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lisafication · 1 year ago

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This post is uh, extremely normal I swear

So hello yes I am absolutely On My Bullshit regarding my new favourite game.

That’s right, it’s the cannibal incest game, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. And I’m here to shove five thousand words of pretentious analysis down your throat because, and I do not exaggerate, I think it is one of, if not the best written game I have ever played. And I have played a lot of games, including Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy XIV and Undertale, to name a few narrative luminaries to come to mind.

That wordcount is not an exaggeration. My brainworms are extremely powerful and now you can share them with me as I walk you through my insane skyscraper of inference-driven analysis.

Or you can click away. I really wouldn’t blame you, it’s quite a lot.

Content Warnings: …Yes?

(To drop the bit for a moment, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley covers extremely disturbing material and challenges you to examine aspects of living in this world that many have taken for granted all their life, it is not a comfortable game, this will cover similar topics and will often echo the game’s unremitting scepticism on basic principles of society and humanity and you should look after yourself first. My Content Warning is framed as a joke, but it’s also quite real in that the game is designed to make you uncomfortable and there’s no shame in that not being for you.)

This was originally posted on and formatted for Sufficient Velocity, and you can probably more easily read and discuss it with me here.

With that said, let’s dig in. I have had to split this into multiple posts because tumblr will only allow so many images. There will be spoilers for all endings.

She’s excited, are you?

It’s All About Ashley

It really is, isn’t it? I mean, for approximately eighty percent of the total game as currently released and the entirety of Episode 1, you’re in control of Ashley, just as she’s in control of her and Andrew’s relationship for 80% of the game, up until the various ending sequences where it begins to slip. The only other characters who really matter at all in and of themselves are Andrew and her mother — and the former is under her thumb, and she eats the latter. It’s all about Ashley. Even her obsession with Andrew is, ultimately, about Ashley.

But who is Ashley? What is Ashley? Why is Ashley, even? Let’s take a look.

Ashley as presented to us in Episode 1 is very straightforward, so let’s list off the traits we’re given — she is malicious, she is fearless, she lacks empathy, she doesn’t have anything resembling a conscience, she demands Andrew belong to her and her alone, she has him at her beck and call.

In Episode 2, we’re ostensibly shown how she has him at her beck and call— she leverages the threat of reporting Nina’s death over him and had him swear to be with her forever. We’re shown that even as a child she was “just, like that” — but as a child, she hadn’t learnt to live with it yet, to laugh at the farce of it all.

Yeah, exactly like that!

And she does this throughout Episode 1 — The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is a remarkably silly game much of the time, finding moments of absurdity and levity against a backdrop blacker than pitch — and most of the time, your internal narration is coming from Ashley and the jokes will not-infrequently come at her own expense.

She will later get negged by her human sacrifice for her poor ritual circle drawing

Her reaction to being told that her soul is as dark and viscous as tar is “You guess you already knew that” — it’s confirmation to her, not new information. Ashley knows who she is. But who taught her this? There’s layers to this, nothing in this game is as simple and straightforward as it appears at first sight, which is why I’ve been obsessing over it for days.

While it’s common in fiction, the truth of the matter is, most ‘bad people’ really do think they’re good people. But Ashley has never once thought of herself as a good person — or perhaps better put as a person worthy of love — as we learn across Episodes 1 & 2, with our flashbacks to Andy and Leyley and the VERY VERY QUIET!!!

I really wish I had space in this essay to talk about this, but I’d like to touch on these being traits usually more easily forgiven in young boys than young girls at some point.

If she removes all other options, only then can she expect him to like her.

This is something that is echoed in the modern day — her seeming self-assurance is easily shaken and she reaches out to the world — usually Andrew — to affirm and validate her, soothing her insecurities, using any tool she deems necessary. Even when her life is on the line when Andrew has her by the throat at the climax of Episode 1, the only ‘compelling reason’ she can give Andrew to not kill her is her ability to soothe his nightmares. When he tells her there are sleeping pills for that…

Most people would have a bit more to argue for their existence.

While she, unlike Andrew, acknowledges having had friends before the quarantine… you know she’s got a point that they didn’t even bother to answer her calls, that was clearly not something the state was interfering with given Andrew’s calls with his mother and his girlfriend, and given her general demeanour it’s not hard to imagine that… they weren’t ever very close. When we see her and Nina talk in the infamous ‘box scene’, it’s clear that Nina doesn’t like her very much, despite Andrew’s assessment of Nina as being one of Ashley’s friends.

We see further support for her general lack of companionship in her dream sequence in the Burial route — Leyley and Leyley Alone. No matter what you do, you can’t place the pink plushy at the family table, the flowers won’t bloom if you give the Julia and Nina plushies her own as a companion instead of Andrew’s — and if you’re bold enough to go for the ‘incest route’, in the ‘Love’ room you see that no one ever looks happy to be with her in the childlike depictions of her history, nor is she happy in turn, save for when she’s with Andrew. In a bit of heavy-handed metaphor, the player then overwrites all of these tense, upset, hard moments with Andrew, having him fill in for everyone else in life — and happy with her.

Once Upon A Lousy Life…

THE END

And that’s why she needs him to affirm her, because no one else ever has and no one else ever will. It’s even included in their comic beats — when the siblings are getting along well, they’ll often play a game where Andrew dramatically overpraises Ashley while she demands more; it’s a comedic bit but I mean — it really does matter to her!

For the record, she opened a door. She gets a little heart in a speech bubble after this exchange.

We have a great example of this dynamic, that of insecurity and affirmation, in Episode 1, after Andrew has killed for her, butchered for her, his girlfriend broke up with her, he’s seemingly thrown his entire life away for her… she’s still insecure over her relationship with him, she’s uncertain of her control and she needs him to reaffirm it for her.

This is her victory, surely?

Andrew affirms her once, with his usual dead-eyed look.

But she's still not so sure.

He actively reaches out to affirm her again with cheer.

Look how happy she is!

While it’s most obvious and clear cut here, it’s hardly the only case. Let’s look back to the aftermath of Andy and Leyley and the VERY VERY QUIET!!! (I’m not using the other name). Leyley is, after similarly extreme acts — he murdered a girl and hid her body for her — convinced Andy doesn’t like her and she needs this leverage to keep him around, to meet her basic needs for survival. Because that’s what this is — she receives no care of affection elsewhere, so she forces it out of the only source she sees available through the means she sees as necessary.

I really hope we see some of their earlier childhood in Episode 3

What exactly made her like this? Was it just neglect, or something more specific…

She needs this to be the case because otherwise she doesn’t believe he’d stay.

This pattern repeats throughout — Ashley’s insecurities are hit on and she reaches out to Andy to affirm that she is not alone, and she will use any and every tool to exploit her ostensible control over him and force him to be what she needs him to be — and as long as she has that, as long as she is everything to him and it’s not possible for him to leave, she’s happy. As long as she thinks he loves her in her very particular, very peculiar view of love, she’s content, come what may. As long as Andy and Leyley are together, they can take on the world.

Let’s talk about that view of love, because there’s always more layers to unpack here I’m only scratching the surface with this essay — Ashley consistently refers to anyone else Andrew may have befriended or spent time with as a whore, a slut, a bitch — highly gendered insults that bring to mind the idea that he’s cheating in some way. But it’s not even about sex — when Andrew mentions that their parents had friends, she accuses them of cheating on each other in the same way!

There’s a lot to unpack about Ashley’s view of femininity and the role the patriarchy plays in their relationship.

Any kind of emotional engagement, any kind of commitment, any kind of life outside of your significant other is, to Ashley, cheating. Because that’s what she needs from Andrew, a seeming complete and total commitment, secure in her place as the only thing in his life, because she cannot understand anyone picking her if they have a choice.

This insecurity she has in her relationship is what drives her to empower the trinket — he can’t leave her as long as she can protect him with prophetic dreams, after all. She needs every kind of leverage she can get because until she succeeds in being everything to him, in devouring him so completely she has him in her thrall mind, body and soul she can’t be sure of herself — hell, her dream sequence in Burial has you placing Andrew’s signature green plushy, ‘the best thing in the world’ in a cage far away from anything else.

Ultimately, it really is all about Ashley — even her seeming obsession with Andrew ultimately comes back to her own insecurities. If she is everything to ‘the best thing in the world’, some of that ‘best’ must surely reflect on her!

But that’s enough about the more normal, straightforward and understandable sibling.

That was not a joke.

Andrew’s Rank 100 Deception

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he did not exist.

Let me explain.

You might have noticed that in the previous section I often use language such as ‘ostensibly’ or ‘seemingly’ to describe Andy and Leyley’s relationship, and there’s a good reason for that. From the beginning of the game through to its end, Andrew is lying to you, the player, without ever falsely representing or misinforming you about events that occurred.

The common, or obvious ‘initial take’ on Andrew as presented in Episode 1 is fairly straightforward. The game primes you to think this way, it frames things and strings reveals just right so as to make it very easy to overlook the incongruities it introduces in Episode 2. He’s a victim. Plain and simple, Ashley is his abuser and he is her victim and would be fine, a normal albeit kinda depressed guy without her.

It really is not a difficult conclusion to draw

You can go all the way through the game, have him try to accept his mother’s olive branch and enter the Decay route as a method for him to finally actualise his desire to get out from Ashley’s thumb and it makes sense, it’s a reasonable way for the story to go, given his character.

You see him this way because the game primes you in Episode 1 to view their relationship like Andrew does — he’s lying. He’s lying to himself, he’s lying to Ashley and he’s so good at it — Deception Rank 100 — he even lies to you. Without misrepresenting a single event or otherwise misleading you directly, the game gets you to buy into his preferred self-perception. Nina? Ashley. Julia? Ashley. The murders they commit in the course of the game? Ashley, Ashley, Ashley, it’s not his fault he’s not to blame he’s just a doormat at the beck and call of his demonic sister.

But he wants to be there. From the very outset, the very first puzzle, that’s made clear. Does anyone else remember this exchange, from right at the beginning of the game?

Ashley wants to investigate the music!

Andrew disapproves…

…Or does he?!

Like. Listen. Okay. You do not frown when saying ‘Nope’ and then smile when saying that you’ll instead tag along if they do it if your heart is at all in the no. That’s not an objection, that’s using Ashley as his excuse. Especially if you immediately throw her the balcony key that she could not possibly have gotten from you by force (more on Andrew’s ability to use force later).

This is the very first time you control both characters together with Andrew following Ashley instead of off on his own, the first adventure, the first puzzle!

But put a pin in that for now, let’s talk about his initial framing in Episode 2 first. Episode 1 has set us up to, generally speaking, believe the superficial framing of the siblings as portrayed in its promotional art:

The question that we then ask, right at the heart of it is… why is he a doormat? We explore this in his dream sequence in Episode 2, which does make it clear that the boy’s not okay but— it’s real easy, given the priming from Episode 1 to make you think that he’s the one with the originally functional moral compass, to think that that him being fucked up is damage done to him by Nina’s death and being bound to Ashley for his entire life. She corrupted him.

But, well, is that the case?

You're primed to ignore this as manipulation (which it is) but the best manipulation has some truth to it.

Precisely two things spur Andrew to action in the entire game, consistently — they are the fear of consequences and Ashley. And the first incident of that fear, the very first time we’re shown his seeming moral compass as a kid — the first time it’s really hammered home that it’s a fear of consequences rather than any true moral qualms is after Nina’s death. And why does he fear consequences here?

……

The ‘natural’ read that many take away from this sequence, particularly those who have only played Decay, is that Ashley browbeat him into doing this against his will, using emotional blackmail to overwhelm his objections, and then used the event itself to bind him to her forever as her personal doormat.

In a strict sense, this is true. But this doesn’t match up with the details, something the game uses shock to encourage you to overlook. That outburst is before any kind of threat has been made, and absolutely nothing either of them say anything about it being morally bad until Ashley weaponises ‘you’re a bad person’ against Andrew — morality didn’t seem to enter his mind or the equation at all until Ashley brought it up. More than that, his greatest fear and driving motivation even prior to that is, as shown above, being taken away from Ashley.

She, of course, recognises this and uses it against him. But she never needed to, it didn’t change anything about Andrew’s attachment to her, it was there to address her own insecurities.

Just like to touch on how a lot of his affirmations are preceded by him confirming her insecurities.

I adore this phrasing

There’s a second prong to this as well, to the question of ‘who really calls the shots here’ because — Andrew can, at any stage, apply an ‘ultimate veto’ of physical violence. The game is very clear to the player that that is on the table — even when they were children, when Andy swears their blood oath, he briefly considers killing her — and take note of how he ultimately got a ‘winning’ condition out of her by not specifying there wouldn’t be others and she is forced to accept that, there. Even outside of their most serious confrontations, Ashley is portrayed as having to convince, manipulate or otherwise coerce Andrew into going along with her schemes — she really can’t make him do anything, she doesn’t have the supremacy in violence and, to a lesser extent, capability that would allow her to.

Andrew, you are like ten years old.

The truth of the matter is, Ashley can only make Andrew do anything because he lets her. I don’t mean in the sense that I’m saying abuse victims let their abusers emotionally abuse them, I mean in the sense that he is clearly considering his options on the table and choosing to discard those that could stop her, or bring an end to any of this. He needs her.

But it’s true that he hates her, too. He has to hate her, because if he doesn’t hate her, if he isn’t forced to have done this, that means… he’s responsible. And nothing, at the start of the story, is as important to Andrew as avoiding the consequences of his own actions, not even Ashley. By the midpoint, he loves her, he hates her, he can’t live without her, he wants to kill her — by the end… well, that depends if you’re on Decay or Burial, but more on that in a bit.

A great scene to study for this dynamic is the climax of Episode 1, when Andrew grabs Ashley by the throat and considers strangling her to death. She’s pushed him too far with hurtful words and assault, and he’s seemingly had enough.

It’s still framed as a question of risk, of consequences happening to him.

Like, this is not the usual behaviour of someone who’s been pushed past their breaking point.

He tells Ashley that he wants to kill her, because she’s just going to throw another fit and that’s a risk to him. She is… not framed as being able to fight back (she does have a gun here, and more on that in a later essay, maybe). He’s so calculated in how he approaches his use of violence here, which isn’t at all what you’d expect of someone about to commit a crime of passion… but it’s very easy to overlook because of the abuser/victim narrative that the player fits his behaviour into the narrative that the game primes them to accept, brushing incongruities under the carpet.

At the start of Episode 2, we get to control Andrew for the first time, and the first obvious holes in his cover start to show. Some of this is optional — you only learn that he’s been faking having nightmares in order to share a bed with Ashley if you choose to go back into the motel room and check the bed, for example — but not all of it.

----(See reblogs for the second half)

#the coffin of andy and leyley #tcoaal #andrew graves #ashley graves #spoilers #multipost

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 3 months ago

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Long Snake Moan 1

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Character: Loki

Summary: your boss gives you a task you're not prepared for.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging ❤️

“I think it’s best it comes from you,” Tony pats your shoulder. You stare at him in disbelief.

“Me?” You bat your eyes dumbly. “But I just... I’m just passing along the information--”

“Look, sweetheart, I’m in the middle of a PR crisis here.” He flashes his phone screen at you. The talk of Stark Tower has been his latest disaster out in the middle of nowhere. Usually, these things are forgotten but an unfortunate post has made the rounds. “You delivered the message perfectly, you can do it again.”

“But, sir, with due respect, this isn’t exactly in my job description.” You walk backwards as he strides around his desk and tucks his phone away.

“Your job is to do what I tell you to do. Now,” he looks at you, his eyes flicking up and down, “I think you’re the best possible carrier pigeon for this. Look at you. That ungodly asshole can’t be mad at you and I definitely am not telling him. Not without another explosion and I’m on probation right now.” He taps his chest and his suit expands around his body. “His brother should be wandering around, maybe he can help control the beast.”

“Sir, don’t make me do this--” He goes to the window and hits the button to pop out the pane.

