#and currently the shows i play in the background are getting a bit eh because i literally just keep playing them lol
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125storejuice · 2 years ago
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lay-z · 5 months ago
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Kinda kinky, but made it domestic and fluffy. (I guess, idk...) Also, very long for some reason, sorry. MINORS, DNI! 18+ !!! Pairing: F!Reader x Simon 'Ghost' Riley Warnings/Info: Established relationship; domesticity; fluff; consensual smut; masturbation kink; praise kink; some dirty talk; explicit language; cussing
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It's Friday evening, barely past 8 pm, inside your apartment in the private 141 apartment complex on base.
After a late dinner – homemade lasagna with fresh ingredients, because you always thrive to get something proper other than MRE's into Simon's and your own system – you and your boyfriend are sprawled out on your large deep brown leather couch.
Cuddling, resting, and relaxing after a tough week of training and "important" briefings on duty.
The atmosphere is filled with contentment and coziness, while the delicious smell of lasagna and the fresh shower steam wafting into the open living space from the nearby bathroom, still linger in your shared apartment. The lights are off, except for the vanilla-scented candle you’ve lit on the white sideboard and the flickering lights of the TV screen illuminating the spacious room.
With the both of you now suffering from a food coma, Simon is laying on his broad back, taking up nearly all of the couches’ space. One muscular arm tucked behind his head on the armrest casually, the other hand playing with a few strands of your hair on the back of your head, his eyes half-lidded and glued to the large flat TV mounted on the opposite wall, currently playing the first episode of Band of Brothers, after you two had finally settled on something to watch – something you'd both enjoy.
Meanwhile, you're laying between his spread thighs, draped over him with your cheek resting on his lower stomach, your right hand rubbing slow, soothing circles over his lax abs with your flat palm and tracing the many faded scars while his tight black shirt is rucked up to his chest; his belly now slightly round and full, sporting a food baby, and thus not as hard and ripped as it usually is.
You can hear his stomach work as your ear presses against his pale skin, his gut already processing the food and sounding like a bunch of whale calls while his strong heartbeat fades into the background noise like a steady drum. It's an odd concoction of sounds, and you swiftly find yourself paying more attention to your boyfriend's bodily functions than your favorite war show playing on TV.
"What's so funny, eh? We're laughin’ at WWII now?" Simon asks eventually after your second quiet snicker to yourself, his deep voice sounding gruff and heavy with beginning fatigue, though it still carries that familiar dry, deadpan humor of his.
"Nope. Nothing," you reply with another breathy chuckle, patting and caressing his lower abdomen reassuringly. Perhaps a little bit too close to his crotch this time.
The sudden movement makes his muscles flex below your palm, and a low groan escapes Simon's slightly parted lips and both actions immediately trigger something within you, like a house cat being taunted by its owner moving their hand below a blanket.
"Don't... don't do that, luv," he chides you gently, cupping his free hand over yours to keep it still on his stomach, "Gimme another good thirty minutes, and I'll rock yer world." Simon tells you, stifling a yawn.
While he keeps your ministrations at bay with his mammoth hand, you prop yourself up on your other elbow with a small pout before you wordlessly begin peppering wet and hot kisses along his belly, down to his naval and lower abdomen, inhaling his masculine scent greedily while your nose nearly digs into his milky, scarred skin.
"Bloody hell, lass – don't, I –" Simon protests half-heartedly, sucking in a sharp breath, before another low groan slips past his lips as he shifts his body beneath you.
"Watch the damn TV and let me do my thing.” You mutter against his skin, though there is no bite behind your words, only teasing and affection – and burning determination. You two didn’t have any time nor strength for sex all week and you suddenly feel like making up for it now.
A low grumble vibrates in his chest in return and you know he wants to object again, but then he doesn't, because Simon is low-key just as horny as you are – he was just trying to be mindful, thinking you’re too tired to engage in anything sexual with him tonight.
"Always so goddamn bossy when we're alone," he mutters instead, clicking his tongue in mock exasperation, though a small smirk tugs at the corner of his scarred mouth.
“C’mere then, lovey,” he murmurs in his deep, gravelly voice, swiftly pulling his black T-shirt over his head and letting it fall down on the fluffy carpet next to the couch haphazardly, before he audibly pats his now bared chest in silent command with the hand that was previously tucked behind his head.
He needs to feel your lips on his first; ease in to this slowly before he might come too quickly; it’s been a week after all and Simon is only now realizing how tight his balls are.
However, you shake your head with a cheeky smirk, nuzzling the tip of your nose into the coarse dark hair of his thin happy trail, feeling his muscles flex at the sweet touch, before lifting your head to gaze up at him through your lashes.
“I wanna suck you off, baby. Can I?” You ask in a sultry purr, almost innocently, batting your eyelashes at him as you tug on the waistband of his grey sweats, pulling at it playfully before letting it snap back against his skin.
A rough groan escapes Simon as he watches you play with the thick hem of his pants and he already knows, despite his stamina, it will be a quick first round tonight; he’s way too sensitive and you know exactly what to do to drive him wild with lust. That familiar heat of arousal is already pooling into his gut and making his blood rush south.
“If I say no, what’re ye gonna do, hm?” He counters gruffly, biting back a sly smirk; his dark eyes fixated on yours, burning and molten and filled with desire and curiosity – because he rarely denies you anything, if ever.
“Maybe I’ll just do it myself,” he adds after a beat of silence, “Make myself feel good.”
Simon can practically watch how you process, assess, analyze his words in the span of mere seconds, but then your pupils dilate comically large, like a cartoon characters, and a foreign look appears on your face, one he’s never seen before. His heartbeat accelerates and he grunts lowly as you push yourself off his stomach to sit back on your haunches between his spread legs while the soft leather of the couch creaks and shifts as you move.
“Okay,” you retort in a breathy, deadpan voice, your eyes never leaving his, “I’ll watch.”
Simon instinctively shifts on the couch as well, propping his large upper body up in a reclined sitting position when he hears that you mean business. His dark eyebrows raise slightly at your unexpected reaction – the fact that his joke-proposition seems to excite you so immensely. His cock twitches and throbs inside his boxer briefs in return.
His eyes roam over your curves briefly, noticing how your braless breasts rise and fall with heavier yet slow breaths, nipples already peaking behind the fabric of your tight black crop top. You’re clearly aroused and Simon is sure he can smell you already, sweet, slick and warm and, most importantly, all his.
A pleased growl rumbles through his buff chest, until he remembers what exactly made you react this extremely.
"Yer into that?" He asks incredulously, brows drawing together in disbelief and curiosity, though if he's honest with himself, Simon is not surprised in the slightest.
You always encourage him to be more vocal in bed, make sounds, let loose. The dirtier, the better. Plus points if he sounds like a goddamn caveman claiming you; grunting and groaning in your ear while his fat cock is buried inside your tight cunt up to the hilt. You always love that.
"Yes," you answer curtly, squirming in your seat already. "I used to watch blokes jerk off and fuck their pocket pussies all the time on the Hub. Looked up the biggest, buffest lad and imagined you being the one doing it." You confess bluntly, a wicked smirk creeping on your lips as his big doe eyes grow even wider.
"Pff, seriously?"
Simon tries not to show it too obviously, but that is, hands down, the hottest and most flattering admission you've ever shared with him. Gods, he bloody loves your bluntness.
"Yes, sir." You nod enthusiastically while he snorts and rolls his eyes in mock annoyance.
You only ever call him Sir off duty when there's a deeper meaning behind it – a plan.
"So... you – you wanna see that, innit? Wanna watch me have a wank in front of you and look all pathetic while I could also just...fuck you properly instead?" Simon enquires with a hint of sarcasm, scratching the stubble at his chin as he studies your beautiful face appraisingly, still obviously hesitant about the whole idea.
"Uh-huh," You nod again, smiling at him with a certain twinkle in your eyes, like a child finally receiving a toy it always wanted but never dared to ask for. “Please.” You add for good measure, tilting your head to the side in a playful manner.
Simon quirks an eyebrow at you, his eyes flickering over your pretty features to make sure you're really not messing with him. He's never done that before; it has never occurred to him that anyone would want to see him do that.
Masturbating has always felt pathetic and awkward to him; it's a means to an end to him and especially those Combat Jack’s are the worst. Feel sad and horny, jerk off, feel sad and empty afterwards. Done deal.
But how can he ever deny you that particular pleasure when you've always been so good for him? So incredibly patient, caring, and loving despite all his flaws and issues; way before you've become a couple, even.
"Fine. I'll do it," he finally huffs gruffly, his own heart skipping a hard beat, his brows creasing together in a slight frown while he can't hide the obvious tent already sporting in the front of his sweatpants at the sight of your beaming smile and sparkling eyes after getting exactly what you want – again.
"But ye're not allowed to touch me...or yerself. Understood?"
Oh.
Your nostrils flare as you exhale sharply, drumming your fingertips along his clothed thighs as you narrow your eyes at him, pondering briefly.
"Yeah... okay... sounds like torture, but... the fun kind." You agree reluctantly, giving a small shrug, though you quickly notice that his strict order only fuels your growing arousal and excitement. It’ll be like watching your own personal porn after all.
Simon moves his knees then, a silent warning to get your hands off like you agreed to, and you retrieve your hands from his thighs with a tiny snarl that makes him chuckle darkly while you rest your palms on your own thighs instead.
“Be my good girl then and take yer top off, lovey. Show me yer pretty tits, yeah?”
Yet again, a violent shiver runs down your spine as soon as Simon gives you another order in that deep, gravelly voice of his and you don’t hesitate to obey his request – peeling off your tight crop top to reveal your breasts to him at once and dropping the piece of clothing next to the couch, your skin flushed with arousal and carnal desire for him.
“Like this?”
Simon hums deeply in approval, his pink tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip, like a wolf licking its chaps, while his whiskey-colored eyes darken and gleam an inky black as they drink in your gorgeous, bare upper body, now only illuminated by the soft candlelight and the flickering lights of the TV screen, still playing Band of Brothers. You look like an absolute goddess and his fingers itch to reach out and touch, flick his thumbs over your perky nipples just the way you like it, squeeze and grope your tits until you mewl with neediness.
But, alas, he doesn’t.
“Aye, just like that,” he grunts out, shifting and adjusting his position until he’s comfortable on the couch and has a good view on you. “Bloody perfect, you minx.” He adds thickly in a low murmur.
And then, without a further word, Simon finally hooks his right thumb into the waistband of his sweats and boxer briefs and tugs both fabrics down until the stretchy waistbands are snug taut below his balls, right at his taint, adding some pressure to the sensitive spot. He grunts when his large cock springs free from its confinement and rests on his lower stomach, a droplet of pearly pre-cum leaking onto his dark happy trail from his blushing tip, making your mouth water on sight and a breath hitch in your throat.
The musky scent of his arousal hits your nose, and it takes all of your trained willpower not to pounce on him. No, this is special. You can't ruin it with your impatience.
There's a slight grimace on his ruggedly handsome face when he simply grabs his shaft, then his right mammoth hand wraps around his girth completely. It almost looks painful to you, but Simon bites his cheek and fights the immediate shudder of pleasure running down his spine at his own rough touch, giving himself a few slow, tight strokes.
"You're a dry guy?" You ask curiously, scrunching your nose up in surprise. You always use some kind of lube when you give him a nice hand job.
"Huh? Yeah?" Simon's eyes flicker from his throbbing cock to your eyes, then swiftly back again, shrugging his broad shoulders before stilling briefly, then he clicks his tongue in annoyance.
Great, now he feels like he's doing it wrong; something he's been doing to himself for years. It’s not his fault that his calloused hands cannot compare to your soft ones anymore and that you’ve completely spoiled him with your gentle yet firm touch; you’ve utterly ruined him for himself at this point.
“Mhm,” you hum appraisingly, practically buzzing with pent-up arousal as you squirm in your seat between his spread legs again and feel the fabric of your thong rub between your slick folds and against your pulsating clit in delicious torture.
“Spit in your fist, baby,” you advise him then, your own mouth filling with saliva at the sheer thought, completely self-conditioned, “Enjoy it for me. Relax.”
Simon nearly groans at your words, but suppresses the wanton sound again, all to your disapproval.
“Fuck –“ He grunts through clenched teeth, nostrils flaring as he's already crumbling beneath your smoldering gaze and bratty pout.
The urge to just pinch your pretty nipples in retaliation and grab you by the nape of your neck like a disobedient kitten, only to make your plump lips spread and open up over his needy cock, is becoming more unbearable by the second.
Eventually, Simon lifts his right hand, because he does want to put on a show for you, and spits into his rough palm generously.
The sudden choked whimper that spills from your lips at the lewd gesture of his makes it all worth it, tough, and Simon lets out a guttural moan this time, when he cups his leaking tip with his slicked up fist and twists his wrist for more friction.
“This good enough for you, luv?” He manages to ask in between guttural grunts and deep, deliberate breaths.
Meanwhile, you don’t even know where or what to look at as your feral eyes try to drink in and process this whole scene in front of you – his flushed cheeks, glazed eyes, how his abs and the muscles in his chest and arms ripple and flex with each heavy breath and movements, the way he works on his long, girthy cock for you. It’s still such a rare sight for you – seeing him this open and vulnerable.
If Simon would let you, you’d record and safe all of it for later.
“Yes,” you breathe out in return, voice hoarse and thick with lust and need, utterly captivated and amazed by his performance. “God, yes, baby. You look so fucking sexy right now.”
Your praise sends a jolt of hot, searing pleasure straight to his cock while Simon keeps fucking into his rough fist and his breath stutters briefly as he tries to maintain his fervent rhythm, muttering curses under his breath.
When his head lolls back against the armrest while a husky groan tears itself from his throat and his hips buck up into his own hand instinctively, right in front of you, you have to take several deep breaths to keep yourself seated on your haunches and, simultaneously, from reaching out to him – even though it’d be so easy to just
join him, perhaps fondle his balls and increase the pleasure.
Letting out another whimpery moan at the thought, your own fingers are now digging into the fabric of your gym leggings on your thighs, fidgeting and twitching restlessly while you move and roll your hips desperately, trying to find some release as your soaked thong keeps rubbing your swollen clit between your folds.
Simon can already feel how pathetically close he is and he knows it’s only because you’re watching him wank off right now, enjoying it – and praising him for it in that tooth-achingly sweet voice of yours, too.
It usually takes him so much longer to cum on his own, no matter how blue his balls are, but this is different – a good kind of different, and the tension in his lower stomach continues to rise at a rapid pace while he can barely hold eye-contact with your mesmerizing eyes when you’re looking at him like that, all aroused and needy with lust.
“’m close,” Simon huffs out, sounding like an angry bull as he bends one leg and puts the other foot down on the ground for leverage, readying himself for the inevitable.
“Play with yer tits for me, beautiful,” he requests through his clenched jaw as he watches you squirm through heavy-lidded eyes, “Help daddy come.”
“Oh
Fuck
” you practically gasp out as soon as you hear him calling himself that, and your head tilts back slowly with a breathy moan when your hands roam over your bare stomach sensually, up until they rest over your heavy breasts. You begin toying with yourself for him, groping and squeezing the supple flesh, tugging on your stiff nipples and rolling the sensitive buds between the pads of your fingers, until you’re panting for him like a bitch in heat.
While you’re playing with your tits like he asked you to, like the good, obedient girlfriend you are, Simon’s free hand finds its way slithering up his taut stomach, up his heaving chest, until it wraps around his own throat firmly, blunt nails digging into his scarred skin, tightening just enough to feel his own strong pulse flutter and thrum beneath his fingers, while he keeps stroking and fucking his cock into his tight fist with shameless vigor.
You and Simon moan simultaneously then – you at the sight of him choking himself suddenly, without warning, and he, because of all combined sensations bullying him to his peak all at once.
Eventually, his loud breathing keeps hitching, the vein in his temple protruding visibly as he keeps his grip around his throat, and your lips part with a wanton moan as you watch him climax, squeezing your tits harshly, as Simon’s balls tighten, eyes rolling back and fluttering shut and he finally comes with a guttural groan, spilling his thick, white release into his fist until it leaks and drips out from between his rough knuckles, making a mess on his lower belly.
“Fuckin’ hell, luv –“ Simon curses with a low chuckle, and swallows hard, still catching his breath as he releases his throat and lifts his head up from the armrest to look at you, feeling somewhat sheepish all of a sudden.
“That what you wanted?” He asks sarcastically, his voice all wrecked and gruff as he gestures at the mess on his stomach with his clean hand while his body keeps shuddering with aftershocks.
You need a moment to find your voice again, your heart still hammering against your ribcage just from watching him get off while your core is still fluttering and pulsing with want and a desperate need for attention.
“Y-yeah,” you admit with a few tiny nods, still blushing with arousal after heaving a deep sigh, “That was
perfect. You were bloody perfect, honey.” You utter another praise and watch his cheeks tint with a blush.
“Tsk,” Simon scoffs, shaking his head slightly, completely blissed out of his mind, “You better shut it, lass, and help me clean up this mess.” He grunts dismissively, though he’s grinning proudly.
“Gimme ten minutes, lovey.” He remarks with a wolfish smirk, the innuendo clear as he doesn't bother to tuck his half-hard cock back into his sweats, after you’ve retrieved some soft tissues from the box on the coffee table.
Making him cum now merely opened the floodgates, like shaking a champagne bottle and pulling the cork recklessly; his hunger for you has only been ignited and, boy, he is starving again, though not for your delicious lasagna this time.
When you hold out the tissues to him with an amused look, Simon grabs your wrist suddenly and hauls you on top of him again, up to his chest this time, wrapping one strong leg around your body securely to keep you caged in before he cups your cheek with his cum-slicked hand and finally captures your lips in a deep, sloppy kiss.
