#because I can't pick favorites in a straightforward way and also just have a lot to say in general as a person

[nogenderbee]

Hihihihi requests are open omg never seen that before okay so can I please rq pjsk boys hcs x reader and like how they’d confess. You probably did this before so if u have you can make it so reader confesses first? Or just ignore it idc. Have a great day fhdjdjjd

I know it's basic prompt but I don't think I did neither of those! So I did two versions right here~

confessions with Akito, Toya, Tsukasa, Rui

TagList: @vodka-glrl @yulikesminori @kuzui5201314 @miya-akane @alicewinterway18 @indi-has-fallen @bleachtheidiot

⊱ Akito prepared for his confession for so long... and in the end, he needed someone to force him either way

⊱ he's the type that tries to act all tough and like it's really nothing to him but inside, he already died at least 3 times

⊱ he doesn't go with ant long speeches and just says everything instantly

⊱ he's SO awkward. He tries to act tough but it only adds onto it and it's noticable he's stressing even if he's trying to hide it

⊱ if you accept his feelings, he'll act like he was expecting that but small relived smile shows on his face, showing his stress just evaporated

⊱ if you reject him, he'll act like he doesn't care at all and just leave with small "okey" or so

"I kinda like you... a lot. So... how about you?"

⊱ if you're the one that's confessing, his first reaction is stand is shock just to clear his throat and act all tough again

⊱ if he doesn't feel the same, he'll try picking the most gentle words but he's still very straightforward with his answer so it has 50/50 chances of being gentle...

⊱ if he does feel the same, again he'll be just straightforward but he blurts out his answer way faster than needed which tells you how much he indeed likes you

"Yes I do. Ehem... I mean... yeah, yeah, we can try this. Why not..."

⊱ Toya's the type to go ages with his feelings just to make sure what he's feeling is real and forever, and to think of some confession that can charm you

⊱ he'll probably try to be a bit romantic but neutral at the same time, he'll most likely invite you for friendly hangout in the park just to ask you for a bit more of time when you're about to leave

⊱ he thought that it'd be the best to confess when you leave since meeting wouldn't be so awkward (Tsukasa most likely helped him with that)

⊱ if you accept him, he won't hesitate to show you how happy and relieved you just made him, and that's already obvious by big relieved sigh he let out

⊱ if you reject him, he'll give you a small smile while assuring you it's alright and asks if you can still be friends despite that, he'll try to get across his feeling for the sake of your friendship

"Y/N, since around 9 months, I've felt stronger feelings about. I stopped seeing you as just a great friend and started hoping for future with you."

⊱ if you're the one confessing, it's easy to say that you catched him off guard because of the way he suddenly stopped moving and his eyes went a bit wide

⊱ soon tho, he's back to his normal state even tho he's more shy than usual

⊱ if he doesn't feel the same, he'll pick gentle words and you may not even realize what he's trying to say at first because of the words he uses

⊱ if he does feel the same, he'll let you finish before trying to give you some speech himself but it ends with him just saying he loves you back

"I can't believe it... you're also the... most perfect... person I met... I... I mean that... I love you as well."

⊱ Tsukasa was trying his best to charm you by showing off and being really kind and nice to you but the moment of his confession had to come either way it seems...

⊱ he tried to make you confess first by giving you hints he likes you but now he's not sure if you didn't saw them or just don't like him so he prepares to make final move

⊱ he wants to make the confession a bit special so he'll most likely take you to your favorite place and then find a bit more quieter spot there where he confesses

⊱ you can literally mistake him for acting out some romance drama... but he's really just putting his heart into confession

⊱ if you accept him, he won't be able to hold back anymore and will hug you close with big smile on his face while saying how happy you've just made him

⊱ if you reject him, he stand there stunned, his speech failed... he really starts to feel awkward and is quick to start rambling to cover up for this and he ends rambling with "goodbye", not really giving you a chance to say something

"The moment our eyes met, I knew you're the one I want to share my future with... so please... let me make my dreams a reality."

⊱ if you're the one confessing, you'll be able to see his shocked and flustered expression at once!

⊱ but if he doesn't feel the same, he'll immediately spoil you with compliments and just explain that he sees you like a family

⊱ if he does feel the same, he'll go extra mode and start rambling onto how long he was waiting for this moment and of course how your feelings are returned

"That's the best day of my life! You don't know how long I've been waiting for this moment... I love you too! I loved you since a long time and I'm glad we finally get the chance to be together!"

⊱ Rui was declining his feelings and to confess the moment he saw how serious he sees you...

⊱ it's not that he hated you, he was just scared of ruining your relationship

⊱ but in the end, he needs to face it and so he does... he prepares mentally for a long time so there's a lot of chances that he avoided you for some time

⊱ he wants to make it quick so one day he just invites you to school roof or to calmer part of corridor, where he tells you how he feels

⊱ he picks words carefully, to not be too blunt but to also make it end quickly

⊱ if you feel the same, he'll be so surprised and so relieved at the same time, he might even cry a bit from happiness!

⊱ but if you don't, he'll give you a small smile before explaining that he just wanted to tell you how he feels

"Y/N, I don't want a more of time, I just wanted to say that you're very dear to me and that I have serious feelings for you. I have fallen for you..."

⊱ if you're the one confessing, he's stunned... he never expected anyone to like him!

⊱ and if he likes you too, he can't believe it even more. Of course he gladly accepts, even with small tease despite his face being all red

⊱ if he doesn't feel the same, he feels bad but he knows nothing good will come out of forced relationship so he gently rejects you while reassuring you'll find someone better one day

"You love? Oh would you look at that~ I have strong feeling for you too, my dear."

❉⊱•═•⊰❉⊱•═•⊰❉⊱•═•⊰❉⊱•═•⊰❉⊱•═•⊰❉⊱•═•⊰❉

[wraith-caller]

rogier and d twins for ask thing :)

someone asking ME about the d twins and rogier?? as if haha like i talk about them sometimes or something?? ha hahahah

Rogier

favorite thing about them His emotional issues and how they result in this weird kind of duplicity. Yes he's a polite fella, but you're never going to get at much with him besides his academic interests.

least favorite thing about them That he can't die by my blade #sicko

favorite line gotta be the dreambrew line, specifically when offered to him post-blight. I feel like it encapsulates and summarizes him perfectly. Bitter and a bit proud, rejecting attempts at empathy and reading them as insulting instead, but then quickly realizing he's getting a little too 'real'. so he immediately covers it up and reverts back to being polite and gracious.

brOTP Him and Eleonora I think. Their stories just have too much in common for me to not want them to hang out and get shitfaced together.

OTP Rogier/his own demise (or maybe Rogier/Darian, who knows??)

nOTP I dunno if I have one. I don't like Rogier/Devin in romantic terms, but if its vicious hatefucking I'll take it.

random headcanon i'll die before i give up the HC that his family is utterly fucked up and the source of him developing his emotional detachment + his people pleasing ways + the cocktail of misery his set describes him having.

unpopular opinion he's absolutely manipulating the tarnished into helping him. it's often read as him being your genuine friend and growing to trust you, but i feel like everything we know about him would indicate otherwise. he's a good liar, holds others at arms' length, and never talks about himself, only his mission and research. his heaping praise on the PC is less about genuine feelings of kinship and more about him buttering us up to keep us helping him. this is not to say he secretly hates us or something. but he's also not the most emotionally healthy person, and i think it'd take a lot more digging before he'd ever make a deeper connection with someone, certainly more time than the tarnished spends with him. he's not just a 'you have to have this many xp points to unlock my tragic backstory' he's a 'you need those xp points to unlock anything from me that isnt a polite smile and a gracious compliment to keep everything running smoothly'.

song i associate with them

Tongues & Teeth by the Crane Wives Distrust by Aibhe Reddy Wolves of the Revolution by The Arcadian Wild Claude's Girl by Marika Hackman

favorite picture of them

im not here to deny any allegations made against me.

Darian

favorite thing about them That in a land full of liars, cheats, killers, and cutthroats, he's pretty honest and straightforward. When he asks something of us, he does it on our terms, and he doesn't press us.

least favorite thing about them his haters tbh I don't know. this isn't me denying his negative traits like his devotion to the GO blinding him, because I enjoy that about him. I like my favs character flaws, they'd be boring otherwise.

favorite line am i allowed to pick all of them?? his voice is hot. maybe this one where he says "You haven't gone to see Gurranq yet? No rush, you do as you please." It's nice being shown patience lol but also joke about Gurranq starving to death is so corny, and I love him for it.

brOTP Devin feels like the obvious choice, but I'd also like to suggest Juno Hoslow or Nepheli Loux. Juno and Darian feel like that, in spite of their vastly different backgrounds, they'd have something in common being the older brother. He and Nepheli, I've honestly got no canon reason for it other than I like them together. I think they have similar dispositions with their kind of serious and stoic natures, but also a desire for justice(though its debatable whether their senses of justice would mesh completely...depends on Nepheli's perspective on the dead).

OTP Darian/Rogier, no surprises, next

nOTP Hmm hard to say. I guess Darian/Fia is hard to picture, but it doesn't make me feel like I wouldn't read it lol

random headcanon I think that, even after being accepted by the Golden Order, he and Devin are still largely ostracized by other knights and hunters, and mostly still only have each other. He still deeply values the Order for taking them, because it's a far cry from having nothing at all, and now they at least have a purpose and a place.

unpopular opinion the fact that i like him at all is apparently an unpopular opinion lol But really I guess I just don't buy that he's a callous, heartless, empty-headed fascist. I was told the other day that the "whole point" of his character was his fanaticism, and I think this is a pretty big misreading of his story, because there is way more interesting stuff to be said about him and fia specifically than 'he's a fanatic'. That is a piece of who he is, but not the entire point.

song i associate with them Dorian by Agnes Obel Before I Sleep by Marika Hackman

favorite picture of them

probably this pic elden_things took of him.

Devin

favorite thing about them his absolutely unhinged and feral behavior that runs so counter to darian's calmer, stoic demeanor. it's another expression of dualities. they share the same soul, just across two bodies, so there is this weird thing where they are at once distinct entities, but also the same. and i think the contrast in their behavior serves to illustrate that.

least favorite thing about them that we get so very little about him, and nothing of him prior to darian's death. so it is hard to judge much of his character when all we know of him is in this freshly traumatized and disoriented state.

favorite line "Ah, hello. The rotten witch is dead." It just drives me bonkers how you can HEAR the crazed grin in his voice. Very well delivered line.

brOTP It's hard to see Devin befriending much of anyone but Darian, but again, this may be because of how we don't really know what he's like before Darian's death broke him.

OTP Not sure I have one for him.

nOTP Devin/Rogier or Fia/Devin. I think he'd blame the former for Darian's death. And the latter, well lol

random headcanon He resents himself and imagines he's a kind of burden on Darian. Being he is the 'younger', he may have an irrational notion that, had he not existed, and Darian had been born alone, there'd be no curse and Darian could've had a normal life.

unpopular opinion He's not a misogynist and I think it's absurd to make such a claim based off like one minute of character interaction, and fresh off the heels of his brother's murder, no less. I think people try to make it a moral imperative for you to dislike a character rather than it just being a personal preference. Just saying 'I don't like them bc they suck and I hate them' is less a powerful argument than 'he's clearly a misogynist so you should hate him or you're bad and excusing misogyny'. It's ridiculous.

song i associate with them The Friend by Meryem Aboulouafa

favorite picture of them

i liked this action shot i was able to get of him fighting one of the gargoyles.

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

I love seeing people ramble about their stories so, can you ramble about Biting the Bullet?

Totally! I recently decided to pause my first draft because I got stuck and do a dummy draft instead so it'll be nice to just talk about it a little. <3

Originally it was going to be a silly story about a military fireteam during a war in a fantasy universe. It. It was going to be silly. It was going to be an action-comedy. It is.... not that anymore. All the world conflicts started getting into the mainstream media and I began seeing more military recruiters in my school and I kind of began projecting my anxieties and frustrations and stuff onto the story and honestly I think that made it a lot stronger.

I have three options I'm still not sure which to pick for the POV. I'm doing it in 3rd person past tense for sure, but I'm still not sure if I'm going to switch between all four of the main characters' perspectives, just Sibatol and Arsioly, or just Arsioly. For the first draft I'm rotating between all of them and we'll see how I feel after that.

I think my favorite thing about this story is the decisive character moments I have planned. My characters will develop gradually, but their biggest developments come from moments where they have to make big choices, whether to stay in their old ways or grow as people. Visralion, the team's medic who usually puts others before himself, says no when Arsioly first asks to be his boyfriend. Because even though they both like each other, Arsioly is a pretty shitty person to everyone but Visralion at that point, and Visralion recognizes that if they got in a relationship it'd just end up with him trying to fix Ari and that's not his job. This is also a big moment for Arsioly- he can choose to be awful about the rejection or he can choose to look at his own behavior and improve as a person. He chooses to improve himself.

Ari probably had the most of these and I can't say one of them bc spoilers but another one he has which is more subtle but still important is when Estera, the girl his fireteam finds on a mission and basically adopts bc she has nowhere else to go, wakes him up in the middle of the night to cuddle because she had a nightmare. His immediate reaction is to tell her to suck it up and leave him alone so he can sleep. But he chooses to be compassionate to her and it really makes him realize how much better it feels to be nice to people (and helps teach him the value of a life bc he almost shot her and is now seeing that all the people he's carelessly killed could have gone on and had moments like these but shh...).

