#and in the end the real time loop was the friends we made along the way and the world really only ended because she got them to prevent it

[mortellanarts]

I hadn't read the ztd prologue in a while but I'm midway through writing my fic that could benefit from that knowledge so I finally got around to it with some of my friends and I firstly did not recall Sigma losing his cool that quickly but also the only canonical interaction this Sigma has with this Akane being "Swear future you will not lie to past me about how the end of the world goes down" and her essentially lying about not lying is so good and Phi being just as mad at him as Akane but otherwise staying off to the side oough the dynamics at play there

[nanivinsmoke]

✩ Both Ain’t Shit

dilf!toji x fem!reader

♪ tender was the kiss when you held me captive….

he lying to me im lying to him…. ♪

warnings : features suguru geto & utahime, cheating, toji is married and has a child, age gap (late 20s late 30s), angst, cursing, break up-sex, mutual affair, slut shaming, pussy eating, blow job, face sitting, creampies, squirting, half a happy ending (?), mentions gojo and shoko, etc….

✩ notes: wc ~ 4.9k, finally gave yall a oneshot with a plot! and i seen the results for the poll for lost without you and im getting to it, dont yall worry—i got yall for real.

lying. I guess that’s what this whole relationship was made of. nothing but lies.

that’s how you ended up here, lying to him.

you hated liars, but this lie just felt so good.

“sh-sh…shit toji! please, don’t st—“ your eyes rolled back and you grinded on his face, cumming all over his scarred lips; as he sucked on your clit like he was an old person that found some butterscotch.

your legs shook, his lips still attached to your sensitive clit, working you to another orgasm; but much to your dismay his phone started to ring. you groaned and quickly removed yourself from his face, knowing exactly who was calling him at this hour.

grunting when he sat up, the older man reached and answered his phone, watching you as you began to get dressed. “yeah baby, im coming home right now….i'll pick up some diapers—alright, love you too.” he hung up, eyes focused on as you struggled to pull your light blue jeans over your ass.

“i can help you with, c’mere~” he flirted, pulling you close by your jean’s belt loop holes. you rolled your eyes and pulled away, jumping to finally get them up. “don’t you gotta get some diapers? go help with that. besides, I gotta get home before geto comes back.”

he sucked his teeth at your remark and started putting his own clothes on, ignoring his own hard on, “I don’t see why you still with him. he don’t even make you happy.”

“oh? you’re one to talk. remember why we broke up in the first place? only for you to go do what I wanted with her….” he was silent, the only thing that could be heard was the two of you moving around the apartment. both of you always came here whenever you wanted to get away from your partners, which always led to hot, sticky sex.

“oh. and don’t ask my why i'm still with him, when you’re still with her. did you forget that? cat got your tongue?” you egged on, watching his facial expression change. he slipped on his shirt and grabbed his keys, before brushing past you. “whatever, y/n.”

you turned the key into your townhouse’s door, slipping your shoes off and placing the key on the nearby island’s, marble countertop. “geto?” you yelled out, only to not receive an answer. you noticed some take out on the counter and walked over to it, while taking your phone off do not disturb—seeing a message from your boyfriend.

✩ ‘staying at gojo’s tonight, he’s having a get together with some old friends. hope you had fun at utahime’s. ordered you some dinner, goodnight my love and see you at work tomorrow’

you swallowed your guilt along with a spoonful of fried rice as you finished reading his message. a guilty heart only leads to disaster and disappointment, and right now you didn’t have time for either. you had your reasons for cheating, none of them forgivable, but you had them. one of reasons were that you were still in love with your ex. you hadn’t gotten over the breakup and yes, you should just break up with geto, but just thinking what he would say or do was killing you and you don’t think you would be able to handle that. so you stayed, cheating with the one who broke your heart.

after eating the food geto got for you, you turned on your shower and started slipping off your clothes—cringing when you peeled off your cold, sticky panties. your were soaked and flashbacks from earlier, turned you on.

you typed on your phone, sending a text message to toji’s second number and telling him how wet he made you—and that you were disappointed that he didn’t let you cum all over his dick. stepping into the shower you let the coursing hot water drip all over your body, washing away your guilt as the lust increased inside your body.

finishing your shower off with an electric ending and getting yourself ready for bed, your phone chimed with a text from toji.

✩ ‘pretty girl always wet for me. ill stretch her out soon’

your clit throbbed at his message and you quickly sent one back.

✩ ‘he’s not here tonight, you can come over and put that to fruition.’

he immediately liked the message and texted back that he was on his way. no longer than ten minutes later, he was here; wearing a black tee that hugged his muscular torso and your favorite pants of his—grey nike sweatpants. the man was fueled with need for you.

closing the door behind him, he picked you up with ease and sat you on top of your kitchen’s island; big rough hands immediately going underneath your t-shirt. his scarred lips turned up into a smirk, loving how wet you were for him and when his finger ran over your clit; he loved the way you jolted at his touch.

as toji kneeled down, you stopped him by holding his head with your hand. “toji….dont tease me—please just put it in already.~”

“shut up. if I wanna taste my pretty girl then i'm going to. she misses me—mhm” he dove straight into your middle, swiping his tongue between your slit and tasting your sweet silky fluids. you tossed your head back and gripped his raven locks as he ate you out with such precision. and when he added two of his fingers to the mix, stretching you out, it wasn’t long before you came—all over his face. you squirted, drenching his face with your sweet nectar.

this was your first time squirting for him and devilish smirk appeared on his face. “you could do that this whole time? don’t tell me, you’ve been squirting for him?” he sent a smack to your quivering cunt, making you yelp out. you and geto haven’t had sex in a while and when you guys did get in the mood, it was always something simple; like blow jobs or cock warming. maybe that’s another reason why you’re cheating…

“n-no, i guess i…—yes!—i just missed you….don’t stop toji, g’nna cum again~” he drilled his fingers back inside of you mid sentence, working another powerful orgasm out of you, ending it with the same result as before—with you squirting on him once more. he slurped up every last bit of your essence before removing himself from between your legs and pulling his gray sweatpants down—revealing his girth.

your eyes fluttered down to his cock, the glow of sticky precum on his pretty tip had your mouth salivating. “turn around,” he ordered while pumping his cock and you immediately got into his favorite position. you got on your hands and knees, ass up high in the air with your legs spread, so he could see your slick coated cunt in all its glory.

he pulled a hiss from your lips when he pushed his head through your tightness, you arched your back up too high for him, earning a smack to your plump cheeks. “lower it~” he grunted and you whined, slowly lowering your back down into the perfect arch.

“‘s..too big—shit, take some out please daddy~” you felt another stinging sensation to your ass and you whined some more. “you can take it—smack—now quit yer whining—smack—and let daddy make this cunt his again~,” with each smack, he pushed himself deeper and deeper inside of your sopping wet pussy; filing you to the brim was his cock.

he stayed like the for a moment, feelin pity on you before he pulled out and slammed himself back inside of you again; a scream crawling out of your mouth. he repeated the action, your walls clinging to him with each stroke, driving him insane. mewls spilled out of your mouth as his tip rubbed against that sensitive spongy spot, making you clench frantically around him.

“must’ve really missed me, hm? creamin all on my dick—fuck!” he held onto your hips, watching the cream build up, making his tan cock a nice shade of milky white.

the sound of your cunt squelching with each stroke drove the both of you crazy, minds fucked out with arousal. feeling that ball in your stomach increase with each pleasure-filled second. you pushed your ass back harder against him while reaching down to fondle his potent balls—egging on his orgasm. toji let out a loud grunt, his green eyes darting to your pretty face.

“so fucking good—please fill me up daddy, please~.” you begged, breathless as you looked at him from over your shoulder with hooded eyes, lashes fluttering.

“that’s what you want? want me to fill my pretty girl up—make you swollen with my seed? hm?” he pulled your head back by entangling his fingers into your hair, each stroke deepening as a result. you nodded frantically, and he pressed his lips roughly against yours, hips slamming into your ass repeadlty—clapping sounds echoing throughout the room. with each passing second and each stroke, your orgasm approached faster and faster; and you couldn’t hold back anymore.

your eyes rolled back as you gushed all over him, pushing him right out of your leaking cunt; your fluids soiling the bottom of his shirt and his sweatpants. he grabbed his throbbing cock and pushed right back into you, his pace hard and faster.

“making a mess all over my dick, just makes me want to breed your pussy some more.~” with a few more strokes, he painted your inner walls with his thick, pearly-white load, and a wave of euphoria washed over you. his cock twitched inside of you, and he grunted into your ear, pulling himself out and plunging his fingers into your sticky hole.

“gonna make you squirt over and over again, and im going to make sure there’s a kid in you by the end of the night. get that ass in the bedroom.~” he growled and helped you off the island, smacking your ass in the process.

the long, raven haired woman walked lazily over to the door, wondering who the fuck was pounding on it like a mad man, and when she opened it her face dropped. “suguru, what are you doing here?”

he leaned against the door frame smiling, letting himself into her house, kicking his shoes off by the door. “what’s the matter hime’, you didn’t miss me?” he held her by her waist, gripping her smaller backside into his hands. utahime shook her head, lying, stepping back to readjust her robe.

“you shouldn’t be here. does y/n know you’re here?” she asked, folding her arms underneath her breasts. he pulled her over to her brown soft sofa, and sat her on his lap, “no, does she know you liked to be fucked raw by her boyfriend?” her honey brown eyes widened and she looked elsewhere. “no…”

utahime was your best friend since forever, she kept your secrets and you kept her’s. she was your scapegoat when you wanted to go see toji, she considered herself to be a girls girl, despite sleeping with your boyfriend every other night. this little secret relationship started when geto popped up at her house one time, looking for you because you left your work badge at home. but, when he didn’t see your car outside and you weren’t inside either, he realized that you had lied.

it didn’t take long for him to put two and two together, and he figured out that you were lying from the start. he didn’t know what you were doing nor did he care, he just knew you had hurt him by lying. utahime took pity to him that night, she didn’t give you up, but she still felt for him. she hated seeing him hurt, and the way his eyes lost emotion, pained her. so, she pitied him in the best way she knew how; sex.

and here she was, about to pity him again for the third night in a row. she looked into his eyes and pressed her lips against his, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see his. she pulled away, a wave of heat washed over her and a trail of spit followed, she was breathless. utahime undid her robe, revealing her beautiful nude body. “make love to me geto~”

and that’s what he did, for the rest of the night, until sunrise.

“class is dismissed! papers are due friday and there will be no assignments for the weekend. see you until then!” you dismissed your class, watching the room empty out before you turned to dust off your chalkboard.

the muscular male eased into your lecture hall, tip toeing his way down, so you wouldn’t hear him; standing at the bottom to watch how good your ass looked in your pencil skirt, jiggling as you struggled to reach the top of the blackboard.

“need some help?” toji’s deep voice alerted you, making you stumble and drop the chalk filled eraser—causing the powder to fly everywhere. he chuckled and watched your pretty face turn into a frown. he was now in front of you and helped you dust off your outfit, sneaking in some loving grabs to your boobs.

“what are you doing here?” accepting his kiss as he pulled you over to him while he sat on the edge of your desk, his huge hands caressing your heavy backside. “got time for a quickie?~” he flirted, lips contorted in his infamous smirk. as you opened your mouth to reply, his phone began to ring and he reached back to answer it.

“what’s the matter, baby?” you pushed his hands off of you and your face contorted with disgust. you were jealous and that was a fact, his wife had everything you had ever wanted. she had his last name and his child, and she didn’t understand why he didn’t choose her?

toji stayed on the phone with his wife for a few more minutes, before he told her that he had to get back to work. he turned and saw the look on your face, and his softened.

“why’d you choose her, toji? your voice cracked as you spoke, while tears threatened to leave your eyes. he didn’t have a reason, he never did. so, he did what he did best, deflect.

“don’t start that again. you’re still in a relationship with him, dragging it on knowing there’s only one possible outcome for you two. the relationship is dead, y/n?”

“oh? but your’s isn’t? and don’t tell me nothing about mines when you keep coming back to me, when you’re supposed to be with her right? the woman you claim to love?! you gave her everything toji. I love you, how am I supposed to feel?” you were now bawling your eyes out, poking his chest with outrage, all while you poured your heart out. he didn’t know what to say to you, left speechless. you were right after all.

your phone chimed and you looked at the smart watch on your wrist, checking the notification. wiping your tears away, you went inside your desk’s wooden drawer and pulled out your purse.

“I don’t have time for this…do me a favor and just…stop pulling me back in, just for it to end up the same.”

you sat down with your best friend and boy friend, at a nearby restaurant, agreeing to meet them for lunch. it had been a while since you were all together, however there was one missing.

“where’s satoru?” you asked, picking at your noodles as you spoke—your mind still stuck on what happened between you and toji. you couldn’t help but to look at geto with soft eyes. for the first time you didn’t swallow you guilt, instead you let it through. you were sorry and thought about telling him everything.

“he’s busy flirting with some girl, as always.” utahime said with an eye roll, causing you to chuckle. you scanned your best friend’s face and noticed a bruise on her neck.

“utahime, is that a hickey i see!” you pointed out with a smile on your face. the girl blushed and felt her neck, sharing a look with geto before the two looked away. but, you caught that. and the longer you stared at the two, it dawned on you. as much as you wanted to scream, and curse the two of them out, you couldn’t. outing them right now with no evidence would only backfire. you had to play it safe.

you sent a smile to geto and held the top of his hand, a fake smile plastered onto your face. all the guilt you had washed away.

on the way home, you thought about what you saw. your best friend and your boyfriend? that was the worst thing to ever happen to you. yeah, you were the first one to step out of your relationship with geto, but you weren’t fucking his best friend. that was a different type of low.

you couldn’t believe utahime, after everything you both been through. she was more than your best friend, she was like your sister. you thought she had your back like you had hers, but it was clear that—that wasn’t the case. she was going to get hers, the both of them. however, for now only one of them were going to be punished.

you were fresh out of the shower, wearing a grey t-shirt and a navy blue thong; your hair laid freely in its natural state. you looked at geto, as he sat on your king sized bed and shook your head. you crawled on the bed and over to him, hovering over him; gaining his full attention. he smiled and leaned in for a kiss, but you pulled back and shook your head. he rose and eyebrow and watched as you grinded against his clothed crotch, reaching to hold your hips, but you swatted them.

he didn’t deserve to touch you. this wasn’t intimacy, this was goodbye. this was his punishment.

you rolled your hips, staring into his purplish eyes, biting your lip when you felt his boner poking your cunt. he watched as you pulled his boxers down and turned around, sliding your panties to the side—positing himself at your sodden entrance, before you lowered yourself down on him. he groaned, you were so tight; it had been a while for the two of you.

you rocked your hips before bending over slightly, your ass in view; as you began to ride him. you had to bite your lip to stop yourself from moaning, he didn’t deserve to know how good he felt, how wet you were. he could tell something was wrong with you, the way you moved without looking back at him or letting him touch you. however, he wasn’t going to say anything, instead he laid back and watched as your ass collided with his pelvis, strings of your wetness sticking to him.

a singular tear rolled out of your eye and you didn’t bother to wipe away. you were hurt, for the second time in your life. how do you keep ending up in these situations? was it you? were you the bad one? no, you just happened to fall in love with the worst people.

