xlxlovelifexlx

[thru-the-grapevine]

Deep End

Pairing: Choi Soobin x fem!reader

Summary: Soobin thinks you could be the most dangerous thing to ever happen to him, if he let you (or: not even the ambience of a city rooftop can distract Soobin from you).

Word Count: 5.7k

Tags/Warnings: mature content (minors dni), pwfwp (porn with feelings without plot), public sex, established relationship, man is a simp

Author’s Note: the lovely @chanis-banani has allowed me to post the birthday gift I made for her 🥰 I played myself by writing it for her because now I’m kinda nuts about him too. Whoops.

Soobin has never been a particularly possessive or territorial person before, so he’s unprepared for how it feels to see you in his shirt.

He watches you in the reflection of the hotel elevator, mesmerized. The shirt is a button-down, oversized even on Soobin. He’d helped you roll up each sleeve four times just to give your wrists some breathing room, and from how it fits on you, it gives the appearance that it’s the only thing you’re wearing at all. He’s trying very hard not to stare at your bare legs, focusing in on your little painted toenails to try and stay respectful. He’s not sure if it’s working. Nothing feels respectful about the way he looks at you these days.

The two of you are on a weekend trip to the city together, seizing the opportunity for quality time alone during a rare time when neither of you have anything in your schedules. You’d suggested pretending it was a fancy weekend, and Soobin had taken you at your word and sprung for a nicer hotel than usual, particularly because of how your face had lit up at the idea of a rooftop pool.

The two of you are on the way to this pool now, and instead of wearing normal clothes over your swimsuit, you’d insisted on borrowing one of his shirts. He’d agreed without really thinking about it, and once the sleeves were rolled up you’d declared it was perfect.

Soobin can’t disagree, either, because he can’t stop looking at you in it. Something about it being your idea makes it even better. He likes the way you look in it, but in a way he didn’t expect. Some sort of base instinct in his gut is glowing, seeing you in something of his.

Then again, you’ve always fascinated him, even before the two of you began seeing each other. You’ve always lit up every room he sees you in, something about how you carry yourself drawing the klutzy moth of him to you like flame. He’s never wanted to know so much about another person before. He loves learning every little thing that makes you laugh, that makes you chatty, that incites reactions in you.

He can’t believe he convinced you to say yes when he asked you out, amazed you allowed him to keep coming back for more. He feels like a naturalist who got outrageously lucky enough to get close to their favorite beloved wildlife, like he has to drink in and take note of everything he can get of you in case you spook and flee. Like he can puzzle out the mystery of you if he studies you closely enough.

You catch him staring in the reflection and make a silly face. He grins and makes one back, shifting closer to you and watching his reflection drape an arm over your shoulders. He’s realizing recently how often you draw him in, how he’s always looking for reasons to be as close to you as he can. If he really was a moth, he’d be scorched to a crisp by now.

He can feel you practically vibrating with excitement as the two of you step out onto the roof. There’s a huge grin on your face as you gaze around with eyes so big that Soobin knows you wish you had more of them to take it all in.

“Not too shabby, then?” He asks, charmed at the way you flit from place to place, exploring.

“What do you mean, not too shabby? It’s perfect,” you gush, gesturing from thing to thing and bouncing on the balls of your feet. “Look at the view, ugh, it’s so—and the pool? It’s perfect, the water is so pretty, it’s all so pretty here at night, look at all the other buildings lit up, I’m just—!”

You take a deep breath and blow it out slowly, face still aglow. “Okay. Calming down.”

He grins, making his way to a chaise lounge near the pool and sitting. “That’s the spirit.”

“Why is it so empty up here on a night like this?” You wonder, staring up and around at the nearby buildings and night sky.

A private smile twitches at the corner of Soobin’s mouth. “Yeah, seems way too nice out not to be up here.”

“Definitely nice enough to swim,” you muse, turning to him and batting your eyes once. “You’ll swim with me, right?”