He knows you don't mind the mess.
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greenplumbboblover · 6 months ago
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Not-a-tutorial - Lighting (Basics)
I really loved @nocturnalazure Storytelling tips, and figured I'd add one more chapter that I, personally, feel can be helpful to add the mood or maybe a bit more đŸŒ¶ to your pictures! (with or without reshade ;))
But first, go check out these tips by Nocturnalazure!
Camera Shots
Dialogues Part I
Dialogues Part II
Things to note before beginning:
This technique can be used with and without reshade/gshade/sweetfx or even editing images. (but I would recommend it!)
Make sure you're playing with at least "Lighting and Shadows" to highest settings. Otherwise this won't work.
All of the images in this post have been taken without being edited/haven't used reshade/gshade for them. (So, just the good ol' C button 😉)
A lighting mod can already go a long way! So, if you haven't yet, go find one before reading!
All Base Game compatible! No EPs/SPs needed
I'm in no way a colourist! But it may be cool to check the science behind it if you want to go more advanced on this :)
And with that said... let's get to it!
What do we need?
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1. "Wall Area Light 1x1", (since it's simpler for sims)
You can find it under BuyDebug on (But first make sure you have Testingcheatsenabled true on!).
Pssst! I would recommend adding it to a catalogue! I made a "story" catalogue and added it so it's much easier to find it!
How to use lighting, the very basics:
Here we have Lolita Goth, outside with no lighting except for the world's.
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Not to bad, eh? Well. there are a few reasons why we want to add lights to this scene.
Lolita's face is quite dark.
The reader will be very focused on the background AND the sim. (I personally keep looking at the bench, and less at Lolita right now.)
It's interesting, partially because of the lighting mod installed, but we can make it even more appealing.
NOTE: These techniques will work no matter if your sim is facing the sun or facing away from the sun! The results will always be the same with the lights.
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Setup:
The basic setup is simple! You'll need 3 lights. One behind your sim(s), one sideways and one in front.
Back light = used for darker colours (blue, red, green, purple, orange)
Sub light = Used as helper colour for Back light. Can remove if not necessary. (helper in the sense of: Backlight is blue, adding purple can help being more interesting).
Front light = always white, flame, orange.
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An example with the 3 lights used.
Setup:
Backlight = Red
Sub-light = Orange
Front Light = White
Why can't I just use the front light?
While it's not a bad approach in certain scenes, often the result is a bit too... tense:
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(Left is with backlighting, right is with only front-light).
Personally I find the left image much more appealing, and more interesting to look at. But if trhe right picture is more your cup of tea, the feel free to use it!
Here's an example with the same principle but at night:
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(Left is with backlighting, right is with only front-light).
Here, I think it shows it even more, how nice backlights can make something more captivating!
Now that we know about the basics of setting up our scenes... Let's get into the details a bit more!
How to use lighting for nighttime (Outdoors):
Here we got a scene with Lolita and Gunther Goth in a dark spooky graveyard, having a gothic-y picnick. In-game, this is the lighting setup as of right now:
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It's lit up enough, right? While in regular gameplay this is definetly true, in a story setup we can actually make this much more interesting! But before that, here's our scene image:
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The thing though is... while there is light, currently the eyes aren't drawn to Lolita's face at all:
So... how do we fix this?
There are a few ways. But all require our Wall Area Light!
Setup 1:
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One light can go a long way! In this instance, I added only one light, and used "Dimmed" so it still shows as if they're in the dark. (To select different light settings, use Shift + Click to see them ;))
There are scenes where this would be enough (though, having 2 facing from different directions would work better), it dosn't really in this instance.
The problem, however, is that it almost feels like there's a spotlight that is facing them. The scene may have got a bit more interesting (as we are more focused on Lolita's face), but just isn't there yet.
Setup 2:
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By adding in a blue colour, facing the back and a little bit the front of our subject(s) we get a much more "fake" nightlight representation.
Though, a few thoughts here:
While in this scene I personally liked making the back colours blue, we can always experiment a little and change one of the blue into purple!
Now, the part of Lolita's face that isn't blue, we do want a non-blue colour. For this, I like to cycle through the following colours:
White
Flame
Orange
(Rarely! But sometimes red).
See result here:
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This all depends on your preference, and if you want a deeper colour. Or maybe, to even set a certain dramatic effect! (this is where red may be nicer).
Make sure to also play around with the intensity settings of each light! This can really change things up!
Currently, I've set up the intensities like so:
Blue 1 = Bright
Blue 2 = Bright
Orange/white/flame/red = Dim
Though, if Blue 2 is purple for you, I'd recommend setting this one to normal or even dim.
How to use lighting for Daylight (Outdoors):
This one is much easier, and more straightforward! While backlighting is important here as well, it's less of a necessity in this setting.
Okay! So you've posed all the characters, set up objects, etc... and now we're ready for the lighting! Here's what I currently have:
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Not bad, not bad at all without any lights... but what if we add them!
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Here I added a White-dimmed light.
Better! In fact, if this is the kind of lighting you want in your scene, then feel free to leave it here!
What about a little more complicated lighting... sort of what we did with our night scene?
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Here the left light is a white-dimmed light, and on the right we got a orange dimmed light.
it's not much, but it definitely added a nice shade to the scene! :)
Let's get to how we do this same thing, but indoors!
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chibishortdeath · 5 months ago
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Alright I’ve thought about, I’m gonna actually start posting some of my criticisms of Netflixvania starting with the first season. I actually have a notepad document on my computer somewhere that’s just various rants about it that I’m gonna take from lol
Rant under a cut cause it’s long, spoilers, and also cause uh tldr I do not like the show 💀
Ok let’s start from the beginning of the show, episode one.
The first episode isn’t terrible, it’s a bit rocky, some red flags here and there for what was to come, but that’s kinda expected of animations like this. It usually takes them a couple episodes to pick up and grow into their own, so I was skeptical, but not gonna knock it entirely when I first saw it.
My biggest criticism of this episode was the complete missed opportunity to introduce certain characters from this section of the series’s story. Imagine if they had shown Isaac and Hector in the background of the castle or something at this point for foreshadowing later, as they would’ve already been studying under Dracula at that time. Imagine if that old woman Lisa helped ended up being one of Lyudmil’s family members, cementing them as friends of her for later. Alas, Netflix just decided not to use most of the already written backstories for most characters. But eh, that’s getting into nitpick territory.
And then the second episode happens
 I honestly genuinely hate the concept of the Speakers and it’s because they completely replace a much more interesting (especially for the tone and themes they were going for) group for Sypha to be a part of: The Church. In the game, Sypha is a witch, something that’s currently not very good to be at this time, however the church employs a bunch of male wizard soldiers. This is already a perfect opportunity set up and ready to go for them to make their points of the church being hypocritical, add some intense dramatic irony with maybe the audience getting to know Sypha is a witch before anyone else does and seeing her interact with a bunch of people who would have her dead if they knew, and create a super conflicted situation where these church soldiers all die during their encounter with the cyclops, but yet they scrapped it for uh random group of magic users that kinda exist entirely for a plot that didn’t need a new device to work. And Sypha just being all hood down and no hiding just takes away something interesting about her character, making her kinda bland in the process. Like it’s one thing to have the Girlâ„ąïž who owns the braincell trope and another to have a character with some actual immediate conflicts. They totally could’ve played up the “oh no if Trevor knew would he kill me” dynamic, especially with witches being commonly lumped in with ‘monsters’ in a lot of other media and Trevor being ya know a monster hunter. And already just from this one design choice she completely loses her symbolic putting the hood down scene for much later in the story to show that she actually trusts people and feels safe enough to not need to hide anymore because she’s got people on her side now.
Also the lack of Grant is just a crime in itself. Grant could’ve worked perfectly as like the everyman of the group. Hell, with his background of being a former noble turned thief presumably after hard times to straight up losing his entire hometown to flames and leading a revolution about it, Grant literally has like almost every common not magical vampire hunter person experience. He could’ve given the group any of those perspectives and been told the perspectives of the vampire hunting life he hasn’t had, ya know? And he’d help differentiate the personalities and humors of the group in general. I literally can’t think of a negative to having Grant in the group.
So we were robbed of character development for Sypha and the existence of Grant, what’s next—
The Bishop character is someone that could’ve been interesting if he was written with any kind of nuance, but instead he’s extremely on the nose and blatantly laughably evil. Otherwise this guy is pretty forgettable besides how lame it was that they used Blue Fangs to kill him instead of ya know an actually recognizable enemy. Like the Blue Fangs design wouldn’t be bad if it was in literally anything else, but compared to the designs of most Castlevania monsters it’s just really lame. I’d’ve even accepted a Warg or something, idk. Personally I think having Death walk in taking the form of Zead and going through that speech while eventually turning into the skeleton form we know him as woulda gone hard but for some reason Death isn’t a thing until seasons later which sucks.
I also absolutely hate Alucard and the Cyclops being in the catacombs! Hate it! The Cyclops kinda had like a courtyard area for it and made sense being there since it was standing guard on the way to the castle. Literally what it is even doing in the catacombs 💀💀💀. Standing guard for
 eepy Alucard? Why??? And the whole sleeping soldier thing or whatever they called him is just so obviously an excuse to have him appear faster and make it seem like it tied into the plot. Alucard absolutely should not have been introduced to the main group this early on because again that robs him of a bunch of opportunities for background and character development. He got maybe the one oh no dad don’t commit mass death that’s bad scene and nothing else when they had plenty of time to show him initially following his fathers orders and eventually growing to stand against him. And again??? Missed opportunity for anything radio drama related??? Like if there’s any opportunity to get any of that story more known it’s in an animation? And besides, it’s less work to just use whatever materials and supplemental materials already existed for the game!
Dracula’s Curse and CoD have:
Two games
Two manuals
Three manga (TokyoPop and Preorder)
A couple game guides
Flashback sequences in a radio drama
Flashback sequences in SotN AKA: the game everyone knows
A ton of references in later games cause IGA is a big Dracula’s Curse fanboy
Pachinkos
That is plenty of material to make an animation based on, especially because most games don’t get half of that, especially not NES games. They were literally handed like the NES game to adapt lottery and decided not to scratch like half the ticket 💀💀💀.
Alucard also being able to levitate kinda negates a lot of things. Like what the hell is the point of having a bat/mist form and a double jump then? If he can just be flying vampire Jesus immediately or whatever people call him idk. And you can’t tell me Alucard wouldn’t be painfully embarrassed if someone ever saw him shirtless come on this is the guy that wears like 5 layers of clothing in every game he’s in to the point that even in the modern era he’s choosing a suit over casual clothes. Every action he makes in this introduction to him is obviously fanservice for the sake of fanservice with very little thought behind it, except I’m not feeling very served right now. And having Trevor kinda lose that fight is a reoccurring problem this show ends up having: putting down other characters just to make certain ones get the cool fanservice moment. Contrary to what the writers of this show may believe, it actually doesn’t make me go “oh wow, Alucard is so cool and much badas”, it just feels weird and uncomfortable that Trevor is getting cheated out of one of his canon achievements because the writers preferred one character’s tits more than him.
So, basically, the show starts out with missed opportunities, concepts and characters getting cut out, watered down versions of characters that did make it in, cheap fanservice, poor explanations for things, etc etc. this all culminates into a resounding m e h + dread for later seasons being worse (boy was I correct on that fear lol).
Here’s some other things for the first season I didn’t know where else to fit:
None of the humor hit for me at all, like not a single joke. The humor was either a no response at best, but definitely a physically wincing from secondhand embarrassment at worst. Related to this, I feel like most of the dialogue reads like either someone who just learned what swear words are and thinks they’re really cool and funny or genuinely forced. At times most of the characters talk with the same delivery, cadence, personality, etc, it’s really obvious they were all written by the same person or group. And that even goes for background and side characters, too. This is a criticism I’ve never seen said: I really don’t like the voice acting in this show. I’m sure it’s no fault of the voice actors at all, but there were times in this where I either could not hear characters properly or could not understand characters properly and I had to watch it with closed captions on. The clearness and volume of the characters voices varies A LOT even just between scenes sometimes. And that combined with all the characters having really similar speech patterns, there were a lot of times where if I looked away from the screen, I genuinely could not tell if it was Alucard or Trevor speaking cause it sounded like it could reasonably have been either of them (and in some cases it literally didn’t even matter that much which character was saying what). It’s an absolute tragedy that the color schemes in this show are not remotely similar to Dracula’s Curse too. I understand why some color combos wouldn’t make it for eyestrain reasons, but the pixel artwork in all the NES titles is beautiful. Same goes for music, like I am never going to forgive this series for using Bloody Tears for a Dracula’s Curse ‘adaptation’ and not Beginning or Aquarius or Dead Beat or Ghost Ship or Clockwork or— ya know? These are two things that the series are really known for so you’d think with some of the fanservice they did they’d be all kinds of ready to use stuff like that for more of it.
Anyway, past season one is when I started watching the series primarily through clips/episodes reposted on YouTube or elsewhere cause I had completely lost any interest in it. I’ll probably go through synopsises online again for season 2 just to try to better remember what happened in that one because I do remember having very little good to say about season 2 as well and I gotta do that research so I can hate things properly :3.
There’s a certain part of this where I just kinda blanked on things to even say, partially because Season one is kinda bland in general, but partially because I started getting sleepy while typing. So if I feel like I missed anything season one specific I’ll just put it in the beginning of the season two post. d(_ _ )
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sophieswundergarten · 2 years ago
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Okay, I'm not sure where all of this came from, (And a good portion of it is due to @nobody33333333's addition to last night's chaos), and I don't know if we're talking about just interjecting a song into the actual show, or in the Muppets AU where (According to current decisions) Kermit is playing Mr. Benedict. At any rate, here we are!
My basic outline is that this is the song over which Curtain brainwashes his brother, so there's a more visible, "on-screen" progression: (I'm sorry I couldn't figure out how to fit Number Two in at this point, I tried. Maybe that's why it only takes one song to win over Nicholas, he isn't worried about her...)
Curtain, being an evil mastermind, showing his brother the (cult) compound:
Everything is great Everything is grand I got the whole wide world in the palm of my hand
Compound Members, already brainwashed:
Everything is perfect It's falling into place I can't seem to wipe this smile off my face
Jackson & Jillson (They're just like this):
Life's a happy song, when there's someone by my side to sing along
Nathaniel? (I feel like this would be neat to see child Nathaniel singing this bit, like a flashback or something, because Curtain's drama):
When you're alone, life can be a little low It makes you feel like you're 3 foot tall When it's just you – well, times can be tough When there's no one there to catch your fall
Curtain, present-day, taking control of the song again, and reinforcing the (cult) compound member's lines:
Everything is great Everything is grand I got the whole wide world in the palm of my hand
Everything is perfect It's falling into place I can't seem to wipe this smile off my face
Jackson & Jillson (Alternating):
Life smells like a rose With someone to paint And someone to pose
Life's like a piece of cake With someone to pedal And someone to break
Life is full of glee With someone to saw And someone to see
Curtain, Jackson & Jillson (J&J are in the background, echoing Curtain for his lines as he directs everyone):
Life's a happy song, when there's someone by my side to sing along
Compound Members:
I've got everything that I need – right in front of me Nothing's stopping me Nothing that I can't be With you right here next to me
Jackson & Jillson (Alternating):
Life's a piece of cake With someone to give And someone to take
Life's a piece of pie With someone to wash And someone to dry
Life's an easy road With someone beside you to share the load
Life is full of highs With someone to stir And someone to fry
Life's a leg of lamb With someone there to lend a hand
Life's a bunch of flowers With someone to while away the hours
Life's a filet of fish, eh!
Nicholas, a bit startled, but getting into the spirit of it:
Er, yes, it is
Curtain, Nicholas, Jackson & Jillson:
Life's a happy song, when there's someone by your side to sing along
Curtain and Nicholas, (Curtain leading Nicholas, until he gets more confident and gets louder):
I've got everything that I need – right in front of me Nothing's stopping me Nothing that I can't be With you right here next to me
I've got everything that I need
Nicholas:
...right in front of me
Sorry, I got swept up in the excitement.
Cut to Jeffers, speaking:
This is it. This is going to be the day, the day I finish securing the compound.
Curtain:
Jeffers, today is a very important day. You know this, right? And you know why?
Jeffers:
Yes, sir. It is the day that you can rest assured, Your compound is totally secure.
Curtain:
No, it's— Ah, I must go check on Nicholas.