“fuck, baby. g’na make me cum~” he warned and you worked your hips faster, your own orgasm approaching. feeling his cock throb, you rode faster and slammed your ass down on him, until you pulled him out of you; his seed dripping on your plump cheeks. he was too wrapped up in his pleasure to notice any of your tears.

suguru laid breathless and watched as you got up from the bed and over to the adjoining bathroom. geto sighed and grabbed his phone, snapping a picture of his semi hard cock and sent it to utahime.

as you sat on the toilet, your phone chimed and you looked at everything. when you got home, geto was the first to shower and left his phone in the bedroom, which allowed you to go into his phone and made a short cut with his messages. so, everytime he sent a text to utahime, it was sent to you phone too. you also sent yourself all of their previous messages before deleting it on his end.

you stormed out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind you; alerting the long haired male.

“my best friend? out of all the people in the world you just had to go an fuck my best friend!” you held up you phone to his face, every single message, nude, love note—was in your grasp.

it was no use denying it either, he couldn’t. not when you had hardcore evidence shining in his face. so, he got mad and deflected.

“i wouldn’t have to cheat if you didn’t lie about where you were. I wouldn’t have to cheat if you showed me some love. now would I?” he retorted. youd eyes widened and you couldn’t help but chuckle. he had no idea where you actually were all the time and I guess you could thank utahime for that, after you kicked her ass.

“are you fucking serious? that’s why you cheated, because I lied about where I was? that’s your fucking excuse?!” you were seething, he was a fucking idiot. you walked over to your closet and began to take your things off of the hooks, shoving them into your huge duffle bag.

“you wanna know where I was so bad? getting my brains fucked out by my ex. every single night when I told you I was at utahime’s, I was letting him cum in me so much, i’m surprised I haven’t gotten pregnant.” now he was seething, he grabbed your bagged and tossed it onto the bed; getting in your face, but you weren’t scared—you were going to stand ten toes down.

“and finally the slut confesses! going back to your ex? isn’t he married? think he’s going to leave his wife for your raggedy, used up ass?” he started chuckling when he saw your face change, he had got you right where he wanted you. hurt.

you sniffed back the tears and moved past him, grabbing your duffle bag amongst other things, slipping on a pair of sweatpants before walking to the living room with suguru hot on your trail.

“you know you’re a fucking idiot. you call me a slut, but you went to utahime’s house on a whim to fuck her because you didn’t know my whereabouts, does she know that she isn’t the only one either? ive checked every single message suguru, icloud too,” you grabbed the rest of your things out of the living room, before you grabbed your keys.

“should’ve let gojo and shoko eat my pussy when they wanted to, then I’d really be a slut. fuck you, suguru. and go to hell,” with that, you detached the apartment’s key and threw it onto the island—slamming the door behind you, leaving him for good.

as you turned the knob to the apartment across town, the door swung open and you were face to face with toji’s chest. he looked down—opening his mouth to speak, only realized the stream of tears rolling down your pretty face. he quickly pulled you inside and hugged you; letting you soak his dark grey shirt with your sadness.

you dropped your bag as he rubbed your back, soothing you as you calmed down, before you pulled back and he placed you on top of the kitchen counter. “what happened?”

you told him everything, about him and utahime, to the nasty argument, to the break up; and by the time you got finished he was angry. “ill kill him,” he started to walk away, but you grabbed him by his wrist and shook your head.

“he isn’t worth it, as much as I would love to see that happen; he really is garbage and his karma will come.” you half smiled at him before you realized something. “why are you here? trouble with your wife?”

“actually…we just got a divorce. I had one of my lawyer friends bring over the paperwork that I asked for months in advance, and we both signed it. I told her about you, how I felt about you, and the affair. she was devastated.” you pouted, another person hurt by this affair, you felt like you only had yourself to blame.

and then he moved closer to you, picking your face up by your chin; your eyes fluttering as he stared into them, “I love you, y/n. never stopped. the only reason I married her is because she was having my baby. I was a fool who didn’t use a condom, but I was an even bigger fool for rubbing everything in your face. i'm sorry.”

your eyes widened. he had never said ‘I love you’ to you before, only you with him. and to here that he never stopped only made your heart swell. you couldn't give a fuck about anything else but what was happening now. “toji!~”

you cooed, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and pulling him into a deep—passionate kiss. your lips moved in sync, your hands exploring each other’s body’s, just before you pulled away.

“what about your son?”

“she agreed on joint custody, which is good. we’ll alternate weeks and I gave her the house. now, ya got anymore questions? ‘cause, I need to make love to you.” you shook your head no quickly, and he picked you up, and carried you to the bathroom, almost sucking your face off in the process.

as soon as your feet touched the cool tiles, you proceeded to rip your clothes off, while he did the same—ignoring the cool, sticky feeling on your panties. he quickly turned on the shower, letting the water steam up all while he kissed you. he blindly led you into the shower, his hands glued to your ass; the plushness captivating him.

the steaming waters trickled across your bodies; adding to the sensual atmosphere, and helped your arousal peak. you kissed down his chiseled torso until you were face to face with his raging boner, not even hesitating to place him into your mouth.

toji groaned, his hand going straight to your wet hair, pushing your head down further onto his cock—deepthroating him. your eyes widened and filled with tears, but you kept him deep in your mouth; until you pulled away to catch your breath. you kept eye contact with him while you jerked him off, a mixture of spit and water coated his cock. “cum in my mouth, ‘kay?” you were so cute to him, he couldn’t help but nod; sucking in some air when you took him back into your mouth.

you swirled your tongue on his tip, frenching it; while teasing his balls. then you removed your hands and only used the back of your throat to please him, the sound of your gags were like music to his ears. and soon, he couldn’t hold back anymore—grabbing your head so he could fuck your pretty face to his liking.

“so…fucking…nasty!” he grunted, your cheeks puffing up with each thrust. your hand flew down to your throbbing clit, rubbing it while your eyes rolled back into your head. it didn’t take long before he spurted his thick warm load into your mouth—forcing your to deep throat him once more.

you swallowed what you can, before he let go and you pulled away; letting it trickle out once you opened your mouth, showing him the flowy white liquid before swallowing the rest.

toji pulled you up by your wet hair, kissing you again—tongue swirling on yours as he tasted himself. you moaned, feeling his fingers find their way to your wet cunt. he picked you up once more, swiftly pushing his head inside your aching entrance. “fuckkkk, baby.~” you dragged out, throwing your head back, walls stretching as he slowly pumped in and out of you.

the more he moved, the hornier the two of you became, and soon his pace quickened. the sound of your cunt squelching, and your heart beating in your ears drowned out the shower’s loudness, fueling his arousal. he gripped your ass with both of his hands and proceeded to pound your cunt—causing air to be pushed in, making you queef repeatedly.

“she’s talking to me, miss daddy’s cock. hm?” he grunted, listening to the lewd sounds of your moans and your pretty pussy talking to him. you moaned, unable to formulate a sentence due to the overwhelming pleasure. his cock rubbed against your spot with each thrust and you could feel that bubble inside, getting ready to burst.

“gna cum on this dick? hm, pretty?—answer me!” he growled into your ear, and held your waist, smacking your ass before putting his hands back onto your fatness.

“yes! yes! gonna cum all over your dick, daddy!~” you squealed and he slammed harder, bursting your bubble. you were silent as your cunt gushed, a complete contrast from the shower above you.

“that’s it baby girl, let it out. gonna get another one out of you~” his hands stayed glued to your ass and his pace stayed the same, overstimulating your leaky cunt. drool pooled out of your mouth as you let go once more, your liquids splashing the shower’s walls and drenching his cock once more.

he didn’t stop pounding once your orgasmed again, as his own was mere seconds behind you. with a few more thrusts, he slammed inside of you—holding you there while he painted your walls white, cock twitch as he emptied his load inside your tummy.

“let’s get you out of this shower before you pass out,” he chuckled and helped clean your body off.

after a few more rounds of love making, the two of you laid in bed, cuddled up to one another. toji had drifted off to sleep, after you took charge in the last two rounds; ultimately making him tap out.

you stared at his beautiful resting face, heart swollen with pure love and happiness. you had finally got what you wanted. turning on your side, you backed yourself into his embrace; ready to drift off to sleep—until your phone buzzed.

turning the brightness down, you checked the message from an unknown number.

✩ ‘we need to talk, now’

[kissingghouls]

The Emperor (Suck Club IV)

Part One: The Foe // ao3

Vampire Primo x Female Reader

Summary: Once upon a time a vampire saved your life. Now it's up to you to save him and his empire. Tags: NSFW, MDNI, 18+, reader uses a fake name sometimes, horror themes, vampire violence, violence, blood, (eventual) smut, and more tags on ao3 // 2700ish words div by @gothdaddyissues

All places have their secrets. People too. Families, friends, enemies, strangers—everyone’s got something to hide. You were no different than anyone else. For years you ran from your past and now you lived so comfortably in a lie there were times you started to believe it was real. And maybe some parts of it were real, but the truth was you couldn’t live in a fairytale forever.

The ones with vampires never had happy endings anyway.

Primo used to remind you of this. Not maliciously, just with the matter-of-fact certainty that often accompanied his statements. The arrangement couldn’t last forever no matter how well it worked between you. “Fate has her own plans, Diavolina,” he’d say while staring off into the distance. And maybe that was why your vampire was gone. Maybe you’d done or said something to remind him of the inevitable, something that drove him from away from this place. It didn’t matter that his letter said otherwise. 

Calling him yours might seem arrogant, but the letter had said that too.

Over a year had passed and the pages grew softer each time you held them in your hands. Soon it would fall apart completely, but looking at the neat script, the tight loops and sheer elegance of his penmanship made it feel like he was still right there. You didn’t need to read it anymore—the words lived in your mind from the first moment you’d read it, permanently etched between synapses and ignited with each thought like a neon sign in a dive bar. Hope lived in that letter. A hope that often brought tears to your eyes if you let it burn too bright. But how could you not?

“Excuse me? Are you even listening?”

You shook your head, blinking away the tears and brought yourself back to the present. A forced smile crossed your face as the woman in front of you huffed and tutted her way toward the counter. The mayor’s wife had never been pleasant, but now that she and her husband had few extra zeros in their bank account she’d become a fucking monster. Still, you swallowed your pride and answered softly, “yes ma’am.”

“Don’t you ‘ma’am’ me,” she tsked. “Rude and entitled brat. Just look at the state of this place! It’s no wonder you have no customers with your attitude—”

“Will that be all, Mrs. Chadwell?”

“Yes,” she replied tersely, dropping a handful of items on the counter. She sighed impatiently as you rang in and bagged her purchase. “You’re lucky we even bother with your store, you know.”

You gave her another gith smile. “Thank y—”

“Once that shopping center is finished I’m never coming back,” she added quickly before grabbing her things and spinning on her heel. The objects along the window rattled violently as she slammed the heavy door behind her.

“Guess I’ll just go fuck myself,” you muttered into the empty store.

Rows and rows of untouched products in bright, dust-free packages stared back at you—a monument to your dedication and current failures. Aurea Valley had always felt a little off. While it was as quiet and boring as any other small town, a current of something no one could quite define ran beneath the layers of the mundane. Not luck, or fortune, or even fate, the energy itself was neither good nor bad—just present. That strangeness bound the inhabitants and built a beautiful community—or at least it had. Things had never been this bad before. Even the people who weren’t kind used to be somewhat courteous to each other. Now it felt like the energy that tied them all together was diminishing rapidly.

You could pinpoint the exact moment everything had changed. You hesitated to admit it to yourself, but you still knew. Those cracks in the Valley were hidden deep, but they’d revealed themselves the second Primo Emeritus left. A tired sigh left your lips as you pushed the thoughts of Primo from your mind. No amount of worrying was going to bring the vampire back. You weren’t sure anything could.

You glanced over at the clock and groaned. It was slightly too early to close the shop, but you headed for the door anyway. Outside, a rolling fog had moved in and covered the streets, hiding all signs of life save for a little fox dashing down the sidewalk. The fox certainly wouldn’t mind if you headed home before the posted hours.

As you reached for the lock the door swung open, narrowly missing you. An expensive pair of dress shoes scuffled over the threshold and a sharply dressed man stood in the doorway. You hadn’t met, but Sebastian Night had already made a name for himself in the Valley. When he first arrived, you’d written him off as nothing more than a vaguely goth nepo-baby—all flash and no substance—but it wasn’t long before he proved to be slightly more threatening. In a few short months his company managed to purchase vast amounts of property, demolished half the town, and started construction on a vanity project that was supposed to “revitalize” the area.

The stranger smiled, his teeth a little too straight and white to be natural. Mr. Night and his tailored suits already stood out against the bleak backdrop of a dying town, but the light of the old streetlamps softened the sharp lines of his face. Nearly every busybody in town had stopped to casually mention how handsome and smart he was, how he was “just looking out for the community.” Maybe he was those things and maybe he did want to save the Valley—you didn’t know or care. All you could see standing in front of you was little more than a vulgar display of material wealth, a flashy disguise men like him used to hide their true intentions.

Primo would have wrinkled his nose at such a man, in the subtle, endearing way he used to try to mask his judgements before labelling the man “gauche” in a quiet whisper. 

He would’ve been right.

“I’m so sorry,” Night muttered apologetically. “Are you closing up?”

His tone was soft and light. Friendly. An uneasy feeling washed over you—a sinking in your stomach that burned like acid. Seeing him up close, something about him was off. His appearance made your skin itch under the surface, like your own bones were trying to get away.

You took a step back and gave him a tight, but polite smile in return. “Oh, the shop closes at 8.”

He glanced at the expensive watch on his wrist. He tapped once on the face before shooting you another grin as he asked, “I have a few minutes then?”

“Of course,” you replied with all the saccharine-coated customer service pleasantness you could manage. Opening the door a little wider, you made a sweeping gesture with your hand. “Come on in.”

“Thank you. I promise not to take up too much of your time,” he assured you and slipped his hands into his pockets as he crossed the threshold. He wandered less than five feet before turning back to you, the leather of his shoes creaking with the movement. “I’m glad I caught you, Miss Emeritus.”

It was a simple statement, but it set you on edge. Alarm bells and the memory of Primo’s words rang loudly in your head, preventing you from responding for a moment. Be wary of strangers, Diavolina. No Matter how friendly they might seem. Your heart skipped a beat. What if this was exactly the kind of stranger Primo had warned you about?

“Call me Gia,” you replied, offering up the rest of the false identity you’d been wearing for years. Gia Emeritus: average Aurea Valley resident.

Night licked his lips, eyes sparkling with recognition. “Gia,” he repeated sweetly, his lips curling around your borrowed name before they upturned in a smile. “It’s lovely to finally meet you, Gia. I’m—”

“I know who you are, Mr. Night.”

“Oh?” he breathed in surprise. “Forgive me, I was so sure we hadn’t met—”

“We haven’t. But it’s difficult not to notice when a man like you suddenly shows up and buys half the town,” you informed him flatly.

“Ah, well,” he laughed nervously. “Fortunately, I’m not here to discuss business.”

“May I ask what you do wish to discuss?”

He smiled sheepishly. “I—I was hoping to meet you,” he admitted. “I thought I’d stop by and introduce myself, but I can see I’ve caught you in the middle of closing. My apologies.”

