a good boy and keep quiet for me, yeah?"

he nods feebly, gnawing on his lower lip. you've barely done anything and yet he already feels ragged, his skin scorching and tight.

something hot and thick prods his asshole. he slaps a hand over his mouth as you snap your hips forward, burying yourself so deep in him that he sees stars, the burning stretch achingly good. "mmph—!"

you hush him softly, holding him steady as he trembles in your arms. the hot weight of your body pinning his into the rough, cold alley wall is almost mind-numbing. "that's my good boy... halfway there. my good boy takes cock so well, doesn't he?"

whining softly, he nods fiercely, gasping out a shaky moan as you press your hips tight against his ass. "mhm, mhm, i do – ah! you're just s-so big, 'm close, so close—"

"already?" your hips smack quick and rough against his ass, the lube making things wet and messy. he shoves his hand between his teeth and claws at the wall, the thick head of your cock grinding into his prostate and gliding against it with each thrust. "i just put it in, baby."

"s-sorry," he squeaks, his breathing haggard as his eyes dart between the ends of the alleyway. the headlights of a car rumble by and he clenches around you, eliciting a deep groan that rattles his spine and echoes in his head. "s-someone's gonna see – fuck, right there – h-hyung, they're gonna see—!"

"they will if you keep squealing your pretty head off," you grunt, gaze trained on the join between your bodies. his ass ripples, bouncing off of your hips with wet smacks, and arousal flames through your veins. you grab his wrists and pin them to the wall beside his head. "but you're so much tighter than usual – s'almost hard to fuck ya," you chuckle breathlessly. "you like this, don't you, my good boy? do you want someone to see the way you're crying on my cock?"

tears prick his eyes. you're right. his heart threatens to pound out of his ribs. he sniffles, moans high and airy. "n-no, i don't, 'm your good boy – please, sir, s-slow down—!"

his hips snap forward with a sharp cry as your cock slams into his guts. his vision whites out and his head spins, his body hot and sweaty even in the cool night, and he melts.

he arches his spine, throwing himself roughly back onto your cock and babbling for more. his hair bounces quickly, sticking to his temples, and his thighs shake violently as he comes into his jocks, sniffling and whimpering with hot tears streaking down his cheeks.

he's so messy. so embarrassed. he's acting like a slut. he squeezes his eyes shut and gulps back his loud moans, turning them into gasped whines and heavy pants as your dick scrapes his insides so wonderfully, filling him up like no one else ever could.

"sir – hyung," he babbles, melting into your hot kisses a little more with each harsh thrust, "hyung, hyung! please—!"

in the alleyway, the indent of the doorway you're hiding yourself in swings open. a familiar sleek face greets you, a cigarette between the lips.

it falls to the ground.

you yank jungkook's hips back onto your cock and he squeals, whimpering in shock and embarrassment as you fill him up right then and there. his huge, teary eyes stare back at you, his shaky hands pushing meekly at your stomach in an effort to get you to pull out, but you just step closer, forcing his body still as cum drips down his inner thigh from his jockstrap.

you tilt your head at the man who once, not too long ago, threw himself at jungkook, expecting to walk away in the morning with a satisfying ache between his legs. a tug on jungkook's long hair reveals the collar of dark, bruising hickeys littering his neck and shoulders.

jungkook moans your name, exhausted, and slumps against the wall, his hands trembling as he tries to steady himself against the cold bricks. you give one final thrust and jungkook keens, practically collapsing into your arms as his knees buckle.

you turn away from the stranger at last, dropping a chaste kiss to the nape of jungkook's neck. he shivers and whines softly, gripping your hips for dear life. you're the only thing keeping him from crumpling to the ground like a stringless marionette.

rapid footsteps. the door slams shut. you hush jungkook, nibbling another hickey into his flushed skin as you slide his pants over his ass.

"such a good boy," you whisper, wiping his tears away with the pad of your thumb. "my good boy, isn't that right?"

after a minute, he nods once, sucking in lungfuls of air as his head gradually clears of the thick fog. he leans back against you, tucking his warm face into the crook of your neck. your arms wrap securely around his waist. "yeah," he whispers vacantly, the tingle of pleasure still zinging through his nerves. "'m hyung's good boy... his..."

he's so cute like this, you think as you stroke his cheek and press a lingering kiss to his bitten lips. walking out of the alley, he grips your hand as if he'll die otherwise, but he decides that it's not close enough and hooks his arm over your shoulder, keeping yours around his bare waist. you help him keep steady on his shaking legs. his rosary of dark hickeys is a public announcement: he is yours, and you are his.

#top male reader #x male reader #male reader #dom male reader #bts x male reader #dom reader #top reader #bottom bts #bottom jungkook #jungkook x male reader #kpop x male reader #bts x reader #kpop x reader #bts smut #jungkook smut

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etherealfishyfeelings · 11 months ago

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Synastry Notes: Sun/Moon

Disclaimer: these are just my personal experience with sun moon aspects in synastry. This is also essentially a rant.

Another Disclaimer: the conditions present in the natal chart such as signs, aspects and house placements can radically alter how one person experiences synastry aspects from another. As well as how developed someone is. I have moon conjunct mars and squared to chiron and widely squared to pluto personally. And it's in the 12th house. Please keep that in mind, I really don't like things poking at my moon. Also I am very sorry that this was so long. I did not think that I really had this much to say.

The Conjunction: I have a love/hate relationship with this one. I thoroughly enjoy being the Sun person in Sun/Moon aspects in general. But with the conjunction as the Sun person I really tend to feel strong sense of protective care over the Moon person. I tend to take their emotions very seriously, it may not show up that way though since its in Aquarius but internally I feel a very strong pull to ensure their comfort and support their emotional needs. However, as the Moon person, i don't really tend to like it. All that attention on my Moon in the 12th? Ew. I feel really exposed and I often feel like the Sun person just seems to have no comprehension that they are trodding all over sacred ground. It isn't all bad though, I often feel like the Sun seems very accepting of who I am(no matter how weird or wacky) even if they do kinda feel like a bull in a china shop. I find that they usually do mean well, and they tend to be very good listeners, I feel very heard when talking to them about my feelings and thoughts.

The Opposition: Also a love/hate relationship I love being the Sun person but I genuinely loathe being the Moon person here. As the Sun person it feels very similar to the conjunction, I take the Moon persons feelings very seriously and go through great lengths to give them comfort and keep them entertained. Lots of gift giving?? Now that I think about it. Like LOTS OF GIFTS now that I'm really thinking about it. However there were times where I really felt like I was missing the mark and I didn't really get the Moon persons reactions to things. On the other hand as the Moon person, just no. I felt like the Sun person constantly rained on my parade, and they often required me to explain myself, like a lot(Virgo vs Pisces at its finest). I felt very judged and boxed in. Very uncomfortable for me, and for them from what I could see.

The Square: This one really depends. As the Sun person(in Aquarius) here I really tend to struggle with Scorpio and Taurus moons. They tend to find me fickle and I really, I mean really struggle to understand their emotional needs and even the ones I do sort of understand are so foreign to me that I am left baffled anyway(like I get it, but I don't get it. Like I get why doing XYZ is nice for you but I would never do that for 6 hours day, especially if I was ???sad???) and any attempts I make to have fun or do anything really are usually seen as threats to their person security. This aspect is REALLY loud for me. Especially because I have Saturn in Taurus. It's almost like I am uncomfortable with how uncomfortable I seem to make the Moon person just by being me. And if you live with them it's basically arguments galore. And getting a lot of the silent treatment. When I'm the Moon person it's sort of better, mostly because it's between mutable signs. Gemini and Sagittarius are light enough in their demeanor that I can ignore most of the friction but this also means that their Sun Squares my Mars and its very evident here, esp with the Sag suns. Like waaay more evident here than in the opposition for some reason. Like there is a general sense of interest in just meandering through the world together, like it's quite explorative in the physical world and in thought but most of the Sagittarius Suns that I've interacted with said they thought I was a bit of a bully(and I quote, "Do you even care about anything? Why do you always have to be so rude? And loud?") and too aggressive for their liking(I did ask why every time, I never really got a clear explanation so I cannot confirm the exact reason. My interaction with Sag Suns generally tend to be goofy and nice if it's kept short but long term its just goofy and confusing). And the Gemini Suns were great, had a lot of fun with them but ultimately it just fizzled out after many of the big clashes between us became evident. Overall as the Moon person the aspect wasn't too loud. But I prefer these two signs as moons signs.

The Trine/Sextile: actually pretty neat? Like both ways, especially with the trine. Takes me a while to notice the serenity of them but when I finally do take notice, I am hooked. Being the Sun is similar to being the Sun in the conjunction, just far less intense and more playful. And this is the only Sun/Moon aspect where I thoroughly enjoy being the Moon person. I love how light and almost airy it is, even when I'm dealing with a Scorpio Sun. Which seems crazy but it really works fine.

#synastry notes #synastry #sun conjunct moon #sun opposite moon #sun square moon #sun trine moon #sun sextile moon #this whole post felt so whiny #oh well #i am so sorry that this was so long too #damn

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1d1195 · 2 years ago

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Committed II

Read the first part here

(I'm sorry it's gonna have to be three parts at this rate)

“Hi, kitten,” his voice vibrated in his chest and through her body.

“Hi Harry,” she whispered.

“Missed me?” He hummed to the top of her hair.

“A little,” she muttered. He chuckled.

She had heard Harry sing for almost her whole life—since she had met him when she moved to England and started primary school the same year as he did. Harry’s voice was like a lullaby—her suggestion to record covers was joke, but she was grateful all the same. But there was no greater music than Harry laughing in her ear.

On the days where they weren’t getting ready for a show, she was working her day job; managing a local music store—anything to get into the business of making Harry’s dreams come true. Harry often meandered there on his lunch break to look over albums and sit while she organized shelves and chatted with customers.

As much as Harry liked the idea of becoming part of a big-time band, he didn’t really mind if he didn’t. He was content working at a club when he wasn’t playing in the band. One day he planned to own his own club and play as much as possible. He loved music and loved the idea of supporting small town bands like his. And honestly, he always imagined owning it with his best friend in the world.

She was walking toward another shelf to organized it while Harry mindlessly flipped through new album titles on old vinyl. Harry was in awe of how his generation and the one after him were moving toward such vintage ideals, he liked the feel of records again. But mostly, He liked seeing her in her element among the songs and titles.

As she walked over, Harry called a quiet “Hey,” and tossed a French fry in her direction at the same time. Without even a break in her step, she turned her face just as he threw it, the fry bounced off half her cheek and she managed to snag the other half with her tongue. He chuckled as she winked at him. It was moments like these that Harry thought about Niall saying she would be insane not to take the internship. More so when she said she should be committed then, because she wouldn’t be taking it.

Because the only thing Harry could think about was how he would have to be committed if she did take it.

The idea of not seeing her every day and hearing her laugh made his chest ache for something he shouldn’t even be aching about. She was right there. Just a shelf away from him. Her eyes scanning titles of albums to make sure they were in the right order. Humming to the music that played (her choice of course).

“I think you should record,” she said.