Most of Virava's are more spoilery but they revolve mostly around her being terrified about her past repeating itself, and she ends up overcorrecting and taking several steps backwards before she finally stops bearing all her feelings by herself and actually talks to people about her fear.

Talking about Sibatol under the cut because his portion of this revolves around be talking about him being promiscuous, if hearing abt that will make you uncomfy don't read further :3

The one I can think of for Sibatol is a bit less straightforward than the previous ones but bear with me. He struggles with hypersexuality for most of the story due to trauma from when he was young. Sleeping around causes a lot of problems for him but he just can't stop and he really struggles in situations where he can't just fuck his way out of it. Most of the moves he makes hurt him or make situations worse or just generally dig him deeper into this hole he's dug for himself. But I'm not the person that's gonna give you a character like this and then tell you that the way they become a better person is by being less of a slut. His turning point (I won't be too specific bc spoilers) is when he learns how to use his sexuality in a more strategic way, a helpful way that makes things easier for people for once, which is a gateway into him changing his mindset abt his sexuality and he's still as promiscuous by the end of the story but he doesn't just use it as a distraction from bad feelings anymore, he approaches it in a healthier way.

[asterdeer]

hii 3, 4, + 17 for the book asks :^)) clearly looking for books to add to me tbr for the new year

oooh i'll see what i can do !!

3. What were your top five books of the year?

1. lonely castle in the mirror by mizuki tsujimura - this is not a book i would have expected to love (it's about schoolchildren, not really my favorite protagonists), but it's about a bunch of troubled schoolchildren who can access a magical castle (in the mirror!) guarded by a little girl with a wolf mask. it starts slow but it builds up so well and i was full-on sobbing by the end, which is not something that happens... basically ever. i came this close to dnf'ing a couple times in the beginning but i'm very, very glad i didn't.

2. the mars house by natasha pulley - i would say this was an obvious one because natasha pulley but it had pretty bad early reviews. i would never say there are no problems with it, as with all of her books, but i found a lot of the issues people had with it to be. hmm. stupid? and anyway Ms. Pulley Cannot Miss with her romance dynamics. i never get tired of the way she writes her love interests. weirdly i do prefer her hisfic, her voice lends better to repressed victorian queers, but i still loved this book a lot.

3. pale fire by vladimir nabokov - i don't know what was in this book that made me want to eat it like christmas crack candy but my god can this man write. the prose itches my brain sooo good, and i love the dual story/the annotation sections/the unreliable narrator of it all. he makes the absolute worst people into protagonists and then goes "you're gonna sit and listen and you're gonna like it." and i did and i did.

4. a guest in the house by emily carroll - OH MY GOD. no words for this one. carroll's style is unfathomably beautiful and she has a skill for the pacing of visual horror like no artist i've read before (i haven't read a lot, sure, but she's a standout for sure). this is the queer/sapphic ghost story you've been craving without realizing.

5. sociopath by patric gagne - this is a memoir by a woman with sociopathy, which is something i've had interest in for years, so i expected to get information on sociopathy, which i did in fact get. i didn't expect this to be so compelling as a memoir, though. i tend to dislike memoirs but this is an exception. the writing is incredible, and gagne is so straightforward with both the struggles and the benefits that she's had with sociopathy. and just often amusing in an occasionally really dark way.

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

c.s. friedman! i devoured the first two books of her coldfire trilogy and my goal is to read the third book by year's end, which would be the first time in like. my entire life that i would read a whole series within a year. fingers crossed! i also read the tainted cup by robert jackson bennett who i've seen around the library a lot, but this was my first book by him, and it was clever and fun and original enough that i might end up picking up something else by him sometime.

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

for sure lonely castle in the mirror - again, not really the kind of book that tends to leave me a soppy mess, but it was amazing. the coldfire books took me off guard by how much i liked them even when i was exasperated with them (very late 80s/early 90s), but then my favorite fanfic author rec'd them so i shouldn't have been surprised. OH and i can't forget hot and badgered and in a badger way by shelly laurenston, which are (obviously) shifter romances, and STRAIGHT shifter romances no less, so... kind of pissed me off that i liked them to the degree that i did!! but look. look. give me supremely angry and violent women who have So Many Things Wrong With Them and i will eat that shit up with a soup spoon, even if they're in straight shifter romances.

[ofoceansandtombsanew]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks...

no worries at all, i've never been asked that actually! i really apologize for how long this took to answer because i was thinking so long and hard about characters in media that have touched my heart in different ways.

but in no particular order my top 10 favorite characters are

honda tohru

haruno sakura

narancia ghirga

rengoku kyojuro

bakugou katsuki

iwakura mitsumi

yamada asaemon tenza

nijimura okuyasu

furina

sokka

+ 2 bonuses for fun

the protagonist of fruits basket, my girl tohru. my fellow clumsy queen. if i were going to list down 4 characters i related to the most in animanga, tohru would be one of them. maybe it won't be too much of a surprise she's on this list because one of my highest ranking posts is literally a deep dive into tohru as a character. shameless self promo read here, but this would definitely explain all the reasons i love her so much. but the amount of love this character exudes despite all the painful things she's been through, how i relate to how she tries her hardest to present herself as bubbly to hide her loneliness from even herself, there's just so much i can't help but love about this character.

sakura is one of my girls from now until forever. she's the reason i love cherry blossoms so much. if i had to pick only one character from naruto to call my favorite, it would go to sakura hands down, no questions asked. i'm a first generation sakura fan (lmao is that a thing?) where i liked her from her very introduction to naruto. i loved her pink hair, her green eyes, how she carried herself and you will always see me in the trenches defending sakura as a character and what she supplied to the naruto series. maybe it's because i also related so much to sakura growing up and growing up with the character as well, so there's a lot for me to love here.

narancia is honestly one of the most beautiful characters in jojo for me and i'm not just talking about aesthetics. off rip he comes off as a dumb, violent gangster when in actuality, in spite of the more obvious aspects of his characters, there is a strange purity to narancia. in his loyalty, in his straightforwardness to even how his stand ability manifests as a toy army plane. the implications of the child soldier narancia very much became, his efficiency in being able to kill while very much so still being that kid whose biggest fear than anything was being alone. narancia truly believed he was going to die alone in that alley. his death in jojo is honestly still to this day, one of the hardest hitting. because it was so brutal and unexpected and in a lot of ways so unfair even if the rationality as to why he was targeted made sense (i've talked a number of times with my mom who has seen jojo about how all of the characters who die in pt 5 are core members of the 'heart' of the bucci gang, narancia ofc being one of them). in that moment, everyone cried for him whereas prior he was the one who cried on behalf of the party for the loss of abbacchio.

rengoku lwk just might be everyone's fav in demon slayer but i don't care, same here. his owlish design, his vibrant energy, the conviction to stay behind his principles and even die by said principles? i can't not admire the guy and how despite his short appearance in the story, you still feel the ripple effect of it throughout the story. sasori, maybe deidara had a point when he said true beauty is fleeting and an explosion.

katsuki honestly stole the whole show of bnha for me. hell i was out here enjoying him even when he was just an irredeemable bully because i could see early on the complexity of the character and was honestly curious to see where such a belligerent personality came from. how he's reflected on himself throughout the story, becomes better than the person he was the day before, all of that is really admirable to me. it's lwk honestly gets to a point where if katsuki isn't the focus of an arc or episode, i lose interest. show me the explosion boy please. i also feel like even with the great aspect of the character, there's a lot of disservice towards him regards to how the way his parents treat him is swept under the rug, the way they completely brush over the fact they muzzled and chained him on live television due to his refusal to accept an award and presented a strong student as mentally unstable to the masses (something that led to his very kidnapping, mind you). but my gripes with those things honestly make me love this guy even more than i already do.

mitsumi from skip & loafer is another relatable character for me. from the older trans woman figure in her life (one of my moms) to the clumsiness. like mitsumi, i too am always falling over and because of that i've gotten good at picking myself up. characters like mitsumi, you can't help wanting to follow the model of. i love her straightforwardness, her open-mindedness and appreciate how she views life and those around her. i can only hope to be more like her, among some other characters i love, in my daily life. i love how it doesn't really matter who someone is in relation to her or someone else she knows, she makes her own fair assessments of that person and judges based off her experiences with that person.

tenza is the best character in hell's paradise. argue with a wall i can't be argued against here. damn did we lose when his fine ass got axed early in the storyline. i deadass almost stopped reading hell's paradise after chapter 21 because i was that upset about his death. i'm a sucker for a character who dies saving the rest of the group, and the way he went out in a blaze of glory. already dying, already bleeding out but still deciding he'd spin his last few minutes of life buying time for his comrades. his final thoughts wondering what his life could have been like if he weren't dying in that moment. the students he could have had. the wife he could have had. the visceral reaction i had seeing his body get tossed over like he was nothing but garbage? still feel that. he's another example of a character who didn't have long to shine in the story in terms of number of appearances but the way you feel his presence in the story after his death? how it fuels shion and nurugai's quest for vengeance. how that vengeance almost very well destroyed one of them. how tenza in spirit gave nurugai the will to save shion's life. i really, really loved it. it was such a subversion of expectations seeing the pupil die rather than that master.

okuyasu is definitely my favorite character in diamond is unbreakable. he comes off as just comic relief, which to be fair, okuyasu is very funny. however comma, there's so much to depth to the character that you really appreciate as the story goes on. he's a follower by nature, you can see that from the very first episode you meet him where he follows his brother's orders. that once keicho died, he immediately found someone new to follow in josuke, our jojo for the part. but you see him slowly starting to take those steps towards becoming someone who doesn't just follow, but leads. someone capable of deciding for himself what he wants to do. especially after his brother dies and he becomes a caretaker for himself and his father. how he wants to put large windfalls of money into his savings. how he is able to work around his intellectual shortcomings with his strengths. okuyasu is dumb but he isn't an idiot. he is actually quite astute in a lot of ways one doesn't expect and that he doesn't give himself credit for. so all of this made his grand decision not to follow his brother into the afterlife so satisfying.

oh how i loved furina from day fucking 1. from the moment her design got leaked i knew where my primogems were going. when she entered the story officially? i was even more in love just due to how different she was as an archon. i could understand why she wasn't for everybody but she was everything for me and that's all that mattered. then we get the level 4 tragic backstory, her 500 year long opera where she alone is on the stage? it wasn't enough just to pull for furina, furina deserved everything my account had to offer. her story quest really made me want to shove paimon and the traveler into a blender but regardless, this character has my whole heart and i will eat up any content that pertains to her as i fucking should. she deserves my everything.

sokka. absolutely sokka. seeing sokka finally get his fucking flowers during the atla revival during 2020 brought so much joy to my soul. i've loved sokka since back when atla was still airing on tv. he has been my favorite and honestly i think some of my humor and sarcasm of today relates all the way back to the guy with boomerang. i got both of my moms into atla and it really made me happy to see the guy they initially saw as the dumb funny one in the group when they just glanced at the tv when i was watching it, is actually arguably the smartest on the team and a literal genius who grew into the man he wanted to become since episode 1. that he was actually the most logical member of the team and the most practical when it came to their long term goals. he was humbled and realized his misogyny was an incorrect way of thinking, he learned from his mistakes an even with his insecurities about where he stood on the team, he never let that get him down for long.

+ 2

ojamajo doremi is coming back, so i gotta mention my two of my fav girls from the series that i relate to the most. first up, harukaze doremi or i'm doing myself a disservice. doremi is a character that has a lot of shortcomings from her clumsiness to her . and i relate a lot to her because of that. whenever i learn something new, i'm never the best at it. especially handicrafts and seeing others around me being good at those things definitely sucked. so seeing a character like that was great for me at that age. but one thing that is just so great about this girl is, to quote caribou-kun on youtube (please watch his video essay on ojamajo doremi on youtube) "she is the greatest friend in the entire world". and i don't say that lightly, she's like the tohru honda of majou shoujo. she would literally take off her shirt and give it to someone to throw up in if they needed it. the way she can connect to people. how she supports them when they most need it even if she doesn't know what is the right thing to say or even if it is at the cost of her own feelings. when i say i want to be a good friend to someone, doremi is one of the faces i picture.

and finally, senoo aiko. she was my favorite favorite of the ojamajos growing up. initially because, well, she was the blue one and blue has been my favorite color since before i can honestly remember. because damn did certain parts of her character also really relate to me. divorced parents (although in my case, they got divorced when i was very young and have been that way since my earliest memories) and doing your best to handle that situation even if you want your parents to get back together. my parents never got back together like aiko's but honestly, she i was happy to see that old dream of mine be realized through her. she has had to be the prince for herself and others in her life for most of her life, and when you finally get to see the moment she can just be the princess is wonderful.

there are other characters i haven't mentioned due to the limitations of just 10 characters but these are some characters that immediately come to mind for some major favs.

[spockandawe]

Hello,I absolutely adore your work! I have been binding books for a few years now (mostly scanlated manga that hasn't been licensed,and some pdf books that are too expensive for me to afford or too rare to buy). I came across your work a few months ago,and absolutely relish your posts. I was wondering if I could ask for some advice?

Do you print your books at home,or use a printing service? Because they're such massive amounts of pages if I want to do a full series...once I printed a 24 volume series and my printer reached its page limit,and I had to get it serviced to reset it😭(I know a code can be bought and used,if it happens again I intend to do that but I'd like to avoid if possible). If you use a service can you recommend any,or any general advice for finding one?

And if you print them at home, could you give some advice on how to print Quattro or snaller books? I just use Acrobat (older versions) to print in booklet setting to get a half page sized book,I would really appreciate some knowledge on how to go smaller (and save some paper)

It's okay if you would rather not answer though,or if you want to take a while,I completely understand if that's the case!

