#also not quite sure whose pov it would be

[curtins]

GREEDY — gojo satoru minors dni

prologue. → pretty, prodigal, and teasing. how far can you push your former teacher before he snaps? gojo's about this 🤏 close from releasing a hollow purple on the world.

pairing. gojo satoru x afab!reader

warnings+. màstúrbation (m.) and rough sèx, creaḿpie. some angst/doubt. angsty love confession before gojo póunds reader into the mattress. incorrect use of reversed curse technique. arguments and stuff. description of injuries. def mean!gojo a bit and he's got vampire tendencies.

reader is of legal age (implied to be 19-20) and gojo is 28 so age gap!romance. obsessed!gojo and popular girl!reader trope. gojo is absolutely a mess in this, and reader is described as wearing short skirts, and wearing makeup.

rather questionable ethics and dynamics (teacher/former student) but rest assured its clear that his feelings are pretty recent. reader has him twirled and whipped around her fingers. reader is also def a baddie and ambiguously bi.

word count. 8.7k words im mad actually. this was meant to be headcanons song inspiration. greedy — tate mcrae

a/n. this is was gonna be from reader's pov but i thought it would be more fun from gojo's 🙂‍↔️

mp3. i see you eyeing me down, but you'll never know much past my name. or how i'm running this room, but i'm still half your age. yeah, you're looking at me like i'm some sweet escape 😛

gojo satoru was not a weak man, no. he knew that he was an anomaly of nature, an unstoppable power that could reduce enemies to dust and make entire clans crumble with nothing more than a flick of his wrists.

so how was it, that when it came to you, his resolve was paper-thin?

every time your open gaze met his, every time you brushed past him, every time your presence filled the space around his infinity, gojo felt something inside him unravel. his breath would be caught in his chest, leaving his pulse to quicken and suddenly, all that strength and control would slip through his fingers.

gojo cursed himself for this, you see. he had never been one to lose control, but he was not quite sure when his entire body has started to betray him.

but no, fuck that, and he did his utter best to run his focus back onto the lesson at hand. unfortunately, the lesson at hand was with you. standing in front of him, arms slightly raised, palms out, and raising your brow as boredom passed over your face.

gojo cleared his throat, "your stance is good, but your cursed energy is all over the place. focus, breathe. centre yourself is what i'm saying," he instructed, but the words felt hollow as they passed through his lips.

unfairly, you're weren't the problem. he was. and now this was getting ridiculous. you had graduated not two, three years past? it would have been a disservice to still call you his student, but even as a mentee, you were still under his tutelage. and as recent as this immature infatuation was, this felt wrong.

but now you were frowning, starting to waver and the sharp, staccato tap of your heeled boot punctuated the wooden floor, click, click!

gojo looked to the sky, briefly, if to pray for patience and a calm of some sorts. he stepped forwards towards you, placing a hand on your waist to guide you into a better stance, and trying to ignore the way your skin felt warm underneath his fingers.

focus.

"don't let your body twist like that when you utilise your own cursed energy. keep it straight, balanced," he muttered, adjusting your posture slightly, hand on your spine — the heel of his palm pressing into a dent. a deity from the sky must have struck him with a cursed arrow, for his whole body was on fire.

because there you were, standing right in front of him, so close that gojo could feel the soft heat of your breath, the faint scent of a sweet perfume wafting off your skin, vanilla?

"you're not focused," gojo grimaced, though he wasn't sure if the rebuke was at himself, or at you — whose eyes widened briefly, and gojo tried not to recognise the curiosity and challenge that flashed across your face.

look at how she's staring at me. and gojo felt utterly ridiculous, and exposed, she knows. but instead of pulling away, you shifted ever so slightly towards him, your body arching as the barest brush of your breasts against his forearm had heat pulling through his body.

would you taste as sweet as you smelt? would you lean more into him if he asked?

he cleared his throat, "okay. relax, not every stance or position works for an individual. perhaps, you'll be able to focus better like this," and with his hand still on your waist, he pulled you into a swift spin. one that left your back pressed against the hard planes of the chest, and you facing the other wall.

you hummed, this time not in the way he wanted. your lips were lightly parted, and there was that soft sheen of gloss catching the light, making your lips look impossibly soft. gojo caught himself staring, wandering what it would be like to press his own mouth to yours, and whether you would squeal or moan.

still, if there was anything that gojo was good at, it was deflecting like a champ, "i think you're distracted," he laughed, low and amused, "is something making you lose focus?"

you tilted your head, and gojo didn't miss (nor did his heart or groin) that your gaze flickered to his mouth for the briefest second before meeting his eyes again, feigning innocence, "don't tell me you're underestimating me, sensei. because i'd hate to think you can't keep up?"

gojo bit back a grin at the obvious bait, "careful," brushing strands of white hair that had fallen into his face away, "if you get too cocky, you tend to miss danger. you start to ignore things that should be noticed."

your voice dropped to a droll whisper, eyes glinting, "you think i don't notice things? i'm aware of plenty."

gojo forced himself to focus, to ignore the way that your lashes flutter with unshakable composure. trying to regain control, or some semblance of mind, he started counting each individual lash painted dark with mascara, lingering on the outermost curls that framed your sharp eyes.

after a beat, he forced himself to break eye contact, "alright," he said, stepping back with a casual shrug that he hoped conveyed just how nonchalant he was, "we’ll call it a day here and continue training tomorrow."

"backing out already?" you teased, leaning in just a little, making him tense at the closeness.

gojo chuckled, feigning nonchalance. "for your sake. you may be powerful, but you have to pace yourself."

you shrugged, nodding, "i'm going out anyway this evening," you said, hopping back a step before bending down to gather your things. gojo politely averted his gaze, his heart hammering from your previous proximity, and desperately hoping to avoid a...reaction, that would be quite inconvenient, as wide and loose as his martial pants were. like a fuckin' school boy with a crush. gross.

but as you slung your pastel bag over your shoulder and straightened up, he couldn't help a quick glance, catching the small, coy glimmer in your eyes as you turned to leave.

gojo sighed, pulling up his blindfold once more, "have fun," he half-heartedly offered, but you were already out the door.

the corridors were now empty, the clang of metal and chatter now silent, replaced with a quiet hum of the air conditioning. gojo wiped his face with the towel wrapped around his neck, the damp fabric clinging to his skin and the muscles in his arms and chest still warm from the intensity of training. his arms and chest glistened, the muscles warm and taut as he stretched, rolling his shoulders back with a low groan. exhaustion settled into him like a weight, each movement of his tired, bare torso slow and deliberate.

"oh, you're still here, sensei?"

gojo's eyes snapped open, drawn to the sound of your inquisitive voice. you stood in the doorway, framed by the dim light from the hallway, and he immediately felt a rush of heat flood his chest.

well, fuck, now his mouth was dry. clearly, your previous iteration of 'going out' was a bit more glamorous than you had led on, and he was certain his wandering eyes betrayed him as it flickered over your figure. it took a titan's strength to keep his eyes from trailing down your long legs, the way your dress hugged the swell of your chest, or over your glistening neck. there was a faint shimmer, a glitter of some sort? it coated your skin, and gojo wanted to lick it off with his tongue.

what? no. who said that?

he swallowed hard, forcing himself to keep his composure.

you scowled at his reaction, clearly mistaking his silence for distaste. "what? i did say i was going somewhere," you retorted, your tone sharp but amused. "i’m more than allowed to leave the campus grounds.”

"of course,” he replied, voice outstandingly steady but his mind still trailing after every curve, every detail that made you look...well...dangerous in the best way, "don't let me stop you. who's the lucky guy?"

you arched a brow, folding your arms over your chest, and now, gojo really did have to look away and pretend that he was busy with retying a dark piece of cloth over his eyes, "who said it was a guy?"

gojo thickly swallowed, wondering if he'd just made a colossal blunder with no return, "that's not what i meant." the words 'my bad' stuck in his throat as you laughed and sighed.

"joking, sorry. it's a guy, this time." now you were fiddling with your long nails, with a satisfying clack as they ran across each other.

"i hope he shows you a great time then," he offered, half-hearted, blasé.

you took a step into the room, and gojo didn't even need six eyes to know that your eyes were raking over his chest, "i'm sure he will," all sweetness and sugar, "i've been training so hard, i deserve it, don't i?"

the words hit him harder than he expected, and he had to remind himself — she's not yours, satoru. but that didn't stop the gruff irritation bubbling up.

"a real man should be taking you out on a date like this,” he said, his voice a bit too rough for his liking. "not some guy who’s probably just looking for a good time."

you scoffed lightly, rolling your eyes. "are you saying that there's someone else out there who can do a better job?" your tone was playful, but there was a challenge in it — an edge that made his heart skip once more, "sadly, there just aren't many who've handled me well."

he ignored your immature, faux pout, and ran a hand through damp, icy hair — ignoring how his temper flared, rearing its ugly head.

was this all on purpose? to toy with him?

"you want to be handled, sweetheart?" gojo's voice dropped a little lower, indulging your teasing, "i've seen you lose focus easily, you could easily break."

your lips creased up, painted a tempting shade of dried-blood red (what the fuck was wrong with him? was he now just a horny vampire?) as you purred, "i'd need some help testing out that theory." your expression was open just enough for him to see the tiniest flicker of something in your eyes — something that told him you were enjoying this far more than you should.

an invitation of sorts, he wondered. did you want him to move? to make a move? it wasn’t a secret that you had always been a popular student practically a legend, rumours swirling around you like wildfire — whispers of broken hearts and sweetened smiles that could captivate anyone in your path. he had never paid attention of course, gossip always ran wild among students and he discouraged such whispers of who-did-what, for a grade 1 curse would never indulge such behaviour before they would get torn to shreds.

and even now, long after graduation as you worked around your old alma mater, men and women — everyone swooned at the chance to speak with you, and yet, here you were, playing this dangerous game with him.

gojo scowled, trying to push past the desire building inside him, the urge to have you underneath him, right on this mat in the training room. "well, don’t hang around too long," he said, his tone sharp as a blade. "i’m sure your date is waiting. go have a good time."

invitation declined. the morally right thing to do. right?

he didn’t need to look to see the small sneer that curled at the corner of your lips, or the way it turned into a fleeting expression of annoyance. he could hear the click of your heels echo down the hallway as you sashayed out.

what the everlasting fuck was wrong with him?

lo and behold, the great gojo satoru often found himself alone in his own private rooms. for 'the strongest' rarely had time to accommodate some other forms of company.

and frankly, he had no desire to do so now regardless. not when the echoes of your clicking heels still reverberated in his mind. the silence that echoed around him was heavy, suffocating and he was sure he looked erratic.

gojo ran a hand over his face, trying to shake the thought of you. but it was useless. his body was still on fire, the heat of jealousy smouldering in his chest, coiling in his gut like something alive, something dangerous. he had walked to the nearest chair and collapsed into it, his legs splayed wide apart as his shoulders slumped under the soft, amber glow of the setting sun that streamed through the windows. the sorcerer let his head fall back against the chair, eyes closed.

how absolutely ridiculous, he thought, running his fingers through his tousled hair. no, he just couldn't stop it. couldn't stop thinking about how badly he wanted you. wanted you to want him too. and now, with the way you’d left, with that knowing smile on your lips, all he could imagine was the man you were with now, the man who’d be holding the door open for you, who’d be pulling out your chair, whoever the hell he was.

maybe even a casual, non-sorcerer. some random guy that you had indulged because he was no threat. but he wouldn't be able to touch you, not in the way that you demanded. the man would laugh at your jokes, brush his hand against yours, but wouldn't be able to let a real smile bubble from your lips like satoru could.

and what would that man do next?

would he try to take you back to his place? some small poorly-lit apartment where he'd try to kiss you, to claim your lips without even pulling away for air. would you kiss him back, curling into his frame?

before gojo's even registered what he's doing, his own hand has found his hard cock. despite the tattle of assistance, and dreamy-eyed mongers, pleasure is rare for him. relief, even less so. his schedule just doesn't allow it, and so he oft find himself chasing some distant contentment like this, alone in his rooms.

but he squeezes at the wide hilt, at his base, pulling his hands up, upwards as his brows furrow under blindfold, and he tugs the offending fabric off, away from him, as laden balls smack against his wrist.

maybe the man would then trail his lips down your neck, maybe he'd try to slowly sink his teeth into delicate flesh, leaving blooming purple marks that wouldn't fade, not when gojo saw you tomorrow.

he's running his curled hand up towards the fat mushroom tip, almost glowing pink with heat and pre-cum that's leaving his hand slicked with faint moisture, "shit, that's it."

then what? he can imagine your teasing smile as you decide to take your pleasure as you see fit. how you'd suddenly push this faceless man off, and move so you're straddling him, letting his hands wander around the curve of your hips, digging into plush flesh.

now he's starting to pant, open-mouthed, "ah - fuck! wish i had you here, right here." gojo must be a madman, breathing out to the empty, open air.

but in his mind's eye, you're reaching behind your back to undo the zipper on your outstandingly tight dress, giving the faceless man a coy smile as you push the fabric of your dress down, letting your plentiful tits spill out and against the man's chest.

his wrist is moving faster now, and there's a cramp starting to build up as he pistons his hand over his stretched shaft, and one arm is thrown over his face — the soft hairs on his thick forearm tickling his face as he tries not to gasp or whine too loudly, but he's bucking his ups now, pretending that it's not his hand that he's spilling into, but your tight cunt. and later, he shudders and tenses up, with apologies whispered into the air, "look, look - shit, i'm sorry - i'm sorry. couldn't help it, fuck." and gojo's bitten his lips so hard that he's certain he's drawn blood, vibrant red blooming on pale, creamy skin.

and a lamp had exploded as he came. damn, he'd have to replace that.

you don't deserve someone like him, no. not when he's sitting here, absolutely filthy with thick, white seed entirely over his tense abdominal muscles and stiff hand. not when he's trying to catch his breath after imagining how snug your pussy would feel around him, and how you'd beg for him to give it to you harder.

you didn't deserve someone so messed up with guilt, with mistakes, with the kind of weight that made him too much for anyone, let alone someone like you. didn't you deserve better than a tortured man who couldn't control himself, better than an overzealous mentor who was supposed to keep his distance, to do what was right.

but that didn’t stop his thoughts from swirling, as he separated damp, thick thighs from the smooth surface of the chair, reaching for a tissue. he couldn’t help it. and it made him feel like a damn fool.

the meeting room buzzed with tension, voices rising in sharp, clipped exchanges — some angry, some demanding and others clueless and questioning. gojo had woken up in a foul mood that morning, with some ill-gotten storm brewing beneath his chest. perhaps it was the thoughts of you that lingered from the night before, a gnawing jealously that left him feeling too tight in the stiffness of the uniform dress pants.

but he had forced himself to be dragged through this meeting, plastering a snarky light-hearted grin over his face as he leaned against the wall, letting the higher-ups argue themselves into oblivion.

amidst the storm of words, gojo's focus was nowhere near the mission being discussed. no, his attention was fixated entirely on you. you stood at the far end of the table, eyes flashing with ire as you tore into some pompous old fool who’d dared question your power. the others in the room shifted uncomfortably, deferring to you, as they often did, despite your youth. you had that rare combination of presence and bite that made people recoil back when you sunk your teeth into them, and this was not a knot gojo was interested in unraveling.

kojiro, one of the bumbling administrators, had turned his babbling attention to gojo, "you're still planning to face that curse head-on, gojo-san?" the poor man is wringing his hands at gojo's flat look (made all the more unreadable through a blindfold, satoru would wager), "don't you think it would be well - unwise? instead of expending your time and energy on one cursed spirit, you could handle five lesser ones. efficiency, you see."

gojo's gaze briefly flickers back to you, standing with your arms crossed as one hand fiddles with the end of your braid as your petal-pink lips scowl at some other official with words that don't fit his stature. your other hands keeps reaching around your neck, adjusting a plaid scarf over and over, like you're desparate to hide something under the fabric . well, fuck that.

"i'm aware of the risks," gojo turns his attention back to the matter, "but no one here has time for hesitation. if the curse is special grade, don't you at least think that delaying with lead to more destruction?"

"is it really the cursed spirit you’re worried about, takumi-san?" you asked, your voice low, the kind of voice that could make someone forget their own name.

gojo's gaze snapped to you from under the blindfold, but you weren’t looking at him, not even speaking at him. instead, you were locking eyes with one of the other sorcerers — takumi, a grade two with a shaggy mop of golden hair, one who had been a student alongside you and hardly subtle in his admiration for you.

gojo tries to hide a scoff at how takumi's eyes are wandering over you, ignoring the newpapers that have been flattened on the meeting table, with bold inked letters reading doom-portents such as 'unexplained explosion, 4 dead and 12 injured."

time and place, man.

"you don't think i can handle this mission. if you're worried about me, just say so," takumi's now leaning into you, even as gojo tries to train his ear on kojiro's economic-obsessed babble instead.

gojo can see your eyes flicker to the dastardly newspapers as well, clearly curling your lips at the dour news and takami's disastrous attempt at getting his hands under your skirt. but he also knows that sharp glint in your eyes, the one when you toy with those around you, to pull them in without ever committing to anything. clearly, you've decided to indulge this game.

"takumi," and you draw out the younger man's name, "shouldn't you bring more strength to the table? of course, i'm worried about a friend getting hurt. but even if you were stronger, or the strongest, a special grade curse could do some real damage."

and your eyes have flicked right towards gojo, raking over his frame leaning against the pale cream walls. he's glad for the blindfold, so you can't see how he scowls and furrows his thin brows at you, at your blatant hopes for a reaction from him. were you so unobservant that you did not know how much you bothered him?

the pointed sharpness in your words made takumi pause, and for just a moment, gojo could see the man’s grin falter. it was clear that you weren’t impressed by his attention, you had no need for his slimy attempts.

there was no mistake about it — this wasn’t just a flirtation. this was a game you played, and gojo was not only aware of it; he was caught in it. he tries not to feel irrationally angry, fuck, so much of his life revolves around his work, his job and now he can't even do that properly without feeling like you're using your long nails to dangle something in front of him, wanting to snap his teeth out and snatch it.

so you wanted him to see this. you wanted to claim that you could unravel the strongest sorcerer from the heavens to the earth below, to make him lose his composure. gojo feels as if there is crackling ozone in the air, and wonders dimly if the weather forecast predicted a rain storm for later today.

takumi, sensing the shift, finally backed off with a huff, but not before giving all around him a lingering look, as if it was their fault that you weren't interested.

"enough distractions," kojiro's interjected, raking a finger through a beard streaked with gray, and he's shooting a pointed look at you, snapping rose-pink gum, and takumi, shuffling with his hands in his pockets. "we're here to discuss the mission, not flirt." and then, he's off mumbling something about how this was why he hated having younger sorcerers join the meeting rooms.

his ire only grew. gojo stood with his back against the wall, outside the meeting room, once everyone had left with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. you stood in front of him, your eyes flashing with anger, your chest rising and falling with each sharp breath.

"absolutely not," gojo stood his ground firmly, "no-one will let you go on this mission."

you stomped on the floor, once as your heels snapped an echo, "they will if you say so."

gojo stuffs his hands in his pockets, "who said that i would also allow you?"

you scoffed, folding your arms across your chest, mimicking his previous stance but with a clear defiance in your posture. "and why the hell not? i'm more than capable of handling it. it's my fucking choice, and how can extra help hurt?"