“I pay you well enough, sweetheart, so get to work.” He jumps out and his helmet covers his head, blue flame blasting from his heels and gloves as he takes off into the sky.

You cringe and look down. You should quit. You’ve been reciting the mantra to yourself for months; quit, quit, quit. You wish you had that choice. So far, your resume hasn’t baited any takers. Even with all your work for Stark Industries. Considering who your reference is, you’re starting to wonder.

You glance around and steel yourself. You walk out of the office and down the hall. Your low heels click, in slow tempo with your dread. You trawl the top floor, searching for a certain blond giant. Thor isn’t anywhere to be found. You’ll have to try the compound... maybe you could just give them a call.

No, you know Mr. Stark wouldn’t like that. Even if you could get a hold of either of the Asgardians, your boss would make you face the music in person. You take out your phone and scroll through the contacts. Most of them, you’ve never had to call, they’re only there for emergencies and usually, you’re not the one calling them for that.

You put the phone to your ear as it dials. It rolls for so long, you’re certain you’ll get the voicemail. It picks up at the last moment, the line buzzing and unclear.

“Hel-lo?” Thor’s deep baritone greets you. “It is the little assistant, yes?”

You can just make out his hazy words. “Yes, Mr. Odinson? Can you hear me?”

He laughs and you hear him shuffling around. The crackling stops and the line clears. “Mr. Odinson. You Midgardians. It’s Thor.”

“Yes, Thor, well, um, where are you?”

“Is there something the matter?” He asks as his tone turns dire. “Where are you, little one?”

You ignore the question tossed back at you and clear your throat. “Um, it’s about... um, I think it would be best if we had this discussion face to face but Mr. Stark told me to pass on some news and yeah... I’d like to meet up if poss--”

“Little one!” Thor appears before you, out of breath, his phone clutched in his hand. He didn’t hear a damn thing you just said. You smile. You’ve trained that expression so well, it’s almost believable. “Where is the danger?”

You almost laugh. It’s endearing to have him so concerned. You doubt his brother will be as accommodating.

“Hi, uh, like I said, it’s nothing serious. It’s erm, do you know where you brother is?” Your voice hits a pitch so high it makes your ears hurt.

“Ugh, what has he done now? I swear, I’ve told him--”

“It’s nothing he’s done. Well, it’s kind of it. Okay, um, Thor, I need to talk to your brother.”

“Loki? You need to talk to him? No one wants to talk to Loki,” he narrows his eyes in consternation.

“Yes, well, I have a job to do. I’d also appreciate if you’d be there to, you know, act as mediator,” you make yourself small as you push your shoulders up to your ears. “Please?”

“Of course, little one, of course, let us go find that snake!” He grabs your arm before you can react and almost has you off your feet as he drags you down the hall. “I left him in the lobby. He isn’t fond of this place.”

Maybe that will make this all easier, you think.

Thor doesn’t slow down. You stumble with him as you struggle to keep your shoes from falling off. You tap his arm as you get to the elevator.

“Really, we can take our time,” you assure him as he jams his finger into the down button.

You’re really in no hurry for any of this. You’re almost hoping that if you put this off longer, someone else might just come along and tell them for you. You know that won’t happen but you can hope. Even so, Tony has more important things to do and as usual, you’re left with his grunt work.

#loki #dark loki #dark!loki #loki x reader #series #drabble #long snake moan #au #mcu #marvel #avengers #thor

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amirasainz · 2 months ago

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Hi literally get so excited when you update! Can you write one where charles x alexandra x reader where charles and alex are away for an event and forget that it's the reader birthday ans only remember when someone tells them birthday it and they try and make it up to her.

Hi loves. I hope you enjoy this little piece. Let me know what you think. Comments are always apreciated!I'm sorry,but the Sydney Sweeny picture was perfect, so I had to include it😉

Also, question (and please answer me that in the comments), does anyone read what I write before the story? Like the little message here? I'm just curious❤️

Enjoy reading and send me requests!!❤️

-XoXo

The Birthday disaster

You couldn’t believe it. They weren’t here. They didn’t call, text, or even send you a freaking letter. Your own boyfriend and girlfriend forgot your birthday. And not just any birthday, it was your 21 birthday. Instead of celebrating with Alex, Charles, and all of your friends in a vibrant club, you were sitting on the balcony of your apartment. Despite the cold wind hitting your bare skin mercilessly, thanks to the cute short dress you wore today, you couldn’t bring yourself to walk back inside.

Of course, your friends tried to get you to come out with them to celebrate your birthday properly. But it just hurt too much, and to be honest, your mind was too tired and sad for any kind of festivity.

When Charles and Alex first informed you about the event hosted by one of Alex’s friends, they eagerly asked you to join them. Unfortunately, your job didn’t allow you to tag along, which both of them understood. However, they promised you that they would return today at around 5 o’clock. To be honest, you thought they had something special planned for your birthday. But last night, at around 11 pm, you received a text from Alex, informing you that they would be staying longer in Venice, where the event was held.

At first, you thought this was some kind of joke. Maybe they wanted you to think that they weren’t able to celebrate with you, only to surprise you with a birthday party. But sadly, when you woke up this morning, nothing happened. Throughout the day, there was complete silence between you and them.

Your group of friends, who had been with you a few hours ago to at least celebrate your birthday a little bit, tried to convince you to go out and party with them. Before you could agree, you got a notification from Instagram. You were tagged quite often in a post showing Alex and Charles at the event. They looked so happy and carefree, making you feel even more numb.

Despite their best efforts, your friends left after half an hour, after you reassured them with phrases like “Yes, I will take care of myself,” “Yes, I will call you if I need anything,” and “No, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m completely fine.” They knew you were anything but fine; however, they also knew that you needed to be alone right now.

So here you are, sitting alone in the cold with your only companions being the vodka bottle you brought with you and the relentless wind hitting your skin. “Happy fucking 21st birthday to me, I guess,” you muttered to yourself, staring out at the sea.

“Oh my god, Lisa. You truly outdid yourself,” complimented Alex, her friend. And it was true. The event was filled with beautiful flowers and lights, giving the room a fairy-like appearance. The soft glow of the lights reflected off the petals, creating a magical ambiance that made everyone feel like they had stepped into an enchanted garden. Charles, who stood next to his girlfriend, only brought her closer to him and said, “Yeah, I have to agree. I’m 100% sure YN would have loved it.” “You are so right, love. I wish she was here with us,” agreed Alex, her voice tinged with a hint of sadness.

“Wait, I’m confused. So there is nothing wrong between you guys and YN?” asked Lisa, her brow furrowed in confusion. Alex and Charles shared a look with each other, both of them equally puzzled. “No, why would there be anything wrong with us?” Alex replied, her tone defensive. “Oh, I just thought you had a fight and this is the reason why you are here and not with YN today. But I must have been wrong…” Linda’s voice trailed off, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. She shared a look with her partner Mary, both of them realizing the gravity of the situation.

“Wait, stop. Pause. Why would we be with YN tonight? You invited us to your event and we are here. I don’t get what’s going on right now,” said Alex, her frustration mounting. It felt like Mary and Lisa knew something she and Charles didn’t. Mary, who was now also becoming more annoyed with how the two of them acted before them, didn’t take any nonsense from Alex.

Without hesitation, she looked straight into Alex’s eyes and told her with an ice-cold voice, “Well, we weren’t expecting you to show up today because we thought that you would be busy celebrating YN’s 21 birthday today. But from the looks of it, it seems like you forgot your own girlfriend’s birthday. So don’t talk to us with that rude tone of yours. At least we remember each other’s birthdays.” With that, Mary took Lisa by the hand and left, leaving Alex and Charles standing there in stunned silence.

Alex and Charles were left behind, both staring at the space where the couple used to be a few seconds ago. Both of them felt a wave of guilt and shame wash over them. How could they forget their own girlfriend’s birthday? Turning on their phones, they saw the flood of messages they had received from not only their fans but also their friends, YN’s friends, and their families. Each message was a painful reminder of their oversight.

“We messed up so badly,” muttered Charles, looking at Alex with a pained expression. The woman could only nod, still speechless. Charles took her arm and gently but firmly led her out of the room. “We have to go to her. ASAP,” Alex told Charles, who was already a step ahead of her and had their jackets in hand. With that, the couple left the event, both feeling a deep sense of remorse. How could they forget their girl’s birthday?

As they hurried to their car, Alex’s mind raced with thoughts of how to make it up to YN. She knew it would take more than just an apology to mend the hurt they had caused. Charles, too, was lost in his thoughts, thinking of ways to show YN how much she meant to them. They both knew that they had a lot of making up to do, but they were determined to do whatever it took to make things right.

At around 1 am, the couple finally arrived home. The ride back had been silent, the air in the car feeling oppressively thick, making it hard to breathe. They parked their car in the garage and, without hesitation, jumped out of the vehicle, racing towards the elevator. The few minutes it took to reach their front door felt like an eternity, each second stretching painfully.

When they entered the apartment, everything was shrouded in darkness. A figure sat on the balcony, barely visible in the dim light. Charles immediately sat next to YN, while Alex kneeled in front of her. YN didn’t even look at them before taking a gulp from the nearly empty bottle of vodka. “Hey love, I think you’ve had enough for tonight,” whispered Charles, gently trying to take the bottle away from the now 21-year-old girl.

YN shook her head, her voice trembling as she reminded them, “No. NO, you do not get to tell me what I can and cannot do. Not after you forgot about me.” “Baby, we didn’t forget about you,” Alex tried, her eyes already filling with tears. YN only laughed, her own tears streaming down her face. “No, Alexandra. You do not get to tell me that after you forgot my birthday, and you certainly don’t get to cry.” “Ok, let’s all calm down,” Charles attempted again, his voice soothing but firm.

“No Charles! I don’t want to calm down. You both forgot about me. You two promised me that something like this would never happen to us. You promised me that you would always love me. You promised me that the age gap didn’t bother you when we started dating when I was 19. But look at us. You already broke one of your promises. How can I be sure that you won’t break another one?” With that, YN broke down in tears. Her whole body shook with the force of her sobs, her head held in her hands.

Charles and Alex immediately moved to comfort her. “YN, breath. We are so freaking sorry. I guarantee you, we didn’t mean for something like this to happen. We were all so busy with our jobs and social lives that we didn’t mean to forget something so important,” Charles began, his voice filled with regret.

Alex took YN’s head into her hands, gently wiping away her tears. “We love you more than anything in this world. You are our air and our heart. And we will apologize for the rest of our lives if we have to,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. YN only whispered, “I love you guys too.” Alex didn't hesitate before kissing her girlfriend. after a moment the they pulled apart.

Charles turned her face towards him, speaking softly, “And we didn’t lie when we told you the age gap didn’t bother us. And we certainly didn’t lie when we promised you that we would always love you, ok?” After YN nodded, Letting Charles also kiss her. This kiss was filled with as much love as Alex, just a bit more urgently but still gentle. After their kiss, the three of them cuddled close to each other, finding solace in their shared warmth.

It would take some time before everything was alright between the three of them again. But for now, sitting together and watching the city lights flicker in the distance was the perfect way to start healing.

#formula 1 #formula 1 x reader #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x alexandra saint mleux x reader #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x female reader #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc x female oc #-XoXo #xoxo babygirl 💋

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flamingpudding · 7 months ago

Note

I'm so sorry I didn't get to finish but as Dan's Teekl is a Phoenix snake and he takes after Vlad since of dressing

When something big is going on the magical world and they need King Phantom's help he decides to bring along his children this is how the Justice League finds out just like Robin is a past dumb title so is Klarion all the Justice League deal with a bunch of hyper up chaotic children who have been antiheroes let's find out

I wanted this to be just like a we are robbing thing except with Clarion all of them showing off the fact that Teekl have never been a cat would be so funny to me

Anywho I haven't been able to come up with anymore ideas for Dan is Klarion but I did come out with this one hope you find it funny sorry that I messed up on the first part of the writing

Okay... so version one got deleted, per my rant post notices... so here is version two hopes to that it will still be as good... also... i didn't remember how I ended this the first time soooooo yea... sorry again for having messed up in between...

[Link to the first part of the Ask here!]

I hope this will still be as enjoyable....

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

Vlad didn't regret a lot of things but he regretted having told Bruce Wayne that he had a way of summoning the Ghost King. Why you ask? Because Bruce Wayne apparently leaked that information to the Justice League.

Well originally Vlad had told Bruce only about this because he was after the deal he had wanted for years with Wayne Enterprise. That man had been able to avoid Vlad for years now, and during his years when he hadn't been a redeemed man it had infuriated him.

But he was a redeemed man now. He had reformed his entire Company and since Wayne Enterprise was contracted with the Justice League, he had felt it was appropriate to boost that his Company had valuable connections too.

He also just wanted to rub it into Brucie Waynes face that he wasn't the only one with big name Hero / other worldly connections department. Okay it might have been a bit of an ego thing left. But he was a redeemed man.

And because he was a redeemed man he had not used his ghost powers to throw Batman out of the window the hero had used to barge into his hotel room at 3 -goddamn- AM only to demand the method on how to summon the ghost king.

No sir, Vlad was a redeemed man, he was nice now, a good guy.

He only grumbled and demanded the reason, which apparently was a demonic thread to the magical world that indirectly could wipe out the entire world itself. Great, little badger will not be amused hearing about that.

Daniel would be cross with him for using the summoning stone in the middle of the night but Batman was giving him a valid reason to use it. Surely Daniel would understand right? Plus Vlad could use that as change to see the little badger again. It had been a while since he last saw him.

Well Vlad regretted agreeing with Batman with the condition that he would be the one to do the summoning. That man in a bat suit did not hesitate to drag Vlad with him then bringing him, blindfolded mind you, to a place where he then was faced with several heroes, including but not limited to the Justice league.

Just great.

At least Vlad got to inform Danial about the situation and the reason for his summon as Ghost King via summoning stone, even if that blond British man had scoffed when he saw Vlad pulling it out, about the situation and what the little badger could expect the moment he stepped out of a portal.

What Vlad did not expect were several RED portals opening and similarly dressed young adults as well as one teen stepping out of them.

"Sup old man! Mom told us you called him about some world ending problem!" Dan greeted him in his Klarion get up, perfectly styled hair and his ghost pet, a phoenix snake, Snape (yes Dan named his pet after a mage from a wizard movie series) on his shoulders. Vlad could feel the distinctive illusion magic around the pet and he was pretty sure everyone without ghost powers were not able to see through it.

"KLARION?!" One of the present heroes yelled.

And of course all of the kids had to answer in reflect turning to where the voice came from at the same time.

"Yea"

There was a brief moment of silence in which Vlad face palmed.

"Ah sorry, that was on reflex. Old habits die hard!" Ellie laughed, she had grown into a young woman and was currently wearing what looked like a black suit crossed with a 90s style witch dress.

"I am the current Klarion, lose that fucking habit already." Dan grumbled annoyed as he crossed his arms glaring at every sibling that had answered to his alias.

"I am telling mom you cussed." Ellie instead grinned instead, before she looked around for a moment before her eyes landed on Nightwing, her face instantly lighting up. "ROBIN! I mean Nightwing! I haven't seen you in ages!"

"Do I know you?" Vlad could feel sorry for the hero, but these where the phantom kids, so he wasn't in the slightest and he was still cross with he heroes for waking him up at 3AM!

"I am hurt! Don't you recognise me!" Ellie gasped and Dan unashamedly elbowed her for acting so familiar.

"Misrule." He warned her. Ellies current Anti-Hero -Chaos Agent- Alias Vlad remembered. A name she specifically chose because it sounded like Miss Rule and she knew that the word play would annoy Nabu. That girl had some serious beef with the Ancient of Order.

"Oh shush little brother! Let me reconnect with the kids I used to mess with!" She shushed Dan ruffling his hair and nearly messing up his horned hairstyle, before turning back to Nightwing. "Don't you remember my lovely Armadillos? Though I only know you were the Robin I first meet because I looked into Grandpa Clock's time mirrors..."