Jeffers, still speaking, just with weird meter (He's not going to sing):
Everything's great Everything's grand Except for those kids
They're always around I know they're in the town And they're going to breach the perimeter
But maybe it's ok 'Because I know that someday I'll finally be recognised For all the work I do To keep them all inside The totally secure perimeter
Nicholas, fully lost and into it:
I've got everything that I need – right in front of me Nothing's stopping me Nothing that I can't be With you right here next to me
Curtain, happy that he's finally got his brother "back":
You've got everything that you need – right in front of you Nothing's stopping you Nothing that you can't do you That the world can throw at you
Nicholas, looking at Curtain and waiting for him to follow along:
Life's a happy song When there's someone by your side to sing
Curtain, a bit reluctant, but indulging him:
Life's a happy song When there's someone by your side to sing
Nicholas and Curtain, together:
Life's a happy song When there's someone by your side to sing along
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rockinlibrarian · 1 year ago
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9 people tag game
Tagged by @e-louise-bates, who tagged only me (and no, I don't believe I've done this one, recently at least), so I'm assuming the "9 People" in the title isn't NECESSARILY how many people I have to tag.
last song: All I've been hearing for the past two hours is the background music to Splatoon, which my son is playing on the big tv in this room. Last song I actually listened to? I think it was Led Zeppelin. Yeah, when I turned my car off I left auxiliary on for a bit, as one does, and it was some Zeppelin-- "Whole Lotta Love," that was it.
last movie: Honestly, I am not sure when I last watched a movie? Possibly not since Arsenic and Old Lace at New Years. I just don't get around to it! Also, Splatoon is always running on the big tv.
currently watching: Okay, I almost thought of this as a movie, but I have been watching a TV show the past week or so! Muppets Mayhem, which is only 10 half-hour episodes long but I've still only watched 7, that's how much I'm not watching ANYTHING lately. Okay, I am unable to tell if it is objectively good to the average person-- I think it's mixed, some very good stuff, some eh-- because it is basically a made-for-me show (it got shuttled to the top of my watch list when a friend-- an online friend I've never met in real life even-- specifically tagged me on Facebook after she watched it because she thought of me the whole time). I have said, for the record, that The Electric Mayhem is my favorite fictional band. They genuinely do rock. And the music (and the music nerd references) is the highlight of the show. And the Get Back-themed episode was indeed an absolute delight.
currently reading: Kids and I are towards the middle of the end of The Sun and the Star, Mark Oshiro's Riordanverse book about Nico and Will in the Underworld, which isn't quite as delightful as Riordan's originals in voice, but still has some good stuff in it. I've also brought home Nowhere Boy by Katherine Marsh, which I am considering sampling for the older group at Summer Quest this week. Hence bringing it home to actually read those chapters before reading it to them. I also left off in the middle of a multichapter fanfic last night, something Umbrella Academy of course because I'm still only in the S's in my alphabetical by author browse-through. It's "the desperation murmur of a heartbeat" by slytherincosette-- good enough for me to keep reading beyond the first chapter (or even the first paragraph) at least. Haven't finished it yet.
last thing researched for writing purposes: Huh. Well, that depends on your definition of all those words, I suppose. I think, using the broadest definitions, the last thing I researched for my writing was synonyms for "flawless"-- I was looking for the word "foolproof" but couldn't think of it, so I put "flawless" in Thesaurus.com and browsed until I spotted it. Yay, thesaurus! And for this particular fic I also have looked up the transcripts to The Wizard of Oz (which is the AU) and various episodes of Legion (which it is a fanfic of), if THAT counts as research. I am looking at my google search history now but I don't think any of this was used for writing. A few minutes ago I looked up how many inches are 143 centimeters which I THINK was for some ART that @sunnymarbles was drawing, but that's drawing, not writing, and also not mine. I have researched various snack recipes from around the world so as to write up some handouts for Summer Quest, which was technically writing, and mine. Honestly the only research session for fictional-not-educational writing purposes that really stands out in my memory was the day (2 1/2 years ago) I spent researching electric guitars just so I could say what Marty McFly's dream guitar would have been in 1980, for one sentence in a less-than-900-word fanfic. But I learned a lot of interesting things about electric guitars, so there.
Who the heck should I tag. I usually tag Louise, but she got me first. @stephsageek, @alihahdnaid, @sharkneto, @rebel-by-default, @littlerit, @steeple-sinderby --those are the first I-know-are-writers in my notifications (not counting Louise) before the scrolldown makes me click "see more." There's also @dannypageoflight who draws more than he writes but who knows, maybe he's done some research for writing purposes lately. That's seven. And two more people! Have fun, two more people! @sunnymarbles! You were already technically tagged in this, and I already told everyone what you're reading and also probably what you're listening to right now because you are also in the room with Splatoon (can't tell if you have earbuds in) and also that I looked up the last thing you wanted to research half an hour ago or whenever it was! And you don't write! But you can also do this if you really wanted to!
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mrsbsmooth · 2 years ago
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BRO life has been so damn (aggravating) crazy this past month, anyway tell me your thoughts about 'ex in the villa' before i update the app and go play it đŸ„șđŸ„șâ€đŸ™
Hi beautiful! It's not a full season like S1/2/3 were. It's a mini-season which gives us a different scenario to play. If you play it with this in mind... it's actually not bad, so far at least.
Side Characters:
💎Alfie's a sweetheart, and I think it's actually nice that he's a little unsure. @amalasofmonterisso did a great post about this, but the more 'unsure' he is, the more I like him. It makes him seem like a real person, with real doubts about his feelings. I'm looking forward to seeing where things go with him.
💎Kat is a walking tantrum, and I love her for it. She's got some of the best one-liners, and is quite upfront about what she wants, so I'm interested to see if they boot her early or not.
💎Dana is a LI, and is pretty clearly on MC's side early on, and I like how she seems like she's a little more chill. I hope they give her a bit more depth though, especially if you're not on her route. I don't want her to fade in to the background like Najuma if you're not romancing her. She's also quite honest and seems like she'll be a good friend if you're not pursuing her. Angie vibes.
💎Suresh is.... eh. I'm not vibing with his writing yet, mostly because he doesn't seem to be very good at arguing for someone who's supposedly a corporate lawyer. Although, I'm not a lawyer, and that could just be my perception of him haha. I'll be going into this a bit more if/when I write a fic for him. However, I love his story arc and I'm looking forward to it.
đŸ’©Eddie is... also present? Even in the spoilers up to Episode 13, I haven't seen much in way of a personality for him yet. We'll see.
MC Design:
💎The outfits are cute compared to the ones we got at the start of S4, especially the sleepwear.
💎There are a lot more character design options, including more hairstyles and a bigger body type.
đŸ’©This might just be me, but I cannot for the life of me make my MC look the way I want her to. I miss the characters from S2/S3, where it was almost impossible for her to not look cute as fuuuuuck.
đŸ’©There are a distinct lack of features for non-white players. I've heard a lot of concerns about the eyes, noses, and hair, and I hope they rectify them. Hopefully we get more customisation options in future updates.
đŸ’© We have almost zero choice over our backstory. We don't even get to decide our own secret! We don't get to decide our own ex, either, so WLW players... yeah, no.
Gameplay:
💎Drama central. I'm currently icing Suresh out - playing it cool and turning him down at every opportunity, but there are options for both a 'fuck you' playthrough and a ' please fuck me' playthrough, which will be cool.
💎With all the characters, they started off very sunshiney and shallow, and then started showing negative traits. I love this. I love my characters to have a little complexity. I hope they continue this and make the characters really deep!
đŸ’©It's really hard to earn gems.
đŸ’©There's a long, interactive ad after every episode and it's really annoying.
đŸ’©They recently moved from three episodes each week to having mostly two
đŸ’© They're ending episodes MID-CONVERSATION to simulate drama. Which I hate.
Overall
As a standalone game? 5/10? 6/10 if I'm being really generous?
Compared to earlier seasons? I don't know... a 3/10? It's really not the same game.
If it wasn't for the fandom/community, I would've given up already. I'm personally not that engaged by any of the LI's so far, but I'm sure that will change. God, look what happened to me when they introduced Bruno omg.
But I love the community and I'm looking forward to reading the fics that come out about the season. So I'd encourage you to play it anyway, even if it's just so you can do fix-its with us :)
Thank you for the ask!
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oro-e-diamanti · 3 years ago
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Quiet Music: Leggiero (Chapter Three)
Tumblr media
aIn collaboration with @bethanysnow
Small touches, looks, and wine-soaked daydreams lead to whispered conversations on balconies' edge. Put out cigarettes in the middle of the night. Let lips touch as palms do - eventually...
Content | Fluff
Pairing | fem!Reader x Damiano
Word count | 7111
Tag list | @damianodavide @lizstans @unitermoonshine @its-afucking-mess @ethaneskin @dont-let-me-drown-in-you@vampirtet @lividisuigomiti @juststalking @tabi-toast @ethan-torchio-angelo @cheese-toastie-11 @thewitchinthemountain @ethanesimp @sofckinelectric @man3skin @daddydamiano @finelinejpm @superchrystaldrug @ginny-lily @everythingisdefinitelynotfine @nientedaridere @rainbowmarta @tiaamberxx @shaunthesheesh @enjcltaire @rocketqueen @aleksanderwh0r3 @dacey0eg @damianodavidhands @megann-duff @teatrodellavita @coven-daddy @till-you-scream-and-cry @solasullabarca @fanfictionandfluff @makapaka11 @slave4yourlove @geklutst-ei @bidet-and-legolas @ginny-lily
***
The bus rumbled underneath Damiano as he turned around in his bunk, the humming of the vehicle drowning out the clatter and chatter of his bandmates in the background. His head was pounding, but less because of the little alcohol he had consumed the night before and more because of the thoughts that had kept him up all night. This morning, he had made sure to be up before Y/n would come around for her wake up call, got ready and then all but crawled into the bunk on his bus for more sleep. They would play a gig in the evening, but for now he was thankful for the 6-hour drive to Oslo with nothing to do.
He could almost feel himself drifting off, body tired out and mind exhausted, but instead all that he saw when he closed his eyes were scenes from last night.
The room was filled with laughter. Music and Vic’s singing, as Damiano let himself fall onto the bed next to Y/n. She looked gorgeous, hair down, relaxing, a champagne flute in her hand and a slight smile on her face. Even though he knew she’d be worrying about what Thomas was doing to the room and how she was going to get them out of bed the next morning. But mostly she was just gorgeous and he told her so.
His hand reached out before the contemplation of this action had been finished in his brain. The adrenaline from the first show of the tour had him flying, soaring, and there was nothing that could possibly bring him down. Her eyes showed surprise but she didn’t pull away as he put a strand of her hand behind her ear. The gesture was small but Damiano felt like he was on fire, briefly stroking the soft skin under his fingers before pulling back.
He found himself babbling about his hair, but he was much more interested in what she had to say. He wished she would talk about herself more often - so much of his personality was so out there, so much information about himself was literally out there, in magazines and interviews and photos, but she had her walls up, even when they were joking, even when she seemed to be talking freely.
“You’re getting more interesting with every second I’m around you, you know?” The words slipped out of his mouth so easily. She went over it just as easily. Did she not care? Did she not find him interesting? He had hoped for some sort of reply or reaction, but she just continued talking. Maybe she wasn’t interested in him
 His brain only allowed the thought for a minute. No, he told himself, she simply was this way. Cool, calm, collected. He was sure he would be able to get her out of her shell further one of these days. He wasn’t going to stop trying.
Next thing he knew, she had thrust her phone into his hand, some picture of her from years ago. He didn’t care much about the outfit or the makeup or the questionable hair, it was her smile that drew him in. There was something carefree about it, something unabashedly confident, something she seemed to have lost since then. There was no way back for him he realised in that moment - it might as well have been this woman or no other ever again.
Next thing he knew, he was complimenting her again, calling her darling, but this time he didn’t have to wait long for a reaction. The drink that had been in her mouth just a second ago was now spluttered on her clothes and some of the bedding. He was about to ask her if she was alright, but she had jumped up from the bed, hands trying to hide her reddening face, and dashed to the bathroom.
Fuck, what happened?
“Damiano! What did you do to the poor girl!” Vic shouted in amusement from across the room. He simply waved it off. He wasn’t actually sure what he had done and it bothered him more than he would like to admit - especially in front of his bandmates. Maybe he had come on too strong, tried too hard, had made it awkward. His plan had been to pay her compliments - not scare her away with them. He would have to reconsider his course of action.
When she came back, it was only to say a quick goodnight, waving and leaving. She only spared him a brief glance, no smile or any reassurance that they were fine.
It had not stopped going through his mind. This morning, she had pretended like nothing had happened, but he knew she had been avoiding his gaze and her smiles didn’t seem quite as genuine as they did before. Damiano let out a low groan into his pillow. This was a mess and a half.
The curtain of his bunk was drawn back harshly, revealing Ethan’s face.
“Why would you scare me like that!” Damiano complained. “I could be jacking off in here!”
“Well, I want to assume you wouldn’t do that in a semi-public space such as this,” Ethan replied with contemplation on his face.
“What do you want anyway?”
“Victoria sent me and told me to tell you, I quote,” Ethan cleared his throat. “‘Stop moping, Damiano, it’s no fun'. So, there you go.”
Without another word, Ethan turned back around, leaving the curtain open, and walked back into the kitchenette of the bus. Out of the corner of his eye, Damiano could see him stealing a bit of fruit from the fruit bowl. He felt no motivation to join them.
***
“He alright?” Y/n whispered to Thomas, who was sitting close to her, guitar on his lap. He just shrugged. Ethan rejoined the group with an unreadable expression on his face, sitting down next to Victoria. Y/n shot him another concerned look, but he simply shrugged as well. She shook her head and got up from her spot, walking over to the counter to make breakfast for everyone. Getting out the waffle maker. Putting the Moka pot on the stove and filling it with water. Too early in the morning for rock and roll. In the background, she could hear the band discussing rehearsals and the show in Oslo.
As soon as the smell of food hit the three bandmates, they were all over Y/n, hovering around the little kitchenette, pushing and shoving each other to be first. Y/n looked at all of them in turn. Thomas was currently standing on the couch, raising his hand to smack an unsuspecting Vic who was looking the other way. A single raised brow from Y/n got him back down onto the ground.
“Hey! I’m older, I go first!” Victoria pushed Thomas back.
“Maybe, but it still took your mum nine months to think of a good joke,” Thomas retorted.
Ethan turned around, chuckling at his friends’ banter - but Y/n’s reaction was far more blatant. She started to laugh, a loud, almost cackle that the band had never heard before. Her smile easily reached her eyes and she gave a little applause at Thomasïżœïżœïżœ joke. “I- I;” she gasped in between laughs, “I know it’s not that funny but it just got me, sorry!” Finally managing to bite her tongue, she went back to serving breakfast.
Out of the corner of her eye, Y/n saw Damiano leaning so far out of his bunk to find out where the sounds and the laughter were coming from. The driver though couldn’t have known it was a bad moment to go over a pothole. With a loud thud, Damiano crashed out from his bunk and onto the hard floor. Chili, excited at the prospect of being able to reach him, ran over to lick his face.
“Eh! Chili, hi. Vic! Come get your dog!” He groaned, picking up the golden fluff and sending it back to her owner. She trotted away happily, over towards Victoria, who was a giggling mess after seeing her friend’s fall. He rolled his eyes at her grin.
“You gonna come join us, sleepy boy? I made coffee,” Y/n said, still trying to keep the peace between everyone. Pouring coffee into a mug, she walked over to Damiano and bent down, handing him the beverage. “I don’t really care if you want to spend the entire day on the floor, but I think your fans might tonight. So come join the party, hm?” Her voice was soft and enticing. Damiano’s eyes sparkled at her invitation. But still, his face was burning red. He sighed and nodded.
Y/n stepped back, taking the cup after he had taken a long sip, and reached her hand out to him. With a swift movement, Damiano was back up on his feet, immediately losing his balance and crashing into Y/n’s shoulder. More blushing on his part. He had not been expecting this amount of strength from her. Not caring about his little bump into her, she dusted him off, picking some fuzz out of his hair, her hand so close to his face, yet so far. She handed him the coffee once again and gave him a smile, before going back to her little corner on the bus as everyone devoured their breakfast.
Damiano watched as she tidied up after everyone had finished, constantly making sure what was effectively their home during tour would stay homely. She always looked like she belonged, and he admired her for that. After one last wipe down of the counter, she quickly addressed everyone on the bus, asking if she was needed for anything else right now, and after a round of head-shaking from everyone, she grabbed her laptop and retired to a quiet corner on the bus. It was only when she briefly looked up to find his eyes and gave a slight smile that he realised he was still watching her every move. Embarrassing, he scolded himself.
Damiano started fumbling for his bag, grabbing a notebook and a pen. He had too many thoughts running around in his head, too many images and ideas about Y/n, and he felt like the only way to get rid of them was to write. Maybe he’d even be able to make something out of it. Anything would be better than staring and dreaming about her anyway.
***
Two more hours until Oslo. With a heavy sigh, Y/n pushed the laptop away from her, neck cracking as she finally moved her bones a little. Suddenly, a pair of hands came down onto her shoulders. She only flinched for a moment before she realised it was Damiano, slowly starting to massage her tense flesh. Her head fell forward and she waved her hand to have him keep going. His fingertips digging into hours of uni work, work work, other work. Tension all living in her neck being slowly worked away by the singer.
"I'm not gonna turn down a free massage," she chuckled, feeling his talented fingers remove knot after knot. Then, suddenly, they became softer. She could hear Thomas in the background shouting something at Damiano. Taking his attention away from her, and all it left was soft fingertips on the sensitive skin on her neck. Dancing along and leaving goosebumps in their wake without him even knowing what he was doing to her. She shivered under such a light touch. A groan left her lips as she was falling deeper under his spell. At this point, she didn’t care. A very pretty man was smoothing his hands over her neck and shoulders and it was nothing short of lovely. Normally this wouldn’t be on Y/n's top list of things she would allow - but a 6-hour bus ride and sitting in one place for most of it was a killer.
I could fall asleep like this - fuck

She was snapped back to reality when she realised that Damiano was once again staring at her screen, asking what she was working on, hands never moving from their position. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to concentrate like this.
“Oh, I’ve, um,” she awkwardly fumbled with the laptop, “I’ve been trying to memorise this sonnet. I’m doing a course on Shakespeare this semester and we’ve been told to pick our favourite by him and I think I finally decided on mine. It’s Sonnet 128 - um. One of the only sonnets to give you an actual scene in place. It’s from the perspective of this guy watching a bard and just craving to be touched, used, kissed by this person. To have the same sort of attentive mastery be directed at him instead of the player’s instrument. Describing the person listening to this bard play
 Wait, would you just like me to read it to you?” Y/n looked up at Damiano. He nodded as he slid into the seat beside her. She moved the laptop so she could see its screen still and began to speak.