"enough!" gojo snapped, feeling a tense pain in between his eyes, "it's too dangerous. and you're too young -"

"too young!" you've interrupted him, "i'm not some helpless child, sensei. i'm a grade 1 sorcerer! one of the best, i don't need to be treated like i can't handle a mission."

"grade 1. not special-grade."

his eyes narrowed, his jaw tight. gojo could see the fury in your eyes, but there was something else there, something deeper, a vulnerability that he had seen before in students, some desire to prove themselves and be heaped with praise. he knew you were good, better than most — hell, better than many of the adults he’d seen. but this cursed spirit was unlike anything you’d faced before. and yet, here you were, challenging him, pushing him, daring him to stop you.

"you don’t get it," he muttered, the words slipping from his mouth before he could stop them. "you think you’re invincible, but you’re not. you're too reckless."

"reckless!" now you had taken a step towards him, narrowing the space between you both. your eyes were fierce now, but there was something else in them — a spark of hurt that made his chest tighten, and gojo began to wander where this would start spiral. "i’m not reckless. i know exactly what i’m doing. the only reckless thing here is you thinking you have the right to control my every move."

"i'm the one in charge here," he said, his voice hoarse, the words coming out sharper than he intended. "and i'm telling you now, you’re not going. you’re not ready for this. don't involve the higher-ups in this."

you were so close now, just inches apart. his eyes flicked to your lips, with the arch of a blooming flower kissed by the sun, for a brief moment, and then back up to your face, where anger and frustration mixed with something else — a challenge.

"maybe that’s the problem," you said, your voice quieter now, but still holding an edge. "you think i'm still some child who needs you to tell me what to do. maybe you just don’t want me to outshine you."

the words are ridiculous, and he can see by the mild quiver as your throat bobs that you don't mean what you say. it takes a rare type of courage to tell the first person in four hundred years to be born with limitless and six eyes, that he could be outshined. but satoru doesn't say a word to rebuke your obvious and false bait.

your body is so close now that gojo could feel the heat of your skin, your breath brushing against his. he could smell the faint sweetness of vanilla again in the air mingled with fresh, crisp apples, could see the subtle shine of your lip gloss catching the light. it was a testament to his spirit, he thinks, that he did not lean in straight away and touch his mouth to yours in this scenario that certainly did not warrant it.

"you want me to stop you that badly?" he hissed, his voice a mix of frustration and something darker, that had not yet snapped. "is that what this is? a game? a way for you to get my attention? to see how far you can push me before i do snap?"

now he's got your tongue, and your expression has flickered for a brief moment before schooling into an impassive mask, and gojo briefly wanders if he's crossed an awful line and misinterpreted everything. if they're gonna stick a white dunce hat on his head and parade him through the streets of outer tokyo for being an assuming fool.

but then you've stepped even closer, your breath coming faster, the weight of your chest almost pressed against his, and gojo doesn't move and he's briefly aware that he's let his infinity down.

"partly, you know it's not just about you though. i do want to go on this mission, but -" you tilt your head and look right up at him, and the older man's head starts to reel from the fact that he was right all along, "i do want to see how far you can go before you snap."

his heart pounded, and for a moment, everything went still. all the tension, all the heat, the anger, and the desire — everything seemed to converge in the space between you. gojo's hand twitched, aching to touch you, but he held himself back, his muscles straining with the effort.

"stop,” he rasped, barely able to get the word out. "you don’t know what you’re doing, or what you're asking for."

he's never felt quite like this before, breathless as if the air has been punched out of his lungs. all gojo could think was how much he wanted to pull you closer, to kiss you until there was nothing left between you.

but he couldn’t.

he puts his hands on your shoulders, fingers digging into the expensive fabric of your top, and gently pushes you away.

"my decision is final. don't make this harder than this, you're forbidden from the mission."

how sick and twisted, that you've fled with embarrassed tears pricking at your eyes, and he's stuck with a raging erection.

well, he had seen worse. but it didn't make this curse any less vicious. it was ancient, he could presume, and maddening. its cursed energy was warping the night air like a violent storm. but again, not the worst thing that he had encountered in his twenty-eight years, and with the right timing, he'd been able to calculate every strike and counter.

but then he saw you.

at first, he thought it was a blur — a trick of the light. but then, there you were, standing at the edge of the pavement, your figure framed by the chaotic crackle of cursed energy. fuck your stubborn nature.

this is not what is meant to happen. gojo's heart has skipped a beat, and he's not sure what he's more furious with. you, for defying his concern for your safety. or himself, for getting so distracted in. a battle.

"what the fuck is wrong with you?"

yes, he knows you're good. good enough to move with precision against a special-grade curse, your stance instantly and suspiciously better than the other day in the training rooms. it's only through his six eyes that gojo has been able to keep a track of your movements as your jujutsu is able to dodge the creature's brutal force.

impressive. but reckless.

and that never lasts.

you had moved to cast your own cursed technique, but the curse was intelligent enough to anticipate it. with a sudden lash of its tail, the creature swung its power straight at you, knocking you off balance. you stumbled, your footing lost, and before you could react, a flash of dark energy slicing across your shoulder.

a scream had torn from your lips as you fell to the ground, blood spurting from the deep cut.

and briefly, just for a flicker of time, gojo sees a dark-haired man in violet robes leaning against a brick wall, with his shoulder torn off, 'at least curse me one last time.'

blood rushing in his ears, before he even realised it, he was on top of you, his body hovering over yours, his jujutsu flaring as he shoved the cursed spirit back with a brutal force that made the earth tremble, an exorcism that will not take long. he kneeled beside you, his breath ragged, eyes locked on the wound on your shoulder. the blood was already soaking your clothes, darkening the fabric as you winced, your breath shallow and unsteady.

"you —” gojo isn't sure if his hand isn't shaking from how irate he is, "what the hell were you thinking? fuck, don't move."

your eyes were unfocused for a moment, but when they snapped to him, there was defiance there — even in this moment (get a grip!), as you gritted your teeth against the pain.

"save it, it's fine," you spat, your voice weak but vexed, "that bitch is still there."

"what did i tell you! what did i say would happen?" he cursed under his breath, focusing his reversed cursed technique as he tried to heal you, but the moment felt like an eternity as bright red blood moved too fast for him to seize it.

an assassin's blade in his throat, his arteries giving way and bubbling out and up.

now you don't answer, your eyes fluttering closed for a brief second. gojo's gaze darted to the cursed spirit, which was now advancing again, enraged by the interruption.

it won’t touch you again.

he stood, pulling you away from him, your body slumping slightly out of his arms. he could feel the heat of your blood soaking through his sleeve, but he had no time to dwell on it. the curse roared in fury, and gojo's infinity flared up around him again, a shield of pure energy blocking its path.

"stay down,” he growled, and all he received was a weak, "fuck, you think that's funny?"

it's only later when he's pulling you back up, that he realises that his reversed cursed energy has done enough to stem the bleeding, but not enough to leave you unharmed as your breath is shallow, your face taking on a more sickly pallor.

"don’t you ever — ever —do that again," he snarled, his voice raw and he wonders when something (or someone) has ever undone him so much. but the anger in his voice doesn't carry to his touch as he gently cupped your face, his thumb brushing over your cheek, tracing the lines of your jaw.

the sterile walls of your room did nothing to soften the tension in gojo's chest as he stood by your bed, his eyes tracing the curve of your sullen form beneath the sheets. your shoulder was bandaged, with red seeping slowly through the white strips.

"you really are unbelievable," he snapped, his voice sharp as he paced around the room, every step heavy with frustration. "i told you it was too dangerous. i told you not to fucking go."

you lay there, your eyes half-closed, as though you weren’t even listening, but the twitching frown on your lips is sign enough that you're not as sorry. his fingers flexed at his sides, itching to do something — anything — to release the tension building in him.

"are you even listening to me?" he know he sounds bitter, over-reactionary, angry as he moved towards the edge of your bed.

you blinked slowly, your gaze still infuriatingly calm, "i'm fine, now. save the lecture."

he doesn't want to start sputtering so he settles for crossing his arms over his chest, but your voice breaks the silence again.

"you know i want to be a special grade sorcerer, right?"

gojo only looks down, not wanting to indulge an excuse and he studies the tight grip of his knuckles on his slender fingers, "well, i don't know why. the pay isn't that good." it's a weak attempt at a joke, but you're smiling.

"i was told i could only become one if i was the one to exorcise that special grade."

"by who? the higher-ups?" and you nod, wincing as you do.

what a fucking surprise. the way that the jujutsu world works is no surprise to gojo by now, having been surrounded by it his entire life. but the harshness of their reality still shocks him, old and doddering officials who cling to their silk robes are prone to sending out younger sorcerers (those who are still green, barely out of school) to do their dirty work for them, and the cemetery outside of jujutsu tech is ever growing.

he ground his teeth together, his chest tightening as he stared down at you. the bandages, the damp skin, the stillness of your body — it made him want to tear something apart. "fine! if they were giving you a hard time, why didn't you just come to me then?" he repeated harshly.

"would you go ask someone to help you, for something like this? if you were asked to prove yourself?"

gojo runs his tongue behind his teeth, "i'm the strongest, princess. i don't need to ask for help."

you groan, turning your head away from him, but a faint smile dances upon your lips.

he inhales sharply, his fingers digging into the edge of the bed. "you think this is a joke?"

"all four limbs are attached and i'm living and breathing. okay, so fine. my bad. i won't do it again. will you stop snapping at me now, at everything -" and gojo wonders if there's really some hurt colouring your voice, "what's going on?"

the words slip out, rough and unrestrained. "what’s going on is that you’re driving me insane. you act like this doesn’t matter, like i can just stand by and let you throw yourself into danger like it’s nothing — like you don’t matter — but you do. you do matter."

his chest was heaving now, his hands shaking as he reached out and grabbed your wrist. his thumb brushed over your pulse, the tiny fluttering beneath your skin driving him wild. "i can’t — i can’t just stand there and watch you get hurt," he continued, his voice hoarse. "you don’t get to do whatever you want without consequences, damn it. you don’t get to make me feel this way, and then pretend like it doesn’t matter."

for a moment, there was silence. gojo's pulse was hammering in his ears, his body coiled with the intensity of everything he was trying to say. everything he was trying not to say. everything he wanted to act upon.

and then, with a slow, almost lazy smile, you turned towards him, "i didn't know the great gojo satoru was like this. who would have thought?"

his breath hitched in his throat. gojo wanted to say something, to snap at you again, to maintain that distance — but the truth was that the distance between the two of you had disappeared these past few weeks. his chest tightened, his hands trembling as they slid to your face, fingers tracing the line of your jaw, and he relished how your facade almost cracked and you lightly shivered.

at least, he hoped you were shivering because of his touch. and not, like, a fever building up from your injuries.

fuck it.

and then, before he could stop himself, gojo was leaning down, his lips crashing into yours with all the force he could muster, desparate and hungry and that frustration and fear that he had been holding onto. his hand cupped the back of your neck, pulling you towards him with a force that made your breath catch, as you responded with a soft gasp.

had he misstepped? no, for you kissed him back, tentatively at first, as if you were testing the waters, but then building up to a sudden urgency that mirrored his own. your hands slid to his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as you pushed yourself closer to him, before crying out.

"ah! fuck, my shoulder."

small beads of blood surfaced where your collarbone met your shoulder, each one glistening like tiny rubies against your warm skin. they gathered slowly, delicate droplets that clung to you before tracing faint, uneven lines downward. the red stood out, vivid and fresh, dotting your skin in a stark, almost mesmorising gojo as they welled up and began to trick in thin, crimson trails.

"stay still," gojo rasped, his voice low and rough as he leaned in, pressing closer. his mouth met the fresh blood pooling on your skin, tongue tracing over the small rivulets that had seeped from beneath the bandage.

he lingered, almost savouring the taste, his eyes darkening as the sharp tang of iron lingered on his tongue, smacking his lips slightly as he drew back, gaze fixed intently on you, on your heavy breathing as he stole away another kiss from you.

gojo's lips left yours briefly, his breath ragged as he stared down at you, his eyes wild underneath the blindfold, gasping as your nails reached up to hook the fabric down so his hair loosened, falling around his face.

you were staring back at him, breathless and wide-eyed, and in that moment, gojo knew — he couldn’t stay away from you. no matter how much he tried.

your lips were soft, so soft, but there was fire behind the way you kissed him back, your hands landing on his chest, nails digging into the fabric of his shirt. he groaned, deep in his throat, and his fingers threaded into your hair, pulling you closer.

his mouth moved urgently over yours as he shifted to stand beside the bed, his body hovering over you, every muscle tense, straining with the desire that he had tried so hard to ignore. gojo just couldn't think about anything else.

and your lips broke apart only briefly, and you let out a soft laugh, that damn, dangerous laugh of yours. "you're greedy, you know that."

his chest heaved, and his heart pounded in his ears, and blood was now pounding to his nether regions. he wasn’t sure if it was the previous anger or the ache between his ribs, but he couldn’t stop himself as he threaded his fingers through your soft hair, "i am greedy. greedy for you. only you - mmph! shit!"

you had run your long, painted nails (with the little painted charms on the end) down his neck before pressing them, hard enough to cause a sharp sting.

"you wanted to put me through hell," he whispered harshly, and his lips brushed against your ear as he spoke, "until i realised i liked it. until i realised i wanted you, all of you."

his hands moved down to your waist, squeezing gently as his lips found the tender spot beneath your ear, trailing kisses there, letting his teeth sink in, to see small bruises appear. gojo's breath was ragged as he fought to keep control, and something deeper inside of him roared with the need to claim you completely.

"you’re mine," he growled against your skin, the words hot and possessive. "i don't care what happens. you’re mine now."

you tilted your head, still smiling, but this time there was something different in your eyes — something that burned with the same intensity. "if i'm yours, what are you going to do about it? hmm, satoru?"

and that final thread, that last remnant of honour that he had been nurturing and holding onto, snapped.

"is this what you want, princess?" he draws out the nickname, letting it roll off his tongue, as you suddenly inhale sharply. his hands are all over you now, large hands exploring and kneading at your torso, and before he can even let you blink, they're under your top.

he's pressing his hot mouth to your sternum, wet and open-mouthed, and he wonders what sort of effect you have on him. what force in the world leave him panting like this, desparate as his hands find their way behind your back, to unclip whatever's holding your tits in place — just so he can reach back and run his palms over your hard nipples, flicking them and rolling them in between his fingers.

and faintly, in the back of his mind, he's aware that his reversed cursed technique must be working overtime, because suddenly you're rolling forward into him with no care in the world for your previously injured shoulder, as your own hands trail down the front of body, right over his bulge.

but he slaps your hand away, pressing you flat against the mattress, "fuck, not yet. you think i'm just going to let you get away with all this," and as you mewl a soft yes, followed by a please, he rolls his eyes, "wait. behave and i'll give you what you want."

and then, softer, "need to make sure you're ready first."

his arms are caging both sides of your head, and he's got one hand on the headboard (although, you will marvel at the burnt imprint that he's left, later) and the other is tearing your top off, just so he can lean down and let his canines press into the soft fat of your chest, so he can slip a pointed nipple into his mouth and tug it, ever so gently.

but gojo needs to continue lower, and his hand squeezes at the waistband of your short skirt, snapping the elastic twice as you heave your bare chest, "please, please, satoru!"

it's heaven down here for him, and gojo's dizzy at how outstandingly wet you are, with just a single swipe of his fingers in the soft, damp fabric of your underwear.

your clear, sticky arousal clung to his fingers, stretching in thin, glistening threads as he spread your thighs apart, knocking your knees to either side so he could slot himself in between them. your slick shimmered slightly under the light, translucent and tacky and he just couldn't help himself, bringing them up to his mouth to slowly taste.

"shit, princess. you taste so good, can't believe this is what i've been missing out on."

he's playing an instrument, he thinks. gliding his fingers along sodden folds, twirling his index finger past a thick wad of skin and pressing right over your clit in hot, tight circles that have you bucking your hips, "hnngh, right - ah, right there 'toru!"

'toru.

as a reward, he plunges his middle finger straight into your gaping heat, your tight wall of ringed muscles that had been fluttering in light pulses for his attention. fuck, he almost reaches his own climax by feeling how you squirm and writhe, moan and mewl as he starts pushing his finger in, and then out.

in, and then out. in, once more. and out, again. and then, another finger.

his fingers sank into your soft, damp pussy — which yielded easily enough with a soft pssh! as the digits pressed in. gojo pulled his hand back out from your thighs, enjoying the tight resistance and suction as your cunt has resisted being empty once more, leaving a cool moistness on his skin.

but now your hands gently cup his face, and he isn't sure how to not crumble with how you look at him, eyes wide and glossy, "wan' more, want your cock, 'toru."

now, gojo feels as though he's truly ascended, gone onto some higher plane of existence. because how can he resist when your hands are weakly pawing at his belt, at his waistband and he's letting you pull his thick shaft out.

it's hot, and already weeping angry tears of pre-cum, and he just loves how your eyes widen at the sheer size and girth.

"yeah, princess was sooo brave earlier, wasn't she? wanted my cock, ah! shit - did she?" and he's letting the wide tip lay heavy against your clit, knocking it once, and then twice, through your heavenly folds.

you've reached a leg up, and around his waist, pulling him closer and gojo has to pierce his lip with his teeth to not let out a gutteral groan from his cock sliding through the your folds, "i don't - don't care, i really don't fucking care if it's too big. just put it in now, m' so wet, i'm wet enough."

your babble is endearing, and he marvels at how easily he has you cock-drunk without even being in you right now. he jostles further, until the tip is right at your flittering entrance, pressing forward and slipping through the heated, slick gummy texture in a way that has the strongest's head spinning.

"easy, princess. oh fuck, you're too tight. way too tight, i'm gonna -" and gojo inhales, steadying himself, as the wet heat enveloped him as he moved, each slide through the soft walls of your pussy leaving him acutely aware of every inch, the warmth coating him further until your slick was dampening the white, stray hairs of his groin.

he pulls your lips close again, one hand coming up to gently cradle your head, and his fingers weaving slowly through your hair.

"you're so deep in me, 'toru! so - hnngh," and your words are cut off by a staccato thrust of his hips, and your teeth clack around a moan that gojo gladly swallows.

"hey, i'm right here. i've got you, yeah? got you so good, just hold onto me."

and he keeps a steady pace, plunging into molten silk, with a sensation so intense and so enveloping that it left him breathless, with a rush of heat that made his head spin.

he's toying with your tits, pressing his face into the shadow that lies between your mounds, and gojo's certain that he could die a happy man like this, exactly like this.

he realises that the faint laugh is coming from him, so distant is he in his pussy-drunk reverie, that he realises he must look and sound like a madman, "pretty pussy is so tight, so fucking tight. haah, i think i'm gonna have to fill you up, gorgeous?" and he must be blathering, "want me to fill you up? shit- want me to stuff... ah! stuff you so full of cum that we just hafta stay in this bed all day then?"

he had his fingers now moving in circles over your throbbing clit, exerting a gentle pressure that had you so beautifully keening and bucking your hips up, jolting right into his pelvis. and gojo bit back as a groan as his heavy balls started to smack, and smack! over and over again, right onto your dampened skin.