There was a brief moment of silence on the other side where the heroes stood and Vlad swore he could have heard a pin needle drop.

"Oh god..." One of them finally spoke up as apparently some kind of realisation sunk into the heroes. But before Ellie could add anything more the one Vlad recognised as Red Robin cut in.

"Klarion is like Robin!"

"RR what are you...?"

"The title of Klarion got passed down like Robin!"

There was another brief moment of silence before Dan, Ellie and the rest of their siblings burst out laughing.

"It took you idiots this long to see that?!" Dan called them out, laughing as he hugged Snape.

Vlad would probably feel sorry for the entirety of the heroes before him if he wasn't amused by this himself, even he had seen the differences whenever 'Klarion' got passed on.

"For your information, I was the first Klarion, so i could mess with Nabu." Ellie grinned. "I was also the one that used a bit to much eyeliner."

"I never got the the horned hairstyle right."

"I was the one with a fancy black suit."

One by one the phantom kids listed of all the differences in their versions of Klarion until they all looked towards the youngest Dan, the current Klarion.

"What?" He grumbled as his elder siblings grinned at him.

"Fucking fine. I use a suit similar to the old man's style and I like to do more than just mess with Nabitch." He muttered after enduring his siblings stares for.

"And you cuss." Ellie grinned brightly causing the rest of the siblings to to chuckle.

Vlad recognised the look in Dan's eyes and before the kids could break out into an argument or a brawl, depending how violent Dan was feeling, he coughed loudly to get noticed by everyone.

"World threatening situation." He reminded everyone. "Where is your mother? The Ghost King?"

"Oh Mom is already dealing with the situation." Dan shrugged. "We more or less came to watch and see the heroes suck and fail at 'Order' to rub it into Nabitch's face."

Vlad really wanted to scowl the kids and he was going to but then the heroes cut in again.

"Can we get back to the thing about Klarion being a title passed down like Robin? With how many different Klarions did we have to deal with over the years!?"

"Red Robin not the right time..."

"Yes the right time! So many comments from Klarion make sense now! Like the first time he went right up into my face!"

"Red Robin!"

"Oh that was still me! The first Klarion!"

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thefallennightmare · 1 month ago

Text

Masked: Stalker!Noah Sebastian-Part One

*gif created by me. Please feel free to use this, just give credit. All pictures for the covers are not mine, all found on pinterest. *

Pairings: Stalker!Noah Sebastian x Reader.

Warnings: this will be a very dark romance-inspired three parter, you have been warned. angst, fluff, language, stalking, breaking and entering, watching someone sleep, blood, some medical talk, a scene of someone receiving stitches, murder, torture, and smut which includes p in v, primal play, knife play, mask kink, chasing through words, consensual nonconsensual, oral with female and male receiving, fingering, possible anal play, edging,

Summary: Readers' sex live had been anything but exciting for years. Curiosity peeks when she stumbles upon a website where people sign up to meet strangers for a wild night of sex based on similar kinks. She meets a masked man that opened up her eyes to a world of different sexual kinks and when the night is over, she's ready to move on. The masked man, however, is not. One imprint of her on his skin is enough to make him obsessed. He'll do whatever he can to make sure she is his; whether she agrees or not.

Authors Note: as I mentioned, this is going to be very dark. So if any of the warnings are not for you, please don't read. I understand everyone has limits and that's okay! This will be a total of three parts that will be posted throughout the month of October! Part one is very tame but I promise part two and three will make up for it!

Tags[OPEN]: @blueskylinesx @artificialbreezy @collidewiththesavannah @follow-me-down-to-wonderland @chewyylynn @joe9cool @alwaysfightforwhoyouare @lma1986 @amelia-acero @poisongirl616 @badomensls @tosoundlessdarkistare @ooh-whatever-nevermind @shayeanna-ashlie @sweetlittlekitsune @theanarchymuse95 @fadingintothegrey @xserenax-13 @hayleylatour @klutzy-kay24 @rumoured-whispers @omensbrainrot @mapsychoticimagination @anything-more-than-human @into-the-grey @idwt-money @mrsnoahsebastian

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NONE OF THIS IS REAL OR HAPPENED.

READER

I gnawed ruthlessly on my bottom lip as I continued to stare at my laptop screen, wondering if what I was about to do was a good idea. Surely I had to be insane to even think of this. I should have ignored Missy, my coworker and fellow E.R nurse, as she rambled on about this website while we were at work yesterday. She rambled on about how she signed up for a wild night of sex with a random stranger, I blanched at how nonchalant she was about it. When I expressed my concerns about the safety of this website, Missy explained how everyone has to go through a background check and need to upload a copy of an STD test. Whoever created the website wanted everyone to be safe, in more ways than one.

The topic of this conversation was brought up when I mentioned how it had been nearly six months since I last had sex. But it had been extremely difficult to find a man that could satisfy the needs I had. To which Missy told me about this site. She had met four different men from it and claimed it was some of the best sex she’s had.

After I muttered a quick fuck it to myself, I was now sitting in the darkness of my living room as I put in my information on this dreaded website to hopefully find a sexual partner that matched my own wants and kinks. I thought I knew what I was into but clearly, after reading this checklist I needed to mark off, I realized there was more to sexual experiences than I thought.

Mask kink? Definitely.

Knife play? Sounds dangerous but I’ll try it.

Primal play? Yes please.

Wait, am I reading this right? Piss kink? I’m not one to kink shame but no thanks.

Praise kink? Call me a good girl and I’ll be on my knees faster than you can count to two.

I spent the next few minutes filling out the questionnaire. I had to look up what somnophilia meant and after some deep consideration, I marked it as a yes, but with limits.

Once my important documents were uploaded, I had to choose a safe word and a code word for when me and my partner would finally meet up. Safe word was mercy and our code word was the coyote's cry.

“If I get murdered, I’m going to come back and haunt Missy for talking me into this.” I grumbled while sitting back on my couch as I waited for the match results to show up on my laptop.

Even though the prospect of this was daunting, I desperately needed a night like this. Ever since I graduated highschool and started med school, I worked non stop until I was finally able to land my dream job working in one of the top hospitals in Los Angeles. My bosses could always count on me to get the nasty work done and stay extra hours if need be. I was always loyal and never took off unless I was sick; which was rare. I spent all of my younger years studying and never had the chance to express or find myself. Now at twenty six, I was determined to live my life how I wanted.

A loud ping from my laptop pulled me from my thoughts and I sucked in a breath at the message on screen.

You’ve got a match!

With shaking fingers, I clicked on the message and was now staring at a profile of a man donned in a black ski mask with odd white symbols. His dark eyes pierced into my soul and I felt hot all over. I was pinned to my couch unable to move as I read over his very limited profile. Due to being anonymous on the site, names were forbidden so his profile name was Masked.Omen while mine was Dark.Angel. At the bottom of his profile showed everything he was into sexually and I couldn’t help but internally smirk when I realized we were into a lot of the same things; give or take a few things I hadn't heard of.

One thing caught my attention and it was when and where we would be meeting. In two days at a halloween party. The address was listed and after doing some research, I found out it was on a secluded manor grounds, far away from the city I currently lived in. The size of the manor was triple the size of my apartment and I couldn’t help but wonder if he lived there. Along with where we were meeting was the details of our sexual excursion.

Primal play. Get ready for a hunt.

“Wait,” I muttered while looking at the details even further. “Halloween Party? So there will be other people there?”

My heart rate picked up momentarily because how was I going to be able to spot this man out in a large group of people? How would we have sex with other people there? I did not choose “orgy” as an option. A threeway with another man? Sure. But not multiple partners.

“What the fuck did I get myself into?” I groaned while snapping my laptop shut.

I had two days to find a costume when Halloween was so close, meaning I had slim pickings. Tying up my hair into a claw clip, I slipped into my shoes and tossed my bag over my shoulder, the prospect of hooking up with a total stranger bringing a small smile to my lips.

Was I a sick fuck for it? Possibly. But I didn’t care. I accepted that I was into the darker type of things years ago. I was never ashamed of it and I refused to let others shame me. But the sexual partners I had in the past couldn’t quite meet my needs. Of course, I wanted to go into this night with no high expectations because this masked.omen could very well be like every other guy I slept with.

Boring and quiet.

As I took down the steps of my apartment towards my car that was parked in the parking lot, I pulled out my phone to send a quick text to Missy.

Me: If I get murdered because I took your advice and meet up with this stranger, I’m going to come back and haunt your ass.

Missy: Oh, who did you match with?

Once I was settled in my car, I replied.

Me: Masked.Omens.

It was a few moments before Missy replied.

Missy: No fucking way!

Missy: I’ve seen his profile on that site for months but no one ever matched with him! I’m not going to lie, I’m low key jealous because his profile pic is so fucking hot. That mask? Sign me the fuck up.

Missy: I can’t believe you got matched with him! No one has ever matched him. It’s so hard. Trust me, I’ve tried to rig the site so I can match with him. I have a few other friends who are on that site and they also never match with Masked.Omens. Much to their dismay.

Why did that little bit of information fill me with a sense of pride?

Because you’re fucked up and you love the attention.

Ignoring the voice inside of my head, I typed back to Missy.

Me: Consider me a lucky gal. At least I’ll get murdered by a sought after masked man.

Missy: I’ll tell everyone you went out with a bang. Literally.

Rolling my eyes, I dropped my phone into the cup holder and pulled the car out of the parking spot, heading towards the nearest Spirit Halloween.

READER

The bass of the music vibrated against my chest as I walked up the long driveway towards the dark estate. And not dark because of the moon up in the horizon. Dark from its exterior that was painted black. The only source of lights were spot lights scattered throughout the yard and the orange string lights wrapped around the four posts on the front porch. As I neared the front door, I adjusted the large black wings on my back and pulled at the short skirt, trying yet failing to cover my ass.

As I suspected, the selection of costumes at Spirit Halloween was small. Either the dark angel costume I was currently wearing or a hot dog.

The black corset was tight, a size too small, but it made my breasts look fantastic so I tried not to complain too much. The fishnets I wore were littered with gems, which would sparkle when they caught the light just right. Never being a heel type of woman, I decided on wearing my black combat boots. My long hair fell around my shoulders in waves and I was sporting a red smokey eye and blood red lipstick. I couldn’t help but stop and stare at my reflection for a few moments before leaving my apartment earlier which ended up making me late tonight. Masked.Omens and I were supposed to meet around 8 p.m. but it was nearing nine by the time I stepped through the front door of the packed house. Almost immediately my eyes caught sight of a large happy birthday banner on the banister of the staircase

We were able to send messages between the partners we match with on the site so I sent Masked.Omens a quick message as I got into my car earlier.

Dark.Angel: Hi, sorry if this seems weird that I’m messaging you before we even have a chance to meet but I wanted to let you know I’m running late. Not sure if you care or not. Or if you’ll even be there tonight. For all I know, you probably haven’t been signed in on here for months and I’m coming to meet a ghost. Well, it wouldn’t make sense since you sent the meet up instructions. Unless it was already predetermined.

Dark.Angel: Sorry I’m rambling. I’ll be there closer to nine. If you even still want to meet up after my insane message.

Dark.Angel: I’ll be dressed as a dark angel. See you soon. Again, sorry.

I had a tendency to ramble on when I got nervous and I couldn’t help but worry I scared Masked.Omens away because he never replied.

I saw a variety of different costumes as I pushed myself farther into the house. Couples were making out against the couches or the walls while groups of people were playing a variety of different drinking games. Nerves ate away at my insides when the realization of exactly what I was here to do began to set in. For the last couple of days, I went back and forth with the reasonable part of my mind on if this was a good idea or not. I needed this; craved a night to let go and forget about the horrors I saw every day at work. Forget about the rough upbringing I had. Both of my parents gave up on me when I decided to go to medical school rather than take over the family restaurant. It wasn’t me, it wasn't what I wanted. They weren’t happy that I was twenty six and still not married and they didn’t have any grandchildren.

Again, something I didn’t think I wanted.

The pressure from my parents and med school the last eight years were enough to make anyone snap. So even though I was hesitant about tonight, it didn’t surprise me that I was here about to have sex with a stranger. I atleast knew my other sexual partners.

The only thing I knew about Masked.Omens was the colors of his eyes; dark as the sky in a raging storm. And we had similar kinks.

I felt burning gazes on my back as I stepped farther into the house, most gazes on my ass, and I did my best to ignore the inflating ego that was beginning to creep in. I always loved when the attention was on me but I was always collected about it. I never let it affect the way I treated myself or others. When I pushed my way into the kitchen, I made a direct line towards the large island that held all of the drinks. My eyes lingered over each of the bottles with my bottom lip caught between my teeth. I wasn’t much of a drinker, opting to have a glass of red wine every now and then, however with the nerves about tonight, I felt like filling my veins with some liquid courage.

“Can I get you anything?”

My gaze snapped up to a voice thick with an accent and felt my breath hitch at the sight of a man in front of me. He stood on the other side of the island, long hair pulled back into a low bun to showcase his black eyes. A nose ring glimmered in the low lights from the kitchen and the facial hair that covered his face was perfectly trimmed.

“Uh,” I licked my dry lips. “What do you recommend? I usually drink wine so I’m not familiar with hard liquor.”

The man gave me a heart stopping smile before turning towards the fridge and pulled two bottles out.

“Red or white?” He questioned.

“Red please,” I smiled, watching as he poured the scarlet liquid into a glass he grabbed from one of the cabinets.

When he handed the glass towards me, I noticed tattoos on his fingers.

“Thank you,” I brought it to my lips and internally hummed at the delicious taste.

“Are you meeting someone?” He asked while extending his hands across the edge of the counter, showcasing his muscles underneath the long sleeves of his sweater.

I nearly choked on my drink. Did this man know who I was here to meet someone? Was he Masked.Omens?

“Um, no-well, maybe. Yes?”

He let out a deep rumble of a laugh and it was then I noticed he wasn’t dressed in costume but I did say anything about it.

“I’m Joakim.”

“Joakim?” I cringed at how bad I pronounced it and feared I offended him until his laughter was now a booming echo over the music.

“You can call me Jolly,” he said with a bright smile.

“Now if I mess that up then there’s something wrong with me,” I joked before taking a long sip of my wine. “I’m Y/N.”

We chatted for a few moments before another man came up beside Jolly, smacking him on his shoulder. His hair was as dark as Jolly’s but it was falling around his shoulders. He had tattoos covering his arms and I noticed he also wasn’t dressed in a costume.

“Did you guys not get the memo of a costume party?” I teased, setting down the empty glass on the counter.

“Can’t you tell?” The new man spoke. “We’re dressed up as rockstars.”

I smirked as Jolly filled my glass again. “Now that’s weak.”

The man joined mine and Jolly’s conversation and I found out his name was Nicholas. They were best friends and lived here with their two other friends. I told them about how I was a nurse in the emergency department at the local hospital. It was an easy going conversation with both of them and with the second glass of wine finished, I felt myself loosen up.

“Well, Y/N. I hope you have some fun tonight. I need to steal Jolly for a bit so we can deal with a couple that had a little too much to drink and they’ve locked themselves in the bathroom,” Nichols said.

Giving them a small wave, I watched them leave the kitchen as I found myself alone; again. With a peek at the clock on the stove, I noticed it was nearing ten p.m, almost two hours after my original meet time with Masked.Omens and I was beginning to question if he really was here tonight.

I could find someone and ask if they’d seen him here.

A snort erupted from my throat when I realized how stupid that idea was. I didn’t know what this guy looked like beneath the mask and with the amount of guys I can count in this room alone who were donning a mask, the task of finding Masked.Omens was impossible.

“I’m starting to think I was right,” I muttered to myself before drowning the rest of my wine.

