#also fun fact i only actually drew their head shape once for all of these

[ekholocationn]

boodles of loodles (loop doodles)

[beatcroc]

a year!!! as of today i have now been drawing these funny little pizza freaks, to the exclusion of almost everything else, for!!! an entire year!!! i wanted to do a nice group shot/lineup of everybody to compare to when i first started trying to draw them because oh boy were they bad. i never even posted most of them anywhere because they were so bad. but im posting them here, now, to see how everything's changed/evolved.

this is probably the hardest time i've ever had trying to figure out how to work with a style, but we got there eventually; i'm pretty happy with the handle i've got on everybody now...dont let ur memes be dreams. lots of unimportant journaling and idle thoughts abt it below.

older pics

the first one is the VERY first time i drew them, before i thought i was going to actually have any interest in drawing them [lmao]; it was just the one isolated image, for my friendserver, to illustrate the funney message, so there was no attempt to make it Good or actually understand anything going on w/ the designs or style.

second is the original run of practices sketches to start trying to figure them out for real; done after i started having ideas for the comics and such and realized oh god maybe i am actually gonna draw fanart for this. [again, lol, and lmao.]

third one is the first pt art thing i posted on here. there were a couple weeks of sprite studies between this one and the previous image. the one on the top right wasn't part of that post i just threw it on as space filler; i'd intended to shift to doing Sprite Redraws But Stylized to explore tings more, but that was the only one i did. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

individual characters

peppino: by far the hardest dear god. bro what ARE your shapes how DOES your face work. jesus christ. everything i have trouble with this style for, peppino has it in excess. i draw in polygons! i need consistency! and that is the last thing this kind of style is concerned with. they are made of squarshy clay and i do not understand how to mold them. i was really hoping trying to learn this game's style would GIVE me that kind of flexibility for fun exaggerated facial expression but i don't think much came of it in the end 😔. anyway on the bright side all this means once i got peppino figured out a little bit everybody else clicked way easier.

fake peppino: honestly i never did anything with him on purpose except for how his eyes work + the perma-smile thing. i figured ok hes supposed to look weird and off model so whatever happens with him happens. and it did. and it kept happening. it is still, in fact, happening.

noise/ette: somehow, for every bit that peppino was the least natural thing i've ever tried, these two worked pretty much right off the bat. i still don't understand it, seeing as pretty much all the things at play for peppino are also at work for them. i think the new sketches are actually a little worse than older ones but not enough that i care.

gustavo: really funny bc i drew him on model twice and just went 'okay, cool nice, easy, um. he doesn't have any fucking legs?' fortunately he was the only one i had a strong idea for how to stylize him [square] and it worked exactly as i was hoping so wahoo.

brick: is an animal and therefore 5000x easier and more natural for me to draw/stylize than anything else in the cast. that is Just a rat bro. i can draw a rat.

gerome: i think the funniest one here. the most drastic and least necessary change imo. i was gonna have him be really small at first, like smaller than the noises, but then i just... didn't. he's just peppino-sized now. also i gave him like. actual human facial structure, which is funny bc in most cases i'd do anything to avoid, but it works well for his being A Rock to give him some angles and definition like that+ to differentiate his vibe from the rest of the cast who are all very squishy. also since he is essentially Just A Head it's good to emphasize that too ig.

john: i only drew john a couple times but he gets to be here because i like him. and because most of the stuff i applied to gerome was readily applicable to john, though i did try to keep him a little more uncanny because he is a Huge And Lanky Freak. i hate that he is barefoot btw but idk how to make his color balance look right with shoes.

pizzahead: i did not want to put him on here honestly but i Have drawn him a handful of times and more importantly i didn't know what i was gonna do with john's pose if i didn't have him there to be glared at. the only thing that's different with him is giving him wider-bottomed pants, which i got from when i tried to draw these guys in clone high style [i never posted that one either][i will eventually]

snick: he gets to be here because 1. he's like 6 lines 2. i like him and 3. ive scribbled him a few times offhand and it went pretty well

misc

there are some guys missing because those are guys i didn't draw enough [or at all] to have gotten comfortable with them. sorry

i would have Liked to shade these but for the time being i have accepted that my grasp of light/shadow has decayed to the point im not going to be happy with anything i try there, so For Now i am working on my presentation with flats i guess. gerome has a shadow only because he's shaded like that ingame and looks naked without it

anyway if you are still reading [hi?] i get to shamelessly plug now. i'm over the hill of my pizza run now, and while i still have plenty of things i want to make here, most of the bigger more in-depth ones have passed. pizza tower was the first thing in THREE YEARS to get me out of my oc groove to doing fanart, and once i am done with my ideas here i will be going right back to it. if you like my art or how i write characters/interactions you should check out my oc/webcomic blog @jamverse . i can't promise people who like pizza stuff will be terribly into my designs, but i can guarantee i treat my guys with the exact same sort of tone i handle the pt guys with. and hell, i've mentioned it a few times before, but like 70% of my characterization for fake pep is just copied off one of my characters, so if u are going to miss him... he will still be there in spirit >;p

and if you dont care about any of that and are still reading thank you anyway. actually making these comics + seeing how shockingly well-received they've been has done a lot for my confidence, and for seeing that my kind of stuff IS something people enjoy :')

[glitchyk]

Random thing bc I’m bored, a character I made a while back and finally attempted to draw for once

This is, Seth/Seath(???)

On 01/05/2024 I got bored and made this oc, still not finished, but, here’s the exact word for wood that I explained him for the first time

“An OC I’m still working on, can’t make much background since it sorta has to do with canonical shit and all that ✨fun stuff✨, but basically, if we are going off of ‘Cane and Abel’ from the Bible (two first children of Adam and Eve) than I propose a character, the third child, made to ‘replace’ Abel after he was killed by Cane in envy, Seth. Seth would probably be an ai, or, what I thought of first before I thought of him being an AI— one of the first testers of the game, but instead made to think he wasn’t human. He had ‘admin’ privileges and such, in a ways they made him think he wasn’t human, since he was trapped in this digital world and had much more access to things than any humans stuck there, almost like a… fucked up science experiment for the company. I’m thinking for him he got ‘scrapped’ or in other words they didn’t use his ‘ai’, he was the first ‘abstraction’ in a way, as in he was the first person where they found out they could torture the human mind to that extent. Seth, in the Bible, is said to be an ancestor of Noah, so essentially, he is the ancestor to all man kind (in the Bible— I’m just going off of the Bible, since that’s where the Caine and Able theory came from) and he is never seen as really anything, in fact I don’t think pretty much anyone would know he exists, so what I think, is that this oc, Seth, is essentially the maker of the game, but maybe not accredited. Maybe he started it, and they got rid of him, in a way reflecting how Seth is not seen like at all since he is the third and ‘replacement’ son of Adam and Eve, only born after Abel was killed by Cane and allllllll that. Anyways, that’s a random starting idea I have for an OC, and no I am not religious, so I got bored, had an idea, and pretty much looked through everything I could find in less than the past 10 minutes to make a draft randomly of the character I have barely just made, that’s my rambling for now lol” — in a discord server I’m in

And yes, I am thinking of spelling his name incorrectly on purpose, because Caine is spelt differently that Bible Cane, and some people purposely spell Abel as Able because they know Caine is spelt differently than his Bible name (that is, if all of our theories of Caine and Able is even correct) so I was sorta thinking of calling him ‘Seath’ but still pronounced as Seth.

He is just a somewhat silly guy as an ‘ai’, but in reality, he is sort of the forgotten child. He is supposed to be the one that fills in the role of being perfect, yet at the same time, even when he does it all correctly, he isn’t looked upon. I’ll explain it another time if I feel like, anyways, I drew this yesterday

He had a dodecahedron head, it changes shape when he wants it to… also there are eyes on the inside of the parts of the head, so theoretically if it were to ‘open’ he’d probably be staring you down like a sleep paralysis demon. This is the first time in a while I’ve actually put effort into online drawing, so yeah don’t judge me, one of the first times I drew without a base aside from the head shape.

[mercuriale]

Two Similar Endings

After watching the video “Games you can never play again.” by The Cursed Judge, it made me think further on the ending of Halo: Reach, which I then shared with a friend later on that day. After having some time to think about it a bit more, I feel ready to put my thoughts to keys and put them out there.

This post will talk about the endings of Halo: Reach and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and will continue below the fold.

Without wasting anybody’s time, I will briefly outline the endings of both games mentioned above, then further elaboate on the parts that are actually prudent to this post.

Personally, I hold both Reach and Hellblade to be excellent games and respect them both very much. Also personally, I thoroughly appreciate good endings. As time as gone on, I’ve gotten older obviously, but how I feel about media and in turn how it should be shaped has also changed. When you are younger, it is so easy to want more and expect more to always be coming for the things that you love. New and constant little flickering candles for you on a conveyor belt. I digress; this isn’t about that right now.

What I really wanted to write about was the way the endings for these two games are both similar, different, and both excellent.

In Halo: Reach, the ending has you defending the launch of the Pillar of Autumn from the invading Covenant forces on the planet of Reach, events which take place immedately before the start of the original Halo game. The rest of the elite Noble Squad of Spartans having been picked off one by one as the end drew near, the player character Noble Six makes the ultimate sacrifice to stay behind on the surface to operate an anti-aircraft gun to ensure the Pillar makes it in to space safely. In the game (and if you have played the other games in the series), it is made clear to you that no help is coming. You are left behind. You now how this goes. After the ship lauches, your visor lights up with the infamous message: “Current Objective: Survive”.  You can hold out as long as you can before ultimately succumbing to Covenant forces, which brings about the ending.

The ending of Hellblade has the titular character, Senua, finally reach the Goddess Hela in her quest to reclaim the soul of her lover Dillon from death. Despite a physically traumatic journey, and a psychological battery of voices (the Furies), she approaches the precipice of it all, and is met with an army of dark soldiers to slash though to the end. However, after a subjective period of time, it will occur to the player that these enemies are in fact never ending, and the voices telling Senua (and the player) to “give up” are not to spitefully spur you on, but are in fact instruction. You can fight and struggle forever, and given that the combat is forgiving enough (even I was able to hold my own until the penny finally dropped), but ultimately you need to “let go” to advance.

I struck an accidental chord in myself with these two endings. Functionally, they’re similar. They are both final levels in which the player is pitted against an endless horde of enemies, and their respective endings are only triggered once the player accepts the inevitable and enters a fail state of death. In this respect, they can be considered similar. However, I believe that their differences in approach warrant discussion, even if it is a pedantic one.

Firstly, they both subvert the “win state” of playing video games. Broadly, the goal of games is to survive, win, achieve, or have fun. Both of these endings tackle these concepts head on. You can’t win, because the challenge is never ending. You’re already at the end, there isn’t anything more to achieve. There are only enemies, which to some may be fun, but ultimately it is meant to only be challenging, not fun. All that is left is to survive; what is the point of surviving when it is no longer achievable, you can’t win, and it isn’t fun? in this way, surviving becomes languishing, struggling even. The point of it is taken away, as a message.

Secondly, how their respective “ends” come about differs in the wash. While they both end with the player dying, how that death comes about is different. In Reach, 4 whole Halo games up to this point have reinforced that, in the end, you have to survive and win. The Master Chief is a badass, the Covenant are the bad guys, hoo-ra! Right, guys?

...guys? Is anybody else there?

You die on Reach. End of. But you don’t go down without a fight. You shoot every shot, throw every genade, charge every bolt, fire every rocket until those gigantic cracks punch their way into your helmet visor and you fall down and you die. The enemies become tougher as time wears on. The level is designed to kill you, and funnel you into the ending. It gives you the illusion of a fighting chance, even though all the lore and all the data pertaining to the level says you never, ever had one. The fun is in the wish to change fate, the fight to make the impossible happen even though it is made so absolutely clear to you that you cannot. But every single aspect of these games has conditioned you to do everything you can to fight back. That crucial gap is where the magic is.

Hellblade takes that gap and plays with it. The entire game you have spent wading through muck, felling gods and grappling with psychological horror, all on the premise that you can resurrect a soul taken before their time. Gods and their divine powers exist here, and it might not be impossible, until you learn that actually, it is. Dillon can’t be brought back. Was this whole journey for nothing? All this struggle and suffering?

The point of the journey changes as Senua fights the endless warriors. The quest changes from one to save Dillon’s soul to one to save Senua’s soul. To alight her of her guilt and anguish. To make the fundamental change to her perspective and “let go”. The player directly invokes this by choosing to be overwhelmed by Hela’s warriors, instead of slashing at them endlessly. Senua’s anger is as endless as the enemies, and will continue infintely unless something changes. The player choice pulls her out of her doomed loop and accept the loss of Dillon, which gives that incredible “aha” moment. You have to go against all the mechanics of the game you learned to survive, by using none of them, and fight your instincts to survive as well.

Mechanically, you can bring about both endings the same way. You can put down your controller in both Reach and Hellblade as soon as these segments start and get the same functional result. The magic lies in how both of these games make their endings happen that first time you play them. The thought processes they inspire in the thick of the moment in the brain of the player, and I love them both.

[theveryworstthing]

So over on patreon Trevor asked for my take on the Addams Family and I grew up LOVING the Addams family movies so here we are. Instead of doing a straight up style interpretation, I decided to do a full on design challenge, using the characters as bases to make a black southern gothic Addams au. I actually drew the kids first, using the character bases of Wednesday and Pugsley to create some delightful kiddos I'm calling Sunday and Blanche. I of course then redesigned Gomez and Morticia into Carlisle and Mortesha.

The Addams have a very specific high aristocratic goth aesthetic (they've got a butler and nobody really works among other things) so in this re-imagining I wanted to go with vibes that run a little more middle class/upper middle class.  I thought it would be interesting to think about what would be considered weird and off-putting in an entirely different culture, and how being a big ol' goth is way less controversial than it used to be.

I tried to keep this short (HAHAHAHAHAHA) so I didn't spin off into an essay about villain coded families, black people in the horror genre, and normalcy as it pertains to social survival, but just...bits of that are in these designs and lore. Keep that in mind.

Also I made the kids twins because they've flip flopped in age so much in different media and also twins run in my family (i'm the daughter of one). And let's face it, I'm pulling a lot of their southern gothic traits from living as a southern goth so *shrug*.

10 thousand pounds of lore incoming loooooooooool.

The Parents

From the moment he saw her he knew that there was a 50/50 chance of him either never making it out of that swamp alive or marrying the figure that was creeping out from under the distant willow tree in a black cocktail dress. The third time she found him trussed up in one of her traps, he complimented her rope work and asked if she'd like to go out sometime after his head wound stopped bleeding.

Or while it was still bleeding.

If she was into that.

Some kids and a mysteriously burnt down Piggly Wiggly later, their love is still as strong and inescapable as a bear trap in a sink hole.

Carlisle Guillermo (now Addams through marriage but I wanted to give him two first names for a name since Gomez has two last names) makes a vaguely described living practicing ‘law’ around town. A loophole king, people come to him from miles around with contracts signed in blood, fights over chunks of hair buried in their rivals’ yard, dehydrated primate hands, memories that seemed like dreams until the evidence of their happenings became too real, and other regular Legal Items asking for counsel which he is all too happy to give. For a price. Sometimes that price is a homemade pie and sometimes it’s a million dollars, depends on who you are. Whatever you’re asked to pay it’s worth that price, and if you try to scam him out of work or he just plain doesn’t like you? Well. He knows how to twist a contract better than anything at the crossroads.

And he always gets his due.

He doesn’t just serve the local (living)humans though, there are many things that need proper legal representation in this day and age. You wouldn’t believe how many city councils try to build on sacred burial grounds even after he lets them know that his ghostly clients are totally gonna haunt the FUCK out of the ensuing shitty condos and curse their families for all eternity. At least 50% of his energy goes towards dealing with real estate bullshit.

Carl is an excitable and good natured(?) man who loves his family, cigars, dancing, and his many knife-based hobbies. People find him very charming once they get past the feeling that they’re talking to a sultry gator badly disguising itself as a human. I didn’t put a ton of deep thought into designing him, mostly I wanted to make a middle aged dude who looked like he would have been voted ‘most likely to smooch the literal devil’ in high school. Tbh he probably has, but no demonic ex’s can compare to his lovely wife~

Mortesha Addams(her name was already perfect so I just tweaked it)is a woman of many talents. A self proclaimed homemaker, she prides herself on a greenhouse full of Concerning Foliage, a beautiful wasp apiary, and a coop full of what are probably chickens that she keeps for what are probably eggs. She’s also an avid creator of the outsider art that can be seen around the estate. She has taken on the family business of selling her homemade goods in a little stall by the road just outside the swamp with her mom, and makes pretty good money doing so. A surprising amount of poison gets bought in quaint southern towns.

Speaking of poison, people who come out to the edge of the swamp to buy it are usually carrying a lot of secrets around, and Mortesha knows most of them. It’s not like she pries the truth out of people, it just so happens that many nervous hellos eventually turn into the tragic backstory power hour if she’s alone with a client for long enough. She supposes that’s just how people are. Despite the fact that the Addams are very active in the community (whether the community likes it or not) she especially, as a direct descendant of the first Addams matriarch, is seen as…Well not an outsider because the community feels A Certain Way about outsiders and despite it all the Addams are their people, but maybe something like an exception. They feel like whatever weirdness they’re hiding can’t be weirder than any given Addams, so they get a little loose with their words.

This is amusing to her, since Addams’ don’t naturally keep the kind dramatic secrets that their surface level prim and proper neighbors do. It’s much more fun to openly talk about those things.

Do they have a sadly decrepit yet terrifying grandma up in the attic? Yeah, like three. They got a tv, all the creepy porcelain dolls they could want, and they’re close to family. Where do you keep your gram-grams?

Any bodies buried on the property? Yeah some, but most are thrown to the gators.

Any creeping through the balmy summer night with ill intentions? Yeah dude, everyone loves a nice family stroll.

What about dangerous forbidden love? If an adult Addams isn’t incorporeal then they’re either queer or in a torrid romance with some person/thing mysteriously drawn to that awful swamp. Sometimes both at the same time. Most times actually.

Mortesha would know.

The current head of the Addams family is just as outgoing as her husband but a lot quieter and harder to read. She never really seems to get mad about much and always has a genteel smile for everyone whether they deserve it or not. A seven foot tall human shaped “Oh, bless your heart”. A perfectly composed Lady even when she’s, oh I dunno, burning down a Piggly Wiggly. You know. A regular southern mom. Chat her up at the hair salon for 50% off a jar of wasp honey with your next purchase of a mysterious but foreboding packet of herbs.