Oh my gosh, you can absolutely ask anything you want, this is my favorite hobby to enable people for! (I LOVE that you're doing this for scanlations, also! My manga hyperfixation is mostly dormant right now, but once my brain locked on to archival work for fan translations of cnovels, I immediately started anxiously circling this idea like a dog whining because it can't fit all the toys in its mouth at once, so I'm delighted to hear someone has this interest!)

I print my books at home. I've considered using a printing service for some special cases, like large paper my machine can't handle, but it was ultimately expensive enough, and my personal needs were off enough (I do high-volume, fast-turnaround work) that I've never actually followed through. I'm fortunate that a few years before I picked up this hobby, I got a color laser duplex printer (canon mf cdw644, iirc) as a gift, and it's filled all my needs beautifully, so I never had to look for another way to tackle the issue.

It is still very expensive to make as many books as I do, I've spent unconscionable amounts of money just on toner, but the math shakes out pretty clearly in my favor. Now, an issue that has occurred to me for more graphic prints would be that if a comic page has a lot of hard blacks, I'm not sure how much it would take before it was cost-effective to go elsewhere. I'm not sure if a point like that does exist, but it's a question I'd be interested in knowing an answer to!

(Laser printers tend to be more expensive up front, but cheaper to use in the long term. I do know one person who owns an ink TANK printer and sings its praises, but those can be harder to find for home usage)

One thing that I'm not sure would apply to your printer is that for big jobs, I *think* my computer and printer run out of memory and it messes up not just the current print job, but future ones I queue up after it, and switching the printer off only makes it worse. My pages start looping back to the beginning of the print job and starting over and the only fix is to reset my print spooler in my system services directory and ruthlessly cancel jobs until my print queue stays empty. I can get around that by printing smaller sets of pages at a time (1-50, then 51-100, etc), so something like that might also help coax your printer into cooperating!

And ahhhh, yes, small books! I'm a HUGE fan, I rarely print anything larger than quarto these days. I use a free tool developed by other fan binders, which I'll link right here

https://momijizukamori.github.io/bookbinder-js/

It has a lot of settings that I haven't explored in too much depth, but I use it to impose almost everything I make. There are layouts for the straightforward divide-in-half imposition (half-letter, quarto, octavo, etc), but towards the bottom there are wacky layouts, like six sheets per side of paper. There might be resources somewhere in renegadepublishing that go into more depth, but like I said, my experimentation has been relatively bland XD In general, I recommend double checking the files you get from it for whether you want to flip on the long or the short edge, but other than that, I've found the tool very intuitive and easy to use!

I hope that helps!!! I'm always delighted to help people out with any of this stuff :D

[norcani]

3, 9 and 16 for the book ask?

answers under the cut

3. What were your top five books of the year? Oh man , I'm gonna only include novels in this, since I have a hard time ranking them along with short story collections or nonfiction.

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson I honestly am so afraid of when I will run out of novels by her. Each one has been a new fave and I wouldn't even be rank them amongst themselves. Hangasaman is a really weird book and I don't know that I understand the intentions behind it, but even so just on a sentence by sentence base it's so cleverly written. I'm surprised that this book hasn't risen to prominence again with the popularity of crazy women literature, but perhaps it's too vague and depressing? Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters Another author I don't wish to be out of novels to read of! Although in this case she is allegedly still writing. I was not particularly looking forward to this one as I had watched the bbc miniseries long ago, and while I enjoyed it at the time it seemed a straightforward enough story that I didn't think the novel would add much beyond Sarah Waters' beautiful writing. Well apparently they completely changed the last third of the book which I had disliked in the series but now I read the book, the book version is my favorite bit by far! It ties everything up beautifully, and honestly Nan's arc just doesn't work without it. You can't cut the conclusion from a coming of age narrative! I imagine it was changed because of how political it is.

Also shoutout to nan for genuinely thinking she invented being a butch lesbian for most of the book. Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir Yes well I got converted.... You see enough about this on your dash I got nothing to say. Turning the Storm by Naomi Kritzer This duology is incredible and it's as if no one knows of it. This is the 2nd book in it, I read both this year but I liked the 2nd one better because the first one has a somwhat slow beginning. People will ask for revolutionary fantasy, fantasy with lesbian leads, fantasy with butch leads , but here it is! It's here! It exists! has since 2003 apparently! The way these books are unknown is insane to me. The Thousand Eyes by A.K. Larkwood Another duology, this one is more recent and more well known, but not enough really. I think a lot of people were turned off because the mc is an orc? I remember early reviews saying it was bad because there was no point of the mc being an orc. Well to this I say there is no point of being a book reviewer if that's your issue. She's cool, her gf is cool, getting possessed by malevolent gods is cool. I love the world in this and I hope the author will return to the setting even if the mcs story is completed.

9 Did you get into any new genres? I already answered before that I started reading more short fiction which was already a reach. I'm trying really hard to think of a 2nd answer. Oh, I read a biography, which I don't think I ever read before. It wasn't even a pop science-y one, more academic (the pdf I read had notes scribbled..) so I was surprised what an easy and fun read it was: Wu Zhao: China's Only Woman Emperor by N. Harry Rothschild, Peter N. Stearns By now I don't remember what inspired me to pick this up, but it was fun! I didn't read any other biographies afterwards though so probably not really getting into a new genre.

16. What is the most over-hyped book you read this year? I'm in Love with the Villainess by inori oh my god, I didn't even dislike this, it was fun enough and I did read the 3 volume main story. But I dunno what others have read because this was not worthy of all that praise l saw. I know it's a light novel but that's not an excuse, plenty light novels have decent writing, or failing that, writing that reads like a coherent narrative instead of a rough placeholder draft. And people who praise the trans rep in this are beyond me, like its nice trans characters exist at all in a yuri story (even though its convoluted magic trans stuff instead of a character just being trans but lets set that aside), but the way people talk over it youd think theyre actual characters with personalities, no the weird straight incest siblings get more lines than the trans character, come on.

I still enjoyed it, it was a fun turn your brain off kinda story, but nothing more. It likely will work better as an anime. The reactions TO the books though make no sense.

[ilikereadingactually]

This Way to the Tomb

This Way to the Tomb: A Masque and Anti-Masque by Ronald Duncan

i took a break from reading e-galleys and ebooks from the library to sit in my cozy reading nook and meander through (and sneeze through, i am sadly allergic to that old book smell) this play from 1946. not out of any great interest in or understanding of plays, in a historical sense, so apologies to any deep theater nerds out there. no, amid the miscellany of my day job at an academic library, i came across this article about a book that had been returned to a library 76 years overdue, and the title caught my eye because i'm obsessed with The Locked Tomb series (which i have not reviewed here yet, but i will after the fourth book comes out). i googled it, could not find enough information about it to satisfy my curiosity as to whether it would dovetail with my Locked Tomb obsession, saw that my library system had a copy, and decided to just read it and find out.

so, not the weirdest way i have ended up reading a book, but not straightforward either. i am a firm believer in curiosity, and have accumulated a lot of esoteric knowledge in unrelated areas over a lifetime of pursuing fannish interests as far as i could stretch them.

though this book was not particularly useful in analyzing my blorbos, i had a good time! i learned, first of all, that a masque "is a form of courtly entertainment containing music, dancing, singing and acting out a story." (thanks No Sweat Shakespeare) which clarifies the fun structure of this play for me. side note, apparently the music was composed by Benjamin Britten, who i had vaguely heard of.

we start out with the masque portion, in which an imagined St. Antony (not based on any historical St. Anthony as far as i can tell, so not the guy who finds the things i misplace) is living a hermity life up on a mountain with three disciples, fasting and generally abstaining from temptation, until a Voice tells him that he can finally die once he's stopped feeling so proud of himself for fasting and has eaten a bit of the food his worried disciples have brought him. i love this, tbh. get off your high horse and have a meal, Antony. the three disciples are also maybe representing Antony's sins? i would not describe them as sins really, but one of them is always trying to get him to eat, and one of them sings him songs, and one of them somehow represents his pride and intellect. my favorite was Marcus, who just wanted Antony to eat and kept making him food and worrying over it, very relatable. there is a lot of singing and poetry overall in this section, which i presume is why it's a masque.

then we reach the anti-masque! which i think is still meant to be sung, and has a chorus, but has some fun metatextual elements to it. this section is i think set at the time the play was written (1946), and is a television broadcast about a group of people going around the world looking for religion and religious miracles and generally making light of everything they've looked into so far, who have arrived at the cave tomb where St. Antony is buried. there's a postcard seller, who they turn away because they have their own cameras and equipment. then several of the outrageous characters in this bunch (such as Girl of Leisure and Man of Culture) confess their sins in front of the tomb, see someone looking back at them, and then when they can't verify what they saw with their cameras they chalk it up to a reflection in the stone. they pop open the tomb even, and find it empty, and their equipment doesn't pick up anything! it has a kinship with an episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved for me.

things go a little wild after that; some women show up vagueing, who i take to be Mary and Mary Magdalene, then St. Antony himself shows up, and none of the characters in this group searching for religion catch on to the miraculous visitation they're getting. then the postcard seller, who left the last of his bread at the opened tomb, turns out to be Marcus, the disciple who kept trying to get Antony to eat; and the chorus turns out to be Julian, the disciple who sang; and Father Opine, the leader of the atheist religious weirdos group, turns out to be Bernard, the disciple who somehow represented Antony's pride. they all have a last bit of philosophy together about the circular nature of time and death and renewal, and ta da, that's the end! even in the cynical "modern age" of television, says Ronald Duncan, there are people who are too proud to see miracles, and people who give up their last morsel in worship, and people who sing beautiful songs.

this is a lot more plot summary than i would usually give, and perfectly lazy analysis because i am not a scholar in any area that might help me interpret this very intelligently, but i had a good time and there was a little more subtlety here than my hamfisted explanation! and since there are no plot summaries on the first page of google results about this play, maybe i am helping some other curious person out there decide whether or not to seek this one out.

the deets

how i read it: a physical book!! from the library!! i had to take an allergy pill and wash my hands and face after, but i do love paging through an old ass book.

try this if you: dig plays that get meta, have a fondness for weird christian things (with Catholic flavor imo), like a satire, or are just as obsessed with The Locked Tomb as i am and so will pick up any old thing that could be in vague conversation with it by virtue of also being about religion and death and the passage of time.

some lines i really liked: including some things that stood out to me only for the Locked Tomb of it all. also there are so many bits i thought were neat that i'm putting them under a cut.

ANTONY: It is winter. Again, winter. The blind mouth of the earth sucks a dry udder. Only leaves, falling over and over, disturb the year's slumber. And my mind clings to the past, Like a velvet train dragged on wet grass.

---

SOPRANO SOLO (sings off stage): Oh proud heart take pity on that part of me Which lies in you as your own lost heart.

---

How I fear Time: which is all change. Oh, where is there a fair face found to challenge Advancing age, with his full equipage and cortege, and not surrender? I have pressed my lips upon Helen's mouth and kissed a skeleton.

---

ANTHONY: What's wrong with you? LECHERY: I have a wound that burns with pain. A pain only you can cure. ANTONY: I'll see what I can do. Where is the wound? LECHERY: On my leg here. Higher. Higher. ANTONY: Oh! Away with you.

---

Enter a RADIO ANNOUNCER. ANNOUNCER: Do you refer to me? PROLOGUE: I do. ANNOUNCER: I'd have you know, Sir, that this is Clarence de la Dell speaking. I am the premiere anouncer for the Oracle, and this is an actuality relay from the sanctified studio reserved for televising spiritual services and religious experiences. And who are you? And how did you crawl in? PROLOGUE: I am the Prologue. ANNOUNCER: The what? PROLOGUE: I am the Prologue. ANNOUNCER: Poor chap. But never mind, just run along with you. PROLOGUE: To hell with you! This was my play.

---

CRITIC (in audience): And there I, for one, disagree with you. The Saint has not appeared for dramatic reasons. Not because this age lacks faith. One of the fundamental weaknesses of this play is, to my mind, the author's shallow conception of the people's fears. The novitiates we have seen are mere clay pigeons for the point of cheap satire, quite unrepresentative of the public's inarticulate spiritual dilemma.

---

CHORUS: We are where our thoughts are Time was invented by clocks and Place was discovered by Maps.

---

1ST WOMAN: They stoned him in Rome They lynched him in Moscow They bled him in Troy They broke him at Toledo. Have you seen my son? FATHER OPINE: No, Madam. How would I know him? 2ND WOMAN: By his eyes which are wet with your tears By his blood which bleeds from your wounds And by his scars. FATHER OPINE: Dear lady, what scars? 2ND WOMAN: In Babylon they whipped his back And in Boston they kicked him He has a scar on his head Where they clubbed him at Buchenwald But it is by the scar in his side that you will know him. 1ST WOMAN: Have you seen him? FATHER OPINE: No, Madam.

---

ANTONY: Everything must renew, nothing living is immutable. The fairest flower falls in the hour and becomes dust As the proudest Emperor must and leave the purple canopies of Rome For the sepulchre's strict curfew. Nor are the dead unchangeable; Death's solid splendours life devours through the soil's lust The seed takes, and the thirsty roots thrust, --and as a cabbage, Kings re-enter Rome.

[birbhouse-doodles]

Some post-project ~thots~ re: my first big dive into horror movies in general, some favorites and reviews, and what I learned in boating school from finishing an inktober-type art challenge is

So the ~stats~ of this thing were, I did 29 drawings covering 31 pieces of halloween-related / horror-ish media, 28 movies, 2 series’ and 1 podcast episode. Of the 31, this was the first time I’d seen/heard 25 of them.