***
Sitting next to her wasn’t as bad as Damiano thought. After working on her neck and shoulders, her perfume had rubbed off onto his skin. Light and warm, not super floral, but he didn’t peg Y/n to be a flower kind of woman anyway. Looking at her face now, he noticed things he hadn’t seen before. Faint freckles, little lines around her eyes, the pink tint on her lips. Her hair was done up again in a bun. He could see a couple of bobby pins trying to hide in her wild hair. Then she started to recite the piece and his chest was exploding. He felt as if he was watching winter melt away and spring come.
“How oft, when thou, my music, music play’st”
Oh, what he would do to be her muse, Damiano thought. Her voice, low and soft, was like music itself to him, never mind the way her eyes lit up at the words she repeated from the screen. A little light inside of her, one he hadn’t encountered before.
“Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway’st”
Her fingers were just as sweet, his mind piped up as he tried to listen to her more closely. Some light polish on her nails that he hadn’t noticed before, but now that she was scrolling through the laptop, it was like he couldn’t keep his eyes off them. Quickly exploring images of them tangled in his hair, scratching down his back ever so slightly. Stop, he told in his own head in vain. Just stop and listen, for once. Yet the ideas of her he had hidden away kept demanding attention.
“The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,”
He tried so hard to concentrate. To listen, to take in the words she was reciting, to grasp their meaning and what they meant to her, but it was hard, getting harder. In an uncalculated move on his part, his arm swung around her shoulders, not pulling her closer, just letting her know he was there, right now, right here, with her. His hand resting on her upper arms, feeling the warmth underneath the fabric of her blouse.
“Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand!”
His eyes travelled up from her fingers, over her soft and curvy figure, her delicate neck, to her blushing face. She was blushing an awful lot with him and he had not yet figured out completely if this was a good sign or not. Either way, he thought she looked adorable, a natural pink on her cheeks. Slightly restless eye movements that didn’t match up to the words she was reading, a certain nervousness overtaking her. He wanted to make her blush like that for the rest of his life if he could. He silently wondered if she would blush that much if
 if it was just the two of them, alone in some random hotel room, a whole world of exploration before them.
“To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blest than living lips.”
His eyes betrayed him, flicking down to her lips as soon as she said the word. Soft, a light tint on them, pronouncing every syllable in the most mindful way. He wondered if she would let him kiss her. What. His brain flickered between two emotions. Yes, yes, yes. He would give everything to feel her sweet mouth on his, getting her close, inhaling her scent, pouring his every thought into a kiss. No. What was he thinking? She was their assistant. Strong, gorgeous, fiercely independent, and surely not interested. Right? He couldn’t help wondering. Would she let him kiss her? Would she want him to? Had she thought about it, the way he was right now?
“Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.”
Their eyes met and Damiano hadn’t even noticed how much closer he had edged towards her. It would only take a little bit, one more breather, a tiny motion, to put his lips on her, to feel what she was feeling, and the way she looked at him had him craving, obsessing and he almost dared himself to do it, when a voice pulled him out of his thoughts, pulled him away from her.
“Y/N! I don’t understand how the waffle maker works!”
Damiano had never wanted to kill his bandmate more than at that moment. With a groan he turned around, seeing Thomas fumble with the appliances in their little kitchen area, a dumbstruck look on his face, and puppy dog eyes pleading Y/n for help. She only gave a low chuckle, before getting up and walking over to the guitarist, leaving Damiano with a head full of thoughts that all circled around her.
***
That was close, Jesus Christ! My face is so warm
 how are his eyes that pretty? How have I never noticed that before? I wonder if he was thinking about the same thing as I was back there

***
The crowd was roaring out by the main stage. Crew held their places waiting for the queue to go. The band stood off stage trying to sneak a peek at the audience. Hundreds more people than they were expecting. Y/n sat in a metal chair that was dubbed ‘her chair’ so she could watch the performance from behind the main curtain to cheer the band on without being seen. The lights in the main room were being lowered, the playlist that had been on in the background slowly being turned off, as the noise of the audience got impossibly louder. The band was getting nervous now, the good kind of nervous. Thomas jumping around to get his energy levels up before they would get the sign to get on stage. Y/n smiled at them in turn, returning a little wave Ethan was giving her. Just as they were given the go-ahead, and all of them started to jog on stage, Damiano took a little detour, sending her a smile that would set all the butterflies free in her stomach, before pressing a little kiss to her forehead. He was gone before she had a chance to react. Yet, she froze. Damiano looked back and it was the most perplexed, confused, and adorable expression he had ever seen on her.
It was an expression Damiano couldn’t get out of his head for the rest of the concert, even long after she had lost it - and he knew she had because he couldn’t keep himself from looking over at her every now and again. He was fascinated by the way she watched them.
And if she was watching? Well, then he was going to put on a show.
He pulled all the tricks he knew - well those that were fitted to the situation and venue. During one of their songs, he decided to pull his favourite one. With a low grunt, he ripped his shirt apart, throwing it across the stage, unable to wipe the smile off his face. Until he looked over to where his top had landed and his eyes fell onto Y/n, standing beside the stage, now with a performance-rich torn tank top on her face. Maybe his aim had been a little off. The look on her face as she removed the fabric made him laugh. At least she isn’t hiding now, he thought, before going back to the song.
During “You need me, I don’t need you”, one of the covers they had chosen for the night, he couldn’t fight the grin, knowing his favourite lyric of the night was coming up.
“Melody music maker, reading all the papers, they say I’m up and coming like I’m fucking in an elevator.”
Where Damiano would usually take the chance to suggestively hump the mic stand and focus on the audience, this time he did it while looking straight at Y/n. Her face clouded red, eyes looking at him with a flustered glare. He simply winked at her.
Similar things kept happening throughout the night, any song to do with sex or romance, any innuendo, it was all directed at her. To him, it was all about her all the time, and he made sure to let her know.
***
After one last encore, the band left the stage, the sound of the crowd chanting their names in the background. Once backstage, they all exchanged hugs, all pumped up from the adrenaline and the successful show. A massive gift basket sat in the corner, filled with beers, chocolates, some skincare products, and flowers, along with a note from the venue welcoming them to Oslo and thanking them for playing. Vic immediately grabbed Y/n.
“When we get back to the hotel - up for a girl’s night?” Wriggling her eyebrows at the assistant, she picked out some of the products from the red tulle in the basket.
“As if I could say no to you.”
***
“Okay, what’s first, face mask or red wine?” Victoria asked, holding up both items in her hands as she followed Y/n into the hotel room, Chili yapping at both of their feet, dying to get attention from anyone.
“I will pour the wine if you open the face mask stuff,” Y/n decided, picking up Chili for some snuggles, before putting the dog down on the bed and grabbing the wine glasses. “Don’t have a girls' night often, so this is nice.”
“I keep having them with the boys but it’s not really the same,” Vic laughed. “They never want me to pluck their eyebrows or anything! Oh, and please be careful with the wine around Chili, I drenched her once and it didn’t come out of her fur for ages.”
“You - you did what now? Wait, nope, I don’t wanna know. But to be honest, I would kill to get Ethan on my lap with some tweezers in my hand. Boy, does he need it. Not by much, sweet guy. Just, uh, you know?” Within a moment or two wine was being poured and handed to the blonde. “I didn’t know how much you would want but we can always add more,” Y/n stated, hopping onto the bed next to Vic.
“Oh, very sweet guy with unpredictable hair, really!” Vic said, grabbing the glass and downing more than half of it in one go already, before sitting down next to Y/n with the little pot she had opened and a little applicator for the cream. “That’s so fancy, I usually just slap it on my face with my fingers.”
“Same! Thinking we’re posh fucks, aren’t they?” Y/n grinned, looking at the tiny skincare items, another sip of wine. Chili curled up between the two women. “You looked like you had fun at the concert.”
“It’s so good to be back on the road and I feel like we’ve really found ourselves as a band now. We’ve only played two shows but it’s already my favourite tour. I’m convinced it’s because you’re here, too, by the way, you really fit in with us,” Victoria smiled at her, sipping from the glass, then putting it away on the nightstand and motioning for Y/n to do the same. “Come here, I’m gonna do your face.”
“Ah, I wouldn’t say that. You guys have been absolutely killing it. You got here by your own accomplishments and will, that’s hard to do. I am far more surprised at how well I’ve been able to fit in with you all. I’m, uh, as you can see,” putting the glass away, she scooted to face Victoria, “not as
 ‘rock and roll’ and I would have assumed you’d want your assistant to be. But glad I got stuck with you though.”
“Oh, shush,” Vic said, sternly, as she began applying the cream to Y/n’s face. “You fit in just fine. Firstly, I think we definitely need someone to keep us grounded a bit sometimes and secondly, I am absolutely convinced there’s a lot more rock and roll in you than you think - you just wait until you’ve been exposed to us for longer, you’ll see!”
“Well, I agree with the grounded part. You realise that today during breakfast Thomas was climbing on the sofa about to smack your head just to get further in line? That boy does not stop.” She relaxed into Vic’s touch, silently deciding that girls' nights needed to be a more regular thing. This was great. “Ethan said something similar - something about ‘head banging right along with everyone else’. You all have it out for me don’t you?!” She asked, putting on an overly dramatic, surprised look.
“No, he didn’t!” She exclaimed, astounded. “I’m gonna get him back for that tomorrow. Anyway, Ethan was right, you won’t be able to resist our bad influence forever, Y/n! So, have you been to gigs before taking this job, or is this still something new to you?”
“I have been to gigs before, but they were more music festivals, and I was never one for EDM or anything. The heat and lots of glittery, sweaty people drunk on warm beer? No, thank you. Or they would get a new assistant for a tour and the job would end. Not in a bad way, it's just how it is as an assistant. You do your job until they don’t need you anymore.” She shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s the wine or you, but I don’t think I’ve talked this much about myself really since I started this job. Not this particular job, mind you, but the whole P.A. thing.” Y/n chuckled, pulling her hair back into a tighter ponytail to keep out of the way of the fancy skincare.
“Hm, now I just keep thinking of putting glitter on you and getting you in the middle of a good punk gig one of these days,” Vic giggled as she finished up Y/n’s facemask, motioning for her to return the favour. “Let’s make the most of this wine then, I’m going to pour you another glass and you tell me a bit more about yourself.”
Grabbing the little pot of face mask, Y/n gently held Vic’s face, slowly applying the cream. “I’m going to be an alcoholic by the end of the tour, aren’t I? Um, well, I had a boyfriend, he was a prick, we broke up. My best friend lives in London in our old flat. My favourite films are old Hollywood romances. ‘Singing in the rain’, stuff like that. I dunno really. I’m just Y/n. Though I was thinking we should find a way to line Damiano’s trousers so that if they - when they rip apart, you see the lining and not the man’s underwear. Not that I think he cares, actually.” She truly was unable to turn work off completely, even on a night off.
Victoria couldn’t contain the giggle, receiving a scolding look from Y/n, who almost put the cream in her hair by mistake. “Thinking about Damiano’s underwear a lot, huh? Can’t blame you, that man is as pretty as they come. You can be happy they’ve all not gotten to the point where they just hang out on the tour bus in just their boxer shorts, but believe me, that day will come sooner or later!”
“I have not!” She insisted as her face betrayed her, telling a completely different story. “That is unprofessional and objectifying. I hope it doesn’t happen at all. You saw my face before when you all decided to ‘put on a little show’ in the dressing room.” She took the glass from Vic to take a sip. “Anyway.” She started blending out the face mask with fingers, careful not to get it into Victoria’s hair. “Would there be anything you want to know? I am never good at talking about myself.”
Chili nuzzled into Victoria’s leg, getting more needy. “I don’t want to cross any boundaries here, but honestly - why do you work so hard? I’ve only known you for like three days but you never seem to relax, you’re always either busy working for us or working on your projects and when you have a minute to breathe you end up cleaning after us or just going above and beyond taking care of us. I’m not complaining,” she held her hands up, laughing. “It’s great, but it’s a lot, huh?”
“Um
 I can’t lie. Not to you or the band. Lying isn’t good for you anyway. But.. I don’t know. Lots of stuff happened before I moved to Italy. Lots of not-so-good stuff. So, I had a lot of reserved pent-up energy, still do. So I had to find ways to put it into things. Now I put it into my work because it’s my new dream. I put it into the band because I care about you. I want to see this tour do well
” Y/n stopped for a moment, caught off guard by the question, looking back and forth between Victoria and her own reflection in the wine. “I want to prove to myself that I can achieve and be successful. I am also a giant workaholic, though, like it’s bad,” she giggled, as Chili now put a paw on Vic’s thigh, demanding attention.
“Well, if you gotta do that whole workaholic thing, I’m glad you’re doing it for us,” Vic smiled, placing a soft hand on Y/n’s arm. “Just make sure to make some time to let loose every now and again. I’m sure any of us would be happy to help you with that.” She turned on her phone to check the time. “I should probably get this mask off now, give me a second,” she explained before getting up and skipping to the bathroom sink.
“Yeah, that’d be good,” Y/n said, also taking note of the time. “Doesn’t Chili need to go out now? There’s no grass on the balcony or I’d let her do her business here.” She stood up, placing the wine glasses on a little counter, trying to force the cork back into the bottle. “Thank you for tonight though, we should make it a thing.”
“Yeah, I’ll take her out for her evening walk now.” Victoria came back, hair slightly damp from where she had washed her face too hastily. “But let’s definitely do this again, next to Ethan you’re like the most calming person on this tour to hang out with.” She moved to give her a hug, only to realise Y/n still had the mask on, so instead, she opted for an awkward shoulder rub and a giggle. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”
“You do realise it is my job to follow you around and see you tomorrow? Like, that is what I am paid to do. But hell, I’d still do it if it wasn’t my job,” she smiled, nudging Vic’s shoulder. “Now go get Chili out and then get some sleep yeah? Important things like sleep, food, water, everything you people seem to keep forgetting about!”
“Well, that’s what we have you for now, don’t we?” Victoria laughed, picking up a whining Chili and already halfway out the door. “But you get some sleep too! No working through the night, I am ordering you to bed - as your boss!”
“Of course!” Y/n laughed, shutting the door behind the bassist. After taking off her mask, she put the rest of Vic’s leftover wine into her glass and went out onto the balcony with her laptop. Pulling out all the bobby pins and the hair tie, she ran her fingers through her hair, brushing out the knots and letting it hang loose. The light from the sunset had long been gone by the time they had gotten to the hotel. Only street lights and the blue screen were illuminating the space of the balcony. The outdoor space was large enough for a table and chairs. The street down below was faintly noisy as people and cars passed by, but not enough to disturb her peace and quiet.
***
So much for an early night, Damiano thought, staring at the screen of his phone, as Ethan slept soundly in the next bed. With a sigh, he kicked the blanket off his legs, grabbing a pack of cigarettes from the nightstand, and sneaking out onto the balcony without waking his bandmate. Maybe a smoke would help. His eyes drifted from the rather unspectacular view out front to where he noticed movement to his right, only to see Y/n on her own balcony, right next to his.
Y/n was relaxing in her chair, glass of wine in her hands, mouthing the words to something on the computer in front of her. Entirely focused on whatever she was working on, she didn’t notice Damiano’s door opening and closing. She took a drink of her wine, leaving a dark red stain on her lips, then stood up to face the street. Laptop on her arm and looking outward, she mumbled the words on the screen to herself. He just about managed to make out what she was saying.
“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with brief- Wait, no. Grief. Okay.” She cleared her throat. “Who is already sick and pale with grief. Stupid tiny font is gonna be de death of me,” she mumbled, trying to zoom into the text.
Damiano watched her, a chuckle on his lips, both amused and amazed at seeing her play out the scene on her own. With a quick flick of his lighter, he turned to his cigarette, taking a drag, wide awake. The low light of the moon was illuminating her figure and her hazy movements and for a while he allowed himself to simply be fascinated by her. By the way she moved. Performing fully committed to the open air. Then she made a particularly dramatic, sweeping gesture in her monologue and he knew he couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
“Hey there, Juliet.”
The surprise went through her like an electric shock, she was stumbling over nothing, almost dropping the laptop from her arms, as she turned around towards him so fast, he was sure her hair was going to give her whiplash.
“Ah fuck - Damiano?!” She gasped delicately into the night. “You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days!”
Hopefully, for very different reasons, he thought to himself.
“Sorry,” he sheepishly replied. “What are you doing? It’s almost 2 am.”
“You know I could very well ask you the same thing.” She looked at him accusingly. “If you didn’t have the day off tomorrow I’d be ordering you back to bed immediately.”
Damiano briefly considered a suggestive comment, but instead, let the cigarette between his lips keep him quiet. Y/n was putting her laptop away now, sinking back down into the lounge chair as he walked over to the edge of his own balcony, leaning over the railing to get a better look at her.
“You know I’ve not forgiven you for your antics at the concert tonight yet,” she suddenly stated, pulling him from his thoughts. The smirk flashed over his face naturally. He wondered if she was blushing again, but the little light the moon and her laptop screen gave off didn’t tell him anything. He was hoping she was.
“I promise I didn’t mean to hit your face with my top,” he laughed.
“But you obviously did mean everything else you did!” An accusing finger was pointed his way. “I did not appreciate that.”
For a second he flinched, wondering if he had gone too far, crossing a boundary. But then she looked back at him with a smile she was obviously trying to push away, unsuccessfully. Glass of wine in her hand, she sauntered over to him, while he put out his cigarette on the railing. She leant over her own railing, mirroring his movements. At a slow pace, like she knew he was watching, she sipped from her glass. His eyes falling to the way her neck was exposed as she threw her head back, tracing the soft skin with his glances until she set down the drink. There was a droplet of red wine on her lip and he wished their balconies were closer together, fantasising about reaching out and wiping it away, feeling just how soft she would be under his touch.