It came up every so often. Usually when one of the songs Harry covered played over the speakers filling the room with sweet melodies that she loved so much. It was part of the reason Harry did all the covers. Why he was so insistent the band learn the old songs and obscure songs that they wouldn’t have normally played. Whatever she loved was fine by him because there wasn’t a song as sweet as her happiness.

She had a lot of favorite songs, and as such, so did Harry.

“We can’t jus’ record covers, kitten.”

She rolled her eyes. “There are cover bands, Harry,” she reminded him.

“I know, m’love,” he chuckled. “But...I want t’record m’own music.”

“Well, you can do that too...I just think you sing this song better than original and I’d like to have it recorded so I can fall asleep listening to it.”

Shaking his head as he popped another fry into his mouth he thought about her suggestion. He liked the idea that his voice would be the last thing she heard before she fell asleep. “Maybe if y’take this internship, I’ll record us...a going away present,” he suggested.

Her organization of the shelf came to an abrupt halt. Her eyes locked with the album titles, and she then slowly closed them. “Very funny,” she muttered.

“Kitten—”

“Don’t. Just don’t, Harry. You’re supposed to be on my side.”

He was quiet for a few moments as he pondered the notion that she wouldn’t leave because of him. Mitch couldn’t be right. That would be insane. There was no way she would give up an incredible opportunity like this...for Harry. “M’always on your side, love,” he said softly. He didn’t want to upset her, and he could see the way her jaw locked tensely as he started to speak again. It was like she was on the defensive. But Harry could also see the way her eyes started to water. “S’why I think y’should go,” he told her. As much as he didn’t want her to be so far away... “I...I would come visit,” he promised. “S’only a year,” he reminded her. “We could FaceTime all the time.”

She didn’t speak for a moment. “A lot can change in a year,” she whispered quietly so the sadness in her voice couldn’t reach his ears.

But it was her, so he heard it anyway. “Not us.” Harry watched a tear roll down her cheek and she caught it with the back of her hand before Harry could make a big deal of it. “Jus’ think ‘bout it,” he said. “Don’t say no yet,” he murmured and stood from his stool, another French fry between his fingers as he walked closer to her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, gave her a squeeze with a kiss to the top of her head. He held the fry to her lips, and she bit it, despite not feeling in a playful mood.

“Okay,” she said and wrapped her arms around Harry’s waist tucking herself into his chest and Harry wished with everything in him that it didn’t feel like goodbye.

When they caught up at home, Harry would sit with her legs draped over his lap a book in between her hands and he would play a video game with Mitch or just watch a show while she read. They looked like a couple. Acted like a couple. “Do you want Mexican or Italian?” She asked randomly as her eyes scanned her book.

He glanced from his game to catch her concentrated expression and he just wanted to kiss her sweet face for the rest of his life. “We haven’t had Italian in a while, yeah?” He murmured.

They certainly sounded like an old married couple.

“Mmm,” she hummed. “Can you pick it up?” She smiled impishly.

“Ugh...” he groaned. “I got it last time!”

“But I don’t wanna,” she whined.

Harry would slice his arm off at the elbow if she asked. Even if her dramatic whine was all fake, he would do anything for her to appease her. Smirking he sighed just as dramatically as she whined. “Oh alright.”

“I’m so lucky to have a best friend like you. Thank God, I sat next to you on the bus,” she giggled. Harry smirked gently tossing her legs off his lap. “Gah!” She gasped. “No wait! Never mind! Let’s get pizza or something else delivered.” He chuckled.

“S’matter, love?”

“I was so comfy,” she frowned and pouted petulantly. Harry couldn’t believe how cute she looked. He thought his heart would ooze right out of his body and melt at his feet. How could she not know how much he adored her?

“Aw, kitten,” he cooed at her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll be right back...actually, can I get it on your phone? Mine is dead from—” He grabbed it off the coffee table and started to unlock it with her passcode when a message popped up from a guy’s name he didn’t recognize. He felt his eyebrows pinch together in confusion. Her mouth fell open because even though Harry didn’t know what was going on, she definitely did. “Who’s this?” He asked.

“Uh...remember the night I fell at the club?”

“Yeah...”

“This guy started chatting with me in the crowd when I left backstage.”

Harry remembered the guy almost instantly. He hadn’t thought to think about him because all he could think about was her safety, her head injury, and how scared he was that night. Any thought of inquiring about the man that caught her attention was lost in the shuffle of more pressing matters. And Harry couldn’t believe he forgot about it—especially now, seeing his name on her phone. “Oh.”

“He’s nice,” she said quietly. “He wants to get coffee sometime.”

Harry nodded and moved to her internet browser so he could look up the Italian restaurant. He was glad he was going to get the food now. It gave him time to collect his thoughts. “That’s nice,” he said absentmindedly.

She hated when he was grumpy. “Are you mad?”

“Y’didn’t mention him...s’been almost a month.”

“Wasn’t really anything to tell you.”

He nodded ordering her favorite without asking. He didn’t need to. Smugly, he thought the guy at the other end of her phone wouldn’t know what her favorite meal was without asking. He’d have to find out and that made Harry happy. The guy in question was good looking and he obviously had good taste if he had eyes for the sweet girl sitting beside him. He remembered in the moment how mad he was that someone was chatting her up and making her cheeks turn pink. Harry wanted to throw her phone in the toilet and flush it before she could answer him. “Okay,” he said but he sounded irritated, and she knew he was.

“Harry?” She asked as he started for the door to put his shoes on.

“Yeah, love?” His sour mood shrinking as he distanced himself from the offensive text messages.

“I wouldn’t go out with a guy without telling you about him,” she promised. “Someone has to make sure I’m not kidnapped or murdered.”

Harry wished he could have just said what he was thinking. But instead, he smiled and shook his head. “You sweet girl, anyone that kidnapped you, would bring y’back t’me after ten minutes,” he winked exiting before she had time to argue.

“I resent that!” He heard her call through the door.

*Three Months Later*

It took a lot of convincing, a lot of packing, and a lot of reassurance that she could go, and it would be okay.

Harry was the one that took her to the airport. Her mom knew how important it was to give them a chance to say their goodbyes alone, without an audience of people they knew. Besides, her mom had always wanted to see the states. She would visit in no time. They didn’t chat while Harry walked her bags through security check, and he pressed a hand to her back when the crowd got too large. She was so completely comforted by his touch it melted her like nothing she’d ever felt before.

But when Harry heard her sniffle, he knew he was done for. “Oh, don’t start, kitten. I won’t be able t’stop if y’start,” he chuckled sadly, and tears filled his vision.

She sniffled around a choked off, giggly breath. “M’sorry.” He stopped in his tracks and wrapped his arms around her tightly clutching her to his chest. He kissed the top of her head as she shook with silent sobs. Harry swallowed around the emotion in his throat trying to be brave for her. But he couldn’t help but worry about all that could happen in a year. As much as he didn’t want it to.

After a few minutes her tears, they continued walking to her gate. Harry held her hand and it felt like they were a couple. It always did, but there was something about this...this moment that felt so different. “You can’t get a new best friend while I’m gone,” she blurted. “Maybe Niall can be your new best friend or Mitch...maybe even Sarah, but that’s it. Definitely, no new girl ones.”

“Kitten, I couldn’t dream of replacing you,” he promised. As easy as it would have been to roll his eyes at the prospect, he refrained. He meant each word. There was no replacing her. When she got back, Harry would still be there waiting for her. She noticed how there wasn’t even a smile at her near crazy outburst. He didn’t even laugh at the idea of it all. “We’re going t’talk every day,” he assured her.

She felt like someone was ripping her heart out piece by piece right through her chest. She should just say it. Tell him. He probably knew she was in love with him. It was kind of him to remain best friends even when she was infatuated with him. There were so many options for him...and without her around to be in the way...

God, a year seemed like forever. “Yeah?” She asked meekly.

“No...you’re the only one I need, love.” She wished with everything in her Harry meant those words. “I’ll see y’before y’know it,” he said.

“Don’t,” she sniffled.

“I know,” he said and looked at the floor. “I got y’something,” he mumbled.

She looked up at him. She wished she wasn’t crying so much because Harry was too beautiful to be blurred by tears and it was going to be the last time, he saw her for a good long while. “Why?” She asked.

He rolled his eyes and chuckled. “You’re something else, love.” Reaching in his pocket he procured a flash drive and placed it in her palm. “For when y’fall asleep.” It took a moment for the words to process. But once they did her jaw nearly unhinged, and she wished she could have been more put together in that moment but instead she threw herself into his embrace and held onto him like he was a life raft.

Part of her believed he really was a life raft in more ways than one. She was certain that if it weren’t for the scheduled flight, she might have drowned the two of them with her tears.

As soon as she landed, Harry was the first one she texted.

I’ve arrived.

Good. Now s’only 179 days till I visit. :)

After she called her mom and showed off her new little place, she FaceTimed Harry, of course. She knew it was late there, but he answered on the first ring. “Hey,” she said softly.

“Hey, love,” he smiled sleepily. “Show me around,” he hummed.

“No...it’s late. I just...wanted to say goodnight to you.”

“No, show me,” he pressed. “M’not tired.”

She could see the way his eyes drooped, and she would have given anything to coerce his tall and lanky frame to bed. This would be the longest six months of her life. “I’ll show you tomorrow. I’m pretty jet lagged myself,” she said.

He nodded. He really would have stayed up. Harry would have asked questions. But he was glad he wouldn’t have to. “Oh...okay, love. Did y’listen yet?”

“No,” she said and pulled her laptop from her bag. “I will now,” she smiled. “Good night, Harry.”

“Good night, love,” he murmured. As she was about to end the call, she waved but he stopped her. “Wait,” he said suddenly. She paused and he smiled gently. “I love you, kitten. Miss you already,” he said sweetly.

Her heart thudded loudly throughout her body. “I love you too,” she whispered.

But she wondered if he knew she meant it from six thousand miles away.

She wondered if Harry thought about her as often as she thought about him. It was evening time for her, and Harry was probably (hopefully) sleeping. She knew if she called him, he would wake to the sound of her ringtone. She would tell him how much she missed him, and he would be alert and awake before the sun was even up.

So, she stared silently out the window of the tall building she was living in on her own, trying not to think about her best friend half a world away. She tried not to think about how his life was very much the same and hers was not. It’s not like she could date anyone even if she wanted to—she was only state side for another six months and then she would be back to pining for Harry. Hoping and praying that they would just be.

Sarah called frequently and kept her updated on how Harry was actually doing. “His mind is everywhere...well not really. All he thinks about is you; but it really clouds his judgment and vision and everything,” she snickered. “We all miss you a lot.”

“I really miss you guys. This is an amazing opportunity and I’m glad, I guess,” she giggled. “That you made me go,” she rolled her eyes.

“My pleasure,” Sarah flipped her hair with a proud smile on her face. “So how are the guys?” She asked with a wiggling eyebrow.

“Oh...” she snorted. “That’s a no from me,” she told her. “There’s no point at all,” she explained.

“Plus, your betrothed would lose it,” she amended. “I heard something, somewhere, that even if you don’t eat, you can appreciate the menu,” she giggled. “So, tell me what they’re like.”

“What do you mean betrothed?” She rolled her eyes.