It was never a question that he would, but Soobin feigns uncertainty. “Hmm...”

“Just for a little bit,” you insist, shoulders slumping, and he can’t help laughing.

“’Course, that’s why we came up here.”

You pout at him, making your way over to his chair. “Rude.”

He watches you approach, endeared at the little frown line between your brows when you pout, how it makes your lips even more distracting. “You’re just easy to bother.”

You make a face at him. “Just for that, you can have your shirt back.”

His mouth goes a little dry when your hands go to the top button, fiddling.

“Oh no, please, anything but that,” he tries to deadpan, but his voice rasps.

You roll your eyes, amused, as you pop the first button. “Perv.”

He can’t even refute you. It’s like erotic torture, watching you unbutton the shirt—his shirt; god, that really is doing things to him. The buttons are on the opposite placket than you’re used to, which means you move slower, and Soobin watches in an agony of lust as inch after inch of your skin is revealed.

You shrug the shirt off when it’s finally unbuttoned, tossing it into his lap and wandering to the edge of the pool. He tries to get himself back under control, but your swimsuit leaves so much less to the imagination than anything else he usually sees you wear that it’s impossible.

You look back over your shoulder at him, pausing on the steps descending into the water. “You coming?”

He nods, dazed.

You raise an eyebrow, smirk teasing the corners of your mouth. “You good?”

That depends heavily on what “good” means. He considers saying this, knows you’ll enjoy the philosophical banter, but when he opens his mouth his throat is too dry to speak. He shuts his mouth and clears his throat, giving up. “I...yeah. Great.”

His face feels hot when you wink at him, tip of your tongue between your teeth. Jesus.

He watches you wade down into the pool and tries to think of boring things, like taxes and bylaws and coding instructions, anything but how breathtaking every inch of you is. It doesn’t work, especially when you dip beneath the surface briefly, then come back up, swiping your hair back from your face more flawlessly than any model.

“Water’s fine,” you murmur, and something in your expression makes him think you’re fully aware that he’s wrapped around your little finger.

Maybe the water will clear his head. He grabs the scruff of his shirt and yanks it over his head. “Coming.”

He doesn’t bother with the steps, heads straight for the deep end and hops in. The cool water is a welcome shock to his system, as well as the muted quiet of underwater. He lingers near the bottom, waiting until his lungs ache for air to push back towards the shallow end.

When he resurfaces, you’re floating on your back, gazing up at the night sky. He swipes his hair out of his face and rises to his full height, angling to see you better. You have your mouth pursed in a specific way to keep from inhaling water, and your hair splays out around your head in the water in gentle, undulating waves, Medusa-style. There are little twinkling reflections in your eyes of the world you’re drinking in above you. Bliss in your face.

Oh no, a voice in the back of Soobin’s mind says, and looking at you feels like he’s made of glass and is being shoved off a high ledge. But Soobin can’t bring himself to be frightened, can only concentrate on the pleasant swoop in his stomach as he plummets. He thinks he might enjoy being shattered by you.

You jerk in surprise when you catch him watching you, a thrash of water. “Jesus.”

He feels a grin tugging at his lips. “Sorry,” he says, not sorry at all.

“Why are you just standing there staring, you weirdo?” You move upright again, and your mad scientist hair flattens into a streaming curtain down your back. Pale blue pool light reflects in little waves over your skin, and Soobin would believe someone in this moment if they told him you were a water goddess.

He can’t tear his gaze away from you, still grinning like a fool. “You’re interesting.”

You raise an eyebrow, teasing smile back on your face.

“Interesting, huh.”

“Mhm.” He starts wading your way at that dreamlike pace water always demands. Moth, meet flame.

“Me, or my tits?”