“Not that
 I didn’t like it.” She paused. “Also not the first time I’ve been hit in the face with a shirt. So there’s that.” Y/n laughed.
“Now you’ve got me curious - who else would hit you with a shirt? Are you trying to tell me you’ve been to strip clubs?” Damiano laughed. Teasing her came easy to him.
“Dancers. With aim as terrible as yours, Mr. David. And I don’t know if you want the answer to the second question,” she smirked. When they were alone like this, she seemed more at ease. That, or it was the wine. He didn’t know.
“Dancers, huh? Think you could teach me a thing or two? Or, you know, were you just watching, lusting over sexy men?”
“Ah! I would do nothing of the sort. Most of the guys there weren’t into girls anyway. Wouldn’t do me much good
 Damiano, I could teach a lot of things. You to dance? God help us all.” She made a dramatic cross across her body, laughter twinkling in her eyes.
“Now, Y/n, I’d let you teach me whatever you wanted,” he winked. “Preferably something
 active, hm?” He could keep from laughing as he saw her unimpressed face, staring him down and shaking her head. He’d rile her up for the rest of his life if she gave him the chance.
“I once met this Italian guy, came to the studio. Thought he was God’s gift to dance. But you Italians all have that, bravado, confidence, whatever you wanna call it. Well, after learning the first intermediate step, he fell flat on his face and went back to beginner lessons. You gonna be like that?” Raising a brow at him, she leant further over the railing on her side.
Damiano puffed up his chest, comically, trying to make himself appear bigger in a useless attempt to impress her. “Now, you’ve obviously not met the right Italians yet, amore mio. Sounds to me like you need a real Italian to show you the way.”
Just like this morning, she burst out laughing, letting out cackles that filled the air with joy. “Sorry - not laughing at you. Just thought what you said was funny.” She looked down, and as dark as it was, he could see the same signs he had seen before. Shy expression, holding herself close to her body. The slight panic of not knowing what to say. “You’re real Italian, alright. You seem to always know what to say. Now is that an Italian thing or a Damiano thing?” She asked, sarcastically, to deflect the fact that her face was heating up.
Amore mio
that's what did it. He felt like he was unlocking a single puzzle piece at a time, slowly putting her together and making sense of her. He couldn’t wait to get the whole picture one of these days. “Maybe it’s a you thing,” he simply said. The night was making him strangely comfortable with being honest. “Maybe you just bring it out in me.”
“Eh - I’ve been told I bring out a lot of things, never a savant before.” She was still looking down, at her hands, starting to pick at her nail polish. Some little nervous tick that he hadn’t caught onto till now. “It’s late, you should go to sleep, Dami. I am sure that bed is missing its handsome owner right about now.” She started to look far away, picking up the wine glass and taking the last sip.
He had barely heard what she had said - too focused on her calling him Dami, for the very first time. It was like a little shudder running through him, knowing she was growing closer to him as the time passed. “Are you okay, though? I’m sure my bed will survive without me a little bit longer.”
“Oh, I’ll be fine. Don’t you worry about me, I worry enough as it is. Tomorrow is a day off, so I won’t be waking you up in the morning, bus call isn’t until later. Um, but I will be getting breakfast. Is there anything you would want?”
“As long as it involves coffee, I’m happy. I’m sure you’ll pick out the perfect thing anyway.” Damiano watched as she nodded, moving towards the balcony doors and away from him. He felt like grabbing her just to keep her there. He straightened up as well, just barely backing away from the railing. As she left he looked at the space she once occupied, feeling like he could almost make out the outline of her body where it once had been.
Amore mio...
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dragonsdomain · 4 years ago
Text
Lair
“Well that explains why you’ve never been to your lair,” Ember said, smirking. “You didn’t even know it existed.”
Danny laughed before turning his attention back to the oddly familiar door in front of him. “Well I do spend most of my time in the human world. And I don’t even usually pay much attention to these doors. There are so many. How’d you find it?”
“Ectosignature, silly,” Ember said, rapping a knuckle on the wood. “Don’t you know anything about ghost culture?”
Danny looked away, rubbing his neck sheepishly.
“Er, sorry. I guess that was a dumb question,” Ember said. She gestured to the door. “Well here you go! There’s your lair. You can
 ya know
 explore it and stuff.”
Danny moved to open the door but let his hand hover over the knob, strangely apprehensive. “What was
 what was inside?”
Ember’s eyebrows flew up. “You think I went inside?” She sounded dumbfounded. “Even if lair doors weren’t locked until the owner of the lair first opens them, Don’t you know how- I mean
” She corrected herself. “It is super rude to enter a ghost’s lair uninvited.”
Danny’s mouth formed a silent “O”, causing Ember to perform a facepalm. That did explain some of the encounters he’d had in the Ghost Zone.
“Well, uh
” Danny’s attention fell back to the door in front of him. “Do you at least have some idea of what I might find in here? I mean
 what’s a lair usually like?”
“Eh, I don’t know exactly how it works,” Ember said, leaning back in the air thoughtfully. “I think sometimes they’re connected to your obsession. Sometimes they’re just like, where you’d be happiest or thrive the best.” She shrugged. “I dunno, I’m no scientist.”
Danny exhaled a puff of air. “Okay. That doesn’t sound so bad.” He placed his hand on the handle of the door. He hesitated. Why was he so nervous?
Vaguely ominous notes began strumming from behind him. Danny turned towards the girl behind him who was currently plucking out the foreboding background music on her guitar with a mischievous half-smile on her face.
“You know, you’re not helping,” Danny said in slight exasperation.
Ember stopped playing as she stifled a snicker. “All right, all right,” She said, feigning offense. “I’ll take my leave. Don’t die in there!” She said before speeding off into the foggy expanse of the Ghost Zone.
“Still not helping!” Danny called after her before turning back to the door.
Danny put his hand back on the handle. He hadn’t noticed taking it off. Perhaps because of curiosity, perhaps because of some unidentifiable anxiety, he paused before opening the door to examine its exterior. It looked familiar somehow, yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on where he’d seen it before. It was something he knew he should know, but the recollection of where the door was from escaped him.
He sighed. Come on. Just open the door. There’s nothing to be afraid of.
He opened the door.
And he suddenly remembered where he’d seen that door before.
Behind the door lay a perfect replica of his own bedroom. He looked around in puzzlement as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Every detail was the same, all his model spaceships exactly where they should be, the little glow-in-the-dark stars arranged on the ceiling as close to the night sky as he’d been able to get them, everything precisely where it should be all the way down to the math homework laid out on his desk which he’d only gotten that morning.
Danny looked behind himself at the door, an eyebrow raised questioningly. Had the door just taken him to his own bedroom? His own house? Was the ghost lair of a halfa just his own home?
He looked back at his room and let out a laugh, changing back to human form. He felt a little disappointed that his adventure had simply led him back to where he went every day, but mostly relieved. He’d been afraid he’d find
 well, something
 in his lair that he didn’t want to find. His lair simply being his own bedroom was a bit underwhelming, but far from the worst it could have been.
In fact, he thought as he looked back at the oh, so familiar door, it was a little convenient that he’d been dropped off straight at home. He’d had his little adventure, and now he could commence his evening again right off the bat.
As Danny opened the door, he was pleased to see that it opened to the hall of his house, not back into the Ghost Zone. Yep, he was back at home.
“Danny, come down for dinner!” his mother’s voice echoed up the stairwell.
“Coming!” Yep, very convenient that he’d been brought straight here. He didn’t want to make his parents suspicious by missing dinner again.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and was promptly greeted by his parents and sister, all sitting down at the dinner table.
“Hey,” Danny said as he sat down, looking around dubiously. “...Why are we all eating dinner together? What’s the occasion?”
“Nothing, Danno! Except that your mother and I thought it might be nice to have family dinners more often,” Dad explained.
“We know you’ve been having a bit of a rough time with school and, well, everything, and something’s obviously going on with you that you’re not telling us,” Mom began.
Anxiety spiked in Danny’s gut. Did they know? Were they going to figure it out? How did he mess up enough to tip them off to that fact? They couldn’t figure out his secret; they’d hate him if they knew that he was a-
“...But we just want you to know that we love you no matter what. And nothing could ever change that.”
“We wouldn’t even stop loving you if you became a ghost!” Dad bellowed jovially. Mom rolled her eyes at him but smiled at Danny in silent agreement to the statement.
Danny sat back, stunned. Did he hear that right?
Jazz looked as surprised as he was. “Did you just say you’d love him even if...?” Her question trailed off.
Mom cocked an eyebrow. “...He was a ghost? Of course. He’d still be our Danny.”
It was too good to be true. Danny still almost couldn’t believe what he’d heard. Tears pricked his eyes. “Thanks. That’s
 good to hear.”
At the sight of the tears Mom wrapped an arm around Danny’s shoulders. “Oh, sweetie, was that what you’ve been worrying about? Why you always look so scared when we talk about ghost hunting?”
“It’s just that, the way you’ve been treating Phantom
”
“Oh, we actually just made a truce with him this morning.”
...Wait. What?
Danny glanced at Jazz in confusion. She was grinning at him, but stopped when she saw his confusion. What? She mouthed.
Danny’s eyes dropped to the table in puzzlement. Something was wrong here. That hadn’t happened. At least not to him. Was there a ghost impersonating him or something? He really needed to get Jazz alone to talk about it.
Just when he was about to speak, something beeped loudly down in the lab.
Mom and Dad’s eyes met. “Jack, did you forget to-” Mom started.
“Yes.”
At that, they both rushed down the stairs.
“...Perfect timing.” Danny muttered to himself. He looked at Jazz. “I didn’t make a truce with Mom and Dad this morning.”
Jazz frowned. “But you told me about it during lunch. It happened during first period, remember? You missed that chemistry test to go fight Skulker? And you told me about how you were worried that was going to make you fail chemistry but I told you your grades were great even if you couldn’t retake it?” Danny looked more confused by the second. “You don’t remember any of that?”
“Jazz, since when have my grades been great?”
Jazz raised an eyebrow, pulled out her phone, and showed him his grades on it. He stood up and walked around the table to get a better look. Straight A’s.
Danny stumbled back. That- he didn’t have straight A’s, what- something wasn’t right-
“Jazz, where are Sam and Tucker?” Danny asked hesitantly.
“I think they said they were going to be coming over any minute now.”
At that exact moment the door burst open. Sam and Tucker entered, looking too happy, too healthy, much too carefree. Oh no, not them too.
“Danny!” They called out, rushing to give him a hug. Danny returned their embrace stiffly.
“Hey guys. You look like you’re doing
 really well.”
Sam snorted, pushing him away. “Well you sound weirdly disappointed about that. What, do you miss all the ghost fighting we used to do?”
“Used to do?”
Jazz looked down at Danny in concern. “Are you okay, Danny? Don’t you remember all the truces you made with the ghosts? You’ve hardly had to fight anyone for weeks.”
“...I
” Was he in some kind of alternate timeline? How did he get here?
He suddenly remembered something Ember had said about ghost lairs: “Sometimes they’re just like, where you’d be happiest or thrive the best.”
Of course.
“...This isn’t real
” Danny whispered.
“What?” Jazz asked.
“It’s not
 you’re not real!” Danny stepped back and glared at the things that looked like his friends and sister.
“Dude, of course we’re real,” Tucker said, reaching out a hand in concern.
Danny slapped it away and stepped back again. “No, you’re all just figments of my imagination or something.” He stepped back again and found his back against the door. “This isn’t real. It’s all just
 fake.” He wasn’t really talking to the people in front of him anymore. He slid down to the floor and buried his face in his hands. “Why would Mom and Dad actually make a truce with me? Or be willing to accept me? Of course it’s not real.”
A hand rested on his shoulder. “Danny-” Jazz began.
Danny flung her hand away and phased through the door behind him, ignoring the shouts of surprise from those in the room. He found himself back outside his lair, in the Ghost Zone. A glance over his shoulder revealed the door, which looked like his bedroom door again, still shut. No concerned voices leaked through. Nothing thrust the door open to search for him.
He stared at the door numbly. It had been nice while it lasted, to have a dinner with his family, to have his parents not plotting his murder for once, to see Sam and Tucker without injuries stemming from his folly. Even if it wasn’t real.
A wry chuckle escaped his lips at the same moment as tears began to well in his eyes.
Of course it couldn’t be real.
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coricomile · 2 years ago
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Tagged by @darkangel0410! I feel like it’s the old days of LJ again and I am so pleased.
Where do you publish your work?
AO3. Branding is secure- Coricomile over there, too. I do wish I hadn’t deleted my LJ some days, or that I could recover it. A lot of bb me’s history has been lost and I regret that.
What medium/application/etc. do you write in or with?
Google Docs. I am an avid “write on the phone when you think of stuff” author and it’s easy to swap between phone and laptop. Plus, it makes it infinitely easier for betas.
Do you collaborate with others?
For bangs, mostly. I’d love to do more active collabs like I once did with He Who Will Not Be Named for Bandom, but it’s gotten much harder to forge those kinds of bonds. For me at least.
How much editing do you do before you publish?
If it’s an exchange or a bang- you know, something for someone- I’ll reach out for a beta and sometimes an alpha reader. If it’s just something I’ve written for me, I’ll do a readthrough and a SPAG check, but boy I always notice those typos I missed when I read the fic back a year or so later. /o\
Do you listen to music when you write?
Usually. It’s hard for me to focus if I don’t have noise happening in the background. I don’t really do playlists or ~themes. It’s mostly just my massive “every song I’ve ever liked” playlist on shuffle.
How do you decide what to write about?
Brain bugs. I’ll watch something and think “blorbos could do that this way
” or just be minding my own business and think “hey, what if x did y?”. My ideas are mostly plucked from nowhere and pound at the brain door until I write them down.
When do you write?
When I’ve got the spoons. It’s been like pulling teeth recently, so not as much as I used to. Sometimes the words just trip over each other until they’re fully out and sometimes I have to use a sledgehammer. I’m currently in sledgehammer mode and it is my least favorite way to write.
How often do you write?
See above about spoons, but also when I have an idea that’s hit me just right.
Do you take requests? Why/why not?
I do :D They rarely ever come in, but I adore them. It’s flattering to know someone wants to know your take on a prompt and I do so much better when I have a person waiting for something than if I’m the person I’m writing for. @darkangel0410 commissioned a few Bandom fics back in the day, and they’re some of the ones I’m proudest of.  
Is there any genre or type of story you want to write but are hesitant to?
Eh. I’ve covered a pretty broad spectrum over my writing history. I love horror and thrillers, but I have a bit of a stumble as I’m writing because *I* know the twists so they seem *super* obvious, but I get a ton of glee when I’ve surprised a reader.
Any inspirational quotes, videos, tricks, articles, etc. that help you stay motivated?
Mostly a deadline. Not very inspirational, lol, but it works for me.
Go to page 7 of your WIP, skip to the 7th line, and share 7 sentences.
Ahahaha, the 7th of 7th is smack dab in the middle of a porn scene, so we’re modifying a bit:
Without Dean, the capsule toys weren't worth the money spent. Neither were the tattoos, really. Not when he had to wash them off before he could show them off, or when the thin film would tear because he'd had to twist his arm too far to reach. Those went first, followed by the telenovelas.
He couldn’t speak Spanish very well, but he could understand basic sentences. If he really focused, he could follow along with what was happening in the moment, if not the general plot, but without the context it didn't make any sense anyway. A few times he turned to the seat next to him to ask about one of Dean’s characters when a familiar favorite face showed up, mouth closing before he had the chance to speak to thin air.
Tagging: @samshinechester @compo67@itstartledme Uh. Also more folks that want to play :D
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ethereal-kloud · 2 years ago
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this has been lying around for a while but i kinda fell out the fandom so eh might as well post it here
obviously danganronpa spoilers so uhhh be warned??
desc: Enoshima Junko had always been a bit odd.
Usually, it wasn’t a cruel or sadistic sort of oddity, but a distant sort apathy— something that made her seem all too far away. Occasionally, it’d be an overwhelming bombardment of tears, seemingly set off for no particular reason.
And then she remembered.
(what would’ve been a quote from the “story”)
The day Mukuro came back, she found her younger twin sister sobbing on her knees. “What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned. She had only been gone for a couple of months— she knew she hadn’t said a word before disappearing, but what could have set a off a 13-year-old in that timeframe?
Her sister’s blue eyes snapped upwards, teary and distracted. “M—“ Junko choked on her tears, “Mukuro-nee—“
The older twin startled. The blonde hadn’t called her that in
 What was going on?
or: someone is born as Enoshima Junko, killing “former her’s” plan of despair before it even started.
———
i actually started it but it’s terrible and awkward and so occ i would actually die if i posted it
if it isn’t obvious already— reincarnation shenanigans. they wouldn’t remember clearly about their previous life, and definitely not about a game or anime they had probably played/watched to make fun of in their free time. her background wasn’t really elaborated on, so i would’ve had fun making that up completely
anyway canon!junko obviously had major issues, but she obviously understood how people were.
she wouldn’t have been able to act and trick and blackmail as many people as she did if she didn’t. i like to think it was a lack of ability to empathize with people + morals, and a wild desperation to “fit in” and if she couldn’t, just make everyone like her
with someone coming into the picture, though, with those morals and the memory of being able to think and care about others genuinely, she’d do it by habit, even if she didn’t understand why.
———
quotes i wanted to use (actually i made all of them up on the spot but shhh i like them)
(Junko doesn’t want to be a monster. But what will happen if she plays normal? Doesn’t get into Hopes Peak? She knows that her sister wouldn’t join if she didn’t. Knows that’s a difference already in their relationship, but—
Is she willing to risk changing everything?)