“Love, please don’t be silly,” Sarah sighed. “Harry would go out of his mind.” She looked at Sarah through the camera and stared at her. “You can’t be serious. If you met a guy in the States, Harry would go out of his mind. He’d spiral that you’ll never come back,” she explained. “You obviously know this.”

“No, I don’t obviously know this.”

Sarah was silent for a few moments and they just stared at once another. “Love,” she said so gently. “You have to know you’re both madly in love with each other,” she said.

Swallowing she shook her head. “Sarah, I don’t look like you. I don’t look like any girl Harry has ever dated. I don’t look like the girls that fall in love with him or Niall or even Mitch when you guys play on stage. I’m not...” she felt the pricking of tears burning her eyes. It was hard to have this conversation at all. Having it over Facetime thousands of miles away from her friend was even worse.

“Harry doesn’t love me though,” she said gently. Sarah’s eyebrows pinched together in concern and her lips pressed together. “He’s so entranced by you. I wish you could see the way he lights up when you’re around,” Sarah sounded so sure, so positive. It broke her heart that she couldn’t see how much Harry loved her the way she saw it. “He doesn’t love those girls because they’re not you.”

“But he should,” she whispered.

“Why would he?! He’s your best friend and he adores you. Everything about you. He was so excited for you to get this opportunity as much as he wanted to handcuff you to his side. You—”

“Because I’m not good enough for him,” she said dejectedly.

Sarah was silent again. “What are you talking about?”

“Sarah, he’s perfect,” she said. “He’s beautiful, he’s funny, he’s smart, he’s nice. He is the best person I know and he deserves—”

“He deserves you,” she interrupted. She shook her head sniffling as she thought about all the times she wanted Harry so much and he was always so close but he really, always, so far away.

“I’m not pretty—”

“Love, you’re stunning,” she promised. “You have to believe that. Harry forgets how to speak when you walk in the room...he’s so completely smitten with you.”

She snorted. “Harry forgets how to speak when anyone walks in the room.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Just a small sniffle every couple seconds. “Harry has been depressed while you’ve been gone. He’s been dying to come see you. It’s all he can talk about. He doesn’t go out, but he doesn’t even want to go out without you. He plays music, he packs up, he sleeps, and he goes to work. The only time he’s himself is when he chats with you. You are his favorite person; that is more than enough.”

She didn’t respond to Sarah’s claims. “Are you coming to visit?”

Sighing Sarah smiled weakly. “We’re all trying to spread out the visits so as not to overwhelm you but also make it go by faster for us all,” she rolled her eyes. “He may miss you the most, but he’s not the only one. It’s quite testosterone-y around here,” she giggled.

Smiling she nodded. “Yeah, I bet,” she shook her head. “M’sorry to leave you with them all.”

“Oh it’s quite alright. You’ve always been good about reigning in their craziness though. I just don’t have the knack, energy, or patience for it,” she rolled her eyes. “They’re silly boys.”

“That’s for sure. Niall told me he was going to try his hand at your drums.”

“Yeah, he did! I almost murdered him,” she laughed.

She was grateful to not talk about Harry for the rest of the phone call. As much as she probably did want to talk about him. But if she did, she was afraid she would continue crying and crying until it was time for her to go home.

While she loved having everyone visit, of course it was Harry’s visit she was looking forward to the most. (Not that she would tell the others that.) But it was Harry that she was nearly bouncing with excitement in the airport terminal as she waited anxiously for him to appear through the doors of baggage claim ready to tackle him in a hug that she hoped would never end.

“For someone so tall you think I’d find you more easily,” she said to her phone.

He chuckled a bit tiredly. “M’jus’ stuck behind a ton of people, kitten. M’here though. M’looking for your short frame but m’afraid I might miss you.”

“Suddenly I want you to go home.”

“Aw,” he cooed. “Don’t be mean,” he chuckled. “Came all this way,” he reminded her.

She was about to make another slight joke at his expense, but her eye caught his tall frame just as the doors open once more. All at once, she was running.

She dropped her phone into her purse and felt tears prick her eyes and she didn’t even warn him that she saw him, didn’t warn him as she silently flew across the crowd of people. Only stopping when her arms were around his neck, her toes barely touching the floor and nothing ever felt so much like home except for Harry. Stumbling at the sudden mass of energy flying at him, he sighed with relief as his arms wrapped around her. They stood silently, just as they did the last time they were in the airport, her tears silent and few this time as she released a breath she felt like she had been holding since she left.

“Hi, kitten,” his voice vibrated in his chest and through her body.

“Hi Harry,” she whispered.

“Missed me?” He hummed to the top of her hair.

“A little,” she muttered. He chuckled.

But there was no greater music than Harry laughing in her ear.

Harry had the longest visit—staying two weeks in her little place all snuggled up like their little married couple that everyone mistook them for. “M’so happy t’be here,” he said while she poured muffin batter, she just finished mixing into the pan.

“Just for muffins?” She smiled.

With a shake of his head, a sigh, and an eyeroll he thought about shaking her a bit at how silly she was being. “Kitten, ‘ve missed you something awful,” he murmured.

She focused on pouring carefully and not how her stomach fluttered at his words. “I heard,” she said gently. “Moping around?”

“What’s the point in going out if m’best friend isn’t around?” He shrugged.

“So you don’t get all sad and sappy while I’m gone!”

He smiled that beautiful, dimply smile that made her heart skip beats. “Love, m’a mess without y’around t’keep me in line,” he admitted. “Can’t remember ever being apart from you after I met you.

Putting the empty bowl in the sink and the pan in the oven she looked Harry all lanky and beautiful sitting on the stool at the breakfast bar sipping his coffee that she so kindly made for him. All the things that Sarah mentioned ran through her brain. Here he was visiting her so he wouldn’t go crazy for the rest of the year. She thought about all the girls that fawned over him and how pretty they were and how pretty he was.

But she also thought about how he was here. Completely content on being alone in her place or exploring nearby while she was at work. Cooking her dinner and taking her for walks and visiting tourist attractions when she was free.

Hope seemed like the enemy every time she looked in the mirror. Looking at her reflection made her long for a less asymmetrical face. She wished her skin was smoother. And if she looked past her neck, she made herself forget how to breathe without how sad she was and the idea that she would never be good enough for her best friend.

“Hey love, I made reservations for this ramen place, have y’been to it yet?” Hurriedly she left the bathroom with a shake of her head and hurried to find Harry scrolling on his phone, comfortably at home on her couch.

Over the six months she’d been here, she felt the place always seemed a bit empty.

She should have known Harry was the part that was missing.

When Harry left to return home the heartache was nearly as fresh as the last time. But now it felt like a countdown—for as much as she loved the internship, she was excited to go back and get back into her routines and be with her best friend.

The tears continued to roll down her cheeks as she watched Harry cross through security and out of view. “It’s so refreshing to see a couple so committed and in love with each other,” a woman smirked gently at the poor girl sadly gazing longingly after her best friend. She turned to the woman who looked old enough to be her mother.

“Pardon?” She sniffled wiping her cheeks and under her eyes with both hands.

“I’m sorry, not to be intrusive, you just reminded me of my husband and myself years ago,” she said reaching into her purse for a package of tissues and then offered one to the poor sad girl. “In college we spent some time abroad—a year apart from one another each. The longest time we were ever apart.”

“Oh...we’re not...” she sniffled wiping the tissue under her nose. “We’re just friends.”

The woman smirked and shook her head. “Yes. They usually are,” she trailed off and headed toward the security line as well.

Blinking away the final tears and sniffling, she turned on her heel heading back for the warm air outside the airport thinking how there were fewer minutes left until she would see Harry next.

@tiaamberxx

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hools · 7 months ago

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Sorry if this is a weird question, but how do you come up with your drawings? What does through your mind while making them? I find your compositions so gorgeous and intriguing but I can't really figure out how you approach things since everything's very shifty and abstract. It's really gorgeous work, I'm so glad I discovered your art :,)

hey first of all this isnt a weird question at all & i'm really glad you enjoy my art heheheheheehe. there's an incoming large largely unformatted block of text that i hope you dont mind!

Honestly there are a billion things going through my mind at a time while I'm drawing and they all sort of bump into each other and cancel each other out like opposing particles. If you've seen any of my streams i'm usually very fast and iterative in a lot of my process and i rarely ever slow down even past the early parts like thumbnailing and sketching. i kind of let my hands do the talking more, yknow? but even then theyre never talking about a single thing at a time. everything interacts with everything, which is probably why i always end up getting lost and meandering. composition is not independent from color & value and neither are they from texture and perspective. its hard thinking of all of the ways they mesh and react to one another so i spend less of my energy thinking and more of it doing, and then assessing once something interesting comes about it. i guess then i prioritize my Hand Movement Actioning and Eye Vision Seeing over my Brain Neuron Assessing. but even though iterations can come and go quick this kind of informed throwing-against-the-wall isn't really the Fastest. but its fun. and you get to stuff all the unused ideas in your pocket for later.

even though i did say how connected everything is i always seem to start with composition. it kind of affects and informs everything the most at least on an individual piece level. with thumbnails & composition in general i think youre supposed to think huge right. so i Always think huge. push everything as much as you can. start with a crazy angle (not necessarily angle meaning "perspective" but like an angle between two lines) and border your scene within it. take an already steep foreshortening and steepen it further with the transform tool & see what shapes form from the empty & filled space. shrink your subject to only fit 3/4ths of the canvas and build around it to make it work. blow things up (enlargen) and blow things up (remove & obliterate). with composition you have so much room for fuckery if you give yourself the grace to accept the fuckiness.

and i guess this freedom to fuck around and iterate and build and build and build upon comes from how most of the time my initial ideas are very. vague? abstract like you've said. sometimes its Just a song or a song lyric and nothing else (no characters to attach to just the feel and my gut). sometimes its a less than 5 word phrase i felt strongly about throughout the day. in my me-only discord server i have messages in #to-draw channel that just say shit like "something about guitar straps" "thanks for knowing me!" "angel don't look at me" "DITHER QUEEN" (<-been meaning to make something with that). for things that have specific guidelines i spend more time thinking conceptually (the "rare animal" coelacanth drawing being an example) but otherwise it mostly comes out after. again. the first strokes. after you put the meat and bones on the canvas. an artist at a workshop i was at last year when i was in my own head about Needing to have a fleshed tangible Profound concept before being able to start something told me not to underestimate the stories that can be told just by your hands. and i think thats what stuck with me the most.

& one last thing i wanna mention is how despite how much i revel in the chaos of the process ive found how important limits are. i don't like cutting back on everything but i like cutting back on some things. sometimes i cut out backgrounds for solid fills and i love them that much more. sometimes i have little subconscious rules in a piece that i try not to break to keep a little level of consistency. if somethings a big wonderful mess already then i love a limited pallet and i love keeping parts empty and i love being able to breathe a little. yknow. but still go over the top in the other parts you have so much permission to. less is more but have a little more in your art than less. YKNOW?

but yeah thanks again for your kind words and wanting to listen to me talk. i havent been drawing much at all so these arent too fresh on the mind but i think i got a lot of what i wanted to say out. i hope u and others can get things out of this! if i made any sense <3

#asks #anonymous #'i'm so glad i discovered your art' ur gonna make me cry man #not putting this under a read more read my thoughts buoy

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rea-grimm · 1 year ago

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Grim reaper Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad

You ran at night as long as your legs could handle. You knew he was after you. You turned the corner and looked back. He was there. He was standing on the roof of a building, the full moon illuminating his silhouette. A figure in a white hood and tattered white cloak that shone in the darkness like stars in the sky. You blinked, and he was gone.