"she must be close right, pretty little pussy must be almost tired now," and gojo's now slapping your clit, lifting three fingers up and bringing them down with enough force to not harm you, but make you jolt, "she. must. be. so. close." and each word is punctuated by the slippery spank of his fingers bouncing right off your mound.

"makes me want to have you - you and her," and gojo's revelling in the slick of your pussy, now throwing his head back without shame.

and when your walls start to flutter, when you start writhing in his grasp, pressed right against his chest with your legs knocked back as far as they reach on other side of his broad frame, he feels himself unravel. feels the rhythmic quake of your tight cunt literally milk him dry, letting pools of thick, white seed plug within you, and he almost shakes and tears up himself, at the idea of claiming you like this.

later, he has you resting against his chest and the knot in his chest, that nasty plague that sent him afoul has disappeared, and gojo feels as though he's about to start purring, from the feeling of your nails trailing little shapes over his skin (little hearts, perhaps?) and how soft your hair feels under his own hands. he can't resist himself from pressing his lips softly to your forehead, "happy?"

you laugh, a genuine, soft sound that erupts from your chest as you press your bare body into him, "you have no idea."

[gregorycddie]

unhappy to say that i just discovered 'love from the other side' by fall out boy is very much ineffable husbands breakup

[goodqueenaly]

Revisiting Catelyn's chapter, and I've been finding the way that she reflects on her childhood in Riverrun (and while *at* Riverrun, watching over her dying father) rather interesting, in particular her relationship with Brandon. When Jaime speaks to her about his death, and she begins to tell him of how Brandon was on his way to Riverrun when he heard about Lyanna, she notes that "telling it still made her throat grow tight, after all these years." And later, after Jeyne comes to her for advice, we have this passage -- “Tell me what I should do. Catelyn might have asked the same, if her father had been well enough to ask. But Lord Hoster was gone, or near enough. Her Ned as well. Bran and Rickon too, and Mother, and Brandon so long ago. Only Robb remained to her, Robb and the fading hope of her daughters” -- where she counts Brandon as one of the people lost to her, along her mother, and children, and Ned.

What level of depth of feeling, of emotion do you think there was between Brandon and Catelyn during their betrothal (speaking from Catelyn's end of things)? I find these passages a bit curious and they seem to hint to me love, though her POVs also don't quite give us glimpses of any sort of emotional or physical intimacy between them (by physical I mean even something at the level of the kissing games she played with Lysa and Petyr)?

Thank you for taking the time to share your insights with us!

Catelyn was betrothed to Brandon for around five or six years during a significant portion of her young life. As the dutiful daughter of a House whose devotion to duty is literally reflected in its dynastic motto, Catelyn was raised even at 12 to “[thank] him [i.e. her father Hoster] for making her such a splendid match” when this betrothal occurred. While I doubt Catelyn and Brandon met very frequently during their betrothal period, his apparent companionship with Jeffory Mallister may suggest that Brandon traveled in the Riverlands in the years before his death, and consequently spent some time with his fiancée during this time; I doubt Brandon and Catelyn would have been left unchaperoned or allowed to engage in any remotely indecorous conduct, to be sure but these may have been opportunities for the two of them to exchange some courtly pleasantries. Brandon was also personally good-looking, wild in both rage and mirth in a way the young Catelyn clearly found attractive. 

Given all that, I’m not surprised that Catelyn would have developed some level of romantic feelings toward Brandon, and would have held onto those feelings for the rest of her life. Brandon had been her politico-dynastic destiny from the age of 12 until roughly about the age of 17 or 18, a man she had been encouraged to love as her future lord husband. Moreover, to Catelyn, Brandon may have seemed quite the catch - the handsome, dashing young knight or de facto knight, heir to a great castle and title, who dueled in her name for the honor of her hand. With Brandon dying young and tragically from Aerys II’s tyranny, Catelyn never had the chance to become disillusioned with Brandon’s infidelity (and almost certainly never knew of his sexual relationship with Barbrey or his potential bastards), or to have to manage his emotionality day to day; Brandon could remain idealized in Catelyn's mind as her first fiancé and love. 

Which is not to say, of course, that Catelyn never loved Ned. If neither Catelyn nor Ned had been raised to anticipate marrying the other, both understood the politico-military necessity of doing so during Robert’s Rebellion; more importantly, each also came to understand, appreciate, and ultimately love the other on a deeply personal level. Catelyn might have always remembered Brandon, but Ned was "her Ned", her husband, "the man I loved, the father of my children".

[mossy123302]

I am not exactly entirely good with character or relationship analysis (A reason why my dumb fox head is aroace because I am not good w/ navigating romantic relationships)

So this is just my best effort writing the dynamic Q! Philza and Q! Missa have.

I do like to headcanon, like others, that Philza is indeed aroace, but not in a way, that like he doesn't understand what platonic or romantic means. Sure, it's funny to tease Philza about it, but it's also true that close friends could very much do so. I think Philza is quite aware of what is romantic and platonic, he knows the boundaries of it. I mean Philza is literally married to the Goddess of Death (implied) Kristin. It's more or less that Philza doesn't simply care for such labels. (I very much hc that Philza could probably be genderfluid, like me- Peeposmile)

It's something Philza even mentioned in the live stream when talking about the deities in hardcore world. It's something they don't care about and just vibe with whatever they're vibing with. They don't care and I think Philza is the same in that mindset. He just doesn't care, and will be blunt about it, if he needs to actually talk about it.

Philza seems to deeply cherish those that are ... similar to himself from what I can tell. I don't fully watch Fit or other POV to get a clear understanding of Phil's relationship w/ others so I'm sorry if I don't include them, same with Technoblade. I've recently started watching mcyt again and I don't want to talk about something I don't have a full understanding of.

Anyways, Phil deeply connects with those that share similar traits to him in some regard. Techno whose the Blood God, who clearly has an understanding of death, war and loyalty and this clearly shows via Missa too. Missa, while not a fighter, does understand death and how important it is... He literally is a gentle grim reaper. He understands death much clearly, because his mother is also a Goddess tied to Death as well. Missa is also fiercely loyal to Phil and his children, because honestly, he was so busy! He didn't have to return to Quesadilla Island but he did because he cares about Phil and his children, quickly adopted Tallulah and he hadn't even seen her yet.

Whoever Phil trusted and guards with his life, Missa will guard that person with his life as well. Of course, unless, we talk about BadboyHalo then that's another discussion LOL. Such a mess between the demon (?) and grim reaper.

Anyways, we know how much Phil values such loyalty that, I cannot remember what Tubbo said, but he immediately locked Tubbo out of his own home because of what he said about someone and while despite implied flings with others. Philza never spoke about others the way he speaks about Missa.

Their relationship definitely...crosses the line of platonic and romantic. I can see why it would be considered queer platonic relationship, but also at the same time, it's like there is some line being breached which makes everyone raise an eyebrow cause sir, what do you mean platonic-

Philza is clearly...possessive over Missa, because the way he got so defensive when Bagi mentions Antoine (right?) and Missa should date. Philza didn't have to get so defensive, because Missa already immediately denied. Philza could have kissed anyone else, like Fit, but chose Missa instead. He even demanded Tall Missa to the admins, got jealous over any shipping fanart and acts like he's fine and doesn't miss Missa at all. *Coughs in* "I'm going to f*cking off myself. Did Missa log on again?!" (Side eye Philza)

Like he's done lots of things that makes everyone just raise an eyebrow- Philza is fooling no one but himself (& Missa)

I also enjoy the lore Missa has going on with accepting that he is indeed a part of the family and isn't alone. Missa had just lost Spreen, and suddenly, he had no one but the Angel of Death as his assigned partner. Missa must have felt so unmatched compared to Philza because what could he even offer to the family? He had nothing but his music and kind words, which is everyone that Death Family wanted. Missa brought a different change to the family that makes them be vulnerable, to not be so serious all the time and to actually just relax and be like a family that's just on vacation.

I mean, and just talking about loyalty and kindness. Missa never gave up... He fought his way back, despite getting taken away by wolves and suddenly Badboyhalo being so cruel. He always made sure his family was safe and always brought something for them.

Didn't Missa say he got lost because he tried to find a gift for Philza?! Like...the commitment to find a perfect gift for Philza, and still returning (sure, without the gift). While it's hilarious, Missa doesn't run away because of his wet cat behavior. He runs away because he doesn't want to put his family in danger, he cannot fight as well as others can. He relies on others to fight for him and then he jumps in to help, but because the time zone doesn't allow such things. Missa is forced to run.

And Missa is good at it. He will run as far as he can, if it means his family will be safe. He isn't running away from his family, but the danger because at the end of it all, he will return back to his family, no matter how long it takes.

And Missa casually admitted to Chayanne that he needs Philza more than he realized, the same way Philza realizes he needed Missa but didn't dare admit, whether it is out of fear or something else that he couldn't voice it. But Philza clearly showed it through his actions, that he brought/dragged Missa to Rose's Sanctuary before they went to sleep forever. He didn't have to do so, but he did... indicating their bond is much deeper because Rose's Sanctuary is literally a pocket dimension that no one cannot access.

Missa has access. Now he sleeps eternally with his family...

Also their whole dynamic just being Sun/Moon. Fated to never see each other at times, until an eclipse and yet...they still leave signs to let the other know that they're still remembered. This also brought to my attention how Missa is afraid of the sky, while Philza yearns for the sky/to fly.

You think The Sun (Philza) misses the Moon (Missa) so much, because of how far they are, instead of just not seeing each other. The Moon clings to Earth, because they're afraid to go beyond...to something unknown while the Sun cannot stay still, and yearns to burn and be free.

Deathduo/Pissa has me on chokehold.

I do hope this was an interesting analysis, I'm not very good at this..honestly it's probably just me rambling if anything.

[tk-duveraun]

3/? Luo Binghe is SO NORMAL about Shen Yuan

1, 2, 3 (here), 4

Read up through even numbered parts on Ao3

Thanks to his System quest countdown, Luo Binghe knew to follow Shen Yuan to the Lingxi caves to retrieve Shen Jiu. In IRS, the blood relationship between the two was left ambiguous. Their Shizun had claimed that as twins they could co-rule Qing Jing Peak as Shen Qingchun and Shen Qingqiu, but the swapping POV meant Luo Binghe knew both men were certain their resemblance and shared family name were coincidences.

Their POVs never offered evidence for those claims, finding the idea preposterous and the 'truth' self-evident in yet another lazy diversion from either writing or explaining things. Luo Binghe honestly wasn't sure the author, Snowballing, had even made a concrete decision about it.

The justification their shizun made to the then-sect leader had been that since Xiu Ya had split itself between the two of them, they clearly had a connection worthy of being dual peak lords. Of course, the shippers called them soulmates for that.

It was uncomfortable to keep his expression politely curious as Luo Binghe followed after the elegant line of Shen Yuan. Ning Yingying chattered away at his side and received a head pat — a head pat! — for her enthusiasm. For his part, Ming Fan was desperately trying to get Shen Yuan to answer questions about the budget. Likely, he wanted everything done before Shen Jiu could ax everything he deemed unnecessary.

Luo Binghe tuned out the reunion between the peak lords. Shen Jiu was a little bitch, snarly and overprotective, but otherwise harmless. Despite being in the most chapters after the protagonist, Shen Jiu didn't get so much as an accidental kiss or nipslip for his trouble. Snowball really wanted to play at Schrodinger's incest. Shen Jiu was definitely interested, but didn't get any sugar to ensure those who'd be turned off kept tuning in and paying.

Actually, the last bit was a little up in the air. Luo Binghe's weird cousin was corporate espionage stroke an actual criminal and he hadn't been able to find Snowball's real identity or address. Look, Luo Binghe just wanted to ask him some questions, okay? But his cousin had come to the conclusion that Snowball was either also quite rich or lived in a series of actual gutters.

Luo Binghe followed dutifully as screams attracted Shen Yuan's attention, but didn't stop thinking.

Wealth would explain why even offers of generous payments to modify the story never hit, but Snowball was notorious for neither responding to nor even reading messages. The story was locked by the platform multiple times due to some failure to respond to their admin on his part.

It wasn't as if artists could afford to have actual integrity in the capitalist economy. A monthly payment of less than he spent on boba kept several artists from lewding Shen Yuan with any of his worthless suitors. They could still lewd him, of course, but he had to be alone, with Xiu Ya or with the sword Luo Binghe had designed for himself. It was a beautiful thing called Zheng Yang whose sun imagery went great with the 'spring' of Shen Yuan's courtesy name.

Honestly, it was pretty ridiculous that no one he commissioned realized the sword was his. Instead, there were fights over which love interest Luo Binghe supposedly supported since apparently none of the girls believed him shameless enough to ship Shen Yuan with himself. Which was the height of folly. He said in the comments, explicitly, that Shen Yuan was his and his alone.

"We know Shen Qingchun is held in high esteem by both cultivators and demons," Sha Hualing spouted, interrupting Luo Binghe's thoughts.

Truly, any mention of his beloved would immediately snatch his attention.

She continued, "So this Hualing suggests that he judge the fairness of the matches."

Shen Yuan snapped open his fan and visibly considered the idea. From IRS, Luo Binghe knew that he was quickly counting the demons and evaluating their strength. His final estimation was that he and Shen Jiu would be able to send the demons packing, but that the casualties among the disciples would be too high with only two of them.

"Very well," Shen Yuan said. He stepped away from Shen Jiu and toward the demons. He held his fan at arm's length and everyone, human and demon both, took several steps back. He spun in an elegant circle, his robes swirling around him even as an array appeared underneath his feet.

Shen Yuan smiled, not even looking at his work before he moved to stand on the edge of the arena he'd created. With a snap of his fan, he addressed the crowd. "Matches will be to forfeit or when I signal the defeat is complete. As we are exchanging pointers, there's no need for anyone to lose their life." His eyes flashed in challenge; Sha Hualing made him mediate so he wouldn't compete so she would have to deal with his rules.

Luo Binghe had never been so hard in his entire life. He felt light-headed. All of the cultivation studies he'd crammed in anticipation of this day fled his mind in an instant. He was literally panting.

Luo Binghe allowed himself the duration of Shen Qingqiu's match to drool. When his nominal master won, he clenched all of the muscles in both thighs to redirect blood flow to areas that might actually let him win his match. If Sha Hualing wasn't sent running Luo Binghe was in for a bad time.

Liu Mingyan fought the Saintess personally. Her intent was to show her Shen-shibo that he would be marrying into a strong family that could protect him and his interests, but like her brother, she failed miserably at proving anything. Though, Luo Binghe supposed, she was gracious in defeat, which wasn't worthless. It would be a good trait for when Luo Binghe finally had his wife and dashed all hope of her becoming a sister-in-law to his beloved.

When Shen Jiu announced Luo Baixiao would fight Elder Sky Hammer, everyone not from Qing Jing yelled in surprised protest. However, it was an open secret that Shen Jiu despised their youngest disciple. Why? Ask Snowball, but don't hold your breath. He needed the young demon to have a grudge, fuck you, that's why.

In IRS, the fight was a painful beatdown. Luo Baixiao hadn't been particularly filial, so the crowd didn't understand why he wouldn't concede. But the chapter was a rare Shen Yuan POV, so he knew his beloved was frozen with indecision, hidden behind his benign solemnity, which explained why he didn't call the match early.

After the reveal of Luo Baixiao's demonic heritage there had been speculation that he won his match due to channeling some of his demonic energy. Well, if the original goods did, it wasn't an option for Luo Binghe, whose demonic abilities were currently locked behind a system wall. In his corner, however, Luo Binghe had anime.

Though he took a beating memorizing Elder Sky Hammer's attack patterns, Luo Binghe finally had a long enough window to launch a direct qi attack somewhere between a rasengan and kamehameha. Elder Sky Hammer fell with a crash, the poison on his armor completely unused.

Luo Binghe shot his largest, purest smile at Shen Yuan in victory.

[OOC! 7 S-pointed deducted! Only 14 S-points remain.]

"Are you kidding me? I won! I completed the mission!"

[Tutorial quest "I'll Be Your Saint Sebastian" incomplete. Objective: Cause Sha Hualing to flee from Cang Qiong Mountain.]

"Fuck you!"

Luo Binghe had been too busy arguing with the System and almost missed one of the best moments in the universe. Elder Sky Hammer had flung himself across the arena to kill the opponent that bested him, only for Shen Yuan to dash forward and swat him back into the flagstones like a particularly annoying fly.

"My disciple isn't for you to bully."

Shen Yuan's delicate, elegant, pale hand hefted the demon's hammer as if it weighed nothing. Then, Luo Binghe's dearest heart casually tossed the massive weapon to crash at the feet of the assembled demons.

Again, Luo Binghe was instantly hard, but he couldn't allow it to distract him. This was one of the most pivotal moments in all of IRS. Elder Sky Hammer would attack a second time and inflict Shen Yuan with Without-a-Cure, a poison that would cripple his cultivation and inevitably force several instances of dual cultivation to remove the stagnation in his spiritual veins. Luo Binghe couldn't allow it.

Adrenaline replaced blood in his veins as Luo Binghe scanned his immediate surroundings. With his demon heritage, he wouldn't die to Without-a-Cure and shouldn't even suffer permanent cultivation damage, but surviving meant nothing if he couldn't kill Elder Sky Hammer before Shen Yuan was poisoned.

An An Ding disciple to his right had a sharp spade in his hand and grout all over his robes. Good enough. Luo Binghe lunged and snatched the spade before pivoting. Everything seemed to go in slow motion. Elder Sky Hammer had lifted himself onto his hands and knees and was bracing to pounce. Luo Binghe couldn't afford to wait or hesitate and moved before the giant demon did.

As a result of his preemption, Luo Binghe reached Elder Sky Hammer in the moment he left the ground. With a bare-toothed snarl, Luo Binghe struck the spade up through the demon's neck, the poison spikes on his opponent's gorget scratching his forearm through his sleeve.

Together, Luo Binghe and Elder Sky Hammer crashed onto the flagstones. The poison made quick work slithering through his bloodstream. Luo Binghe's vision turned blurry and rainbow-tinted.

"Disciple Luo!" yelled his precious, unharmed beloved.

He passed out.