I was about to turn on my heels, ready to leave the party and forget about ever signing up on the website when I felt a strong hand at my side, gripping me. I went rigid in the unfamiliar grasp and just before my flight or fight kicked in, a distorted voice sounded in my ear.

“The coyotes cry in the woods behind the house.”

My skin was set ablaze and my pussy clenched, knowing what those words meant. I tried to look over my shoulder at the man but leather fingers pushed my chin forward, forcing me to look out the patio doors towards the dark woods behind the house. It sounded like he used some kind of modulator to distort the way his voice sounded.

I gulped as my voice came out weak. “How do I know it’s you?”

Even though he said the code word, I couldn’t be too trusting especially with what we were about to do.

“Don’t worry, angel. You’re not meeting a ghost. Fuck, you smell so good,” his lips grazed over my ears and my body shivered at not only his touch but the nickname. It was clear he read my messages to him earlier. Without a doubt, the man looming behind me was Masked.Omens.

“I’ll give you a five minute headstart and when I find you, I’m going to fuck you so hard that your screams of pleasure are going to be drowned out by my cock snapping in and out of your tight cunt.”

Gone was the warmth at my back, a chill blanketing over me with his declaration of what he was going to do to me tonight.

No. His promise.

“And if I say no?” I retorted back while glancing over my shoulder towards him, seeing pink and plump lips through the mouth hole of the mask.

A breathy chuckle tickled the back of my neck when he shifted his position. “This is what you signed up for. If you want an out, just say the safe word and you’re free to walk out the front door.”

My silence was my answer. Even if I was scared shitless about what was to come, there was no way I was going to turn back now. I had one foot in the door, might as well drag the other inside.

“Should we maybe go over some rules?” I asked, my voice giving way on how nervous I was.

The man behind me let out a low rumble in his chest as his fingers dragged through the feathers of my wings. There was a long beat of silence and if he wasn’t ruffling my wings, I would have thought he left.

“We already have a safe word. What other rules would you want?” His distorted voice made me shudder.

I shrugged. “We also already know each other's limits, although you don’t have nearly enough as I do. I guess, once you catch me, that means this is done?”

The man made a noise that sounded ruthless because of whatever he was using to distort his voice.

“The game ends when either you say the safe word or when you’re screaming your release.”

Fuck.

How has this man, this stranger, had such an effect on me? I had no idea what he looked like underneath that mask which should scare me. Instead, it was the complete opposite. I wanted his to ravage me in the dirt, fuck me until I could barley walk once we were done.

“Okay,” I breathed.

“Five minutes until you’re choking on my cock,” soft teeth nipped at my neck before the warmth was gone from my back.

Whirling around, I nearly choked on my breath when I saw a tall figure leaning against the far wall of the kitchen, next to Jolly and Nicholas. The man wore a mask, the same mask from his profile picture with the white symbols on the front of it.

Masked.Omens.

His body was hidden underneath a black jacket, black turtleneck, and black cargo pants. His left ankle was crossed over his right, showcasing the heavy boots he wore.

I wonder if he’d let me kiss them or maybe step on my throat if I asked him.

I shook my head at the very detailed intrusive thoughts. Clearly I’d gone so long without sex that my mind thought it was a societal norm to run my tongue along the leather soles of his boots or have them crush my windpipe.

“You’re so fucked up,” I conversed with myself but then shrugged, realizing a long time ago how fucked up I truly was.

Movement caught my attention away from his boots and I realized he’d been shaking something in his hand.

A phone. With a timer. Counting down.

3 minutes and 23 seconds.

Shit.

“Flap those wings, angel,” his distorted voice called over towards me in a sudden lull of music.

A moan caught in my throat as the realization that this was indeed happening. There was no turning back. I was about to have this man chase me through the woods and fuck me.

You should run. Out the front door away from this man and never look back.

Instead, I turned on my heels and ran out the back door towards the dense woods behind the house, my heart rate erratic with the upcoming evening I was about to endure.

There was a chill in the air tonight, unlike the typical Los Angeles weather. The moon was up high in the sky, bathing the grass in a milky glow as my boots ran through it. My heart was jumping in my throat, making it difficult to breathe as my arms pumped up and down. The wings at my back flapped through the wind, almost like I was trying to take flight up into the air.

Leaves and twigs snapped underneath my boots as I pushed through branches, running deeper into the woods. I didn’t have a timer running down but I knew that those three minutes surely had to be up. Taking a chance, I came to a halt in the middle of the woods to gather my surroundings. It was dark, only lit up from the moon above so it gave me limited light but I saw a large rock about five feet to my left.

I lurched towards it but halted when I heard a twig snap in the darkness and immediately I fell to my knees as my heart jumped in my throat. My knees were cut up from the sharp jagged rocks I was kneeling on as I tried to move quietly as footsteps came closer.

“Where are you?” came the distorted voice in a sing-song voice.

I cursed myself when I couldn’t see his form through the trees and as I neared the large rock to hide behind, I reared my hand back with a hiss falling from my lips when I grabbed a piece of what looked like forgotten broken glass. Blood dripped down to my thigh as I held up my palm to inspect the large cut. It wasn’t deep but the nurse part of me knew that if I didn’t bandage this wound up soon, it would get infected.

Pressing it to my chest, I crawled the last bit towards the rock, not caring how much noise I made just as long as I was hidden. Masked.Omens footsteps sounded far away and I let myself relax into the rock to catch my breath and I tried so hard to bite back the tears as my hand burned from the cut.

“Is that blood I smell?”

The growing distorted voice sounded way too close, making me jump as I clamped my good hand over my mouth to muffle my scream. My arousal outweighed my fear and I knew that my panties were wet from the chase. Primal play was one of my top fantasies and the fact that I was finally living it made my pussy clench.

It was odd how quiet he sounded as he trekked through the woods, almost like he was weighless. His presence was like a ghost. I couldn’t see him in the darkness but I could feel his cold stare at the back of my neck. In the darkness, a hauntingly beautiful humming broke through the trees in the skyline. It was an eerie lullaby that pulled me under the waves, swallowing every part of me.

Ba dum, ba dum, ba dum dun da dun.

“You come and go in waves,” Masked.Omens distorted voice sang out, suddenly very, very close by.

Tilting my head back, I glanced up at the sky and muffled my scream into my hand when I saw a pair of dark eyes staring down at me as he leaned over the top of the rock.

“Found you,” his teeth sparkled in the low light of the moon and I scrambled to my feet in a scream, running away from him again.

As I ran, low branches whacked me in my face as I did my best to dodge them but I could feel the wind brush against the small cuts on my cheeks. I expected to hear the wildlife scurrying away from me as I ran through their home but besides my heavy breathing and the crunching of the leaves beneath my feet, everything was silent.

“Shit!” I shrieked when my ankle got caught at a vine hidden beneath some brush, nearly causing me to stumble over my feet.

Thankfully I was always quick on my feet and I was able to pick up speed again, not falling flat on my face. Masked.Omens had been too quiet, I didn’t even feel his presence behind me anymore. The clearing of the woods was about six feet ahead of me and I could vaguely make out the lines of cars that were parked along the long driveway.

If I continue to run in this direction, I would undoubtedly be seen by the people either leaving the party or arriving late. I needed to think of a new plan. Maybe I could quickly turn and run the other way without being-.

My body collided with a tree. No, not a tree but a wall of hard muscle and heat. Arms wrapped around me to keep me from falling and I looked up, being met with dark eyes beneath the mask.

“Caught you, angel,” Masked.Omens gave me a wicked smile before kicking out my feet, knocking me on my ass.

Before I could yell in protest for how hard I fell to the ground, he was on top of me in a flash, flicking something out of his pocket and it made me stiff. The glow of the moon glinted on the blade of a knife; a very sharp pocket knife.

“Oh god,” I almost sobbed while scooting away from him, only for him to drag me back by my ankle.

I’m going to die. He uses the website as a way to find easy victims and here I was, about to die because I was desperate for a dick.

“Shh,” he hushed me and shook the knife in front of my face. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have the first time I found you.”

I pursed my lips, realizing he was right, but I still couldn't stop the way my heart lurched into my throat. Masked.Omens brushed his nose along my jawline, breathing me in.

“I can smell you better when no one is around,” he groaned, pressing his hips into mine, keeping me locked in place on the dirty ground beneath me.

The hard line of his cock pushed against the inside of my thigh and my eyes widened when I felt how big he was. There was no way he’d fit inside of me, it would have to be a stretch.

A hiss fell from my lips when the tip of the blade dragged down the swell of my breasts before it skimmed over the front of my corset. Masked.Omens eyes bled into the darkness of his mask as he titled his head down at me, his body heavy against mine as he continued to pin me down to the ground.

I reached out towards his mask, a sudden desperation filling me wanting to see what he looked like beneath it. His large gloved hand shot out and pinned both of my hands above my head and the corner of his lip tilted up in a sly smirk.

“You’re a desperate little whore, aren’t you?” His dark and distorted voice taunted me.

“I just want to see your face,” I admitted with a shaky breath.

Masked.Omens simply shook his head before ripping the sharp blade through my corset, it falling to the ground in a forgotten heap of material. My lips parted to protest but the blade was held to my neck, quickly silencing me.

“Your tits are perfect,” he groaned while playing with my left tit with the hand that wasn't holding my hands above my head.

My bottom lip was caught between my teeth as I arched my back off the ground, rocks digging into the calmly skin. Even with the cool air tonight, from the chase it made me break out in a sweat. I wasn’t the fittest and it showed with how I was trying to still catch my breath. With my work schedule, it kept me on my feet and active so the last thing I wanted to do most days when I got off was spend it in the gym.

At the thought of work, I wiggled my hands in his grasp when I remembered the wound on the inside of my palm. Something Masked.Omens noticed with the way my face cringed so he gently brought the injured palm up to his face, inspecting it.

“What happened?”

I swallowed, feeling the shift in the air from sexual to concern. “Uh-while I was crawling away, I grabbed a piece of broken glass.”

A slew of curses fell from his lips before he took the hem of his long shirt and ripped a long strip of it. With careful hands, he wrapped around the piece of shirt around the wound a few times before tying it off. My eyes watched with an unfamiliar feeling surging through my heart. It was supposed to be a quick hook up; one fuck and be done. But from the moment I felt his breath against my neck in the kitchen, it was as if the stars aligned and my soul began to vibrate.

“I don’t think you need stitches but you’ll definitely need to wash it out to clean out any infection.”

It was odd, hearing the concern in the distorted voice of his.

I nodded. “I’m a nurse. I’ve got everything I need at home to clean it.”

“Good,” gone was the concern in his voice and eyes, replaced with lust. “On your knees, angel.”

Masked.Omens rose to his feet now towering over me and not wanting to disappoint, I rose to my knees then gaze up at him through my lashes. The wings on my back were skewed so he reached out and straightened them.

“These stay on,” he motioned towards the dark wings.

I couldn’t speak, the sight of him dressed in all black, seemingly blending into the darkness surrounding us stole all the words from me. There was a bright light from the back patio that broke through the trees, bathing us in a faint glimmer.

“Words. You need to use your words,” his leather clad fingers tapped my cheek.

“Okay,” I cleared my throat, doing my best to keep my voice loud and strong.

“Okay what?” His voice was even darker even with the distortion to it.

My brows furrowed together as the confusion etched deep into my skin but when his hand gripped around my throat giving it a squeeze, I realized what he’d been looking for.

“Okay sir,” I choked out as the air began leaving my lungs due to his tight grip.

“Good girl,” he praised before dropping his hold on me to rip out the belt from his pants.

He moved so quietly that if it wasn’t for the light on us I would have thought he left me here in the woods alone, topeless. My hands wrenched behind my back just underneath the edge of the wings, and I felt the tight bind of leather around my wrists.

I let out a low hiss when his fingers gripped my scalp, yanking my head back and I noticed he held his phone in front of us, with the camera open.

“Smile pretty for me, angel,” he ordered while resting his cheek against my own before taking two pictures and slipped his phone back into his pocket.

Masked.Omens dragged his fingers over my shoulder down to my breasts as he walked back around in front of me.

“I don’t know if I want to fuck these perfect tits or shove my cock down your throat.”

For a brief moment, I could have sworn the distortion in his voice was gone and it was his normal voice that spoke into the night.

All of a sudden, his grip was in my hair, yanking my head back so I could peer up at him. He radiated fear, dominance, and pure darkness. The kind that loomed in the corner of your bedroom while you slept, waiting to drag you down to the depths with him. I should be scared of him and the way he looked at me like he wanted to devour me but it was the opposite. I wanted to dive right into the darkness with him head first.

A thumb brushed along my lip, smearing the lipstick all over my chin. “Open up for me, angel.”

Not wanting to disappoint, I parted my lips for him as he worked open the button and zipper of his pants with the other hand, yanking out his erect cock from the waistband of his briefs. I couldn’t help but gawk at how thick it was. Red and angry from how long he had to wait for this.

My tongue darted out to wet my lips but tasted leather instead. I realized his thumb was still brushing over my mouth. Wetness pooled in my panties as I wrapped my lips around his thumb, sucking it deep into my mouth. The leather of his glove left a weird aftertaste on my tongue but I didn’t let it stop me from gazing up at him as I continued to swirl around his thumb, mimicking what I wanted to do to his cock.

The noise that rumbled from his chest was not of this earth as he pulled his thumb from my mouth with a loud pop and grasped his cock, giving himself a few pumps.

“Since your mouth and hands are a bit preoccupied, if you need me to stop blink twice, alright?”

It was weird how Masked.Omens was able to quickly shift from his dark side to this comforting side. We didn’t know each other but he still managed to care about me.

Get over yourself, Y/N. This is supposed to be a quick fuck. That’s it.

The head of his cock brushing against my lips snapped me from my thoughts and with an eagerness filling me, I let him sink his cock deep down my throat. Both of us let out a shared groan.

“Your mouth is so fucking warm.” His voice with the modulator made my skin prickle as I did my best to take more of him. “Relax angel, open that throat for me.”

I was pretty skilled with oral so I was able to take a cock far down however his cock was by far the longest and thickest I’d ever taken so it was a bit of a struggle. I guided my tongue along his fast, pressing ever so lightly. Masked.Omens titled his head back in pleasure while his hands ran through the long strands of my hair, burying them deep. My scalp burned but in such a good way that my moan vibrated against him.

“Shit,” he hissed when my teeth scraped along the head of his cock.

Before I could give a look of an apology, afraid I hurt him, he forced my head farther onto his dick.

“Do it again,” the distorted voice demanded.

I did. I dug my teeth along the soft skin of his cock, up and down as he guided my head. Drool slipped from the corners of my mouth and tears burned in my eyes, undoubtedly making my mascara run down my face. I was sure my red lipstick stained him, especially when he shoved himself so far down his cock, I pressed my lips against the dark hairs that lined his pelvis.

“I love the way your makeup runs down your face,” he cocked his head to the side, drinking me in.

My eyes sparkled at his words so I thanked him by taking him even farther down my throat, choking on it.

“An-angel,” he grunted, nearly stumbling over his words before he ripped me off of him with an echoing pop.

I gulped in a deep breath just as he tossed me onto the ground on my stomach, sticks digging into my stomach and breasts. The sound of his pocket knife clicking open and then I felt my skirt falling away from me.

“Did you just cut my skirt?” I asked, growing irritated that he kept cutting my clothes.

Masked.Omens didn't say anything as he cut off the straps of the angel wings before setting it nicely beside us. His warm breath fanned over my spine as he traced it from the top to bottom with kisses. My hands were still bound with his belt and when I tried to ease away the stiffness, I brushed along his still wet cock from my saliva. Even though I couldn’t see him, I could tell he was still dressed in his entire get up.

Was he planning on being dressed the entire time?

“Orange is your color,” he said while fingering the waistband of my thong.

Right before he cut it away from me, leaving me completely naked in the dirty leaves, only wearing my fishnets and combat boots. In order to reach my pussy, he cut open a large hole into my fishnet stockings.