You started running again. You've seen him several times in the past. Always moments before someone died. Sometimes your eyes met, but he didn't notice you any more on his hunt. However, today was different. You were his next target.

The longer you ran, the more you felt your strength draining. You got tangled up in a cluster of carolers and tried to sync up with them and get out of sight. You tried to catch your breath and tried not to attract unnecessary attention.

You were walking to the next house when you noticed him. He walked along the other side of the street, scanning all the people around him with his penetrating golden eyes.

You held your breath and had to control yourself as best you could when he passed your group so you wouldn't reveal yourself. As soon as he passed and you gained a small lead, you ran again and turned into the alley that led away.

You ran through the gate that led to the park. You meandered through the trees until a pond appeared in front of you with a small island in the middle, to which a narrow, dilapidated footbridge led. You ran over it, into the woods and hid in a hole that was masked by a bush.

"You can hide, but you can't hide from me!" you heard him say as he passed you. You didn't want to wait here for your end and decided to act. You took the rock and threw it at the first pier. The noise attracted the grim reaper, who went to check it out with his sword drawn.

You ran in the other direction towards the narrow footbridge where the competitions were mostly held. It was risky, but it was what you needed. You crossed it as quickly as possible, helping yourself with your balance with your hands. You shot out of the park and headed back into the maze of city streets.

You ran through several streets. You were about to run into the main street when you saw a flash of white before someone grabbed your arm and pulled you back into a smaller street.

You bumped your back into him and felt his hand on your neck. He brought his short sword to your stomach with his other hand.

“Your time is up,” he said seriously, increasing his grip on your neck. The tip of his sword slowly dug into your stomach.

“No, please,” you whimpered, trying to wriggle out of his steel grip. But in vain.

“Try begging more,” he instructed you.

"Please, I don't want to. Please,” you begged, squirming.

"And why should I spare you? Kings, and world leaders, all begged. Everyone wanted a second chance. They didn't get her. Why should I spare you?” he asked you.

“Because… because…” You tried to come up with a good reason because he must have heard a lot of them in his endlessly long life.

“No reason, hmm? What a shame,” he said and you felt his breath on your ear.

“Please,” you begged, closing your eyes. The grim reaper loosened his grip on your neck and his blade retracted as well, only to switch hands. You now had the blade at your throat and his other hand was around your waist.

“I love it when you beg,” he purred into your ear before kissing your earlobe. At that moment, he also let his short sword disappear. He enveloped you in small kisses before turning you to him. From the ear, he went to the cheek, the jaw and finally the neck, where the prints of his hand were still visible.

“Altair,” you moaned and wrapped your arms around his neck.

"You really have no reason to live?" he asked you when he stopped kissing you.

“I do, but I didn't want it to get to your head,” you replied with a smug smile.

“Cruel,” he grumbled before kissing you.

“That's for how rude you were,” you retorted. Even now you could feel his hands on your neck.

“I'm sorry about that,” he mumbled and gave you a big hug.

“Well, I don't know if I'll forgive you,” you played offended, pulling away slightly and turning your back to him.

“I already apologized,” and he kissed your neck where his fingerprints were still. "Don't be angry," and he showered kisses on your neck. “A little revenge for that stunt with the footbridge,” he said between kisses before turning you back to him. You couldn't resist anymore and gave in to him.

"How about we continue at home?" you asked as you pulled away for air with red lips.

“Agree,” he replied before taking you in his arms and disappearing with you like steam over a pot.

Assassin's Creed Masterlist

#assassin's creed x reader #altair x reader #altair #assassin's creed #grim reaper Altair #grim reaper

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cgtg · 11 months ago

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What did you see in Dave and Karkat relationship to make you write their interactions so well? (It's really impressive tbh, at least for me)

Like, did something snapped one day, and you started understanding how they balance each other or just how they "work"? (Sorry if it's hard to understand what I'm trying to say. It's quite hard to put what I'm thinking into words)

man thank you so much

i think you worded yourself totaly fine, the problem here is i dotn know how to succinctly define what i see in them

ive always thnought that dave and karkat bounce off each other rly well. i was obsessed with davekat as a kid too. between 2016-23 smth softly clicked into place for me.

what do i see in it? i dunno. in my interpretation, it's just... realness ?

its longform candid pointless comfort. its changing each others nicknames in the server, its making fun of a spelling error, its "fragging a noob", its a youtube letsplay of a game you thought you'd hate, it's meandering around your point and then stabbing it with ur own impatience, its feeding the trolls on your amv. its genuine interest in each other, hoping someone specific likes your post, being scared to go outside and being scared to stay inside. it's checking the comments against better judgement, its sampling their voice in your bgm. it's a combined pressure to be something the other person doesnt get, but does. its a very potent push&pull simultaenous in both directions. its "un"stoppable force vs "im"movable object. it's a puzzle & theres somethin very vital at the heart of it about turning around & seeing someone that sees you right back, like it or not. through a screen or through shades or eye2eye. inverted & subverted, exactly the same

it can be like 500 things at once, its so nebulous but always rly specific to them. you cant get this dynamic with any other characers, not in anything ive ever seen. unless u made ocs that act like em i guess. it is one of a kind

i didnt rlly get this stuff when i was a kid. i mostly shipped them bc my answer to any rivalry was "wat if they kisd", and theyre cool characters. i used to focus on the tension when i was a kid. theres a lot more to it than that.

because its also this BTW.

youtube

#i dont know anything for sure #only hussie woulg #i just feel this way #headcamon

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rollinouttahere-writes · 1 year ago

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Strawhats with Rob Lucci’s younger sibling? But they aren’t aware of CP9 due to ✨reasons✨ and just think their big brother wanted to work at Water 7

Anon, I have some extremely unfortunate news for you. My dyslexia pulled a fast one on me and completely omitted the word 'strawhats' from this request, and I didn't realize it until I had already finished writing it and came back to post it. I am so sorry, feel free to send this request in again if you want to give me another shot to properly answer it. I'm gonna be reading requests 50 times over just to make sure I don't do this again. I am mortified. Hope you like this regardless, so sorry again.

Estranged

Yandere Rob Lucci x Sibling Reader

2.7k words

This was going to be a good thing for you, a healthy change of pace. An opportunity to move on from your past and no longer let it weigh you down. It was for the best, even if everything felt more than a little hollow right now.

After you finished putting away the rest of your belongings, you meander to the open window to take in your brand new surroundings. Water 7 was easily the most beautiful city you’d seen in your entire life.

A light breeze carried the scent of the ocean into your small apartment. The walkway as well as the canal beneath you was busy, full of people going about their daily lives. Everyone here seemed so gleeful and carefree, as if they didn’t have a single problem hanging over them. You wonder if you’ll be able to fall into a similar state of mind.

Probably not, but you can dream.

Your train of thought is interrupted by your cat, Roberto, leaping up onto the windowsill next to you. You lightly scritched behind his ears as he looked down at the bustling city with his typical scowling expression. He was the grumpiest cat you’d ever met, but that just made his toleration of you all the more endearing in your humble opinion.

Shutting the window, you make your way to the door, “I’m gonna head out and take a look around the neighborhood, don’t cause any trouble while I’m gone.”

Roberto barely spared you a glance before jumping down to the floor to curl up in a sunny spot to sleep. A small smile tugged at your lips. Yeah, you weren’t worried about him doing anything bad in your absence. For all his standoffishness, he was a very mild mannered cat. As long as his food and water bowl were filled (which they were), he was fine.

You’d barely made it out the door before a couple of kids went sprinting around you, narrowly avoiding a collision. One of them shouted a quick “sorry” over their shoulder but kept on running to wherever their destination was, giggling about who knows what.

They looked similar. Siblings probably. Just like that, your mood took a nosedive, much to your aggravation. How childish to be bothered by merely seeing two potential siblings. You needed to get over it already.

It’s not like you were ever going to see Lucci again. He was gone and you needed to accept that.

The relationship you had with your older brother was odd to say the least. Mostly in the sense that you didn’t really have one to go off of. The last time you’d seen him, you were three years old, so you two could only be so close.

At the time, you felt like you were thick as thieves with him. Wherever he went, you followed, and vice versa. He’d do everything with you. From tying your shoes before you figured it out, to letting you wear his top hat, to fighting anyone else at the orphanage that had the audacity to try and pick on you. Even back then, you could distinctly remember how stoic he was, but you never doubted that he cared about you. And also his pigeon, Hattori.

The only time you could recall where he was upset with you was when you’d spent the whole day pestering him to tell you about your parents. The orphanage was all you’d ever known, but surely he remembered something about them. After hours of changing the subject or blatantly ignoring you, he snapped, “It doesn’t matter! They aren’t here anymore, only I am. Just be happy with that and stop asking.”

You didn’t bring it up again. Not that you exactly had much of a chance to.

The following day was a strange one. Some men in suits showed up and took Lucci “on a walk”, not letting you come with. They never came back. When you asked the nun running the place where your brother was, she acted like she had no idea who or what you were talking about. It was as if he’d never existed.

Without your brother around to protect you, it became abundantly clear what a shithole that place was. You’d come to the sad realization that he’d been giving most of his food to you so you wouldn’t have to go hungry. There was also the issue of having to watch more and more kids disappear every couple of years and having no idea what happened to them or if you were going to be next. The general consensus between you and the remaining children was that they were being sold into slavery, but you never were able to confirm that.

As soon as you were old and strong enough to go off on your own, you did. For years you would bounce around the island doing odd jobs to stay alive all while trying to get a clue as to your brother’s whereabouts. Nothing ever came up, so when you scraped together enough money, you left for another island.

You repeated this cycle for years. Working, investigating, and then moving when the trail was cold. As disheartening as it was, you couldn’t bring yourself to give up. He wouldn’t give up if the roles had been reversed, so you wouldn’t either.

At least that’s what you told yourself at first. When you were first thinking this, you never imagined that he would still be missing over a decade later. You had never considered that you would genuinely never find so much as a hint to his whereabouts. Or his livelihood.

At this point, it was easier to assume he was dead.

“I could go for a drink,” you mumble to yourself as you take a look around and notice a bar. You’ve been so caught up in your own thoughts that at this point you don’t even know where exactly you are. How responsible.

You push open the door to the establishment and do a quick once over. It’s busy, but not crowded. You should be able to quietly enjoy a drink or two without much trouble.

The sound of wings flapping catches your attention, and the next thing you know, something lands on your shoulder and starts cooing. Slightly startled, you snap your attention to where it landed and see a white pigeon happily nestling itself into your neck.

Holding out your hand, you gently guide it onto your finger to get a better look at the bird. It’s wearing an adorable red necktie and looks positively thrilled to see you for whatever reason. Despite your previous bad mood, you can’t help but smile. You’ve always had a soft spot for birds. What a cutie.

Someone at a nearby table laughs loudly, “Look at that Lucci, even your bird is better at making friends than you are!”

Your blood runs cold.

“Lucci?” No. No it can’t be.