[batsplat]

if you were to direct a motogp movie (or make a one season of television) what season or rivalry would you make it about? and more interesting what artistic liberties would you take? it doesn’t have to be a straight up biopic bc imo those are often boring, instead it could be something like velvet goldmine (1998) aka fictional characters whose real life counterparts are pretty obvious, veering in like rpf territory. anyways👀

did you know. one time this guy put a curse on this other guy. and he never won a race again

anyway, look, I do feel like by this point that's the BORING answer from me, but obviously it's where my mind first went. I'm not sure I'd actually want it out there in film form because by now it's badly enough remembered that it's like, my cute little niche story, and I think there's something fun about the Wider World even within the motogp fandom not exactly getting how bonkers the whole thing was. (I know other humans have canonically watched motogp 2004 but I swear even journalists have forgotten some key key details and it's kinda annoying but also fun.) bold words from someone who's been blogging about it!! weird gatekeep-y instinct. but basically my job here is done as far as outreach is concerned - I wrote a very long post, now I get asks about it twice a week that allow me to think about it some more with the four other people who care, perfect balance. that rivalry doesn't need to go mainstream!! the whole point of it is that it's kinda cruel but narratively pleasing that it's gone under the radar, because it's another sign valentino won. but obviously, I cannot literally make a film about this, so the hypothetical repercussions I think maybe we can put aside for a moment here

okay I came back to this bit of the post after I increasingly got into of the spirit of coming up with dumb ideas, but it did make me flesh out what I'd even WANT from something like that. I'm with you anon, a lot of biopics are boring!! if you want to just know what happened, please just literally go and 'watch the races' and 'read books' like what are we actually getting here. you kinda want to give it a purpose for existing, right, a way of portraying real/mildly fictionalised events in a manner that is also taking some kind of stance on the material AND is doing stuff you can't do 'in real life'. thing is, look, you could make 2006 into a film, and I'm sure it'd be perfectly nice because it's fundamentally a solid underdog story (well, inherently winning a title with repsol honda is NOT being an underdog but you can write it that way), but also what are you doing beyond just telling people what happened? I feel like that generally about single seasons, they're not really doing anything for me. I was also turning around the biaggi/valentino rivalry in my head in part because that's the one valentino gave as his answer for 'rivalry he would turn into a film' (marc big wet eyes sitting right next to him), but like. a film about that rivalry from valentino's pov is fundamentally not something I'm interested in. you have all these isolated very memorable moments that make it work as a rivalry, like you can absolutely spin them into a dramatic yarn that goes through the genesis of their conflict to middle finger gate to punching gate to assen + donington + sachsenring + phillip island 2001 and it's basically *insert rousing music* successful coming of age. at most you can lean into the fact valentino became successful at being a dick. like idk it's fine but also what's the point? valentino is challenged in a sports context by biaggi, he's challenged because he realises his words have consequence and the press actually reports the words he says to journalists (the horror), but he is fundamentally not challenged on a personal level. that's the entire point, right? it's the ultimate comfort zone rivalry - biaggi is a dick who it is quite easy to hate and also reacts poorly to valentino's initial provocation. the animosity escalates and it is inherently fun to beat him. valentino is mean to him, but it's not like he even really crosses any lines to beat him. like you can make it into a film, and if you twisted the material a little bit you could make it satisfying, but I don't want to!

now the way the writing process of this post worked was that I was going to breeze through a bunch of non-sete/valentino rivalries and explain why I think some of them don't work for our purposes here, but then I ended up writing myself into changing my mind. so my take on the biaggi rivalry is that actually, you CAN make it work but it has to be from biaggi's perspective. basically, I think you've got to amadeus it (a web weave I have been thinking of making at some point btw). so,,, it's a meditation on talent and how unfair it all is, maybe minus the bit where salieri poisons amadeus (I know that doesn't happen in the film) or dresses up as amadeus' father to, y'know, make him write a requiem on his death bed. and it's not amadeus in that HERE, the clown prince gets a happy ending! but it's more like, in thematic terms, I think you have to zero in on this bit. biaggi didn't have parents who shoved him on a bike when he was three years old, he didn't have parents who were invested in his motorcycling career (or even necessarily particularly invested in him), he started the sport late and discovered that, yes, he did have a prodigious amount of skill in it - but one that he started honing far later than valentino did. he approached his career with a sort of grim resolve, surly and irascible and not interested in making friends with any of his competitors but very, very good. he goes away from the race track and dates all these models, he irritates fellow riders, he's not part of the gang and he's happy about it. he's very successful! four 250cc titles, wins his first ever race in 500cc at a time when doohan was very much winning everything. he's also just like,,,, an interesting and spiky enough character it's not hard to make him come alive

but then of course you have this gradual emergence of the amadeus character, the one who challenges his established position in the court of,, well... motorcycle racing, and also as the guy italians rooted for! and valentino's obviously, y'know, in so many ways the exact opposite from biaggi, and he's super young and cheerful and lively and is doing all his silly celebrations and is being a bit camp and goofy and treats motorcycle racing as a party (you really want to lean into the culture clash here, like in amadeus it's because you have stuffy austrian court vibes but here it's because everyone is having their bones broken every two minutes and just how... kinda grim a lot of motorcycle racing was). and he's also this innocent! yes, he insults biaggi, and yes, in retrospect we know valentino is kinda evil, but at the time he was a kid with a big mouth who was a little taken aback by how that biaggi feud sort of escalated beyond what he'd actually intended it to do! and biaggi just, hates him. and I think, sorry to the real man max biaggi here, but you've got to play with how once they're actually competing with each other, it's miserable how there's just this unbreachable gulf in talent. like, whatever biaggi does he cannot win! he isn't going to defeat valentino over the course of a full season! which is depressing and horrible and CRUEL, because there's this inevitability to the whole thing... and also! because valentino doesn't DESERVE it. and you don't have to go full salieri pleading with god to explain how god could give this CLOWN all this talent, but it's kinda the same vibe! how is it valentino, who is constantly just having a laff and canonically maybe wasn't the biggest gym-goer in the paddock and is just generally seen as, y'know, a bit of a dandy, this foppish clown who everyone loves and who doesn't have to work hard to be good - how is he the one who is winning so much!! it's miserable and unjust... and I think how you portray this is that you really emphasise the kinda, repetitive nature of the defeat. like, I think you probably want to make this into a non-linear narrative where all this biaggi backstory is communicated somehow but you don't just start it when he was born or whatever - you start it in 2001 when they're competing for a title and already hate each other. and then you heavy on the time loop vibes. the whole cinematic language and all that other shit should emphasise how all these weekends are structured in exactly the same way and if you're losing to this one guy, all these different weekends can start feeling the same. it bleeds into each other, it feels inescapable, you're trapped in this narrative you can't change... worst of all, you even return to the same places again and again - like play with that! biaggi keeps coming back to where they had the fist fight, to where valentino first insulted him all those years back. you play up the disorientation and the misery of it all, plus biaggi canonically gives us all this kinda messy freudian shit to play with like how he was dating 'valentina' and his relationship with her was falling apart because of how miserable valentino was making him. it's all there!!

ANYWAYS the way you conclude this story is!! welkom 2004!! so again we can artistic license this a little bit and, uh, ignore sete (though I do also think it's fun if you lean into biaggi being displaced as a rival and staring at them being friendly and happy with each other from the outside) - but the key bit is that valentino is finally making the big error. biaggi wasn't winning titles on a yamaha, since he left yamaha has gotten worse, now valentino is making this big mistake out of his own hubris. language of cinema that shit and make everything brighter and more hopeful.... the time loop is finally over, biaggi has escaped, this year will be different!!!! everyone in his circle agrees, valentino is fucked. step off the plane at welkom (pre season testing didn't happen in this universe) and it's literal dawn of a new day... staring out at the sun and finally, biaggi can move on, can live a new and different life. anyway. obviously we all know what's coming next - you have this big dramatic climactic race where biaggi throws himself at valentino again and again and again and he comes so close to winning it... but he doesn't. and you have valentino living his best life, being delighted, but the film is focusing on how like,,, we're bleaching the joy back out of biaggi's life, how actually he's returning to what he already knew. and it ends on the podium, with the camera focusing on biaggi on that fucking second step or zooming in or whatever (idk how cinema works) and it just finishes on this shot of biaggi dead-eyed in a bleak world, trapped again for eternity aka until the end of the 2005 season. done!! I'm not sure this is quite what valentino had in mind, but. well. that's how I'd do it

this is from the pushkin play from 1832 not the 1984 film but like. low key pushkin already kinda nailed the essence of sports rivalries in the 1830s and we just have to acknowledge that sometimes

right. so the casey rivalry is where I'm going to go completely off the wall. skip this bit to get to the slightly saner stuff. this is also one I fully admit to sometimes playing around with in my mind anyway, but. uh. I'm gonna be taking this one in just. well. places. I do have a vision here but I also don't quite know how to explain it in a way that doesn't make me sound like I've lost my mind, but well if you're still reading this then that's on you. so lemme get this out of the way: the classic sports biopic formula would work well with casey. if I had to point to a single rider I would sports biopic-ify, it's casey. so you have all this kinda,, obvious adversity that's easy to get across, and it's a narrative you can follow chronologically without too much trouble. you've got all the childhood stuff, the australian racing club not letting him join them, the move to britain, the rising through the ranks, it's also this very biopic-friendly 'nobody ever believed in him apart from like three people' stuff. and the premier class is also narratively satisfying, from the rocky rookie season to the kinda shock success to then all the lows of 2008 and 2009 and the physical ailments and the anxiety and then the switch to honda and the title and then him deciding to retire... that's all good stuff! you can absolutely biopic-ify it! gun to my head and sure, I can walk you through exactly what bits of his life I'd focus on and put in what order and so on, and I think ultimately you could make a very good sports biopic from that

[some mild gore to follow in this next section]

but also. thing is. that's fine. it's just not where I want to go here, because again I feel like at that point you can also pick up his autobiography and just read it - because what you're basically doing here is just filming that. and I get how this stuff works, you're bringing the story to a wider audience, you can show stuff in a different way in that medium etc etc, and that's all great but also I don't care about bringing stuff to a wider audience. I care about doing fun stuff in my brain. so what I'd actually do here is just, basically, go in the exact opposite direction and ditch all the realism. genuinely, ditch the live action stuff, we're going animated - what I'm interested in here is stuff where we need to be able to fully suspend our disbelief and lean into some surreal shit. I'm not going to bury the lede here: my idea is that you take that thing where casey said he hated how ducati was ruining the bike by letting valentino's yellow encroach on it and, basically,, just go all in on that bit. like come on, that is so singularly visually evocative, it truly captures a lot of what's going on thematically in that rivalry. (see also x and x for the most relevant casey posts.) casey sees valentino as the malevolent force, this infection! he associates him strongly with a specific colour, one that can be sickly or unnatural or just... evil. malignant, malicious, malevolent, all the m words. to casey, valentino is a personification of everything that is wrong with the sport. valentino is literally the walking manifestation for so many of his issues, from the dangerous riding to the lack of respect to the lying to the cult of personality to the obsession with image and the media to the backroom games to the politics to the injustice of how different riders are treated differently, like!! he's literally all of that! this is a topic for another post, but this plays out in a lot of kinda, weird and funky ways where it's a two way street and sometimes when casey talks about motogp you go 'actually I think that's just valentino?' (btw he also does this about 'europe' right I don't think those are europeans you hate casey that's literally just valentino) and sometimes when he talks about valentino it's kinda? this feels like it's about a little more than the bloke himself? and basically, right, I think you need to take this to its natural conclusion where casey used to admire him and look up to him and want to emulate him on track and then gets disillusioned when valentino's worshippers turn against casey and casey is the one to bring valentino down to earth and... listen, I think you need to play around with valentino being a literal god. and I think you need to have casey stab him to cover up the yellow on the ducati with blood

okay. look. the idea here, right, is that we're basically making the subtext text, and just digging into that process of 'bringing valentino back to earth', of taking on a god and having the audacity to succeed, and also treating valentino as this sort of. infection in his own mind. the bike is literally being infected!! casey may have left the ducati but he STILL has some fidelity and love for this project, those were his people he worked with, and now valentino is coming in and just twisting everything around himself!! but also I think how this functions is that, okay, so you have all this normal stuff that's the actual 'plot' in the 'real world', but the ISSUE with the real world is that there's a lot of stuff that just. isn't possible there. like the thing casey wants in that rivalry but is never going to have is... a captive audience. a big problem casey has in that rivalry is that he doesn't get the chance to actually say a lot of stuff to valentino. he starts using the media more and more and plays the game on valentino's level, but there's still this disconnect where mr straight talking is the valentino rival who valentino never really blanks or freezes out like... there's a disconnect! there's valentino the person, who casey never quite figures out how to just straight up hate, and then there's valentino the character, the racer, the rider, the god who casey DESPISES. but when they're doing small talk at pressers and podiums, casey doesn't get to talk to that version of valentino! he just talks to valentino the person, who obviously isn't literally a different person but is also not going to explain to casey where he's coming from, is he, and also isn't someone who casey can explain to where HE is coming from. and that gulf... it does bother casey. I don't think he can quite verbalise why either, but there's just... this creeping tension. I think it'd be easier for casey if valentino really were more of a caricature, just kinda a dick in all walks of life. and there's just these canonical hints of that... the way casey talks about how he's sure valentino as a guy is fine, but he never knew valentino like that, the whole 'I'd like to go with valentino for dinner to tell him where I was coming from in that rivalry' thing, like!! it's there

so basically EYE think what you should be doing is using the wonders of storytelling to actually. embrace that element. and just leave realism behind now and again. valentino is a god, he is literally worshipped, he's part of this pantheon that casey is trekking to reach. casey is brave enough to take him on in combat, he is the first one who is truly able to draw blood. he sees how valentino isn't just a god of joy or battles or speed or the SUN or any of that other stuff - he's a disease, an illness, a god who is also a false prophet... the worship never quite goes away, because who ever truly gets rid of their valentino rossi complex, but casey eventually is given the chance to face a chained valentino and kinda,,, ritualistically publicly humiliate him using the ducati as both this sick thing that has to be 'cured' and this symbol of valentino's failure. I'm sorry, visual language goes brr here, like chain him up, do weirdly eroticised torture idc!! (psst psst valentino's fucked up shoulder also extremely goes brr here, casey low key a teensy bit weird about valentino's injuries? his thing after the 2010 leg break where he goes 'why's everyone making such a big deal about this other people break their limbs too' and then after 2011 jerez immediately asking whether valentino's shoulder is okay in just a very obviously passive aggressive way. literally he opens with that, valentino isn't using it as an excuse or anything, for some reason it's already on casey's mind and I would politely contest it was out of genuine concern for valentino's wellbeing!! it's just kinda? I'm so compelled by it? I suppose it is kinda about how valentino's suffering gets taken more seriously than his own? how those absences are received differently by the motogp world? idk I find this fun because casey does know this is one thing valentino can't really be blamed for himself, so it just slips out a bit? but yeah, casey + valentino's injuries, nobody's talking about it but I sure will, let casey get weird and mean and a teensy bit sadistic about valentino's injuries in an artistic manner.) crucially I like animation as a medium here because I think it's easier to lean into surrealism when you don't have to hand hold the audience so much through the suspension of realism, also there's just some imagery you can do in cooler ways through animation where in live action it may just look. weird. (I think you can also do one of those things where you have a live action film with only those specific bits animated but also... why? it just feels like in live action you need more 'justifications' for things, like am I saying casey is having some weird hallucinations and is losing his mind? no I just want to have weird vision sequences ffs.) the colour stuff!! valentino/casey is big on the colour coding as a rivalry, to the extent casey is even, y'know, drawing attention to it in the literal text!! yellow and red are banger colours, valentino is big on imagery himself with all his sun + moon motifs, it's kind of all there to make the easy next step to kinda zany surreal imagery. ritualistic stabbing works better in animation, you can kinda get the blood to like. drip down and overwhelm the yellow illness that's slithered out across the bike

and. AND of course what this entire set up allows you to do is.... give them an opportunity to talk. they can't talk in real life! casey CAN'T give him his real thoughts on anything, and fundamentally valentino can't either. they're opponents. they're strangers who chat sometimes. it's not just that they aren't friends, it's that fundamentally they cannot be friends - because their ability to do their actual jobs depends on a certain level of professional distance. valentino of course does have a decent read on casey, and vice versa, because when you're figuring out how to defeat someone then (if you're valentino) you're looking to play the rider too. valentino's entire approach depends on focusing in on his rivals and attempting to throw them off, to make them unravel. he's watching casey closely!! the entire journey of casey's first three seasons in the premier class essentially becomes like, this god of their world focusing in on him. figuring him out. trying to gnaw away at him. obviously, animation also allows you to go big on the panopticon-y imagery which is kinda fundamental to their rivalry, because of their fundamentally oppositional stances to 'performing' for the ever present cameras where there IS a little bit of common ground in they have both struggled with it. but valentino isn't going to ever say that to casey! casey isn't going to open up to valentino! so if you give them,, you know, a different arena to express themselves, where casey actually has this external figure to talk to (as he's like, cutting him open I guess) whereas valentino actually is put in a position where he's allowed to respond, where he can taunt casey a little bit, where he can interrogate casey's approach and also the similarities between the two of them and how casey has been forced to become a little more like valentino to challenge him... because the thing is, right, valentino is so big on message discipline with his rivals and has completely stopped talking about that rivalry post mid 2013 that, first of all, you have this complete imbalance in who's been telling this story for the past decade, but second of all you kinda don't have a sense of what valentino would respond? idk!! I think this is mainly fun as a thought exercise for me specifically but also I do think it's kinda, digging into some of the bits that make this narratively work as a rivalry, how valentino in this rivalry is actually just kinda... removed. like he's not really emotional about it!! at most he's a bit bitchy, but even that just feels about The Game. it's the most extreme in this regard followed by jorge - but with valentino's other feuds you kinda... see a bit more an unguarded moment, see something a little more real there. the casey rivalry feels so uncomfortable precisely because valentino is a little... inhuman in this one. I mean, if you want to have valentino as some kind of cross between a deity and a monster in any of his feuds, this is the one. casey's just an obstacle to him. idk don't you think casey kinda wants to chain valentino down and stab him and make him see casey a little more... well, I think he should want it and I think it'd be fun to see and get them to talk to each other. ugh and also all the implications of making the faith vs non-believer elements more literal... casey the heretic!!!

there's some obvious stuff here you'd have to figure out, like 'how do you make this work as a narrative even to people who aren't familiar with casey stoner at all' and 'who the fuck do you think the target audience is here' and 'you do know this is not the kind of thing that would ever be made, right, go back to the casey stoner sports biopic like a sane person' but!! I do think it's material you can make work if you're just,,, efficient and smart in how you're actually telling the 'real life' version of the rivalry. also in my head this is. idk. an animated limited series not a film, which then brings in other stuff like 'episodic structure' because I'm fundamentally opposed to tv shows that think they're films. and look, I'm not going to write an entire film script treatment here, I just think a good writer can figure this stuff out. blood on the ducati is the framing device for everything else, simple. lots of animated floating eyes I reckon, first casey is watching valentino and then valentino is watching casey and the whole world is watching them... and it does bleed into real life just a little, where you're wondering whether casey is actually imagining/dreaming this stuff or valentino is or if they both know it somehow... you can get away with more ambiguity in animation. anyway, if you do want more thoughts on this one specifically for whatever reason, let me know because this one I do actually have more on

also laguna 2008 is a bit tortoise and the hare coded if you really think about it