“I—that wasn’t what—” Soobin stammers. “What—I hadn’t even looked at—”

And he hadn’t, truly. Except of course they’re now at the forefront of his mind, now that you’ve mentioned them, and invisible magnetism keeps tempting his gaze down, a losing fight with the thought of them right at the top of his brain, and now he’s noticing your chest, half-submerged, the gleam of soaked skin and droplets in tantalizing places, noticing the wet cling of swimsuit fabric to curving soft skin. He wonders how it might feel to glide his hands over and under and around, whether you would feel cool or warm under his mouth, and his mind hadn’t been on this track two seconds ago, it really hadn’t...

He hears you snort, tears his gaze back to your face, schoolboy guilt bunched in his stomach.

“Mmhmm,” you say, unbelieving. Your pleased little grin eases the shame, a balm on his heart.

“Yah, I really wasn’t,” he protests. “...but now that you mention it...”

Your snicker is cute, everything about you is so cute, and when did this happen, how did this happen, how did you become the most irresistible thing in Soobin’s world without him catching whiff of it before?

You surprise him when you lunge for him when he’s close enough, your arms flinging around his neck, soft mouth covering his. Like kissing him is a relief, like to you he’s something special, something to look forward to. He’s not going to question why, even if his own appeal to you puzzles him, just pulls you closer with his hands on your hips and kisses you back.

You pull back far too quickly, and he frowns, missing you already. He’s immediately distracted, though, at the delicate feeling of your fingertips ruffling in the soggy strands of his hair.

“Thanks for springing for this place,” you murmur, grateful little smile on your face. “I love it.”

“’Course, baby,” he hums, trying not to feel too smug for nailing it. All of it was worth it just for this.

Your gaze follows a droplet of water traveling down his neck and over his chest. One of your hands leaves his hair, tracing the wing of his collarbone gently.

“You’re really hot when you’re all wet,” you admit, floating off your feet and hooking your legs around his waist.

Your positioning immediately stokes his carnal interest. He blinks, dazed grin spreading slowly over his face.

“Only when I’m all wet?” He teases, hands on a slow glide from your hips to cup beneath your thighs, holding you in place.

You tsk at him, fingers still playing in slow, hypnotic patterns through his hair and over his chest. “Fishing for compliments? Don’t tell me you don’t hear them all the time. We know what you look like.”

He loves watching your mouth when you talk. The shape of your lips is something he’s constantly cataloguing for long-term memory, both from looking at and feeling them with his own.

“I only ever want your compliments,” he says absently, thumbs drawing little circles on your thighs, completely mesmerized. “They’re the only ones that count.”

He can see the reflection of the flickering surface of the pool in your eyes. Something thrills in his chest when the edges of your smile turn a little shy.

“Flirt,” you murmur, leaning in closer.

He blinks, drawing the tip of his nose along yours slowly. He can’t remember what he said. He should try to remember, should take it down to use later, but you’re quite literally hanging all over him and you’re all wet in a swimsuit and your mouth is only inches away and he is not God’s strongest soldier, after all.

He leans down and fastens his mouth over yours, kissing you like he has all the time in the world. It’s quickly becoming one of his favorite things to do, finding all the ways your mouths can fit together. He teases the tip of his tongue along your lower lip, heart racing when you sigh into his mouth and open for him. God. The taste of you, mingled with pool water and the lip balm you’d borrowed from him earlier, is enough to turn off all the thoughts in his brain.

Mouth still playing over yours, he wades slowly backward, inching towards the pool steps, crouching as the water gets shallow to keep you both weightless in the water. His heel knocks against the bottom step and he stumbles back, kiss breaking as he sits down hard.

Your little giggle goes straight to his crotch for reasons he can’t decipher. He grins, sheepish, lifts himself up to sit on the next-highest step, reaching for your hips and reeling you back in. You straddle his lap without him even having to ask, more proof to his mind that you’re perfect, and when he tilts his chin up you meet him halfway.