“I fucking hate you,” I growled.

He brushed the head of his cock against my very wet folds. “Are you sure about that?”

I shook my head feverishly when he began to press inside slowly. It was previously mentioned on the website that both of us were STD free and I had a birth control implant. So it was up to us whether we wanted to use a condom or not.

My spine stiffened when I felt cool metal replace his cock and when it pushed inside of me, I let out a strangled cry.

“I want your tight cunt to fuck my knife. Understood?” His teeth grazed over the shell of my ear.

“Yes sir,” I rasped.

Again, I should be scared. Terrified even. But the idea of fucking something other than a dildo or a dick excited me.

My walls clenched around the handle of the knife as he forced it in and out of me, slow at first so he could figure out a pace that worked best but then without warning, his pace picked up until he was roughly fucking me with the handle. I spat out dirt and leaves while letting out a cry of euphoria. The handle was smaller than a dick but with the force of it slamming in and out of me, it was just enough to light the fire low in my gut and made the base of my spine buzz with the familiar feeling. My orgasm was building like a tidal wave, ready to crash into the shore and taking whoever in its path.

“I’m so close,” I panted as my body writhed underneath the weight of Masked.Omens as he leaned over me, still fucking me with the knife handle.

“You’re so fucking wet, angel,” he groaned when he leaned back and gazed down at the knife settling in between my legs.

“Don’t stop. Please,” I begged, whining when he pulled the knife out completely.

I was then faced with its slick handle in front of me and I nearly gasped when I saw my arousal dripping from it onto the ground.

“Lick it clean,” his gruff voice ordered me, still distorted by whatever modulator he was using.

Why didn’t he want me to hear his actual voice? Was it part of his whole get up?

“What if I cut myself?” I gave way to my worry if I licked it too far and sliced my tongue on the sharp blade.

Masked.Omens brushed away the strands of hair full of dirt and leaves away from my face before I felt his warm breath against my cheek.

“I’ll make sure you won’t,” the sincerity in his voice made something flutter low in my gut.

My eyes flicked over to him as he leaned over my shoulder and gone was the darkness that lay inside of them. A light broke through and it was at that moment I noticed they were a mahogany color. All I could see was his eyes and lips where ginger hair peppered around them. That’s all I needed to know that he was breathtakingly gorgeous.

Ever so slowly, he pressed the handle of the knife between my lips and I tasted the bittersweet taste of my arousal, humming in pleasure.

“I bet you taste so fucking good,” Masked.Omens sighed, almost disappointed that he wasn’t able to taste me himself.

I never said he couldn’t.

Almost like he read my thoughts, he yanked the knife from my mouth and let it drop. His hands held my hips with a bruising force, halting me up slightly so my pussy was directly in line with those luscious lips. Since my hands were still bound behind my back, my body folded awkwardly but I dared not to complain, afraid that he would change his mind.

“So pretty and wet, all for me,” he mused with a flick of his tongue over my clit.

“Oh god,” I moaned, pressing my pussy closer to his mouth.

I needed more of him. Desperately.

A swift smack to my ass echoed in the woods causing me to cry out. “No god here, angel. Just you and me.”

All at once, his mouth devoured my pussy, tongue fucking me for a few beats before his teeth grazed over the overly sensitive bud of my clit. I was still throbbing from my almost earlier orgrasm so all it took was his face between my legs for a few seconds before my release rushed out of me with a howl of euphoria. I cried out while writing against his face, making his grip on my hips tighten as he licked and sucked me through my orgasm.

“I fucking love the way you taste,” a gentle kiss to my over stimulated clit.

I was breathless, ready to fall into a heap in the ground, but Masked.Omens had other plans.

“I know we’re both clean and I know you’re on the implant,” a tender kiss to my back made me shiver. “I want to feel all of you. Are you alright with that?”

All I could do was nod which didn’t seem to please him because he landed another smack to my ass.

“Try that again,” he snarled.

Oh, right.

“Yes sir,” I squeaked out.

“Good fucking girl,” he crooned before sinking himself deep inside of me.

It was an adjustment to have him fit in between my walls. His cock was much larger than previous ones I’d taken and he had to pull himself out before sinking in slowly a few times until I was fully open for him.

“You take my cock so well, angel. Like you were made for me,” he said while snapping his hips against my ass.

The only noises that lingered in the air of the woods was our shared panting, skin on skin, and me writing in the crunchy leaves. Every time Masked.Omens would piston his cock into me, my body would shift up half an inch. He let out a low growl and wrapped an arm around my midsection. He hoisted us up so he was kneeling and I was speared open on his cock. The new angle made stars dance in the edge of my vision and I rested my head against his shoulder. I felt the rough material of his clothes scratch against the bareness of my back as he lifted me up and down on him.

“I love the way you fuck,” Masked.Omens sank he teeth into my neck and I cried out.

Suddenly, a cold bite of metal was pressed against the spot he bit down and I froze in his grasp.

“I need you to be quiet. I can’t have people hearing how pretty you sound,” he grunted when his cock swelled inside of me.

He was close.

With the knife pressed into my throat, I rolled my hips against him, trying to bring him closer to the edge because I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer. The second he slipped himself inside of me, my second orgasm was building. I was so far gone in the aura of him, desperate for that release, I hadn’t realized the tip of the blade pressed a bit too hard into my skin, drawing the smallest of blood.

Masked.Omens changed our position again, once more being face down on the ground as his entire body laid against my mine, his pace almost ruthless and erratic. A curse fell from his lips and then something soft brushed against my back.

“I’m going to fill up that pretty little cunt, angel.”

I was so far gone in my bliss, about to jump over the edge of desire, that I almost missed he’d taken off his mask and it was his true voice that was spoken into the skin of my shoulder. I lifted my head to try and get a peek at him but Masked.Omens let out a noise of disappointment and shoved my face into the ground, causing me to take in a mouth of dirt.

But I didn’t care because my second orgasm of the night ripped me in half when the head of his cock hit that spot which made my vision blur. He pumped himself a few more times until his cock twitched just as he let out a low whine, coating the inside of my walls.

“Best. Birthday. Ever,” his voice was muffled by my hair as he buried his face into it.

We lay there for a long moment of silence, both of us trying to catch our breath, and when he pulled himself out of me I cringed at how empty I felt. His cum ran down the inside of my thighs and I rolled onto my back before sitting up. As I did, I realized he had slipped the mask back on and just finished tucking his cock back into his briefs.

Silence fell between us as he glanced down at me once he rose to his feet. His eyes took in the discarded costume to my side and my naked form. Shaking out of his jacket, he handed it to me with a sheepish apology; back to the distortion in his voice. Whatever was causing the change in his voice was something he had in the mask.

“Thank you,” I smiled while wrapping myself in the large jacket. It smelled like the woods, his cologne, and a hint of sex.

He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his pants, the hint of orange peeking out. “I’m sorry about your clothes.”

I shook him off while slowly rising to my feet, unsteady so he reached his hands out to help me.

“It’s alright. It was a cheap costume so I’m not too connected to them,” I added a chuckle to assure him that it was fine.

He blinked. “You’re make up is really fucked up.”

Now I let out a thunderous laughter while buttoning up the jacket. I drowned in it, resting above my knees so I was thankful it hid everything.

“If I’m being honest, I only came here for our fuck meet up. So tell whoever's birthday it is that I give them the biggest wishes and sorry I couldn’t stay.”

“I’m sure he knows.” Masked.Omens nodded.

Clearing my throat, I pointed behind him towards where the cars were parked. “I should-uh-go.”

His gaze burned into me as he refused to step away, letting me walk past him. My skin was set ablaze again and the wetness between my legs was evident again. Only this time it was more because of both mine and his cum.

“Shit,” he cursed, motioning to my neck. “I nicked you with the knife.”

My fingers immediately shot up to my neck and when I pulled them away, I saw the barest dot of blood.

“Oh, that’s nothing. I’m sure I’m not going to bleed out.”

I tried to joke but he snatched out for my wrist, bringing my fingers to his mouth so he could suck off the blood. I watched in horror and slight arousal as his tongue lapped up the crimson.

Add blood play to the kink list.

“Stay safe, angel,” he gave a curt nod after he dropped my hand from his mouth and moved to the side.

Blinking rapidly, I did my best to smile as I walked away from him with nothing but the remembrance of how he felt inside of me and the fire he brought into my life. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, he single handedly ruined sex for me with any other man.

NOAH

I sat low in the chair in the corner of my bedroom with my glass filled with a dark amber liquid. I rarely drank anymore but after what I’d seen earlier, I needed something to ease away the anger. How could she do that to me? To us? Was I not enough for her?

Cleary not since I found her in bed with another.

My head snapped over towards my desk and the array of monitors that lined the wall, all showing different angles of her apartment. She wasn’t home, starting her twenty four hour shift at the hospital three hours ago. Which meant she would be out of her apartment for at least twenty hours, giving me plenty of time to plant the microphones. The cameras I had couldn’t pick up sound and after what I saw earlier, I needed to be able to hear everything.

I dragged my eyes over towards the wall behind my headboard where the familiar sight of black angel wings were hung up. Memories of that night replayed on my mind in a loop, the way her pussy felt squeezing my cock, the way her eyes stared up at me filled with tears as I fucked her throat ruthlessley, and the sounds she made only for me.

My pretty angel.

Ever since that night two weeks ago, all I could think of was her. It was only supposed to be a night thing yet here I was, staring up at the fake angel wings of her costume and fingering the lacey orange thong I stole from her. None of my roommates knew I had them, so I washed it in my bathroom sink afraid they would find it in the laundry room and question it.

I didn’t need them prying into my life, not now, because this was all new to me. In no means was I a good person. I’ve lied, cheated, hurt and killed people that got in the way of rising to the top of my career. I grew OMENS from the ground up, becoming one of the most feared mob gangs in Los Angeles. To everyone on the outside, we were a financial company that helped rich people sort their money into offshore funds which were actually funneling a small percentage into a secret OMENS account.

Illegal? Highly. Did we ever get caught? No and frankley, we never would. We knew what we were doing and it had been six years of this lifestyle.

Finishing off my drink, I rose from my chair with a groan and set the empty glass onto my desk and watched the monitors with a careful eye. The perfectionist and neat freak in me scowled at the mess she left behind in her haste to leave for work tonight. Clothes scattered all over her bed and floor, unsure if they were clean or dirty. Plates over flowing in her sink and the feed of the cameras were so crisp, I could see the crumbs on her couch from when she stuffed her face with cookies earlier.

“She really needed to eat healthier and be a bit tidier,” I grumbled under my breath.

It was taking everything in me not to clean up after her when I sneak in later because it was too soon for her to realize I was there. The last two weeks were filled with me watching her on the cameras, following her as she ran her errands on her off Sunday’s, and tracking her movements on her phone’s GPS when I can’t be around. All because of one night of sex.

Joakim and Nicholas dared me to sign up for that dreaded sex website months ago and I never once got a match. I had forgotten about having a profile until I received a notification that I finally got a match. While her profile was sparse on information, I knew that with our shared kinks and turns on, we were perfect for each other. I also knew the second I stepped foot into my kitchen, watching her talk with Joakim that she would hold my heart for the rest of my life. Her eyes shined as she talked with my best friends and her laughter pieced my heart. Fuck, that smile dragged me into her genuine beauty.

The second my cock slipped inside of her, I wasn’t going to let her go.

After she left that night, I scurried back into the house and up to my bedroom, ignoring everyone who was there to celebrate me and locked myself in my room. Within the hour, I had figured out who she was, where she lived, and where she worked.

Y/N.

Her name sounded so delightful when I moaned it as I spilled myself into her orange thong; hence why I washed it in my bathroom sink instead of the laundry room with my other dirty clothes.

I snuck into her house two days after our night together to place the hidden cameras. I was so obsessed with her and the urge to see what she was doing every moment of her day was strong. I needed her to be mine, whether she wanted it or not. It might be hard for her to adjust in the beginning but eventually, Y/N will realize this is what she wants.

Thanks to the cameras, I was able to see that the morning after she had her hand wrapped up and according to her medical records that I hacked into, Y/N had someone at the hospital she worked to stitch her up.

I've also watched her a few times shove that blue dildo so far up that tight cunt, she screamed out in pleasure. The only thing she was wearing was the jacket I gave her that night.

Also thanks to the cameras, I saw her in bed with another man, making my blood boil. How could she lay with another, after everything we went through that night together? Did she not feel the connection we shared?

No one would ever come between Y/N and I.

So while she was at work, I found out everything I needed about the guy, Andy. Tattooed, muscular, and a pain in my ass. I’d get rid of him before I head over to her apartment later. I couldn’t risk any more distractions for Y/N. I needed to be the one she thought about. My cock would be the only one that would slip between her folds. My mouth would be the only one that got to taste her arousal.

There was a soft knock on my door causing me to click out of the feed from Y/N’s apartment and now, a bunch of emails from work and numbers from the stock market were displayed on my screens.

“Come in,” I gruffed out while sitting on the edge of my desk and crossing my arms over my chest.

Joakim walked into my room dressed in a black dress shirt and pants, his long hair pulled back into a low bun. I raised a brow at his attire but then suddenly remembered why he was so dressed up.

“Fuck, we have that meeting with the Robertsons,” I groaned while pinching my eyes shut.

“They’re meeting us at the office at six,” Joakim said.

Grumbling under my breath, I knew that this meeting would take longer than necessary because it was the Roberstons. They wanted to know every single detail about where we were sending their money and what offshore accounts would be holding it.

“I have somewhere to be at seven,” I said while walking into my closet to swap out my white shirt that had wrinkled from the long day and slipped on a black turtleneck. My black pants were still fine, no need to change those.

Joakim’s brows furrowed while he motioned towards the angel wings above my bed. “Does it have anything to do with that?”

My upper lip curled up in a slight snarl. When my roommates saw the new decor the next morning, they grilled me on why out of everything I could hang above my bed I decided on a pair of black costume angel wings. I played it off pretty well since they knew I was into the darker side of decor. My black walls, the dark mahogany king size bed frame that had four bed posts with hidden hooks, for extracurricular activities. The matching color desk in front of the large floor to ceiling windows. I had a gray lounge couch in front of the black brick fireplace, which was currently roaring to life with heat. On the wall across the foot of my bed was a large mirror, again something I used for my extracurricular activities. The only ounce of bright colors I had in my bedroom was the burgundy bedspread.

I let my eyes linger for a moment on the mask perched on my desk next to the monitors, the same mask I wore that night. Along with the wings, I had the mask displayed as a trophy. A way to remind me of everything that happened that night. The modulator that distorted my voice was still stitched in, something small enough that it wouldn’t bother me.

Next to the black mask was a similar one, only in yellow with black symbols; the symbols of our company OMNS.

Death.

Peace.

Mind.

When I needed to talk to Y/N in my stalking, I would wear the black one. Yet, it never came to that. I never got close enough to talk to her so I opted in wearing the yellow mask for moments of me sneaking into her bedroom to plant the cameras. Whenever I would follow her in the streets, I couldn’t be seen like a mad man by wearing a mask in broad daylight with others around, so I wore my hood far over my dark eyes and made sure I put enough space between me and Y/N.

“Noah?”

My attention snapped over towards Joakim, who was waiting for my answer.

“Is Nicholas and Folio coming with us?” I questioned while slipping into my back peacoat.

Joakim nodded. “Nicholas is in the car already. Folio is trying to get his guest to leave.”

I snorted, remembering his guest showing up in the middle of the night last night. All of us lived together and it wasn’t anything new if one of us brought home a guest. They never stayed more than a few hours. None of us wanted a relationship, all busy with our careers to even give the thought of marriage and family the light of day.

Well, that was until Y/N came along. One literal taste of her and I knew she was mine. I hadn’t slept with anyone since that night, although I cannot say the same about her; which is why she needed to be punished.