[end of gore]

so. on to jorge. hm. the thing about jorge is that he was kinda writing a coming of age film in his own head, so like - yes, that's what you do go for? you can play it straight and follow how jorge has cast his rivals, or you can pin the whole narrative on the fact that jorge has cast them - the kinda artificiality of the narrative, the way jorge is this storyteller who isn't being recognised as much as he thinks he should be, isnt adequately appreciated. the way there's this three way discourse between what jorge thinks the story is and what the public thinks the story is and actual. you know. reality. I think this is a bit more light-hearted, like you know how the best stories about teenagers take their emotions seriously but also let them be kinda silly? because young people are silly! jorge was silly! he's got a lot of CHARM because he's so cocky and naive and full on and intense and awkward and kinda off-putting and tactless and a bit all over the place and so painfully, painfully young, like he's a good protagonist because that's a KID. but also, obviously there's also a lot of extremely not light-hearted bits of his story - everything about his father, his manager... idk this one's another one where, I don't just want to make it a generic sports biopic, and I'm trying to figure out the clear narrative arc here? I mean, you can point to the end of 2010 and really lean into him choosing victory on-track over popularity off it. the problem with 2010 is that it does not work as a dramatic season, yeah sure with the magic of biopics you can hack at it to shit but also. idk. what are we getting out of it. I think for narrative purposes you want to maybe narrow in, and end it at the end of 2008, with the switching of the numbers this kind of moment of emancipation? but also! this feels like we're straying a bit too far away from the fun sports elements and I don't want to REALLY suggest all the ways in which you could mine jorge's personal trauma in a jokey tumblr post, so I'm gonna move on from this one

the problem is 2015 just straight up doesn't work as a jorge-centric narrative, except in a very kinda comic way that leans into how absurd his role in that season was. 2012 as a season is a bit... y'know, it's fine. okay it's mostly terrible, but that's fine too. but it doesn't have a great narrative hook. which kinda leads you to the problem that I do think the valentino rivalry is more... juicy from jorge's pov, because for valentino, jorge is just kinda? an obstacle? idk he's more normal about it, it's just his job to destroy the guy, you know how it is. but also 2009 does work better narratively from valentino's pov, like it's the build up to catalunya specifically you can dramaticise... idk though, I do love catalunya but my heart isn't really in this exercise because I think valentino isn't really being... challenged here? it's a title fight where he's fundamentally using a set of tools he's already perfected, to beat a guy he doesn't really give a shit about. when the italian press is down on him pre catalunya, it doesn't spark any genuine self-doubt - it's just a handy source of extra motivation. there's no epic highs or lows that season, not real ones. and yes I know I was talking about making valentino who gets stabbed repeatedly to cover up an infection a moment ago, but that reflected real EMOTIONAL truths!! I'm committed to thematic fidelity more than I am to literal fidelity

genuinely I think the best way to tackle jorge is with the jorge/dani parallel journeys... what, film? tv show? maybe show actually - you don't have one coherent narrative Statement per se but you're constantly charting those journeys in reference to each other, really rooting it in their respective points of views, no neutral detached cinematic language like I want everything to be very much written to be from their eyes!! going from one to the other and back again. and you're charting these different journeys, right, and how they both captured different flavours of like... emotional successes and failures. I think it's actually about failure, yeah, about having to accept there's something you can't have and might never be able to get - whether that's universal love or a premier class title or whatever - but Actually, that might not be the end of the world. and during this process, they go from being enemies to tentative friends!! guys who realise they can maybe actually understand each other better than they thought!! this real moment of interpersonal connection. you have all these media narratives and the managers and so on and the fact they're competitors as these built in reasons why they've just been pitted against each other from the start... but y'know, again, it is also just a bit about maturing, about being able to set that aside, about making your peace with defeat and failure as an element of growing up. you can't win everything, maybe there's something you really really really want and you're just not going to get it, but at the end of the day it's kinda... yeah. self-acceptance. idk this is the nice one

so with marc you can go several different ways here I guess, and again he's also perfectly decent sports biopic material, probably second to casey in that category like yeah sure do the comeback story. but also, we do already have a very good self-produced documentary about what he thinks the narratives of his career are? idk this is also just a personal taste thing, I'll leave him to doing all the injury stuff himself, I don't have much to add there. we'll get to the obvious one in a second, but I was trying to figure out if there were other places I massively felt like you need the cinematic touch. and, again, the 2013 season is obviously very exciting!! but also, you have it covered in.,,,, multiple documentaries, I don't feel I have a take their either? his rivalries with dani and jorge aren't really substantive enough to sustain a bit of cinema. dovi... I mean, what are you saying there? what's the arc? I feel like if I tackled dovi, I'd go somewhere else and really go all in with the ducati stuff, and make it a bit more... you know, stark, stripped back, basically just the emotional component of how much he gave to that project and how he managed to beat away one rival after the next and how it all ended up falling apart in a kind of anti-climactic way? he's also good sports biopic material, but in a way I think the marc rivalry is the bit of his story I have the least to say on. so eg, 2017 is a dramatic season, but he's also kinda fine after it? he always knew it was a long shot, he tried his best and he got really close and then he lost. you can't amadeus it because dovi isn't (fictional) salieri. basically, I think what I'm saying here is that dovi is too well-adjusted to feature in this post. though I'd totally watch a film about his 250cc seasons, like it's a bit annoying because HE is the underdog who loses both title fights to jorge, but it'd still be kinda fun idk. I wouldn't really know what to do with the material but if someone made the film I'd absolutely watch it

right then. the thing about sepang 2015 is... yeah, sure, of course you can do it, it already exists as a narrative but... yeah, what are you adding!! idk I always think when you're adapting something, you kinda need to have a reason for it? I mean, what are you doing that's not already there in the footage? idk maybe this is just a sign of having been a fan of this sport for one too many years but to me the idea of sepang 2015 can get a bit boring (or maybe just repetitive) where I need a new TAKE on it to really get into the idea of fictionalising it. like where's the auteur's touch y'know, what can I still add to this!! but it also needs to WORK for someone who is new to the story, which kinda just makes you want to tell the story straight.... y'know the story is strong enough and COMPLICATED enough to stand on its own and it IS good but I don't really have anything interesting to say beyond 'yeah sure that'e be neat'. I can't tell you why, but I also don't think the casey approach quite works here? the idea of providing a framing device with which valentino and marc can actually talk to each other... eh. don't like that. hm. okay wait actually I just turned it around in my head for... a while and I think I've got an idea to make the worst motorcycle racing film of all time. so, my central stupid film-making gimmick here is just. centring the fact we're completely reliant on a few guys and what they're telling us in making up our minds, and our removal from that story and the imperfection of their perceptions and so on. so I think you kinda make a point of... not actually showing the motorcycle racing? like, you always show it by showing other people watching it, you're showing the tv screen rather than the actual racing. even in the cinematic medium, you're centring the theatrical aspects, where you drill it down to just a few characters. valentino. marc. uccio. marc's fuck ass manager. maybe a crew chief or two. keep it limited though, all the others are kept at a distance - you're constantly focusing in on the same few characters. and very early on you basically just like... get them to fourth wall break by telling you, the viewer, with their actual words how racing works for them, what meaning they take out of it - and again it's this remove because we're never allowed to actually feel the racing for ourselves (no helmet cams), and it sets up that as the tragedy unfolds, again and again we're just hearing from them what happened. it's all zoomed in on how claustrophobic the entire situation is, like doing the race direction room after the sepang 2015 is perfect for that kind of thing, and crucially they're only ever addressing the audience because they can't address each other. but fourth wall breaks also obviously draw attention to artificiality! I realise they are very much like, lame gimmick central, but also are these men not inherently about lame gimmicks... idk it's basically the same story but at least it feels like a kinda interesting way of telling it. kinda trite, but cinema allows you to get to the point and let valentino actually play with the camera... so literally take it into his own hands and lead it around and tell the story from his point of view. and you can play with how they do both change in what stories they think they're telling, how they're constantly revising their own stories, how their stories completely clash with each other... like. make them literal narrators. that's my pitch

so. one interesting pattern that has come up with my approaches to these rivalries is that with the exception maybe of the 2015 stuff, I feel like I'm more naturally inclined to treat valentino as a narrative device and centre his rivals. a big part of this is that valentino is a fantastic narrative device. he's kinda. this looming presence in every narrative in this sport where you can just sort of use him as a sort of way to poke away at all these other riders. the monster everyone loves who you are trapped with. BOO!! he's gonna eat you! which is fun! but ALSO, crucially, several of these rivalries aren't that emotionally challenging for him!! again, with casey right, he wants to beat him, but he's not having a crisis of faith over losing to casey. he thinks casey is annoying, he wants to beat him because he wants to win. valentino is casey's foil, but casey is not valentino's. valentino makes for an excellent personal antagonist to casey, but the reverse just isn't true. casey isn't forcing valentino to reexamine his approach except 'ramping up the levels of being a dick on-track' - like, yes, that's a serious competitive challenge, but also valentino is very comfortable in his own skin in that rivalry. sure, you could have valentino have some kind of massive revelation about the casey rivalry, but like. he doesn't in canon. he changes his behaviour towards casey in pretty predictable ways depending on what the relationship demands from his perspective at any given time. there's nothing more there

now, obviously you know where I'm going here. there IS a rivalry where you can make the argument he changes as a result of it, there IS a rivalry that tips him over the line and makes him to do stuff he hadn't done before that, there IS a rivalry that happens to coincide with a period of his competitive life that challenges him both personally and professionally. now, look, I have already talked about the sete rivalry. you know what I think about this rivalry - and if you don't, I really already have told the story here and here and here and here and also here. I think this works perfectly well as a narrative in its own right, and it's one you can tell from either perspective... but you kinda need both. I think again you probably naturally lean towards starting it from sete's perspective and that first proper meeting (I mean, idk if it is their first actual meeting, but it's the logical obvious place you start this story) with sete giving valentino advice during his first 500cc test and valentino just, y'know, ignoring him and being a cocky shit and then crashing. so you get to see sete being kinda exasperated by the whole thing. also, obviously ibiza is like, a key framing device here, like it's the most obvious in-your-face way of tracking their relationship with each other. I don't actually know how often they partied there together, but it must have been at least twice and if the commentators are to be believed it must have included 2003. artistic license and you can add one or two more times, but mainly you want to focus in on 2003 onwards right. so you've got this 2002 one where it's, y'know, high point of their friendship and in the name of narrative efficiency, you establish here that sete is looking to make the honda switch. the emphasis is on how valentino has been winning everything but on the flip side you're getting the first insight into his discontent. and there's a bit of a vibe of, what could you possibly have to complain about? like you are winning so much? so it's late one night where they've had this slightly unguarded alcohol-fuelled moment of genuine vulnerability but in the end it's actually characterised by how... unsubstantial the link between them is, because they wouldn't talk about this kind of thing with each other and they might both be similar in some ways but also don't gettttttt each other. it means you can return there as a location in 2003, where you've just had sachsenring and valentino's dramatic loss but they're still partying together and it's like. obviously In The Air that not everything is quite right... their relationship is already gradually altered and twisted because you're introducing this element of actual stakes and competition (obviously in 2004 they do NOT spend that time together, as far as we know anyway, and you can show them being very much not together at ibiza as a very obvious Oooh Things Will Fall Apart and maybe already haveeee)

and I do think basically I've already said what I think the themes here are,,,, several times by this point, so I'm not going to belabour the point. I think all of this fundamentally works as a narrative with like, minimal massaging and rearranging of the elements for dramatic effect. it's all there already, everything from sete's arc with the [insert non-tasteless way of covering a real life tragedy that fundamentally alters the course of sete's career] and how that leads to sete becoming the challenger and how he does want to win and his eventual downfall. with valentino, you have the element of liberation and self-discovery and... well, growing into your own but also kinda having the narrative drawing attention to how 'growing into your own' can involve becoming a fully realised character who is essentially quite cruel? you have this kind of... build up, right, towards this moment of revelation, where you lay bare who these two people actually ARE at sepang 2004, and then again at jerez 2005. valentino has gone his own way, he has freed himself from the chains of honda, he has embraced individualism and the chance to define himself and his own legacy and stand on his own two feet and not rely on the strongest bike or all this stuff within honda where they chose him as their flag bearer, for better or for worse... like he comes to his own here! he takes the step from 'great rider' to 'legend' because he gets to this dramatic moment of stepping into the unknown, he takes this massive risk that could have cost him so much, and it ends up elevating him. but it also puts him under duress, and in that moment he reveals himself - whatever sete did or did not do at qatar 2004, EVEN IF sete did all that shit, what you are left with is valentino vowing to ruin this man. valentino uses sete to make himself 'better', to fuel himself as a competitor. valentino turns sete into a tool in his own story. and again, thematically you've got all this stuff about how sete was managing the image of the rivalry and how valentino took advantage of that - how sete needed it to remain respectful and valentino was completely willing to abandon that. like, you have two protagonists who really are similar in quite a few ways, who think they have this shared understanding with each other, but when it comes down to it? they end up being super painfully different

now I can go on about this and how to play it straight, basically, you can just do that rivalry and I think it'd be cool and fun and very easy to arrange in a good narrative way. BUT I've kind of already. done that. like I don't want to suggest a film that is basically a nicer version of my tumblr posts. so I want to take this in a slightly different direction, and I think what we need to consider with this rivalry is this: what if you made the curse literal? basically, what's always kinda charmed me about this rivalry is that the curse should not work and all the misfortune that befalls sete after that is so comical that it's kinda... what do you do with that? and the answer is you just lean all the way in. my pitch is this: what if valentino sells his soul to the devil?

so, you know faust, right, and you know the bit at the start of goethe's faust where god and mephistopheles are basically making a wager over how corruptible this one human is. and faust is like... he's kinda disillusioned, he feels that everything he's dedicated his life to in academia is fundamentally hollow, gets very close to committing suicide. and faust has gone a bit new age-y, gotten into all this mystical shit and he's got this pentagram that ends up preventing mephistopheles from leaving his presence in their first meeting... and basically what the devil can give him is like, the chance to attain some true pleasure, and for that faust is willing to bet everything - so if faust can just have that, then maybe eternal damnation is worth it. and look, I'm not going to summarise the entire plot of faust here and it does go off the wall a bit with all the gretchen stuff, but the point is you have this version of the devil who is fundamentally a cynic and is attempting to win an argument with god by making this human succumb to his own nihilism. and what faust basically does is like, abandon his normal life where he's trying to live by normal virtues and goes off on this journey with the devil. and there's this little moment where mephistopheles,,, pretends to be faust and takes on the role of an academic adviser (you know how it is) and seduces this random student away from the word of god and sends him down a wretched path, which ends with this bit:

like, a big part of faust's tragedy is supposed to be about... well, hubris, of the relationship of god to man, of no longer being afraid of the devil... and obviously, this is all framed very much in terms of religion, but at the end of the day it's also about, you know, having purpose - faust is living a life that no longer has any meaning to him, all of his knowledge and studies now no longer fill the void inside himself. his nihilism opens the door for mephistopheles, and is what makes him willing to accept the devil's terms. now, and I am so very sorry to goethe here, I think we have some material we can use here to explore the valentino/sete rivalry. obviously, you can't do a one-to-one, you need to get rid of some of like, the depression and all that - there were times when valentino was feeling 'a bit low' in 2003, but not 'faust thinking everything he'd done in his entire life was pointless' low, yeah? also, unless you want to do a real long view here and even then it can't really be justified, there obviously isn't really a 'tragedy' here from valentino's perspective. like, he wins! this isn't valentino's tragedy, it's sete's! I was being a bit facetious when I said he was 'selling his soul to the devil', and you can kinda parse mephistopheles' motivations in different ways depending on what flavour and what interpretation of him you're dealing with here. you don't 'damn' valentino, you essentially just turn him into a tool of the devil!

so, this is how this works out in my head: the devil works more broadly as the manifestation of competitive impulses, the kind of 'how far would you go to win' question as a bloke who shows up and literally talks to the characters about it (magic of cinema). he's also engaging with valentino feeling like his victories no longer having meaning, with being disconnected from honda and from the entire culture there and just feeling like he's going through the motions. there's this element of like... opening the door to what is essentially a journey of self-actualisation, bringing him closer to being a 'god' but also allowing him to fully come into his own and become himself. to win on his own terms. I reckon ibiza is my preferred narrative device where the devil talks both to sete and valentino there (separately), first literally as a mysterious stranger and then... maybe not? he's talking to them at times of their lives when they're not at ibiza and it's not happening there in the physical world and they both end up kinda having to confront they're dealing with some potentially malevolent supernatural entity. but the important elements of the devil is that a) he's not going to do anything the humans don't actually ask for themselves, and b) everyone knows he's following his own agenda and you should be careful of the requests you make of him. so it's kinda like... essentially, the backdrop of this rivalry unfolding is they're constantly being challenged to decide what lines they're willing to cross. which culminates at qatar... and maybe you do have sete making like. a teensy mistake. a teensy error in judgement, one that is both real and deliberate but he could not have known would get that reaction and instantly regrets. and valentino, who is I think inherently sceptical of the devil coming to offer to help him and maybe does crank out the pentagrams (remember, the whole point of faust is that he was too arrogant to be scared of the devil, or one of the points anyway), in a moment of fury does decide - no, actually. I will take that step. I will curse sete. now the thing is, dramatically this is a teensy bit tricky because when you're talking about being damned by the devil, usually the consequences are a bit more severe than 'not winning a motorcycle race again' (yes, you can get into how sete did also seem genuinely cursed after that, cf his ambulance/bus crash situation, but again we are flirting with being in poor taste in this tumblr post). but the thing is, right, you have to lean into the silliness here! qatar 2004 is inherently silly, a CURSE is inherently silly, like real life is already silly here! you have to engage with the people where they are, and for these athletes all this shit is so heightened that the emotions are full on. like, valentino would've sold that guy to the devil! and to him not winning another race is basically the worst thing that can happen

so, obviously, you get to do the actual curse stuff. curses are inherently campy fun, the devil doing curses is campy fun, getting valentino rossi to crank out the pentagrams is inherently campy fun. you get to play around with this, right, like you know that bit in the brno 2005 race commentary where the commentators are talking about how valentino might as well have a little radio to talk into sete's helmet to remind him of how sete had fucked up at the sachsenring. OBVIOUSLY obviously obviously it is just so... idk scrunchy and fun to have this idea of valentino becoming a malevolent enough force to literally do that.... like damn the commentators did kinda eat with that?? ughhhhhh do you ever think about sete leading the qatar 2005 race for most of the way???? like that's SO fucked up because you literally have articles from about the race going 'hey maybe sete can break his curse' and then the commentators are talking about curses having one year expiration dates but obviously they!! do not!!!!! there's one race where sete goes off track and the commentators are talking about how valentino will surely have smiled into his helmet like that's so fucked!! it's so fucked!! but idk I think basically you have all this creeping curse-y stuff and devil stuff and then you get this twist and then it just becomes misery zone for sete until you sort of. compress the timeline and have him retire without getting into what happened at the end of 2006. and valentino just relishing in all his very worst emotions. and you've got sete who was the better man after jerez 2005, who took the high ground again and again and again and it did NOTHING for him.... and then he's cursed and his career is finished and the devil has had his fun getting mixed in with mid noughties motogp. and now obviously this is inherently kinda dumb and corny and silly but it's the devil!! mephistopheles to me is allowed to get up to dumb shit sometimes, let him have some fun!! idk I like curses being literal idc

I think the obvious critique here is 'this doesn't really feel like it gets the message of faust'. which, yes, is true - and obviously the way narratives are structured, a satisfying resolution isn't 'well selling your soul kinda slaps, actually'. and my statement to respond to this argument is as follows:

this is essentially canonically what happened. valentino DID do something kinda evil and it DID work out 100% for him and it DID kinda slap. at least when you add in the devil, you're making explicit the bit where it is a little bit bad. also, is sports not inherently about selling your soul for success... the story of valentino and sete is essentially about how we are twisted by competition, how pretending that we don't wish ill to our opponents is inherently dishonest. it is about lifting a facade for something that is already inherently there in the souls of men. this is obviously inherently a deeply cynical stance, but this is also a deeply cynical story beyond all the fun battles and camp dramatics. the devil is a cynic and he is basically the point of view character of goethe's faust - he's the one who is positioned closest to the audience. sports is all about living out some of humanity's worst instincts in a relatively low stakes setting, which means we get a free pass to have fun with a deeply cynical story that goes 'maybe selling your soul to the devil is fine, actually'

do I stand by this stance? not really, but the whole fun of storytelling is that sometimes you can just be kinda mean. I think goethe would get it... you can tell which character he enjoyed writing the most

the OTHER way you can do this is centre everything around qatar 2004 as like,,, the mystery box element...... okay look I have now made two posts that go WAY too deep on the 'what really happened' element but I do loveeeeee the whole thing like I would just make a film about that very end of the season and we show it from all these different angles as different characters narrate what happened... like fuck all the riders I want to hear from whichever mechanic used the scooter... the gresini mechanic who gave evidence to race direction.... various honda higher ups the crew chiefs like this is jb vs juan martinez it's war!!! obviously you still have the same emotional/thematic hooks as the general rivalry does but idk I would have a LOT of fun figuring out how to structure that, I loveeee mysteries... maybe I'd write it as a mockumentary yeah..... this one's just fun

anyway. a lot of stuff going on in this post, huh! you can probably tell I didn't edit this much. my classic tell when I edit my tumblr posts is I remember how 'paragraphs' work. unfortunately all I have energy for are like. a bunch of rants about things in my brain. I think when tumblr tells you that you've reached the maximum number of characters per paragraph and you need to figure out where to put a break, it's probably a bad thing? on the whole, my stance is I don't have anything AGAINST mildly fictionalised versions, but for me I'm always more of a.... well I want to take advantage of the full specificity of the events as they happened or just come up with a completely original story. kind of person. I know this ask probably wasn't looking for my 'what if you bled out valentino as he's strung up above a red motorcycle' vision but yeah. with a lot of biopics I'm always a bit 'well you could just read about this couldn't you' like I need stuff to take some kind of a stance on the material it's using... all my stuff takes a stance. that's all I've got. obviously all these stances mean that basically none of these things could ever be made. and I know what I said above but if they called me up to write the casey stoner biopic script treatment, I would also do that. if you've actually read to this point, give me a shout - you're a real one and I love you

[lifewithdavefarts]

DaveFarts - Episode 26 “Critical Stink” [Episode List] During a D&D session, Tim insists that he should be immune to poison damage. The gassy-as-usual Dave makes sure he’s gonna regret such request.