Designing her was pretty easy because I just drew a lankier Grace Jones and called it a day. I had some problems with her outfit simply because if we were going HARD southern gothic then she’d probably be wearing a white/cream dress with a fuller skirt but I thought keeping the silhouette and the black was more important. She’s supposed to be an anti southern gothic southern gothic character anyway. A woman who looks like she has a million secrets who is actually the most open person you could meet. For better or worse. The red hair came from a coloring error that I really ended up liking (my mom had red hair her whole childhood that only darkened up in high school so I can buy that an Addams can be naturally fire engine red) and the veil was to get more of that classic Morticia silhouette in there.

The Children

Sunday and Blanche are the twin children of Carlisle and Mortesha Addams. Some say the Addams clan got their cursed homestead when a wealthy local businessman made a deal with the devil and lost, leaving his grand mansion to his least favorite maid and cutting his losses once he realized that the swamp would do everything it could to drag the house into the water and take what was owed with its horrible curse. Others say that the family has just always squatted there and no one really cares because man, fuck that particular swamp. Have you been in there? Absolute horror show.

Anyway.

Blanche is the more outgoing sibling and quite the engineer/mad scientist in the making. He started going grey at 2 weeks old but considering he was also rocking some extra fingers, toes, and a tiny tail (he takes after his dad), his parents just put it on the 'not life threatening' pile and decided not to worry about it. He's the kind of smart that teachers find utterly infuriating, less a dog eagerly learning and obeying commands and more a hyena who keeps teaching itself how to pick locks. He has a few friends in his school's robotics club (which they honestly allowed him to make so the school could contain his... creations) but mostly hangs out with his sister exploring the swamp. They find all sorts of neat things in there! wedding rings, suspiciously lumpy garbage bags, cloaked cultists who can't read private property signs, it's an adventure every day!

Blanche is all about experimentation with his creations, his look, and his tether to this mortal coil. Is lipstick a cool thing to try? Let's find out. Can he get out of a strait jacket fast enough after being pushed into the depths of the swamp by his sister? let's find out. He's not dead yet and confused local doctors can attest to the fact that he's rarely attained more than a bad bruise so he's pretty set on continuing to kiss rattlesnakes on their cute little heads and have his sister practice her knife throwing at him until that fact changes.

Blanche is very much a country goth. Cowboy boots (customized by his mom), knife, and lighter are daily accessories. He likes to wear the crusty swamp jewelry they find (the rust adds a splash of color!) and despite appearances he does try to keep himself neat. He's just got  natural Grunge Colors and a tendency to wear clothes he likes until they fall apart. Pugsley always seemed the most modernly styled to me (which might just be because little boys clothes have been the same for a long time) so I wanted Blanche to be the most purposely fashionable Addams. Everyone else is goth by nature, but he's the only one truly familiar with goth as an alternative fashion.

I got really into designing Blanche because honestly, I find Pugsley to be the most boring member of the family. And he was hard to design! I had to mess with his vibe a lot to get him looking how I wanted. I know he's supposed to evoke an " 'evil' little boy next door who's parents never reign him in", but that's just goth Dennis The Menace.  I's 2020. We can at least go queer goth Calvin.

Sunday was much easier to design. Wednesday was my favorite as a child (of course) and I really wanted to keep the spirit of her look while adding things like billowy sleeves (it gets HOT down here), big poofy twists instead of braids, and a nice tie. She's a professional after all, been running the local pet cemetery since she was 6 and the previous groundskeeper met with an unfortunate accident after telling her that tarantulas don't have souls. Her specialty is creating beautiful naturalistic animal funerals similar to those that Maquenda (https://linktr.ee/artofmaquenda) makes, and she takes pride in creating miniature dioramas of her subjects after each burial which she uses as a kind of 3D catalog for future clients.

She really wants to try out her skills on humans one day. Well. Publicly try out her skills. Lotta random bodies float into the swamp. None of them have turned down her requests for diorama models so far. Most seem downright flattered. Plus, she usually figures out which graveyard/crime scene they floated over from and gets her parents to give them a lift back. She'll even help enact terrifying revenge from beyond the grave on whoever put them there if she's not, y'know, busy.

Besides arts, crafts, and pet based funerary arrangements, Sunday is an avid lover of archery (any ranged weapon really), books where little fantasy adventure animals die dramatic deaths, and history. She is That Kid who eagerly raises her hand when asked who Christopher Columbus was and ends up being sent out of class after 15 minutes for making 'a scene'. Her favorite party trick is just picking an item in the room and talking about how it relates to either some obscure historical figure with a buck wild life or a horrible disaster. At least one charity pancake breakfast ended with children in tears after her vivid description of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

Social-wise, while Wednesday is the girl that people ask to smile because they think she'd, "look so pretty", Sunday is rarely asked anything at all. People just kind of assume from her quiet nature (in between horrible history facts) that she's angry all the time and that she hates everyone. This is untrue. She hates some people but she's ambivalent to most everyone else and even downright friendly if you bother to talk to her like a person instead of a terrifying cryptid. Like, she IS a terrifying cryptid but she's also a little girl.  

That’s about it for now. One day I might do the other family members but for now I’m happy with the four I’ve redesigned. Making an au! Lurch in a family that doesn’t do butlers could be interesting. Over on patreon I put forth that he could just be Motesha’s mute little brother (similar bone structure) but Amy Crook had the nice idea of quote: “ a mysterious "cousin" that "helps around the house" whose origins are both long in the past and faintly unsettling. He's good for lifting heavy things, like that tank of propane you're about to throw into the burning Piggly Wiggly... “ which i now consider canon. Who's kid is he? How old is he? Not important. Anyone willing to commit arson with you is family.

Annnnyway.  This challenge was a lot of fun! I love indulging in AU’s.

[snnbnny]

『••✎Now loading,,,, Hot Crossed Bun,,,, ✎••』

╰─▸ ❝ Fictitiouslover's submission for the A FAMILAR FACE IN AN UNEXPECTED PLACE, collab started by @myherokatsuki ❝

'•.¸♡ Featuring Firefighter Hanta Sero x Baker! Reader♡¸.•'

'•.¸♡ Fandom: My Hero Academia ♡¸.•'

'•.¸♡Genre: Fluff, kind of hurt/comfort but I feel as though the comfort is way more prominent, friends to lovers♡¸.•'

'•.¸♡ C/W: Fire, Fem Reader, talk of what could be considered suicidal thoughts, talk of loss and not having anything left, little inaccurate protocol/actions in duty, mentions of a sort of fast paced relationship, you two are just lil dumb goofs, strong Denki slander, hospitals, pet names (dove, mi amor, corazon, etc)♡¸.•'

'•.¸♡ A/n: Hi so, for one I love how this turned out. But this wasn't the original piece I was writing fun fact, theres a darker and way longer unfinished piece existing in my docs for this collab that will probably not see the light of day. ♡¸.•'

You couldn't believe it, there was no way...

How could this even happen? You were so careful, your small staff were always cautious and responsible. So how in the world-

The sounds of wood crackling in your ears was loud enough that you couldn't hear anything else as you lay on the blackened kitchen tile. You had made the impulsive mistake of running into the burning building to not only try and save the old cook who was supposedly stuck inside but also deep down there was a hint of hope in your heart towards saving your new establishment before any real damage was done.

But instead, here you were. Barely conscious as you lain strew across the ground in the middle of the building burning you once called your business. You couldn't really think, adrenaline staving off the pain but also most of your coherence.

You were to tired to fight, you thought. Your bakery, which was currently being destroyed by the vicious licks of uncontrol able flames, was the last thing you had. Would dying now really be oh so terrible? Who would really miss you? The only people had your staff of 5 who you've known for only about 3 months all of your family and friends were either dead or have forsaken you, and all your belongings and money were tied to the bakery. Hell even your apartment sat just above the establishment so in reality you had no home either.

What would be the point of fighting? What did you actually have to fight for?

"Fall back! Repeat fall back! The building is seconds from collapsing, Sero, fall back!" You vaguely heard the sound coming threw what sounded to be a radio which wasn't to far from you. You barely had the will to pick your head up off the floor to look around, your body shook with a coughing fit when you saw him. Half kneeling his way threw the building was someone you guessed to be a man dressed in heavy fireman clothing. The sounds of your coughs drew his once scowering attention to you, from what you could tell from the way his oxygen mask was facing.

Despite so many things which you would imagine would have made it so hard to reach you from across the blazing room, he reached you in no time- he used his strength to roll you over and look you over, "Ma'am! Ma'am?"

"You ne-" You coughed out. "You need to get outta here. 'S not safe"

You were surprised to hear a chuckle fall from his tongue and he took off his headgear in order to strip himself of the oxygen mask to place on your own soot covers face, "So do you, dove. What do you say we do it together, hm? Hold this mask tight, make sure it stays on. I'm going to get us out of here."

He didn't give you much time to examine his face but your sight was to blurry at this point anyways to make out the shapes of his features. He picked you up like it was nothing and carried you bridal style. Despite excepting death only moments ago, the mans protective and saving precense and grip on your body was so soothing to your aching soul- so soothing the the adrenaline keeping the pain away and consciousness present was fading quick, lulling you into sleep.

....

Even beeping was the first thing you were aware of, the next was the scent of hospital sterilization mixed with the faint smell of some flower arrangement and a semi-familiar musk, what actually drew you to open your eyes was the sounds of a man talking. The voice was familiar in multiple ways, not only was it the same voice as the firefighter who had saved you but also you now realized it to belong to someone you were more familiar with.

"H-Hanta?" Your voice was hoarse, throat dry and unused. Your eyes fluttered open, taking a moment to adjust to the bright hospital lights before you were able to look around searching for the man. It didn't take long, the lanky man was sitting at your bedside staring at you with happiness.

"Buenos tardes corazón," His wide lopsided smile warmed your aching heart. He reached a large hand towards you, brushing your messy hair behind your ear before gently cupping your cheek. His palm was calloused but warm and soothing.

"Hi," You coughed triggering him to spring into action. He grabbed a cup which held some water and held it to your mouth allowing you to drink some in order to alleviate the irritation in your throat.

"There you go, dove," His voice was a gentle crackle, gently guiding you. "How are you feeling?"

"Better then I look, probably- god," The two of you chuckled. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I had to make sure the best baker in the tri-state-area was recovering well, that and all the guys back at the firehouse are worried half to death about you." He was dressed in a jacket from his fire station and a white v-neck, you couldn't help but check him out which prompted him to sit back suavely. "Like what you see?"

You snorted, "Thank you Hanta."

"For what?"

"You could have died in there, but you still looked for me- still saved me," sadness bubbled to your chest.

"Of course, I couldn't just let you get out of our date like that," he joked, you could see the sincerity in his dark eyes.

"Oh my god, our date!" It hadn't crossed your mind but the fire was only hours before your date with the firefighter. "Couldn't my bakery have chosen another day to burst into flames!"

He shook his head as he laughed, "I know right, it took me so long to get you to say yes."

"It's not exactly good to date your loyal customers," you rolled your eyes.

"Pshhhh, says who?"

"Most HR professionals."

"Behh, that's a suggestion not a rule. Firefighters aren't technically supposed to date their housemates but that doesn't stop'em. Hell, Kirishima and Bakugou are fricken engaged!"

"Engaged?!" You mouth fell agape at the news.

"Shit," he slapped his hand over his mouth. "I wasn't supposed to tell you."

"When the hell did this happen?! Excuse me-"

"At your bakery fire," he whispered. "You scared the shit out of all of us, finally pushed out favorite blonde captain to propose."

"Ugh, I can't believe I missed it. Kaminari owes me 20 bucks."

The black haired man snorted, "Me to. Can't believe he thought they'd break up, like I know he's a little dumb but that is the dumbest thing he's ever fucking done."

"Hanta, he's stuck a fork in an outlet on a dare." You reminisced.

"My argument still holds," Sero shrugged making you giggle.

"Fair enough..." Something else was on you mind and your companion knew it.

"What's the matter, corazon?" He scooched closer and took your closest hand (which was the one not filled with tubes) into his.

"The bakery..." You chocked out, scared of the knowledge he held on the subject.

"It's gone, I'm sorry but the whole place collapsed. Your apartment too. We did our best but-" you sobbed making him hesitate. "I'm so sorry Y/N... Good news is they caught who did it."

"What do you mean, it was-"

"It wasn't an accident, amor. It was arson, they won't tell anyone much else but someone had intentionally set the fire," there was anger in his tone when he said this. Not towards you but more so towards the offender.

"God-" you sighed. "What am I going to do Hanta?"

"Well, between the insurance and I'm sure the compensation you will get from this arsonist you'll be able-" he began.

"Not about the money, Hanta," You we on the brink of crying. "Everything I had, my home and my business and all of my belongings, are gone and unrecoverable. I don't- I don't have anywhere to go, nothing to my name except a bank account and a future payout."

He took a moment to think over your dense words, "You do have somewhere you could stay."

"Like where, Sero-"

"Stay with me," he said cautiously. "It gets lonely in my big apartment all by myself, I was already considering getting a roommate. And there's no one else I would rather live with- NOT LIKE THAT! Well kinda like that. I have a spare bedroom you can make your own if you wish, or you could stay in my room."

He was flushed bright pink, you were to probably. But you nodded, "O-okay."

"Okay?" Hanta perked up, looking up bashfully.

"Yeah, I'd like that. I mean what other option do I have- ow ow ok yeah, if your serious I would love to live with you Hanta Sero." He pinched you when you tried to joke, making you chuckle more, but your agreement was genuine.

He held your hand tight, giving it a squeeze and a kiss before saying, "Good."

"...You know what's funny?" You asked after a moment of tender silence, he gave you an inquisitive look waiting for you to continue. "We haven't even gotten to have our first date, yet we're moving in together."

He snickered, a smirk pulling on his thin lips, "Yeah well, we would be well into our relationship if you didn't play hard to get."

"Wow, playing hard to get? Youuu we're being a tease, giving me mixed signals- Plus! Half the time you were supposedly flirting with me you were sleeping with other chicks!"

"Says who?!"

"...Denki-"

"Man, haven't you learned to take anything he says with a grain of salt. Yeah I slept with like, one person maybe but I was trying to get over you since you seemed so uninterested."

"Yeah well, I wasn't. I thought you were a flirty lil player... Might have let myself be sueded by my fears..."

"We've known each other for how long mi corazon, don't you know I'm not that kind of firefighter?"

"That kind of firefighter-?"

"75% of us are whores."

"Like Denki?"

"Yup," you both shared a hearty laugh. It was then that who you assumed to be your doctor walked in. She was someone you knew vaguely, her name was Tsuyu Asui.

"Hey there, your awake!" She croaked out, checking what you assumed to be your chart. "You've been out for a couple days, so I want to do some tests to make sure everything's working right- If you could go wait outside Mr.Sero-"

"No! I want him to stay," you held onto him tighter as he went to stand. Your sudden outburst even caught you off guard so you corrected yourself, "If thats okay with you both..."

"Whatever you need, corazon..." Hanta sat back down in the uncomfortable looking chair which barely held his long but muscular body.

"As long as he doesn't get in the way, I guess it's alright."

...

You had to stay overnight for observation but you were supposedly fine. It was later in the afternoon- teetering on night in fact- and your were snuggled into Hanta's strong chest as he laid beside you in the semi-upright position the bed was place in. He had promised to stay all night after you had asked him to stay with you during the exam.

"Remember when I first started coming to the firehouse?" You whispered, not bothering to pick your head off of his peck.

"Yeah, of course I do. That was- what- 3 or 4 years ago?" He responded, as you had thought Hanta wasn't actually paying attention to the telenovela playing on the small hospital tv.

"Yeah, after you got me out of that tree," He snorted at the memory as your face flushed in embarrassment.

"You didn't climb a tree, but you were so determined to save that cat that was just chilling. You were always so adorable," he hummed out.

"Yeah well," You explained. "that's not the point, love. What I was trying to say is that if that didn't happen then I wouldn't have you in my life nor would I have had even the inclination to open my own bakery... You guy's support in that time was so crucial, it's part of the reason I kept showing up until it was expected."

There was a momentary pause before he spoke up, "I think about that sometimes, too. I think about how pretty you looked even after clinging to branches for 20 minutes. About every time you would show up with food and baked goods and would graciously feed us all, each time my heart would do a flip. I had such a big fat crush on you, since the very start."

"No way-"

"Sorry does that weird you out-"

"What- no no no no no-! I did to, I mean I had a crush on you from the start- Why do you think I kept coming around originally?"

You picked your head up and exchanged some prolonged eye contact before bursting into laughter.

"We're so dumbbbbb," He wheezed out. The rumble of his chest shaking you softly.

"Like so dumb, it took us like 4 years to admit that we loved each other," you said softly.

"Love? Who said anything about love?" He laughed and you pinched him. "Yeah, I've loved you since the tree."

He didn't give you a chance to say anything before he pulled you close enough to place a soft kiss on your chapped lips, his movements were as soft as his skin as he took a moment to gently kiss you until he reluctantly pulled you back so the two of you could breathe.

"Took us long enough," He sighed.

"Yeah," You sighed blissfully.

"Mi amor," He didn't say the term of endearment to get your attention or anything, but to highlight his affection for you.

You returned the love with, "my hot crossed bun."

"Excuse me?" Hanta laughed, the corner of his eyes crinkling faintly.

"What, they're tasty! And the hot part counts for you being hot and a firefighter, while the crossed part is like 'star cross lovers'," You elaborated.

"You're such a nerd," He shook his head before kissing you again letting the action play out longer then before.