On the art:

1. The big lesson that I got from this is exactly what this podcast episode has to say about how executing an idea is its own skill that you have to practice. Like separate from the skills of actually drawing a thing, the mental skill of following an idea through from start to finished product (and being able to call it done and pull the trigger on sharing it) is also a thing you have to learn. And boy howdy does finishing one post-able drawing a day give you plenty of practice at that, and boy howdy did I get pretty good at it this month. I’m kind of floored by how this Just Get It Done Bootcamp of making a shit ton of art in very little time got rid of so many of my hang ups related to like, getting stuck partway through a piece because I'm scared to ruin it, or not being able to get past a thumbnail sketch because I can’t find the ~perfect idea~, etc. Especially this last week I barely even recognized this confident ass person who was planning and banging out these cool little paintings with almost no hesitation. That’s very unusual for me and I really hope it sticks

2. I’m glad I did this but the debate on whether or not I’d ever do it again is ongoing. Like, I’m insanely proud of myself, (whatever)tober challenges were something I always thought were super cool and wanted to do as a little baby artist but was I never in the right place to be able to stick to a project like that, so I’m very impressed with myself. I am, also, however, so fuckin tired oh my god. I spent most of weeks 2 and 3 swearing up and down that I’m never doing anything like this again. But I also spent the last week really loving it and I already have a list of movies I didn’t get to that I could use if I did this again next year... we’ll see I guess. (Also I never would have had time for this if I wasn’t in an awkward limbo of post-graduation-pre-real job right now where I have literally no responsibilities, so I have a feeling that if I do this again it’ll be like. a movie every 3 days for 10 total, something more sane like that.)

3. Deciding I was ok with it when my motivation fluctuated and planning the day’s drawing accordingly was super powerful. Low standards got the job done y’all

4. Sorta related, but I noticed especially for movies I really liked/ rewatches of things that I already knew I loved I would get this weird mental block about wanting to Do Them Justice, and have this struggle of wanting to do whole ass super complicated big awesome tribute pieces instead of something I could actually finish in a day. Was tough to reign that in sometimes and remember that this had to be a quantity > quality type game.

5. I’m glad I started with the markers because they did force me to keep things simple at first and avoid that ^ problem, and it was neat to actually get sorta good at them and test exactly what I can get done with them. Less neat that a few markers that I was really relying on started dying around day 17 or so. Overall my review would be that they’re great for sketchy stuff, darkest gray and lightest gray are the best ones, love that they don’t warp or soak through the paper, but there are a few of the more complicated marker pieces (Alien, The Ring) that would have been way easier and probably turned out better in ink.

On the movies:

Man I hate that it took me so long to realize that I really love horror movies. I remember not enjoying them at all as a kid/tween, I think I just had to grow into it? I have a whole separate essay on why I think that is but we’ll save that one for later. The point is this was my first time seeing most of these and it was really awesome to dig into the, like, ~popular classic horror canon~ like this, 12/10 very fun. (Not that I covered all of it by any means, there’s already a big list of ones I didn’t get to that just keeps growing, and now that I have a better idea of what I like I can be smarter about picking them next time, and I didn’t even scratch the surface of some subcategories of horror that I’d be really interested to check out, especially international stuff/ not just american big screen stuff, and, and, )

I can’t just pick favorites like a normal person so here’s way too many words about some that stood out for me, I have many opinions and no one can stop me so buckle up

I’m having a really hard time picking a scariest movie, but I the things that I ended up finding scary sort of surprised me. Like the super heavy gore/violence stuff wasn’t so much scary as just gross. A few that did stand out as scary for me were Us (jesus christ Lupita please have mercy you’re too good at this) and It Follows (I was so on edge just Watching the background extras trying to guess where the monster was, I thought the amount of tension in that was really impressive). Actually, anything that leaned on crafting tension in a skillful way and letting the horror come from Wrongness and Anticipation instead of just straight violence was chefs kiss, lovely, totally my jam. If I could build a house and live in the 3 seconds between the moment you know a jumpscare is coming and the moment when it actually hits, I would.

Prettiest movie award goes to Suspiria (1977). I would print out almost any frame of this thing and hang it on my wall, I’m just head over heels for the whole ~look~ and the architecture and the sets and the cOLORS oh the colors I’m in love. I actually watched it really early in the month, it might have even been September? but I didn’t want to draw it yet because it would have been a  crime to do anything related to that movie in black and white and I was kinda intimidated by including full color paintings for this project at the time. Runner ups for prettiest go to Caligari (which was like finding an old picture of a great-great-grant-relative and being like holy shit that looks exactly like my uncle I see where the rest of the family gets those looks, but in this case your uncle is like. Every Tim Burton/ Henry Sellick / whimsical-gothic aesthetic thing ever) and Coraline (Laika Studios owns my entire heart).

Best special effects is probably The Thing. GOD why did we as a society ever move away from super detailed hand crafted practical effects gore. You just know some assistant's whole job was to lovingly mist all the gooey bits down with a spray bottle to get it absolutely perfect. That shit is a work of art, I would want the two melted together faces as a sculpture to have in my house if the effects weren’t so good that I genuinely felt a little sick a few times watching this. Honorable mention to Alien for the same reasons.

Award for “didn’t scare me much but did make me deeply sad” goes to Carrie, with The Witch (VVitch?) as a runner up. Making me sad is also like, a valuable emotional response for a piece of art to cause and these were cathartic in their own way, but fuck man. A story that goes “young girl did not sign up for nor deserve any of this and does not catch a single break” are such downers for me. Something something I too was (am?) a weird little girl (tm) and these are My People, so I’m adopting them all as my baby sisters now and taking them out for ice cream and driving them to therapy

Best theme song/ soundtrack goes to Reanimator. This is a controversial choice by the judge (me) when the other nominees include Us, The Shining, and two entire John Carpenters, but I have not been able to get Reanimator’s funky little woodwind bop out of my head for days now. It has absolutely no right to fuck so hard. I rewatched the opening credits like 3 times just so I could hear it again, it ended up on my On Repeat playlist on spotify this week, girl help it’s literally still stuck in my head as we speak

Anyway the more I talk about this the more confident I feel in saying, see you next year for this again. But almost definitely on a smaller scale because jesus I am so tired

[vampirememory]

pick a pile || random things about your future spouse

welcome to my newest pick a pile reading! this reading is some random things about your future spouse/partner, although it can be your next relationship or current relationship if it resonates.

this time, images are inspired by vultures~! images are not mine.

masterlist

decks being used:

The Dark Mansion Tarot by Taroteca Studio

Pile 1

Hi pile 1! As I shuffle the cards, I'm feeling quite stubborn energy, the cards were pretty straightforward, and I feel that your future spouse is as well. I heard fixed? They might have some fixed signs in their chart, although I am not keen on astrology. I feel like they're absolutely in love with you! When I saw the first card I went "aww" since the imagery on the four of wands in this deck is so cute and romantic. I feel like they've went through some troubles in their life and they never had expected to be in a loving relationship. The relationships in their family may have been bad and they simply just expected to fall back into the same cycle, but they're so glad that they broke the chain and found you <3. They might have a lot of struggles, they might struggle with depression or something sleep-related like sleep paralysis but they're working through it and they wouldn't let you be affected by it (I'm getting that they don't let people see their struggles? Make sure to check in on them sometimes pile one, they don't open up easily but they'll appreciate your presence). I get a big underlying presence of sadness.

You are their world. You guys may eventually move out from where you are and it'll bring you a lot of abundance, you both will be very happy in the end I'm seeing. They might also be from another country or very well-traveled and they can't wait to share that experience with you.

They might be wearing red when you first meet them or their favorite color is red. Appearance-wise, they might dress very classically and they look well put together. They might thrift for their outfits? Cool, we love someone sustainable! Although I'm feeling it's more that they struggle to find clothes that match them in normal stores. They might be a little bit more eccentric but classy. They might have hair that's light brown or a dirty blonde to reddish, and I'm picking up on freckles and/or moles as well. Also, blue eyes might resonate.

4 might be an important number by the way.

Pile 2

What's up pile 2! I'm feeling super pumped for this reading! Your future spouse seems to be quite radical, quite the positive thinker and your definite cheerleader! If you don't like positive people, you might change your mind with this person because they'll truly make your heart flutter <3. While I was shuffling, I couldn't help but sing! But I feel like this super cute and lovely aura hides something...darker? Not in a bad way, but they might be more serious than you expect them to be!

I'm getting like, positively aggressive? They want to kill the world with kindness and nothing is going to stop them. They're very family oriented and love their family and friends, I'm seeing a very good relationship here with both. They'll do anything for the people they care about, even running someone over with a car!!! To be clear, the imagery I got in my head was some sort of zombie apocalypse where they're driving their friends through a crowd of zombies or something...they might be a SciFi fan lol.

Don't expect them to cut off their family or friends for you though, they love them greatly. They may still be in good ties with their exes or something like that, they're a hard person to hate! But don't expect them to be a pushover. If someone treats them or their friends badly, they will CUT! THEM! OUT! You might hate them at first and then realize that they're actually not that bad. They're a very just person and value fairness to a T.

If you know anything about MBTI, it's giving ENTJ and ENFJ.

Despite always servicing and helping others, they really do love you. Sometimes they need to be dragged back to you or back to home but they're really not trying to hurt you, just let them know what you need!! They might really wear themselves out but for you, you are their rock and place of healing. They love being around you when the world is too much for them to bear because they feel like you'll always be there for them. Remember your boundaries though pile 2, communication is super important. They're hopeless romantics though, they really love you they just don't always have the time to give you everything but they want to give you the world and they hope that if they aren't enough to be your partner then they hope to be enough as friends... aww :,(. They may have had this pattern before but it's just their nature to help people. You might help them with setting better boundaries and not letting themselves get to their breaking point.

Appearance-wise, they may have dark hair (brown to black) with possibly tanned skin. They might be taller, they may have a v in their name, they like apples :)?

Pile 3

hii pile 3 uwu <3

Not sure why I felt like I needed to say it that way, they might talk to you that way as a joke? Both of you sending cute emojis and stuff back in forth and saying "nya" and "uwu" shit as jokes, ya'll are funny lol... it's giving the energy of that one couple who is constantly on each other in middle school, everyone hates them because they're head over heels for each other. The couple post that people post comments of "aww how cute *jumps off a bridge" and shit like that. Sorry, not sure why I keep swearing in this one, seems like two different energies here. That might be how they actually are, they might swear a lot.

Ooooo they're sneakyyyy. I thought I felt ENTP (mbti) vibes at the beginning, you might be stuck with an ENTP or someone just hella sarcastic and funny. Anyways with the sneaky part, they're not sneaky in a bad way, they just always keep you on your toes. They might scare you/play a prank on you randomly one day and then come home with a kitten the next, I have a feeling you guys really like cats for some reason. They're gonna steal your heart (and you're gonna like it >:((), they really like you and you really like them. A stupid (affectionately) match made in heaven. They're an inventor, a thinker, always coming up with new and innovative ideas. You really aspire to be like them, they might be the top of your class or something and you have no idea that they like you. But the are EYEING U UP, READY TO STRIKE !!! Your night in shining armor, your best friend <333 if anyone tries to hurt you they'll beat them up immediately (or go cower in a corner and tell you to fight them yourself... smdh they think they're funny). Also they might be an Aries? Or a Capricorn, I see a ram/goat like creature here, maybe you guys go and do goat yoga or something.

Appearance, they may have long dark hair, facial hair maybe, they like wearing dark colors. I feel like you call them emo as a joke, something like that but they're not and they're just dark or something. Might have a mischievous look to them, they might also be very generous. i also got that they might be a politician uh... they might do underhanded things??? watch out if this is for you LOL don't get involved in dirty shit 🤨. People might think they're a drug dealer???? Is this person playing with me 🤨?? real funny guy.

Pile 4

Greetings, my lovely final pile! This person is giving me very regal vibes, they might be very careful with their words but they always have a lot to say!

They might live by the water, they love ponds. They might be an environmentalist or activist or zoologist. They find comfort in the stillness of the water and the balance of life (woah?), very deep person. You also won't find them in shallow water, both literally and figuratively. They do their shadow work, always improving themselves and their well being. Their body reflects upon the rest of the world so they take great responsibility in being careful with how they express themselves.

This is a vey diferent energy than the last pile for sure. They pull their weight (accidentally typed eight if that resonates), they're an important member of society and they take that very seriously. They might work in construction or some public services area, they are important to their community and they put in a lot of work to make a difference. They may not have a high-paying job but their character reflects more on the people around them, they might be people's favorite person, someone that people absolutely adore. They might be an immigrant, they worked extremely hard to get to where they are and they don't take anything for granted. They have everything they want in life because they put in the work for it. The people in this pile might be older or your fs might be older, they feel very calm and mature <3. You might meet them when you are older also, maybe you were married before and this is a remarriage, take what resonates.

They definitely see the fruits of their labor or will see it soon. If you're looking for someone safe and stable, they are yours. Appearance-wise, lots of grey hair or black hair in these cards. They may have really long hair. Facial hair is also on the cards. and they might have really pale skin, almost ghostly. They may not tan? 🤷🏽

No doubt though, they do love you. They might be initially hesitant to let you in and share their abundance but they'll be glad to let you in once they know that they can trust you. They want to spoil you, they've been waiting their whole lives for someone who they can trust <3.