Everything about you in his arms feels right, and Soobin feels something unidentifiable deep within him settling into place. All his senses are honed in on you, on your mouth moving with his, on the gentle chaos of your breath, on the soft suppleness of you relaxing into him as he kisses you with slow, consuming ardor. His hands slide in restless patterns over you, and eventually his mouth parts from yours and drags along the line of your jaw.

“For the record,” he murmurs, pausing to nip softly at your earlobe, “you’re really hot when you’re all wet, too.”

Your laugh is breathless, a bolt of heat to his gut. “Only when I’m all wet?”

“Especially when you’re all wet,” he whispers, nuzzling against the hollow beneath your ear, savoring how you shiver.

Your skin is cool beneath his mouth, and he makes it a personal mission to warm it again, openmouthed kisses gliding smooth and wet and hot along the expanse of your neck, the curve of your shoulder, the wing of your collarbone. He feels you hum and relax further into his lap, tension in your muscles melting you closer against him, candle wax near open flame. He marvels innocently at how incredibly silky you are, even over firmer places, how there’s a hint of you behind the chlorine on your skin, and he needs more of it, feels an itch in his brain for more you in his senses.

“Hey,” you protest halfheartedly as he fumbles with the ties of your swimsuit top. “This is a public pool, someone could come up.”

“Mhm,” he mumbles, hearing the words purely at a sound level, feeling the ties come loose in his hands with a slithery tickle. He nuzzles into the inside curve of your breast, nudging fabric away from wet skin, mouth slipping along the plush undercurve. Pure fascination wins out as he opens his mouth wider, bites, sucks.

He feels you twitch in surprise at the feeling, soothes his hands along your back in half-apology, laser-focused on the feel, the taste of you in his mouth. You’re sensitive here, not as excruciatingly sensitive as your nipples, but that just means he doesn’t have to be as careful, can let his curiosity at the feeling of you win unrestricted.

He continues nibbling and sucking in that spot, slides a hand around to your front and tugs the now-loose top away, tossing it behind him blindly. He feels your hands tighten on his shoulders when he settles his hand back on you, cupping your other breast. He eases the pad of his thumb in gentle circles over your areola, mesmerized at the way the skin puckers and tightens to a point under the lazy caress. He hears you swallow back a moan, feels one of your hands slide up and weave fingers through his hair, and that base instinct deep in his gut puffs its chest knowing that he affects you like this.

He lifts his mouth from your skin with a crude pop, other hand sliding from your back to brush a thumb over the hickey. He knows you love when he leaves them on your neck, but it still makes him shy to know other people will see them and make assumptions about what your love lives are like. This one, however, on this pillowy curve of skin that only the two of you get to see, is right up his alley. Satisfied with how dark it is already, he nuzzles your breast and settles his mouth over your nipple.

The little noise you make is adorable, and Soobin finds himself smiling against your skin. He traces his tongue over the budding peak, unhurried, takes your other nipple between his fingers and pinches until you gasp. He can’t resist rolling it slowly between his fingers, twisting one way and then the other as he circles the other in lazy circles with his tongue.

He hears a frayed whimper in your throat, the helpless wriggle of your hips against his inflaming him further. He’s never been addicted to a person before, but he’s hooked on you for sure, wants to take inventory of every inch of you, every reaction he can incite, every texture and scent and movement. He drags his mouth to your other breast and kisses your poor abused nipple gently, massages it better with his tongue as his hand takes over the one he left behind.

All of you drowns his senses—the cool slipperiness of your skin, the little whines you sigh out, the way you keep cinching yourself closer to him, burying your face against his hair, agonizing friction in your laps. He can’t stop himself from groping your ass and tucking your hips in tighter against his, fascinated by the feeling of your muscles twitching and contracting with desire.

He makes a noise of surprise when your hand in his hair tightens and yanks, angling his face up to yours. You crush your mouth over his, and his hands are immediately all over you, roaming restless paths over every inch of you he can reach, urging you closer. He wants to drown in you, be consumed by you, devour you with all five senses at once and then more.

It’s not enough. He wrenches his mouth from yours, panting, tapping your hip.