POV: Tim

Critical Stink

The evil Yuan-Ti general and his minions had us cornered: the humanoid snake turned out to be a bigger threat than our team expected. Radahm, our Rogue, managed to backstab one of the lesser enemies in front of us, who then bled to death mere minutes later. Ergg, the annoying wizard, quickly casted a defensive spell to protect us but the snake-like soldiers had weapons capable of undoing any form of magic (…something we never heard of before, in our years of adventures, but OK). 

I, the brave Paladin Desal, was our team’s last hope: I could attack our formidable foes with my mighty holy sword, getting closer to the general himself, whose venomous bite was just as dreaded as the blade of his mighty scimitar. Yet, I decided to go for it, I had nothing to fear, for The High One has granted me poison immunity many moons ago. This is why The Fate brought us here… why She brought me here.

It was all leading up to this.

I rush with all of my might towards the snake general, who noticed my deft movement, his long neck dodging my sword at the last second. He hissed back at me, his mouth going for my arm.

I felt his teeth piercing through my white armor, but once again, I had nothing to fear, for The High One has granted me poison immun-

“What do you mean I’m losing HP?!”

Me (Desal), Greg (Ergg) and Adam (Radahm) were having one of our D&D sessions, which are getting rarer given how busy we are. Dave was our DM for this Quest and… we didn’t really like where this was going. 

First, that whole bullshit with Yuan-Ti weapons undoing Greg’s magic (and magic in general apparently). Never heard of such thing nor we care, even though Dave found our shock quite delightful. And then -and this is more personal-, all of the sudden, my character stopped being immune to poison… because plot I guess!

“Dude!” I scolded Dave. “I thought we agreed on this like moo- I mean months ago.”

Adam and Greg backed me up, just because the wanted to dunk on Dave than anything else.

“Gentlemen.” our DM replied, in a mockingly formal tone. “…and Tim.” he turned to me and took a sip of his beer, then resumed talking. “What I told you back then was that The High One would grant Desal poison immunity in case you rolled a Nat 20 on a Defense Roll.”

I remained silent.

“And, I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t see a 20 anywhere on this table.”

The derisive sarcasm was just as annoying as it sounded, not even considering Dave being utterly wrong about this. If only I could find those papers where we actually took note of this…

“I’m with Tim on this one.” Greg said. “Also if he dies, our quest is basically over.”

“I guess we’re done then.” I said, referring more to the fact that Greg agreeing with me was basically a death sentence to any possibility of being right. “What about you, Adam?” I asked.

“Well, I got my share of EXP by backstabbing that snake guy, so I’m gonna try running away my next turn.” he snickered.

“Team of the year.” Dave commented, amused. 

“Disgusting.” Greg remarked.

“Wow the the True Neutral Rogue doing True Neutral things I’m such a bad player.” Adam replied.

“Hey! This is not about Adam’s admirable commitment to role-playing.” I pointed to our DM. “This is about Dave making up the rules.” 

“Here’s what I have to say about it.” 

Dave, who was wearing a brown hoodie and a pair of dark blue jeans, simply leaned a bit, the wooden chair he was sitting on cracking under his weight. One of my friend’s deafening farts soon followed, the wooden surface making it even louder. Not the first one my bro ripped during our D&D session (we were all high on beer and junk food, so gas was expected), but definitely one of the louder ones. While he still casually does it, I’m pretty sure, considering that evil smirk, that this one time he simply ripped one to, well, startle me, as he knows very well how awkward I (still) get whenever Dave is so chill about my fart kink.

“I guess a storm is getting closer.” Greg commented, after the 5 seconds blast ended.

Dave quickly snapped his fingers and pointed at him. “Good call. Let’s wrap it up.”

So our DM quickly made up that those Yuan-Tis that almost killed us are afraid of thunderstorms (ripping another thunder-fart to further prove his plot point) and thus they ran away, scared, leaving us there, licking our own wounds (almost literally, given Greg rolling a 4 when he attempted to heal us).

We survived, but that was pretty underwhelming.

“So Greg managed heal me, no more poison and shit like that.” I commented.

“I’m your DM: I decide if you get to survive tonight.” Dave reminded me, that annoying sarcastic smirk drawn on his face, fully aware of how annoying he was being.

But admittedly that’s part of the fun you know.

“Well that wasn’t fun at all guys, see you in about 6 months for our next session.” Adam said, as he got up and reached for his jacket. Greg did the same.

We had one last sip of beer together and then our friends left, leaving me and Dave alone at our place. It was late, about 1:00 AM, but also a Saturday.

As me and my bro/roommate tidied up the table we just finished playing on, he decided to keep making fun of my strategies.

“The first mistake was choosing the Paladin as your class, as I told you many moons ago.” he snickered.

“Says the Wizard enjoyer. Having fun casting shit from behind the trees?” 

“Yes, because I don’t get poisoned from there. Also, I’m more of a Bard you know.” 

“I shouldn’t get poisoned, you know it. But our DM got amnesia apparently.” 

Dave laughed, rolling his eyes. “Nat 20 on Defense Roll.” he spoke slowly. “Such a difficult concept to grasp!”

We sat once again at the now clean table, opened two more beers and we kept talking.

“Look, I’m not saying that you don’t remember it. But yes, you don’t remember it.”

“I don’t remember it.” Dave insisted. “Because it never happened.”

“Literally the only thing my character is going for is poison immunity.” I stated, perhaps exaggerating, but you get my point.

“Wow immunity against the worst damage type. Congratulations, Desal! You’re a Paladin, start summoning light pillars or some other gay shit!”

“Dave, we agreed on it. I DESERVE to be immune to poison.” I insisted.

“Fine.” my friend took a quick sip of beer. “All kinds of poison?”

“Yes.” I said, satisfied. 

“…even poison gas?” Dave said, a faint smirk appearing on his face.

“Well yes of course, especially pois- I know where this is going.” I glanced at him, unimpressed.

Indeed, Dave laughed and once again leaned, another loud blast erupting from his jeans-clad ass, the wooden chair under him enduring that powerful flatulence like a silent hero. 5 more seconds of farting and he was done.

“You g-gotta admit…” I said, bravely, almost shaking for how embarrassed I was. “That’s one type of poison I’m definitely immune to.” I joked, I tried to.

“Shut up.” Dave replied, chill as usual about my fetish. “You’re tough, I’ll give you that, but Tim…” he put his hand on my shoulder, being hilariously serious about all of this. “We’re talking about my farts: one of these days you’re gonna die because of me.” 

He finished that short speech by effortlessly ripping one more quick 2 seconds rip, faking a sad expression, as if I truly was risking my life. I managed to laugh, my boner however almost hitting the table for how good those farts were, a faint smell reaching my nostrils as well.

“Come on. Let me have this at least. Poison immunity in real life!” I kept joking.

Dave looked at me, with a smirk, then turned his attention to a D20 dice we left on the table and reached for it. 

“You know…” he started talking in a tone of voice that made me think this whole thing turned into a business deal for some reason. “I can grant you your precious poison immunity… if you pass the test…”.

He was fiddling with the dice, now looking back at me. 

“Let me guess: another rule you just made up.” I said.

“Not at all! I forced you through this test so many times lately… but tonight I decide if you actually passed it.” he laughed.

I had no idea what he was talking about. Or rather, pretended not to.

“I don’t understand. Are you planning some kind of challenge?”

“Sort of. I’ll just show you how it’s going to work.”

He passed the dice to me and I just stared at it for a few seconds.

“Roll the dice, Tim.” he said, with a smirk.

I played along and mindlessly let the dice fall on the table. It rolled for a few instants and then I read the number facing up out loud. “Meh, that’s a 4. I’m just like Greg.”

In response to what I just said, Dave snapped his finger to gain my attention. As I turned to him, he leaned once again and a thunderous fart echoed in the empty living room, easily surpassing the sounds coming from the TV across the room, the wooden surface of the chair he was destroying with his gas greatly increasing the loudness of the already powerful rip.

The blast lasted around 5 seconds and… that wasn’t rocket science, I knew where this was going now. I was speechless, I had no idea Dave would even think something like this. 

“No.” I simply said, shaking my head, embarrassed. 

I stood up, leaving the dice on the table, ignoring the fact that my friend could clearly see the tent I pitched through my blue sweatpants and walked towards the couch, as I kept repeating “No”, each time my bro laughing more and more.

“Scared, Desal?” he promptly asked. 

“No!” I took a big breath, turning back to my bud still sitting at the head of the table, his eyes glued on me, his smug smirk still drawn on his face. “It’s just… come on man… I don’t want to… of course I…”

Dave stood up and walked towards me, without losing that smile, now looking a bit more chill. “You know you don’t have to worry about this, not with me, right?” he simply asked, and I knew exactly what he meant.

“Alright…” I said. “I’ll do your dumb test.”

He laughed. “This also counts as me getting my revenge for, you know, you doubting my DM skills.” 

I figured I’d just give up: Dave was gonna blast me either way, and I deeply appreciated how he wanted to make sure that no, I had nothing to worry about, he knows I have this kink, he knows I was gonna like this… but that wasn’t going to stop him from torturing me with his well-known blasts. A “revenge”, as he calls it. 

Truth to be told, as much as my boner tells you other wise… I do have my limits, and my friend’s farts sounded very nasty tonight, fueled by hours of beers and low-quality food. What made it so dangerous (and hot) is that Dave is well aware of his skills, so he knew that this was indeed going to be a test.

My bro sat on the couch and nodded at me, as if what was going to happen was completely normal, so I sat next to him. 

“So… roll for initiative?” he joked, handing the dice back to me. 

“I hate you so much.” I replied. Dave just never ceases to amaze me though.

I let the dice roll on the small table in front of us, as Dave took a sip of his beer. We both watched it bounce around for a few moments, until it stopped, a big 7 facing up. 

The fart I heard when I rolled a 4 was already impressive so… how is a 7 going to sound like? My roommate seemed to read my mind since he elbowed me, smug smile and all.

I clumsily tried to ask how, well, he was going to face-fart me this time. “What do you want me to… you k-know.”

Dave simply put the beer on the table, right next to the dice and, still silent, simply stood up, towering over me, my face already aligned with his sagging denim ass. He stepped in front of me and reached for my head, planting it on that warm ass, still stinky for all the previous farts he ripped, a faint scent of rotten pizza greeting my nose. He held my face there for a few seconds, in silence, as if he wanted me to, well, enjoy that the leftovers of his previous rips.

But now, finally, the test has officially begun: a big fart engulfed my face, my friend barely needing to push it out, ripping that blast almost effortlessly. He firmly held my head in there, as if I was going to move it away, which obviously wasn’t going to happen.

And yet, Dave keeping my face into his roaring butt, letting me take big whiffs, was always a great bonus: whether he did that because he knew my kinky ass would like it or not… I just didn’t know, but I was ok with it nonetheless… as long as he was okay with me.

He raised his left leg a bit, letting his ass roar even louder. 

The impressive flatulence lasted 9 seconds: just beautiful, but I knew this wasn’t the worst (best?) my bud was going to hit me with tonight.

Dave let my head go, turned around to stare down at me, and laughed a bit. He then sat back next to me, as if nothing gross and weird happened.

“This is how you get poison gas immunity: you gotta train those nostrils first.”

“I hate you so much.” I repeated myself, as I took a sip of his beer.

He patted my shoulder in response. “No worries, your training will resume soon.”

I reached for that cursed D20 once again and fiddled with it a bit, before going for another roll.

“How long is this test going to last?” I genuinely asked, with a hint of sarcasm.

“We’ll see.” he winked at me, while looking at something on his smartphone.

Still deciding on whether I was or not the luckiest man in the world because I have a friend like him, I went for another roll, the D20 once again bouncing on the small table in front of us. Admittedly, I sighed in relief when I saw a 2.

“Remind me to never take you to Las Vegas…” Dave commented.

Since it was 2, my bro simply spread his long legs, showing off his sagging jeans in the process, and ripped a short (but still loud, despite being muffled by the couch) toot. Small for Dave’s standards, not even 4 seconds long, but still a nice sounding fart overall.

Not that I wasn’t aware of his skills, but the fact that those were all natural, back-to-back, was almost fascinating to me. Fetish or not, I wish I had such powers.

“Still pretty impressive for a 2, I gotta say.” I said, getting more comfortable with openly acknowledging Dave’s talent. 

My roommate chuckled in response. “Such a kinky bitch.” he joked.

As my way to challenge him after that ridiculous fart, I quickly went for another roll. The dice spun for a moment until it revealed the number at the top spot, which immediately made me swallow my pride: a 16.

“Looks like you’re gonna get your ass kicked, Paladin.”

“You better shut up or I’m gonna kick yours.”

“With what? Your nose?”

As Dave (rightfully) made fun of me, he stood up once again, this time on the couch, towering over me even more than before (he had no shoes anymore, only a pair of sweaty socks).

“Just… just do it.” I simply said, horny, my heart racing fast.

Amused, my friend managed to directly sit on my head, as if I was a stool. 

“You really want me to k-kill me?”

“I’m your FM: I decide if you get to survive tonight.”

I remained silent. “FM…?”

“FM dude.” Dave kept talking, still sitting on me, as if this was such a natural way to talk to each other. “FM!”

“I don’t get it.”

“Too much blood rushing down your cock, fine.” he said, knowing exactly how true that statement was. “I’ll give you a hint then.”

Treating me like the wooden chair he soiled with his gas, Dave leaned a bit, as he pushed the next rip out… but after a few seconds nothing came out. 

“I’m brewing a big one, give me a moment.”

And we just remained there, silent, the stench of his ass almost forming a fog around me, the rough surface of his sagging jeans brushing through my hair. I heard Dave laughing, fully aware how weird that scene must have looked.

“Alright, here it comes for real. Ready?”

He didn’t even wait for an answer as an earthquake shook my skull, making my body shake down to my knees. The vibration literally made some drops of pre-cum leak out of my penis, further proof of my friend’s incredible powers. The fart, needless to say, was so loud it almost made me deaf: I wasn’t made of wood, but the sound of Dave’s blast bounced off the top of my head quite nicely, sounding like a loud, low-pitched chainsaw.

21 seconds. 21 fucking seconds. All natural, all as disgusting as it sounds. I didn’t even need to sniff as I was probably trapped in an invisible bubble of gas.

Finally, after wiggling his ass a bit so my hair would completely absorb that fart, Dave stood up, ripping a couple of small toots while doing so, and sat back where he was. He looked at me with a smirk, but couldn’t help but laugh noticing me startled facial expression.

I’ll just never get used to this.

“FM… Fart Master… Fuck you.” I said, shaking my head.

“If it's any consolation… you almost earned that immunity you wished for.”

This is all just a dumb kinky game for him. I couldn’t be happier, but also holy shit, the thin line between kink and torture was getting blurry with a friend like him.

“Just say that I earned it. It’s late, we’re both tired.” I tried to end this, not that I wasn’t enjoying it but come on, I couldn’t force my straight bud to do, well, this, even though it was his idea to begin with. 

“Fine. One last roll.” he agreed.

I shook the dice in my fist for a few seconds before finally letting it fall one last time on the table. It bounced a couple of times, I could feel the tension rising.

And finally…

No.

No fucking way.

There’s no way this wasn’t scripted somehow.

“Uhhh… Dave?” I dared to turn to him. He was already laughing.

A Nat 20, a fucking Nat 20, something that I always crave during our D&D sessions, but this fucking dice decided that a FART session was more important apparently.

“That’s gonna be a critical hit, Tim.” Dave stated, standing up again.

“No way you got that much gas already.” I bravely said.

My friend laughed again, that usual smirk drawn on his face.

“I’m just gonna blast you on command for a bit.”

The fact that he said that sentence so naturally made me leak a bit more.

“uhhh… thanks?” I said, my brain now completely devoid of any blood.

“Yeah sure, just lie down so I can put an end to this test.” I obeyed. “And also to your face, obviously.” he added, pointing down at me.

Once again, as if it was something completely mundane, Dave waited for me to lie down, so he could simply sit directly on my face, treating my head as part of the couch. Then, he just sat down on me as he said, the sagging jeans-clad asscheeks basically devouring my face. I couldn’t see anything but some details of the seams and textures of my friend’s jeans; at the same time, I felt the warmness, the stench, the sweat, all at once. I was used to my bro blasting me up close and personal, but this time it felt particularly overwhelming.

He wasn’t crushing me (I’m sure he was doing his best not to), but that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t feel most of his weight all over my face. As his ass was resting on my nose, he put one leg on the table in front of the couch and leaned a bit, so he could ease some gas out… or rather in. 

As promised, Dave was gonna fart-face me on command for the critical hit. He masterfully sucked some air in, showing off his skills smoothly. I knew this was gonna be a fucking fart concert. I was both horny and scared, because my bro is indeed the Fart Master, as he bragged earlier.

His ass stopped making noises, a sign that what came in was going to be blasted out soon.

“I mean… all of this to earn something you had all along. What a thirsty bitch.”

I heard Dave say, playfully mockin- wait what? All along? But I didn’t have time to say anything back because of the loud fart that pierced through my eyes and ears. It sounded a bit more “airy” than his previous ones, given that it was on command, but oddly enough it’s like there was a mix of natural gas in there as well: the stench of spoiled beer definitely helped prove it.