Finished~

Thank you for reading! Once again if it doesn't resonate, let it go <3 This was a lot longer than my previous reading, and if you'd like to leave a tip or if you'd like to purchase a personal reading (pay what you want), feel free to contact me! Thank you so much once again <3

[sassmar]

literary wolfstar classics (rec list part 1, pre-2010)

Okay y'all. I threatened to do it and now I am doing it. This here is a rec list of "literary" wolfstar classics (all were originally written/posted pre-2010, many were written 2005 or earlier). By "literary" I mostly just mean heartbreakingly gorgeous with, like, decent grammar to boot. Sort of a rec list for snobbish lit-crit cunts like me (& probably Remus) and especially for any of you sweet children who weren't lurking the internet when a lot of these were being written/posted and may have missed some or all of these utterly seminal wolfstar texts :). Since returning to fic a few months ago after, like, a trillion years away, I've also discovered a few "new" (i.e. post-2010 lol) authors with some breathtakingly lovely and "literary" stories, and I'll try to get around to eventually compiling those into a similar list at a later date when I've got more free time. Probably won't be for a while yet.

So, without further ado/in no particular order - literary wolfstar classics:

"redeeming time" by minx.

A true classic. Written well before HBP (and maybe even before OOTP? - I'm not sure). A post-prank narrative told entirely from James's perspective (so it's also, of course, James/Lily, although wolfstar is the main storyline) and spanning Nov. 1976 - Nov. 1977. Minx's clean, straightforward prose works so perfectly for this story; it's, like, the quintessential growing-up narrative (but with gay wizards). This, this will always be canon to me. An all-time fave.

"fingerholds" by centaurea.

As far as I know, this is the author's only wolfstar fic, and omfg it is breathtakingly gorgeous. Non-linear narrative that shifts between First War & Lost Years. It tells the story of Remus and Sirius coming together after Hogwarts and then falling apart under the terror/suspicion of war. Again, the writing is fucking beautiful - imagistic, atmospheric, rife with metaphor. This might possibly be my favorite fanfic ever, although I really don't know because that's such a tough call. But anyway, this story will make you hurt.

"vector," "gasp," & "wane" by @rageprufrock.

Pru has written a number of wolfstar classics, so you can't go wrong with anything by her, but I picked these three because they strike me as the most "literary" (i.e. achingly gorgeous) of the lot. "Vector" is a lovely reflective piece in which Sirius, sidetracked by various memories in the midst of Christmas shopping, realizes he's in love with Remus; "Gasp" is basically just a beautiful, atmospheric sex scene (complete with a charming and pitch-perfect Confession of Feelings); "Wane" is a dreamy and poetic "fairytale for Remus," spanning his early childhood up through (and slightly beyond) Sirius's death in OOTP. I adore all of them. Her lighter/funnier fics (like "Seven Things") are also great so check those out, too.

"the times" by @imochan.

Absolutely everything imochan creates is gorgeous and she's written so many wolfstar classics. But I picked "The Times" for this list because the joy, the joy in this story is just so wonderful and palpable. It's a non-magic AU set in 1930s Ireland; Sirius is a paperboy and Remus works at the news office. This story is so beautifully written and unquestionably ranks among my all-time faves. A few other imochan classics I adore include "Liars Leaving My House," "Five Ways to Open Your Arms," & "Oh, Night, and Divine (The Selfish Wish Remix)." But really, anything by her is pretty much guaranteed to be gorgeous and wonderful.

"that the science of cartography is limited" by @sashayed aka rave/dorkorific.

Another true classic. Authored by one-half of the Shoebox Project team. Written pre-HBP, shifts back-and-forth in time between MWPP/post-Hogwarts days & post-OOTP/Remus in the aftermath of the veil, with the Marauders' Map and the boys' attempts to trace Hogwarts' ever-shifting walls with language becoming a sort of broad metaphor for the utterly tangible and seemingly solid yet eternally shifting, breathy, unstable, always-already crumbling foundations of human relationships - the "built-in" loss of relational existence. I mean, just beautiful.I cannot even. Another story that will hurt you.

"the love song of sirius black" by @kaydeefalls.

Based on Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and another true wolfstar classic. A poetic imagining of Sirius's fall through the veil as a sort of dreamy exploration of various major fork-roads in his life, with each section of the story depicting a diverging (i.e. non-canon) path from Sirius's reality. And the final dream scene - ohmyfuckinggod. You will cry. Unless your heart is, like, stone, but maybe even then. I'm so sorry because I'm just now realizing I should have probably called this rec list "wolfstar for masochists" or something like that because so many of these stories are just brutal. As a side note, kaydeefalls also has a number of other lovely fics worth checking out, such as "Quiet" and "Twas Brillig, and the Slithy Toves."

"in love" by minnow_53.

I adore minnow! She has written so many charming, clever, sweet (& often hilarious) wolfstar stories, and she has this way of stepping a bit outside of the characters and creating a fly-on-the-wall sort of vibe that is just so wry and funny, but also at times becomes ridiculously poignant. I know I already used this word but her prose is just charming, idk what else to even say. I picked "In Love" for this list because it is so fucking sweet, in the best way possible, and fairly indicative of her style generally, and also, just - ugh. How can this story not make you happy. The title is self-explanatory. Other fics by Minnow that I especially love include "The Cure" and "What We Did In The Holidays" (these two are just utterly hilarious).

"beat the devil" & "the love there that's sleeping" by musesfool/victoria_p.

Musesfool has written so many wolfstar classics that I cannot possibly account them all here and I'm pretty sure I haven't even read most of them. She is, like, prolific, and you likely can't go wrong with anything by her. But anyhow, I picked these two because they are, in different ways, so particularly gorgeous. "Beat the Devil" is a First War/Sirius pining/hook-up fic with just, such great atmosphere; the story is just thick with atmosphere. And "The Love There That's Sleeping" is a MWPP-era, Beatles-infused, cut-it-with-a-knife-sexual-tension sort of thing that is also, just, so lovely.

"the shortest distance between two people" by riko.

A year-by-year MWPP era fic (each section occurring during the corresponding Hogwarts year) that is just so lovely and charming and often so funny but with so much freaking hurt, too. And these utterly perfect characterizations to boot. This story is just good, I mean, really what else can I say.

"written by hand" & "the moon's significant tremble" by setissma.

I think setissma has written a lot of wolfstar (and some of it may even be hard to find now?) but I picked these two because they are just so lovely. "Written by Hand" features this beautiful premise where Remus has to spend a summer in Romania with no way of communicating with his friends/loved ones, and so with their consent he charms the walls in his summer flat to display everything they write down (letters, grocery lists, all of it). "The Moon's Significant Tremble" is a lovely non-magic AU wherein Sirius is posh and Remus is a schoolteacher and they meet on a train when Remus may or may not be attempting to steal Sirius's watch.

"a peripheral vision" by carmine_ink.

Another heartbreakingly lovely AU set in the 1890s, Cambridge, wherein Remus and Sirius share the misfortune of falling in love in a time/place where that sort of thing is Quite Illegal Indeed, and Remus's lycanthropy is beautifully translated into epilepsy.

"the drought story" by librae.

Librae's style is just so pretty - everything she writes is so atmospheric and poetic and richly imagistic. "Drought Story" takes place the summer between sixth and seventh year; Remus's owl dies and Sirius pays him a visit for the funeral rites. I don't even know how else to describe this story, other than - just lovely.

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AND here are some "honorable mentions" aka more lovely/charming/very well-written wolfstar classics that I just don't have the time/energy to type up full summaries for rn. But these are also all very, very good!

"a few mornings in january" by omgsubtext - in which Remus maybe sort of forgets to tell Sirius he's moved in with him, actually.

"ever after" by busaikko - in which Remus is a geeky astrophysicist & Sirius a gay Scheherazade.

"delta" by fahye - in which every single sentence is so poetically crafted.

"it's not the years, honey, it's the mileage" by thistlerose - in which Remus turns thirty-five and Sirius brings him stolen library books.

"cooler than frogs" by penknife - in which Sirius has a secret, and lycanthropy is very cool.

"the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime" by penknife - in which Sirius is Harry's brooding, Rochester-esque guardian, and Remus Harry's private tutor.

"a flame in two cupped hands" by such_heights - in which Sirius adorably pines.

"for someone came and kissed me there" by such_heights - in which Remus gives Sirius a scandal for Christmas.

"as red as hearts and autumn" by rosemaryandrue - in which Remus has a sexual encounter in front of mermaids under Brighton Pier.

"fire shadows" by mysecretashes - in which Remus, Sirius, and Peter spend the summer before seventh year at James's.

"being an historical record . . ." by moonpants - in which Remus is ambushed by James during truth-or-dare.

"earl grey" by mariinarusalka - in which Remus drinks tea.

"heat the winter floods" by daphnaea - in which R & S share a flat, and Remus keeps piles.

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AND, finally, just for fun, this classic essay re: the canonical evidence for wolfstar, because I love close-reading and such nerdy shit as that: "the case for r / s" by elwing_alcyone.

<3<3<3

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oh and p.s. many thanks to @broomsticks for being so sweet & acclimating me to the wild world of tumblr!!

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continuing to tag authors as i find them, pls lmk if you would like a tag or story removed

[sorrelchestnut]

Eddie wishes he can remember the first time he met Steve. Wishes it was suitably weighty and dramatic, some grand portentous moment he could point to and claim that yes, he always knew this one was going to be important to him. That this one was going to be everything.

But nope, Eddie can't remember jack shit. And not in the usual way he can't remember things, like his keys or his wallet or what time he's supposed to show up somewhere, but in the more generic, too-young-to-stick kind of way that always annoyed the shit out of him when his dad tried to claim some long forgotten acquaintance that cooed over him once in a stroller. Whatever first encounter between the two of them that must have occurred in some playground or parking lot is lost forever to the mists of history, unrecorded and unremarked-upon. Eddie's first clear memory of Steve Harrington isn't until high school, an annoying little freshman horsing around in a too-big jersey on game day when Eddie was just trying to get to his fucking locker, but by then they'd been vaguely aware of each other's existence for time immemorial. That's just how it works when you grow up in the same twenty square miles.

Steve doesn't remember either; Eddie checked. Steve's first clear memory of Eddie is a little earlier - apparently there was a very contentious game of Red Rover that almost came to blows while Steve was running laps, Eddie remembers the detention if not the observer - but he already knew who Eddie was just the same as Eddie knew about him. That Harrington boy, that Munson boy, one grade apart and opposite sides of the tracks but still trapped in the same little rat maze of existence just the same.

It doesn't bother Steve the way it does Eddie, the not-remembering. But then, Steve doesn't have a feel for narrative the way Eddie does, has no room for poetry in his pragmatic little soul. Steve doesn't really give a damn about how they began so much as making sure they don't have an end, and it's one of Eddie's favorite things about him, how fucking straightforward he can be about shit when Eddie feels like he's in an eternal tailspin - but it's also a little frustrating, too, because it means he's alone in telling a story that doesn't have a proper beginning.

So, he tells it a different way. Ignores all the backstory, two houses very much not alike in dignity, circling each other in lazy unknowing orbit. Ignores the collision, broken bottle and a boat oar, ignores the fun little stroll through a hell dimension and flirting over felony grand theft auto. Picks up right there in media res on their way to the end of the world, with Steve grabbing him by his collar on his way of his front door into a hell dimension, frowning at him like Eddie had personally insulted his mother.

"Hey hey hey, where do you think you're going like that?"

"Um?" Eddie squinted back at him, not sure if he was more taken aback by being summarily scruffed like an unruly dog or how weirdly unthreatened he felt by the entire experience. "I don't think someone dressed like an extra from Top Gun has room to insult my fashion choices."

Steve made this hilarious little squinched-up face, like, what? And then promptly ignored him. "Zip that shit up," he said, releasing Eddie in order to gesture to his shirtfront. "Those layers won't do jack shit if you leave it open."

There was a lot to unpack there, not the least Steve's beleaguered single-mother-of-four tone, but Eddie focused on the most important part. "You remember my part in the plan, right? Hard to play a badass guitar solo when I'm all bundled up, dude."

Steve hit him with the most unimpressed look Eddie had ever seen on a human face, and he'd been in and out of detention since grade six. "Hard to play anything with your guts ripped out, dude."

That… was a compelling point. Eddie looked guiltily down at Steve's middle, the bulk of makeshift bandages just visible under the thick fabric of his t-shirt, then shifted his spear to his other hand in order to zip up his jacket. At Steve's expectant expression, he sullenly zipped up the vest, too.

"Happy now?" he said, spreading his arms for inspection. "Do I pass muster, my liege?"

Steve just looked him up and down, like he was actually checking, and then gave him an absolutely shithead grin that Eddie remembered from high school and clapped him on the shoulder. "You'll do."

Dustin eyed him with hilarious skepticism as they emerged from the trailer, but kept his mouth shut until Steve and co. were venturing off into the woods. Out of the corner of his mouth, he said, "You look like Rambo screwed the Stay-Puft marshmallow."

"Shut the fuck up," Eddie said gratefully, and then Eddie played a concert, and Eddie played the hero, and Eddie didn't die. And that's why he starts the story there, right in the middle of everything: because it was the first time Steve took care of him when he needed it.

It definitely wasn't the last.

[funkymbtifiction]

Hi Charity! I wanted to ask for help with determine if I am sx-blind or if I could sx in my stack without any desire for a romantic and sexual relationship?

In a group of people, I usually "pick" a person that I want to get close with, I want to have a very deep emotional connection with them. I am kind of guilty that when it "clicks" with the person I chose, I want them to regard me as their closest friend and favorite person. But there are no romantic or sexual undertones to it, that's pretty much it - I want close platonic connection with them, nothing more.