For weeks, I left little calling cards throughout her apartment; black petunia petals. At first, it scared her but the more I left, I could see that fear be replaced with curiosity. What started with her throwing them away in a haste turned into her compiling them into a crystal vase in the middle of her coffee table.

As I grabbed my phone, I clicked on the screen to check the time and my cock swelled when I drank in the sight of my background; Y/N and I in the woods when her hands were bound behind her back and the blissed out look in her eyes as I stood behind her. I may have got the idea to take a picture like that from a Tik Tok but I wasn’t going to tell anyone that or I wasn’t going to let anyone see my picture either.

With a sigh, I pocketed my phone and nodded to Joakim. “Let’s get going.”

Thirty hours later, I stood blanketed in darkness, the only light emanating from the salt lamp which rested on the end table. It bathed her face in a faint orange glow and my cock twitched beneath my pants. What was supposed to be a quick meeting with the Roberstons ended up being a six hour ordeal because they got a little too squirmy when we were explaining how we ran things in our business. As soon as they left, we had to retrace our steps with how everything went down in the meeting and had to cover our tracks with the offshore accounts in case they decided to do their own digging. The topic of if they were undercover FEDS posing as a married couple had been brought up by Folio which made us all worried.

Taking some extra precaution, we all flew to our Texas office to make sure everything was running smoothly there. One of our good friends, Matt, ran things over there and we could always trust him to keep things hidden that needed to be.

Even though I was busy dealing with all of that, it didn’t stop me from checking in on Y/N when I could. I had yet to find time to hack into the cameras of the hospital she worked at but according to the tracker in her phone, I saw that she was still at work. Until five hours ago when I was notified she had stepped into her living room. It was on the flight back home from Texas when I pulled out my phone to watch the camera feed and watched as she stepped into her bathroom, shutting the door behind her. That was the one room in her apartment where I didn't have a camera set up. I was fucked up but not that fucked up. She needed some privacy after all. There were two hours where I wasn’t able to watch her feed and it was killing me.

As soon as we arrived back at the manor, I packed a bag and rushed over to Y/N’s apartment, where I was currently hiding in the darkness of her bedroom, watching her sleep. I’d been here only for a few minutes and my cock was already thick in my pants as I studied the way her chest rose and fell with each deep breath she took.

For weeks my thoughts had been plagued by Y/N and the soft moans that fell from her lips. I was desperate for her, I needed to feel her wrapped around my cock, milking it.

As my dark eyes dragged down her exposed back when she rolled over, the sheet falling away from her, it was then that I noticed she was naked underneath her red sheets and rage filled me. This was a first for her, sleeping naked. I would know because I'd been watching her sleep for the last few weeks and she always wore an oversized shirt and cotton underwear.

A soft click sounded over her snores and my eyes snapped over to the ensuite bathroom and now the rage was all-consuming as I watched some random man walk out wearing absolutely nothing as he slipped back into bed; her bed.

My girl's bed.

It wasn’t just any random man that slipped into bed with her. It was that tattooed asshole I saw before.

Andy.

Scowling, I grasped the handle of the blade that was hiding in my pocket and ever so quietly, tip-toed towards Andy's side of the bed, ready to rid yet another obstacle in our path.

You will be mine, angel. Whether you want it or not.

As I passed the mirror, I realized I was wearing my yellow mask and cursed to myself. I couldn’t risk speaking in my normal voice so I had to make sure to keep my mouth shut.

Well, did it matter? This Andy fellow wouldn’t survive to point me out in a line up if I were to get caught. I snorted at that thought; I never got caught.

Twirling the knife between my fingers, I cocked my head to the side and stared down at the man that was so close to falling into a deep slumber. That was until he felt my presence looming over him like a demon ready to possess him. Andy’s eyes snapped open, fear inking into black and before he could make a noise, I covered his mouth and nose with the soaked cloth with chloroform.

From watching Y/N, I knew that she was a heavy sleeper especially after working her twenty four hour shifts. She could sleep through a tornado siren or even an earthquake that shook her apartment.

Andy writhed in the sheets, kicking his feet and scratching at the black material of my jacket; all feeble attempts. Soon the light filtered from his eyes and that slumber he was desperate for earlier finally dragged him under.

Y/N didn’t even move a muscle in the struggle of the man next to her.

With Andy temporarily disposed of, I dragged him out of bed and let his body fall to the floor in a heap. I cringed with how loud the noise and stood breathless as I watched Y/N making sure she wouldn’t wake. She let out an obnoxious snore and rolled onto her back, exposing those perfect breasts to me.

I let out a hushed groan when my cock pressed against the zipper of my pants and I palmed it, trying to ease away some of the pain of not being able to sink into her. I wanted to feel her clench around me again but there was an issue that needed to be dealt with.

She looked so pretty, though. Her mouth parted slightly as she snored, hair a mess over her face, those perky and round tits that made my mouth water. I wanted to plunge my teeth deep into her nipples, marking her as mine.

Maybe another day.

Light as a feather, I leaned over the bed toward her awaiting lips and pressed mine over them. There was a hint of a fruity aftertaste from the Celsius drink she had at work and her lips were so soft. I couldn’t pull myself away from her as I deepened the kiss, guiding my tongue over hers. Even in her deep slumber, I swallowed the quiet moan she let out. Her tongue just began to mold against mine when I pulled away. I couldn’t risk her waking up; not now.

Soon, angel.

With a deep sigh, I pushed myself away from her to adjust my dick in my pants before glancing down at the heap of a body at my feet. There were two ways I could go about disposing of him; quick and clean or dirty and dark.

With a sinister smile, I lifted up the body over my shoulder with a hushed groan. Andy may have seemed small but he was heavy like a boulder as I adjusted the sudden weight. My breath almost echoed in my mask as I gave one more longing glance towards Y/N as she lay oblivious to the masked man in her bedroom hauling away her precious little Andy.

READER

The sound of my nails tapping on my phone screen echoed in the small break room as I sat laxed in one of the chairs. I was on hour twenty out of twenty four of my shift and after the hell that rained down tonight, I was ready to pull my hair out. A kid with a broken leg, an abused husband that swore on his life his wife wasn't the one abusing him but the signs were clear. But with no confirmation from him, we were at a standstill what to do legally. The worst of it tonight was a six car pile up that took up the majority of the night. It was constant trauma after trauma that each bay was filled. We had people waiting for rooms in the hallways. I was almost tempted to treat a patient at the receptionist desk so he didn’t bleed out all over the floor but thankfully the man with a rash was in and out of the room before I lost my medical license.

Even with all the chaos from tonight, I was extremely grateful that we hadn’t lost anyone. A few close calls but we were able to save everyone. I still needed a moment to myself to let out a few tears, something I often did at work to steady myself. I was one of the best E.R nurses in this hospital, some things still shook me to my core; more specifically the man with the large piece of glass sticking out of his chest.

As soon as I stepped into the break room, I fished out my phone from my locker and sent a text to Andy. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, after he left my apartment with a deep kiss on my lips while I slept. We’ve hooked up a few times in the past and the sex was good, great even. Although, it paled in comparison to the sex I had with Masked.Omens. No one has ever been able to light my body on fire with a simple touch or even a quick look from his dark eyes. My soul craved him in ways I never understood, it was as if we connected on a spiritual level that night. No matter how hard I tried to move on with other sexual partners, I often found myself comparing them to Masked.Omens.

Blowing out a breath, I sent a text to Andy.

Me: Hey, are you free tomorrow night? It’s been a hell of a week and I need to blow off some steam.

Like the other texts I sent him, this one went ignored. He always had his read receipts on but the last four texts from the last couple of days were still at the delivered status.

Checking my watch, I realized I had about five minutes left in my break so with a shrug of fuck it, I pulled up the same sex webiste I signed up for the night with Masked.Omens. Since I was already signed up, all I had to do was recheck my kink options to make sure if anything changed; it hadn’t. So once everything looked good, I clicked on the green match button and silently prayed to whatever God was out there that I would be matched with Masked.Omens again.

“Damn,” I muttered as my heart dropped when I noticed that I wasn’t matched with him but with someone else.

Glorious.Muscles.

I let out a shuddering groan at not only the name but his profile picture. It was a typical blonde hair, blue eyed, man that radiated ‘small dick’ energy and I knew that this night of sex would be a two pumps and done kind of night.

For a brief moment, I thought about maybe sending a message to Masked.Omens to see if he wanted to hook up instead. At least I knew he would be able to get me off, something I had a feeling Glorious.Muscles couldn’t achieve.

Do you want to come across as an obsessive stalker? Masked.Omens will probably think you’re crazy for randomly messaging him for sex.

Rolling my eyes at my thought, I tossed my phone back into my locker with a bit more force than necessary and dragged my feet back to work.

Three hours later, I was forcing myself through the door of my apartment after a brutal shift, ready to take a shower and fall into my bed full of blankets. I had the next forty eight hours off which I planned on spending it in bed with junk food and trashy television. Yet, I came to a sudden halt in the middle of my kitchen when I took in a horrifying sight in front of me.

Black petunia petals were scattered all over the floor and candles lining my kitchen counter were lit. It seemed like they were burning for quite some time because the wax was dripping down onto the marble counter.

That was going to be a bitch to clean.

I dropped my bags as fear iced my bones yet sweat gathered at the back of my neck when I noticed a piece of paper taped to the screen of my computer on my desk in the far corner of my apartment.

“What the fuck?” I muttered while slowly walking towards the note, not bothering to step over the petunia petals.

My favorite flower.

My fingers shook as I crinkled the paper between them after I ripped it off of the screen.

My sweet cloud,

I hope you didn’t forget who you belonged to. No man will ever come between us, not again. I wanted to leave you something to remember me by since it seems like you forget.

I’ll be seeing you soon.

Letting out a shuddering breath, I dropped the note to the ground, not caring to watch it flutter into the petals, when I saw something else on the desk; something very familiar.

Andy’s chain and lock necklace, covered in dry blood.

Next to that was a print out of the sex website with the match of me and Glorious.Muscles.

For weeks, I had the feeling someone was following me in the darkness only to see now one there. Not to mention, the black petunias weren’t anything new. This was something I’d grown used to, even started collecting them in the vase on my coffee table. It should scare me that someone was obviously stalking me and leaving me things yet I found it intriguing. I couldn’t stop thinking of all the possibilities on who it could be.

I thought it was Andy at first, giving into the roleplay ideas I’d brought up one night but with his bloody necklace clenched in my hands, I knew I was so fucking wrong.

Yanking out my phone from my coat pocket, I quickly dialed Andy’s number and prayed to a god I didn’t believe in that he would answer. My spine stiffened, pure ice filling my veins, when I heard ringing in my apartment; loud and grating on my ears.

“No,” I sobbed when the ringing stopped in my apartment, only for Andy’s voicemail to pick up.

“Oh, what’s the matter, angel? Did someone clip your wings?” A familiar distorted voice breathed against the shell of my ear.

#tina talks #noah sebastian #noah sebastian fanfiction #noah sebastian fics #bad omens #bad omens cult #bad omens fanfiction #bad omens fics #noah sebastian AU #stalker!noah sebastian

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felikatze · 9 months ago

Text

THE ISLANDER EUPHRASIE THEORY: THE CRACK HEADCANON THAT RUINED ME FOREVER

HI. you might know me as the kingphie divorce guy. or as the guy who wrote the 6k ludonarrative essay. Today i am going to introduce to YOU @the-bitter-ocean's fantabulous ISLANDER EUPHRASIE THEORY!!!

DISCLAIMER

This post contains SPOILERS for ALL of In Stars and Time. INCLUDING THE ACT 6 SECRET!!

You have been warned.

ALSO!!!!

The original headcanon/theory is VERY MUCH Ocean's fantastic work! I am merely rehashing all the arguments for it that have been laid out across various chats into one cohesive thing people can look at. Also citations! Who doesn't love those.

WHAT IS IT?

Well, it's quite simple. It's the theory that Euphrasie, love of my life and Head Housemaiden of Dormont, is from the forgotten island, same as Siffrin and the King.

(Yes, this is why divorce AU exists.)

WHY DO YOU EVEN BELIEVE THIS?

Quite a lot of reasons, actually.

It's really funny

Let us begin with: the basics.

SUPERFLOUS AESTHETIC DETAIL

HAIR COLOR

This is Euphrasie. She's very pretty. I love her.

You might notice several things about her, like her fantabulous white hair.

Well. What other characters have white hair?

You have guessed correctly. The ONLY OTHER white haired characters with actual artwork are Siffrin and the King, both from The Island The World Forgot. Thus we can assume that it's a typical hair color for islanders. Makes it stand out very much that Euphie also has it.

(What about the beautiful one- sh sh sh he's blonde. He's blonde.) (Well, actually, considering that they are the only one who acknowledges that Vaugardians are also weird, what if he's from the island as well? Checkmate atheists.)

EYELASHES

(EDIT!!!!! FINALLY PUTTING THIS ON THE MAIN POST!!!

Turns out I was incorrect in this. Some characters (Mira, Isa) also have eyelashes on SOME portraits. The mentioned chars r still notable for Always Having Em, + the Loop lashes are like, literally intended as plot twist foreshadowing, but, hey.

That's what you get for writing essays at 1am.

IN RETURN!!! Someone pointed out to me [i forgot who sorry] that Euphrasie's capelet.... has stars on it!! It's speckled like the starry sky!! Now isn't that a neat coinkydink.)

(Original text left up because I respect my past self's artistic vision. And his lunacy.)

Correct. Eyelashes.

Going back to our portrait of Euphie, she is drawn with precisely three eyelashes. Why is this notable? Because Siffrin and Loop are.

So much so, that being drawn with three eyelashes, is specifically an element of foreshadowing to Loop's true identity.

(squints at character portraits) literally no characters besides Siffrin, Loop, and Euphrasie have eyelashes? Oh my god. What? Nobody has eyelashes? What the fuck? (okay, some moments later: Mirabelle has eyelashes in some battle artwork, but these three are the only ones specifically with eyelashes in dialogue portraits, which is still incredibly odd.)

SPEAKING HABITS

(EDIT!!! Another Point that is Kind Of Off, in that other characters [e.g. Odile] also do this occasionally. Again, keeping the text for my creative vision.

In return I get to inform you that the King makes the "not so bright, Bright One" pun TWICE in different loops, thus implying the King likes puns. Take this as you will. That's been my psychic damage, buhbyeeee~)

Hey, so, you know when you talk to people in Dormont, a lot of the NPCS will have a nametag that just says "[something] One" right? Daydreaming One, Castle-Loving One, Beautiful One?

And I've seen people wonder, are these titles? Nicknames?

And I bring you this: Siffrin addresses these people with these epithets in his head, because they have no fucking clue what anyone's name is.

So Siffrin just naturally lapses into this style of nicknaming strangers.

Which two other people also do.

Bright one... ...... Do you remember? Traveling one! Are you done talking with your companions? Yes, wonderful, wonderful!

Funny little tidbit that these three characters all speak alike isn't it :)

Okay. With aesthetics out of the way, let's move onto the next tier of this iceberg:

THE MECHANICS OF FORGETTING AND BEING FORGOTTEN

I realize in the process of writing that we must outline the nature of the curse. What gets forgotten and what gets to stay?

The particularity that's important to us right now is: what people get forgotten?

All evidence points toward this: an entire person is only forgotten if they were physically present on the island when it vanished.

I'm pulling up two example cases to prove it: Siffrin and the Daydreaming One.

The thing with Siffrin is: we know he witnessed the exact moment the island vanished. And, very notably, Siffrin was in a boat.

You can get the dialogue that proves this only in ACT 2 in a secret room most people don't find on their first playthroughs, which is both very funny and very evil. Here's the dialogue.

Siffrin: "I ran away from home once!" [...] Siffrin: "And so I took our boat! Got to the beach, rowed away from the shore a bit. I was going to come back right away, I just wanted to scare my parents a bit!" [...]