“It’s…fine,” you offered in a confused tone.

“Perhaps some other time,” he added and inclined his head before he spun around. He only took a few steps before he paused and turned back toward you. “It’s funny you mention it—the town, I mean. Isn’t it your family who owns the other half?”

“Mr. Night—”

“Please, call me Sebastian.”

“Mister. Night,” you stressed slowly through clenched teeth. “Is there something I can help you find?”

He smiled too brightly, a little too sinister for all those perfect little teeth. “I believe there is, but I’m afraid we’ll have to wait for another opportunity. Have a good night, Miss Emeritus.”

The door closed with a loud click and you slid the bolt into place, double checking the handle just to be sure. A shaky breath escaped your lips as you began to pace the length of the store. Miss Emeritus. You dug your nails into your palms, pressing awful little half-moons into your skin. Miss Emeritus, the smug voice repeated.

It wasn’t that he’d said it. You’d borrowed the name a long time ago and wore it so long nothing else really suited you. You were proud of that name, proud to have been given such a name. But this man—this stranger—didn’t use your name with the same respect the rest of the Valley had. He coated it in venom and spat it out like an insult. A threat—a thinly veiled one at that.

You quickly grabbed your things and headed out to your car, breath fogging up around you as winter settled in. Trying to calm yourself, you unfolded the thick paper of the familiar letter and stared down at the words between your fingers.

Diavolina,

Time is a luxury; one I took for granted in my old age. Naively, I thought you and I might enjoy more of it. There are many things I should have told you, so much I should have said during our time together. I suppose I assumed I would have the perfect chance someday.

Fate takes as well as it gives, and the consequences of my actions are further proof that none of us can outrun what has been set for us all. Not forever anyway. I am sorry for leaving you with such a terrible burden and little explanation. This is not what I wanted for you. The cottage is yours should you want it. I only ask that you give it time to grow on you and keep it in my name.

Yours eternally,

Primo Emeritus

P.S. Please don’t look for me, diavolina. I will return to you as soon as I can. Until then—be wary of strangers no matter how friendly they seem.

-x-

Fog settled into the low spaces of the Valley, covering the empty streets with a ghostly mist. The sharp snap of cold trailed closely behind, much too cold for this time of year. By morning the ground would be coated in a layer of frost that hides the traces of his careful footsteps, but Primo sank deeper into the shadows. The streetlamps, weathered and long overdue for replacement, burned a dim orange glow into the hazy atmosphere as the heavy air pressed against him like stones across his chest.

He crouched in the underbrush. Watching. Waiting. For what, he wasn’t quite sure. A sign, a signal, something more substantial than this feeling gnawing on his bones. It had been a long time since he’d felt something like this—felt like he was standing at the precipice of ruin. It wasn’t something he ever wanted to feel again.

A short distance away a fox skirted the tree line, cautiously sniffing the air. It moved away quickly, not daring to enter the woods. It darted over the road leaving only the sour scent of fear that stung the vampire’s nostrils. It wasn’t just the fox. Everything—the town, the woods, and the old abandoned highway that ran between seemed to be covered in an unfamiliar stench. A disgusting, acrid odor of despair and decay had overtaken the entire Valley.

Something was coming. Or worse, it was already here. It hardly mattered. There wasn’t a soul on this earth that could keep him from protecting you. This place could be headed straight for the Pit and he’d still let himself be damned a third time to save you. Maybe that was love. Or maybe he was just an old fool. He’d been alive long enough now not to know or care anymore. He’d been powerless in the face of time for centuries, stuck watching and endless ebb and flow. He’d seen more cities than he could name crumble only to be rebuilt and destroyed again. Unstoppable. Perpetual. No matter how long he lived, the cycle of creation and destruction carried on. All things pass; all things reborn.

A snake swallowing its own tail.

Perhaps he was the ouroboros stuck in an infinite loop, doomed to repeat his mistakes along the way. He wasn’t called back to this place because fate was kind. There was a price—there always was—but paying with his own suffering wasn’t enough this time.

The vampire stood; his eyes narrowed as he focused on the window of your little shop. If he could see you just once…Satanas, how he missed you. Your laugh. Your smile. Maybe he was nothing more than a desperate man after all these years, longing to bask in your presence once more. It was foolish, but he wished it all the same.

His breath caught in his throat as a break in the fog finally revealed your beautiful face. And you smiled—not at him, of course—but at the man in the dark suit seeking entrance to your shop. Some younger man he didn’t recognize was on the receiving end of your warm welcome. Perhaps you’d taken a lover in his absence, found someone who could give you the things he could not. Then again, maybe this was just the insane paranoia of a man who’d lived too long already, urged by fate’s unending desperation to taunt him.  

Primo felt sick the second he heard it, that little tell-tale skip of your heartbeat. He wasn’t in the habit of eavesdropping on your conversations—you’d be furious if you knew—but he slowed his breath and turned every bit of his attention toward you.

“Call me Gia.”

His chest tightened. It was a name you’d used hundreds of times over the years, but it wasn’t really yours. The two of you had buried your real name beneath the cottage long ago and left your past interred next to his own terrible secrets. The man repeated your name, but Primo had heard enough. He kept watch long enough to see the man exit the shop. A few moments later you emerged, pulse quick but steady, as you climbed into that old car of his.

The wind carried a high, horrid sound through the trees, an incorporeal laughter that cut through his soul. He doubled over, body wracked with indescribable pain. He wished she would leave him be, to just sit back and let things unfold as they would. But fate wasn’t finished with him yet. His connection to you shouldn’t have been so strong. He hadn’t marked you; he would never dream of such a thing. But he could feel it all, each hair on the back of his neck down to the nerves in his teeth, every cell in his body screaming as something followed you.

more stuff by me // please please let me know if i missed your name on the tag list or if you would like to be added.

[lilacliquors]

kinktober day six: cuckolding

pairing: diego hargreeves x reader

word count: 819

notes: i am so bad at ending smut-shot this is embarrassing. anyways, enjoy kinktober day six, my loves!

you had been hesitant to try this out, feeling vulnerable and like a cheating harlot, but your partner had reassured you so many times that it was okay, they wanted this, they liked it. they wanted to see another person bring you ecstasy, to make you moan and scream and beg. and after much talking and rule making, you had settled on a third to bring into your bedroom. an old friend of theirs, diego hargreeves

and now, there you were, at the mercy of another man, all while your partner was in the corner, bound in a chair as they desired, watching as you came undone over and over again.

your legs were spread, and diego was between them, feasting on your sensitive pussy like it was fruit from the garden of eden. his hands gripped your thighs as his tongue traced over your clit, making you squirm and grip his hair. you liked that it was longer than your partner’s, much easier to grab onto, and he hissed while his face contorted in pleasure as your nails scratched his scalp.

“that’s it, baby,” he mumbled between your legs. “grind those hips against my face. come on, chase it. we know you want it.”

you whined, your body felt like it was on fire, and yet you wanted more. you pressed his face harder against your cunt, mewling as he slid two fingers into your wet and waiting entrance. his fingers pumped gently, and your legs tried to close around his head as yet another orgasm began to build.

“fuck, diego,” you moaned, your free hand gripping the sheets. his only response was a muffled groan against you, and it made you squirm even more. you bucked your hips as he kneaded your thighs, and the more friction you gained, the closer you got, until finally, your muscles tensed, and you cried out, your orgasm washing over your body with enough for to make your legs shake. you tried to pull diego’s head away from your cunt, but he was firmly in place, fucking you with his fingers as he lapped at your clit, until you collapsed onto the bed. he pulled back and looked down at you, slowly removing his fingers as you whined in protest.

“look at you, all fucked out. but i think you’ve got more in you,” he said, reaching for his belt. you watched as he undid it, pulling it out of the belt loops in one swift motion, and tossing it aside. he shoved his pants and boxers down his legs, and his cock sprung free, hard and leaking. your expression must have changed, because he started to laugh as he climbed back on top of you.

“worried? it’s okay, we’ll make it fit,” he mumbled, grabbing his cock with one hand before capturing your lips and in a searing kiss. he pumped his erection a few times before pushing into you, swallowing your moans as you took every inch he had to give. he paused, allowing you time to adjust, before he began to thrust into you with a steady rhythm.

“oh, fuck …” you breathed, arching your back as his lips left yours to trail down your neck and along your jaw.

“feels good, yeah? better than anyone you’ve ever had?” he asked.

you looked over his shoulder to your partner, your eyes half-lidded as you gazed at them. they nodded, letting you know they were okay, that this was okay, and you felt yourself smile.

“so much better,” you replied, wrapping your legs around his waist.

“mhm, the best you’ll ever have. this pussy’s mine, and i’m gonna fuck it whenever i want, for as long as i want,” he growled, his strokes pushing harder, yet with that same steady rhythm. you were a moaning mess beneath him, your eyes squeezing shut as your lips parted. it felt so wrong, but so right, letting another person bring you to these new heights of pleasure. your mind was foggy, your body was on fire, and before long, that pleasurable sensation was growing.

“don’t you look so fucking pretty like this, being fucked by a stranger while your real partner watches, hm? you like being fucked by someone else? someone better?” he taunted, and you gasped as your toes curled.

“mm, ah - yes! oh, yes!” you cried out, cumming once more. he grinned, a wolfish expression on his face, and he continued to pound into you as you grew more sensitive.

“oh no you don’t. i’m not finished with you yet,” he growled. the sound of skin slapping skin filled the room, and it wasn’t long until he was pulling out of you to pump his cock, groaning as his release started to paint your abdomen. you were panting, your legs aching and starting to close, but he grabbed your thighs and kept them spread.

“tsk tsk, we’re just getting started.”

[bylerbigbang]

Switcheroo, In Your Shoes

Fic by @foodiewithdahoodie | Art by @jiuwann

Rated Teen | 36k words

Before high school, Mike and Will thought they'd be thick as thieves along with the rest of the party. However, they discover that they don't have any classes together and drift apart making new friends outside of their childhood friends or focus on their separate hobbies. Then, a rumor happens that further puts a wedge in between Mike and Will. Now, on graduation night, Mike and Will try to make amends and perhaps confess their feelings, only for things to go astray as the next day they have switched bodies. After not seeing eye to eye in so long, perhaps this is their chance to be in each other's shoes.

Warnings: smoking, underage drinking, F slurs, slut-shaming mention, implied sexual content (dreams, imaginations, seeing the other naked implicitly, attempted non-explicit first time - doesn't pan out because they're in each other's bodies), getting outed, AIDs reference, coming out, bullying, rumor has it

Read on Ao3 | View Art

Read an excerpt below:

“We’re gonna be late.” Will laughs to subside his desires and curiosities, ignoring how attentive Mike is being with him, and checks his wristwatch.

A matching one is around Mike’s wrist, same brand and model and year. They bought them together with their saved piggy bank allowances and the looting of couch cushions for loose change. Pooling their funds to have watches that rival Nancy's friendship bracelets she made with Barb.

“We’ll make it.” Mike promises, skillfully doing a four-in-knot tie. Big talk from a guy who’s regularly tardy to anything timed. Will decides to be nice and not bring up his doubts. When has Mike steered him wrong?

Folding the fabric lickety-split, Mike gets to work; pushing the wide end of the tie through the loop, forming the knot, slipping the end of the fabric through the knot and keeping it straight, to finally pulling the narrow end upward and taut on Will’s neck.

“Too loose? Too tight?” Mike tilts his head sideways inquisitively.

“Just right. Thanks.” Will hoarsely replies and drums his fingers on his thighs, restless.

“No problem.” Mike whispers and doesn’t remove himself.

Will looks at Mike’s stationary hands, timidly smiling and biting back a chuckle. “Are you gonna let go of me anytime soon?”

Mike says nothing in response. He simply and slowly nods with an unreadable expression that Will can’t decipher. Little by little, Mike statically withdraws, sliding his hands down inch by inch, fingers smoothing the fabric until reaching the pointed tip of Will’s tie pinched between his thumb and index finger. Neither of them make a move to leave for the ceremony. They just stand there, lost in a moment they don’t want to acknowledge, staring bashfully at their feet because eye contact would make it too heartfelt.

Will has to hurry, his last name puts him in the second row. Very noticeable for the audience to see him tiptoeing to his seat. Mike can get away with slithering into his chair, perks of having a surname grouped with the last-letters-of-the-alphabet kids. Instead of parting ways, they gradually and courageously look at each other, their locked eyes conveying enormous emotions, words they wish to say palpable in the silence, lips tingling to free their thoughts and unburden their hearts.

Will is the first to spin on his heels, admiring himself in the mirror and squashing his relapsing hope that there could be something more that Mike leaves unsaid. Through the reflection, he subconsciously locks eyes again with Mike's large and sparkling ones.

Fiddling with his tie dozily, Will talks to Mike’s reflection. It’s easier to do than facing the real thing. “You gotta teach me sometime.”

“Definitely.”

“Well, we better go!”

“Yeah—Hey, wait!” Mike exclaims abruptly, his outburst pausing Will's receding footsteps. “Uh, can you, um, sign my yearbook?”

Gobsmacked, Will gawks at Mike, shyly laughing and raising an incredulous brow. “You mean right now?”

“Uh-huh! I mean—No! I mean later! Later! I have it stashed in my car.” Mike clarifies,

[lost-technology]

Weird-Ass Trigun Dreams

I have them, yes. So, this morning, I woke up from dreams I was having about finding an entire alternate Trigun manga in a bookstore. The strangest thing about it was that it wasn't created by Nightow, it was more like an official fanwork created by some other mangaka and ran parallel to the Trigun Maximum timeline as an alternate universe. I distinctly remember pages involving Vash drawn as an anthropomorphic cat. - So, something like a Trigun / Lackadaisy crossover? It was somewhat in that style. Vash was a very fluffy tabby-type, by the way... a floofy orange cat, but the image was in black and white, I just could tell the type of cat he was supposed to be. And then I had another dream about Vash and Knives in modern times and they were getting into some kind of trouble in a suburb tearing ass in a minivan down a street with Vash on top of it with a baseball bat trying to evade cops or something. And then there is another dream that I recall that happened at some other time involving an entire alternate anime and manga that had continued somehow - in my dream, Nightow had revived the manga at some point after its official ending and I had been OUT OF THE LOOP on fandom for so long that I had years of backlore that I'd MISSED! Gasp! And there was all this funky Plant-lore (although I can't remember exactly what it was, something about origins, I think) and stuff about Vash's early life, wandering days. I picked up a tape? DVD? of this new anime predating Stampede and done in the old Trigun style and the first episode featured Vash saving a town and getting hurt and being cared for by a lady and feeling guilty and depressed about things he couldn't talk about and that she pried about, and it was very sad as he had to leave town after taking care of the bandits that were threatening it and couldn't stay lest he put the town and the friend he'd made in danger. There was a real feeling of he'd finally made a close friend, but couldn't risk it. And in the alternate manga, there was an entire arc about the SEEDS upbringing in which Vash and Knives, prior to learning about Tesla, learned what Plants really were and their origins and Knives was afraid because of how humans use Plants, so he hijacked a shuttle and went to a different planet (than the one we see) and it was kind of gaseous, like there was a surface to stand on, but everything was gassy and Rem and Vash had to go get him back and deal with some reconciliation regarding the Plant and Human relationship. I think this stuff also had some Plant-lore, too, like some alien origins of Plants, but I am not certain. I just remember there being an uneasy feeling to this whole arc. I seem to recall some pretty cool spacesuits and helmets involved, though. And then @somereaderinblue reminded me of one I'd shared with them that I'd forgotten about that I now remember: I dreamed that there was a Trigun anime - a new one, that was different from Stampede that was set on a world that became like Earth. Independent Plants were born later. The Plant kids were still Plants. Rem had managed to save Tesla and was raising her along with the boys. They'd made planet-landing and terraforming and city-building was underway. A better planet, a better future. About when the kids were 12-14, Tesla was called away by Conrad to do a few tests - which she thought were going to be just blood tests and stuff. The season of the show ended with her being shown to a suite she'd be staying in for a couple of days and a door sealing behind her. She realizes that it has been sealed and she can't get out. She says "Dr. Conrad? Dr. Conrad?!" We all knew what was coming. End of Season 1.