This suggest social dominance and/or that what you are seeking is a deep social connection, but you may want to read through this page, especially the section about social vs. sx attraction. Sx involves deep psychological nudity as part of the connection -- being raw, real, provocative, as part of attracting someone else is in the domain of sx-dom. You could be so/sp.

I've been informed that it doesn't come across this way, and I come off very flirtatious and romantically interested in them, and a lot of my friendships ended because people started to developing crushes on me (with both men and women, so I don't think that the problem is in men thinking that every woman interested in being friends wants a relationship), thinking that the feelings are mutual. I am honestly quite oblivious to flirting and I can't really tell if someone likes me before they flat-out tell me about it. I know that I am very intense but I genuinely don't understand why people think I'm flirty since I am just being myself. When people confess their love to me it upsets me because it's never what I want - it takes a great force for me to open up to someone, and when they learn that I am not interested in a relationship, the friendship usually also ends, leaving me wounded with even more trust issues. I am always very straightforward about not looking for a romantic relationship but EVERYONE seems think that they must be an exception.

So... could it be the evidence that I am sx-blind?

You sound so/sp, yes. There's a certain level of stand-offish energy to so/sp, where the boundary of sp is drawn after the friendliness of social. It also depends on your personality type, frankly. If you are a social, outgoing, animated person, you may seem more flirtatious than you intend to be. EFJs and EPs are especially prone to this.

[cinnamonest]

Razor (Genshin Impact) - Yandere Profile

@bleachlemon

I'm glad you are ok with it because oh boy do I have some very very n a s t y noncon-y thoughts about our wolfboi. We love a dense boy, not a single thought in his empty, horny lil brain. Head empty, just horny for y/n. 

I also have the big horny™ for any cross between boys and canines... Does smth for me. As if my favoritism wasn't obvious by how much I've written below lmao

tw: general yandere content, violence, mentions of n/sfw

tw below cut: breeding, heavy  noncon, like jfc this is nasty, misogynistic

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What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?

The biggest issue with Razor is his complete and total lack of restraint. He sees no need for it, he has no real concept of social norms. Wolves don't really practice restraint on... anything. When they see something they want to kill, they kill it, when they see something they want to have, they have it, when they're mad, they attack, when they're hungry, they eat.

So in a way, he's perfectly lucid, but doesn't act as a normal lucid person who understands social norms would do. He knows that you give him some burning, fluttery feeling, and that he enjoys having you around, and that he gets sad when you have to leave. He's perceptive enough to know it's the same urge that drives humans to form their long-term mate partnerships. If that's what they refer to as "love," he'll readily adopt that term as a way to describe what he feels. What he doesn't get is everything between point A and point Z. No point in all the "courtship" and "marriage" and other human customs -- he doesn't need to "date" to know you're the one, and he doesn't need some signed paper to signify he loves you. In his mind, it's perfectly logical to expect you to immediately come live out in Wolvendom with him. You did accept all his courtship signs, after all.

Wolves are very straightforward with it, you see. Their courtship includes going for walks side-by-side, close to each other, which you did when you let him guide you through the woods. Wolves will rest their head or legs on the other, and you let him rest his head on your shoulder (even if you flinched with surprise when he did, uncomfortable but too nice to say anything). He even when to the extent of engaging in human mating rituals -- you accepted all those gifts he hunted down, and you smiled when he said nice things about how pretty you are, how nice you smell.

So in other words, you've basically already accepted him as a mate. That's what he's perceived, and changing his initial perceptions is not easily accomplished.

How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?

One of the most likely, and definitely the fastest. Possibly after meeting you a single time. He can't take the risk of you not coming back.

He won't be very subtle or sneaky about it either, not tricking you into walking right into captivity, nor drugging you or taking you in your sleep. It's very straightforward - it's not like there's anyone in Wolvendom to hear you, so he has no problem just slinging you over his shoulder and carrying you off. He kinda gets why you'd panic, so he reassures you that no, he's not gonna eat you or anything, you're just going home.

Don't worry about the pack - they won't eat you either, or even hurt you. He's already told them not to. He gets why you might be frightened by the massive, snarling creatures and their massive teeth and eyes that shine in moonlight, but he'll make sure you get used to them and accept them as your family, just like he has.

How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape? 

That depends. Can you fight off two 180-pound masses of claws, teeth, and muscle? If so, sure, it'll be easy. If not... you'll have some issues.

He's lucky to have such a loyal pack that will help him with these things - they don't exactly understand why you'd want to leave, but they know you're not supposed to. Even when he has to leave you, which isn't often, he'll leave a few of them around to watch you. To make sure no one comes and steals you or anything - and of course, the implication that it's to make sure you don't run away, either. He doesn't really get why you would, but he's come to the realization, based on what you've tried to tell him, that you miss your family and friends. And he gets that, he really does, but in the end, he's selfish at his core, and his empathy for you isn't enough for him to just let you go.

He sleeps latched onto you, arms wrapped around you, so it's not a good idea to try. Your best bet is to wait for a time he's gone and distract the wolves with something, which isn't too hard, and run for it. But even if you do manage to escape, you won't be for long. They can smell you from a mile away and will use your scent to pinpoint you down within a few minutes. They don't exactly have any gentle ways of taking you down and bringing you back, either. They're basically going to have to use their teeth, so it's better if you don't struggle - you'll just hurt yourself.

If he catches you, though, he'll just get huffy and angry, and much like when initially taking you, he'll just pick you right up and bring you back. He's not opposed to stealing ropes and the like from the passing knights, and tying knots isn't too difficult to figure out.

How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?

Poor boy is very easy to lie to and manipulate. Head empty, not many thoughts up there. However, you'll have to be clever about it, because most of the time, even if he believes you, he doesn't care. Sure, you can easily convince him that it's normal for human couples to sleep separately... But that's not going to stop him from curling up with you, because that's what he does. That's what wolves do.

He will, however, be somewhat easily manipulated into getting you things you want, if he thinks it'll make you happy. However, obtaining things you want will almost definitely come in the form of theft, or worst case scenario, the body of a passer-by that just so happened to have something you wanted visibly on their person.

If he finds out you lied to him on something, he'll get pouty and grumpy. It's not pleasant, but it's better than the rage reaction of some yanderes.

How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?

His life revolves around you, and yours should revolve around him. That's how mates are. You can go for walks in the woods! You can take naps in the sun together! You can spend literal hours mating! Why would you need anything else?

That being said, he's always had a uniqueness from the wolves in that he's awake more - wolves sleep about 14 hours a day, him only about 8 or 9. You'll definitely be getting a lot more sleep than you would back home, but you'll have a few precious hours to yourselves. It makes him happy - it used to be time he spent all alone, a reminder of how he didn't truly fit in with humans nor wolves. But now, you have that time together! He's willing to do most anything you want, so long as you're together. He's always had some adaptative differences he practices by himself - making fires, cooking food on them, wearing clothes. If you want to go exploring, you can do that, if you want to make food, you can do that too. He'll even accommodate you if you want to do useless things, like your insistence on teaching him to read, or practicing his speech.

What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?

It's fairly simple. Don't leave. That's really the one big one.

He's actually not one to make a rule against fighting him - he'll see it as you wanting to play fight, wrestling, which wolves do all the time. It's fun, even if it's easy for him to win. And it's exciting when you fight back, in a weird way.

Don't make contact with other humans, if you see them. Oh, and he'll want you to report to him everything you did or saw while he was gone hunting.

Generally, if he gives you a command, which isn't too much, he expects you to follow it. In his mind, he's the male, he's supposed to tell you what to do. Isn't that how it usually works with humans too?

If you're too disobedient, he'll get grumpy. Honestly, his most likely form of dealing with it is to wrestle you to the ground, and essentially hold you down until you comply or agree to whatever he wants.

How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?

Rip.

But seriously. No, they're not going to last. He's one of the more paranoid ones, because deep down he's aware of how little he understands. For all he knows, every human male that talks to you could be doing what you call "flirting." Hell, didn't some girls like other girls too? How does he know which ones do and which ones don't? That means everyone is a threat, and he can't let threats get in the way.

He's not one of the ones to be subtle or try to hide it from you. He will probably try a little bit if he knows it's one of your family or friends whose blood is soaking his clothes when he comes back to you, but if it's random, he might even be proud. Look at that, he took down a whole search party that came looking for you all by himself! It's proof of his strength and dominance, and you should be happy that you have a strong mate to protect you! And he doesn't really empathize well - if you're upset, he will explain exactly that to you, and insist you change how you see things. Humans are so strange, being upset that your mate is able to protect you. You'll see why it's a good thing eventually, he's sure.

How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?

He gets frustrated pretty easily. It's usually just a lack of understanding, in his mind, you're being unnecessarily difficult almost all the time. He has told you a million times he doesn't care about whatever is normal for humans, yet you continuously bring it up, and that's a bit irritating. He'll huff and sigh and clamp a hand over your mouth if you're going on about it, and if you really refuse to shut up about it, there are a variety of ways of making you quiet - or distracting you from complaints.

He's got an immature streak, as he never really had anyone around to teach him otherwise. So he gets very pouty, a little bit aggressive and forceful when it comes to being upset over something or getting his way. If he wants attention and you're not giving it to him, he won't hesitate to just take whatever you're holding and focused on of your hands and toss it to the side.

On the positive side, he's never going to be passive aggressive. He's always straightforward and has no hesitation to tell you exactly how he's feeling.

If he's genuinely, truly furious, he can get violent. He'll probably apologize and definitely feel bad, licking all the little wounds. He wouldn't try to do anything so bad as bone breaking or severely hurting you, but might accidentally lose control of his own strength.

Do they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?

More or less an equal. Not much to say here, as, to be honest, that sort of thing hasn't really crossed his mind. He doesn't waste time with thoughts of relative value, he just knows he loves you and wants you.

Subconsciously, it would be slightly below. Due to a very natural upbringing, he automatically associates males as being the leaders and alphas, while females are... Well, puppy-making machines. Don't try to accuse him of any sort of sexism or anything - he can't even really wrap his head around the concept, much less understand why it's wrong to acknowledge how much weaker you are than him. If you need proof of that, he can easily wrestle with you and prove it.

How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?

Pretty highly determined. He mistakes a lot of things as signs of love, though. You might be only complying out of fear or exhaustion, but he won't be able to tell, he's not good with facial expressions, so he thinks it's a sign you're accepting him.

Honestly, he's one of the ones that, albeit unintentionally, will kind of guilt you into acceptance. You inevitably feel bad for him, you can tell how lonely he really is, and how desperately he loves you, wants you to love him. His intentions aren't malicious, and it's actually difficult to truly resent him, unlike some yanderes. Ironically, it reaches a point where rejecting him sometimes really does feel like kicking a sad little stray puppy in the rain - it makes you feel awful when he gets sad and quiet.

While there are a lot of yanderes who would be a lot more earnest and striving to serve and please you, which he doesn't really do, he's probably one of the most patient yanderes when it comes to this. He doesn't care if it takes the rest of your lives. He'll never give up or just settle for having you with him, he'll be loving you and trying to be reassured of your love till the day he dies, if that's what it takes.

Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?

Primarily, it's hard to emphasize how significantly his lack of human socialization impacts his yandere behaviors.

Most yanderes are forced to acknowledge the inherent wrongness of their actions - some will accept it and not care that it's wrong, some sadists enjoy knowing it's wrong, some will delude themselves into justifying it, some will try their best to act within moral boundaries or make up for their wrongness somehow. But all in all, they all have to face the reality of the situation and understand that what they're doing is considered wrong.

Razor's not like that. He doesn't really take the moral aspect into consideration. To him, the whole idea is simply a human thing entirely. It doesn't matter what humans do. He views the world in a very black and white sense. Morality is a more abstract concept, what's more important is how things are relative to himself - what he wants.

Tends to communicate in strange ways. Excess emotions, too much happiness or anger or whatever can make him forget his words, so there's a lot of subtle communication through grunts, whimpers, growls. Over time, you learn how to distinguish between the various noises and body language and what they mean.

Will lick you. It's weird. It's kinda gross. But it's just how he shows affection. He tends to get carried away with kisses, ending up lapping at your lips, licking your neck and collarbones, nuzzling his head into you.

General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?

Scientifically speaking, male sex drive is heavily boosted by testosterone. Testosterone can be greatly increased by heavy physical activity, eating high amounts of meat, sun exposure, and is even directly correlated to spending large amounts of time outdoors. 

You see where this is going.

Very high drive, very touchy, and no reservations, no shame. Thank whatever deity you care to recognize in Tevyat that you're isolated from other people out in the woods, because he has no concept of norms or appropriateness, and trying to get him to understand is a fruitless effort. You're wasting your time trying to explain the idea that groping and touching out of the blue is considered rude, or that most human men take issue with being very visibly, very noticeably hard and would likely try to conceal it, not just sit there with the blatant bulge poking forward... His response will only be that you're far away from humans, so it shouldn't matter. He's just trying to show you he loves you, that's why he insists on grinding into you all the time, staring at your body, humping you when you're curled up together quite ironically like a horny dog.

Unfortunately, he basically just does not know how to be gentle or slow about it. He can start off trying to be slow and soft if you beg for it, but once you're actually laying there and he's in you, he gets caught up in instinct and the heat of the moment, and just kinda... forgets about that whole "slow and gentle" thing, opting to just rut you as hard and fast as possible.