Siffrin: "I started to row back towards the shore... And then, I... I... ..." Isabeau: ... Sif? Siffrin: (Woah! What?) "Um, yes?" Isabeau: Um... You were telling us how you ran away from home? Siffrin: "I... was?" Odile: You... Were. Bonnie: DID YOU FORGET WHAT YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT WHILE TALKING ABOUT IT?!?

Siffrin is from the island, but was not physically present when it disappeared. This resulted in Siffrin forgetting their entire identity, including given name and spoken/written language.

Additionally, this is confirmed via Word of God to be the exact moment the island disappeared, so here's proof I'm not reading into it:

Shoutout to bibliomaniac's insane google spreadsheet for the easily searchable screenshot. god bless. Brinny, ily.

On the other hand, with the Daydreaming One, we have proof of a person who is not originally from the island, but was physically on it at the time of disappearance.

Siffrin: "Don't you have a sister?" Daydreaming One: I... I don't? I just said I'm an only child, silly!

(For her to forget someone like her sister, so easily... Her sister must've traveled to...)

Secondly, we know that remnants of the island were not completely forgotten immediately.

Memory faded gradually, starting with the ability to still speak and think about it with accompanying headaches, until it ramped up in intensity and everything is simply gone.

The Sparkling Diary in the library is more or less proof. Memory of the island was gone, but... people still remembered that they forgot something. People still knew what they were talking about, (an island north of Vaugarde), just without the specifics.

"Urgh. Also, Dad noticed no one can say the name of the island north of here anymore?" "I tried to say it yesterday and I got like the WEIRDEST headache for HOURS."

And Odile also remarks the following

Odile: We also know that people could remember that country clearly, before.

This will be relevant later. Moving on.

CONTRIVANCES

THE HOUSE'S OBSERVATORY

SO. The House of Change of Dormont has this funny little room on the third floor. It's an observatory. To look at stars with. When entering this room for the first time, Mirabelle says this:

Mirabelle: What...? Was there a room like this in the House? Y-yeah, I remember! Someone was working here... Studying... They looked like... ... Um... Sorry, I can't remember.

This reveals to us several things:

This room is innate to the House, and not brought here by the King's weird redecorating

Someone from the House was using it for study

All memory of who or what was studying and being studied was erased alongside the island's existence

Of course we can say, "yo, what if Euphrasie was using this room and just forgot?" but that is. a headcanon. I ADMIT! It is a stipulation

However, I find the general presence of the Island written all over the House incredibly interesting.

Inside the Observatory, there's a pile of papers with messy handwriting. You can't read these in until ACT 4. Even in ACT 4, you can't read them. But you do learn what's written on them.

(A pile of papers.) (It looks like someone was trying to write your country's name.)

Inside the observatory is also a globe. Upon repeated interaction in... act 4, i think, you get this:

(You see a spot on the globe where the paint has started wearing out, like someone kept dragging their finger on it.) (You drag your finger there too.) (Erased. You almost want to look for lightless paint.)

BOOKS

During the various quests to discover the truth of the loops, you run into a lot of books, written in the forgotten language. Now, Dormont is not close to the island. Dormont is not close to the coast.

Bambouche is. That's why Bonnie has heard about the island before and knows it was a big deal - they lived really close to it.

Bonnie (and then1): I think, I think my village was really close to it!!! My sister said it was all everyone could talk about for weeks!!! Mirabelle (anxious1): That's so frightening... I'm glad that whatever happened, she didn't get caught up in it!

As we can see in this map, Dormont is in the southern half of the country, and very centrally at that, meaning it has basically maximum distance from all waters and ports. So why does this landlocked small town have so many books in this language?

These aren't just dry books, either. In Dormont's library, there's actually a translated version of volume 2 of The Cursing of Chateau Castle.

(You take the book out again.) (You can read its title, now...) (Your heart is beating, badump, badump, badump.) (It's...) (... A translated copy of "The Cursing of Château Castle", issue #2.) (You start laughing.)

CONCLUSION OF THIS SECTION

Islanders lived in Dormont. Maybe even multiple! We've established that whoever is in Dormont when it vanished would not simply disapper, instead

they forgot where they're from.

One day, the islanders in Dormont could no longer remember being anywhere but Dormont. Being anything but Vaugardian. The observatory fell into disuse, as the person studying there gradually forgot what they used it for, even as they desparately tried to hold onto it, boring holes into the globe, and scribbling its name over and over until its unintelligible.

And, in all likelihood, eventually that knowledge was just gone forever. They simply became part of Dormont, none the wiser to their own history.

Books slipped into cracks. Rooms fell into disuse. Nobody remembered to clean out the remnants.

Now. The real cinch of this.

Why, in particular, do I think Euphrasie is one of them?

Answer me this, then.

How does Euphie know what Wish Craft is?

1. How could she read it?

Euphrasie knew specifically that Wish Craft exists, when all books on it are written in a language nobody can read.

The book in the storage room? The diary in the room behind the star door? The book in the secret library? None of them are legible.

There are no legible records of Wish Craft.

2. What about the Favor Tree?

Euphrasie knew specifically that Wish Craft is related to the Favor Tree. It's also a Vaugardian practice to make requests of the Favor Tree, but they're just that - requests. Nobody thinks they actually have power.

Only Euphrasie does. She thinks it's the key to defeating the King.

(This is... A list of people who wished to save Vaugarde!!!) (You look around her desk, trying to find out more.) (Why would she record the people who wished to save Vaugarde?) (... There!!!) (It's a little notebook, jammed between random boring paperwork...) (In it, the Head Housemaiden talks about Wish Craft... How in the days before the King attacked, she noticed everyone was wishing to the Favor Tree for the same thing:) (To save Vaugarde.) (And she started wondering if this wish could be the key to the King's defeat, somehow...) (So the Head Housemaiden knew about Wish Craft!!!)

Except, when Isabeau talks about it...

Isabeau: Well, it's just a random big tree. But when you're a believer of the House of Change, the biggest tree in a certain place is called a Favor Tree! It's like, it’s the tree with the most power, so you can ask it things? As a favor?

He struggles a little to explain it. Almost, as though the tradition came from some other culture, imported into Vaugarde, and no one can definetely remember where it came from.

To note, here, is that the Favor Tree is hugely associated with Loop, and wishes in general. Wishing on a Favor Tree is such a hugely powerful ritual when executed correctly, that it caused the entire timeloops.

And I'm not even gonna break out citations to prove that Wish Craft is associated with the island. Come on. You know that. You played the game. It's required to beat the game.

If you haven't beaten the game, what the fuck are you doing here. Go back and play it, baka.

3. Something's breaking, failing, rotting

At the end of ACT 4, when Siffrin confronts Euphrasie about her knowledge of Wish Craft, Euphrasie is distinctly aware of this: the people of Vaugarde are wishing wrong.

It's true. All of Vaugarde wished to the Favor Tree, wished for us to be saved. We wished for a savior. A way for us to win against the King. And Wish Craft gave us the means to do it, didn't it? Made sure it'd work? [...] But... But something went wrong, didn't it? Something goes wrong, every time!!! [...] The only answer I can find... Is it's because we did it wrong. I don't know what happened But we must've done it wrong!!! None of us in Vaugarde knew the exact ritual, but-- But we must have done it so wrong, it broke, and it doesn't answer to us at all anymore!!! [...] I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!!!

There's only one person who knew how to make a Wish correctly. And he made it by sheer instinct. Something they could not place even if they tried. Just... a forgotten ritual, dredged back up by muscle memory. Something he's probably been doing since he's a little kid, something that's so backed into their habits they use Wish Craft to carve figurines out of wood.

To end, I leave you with this. Dialogue you get when you try to talk to Euphrasie again, before you talked to everybody else.

If you talk to me... REALLY talk to me... It's all over. What "it" is, I have no idea... I know... I can feel that... I couldn't change whatever comes next, even if I wanted to. But I know it is the will of the Change God. Or, no, perhaps... The will of something even bigger... ... Something will end, once you talk to me.

There is a way for Euphrasie to know all of this. To know Wish Craft exists, to be aware she's doing it wrong, but not knowing, remembering quite enough to get it right.

If she knew it all beforehand already.

#Feli speaks #in stars and time #isat spoilers #isat #euphrasie isat #head housemaiden #ALL THE TAGS. I NEED PEOPLE TO LOOK AT THIS. PLEASE. IT'S 1:30 IN THE MORNING.#i spent two hours on this i think

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kanmom51 · 2 months ago

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Jikook in bed - Part 3

Are you sure?! Episodes 4 and 5

Before we get started, a little reminder of parts 1 & 2.

Let me start by saying that the occurrences in this post directly follow the whole ramen convo saga.

After speaking ramen and showering (notice how I haven't added the word "separately" there?🤣 ), and spending some time together downstairs all cozy and everything, they both decide to go to bed.

Let's talk about the pre-sleep coziness for a sec before moving on.

Watching the SNTY choreo and talking about it. JM loving the choreo.

Nothing new here folks.

We also got to learn, once again, just how 'informed' they are of each other's business. That's a nice way of saying they know shit about each other even if we don't tell us they do. Like, JM knowing that JK hasn't slept since NY, including on the flight. And if we're on the sleep talk already then funny how JK didn't know his 'husband' 'is struggling with sleeping lately.

And then, as we got to learn throughout the show, the two, once again, make a joint decision to go to bed.

Enough of that.

Let's get to the juicy part of this post, why don't we?

We start it off the two entangled.

JK has zero issue with JM's feet basically in his face.

Well, he did say JM's toes are cute, so...

Do we notice how JK goes for JM's ankle?

Now holding on to JM's foot with both hands (his mobile in his left hand).

And then letting go.

Reminded me of this moment.

And this one too.

JM going for the hug and JK pulling his hand in.

And they stay like that.

We don't know for just how long.

Discussing sleeping together.

It's not about "are you sleeping with me here?" or "where are you sleeping?"

It's "don't hit my nose today... if you do I'll hit you too..."

No questions asked.

Just facts!!!

How long were they just laying like that, calm, intertwined, BEING?

And they clearly do fall asleep together both laying over the covers.

The editors making sure to let us know that the two were sleeping on that one bed.

That angle of the lone empty third bed. Was it really necessary?

But you'll say: JK moved at some point to the third bed. Yes he did. And why? He already fell asleep on the bed with JM.

There is a purposeful omitting of JK waking up and moving to the third bed. They cameras were rolling, and they clearly could have shown us what happened. Makes you wonder why they didn't show us.

My uneducated guess would be that he moved to the bed on the floor because he was cold at night, and didn't want to wake up JM (they fell asleep over the covers and getting under the cover might have woken JM up). We do see JK covered in the morning. A guess, no more.

That was night 1 of Jeju.

Night 2 is a little different. This time they automatically split into 2 beds. Question I ask is why? Were they told to? Did they think it was better that way?

youtube

Either way, we see how JK insists on taking the bed on the floor.

And no, that flimsy excuse of preferring the less soft bed doesn't stand with me. I'm going to go with JK not wanting JM to sleep on the floor. Where Tae was supposed to be sleeping, btw. Funny how that worked out...

And yes, they didn't share a bed for the night, but JM sure couldn't go without his morning cuddles.

Understandable.

Notice how we never see JM getting up? We have zero idea just how much time they lay on JK like that cuddling him. Sob sob. I'm going to go with it not being short lived, which is why they cut the footage.

Ok, so that basically wraps up the 4 nights. 2 in CT (the actual night they spent together in bed the whole night we got zero footage of) and 2 in Jeju.

But how can I end this post without JM's wake up alarm for JK? Waking up is still about bed, right?

youtube

When I first saw this I didn't get what was going on... and why JM thought it was so funny.

Well, until I saw this.

Those two...

🤣🤣

#Jikook #Kookmin #Minkook #Jungkook #Jimin #JK #JM #Are you sure? Jikook #Are you sure? Jeju

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identifying-cars-in-posts · 1 year ago

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A long overdue update:

Hi everyone. Long time no see. I literally have not opened Tumblr since the last time I posted here. Hope everyone is doing ok. Figured I owed y’all an apology and explanation for kinda just vanishing.

First, I did in fact get a car! It’s a 2015 Nissan Versa Note. I don’t particularly like it but a friend gave me a deal on it that I couldn’t turn down. Once my life stabilizes I’m probably going to sell it and buy an old truck, maybe a 70s Ford. I’d love a little sports car or a land yacht but rear wheel drive is a bit impractical for brutal New England winters, and the Jeep really put me in Old American Truck Mode. But yes I have a car now!

Second, unfortunately this is an official notice of hiatus. When I last posted saying I was taking some time off it was because I had just had an incredibly stressful move and did not have the energy to keep this blog up. I figured I’d take some time to get settled in, relax, and then pick this back up after a week or two, but the last month has been really rough - the short version is one of the people I was living with turned out to be a pretty horrendous human being who managed to get everybody living in the house essentially kicked out via sheer drama. Within a month and a half. It’s a long story but tl:dr if you quite literally slander a property manager with heavy unfounded accusations of horrible crimes, they’ll probably bail from the whole situation. And since they’re gone the landlord has to hand ownership of everything over to a company that’s forcing everyone still here to vacate. I’m now fighting to not have to live in aforementioned Nissan Versa through the aforementioned brutal New England winter. On top of that, I’m a retail manager so we’re going into our busiest most stressful season, so that’s been an extra level of exhaustion.

So what does that mean for this blog? Well, as I said, I’m officially going on indefinite hiatus, as are the projects I was working on in relation, including the reference website. I’m really sorry, I’m just way too stressed and dealing with way too much. If I could, I would just hand off administrative power to someone else, but this is a sideblog so I can’t hand off login credentials without also giving access to my main/personal account. It’s my biggest regret of this account, but when I started it I never expected it to blow up the way it did back in September - I had no reason to expect to need it to be its own entirely separate blog. I love what I was doing here and I thought that it might even be a nice distraction from everything going on, but the upkeep required with this blog is just more than I can deal with right now. I hope that things settle down soon and that I can genuinely come back here and enjoy what I was doing, but I just need literally anything to level out in my real life and to not be in 100% survival mode, because at the moment I literally do not have the energy to pour into this.

Anyway. Sorry for the long post, I’m not good at not being overly verbose. I’m really sorry for kind of abandoning this project, and I hope I can get back to it relatively soon, it just might be a while.

In the mean time, I hope those of y’all who I turned onto cars as a potential hobby find some other good outlets! I highly recommend Donut Media’s series “Up to Speed” on YouTube, as well as the channels Regular Car Reviews, Doug DeMuro, Garbage Time, and Aging Wheels. All great YouTube channels that are both informative and very approachable and fun.

Godspeed and much love. Hope to see y’all soon

- Identifying Cars in Posts admin ❤️

#not a car id

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blade-liger-4ever · 1 month ago

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Smokescreen is more like Orion Pax/Optimus Prime, and here's why I think this.

So, I know my post deconstructing Jack's informed "Prime-like" qualities is making the rounds, and seeing as I promised to do one with Smokescreen and how he is like Orion/Optimus, I feel now would be a good time to make good on that promise.

Buckle up and hang tight, especially since TF One will be mentioned as well for this post.

So, from what we know of Smokescreen in TFP, he was one of the last few cadets inducted into the Elite Guard. That right there tells us that the young 'Bot has raw potential, since not just anyone gets into the Elite Guard. By all accounts, he threw himself into the rigorous training and powered through to become well received, and made enough of a statement to become Alpha Trion's bodyguard. That right there takes talent, even if he did want to do his part and fight on the front line and beat Decepticon heads in. And yes, he was distraught to be relegated to Alpha Trion watch duty and yes, he was disappointed to not be out there in the thick of it fighting with his fellow Autobots for the greater good.

But he accepted it.