Slowly, you crane your neck around to look at where the voice had come from. That’s when you see it. The top hat. The dark, curly hair underneath it. Your breath catches in your throat as the man turns around. His facial expression is one of pure annoyance, until his eyes meet yours. Then he looks like he’s seen a ghost.

It’s him. He’s aged, obviously, but you would recognize those features anywhere. That’s your brother. That’s Lucci.

As if on autopilot, you mindlessly approached him, “Lucci, is that really you?” Your voice is so quiet that you’re not sure he could even hear you. He didn’t respond, so you continued, “I looked everywhere for you. Is this where you’ve been?”

Logically, you know you should be ecstatic to see him again, but as he continues to silently gawk at you something else creeps into your heart.

Rage.

“You gonna say something, or are you just gonna keep staring?” One of your hands snaps out to shove at his shoulder. Still nothing. “I’m your fucking sibling, your own flesh and blood, and this is how you treat me after all these years?! I thought you were dead!” His fists clench and unclench, and his breathing is becoming uneven, but he still won’t talk to you.

In a fit of fury, you snatch a pint of beer off the table and throw the contents of it in his face, “Fuck you, I never should have wasted my time looking for you!”

Hattori flies off you from the commotion and is circling the table. The patrons of the bar are mostly silent save for some gasps and hushed whispers, but you don’t hang around any longer. You can’t. You don’t want to let that bastard have the satisfaction of seeing the tears that are seconds away from spilling over.

How dare he? How dare he do this to you? You’ve spent all this time remembering him fondly, searching for any sign of him, and when you finally find him completely by accident, this happens. He gives you the silent treatment and acts like he doesn’t know you. You thought he was dead or a slave when in reality he was leading a normal life and getting a drink with his buddies.

Maybe he’d been glad to get rid of you.

You choke out a sob as you run, not sure where your feet are taking you but hoping to see anything that can point you to your apartment. All you want to do is to curl up in your bed with your cat and cry. Fuck it, maybe you’ll pack up your things and leave Water 7 tonight. You can’t stomach the thought of seeing him again now.

You can register the sound of someone running after you. Probably the guy whose drink you threw if you had to guess. Way to go, (y/n), making a scene and ruining your reputation within hours of moving to a new city. You don’t want to face the consequences of your actions though, and pick up the pace to try and get away from them.

This doesn’t work and they close the gap far quicker than you expected. Strong arms wrap around your torso, and they pick you up and carry you into some quiet alley. You try to kick and scream, but your kicks do absolutely nothing and a hand covers your mouth.

As soon as you’re out of sight of the general population, you’re put down and pushed into a wall. You can finally see who your assailant is, only to lock eyes with Lucci. Scoffing, you slap away his hand, “What? Now you want to talk?”

“Yes, I do,” his response surprises you. You hadn’t actually expected him to speak to you after how he was acting at the bar.

“Oh really? How come you didn’t want to talk before? Too embarrassed to speak with me in public?”

“I can’t speak with you publicly, but not for that reason.”

He didn’t elaborate further, but you decided to move on. There were a lot more things to get to. You cut to the chase, “Where have you been?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

Forget this, he’s fucking with you at this point. You try to walk away from this pointless conversation, but he’s holding onto your wrist and won’t let go.

“I’m leaving, I don’t want to talk to you,” you’re trying to wrench your arm out of his grasp but he’s much stronger than you thought. He wouldn’t budge.

“We’re not done talking,” his eye twitched in irritation at your behavior.

“We never started talking! You aren’t saying anything meaningful, I would get more out of talking to a brick wall!” You screamed at him, trying not to start crying again.

While you’re trying to get away, you feel something land on your head. This makes you stop and calm down ever so slightly. The cooing immediately gives away that it’s Hattori. You hold up your hand for him to hop on. How is it that you’re connecting with the pigeon more than your brother? You sighed, “At least someone is happy to see me.”

From your peripheral vision, you can see Lucci stiffen and avert his piercing gaze. He grumbles a bit, “I am… Happy. To see you.”

You scoffed, “Wow, that sounded so convincing.”

Lucci released your wrist, and if it weren’t for Hattori thoroughly enjoying the attention you were giving him, you would have taken the opportunity to leave. You eyed him warily as he inched closer to you, looking incredibly unsure of what he was doing. Then his arms reached forward and enclosed around you in what was hands down the most stiff and awkward hug of your life.

He let go and took a couple of steps back, refusing to make eye contact with you, “There, do you feel better now?”

Your memories took you back to the time you’d scraped your knee while playing tag with Lucci when you were children. In typical little kid fashion, you were inconsolable from the minor injury. He carried you back to the orphanage and bandaged your knee himself, but didn’t know what to do when he saw that you were still upset. In a last ditch effort to get you to calm down, he’d brought you into this uncomfortable side hug while looking everywhere except for at you. The whole display was so silly looking that you couldn’t help but giggle at him.

Despite everything that just transpired between you two, your heart felt warm. He hasn’t changed a bit after all. You chuckle, “No, that hug was terrible. Not to mention that now I smell like beer.”

“And whose fault is that?” His eyes narrowed at you accusingly.

“Yours for making me mad enough to throw it at you,” you laughed again at the dramatic eye roll he did in response.

“You’re the only person in the world who I would let get away with that, I hope you appreciate that,” he muttered.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” you shrugged off the comment, not putting much stock into it. The previously tense atmosphere had relaxed, but there was still some awkwardness to it. It was unavoidable really, after this much time apart you two didn’t know each other. What were you supposed to talk about? The questions you asked before went unanswered so now you didn’t know what to do.

“What are you doing in Water 7?” Lucci had mercifully been the one to break the silence.

“I just moved here. Wanted a fresh start, you know? What about you? Can you at least tell me that?”

“I’m a foreman at the Galley-La Company, have been for a few years,” he states plainly.

You’re honestly surprised to have received a real answer. You decide to push your luck and ask another question, “How come you never came back?”

Lucci took his time mulling over how to respond, “I wasn’t able to. If I could have, I would, but it wasn’t an option. I can’t tell you why, but I need you to believe me. The second I’m in a position to do so, I will tell you, but for now I simply can’t.”

“What the hell are you tied up in?” Something bad is going on here, but you’ll be damned if you have any idea what.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Well, looks like he’s done answering your questions again. At least you made some progress. The awkward silence came back, and you found yourself wanting to go home. You needed time to take all of this in and decompress.

Setting Hattori onto Lucci’s shoulder, you tell him as much, “It’s been… Interesting seeing you again, but I’m tired and want to go home.” You don’t wait for him to respond before hurrying away.

“I’ll walk you back,” Lucci closes the distance quickly and the look on his face leaves no room for argument. You suppose that’s fine. Him knowing where you live will make meeting up again later easier.

You have no idea how your relationship with him is going to evolve after this. Considering how much time has passed, it’s impossible for things to go back to how they were. Maybe you’ll be able to forge a new and improved sibling bond with him, but only time will tell.

#one piece #one piece x reader #one piece x y/n #one piece x you #yandere one piece #yandere #platonic yandere #rob lucci #i am so embarrassed kill me

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ghastigiggles · 7 months ago

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Hello!!! I've been holding this request off a bit bc I feel so bad about requesting Stelle since you've written for her like twice now but uhm

"Here comes the tickle~ monster~" from mischievous prompts. If you can, maybe it's Stelle and March having a tickle fight but if you don't want to, how about ler Stelle + lee March for a change (Since I read the ask game thingy where u said that they have tickle fights or smth like that)

I'm sorry I just very enthusiastically adore these very two lesbians so erm!

Anyways I hope you're having a good day so far!

Mischievious Prompts [Still Open]

“Stop, knock it off!”

“Maaaarch…~”

The pastel-inclined girl squealed, sprinting her way across the cabin – much to Pom-Pom’s distress (“Hey, how many times has Pom-Pom told you not to run unless it’s an emergency?! If you run into a wall again, Pom-Pom’s not helping you!”) – while her pursuer stalked after, slow and determined, like a predator.

Sparing no time for thought, she slammed her way into her cabin, leaving the door slightly ajar (in the spirit of the game, of course) and glancing around her space for a good hiding place.

“Ugh, agh, c’moooon…. Why’d you have to choose the day after I cleaned up to do this?!”

"Here comes the tickle monster…"

A thrill ran up her spine at the low, foreboding words echoing down the hall outside, and she squeaked, dipping herself under her bed and pushing as far back as she could, holding her breath. From her vantage point, she could see her door slide fully open with a soft chuckle from her friend, and watch the black heels slowly meander around her room, walking a few circles.

“C’mon, March, what’re you hiding for? Am I really so scary?”

Yes…!!!

Covering her mouth with both hands – mostly to muffle the anticipatory giggles – March shuffled back a little further and screwed her eyes shut, hearing Stelle move around the bed, each click of her heels making her stomach flutter.

Before long, her ankles were grabbed as she was yanked out of hiding, and she shrieked, already hugging her torso to protect herself as Stelle dropped down to straddle her and start squeezing her sides, worming her hands under March’s arms.

“No no NO NO NOHOHO!! Stelle, d-dohohohon’t –!”

“I was gonna be nice, until you went and hid from me… Now? I’m not stopping until Dan Heng comes back, just for this little goose chase!”

March could only squeal, not at all dissatisfied with this fate – and comfortable in the knowledge that not only would her kicks leave a few small bruises, but she’d have immediate revenge when Dan Heng got back, if he stayed true to her request…

#mine #honkai star rail tickles #stelle #march 7th #stellemarch #oh my goodness gracious lesbians #i have a shipping hottake for stelle but y'all aint ready for that yet i promise #anyways LESBIANS they both fuck with each other but also support each other unconditionally #and i love them #my fic

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dragon-ball-meta · 8 months ago

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Are there any decent dragon ball YouTubers? I gave Totally Not Mark a shot (I got clickbaited into his Bardock is ruining Dragon Ball video) and his take was: TV Special good, Minus version makes Goku Superman, Super manga further ruins the story because of the wish Bardock makes.

I know I’m biased as a Bardock fan but I actually liked Super Hero/Minus Bardock just as much as TV special. Will never defend the Super manga though, I don’t even think Toriyama outlined the Granolah stuff did he?

He outlined some of it. The idea was Toyotaro's (and Victory Uchida's too, apparenty, which would explain why he's always trying to hype that arc) and he sent it to Toriyama, who apparently came up with a lot of the lore and a basic outline for him based on those ideas. From there, Toyotaro wrote the dialogue, the details, etc. So what exactly is Toyotaro's or not, we don't really know. But the arc itself was not Toriyama's idea. As for DB Tubers, unfortunately, I tend to not really watch their content. More than once I've been accused of "ripping off" some of my own thoughts on things from them, or being influenced by them, so I've kind of made it a point to ignore them to avoid that in the future. I'm sorry I can't really be of more help there. But for the record, I absolutely HATE the whole "Goku is Superman" thing, mostly because of how people misuse that. While there are some basic similarities in that both have the whole "Baby Moses" motif, for some reason people don't refer to the updated comic origin for Superman with this, but the 1978 film where he's deliberately sent not just to survive, but to be a hero. This is not the case with Goku. He's legit dropped on Earth to hide and potentially be picked up later. It's a completely random event, not one of "destiny" or anything like that. In fact, the Bardock Special has more of that to it than Minus does, given Bardock legit sees the future and sees Goku on Earth, fighting Vegeta, facing Freeza, etc. Such a weird, bizarre claim to me, and betrays a lack of media literacy in regard to the material.