[blues824]

I HAVE MY MOST WANTED REQUEST IN MY LIFE PLEASE—

Can i request Vampire Au with Yandere azul and his darling who doesn’t mind or dgaf at all being kidnapped WITH FLUFF MOMENTS I BEG— and perhaps if you don’t mind add his reaction of his darling asking him if they could like him..

I can imagine his charm if he’s a vampire HELP—

Gender-neutral reader, who ends up as a house-spouse. I do not condone this behavior in real life.

Azul Ashengrotto

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

The Coral Sea has such a bustling nightlife. You would think that it was Vegas underwater with how many parties and events are going on at the same time. All of the mer-people wanted a taste of it, and even many humans as well. This group of humans included you, the new student at Night Raven College.

So, as a result of your curiosity, you decided that Azul would be your best bet in helping you navigate the sea. He offered to do it free of charge, and you accepted on the condition that he bring you to his house so that you can have somewhere to rest for the day. You would need energy to go exploring later, after all. You were happy to see him excited about taking you around his hometown as well.

He presented you with a potion that would turn you into a mer-person, and he promised that he had a potion that would turn you back. You know that you were doing this without a contract, so you felt as though you could trust him. After all, he didn’t violate his promise of no more shady contracts or tricking people out of their talents or unique magic.

When the two of you descended into the ocean, he was glad that you didn’t see his mer-form as disgusting. In fact, you giggled when his tentacles started wrapping themselves around you and pulling you to him. You just thought it was because you accepted him, but what you didn’t know was that his possessive tendencies were taking over his usually rational mind. 

You see, the heaviness of the situation really settled in for Azul. You were about to go into a big city where he could easily lose sight of his beloved darling. There were a few vampires mixed in along with him, and he didn’t want anyone smelling your sweet blood and trying to take you from him. So he made you agree to keep close and he held your hand in his to make sure that you didn’t slip away.

Unfortunately, his home was a bit far from NRC. So that meant that the two of you had quite a bit of swimming to do before you could explore. His mother was excited to see her son and who she at first assumed to be his significant other. You were definitely flustered, but you explained that the two of you were just friends. Even though Azul seemed to be smiling at his mother’s mistake, his heart broke a little at how you viewed your relationship.

Darling, didn’t you know how much he loved you? Were the free meals at the Mostro Lounge not enough for you? How about the fact that he refrained from making contracts and cheating people out of their abilities? Were the multiple bouquets of flowers left at your door leaving a message of nothing more than platonic feelings? 

Well you shouldn’t be surprised when you find yourself locked in your room the next day with him accompanying you. After all, he promised to stick by you on your trip… which turned into a rather permanent living situation based on how he tied your arms and tail down to the bed that you were sleeping in.

“My love, you are smelling so sweet. I can hear your blood rushing through your veins. I haven’t feasted in so long~”, the cecaelia said as he started getting into bed with you. His tentacles started wrapping themselves around your torso once again as he clung to your side before getting on top of you, leaning down, and placing a kiss on the side of your neck.

“I won’t do anything that you don’t want me to-”

“If you’re asking to drink my blood, I don’t mind.” Your boldness definitely threw him in for a loop as you presented your neck in a way that gave him better access to the blood that hid within your body. He sat still for a second, processing your statement before going in and puncturing your beautiful skin with the fangs that he has hidden from you up to this point.

Your blood tasted as sweet as it smelled, he thought. He almost couldn’t stop because it was just so delicious. All his life, he had been warned about tasting human blood, and how addicting it could be, but he didn’t know the true potency of it until now. After a few seconds, he drew back to make sure that you were alright. However, some blood was still leaking, so he quickly licked it up.

With your head feeling light but your heart somehow still pounding against your chest, you leaned up as best you could to give him a kiss on the lips. The act made his face fluster, but he definitely reciprocated. It wasn’t everyday that his beloved darling returned his feelings and affections. Maybe all those things he did for you back at NRC weren’t in vain.

Skip to the present, which is years later after the two of you graduated. It was surprising how he allowed you to continue going to Night Raven College even though you were surrounded by many other men. Of course, he has made a few insignificant students go missing under mysterious circumstances, and he sent the tweels to deal with Ace and Deuce whenever they were causing too much trouble.

Speaking of, Jade and Floyd were his groomsmen at your wedding. Azul was aware of his immortal lifespan, but he believes that fate finally did something good for him and that he had to make sure that you were never taken away from him. Thus, the wedding rings on your finger. By the way, these are nice looking rings.

Even if you were married for a while now, he never fails to make you fall deeper in love. Every day, whenever he goes to work, he comes back home with a flower that he had purchased for you. There are many gifts that go to you because you rarely ever go outside of the house that the two of you now live in under the sea. 

Yeah, you were a house spouse. When you brought up the prospect of if you should work as well, it instilled paranoia within your new husband. He hated the idea of you going to a place filled with other mer-people where he had no chance to protect you. Some mer-people were vampires, and he knew that they could smell how sweet your blood was. To soothe his worries, he needed to make sure that you were his and his alone.

But, that doesn’t mean you never went out. Azul loved taking you out to fancy dinners, seeing you dressed up. Of course, he never eats anything aside from when he gets home and gets to feast on your blood every once in a while. He knows the limit, and he definitely does not go overboard. However, your blood is still as sweet as the first time he tasted it. 

There were many moments that the two of you shared, but one that was most memorable was when you were both dancing in the living room of your shared home. It was a sweet jazz song, and you convinced your husband to dance with you. It really was just the two of you swaying back and forth since he’s not too good at dancing, but it didn’t matter. In this moment, you would never think that the cecaelia who had his hand on your waist was a vampire, or a very possessive and protective one at that.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 4/9/2023

the best photo i took this week

listening

i have not been keeping up with either the tuesdaypost spreadsheet or the tuesdaypost playlists so there's a strong possibility i have already talked about Joywave's It's A Trip! off the 2017 album Content. spotify

driving ten hours in one day is ideal for listening to albums and i listened to almost every joywave album on my way home from the eclipse. american indie rock band from rochester ny, i have loved them since early college. i think they were made in a lab to get to stuck in my head bc they tend toward lower register synthier tracks that deceptively amble cheerfully along and talk about dealing with fear. songs for a male protagonist to splash water on his face, look at himself in the mirror haunted by what he's seeing, linger in his children's bedroom doorways, and then drive off into the night for the finale.

i think i listened to this song for an hour on loop yesterday bc the chorus so perfectly got stuck in my brain

When you've gotten what you want (Maybe I should start over) There's nothing left to want (Up and at 'em again) You don't know what you want (Yeah, I'm thinking it over) Just tell me what to Want

they have spent a lot of time figuring out how to have longevity as a band: "The record kind of attempts to figure that out but it doesn’t end in a definitive place. For me personally, it’s just to create things that matter as long as I possibly can, and to make things that are going to outlive me that people can hang onto for at least five to six years after I’m dead." they are deeply cranky about virality/content churn, especially in this interview. i appreciate this in an artist.

could not tell you how i first found them. i think i would have to go back to the proto-tuesdayposts of 2018.

-

reading

when you're not sleeping well you can average a book a night!

Uprooted by Naomi Novik destroyed me. (image from here)

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

my best friend real-life influenced me into reading this book and i have since managed to convince four other people to read this book bc i won't shut up about it. the descriptions of the physicality of magic and how different kinds of magic and different families of spells Feel was only part of the coolest magical system ive ever read about. this is not a dark romance but it is a little brutal in a brothers grimm/this is how battles shake out sometime kind of way. i think a companion piece of media written from the Dragon's point of view would nicely parallel that post going around about how Howl's Moving Castle the movie is from Howl's point of view and Howl's Moving Castle the book is from Sophie's point of view. i would die for Agnieszka.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (image from here)

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders… but her father isn’t a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has loaned out most of his wife’s dowry and left the family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem steps in. Hardening her heart against her fellow villagers’ pleas, she sets out to collect what is owed–and finds herself more than up to the task. When her grandfather loans her a pouch of silver pennies, she brings it back full of gold. But having the reputation of being able to change silver to gold can be more trouble than it’s worth–especially when her fate becomes tangled with the cold creatures that haunt the wood, and whose king has learned of her reputation and wants to exploit it for reasons Miryem cannot understand.

i don't know if i've ever read a book with seven points of view before? i think it was well handled, but it required significantly more brainpower than screaming through three of kingfisher's light fantasy/romances in two days and it threw me a little. saying this book is about debts cheapens it a little, i think. it is concerned with debts but also safety, and it is very much about cost in a very fairytale way and in the horrible everyday calculus of survival way.

Swordheart, Paladin's Hope, and Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher. god these go down So smooth. kingfisher has a niche and i respect that. i am reading the Saint of Steel tetralogy out of order bc even four library systems can only do so much, and i don't think you particularly need to read them in order.

i'm a bit cranky that the terfs took feminist fantasy from me, bc when the protagonist got her period in Paladin's Strength a little alarm bell went off in my head and i had to put it down and google some stuff (the answer is no btw). there is a way to write female-focused lightly historical fantasy without being terfy and kingfisher does it, but it's so rare that i was genuinely expecting some sort of. weird agenda to be at play.

these were all fun, fast reads and i don't have much else to say about them! not that they are better or worse than novik's books but they will not live in my head quite as long. there are fewer tantalizing hints about systems of magic that make me want to graph things out u kno

-

watching

kanopy has Animation April as their focus this month which is how i saw The King and the Mockingbird (1980, dir. Paul Grimault) which is a longer piece adapted from something he'd been working on since the 40s.

This animated fantasy tale follows the romance between a lovely shepherdess and a handsome chimney sweep. The land's imperious king falls for the beautiful woman and tries to thwart her relationship, but a kind mockingbird assists the lovers in evading the ruler. At the king's command, the chimney sweep and his bird friend are imprisoned, and they must escape in order to rescue the young man's true love.

GOD the animation in this. there are so many references to early animation and silent film. there are so so so many gadgets and methods of conveyance in an absolutely architecturally dizzying castle. there is a ROYAL MECH that plays its own theme music. the backgrounds have a very Chuck Jones quality in that they are exactly as detailed as they need to be for the gag to work. the castle is lush and beautiful but not dizzyingly, overwhelmingly lush. there is a clear vision to every shot and a clear path your eye is meant to travel, which i appreciate very much. i think a lot of technically impressive animation (i am specifically thinking of the Nimh movies) muddies itself by trying to jam too much on the screen. just a fucking delight of a film. a delicious confection

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playing

nothing specific to say about genshin this week ur welcome

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making

painted a frame (it was a dead basic michaels frame i got at a yard sale and it was giving little boy's room) and framed a thing. this is a poster that came as a freebie with a 1997 album, and i actually bought this CD case without the CD inside bc i was so delighted with the poster. scuff sanded the frame with 120 grit, i went with a matte black acrylic bc i felt that disguised how the poster did not quite fit the frame a little better? and also bc it was what i had in the house.

i did not bother with a mat, i just used the lining paper with the stock photo and painted the back of that. do not do this with particularly valuable or beloved pieces. i do not think this is necessarily acid free and there is some danger that the paint may transfer to the back of the poster over time.

[battling-lolipop]

My thoughts on The Last of Us 2, because it won’t leave me alone.

Let me start off by saying I do not like Abby. Joel was a very special character to me, and that was exactly what he was to Ellie too. Naughty Dog did a beautiful job of making whoever was playing the second game become Ellie. Angry, and desperate for revenge.

But I do understand Abby. She and Ellie are parallels of one another. Their quest for revenge, and the fact that they never fully find it, is exactly the point. When Abby kills Joel, I would argue she doesn’t feel satisfied. She put all of that time and effort into it, just to end up killing another girls father, which eventually leads to the death of all her friends. And same for Ellie, she hunts Abby down only for her loved ones to be lost in the process.

What I think really drives this point home, is when Abby confronts Ellie the first time, she lets her live. This is a turning point for Abby, who finally doesn’t choose revenge. And then we skip to the second time they encounter one another when Ellie lets Abby live. This is Ellie’s revelation, that this cycle of violence is indeed a closed loop. If she kills Abby here, she won’t leave satisfied, she’ll just leave a body. She would also leave behind Lev, a scared boy who is a reflection of Ellie.

Not only that but Abby becomes Joel, which I think hurts both Ellie and Abby in ways they can’t even begin to understand. That’s what I really love about this story. Joel was one person to two different people, but he was always both. There are no villains in The Last of Us universe (except maybe David), and I think that’s what makes it so special.

It also irks me when people don’t understand Ellie leaving Dina to hunt down Abby. She needed to for the story to progress!! If she hadn’t then Abby and Lev would have died strung up on a beach! I agree she should’ve stayed if this were a different story with a different moral, but it’s very sadly not. Having these characters that you can relate to so heavily make such poor decisions really pushes along the narrative, and helps people in the real world not make the same mistakes.

Let me also remark, that anyone who thinks The Last of Us two was a bad game, DID NOT UNDERSTAND IT. You can dislike it, but you can’t deny that every symbol, and moral, and character is so well done, there is no denying it’s one of the greatest games ever made.

That’s all folks.

[beautifulfuckup99]

“There are different kinds of soulmates. 12 to be exact." Ms. Whitehurst says while sat with MBG. "When we think of that term, we think so one dimensional. But no matter lover or friend or partner... We are all connected on a spiritual level. And therefore... We can all have a soul mate from the past that will find us one day, again."

Third type of soul mate: Soul Teacher

“Soul Teachers: Sometimes a soul mate might show up to teach you by challenging you to do something different from what they recommend, teaching you the value of thinking for yourself.”

Warning(s): Rac!sm, Some H8 Speech, SMUT, Hurt/Comfort, Real Historical Events...

((Please read at your own risk.))

******************************************

((PRESENT DAY))

“Eh…” Namjoon scrunches a nose as he lays back on your newly set up bed. You pause your folding of freshly clean clothes to stare at your boyfriend in shock.

“Baby. How many philosophical books have you read? And you’re telling me you’re iffy on reincarnation?!” You laugh in disbelief as he shrugs while sprawled out, just enjoying this Sunday morning.

“I mean… I have, but… I don’t know. It’s tricky. What does that entail exactly? We’re all stuck in an inescapable loop of death and birth?” He asks. “If it’s a yes then my follow up question is; why?” He wonders and you hum as you go back to folding while trying to think.