『••✎••』

[hanazuma-inactive]

defrost (nsfw) kaeya x top!male reader

pronouns: he/him

warnings: ice play!! slight degradation, orgasm denial/ edging, top male reader, bottom kaeya

a/n: this was edited by @kamihara, she really outdone herself in this one, professional kaeya simp lol

_____

“to think such an honourable knight such as you, the cavalry captain of mondstat, is now begging to cum. how shameful of you,” you let out a low chuckle as a provocative smile broke out on your lips, “i wonder what citizens would say if they saw their beloved and oh so admirable kaeya in this position?”

as a captain of the ordo favonius, you were a bright figure to the people of mondstat. a person who aided in saving the city from destruction, one of the heroes that defeated storm terror. of course, other knights had nothing but respect for you as your skill and talent was nothing short of impressive. many looked at you with a high regard due to your strength and position, this meant that many were intimidated by your presence and therefore fear approaching you.

however, there was one person who disregarded this and stuck by you anyways, kaeya alberich, the cavalry captain. out of everyone in the knights of favonius, you were the closest with kaeya. you enjoyed his company a lot, he was an interesting person who knew how to keep a conversation going, and while you're with him you could never find yourself feeling bored. he was as charming as he was cunning.

kaeya found himself enjoying your company too. the two of you have done lots of things together. going on missions, getting away with “knighty” duty, babysitting klee, and drinking at angels share. you know, all the fun things in life.

kaeya was a secretive person, and while you were curious about him, you respected his boundaries. perhaps this was the reason why he drew you in, besides his blaringly good looks of course.

there was no doubt that the man was attractive from head to toe. his silky navy blue hair fell down his shoulder with grace, his fringe complemented his smooth, flawless sepia toned face. his periwinkle eye held the sheen of a crystal, glistening as his long eyelashes framed it with poise. the diamond shaped pupils his eyes possessed could leave you in a trance forever. his open white shirt left his cleavage on display, contrasted with the black corset around his slim, slim waist. his slender legs brought him around with confidence and charisma.additionally, the intricate accessories he wore suited his personality well. all in all, kaeya was a pretty little thing.

all of this lead up to you harbouring romantic feelings for the cavalry caption. how could you not feel anything? he was perfect in every way.

the sound of kaeya’s voice snapped you out of your thinking. “y/n, any missions today?”

“nothing for you i don’t think, i gotta help jean with the paperworks though.” you sighed at the thought of a mountain of paperwork.

“great, well i’m off then you have fun doing whatever.” kaeya smirked at you, poking fun at your dread.

he started to turn around and walk off but you had other plans.

“wait. kaeya-” you speak quickly.

“hm?” he hummed out.

“angels share? 9pm?”

a quizzical look washed over his face before he masked it with one of his cunning smiles.

“alright.”

little did kaeya know you had more in mind than just drinking with him tonight. today would be the day when you finally told him about your little crush on him.

night quickly arrived after a day of working with jean. you were pretty exhausted but still excited about what's about to happen later tonight. when you entered the bar, Kaeya was already waiting for you at the counter talking with the bartender, charles.

“ah, i see mr.l/n is here too. Your usual today as well sir?”

“yah that’d be nice, thanks charles.” you said as you took a seat next to kaeya

“you got it.” charles said as he left to go get your drink.

angel's share was the place you and kaeya loved the most. the kind of noisy background with people chatting. cyrus and jack talking about their gains for today, six-fingered jose still playing his lyre, the song was getting a little old but you didn’t mind, in fact if he changed the song you probably wouldn’t be used to it.

“so, what’s the special occasion for today? you usually don’t invite me to drink on weekdays.” kaeya said while swirling his drink and glancing over at you.

kaeya’s eyes always amazed you. you didn’t know the name of the grey-ish color but you could gaze into them forever. his smooth skin glowed under the dim lighting in the bar. you loved everything about the man, his dark blue hair, his perfectly shaped body, and the fact that you could see a little bit of his clothing. what kaeya said on the first day when you guys met was true, you did feel something for him.

“hm? can i not invite fellow knights to share a drink once in while without a special occasion.”

“well, not wrong there but…you seem like you have ulterior motives for tonight from the way you’re dressing.” kaeya said, smirking at you.

it was true, you purposely chose one of your best outfits today for kaeya, you wanted to impress the man not only from your combat skills, but also your looks. there was no secret you could hide from kaeya. he knew you too well and he always looked right through you. it could have just been kaeya’s observant nature but you like to hope it was something more than that.

“you���re right there, you really do know me too well, maybe i need to start hiding things from you a little huh?”

“you can try but i highly doubt it’ll work in your favour, mr.honorary knight.”

both of you looked at each other with a slight smirk as charles arrived with your drink. after drinking for a good while you could tell kaeya was getting a little tipsy. his movements were unstable, he shaked a little while walking and his eyes started to become hazy. what better time than right now to reveal your true plans for tonight, you were gonna fuck the shit out of the beautiful man. you wanted to hear him scream your name in pleasure as you break him, over and over again.

“why don’t we go somewhere else? y’know, somewhere more, quiet” you suggested while scooting closer to kaeya.

“i wouldn’t mind that.”

as soon as you heard those words you immediately got up and left with kaeya. your plan was going perfectly and the best part is about to come soon. kaeya wasn’t stupid, he was an adult afterall and he knew what you were trying to do. dressing up all sexy like that, getting drinks, going somewhere more “private”, what else could it have been.

the two of you arrived in your house and headed straight for your bedroom. kaeya has been to your house many times for many reasons and he knew where everything was so he didn’t trip or fall.

you placed a light kiss on kaeya’s lips while he laid on your bed.

“wait here~ i’ll be right back.”

this was where things would get, interesting

you opened your fridge to grab a small wooden bowl. the content inside was covered by a small white cloth. after grabbing that you went to grab some rope from a drawer you hid them in because you didn’t know what to say if someone saw those items in your house.

after bringing the items back you put them on the side and pushed kaeya down.

“what’re those?” he asked

(its a surprise tool that’ll help us later.)

“don’t worry about it sweetheart, just lay back and let me do the work alright?”

you brought a blush to kaeya’s face with your flirty words as he gave you a small nod, signalling you consent and approval. you kept invading kaeya’s mouth over and over again, you’re tongue so skillful kaeya was sure this definitely wasn’t your first time. the kisses ended after a while leaving both of you panting and a half an erection in your pants. wanting more, you began to take off kaeya’s uniform. his skin is so beautiful, you could also see his well defined body, just the perfect amount, not too buff, not too skinny. you licked your lips a little bit and looked up at kaeya with a smirk. when you put your mouth onto kaeya’s pink nipples, he squealed a little out of surprise but soft moans soon began to escape from his mouth.

“a-ah~ didn’t know you had this in you, honorary knight.”

“oh i know a lot more tricks that can make you feel good~” you teased.

as you continued to suck on kaeya’s smooth skin, you decided to spice things up a little bit. kaeya yelped as he felt a slight pain around his nipples. you remove your mouth to see a bite mark around it.

“to mark you as mine~”

“tch, you cocky little bastard.”

seeing the tent building up in kaeya’s pants, you decided to take them off and grant it some release. after you took off kaeya’s jeans you saw a small stain at the top of his boxers, showing that he felt good earlier.

“alright... this is where the fun part begins.” you said as you grabbed the ropes you initially put on the floor.

“restraining me? go ahead, let’s see if the honorary knight is all talk or he actually has something up his sleeve.” kaeya taunted

not liking his attitude, you forcefully tied kaeya’s hands behind his back and pushed him to the end of the bed facing you with nothing on but his boxers. now, the mighty kaeya alberich, is at your mercy.

“alright, we can do this in two ways. one, you listen to me, second, i don’t think you’ll like what’ll happen,”

kaeya raised his head a little and looked you dead in the eyes.

“i choose the second option”

you knew kaeya was the bratty type and it’ll only add to the fun to tame him. after hearing his choice you pushed kaeya back to where he was before and uncovered the bowl you had prepared earlier on the side. the bow was filled with medium sized ice cubes and it was till now that kaeya finally realized what you were trying to do.

“ice cubes huh? bring it on.”

“you asked for it~”

you grabbed one of the ice cubes and started to rub it on kaeya’s pecs, making circular motions and slowing moving towards the center where his nipples are.

“f-fuck that’s cold.”

you saw kaeya’s cock twitch a little when you first reached his nipples and you knew he was feeling good. moving on with your plan, you rested the ice cube on kaeya’s nipples and lifted his boxers where his cock is still covered but his asshole is exposed to you. right after that, you grabbed the lube that has been sitting in your nightstand and spread them on your fingers. without mercy you put 2 fingers into kaeya, trying to find his pleasure spot. sooner or later when kaeya started to let out tiny moans you knew you hit your target.

“feels good huh baby boy~”

“y-yah, and so what o-oh fuck~”

kaeya was sure feeling it, to a point where he started stuttering.

the constant teasing got kaeya close to his limit. he couldn’t hold it any longer. but you’re not gonna let him cum that easy are you? of course not, he needed to be punished for what he did earlier.

“a-ah y/n i’m gonna cum i’m gonna cum so hard- wait why'd you s-stop?” kaeya asked

“you decided to be a brat earlier didn’t you~? bad boys get punishment.” you said with a smirk on your face.

kaeya stayed silent, not a word coming out of his mouth, head hung low feeling embarrassed.

“to think such an honourable knight such as you, the cavalry captain of mondstat, is now begging to cum. how shameful of you,” you let out a low chuckle as a provocative smile broke out on your lips, “i wonder what citizens would say if they saw their beloved and oh so admirable kaeya in this position?”

“maybe~ if you begged a little i might reconsider, don’t you think so, pretty boy?”

kaeya finally lost his composure at this point, all he wanted was to cum from your touch.

“fine... i don’t care anymore.” kaeya growled.

“p-please y/n.” kaeya looked up at you with pleading eyes. “i want to c-cum, i want to cum so bad. i should’ve been a good boy from the beginning… i promise i’ll be obedient from now on, j-just please, let me cum…” kaeya begged

“that’s what i thought.”

satisfied with kaeya’s begging, you decided to grant him his release. you added another ice cube to the other side of kaeya’s chest while stroking his dick through his boxers. of course you didn’t forget to keep teasing kaeya’s prostate while you were at it. all these different stimulations made kaeya lose his mind. the male came through his boxers all over the place. semen spilled on his own stomach and chest followed with moans so loud the entire mondstat could hear him.

after he settled himself down a little, kaeya waited for you to untie him. you exchanged a kiss with him while you were doing so, smiling at each other thinking about what just happened. neither of you cared about the mess that you made because you guys were tired. listening to the birds chirp, you fell asleep with the dark blue haired male on your bed.

the two of you woke up in the afternoon to the noises of mondstat. you woke up a little before kaeya and from your point of view he was literally a sleeping beauty. you stroked his hair a little bit, causing him to wake up.

"y/n…good morning handsome."

"right back at you."

both of you giggled a little while holding hands.

"hey kaeya?"

"yes y/n."

"i've been meaning to get this off my chest and i don't think there will be a better time to say it than now."

"well go ahead, i'm all ears."

"you were the only one that ever stuck with me in the knights, everyone was afraid of me due to my strength except for you. you listened to me, you talked to me, and if it weren't for you i probably would've quit the job at the knights already." you took a deep breath and let out the words kaeya were waiting for.

"kaeya alberich... will you he my boyfriend?"

kaeya gave you a small scoff as a reaction and a light kiss to your lips.

"what reason do i have to refuse such a perfect man?."

[manjiropie]

do whatever is in your mind.

Young Mikey x Reader!

Warn! no warnings today! enjoy!

It's not often Mikey and I have a quarrel. We do bicker here and there, but that's what happens between friends, right?

I've joined Toman for almost a year now– although I've known Manjiro for much longer. I met him through Emma, who is a big friend of mine for as long as I can remember. She was there for me at times when I felt like there was no exit, no light. She's an extremely important part of my life– of me.

I've come to realize that I have been spending more and more time near Mikey, which is not bad, I do enjoy his presence. He may look tough and intimidating but he's just like a mochi: freezing cold on the outside but melting saccharine inside. Now that I'm a part of the gang and actually get to know and participate, I've gotten closer to him. Here and there Mikey invites me out.

"So, it's like a date?" I'd smirk suggestively at him.

"In your dreams." He'd try to hide his smile and he'd look away.

However, there are a few little habits he has that tend to send me on a rage trip. I get mad easily. Things will likely set on fire quickly. It's not that I want to, but my mother is not one of the most patient people in the world and she tells me to cool down. As if.

This last week was the cherry on top.

Mikey had crossed the line. He had pissed me off in every single way possible. He pretended not to listen to me while he was eating. He would answer me in a "oh, I don't really fucking care about what you're talking about!" way. He tripped while he was laughing hysterically at something Draken had said and his pink lemonade was all over my white shirt. He drew in an assignment that was due to the next day for my math class. He told me off for no reason at all in front of everyone in the last Toman's meeting... all of that wasn't on purpose. I am aware of how incredibly short his attention spam is when it comes to not so important affairs. But, fuck, couldn't he just be a little nicer to me? At least during last week where I was having sharp cramps in my fucking uterus? Yeah, maybe he didn't know that because I try not to be so obvious. But when he told us we'd be training last thursday I almost laid on the ground in fetal position and cried for hours. I didn't! I fought and then went home and cried.

Then, this Saturday– today –he invited me to his house to hang out. Emma was with a friend and his grandfather was out of town. When he called me to his house we never did much. We'd watch TV, hang out on the couch discussing stupid stuff, we'd be on our phones... nothing so wow. It was still fun, though.

I wasn't in the best mood to leave my comfy bed but I was way less in the mood to fight him off over the phone. So I slid out of the bed and dressed the first jeans I saw laying on the end of my bed and the oversized Nirvana shirt hanging off my chair (it's actually my dad's shirt, shhh).

~

I knocked twice on his bedroom's door.

"Come in." He yelled from inside. I open the door and he's laying on the bed, his head hanging off of it and his hair is almost touching the floor. His face lit up and he rolled over so he laid on his stomach. I walk over and sit down beside him.

"What's up with the frown?" I didn't notice I was frowning to be honest. Guess the bad mood followed me here.

I shrug.

"Ugh, don't tell me you're in a bad mood." He whines. "I called you here to chill and you're already angry. What's up?" He lays on his pillow and swings his legs to place them on my lap. I huff and shove them off, getting up.

"You've been treating me like shit the whole week and now you wanna chill?" I say, more calm than I thought.

"I did not treat you like shit this week? When do I treat you like shit?" His tone was one of disbelief and confusion.

"Ah, Mikey. Embarrassing me in front of the rest of gang; spilling your drink on my school shirt, which is now stained; ignoring me or answering like you're bored..." I list them off on my fingers. "I am the one who asks, what's up with you?! God, you're always being so unpredictable, which is good sometimes but not like this! Not to me!"

I flop down on the couch, starting to get tired of this whole thing. Knowing Mikey, I know that he'll not lay down again.

"So you're the only one allowed to have bad days now?" He sits on the edge of his bed and I turn my head around lazily, uninterested, bored, like him.

"You were laughing incredibly loud with Takemitchi and Draken friday."

"You can be so annoying sometimes."

"Oh, I'm the annoying one now?" I stand up.

"If you don't like my company, why did you even come in first place?" He also stands. We don't have much height difference, but he's hardly two inches taller than me.

His voice is calm, like always. Which makes me infuriated. "Fucking hell! Does it hurt for you to apologize!?" My sudden outburst takes him on surprise, and me, too.

"I already apologized, stop whining about it."

"I'm not whining–"

"If you weren't," he walks to his desk and sets a cup that was once beside his bed down. "You would've dropped this matter before."

"You don't give a damn about what I feel, do you, Mikey?"

"What?" He turns around, brows knit together.

"You heard me. You made me have a bad week and the least you could do is apologize, you dumbass!" I stomp to his direction.

"I already did! Why don't you–"

"Shut up or I'll punch you." I say, slightly looking up.

His eyebrows twitch and he slowly tilts his head to the side, like a puppy. "Or what.. ?"

"Are you fucking deaf?" I point to my ears.

He comes a little closer. "You're gonna do what if I don't shut up?"

"I'm going to punch you if you don't stop being a brat." I sneer at him. My blood boiling. The stress from this shitty past week overflowing in that moment.

"Oh, yeah?" I could feel his breath oh my nose.

"What? Are you doubting me? I would." I jerk up an eyebrow. I've never fought physically with him. But it's not like I can't.

"I'd like to see you try." His eyes flicker to my lips for a brief second and my breath fails, making me cough.

"What? Can't punch me?" He amuses.

"Fuck you."

Suddenly I feel an arm sneak around my waist and in a second I'm chest to chest with Mikey. My eyes widen– his were peaceful as ever, although superior.

"Do it." He says, looking down at me.

The way he's holding me is making my head spin. True, Mikey is cute...

"Do what?"

He laughs at my confused expression. "I don't know... what did you say you'd do to me?"

Ha ha.

His hold on me tightens.

"Do whatever is on your mind." He says.

My eyes roam free between his eyes and his soft pink lips. Do whatever is on your mind.

If he knew what was on my mind, would he still allow me to?

"Do it," he encourages me once again, "aren't you the 'oh so brave' one? Punch me, yell at me, do whatever you want to me."

Those words were the last push I needed. My hands find the soft skin of his neck, hidden by his long hair. I pull him close and lock our lips together. I feel him making a little sound, I don't know if it was surprise or relief.

If by just looking at it his lips seemed soft, actually touching it felt like kissing cotton candy or guessing cloud shapes.

He didn't pull back, in fact, he held me with both hands. I have no clue how he did that but it seemed as though all of my worries dissipated as we kissed.

My heart was beating so fast that it made my chest hurt. My head started to pound when I spent a little too long without air. I pull back from his lips and keep my gaze on them as I breathe heavily.

"Hm." He hums quietly, almost dreamily if you'd ask me.

I look up at his face and smile a bit, noticing how his cheeks are pink. I lift an eyebrow up as if asking what he was thinking. He shakes his head and then puts his right hand on my cheek, caressing it. He kisses me again. This time is slower. As though being present in the moment. As if it were just me and him and nothing else.

----------

I hope you guys liked It! It was so pleasant writing this out of the small bits of ideas that I have. Don't forget: my requests are open. You can request anything! Thank you for reading! Oh, likes and reblogs help a lot! If you consider following it'd make me even happier <3

[stina-is-a-punk-rocker]

jacqueline wilson’s ‘love lessons’

tw: abuse, pedophilia, characters making Bad Decisions, long unnecessary spiel about my childhood like I’m running a recipe blog

It’s funny how loads of the authors who helped shaped me into the vaguely humanoid being I am today have names beginning with the letter ‘J’; Judy Blume, Jeff Kinney, John Green, J.K. Rowling (yikes, I know) … and Jacqueline Wilson.