Not once was it mentioned that Smokescreen put in a transfer request for the front line of the War. He may have wanted to fight and, maybe, gain a little glory and be like the heroes he'd heard about, but it actually never got to his head, or his Spark. Instead, he rolled with what he had and came to genuinely enjoy a friendship with Alpha Trion, learning a lot from him as well. Smokescreen still took a chance to get in a fight, but he never went in without at least a rough outline of a plan, as evidenced by his debut episode and then again later on, even in the infamous episode where the team gets the Star Saber.

Speaking of, that episode shows us another of Smokescreen's great traits: his refusal to be intimidated by the Decepticons - including Megatron himself.

And the thing is, Smokescreen truly is fearless in front of Megatron in that episode. He's brought before the Lord of the Decepticons, surrounded on all sides with no escape, and is almost certainly seconds away from death or horrid torture. But what does he do when asked who he is?

Smokescreen smirks and sarcastically asks, "Why? Who wants to know?"

The boy nearly got backhanded into oblivion for that, and he still kept his scrap together! Put anyone else in that position, and some transmission fluid is seriously getting leaked.

Except, of course, for one 'Bot.

Optimus Prime.

This is where their similarities are shown first. Like Smokescreen, Orion/Optimus has tremendous talent that, at first raw, gets refined over time. While he is nowhere near as brash or reckless as Smokescreen started (outside of TF One), Optimus always wants to do his part, and throws himself into his work and dreams and gives it his all. He consistently comes out better and stronger from his trials, and doesn't fear Megatron or anyone else on the Decepticons' side, just like Smokescreen. Here, they're shown as similar, including with how they both stand up for what's right, and plant themselves in the ground and fight for what is good and greater than themselves.

Another similarity they share is how they accept their wrongs and don't shirk them onto another. While I have many reservations on his portrayal in TF One, the writers nailed Orion/Optimus when he takes full responsibility for the race when he and D-16 were met with Sentinel after the fact. Additionally, Orion/Optimus was always eager to make a point for the greater good and was willing to be an engine of change for others, no matter what. On the same token, while Smokescreen had a tendency to be overzealous in proving his worth to the team, he persistently pulled his own weight and, when it came to messing up, he always took full responsibility for his actions. He even went beyond that, often feeling so remorseful that he continually offered to leave the team if he was "unfit for [them]" (be honest with yourselves, Optimus at any point before becoming a Prime would do almost the exact same thing.) Furthermore, whenever he was being verbally attacked by another teammate, Smokescreen took it and didn't give crap back. Even when Vince threw that burger at his window, his payback was more on behalf of Jack's dignity than his own.

Just think about it: why would a human throw food at him specifically? It logically would have been directed at his passenger, a notion that's reinforced by Jack's desperation to hide from Vince's sight. And if you want to really get deep, compare it to Orion standing up to Darkwing for D-16 in the mines. Are both courses of action immature? Yes, but they're done on behalf of someone other than themselves. It's even shown again when Smokescreen defends Optimus' choice to destroy the Omega Lock against Ratchet. While this is the first time he's ever spoken up to someone on the team, it's in defense of Optimus and pointing out that Ratchet has no place to read Optimus the riot act for a make-or-break decision in an already desperate situation that would have doomed millions to billions of more lives. Smokescreen had always stayed quiet and followed directives as well as he could without a word of complaint up until that moment, and the only reason he raised his hackles was because Ratchet was lamenting a loss that pales in comparison to the disaster that was averted [and was ultimately Ratchet's own fault for creating.]

This is the beauty of the similarities between Optimus and Smokescreen. Neither of them take particular offense when they themselves are attacked/ridiculed, but will fight tooth and nail for those they care about if you so much as say one nasty thing about their friends. They both hold fast to all that is good, want to help change the world/make it a better place, and are proactive about it. And while they both start out like high school jocks (I'm mostly thinking of G1 Orion Pax for this), they never let their abilities go to their head and make them think of themselves above others. Instead, they merely see their abilities as tools to help those around them: Optimus used his mind, eloquence with words, and physical power to kick off the change he wanted on Cybertron, while Smokescreen willingly offered his full array of skills and fresh power to aid Team Prime for the War effort and replenish their numbers.

These traits wonderfully show that Smokescreen is, in actuality, a worthy Prime for the future. He puts others before himself, he is active in helping those who need it, he runs into the fire when others run from it, and turns down a chance to become a Prime because he knows he doesn't have the experience for it. This especially is important because it shows that while Smokescreen was a bit starry-eyed about war and ranks, he never wanted power.

He wanted to be an agent of good, just like Optimus.

And he was.

That's all I really have left to say. If you enjoyed this, I'm really happy. TFP Smokescreen is my second favorite character in, possibly, all of Transformers. I wish his potential for the Primacy wasn't slept on by so many fans in favor of Bumblebee, and that we could actually see him take up the Matrix after Optimus (preferably) retires to enjoy peace for once.

See you around people!

"Autobots, roll out!"

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artist-issues · 3 months ago

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Tell me every reason you enjoy Zootopia enough to give it all the rewatches you do.

Every? Oh boy.

Good Story

Perfect Characters

Visual Appeal

Earnestness

Let me break it down.

1. Good Story

Zootopia’s main point is: “Try to make the world a better place by realizing we’re fundamentally the same.”

That’s a really good main point.

It has the benefit of being true. Right now our culture is super into “self-identification,” and this crazy contrast between, “I want to be able to identify as something special” and “Now that I know what categories I fit in, I can choose who’s ‘one of us’ and who’s ’not one of us.’” Okay well that sounds pretty and I’m sure it fulfills some emotional need at some point, but it’s actually super divisive, and self-serving, and it’s the seeds for all prejudices. Including racism.

Do we have differences in origins and experiences? Yes. Of course. Do we also have some fundamental things in common? Yes. Of course. Which truth are you going to give the highest priority to? If it’s “no, I’m a prey animal, I know exactly where I belong, that’s who I am, that’s how I dress, that’s my compass for how I interact with others” then you’re getting all your security from your “sense of self,” and being able to understand what that is…which is just a fancy way of saying “I’m all about me. My own perspective informs everything I do.”

Anyway. Zootopia’s message was super true.

And the coolest thing about it is that if only Judy were in the wrong, and the other half of the dynamic duo, Nick, was this open-minded, un-prejudiced guy…and she just hurts him and has to apologize…the movie’s message wouldn’t be as well-communicated.

They have their prejudices and their hurt-from-being-prejudiced-against in common!

They’re the same…because they’ve both felt what it’s like to be treated like they’re not “the same.”

Nick isn’t the only character being mistreated and written off because of his species. The whole first half of the movie is about Judy being mistreated and written off. They think she can’t be a cop because she’s little and cute and a prey-animal. They think Nick can’t be trustworthy because he’s sneaky and small and a predator.

So literally…if Judy represented one race, and Nick represented a completely different race…the movie would be saying that both those races are discriminated against. They even have discrimination in common. AND, if Nick represented men who people make assumptions about because he’s a man, and Judy represented women who people make assumptions about because she’s a woman—the movie would be saying that both those genders are falsely judged.

I mean. Wow. Right now, your movie is either pro-woman or pro-man. Right now, your movie is either BLM or white-supremacy. Everybody’s lining up on one side of the line or the other. Zootopia says, “it doesn’t matter what character you’re looking at, from the elephant that can’t remember anything to the two main characters—every single one of them has fundamental things in common, and one of those things is that they all live like they’re in their own special category. When actually, they’re all fundamentally the same.”

I don’t want to keep beating the dead horse. But I have a post somewhere that lists every background character and points out that each animal is the exact opposite of what you would assume they are based on their animal-stereotype. The otters are never shown being playful or snuggly, only traumatized and ferocious. The cheetah is fat and slow, not quick or even quick on the uptake. Etc.

Even if you look outside of characters—look at the sets. Look at the environments. The whole city is designed “for animals, by animals.” But it’s in neat little segments. The animals organize themselves by habitat. Of course, in one sense that’s practical—the polar bears can’t live in Sahara Square, etc. but the point is, by making Judy and Nick, the main characters, small animals, in a city where everything is built to accommodate by species—UGH this is so good—they have to figure out how to problem-solve in situations that weren’t made to accommodate them.

Little Rodentia? Judy has to avoid stepping on all the mice or knocking over their buildings. Parking tickets? She has to figure out how to jump to reach bigger animals’ windshields—or she inconveniences smaller animals because the tickets are all printed at the exact same size. Stuck in a cell? The guards didn’t think about the fact that small animals can fit down the pipes made to accommodate big animals.

Zootopia is a city advertised to be where all the animals can come together. But the way they do that is by trying to accommodate every species’ preferences. So then actually while they try to come together, everything from their cars to their districts remind them of their differences. The whole idea is that they prioritize the wrong truths. Yeah, mice can’t drive giraffe cars—but they still have “driving” in common. See?

And oh my word. Initially it was supposed to be a spy story. But they changed it to a buddy cop story. Why? Well because justice doesn’t discriminate. Or at least, it’s not supposed to. So then there’s another lens to look at the story’s main theme through.

It’s just that every layer, every perspective you look at the movie from, is just hammering that truth into you: “Try to make the world a better place by realizing we’re fundamentally the same.”

2. Perfect Characters

Every character is so well-thought-through in this movie, even the side characters. You get the feeling you could watch a whole movie based on the side characters, because that’s the amount of love and nuance built into them.

Look at the main ones, though. Bellwhether is supposed to be soft and a follower. She’s a sheep. Instead, she’s hard and bitter—and she’s a leader. A villainous leader, but a leader, nonetheless. Even as she tries to keep animals divided based on fear of their stereotypes, she’s not fitting her own stereotype. Her voice actress has this strained, half-hoarse, but sweet voice. Like you can tell that this character has spent a lot of time under pressure and trying to manage appearances. Appearing like she’s fine, and she can handle it—until you realize that the appearance she’s really managing is “the cultural fear-based identify of the city.” They dress her in plaid and flowers and she’s a farm animal, because that’s the kind of character Judy would be most likely to trust. But she still has green eyes, and jagged teeth, so that when she does start making evil expressions there are some caricature-pieces in there that come out and accentuate that.

Nick Wilde—everybody’s favorite—is supposed to be sly and smooth and shifty. And he is. He’s a fox. But he’s also brave, helpful, and trustworthy. The first time you see him is when he’s dodging out of the way of a bigger animal ignoring him and about to run him over. Well, that’s important.

Because Judy knows what it’s like to have to get out of the way of larger animals, because they overlook her.

So right off the bat, this character she has to get along with and work with, this character who furthers her development and nails the main point, is introduced in a way that has something in common with her. But he’s also introduced in a way that gives her an opportunity to focus on a different truth—that he is different from her. Because the sheep is yelling that he’s a “fox.” Right away, we’re back to species-as-identification.

And that’s what the movie does, all the way through. It presents new animal characters, and with those new animals characters, more than one thing is true at a time. And Judy has to try to focus on which truth is more important. “Try to make the world a better place by realizing we’re all the same.” Yes, Nick is a criminal. But Nick is also brave, helpful, and eventually, becomes trustworthy.

Judy, too. Judy is an incredibly well-done character. Because she believes, in her head, that anyone can be anything—which is not what the movie ends on. In fact, she goes from saying, “anyone can be anything,” to saying, “we all have limitations.” It’s not true that a fox can be an elephant. But it is true that a fox can be trustworthy. Figure out what’s true, and try to make decisions for the better, based on that.

I could talk about character design and acting. Ginnifer Goodwin gives just the right amount of smugness and self-confidence to Judy without making her unlikeable—you don’t realize she’s smug and her self-confidence is misplaced until she does, when she fails to make the world a better place for Nick.

Judy wears tight, actionable, well-fitting uniforms for the whole movie. In her civilian clothes when she comes to Zootopia, she’s wearing athletic t-shirts and shorts. Ready for action, that’s Judy, even in her civvies. Meanwhile, Nick? Nick wears loose-fitting clothes. Loud, patterned clothes that don’t match. Like he didn’t even what, ladies and gentlemen? Like he didn’t even TRY. “Try to make the world a better place…”

Because when you meet Nick Wilde, he’s long since given up on trying, in life. So his character design reflects that. He rarely even stands up straight, or opens his eyes all the way—his default is drooping. And guess what?

When Judy “gives up?” Quits her job? Goes back home? Stops trying? Her civvies aren’t ready-for-action, trying clothes. They’re loose flannels. And her “ears are droopy.”

SERIOUSLY, you can find things like this in every corner of the movie. For every character. Not one character is a throwaway, not in voice acting, not in design, not in animation, and not in narrative.

3. Visual Appeal

Which leads me into this point—no other animated anthropomorphic animal movie is as visually appealing as Zootopia.

What Zootopia does is it matches the best of the best anthropomorphic animal designs from past Disney movies:

And they marry it with this incredible intentionality with modern CGI.

Did you know Disney invents its own software for things like fur textures?

The sheep’s wool, the velvet pig skin, the fox fur, the bunny fluff—it’s all completely different textures. There’s no one “fur” covering all the hairy mammals.

Nick isn’t just orange. He’s orange with deep red and dark tufts. Judy has black tips to her ears, too—which helps the two of them look like, in some sense, they belong “together” in every shot.

It’s so important to the movie that the animals feel like animals that they worked this hard to do this. And then that extends to the textures of the snow, the ice, the sand, the wet leaves, the grass, the fire.

Every character moves like their animal, and like themselves. Nick and Gideon are both foxes, but they don’t move similarly at all. Gideon is aggressive and glowering and physical. Nick, again, is slouchy, leans on everything, completely non-confrontational.

Other anthropomorphic animal movies like Sing or Puss in Boots—they’re not doing both as well. Zootopia is appealing, without sacrificing realism completely, and without cutting character acting.

The lighting. Nope. This post is too long, I can’t talk any more.

4. Earnestness

There is no disingenuous moment in this movie.

The animators are never lazy. They always go for the challenge. They don’t cut corners. Have you ever seen “Over the Hedge?” I like Over the Hedge. But I watched it recently and it’s crazy how many shots are strategically placed so that the animators don’t have to solve a certain effects problem.

For example, when RJ sprays Hammy with cool whip to make it look like he has rabies? He doesn’t. You never see the cool whip leave the can. It just cuts away, then cuts back when RJ is pulling the can away from his face. The shots are also cut so that you never have to see gas actually come out of Stella—and you never see Vern’s full body as he gets back into his shell, just the upper part of the shell as he wiggles it around, going through the motions of putting it back on.

That’s because that stuff would be painstaking to animate. Any time one character has to interact with props or substances (especially liquids) that are not part of their model, it’s harder on the animator.

Zootopia? We’re getting full-on views of characters getting wet, fur and all, characters touching various objects and elements, foam coming out of the mouth, new clothes, new set pieces, multiple models, huge crowd shots of different animals in different outfits, all with their own movement patterns and acting.

And all that hard work and effort, aimed so totally at the main theme of the movie? Making sure it looks as good as it can? Not just that, but the way it’s written, the acting, is so genuine. They don’t hold anything back. They don’t shy away from real emotion.

Judy Hopps’ apology scene is brutal. She’s crying, having a hard time finishing a sentence, her voice is all tight. It’s not pretty, it’s not romantic, it’s like…ugly crying. And her character is wrong in a super embarrassing way. They're not afraid to go there. The writers, the actors, the animators—they’re not afraid of being too vulnerable with these character flaws.

So many movies, especially kids’ movies today—they just pull up and shy away from being real through their characters. They think a quick sad facial expression will get the point across. And it does. The audience gets that the character feels sad about whatever the circumstance of the scene is. But not as powerfully. Because you didn’t put as much work and heart into it.

Zootopia is all heart, from work ethic to vulnerability to the filmmakers enjoying what they’re doing, enough to make it as good as it can possibly be. I can’t explain it better, other than to say, you feel like they would’ve been happy making this movie much much longer than it was. You feel like they’re cramming every bit of joy and passsion into every little joke, every side character, every hair on a CGI bear.

There you go. Long post, you did ask for it

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