Anyways, sorry, got a bit meandering there at the end, but I maybe folks who follow the blog can point you toward a few good ones?

#asks #not meta #dragon ball #dragon ball z #dragon ball minus #dragon ball super #db #dbz #dbs

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rabbitr · 4 months ago

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dawntrail thoughts (you know the ones)

finished msq so here are thoughts. spoilers under the cut

did i like dawntrail? eh.

dawntrail is perfectly fine as an expac. i didn't go into it expecting dawntrail to be able to top the shadowbringers/endwalker combo. but i also didn't expect them to fumble like that.

overall, dawntrail isn't bad! i like a lot about it. getting to explore tural, the competition during the rite of succession, new cast of characters, uh...... solution nine. i think you can tell which half i like more. solution nine and alexandria were perfectly serviceable, i just liked the slow and lighthearted pace of the first half better.

my major issue with dawntrail is that the first half (rite of succession) and second half (alexandria) don't feel very well integrated.

if you like the rite of succession, then all the interesting bits about tural's history and culture are thrown out the window once you get to alexandria. none of the characters you meet and see grow during the rites will travel with you and offer their insights in alexandria's state of affairs. except for a few, which well. i'll get to them.

if you like alexandria, then the rite of succession feel like a slow and meandering beginning. characters in alexandria don't show up until you slog through the rites, and then aren't given all that much space to grow. i don't particularly like the second half so i'm sorry that i can't say more on it.

in short, dawntrail's theme is "legacy". both halves deal with how people pass down their legacies - who will remember them and what will they be remembered for? the ideological differences between different parties about how they should be remembered drives the conflict.

while alexandria fits the story thematically and is foreshadowed fairly well, the transition falls flat. there's no good bridge between the two sections. i've seen some people arguing that its about wuk lamat's arc, that she needs to learn what happens when she can't make peace. but... not really.

wuk lamat definitely undergoes development during the rite of succession. it's somewhat subtle while also being fucking beat into your head with a sledgehammer, but afterwards she doesn't really... change as a result of going to alexandria. she doesn't really struggle with what she needs to do to keep peace. wuk lamat kind of resolves herself that some people need killing if her people want peace and her gripes are mostly that the people who need killing are her brother and a new friend.

the focus of all of dawntrail is on wuk lamat alone, with erenville and krile getting incredibly minor spotlights during alexandria. so when her development grinds to a crawl, it's noticeable. because erenville and krile don't change at all throughout alexandria.

we get to know erenville a little better. and that's it.

krile, despite being part of the impetus for us to even want to explore alexandria, is regulated to a bit part with a grand total of about one quest and a handful of cutscenes wherein she asks people about her grandfather and earring. i like wuk lamat, don't get me wrong. but why couldn't krile have shared the spotlight? in the endwalker patches, she talks about how she wants to go on this journey and that she can defend herself now. where was any of that?

speaking of scions. oh boy, the scions.

in dawntrail's need to focus on wuk lamat, the scions entirely fall on the wayside. not even in that the WoL's relationships with them don't come to fore, i mean, not even wuk lamat seems to get to know them. while i understand this is a time constraint (only so much expac), i would have rather... not had the scions there?

they don't really contribute much to the story except to play the brains to your and wuk lamat's brawn. towards the second half, it felt just like they needed an excuse to justify alexandria and explain it to wuk lamat, as well as making sure the whole cast is back together. like, did we really need a y'shtola cameo?

my major issue with how the scions were handled are that none of them got any sliver of the spotlight. i don't even mean in a character development way - they've all had their time already - i just mean. why not have wuk lamat expand on her relationship with them? most of the gentler moments are between the WoL and wuk lamat while the scions mostly follow the two of you around, occasionally solving academic problems.

but dawntrail focused so intensely on wuk lamat. which is fine! shadowbringers/endwalker and even the expacs before were pretty much about us, after all. that story's concluded. i don't mind that it's wuk lamat's story.

except the sheer amount of wuk lamat starts to get aggravating after a while. because i kept waiting for krile's story to start. or erenville's. and i kept waiting and waiting and ultimately in the second half was served a story mostly about wuk lamat still and... sphene?

let's talk about sphene.

i hate her. she appears to be a sympathetic villain, yet she is suspicious from the get-go, and her entire purpose is to serve as wuk lamat's antagonist. does she serve the plot well? yeah, no arguments there. do i feel sympathy for her? absolutely not!

furthermore, the confrontation with sphene appears to be mostly a bootleg version of shadowbringers' ending, a decision with utterly baffles me. like the writing team wanted to parallel sphene with emet-selch, except one of those characters was a through-line since before the expac dropped and remained relevant until the end of the story and the other one is sphene.

crucially, emet-selch is a villain that has roots in prior plot. the narrative is constantly pitting us against the ascians between the political intrigue, so when emet-selch shows up and gives us his motivations, it recontextualizes an entire group of antagonists who were previously just a generic evil shadowy organization. it feels powerful to realize that all the prior struggles are because of a sympathetic motivation.

sphene recontextualizes nothing and appears hollow throughout her screentime. she loves her people and wants to protect her people, and that gets driven into our heads over and over. it is possible that sphene is purposefully written that way - to show that as an endless, she's only memories and a vague motive, not a living person. but if so, then the emotional impact of her would have to lay in wuk lamat's relationship to her.

who as i stated, has a character arc that slows way down and does not really struggle with the fact that sometimes you have to kill some people to keep peace.

lastly, the writing itself started to grate. it felt like more than ever, the writers were reaching through the screen attempting to beat the themes of the story into my head. so many times, characters will just... say the meaning of the plot at that point in time aloud. or sphene being the worst offender, repeating that she wants to protect her people over and over like a broken record. (again, which could be the point. but wuk lamat does this too with her understanding others line.)

one of the best parts of the writing for me was during the trial with zoraal ja. he sees mirages of different aspects of legacy - what came before in gulool ja ja, what is now in wuk lamat and koana, and what comes next in gulool ja. and his next action rejects them all. it's a good scene! i just wish more of the writing was like that and didn't give me a feeling of being directly told what i should know about the story.

while i've mostly been critical of dawntrail, it's not awful. it's a fun romp even if i vastly prefer shadowbringers/endwalker (but who doesn't). wuk lamat and koana were fun to get to know, alexandria was interesting, and running around gathering aether currents lets me to look at some very pretty videogame landscapes.

would i play dawntrail again? no. am i going to continue thinking about whatever gulool ja ja and ketenramm's deal was? yes. why were they like that- //shot

anyways this has been a long rabbithole of something i will likely never think about again but wanted to exorcise. if you've made it this far down, feel free to send me an ask or something with your thoughts.

#dawntrail spoilers #ffxiv #ffxiv tag #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv dawntrail #rabbithole tag

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awriternamedart · 5 months ago

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“You seem off your game, Joker.”

The venom practically dripped off of Akechi's tongue, piercing eyes darting through red lenses.

He had better be glad they had a haphazard deal and a Yoshizawa meandering about the safe room a few meters away. Akira was half the mind to leave right now if it wasn't for those facts.

“I thought you were the impeccable leader type, but without your team, you seem shaken.” Akechi’s tone was much snider in the Metaverse, Akira was learning. But stalwart gray evenly met him, before Joker took a few steps forward to sit on the table. “Oh, don't be like that. I simply don't want to risk having my neck out for a half-good fighter.”

“..tch.”

“Uh… are you two.. ok?” Both of them glanced up, Kasumi finished with her quiet exploration. She hadn't seemed to find anything to pique her interest, at the very least. “Its awfully tense.”

“Oh, perfectly fine, Yoshizawa. How are you feeling?” Akechi didn't seem bothered to torture her at least.

“Alright, I think! At least, I don't think I have any bruises..”

“Good. Navigation will be much easier if you are able. Now if we could just find out why this one is acting at half capacity.”

Joker rolled his eyes, a sharp glare sent in Akechis direction.

“Eh? Half capacity?” Unfortunately, Kasumi leaned in, curiously placing her gloved hand on Akira’s forehead- out of instinct, mostly. He barely flinched at her touch. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I'm fine.”

“You are not fine, you didn't miss half the shots you took at me compared to these measly shadows.” Ignoring the startled glance Kasumi gave them both, Akechi bitterly glared down at Akira- folding his arms in his petulance. “I'm not risking anything in this- unstable world.”

“Im f-”

“Is it because your team isn't here? I know how important trust is in teamwork.” Kasumi butted in, resting her chin on her hand. “You and Morgana are always together- oh and Sakamato, to!”

Joker’s shoulders tensed up.

“Just the cat and the loudmouth? Not the rest of the team?”

“Well, I am not exactly friends with all of them, but Sakamato is his boyfriend.”

The innocence Kasumi held in her voice as Akira completely froze in spot, jaw clenched tight- it felt more like a whip of cold ice then a refreshing spark.

“Hey, sorry I can’t hang out tonight, I got somethin to do with my Ma."

Of all the weird happenstance that day, Akira felt relieved that this, at least, felt normal. Ryuji slung his arm around his shoulders, grinning as he looked to Kasumi.

“Take care of him for me, aight?”

She giggled, nodding.

“Will do!”

“Great! Ill seeya later then!”

Akira barely processed the lips being pressed against his own, Ryuji leaning up before darting back with a bright wave to both of them. He felt more startled then anything, not even realizing what had happened before Ryuji had disappeared, zipping off to who knows where.

“Boyfriend? I'll be.” Akechi's smile got just that hint sharper. “Of all of the nuisances, of course you'd go for that one. Annoyingly loyal to you- always at your side.”

“..He's ..not my boyfriend.”

They both looked down. Joker was visibly tight, standing up abruptly and surprising Kasumi, who was quick to dodge out of the way.

“Eh?? But yesterday, at the shrine-!”

Joker just looked over his shoulder, lips drawn tight. Kasumi stopped midsentence, not failing to notice the faint, pulsing red buried in grey eyes- the lingering pain now brought to the forefront.

“Lets go.”

Fake Reality's Remnent Wishes - awriternamedart

#started true ending and this idea would not leave me aloje #pegoryu #akira kurusu #ryuji sakamoto #sakamato ryuji #kurusu akira #the pain of having what you want in a reality that isnt real #rubs hands together evilly #to the person that commented i am the light when canon brings dark - i am not sorry #goro akechi #sumire yoshizawa #kasumi yoshizawa #arts snippets

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jammglass · 5 months ago

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Jenny From Thebes - Lyrics I Love

So awhile back I wrote some analyses of Jenny from Thebes and individual songs based on trying to piece together the narrative. You can find those here, here, and here.

This will rehash some information as it's meant to be read stand-alone, but mostly it was an endeavor to just spend an evening discussing the individual pieces and lyrics of the album in a way that eventually creates a kind of holistic impression of the themes herein.

And I got to spend an evening thinking real hard about JD's lyrics, which was very fun for me. Have fun in there! It's very long.