I’ve never owned a Jacqueline Wilson book of my own; they were always borrowed from a friend, or from a friend of a friend, or from a friend of a cousin- you get the gist. Her books, for me, come with an entire aesthetic: something reminiscent of yard sales, and reading under the covers with a flashlight, and being lulled into a false sense of security by the deceptively innocent Nick Sharratt illustration on the cover until someone’s best friend gets mowed over.

So I knew what I was getting into when I picked up Love Lessons. I knew this was going to be Fucked Up; and boy, was I right.

(Here’s the part where I warn you about spoilers.)

From an abusive dad to creepy child predator teachers to slut-shaming and victim blaming, this book has it all.

The main character is Prudence ‘Prue’ King, who is homeschooled at the beginning of the book, along with her sister, Grace. Their parents remain rooted in the early twentieth century, and are very strict about- well, everything. No TV, no computers, not a single mobile phone in the house; their clothing worse than the orphans’ from Annie; and their father remains distinctly distrustful of modern institutions like the school and the hospital; and so on, and so forth.

Daddy King suffers a stroke, and has to be taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, Mrs. King (a floppy, spineless woman who lives in fear and awe of her, frankly horrid, husband) sends the girls to school, behind the then invalid Mr. King’s back. Cue Prue and Grace being the freakshows of the school, with their strange clothing and overbearing mother.

Grace manages to make friends, but Prue remains alone. The kids are dicks, the teachers are dicks… well, all of them but one. And that’s the art teacher, Mr. Raxberry (I just couldn’t get over that name; it seems like something you’d name a mythical plant from Pixie Hollow or some shit. I’m assuming it isn’t an actual name, since the spelling & grammar check on my computer doesn’t seem to recognize it), or Rax, as he’s called.

Oh, yeah; Prudence’s favorite subject in school is art, and she’s a whiz at it. This is relevant, because reasons.

And here’s where stuff gets murky. Prue develops a crush on Rax- which is perfectly normal. I’m definitely no stranger to it; I’ve had crushes on my teachers, my mum admitted she used to think one of her professors was cute. And yeah, as I grew older, I grew out of those crushes and now have a markedly more refined taste in men (unless he’s 5’ 7’’, born in ’97 and named Bang Chan, I don’t want him); and my mum married my dad, so I’m assuming she did, too. Admittedly, now that my dad teaches at a university, it’s icky to think that there might be students who have crushes on him- but I digress.

My point is, loads of us have liked our teachers. But I doubt the majority of us have acted on it.

And Prue actively showing her interest in Rax isn’t the worst part. That’s a spot reserved for Rax reciprocating her feelings.

Guess Ezra Fitz and Ms. Grundy (yes, I watched Riverdale; please don’t cancel me) have a new addition to the Creep Club.

The age of consent in the UK is 16, if I’m not mistaken. Prue is 14. She’s just barely become a teenager, and she’s being preyed upon.

Because that is what Rax is. He’s a predator; he preys upon this vulnerable girl who’s never been in a relationship before- hell, she’s never even had friends- her father’s abusive, so she obviously doesn’t have the best experience when it comes to men- she’s unpopular at school, with the students and staff alike- and he lures her in. I don’t care how bloody nice he is to Sarah, or what a good dad he is (well, he’s really not, seeing as he cheated on the mother of his children WITH A BLOODY FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD CHILD)- the guy’s a fucking pedophile.

I was staunchly stuck at a yellow light with him; like, sure, maybe Prue thinks he’s flirting with her- maybe she’s looking at this all wrong, she doesn’t know how relationships work- see, he drew a picture of Sarah, too, in his secret notebook- Prue’s just reading into this too much- up until he says he loves her.

Dude. Humbert fucking Humbert. She’s fourteen, for Christ’s sake, and you’re married. You have two children. She’s a child. She’s probably closer to your son’s age than she is to yours.

(This is the part where I bury my head in my pillow. And scream. Extensively, and with passion.)

The book does make some genuinely good commentary on slut-shaming and victim blaming and abusive parenting. And on one hand, I can see why so many people find issue with the romanticization of the when I kissed the teacher trope- but I can defend it, too.

The book is in Prue’s perspective. She thinks she’s in love with Rax, so obviously, she’s not going to throw in some valuable moral at the end- because she’s too young and inexperienced to think otherwise. And sadly, there are loads of instances of child abuse that go unreported because the victims just don’t know better.

What I have issue with is how the school dealt with it, ultimately. Prudence, a child, has to deal with the consequences of the actions of a literal child predator. Sure, Rax ‘clears his name’ by cooking up some bullshit story about how it was only a crush and he didn’t encourage it, but you’d think other adults would know better and, oh, I dunno- dig deeper into it, instead of blaming it on a child?

“She says you told Mr. Raxberry you loved him and he held you in his arms and fondled you.”

Which Prudence denies, because, again, she doesn’t know better. She then goes on to say that they did nothing wrong. To which the adult speaking to her, in this case, the principal, Miss Wilmott, goes on to say:

“I’m not sure that’s entirely true… I feel that there are some aspects of your friendship that could be considered inappropriate.”

FYI, lady, he kissed her- multiple times (not that kissing her once makes him any more redeemable), and told her he loved her, and admitted to fantasizing about running away with her and leaving his family behind. Fun fact: do you know Prudence is underage?

You’d think that Miss Wilmott would maybe give this whole fiasco a favorable ending, but it turns out she listens to school gossip;

“I haven’t been at all happy with your attitude. You don’t seem to understand how to behave in school. I’ve heard tales of unsuitable underwear and then a silly romance with one of the boys in your class. I feel that in the space of a few short weeks you’ve made rather a bad name for yourself… I don’t know whether you intend to be deliberately insolent but you certainly come across as an unpleasantly opinionated and arrogant girl… I can’t help feeling that you’ll be much better off elsewhere. I shall try hard to engineer a suitable transfer to another school.”

And then she comes out with this gem:

“If you won’t leave, then I shall have to ensure that Mr. Raxberry finds another position.”

“No, you can’t do that! He’s a brilliant teacher.”

“You should have thought of that before you started acting in this ridiculous and precocious manner. If I were another kind of headteacher, I would have Mr. Raxberry instantly suspended. There could even be a court case. He would not only lose his job, he could find himself in very serious trouble. Did you ever stop to think about that?”

Girlboss, gaslight and gatekeep. The fucking trifecta.

Also, by ‘another kind of headteacher’, does she mean the kind of headteacher WHO DOESN’T LET CHILD PREDATORS ROAM FREELY WITHIN THEIR HALLS?

This bitch is out here blaming a child, a literal child, for the crimes of an adult man.

The only time Prue seems aware of the fact that Mr. Raxberry is actually a very shit person is her immediate thoughts that follow after she tells Miss Wilmott she’ll take the fall;

I so wanted to save darling Rax- and yet why hadn’t he wanted to save me? Had he told Miss Wilmott it was all my fault, that I’d got a ridiculous crush on him, that I’d made ludicrous advances to him? … I wanted to tell this horrible, patronizing woman how hungrily he’d kissed me, but I couldn’t do it. I loved him. I had to help him.

NO, SWEETHEART; YOU MOST DEFINITELY DO NOT.

And maybe I’m going overboard with all these excerpts, but here’s what Rax has to tell Prue, after school, following her expulsion:

“I let her think the worst of you, the best of me, just to save my skin. I said it was ridiculous talking about a love affair between us. I said you simply had a crush on me, and that I was just trying to be kind… You were brave enough to stand up to me and force me to acknowledge the truth… I love you… That’s why I had to take a risk and see you this one last time. I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care… Every night when I close my eyes, I’ll think of us together in this car and how badly I wanted to drive off with you. I’ll imagine us walking hand in hand at the water’s edge… I wish I wasn’t such a coward.”

(I burrow into the pillow further. I’m trying to suffocate myself.)

And that’s where I think Wilson went wrong. Sure, Prudence getting expelled for something that was completely out of her hands is unfair, and horrible, but it’s real. That shit can happen.

What’s bad is showing Rax in a positive light after all that. If only Wilson had written Rax to not be the Romeo he thinks he is. Make him ignore Prudence, throw her under the bus in front of her face, instead of this star-crossed lovers bullshit it’s made out to be. Show your younger audience that Rax is not a good man. I’ve got a little over two weeks left for my twentieth; I can see why this is unacceptable. But I was a little younger than Prue when I watched Pretty Little Liars, and my only gripe with Aria dating Ezra was that Noel Kahn was so much cuter.

It shows when you scroll down the Goodreads reviews; you’ve got adults giving it one or two stars, and teenagers giving it four or five, with their biggest complaints being, “but Toby was cuter!!!”

Other non-pedophilia related complaints regarding the book include: Prudence being unlikable- which I didn’t really notice, considering she reacted to some people way better than I would’ve, even at 19 (which probably says a lot more about me than it does about Prue, but oh well). Still, Prudence obviously isn’t the most prudent of people- and again, she’s fourteen. Look me in eye and tell me you weren’t an arsehole at that age (unless you’re fourteen now, in which case, I assure you that you’ll look back on yourself someday and go ‘wtf was I thinking’). Bringing up Toby’s dyslexia in an argument was low, though.

There were people who thought the Kings’ almost-Amish lifestyle was exaggerated and unrealistic, but I assure you, it may very well be real. There are 8 billion people on the world- it’s fair to assume that several of them are complete weirdos.

Grace was a sweet character, and I adored her with every fiber of my being. As were her friends Iggy and Figgy. Honestly, I would’ve loved a book about Iggy, Figgy and Piggy’s (mis)adventures too.

[gardenofkore]

The Theory of the Sicilian Origin of the Odyssey refers to a particular trend (particularly fashionable during the 19th century) according to which the true author of the Odyssey was a young woman from Trapani, who took inspiration from people and places familiar to her to write this famous epic poem. The postulation was made especially renowned after Victorian novelist Samuel Butler published his work The Authoress of the Odyssey in 1897 and is still debated nowadays. The main reasonings who could support the theory of a female writer are the fact that, in the Odyssey, women are depicted as more reasonable and positive than men, who act almost mechanically and aren’t as exalted as their female counterparts. While Iliad’s women are creatures who need to be protected, Odyssey’s women rule, counsel and protect. When Ulysses reaches Scheria, Nausicaa advises him to plead for help from Queen Arete rather than King Alcinous. No woman in the Odyssey is made fun of, and almost everyone of them is treated with respect, except if they committed a serious crime (like Penelope’s unfaithful handmaidens, who are showed no mercy) while men aren’t considered trustworthy and able. Also, the text is peppered with small errors (about navigation, the structure of a ship, the shape of a weapon etc) which no male author could have made.

Who, then, was she?

I cannot answer this question with the confidence that I have felt hitherto. So far I have been able to demonstrate the main points of my argument; on this, the most interesting question of all, I can offer nothing stronger than presumption.

We have to find a woman of Trapani, young, fearless, self-willed, and exceedingly jealous of the honour of her sex. She seems to have moved in the best society of her age and country, for we can imagine none more polished on the West coast of Sicily in Odyssean times than the one with which the writer shews herself familiar. She must have had leisure, or she could not have carried through so great a work. She puts up with men when they are necessary or illustrious, but she is never enthusiastic about them, and likes them best when she is laughing at them; but she is cordially interested in fair and famous women.

I think she should be looked for in the household of the person whom she is travestying under the name of King Alcinous. The care with which his pedigree and that of his wife Arēte is explained (vii. 54-77), and the warmth of affectionate admiration with which Arēte is always treated, have the same genuine flavour that has led scholars to see true history and personal interest in the pedigree of Æneas given in "Il." XX. 200-241. Moreover, she must be a sufficiently intimate member of the household to be able to laugh at its head as much as she chose. [...]

Lastly, she must be looked for in one to whom the girl described as Nausicaa was all in all. No one else is drawn with like livingness and enthusiasm, and no other episode is written with the same, or nearly the same, buoyancy of spirits and resiliency of pulse and movement, or brings the scene before us with anything approaching the same freshness, as that in which Nausicaa takes the family linen to, the washing cisterns. The whole of Book vi. can only have been written by one who was throwing herself into it heart and soul.

All the three last paragraphs are based on the supposition that the writer was drawing real people. That she was drawing a real place, lived at that place, and knew no other, does not admit of further question; we can pin the writer down here by reason of the closeness with which she has kept to natural features that remain much as they were when she portrayed them; but no traces of Alcinous’s house and garden, nor of the inmates of his household will be even looked for by any sane person; it is open, therefore, to an objector to contend that though the writer does indeed appear to have drawn permanent features from life, we have no evidence that she drew houses and gardens and men and women from anything but her own imagination.

[...]

Richly endowed with that highest kind of imagination which consists in wise selection and judicious application of materials derived from life, she fails, as she was sure to do, when cut off from a base of operation in her own surroundings. This appears most plainly in the three books which tell of the adventures of Ulysses after he has left Mt. Eryx and the Cyclopes. There is no local detail in the places described; nothing, in fact, but a general itinerary such as she could easily get from the mariners of her native town. With this she manages to rub along, helping herself out with fragments taken from nearer home, but there is no approach to such plausible invention as we find in Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe, or Pilgrim's Progress; and when she puts a description of the land of Hades into the mouth of Circe (x. 508–515)—which she is aware must be something unlike anything she had ever witnessed—she breaks down and gives as a scene which carries no conviction. Fortunately not much detail is necessary here; in Ithaca, however, a great deal is wanted, and feeling invention beyond her strength she does not even attempt it, but has recourse with the utmost frankness to places with which she is familiar.

Not only does she shirk invention as much as possible in respect of natural features, but she does so also as regards incident. She can vilipend her neighbours on Mt. Eryx as the people at Trapani continue doing to this day, for there is no love lost between the men of Trapani and those of Mte. S. Giuliano, as Eryx is now called. She knows Ustica: the wind comes thence, and she can make something out of that; then there is the other great Sican city of Cefalù—a point can be made here; but with the Lipari islands her material is running short. She has ten years to kill, for which, however, eight or eight-and-a-half may be made to pass. She cannot have killed more than three months before she lands her hero on Circe's island; here, then, in pity's name let him stay for at any rate twelve months—which he accordingly does.

She soon runs through her resources for the Sirens’ island, and Scylla and Charybdis; she knows that there is nothing to interest her on the East coast of Sicily below Taormina—for Syracuse (to which I will return) was still a small pre-Corinthian settlement, while on the South coast we have no reason to believe that there was any pre-Hellenic city. What, she asked herself, could she do but shut Ulysses up in the most lonely island she could think of—the one from which he would have the least chance of escaping—for the remainder of his term? She chose, therefore, the island which the modern Italian Government has chosen, for exactly the same reasons, as the one in which to confine those who cannot be left at large—the island of Pantellaria; but she was not going to burden Calypso for seven long years with all Ulysses’ men, so his ship had better be wrecked.

This way out of the difficulty does not indicate a writer of fecund or mature invention. She knew the existence of Sardinia, for Ulysses smiles a grim Sardinian smile (xx. 302). Why not send him there, and describe it with details taken not from the North side of Trapani but from the South? Or she need not have given details at all—she might have sent him very long journeys extending over ever so many years in half a page. If she had been of an inventive turn there were abundant means of keeping him occupied without having recourse to the cheap and undignified expedient of shutting him up first for a year in one island, and then for seven in another. Having made herself so noble a peg on which to hang more travel and adventure, she would have hung more upon it, had either strength or inclination pointed in that direction. It is one of the commonplaces of Homeric scholars to speak of the voyages of Ulysses as "a story of adventurous travel." So in a way they are, but one can see all through that the writer is trying to reduce the adventurous travel to a minimum.

See how hard put to it she is when she is away from her own actual surroundings. She does not repeat her incidents so long as she is at home, for she has plenty of material to draw from; when she is away from home, do what she may, she cannot realise things so easily, and has a tendency to fall back on something she has already done. Thus, at Pylos, she repeats the miraculous flight of Minerva (iii. 372) which she had used i. 320. On reaching the land of the Læstrygonians Ulysses climbs a high rock to reconnoitre, and sees no sign of inhabitants save only smoke rising from the ground—at the very next place he comes to he again climbs a high rock to reconnoitre, and apparently sees no sign of inhabitants but only the smoke of Circe's house rising from the middle of a wood. He is conducted to the house of Alcinous by a girl who had come out of the town to fetch a pitcher of water (vii. 20); this is repeated (x. 105) when Ulysses’ men are conducted to the house of the Læstrygonian Antiphates, by a girl who had come out of the town to fetch a pitcher of water. The writer has invented a sleep to ruin Ulysses just as he was well in sight of Ithaca (x. 31, &c.). This is not good invention, for such a moment is the very last in which Ulysses would be likely to feel sleepy—but the effort of inventing something else to ruin him when his men are hankering after the cattle of the Sun is quite too much for her, and she repeats (xii. 338) the sleep which had proved so effectual already. So, as I have said above, she repeats the darkness on each occasion when Ulysses seems likely to stumble upon Trapani. Calypso, having been invented once, must do duty again as Circe—or vice versâ, for Book x. was probably written before Book v.

Such frequent examples of what I can only call consecutive octaves indicate a writer to whom invention does not come easily, and who is not likely to have recourse to it more than she can help. Having shown this as regards both places and incidents, it only remains to point out that the writer's dislike of invention extends to the invention of people as well as places. The principal characters in the "Odyssey" are all of them Scherian. Nestor, Ulysses, Menelaus and Alcinous are every one of them the same person playing other parts, and the greater zest with which Alcinous is drawn suggests, as I have said in an earlier Chapter, that the original from whom they are all taken was better known to the writer in the part of Alcinous than in that of any of the other three. Penelope, Helen, and Arēte are only one person, and I always suspect Penelope to be truer to the original than either of the other two. Idothea and Ino are both of them Nausicaa; so also are Circe and Calypso, only made up a little older, and doing as the writer thinks Nausicaa would do if she were a goddess and had an establishment of her own. I am more doubtful about these last two, for they both seem somewhat more free from that man-hatred which Nausicaa hardly attempts to conceal. Still, Nausicaa contemplates marrying as soon as she can find the right person, and, as we have seen, neither Circe nor Calypso had a single man-servant of their own, while Circe was in the habit of turning all men who came near her into pigs or wild beasts. Calypso, moreover, is only made a little angry by being compelled to send Ulysses away. She does not seem to have been broken-hearted about it. Neither of them, therefore, must be held to be more fond of men than the convenience of the poem dictated. Even the common people of Ithaca are Scherians, and make exactly the same fault-finding ill-natured remarks about Penelope (xxiii. 149-151) as the Phæacians did about Nausicaa in Book vi. 273-288.