He doesn't talk much during sex. He already has some trouble forming sentences in normal times, you can't expect him to when he's fucking. You won't get a lot of words besides the occasional, "good, feels good," or little commands, but you will get a lot of animalistic noises - possessive growls, little whines of pleasure. He doesn't have any sense to hold back on his noises.

He's also the least likely to care about things like shaving, periods, or imperfections. Which is good, but you also can't use those things as an excuse to not fuck, it'll go in one ear and out the other.

How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?

It's not so much an intentional disregard for your willingness, so much as a combo of not really considering it, and thinking it's just something you'll change on. If he's human, and he has the urge, that means surely you do too. Sometimes humans need emotional connections before they want to mate, right? So he just needs to express his love to you. The looping problem there is that fucking you is pretty much his primary way of expressing love. It'll work out in the end, he guesses.

His limited knowledge of humanity also will lead him to certain conclusions. From what he understands, human society often shames females for having sex and wanting sex, right? That's dumb. But their mentality is probably ingrained in your brain, isn't it? That's why you act like this. But don't worry, he's not like the human men. Wolves don't feel that way. You'll understand that with time.

What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?

Biting/Scratching/Marking

It's a natural reaction to him. If he's balls deep in you, mounted on and pounding into your body, thrusting so hard that your body is lurching forward with every movement, he wants a way to hold you still, keep your body in place so that each pounding goes deeper and harder. It's second nature for him to just sink his teeth into your jugular, your neck, your shoulders. As an added bonus, he likes seeing the marks it leaves behind, in addition to how his fingernails that dig into your hips leave little indents in your skin.

Breeding

He doesn't know how to not cum in you. You can't honestly expect him to pull out of you, you're so warm and wet and soft, it would be torture not to reach a climax buried inside that tight heat. You can go on a rant about not wanting to get pregnant, but it'll go in one ear and out the other. He doesn't get it - you're supposed to want to have his pups. Do you not think he's a suitable mate for reproducing? You'll be halfway through explaining why kids aren't in your current agenda before being flipped over and pounded into yet again with his newfound determination to prove his strength and dominance to you. Once you understand that, surely, you'll want all the puppies you can possibly make.

Predator/Prey

This applies mostly to escape attempts. He'll be mad, but it triggers something in him, something instilled by years of hunting down poor little prey animals. The desire to hunt you down, find you, and ruin you. Instead of ripping you apart like he would boars, he can't think of anything but just fucking you up against the nearest tree, the ground, anything. The faster you run, the more afraid you are, the more exciting it is. It's a very primal urge, one that commands all sorts of predators, both in feeding and breeding.

Forced Orgasms

As with many human things, he makes certain discoveries with time about sex. The first time you fuck, it'll probably be too rough for you to really cum, but it'll only be a few days in before your body adjusts to the girth that's frequently inside of you, and you end up spasming all over him - and he's just got this shocked expression, watching with amazement when you clench down and quiver under him. Wait, you mean human females can orgasm too? Not just the men?

From that point forward, he's determined to fuck, lick, grind, and force every orgasm out of you as physically possible. It makes him feel a weird sort of pride and contentment. It's one of the few things that makes him a big smug. Even if you feel like you can't possibly cum any more, he'll try anyway.

How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?

It's your purpose! He has learned that human girls only have one baby at a time, sometimes two, which is nothing compared to how many pups wolves usually have in one litter. That means that you'll have to make up for the lack of quantity of pups with quantity of pregnancies, which means constantly breeding and breeding and making sure every last drop stays inside of you. He doesn't understand why humans would even want to prevent pregnancy, it's the best thing that can happen, it's the whole reason you're alive, and it's a sign that you're his. Like with most things, he knows eventually you'll come around. Once you actually have the pups there in front of you, you'll love it. He knows you will.

What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?

He's a little lacking on the thought process behind punishing. If he's mad, it tends to cloud his thoughts, reverting to a more animalistic state, and he's not gonna have the complex thoughts required to really think through punishment, so it's not gonna be anything complex.

Doesn't really matter, if he's mad, just fucking you is going to feel like a punishment, with him slamming you into the ground, a tree, any rough surface nearby and just rutting you, claw-like fingernails digging into your skin and teeth sinking into your shoulder to hold you in place, a hand clasped around your throat. Fucking is basically the primary outlet he chooses for his emotions, happiness, love, stress, and anger alike, a simple, primal form of expression. If he's mad, he just needs to take it out on something, release all of that force and energy into rough, brutal motions. Normally when he's angry, he'll go hunt down some animal, taking all that anger out on the kill. But, recently he's learned he actually quite prefers to release his anger this way. It's more satisfying and enjoyable, and it deters you from stepping out of line, too. It's not just your average slightly rough fucking, no, it's the kind of fucking that will genuinely hurt you, rutting you over and over until your insides are burning from friction, your walls and cervix so completely bruised and abused you'll feel the  throbbing soreness with every movement for days, hands leaving massive bruises all across your hips and shoulders. Not that that's any excuse to not fuck more, no, no soreness will get you out of normal daily routine.

What body parts of their darling do they like the most?

He has a thing for breasts. They're very unique to humans, it's something he hasn't had the opportunity to see or understand, and he'll spend a lot of time just burying his face in them, licking and sucking. Big or small, doesn't matter. He just likes them.

One more nasty HC i can't not talk about

wait, you mean humans have sex... Facing each other? There are positions other than doggy? It's all he's ever seen. Porn and the internet don't exactly exist in this world. The whole concept blows his mind. He can fuck you AND see your face while he does? He'll nearly faint right then and there, and you'll regret bringing it up once you've gone numb from the repetitive pounding. He'll start asking you what else exists out there, his brain will start thinking of all the different ways to fuck he's never thought about. Once he learns you can ride him, he's in heaven, even if it's not so much riding so much as you sitting on his cock and him bouncing you up and down with such ferocity you can't even move your legs.

Speaking of things he doesn't know about, if you're smart, you make sure he doesn't find out about blowjobs. He'll love it, and it won't be a blowjob so much as him literally fucking your throat, grabbing your head and hair and just wrecking your mouth.

None of it is him trying to hurt you, really. He just doesn't understand how to be gentle. He might get better with time, but he's got a predator-born ferocity, a primal roughness that will always be a part of his nature.

(yes i did research on wolf courtship/mating rituals for this bc i suffer for my art)

[athenamgh]

DON'T FORGET ME - #II

a/n: soo this is part twoo... part threee? Hmmm.. not sure yet..

paring/s: Natasha Romanoff x fem!Reader

summary: two broken hearts need to heal each other.. but will they..

warning/s: tears, angst, fluff (i am not sure....)

word count: 2.8k

Chapter I || Chapter II

Natasha Romanoff MASTERLIST

As you stood in front of a mirror smoothing your palms over the small wrinkles on your dark velvet suit, the only thought that was lingering in your mind was how desperately you wanted to crawl up in a ball in your bed and just stay like that forever. You didn’t want to go to that party. 

Of course, you wanted to see your dear friends but the thought of how much it will hurt to see Natasha again was almost unbearable. The one that still was, as you understood from Wanda, just as unhappy as you were and you absolutely hated yourself for that.

Your eyes slowly started to travel up your body, the suit still suited you perfectly, shaping your strong arms and wrapping your torso just in the right way. Your gaze stopped at your neck, if a person had very attentive eyes he could spot two necklaces wrapping your neck. You could feel the material of dog tags coldy gazing at your skin, but the other, smaller necklace, you didn’t feel, you just knew it was there, but you didn’t dare to pull it out from under your shirt and look at it, you didn't have the strength, not yet at least.

You felt your heart race as your eyes slowly moved up your face, first they captured your dry lips and a small knife cut scar just above the right corner of your lip. Your tongue brushed it, feeling the roughness of the wounded skin. Finally your eyes connected in a mirror and you saw how your natural pupil color turned to hungry flaming red, your eyes now gloomy, the normal white conjunctiva turning black.

You clenched your jaw at the sight. And you heard a whisper, too familiar whisper: “This is exactly why you could never have her.”. You clenched your fist so tightly that made your knuckles turn white at the words. “You are weak” the voice screamed inside your head and you punched the mirror. It broke, the pieces fell to the ground and your knuckles now covered the blood because of the little cuts. You cursed to yourself remembering that you spent hours picking this mirror and now you will need to order another one again.

 ---

You already spent around an hour at Tony's party. And you were surprised at how you were still standing here and didn’t leave in the first thirty minutes, because the music was too loud for your enjoyment and people too unrecognizable. You made small talk with almost everyone you knew and now there standing next to the window, your right hand occupied with the glass full of liquid, the other one resting in your pants pocket.. Damn, you missed this view, you could oversee the whole night city from here. People, cars, animals, the smallest lights, streets and buildings, it all were at your feet.

“Unforgettable feeling, huh?” you didn’t even need to turn your head, to know who exactly was standing beside you.

“As you say old man..” you said chuckling, glancing to the side where Tony stood.

He embraced your shoulders with his left arm, “Ahh, that is exactly what I was missing this past year.” You looked at him with a bit surprised expression, arching your eyebrow at him, Tony never was a guy to share too much of his inner feelings. “What?” he asked. You threw your hands up in defence shaking your head. “Those suckers need you” he points over his shoulder, making you turn around and look at Wanda, Steve, Thor and others talking. “Also, I could use your brains for my new project.” 

“Do you?” you said playfully not looking back at him. Your eyes wandered through the crowded room, desperately searching for a certain someone, you haven’t seen yet.

Tony definitely noticed it. “It’s still Natasha, isn’t it?” he said quietly. You clench your hand tighter around the glass, taking a swing of the drink.

You closed your eyes, clenching your jaw as hard as you could just to relax it again. Taking a deep breath you answered “It’s always been her,” You chuckled “I am pretty sure it’s always going to be her.”

“Then, why did you leave?” Tony asked with a serious tone, his straightforwardness made you take a few steps back .

 “You know why I left..” you turned to face him, a tired look on your face. You already did this ritual with Steve  months ago, you didn’t want to do this again. “I am dangerous!” you said wanting to wrap this up already, but you could see an ignorant expression appear on Tony’s face, he was not satisfied with your answer. “What do you want me to say?”

“What about, something that is not total bullshit?” he said with a dumb smile.

You sighted in frustration looking around the room “I could never give her a happy, normal life for a long run.. never..”

Tony placed his hand on your shoulder, making you look him in the eyes again, “Maybe, you should have let her decide what is her definition of a normal life.. Cuz kiddo, none of us here'' he pointed to other avengers ''are living a normal life and never will.” You looked down at your boots, you knew this all too well, this horrible thought bothered you all the time. Maybe you made a mistake, maybe you rushed, maybe you needed.. well, now it was too late, you screwed up and badly.

You finally look up at him, changing the topic “So, you said you have a project for me?” this yearned a smile from Tony.

“Right this way, kid” he said, chuckling. As you passed others from the corner of your eyes you saw Tony give a small thumbs up to Steve, but you brushed it away.

---

Your eyebrows narrowed and eyes carefully running through the prototype Tony has been working on for the past few months now. It was a confusing and complicated mechanism, but it looked cool and had a bunch of advanced and very beneficial functions to fight off any alarming threats. “Why haven't you connected the A site area to G one, to decrease the speed in case of an overload?” you said pointing to the red area with big letter A. 

Tony looks down at the scheme and rubs his palms, “Ahh, you right. How could I have missed that!?” he said, connecting the dots.

“Cuz you old..” you said, chuckling and getting a light punch to your shoulder. You couldn’t lie to yourself as much as you were trying to convince yourself that you didn't miss all of this: helping out Tony, teaching new recruits with Steve, testing Wanda's abilities.. training with Natasha and cuddl... ahh you did miss it.. and a lot actually. The memories of staying up late just to find yourself waking up on top of the table to the smell of Wanda’s pancakes and soft Natasha's touches..

“Tony? Steve said you needed me?” your thoughts interrupted a person whose voice you could have recognized anywhere in the world, no matter how loud or quiet how big or small the place was.. you just in an instance. Your heart skipped a beat as you looked up and saw no other but Natasha Romanoff herself. Your jaw dropped as you saw her red curly hair falling perfectly down her shoulder, her black dress hugging her figure just in the right places. She looked stunning. You swore she was one of the most beautiful people that have ever walked this earth.

As she saw you she freezed in her steps, her lips escaped a gasp, “Y/n..”.

“Natasha..” you said almost immediately. You looked at each other frozen, forgetting everyone around. After, what it looked like was a whole minute, you heard Tony shift besides you. And suddenly, you realized the whole signal to Steve and this secret twisted plan. You turned to Tony with narrowed eyes “You didn’t need my help, did you?”

Tony cleared his throat “I’d say no, cuz I am a genius playboy millionaire, but you actually did help to improve the prototype. So that was unexpected.” he said smiling innocently. You rolled your eyes at him.

“No..” you heard the whisper slip through Natasha's lips, you quickly turned to look at her. She shook her head if your eyes weren’t so perceptive you wouldn't have noticed how her eyes watered, she turned around and stormed out of the room.

You glanced at Tony for a second and he mouthed at you ‘GO!’ you took off and started running towards Romanoff.

---

You were about to knock on Natasha's room door but you heard a sob in the opposite direction. You knew exactly who's room it was.. or used to be. You turned around facing the opposite room door, on it was still engraved your name.

Your lips split a gasp as you opened a door and found your room untouched. The bed, the table, hanging photographs, your favorite painting of the Avengers 'squad' , damn you were and still are such a nerd, shelves full of books, all the stuff you forgot to pick up from the compound was still left untouched.