"Remember at your peril/Forget the ones you can" (Clean Slate)

For an album with a lot of themes and imagery from Greek literature, the idea of Nostos, a homecoming or lack thereof is so present throughout. And the subjects of this album leave their memories upon everyone they touch, but Jenny and her safehouse are so dead set on saving all the strays they can that they, too, are changed by each one of them. But to follow them too far, to imagine all the lives as they terminate from the story is to invite a kind of deadly nostalgia.

"This world is sad and broken, gotta fix a crack or two" (Clean Slate)

Isn't it just so lovely? The people here are so balanced in their earnestness and self-consciousness both. We meander back and forth across the line, but it's always clear they care.

"And just when you think you learn how to forget/you learn it's just the ones who haven't risen to the surface yet" (Clean Slate)

Oh but it's impossible. Even if the nostalgia is deadly it's so, so human.

"This will be the last time that I do this, I'm pretty sure." (Clean Slate) "Every endpoint fixed forever on the day its arc began!" (Clean Slate)

I just love this sense of foreboding. This is the last time. The end is coming (on 900ccs of raw, whining power).

"We sleep light in the shadow of the cloverleaf" (Ground Level)

This whole song is just utterly evocative of the restless energy in the safehouse. It can be joyous, but it's never comfortable and there is always a threat. And there's just something emblematic about the cloverleaf interchange. It blends the concepts of an unromantic space and romantic so well.

This is a house on a bad property underneath a huge span of looping concrete. Loud, unseemly, garish in its tan and mustard yellow. But there's also this clandestine quality. We're under shadow, we're underneath (subrosa) the shadow of a symbol of prosperity. But we don't get the light, we get the shadow, the cast off.

It's just so pretty!

"I'm just passing on the information/Beaming down to me from a distant station" (Only One Way)

This song plays with the concept of prophecy and fate; there's no way except the fated one which is also the hard one which is also the obvious one. Sorry.

But also I love the method of prophecy or at least its conveyance, "beaming down from a distant station" is an echo of, "Dial down the weak bits and crank up the gain/Listen for the prophecy somewhere in the static" (As Many Candles as Possible, Getting into Knives) and honestly getting prophecy from the radio is pretty sick, JD, gotta hand it to you.

"Tattoo of the Seventh Shield still wet on my skin" (Fresh Tattoo)

That tattoo is the album art, which reads (in Greek): "I will bring this man back and he will have his city and move freely in his father's halls."

It comes from the play Seven Against Thebes, held by Polynices as he challenges Eteocles, his brother who has broken their joint-rule to hold the power of Thebes indefinitely for himself. The shield depicts a woman who names herself Justice as she leads a soldier forward, the words surrounding them. In the play, both brothers die in combat.

This is also the stuff of this album. Jenny gets an eviction notice and, apparently armed with a knowledge of Greek plays, goes to get a tattoo. From the plot scale she does indeed have a skirmish with the Mayor in a later entry and the victory is just as meaningless at scale; she does not get to keep the safe house, she must leave it all behind.

In this way, we can imagine an understanding of her role as that of a rightful owner of Thebes (this city). She cares for the citizenry that fall through the cracks and off of the margins. A city must care for its people as its primary purpose and the fact that Jenny goes through a great deal of effort to take care of the people around her and all the strays she brings in while the city does nothing for them (and only makes things harder, judging by the relationship the characters have with keeping watch as Ground Level illustrates).

At a smaller scale, she feels a responsibility to the people she cares for and someone she believes should do much more robs her of her office and this feels like something she's willing to go to war for.

I think it's also worth considering what the shield-line about returning him to his father's halls and rightful home means in context of all the people Jenny puts back on their feet. If we can interpret her both as Polynices bearing the shield and Justice upon the shield it would be very in line with the kind of righteous work she believes she does. To set people back in their rightful places because none of them ought to fall through the cracks and into her hands in a just society.

"What's that say, you said/I gave you an answer that I thought you'd buy/all of this will disappear in the twinkling of an eye" (Fresh Tattoo)

I think the most interesting thing to explore for this one is that Jenny tells a lie. She lies about what her tattoo means because it's personal and it's not his business. It's life and death personal, in fact. She tells him something that would be true, a reminder that things are temporary and thus must be cherished.

But what if that's not true to her? It certainly isn't true enough to get a tattoo of it. Her take-away from this moment is not that everything is temporary. In a timeline where she uses these words instead, she would be someone who accepts the transitory nature of her office and the people who come to her for help. But instead, she has an entire system in place to emotionally cope with the fact that it wears on her to have so many faces leave. To have so many lives pass through her fingers like sand. But still it's important. Still she persists. Still she exists. Until.

"But not this one" (Fresh Tattoo)

The chorus of this song goes: Well, you may forget the whys and wheres Of an old tattoo on your forearm there But usually you recall the day you got one And usually it fades in the sun

Which is an entire passage about how things fade from memory including the importance of things. Nothing lasts forever and even the strongest parts, even things written into ink upon flesh will fade in the sun.

And the final line of the song is unique to the last chorus, an idea rolling around in Jenny's head as she considers her place, her situation, the future. Yes, usually that's true. Things fade. Things become less important. The sting will one day fade and so too will her rage.

Except not this time. She refuses to let this one go. She will remember this one. Whether through her last acts in this town when she kills the mayor or through sheer force of will and rage she will remember. This one won't fade.

"Leave a little stain behind you/Everywhere you go" (Cleaning Crew)

I just love how evocative this line is. Leave a little stain behind you. Not a beautiful mural, not a poem, a stain. Mar the world where you step. Smudge your lipstick on a shirt collar. Grab a wall with paint-laden hands because you were just too damn excited and forgot to be clean.

As someone familiar with masking, I'm very acquainted with the idea of doing things nicely, of being polite, of being unheard, of leaving no traces. Not only does this leave very little memory of you if people aren't investigative about your personhood beyond the niceties, it also is just a shitty, small way to live. And so the concept of trying to exemplify the feeling of being alive enough to not step lightly, to kiss passionately and messily, to be unrestrained enough to press fingerprints on something in glee is very joyous to me.

"Wearing an exile's mark/One that's going to glow in the dark" (Murder at the 18th St. Garage)

It's just a fun way to refer to having committed a huge crime!

"Once you commit to the turn/You're going to have to follow through/Cover your eyes when the splash comes/It's the only thing you can do" (Murder at the 18th St. Garage)

This feels like a similar lesson from Only One Way, which is that there's only one way out. Sometimes it's doing the hard thing but also there comes a point when you've made a decision where you simply have to follow through. If you have decided to do something terrible, try not to flinch.

I do want to note that this album posits the unavoidable aspect of a Greek Tragedy, that every endpoint is fixed forever on the day its arc began. And in a way, we know the future and so it's easy to think that these events all just had to happen. I think we do not have enough information to understand for ourselves that it could only happen this way, though from Jenny's POV and from the other characters here it truly must seem that way and I think it's interesting.

It's like when you see two people who utterly do not feel compatible enter a relationship. And maybe it'll work out. It's possible. Stranger things have happened. But then when they break up for all the reasons you predicted in the moment you first heard of them being together it does feel fated. Once they committed to the attempt they could only be true to their natures.

Of course that's also not true, but it does paint a feeling.

"It's somewhere in the wreck yard now/Never see it again on this earth/Let the scavengers proclaim/How much it was worth" (From the Nebraska Plant)

As much as Jenny decides a single thing would not fade, everything else must. Even her iconic black and yellow custom Kawasaki will one day end up in the wreck yard. Like carrion eaters, its use will not be as an entire life but as pieces that are useful to devour. The whole picture of it has been lost.

"A small amount of pressure in the right place" (Same as Cash)

This is a lovely song about the idea of things ending. To me it's about the moments in the interstices of change. It's not crying over an empty room that you had many important moments inside of with someone who isn't there anymore, it's trading in your car for something that makes more sense before a big, permanent trip.

As for the line, well. It's just very memorable for me and I think it's pretty conceptually.

"Never thought we'd say the day when she wiggled free" (Jenny III)

In this unprecedented third installment of a mountain goats song (there's no Jenny II, though perhaps we can call this entire album Jenny II since it's also unprecedented to have an entire album about a single character) we have those around her lamenting about her departure.

In this line we get to see that as much as she considered herself permanent, her place running this safehouse as static and stationary those around her thought it as well (or else thought so little of her departure that it seemed unthinkable).

"But she did/long before we did" (Jenny III)

The way that the beginning of this album discusses nostalgia as a threatening, deadly force to be avoided lines up with the way that Jenny exists prior to this album. In Jenny I (All Hail West Texas), Color in your Cheeks (All Hail West Texas), Source Decay (All Hail West Texas), Night Light (Transcendental Youth), and Straight Six (Jam Eater Blues) Jenny exists as almost this mythological figure. They love her, they miss her, they'll never see her again. She calls them sometimes, but it's more of a haunting than a relationship.

And this is the first song on the album that evokes that understanding of her. We're no longer in present tense. We're transitioning to past tense as her departure happens and has happened.

And as they begin to paint her in this way, they start to talk about her as someone who was larger than life. Sometimes that's thinking of her in an elevated kind of romance, sometimes it's speculating about all the things she might've been that they didn't know.

Here they consider both the knowledge that she was going to leave one day being hidden from them and almost a kind of prescience. She did, in fact, keep it a secret and they feel betrayed.

"Didn't guess we'd ever come to dread that engine's roar" (Jenny III) "Jenny came to get me/She'd been gone for several years/Aging motorcycles purr like cats/When they draw near/And I as crying/I could barely make the frame out through my tears"

It's just a very powerful sequence. The idea that this roar had become a symbol of their savior, this woman who took many of them from ruin back to their feet. The idea that she spent the full thirty days or close to it after getting her new bike, long enough for everyone to get acquainted to it. And then the idea that as she became this myth, they dreaded the sound that heralded her arrival because it meant everything was going to get stirred up again and they knew she would never stay, not anymore.

Once she was concrete, but now she is a pair of wheels and 900ccs of raw, whining power. And you know that no matter how it will be it will always be temporary and you miss her too much, you miss her all the time. You'll miss her again soon. Maybe you're missing her already.

"Nobody's ever gonna pour plaster in my tracks/My exit will be clean when I vanish from the scene" (Going to Dallas)

The change in Jenny is very interesting. From someone who once saw herself as an ad hoc community figure to someone who is fascinated with the idea of being untraceable and who wants to let her passing be something easy and smooth.

It isn't, of course. We know this. But as an intent, to see someone who copes by trying to be unrooted it creates a fascinating portrait.

Closing Thoughts

I really enjoyed this album. I think it's my favorite since Songs for Pierre Chuvin, which I think I wanna do one of these for one day. There's just this beautiful mix of longing-to-be, of placeness, and of all the utterly raw feelings that surround the transition between all of them.

Okay, I'm off to do something that isn't typing hundreds of words now, bye!

#tmg #the mountain goats #my posts

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not-souleaterpost · 11 months ago

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Least favorite part about soul eater's 3 introductionary episodes?

Guess the cop out easy answer would be saying the excesisive fanservice, especially when it involves minors, but that is too obvious and boring as an answer.

But if I had to think for anything else...