If, then, we observe that where the writer's invention is more laboured she is describing places foreign to her own neighbourhood, while when she carries conviction she is at or near her own home, the presumption becomes very strong that the more spontaneous scenes are not so much invention as a rendering of the writer's environment, to which it is plain that she is passionately attached, however much she may sometimes gird at it. I, therefore, dismiss the supposition of my supposed objector that the writer was not drawing Alcinous’ household and garden from life, and am confirmed in this opinion by remembering that the house of Ulysses corresponds perfectly with that of Alcinous—even to the number of the women servants kept in each establishment.

Being limited to a young woman who was an intimate member of Alcinous’ household, we have only to choose between some dependant who idolised Nausicaa and wished to celebrate her with all her surroundings, or Nausicaa (whatever her real name may have been) herself. 

[...]

 The fact that in the washing day episode, so far as possible, we find Nausicaa, all Nausicaa, and nothing but Nausicaa, among the female dramatis person, indicates that she was herself the young woman of Trapani, a member of the household of King Alcinous, whom we have got to find, and that she was giving herself the little niche in her work which a girl who was writing such a work was sure to give herself.

[...]

At the same time I think it highly probable that the writer of the "Odyssey" was both short and plain, and was laughing at herself, and intending to make her audience laugh also, by describing herself as tall and beautiful. She may have been either plain or beautiful without its affecting the argument.

I wish I could find some one who would give me any serious reason why Nausicaa should not have written the "Odyssey." For the last five years I have pestered every scholar with whom I have been able to scrape acquaintance, by asking him to explain why the "Odyssey" should not have been written by a young woman. 

Samuel Butler, The Authoress of the Odyssey

[alwaysfeelingsaintlike]

Driving Me Mad [G.W] - Part 1

Series Description: You and George come up with a plan to help each other out by pretending to date each other. But what happens when you actually start to catch feelings...

Pairing: George Weasley x Gryffindor fem!reader 

Word Count: 2.2k

Description: You reconnect with George during a friendly game of spin the bottle.

A/N: This concept was inspired by one of my favorite 90s teen movies, Drive Me Crazy (which everyone should watch btw). I wrote this a few years ago and recently re-worked. This is part 1 of 8! Enjoy :)

                                                         X

“1…2…3…4…” you heard Fred calling. You took off at a run to find your spot. You were playing hide and seek, like you always did at these reunions. The Burrow was the best venue for hide and seek because there were so many great hiding spots, both inside and out. Fred and George seemed to be the best at this game, but you had one secret spot where no one could ever find you. You ran down the stairs quickly, hoping you wouldn’t be heard or spotted. Your parents were in the sitting room with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, waiting for the roast to finish and you tip-toed to the one area where you shouldn’t have been, the kitchen. It was an unspoken rule that the kitchen was off limits when Mrs. Weasley was preparing dinner, but you were never one to follow rules. You heard the adults talking in the other room and knew you had a very limited window to get situated. You opened the cabinet under the sink and went to climb in when you realized there was already someone in there.

“Hey! This is my spot!” you whispered, still trying to keep your cover.

“Well too bad, I was here first,” he spat back. 

“READY OR NOT, HERE I COME!” Fred called. Your eyes went wide in panic and you shoved yourself into the cabinet.

“Slide…over…” you said as you dug your elbow into George’s side. You knocked over stacks of bowls and pans and you quickly shut the cabinet door hoping to muffle the noise.

“I can’t believe you took my spot,” you grumbled.

“Your spot? I don’t see your name on it,” he teased. You smacked him and he winced. “Now, that wasn’t very nice.”

“Shh…you’ll give our position away.” You heard footsteps coming across the tile floor and held your breath. 

You sat there for what seemed like hours, whispering insults back and forth and laughing about stupid things. The hardest part about sitting there was that dinner was starting to smell amazing. It was torturous. That was the downside to having a great hiding place; you were stuck there until you got found.

“Okay, I give up. You guys win. Just come out now,” you heard Fred calling.

“Should we?” you asked George.

“Nah. It’s more fun this way.”

By this point all of the kids were looking for you both, and maybe even the adults. It was hard to tell for sure, considering you were curled up in a cabinet, but you could hear lots of footsteps and your names being called repeatedly.

“Kids, come for dinner!” Mrs. Weasley called.

“What about now?” you asked George, thinking that the seekers would stop looking for you the minute their eyes caught sight of the meal. 

George shook his head no and you trusted he knew what he was doing. “Just wait for it…” he whispered.

As if on cue, both the cabinet doors suddenly flew open. You had been caught. You then realized, it was Mrs. Weasley who had caught you and she had yet to notice two children were in place of her kitchen supplies. She was turned and was calling for the older boys to come and set the table. 

Slowly, very slowly, she turned around and bent down to tend to the cabinet. George’s face broke into a warm smile, knowing what was coming next.

“AAAH!” she shrieked upon seeing your childish figures cramped into such a small space.  You and George erupted into laughter at her reaction as everyone else scurried in to see what had happened. Mrs. Weasley was leaning against the counter, clutching her heart before she essentially beat you with a dishtowel to get you to come out.

“George! Y/N! What on earth were you thinking? You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Weasley! We didn’t mean to. We were just playing hide and seek,” you spoke, innocently enough. Her mood completely changed and it was as if nothing was wrong.

“Well…alright. Go wash up for dinner,” she said. 

Fred approached the two of us, “That was brilliant. Couldn’t have done it better myself,” he said, giving you both high fives. 

Dinner was full of laughs and merriment as the two families conversed over a lovely meal. George sat across from you at the table and every now and then he would kick your shins and give you that evil grin of his. This was your relationship. You were essentially the second Weasley girl, and according to the twins you were more fun to torment because you could dish it back.

Dinner drew to a close, which meant you could continue playing again. The adults stayed and talked more over tea as you all made up imaginary games, pretending to be people you weren’t. Then, soon, your parents would call you and give you the twenty-minute warning, which always meant you were leaving in an hour. You would say your goodbyes like it was no big deal, but once you started heading home you grew infinitely sadder knowing you’d be playing alone until your next trip to the Burrow.

                                                              X

A lot of time had passed since the hide and seek days. Now, hide and seek was used when you were playing hard to get, which happened quite often now that you were a 5th year. You also didn’t see as much of the Weasleys as you used to. When you were younger, you would go over to the Burrow all the time. But now you only really saw them in passing at Hogwarts. You were still friendly, of course, but you had found yourself in a different friend group. 

Recently, you’d been spending a lot more time with the Ravenclaw’s largely because you were dating Roger Davies. You had started dating towards the end of your fourth year and things had been going great. You were particularly excited for the upcoming school year because they had announced the Triwizard Tournament.

The champions had just been announced and you were in  Room of Requirement, sipping a butterbeer and celebrating with a majority of the Hogwarts population.

“Here ye, here ye!” someone called out. Your attention shifted to the center of the room where the Weasley twins were making an announcement.

“As you all know, we are here for two reasons. One: to celebrate the success of our fellow Hogwartsians,” one of them spoke. The crowd cheered. Cedric’s friends clapped him on the back while Harry stood awkwardly in the corner with a handful of Gryffindors from his year. 

“And two is to have a bloody good time!” the other twin shouted. That statement was followed by even more applause. People clinked their butterbeer bottles together as the twins made a few more remarks to the group.

You mingled around the party for a bit, keeping your eye out for Roger who hadn’t seemed to arrive yet. After a few butterbeers, you stopped worrying so much about your boyfriend’s whereabouts. 

“Who wants to play spin the bottle?” you heard someone call. That certainly caught your attention. All the participants sat in a circle on the floor.

“What rules are we playing tonight?” Cho asked. 

Fred spoke next, “Spinner gets one spin. Whoever the bottle lands on can decide if they want one kiss in front of everyone or five minutes in the closet. You only get a re-spin if the bottle lands on yourself. And all wands in the middle of the circle. We don’t need any interference. Sound good?” Everyone nodded in agreement and the festivities ensued.

Since Cedric was the champion, everyone agreed to let him spin first. His bottle landed on Lavender Brown and she chose to enter the closet with Cedric. Cho looked pissed, as she had her eye on Cedric this year. The two emerged from the closet minutes later, Cedric looking sheepish and surprised and Lavender trying to hide the grin creeping up her face. 

You waited and waited for your turn, and you found yourself getting bored. You were about to leave the game and head to bed but then you heard your name.

“You’re up.” 

The bottle slid over to you and you decided you would leave after your turn was up. You held the glass bottle for a moment before placing it in the middle of the circle and giving it a good spin. The bottle was almost mesmerizing as it completed rotation after rotation before finally slowing down to land on someone. You slowly looked up to see who was at the receiving end of your spin and you internally cringed to see that familiar smile. 

“Alright Y/L/N, I will see you in the closet,” he said. Everyone ‘oohed’ like you were preteens as he stood up and made his way to the closet. You reluctantly followed, knowing this was your ticket out of here.

“Well if it isn’t my first girlfriend,” he smiled as you made your way through the door.

“You wish, George. We were six…it didn’t count.”

“That’s what you think.” You rolled your eyes at his comment.

“Just so you know, nothing is happening in here. I have a boyfriend.”

“Ah of course. Well how are things?”

“Things are going great between us. We’ve been dating almost-“

He cut you off, “I wasn’t asking about Roger. I was asking about you. We haven’t talked in a while.”

“We run in different circles, George. We aren’t kids anymore. We’re barely even friends.”

He clenched his heart, “Ouch. That hurts.”

“Well it’s true!”

“Just because we don’t hang out or talk doesn’t mean we’re not friends.”

“Yeah, whatever,” you mumbled. 

“I bet I know more about you than your so-called friends, Cho and Marietta. In fact, I think I know more about you than Roger.”

You raised an eyebrow at him, “Is that so? Prove it.”

“Well, I know that your favorite color is purple, your best subject is Charms, and you hate the cold but you love Christmas.”

“That is not that impressive. Roger knows all of that.”

George took a step closer to you, “Does he know that you secretly love watching Muggle movies, you’re ticklish on your left knee and that there’s a little star shaped mole just behind your ear.” He gently tucked your hair behind your ear and ran his finger right over the hidden mole. You looked up into his eyes and felt an unusual feeling that you weren’t sure how to define. For a moment, you thought you saw him leaning in towards you. He was going to kiss you and for some odd reason, you were going to let him. Just as your lips were about to touch he turned away as there was a series of knocks on the door. 

“I think our time is up,” you spoke softly. You slid from under his gaze and opened the closet door. “They all bolted…” you stated. The room was full of discarded cups and empty bottles, but no familiar faces to be seen.

“Filch or someone must’ve come by,” he said, “The knock was a warning.” You shrugged and without talking you made your way out of the room. “Heading back to Gryffindor tower?” he asked you. You had briefly thought about going to Ravenclaw tower to check in on Roger, but you decided against it.

The journey was silent, for the most part. Neither of you felt the need to talk. Just as you were about to turn a corner, George grabbed your wrist and pulled you back. You turned back at him confused and he said, “Not that way, we’ll get caught. Filch is usually patrolling that corridor.” You gave him an unamused look, thinking he was just trying to make things difficult when he added, “Trust me.” 

You weren’t sure why, but you did trust him. You followed him down a dark hall that you’d never been down before. You hoped he knew where he was going. It was dark and you couldn’t see very well but you didn’t want to give away your position by using Lumos. Out of nowhere, George took your hand and helped guide you down the hallway. You didn’t really understand why he was being so nice to you. You had barely talked over the years, aside from the occasional family gathering. 

Your thoughts were interrupted by a sudden pop of light. You looked up and the two of you were face to face with Professor McGonagall. 

“Professor,” he spoke.

“Mr. Weasley…Ms. Y/L/N. Is there a reason you two are out of bed past curfew?” she asked you sternly.

“Yes, but it’s not a very good one,” you said. You were toast. If it had been Flitwick or Moody you could’ve talked your way out of it, but McGonagall was too strict. You only hoped your punishment wasn’t too severe.

“Ten points will be taken from Gryffindor. Each. And you will report for detention later this week.”

“Yes ma’am,” George spoke.

“Now back to bed, both of you!” You scurried past her as you realized how close you were to the common room.

“So much for not getting caught,” you muttered.

“Hey, lay off it. I was trying to help,” he snapped. “Sometimes you can be such a bitch,” he added under his breath.  You weren’t expecting that, but you admittedly deserved it.

You reached the common room and you went in and immediately went up to your room. You curled up in bed and tried to sleep as best I could.

[yespolkadotkitty]

Querida

Oh, fucking hell. This fic has eaten my life for the past 2 (?) days.

Tovar and William arrive at the Great Wall and things change irrevocably.

Warnings: first time, shameless smut, indulgent smut, no actual plot.

Word count: 4,000

When the outsiders were dragged in, they looked more animal than human, long hair and thick, knotted beards, covered in thick, dirty armour and furs. You struggled to make out their features from across the huge hall.

If this was what existed beyond the protective barrier of the wall, well, you weren’t missing anything. 

The only other Westerner you’d seen was William Ballard, the former mercenary who’d been held here since he tried to steal black powder over twenty years ago. You were only a small girl then, but over the years he’d taught you English, gained your slightly dubious trust. 

You saw him eyeing the two strangers - one fair haired, tall, one darker, stockier, and wondered if he’d try and make friends.

Ballard was polite to you, even kind sometimes, but you never suspected that he’d stopped trying to escape. He always looked furtive, always seemed to have an agenda crawling under his skin, barely concealed.

The strangers were led off to the barracks. You could smell them from here, and, disgusted, you dipped your head back to your bowl of hot, fragrant stew, pairing it with soft, spiced bread.

You hadn’t missed the way the captured soldiers had eyed the food and suspected they were hungry. Maybe even starving. According to reports from the scouts, there was precious little in the way of vegetation of sustenance in this part of China, so they’d have been hard pressed to stay well fed.

******

As you trained with the fellow members of your patrol unit, all the gossip centred around the two strangers, and how yīngjùn  - handsome - they were after cleaning up in the barracks. You bent to your task and tried to ignore the idle chatter. Sometimes you indulged, but ever since your mother had been savaged by a Tao Tei that breached the wall, costing her her arm, you’d forgone any sort of idleness or pleasure, focusing on being strong, preparing to fight the monsters, and helping to work on strategy against them.

At dinner, you joined everyone in the great hall, and after gathering your food and sitting, you found yourself opposite the two Europeans. You stared for a moment, reconciling them with the two hairy, unwashed oafs you’d seen only yesterday. 

“Evening to you,” the fair-haired one said in a lilting accent. He elbowed the darker one. “Tovar.”

Tovar looked up from his food. “Buena noches.” He’d shaved all his beard save a moustache and some scruff around his jaw. The removal of the scraggly beard showed off the shape of his face, drew attention to his big, soulful brown eyes.

“That’s “good evening” in Spanish,” the fair-haired one added, amused. “I’m William.” He seemed to have a sunny disposition, his jaw also freshly shaved, hair tied back as he ate amiably. In contrast, Tovar ate in silence and you noticed a wicked-looking scar arching over his left eye. He glanced around as he chewed, as if worrying someone might remove his food at any moment.

You introduced yourself. “Thank you both for helping. Yesterday, against the Tao Tei.”

Tovar grunted in response. William smiled lopsidedly, his manner affable and relaxed. “You’re welcome.”

******

After that, you didn’t see much of the Westerners. Every day it seemed the weaponsmiths came up with new methods to keep the vicious Tao Tei at bay, and you immersed yourself in learning, as usual, between visits to your mother in the secluded gardens within the widest part of The Wall. She was in good spirits for once, letting you help her eat, laughing at your descriptions of the stinky Europeans.

When you left her, you stopped by the armoury to change your daggers. The ones you’d been using for a few days would be sharpened by the boys drafted there. No one could afford a blunt weapon when every moment the Tao Tei seemed to be evolving; everyone needed to be as sharp as their blades.

Yours were useful in targeting the eyes, you’d trained hard and your aim was often true.

You stopped dead at the sight of Tovar in the armoury, hefting an axe as if testing the weight. You must have made some sound, because he turned, brown gaze raking over you suspiciously. He did everything suspiciously, it seemed.

“Where’s William?” you asked, to cover the fact that you’d started to admire his broad form in the leather armour.

Tovar scoffed. “You like him, do you?”

You shrugged. “Everyone likes him. He’s friendly.”

Turning the huge axe in his hands, Tovar scowled. “And handsome, I guess you’re going to say next.”

You weighed your words carefully. 

Yes, William was easy on the eye, and several of your fellow soldiers had said so. You suspected even Commander Lin Mae had a crush, though she held her cards close to her chest like any good military-bred woman. But your dreams had been filled with soulful brown eyes and what the touch of scarred hands might feel like. How it would sound to have Spanish murmured in your ear in the darkness.

“He is pleasant to look at,” you said at length. 

Tovar looked away, muttering something, and for a second before he’d turned, you thought you saw a flicker of sadness pass over his stocky features, but the light in the armoury wasn’t good enough to tell.

You left him to his grumpiness.

****

You woke with a start at the sound of the horn blasting - an attack was on its way.

Dressing deftly with practiced speed, you hurried up to the wall to see several lines of soldiers already in place. Other women and men from your unit joined you in full armour. A few feet away, William and Tovar were also fully armoured up, grim expressions on their faces. Unlike you, they’d only faced Tao Tei once before in their lives, and although they’d proved themselves formidable, it only took one mistake, one slip in a pool of blood, one misjudged dagger throw, and a warrior could be cut down in an instant.

The crane unit deployed as the creatures climbed over each other, jaws snapping, eyes blinking red and gold in the half-light of early morning, the lit torches only adding to the atmosphere of the scene unfolding.

As usual, Ballard hid behind a pillar, only half his face visible.

Then two creatures breached the top of the gargantuan wall, and all hell broke loose.

You swung your swords as best as you could, holding the line with your unit, the armour of the soldiers atop the wall a cacophony of colour and reflecting light as the fighting raged.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Tovar and William battling the second, hulking Tao Tei, jaws stringy with saliva, reptilian eyes wild, claws scrabbling. Tovar caught it in the belly with an axe as William scored an arrow in its left eye, and the scaly beast crashed to the floor in a pool of blood, twitching.