You saw Natasha sitting at the other side of the bed, her back to the entrance. It was quite now, you couldn't hear even the smallest or quietest wail…

''Na- '' you started but she quickly cut you off.

''You know, people knock..'' she said with a serious tone. Her voice was firm, you couldn't hear any cracks in it.

''Technically it's still my room, you know..'' you said playfully.. wishing to ease up the gloomy atmosphere surrounding both of you. But she seemed to ignore your statement..

After a few seconds of silence you spoke up again, with a light voice ''Nat''.

''No'' she quickly said standing up. ''I can't do this..''  she said still facing the wall, her arms now hugging her torso tightly.

''Please, Nat, listen to me'' you were ready to beg for her to just listen to what you had to say.. just listen, that was all you wished for.

''Why, y/n?'' she finally turned around and for the first time in months you really looked into her forest green eyes. They were cold and puffed from tears, her face pale, lips tight and nose a bit running. You noticed that she was also analyzing your face and expressions. ''Tell me why should I listen to you? Why after all this time you decided to explain yourself?'' she was hurt… so hurt.. and damn you hated yourself for that.. 

“Sometimes… sometimes I just want to rip out my heart and give it to you. Because, I can’t. I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t hold this pain in my heart. Because I can’t close my eyes without dreaming of you. I can’t walk anywhere without seeing you. I can’t do anything without you.. y/n''

These words struck you like lightning, your heart clenched in your chest, your eyes watering and vision becoming blurry. You clenched your jaw, looking down. Natasha never was the one to talk about her feelings so freely, but from her eyes you saw that she had enough, she needed to express everything she was feeling, all the pain. But all your lips could spread was only her name "Nat.."

''What? You left me y/n!'' This agonizing scream made you look back at Natasha, her eyes filling up with painful tears. ''You promised that you'll never leave.. and you did..'' she said, her voice cracking. She was right.. Natasha, this amazing woman, who gave you her heart and you crushed it.. and why? Because of your own fears and demons? For being afraid to lose control and put her in danger, for being afraid of losing her because of your selfish acts? ''And the worst thing is that all I can think of..'' she continued, brushing the tear running down her cheek. ''Is that it is all my fault..''

''No no no..'' words quickly spilled through your lips as you took a few steps forwards to be just a little bit closer to Natasha, but she left standing frozen in her place. ''Nat.. it's not your fault.. it never was..'' you said with so much assurance in your eyes.

''Then why?'' Natasha now took a few steps towards you, leaving the two of you a hand stretch apart.

At her question your hands started to shake a little, you closed your eyes taking a deep breath. Your right hand brushing through your hair and stopping at your neck, eyes turned away, intensely staring at the floor. Somewhere deep down in the back of your mind you could hear that awful whisper, cruely reminding you 'you're not worthy of her.. have you forgotten who you are..'

Natasha noticed your body reaction, she grabbed you by your forearms, bringing you a little bit closer to her. Even from such a distance you already could feel the warmth radiating from her, her scent already invading your lungs, oh how much you missed this, even if small, but closeness to her.

''What's wrong y/n'' she asked you, her voice now softer and you could hear a hint of worry in it too.

''I.. '' you stuttered. ''I am so sorry Nat, I didn't want to hurt you.. I.. ha- hate'' your words getting caught in your throat because of upcoming tears ''I hate myself for how much pain I caused you.. I am sooo sorry'' your hands began to shake even more intensively, your eyes shut even tighter.

Natasha brought her hands to your face, cupping your cheeks. ''Y/n look at me'' you shook your head, you couldn't let her see you like this. ''Please..'' she said so warmly and quietly, her warm thumb brushing your cheek with staining tears that you thought you had dried months ago, asking you to look up at her. 

Your arms eased up, you took another deep breath, straightened up. You opened your eyes looking at her. You saw how mixed emotions ran through Natasha's face as she for the first time saw your reddish beast's eyes, her hands clenched tighter around your face in surprise. ''I am cursed Nat..'' your eyes watered again, you were ready for her to push you away, but you were confused as to why she was still here, still holding your face so dearly, like her life dependent on it. 

''I left because I couldn't let you love somebody who everyday puts you in so much danger.. I couldn't let you love somebody who is forever cursed… you do not deserve it Natasha.. you deserve someone so much better… someone who can actually make you happy.'' a few tears more ran through your cheek, you felt how her thumbs brushed them just beneath your eyelids, she didn't seem to be disgusted or scared of you. 

Suddenly she looked deep into your eyes. Those two green orbs staring right back at you, your heart skipped a beat as you realized those eyes still had that unconditional love in them that you missed so much. ''I loved you Nat.. I love you Natasha Romanoff, but I am afraid I do not deserve to have your heart..'' at these last words you felt how Natasha's hands slipped further and wrapped around your neck, bringing you two closer and connecting your lips into such a longing kiss. You secured your arm around her waist at the touch of your lips in an instance, smashing your bodies even closer together. She tasted so sweet and comforting and everything that you missed about her.

You finally separated your lips because you were in need of such mundane thing as oxygen. Taking a deep breath Natasha spoke up ''There is no one more deserving than you y/n..'' she said, brushing the loose strand of hair from your face. ''I do not need a normal life.. hell nothing about my life is normal.. it never was'' she said looking back to your eyes, with light surprise. You could feel that your eyes were back at her natural color shape again. 

''And this?'' you gestured to your eye level. Her thumb ghosted just below your right eyelid and then brushed the slim finger lightly against your bottom lip.

She smiled ''I don't care y/n..'' she looked deep into your eyes.. ''I just want you''.

You could feel your eyes sparkle, heart beating like crazy. You took her right hand and brought it to your lips, kissing it lightly, you forgot how indeed soft they were.  ''Will you forgive me?'' you asked with so much hope. 

''Yes..'' she said with such a light voice and bright smile on her face. You couldn't suppress your happiness anymore. You picked her up and spinned around. As you placed her on the ground you kissed her again. More passionately this time, putting every single drop of love and affection and everything that you were feeling towards her.. so she would know it. Without any doubts.

Natasha broke the kiss away gasping for air. ''Woah, calm down tiger!'' she said with a smile ''We have a lot to catch up'' she said with a smirk spreading across her face, making you arch your eyebrow at her seductively.

[innuendostudios]

Thoughts on... some funny games

[no spoilers to speak of]

Thoughts on Lair of the Clockwork God

The wisdom of the gaming cognoscenti insists that comedy is hard to do in video games. Having grown up with Monkey Island and Zork, I've never found this convincing. But one true thing is this: it's hard to write about comedic games. The ineffability of humor is hard enough to describe in less-interactive media; I can't even explain to my partner why Gretchen saying "I met January Jones once!" on You're the Worst busted me up, and they were sitting right next to me when she said it. Throw in the "you had to be there" nature of the player's active participation and I lose myself in a cornfield. The thing I found hilarious might come a beat to early for you, or not at all, or not be funny in text like it is in gameplay.

Why did I like Lair of the Clockwork God? It made me laugh.

The premise and particulars are a lot of "that could go either way." Ben and Dan - stars of Ben There, Dan That and Time Gentleman, Please! - have returned. Ben is still an adventure game star, but Dan has adopted platforming mechanics in an attempt to get with the times. So playing the game involves switching back and forth between a character who can leap across canyons but can't pick up items or talk to people, and one who can combine inventory but can't climb over a 3-pixel rock.

Does that sound potentially funny? Potentially grating? Yes to both!

The plot centers around our heroes trying to save the world from several simultaneous apocalypses and having to teach human emotions to a supercomputer in order to do so. (Don't ask.) These means, rather like Ben There, Dan That, traipsing through a number of fantasy worlds (read: computer simulations) until the correct emotion is provoked. This requires cross-genre cooperation: finding ways to get Ben to areas only Dan can access, getting Dan new power ups by combining objects in Ben's inventory (an act Dan insists on calling "crafting").

The best bits are at these intersections, when Dan's platforming is the puzzliest and Ben's puzzles take advantage of Dan's skills. Periodically the game gives you a Dan-centric platforming gauntlet the controls are NOT precise nor pleasant enough for, or a Ben-only moon logic puzzle that leaves you googling the walkthrough.

But I liked it! A lot. The genre-hopping seems to have invigorated the developers, Ben Ward and Dan Marshall. I discussed my favorite joke in Ben There, Dan That (in what is probably the least popular video I've ever made that wasn't asking for money), but was also dismayed that the game was never that clever again. But this one is, several times over! Progression here involves cheating your way to a better respawn zone, goofing around in game menus, exploiting "glitches," exiting out and loading up entirely other games. There is a lot of poking and prodding at what a game of this nature can or should be.

But, honestly? The only real selling point is... it was funny. The humor is as anarchic and metatextual as in previous titles, but it feels good-natured in a way BT,DT didn't. And there are, here and there, little bits of meat on its bones - the characters wondering if, as a couple thirtysomething white guys, the world hasn't left them behind, no longer comfortable with the juvenile humor of their youth but not really understanding the youth of today, but having not yet fully escaped the mentalities they used to hold. (There's an unspoken humor to Dan's idea of "modern" gameplay being 2D platforming mechanics, especially at a time when adventure games are significantly more popular than on his last outing; this is a good joke whether or not it's intentional.)

Also: this game contains the most poignant urinating-on-a-grave puzzle in gaming history, and you may quote me on that.

Having finished it months ago, I can't even remember what all the gags were that tickled me at the time. Comedy fades from memory faster than drama or frustration. Mostly I just remember having a good time.

Thoughts on The Darkside Detective

Here's a hook: sometime after the mayhem ends in Ghostbusters, The Exorcist, Evil Dead 2, or some other paranormal blockbuster that you watched over and over in the 90's until the VHS wore out, some overworked detective has to come into your town and piece together what the hell happened.

This is his story.

It's a good gag, and the devs wring every drop from it. Existing in a world where these things are commonplace and you have to fit them into some notion of "police procedure" is just funny. Like, it's one thing to have a running gag where you keep observing the moon in outdoor scenes, commenting, with increasing hostility, that its behavior is suspicious (it has been present at multiple crime scenes); it's a slightly different thing when, given the things you've encountered, the moon being the Big Bad is actually somewhat possible.

The game is divided into six main cases and three bonus DLC missions (which come included in the base game now, and the third of which is the proper ending/setup for the sequel). You are the cop tasked to deal with The Other Side - and, when The Other Side bleeds into our own world, its cops have to deal with you. You have a sidekick with a mental maturity of about 6, which I guess makes you the straight man. (You have to grade on a curve to find a straight man in this game.) And you solve tasks like rounding up escaped gremlins or finding an AWOL lake monster all juxtaposed with mundane problems like inter-office squabbles and having not bought your Christmas presents early enough. It's (pleasantly) lo-res and sparsely isolated, so the dialogue and premise do most of the work, but they are ably up to the task.

The gameplay... not so much. I'm an adventure game lifer, so I can put up with a lot of nonsense. It's mostly straightforward inventory puzzles and occasional minigames. Most of the puzzles are fine enough. As the cases progress, things get more involved, and the DLCs especially involve some awful moon logic. And the minigames are not above using that same jumping peg puzzle you've solved in a dozen other games already. So gameplay ranges from serviceable to irritating, but it mostly exists to string together funny lines and silly images. (Christmas mall elves being secretly in service to Krampus - that's the kind of thing we're talking about here.) You won't feel much guilt for opening up a walkthrough; the puzzles aren't why you're here.

The sequel has just been released, and both games are cheap, so check them out if you feel like smiling.

Thoughts on The Procession to Calvary

It's rare for a game to be hilarious to look at.

The Procession to Calvary takes its name from the Bruegel painting. It also takes all it's graphics from Renaissance oil paintings, and the designer delights in making famously rendered heroes and religious icons steal, stab, fart, and swear.

A strong Terry-Gilliam-with-After-Effects vibe is what we're describing.

You play as a lady knight from a war that's just ended, which sucks for you because, in this age of peace, you're no longer authorized to kill. And killing's, like, you're whole thing. But the one person your new, pacifist king wouldn't stop you from killing is the warlord you just deposed, who fled to the South. So you embark on a nonsensical journey to seek out the one human on Earth you are authorized to kill, because killing is just The. Best. Ever.

Of the three games we're discussing, this is the most overtly cheeky, and, at times, the most scatological. I could've done with a bit less scatology, if I'm being honest, but the cheekiness is very winning. As with Lair of the Clockwork God, a lot of jokes could go either way - a field of people being tortured and a woman on a blanket selling commemorative torture merch could be painfully try-hard. But something about the victims being seemingly everyone ever crucified or broken on the wheel in a famous painting, and having them writhe on their crosses in a way that is both gruesome and goofy, and having a cacophonous soundtrack of their screams and moans that you will now imagine every time you look at one of those elegantly elegiac paintings from now on... it works. That the music score is being played by an extremely jaunty piper who dances behind you just out of sword's reach as you traverse the field pushes it over the top.

Oh, and the puzzles, while never hair-pullingly obtuse, will leave you stumped at times. Push past that to get the proper ending, but, if you're sick of trying, you can, at any point, just start stabbing your way through problems. Which, again: it takes a very deft touch to make "protagonist resorts to violence" actually funny rather than lazy and obvious. And maybe, in another game, the perfect timing of every animation, the clever quips, the careful contrast of cathedrals and high-society music halls with gleeful sword-swinging wouldn't be enough. But something about it being frickin' Renaissance paintings carries it the last mile.

This is probably the basest game of the three, but it's also the one that made me giggle the most. Having a BFA that required several art history classes may have something to do with it. But check this thing out.