The fart lasted 11 seconds, way “shorter” than the previous ones, but as I said, this was gonna be a concert, so as soon as the first blast ended, Dave started sucked air in again, faster than before, as another ass-thunder quickly went down my throat, loud and proud as my friend does them.

Basically, this concert was gonna be one long ass fart with many interruptions.

This one was more of a series of 7 loud long rips ripped back-to-back, lasting about 3 seconds each. It was insane: it was like somebody was shooting at my face point blank with a fucking shotgun.

At this point I started to wonder whether Dave knew I was still there, as he kept ripping farts as if there wasn’t anyone lying under his ass.

Now he was sitting full-weight on me, almost making me fuse with the couch. He spread his legs wide again, as much as his sagging jeans allowed him to, so he could easily release an impressive, meaty, loud, almost wet rip all over that sweaty mess that used to be my face. Now that’s definitely a mix of natural and on-command, and the fact it was slightly wet only made the smell burn my nostrils even more.

This one fart didn’t want to end instead, my bro’s ass roared all over my face like one of those beasts we fought earlier during our D&D session. A display of cocky, disgusting manliness I’ll never get used to, given how skilled Dave is.

Finally, after around 20 seconds, his ass went silent again. I heard Dave whistle in relief.

“You ok down there bro?” I managed to heard him say. So he does know I’m still here!

He got up just a bit, his ass hovering (or rather, looming) over me, just enough to let me slip out of that gas chamber. I sat back to my place as he let his ass sit on the couch again, this time without having me under it. I managed to give a quick look at my friend, who had this silly smile on his face. He was visibly disgusted, but also oddly amused.

“Than-“ but he cut me off.

“You know, you totally earned your poison immunity bro.” he paused for a few seconds. “I mean… that’s what I’d say if you didn’t already have one all along.”

Oh, right. “What the fuck does that mean…?” I asked, sounding a bit more rude than I wanted to.

Dave laughed. “I actually found our conversation from months ago.” he showed his phone to me. “This is the part where we agreed on your immunity, but I forgot.” He chuckled.

I skimmed through the messages and, indeed, I was right.

“You sick bastard.” I sneered at him.

He found it hilarious. I found it… well, I too thought that it was hilariously hot as fuck, but I had to fulfil my role of being a pain in the ass.

“So you just wanted to torture me.”

“Not at first.” he admitted. “Then again, it’s not like I need an excuse to blast you, right?” he then said, winking at me. “Plus, I’m a Bard, I can make music with everything.” he then added, patting his ass.

I just didn’t know what to say, so I did what every mighty Paladin would have done: I simply stood up, not caring about my very visible, damp, huge boner, and went beating my meat in the bathroom upstairs.

Honestly, if Dave took his role of DM as seriously as his role of being my FM, our D&D sessions would go much more smoothly.

The End

[midnightraine131]

Love Letters from the Skies to the West Coast - Chapter 4 / 15

Pairing: Armin Arlert/Annie Leonhart Minor: Levi Ackermann/ Hange Zoe, Historia Reiss / Ymir Tags: Fluff, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Teenage Love, Awkward First Times, Slow Burn, POV Armin Arlert, Bottom Armin Arlert, Wet Dreams Warning: R18 contains sensitive topics If you are easily triggered by religions, specifically Christianity and Catholicism, I don't think this fic is for you. I have nothing against these religions and this fic is anything but serious. Summary: They say the most judgmental people are those who attend church on Sundays. Despite growing up in a Christian household, Armin Arlert felt overburdened by the pile of ministry activities assigned to him. So he made a pact with himself to never follow in his father's footsteps and become a pastor. With the goal of saving enough money to persuade his parents to let him move to another state after high school, he started accepting paid essay projects in school in secret. Everything in Armin's busy life seemed manageable until he met Annie Leonhart, a Californian girl whose parents had moved her against her will to Vermont. Upon discovering Armin's secret business, Annie approached him with a unique request- to write love letters for a long-distance lover. To craft the perfect love letters, she would help Armin embark on a journey of firsts— his first kiss, first hug, first date, and first everything in a relationship.thing in a relationship.

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

Awkward silence.

That’s the best word Armin could describe their current situation. Annie sat on the bench beside him, her arms crossed over her chest. Her right leg rested atop the other, gently swinging her foot up and down. He couldn't discern if she expected him to say something foolish again or if he should awkwardly excuse himself, blurting out, "Hi, Doc Hange! I just remembered I have some errands to run. Send the bills to my address! Gotta go!" Then, making a dash for the door as if his life depended on it.

But, no, that scenario was wishful thinking. His grandfather was picking him up from this clinic; he needed a ride home.

Armin closed his eyes in resignation. If there were an award for making a situation awkward, he'd surely earn a noble prize.

He shifted his gaze toward the counter, squinting to catch their reflection in its glass finish. Annie appeared disinterested, likely gazing out of the window. He followed her line of sight and spotted her watching tangerine-colored leaves dancing in the wind. One leaf glided and swirled mid-air before disappearing from view. Armin rarely appreciated such things, but as he turned back to Annie, seeing her face light up, he found tranquility in that moment.

Annie's countenance was a fortress for her emotions; she guarded them skillfully, hiding something fragile. In a split second, she smiled. As Armin blinked, her usual stoic expression returned. He made a mental note that the next time he caught her smile, he wouldn't blink so she couldn't shield herself. She’s indeed a very pretty girl, he mused.

Clearing her throat, Annie broke the silence. "That's quite awkward, isn't it? If you have nothing more to say, I'll return to my work."

Armin blinked, looking away and feeling his face heat up. He shifted his seat as far as possible. "I said what I meant."

"Do you really mean it?"

He nodded.

Of course, he did. They might not have been the usual words one would say, but it was Armin. He'd bluntly speak his mind without much thought. Before he could answer, the door burst open.

Hange, sliding a pen back into her white-coated pocket, reviewed a report on her clipboard. "As I suspected, your girl is extremely malnourished. She was just a week old and required extensive care for a few days before she could eat independently. Also, her wounds are infected, not too severe, but I need to prescribe some antibiotics." Scribbling down prescriptions, she then noticed the two awkward teenagers on the bench. "Oh, do you two know each other?" she inquired.

Despite Hange being among the brightest individuals Armin knows in town, she occasionally displays a certain naiveté, often unintentionally. She's been married for over two years to Levi Ackerman, a pet groomer, possibly her first boyfriend post-university. Rumours has it they've chosen not to have children, instead opting to be devoted "fur parents." Their love for their fur babies evolved into a business—a small clinic offering pet grooming services.

Armin rose and approached the counter, where Hange was jotting down notes. Somehow, he felt relieved to escape an awkward conversation with Annie. "Well, um, yeah, we know each other. So, what will the bill be?" he inquired.

Hange clicked her tongue and sighed. "I won't charge you for the consultation, but for her medications, milk, and vaccines. It might be a bit costly. Also, my clinic is currently filled with animals carrying diseases. I can't risk a small kitten falling ill, so she needs a home."

Armin sensed Annie standing behind him, listening. He glanced at her before returning his focus to the doctor. While he could persuade his parents to adopt the kitten, he didn't want to engage in discussions about shouldering the expenses with them.

"As much as I'd like to take her, my dad will probably kick me out before I bring the kitten home," Annie deadpanned.

"Hmm." Hange leaned on her table, chin resting on her palm. "I can see in Armin's eyes that he wants the cat too. How about co-parenting for the cat? Armin provides a home while Annie supports her needs in exchange for visiting rights. You're a full-time staff member at my clinic, so you are eligible for a staff rate, it won't hurt much."

Not a bad idea, but...

"Uh, that's fine with me. I'm not sure about Annie," Armin replied, looking down at the white-tiled floor.

"I have no issue with that," Annie said, crossing her arms.

"It's settled then!" Hange clapped her hands in delight. "I'll prepare her things so you can head home. I have a small cage here for you. I'll be right back." She continued to chatter as she vanished into one of the rooms, leaving the two blondes alone.

Armin smiled awkwardly at Annie.

Great.

Read more on AO3

[alatabouleau]

German terms of endearments for your fic

.Now, it's been two years since I've fallen into the X-Men/Cherik-fandom and one thing that I have seen continuously is people trying to find terms of endearment in German for Erik to use for Charles (or his mother for him). (I've lost count of how many times I've seen the word "Liebling" spelled wrong) And honestly, no offense. I know it's hard writing a character who speaks a language you don't. And obviously, you're gonna make mistakes. So I thought I'd share my knowledge as a mother tongue in German and let you know some of the most common ways we described our loved ones. ;) DISCLAIMER: I am but one single person, grown up south-east from Berlin, I DO NOT speak for the whole of Germany, nor do I ever intent to, especially since we are anything but a cultural monolith. Just keep that in mind while reading. ;)

Exclusively romantic terms: - Liebste (fem.)/ Liebster (masc.) : literally means "most loved". Closest English equivalent is probably "love" or "beloved". Bit old-fashioned. Makes you sound like a 20th-century-gentleman. ;) Make sure to write it "I-E" NOT the other way around! It would make the opposite sound. - Geliebte (fem.) / Geliebter (masc.): literally "beloved". Makes you sound even older, like Jane-Eyre-19th-century-old. Again, I before E. - Süße (fem.) / Süßer (masc.): literally "sweetie" (I KNOW this is probably now confusing, but trust me.) This is where we get into the... sappy side of German. Like, there are some mid-forty/fifty-couples who use that, but the rest makes it probably just cringe. (I know I am right now really helpful by starting with those that are not really modern, but I've seen this used because people translating English terms so I just wanted to say it here.)

Terms for both romantic and parental love: - Liebling: literally "darling". Classic, neutral, always the safe option for every situation. (I before E ;) ) - Schatz: literally "treasure". Again, safe option, though this leans rather to the romantic side, but can be used for children either way. And then of course, some animal pet names may be used for either children or romantic partners, but honestly, I don't know any couples who do that. So, those will go into the parental category, I'm afraid.

Terms for children: -Spatz: "sparrow". That's what we basically use as "sweetie". You can also use the diminutive "Spätzchen" for either toddlers or said by grandmothers. -Maus: "mouse". same thing. Diminutive is "Mäuschen". Tendency in usage for girls, but can work for either gender. (This is what my Mom still calls me sometimes even though I'm already 22! XD) -Motte: "moth". This is now really rather for girls, and rather those whose names start with M. -Krümel: "crumb". Not used by many, rather comes from the North, also rather used for unborn children in the womb. -Fussel: "fluff". Also not that common but can be cute in my PoV. :) -Hase: "rabbit". Diminutive is "Häschen". This one's rather for boys in my experience.

And then again, at the end of the day, expressions of affection are personal and as we get more personal in German, we tend to use our respective dialects. Yes, there are actually quite a many dialects for our relative "small" country. Around 30, to be concrete. Though they are all decreasing in being used, sadly, as we get more and more globalized and mobilized. However, here are some examples that I know, my knowledge being utterly limited as I am only one single person from the region south of Berlin:

-Kleene (fem.) / Kleener (masc.): "little one". If you ever have a character originating from Berlin or south of Berlin, this can be used for children. -Meechen: "girl" in the dialect of the region called "Lausitz" around the border of Brandenburg and Saxonia. Also for kids. -Schätzelein: diminutive of "treasure" in Colognian dialect. Romantic in nature, though it can also be used in a way like hairdressers in American movies sometimes call their customers "sweetie". (please, if there's a person from Cologne here, correct me on that!) -Liebchen: "darling" or "beloved" in Saxonian dialect, I believe. Rather used by old couples. -Min Dern (fem.)/ Min Jung (masc): "my girl/boy". Northern dialect. In the region around Hamburg, if I remember correctly. Used for kids.

That's it for the moment. I will probably add to this list whenever I learn some new, but I hope this is already helpful for some people. Have a great day! :) Also, if to other German mother-speakers, feel free to share your perspective, correct me if I did put something in the wrong region or enlighten me with other words.

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

I think just think the fandom gets quite unimaginative when it comes to Bran, like there's a literal apocalypse coming with creatures that westeros thinks are long gone and Bran will play a vital role to stop it and also on top of it is a magical boy, is it that unreasonable for him for westerosi smallfolk and nobles alike to see him as someone who rebuild the realm.

Right. Plus Westeros is quite nearly a failed state. It’s on the brink of collapse, not to mention the upcoming doom brought by the Others. Is it too far fetched to expect that the political structure shifts to a point that allows for Bran’s ascension?

Bran is so central to the resolution of ASOIAF. It’s often ignored that he is right there with Jon at the front lines of the upcoming conflict. He’s where he is, beyond the wall and facing a northern threat, for a reason. GRRM also identifies him as the most magic-heavy character. It certainly seems that we as a fandom get so caught up on AA/tptwp, that we forget Bran is a walking, talking, glaring Last Hero allegory. And yes, he’s a greenseer and a magic boy. But he’s also heir to the largest kingdom in Westeros. Somehow people forget that…

And the strangest thing is, people often acknowledged that he would be the last POV character since he was the first. It makes sense for the story to start and end with Bran, but that was often the extent of his importance in the story.

Bran staying in that cave was the dominant endgame theory for him for many, many years. But I do think a part of it was people thinking that a disabled kid couldn’t become plot relevant; he can’t move so he might as well remain stagnant where he is. It’s how a lot of the complaints re not being able to have kids start. Sure, it is a problem but like…Rickon exists? His plot relevance so far has literally just been him occupying that position once Bran became Robb’s heir. Imo the point of Rickon is to be Bran’s successor and the one who carries the Stark line forward (and GRRM has been adamant that he’ll play a big part in upcoming books). If GRRM wants to make Bran king, I don’t see how it can’t be resolved satisfactorily. But Bran is a character who doesn’t have a large fandom and one whose importance is always written out that people twist themselves into knots denying that.

[lex-munro]

[More Like Grand-Ish: Part 5] Selfish

Lost my place for a bit, there…OPLA ZoSan randomness; Sanji’s POV and speech use UK English.

Misunderstandings, because Zoro is prickly and Sanji is not great at reading him.  Reconciling one another’s priorities is a key step in a long-term relationship.

Timeline-wise, we’re still between Conomi and Loguetown, thanks to their little detour.

Canon divergent/universe alterations, gay!Zoro and anything-that’s-pretty-enough!Sanji, ubiquitous bad language.  Recognizeable characters belong to Netflix, Oda, Jump, etc.

 ***

Selfish

Sanji was kneading pasta dough and thinking.  He was thinking about the past, yeah…but also about the dream he’d abandoned and retrieved, and about the future, and about the way romances tended to progress.

“Oy, mossy,” he said.  Zoro made an inquisitive noise from the bench where he was catnapping, so Sanji went on.  “I’ve been thinking about stuff.  And I just wanna let you know that, if our dreams point us in separate directions, I won’t be selfish and make you stay with me.”

One dark eye opened and stared at him.  “Selfish.”

“Yeah.  Y’know…like how…maybe some guy’s wife lands the perfect job on another island, and since it pays more, maybe he gives up his own beloved career to move house.  I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“If it wasn’t selfish…would you want me to stay?”

Sanji paused, confused.  “What?”

“Say I achieve my dream first…would you want me around while you look for All Blue?”

“If you’d already achieved your dream, it’d be a moot point—I’m talkin’ about if the paths diverge.  Like, if I had an urgent lead, but some amazing master gave you a one-time offer to train with him before he dies.”

“But if I decided—all on my own—to follow you instead, would you be happy?”

Sanji blew his hair away from his eyes and aggressively kneaded the dough.  “How the hell could I be happy that you were giving up your dream because of me?”

“It wouldn’t be giving it up, and it’d be for me,” Zoro insisted against all logic.  “Pursuing my dream has already almost gotten me killed once.  Maybe it really will, someday.  So we go after your dream first, and then we go after mine.”

“Are you not listening to me at all?”

“I think you’re not listening.”

“I’m telling you I’m not selfish enough to do that!”

“Selfish,” Zoro said again, sitting up.  “So it’s selfish of me to want to be happy.”

Sanji glared at him.  “I didn’t say that.  I don’t wanna be the reason you put your wants aside, and I don’t think I could still love you if you just gave up on your promise.”

“Why would we part ways when we fight well together and being with you makes me happy?  But you’re saying that wanting to stay together makes me selfish.  I can’t want more than one thing, I can’t be human, I can only be the Demon of East Blue.  Go fuck yourself, shitty waiter,” Zoro hissed, and stalked out of the galley.

“What?” Sanji said to the empty room.

~

Zoro nursed his hurt feelings and stung pride up in the crow’s nest.

If Sanji wanted to call it quits, he could just say that.  He didn’t have to—to talk in riddles and obtuse hypotheticals.  And it didn’t seem fair, anyway, when Sanji had been the one to catch feelings first.

Right?

Was Zoro really so pathetic that he’d fall head-over-heels for the first guy who slept wth him for longer than a week?

……

Yes.

Absolutely.

A beautiful guy who fucked him right and understood his obsessions?  A guy whose own obsession permeated almost every moment of his life?  Yeah, he’d fallen in love basically right away.

Except apparently Sanji didn’t actually understand.  Fulfilling his promise would always be the most important thing in his life, but he could train and follow Sanji.  He could train and be in love; he was sure of it.

Maybe Sanji couldn’t.  Or maybe he had some weird guilt thing where he thought Luffy wouldn’t be ecstatic to look for All Blue and the One Piece at the same time once they hit the Grand Line.

Or maybe he was truly getting sick of Zoro.  Maybe he didn’t like the sweaty and salty smell, the rough hair, the admitted utter lack of social graces.  Maybe he missed delicate girls, polite society, tits…

Yeah.

Sanji was fancy.  He was (estranged) royalty.  That kind of people didn’t mingle with the likes of him in the long-term.  They slummed it for little stretches, trying to get a thrill or two, and then they went back to their fancy parties with unpronounceable food.

The novelty had come back for a while after Tuni, because somebody else had been playing with his toy, and now it was gone again.

Zoro leaned his head back against the mast and closed his eyes.

Fuck.

So stupid, getting so attached to somebody from such a different world.

“I’m shit,” Sanji called up from the deck, scattering every thought in the swordsman’s head.  “I’m awful.  The worst.”

Zoro peered over the edge of the crow’s nest.  “Don’t talk about my boyfriend that way,” he said.

Sanji pouted up at him.  “Can you find it in your heart to forgive me, precious?”

“Guess that depends on which part you apologize for.”

“If we go after my dream first and the All Blue doesn’t exist, you’ll be wasting your life.”

“Oh, us being together is a waste,” Zoro drawled, and settled back down to sulk.  “Thanks for clearing that up.”

“Wait, I didn’t mean it like that!  Why are you being so—so—”  Sanji made a frustrated noise.

“You don’t want a long haul, I get it,” Zoro offered.  “People fall in and out of love, don’t they?  It’s fine, it happens, and I know I’m nothing like your usual taste.  But you keep trying to put pretty garnishes on the hard shit, when you should just tell me the fuckin’ truth.”

“What about you?  Almost four months, and you still don’t even trust me.  We’re so close to the Grand Line that we could spit on Loguetown, we’re about to enter the Pirate’s Paradise, we’ll be facing life-or-death situations side-by-side on a daily basis.  You say you love me, and you say you believe me when I say I love you, but you don’t trust me.”