You turned back to your own fray as lightning crackled, luminescent and fierce. Thunder followed, the sound splitting the pitch black blanket of the sky. The remaining Tao Tei on the wall tossed its head in fury, its jaws snapping and catching the soldier in front of you by the spear, hurling them over your head, knocking out William, whose bow went hurtling away across the stones.

Frozen in fear, you stood rooted to the spot as the Tao Tei opened its jaws, and you stared into the yawning darkness of its mouth, towards certain death.

The scream of an axe flying through the air broke the spell and just in time, you ducked as the spinning blade sliced through the jaw of the hulking green beast, throwing it off its stride. Undeterred, it reached out a huge claw, dripping with the thick blood of your comrades, and swiped-

The air was knocked out of you, and your back hit stone, cushioned by your thick armoured doublet.

Tovar stared down at you, breathing hard. “Eager for death, querida?”

Embarrassed both because you were caught like a deer in headlights, and because you’d reacted instantly to the feel of his hard body pressed intimately to yours, you shoved him off. “I can look after myself.”

Tovar lay on the stone for a second, staring at you, and then shook his head, standing. “Obviously.”

You struggled to get your head back in the game after that, but managed to use your throwing knives to cut out the sight in one of the Tao Tei’s unblinking eyes, internally sighing in relief that you weren’t rendered totally useless in combat.

****

It took a long time to cut up and drag away the two dead Tao Tei. Sometimes, they were tossed over the wall, but this time, Strategist Wang had deemed that too big a risk before the bricks broken today were repaired.

You headed to the courtyard garden to lick your wounds - mainly your pride, thankfully - and stopped short, seeing Tovar sitting on the edge of the fountain, washing his face.

He looked up at your approach and then looked away, a scowl crossing his darkly handsome face. Come to think of it, you’d never seen him smile.

You sat a polite distance away, decided that washing might feel good, and scooped up water.

As you looked into the reflective surface, your face as well as Tovar’s looked back at you. His hair curled damply, the scar across his eye pale in the morning light, his mouth set into a grim line.

“What I said earlier,” you began.

Tovar looked away. Forget it, si?”

You couldn’t forget the look on his face. The one that said he’d handled a lot of rejection and now expected it, handled it with standoffishness and grumpiness. He stood up, his shoulders set, and turned away.

“William is pleasant to look at,” you ground out, “but I prefer looking at you.”

Tovar stood stock still, so you knew he’d heard you.

“Do not make fun, querida,” he said, very softly, but his words carried to you in that husky voice.

“I’m not.”

He turned back to face you very slowly, his face set in a serious expression, and then a slow smile slid over his face, lighting it up, and for a moment he was so handsome, he stole your breath.

****

From then on, whenever you saw each other, you and Tovar would sneak little glances. Sometimes if you sat together at the long dinner tables, his thigh would touch yours, and your heart would thunder in your chest.

For his part, Tovar seemed much happier to be within the confines of the Great Wall, joining in the combat drills and showing some of the patrol units his axe throws.

Life continued, without any attacks from the Tao Tei, for some time. Spring started to bloom all around, and the three large cherry blossom trees in the garden courtyard sprouted perfect, pale pink flowers.

The morning after they bloomed, you found one waiting for you, tucked into the door handle of your small quarters. And another, the day after that, until the blooms dropped to the ground and were swept away.

“Thank you,” you murmured to him at dinner.

“De nada,” he smiled, looking at you with those dark eyes, and you wondered what he wanted. What his endgame was. All you knew was that when he looked at you, you melted inside, and each little touch stoked the flames, until you’d reached fever pitch.

You finished your food, went to stand, and he touched your arm. “Meet with me, si? In the courtyard. When the moon is high.”

You nodded shakily, your heart somersaulting, ready for your little routine of smiles and heated glances to move to the next level.

******

The full moon hung waxy and heavy in the sky, surrounded by pinprick stars, when you entered the courtyard on stealthy feet. Your eyes adjusted to the darkness and you made out Tovar’s silhouette under the cherry blossom trees, now entirely green and leafy.

He tipped his chin in silent greeting as you crossed to him, standing awkwardly for a second, unsure what to do, how to act.

Fantasizing about him covering you in the night, his deep voice murmuring to you in Spanish, was very different to being only inches away, breathing in the scent of his rosemary soap and just a hint of the lemon oil he cleaned his armour with.

“Querida,” he whispered. “You want this, no?”

The edge of trepidation in his tone made your decision for you, and you closed the distance. Tovar cupped your face in his gentle, scarred hands, and dipped his head to kiss you. You met his lips eagerly, if a little clumsily, and drunk in his little groan as your tongues danced. He tasted of spice and tea, addictive, and you slid a hand up his neck into the silky mass of his dark hair, threading your fingers through the strands.

Tovar was not the first man you’d kissed, but the incendiary feelings this kiss incited in you made the others pale into insignificance.

He slid his arms around you and pulled you close, aligning your body with his, and you thrilled to the feel of the evidence of his desire hot and heavy against your belly.

You sucked in a breath when Tovar broke the kiss, his dark gaze searching yours. “You truly do not fear me, little one?”

“I never have. Should I?”

“Never, mi corazón,” he whispered. “I should fear you. What you could do to my…. Old, scarred heart.” He tipped your chin up with a gentle hand. “Do not give me hope where there is none, si?”

“But there is.” Sweet man, you thought, pulling him in for another kiss. “Come…. Back to my quarters?”

He nodded silently, and you felt something drop in your stomach, as if things were about to change irrevocably.

You led him by the hand up the steps to the main gatehouse, and through the silent corridors to your quarters. The sound of the key in lock seemed loud, but then Tovar shut the door behind you, and he dominated the space in his black tunic, leathers and breeches. 

Unsaid words littered the space between your bodies, the only light a faint glow from the wall sconce above your tiny desk.

Anticipation pooled in your belly, warring with nerves. “I.. I’ve never done this before-” Twenty-four summers old you might be, but when you lived in a cold, stone fortress, with the constant threat of a Tao Tei attack and cared for your mother, there wasn’t much time for romance.

“We will start slow, then.” Tovar closed the gap between you and again cupped your face in his hands, kissing you again, seducing you by tiny increments. You felt your body begin to relax as the kiss turned leisurely, and your hands slid up the wall of his chest, his heart beating a ragged tattoo under your palm.

His armoured leather spread warm and soft under your hands, but you wanted more. His breathing hitched when you started to unlace the tunic fastenings, but he slid his hands down to your hips, letting you have your way.

Outside, an owl hooted in the distance. Your own heart thundered in your ears, desire making your blood feel syrupy, as you pushed the leather off his shoulders, only the worn, soft fabric of his black shirt underneath. You met Tovar’s gaze and found something dark and hot and yours in his tea-dark eyes, and it made you greedy, so you gripped the hem of his shirt and pulled it up. Tovar helped you, lifting his arms and bending, and you’d seen what his arms and hands could do with an axe, so his gentleness both humbled and aroused you.

The shirt fell to the floor on his armour, and oh God, he was big and broad and muscled. Fascinated, you spread your hands over his chest, your skin pale compared to his golden tan, mapping the myriad scars over his chest. A wicked one ran from one nipple down to the side of his hip, the end white with age, and, overcome with how painful it must have been, you bent and pressed your lips to it.

He was silent, breathing ragged, as you did the same for all the scars you could see, tracing them with first your fingers and then your lips, learning the feel and taste and smell of him as his heart thundered, hands clenched on your hips.

A sound that might have been pleasure or pain escaped his lips, and you looked up, meeting his gaze, seeing fire there. “Enough,” he bit off, and he lifted you off your feet and carried you to the bed, laying you down as gently as if you were the most precious of jewels, and in the next breath he covered you, and your arms wound around him. 

You spread your palms over his back greedily, drinking him in by touch, and he lowered his mouth to yours, starting the whole process anew. Kissing you until that fluttering starting in your belly again, until you were arching your hips to get closer to him, to feel more of the hard, hot length of him against you.

Curious, and eager, you snuck a hand between your bodies to cup him through his breeches, and a muttered slew of Spanish passed his lips as he bucked into your palm, then grabbed your wrist.

“Next time, perhaps. It has been too long for me, comprende?”

He guided your hands upwards, set them on the pillows above your head. “I want to focus on you.”

And wow, that made want and need clutch at you, deep inside.

Tovar undressed you slowly, and you watched his scarred hands work in the low light from the flickering sconce flame, peeling back each layer of your robes. “Hermosa,” he whispered reverently, and then, as if remembering you didn’t speak Spanish, he added, the butterfly wings of his breath warm against your skin, “Beautiful.”

His words warmed you inside out, and then he touched his mouth to your skin and all thoughts left your head.

Aside from a handful of nervous fumbles in the armoury, right now was the closest to sex you'd ever been. As Tovar drank you in, his tongue learning the flavour of your nipples, you broke the invisible hold he'd put on your wrists and touched him, raking your fingers through his hair and smoothing your palms over the golden skin of his broad back.

He mumbled what you guessed was praise in Spanish as he licked and kissed endlessly. You felt him hard and unyielding against your thigh, but he seemed uncaring of his own needs, existing, for now, purely for your pleasure.Time ceased to exist and your world narrowed to each lick of his warm tongue, each stroke of his big, scarred hands, over your skin.

“What did I do to deserve such beauty?” he mused, moving down to feather kisses on your stomach.

“You… bathed,” you muttered, completely at ease with him, and he coughed out a surprised laugh.

“I’ll spend the rest of my life under water, querida, if this is my reward.”

You opened your mouth to reply, but then he spread your legs and put his mouth on you, and nothing else mattered, save the curl of his tongue where you were damp and ready, the glide of his lips on your inner thighs, then the tickle of his facial scruff across your clit, the press of his fingers inside you. You clenched your muscles around his digits and felt him sigh against you, pleasure and anticipation wrapped up inside that single breath, and you arched into his face, chasing the sweet release that every flick of his tongue promised.

Your thighs trembled as Tovar gentled the pace, then sped up again, keeping you on the edge of your climax. This was nothing like what you’d experienced at your own hand, you were bent to his will, control out of your hands-

He licked a long strip over your with the flat of his tongue and you came with a keening cry, turning your face into the pillow to keep from making a sound. The walls might be stone here, but it was better not to take chances.

Tovar propped himself up on his elbows, and the pleased look on his face made your stomach flutter anew.

“Now, I think you are ready, hermosa.”

He disrobed quickly, and you watched every inch of tanned skin revealed in the half-light from the wall sconce. The sliver of moonlight through your window kissed the curve of his shoulder, the scar across his eye, and you had never seen anyone so beautiful.

You sighed with pleasure as he moved atop you again, gloriously naked, and his skin was smooth and hot, and instinctually, you shifted and wrapped your legs around his hips. Tovar growled into the curve of your neck and positioned himself, and your inner muscles clenched greedily in breathless anticipation of this, the first time having a man inside you.

“I will be gentle,” he promised, and you nodded, mumbling his name, not sure what you wanted, but just knowing you needed-

The hot press of him inside you kindled another fire deep in your belly. The head of him brushed the sensitive bead at your apex and you arched desperately -

The pain sliced through you, and Tovar dropped his forehead to yours, going totally still inside you. You felt him trembling slightly, braced on his forearms, his dark eyes filled with concern.

“It’s..” A tear rolled down your cheek and he went to pull away. The fact this big, world-weary, grumpy, strong mercenary would stop, without a word from you, made your heart turn over, and you banded your arms around him.

The pain gave way to a feeling of fullness, and you experimentally clenched your inner muscles around him. Tovar bit off a string of curses in Spanish, shifting slightly, and the movement sent little licks of pleasure ricocheting inside you.

“Good?” he whispered against your lips.

“Good,” you agreed, breathing him in, tasting yourself on his mouth when he brushed a kiss over your lips, the breath shuddering out of him.

He moved slowly, seducing you again with his gentleness, capturing your little gasps of sensation with his mouth, until there was more pleasure than pain, and you needed to feel all of him. Testing, you lifted your hips, dragging him deeper, and he made that addictive growl again, his hips moving faster. You clenched your hands on his big shoulders, digging your heels into his thighs, urging him on. 

“Carajo,” he cursed, his hips stuttering, and he thrust out and back in again, touching a spot inside you that crashed waves of pleasure through you, and you keened his name, pressing your face into his shoulder.

Tovar went still, eyes closing for a second, then pulled out, taking himself in hand and finishing across your stomach, his breath coming raggedly, before he collapsed beside you on the narrow bunk.

After a moment he turned on to his side and stroked damp strands of hair back from your face. “Querida.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“Darling.”

He dropped a kiss on your lips and then moved off the bunk, finding your bucket of water, refreshed each day, and soaking a cloth, wringing it out before gently cleaning off your stomach, then standing awkwardly, his gaze searching yours in the low light, questioning.

Your heartbeat settled. Tomorrow you would have to wake up with the sun, and train again, and fight for your life. Tomorrow you would have to decide what you wanted to do with this new thread between you and Tovar, the emotions that lightened your heart and swam in your head. But for now, it was night, and you wanted to push the Tao Tei and the fighting away, to not think about whether Tovar would one day want to leave the safety of the Wall.

So you crooked your finger and lifted up the blanket. “Stay.”

Relief crossed his dark, handsome features, and he did as you bid, gathering you close. You snuggled your cheek into his warm, scarred, solid chest, burrowed into his warmth, and, forgetting about everything except the sound of his heart beating, you dropped into sleep.

Thankyou so much to @restingnurseface​ for the company, read-throughs and encouagement.

Tagging people who might like this @bunnyart-blog​ @spacegayofficial​  @tiffdawg​ and my regular “whole shebang” taglist: @wolvesandhoundshowltogether​ @just-the-hiddles​ @littlemissthistle​ @palaiasaurus64​ @adorkabeezle​ @myoxisbroken​ @nonsensicalobsessions​ please ask to be added or released!

[carewyncromwell]

[Ficlet] Take a Chance on Me

...Hey, I said I might add onto the ficlet I did of how Carewyn joined the Slytherin Quidditch team for a game back in her third year! >>; This is based on Quidditch Season 1 Chapter 6, AKA the major plot turn before MC, Orion, Skye, and their house Quidditch team’s first match. (In this case, Slytherin VS Hufflepuff!)

For those of you who didn’t read the last ficlet and want to just jump into this one -- Carewyn (soon to be “Mama-Bear”) Cromwell is a third year Slytherin, with Orion, Skye, McNully, and Rath all being one year ahead of her. This will also be the only Quidditch match Carewyn plays until the tail end of her sixth year, which you can read about with this Quest of the Quidditch tag I made! Also as a note, since there is some art under the cut -- Orion, in my canon, doesn’t look the way he does in the game until his sixth year or so (namely, with his facial hair), hence why he looks a bit more boyish in how I drew him! (It is amazing how much younger Orion looks without the stubble!!) And yeah, even if Carewyn and Orion eventually become a couple post-Hogwarts, their relationship won’t really be explicitly romantic here, even if the strong platonic chemistry will definitely be there. 😊

Hope you enjoy! 💚

x~x~x~x

The Slytherin VS Hufflepuff Quidditch match was scheduled for the first weekend of November. With less than a week remaining, both houses were getting very excited -- Carewyn could tell her friend Penny Haywood was having trouble knowing whether to be more thrilled for her house team or for Carewyn.

“Well, there are a lot of people who don’t make the team on their first try!” Penny had said to Carewyn when she learned the news. “Gosh, Carewyn -- I know you’ll be flying up against my team, but...watching you play in a real Quidditch match will be even more fun than just watching one with you!”

Charlie and Andre were also thrilled. 

“I knew you could do it, Carey!” said Charlie, beaming from ear to ear. “C’mere!”

He looped an arm around her neck and squeezed her against his side in a hug. 

“Mm, I can’t say I knew, given Orion Amari’s reputation,” said Andre, though his face still broke into a grin, “but I’m glad that however odd he is, at least he can see raw talent when it’s placed in front of him! It’ll be so much more exciting to have you on the Pitch too, Cursebreaker.”