I could say things like that one can feel that the world wasn't fleshed out yet and there is a kind of disconect between them and the "real" plot that starts after, with that I mean the whole Kishin madness thing - but eh, I dont think that plot consistency is the highest virtue, especially when they started as stand alone things and dumping anlot of lore before it was clear it would be a whole show would be execsive, especially when it would derail the charecterization and other things inside the one shots.

But speaking of charachterization, maybe that could be a flaw - I've seen the argument that Souls and Makas charachters are kinda flipped - with Maka being the one that doesnt rush into things, while in the show proper it was she who actually did a lot of dangerous things without a plan - but even then I never was bothered by that and one can interpret it as showing another side, especially of a Maka that is still kinda paralyzed with uncertanty after the divorce. Hell even Spirit saying things like "oh I care for Blair more than Maka", even if a bit too extreme and tonedeaf, could be seen as the start of his charachterization and arc and reason why Maka really dislikes him (but yeah maybe that part was a bit too extreme if I'm not misremembering some bad fantranslation lol)

So yeah, one other thing that may be kinda clunky for me is the whole contrivance of everybody ending up with zero souls - like I get it, its so everybody starts the series on even footing, or if it doesnt get picked up one still has that "the adventure continues feeling", but still, especially with Kid it felt kinda forced - but again on the other hand its not like a big deal and the comedic note of all the efforts being revoked do to incompetence kinda works too - especially with Soul and Maka once it later gets established that they were kinda still rookies (but again thats all prolly just cause all the shit wasnt planned, so I wont be a stickler)

So yeah, in the end I'm kinda sorry that this meandering answer doesnt have a satisfying conclusion. I think in the end the chapters all had self contained storys that established charachterizations and set up how the personalities could develope in the future while showing the wacky world of it all. I'm not even saying that I found them super engading, but at the same time its hard to find something obviously wrong - I guess one could say that BlackStars is the one with the most emotional resonance, cause its ironically the one least played for laughs and the one with the serious "choice", while the DtK one is mostly wacky and a cartoon - but that has its own appeal.

But maybe even that is kinda a blessing and a curse - the way Ohkubo tried to one up himself - so ok we first start with an actuall scythe, hence the theme, but then how do we one up that, oh a weapon that transforms into like 5 or how many others on demand, and then... Guesss two weapons and they are glocks!

Like one could arguee that maybe it leads to Maka and Soul being overshadowed - but even that isnt really true, because the scythe stayed iconic so yeah, in the end if you thought I had some brillian insight behind all this rambling:

yeah...sorry

(but thanks for the ask, feel free to write another one, maybe I'll have something actually profound to say then lol)

#answered ask #soul eater #soul eater one shots #one shot

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the-present-is-a-gift-au · 8 months ago

Text

Chapter 33: In Which Twig Attempts Small Talk

Twig went out for a walk early the next morning. She needed to escape Kip’s worried looks and tentative, careful questions, and she didn't want to be around when Grovyle or Dusknoir woke up to interrogate her. Unfortunately, Grovyle must have sensed her escape plan before she put it into motion, because he was up even earlier than usual and caught her by the arm before she could leave.

“Twig—” he began.

“Back off,” she hissed, careful to keep her voice low. “I don't want to talk right now.”

“I'm sorry about last night. Please, just tell me how I can help. I'm worried.”

“You don't need to be. Everything is fine. Ask Celebi if you need to, but the Future is still saved, and we don't have to do anything about it.”

She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. “I'm not worried about the Future. I'm worried about you. What's wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“There is no chance that nothing's wrong. Please, Twig, I want to help.”

“If you want to help, let me take my walk. I need to clear my head.”

With a tight frown, he released her, and Twig stormed up the stairs outside.

The cool morning air always helped clear her head. She found herself following an old trail down the forest that ringed around Treasure Town that she had always loved back when she and Kip lived together. It was a meandering trail that barely had any incline or decline to it— mostly level, with hardly any other pokemon that walked it, and also a gentle serpentine curve that swung around giant oak trees every so often. It was beautiful, especially when spring green leaves had filled out the branches overhead again after winter. It felt like the trail was healing after it had been scarred by the cold. Twig wished she could do the same.

Wouldn't that be nice— grow a couple leaves on a few branches, and everyone would assume that everything was just perfect about her? Twig could see signs of oak wilt in a number of the oldest trees— a lesson she recalled from her schooling as a human. They had gone down to the air purification chambers in the bunker and learned how to care for the plants within. She wished she remembered how to heal these trees. She didn't know how, and that stung.

Maybe that's how Grovyle felt about her.

She pulled the cloak she grabbed before leaving tighter around herself. He said that he knew she was suffering and wanted to help, but didn't know how to fix it. Twig had always assumed it was out of pity that he nagged— a sort of forceful, frustrating means of correcting her more burdensome traits. Maybe it wasn't out of pity, though. Maybe he really wanted to help because he cared about her specifically. Maybe it was because seeing her hurting hurt him as well.

… Yeah, right. Who would be stupid enough to think Twig of all people was worth empathizing with? Grovyle was smarter than that. Twig, for all her stupidity, was clever enough to know she wasn't worth the time of day. What a dumb thing to even consider—

A hand closed around her wrist before she stepped into open air, her foot dipping over into a sharp drop in the path. Right, this part had a sharp drop-off of about the length of her tail. She hadn't noticed because she was too busy wiping away her tears.

Startled, she scrambled for purchase and launched herself back, glancing over her shoulder at whoever it was that saved her. She caught a brief glimpse of a dark, clawed hand before it melted away into the dappled shadows of the early light.

She stared into the empty forest, mouth agape as she tried to process what just happened.

“Dude,” she finally said. “It's not that far of a drop.”

Silence, save for the hushed whispering of the leaves.

“The worst that could have happened is I maybe would have rolled my ankle.”

Nothing. She saw the shadows to her left shift uncomfortably.

“Thanks, I guess? Um. How have you been since you disappeared? I've been doing good. It's, uh, nice to see you again? I… I dunno what to say. This is kind of awkward—”

“Do you often come to the forest to cry?” Ark’s voice meekly asked.

She sputtered in surprise. “What kind of question is that?”

Silence.

She frowned. “Why do you even want to know?”

“You frequently left for the trees at the edge of your property whenever upset toward the end of my… I was curious. That's all.”

It took a moment for her to consider whether or not to ask her own question— why he hadn't tried anything yet to put his former plans in motion— but she decided against it. “It's out of the way,” she finally said, as if that was a real answer.

Silence.

The trees rustled overhead. Ferns stirred in the wind to her side. The shadows on her left shifted again, and she could just make out a subtle dark shape in the dappled shade of a particular silhouette.

“You aren't well,” Ark said.

She scoffed a harsh sound. “Gee, you don't say.”

“Don't act like this is my fault,” he snapped, suddenly sounding more like the Darkrai that Twig had come to fear all those years ago. But even so, it sounded more like it was a bark with no bite behind it. She found herself pitying the way he schooled his naturally mellow tone into something venomous and cruel. It would be like if she scooped up a snowball and decided to call herself an ice-type. He continued, “I didn't ask to be your little project you could prune and shape into something you weren't afraid of. I didn't ask to be struck dumb and empty-minded so that you could fill my head with lies. I didn't ask—”

“Maybe not, but neither did I. We don't get to choose how things shake out. I didn't ask to remember my past, and you didn't ask to be the Legend of nightmares, either.”

He snapped into visibility, hackles raised in an aggressive posture and a noticeable fear in his eyes amidst his livid expression at Twig's mention of the privileged knowledge she'd been given. Darkrai didn't want his domain, Cresselia had told her what felt a lifetime ago. Pressing a lunar feather into Twig’s hands, she had revealed how her counterpart considered the universe a cruel thing that sought to scorn him personally from his creation. He'd lamented as much to her at a point when Cresselia hated him for only existing, and she had told him she hoped the universe truly did loathe him as he thought it did.

Twig watched him loom over her with a painful sense of empathy. They both felt like no one cared, didn't they? But where Twig had convinced herself that no one should bother with her, Darkrai had turned his anger outward rather than inward. They weren't the same— and they never would be— but if there was any sense of fate in how the universe worked, she could see herself being a reflection of the Legend before her.

He was a loathsome, angry, pitiful thing that hated himself. And Twig knew exactly how that felt.

“How much did that wench tell you?” He spat.

“Enough.” Twig didn't meet his eyes as she found herself echoing his own words, once uttered in a dark room after a nightmare. “She told me enough.”

Darkrai’s furious posture faltered. He backed down just barely, then a hair more, and then melted back into the shadows. Twig couldn't pick him out from the dappled shade cast by sunlight filtering through the leaves anymore, but she could feel his presence somewhere in the forest with her.

“I didn't want Cresselia to tell me all your business, you know,” Twig murmured. “But she's… well, she's intense. She doesn't really take no for an answer, and you don't want to argue against a Legend too much when you're mortal. At least, that's what I've heard. Celebi is pretty similar actually, but you don't have to worry about ending up smote to dust or whatever when you tell her you don't want to eat her cooking.”

Silence.

“Okay, you got to ask me if I like going to the woods to cry, so I get to ask a weirdly personal question too.” She crossed her arms, faking disappointment in the Legend hidden somewhere around her. “Do you do that thing where you hide in the dark with everyone when you don't want to talk about something, or is it just something you do with me?”

The forest was still. Almost unnaturally still. It froze and went taut, almost as if drawn up tightly with marionette strings, and Twig wondered if she'd pushed too hard and now she was going to die.

She sighed. “That was supposed to be a joke, by the—”

“Considering you are the first to ask such uncomfortable things of me, or even to speak to me much at all, I can't say I know how to answer that.”

Oh. This wasn't a ‘the universe is being summoned to swallow you up in a giant stony pit’ sort of tension, it was a ‘the Legend you're talking to is nervous’ sort of tension. Darkrai spoke so hesitantly that Twig couldn't even say it sounded more like Ark as he uttered the quiet answer. There was a bit of teeth in how he said it— almost like he wanted it to be more of an accusation than a confession— but it had no bite. He just sounded helplessly, hopelessly tired.

She understood that.

“Look, man, I'm sorry about Cresselia. Her being a real… Ugh. I know a lot of things that could describe how she was, but they only make sense in English, so I'll go with what you said earlier and say wench. She was awful. You didn't deserve that— not at the start, at least.” She rubbed the sides of her arms nervously. “And I'm sorry about her telling me everything about your past. That was a jerk move on her end. Heck, even you didn't blab to Kip or anybody else about me pretty much barbecuing my entire bunker.”

A pause. “You weren't responsible for that tragedy, nor what happened with—”

“Anyways!” She cut him off, eager to avoid whatever garbage he was going to spew to try and get her to see things the way Dusknoir desperately wanted her to. She wasn’t going to handle another lecture that ended with her completely and utterly gutted very well. “Sorry about that, thanks for not killing all my loved ones, keep up the good work, I'm going to finish my walk now. Bye.”

She turned on her heel and hastened back to Sharpedo Bluff, pointedly ignoring the eyes she felt on her as she went.

That got dangerous. And not in the way she expected. She needed to change up her walking routes, and fast.

#the present is a gift au #pmd2 #pmd eos #pmd sky #pmd explorers #pokemon mystery dungeon #pmd fanfic #pmd fanfiction #pmd fic #pmd

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