-
“Hi!” chirped Naegi Makoto, the goddamned protagonist of what Junko wished was just a fever-dream. What were the chances, she wondered, of this meeting happen the one time she was weak-willed enough to try and check the lottery area for Hopes Peak? “Are you here to apply for the—”
A blur comes running through the mall, knocking into Naegi, and begins to furiously whisper at him and gesturing at Junko, at what she assumes is an attempt to be subtle.
It’s not.
-
Junko thinks about meeting Naegi and his sister, about what she saw of his parents, remembers what was implied in that spinoff.
She hesitates— because this is a large decision, but

She’ll be able to control the variables this way. She doesn’t have to get close, it’s fine, people are almost always someone different away from the camera.
She breathes in, and begins to write an email.
‘I, Enoshima Junko, humbly accept your invitation for me to attend Hopes Peak Academy as the Super High School Level Model,’ it reads. ‘It’s truly an honor,’ she lies.
-
‘Komaeda Nagito,’ her brain informs her clinically, ‘current Super High School Level Lucky Student.’ He’s smiling at her, but—
It’s not in that wild, unhinged way she’s starting to remember those games showed. It’s not soft, and it’s strained, but it’s a genuine smile.
Is this what she ruined—
“Hello!” he greets, “Oh, you’re
 Enoshima-san, yes? The future Super High School Level Model, right? Oh, it’s so lucky of me to have—” and he rambles on, motioning wildly until she hears a call in the distance of his name.
“Hm? Oh, it seems I’ve got to go— it was nice to meet you!” and he turns, and promptly trips of his own feet, dodging a can that was flying towards him, but gains what looks like a painful cut on his forehead instead.
He laughs it off sheepishly, and rushes away.
Junko

-
“Oh!” she hears a familiar voice, and freezes, “Enoshima-san!”
Junko curses too herself, and glances behind her, praying to a god she doesn’t believe in that it’s not who she thinks it is. ‘Brown hair,’ she thinks, wanting to sink down in her seat and already wailing in her head.
It’s Naegi. Of course it is. She has the worst luck ever.
“Naegi. Hello,” she replies, stiffly. It’s only polite.
-
‘Wait wait wait I forgot this plot happened in my first year— can’t I get a break?!’
Junko stares at Hinata Hajime, who’s talking with some Hopes Peak official, and she can’t help but overhear.
Hope Project, they call it. He just has to sign the form, they say. Or else, he knows what will happen, and he wouldn’t want that, would he? they threaten.
The blonde can see Hinata’s will weaken with every blow they carefully place against him. The officials look up, and, hell, they’ve seen her. They whisper, “I hope you know this conversation should stay between us?” and smile at her.
She smiles back, but in the comfort of her own mind, thinks, ‘I have to fix this too. Right after the Kuzuryu situation, too. Fuck.’
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creativia10 · 4 years ago
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Janus in Intrusive Thoughts
What if Janus was there during Intrusive Thoughts? Pairing: Janus x Remus
Word count: 1427
Warnings: Innuendos, Suggestive Themes
Notes: I don't know what this is. It was just fun. I had the urge to write this. Not to be taken too seriously. Also posted on my AO3. Let me know if I've missed anything.
Janus stretched his multiple limbs in the background. They were all distracted with dear Remus’ appearance, they didn’t even notice he was there. Which was perfectly fine with him. He was just there to watch the drama unfold anyways.
He lounged in a chair in the background, that he summoned, and sipped his wine. He didn’t have a particular desired outcome from this, despite having prompted Remus to reveal himself to Thomas (although he did have exasperatedly explain he did not mean to go in the nude). It was fun to be included in his little cameo in Remus’ song intro though. Every time he looked over to Roman on the ground, he couldn’t help but snort. Ah, sibling dynamics. So, Janus was literally just sitting there, commenting and reacting to Remus’ shenanigans, not even bothering to try and seem inconspicuous. They were literally too distracted to notice.
Then, he perked up when Logan mentioned the only way it would be faking it was if Thomas were to actually do something and then lie about it. Which prompted Remus to say,
“Oo, how fun. You know who could help us with that?” Remus said with a little shoulder wiggle. Janus’ theme song played during that. Janus rolled his eyes. Well, he didn’t need further prompting. As Thomas started to protest, Janus suddenly appeared next to Remus.
“Oh dear, if you wanted my company you simply needed to say so. ” Everyone balked. Thomas held his head and groaned. Virgil glared at him. Patton looked around in concern. Roman mumbled something, and Logan simply looked annoyed.
Remus gave him an unhinged smile. Janus pointedly did not look.
“You aren’t even part of this.” Virgil sneered. Janus simply shrugged.
“Oh I know, I’m just here. Not really going to participate unless needed.”
Virgil looked at him suspiciously. Remus clapped his hands excitedly.
"Oo, Dark side buddy! Now I have someone to actively innuendo while I’m here!”
Janus sighed, already starting to regret this, but not moving. Partly due to pride. They all seemed to just keep looking back and forth between Remus and Janus in surprise.
“What, no comment Dee-Dee?”
“When have I ever said you could call me that?”
“You haven’t said that I couldn’t!”
Janus simply hmmed and pretended to check his nails, as though he weren’t wearing gloves. Because he was just like that.
Patton hesitated,
“Uh
do we continue?”
Thomas sighed. Virgil kept darting his eyes between the dark duo and Thomas. Remus simply smiled and leaned his chin onto Janus shoulder, Janus pretended not to react. Remus wiggled a bit against him. Janus sighed. He was not blushing from everyone watching. If anyone were to ask, he would blame Remus. Blaming Remus was always a good plan. It didn’t hurt that Remus usually didn’t mind.
Thomas twisted up his face, seeming unsure how to react to the two of them, especially with how Remus was being with Janus.
They somehow tried to continue, as Thomas and Virgil had deigned this important to resolve. It was clear everyone else’s attention was divided though, at the atmosphere had drastically changed from the moment Janus appeared, despite him not doing anything for the current conflict.
“I’m sorry, this is very distracting. Can we get him out of here?” Virgil asked, gesturing at Deceit.
Janus rolled his eyes and waved his hand, obscuring his appearance.
The others blinked at his sudden seeming disappearance.
Remus snorted.
“Oh, Dee-Dee. That’s not gonna help. Don’t think I’ll stop touching you just cause they can’t see you anymore.” To which Remus wrapped his arms around Janus, looking like he was hugging air. He moved his hands lower, like he was about to imitate a physical innuendo, but Janus reappeared and pushed his arms away.
“That’sss unnecesssary.” Janus turned completely towards Remus as he said that so the others in the room wouldn’t see his returning blush. Remus simply smiled and laughed again.
Somehow, they jumped back into things. Patton barreled back into it as though to keep from another distraction to come about before they could help Thomas. Remus returned to his spot against Janus. He continued his shenanigans almost as though he wasn’t practically leaning on Janus. Janus was, more subtly reacting to the drama unfolding around him. Virgil pointedly glanced at Janus when he asked about if Thomas was lying, despite Janus not saying anything on the matter. Janus almost wasn’t sure why he wasn’t doing more. It totally wasn’t because of the distraction of Remus’ warm body pressed up against him. No, of course not at all.
Remus had definitely calmed down since Janus showed up as well. Even when Remus went through other transformations, he was still touching Janus in some way. It didn’t really make sense with what they were trying to do, but whatever. Janus knew fully well he could leave at any time. He was only there to watch this unfold, after all. Totally.
Janus pointedly sighed and stepped away, not looking as Remus started to undress before Logan clarified his wording, having known where Remus would go with that.
He hmmed when Remus revealed his name, tempted to say something about a lack of drama in withholding his name, if he hadn’t just witnessed all the crazy stuff Remus had been doing that episode, like an entire song intro that was so totally extra. Fitting for a creativity.
Janus sighed when Remus screamed to distract them as they got closer to a resolution. At one point, not long after, Remus leaned in, not even bothering to keep his lips from touching Janus’ ear as he whispered,
“Watch this.” Right before he disappeared, only to jump out before Logan could stop them with,
“Nails on a chalkboard!”
Janus didn’t jump and then snort. Nope. Things started to calm down eventually. Boring. As it seemed some of them were about to sink out, Janus prepared to as well.
“Well, that all certainly seemed exciting,” Janus started. Remus snorted.
“Oh, exciting?” Remus stepped over, to where Roman would have room to get up now. “You haven’t seen exciting yet. You know I could do more,” He said with another shoulder wiggle and suggestive eyebrows.
Janus waved a hand at that.
“Oh please, that’s unnecessary. You don’t want to draw this out too much, there’s a sense of good tension. Some creativities are good with that. So, I think I shall take my leave, it’s a good moment for it, before all the mushy stuff."
Remus pouted at him. “Aww, we didn’t even get to make out in front of everyone though! Voyeurism, you know?”
Janus suddenly sunk out at that, into his room. His face was burning as he glared at nothing, fists at his side. A few moments later,
“Oh Jaaaaanuus~”Janus sighed as he felt Remus sidle up to him again. He touched him way more this time, and Janus felt the weird slide of Remus’ tentacles against him as well, starting to prod and play with Janus’ clothes.
“Remus,” Janus said simply.
“Were you impressed~ with my introduction~?” Remus asked.“
In case you couldn’t tell, I don’t often say if I’m impressed by something,” Janus said. Remus growled and pushed himself even closer. Janus couldn’t withhold his shiver, sure the other was smirking.
“Aw, Jan~” He faux whined, then leaned in to say into his ear, “You know that whole thing got me really riled~ up.” He wiggled against Janus again. Janus feigned a sigh and smiled as he said,
“Like that really takes much.” He turned around and they both grinned at each other.
“You get on from mischief just as much as me,” Remus said.
“I will say nothing on the first part of that statement.”
“Mhmm.”
“Are you satisfied? Even though they think they beat you?”
“Oh, I don’t know about satisfied. I just found myself driven towards my snaky even more.”
Janus rolled his eyes again, but he was still smiling.
“You see me all the time.”
“Hm, so? Today was still fun, you must admit.”
“Hm perhaps. Even though they thought they ‘won’?”
“Eh,” Remus shrugged. “I was more for chaos, which still happened, so I don’t really care.” Remus grabbed Janus’ hand and dragged him toward the bed.
“But now I need to get this excitement out of my system, who better than with the chaotic side.”
“Chaotic? I don’t know if I can agree to that.”
“Mm, you’re more of a reserved chaos.”
“Hmm, I suppose.”
and with that Remus pushed Janus onto the bed, their strange banter continuing.
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dialovers-translations · 4 years ago
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Diabolik Lovers VANDEAD CARNIVAL ;; Ruki Route ăƒŒ Chapter 3
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ăƒŒ The scene starts in the bushes around Saint Nore Park
Ruki: Haah...Oi, Yui. Are you alright?
Yui: Y-Yeah...
Ruki: For now, I doubt they’ll easily be able to track us down right here.
Yui: Ruki-kun...I’m sorry.
Ruki: Why do you apologize?
Yui: Because all of this happened because I injured myself...
( He only just told me to stay on guard, so I’m sure he’s upset, huh...? )
I’m so sorry.
Ruki: ...Haah.
No need to apologize.
Show me your arm.
Yui: Eh? Sure...
*Rustle rustle*
Ruki: ...It’s bleeding.
Yui: Yeah...But it’s just a scratch. I’m sure the bleeding will stop soon.
So it’s fine.
Ruki: It isn’t, is it?
I’ll stop the bleeding for now. ...Don’t move, okay?
Nn...
Yui: ...!?
( He’s licking the wound... )
Ruki: Did I not just tell you to keep still? ...I guess this much won’t do.
Yui: Wait, Ruki-kun!
Ruki: Oi, don’t pull your arm away. I thought I told you not to move?
Yui: B-But you suddenly started licking me...!
Ruki: It isn’t sudden. Didn’t I say I’d stop the bleeding?
Yui: ( He did, but anyone would be surprised if someone suddenly did that...! )
Ruki: ...This has to be the first time drinking your blood makes me this upset.
Yui: Eh...?
Ruki: I’ll wrap some bandages around it, so keep the wound facing upwards. Tell me if it’s too tight.
Yui: O-Okay...
*Rustle rustle*
Ruki: ...This should do.
...
Yui: ( Ruki-kun went quiet. Is he upset after all...? )
Ruki: ...I’m the one who should apologize.
Yui: Eh...?
Ruki: I failed as your bodyguard...Seeing as I let you get hurt, even though I was right there by your side.
Yui: B-But...That wasn’t your fault just now...
Ruki: They thought you were a Vampire because I had you ingest that drug.
I did not think my own plan would come to backfire like that...
...My bad.
Yui: Ruki-kun...
Ruki: ...
Yui: ( He’s this worried about the fact I got hurt... )
( Even though it’s really no big deal. )
( I wonder how I can brighten his mood again...? )
ăƒŒ Approaching footsteps can be heard in the background
Uhm...Ruki-kuăƒŒăƒŒ
Ruki: ...! Quiet!
*Rustle*
Yui: Nn...!
( Somebody’s coming...! However, he didn’t have to cover my mouth... )
Female Vampire A: Say, why don’t we drop by the arcade next? I heard they’ve got lots of games like darts or puzzles!
Male Vampire A: You wouldn’t rather ride one of the attractions?
Female Vampire A: Mmh. I’d like to take it easy for a bit.
Male Vampire A: Let’s go check it out then. 
ăƒŒ The couple leaves again
Ruki: ...They left?
Yui: Nn...Nn...
Ruki: ...Aah, sorry. I’ll let you go now.
*Rustle*
Yui: Haah...
Ruki: Seems like they didn’t pick up on the scent of blood...It’s good I stopped the bleeding.
Yui: ( ...Seems like Ruki-kun is still rather alert. I guess he’s worried after all... )
( Speaking of which, those people from earlier said they were headed towards the arcade, right? )
Uhm, Ruki-kun?
Ruki: ...Yes?
Yui: Why don’t we try going to the arcade they mentioned as well?
Ruki: ...You truly believe such a place would pique my interest?
Yui: Well...I figured you’d like it more than the rides.
They said you can play darts or make a puzzle.
Ruki: ...
Hmph...Seems like you actually put some thought into it.
However, I doubt it’d be good to move carelessly?
Yui: My arm stopped bleeding, so I’m fine.
We can’t just sit around here forever, so why don’t we go take a look? It’s a Carnival after all.
Ruki: ...
...You do have a point. We can’t just sit still and hold our breaths forever.
Yui: Then...!
Ruki: Yes, very well. Being inside a building might be more safe than staying outside as well.
Yui: ( Thank god...! )
Ruki: However, it’s crowded inside the park. ...Don’t stray away from my side, okay?
Yui: Yeah.
( I hope this’ll help cheer him up a little... )
*TIMESKIP*
ăƒŒ The scene shifts to Saint Nore Park’s venue
Yui: According to the map, it should be around here. Uhm...
Ruki: Oi, don’t wander around too much.
Yui: Ah, sorry.
Ruki: ...I assume it’s that building? It should be obvious if you pay some attention.
Yui: Eh? Ah, you’re right! As to be expected of Ruki-kun, you’re always keeping an eye on your surroundings!
Ruki: Your field of vision is simply too narrow. Because of that, my suffering never ends.
Yui: ( ...I’m glad. He’s slowly becoming the regular old Ruki-kun again. )
Ruki: Oi, let’s hurry inside. I’m pretty sure it’d be in our best interest not to wander around outside for too long.
ăƒŒ They enter the game center
Yui: Wah...Seems like they’ve got quite the assortment of games.
This is...A card game, I suppose? There’s a chess board as well.
Ruki: Darts and puzzles, huh?
Yui: ( Which one should we try first...? )
Selection
→ I wanna try the puzzle (☟)
Yui: ( I just have to go with a puzzle here, right? )
Ruki: So, what are you going to play?
I’m not too fond of these kind of noisy places...But I’m sure you came here with a specific objective in mind?
Yui: Ah, uhm...I’d like to try the puzzles over there on the other side...
Ruki: A puzzle, huh...?
Yui: Yeah. What do you think?
Ruki: ...Very well, I’ll join along. I don’t dislike those either.
Yui: ( Hooray! )
→ I wanna try darts
Yui: ( Darts, huh...? I’ve never played that very much, so it might be a good opportunity... )
Uhm...Ruki-kun? How about a game of darts?
I want to give it a try since I’ve never played it much.
Ruki: The answer is no.
Yui: Eh?
Ruki: ...Haah; You never learn, do you?
Have you already forgotten what happened earlier? Even though you nearly became a darts board yourself.
Besides, what if you hurt yourself on one of the dart arrows?
Yui: Well...
Ruki: If you understand that, give up on playing darts. Let’s look for something else.
Yui: Yes...
Ah...Then why don’t we try a puzzle? Look, they’ve got them over there.
Ruki: A puzzle, huh...? Very well. I’ll allow that.
ăƒŒ They walk towards the puzzles
Yui: ( ... )
Hm, these look quite tricky.
Ruki: You think so? I’m pretty sure this level of difficulty is the bare minimum to make it worth playing.
Yui: ( As to be expected of Ruki-kun...I feel like we’ll easily complete these with his help. )
Ah, look, Ruki-kun. Seems like you’ll appear in the rankings if you get a high score at this game.
I wonder if they’ll display our names too if we do a good job?
Ruki: Who knows.
Yui: Eh?
Ruki: It’s pointless to worry about scores or rankings. This is a battle with yourself, not with others.
Yui: Is it....? However, I’m sure you’d be happy to rank number one. See. Your name would show up over heăƒŒăƒŒ
...Huh?