Though inwardly hating the nickname, Carewyn still gave them her best smile. “Thanks...”

~~~

The first couple of Slytherin team practices were largely based on teamwork exercises, so as to “strengthen the bond” between Carewyn and the rest of her teammates. She knew her fellow Chasers Orion and Skye already, of course, but Orion wanted to make sure she was likewise on good terms with their Beaters -- a pair of muscular seventh-years called King and Shacklebolt -- their very tall sixth-year Keeper Crockett, and their pretty seventh-year Seeker, Anika Lucky. 

If Carewyn’s petite height and lack of muscles weren’t noticeable before, it was comically apparent when she stood alongside the rest of the Slytherin team -- even Skye, the smallest of them, still towered a good ten inches over 4′9″ Carewyn. Fortunately, although most of the Slytherin team gave Carewyn a slightly confused side-eye when she first arrived for practice, they all reacted a little differently after Orion challenged the team to break his record of balancing on their brooms (2 hours, 52 minutes and 31.2 seconds, according to McNully), and Carewyn was the only one who kept up with Skye all the way up until the end. 

“And then there were two,” sighed Shacklebolt rather tiredly, when he finally had to give up and sit back down on his broom, massaging his leg. 

Crockett looked at Orion with something of a weak smile. “Come on, Orion...maybe we should call this off. We can’t exactly break the record for balancing on one leg together when most of us are sitting down...”

“Ah, but if one of us breaks the record, then we all break the record,” said Orion with a smile. 

Skye crossed her arms from her position balancing on her broom. “The one who breaks the record will get credit, though, right?”

“A victory for one is a victory for all,” Orion said mellowly, “and for that, we should celebrate on behalf of that one.”

Carewyn opened her eyes. She’d been keeping them closed and singing songs in her head, to try to help her ignore how much her leg was hurting and how much time was passing. When she glanced at Skye, she noticed a line of sweat appearing on her brow. 

“...How close are we to our goal, Orion?” asked Carewyn. 

“Only time will tell,” answered Orion.

Skye frowned sourly. “Right -- that was Carewyn’s question: tell us the time.”

“The moment is near,” said Orion with a twinkle in his eye, “but who’s counting?”

“MCNULLY!” Skye bellowed up at the stands in exasperation. “YOU’D BETTER BLOODY WELL BE COUNTING UP THERE, OR I SWEAR I’LL BEAT BOTH YOU AND ORION BLACK AND BLUE!”

The Beaters both sighed and shook their heads.

“Here he goes again,” muttered Shacklebolt.

“I think he’s gone even deeper into his own head since becoming Captain,” King agreed under her breath, sounding both rather tired and slightly amused. 

Carewyn turned to Orion, her almond-shaped blue eyes becoming a bit more serious. 

“Orion, a Niffler is able to chase gold so well because it can smell when it’s close,” she said in an oddly stern voice. “It’d probably be a lot easier for Skye and me to reach our goal if we also knew how close we were to it.”

The other Slytherins all blinked at the tiny third-year, taken aback by her assertiveness. Orion, however, only grinned. 

“Is not the journey a kind of treasure in itself, however?” he said. “After all...you and Skye have united so well in this endeavor, despite your apparent differences.”

“Yes,” granted Carewyn, her voice staying rather firm, “but if you want both of us -- and therefore all of us -- to break the record, then it stands to reason that both Skye and I should be of the same mind. And Skye and I would both like to know how close we are to bringing our team victory.”

“Right,” said Skye, a bit more impatiently. “So will you go ask McNully how much time is left already?”

Orion’s black eyes sparkled with mischief. “It’s so fascinating, how full of fire you both are, and yet how differently colored your flames are.”

He looked up at the stands. When he caught McNully’s eye, he threw up his fist into the air in silent celebration.

“That’s it?!” said Skye eagerly, sounding immensely relieved. “A new record? Finally!”

She immediately sat down -- Carewyn, however, did not, and she was glad of it, for sure enough, Orion turned back around with a grin and said, 

“McNully’s just informed me that we’re in the final countdown!”

The team all covered their faces with their hands. Skye’s mouth dropped open. 

“What?!” she yelped. “Are you kidding -- I wouldn’t have sat yet!”

“Why did you?” Orion teased good-naturedly. “I thought you wanted to be the last one standing.”

Skye looked like steam was coming out of her ears. Carewyn fixed Orion with a rather reproachful look. 

“Orion, that wasn’t nice!” the much smaller girl scolded him the way she sometimes did Jacob when she was little. “Skye really had her heart set on beating your record.”

Orion’s amusement actually dimmed slightly. After a moment, his expression turned a bit softer upon both Skye and Carewyn. 

“Fortunately she did beat it,” he said, gesturing to Carewyn still balancing on her broom, “through her student.”

Carewyn raised her eyebrow, looking from Orion to up at McNully in the commentary box. “So the record has been broken now?”

“Indeed,” said Orion with a proud smile, exchanging a nod with McNully. “McNully-confirmed. Congratulations, team -- we did it!”

The team all breathed a sigh of relief, except for Skye, who still looked sour. 

“Carewyn did it, this time,” she said begrudgingly. “Congratulations, Carewyn.”

Carewyn lowered herself back down onto her broom, averting her eyes and massaging her burning thigh. “Thanks.”

She was proud that she was able to prove herself, after it’d taken her three whole hours just to figure out how to even balance like that in the first place...even if she didn’t love the fact that Skye was clearly bitter about it. 

“I must admit, though, Carewyn, I’m a bit disappointed,” said Orion. “Not once in all that time did you share any of your meditation songs with us.”

The team, including Skye, once again turned to look at Carewyn, surprised. Carewyn flushed. 

“Well, you said I could do it whenever we meditate together, as in the two of us,” she said rather huffily, closing her eyes and putting up her nose. “I didn’t want to break anyone else’s concentration.”

“A kind thought,” said Orion. “But perhaps next time, we can see if it actually helps our team’s focus. We’ll need all the focus and teamwork possible, in our match against Hufflepuff.”

~~~

The Slytherin team soon found themselves very happy with Orion’s choice. Carewyn not only was a very talented Chaser with excellent speed and aim, but she also seemed to know just how to talk to Orion on his terms and keep him a bit more grounded. And when she did end up singing during their practices, it actually turned out to be kind of a fun way to pass the time too. The players who’d been born in magical families like Skye in particular found it interesting to hear Muggle songs they’d never been exposed to before. 

“If you're all alone, When the pretty birds have flown, Honey, I'm still free -- Take a chance on me! Gonna do my very best, And it ain't no lie -- If you put me to the test, If you let me try...”

Carewyn did notice, however, that their practices were being watched -- and not just by Murphy McNully, either. 

“It’s not abnormal for other teams to want to get a peek at new players before a match, so they can get information they can use while building their team strategies,” McNully told her. “Most opposing players try to be subtle about it, but Ulrich Dylan -- that’s Hufflepuff’s Captain -- is not. Ravenclaw’s whole team isn’t either...especially Erika Rath -- she always makes it a point to get a good look at any new opponents. And well, admittedly, there’s nothing banning them from coming to watch our practices, so I guess they don’t feel the need to hide it.”

Carewyn considered this. “...Maybe they see it as a way to intimidate us too -- you know, being so confident in letting us know that they see us, and that they’re judging us.”

Kind of like how I felt a bit intimidated by Orion, while he was watching me fall off my broom for three hours. 

McNully nodded. “Not a bad theory! Ravenclaw in particular has already won the Quidditch Cup two years in a row, so they definitely have some cause to be confident. Just with their current line-up, I’d say there’s a 38% chance they’ll win the Cup again.”

Considering that was well over 1/4, Carewyn didn’t like those odds. Seeing the frown on her face, McNully smiled. 

“Don’t worry, Carewyn -- we do have one ace up our sleeve, when it comes to strategy. Only Slytherin knows how to do the Thimblerig Shuffle properly, as of yet -- therefore if we use it, I’d say we stand a 87.3% chance of throwing Hufflepuff off their game.”

Carewyn smiled. “That’s great!”

“Glad you agree!” said McNully. He then rubbed the back of his neck a bit awkwardly. “There’s...just one thing: Orion would have to actually use it, in the match. And well, we both know Orion -- the odds of him using it don’t go above 43%...” His face then burst into a smile. “...buuuut I’d say if you put in a good word with him, he might be more willing to listen!”

Carewyn looked confused. “Why me? You’re Orion’s friend too, aren’t you?”

“Of course! But Orion and I are still very different people. We have trouble speaking the same language sometimes. Honestly, I’d say I only understand what he’s trying to say about 72% of the time,” McNully added under his breath. “But you and he already seem to have a good rapport -- I reckon you bringing up the Thimblerig Shuffle to Orion would improve his odds of using it by a good 10%!”

Carewyn still wasn’t entirely sure, but she gave McNully a reassuring nod. “Well, I’ll try, anyway.”

~~~

Carewyn asked Orion to meet her before practice. She wanted to make absolutely sure that none of the other team’s players would be listening in. When Orion saw her approach, he smiled broadly. 

“Greetings, Breaker of Records,” he said amusedly. 

Carewyn frowned. The nickname reminded her unpleasantly of Andre’s “Cursebreaker” moniker for her. 

“Hi, Orion...thanks for coming early.”

Orion seemed to notice the shift in her expression -- it made his eyes soften slightly, becoming a bit more serious.

“We’re members of the same Quidditch family now, Carewyn,” he said gently. “Therefore my time is our time...and we can always find time to find balance together.”

Carewyn smiled slightly, feeling a bit reassured. “...Well, it’s less about balance and more about...well, about the match against Hufflepuff.”

“I think those two things are very much entwined,” said Orion.

“In a way, yes...but well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve had a lot of company in the stands, while we’re practicing. Like Hufflepuff’s Captain.”

Orion nodded. “I have seen him.”

“Well, McNully thinks he’s been stopping by to get a good look at me, and the rest of the team,” said Carewyn seriously. “That way he can use whatever information he can get about us in his team’s strategy. And...well, I know you don’t think strategical skills will determine our path...but it seems like we should use all of the strengths we have to our advantage, right?”

Orion crossed his legs around his broom so that he could actually take his hands off of it and cross his arms idly over his chest. 

“I agree,” he said quietly, but it seemed clear he was waiting for her to reach her conclusion, rather than being completely onboard. 

“Well,” Carewyn plowed on, “right now, we’re the only Quidditch team who knows how to do the Thimblerig Shuffle -- you know, the move McNully made up?”

Orion nodded slowly. “I remember. Quintessential McNully -- magical in its complexity, and complex in its magic.”

Carewyn gave a nod of her own. “It’s really a very clever move...it would definitely throw Hufflepuff off-balance, which could only help us out. And well, considering McNully’s your friend, I reckon it would mean a lot to him, if you considered using it.”

Orion raised his eyebrows rather coolly. “You clearly have been a very good friend to McNully already, speaking on his behalf. Though I don’t know if I appreciate him using the Slytherin team in a strategy to coax their Captain to his way of thinking.”

Carewyn felt her gaze slipping down to her broom, but she tried to hold her ground. “I really don’t think McNully was trying to pressure you, Orion. I think he just really wants us to win -- you to win. Planning things out is just how his mind works...and he is pretty good at it. I learned a lot about Quidditch from him.”

“You and McNully do both enjoy your plans and strategies,” said Orion. 

His face then spread into a wryer smile. 

“I, however, have a different strategy in mind -- the absence of strategy.” 

Carewyn wanted to be surprised, but she wasn’t. It still didn’t make the lump that settled into her stomach any less heavy. 

“...Then...you have no plan at all, for us to win?” she asked, a bit shakily. 

Orion’s black eyes twinkled. “Indeed. Let me show you.”

Within seconds, he’d easily leapt up onto his broom, so that he was balancing on it. Rather than before, though, he used both feet and actually surfed on the back of it, as if he were on a surfboard soaring through the air. Unlike a surfer on ocean waves, however, Orion was able to go completely upside down and around, balancing perfectly as if he and his broom were one and the same. 

Carewyn found herself unable to tear her eyes away. Orion did, in fact, look pretty damn cool. 

Her eyes were as wide as dinner plates as she followed his zigzagging moves around the Pitch -- and little by little, she found her lips spreading into an awed, open-mouthed smile. 

Her reaction made Orion grin. 

“Inspired Broom Surfing!” he called down to her. “That is its name, and that is what all shall call it.”

“Did you...did you invent this yourself?” asked Carewyn, disbelievingly. 

“It’s the product of inspiration, not invention,” said Orion. “I thought of it, and so I do it.”

He looped in several circles over Carewyn’s head with apparent ease.

“Surfing the skies distracts the competition. They, too, shall wish to surf like this...”

He weaved in a tight “S” shape that reminded Carewyn of a figure skater on ice. 

“...and yet, it also showcases one’s individual talent, and magnifies it! For most Quidditch players, even the best, never take the time to become one with their brooms -- but you can be an exception.”

Carewyn’s eyes and smile were very bright. ‘So you can psyche your opponent out, just with your confidence! And because you’ve got both hands open to hold the Quaffle, it’ll be harder for the opposing team to steal it too!’

“That’s...it’s brilliant, Orion!”

The praise definitely seemed to boost Orion’s ego. He flew completely upside down in a circle before coming to a stop beside Carewyn, grinning broadly. 

“Would you like to learn?” he asked.

Carewyn looked down at Orion’s Cleansweep and then down on her old rundown Shooting Star. 

“I definitely won’t be as good as you,” she said as offhandedly as she could. 

Orion’s black eyes sparkled. “We���ll see about that. Now come -- balance first.”

Carewyn followed his lead, balancing on her broom the way he did. 

“Forget technique,” he instructed, “forget form. Just be one with the broom.”

Carewyn started off slow, trying to weave. There were one or two points she felt like she was going to fall off, but she just managed to sweep her broom around enough to catch herself. Orion meanwhile swept around her in spirals to observe her. 

“Do not broom surf with intent. You should only ever do this when the feeling is right, not when logic dictates.”

Carewyn sped up a bit in her weaving, tilting her broom up so that she hovered a bit higher. She then tried to aim herself toward the hoops -- she charged ahead, and then looped back around in a “j” shape. Orion followed, shimmying around her. 

“Good,” said Orion. “Good -- let go -- ”

Carewyn urged her broom a little faster and Orion took off after her. Soon they were weaving around each other, Orion coming up and over her. Carewyn brought her arms up on either side of her to help her shift balance as if she was on roller skates, and she soon found herself laughing. This was fun!

“How...how am I doing?” she asked as she tried to catch her breath. 

Orion’s smile was broader than Carewyn had ever seen it, so much so that it made his black eyes squint slightly. “You look like you’ve been broom surfing like that your entire life, Carewyn Cromwell.”

They finally came to a halt in the middle of the pitch. Orion nimbly leapt back down onto his broom in a seated position again -- Carewyn took a bit more time to gradually lower herself back down. 

“Hufflepuff will not be able to take their eyes off you,” Orion said confidently. “And it’s while they are distracted that we will be able to rack up points.”

Carewyn adjusted her ponytail as best she could with one hand. 

“It really is brilliant, Orion,” she said kindly, “but...well, isn’t that a strategy in itself, that I’ll distract the Hufflepuffs, while you and Skye score points?”

“To some, perhaps,” said Orion. “But all of it will only be if the time and feelings are right. I don’t believe in planning things out too far ahead. None of us are Seers who can divine the future, so can we truly know whether any plans we make will fit in with how that future will take shape?”

“No,” granted Carewyn, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a plan and hope for the best anyhow. Or better yet, make a back-up plan, just in case things don’t go the way you want...”

Orion raised an eyebrow. “You and McNully believe Hufflepuff’s Captain came to watch our practices so as to make a strategy, correct? It stands to reason, then, that he’s channeling the Demiguise as best he can.”

“The Demiguise?” prompted Carewyn. 

“Trying to predict our own strategy in the upcoming match, through watching our interactions and team dynamics,” said Orion simply. “If, however, we go in with no strategy, there’ll be nothing for Hufflepuff to latch onto. That mystery works in our favor.” 

“But it also might make it harder for us to fly as one team,” Carewyn pointed out, trying to mirror Orion’s level tone but not quite succeeding due to her sincere concern. “I can Broom Surf now, Orion, but I can’t do it as well as you. Only you will likely ever be able to do it as well as you do...because no one could be exactly like you. And well...no one else sees the world quite like you do, either. It’s brilliant, really,” she added quickly. “It’s cool that you don’t act how people expect you to, or see the world like everyone else does. But...I don’t know, I guess it’d be a lot easier for the rest of the team to be on the same page as you, if you choose a book that you can read together. If that makes sense.”

Orion considered Carewyn for a moment, his unreadable black eyes trailing over her face.

“It does,” he said at last. 

He looked up at the stands. 

“It appears that our ‘guest’ has arrived,” he changed the subject dryly. 

Carewyn looked up. Sure enough, she saw the very tall, broad-chested Hufflepuff Quidditch Captain, Ulrich Dylan, confidently striding across the stands and plopping himself down. He rested his arms on the edge of the stands as he stared down at them. Carewyn’s eyes narrowed up at him. 

“As has the rest of our team,” added Orion a bit more pleasantly. 

Sure enough, the rest of the Slytherins -- Skye in front -- flew out onto the pitch to join them.

“Hey, Orion,” greeted Crockett brightly. “Hey, Carewyn. Looks like you’ve both got a...‘broom with a view?’ Eh? Get it?”

Carewyn couldn’t help but wince, even though she tried to smile. 

“Will you lay off with the puns?” said Skye, rolling her eyes exasperatedly. “You stretch farther with those than I do trying to reach the Quaffle...”

“But it’s part of what being Keeper is!” Crockett said playfully. “Everybody knows that...and you know I’m a Keeper! All the ladies say so.”

“All the ladies except us,” said Lucky, who’d covered her face with her hand. 

“And we have to be subjected to your jokes,” added King with a roll of her eyes. 

Skye shifted gears as she looked at Carewyn, offering her a determined look. “Ready for practice, Carewyn?”

Carewyn forced herself to look away from the Hufflepuff Captain in the stands, giving Skye a confident nod. “Mm-hmm.”

“The time has come for our time,” said Orion serenely. “Our first exercise will be helping each other through sabotaging each other. Our Beaters and Seeker will play as opposition to our Chasers and Keeper, so that we may practice saving and blocking goals.”

Carewyn looked at Orion with a teasing smirk. “Sounds like a plan.” 

Orion smiled very wryly at her in return. 

~~~

Orion asked the rest of the team to stay after practice for a team meeting. The team waited around so long for the meeting, though, that they soon occupied themselves with idle conversation. Hufflepuff’s Quidditch Captain had left over fifteen minutes ago, and Carewyn was glad to see him gone.

Skye stretched her arms over her head and sighed tiredly. “Ugh...I’m going to give Orion a good smack for this. Asks us to stay after for a team meeting, and then completely forgets to start it...”

“You shouldn’t hit him,” said Carewyn reproachfully, her voice coming out a bit whiny despite her best efforts. 

“Ah, come on, Carewyn, I don’t mean it like that,” said Skye with a shake of her head. She smiled. “So anyway -- what did I miss before? What were you and Orion doing here so early?”

Carewyn took her hair out of its ponytail, looping the red scrunchie around her wrist so she could redo it. “Orion taught me how to do this Quidditch move he created -- it’s called Inspired Broom Surfing...”

Skye grinned. “Ah yeah, that thing! I reckon Orion sees it as a future signature move for him, as a player. Don’t know if I’d go that far, but hey, it’s a fun way to waste time.”

“I don’t think it wastes time,” said Carewyn, frowning slightly as she put down her now much tidier ponytail. “I think it’s rather brilliant, actually. If we’re going to beat Hufflepuff, I reckon us looking confident and fearless to the opposing team would be pretty helpful.”

“The only thing we need to defeat Hufflepuff is Parkin’s Pincer,” Skye said confidently. “They might expect it, but they can’t stop it.”

Carewyn frowned. “But...if they do expect it, then they could still make a strategy to counteract it, right?”

“Not when we do it perfectly,” said Skye. “And you and Orion both know how to do it perfectly -- I’ve made sure of that.”

Carewyn couldn’t help but disagree, but decided not to push the issue. Instead she sighed. 

“Well, I guess in the end, it’s really up to Orion -- he is team Captain. I guess I just wish he’d consider making more of a plan...I mean, I always feel better whenever I’m doing something difficult, when I know I’m prepared and I’ve planned ahead.”

I don’t think I would’ve been able to deal with the Ice Vault at all, if I hadn’t practiced Incendio with Bill first. And it felt good knowing that he and Ben were there to help me too, since they both knew the spell really well. 