“Maybe… it’s like what Buddhist believe. You come back until you get it right.” You shrug. Your boyfriend sits up at that comment and rolls his shoulders a bit, and you almost break out into a smile, knowing that move all too well.

It was debate time.

“Yeah, but life isn’t a punishment. Shouldn’t be anyways.” He says.

“Then maybe reincarnation is the reward.” You say back.

“A reward? Without any prior knowledge of what life actually entails? With no memory of what it means to grow up or become successful or feel happiness or find love?” He asks. "To go through all the growing pains and awkwardness again and again?" He raises an eyebrow.

You hum at that as you take a minute to think. You loved debating with Namjoon because it was always a back and forth. Like a ping-pong tournament that usually ended with one cocky winner and a slightly sore loser.

“Then… maybe it’s a bit of both.” You say finally. “It’s a reward cause you get to go through life again, while also being a punishment cause you… well, go through life again…” You snort, and he hums softly as he watches you.

“That’s a cop out. Point me.” Namjoon states and you pause.

“What?! No! You can’t be serious!” You complain instantly as he laughs softly.

“Nope. I get the point. There is no real argument you've shown." He states and your roll your eyes playfully at that before huffing lightly.

"God. You're a headache. If reincarnation is a real thing, I can only hope you're not as competitive in that life as you are in this one." You tease as you lean over to cup his cheek and lightly brush your lips against his as he bashfully eyes you.

"I hope in every lifetime... It's you I debate with." He states quietly against your lips, and it makes you smirk as you slide the pad of your thumb along his bottom lip.

*****************************************

1919: A large number of Korean nationalists come to America to study, and begun the Korean Independence Movement.

"Hey. What are you doing here?" The voice rings out through the girls' dormitory building, causing Namjoon to look over with a startled expression, his throat tightening just a bit.

“Hey. My friend asked you a question. What? You don’t speak English?” The other campus guard says as they walk closer.

Namjoon shifts on his own two feet, never one for confrontation. His parents had made it clear. He was here to study and keep his head down. That was all. But it was hard. And meeting Y/N has only made things harder.

“I… Got lost.” He finally says, deciding on that lie since he knew. He knew he shouldn’t be here. He knew he shouldn’t be sneaking around, and he knew with every inch of his brain that he should’ve never fallen for an American. Yet here he was, always listening to his heart.

“Yeah? What, you couldn’t see right?” The one guard says, pushing him. Namjoon stumbles only a bit, shoulders squaring as he braces himself.

“Probably a perv. Trying to peek at the girls here. Those aren’t yours, you fucking weirdo.” The other man laughs as Namjoon tries to move past them.

“Whoa! Did we tell you that you could leave, ch**k?” The student guard says, pushing Namjoon again. The nerdy young man trips but catches himself yet again, swallowing back the bile coming up his throat. He was here for a reason. First of his family to finish school and definitely the first ever to come to America for college, and he wasn’t going to let anything get him out of character.

The urge to fight back always hit him though. But where would that lead? Him looked at as the problem. Possibly even kicked out and sent back home. No. He had a right to be here. With that in mind, he does the only thing to do for him. Run.

“Hey! Get back here!” The other shouts as both chase him down out of the building…

**********************************

You go barreling down the ER hallway, running straight to the hospital room a nurse had been kind enough to appoint you to. After realizing Namjoon was late to your study date, you went running out looking for him, only to find him in a campus alleyway, beaten and bruised badly.

Everything was in slow motion at that moment and all you could do was rush to call 911 for help. You couldn’t hold him as you waited for help because a crowd had formed and you didn't want rumors to spread, but you also couldn't stand there and do nothing. You kept people at arm's length of his unconscious body until the amubulance arrived.

The paramedic made a comment about how you must be a 'smart broad' to be here in college, and you bit your tongue to keep your comments to yourself. He told you to run along and go 'read a book', but instead, you went running for the city bus to go visit Namjoon in the hospital.

You couldn't think of anything else other than making sure he was ok.

When you get to the room, you cover your mouth, seeing Namjoon laying in the bed like that. He had a busted lip and a bruised cheek and stitches on his forehead. Under the hospital lights, his injuries looked more dramatic, and maybe it was because they really were. It had never been this bad before now…

“Y/N?” He asks softly as he reaches a hand out to touch yours. You shakily grab his hand with both of yours, careful at this moment. You felt like you had to hold him tight to keep him from disappearing, but also hold him loose enough to not actually hurt him.

“Joonie. Who… Who did this?!” You finally ask, voice quiet and full of fear as he tries to pull you a bit closer towards him, but you’re stuck in place. This wasn’t right. You felt sick to your stomach.

How could anyone hurt this man?

“Telling… Telling won’t… change anything...” He whispers softly as he watches you closely. “It looks worse than it is…” He tries as he winces while sitting up.

“Who. Did. This?” You repeat, not wanting to hear his usual ‘I can handle this’ speech. He sighs as you make quick work of raising his bed to a sitting position, so he wasn’t putting too much strain on himself.

“I know we’ve agreed to only ever meet at the library on campus, but… I wanted to try and surprise you. Got caught by campus student security. They… They said I was trying to peek at girls…” He finally says quietly as you touch his unbruised cheek.

"I lost my scholarship due to indecent behavior. The school scout just came by to tell me as soon as I was conscious enough. It's over, Y/N... I'll have to go back to Korea..." He sighs quietly.

“Wha... What?" You breathe out as you feel your heart drop at that moment. "N-No. No. Namjoon.” You whisper in disbelief as you shake your head fast. “This… This isn’t… This isn’t right!” You snap finally. “I… I gotta… I-I gotta tell the police o-or the campus main office. Somebody! Someone’s gotta help us!” You say fast as your mind races with what to do next. He shakes his head with a soft wince.

“Y/N, that’ll… That'll only make things… Worse.” He tries quietly and you feel the anger consume you. You felt powerless and overwhelmed at the same time. You let go of his cheek to brush your fingers through your hair instead.

“Baby. Come here.” He tries as he pats the space next to him in the bed, and you want to laugh at the cruel irony.

He’s still trying to care for you!

“I hate this. I-I can’t… I can’t lose you! No! No, I…” You whisper, tears filling your eyes as you watch him.

“It’s not up to you…” He points out quietly and you glare at that. It's true, but it stings.

“Joonie…” You mutter in an upset matter. He frowns and weakly grabs your hand, bringing it up to his lips, and giving your palm a soft kiss that you wish you could get tattooed on to your skin so it lasts centuries…

“Joonie. I… I could’ve lost you. That’s… That’s terrifying.” You finally whimper, sniffling to keep some composure. "Now you're telling me that I am going to lose you anyway? No!" You cry softly.

“Hey… Y/N...” He tries gently and you sniffle once more, shaking your head.

“You shouldn’t have to deal with this! We shouldn't have to deal with this! I... I shouldn't have to be worried every day that some... That somebody might..." You can't stop the sob that escapes your throat as the tears fall freely. "I couldn't have you... And at this moment you're getting taken from me..." You whimper finally as you hold yourself.

"Why the hell am I the only one mad?!" You shout as the tears run down your face faster. Why must he always be passive?!

Namjoon frowns deeply at that and looks down, as if ashamed. "Please... Please let me hold you." He whispers finally, his shoulder too hurt to reach out for you himself.

You sniffle and slowly give in, moving to sit on the hospital bed with him. He winces slightly but ignores it as he focuses on holding you as close to him as possible. “We have this moment. I have another day here. Just think about that..." He whispers against your hair before nuzzling his nose against your scalp. You shut your eyes as you focus on his scent, nose pressed against his hard chest.

"We're only promised 24 hours. Like everyone else." He continues quietly.

"But that's not fair." You whisper back as you look up at him. "We aren't like everyone else." You try quietly.

"Then what do we deserve? Hm?" He asks as he rubs his hand up and down your back.

"Give me 25." You say quietly after thinking a bit. Your hand gently balls around his hospital gown. His dragon like eyes scan your face, gliding along your features gracefully.

"An hour just for us?" He smiles finally and you shake your head.

"Just for you." You whisper, making him blush ever so slightly. You two were masters of soft whispers. That and writing was your only love language...

"I'll try. But... Technically speaking-" You cut him off, leaning up to kiss him. Always one to debate. It's how you two had met actually.

A wrong answer spoke during a mid-fall lecture meeting, a quiet voice correcting it, an embarrassed blush creeping on to your cheeks at being shown up by this random exchange student. You had confronted him at the end of that class to tell him off for proving you wrong in front of the whole class, but it just led to you two realizing that there was more here than just academic rivalry.

The kiss starts off slow and tender, but just as quickly does it turn hot and passionate. You feel Namjoon's tongue lightly graze your bottom lip, and your heart flutters. You two haven't been alone in two weeks. God it felt good to have his lips on yours right now.

This is all you had.

Your 25th hour was starting now...

You pull back to catch your breath, stroking his jawline tenderly. "Baby...” You whisper in a soft warning tone.

“I... I need you...” Namjoon whispers back between soft pants. You blush hard at the phrase that he whispered to you only once before. Inbetween two large bookshelves in the campus library as you laid on the soft grey carpet, hidden away from the rest of the world...

He has the same look in his eyes as he did that night. A need. A need to prove to himself that this is real. That you are real. You always needed that assurance too.

“Here?” You whisper quietly as you can't help but look towards the door. No one was coming in here. Namjoon had no family or friends in the states, and the nurse had told you she just finished her rounds. Could you pull this off?

“Y/N... All I thought of when I was being attacked... Was how I’d never get to see you again." He admits quietly.

"Don't." You whisper as you place a hand on his chest just to feel his heartbeat. That's all you wanted right now. Feeling the heart monitors where your hand should be was the only piece of reality in this moment that things could've been worse.

"Y/N." He places his larger hand over yours. "I... I need to prove to myself that I actually survived. That I’m here. With you. Please...” He says softly. You give him another glance, just trying to read his eyes. Then you slowly nod. With no further word, you get on top of him, careful not to hurt him.

“Let’s... Go slow...” You whisper as you rest your forehead against his. he nods once before he relaxes back against the hospital bed, looking up at you in adortion while you reach under your long skirt to pull your underwear off. He smiles softly at the cotton black fabric with pink hearts on it.

"Not a word." You mutter playfully, knowing he'd just flatter himself. He smiles up at you before you lean down, kissing him deeply. He kisses back with a feverish need for your lips to stay against his until you're both desperate for air. You grant that desire by grabbing ahold of his face carefully in both hands.

Little by little, your hand travels down from his face to between you both, just exploring until finally it reaches under the hospital bedsheets and under his gown. He pulls back from your lips to let out a low shiver as you wrap your hand around his semi.

You look him in the eyes as you lightly trace your fingertips along his tip, making his mouth fall open, small pants coming from him as his eyes close in anticipation of this bliss. You pull your hand back to spit on it and then stroke his cock to hopefully make it slick enough.

"Y/N..." He pants in need as you kiss along his neck, his head going further back to give you more room to roam, his eyes still closed in peace. With his cock wet and hard enough, you sit up on your knees and position yourself on top of him.

"Joonie... Look at me." You pant. He does exactly as you say. And you slowly sink on to his thick member.

"Oh... Oh god..." He moans quietly as you slide further down. His reaction makes you wetter while also making you blush hard.

"I thought you didn't believe in him?" You tease quietly as you sit fully on his cock, making him groan.

"It's hard to question when this is bliss..." He whispers, grabbing your hips.

You open your mouth to speak again, but instead you moan ever so softly against his lips when he grinds up against me. “Baby...” You whisper against his lips.

“I love you...” He whispers as he looks up at you while you begin to bounce, hand on his chest to rub it affectionately.

“I love you...” You whisper back as you find a good pace for you both, walls squeezing along his cock as you move, making him grip your hips tighter, catching your lips in a passionate kiss. You hold his face in your hands as you make out while you ride him passionately and eagerly to feel one with him.

"Baby...” He moans the second he pulls back from this kiss, his head falling back against the hospital pillows. You moan a bit louder and bite down on your lip hard to stay quiet in this moment, but he looks so perfect in this moment. Hair a mess, face scrunched in pleasure. “Oh... Oh, baby...” He moans quietly, arms wrapping around your waist tightly.

You can’t help but go faster. The thought of never having him again? It scared you enough to want to make him remember that he is loved. That you will always love him. Always try and take care of him. Nothing was promised. Not even your 25th hour...

“Baby. Baby. Y-Yes!” He pants, hugging you tighter to him as you pump your hips in need, desperately chasing down your high and his as his head rests in the cork of your neck, nipping and licking at the skin, always careful to not leave a mark though. You had an image to uphold. Moans fill the hospital room as the heart monitor beeps wildly and you so selfishly want it to match yours. Hands roam and heads roll back. You kiss and bite along his shoulder to silence yourself as best you can, reaching a hand up to grab his hair and yank it softly as he groans your name. It's never sounded more beautiful...

“Don’t leave me. You can’t leave me...” You whisper between heavy pants of thin air, your emotions damn near strangling you. He shivers at your breath so close to his ear.

“Never. I’d never... Never leave." He declares quietly, and a part of you knows. You both are smart enough to know. It's a promise sworn in vain, but god does it feel so honest in the moment. Your body trembles as you get closer.

"O-Oh, baby!” You moan more desperately as you grip on to him, refusing to ever let him go. You knew he was close too. You could feel his cock swell as you cum around him, and you keep up your pace, just wanting to feel him. There was no going back, and you didn't want to think of what the outcome of this could be. You just wanted to feel his warm seed. So, you speed up, whispering for him to cum in you.

He reaches down to rub your clit, making you jolt to a stop, grinding against his cock and hand as he moans happily at the feeling of your milking his cock. He shoots his cum hard into you as he focuses on kissing you, biting at your lips instead since you've turned into too much of a moaning mess to properly kiss him back. You cum once more on his cock as he kisses your chin sweetly while you try coming down from your high, moaning lowly. You hug him tight, arms around his neck, not wanting him to move an inch from you.

“Baby...” You finally whisper between heavy pants when your brain starts up again. He pulls back to look up at you.

“You’re perfect...” He breathes out, and you blush before kissing him again, tenderly in this moment you share.

Maybe this life was all you got...

**********PRESENT DAY**********

"I have to shower. And make sure you didn't mark me too bad..." The Korean male says from under you. "You need to let me up soon." He mutters, his morning voice rough and deep as you kiss all along his face ever so tenderly. A smirk on your lips. He'd be in for a nice surprise when he does see the litter of hickeys left on his neck, shoulder, and chest...

"No. I changed my mind. They can't take you." You say quietly as you pull away to look at the man you love. You've always felt connected to him, but this moment... This topic... You couldn't understand. You were a foreigner at the end of the day. So, the idea of having to enlist? Having to put a pause on your life to train and prepare for the slim chance there is danger for at least a year and a half? It was a culture shock...

"We spent the whole night awake. All those hours just for us." He points out and you pout a bit at that, feeling selfish as you wrap your arms around his neck, hands playing with the small hairs left from his buzzcut.

"You think we have a problem like this in every lifetime?" You mumble against his lips, bring up the conversation from yesterday morning, making Namjoon playfully roll his eyes.