“Up,” he pants.

You hesitate only a second before moving off of his lap. He stands quickly and takes your hand, sloshing his way up the remaining steps and out of the pool with you in tow.

You seem to be on the same wavelength, to an extent, matching his pace as he makes his way over to the chairs with your things on them. He guides you in front of him, a twinge of fondness in his chest at the sight of your arm attempting to cover your chest, as if that doesn’t just make them look especially sumptuous, and he wants his hands back on you, wants to test how squishable—

“Down,” he pants, hand nudging your shoulder until you sit on the chaise, then nudging again until you lie back. His other hand is already untying your swim bottoms, one side and then the other, gaze laser-focused as he leans in and presses a kiss low on your abdomen, parting your legs.

“I—wait, ‘Binnie,” you protest, hand coming to his head. “Stop—we are outside, someone could look out a window and see—”

“Don’t care,” he mumbles against your skin, mouth already gliding along the inside of your thigh. The looming buildings nearby, the vague hum of city life stories below, the night sky, the pool, everything is in a foggy haze in Soobin’s mind. His only focus is you, on how downy soft you are, how you shiver as his tongue darts out to catch at water droplets on your skin.

“Easy for you to say, you’re still wearing someth—ah,” you squeak as Soobin yanks your now-completely untied bottoms away, balling them up absently in one hand and hurling them to oblivion. “Wait, I’m serious, Soobinnnnnnngh.”

He groans into the apex of your thighs, mouth open wide and tongue flattened along as much of you as possible. God, yes, this is exactly what he’s after, concentration and essence of you overwhelming his senses. Slowly, he curls the tip of his tongue, dragging his mouth up, the motion gently parting wet layers of inner softness. You slap a hand over your mouth, moaning as the tip of his tongue laves over the sensitive crest at the very peak, and he lingers there for a moment, leaving an openmouthed kiss.

Blindly, he fumbles above him, finding your arm and pulling your hand away from your mouth, anchoring your wrist to the chaise. He feels your other hand tighten hard in his hair as he continues leaving wet, sucking kisses all over the sensitive tucks and pleats of flesh, working you up with ruthless patience.

He daydreams about this more often than he cares to admit, even more so when the two of you are apart, and he’s determined to learn and implement the way you like it best, the way that makes you lose all sense of shame. Admittedly, he gets a little carried away in part because you’ve told him your former partners were merely passable at eating you out. His competitive streak, combined with this growing obsession with you, make him determined to be extra attentive whenever you grant him this opportunity.

It’s difficult to stay focused, though, the hot and wet feel of you on his mouth, the taste of you on his tongue, enough to make him delirious. He easily gets lost in the savoring, mapping every inch of you under his tongue, lingering in places just because it makes you tremble and whine like you’re desperate for him, and he wants you just as desperate for him as he feels about you.

He hums into you, delighted, when your legs close in around his head as he closes his mouth over your clit and sucks. Everything goes muffled, even the little moans of his name you’re trying to bite back, but it hardly matters when he can feel your limbs shaking, feel you hot and throbbing against his mouth. You start trying to buck your hips into his face, and he slides his free arm over your abdomen and pins you down, steadying you both. He tongues over you in wet, languid strokes, feels the clenching flutter of the entrance into your body. Pure fascination drives him again, and he strokes you there again, stiffening his tongue and driving it into you.

Oh, god. The tight, blistering heat of you, the taste, nearly unmans him. He moans into you, guttural, and nearly loses his mind at the way he can feel your inner muscles fluttering and clenching rhythmically on his tongue like a heartbeat.

The overwhelming need to make you come slams into him like a tidal wave. He’s determined now, anchoring you in place and delving his tongue into you in delicately aggressive thrusts, nuzzling into you deeper and deeper. He can hear you whining even with your thighs muffling his ears, the sound increasingly desperate, and he wants to give you anything in the whole world that you want, would roll over and bark if you asked, so he doubles his efforts and slides his mouth back up to suck and tongue at that most sensitive bud, wringing sensation like raw honey from the comb.