Skye’s face became a bit more serious. “Yeah, that’s really not Orion’s style.”

She brought a hand onto the smaller girl’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. 

“Don’t worry your little red head about it, though,” she said with a smile. “Orion may be a weirdo, but he’s been known to make the right call, when it counts. You just focus on being a smashing Chaser, and let us more senior players worry about it. Nobody will be expecting the newest player to make any major decisions during the match anyway -- ”

“That’s it! That’s what we’ll do!”

Everyone gave a start. 

Orion, without anyone noticing, had settled himself overhead on his broom, sitting on it as if it were a swing. As he leapt back down to the ground, however, sweeping his broom out from under him with a flourish, he was grinning as excitedly as a kid at Christmas, his eyes on Skye and Carewyn.

“Orion?” said Carewyn, startled. “When did you -- ?”

“Is the meeting finally starting now?” asked Lucky. 

Orion brought his broom up onto his shoulders behind his head, still grinning broadly. “This is the team meeting. I simply stand back and observe my teammates interacting in an unstructured setting.”

Skye wrinkled her nose in revulsion. “Orion! Most people call that snooping!”

“I prefer the term ‘discovery,’” Orion said smoothly. “And sure enough, it put a spotlight on your idea...”

“My what?”

Orion turned to the rest of the team, his broad smile never shifting. 

“My teammates, we shall do the unexpected, to win our first House match. Hufflepuff, as well as everyone else, expects me to make the big decisions -- but instead, our newest player will.”

His black eyes and white smile were both gleaming with determination as he turned to Carewyn. 

“In this match, Carewyn Cromwell will call the shots.”

Everyone on the team was so taken aback that they all stared at Carewyn, and then Orion, and back. Carewyn herself had lost all of the color in her face.

W...what?

She couldn’t do anything except gawk at Orion in disbelief. She looked around at the rest of the team helplessly -- Skye looked almost more horrified than Carewyn, as well as angry. 

“What?! Orion, are you mad!?”

“Not in the least,” said Orion breezily. “I’m quite content with my decision.”

“Orion -- you can’t be -- ” started Shacklebolt.

But the Quidditch Captain had already turned around, his lips upturned in a rather proud smirk as he rested his arms over the broom on his shoulder.

“Our new leadership will not be discussed outside of the Changing Room,” he said levelly, “lest our opponents catch wind of it. And when next we fly and Ulrich Dylan’s eyes are on us, we will practice as we always have.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Carewyn, his black eyes twinkling. 

“You sang your commitment to us yourself, Carewyn. And now...we’ll take a chance on you.”

By the time Carewyn recollected herself enough to try to argue, Orion was already gone. 

[writerofblocks]

🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊 there now we're even LMAOOOO

me right after getting this: ALL RIGHT, BET.

(several hours in) I have made a mistake

[ask meme here]

Lucia Lieberman (Lone Wanderer), Miles Young (Sole Survivor), and Gabriel Young (The Courier)

🖊 All of my Fallout protagonists are related because the idea of one family getting drawn into world-altering events not because its their destiny to but because they all happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time makes me laugh my ass off. Using Miles as the point of reference, it goes as follows-

- Adam Young (Fallout 1): grandnephew

- Noah Young (Fallout 2): great-great-grandnephew

- Gabriel Young (Fallout 3): great-great-great-grandnephew

- Lucia Lieberman (Fallout 3): great-great-great-great-grandniece

🖊 Miles's sister Cassidy Young was living on the West Coast at the time of the Great War; she was one of the original inhabitants of Vault 13 and is Adam's grandmother. Lucia’s mother Catherine is one of her descendants; she moved with the branch of the Brotherhood of Steel across the country, where she met James (last name Lieberman, at least in my canon).

🖊 Lucia actually ends up meeting both her living relations during her lifetime because I like shenanigans. After the events of Fallout 3, she winds up heading west and ends up in New Vegas. When she walked into the bar where Gabriel was staying, Gabriel noted the resemblance, became concerned that he might have had a dalliance with a woman that resulted in a child that he’d forgotten thanks to the bullet in his skull, and immediately hid behind the bar. Of course that only drew Lucia’s attention, and the rest is history. After the events of New Vegas she moves to the Commonwealth, where she ends up encountering Miles.

🖊 Lucia has a bonafide, genuine guitar taken from the same vault she retrieved the Stradivarius violin from. Maintenance is difficult, but music stores aren’t big targets for looting so she can usually find parts/replacement strings, if not figure out a substitute on her own.

🖊 Lucia was raised with 50′s suburb values in mind and will not swear except under extreme duress. This has led to difficulties writing her, as I swear like a goddamn sailor. The plus side is, it’s incredibly easy to tell when she’s extremely pissed off.

🖊 Lucia’s big brother/little sister relationship with @himborc‘s Melik will always make me smile. Sometimes a family is a buff, gruff cyborg man with issues, a tiny golden lesbian also with issues, and their vaguely dog-shaped creature who has no issues and is in fact the best boy.

🖊 Lucia’s Catholicism and subsequent struggle with faith are based on two things. The first thing being the result of the G.O.A.T. test she took in fallout 3, which said she was going to be the vault chaplain. (fun fact- the result you get is based on the highest skill points you get on the test. Lucia’s was barter.) The second thing is that a) I was raised Roman Catholic and b) I like dumping my problems on my OCs, so Lucia inherited my crisis of faith. Whoops.

🖊 Miles is a DILF, with his specific Dad subclass being the Quiet, Crafty Dad. He’s a little reclusive, preferring to spend his time creating things, and its hard to show his love in traditional ways. His love language is acts of service- if you need something, he’ll retrieve it for you. If you need help, he’ll help you. And he’ll do it all without trying to draw attention to himself.

Benjamin Anderson, Branwen Greenleaf, and Ahkasa Sohloni

🖊 Ahkasa and Benji started out as characters I played in Skyrim, funnily enough. Ahkasa is a Khajiit thief and Benji (there named Bun-Jah Andreesar) is an Argonian mage with a focus on Conjuration.

🖊 Related to the above- Benji’s anxiety issues and association with necromancy started due to the number of explorable crypts in skyrim. I thought it would be funny to have someone who tomb-dove on the regular also be afraid of the undead. This rapidly disintegrated into him being afraid of a lot of other things.

🖊 Branwen started out as my very first DnD character, a halfling Life Domain cleric. The campaign she was in petered out, but I’d always wanted to use her again somewhere. Luckily I was working on Benji’s backstory one day, and needed a character to be a mentor for him, so I retooled Branwen to be a Grave Domain cleric and unleashed her on the world once again.

🖊 Ahkasa and Branwen are the only two OCs I pay attention to currently that have good relationships with their parents. Whoops.

🖊 Ahkasa likes making things with her hands, and can usually be found whittling or knitting something at camp.

Bridget Summers

🖊 Ah, yes. The OG. The firstborn. Her design started out because I took umbrage with how the default SR3 Fem!Boss was supermodel thin; I wanted to make someone who looked a bit more like my body type (but with a few more muscles). She has gained her own voice since then and my life has not known peace since.

🖊 I’m forever grateful to @autumnyte for helping me in the early days with Bridget; she wouldn’t be half the character she is nowadays without those RPs with Alair, and no matter what she’s up to nowadays he’s still important to her and in her heart.

🖊 Bridget’s my usual test dummy for first playthroughs of games because I know how she’d react to things. Also because I like seeing her in different character creators. So sue me.

🖊 Bridget has ADHD (again, because I like dumping my own experiences into my characters), though she didn’t have a name for it until she started going to therapy sometime between SR2 and SR3. It’s part of the reason why she had a hard time in school- a limited attention span, difficulty completing things once the novelty has worn off, and a preference towards things that have her brain and her body fully engaged does not mix well with traditional American teaching structures.

[taglegend]

Tag Fact #3 -  I’ve come to realize I’ve always been a fan artist more than I thought. so here is a timeline of influences that shaped my childhood to now. from nostalgic times, to sad changes, to great loss, to strange rises to fame and phases, to stepping stones and finally a laughing place. all the things that make up your favorite fan artist Tag.

1. Rayman (bumped into this in the year of 1999) was actually the first fandom (with crossovers) I bumped into when I was 9. although the internet wasn’t available at the time it was still fun to dwell in home amusements. I remember the storylines and the OC’s I made but they’re kind of embarrassing and it’s probably a good thing there was no internet. I’ve done fanart and comic crossovers of Rayman with Calvin and Hobbs and Nights Into Dreams, spinoffs of Sonic the Hedgehog OC’s, Yoshi with Pikachu, and the Pokemon/Digimon craze with OC’s and other Nintendo comic shorts. but the drawings and comics are long gone and disappeared in the garage in a backpack due to suspecting my sister’s dad accidentally throwing them away. years later towards the year 2018 (now 28), we decided to move to North Carolina and it was my chance to find them again. unfortunately the backpack was gone just like I suspected (my main stuff), but for some reason I found my Pokemon/Digimon fanart, a good batch of Super Mario drawings (vaguely remember doing these), my sister’s drawings and some other neighborhood kids’ drawings in a dirty box. I was partially happy I found something at least but it was the backpack I wanted the most. sometimes I regret not looking for the backpack (’cause I was too busy being a kid) but it’s alright, noone needs to see that shit anyway, ha ha. anyways, I recall being a fan of Rayman from 1999 ‘til 2002.

2. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle (bumped into this in the year of 2003) my second fandom I bumped into when I was 12 going on 13. at the time, my sister and I both liked the Sonic The Hedgehog Franchise based on the Battle remake and ended up making our own secret fanart club that consisted of only us two members. she liked Sonic (and that was her boyfriend, ha ha) and I liked Knuckles (and he was my boyfriend, ha ha) and we were crazy in love about Shadow’s backstory. we listened to the game’s soundtracks as we drew fanart and comics after school and man, those were good times. however, as we grew older towards the year of 2005, we ended up having separate rooms and I believe it played a part in disconnecting on the same interest. then one day, I asked her why she wasn’t into Sonic anymore and she replied, “Because I grew up.” I was sad after that and slowly observed that she was influenced by the emo culture and the new friends she’s made. I was the only member of our little club for a little longer...but eventually I moved on too. I still have some surviving fanart we did together but it doesn’t mean shit anymore since she turned out to be an abusive mother from the last I’ve heard of her. 

3. Gorillaz (bumped into this in the year of 2006). as the Sonic years were at its end, I first heard the song “Feel Good Inc” on Music Choice and seeing the first image of them as displayed on this post (except the fan-made background doesn’t count since I can’t find the original artwork). this was my third fandom and later had proper access to the internet to the website I still currently use called DeviantArt. at first I liked 2D but eventually fell for Murdoc and developed a spiritual connection towards the character as obviously seen in my old fanart and rare photos of my devotion shrines on Valentine’s Day and his birthday every year. for the longest time since being a permanent fan from 2006-2017 (11 1/2 years) I had no knowledge that it was a political propaganda band and other realizations I don’t want to talk about. I only followed them because it was a cartoon and not the bullshit behind the musical project. the world I’ve built and support for them for all those 11 1/2 years shattered the fuck out of me and I just wanted to be left alone to find myself again, somehow. activity stopped on all my profiles, the flow of fanart stopped since I now cringe from the fan service and felt I was used for my talent. I didn’t want to be reminded of it all so I took down all my Gorillaz fanart and archived them for old followers’ nostalgia but also in the hopes they’ll be forgotten in my timeline. I ceased to exist in the fandom for huge personal reasons but it’s best to not say why. I know for sure that the fandom wonders what happened but it’s none of their business. THE END.

4. Waluigi (although I knew he’s been around since 2000 during childhood, I took deep interest once I revisited the character again in the year of December 2013). as silly as this sounds, when I revisited him again, the character was so bizarre that I ended up staying up 3 nights and 3 days in a row just looking all over the internet on everything about him and the questionable “hush-hush” absence of a backstory. despite there being no backstory he slowly gained a cult following and in many ways it’s a good thing. however, since the early 2010′s tension has been building up between Nintendo and its fans about him starring in a main game but everyone hasn’t fully gotten it in their heads that it’s not gonna happen. as long as Nintendo is in control of that, the fandom will not win, I’m sorry to say. on the other hand, if it’s going to be this way, then that’s what fanart and comic projects are for. as for me, I am doing my very best to get my comic project “Waluigi Land” going. again, I apologize if it’s taking very long to get Chapter 2 going if you’ve been keeping track but aha moments need to develop before I start permanent drawing (since concepts, character design and storyline needed improvement badly). as of right now I am still a Waluigi fan and I will not quit on him.

5. Turbo from Wreck-It-Ralph (although it debuted in 2012, I watched the movie two years later into the year 2014). for some bizarro reason, I had an unhealthy obsession with this character to the point where I dressed up as him for Halloween 2014. only 2 fanarts of him and the Turbo Twins exist on my profiles, mainly because my mind was more focused on just ‘thinking about him’ or ‘being him’ rather than drawing physical drawings. luckily, this supposed alleged fandom didn’t last long a little after Halloween so I chalk it up as a very short phase. to this day I don’t know what has gotten over me about him. the only thing I can think of now is that I think it’s because the character had yellow eyes and teeth but I don’t know. now that I think of it, that little fucker was ugly as hell and I STILL don’t know what had gotten over me. one day, my brother mentioned what that was about, and I said to him, “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

6. Undertale (although it debuted in 2015, I later took interest in it in 2016). It was all about Sans and Papyrus. I couldn’t get enough of the skeleton bros. eventually Toriel and Mettaton EX became my favorites but it took a long time to draw more of all 4 of them because I had other important things to do in my life plus I was still waiting for the next Gorillaz album to revive my imaginative juices (or so I thought). I really want to have this as one of my frequent fandoms but I just don’t have time for it anymore. it’s still in the back of my head to want to draw them but at this point I still have other better interests to be in. and besides, I’m lazy just like Sans.

7. Cuphead (June 28th, 2017 was the official day I called quits on the British-based band Gorillaz due to the bullshit behind it. since that date I was lost, had no inspiration to look forward to and no cartoon guy to make me smile...but lo and behold of the same year, I took an interest in playing the game Cuphead and man...that shit was a frightening exaggerated metaphor for being on that one drug (forgot the name though) and having sex at the same time but man that was the best fun I’ve had in years. I mean, it’s like, enemies are just so happy to murder you and that scared the shit outta me. and the facial exaggeration?....I think I should stop, ha ha. anyways, the Moldenhauers saved my ass from spiraling down, they have no clue. anyways, eventually I became a permanent fan of their work so to ease the hurt and erase my past from the G-fandom I had to re-wire my brain into a different cartoon category that’s a rather more American, so anything Toon related like Roger Rabbit, Felix the Cat or another favorite that’s a western-based cartoon makes me feel better, especially my new man .......King Dice <3 <3<3<3. however, there was something about this new fandom category I still didn’t quite understand until the date March 14th, 2020. I finally understood what it was but I feel I shouldn’t bring it up. anyways, Cuphead and anything western or rubber hose is my last stop in inspiration for the remaining years of my life. many say never say never but I believe I’ve found my laughing place and that’s all that matters.

[ryuichirou]

How did you learn anatomy, senpai??👀

Did I learn it though haha.

Well, it was a journey… it still is tbh, because there’s a lot of stuff I still need to learn.

I started passively learning anatomy ~in 2012-2013, when I first learnt about proportions (just basic stuff though, like the amount of heads in human’s body) and the fact that the hands I draw are extremely funky. I drew a couple of studies back then, but they weren’t good, and I’m not sure if they helped me at all – I wasn’t ready to study properly back then. Still, it was an important step lol

Here are some examples of my early attempts at redrawing poses from references…sigh (these are mostly from 2013)

I had a phase in ~2014 when I used to sketch tons of poses from some app (random poses app?.. something like that). I wasn’t trying to imitate every line or perfectly copy it, I was just breaking the pose up into shapes and sketching it very quickly. It didn’t feel like I was doing it a lot, but when we looked back at my old sketches, we found a lot of scans like these:

For the record, this is what my regular sketches looked like back then. You can see how stiff and off (anatomy-wise) they are, so I guess it’s safe to say that I was pushing myself out of my comfort zone with the random-pose-sketches.

I still have this stiffness problem from time to time, but I think it’s gotten much better from this point

Plus, and it’s very important, I think it helped me to understand how human bodies work pose-wise. As a result, now it’s much easier for me to come up with a pose without looking for a photo-reference. In fact, it’s much easier for me to draw a pose out of my own head than to find a perfect photo-reference that’d fit my idea, so I don’t even bother lol Sometimes my drawings even look worse when they’re referenced.

Of course the poses and the anatomy that I draw aren’t perfect and there are some nuances, but still, I’m glad I have this knowledge now. Drawing these poses gave me a very good base, even if my anatomy and proportions still were somewhat funky back then.

And then I continued getting better and better and then I got MUCH WORSE and then I started getting better again… And then I realized that the bodies that I draw are too boring and simple lol I wanted to make them more interesting.

I started thinking about the details and spending more time making them look better (in my eyes). I still had the simple shape base, but the shapes became more complex: «it’s not an oval, it’s ehhh idk something weird but not perfectly round». At this stage reference photos help A LOT to capture details that I might miss, but it’s basically “I’ll just google torsos and draw my own thing”, I still barely copy anything, I actually have to force myself when I’m doing studies lol I still draw studies from time to time, and after I’m done with them, Katsu usually looks at them and comments them, points out the details that I overlooked, etc.

Hilariously fun fact: remember how I mentioned that I used to be terrible at drawing hands? Well these are my first proper studies (once again, all of these are done in 2013). This is when I got a grim reminder that the “just draw your own hands” rule doesn’t apply when your own hands are chubby and small.

As a comparison, here are the hands I drew earlier this year. This wasn’t a study, rather we were just looking at Qunni’s hands tutorial and wondered if I could draw the examples from it myself. This is the result:

Good job, Ryu, it only took like half a decade…

So yeah, basically I drew a lot of bodies and did a lot of thinking while doing that, even though it took me a while to do the second lol. When I had the base, I started working on details, because even the smallest details always make a huge difference when it comes to drawings. For example, this year I pushed myself to draw ears more-or-less properly, then I tried to fix how I draw torsos, stuff like that. I know my weakest points and I try to work on them…

Hope I’ll get better with time.

And I also hope this wasn’t too boring to read lol I don’t know why I ended up with such a long reply.