Ruki: What’s the matter?
Yui: The name of the current number one...
Ruki: Number one? At this puzzle?
...!
Sakamaki Reiji...?
Yui: ( Reiji-san was here as well!? Actually, he did say he has visited the Carnival before... )
Anyway...Reiji-san’s record is amazing. There’s a considerable gap with the person in second place.
Ruki: ...
...Interesting.
I don’t care about rankings, but losing against one of those Sakamaki’s leaves somewhat of a bitter taste in my mouth.
Especially as far as puzzles are concerned. I happen to be very confident in my own abilities when it comes to these.
I shall overwrite Sakamaki Reiji’s record right here, right now. With my own name, that is.
Yui: ( He suddenly became motivated...I guess he doesn’t want to lose to Reiji-san? )
Ruki: Oi, Livestock. You should give it a try first.
Yui: Eh!? Me?
Ruki: Of course? I’ll prepare myself in the meantime.
Yui: ( You need to prepare yourself to solve a puzzle!? )
Ruki: Come on, hurry up. Don’t make your Master wait. 
Yui: Y-Yes...Okay then. I’ll give it a try.
( I’m not very confident but...Guess I’ll just have to give it my best shot! )
Tumblr media
Explanation: Complete the puzzle within the time limit by shuffling the different pieces around.
You can play this game in EASY, NORMAL or HARD mode.
Ruki: ...Hooh.
Yui: ( I did it! Seems like I solved it! )
Ruki: Seems like you’re a little capable as well. I need to reconsider my opinion on you.
While you didn’t come close to the Sakamaki eldest son’s score, you did your best. This isn’t a bad result at all.
Yui: ( Fufu, he praised me! )
Ruki: However...If you improve just a little more, I’m sure you’ll be able to up your score?
Tumblr media
Ruki: For example, this one. This one should go here instead of over there.
Yui: Eh!? Ah...
Ruki: Did you not realize your mistake? ...Seems like you’re surprisingly careless in that regard.
Yui: Uu...I ended up rushing because of the time limit.
Ruki: Come on, give me the remaining pieces as well. This one goes in the corner over here.
Yui: You’re right...
( Ruki-kun really is amazing... )
Ruki: Well then. Shall I take over?
I’ll surpass both your and Sakamaki Reiji’s record in no time.
*TIMESKIP*
Ruki: ...Hmph...Child’s play.
Yui: A-Amazing! You beat Reiji-san’s score!
Ruki: Of course. I can’t let myself lose to those guys after all.
Yui: ( Fufu...Ruki-kun seems happy. )
( I’m glad his mood brightened! )
*TIMESKIP*
ăƒŒ The scene shifts back to Saint Nore Park’s venue
Yui: That was fun, huh?
Ruki: Well, it wasn’t a bad time...If you had fun, that’s what matters most.
By the way, does your arm not hurt? You moved quite a bit while getting caught up in the puzzle game, didn’t you?
Yui: Yeah, it completely stopped bleeding too and doesn’t hurt either. I’m fine.
Ruki: Really? Show it to me.
*Rustle*
Ruki: ...The bleeding has indeed stopped. I hope it doesn’t leave any scars though.
Yui: ...
Ruki: ...What are you making that weird expression for?
Yui: Uhm...
Ruki: If you’ve got something on your mind, spit it out.
Yui: Well...You usually don’t really care about marks left behind by sucking my blood.
But you seem to be rather worried about this one in particular...
Ruki: ...Of course. Those are two different things.
Between scars left behind by others and those who I have engraved in your body myself.
Bite marks are like a sign of possession. However...The one on this arm doesn’t signify anything.
Even by looking at it like this...It only reminds me of the fact I let you get hurt.
Yui: Ruki-kun...
ăƒŒ A flyer flies their way
*Flip*
Yui: ...Huh? A piece of paper came flying our way...
Ruki: One of the clowns is handing them out over there. I assume the wind blew it this way.
*Flip*
Ruki: It seems to be some sort of announcement...
‘Welcome to Top of Croquembouche’ (1)...?
Yui: ( Top of Croquembouche...? )
ăƒŒ Somebody runs up to them
Park staff member: Excuse me! Did a flyer happen to fly this way?
Ruki: You’re referring to this?
Park staff member: Aah, exactly! The wind blew it away...Ah, but I suppose you can keep it!
Yui: Uhm, what exactly is ‘Top of Croquembouche’?
Park staff member: It’s the sky terrace you can see over there!
As you can read on the flyer, they offer various services, so please drop by if you get the chance to!
ăƒŒ The staff member leaves
Ruki: ...
...Let’s go, Yui.
Yui: Eh? Where are we going...?
ăƒŒ Ruki walks away
Yui: Ah! Ruki-kun, wait!
ăƒŒ She runs after him
ăƒŒăƒŒ TO BE CONTINUED ăƒŒăƒŒ
Translation notes
(1) Croquembouche is a traditional French dessert usually served at parties and celebrations. It’s made out of several choux creams which are all stacked into the shape of a tower.
← RETURN TO CHAPTER 2
→ PROCEED WITH MAIN STORY [CHAPTER 4]
→ SUB-SCENARIO #1 [W/AYATO]
→ SUB-SCENARIO #2 [W/ SUBARU]
→ SUB-SCENARIO #3 [W/ KOU]
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votederpycausemufins · 4 years ago
Text
*arrives with a cup of hot cocoa instead of coffee* oh hey, you know you guys have been waiting long enough. Here’s the captain. Just ignore the Mumbo in the background having a crisis
@petrichormeraki
Grian regretted going through the portal almost immediately as a wave of nausea hit him. “Are you okay mister grain?” he gave a weak laugh at Crumb already figuring out that nickname.
“Yeah, just didn’t expect this place to be so charged with Vault God energy. Oof, no wonder I can’t remember anything. Can you try sending a message to Tommy?”
“Ye ye ye!” Crumb replied before tapping away at her own communicator. She stopped, jumping as someone wearing a white mask with a black symbol on it landed in front of them.
“Heyyyy!” Grian pointed finger guns at the Watcher that landed in front of him.
“Xelqua. What are you doing here?”
Grian frowned, recognizing the voice. “Ugh, Lynn
 Look, I’m just here for my family and a friend of Tommy’s. I didn’t know it was going to be this bad.” He fumbled as Lynn threw an identical mask to the one she was wearing to him. He put it on and felt relief as it helped stabilize him a bit, though he could feel it activating his Watcher powers further. “If you know where they are, I can be on my way.”
“Fine, try not to take too long.” She gave Grian some directions before leaving.
Grian went to pick up Crumb, but found her looking a little scared. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Well, when me and Tubbox was getting flown away by the big bird, it made a portal dat looks like dat.” She pointed at Grian’s mask.
“Oh, yeah that bird was probably me. It was very much on accident though as you can see that is not happening this time.”
Crumb stared at him, half surprised, half skeptical, but mostly confused. “Are you a shape shifter like me den?”
Grian chuckled. “Nope, just an avian. Okay maybe not just. I was born an avian and then made into a Watcher, and to show off power they get wicked cool forms that sort of reflect who they are. Since a good number of Watchers are human based in origin, they basically turn into what people think of as angels. That’s
 actually probably where those came from.” Grian shrugged. “Eh, who knows, it was who knows how long ago. Let’s just go find your friends.”
When Grian walked into the building Tommy was hiding out in, he got stabbed. He knew that it made sense, but he couldn’t help but look down at the sword. “Ugh, not again.”
His voice seemed to help the others figure out who he was. “Grian?”
“Hi Tommy! Sorry if I scared you. It’s just I kinda need to wear this mask or else I’ll feel sick and drunk at the same time or something.”
“Tommy an’ Tubbox!” Crumb jumped at the pair when she saw them, shifting to a hybrid form midair and then hugging them.
“Crumb!” Tubbo hugged her first. “Are you doing okay?”
“Ye ye ye!”
“Everything should be okay here soon guys. I’ve got some friends who are definitely going to take care of Dream for you guys once and for all. At the same time, I talked and we’re really going to make a permanent connection between here and Hermitcraft so you can visit all the time. Admin duties will be shared between the servers, but X said he won’t step on any toes, it’s just as a precaution.”
Tommy crossed his arms. “And what are you doing about your boyfriend?”
Grian hesitated at the lack of Tommy using Mumbo’s name. “You mean Mumbo? I mean, he’s a disgusting mess after barely sleeping and eating taking care of me, but I’m sure he’ll get better. Unless you’re concerned about how he was after being here, because again, bit of a mess but he’ll be fine.”
“Not going to get upset at me coming back?”
That really made Grian pause. What was Tommy talking about? “What do you mean Tommy?”
Tommy didn’t respond, just getting so angry he could barely say anything, so Tubbo answered for him. “Just before Mumbo left with you, he yelled at Tommy. He sort of said he wished Tommy never showed up in your world.”
Grian frowned. “Well, you’re fine to come back. I’ll make sure he has a stern talking to. Come on, let’s go back to the portal.” Grian then looked over where Techno and Philza were playing a game of
 well Grian wasn’t sure, but it looked like some kind of board game. “You can come too if you want.”
Philza shook his head. “No. Whatever Dream did turned Wilbur back into a ghost, so someone showed up and took him away to fix that. We’re going to wait here until he’s back to normal.”
“Oh, alright then. Well, don’t be a stranger or anything. C’mon kids!”
“Hey! I’m not a kid!” Tommy complained, just making Grian ruffle his hair.
“Were it not for the laws of this land, that being you’re literally my brother, I might have adopted you. Also if we maybe had a few more years between us.”
Grian dropped off the trio at Tommy’s tower before flying to Mumbo’s base. He set his mask down on a table and then walked to where Mumbo’s bedroom was, surprised to hear the shower still running as he passed the bathroom. Grian paused and knocked on the door. “Mumbo, when you’re done in there, we need to have a chat. I’ll be waiting by the counter.”
Grian sat down on the ledge in front of the life counter of Mumbo’s base after feeding it an apple. He stared out at the jungle, waiting for Mumbo to arrive. He finally heard the redstone walk up behind him and then started to address him. “Mumbo, look. Tommy told me you-” He turned to look at Mumbo who was dripping wet. It was like someone pushed him into a pool while he was wearing his suit. “Mumbo why are you all wet?”
“You said to take a shower.” Mumbo said like how he currently looked was the most normal thing in the world.
“I didn’t mean in your clothes! Oh my god, go get changed!”
“I thought you wanted to talk?”
“We can do that after you’re dry!”
Mumbo was quiet before speaking again. “You know I don’t really have another suit.”
“You have your bamboo one!”
Again, he was quiet for a worryingly long time before he just sat down next to Grian. “Can we just talk and get this over with?”
Grian was reluctant and nodded. “Tommy said you yelled at him.”
“I know
 I was upset. A lot of things had just happened and with everyone with amnesia, I was really the only one who was able to do much. And Dream had messed with you so I was angry. I barely got to sleep, and we had just had a war with that guy and we were all over the place and I just sort of
 lost it.” Mumbo started to lean on Grian’s shoulder, but quickly stopped himself. “Through all this, you’ve been focused a lot on Tommy and your family, and everything else, but you weren’t really
”
“Oh Mumbo. Why didn’t you say anything?” Grian realized what Mumbo meant.
“Well, I sort of knew Tommy was sort of the priority. Plus you had a lot on your plate. I didn’t want to put more on there.”
Grian nuzzled against Mumbo’s chest, not noticing how he stiffened up. “Mumbo, I’m not going to stop loving you. I’m just going to have love for my family too. You know how we hermits need to be there for each other, and Tommy is a hermit too.”
“Yeah
”
When their comms buzzed, Mumbo gave a small sigh as Grian sat up to look at the message. He saw there were actually a few he had missed and laughed a little at them. “Looks like Crumb’s dad is looking for her but he was told he’s at my mansion. I’m going to fly over there and take him to Tommy’s tower since that’s where I left them. If you want we can talk more later.”
“Go deal with them first. And can you tell Tommy what I said?”
Grian nodded and then flew off to his mansion. He quickly arrived since it wasn’t too far even on foot. “Hellooo? Crumb’s dad? You in here?” He called out before spotting an unfamiliar man. “Oh, hey there. Sorry that Crumb’s not here. She’s actually at Tommy’s tower. I can take you there if you want.” Grian stood there as the man in front of him stayed quiet with his back turned to the avian. “Uh, hello?” He then put a hand on the man’s shoulder.
Sparklez jumped slightly, shocked out of his train of thought before he whirled around and saw Grian.
“Hi! Sorry if I scared you. Crumb’s not here, but I can take you to her.”
“Is
 Do you live here?”
Grian nodded. He must not have seen many of the other bases. “Yup! Built the mansion myself. Why?”
Grian’s eyes widened as the man held up a lost child poster. “Where did you get this?”
“Uh, that’s from my old world. The kid’s not mine though. Just sort of-”
Grian was cut off by Sparklez. “I know he’s not your kid. He’s mine!”
“Oh my god you’re the captain.”
“Yeah, I am. People don’t normally call me that.”
Grian just grabbed Jordan’s arm. “No, argh! I mean
 Tubbo’s here! Your kid is here! They’re with Crumb and Tommy right now.”
“You mean
 that kid
 with the green shirt, red bandana. That’s him? The whole time that was him?”
“Oh great, looks like you’ve seen him already. That should make things less awkward. Even more of a reason to go over to the tower. Let’s go!” Grian grabbed Sparklez and pulled him over to an ender chest to hand him some spare elytra and rockets. After he had put the wings on, they both got into the air and then flew to the tower.
When they landed, Grian had to hold Jordan back because he looked like he was about to tear the tower apart. “Hey Tommy!” Grian shouted up to the tower. “Are you guys still there?” When the blond called back in affirmation, Grian shouted again. “Can you three come down here? It’s important!”
“Give me a second! I need to grab some more elytra. Hey can you remind me to change the floor 2 elevator to a down tomorrow?”
“We’ll see. Might be busy for us then.”
In a few moments, Tommy was gliding down with Tubbo, Crumb in Tommy’s arms. Crumb was the first to see Sparklez and frowned. “Aw myan
 do I have to leave?”
Her dad didn’t answer as he half stumbled towards them and then held Tubbo in a bone crushing hug.
“Ah! What’s going on?” Tubbo, having no context was confused.
Sheepishly, Grian gave the answer. “So remember how you said you went missing when you were little and couldn’t find your dad? I found a missing person’s poster? Well, Crumb’s dad is the one who made that poster
 making him your dad too.”
Everything was silent as everyone comprehended the news, Sparklez just holding Tubbo close and not wanting to let go, but finally Tubbo half screamed from being so surprised. “He’s whAT?!”
Mumbo sat in his room, still dripping wet. He knew he could just go sit in front of some lava or stand in the nether for a while if he felt daring, but instead he was just sitting in his room leaving a puddle behind. He wasn’t sure why he set up an ice mirror, but there it was, waiting for him to take his shirt off.
He just stared at himself, trying to will himself to move, but it just wasn’t working. So he tried talking to his mirror self. “Alright Mumbo. Stop acting like a spoon and just look. It’s going to be there. He was lying and Grian seemed fine when he left. They’re supposed to stay forever. A few years won’t do anything to it.”
Still, Mumbo didn’t move, he just kept staring. “Fine, if that’s how we’re going to do it, I’ll just go ahead!” He closed his eyes and took his tie and jacket off. His hands trembled as he got to the buttons of his dress shirt, but then he steeled himself and undid two of them, pulling his left arm out of the sleeve. There was no hiding it now. He would open his eyes and right there, on the skin just under his clavicle, Mumbo would see it.
The redstoner took a deep breath and opened his eyes, looking into the mirror. He was staring at his face and now where he should, but it was hard to look away. No, he told himself. He had to look and put this all past him. He shifted his gaze and his heart dropped. It was gone, like it had never been there at all.
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murdereraisuha · 4 years ago
Text
Final Chapter 5 Reflection
This will have my personal opinion/thoughts on:
The VDC outcome, Rook’s actions, and what could’ve made it better
The Rook reveal and Neige
Kalim, Jamil, and Epel’s development
The Grim scene
Total word count: 2134 words
--- 1 ---
So, RSA won the VDC. My feelings on this are mixed.
Looking at it in relation to the whole plot of TWST, it makes sense. It moves the chance for NRC to finally beat RSA to the upcoming magift tournament, which gives NRC’s potential victory a large amount of excitement/importance which it wouldn’t get from this middle of the year championship.
Furthermore, Rook’s actions do make sense based on his personality. If Vil really didn’t believe that he himself was beautiful, Rook of course would vote for the team that exhibited pure joy in their performance and therefore exhibited a heartfelt beauty. It would be a lie to vote for NRC, and it would disgrace both Rook and Vil. Rook’s actions plot wise also lead to the discussion about Vil valuing himself vs seeking value from others, which I think is a crucial thing for Vil to remember. While trying to gain recognition for hard work is good, and Vil certainly does deserve recognition, it’s much more important to maintain a good perception of yourself even when things happen or people wrongfully say things that might tear down your self-esteem
However, I still have issues with how this played out in relation to the plot of chapter 5. It’s unrealistic for all of Vil’s misgivings about himself to get fixed through the power of friendship and beating each other up. But, still, the team went through a lot in order to get to the championship united and ready to perform. It feels like a slap in the face for them to lose after all that. Especially the scene with Kalim and Epel crying while Ya Hoo cheerfully plays in the background, it's so comically dissonant. Though we already got an explanation from Vil about how Neige’s performance appeals to viewers, I was still shocked. At least it was a close competition rather than a crushing defeat. 