"Not this again..." He jokes before grabbing your hips peacefully. "Mm... Honestly?" He asks and you nod as you watch him closely. "I think... If we did meet in every lifetime only to be pulled apart... At least we always find each other again. Hm?" He whispers and you search his eyes to see if he means that or if he's just humoring you. Slowly, you see the honesty in his eyes and the love. You blush and lean in to kiss him again.

***************************************

Really hope you guys liked it! Next up is Taehyung! Imma put a window date up cause I know ya'll must be tired of me being late. Expect part four out the 27th-28th. Love Ya'll!!!

[imminent-danger-came]

IVE ONLY SEEN ONE PERSON POINT THIS OUT BUT MK TRIES TO PUNCH MACAQUE DISGUISED AS WUKONG BEFORE HE EVEN REALIZES ITS WUKONG. I CAN FEEL THE MK AND SWK FIGHT IN MY BONES. Also can you imagine with like that one art post Mei asks MK who HE wants to be, not a reflection of somebody, not the Monkie Kid, not the Harbringer of Chaos and HE REPLIES WITH HIS REAL NAME I WOULD GO INSANE

I'm like. 85% sure that person was me afasdfafsd. I know I've mentioned it before somewhere!

Because it's like, MK feels extremely abandoned and hurt by Wukong during s2. MK's line of "Fine! Then just leave! At least my friends will never abandon me!" in 2x01 Sleep Bug is VERY telling, and it also makes me sob when put together with 3x10 The Samadhi Fire:

MK: "NO! Mei is my best friend—I'd never abandon her when she needs me! We're heroes! It's what we do!"

And 4x02 New Adventures:

MK: “You don’t know! We’d risk it for sure! I won’t abandon them when they need us.”

MK's own low self-worth combined with Wukong's tendency to leave in the worst way possible, which was only further exacerbated by the Lady Bone Demon's manipulation.

And I think MK's experiences and feelings throughout s2 made him resolve to never make his friends feel abandoned.

But of course, since this is Lego Monkie Kid, it's more interesting than just that—because MK leaves at the end of s4. It was out of fear, sure, but so was Wukong leaving in s2 and at the end of s3. MK does exactly what he set out not to do, making the same mistakes his mentor has, literally going to isolate himself on Flower Fruit Mountain for an undetermined amount of time.

It's things like this that make the question of "Who is MK" so intriguing, because that's who MK want's to be. He want's to be himself. But who is that person?

Is MK just like Wukong? Is he a harbinger of chaos? Is he just a noodle delivery boy? Is he Monkie Kid? What if you remove all those labels? What's left? What is he?

(Plus the whole "I just want to be me—to be MK!" "Yeah well...we all know where that leads." interaction between MK and the curse in 4x07)

And now that we've thrown MK's mysterious past and ominous future into the mix, we are in for a FULL on identity crisis spiral next season.

And well, when it comes down to it, MK was willing and ready to fight Wukong in s2. The lmk writers are fantastic at paying off several arcs all at the same time (see all of 3x10, which literally had the culmination of Mei's, MK's, Wukong's, and Macaque's arcs all in one. It's fucking phenomenal), and this is partly due to the time constraints of the show as a whole, but it's also just damn good writing. MK's past, his identity, the hurt he's experienced across every season—that's all going to come to a head. I also imagine it's going to happen right along side Mei, Wukong, and Macaque's arcs once again, because that's just how this show do. It do insane shit.

I also happen to be a believer in "Samadhi Fire Part 3", in which we get another 3x10 and 4x08 parallel to round it all up, and I am waiting, WAITING, for Mei to repeat MK's words back at him:

“Mei! You have to stop. I know you’re upset, and that’s okay! I know what it’s like to have a power you don’t know how to control—to feel like the fate of the world is in your hands and you have no idea what to do! But you always have my back, and help me through it. We, will figure this out! Together!” (3x10 The Samadhi Fire)

((Which, MK himself is repeating Mei's words back at her, with "But we're going to figure this out." I NEED A POSITIVE FEEDBACK FRIEND LOOP BABY))

But yeah. I'M WAITING MAN. WE HAVE THE SAME BONE FEELINGS.

[miloscat]

[Review] Sonic the Hedgehog (PS3)

An embarrassment, frankly.

After playing Forces and actually liking it, I figured I'd give a chance to the franchise's biggest punching bag. Turns out that in this case, I agree with the popular consensus: Sonic 06 is broken and unfinished, with a messy story, bad controls, and crippling performance issues. I've heard it described as entertainingly bad, but I just can't go along that far; I had a miserable time with this game. Let's get into it, shall we?

Although I'm still not ready for my Sonic doctorate, I'm progressing well in my studies. I've played enough of Adventure to pick up that Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) is trying to be Adventure 3 in all but name (and speaking of the name, this game is not to be confused with the Mega Drive game, or the Master System game, or any of the handhelds or animated shows or comics or movies of the same name... the title is the first of many stupid decisions in Sonic 06). A big group of playable characters, more open levels than what would come later, exploration of hub areas, and a heavy focus on story and cutscenes with interweaving plot threads. It's fine in theory, it's just that every individual piece breaks down in various ways. As opposed to previous Adventure games, there are just three main stories (Sonic, Shadow, and new character Silver who is basically just Dragonball's Trunks) with the other hangers-on popping up only temporarily within certain levels.

Sonic's story, such as it is, revolves around Elise, a filler character who is a gormless and feckless human princess and frequent damsel in distress; she gets kidnapped out of nowhere at least five times and dies in a plane crash once, necessitating time travel-based rescuing. Elise’s role in the story when she’s not being kidnapped is alternately mooning, pining, emotional outbursts, and having a tragic backstory. Also, on several occasions Sonic the Hedgehog literally tells her she should smile more. Textbook misogyny, WTF. On top of this is the uncomfortable subplot about a potential romantic connection between her and Sonic, which always fails to feel earned or appropriate. The one saving grace of the character is the mildly amusing idea that her design is loosely based on the chicken animal that you free from badniks in the early games.

I know it sounds harsh but Elise almost single-handedly drags down the whole "story" aspect of this game. After progressing Sonic's mode you unlock the others and theirs almost feel like real plots, centering around stopping Iblis—the mindless beast of fire who ruined Silver's future—and Mephiles—a scheming creature of shadow—before they reunite. Even these stories don't really hold together though with their disjointed plotting, time-hopping, and contrived interactions. Not to mention the utter humourlessness, and the sheer awkwardness of everything from writing to line-readings to mocapped movements. The fact that it's seemingly incompatible with Blaze's backstory in Rush was annoying to me personally, and ending the story with a closed time loop "it never happened" resolution is just the icing on the rotten cake.

I must also mention another decision made in Sonic 06: why game look like that? It falls into the trap of early HD striving-for-realism and falling far short, but it also feels unfitting for Sonic. After all, the hedgehog himself and his anthro friends are as cartoony as ever (almost expressionless faces notwithstanding), so putting them next to the human-looking humans really jars, especially the redesigned Eggman. And speaking of, his robot army is at its most militaristic and entirely whimsy-free... just another in a long line of missteps for ol' 06.

Now all this could be swallowed if the game was fun to play. You should be able to predict that indeed it isn't. Sonic's playstyle is the stinkiest of the lot, particularly the autoscrolling running sections that feel barely functional and were the biggest cause of lost lives (I did not appreciate starting over a ten-minute level due to these abominable segments). His moveset is simple, just a homing attack and not much else, and without a targeting reticle it's unpredictable. He has some sloppily implemented extra powers that are unlocked in a shop; hilariously they're supposed to drain your special bar but due to some error they just don't, so you can use them infinitely for what that's worth.

Shadow is similar, with a combo attack and ranged stunning bolts, but also has a lot of vehicle sections which while awkward are playable enough; meanwhile Silver plays like an entirely different game. His psychokinetic powers let him pick up and throw enemy projectiles and physics objects. It's janky but his slower-paced, almost puzzley levels felt ever so slightly less like the game was constantly falling apart at the seams. There's 9 playable characters in total and none of their abilities work very well; among the others Knuckles and Rouge were pretty fun with their gliding and climbing completely breaking level design, while Blaze (another big reason I wanted to try this game, an opportunity to play as my favourite character in 3D) has a fun moveset with a double jump and a homing attack that actually keeps momentum and flings you around. Like everything in the game it's slippery and totally jank but in a way that actually feels fun sometimes.

I even sprung for the "Team Attack Amigo" DLC (now only available on PS3!) which remixes the levels for play as Tails, Blaze, and Omega (aka projectile spam bot). I should say that each campaign takes you through the same nine levels, sometimes making them new, sometimes reusing whole segments which gets old. The lowest point of the low are the boss fights, another area where the phrase "barely functional" comes to mind. These are tedious to the extreme with a lot of waiting, and several of them recur in each campaign. The worst is fighting Silver, who can instantly grab you psychically and hold you for a long pause before throwing you, and then catch you again as you recover with no chance to make any input. Wonderful!

The elephant in the room for Sonic 06 is its performance. I guess being rushed to release in an unfinished state actually has its downsides, which take the form of horrendous slowdown throughout the entire game experience. Having seemingly almost any number of objects or any amount of level geometry on screen starts making the game chug, the action not dropping frames but rather slowing to a crawl as you agonisingly float mid-jump waiting for your next input to register. And this is despite having pretty severe pop-in not too far away from your character. For what's supposed to be a fast-paced action game it's frankly unforgivable. And speaking of things that you wish ran faster, the loading screens are interminable not just for their length but their frequency: deign to do a side mission and you'll sit through a long load both before and after a character gives a tiny snippet of dialogue until you're allowed to try it, and if you fail then get ready to do it all again! They really add up!

I could go on: the camera is atrocious, the music is forgettable, Elise is incredibly cringe-inducing—oh wait, I covered that already. To be fair there is one bright shining spot and it's from my new old friend Tomoya Ohtani: the main theme His World stands among my favourites from Forces, a strong melody that mixes rock and orchestral with even some rap and makes it work! Watching the credits four times may have been the most pleasant part and it's all thanks to this song. So that's my big takeaway from Sonic 06: the rumours are true, it sucks big time, don't play it unless you're a real loser like me who doesn't value their time, it's a monument to Sega's staggering incompetence, but hey this one song is really good, maybe give it a listen!

[walker-extended-universe]

4x10 Review

Walker never fails to disappoint when it comes to the drama but they brought the action in End This Way, along with a few twists I didn't see coming.

This week's episode a doozy so I'll be covering the events in order of light to heavy. So, let's get into it.

Let's start with the lightest plotline: Cassie and Luna kicking things off.

We start of with Luna and Cassie getting ready to meet up with his closest friend. It's last minute but it's the only chance Luna has to introduce them and Cassie is excited to meet him.

Side note: Ashley and Justin have such good chemistry. I love all their scenes.

They arrive at the Side Step and meet with Luna's friend, Ed. Unfortunately, things take a sharp turn almost immediately when Ed insults Cassie's drink choice, and then the Side Step for even offering it. He starts on a rant about how Austin has changed to accommodate the "California invaders", a rant Cassie is saved from by a call from James about the situation with Stella. While she's busy with that, Luna scolds his friend for being so rude to Cassie. Ed doesn't see the big deal- this a temporary thing, is it not? He'll be back in Corpus Christie in no time.

But it isn't. Luna is serious about Cassie; he wants to move to Austin because he loves her, an admission none of them were ready for.

Conveniently, Cassie able to step away from it with the whole Stella situation and Luna immediately offers to come with her despite her protests. He's tired of Ed and he can tell Cassie is upset.

They set out to meet with Cordell at Lady Bird Lake to see if they can find Stella there. While they look, Luna becomes concerned that Cassie's worry is more about what happened at the Side Step than it is about Stella and pauses their search to confront her on it. He tries to make excuses for his friend and apologize for his "I love you" coming out in such a tense situation. Cassie is not super receptive to this happening right now because she is genuinely concerned for Stella but she's happy to know the "I love her" was real and not just said in the moment. However, she doesn't say it back, determined to get back to the search.

This was a cute little story, though him saying he loves her without her returning it just makes me more concerned for his survival in the coming episodes.

Next, let's cover what happened at the ranch.

We pick up right where the last episode left off, with Liam demanding answers from August after Stella runs away. August does his best to explain to him and Geri what happened and why they didn't come to any adults, but he struggles. Both because they don't give him much time to talk and because every excuse Stella made for him not to get help (no matter how many times he asked her to) doesn't hold up. It's not long before Abby and Bonham are brought into it by all the arguing. While Liam and the grandparents discuss strategy, Geri elects to call Cordell. Liam warns her to be vague since he hasn't been in the best headspace lately and she does her best to balance the amount of detail she gives with the amount of urgency Cordell should need to understand.

Cordell, though busy with hunting the Jackal, takes a breath to consider where Stella might disappear to if she's upset. He promises to check out Lady Bird Lake and tells Geri to loop in James for extra help.

Later, James and Trey arrive at the ranch. Everyone is caught up on the situation and they need to work together to figure out where Stella might have gone. All they know is that Joanna is upping her threat and that they're looking for the stolen necklace.

While James and Trey use their law enforcement status to track Stella's car and get intel on where she went, the rest of the family deals with the fallout. Abby looks back less-than-fondly of what she knows of Joanna, the woman who abandoned the boy Abby came to love so much. She shocks Bonham when she says that she'll kill Joanna if anything happens to Stella.

Side note: Personally, I enjoy this feral attitude of hers. Especially after everything that's happened to the family in the past few years.

While they wait for news, Liam is still stewing over Stella ignoring him and keeping secrets. What bugs him most of all is that he knew there was a problem, but everyone else (primarily Stella and Cordell) made him feel crazy for being worried. Geri steps in to protect Abby's flatware from his rage and plainly informs him that his family is just Like That and that he needs to get all this aggression out of his system before they find Stella; the last thing she'll need is to be yelled at after everything.

Side note: I love how Geri's just not taking any Walker BS this season. Good for her.

Later, Trey gets a hit on Stella's car and they found out it was headed toward Patina. August, remembering some clues from Hoyt's letter, tells them it's pretty likely the necklace is too, reinforcing that they might find Joanna there. But the joy of figuring out the clues is short lived as Abby storms out of the house with her shotgun to rescue her granddaughter.

Side note: I love how we just gloss over how August knows they make "banger" orange wine there. Go forth little rebel.

On that note, let's discuss the main event: Stella attempting to negotiate for Sadie's life.

This episode picks up right where we left off, with Stella driving down an old dirt road to meet with Joanna. She arrives at vague meeting spot and faces Joanna head on. She may be out of time but she is not out of options.

Joanna makes things interesting by showing us she has a hostage: Sadie. Stella didn't expect this but she hides it well and attempts to make a deal: Sadie for the letter Hoyt left with clues to the necklace. When Joanna doesn't take the deal, Stella burns it, forcing Joanna to keep both of them alive if she wants that necklace. Before things move any further, Stella makes it even more interesting by letting Sadie know that the woman that's been tormenting them for months is Hoyt's mother, her grandmother.

On their way to Hoyt's old house, Sadie goes off on Joanna for the way she's been treating her own family. Joanna seems mostly unfazed by this but she does have to keep her accomplice in check. Then, they arrive.