“I trust exactly two people in the world:  that rubberized embodiment of honesty we call a captain, and the man who tried to teach me to be more than some bloodthirsty savage with a sword.”

There was a long pause down below.

Any moment, he’d hear the click of metal-reinforced shoes going back into the galley…

Instead, “You don’t even trust yourself?” Sanji asked in a funny tone.

“Trust the guy who caused his only friend’s death and had to run away from home to keep his promise to her?” scoffed Zoro.  “The guy who routinely trades lives for berri?  The guy who couldn’t even tell his boyfriend had been replaced by a shitty copy for three weeks?”

“Stop being mean to my boyfriend,” Sanji said, and it sounded like he was trying to pretend it was funny when they both knew it was just tragic.

“Nah, fuck that idiot.  Trusting that guy has only ever led me to misery.”

There was another long pause, punctuated by the soft creak of rope and the idle flap of rippling canvas.

“I’d trust that guy with my life,” Sanji said, peeking over the edge of the crow’s nest.

Zoro made a face.

Sanji pouted again.  “Permission to come aboard?”

“You still haven’t apologized, or even said what you’re apologizing for.”

“I don’t not want to be with you,” Sanji said.

Zoro was not impressed.

Sanji ducked his head.  “Zoro.  Please, can I climb in and sit with you?”

“I reserve the right to jump,” the swordsman grumbled.

“Nah, yeah, that’s fair,” Sanji replied a little dispiritedly.  But he went ahead and climbed in, settling on the floor against Zoro’s side.  He was pleasantly warm.  “So, obviously I need to explain.”

“So obvious Luffy would notice,” Zoro agreed.

Sanji grimaced.  He pressed a little more firmly to Zoro’s side, like a cat begging forgiveness.  “I can do long haul.  After the first month, I kinda started aiming for it.  I had a dream one night…we were a lot older, gray hair and wrinkles and all.  We had our own ship in Luffy’s armada, where I ran a restaurant and you steered us from legendary opponent to legendary opponent, and young guys would come and prostrate themselves for a chance at your tutelage.  And we were so happy.”

Zoro sternly quelled the fluttering in his belly, but jostled Sanji gently with a shrug.  “That’s a good dream.”

“But it’s just a dream,” Sanji went on.  “And the more I thought about it, the more I knew I didn’t want to drag you into that, hoping for some fantasy, only to find years down the line that you felt trapped and resentful.”

Zoro watched and contemplated while Sanji fidgeted.  When he figured he’d drawn it out long enough, he said, “Every trap I’ve ever been in, I walked into it knowingly.  There are things more important than some abstract notion of ‘freedom.’“

“Right, but what I’m saying is—”

“You really think I’d stick around if I resented you?  That’s not how my version of loyalty works.”

“No, I know that—”

“Do you?”

Sanji stopped.  He blinked.  He stared at Zoro.  He gave a soft little self-deprecating smile.  “Yeah, I guess I do.  I’m just afraid of turning into my shitty father.”

“Well, if he fucks as well as you do…” Zoro teased, softening the blow by draping himself over Sanji’s chest and wiggling his eyebrows.

“Oh, ugh, yuck!” groaned Sanji.  “Guh, mental images—urgh, they’re not leaving—”

Zoro felt like he might burst with fondness.  Instead, he allowed a little chuckle and nuzzled noses.

“No, I’m not gonna kiss you.  You’ve traumatised me, you brute.”

“You sure?  Not even if I flutter my eyelashes and bite my lip and tell you how much I love you, despite you being a total dumbass?”

“Oy, you’re the dumbarse.”

“What a shame, to never kiss me again!” Zoro said, and heaved a theatrical sigh.

“I did not say never.  You’ll just need to be a little more persuasive after the horrors inflicted by my imagination.”

Zoro put on his blandest expression and said, “Oh, Sanji, you’re so handsome and magnanimous.  Surely you would be so benevolent as to kiss me until my lips are numb and I forget all that bullshit you were spouting earlier.”

“Ah, a terrible sacrifice,” Sanji purred, coaxing Zoro properly into his lap.  “But one I am assuredly willing to make.”

 .End.

[jayflying]

drop your design details/hybrid headcanons for characters youve discussed so far pls :p

To keep it short for now, I've chosen to limit that to meaning "characters I've shown y'all a POV piece from already", so Scott, Etho, Bdubs and Martyn.

Scott is 6' tall and, as far as anyone can tell, completely human! At least, at the start. His hair being naturally blue is a bit odd. And the pale scar across his left forearm that looks like something branded a square with the letter N there is definitely weird, but he doesn't remember how he got it, so… it's probably fine. After he dies for the first time in Third Life, he becomes visibly elven, with a halo of stars and rings of light floating around his wrists. He also gains an extra inch of height, putting him at 6'1". Somehow it's that last bit which confuses him the most. All his death-scarring is across his torso, so it's concealed beneath his clothes.

Martyn is 5'10" and also half-elven, but doesn't get any fun glowing lights out of it. (He's pretty sure glowing lights aren't even an elf thing.) All his elven heritage gives him is pointy ears and violently bright blond hair. Martyn usually wears a green short-sleeve hoodie and denim shorts, and refuses to take fashion advice or dress appropriately for the weather. It's not until late into Last Life that the weather gets cold enough to make him use a longer pair of pants. He has burn scars across the back of his legs after the desert explodes beneath his feet in Third Life, and an arrow scar running horizontally under his left eye after Impulse shoots him in the head. All his other death-scars are concealed.

Etho is 6'3" and looks like a perfectly normal human Player, aside from the white hair. He's incredibly fond of his green aviator jacket, and almost never takes it off. His mask covers his entire neck and jawline as well as just his face, and he would quite literally rather kill than take it off in front of other people. (Only six people have ever seen his face under the mask, although that number rises to nine by the end of Last Life.) The scar through his left eye is an arrow scar, and he doesn't get it until he's executed via firing squad in Third Life. His red eye is a redstone camera / prosthetic eye he makes after the fact. He also has massive amounts of burn scarring, but due to his outfit, it's only visible across his hands.

Bdubs is 5'7" and incredibly defensive about the fact that height is average. He seems human but probably isn't anymore. He's not sure. He doesn't like to think about it. He wears his moss hoodie tied around his waist for most of Third Life because it simply isn't cold enough to warrant wearing it yet. In Last Life, on the other hand, he almost never takes the thing off, except for on his red life, when he consistently keeps passing it off to Etho. (Etho wears it like a cape, tied around his shoulders.) The only visible death-scarring he picks up is burn scarring across his right arm and shoulder: all his other death-scars are concealed.

Some additional quickfire design facts:

In the Life Games, everyone's eye color changes to match their life count. The only exceptions to this are Tango (whose eyes are always red), Lizzie (whose eyes are always blue), and BigB (who has brown eyes until he hits his red life).

Communicators can't go in a Player's inventory, so everyone is always carrying them. For example: Scott's is kept in his back pocket, Martyn's is loosely strapped to his belt, Etho's is strapped to his left forearm and hidden under his sleeve, and Bdubs carries his in a small satchel bag.

Injuries and scars only carry over between respawns if they were the cause of a Player's Hardcore death or if that Player views them as important to their self-image. The only person in the Life Games that has any sentimental value scars is Skizz, though.

Once again, feel free to ask about specific characters if you have further questions, or if there's anyone else you'd like to hear design details about!

[wildflowerteas]

hella got through chapter 6 everyone cheer!

i don't know how to respond to this coherently so i'm just going to scroll down and let the word vomit happen:

the choice of emoji reacts to some of these . . . i'm surprised hella hasn't killed you guys. keeping gin away from this mess is the last thing on my mind, unfortunately *stares at the BEAST tag*

ARRGHHHFGHHH IM SO GLAD YOU GUYS LIKE SSKK. they're such a breath of fresh air, and writing them comes so easily to me. while i like writing skk ( fucked up as they are--even at this point in the story ) and the fast-paced nature of their relationship, this is romance writing work coming from the guy whose only other fic had a first kiss at uhhh...160k words.

yesenina did serve too hard. i imagine her as similair to the others, but with a Rita Hayworth-like air of ambition about her, and that's a serve. and it's what gets her killed.

Chuuya Yuan history coming in SOON. actually. Next chapter. seeing hella lose it over Chuuya's internal monologue here has been absolutely hilarious and kind of rewarding. I Knew All That because I'm the author ( duh ) so i never really grasped how strange the shift to Chuuya's thoughts about the relationship would be. I mean there's snippets of it, like the diner scene, but you're right, it's fanfic and so that is a lot easier to sweep under the rug.

ACAB. I considered putting a line from Doc Riedenschneider in The Asphalt Jungle ( 1950 ) "Experience has taught me to never trust a policeman. Just when you think one's alright, he turns legit." in a divider chapter between part I and part II, but I thought was too on the nose following 7 ( and a bit pretentious considering this is just ao3 fanfic and not a published work or anything ) so i grabbed myself by the metaphorical monkey backpack and didn't. Mafia Nepo Baby 😭 I love Hella HUGE WIN FOR ME. I was so nervous because i needed to balance Chuuya being observant but also quite literally *out of the loop.* He's not from the same world as Dazai--he's not involved with the murders or the politics or the mess going on yet. He comes across as oblivious at times because Dazai's POV is purposefully designed to make you see him that way. Dazai's so sure he's in control of what Chuuya knows that he doesn't realize he might have met his match.

ZSKK are uhm. yeah. all im gonna say there.

the "PARDON." IM CACKLING

argh. the switch up with this chapter...why the hell am i getting nostalgic for something i wrote less than two months ago ( ican't believe i've been grinding through this fic so fast jesus ).

i love unhealthy dynamics, truly. this fic was really a test to see if i could write soukoku making each other worse. which is a pretty stark contrast to my other stuff.

HELLA. OH MY GOD. that bit about their careers . . . i can't believe she noticed that. Chuuya started the fic genuinely ambitious, wanting the spotlight, wanting to defy expectations set upon him by his looks, his race, and his past. Dazai's a cop, sworn to uphold the law, but he doesn't feel like a good person. He can't ( interlude chapter . . . stares out the window ), but he can use everything about who he is to give Chuuya the life he wants. like a guardian ange--*gets taken out by a sniper chapter 8 style* Their original goals aren't gone, per se, they've simply been reoriented.

can't wait for chapter 7

i know it'll make Hella want to hunt me down for sport, so i'll sleep with both eyes open for the forseeable future.

[xoxobuckybarnes]

November 2023 Stucky Fics

Completed

Yours, Steve (Rated: G, Words: 9K)

Summary: “I’ve been writing a lot lately, y’know? Sam told me it’d do me good.” “Oh yeah? What do you write about?” Steve shrugs, suddenly self-conscious. “Stuff about him. How I feel. Stuff that I feel would help him remember, if he ever read them. It’s... weird. They’re letters, you know? Letters for him. Even though I know he’ll never read them.” “Well,” Nat says. There’s a determined glint in her eyes. “Do you want him to?” Steve blinks, dumbfounded. A smile slowly creeps across his lips. (In which Civil War never happens and Bucky makes a life for himself in Bucharest, tries to heal on his own. Steve waits for him, and writes.)

The Intelligence Nerd and The Avengers (series) by LilyInTheSnow / @lilyinthesnow

Bucky Barnes: Intelligence Nerd (Rated: E, Words: 114K) Summary: How Bucky Barnes accidently became an Avenger and married Steve Rogers. Or some shit like that.

Twitterpated (Rated: M, Words: 12K)

Summary: Steve's POV of Chapters 1-7 of Intelligence nerd. Steve's not twitterpated. Really he's not. Bucky's just a total badass and his future husband is all.

Twenty Minutes in Heaven (Rated: M, Words: 5K) Summary: Bucky's missing twenty minutes from chapter 9? of Bucky Barnes: Intelligence Nerd as told from Steve's POV. Plus a little extra. Pandamonium (Rated: M, Words: 4K) Summary: Bucky has a nightmare. It's pandamonium. xD A Small Matter (Rated: E, Words: 13k) Summary: Steve gets shrunk during a fight with Hydra, but retains everything else the serum gave him. Bucky's not quite sure how to handle Twink!Steve. In the end Twink!Steve handles Bucky. Tony, Bruce, and Doctor Strange have no idea how to fix it and Thor thinks Loki might've had something to do with it. It's fine though. Everything is perfectly fine. Probably. Or: Steve gets shrunk, fucks Bucky's brains out, and they make a trip to Jotunheimen, Norway. Steve might steal Stormbreaker from Thor and they might get chased by a mutant maneating weremoose. They also might get into a drunken snowball fight. Oh, and Loki is there too. Reading Fanfic Pays Off (Rated: E, Words: 16K) Summary: Steve and Bucky from Intelligence Nerd wind up in the Hello Future Husband verse. Barista!Bucky takes Intelligence Nerd!Bucky lingerie shopping and some other stuff happens too. Like maybe Steve gets jealous and bones Bucky against a tree.

***These fics are complete but the series is not. ***

Hello, Future Husband (Rated: E, Words: 20K) by LilyInTheSnow / @lilyinthesnow

Summary: Bucky Barnes might kind of, sort of, be desperately in love with Steve Rogers. Steve might be a little bit oblivious. Bucky might be a little bit desperate. Natasha and Clint decide to help. Kinda. Mostly they just watch and giggle, but whatever. Enter: Lace panties, super tight skinnies that may or may not be cutting off circulation to various parts of Bucky's anatomy, see-through shirts, and a small variety of now visible nipple jewelry. Nipple shields that look like Captain America's shield? Bucky's never heard of 'em. Never seen them before. How'd they get in his jewelry box?

Let me love you (Rated: T, Words: 4K) by thatgreenleaf

Summary: The Winter Soldier keeps trying to shower Steve with affection in the middle of fights. Steve keeps mistaking them for fight moves.

Fantasmic! (Rated: T, Words: 11K) by mambo / @whtaft

Summary: It's Steve's second summer working at Disney World when he meets Prince Charming (aka: Bucky Barnes, college kid from Brooklyn whose ass looks absolutely devastating in his Prince Charming slacks) and maybe starts to feel a little Disney magic in his heart.

I Held You in Gloved Hands (And I’m Not Letting Go) (Rated: E, Words: 48K) by Voylitscope_speed / @voylitscope

Summary: Bucky Barnes jumps at the chance to take a job opportunity hours from home. He's expecting a fresh start and a decent salary jump. He's not expecting to run into his childhood best friend, Steve Rogers, on his first day. The years since they last talked have been hard ones for both of them, but falling back into their friendship is shockingly easy. Despite their time apart, December in this small town might bring them closer than ever. (Or, a holiday romcom in which Bucky reads to children, Steve teaches art, new friendships are made, difficult conversations are had, cookies are baked, way too much coffee is consumed, home is found in surprising places and, eventually, feelings are confessed.)

I Feel Warm with You (Rated: G, Words: 7K) by LelsieSphinx / @kittytheroseofkirea

Summary: 5+1 winters throughout the lives of Steve and Bucky; filled with fun, kisses, wars, separation, reunions and softness.

Podfic

Late Show (Rated: E) by ipoiledi & thatsmysecret

Summary: “Rogers,” Bucky says, seriously, “You wouldn’t know how to shake your ass if one of those sweet ladies herself tried to stand you up and teach you.”

WIP

Treading Water (Rated: M, Current Words: 261K) by sparkagrace / @sparkagrace & art by Dyslexic_Fetus (Reagy_Jay) / @reagy-jay

Summary: Olympic swimmer Bucky Barnes always believed that when the time came to retire, he would walk away with his medals and world records firmly in the history books and never look back. He never thought the water would leave him first. ***Part of the series Lane Lines: Lane Lines (Rated: M, Words: 132K), Lumière (Rated: M, Words: 5K), & New Traditions (Rated: M, Words: 6K)***

Lost Vocabularies that Might Express (The Memory of These Broken Impressions) (Rated: E, Current Words: 76K) by dorian_burberrycanary / @burberrycanary

Summary: The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away. How’s that for some consolation on the road? A post-The Falcon and The Winter Soldier Stucky fix-it as part of the all-American road trip, detours included. ***Part of the series A Man Takes His Sadness Down to the River (The Consolation of Philosophy): The Same River, Twice (The Man Is Still Left with His Hands) (Rated: G, words: 4K), Still Left with the River (The Paradox of Motion) (Rated: G, Words: 14K), &  Not Language by a Map (The Grammar of Sensation) (Rated: E, Words: 20K)***

[soulsisterif]

I know, I know, "where have you been? What about the demo?". I've been working. Both on the demo and in my real life. Which sucks. Real life. Not the demo. That'll be for you to judge when it comes out. Whenever that is, I'm done making estimations XDDD

Anyway, I keep making changes and adding things. We've come to a point in which the demo is about 25k (excluding coding). Not too bad for 3 weeks of work! I'm happy with it though it's not really that long of a demo since most of those words are variations and flavour text.

Even if it takes long to make a game like this, it's very important to me that choices and stats make a difference in a playthrough. Even if it's just a few sentences in an intereaction. As of now, I think every single choice has its own development in the scene, so I'm quite proud of that.

The mentioned additions include:

•The possibility of an oblivious romance path. I'm a sucker for those. Right now it's only available for Abbie, since I don't think it would work that well for the others, whom you didn't even know until you got in the show.

•Different scenes and exclusive paths depending on the age you choose. Abbie is the only character whose age will change according to yours, so I thought it'd be neat to make the other character react to considerable age differences. Like, Vega is the youngest and she'd be reluctant if you chose your MC to be in her 40s. This also means that if you're both in your 40s, Abbie, the poor thing, has been head over heels for you for a looong ass time. So, more pent-up longing there.

•I've decided to change the Kind vs Dismissive stat for "Kind vs Mischievous". That way you can be a bold sweetheart and a shy menace, too. This one will probably have as much of an impact on the ROs relationship scenes, much like the shy vs bold one already does. This is the one thing that's taking most of my time right now, because I'm not sure how I'm going to go about it and coordinate the two.

•My favourite addition might as well be the "How the Audience Views You" stat. Here for y'all to admire:

I'm also considering adding some ROs pov scenes and also confessionals, but I'm on the fence about those so... Incoming poll, I guess.

[emilylawsons]

Heyyy Kayli happy Sunday, I hope you don't mind being asked more than one question:)

- do characters influence your writing style?

- what is the last thing that a fic made you google when you were reading it? And what is the last thing that a fic made you google when you were writing it?

- which season best matches the mood of your wip(s)?

Hi, Vane!

Yeah, I’d say characters influence the writing style. The voice really has to match the person whose POV you’re writing for, as does the things they feel and think and notice. If I’m writing Olivia Dunham, for example, I’m probably going to be a lot more thoughtful and poetic than I would be if I was writing Tess. Purely because she’s more introspective and less afraid to be in touch with her own feelings. So, there’s going to be lengthier prose.

As far as research…I honestly don’t remember what anyone else wrote that made me Google. I don’t think any writer’s brought up anything that I didn’t already know or couldn’t glean the information about based on context clues. And for my own research, I did do a thorough search of colleges in Texas when trying to determine the direction I wanted A&A to go. I also had to look up flights from Austin to Detroit and vice versa to get a realistic look at travel times.

You know I’m not sure which season matches. I think there’s a little of everything. If I had it my way, it would be fall, but I don’t think I’ve ever quite achieved that.

Thanks for the ask friend ❤️

ask game for fanfic writers