Also, while Rook’s message was sound, the timing was rather bad. Vil and the rest of the team just had a massive battle and then went through a whole song & dance performance without major blunders while still injured. Focusing on Vil’s self-esteem there makes it seem like Rook is just brushing all that determination and effort away. Though Vil doesn’t seem to truly hold it against Rook since he offers the handkerchief back to Rook when he cries, the situation still feels off.
In conclusion, I think that the plot events made sense. However, the execution of them could have been improved. As is, it’s hard to understand Rook’s motivations in this part due to the ridiculousness of RSA’s kid’s song winning. To fix that without just completely overhauling the plot, I believe that the admirable qualities of Neige and the dwarves should have been shown more clearly. For example, while the Pomefiore CM shows a glimpse of their bond, that’s nonexistent in the game. I think that incorporating that into the game (ex. a short scene of Neige reassuring the dwarves that their performance will go well before they step on stage) would help people understand Rook’s point of view better by showing instead of just telling us about the belief Neige has in his friends.. 
Moreover, alongside better reasons for why Rook choose RSA, I think it should be clearer why he did not choose NRC. It seems an attempt at warning of the “betrayal” was done with Vil menacingly saying he’ll win the VDC during the voting, followed by the shot of Rook just going “........”.  To make this less sudden, I think I would change episode 66. Though that episode has Vil saying that he’s ugly, because the team contradicts him and keeps him as the leader it makes it seem like the problem is solved there. Therefore, to better lead to Rook’s speech, I would change episode 66 to have Vil show more hesitation and signs that he still doesn’t believe in himself. 
--- 2 ---
Anyway, on to the reveal about Rook. I wasn’t sure what to think about the name slip up during the previous part, but I just guessed that maybe they’d met before and that meeting is related to RSA and Rook having light magic. Nope, we get Neige simp Rook. I think this reveal was really surprising, but more in a funny way than a “ruins Rook’s character” way. It’s nice to see Rook seriously caught off guard by Neige just nonchalantly exposing him in front of everyone, and everyone’s reactions were extremely funny.
I think that the chapter did a decent job of making it clear that Rook’s relationship with Neige as a fan of him is vastly different from Rook’s calm admiration of and friendship with Vil. I’m kind of curious now about how and when Rook became a fan though. Him being the 2nd member of the fan club implies that Rook found Neige when Neige still hadn’t gotten much fame yet. 
I loved everyone’s Ya Hoo too. Ace and Jamil having level 0 enthusiam, Kalim and Rook having level 1000 enthusiasm, Deuce being startled but slowly getting into it but still being kind of eh, Epel just keeping that wide-eyed confused expression the whole time. ăƒœăƒŒăƒ†ă€ïŒ‘ïŒïŒç‚č. For Vil, I understand that he was probably faking his big smile for the benefit of the audience. However, I still hope his opinion of Neige has improved somewhat or will improve. Neige telling Vil that he’s still number one in the eyes of the people who voted for him was really sweet and their interactions with each other are pretty cute/funny when Vil isn’t trying to murder him.
Unlike other minor characters like Chenya and Farena who either weren’t involved in the plot or were only involved as backstory, Neige is Vil’s present rival and motivation for doing the stuff he does and over blotting. With such a large presence that continued all throughout the chapter and the Rook reveal, it would seem strange for Neige to suddenly drop out of existence come chapter 6.
Therefore, assuming that the Grim situation doesn’t derail the current patterns we’ve seen in the story, I think that Neige will be included as part of the Pomefiore involvement in chapter 6. Of course, it could be something small like getting called in for a favor near the end or just mentions of Rook continuing to write him fan letters. However, I’m hoping it’s something larger. From my analysis of the previous part:
Vil’s team’s performance had a lot of cohesion and rehearsal put into it, but it was very competitive focused. On the other hand, Neige and the dwarves obviously had a lot of fun with their performance. However, it was clumsy and they were ill prepared. Therefore, Vil could teach Neige more discipline and planning while Neige could teach Vil about how to not lose sight of finding joy in your work. 
Now that we have confirmation that Neige is a genuinely nice guy, I really want Vil & Neige friendship to happen, or for them to at least be on good terms with each other. It might just be my personal love for relationships where one person tries to be all rival-y but then the other is like “nope, I’m going to friend you whether you like it or not,” but I think this sort of development in the story of TWST would be really enjoyable to watch.
--- 3 ---
For the performance of Absolutely Beautiful, I love that Jamil got to be in the center for a bit. However, that also just makes me more disappointed that we didn’t get more Scarabia or anything about how their families are watching this. With the stuff in 5-30 and 5-34 focusing on Kalim’s perspective on things and his relationship with Jamil, I thought that at some point we would get a final scene focusing on them and how they’ve developed since chapter 4. What we got with  Jamil swooping in to the rescue with the magic carpet then talking about how he could sense that Kalim was about to do something stupid was better than nothing, but idk. I just love the writing and complexity these two have gotten and I wanted that to continue to the end. I still have hope though! If we can get a thing about Leona noticing the traces of magic in the arena, then we can get future appearances from the Scarabia boys too!... please...
Now, for Epel, I also have mixed feelings about his development throughout the chapter. I absolutely loved the beach scene with Deuce and Epel, it was so cute and I liked Epel realizing the power of beauty because of the apple juice Magicam post. However, I think the narrative missed something important. Though Epel’s views had a lot of improvement to be made, Vil’s treatment of him was also terrible and should have been addressed. I believe Vil saying that “throwing a tantrum and taking it out on others was terrible of him” in episode 66 implies that he’s realized that all his actions, not just the overblot, were wrong. However, it’s not clear enough that that was the intention. Vil does not apologize specifically for how he attempted to force Epel to conform to his own beliefs. Though there’s always chapter 6, it still doesn’t seem like the story will ever really address this issue, which is a shame to say the least.
Furthermore, in this final part, Epel offering to take the center position was really good and showed how much he’s grown since the beginning of the chapter. However, it still didn’t bring the whole “poison apple” thing to fruition. Absolutely no one made any comment on his cuteness or how it might rival Neige’s cuteness. Did they plan something with that but scraped it? Like, this is way too little pay off for such a focus on Vil shaping Epel into a way to best Neige. My disappointment with this ending might have to do with these past 3 main story updates being the only ones I’ve been in this fandom for, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Whatever the cause of my disappointment may be, my disappointment still does exist.
--- 4 ---
To top off this roller coaster of a chapter and end this reflection with a more neutral analysis, we have the stuff with Mickey and Grim. Mickey seems really nice, I’m glad that Yuu seems to have made an ally in him. We certainly need one after whatever the hell just happened with Grim. I really have to give props for how unsettling both Grim’s appearance and the sounds during that scene were.
Though we’re obviously getting close to the endgame, the Ignihyde sneak peak that we got seems pretty normal and related to their personal problems rather than the plot. Though it would be interesting for a big change to happen like Yuu being out of commission for the chapter, I think it’s more likely that Yuu will be rescued, Grim just goes missing, then we don’t get much more info on that whole thing until the end of chapter 6 leading into chapter 7.
Anyway, for the scene itself I understand if it just because silent protagonist, don’t want to make them talk/do too much, but it feels kind of weird that there wasn’t really any indication of a struggle? Just standing there, staring at Grim, getting clawed, then black out. Nothing to indicate trying to step back. There was some weird clopping??? sound after he attacked but since the camera didn’t move that wasn’t Yuu collapsing.
Also, it might just be supposed to be “Grim’s laugh but creepy,” but his ă‚±ăƒ’ăƒƒă€ ă‚±ăƒ’ăƒ’ăƒƒ laughter sounds unusually distinctive? Idk, I just had the thought that it could be in reference to some other disney character with a similar laugh but idk who that would be since I’m not big into disney movies.
Right before he attacks, Grim also shouts “this is my stone!!!” Firstly, assuming that this stone is the same small size as the others, shouldn’t he already be done eating it? Yuu’s not exactly gonna stick their hand down his throat to retrieve it. So what stone is he talking about?
Well, we know that the magic crystal on the magic pens is supposed to collect blot so that it doesn’t built up inside someone, right? Blot accumulated from outright eating it instead of blot accumulated from casting magic is probably different, but what if some of the blot from the black stones did get gathered up by Grim’s crystal on his collar? We know how crazed he has been getting about the black stones. Is it so much of a stretch to think that he might be trying for more? That he might be trying to create instead of just find? 
How would a black magic crystal taste?
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kumoriyami-xiuzhen · 4 years ago
Text
Hakuoki Shinkai Hana no Shou Drama CD - What I Believe In
Special thanks to @nollatooru for volunteering as tribute and extracting the text for this drama since there's no way I would written out the text for this anytime soon... or translated this otherwise. this will be only hakuoki drama i translate this month (currently subtitling dramas).
as always, final edits will be done when I get to the video.
Also, i’m sooooo happy right now!!!!
Feeeling supeeeerrrrrrrrrrr excited for the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect games!!!!!! Saw the new teasers from the Game Awards and i still feel over the moon about them! when those games get released, I’m definitely going to be doing nothing aside from playing them... sorry but not sorry? 
lol. i suppose that brings the count of games i’ll put aside all my free time for to four.... tho that would have been 5 (also I would be gaming right now) if I had access to a ps4 right now since Im still waiting to play Cyberpunk 2077. i can’t play that since im lending both the console and my game to my bro right now... and probably won’t get to play it until post-pandemic. ah well.
And I can’t believe Suzuki Shogo is going back to playing Kazama in hakumyu souma-hen! he’s honestly my fave actor from hakumyu!!
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anyway, enjoy!
bold text used to indicate something being spoken in the background.
Hakuoki Shinkai Hana no Shou Store Bonus Drama CD: What I believe in
Translation by KumoriYami
Saito: Nn. This is quite good. Such an excellent blade is hardly ever/rarely seen. There are few blades that have been polished to this brightness [reword later. can't figure out how right now]. I'd really like to have/get a closer look at it.
Sakamoto: Oh...? That's a familiar face/a face I recognize/seen before.
Saito: ...! You are.... Sakamoto Ryouma.
Sakamoto: Oh, you remember me!
Saito: People everywhere want your life/There are people after your life everywhere. What are you doing in a place like this?
Sakamoto: well, I'm basically on a walk. Why don't you focus on what you were looking at?
Saito: I was the one who first asked a question.
Sakamoto: Calm down, don't put on such a scary expression/make such a terrible expression. Were you looking at this katana just now?
Saito: Ah, yes.
Sakamoto: Ah! It really is a good katana.... it's understandable why you were fascinated by it.
Saito: Do you know what a katana is/anything about swords?
Sakamoto: Don't look down on me/underestimate me. I was a disciple of Hokushin Ittƍ-ryĆ«.
Saito: I see. So that's how you're not lacking in this [So that's why you know about the subject/this].
Sakamoto: Well, it doesn't matter.
The future will be for these guys/From now on will the time/age of this guy.
Saito: Guns/A gun.
Sakamoto: Oh. These weapons are the best.
Saito:...Do you mean to say that it's better than a katana/than the sword [check audio later]?
Sakamoto: That's for sure.
No matter how famous the sword, it's like a baby [might change to 'child'] in face of a gun.
So/That's to say that guns are really quite powerful.
Saito: Indeed/It's true that Western guns are outstanding/excellent [check audio for pacing]. Even if that's the case though, that's not to say that swords cannot be compared with guns/ it's not appropriate to assume that a sword is no match for a gun
Sakamoto: Don't get so upset. I also appreciate/value swords, but the era of guns is imminent. That's an indisputable fact.
Saito: No one has ever decided that is fact.
Sakamoto: Eh. It will be difficult for samurai to accept this, but in order to establish a new Japan, guns will be essential. This is guy is my best trusted partner [reword later].
Saito: Is that all you want/have to say?
Sakamoto: That expression looks like you're going to cut someone down [You look you're going to cut someone down/something?]. Nn, in that case, tell me why swords are better than guns.
Saito: Fine. The katana is the soul of a warrior, only by wearing it at the waist---
Sakamoto: Hold it/Wait
Saito: Why are you telling me to stop?
Sakamoto: The spiritual aspects don't matter. Tell me how it's better than a gun
Saito: It doesn't/won't matter what is said/you say.
Sakamoto: Aaah, I also agree with that. But even if I agree, I'll put that aside for now. Right now, I want to ask you to compare the usefulness between swords and guns. 
Saito: Nn. In that case... First of all, swords are better. Regardless of what is said, they can be used in a variety of/many ways. 
Sakamoto: Oh.
Saito: Swords aren't like guns in how they don't rely on bullets to be used. In contrast to how guns can only be used in one way, swords can be used to slash, stab, and so on, [with] different combat techniques that can be adopted to different situations.
Sakamoto: Nn.
Saito: During a fight unexpected things may happen, but even if something unexpected happens, they can be quickly dealt with. 
Sakamoto: Nnnnn. There will be situations where you have no bullets too. But when you're dealing with multiple enemies, don't you think that guns would hold the advantage in wiping them out? 
Saito: uh.
Sakamoto: Furthermore, unlike swords, they can be used to fire from a distance. [check spacing]
Saito: Then don't fight on unfavourable terrain.
Sakamoto: Really, what a stubborn guy. Is there anything else?
Saito: There is how lethal a sword is.
Sakamoto: hey hey [check audio], [you're] saying such a terrible thing so suddenly.
Saito: It's difficult for a bullet to hit a moving enemy. Even if it hits, it is difficult to actually kill or incapacitate them. However, a sword can be used to take another person's life with only a single blow. The importance of this advantage cannot be compared.
Sakamoto: If you're going to say that, then a bullet to the chest, the abdomen or head, will certainly kill. Not only that, there's still a secret I haven't told you yet.
Saito: don't beat around the bush and and tell me.
Sakamoto: hey, you seem interested/looks like you're interested.
Saito: [That's only] Because you're so roundabout.
Sakamoto: Don't worry, I'll tell you. The best thing about this gun, is that it is capable of firing six times. 
Saito: So what about that?
Sakamoto: That firing six times in a row/six rounds/bullets! Don't you think that's great/that'll be hard to deal with?
Saito: That's no different than holding six guns.
Sakamoto: That being said, it's actually impossible to walk around carrying six guns. But this single gun is able to be carried around on one's person. You don't think that's great [check audio for sakamoto earlier sentence]
Nagakura: Saito.... and Sakamoto? Why are you with a guy like this?
Saito: Shinpachi. I met him by chance before leaving.
Nagakura: Incidentally, well, it doesn't look like you're casually talking anyway/just chatting. 
Sakamoto: Oh, you're also in the Shinsengumi. We're actually talking about what weapon is better between swords and guns. What do you think?
Nagakura: So that's it/I see. The Saito is supporting the sword while Sakamoto is in favour of the gun? Although I have a rough idea about what's going on, you're [plural so may change to guys. check audio] too naĂŻve.
Sakamoto: What do you mean by that?
Saito: How are we naĂŻve?
Nagakura: Regardless if you use a sword or a gun, there's something even more important than both of those.
Saito + Sakamoto: What?
Nagakura: Hm.. don't you get it?
Sakamoto: That's to say... 
Nagakura: Exercise to have a body like steel. Look at this remarkable body [check pacing]
Saito: Shinpachi, this the street. [we're on a street outside right now]
Nagakura: This was the fastest way to show you the benefits of exercising.
Sakamoto: Hrm. It's true that your body is pretty amazing, yes, but firing a gun doesn't rely on this sort of thing. 
Saito: Swords too, they shouldn't be randomly waved around with brute force.
Nagakura: Oi, why are you agreeing on such a thing.
Sakamoto: Even if you say that, well....
Nagakura: Hold it/Wait a sec. I also don't think that just having a body and weapon [check audio for "ken" or "juu"] is enough to confront the enemy/I also don't think you could fight against a sword or gun with only a physical body. But, regardless of what you do, it's necessary to train one's body/exercise.
Sakamoto: I see. That's something you'd know/understand.
Nagakura: Of course/That's for sure. Furthermore if studying/practising swordsmanship, you'll also exercise your body, right?
Sakamoto: Indeed, that is exercising a bit.
Saito: Practising swordsmanship can also be considered exercise.
Nagakura: Nn, right. Exercise for the/your body is the foundation of everything
Sakamoto: Hey, has this guy always ben like this? Nagakura: Speaking of which/By the way, training your body/exercising...
Saito: Ah Shinpachi will not stop talking about subject for a while Nagakura: The key is to eat well and getting enough sleep, and all that's left is to believe in your body
Sakamoto: That is troublesome/inconvenient. We're only halfway through our argument. Nagakura: Don't think that's the entire secret to how I train myself.
Saito: It doesn't matter if you continue arguing about it./I don't care if you want to continue arguing this. Nagakura: To tell you the truth, the secret to how I train my body/exercise is....
Sakamoto: No, not today. But even if we don't argue, the imminent age will demand an answer. Then I'll be going [check audio]. I had a good time talking with you.
Saito: a reckless guy as always. [check audio for spacing]
Nagakura: Nn, where's sakamoto/where did sakamoto go?
Saito: he already left/he left earlier/left a while ago.
Nagakura: what? i was going to talk about the highlights next/I was going to talk about the best parts next [ check audio].
Saito: Will the coming era provide an answer? even so, I still believe in this/it.
Nagakura: Nn, did you say something just now?
Saito: It's nothing/No. Shinpachi, let's go.
Nagakura: Oh, alright.
Saito Hajime, Toriumi Kƍsuke Nagakura Shinpachi, Tsuboi Tomohiro Sakamoto Ryouma, Ono Daisuke
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image from suruga-ya
For the record, the games I’m waiting for are: Dragon Age 4, the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Horizon Forbidden West, and whatever new Mass Effect title that is being worked on.
(i think i had to much good news in the last few hours. been smiling like an idiot for three hours now as i subtitle something lol.)
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