Once they walk in, Joanna asks where the necklace is and Stella claims she doesn't know. The letter just led them here; no further details. So, all four of them get to searching.

Sadie finds Hoyt's old room and looks through some of his things, stumbling on a picture of him as a young boy. While she's in there, Joanna finds her. She tells Sadie that she's the reason any of this is even happening; that when Sadie put her DNA out there to look for her biological father, Joanna was contacted and thought Hoyt might have left the necklace with her. Joanna only wants it for the money but she must know that Hoyt was more sentimental. Sadie is cold with her still, an opinion that doesn't improve when Joanna admits to abandoning Hoyt as a young child. Sadie goes off on her again, telling Joanna that the Walkers were his real family and she never really knew him. Joanna snipes back that she didn't know him either and leaves the room.

Later, Stella and Sadie are able to find a moment alone. Stella apologizes for all the trouble and promises to get her out of this. Sadie points out that they wouldn't even be in this mess if they'd gone to the cops when she suggested, to which Stella points out lying to the cops was Sadie's idea in the first place. Either way, they have no necklace and they need an escape plan. Stella seems to have an idea and tells Sadie to wait for a "signal" before they're interrupted by Joanna's henchman.

Side note: I love Sadie's sass. They should kidnap the children more often.

Much later, the entire house has been searched but no necklace was found. Stella tries to convince Joanna that Hoyt must have come back and moved the necklace somewhere else in the last five years but she won't hear it. After more pushing, Stella reveals a hidden pocket in the fireplace and produces a jewelry bag from it. An empty jewelry bag. The necklace was there, but isn't anymore. All of this was for nothing.

Joanna starts to have a breakdown. This was supposed to be her chance to get life-changing money but it was all for nothing. Her henchman doesn't like the idea of not getting paid and points his gun at Joanna for a change. This is the moment Stella decide to give the "signal" and a fight breaks out.

In the heat of the battle, Joanna makes a run for the door, only for Abby to be waiting on the other side with her shotgun.

And just like that, it's over.

Joanna and her accomplice are arrested and Sadie and Stella are saved. Abby gets her closure with Joanna, finally admitting that she pities her more than anything. Stella starts apologizing to Liam, only for him to forgive her. He's just glad she's safe.

Then Sadie, Stella, and Geri get their own moment of closure about all of this and about Hoyt. Sadie is more-or-less officially welcomed into the Walker-Broussard family, which was more Hoyt's family than the Rawlins ever were. Stella apologizes for burning the letter Hoyt wrote to Geri but make sup for it by revealing that she did find the necklace after all; she just hid it in her shoe to prevent Joanna from getting it. She also found a note hidden with the necklace which she passes to Geri, who then passes it to Sadie.

Sadie reads the note aloud with tears in her eyes. I nthe letter, Hoyt reveals that though he never got to pass this necklace down to his own kids, he considers it a part of his legacy, an old heirloom worth more than money. The necklace now hers, Sadie decides it would be best to return it to the museum he stole it from. Righting one last wrong in Hoyt's life.

Side note: I kind of wish they'd decided to keep the necklace. I'm sure Liam could've figured out a way to make it legal.

Finally, Cassie and Luna roll up to help clear the scene. They're surprised to see that Cordell isn't there. Which surprises everyone else, as they thought Cordell was with them. But he never showed up to the Lake.

We cut away to Cordell laying on a bed. He wakes up to the sounds of things happening in the kitchen and wanders out of his room to find Stella and August arguing in the ranch house kitchen. Confused, the sound of the blender seems to pull him into the real world, where he's tied of and being spoon fed mashed fruit. An injection sends him back into this dream, just in time for Emily to come into view. (At least, for him. We are not so lucky.)

And with that, another intense episode comes to a close.

Like any good episode of Walker, I'm left with more questions than answers. Why did Sadie not find Joanna sooner? Why is Joanna focusing on this one necklace when there are countless other things to steal for a quick cash grab? How did no one hear Abby grabbing a shot gun and leaving the house? When did Stella have time to find and replace the necklace? When did Sadie make time to talk with Abby about Hoyt? Why do all the interesting things happen off screen? And did Cordell set himself up as bait or did he get caught by being in the Jackal's way?

Hopefully we'll get some answers next week. See y'all then!

[gods-of-mischief]

What happened with: Maybe we could figure it out together? [Thoughts after S02E06]

My impressions of the story that I loved so much and that destroyed me so emotionally.

Yes, the second series is brilliant outside - great acting, visuals, music, epic finale. Yeah, it's beautiful at first and I can understand so much excitement and ovations about how great it is. But… when I look at the first series and compare it to the second, there are so many things missing. Damn it!

First season had soul, the creators focused mostly on the characters, on their growth, on emotions, on details, on the play of colors. For example, the scene in the Citadel and the conversation between Sylvie and Loki… absolutely breathtaking scene that they turned into a farce in the second series. (When HWR had erased Sylvie from the scene it was so gross it almost made me jump out of my chair.) At what point did a show that was about two people and their journey become a show about one person? What happened with "You go. I go.", "Maybe… maybe we could figure it out together."?

Why did Marvel put out a novelization confirming their feelings for each other, all that unspoken words, if they didn't want to work with that relationship properly in the second season? The relationship between those two was the heart of the entire first season. Yes, Loki was looking for Sylvie… yes, he was looking at her with his sad puppy eyes every time he saw her… but so what… for what? If they never once discussed about things - what happened, about their feelings, anything about them at all? And at the end, out of the blue, "I'm doing it for you"… but all the time without you.

They use his love for her to learn to control the slippage, to work things out, to sacrifice everything for her and for his friends. But when has Loki ever had time to truly be friend anyone other than Mobius? Yeah, they were dealing with the same problem, but before his "rewriting the story", those people were almost strangers to him… and he sits there with Sylvie at the bar and tells her that he's all about his friends… where some deeper relationship is pulled out of absolutely nowhere.

They both mutually think the other doesn't need the other in their lives anymore, and the way Loki handles everything on his own makes it seem that way. Still, it's Sylvie who makes him start to change why he does what he does along the way. So why wasn't there a scene where he finally fills her in properly on all of this? Why did they show us that he "trying everything" at the Citadel when it didn't seem like that at all, and make Sylvie out to be some obsessed murderess who can't see or hear what's going on around her? Why were there so many allusions to enchantment when they never used it to allow Sylvie to finally fully understand Loki? And I can think of more and more questions like that! I don't even want to imagine what the "real memories" Loki left in Sylvie's head after all this.

I also don't understand how they made the main female character a completely peripheral character that they clearly didn't know how to handle or lead. They had her thrown in for a twist here and there, but otherwise they had her there for decoration? Such an interesting character that they turned into a looped figure that doesn't understand what's going on. A side character who just stood on the sidelines for nothing? The girl was a goddess, just like Loki, so what the hell? That's how untapped the potential is. It was a pain to watch and especially in the finale. Sophia, I'm really sorry. You and Sylvie deserved so much better. That mysogyny was disgusting.

I really tried to take all the episodes with a grain of salt, expecting that there was surely a reason… that everything would somehow become clear, that I couldn't judge without the whole context… but the whole picture just confirmed to me that the creators were just pushing the story and the characters into situations that absolutely missed the fundamentals of the first series.

Yes, it could have had exactly the ending it had, if it had to be. But the path should have been different. Why does he have close people around him and then he is alone in everything? I stand by the fact that this should have been handled by both of them. That they should have either ended up there "at the end of time" together or they should have given them some kind of goodbye, a scene where they talk about it, where Loki tells her he doesn't want her to go there with him, that he wants her to live (like when it was in NWH between Peter and MJ, for example, when he told her what was going on, what he had to do and they dealt with it together) or a scene where Sylvie was free to make her own decision. She should have been able to decide and have a say in all of this.

For me, this build-up was unprecedentedly cruel to them from start to finish. I have to say that the ending made me cry, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've cried at a movie or TV show. This completely destroyed me, how long nothing. What was it supposed to give me? No matter what I do, it will never be enough? Will I have to lose everything I want and live with my biggest fears forever? Or?

So… in summary, if you're all about the epic story and not the characters and real relationships, you'll probably be thrilled… otherwise, you might have the same mixed feelings as I did. I know that Marvel is no soap opera… but they often present love and relationships in a very painful way, I get really sick of it sometimes. It's not always about epic twists and sacrifices…

I'm still here. I love Sylki, I love Tom and Sophia. But the second season hurts like hell. I don't even know if I want to see it again. To be honest, I don't even know how to deal with it. Is there any hope? Who knows… it's getting harder and harder to hope.

[hollygl125]

On January 15:

Am I declaring another GSR holiday?  Maybe.  Why not?  This is my Tumblr account, so I guess I’ll do what I want to do.  Is it already over in pretty much every time zone except mine?  Yep, that too.  (Edited to add: it’s over here now, too, by the time of posting.)

January 15 is a pretty significant day in GSR history—perhaps the most significant.   (Surely the first day of the AAFS conference would be in the running in the fictional world. But in the real world I’d say January 15 beats out most.)  First, twenty years ago, on January 15, 2004, we got “Butterflied” (04x12). Then, exactly five years later, on January 15, 2009, we got “One to Go” (09x10), the episode that really should have tied it all up with a bow (and, for a time, did).

Last week I made a GIF-set for Sara’s introduction in “Cool Change” (01x02) then a day or two later I continued my CSI rewatch with “Invisible Evidence” (04x07).  Inevitably I watched the (“Pin me down”) scene repeatedly before continuing with the episode.  I know season 04 is the GSR angst season (*insert “TM” I can’t type here*).  But, spending that much time with “I don’t even have to turn around” and “Pin me down” in such quick succession, I was particularly struck by the sadness of these two people having gone from friends (or “friends,” if you get my drift, of course) who were, despite the tragic circumstances surrounding their reunion, pretty darn happy to see each other to, in about three years’ time, colleagues who could barely have a normal, non-awkward conversation.  (See: “I’m always over-talking around you.”)  Viewed in retrospect it’s an enjoyable though angsty loop in the GSR roller coaster ride, but it feels really sad when viewed from the perspective of the time.

At the end of season 03, Grissom turns down Sara’s dinner invitation (“Play with Fire,” 03x22).  In “Invisible Evidence,” “Pin me down” aside, he’s kind of a jerk to her (when she’s concerned about the murder she’s already investigating, he gives her the terse “It’s not a negotiation”).  He lets her down again in the next episode (“After the Show,” 04x08), when he lets Catherine take over Sara and Nick’s case just because the suspect thinks Catherine is “the pretty one.”  Sara doesn’t know it until much later, but she suffers another (metaphorical) blow at his hands in “Eleven Angry Jurors” (04x11), when he recommends Nick for the ultimately-cancelled promotion to Lead CSI (whatever the heck that is) over Sara.  Of course, at the same time, Sara and Grissom get some ridiculous cuteness in that episode, as seen here, when Grissom makes a corny pun over a bee (of course a 🐝) corpse and checks to make sure Sara thinks he’s adorable.  (Newsflash: she does!)

(As an aside, on which I will possibly ramble more at a later date, I tend to see Grissom up to this point as a wounded animal—occasionally accidentally lashing out at his would-be rescuer, Sara—who is simply unequipped and unprepared for the situation in which he has found himself, so I think he is trying his best but does not really realize how deeply wounded he is.)

Then we continue on the GSR roller coaster with the beloved and angsty “Butterflied.”  CSI being a show about forensics, this really could have been the kind of relationship that always simmered under the surface but never came to much of anything for the presumably star-crossed lovers.  We know the writers planned to let the whole thing disappear after Sara’s failed dinner invitation.  But WP and JF liked playing the relationship!  (JF has, repeatedly I am sure, said it was her favourite part of the show!)  They didn’t want it to go away!  So instead in the first half of season 04 we get first “Pin me down” and then the David Rambo-penned “Butterflied,” which finally confirms (as we all knew all along!) that Sara does not just have some unrequited schoolgirl crush on her boss and mentor.  This is the real deal, and Dr. Grissom has been suppressing some deep feelings for the young and beautiful Ms. Sidle—really deep feelings, as seen in the original script for Grissom’s “Butterflied” monologue.

I don’t actually remember watching “Butterflied” for the first time.  At the time most of my attention was focused on my first year of [professional] school.  I was definitely a more casual fan and not down the rabbit hole (although I am the kind of person who manages to ship couples on shows she’s never even watched).  The first episode of CSI for which I have a clear memory of having an emotional reaction was “Bloodlines” (04x23), because I felt pretty upset by Sara’s almost-DUI.

On the other hand, I have a very clear memory of first watching “One to Go” (09x10), which originally aired fifteen years ago today (yesterday now), although I did not first watch it on that day.  I was in Pakse exactly fifteen years ago, or so my photo evidence tells me; so I assume I would not have managed to watch the episode live in Laos (I didn’t even have a laptop with me), but I must have watched it soon after I got home at the end of the month, and I was wholly unspoiled for the experience.

I don’t know whether anyone at the time had hints of whether JF was showing up at all for WP’s last episode.  (Fi?  Anyone?)  But as far as I am aware they all pulled an ER/George Clooney and didn’t let anyone in on the last scene.  (GSR has echoed Doug on the docks on more than one epic relationship occasion.  And yeah that song is so perfect that it’s on my GSR fic playlist for the first post-“Immortality” reunion chapter.)  They held JF’s name from the initial credits so as not to give her appearance away.  So there we were in the last scene, with Gil Grissom walking through the “Costa Rican” rainforest, and Sara Sidle still nowhere to be seen, and I vividly remember thinking, “Please just tell us he goes to Sara, please just tell us he goes to Sara, please just tell us he goes to Sara, please just tell us he goes to Sara, please just tell us he goes to… Sara!!!”  I’m in tears just thinking about it—I kid you not.

Anyway, I am sure that scene in Costa Rica is ingrained in the hearts and minds of GSR fans everywhere, but—just in case you needed to see another version—I made a two-part GIF set for it, which you can find here and here.  I think “Wild Heart” by Bleachers is a perfect song for Grissom going into the rainforest in search of his beloved, so it makes me pretty emotional (and of course “Unbound” by Robbie Robertson is a GSR classic).

On another note, this weekend I also made a season 04/CSIV GIF-set (not linked because it’s currently sitting in my drafts, uncertain as to its fate), and I have to say I find it really pretty remarkable that we got to see our two lovely science nerds go from a cute-turned-angsty under the surface maybe-relationship to a real relationship, to our awkward bugman going on a heroic journey (“from the isolated figure we first meet him as to the one who, when he leaves us, believes, above everything, in love”) and following his beloved into the rainforest, to places we don’t talk about (okay, I could have skipped that part), to sailing off into the sunset together, to being the world’s cutest old marrieds.  It really was a roller coaster ride, but I think it’s pretty special (and I feel pretty privileged) that we got to experience it all.

I’ll stop rambling now.  Usually I proofread everything I write about twenty times to make sure I haven’t missed any typos or accidentally written anything that could offend anyone, but tonight I’m posting this immediately before going to bed.  So, if you’ve actually read this far, please be polite in pointing out my typos, and please know that I really didn’t mean any offence (to anyone, on anything).

Those are my (very rough) thoughts; obviously your perspective may differ! 💛 Happy tumbling!

[popculturebuffet]

HCG: Garfield His 9 Lives Retrospective Finale: The BOOM! Comic Book (Commission for Emma Fici)

Happy halloween all you comic cats and welcome to the finale of my look at Garfield His 9 LIves! We've covered the cult classic book, the beloved specail and now we're onto the final entry: the comic time forgot.

So in the 2010's Garfield had a comic book done by Boom Studios, both an ongoing and a few mini series, initially written by Garfield and Friends and The Garfield Showrunner Mark Evainer, but by this point written by Scott Nickel. Nickel seems to primarialy work in kids comics, having done some of Sports Illustrated's graphic novels for kids. A real thing that exists.

So naturally with a new medium, it was time to once again take a stab at this concept. Honestly with the films going on I wouldn't mind if they tried to do a full film version with 9 new lives, but we'll see.

For now this is the last stab at the concept and is largely forgotten as the Boom Garfield comic didn't make a huge splash. It is currently being reprinted which is good, I hate when things fall into limbo betwene licenses and i'm still waiting for Image to put more than meets the eye back into print. and meant I could read the whole thing on comixology unilmited as it's recently added the garfield comics.

So fitting the medium, much like the book, 9 Lives III: Season of the Witch has each life have a wildly diffrent visual style, probably the most of any of these, with the artists involved really going wild. Out of the three it has the most visual range, and even the segments closer to garfield writing wise still look vastly diffrent. I love it and while a style or two dosen't work for me I applaud the variety. Nickel writes all 9 , the only time one writer wrote all of these, if not a massive departure as Jim Davis wrote the bulk of his 9 lives and Phil Roman oversaw the adaptation and has a director credit for the whole thing.

As I hinted at last time this one's a mixed bag as the first few segments.. are not great. But it picks up as it goes along. It's the weakest of the three and while I admit I defintely have love built up for the other two versions I don't here, going into it for the first time for this review, it's more that a lot of the segments fall flatter, some not taking nearly as big swings or trying to do the old narrative thing of looping in past versions of garfield's fast. Sometimes it works, but the better segments, with one exception, tend to just do thier own weird genre thing. It's time for 9 last lives, 9 last ways to loose under the cut as we see the good, the bad and the ugly of garfield.. and also garfield homaging the good the bad and the ugly.

So unlike the others Boom's 9 Lives was originally done as the last 4 issues of the ongoing series, two lives per issue and instead of a garfield life, we just get a full page intro from garfield instead of the one off blurb from the original book or similar intros in the specail. These are mostly fine, just fun little diversions to help set it up each themed to whatever life it is and linking them back to garfield. It's a solid wraparound that dosen't really have an ending as the last one is a scinetest theroising garfields future instead. It does however have my faviorite depection of johns hair i've seen

These are done by Andy Hirsch who looking at his website seems to prefer historical fiction for kids, a cartoony style but you learn something. He did do work for boom on adventure time, regular show and amazing world of gumball so it's not a shock he wound up here. He does really fantastic garfield work and i'd love to see him return to the franchise if they ever do comics again

Art by David Degrand

Cave Cat sucks. It just.. does. On the writing front Nickel falls into the trap most of the lives from the other versions avoided, the same one that made me hate King Kat: it's garfield BUT IN ANOTHER SETTING. Jon is his cave owner! Nermal gets mailed to abu dabi! fucking vito the pizza making man shows up for some reason! I get these are aimed more at kids, but kids expect.. more.

And the thing is looking into the artist.. David Degrand honestly slaps: he did backups for rocko, has a unique and fun chunky art style he just.. didn't get to go as far with. You can see this in the fact he did another garfield story, what seems to be issue 10 of the boom comics, that he , like with cave cat, put art of up on his site for his portfolio

This is so much more expressive and fun btu Cave Cat isn't. The writing really lets him down while Mark Evanier clearly let him have a bit more oomph to his weirdness. That and Evanier can be fucking weird in general, and it fit what they were going for more. Defintely going to have to review this issue at some point and check out some of degrands other works, but Cave Cat did him dirty. I can't tel lif he thought he had to hold back or not drawing monsters he simply couldn't go all out but the man is awesome even if his anthology segment isnt'

Art by Kari Smith I couldnt' find out WHICH Kari Smith made this as Kari Smith turns out to not only be a shockingly common name but lead to a few artists, none of whom SEEM to have worked on this. I did give it my honest best and the art here is decent, if nothing special and nothing like the other kari smiths I found. Granted that again could simply be boom editorial stepping in.

King Cat is fine, which you wouldn't think given how much I fucking hate the animated version. And it DOES keep garfield owning slaves for some reason, but they mostly feed him and fan him. They don't you know. .have garfield whip the piss out of assorted slaves or actively visit the pyramids. He's just doing what a pampered cat/advisor to his king probably would do.

The plot itself.. is kinda boring but at least uses the setting better: Garfield is the beloved pet/advisor to his king, being the one who suggests the pyramids and thus the one who inherits the throne. The king's evil vizer, you know the type, wants the throne instead and sends mummies, a plauge of rats and the god of death anubis against him. And I love how each backfire: the mummies are so dang slow he can just unravel them, he, as you'd expect from garfield, bargins with the rats giving them a bunch of cheese and Anubis.. is pissed the evil vizer interuppted his poker game and kills him.

Honestly.. this one's pretty good. I don't love it and having garfield have slaves is questionable as always, I don't really LIKE characters who own people outright on principal because .. i'ts slavery, I shoudln't have to explain why slavery bad or why a beloved cartoon cat shouldn't be practicing it, but they at least don't tdwell on it as much and use the setting for egyptian gags and in the style of the prince and vizer. it's not amazing but it's at least a marked improvment.

Art by Roger Landridge

Pirate Cat comes to us from Roger Landridge, who as a first for the artists for these stories has a wikipedia article: He started writing a deranged comic strip from 2000ad, The Straightjacket Fits, did a popeye series for IDW and to my delight is the same guy who wrote and drew the excellent Muppet Show comic for boom I've gotta cover one of these days. All in all an acomplished dude. his art style here is nice and expressive, a bit more cartoony than usual for garfield and fitting the story.

It's also nice to get an original concept, as while I don't entirely mind the boom comic recycling concepts, as they do new stuff with the basic premises each time, it is nice to get NEW lives as history is vast. And garfield as a pirate fits as well as a viking with him pillaging lasanga and on a treasure hunt against Jon. It's also the only one that does this past lives gimmick that works for me as Odie and Nermal as his crew, along with some other cats, just makes sense and nermal isn't just.. shoved in there as a button. While Jon as the antagonist is just.. inherently funny. It's hard to imagine Jon as evil but here we are. We also get Melvin the sea monster

I like melvin Give him and old eli a spinoff yesterday.

Art by Yehudi Mercado

So I encountered something entirely unexpected here... see turns out the artist for this one, also artist of Barkham Asylum and other childs comics.. got to write a marvel comic.. what if miles morales #4. Each one in this series was by a diffrent author showing miles as a diffrent marvel hero and for some reason his idea of "Thor but in brooklyn".. became..

I mean combining the two could be clever, combining brooklyn arcateture with asgards buuuut

I mean my god. He later apologized and agreed to donate his residuals to a brooklyn charity but my god. Anyways I mostly bring it up as it's infamous and it'd be weird if I didn't.. and because so far googlling anyone else involve just brings up "They did a bunch of other neat stuff I might check out, usually better than this" not "They did a racisim".

So anyway this story itself is good. I like Mercado's style here, nicely stylized and the first of this anthology to really stand out. The script is also great , with Evil Roy Gato coming into town to force them to print goofy novelty shirts so when it's invented he can send the work offshore and pocket the money! It's just such a weirdly specific and goofy idea it makes me giggle. And his defeat by clint eastwood garfield is delightful. Just typing the sentence clint eastwood garfield is amazing and it's this right mix of fitting, as they both have an excellent resting bitch face, and being fucking weird to have an icon of hypermasuclinity who once ranted at a chair represneting the president for some reason represented by garfield. It's a great segment and while it's marred by it's artist being a bit of a shithead, my hope is that mercado genuinely learned from this and gets a chance to do better. Also just to be clear marvel editorial ALSO deserves blame for that one as they approved it and thought nothing was wrong with it. Mercado is NOT blameless, but my god ya'll read this script and thought "this is fine".

Art by Brittney Williams

Brittney Williams is the first artist whose work i've actually seen before in the marvel series "Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat" a decent slice of life comic starring patsy with fantastic art. Williams was fantastic there and does incredible work here.

Super Cat is a golden age superman pastiche, which happens a lot but works due to putting it's own spins on it: their clark kent stand in is a copy boy, trying to pine after a golden age style dismissive lois, fight a nefarious villian in a mech suit in a world of delightfully drawn furries. It's a simples tory: super cat gets depowered and his new sidekick, odie , the newspaper's janitor who stumbled in on supercat's identity and becomes his sidekick and saves the day. It's cute, funny and gorgeous to look at, getting the right ballance between a golden age comic and parody, feeling like one while also having nice colorful modern florishes in it's art. Super Cat might be my faviorite of the 9+ lives, and is certainly my faviorite of this batch. It's fun, breezy and I may cover it in full someday and gets the feel of superman comics from the golden age down pitch perfect. Read this one if nothing else.

Art by Andy Hrisch

Andy Hrisch gets to cut loose a bit and I like that they let the wraparound guy also do his own segment. You can see more style with this one, with a bulkier sam whose close to garfield. This story leands heavier on comedy than babes and bullets and is delightful: Spayed accidently eats poisoned lasagna and has to figure out who in his rogues gallery poisnined him> The comic has lots of fun designs, reminding me of dick tracy a bit but in it's own style and the payoff for both thigns is great; Spayed spends the day grilling all his enemies.. and thus they all come calling to beat him up, with the real culprit being his secretary he wouldn't pay. He's forced to pay her (He was never poisoned).. but since the whole "pissing off his rogues thing" is thanks to her instead of just..demanding a raise, which is a lot but sadly realistic givne this climate, he leaves her to get pummeled by his enemies. Sam's a jerk here.. but he's a likeable jerk versus Slaverfield. A guy being a touch anti heroic and leaving an asshole to other assholes is a bit more tolerable than "WHIP THEM WHIP THE PISS OUT OF THEM.. FIELD"

Art by Frazer Irving

Frazer Irving is an artist who seems to specialize in horror and being unsettling. Lab Cat ironically is more of a horror comedy, but irving DOES do a great monster design for the cat.. his humans... welll

This is also the only story i've seen talked about entirely for it's art. And it's a mixed bag. I do think Irving does great horror work here, if with dodgy humans.. but the offputting feel dosen't quite match the story, where a bumbling pab tech is forced to look after a giant monster and gets it t calm like any other cat. BOth sides of Lab Cat aren't bad: the idea this big horrifying mutation that man has created is just as much cat is ever is adorable, and the tech leaving the cast hastily and his exasierated reactions.. are genuinely funny. It's just not completely strong as it's clear the writer and artist werne't on the same page as much as with say the first 9 lives "Primal Self". It stillg ets points with me for doing something so diffrent with the basic concept and is on par with sam spade as far as the takes on a life we've sene before go. This one honestly grew on me for it's creatvitiy and unique garfield design and while it dosen't mesh perfectly, I like it a lot more than I did the first go round and a LOT more than the first two segments.. or our last.

Art by Genivive FT

Space Cat is a throughly disappointing finale, more on par with our first segment. It's a star wars riff.. which as a child of the late 90's and early 2000's i've seen far too many of those to be impressed by "OH you made Jon the emperor instead of darth vader, you made arlene leia and garfield han good for you"

It's only two highlights are making it's odie super intellgent, it's C-3PO. C-3POdie, which they shoudl've gone with is fun.. but we just dont' get much time with him or Ace Nova. Ther'es intresting bits here, I like the ending reveal that this was all a setup to get the infinity brick and that Ace.. ends up resetting time and space

But i'ts agressively bland. The art is decent, nicely done digital stuff that reminds me of a more polished versoin of John Allison's early work on scary go round before he started handrawing the strip again

Though the artist has done better work as seen by her deviant art instagram and her own style is better.. which does kinda note the pattern: these artist seemed to be restricted somewhat by whatever paws, boom or the writer wanted, compared to the previous two versions where there was little, the only restirction on the animated one being budget and censors but still not enough.

Overall

Mixed bag was my thoughts going out of the graphic novel.. but on this reread as I reviewed it it's generally.. okay. It has one truly awful segment, a few okay ones, and a lot of geninely great ones. It's the weakest of the three easily, as it's clear the writer for all three wasn't al ltha tup for actual experimenting the way Jim Davis was. He leans more toward humor for ALL segments instead of trying something diffrent with even Lab Cat being a horror comedy. I have nothing against comedy, especailly since this is garfield, but what made 9 lives in both previous versions so unique is it blended comedy stories you'd expect with diffrent styles of comedy, like the three stooges, or horror, noir , biography and more. This 9 lives dosen't seem as keen to experiment in the story ,though the artists involve all try their best, I feel there's WAY more that coudl be done with this concept in this medium and hope we get another crack. I"d even love for some of these artists to come back as they can do more bu it feels like SOMEONE told them to be more garfield. 9 Lives 3: The Dream Warriors is still well worth reading for it's good segments, but feels a bit downgraded, the way it feels like Davis slowly homognized the franchise. It wasn't super deep to begin with but it feels like its experimented less and less as it goes and it's to the franchises detrment

9 LIves Boom Ranking

Super Cat: I gushed about this plenty. It's fun, breezy and unique for a superman parody using the standard golden and silver age setup. Sam Spade: A solid noir spoof with great art Cowboy Cat: A fun western romp with good art from a guy who really needs to sort some shit out. Pirate Cat: Garfield's really handsome when he's on a boat Lab Cat: Despite it's clash of art and words it still stands out Garfield Wraparound: Pretty standard garfield stuff, pretty fun King Cat: Better than the original but still fairly bland compared to the rest Space Cat: Bleh Cave Cat: The artist deserved better.

So that leaves one bit of buisness left. We have 30 segments over three versions, we've ranked them all indvidually.. but which ones are the best? The worst? The middle? Let's see

Overall Ranking

For this i'll also be thrwoing in the babes and bullets special, because why the fuck not.

Primal Self Diana's Piano Super Cat Babes and Bullets (Special) The Exterminators Court Musician (Special Lab Animal (Special) Lab Animal (Book) Sam Spade (BOOM!) Cowboy Cat (BOOM!) Space Cat (Special) Blues Cat Stunt Cat Babes and Bullets (Book) Cave Cat (Special) Garfield (Book) Garfield (Special) Lab Cat (BOOM!) Pirate Cat The Vikings In The Beginning (Book) In the Garden (Specail) The Garden King Cat (BOOM!) Cave Cat (Book) Garfield Wraparound In the Beginning (Special) Space Cat (Book) Space Cat (Boom) King Cat (Special) Cave Cat (BOOM!)

And while I didn't intend it that way, this ranking was entirely by the seat of my pants I do like that it ended up with one of each near the top. I do recommend checking out all three versions of 9 lives if you haven't, it's a trip and well worth the time. Not all segments are created equal, but what's good there is great and well worth your time. Thanks for reading

Next Time: Thanksgiving.. the only garfield holiday done in it's actual month. What a concept.