He wonders for a brief moment if he could come just like this, completely untouched with his face buried between your legs, moaning into you like your pleasure is his own, and if that makes him a munch then so be it. And then you tense and tighten against him for a full moment and the pleasure uncoils, your whole body arching and shuddering in euphoria. He shoves his tongue back into you and moans, lightheaded at each of the siphoning ripples of fulfillment pulling him in deeper, drunk on the little sobs of pleasure you make.

God. He’s never wanted anything as much as he wants to be wrapped up in you right the fuck now. He eases you through the quaking pulses of ecstasy and starts fumbling with the drawstring of his swimsuit, taking care not to touch himself for fear of blowing his load in his pants like a teenager. Raw need claws at his insides like a rabid animal, desire to make sure everything is perfect for you warring against his impatience, his craving to skip over things like a condom and gentleness and—

Condom. Oh. He remembers reminding himself to grab one, remembers seeing the box of them tucked into his bag and knowing one would be needed, and yet here he is, empty-handed. Fuck.

“We have to go back to the room,” he groans, leaning back and mopping his chin with the back of his hand. “Now. I need to be in you more than I need to live another day.”

Through your pleasured exhaustion, a lazy smile forms on your lips. You shake your head, glancing over and gesturing at his dress shirt you’d borrowed.

“Don’t need to go back downstairs,” you breathe, and fuck, your post-orgasm voice is devastatingly sexy. “Get the shirt, I brought a condom.”

He blinks at you, once, twice, not comprehending. “You...”

Color flushes over your skin prettily. “I...I thought it never hurts to be prepared. For anything.”

Soobin is trying to process that you’ve had a plan for being up here that involves a condom. Dazed, he glances over at the neighboring chaise, reaches for the shirt.

“Is there a condom...in the shirt...?”

Your breathless giggle ties his insides into little knots.

“You didn’t notice the weird shape in the breast pocket earlier?” You ask, eyes crinkled in mirth.

Through the haze of oh my god she wants us to fuck, Soobin finds it in him to be indignant again. “I wasn’t looking at—I was trying not to look, you know, at...”

He huffs a sigh as he extracts the condom from the shirt pocket, unable to stay annoyed even as you keep giggling at him.

“Here I was trying to be respectful,” he tsks, smiling even as his ears grow hot.

You snort. “Ah yes, the respectful boyfriend that strips his girlfriend at a public pool and commits sex acts on her where anyone could stumble in on them.”

“No one’s going to stumble in,” Soobin breathes, trying to make his hands dry enough to tear the condom packet open.

“What do you mean?”

“Pool’s closed,” he says, giving up and tearing at the packet with his teeth.

“The pool is closed? Are we going to get in trouble for—”

“It’s not really closed,” he says. “I just paid the front desk to tell the rest of the hotel guests that it’s closed.”

You stare at him for so long in stunned silence that he starts feeling a little antsy. “You bribed the hotel...so you could have sex with me?”

“I would bribe anyone with anything to spend even five platonic minutes alone with you,” he protests, fumbling the condom out of the wrapper.

He stills when you grab his wrist, arresting him with your stare. There’s something at work behind your eyes, something he doesn’t know the name for.

“What?” He whispers.

After a long moment, you swallow. “Nothing. I just...no, nothing. Here, let me.”

You keep eye contact as you slip the condom out of his hand, and he shivers when your other hand brushes down his abdomen. His breath stutters when you take hold of him, and he feels himself twitch in your hand after going so long neglecting himself.

If he doesn’t redirect his attention he may still finish before he can even get inside you. “People might—might still be able to see from windows,” he stammers as you roll the condom on, spreading your legs.

You shrug a shoulder, abashed smile still on your face. “If they see, they see,” you breathe.

Sometimes you make him breathless.

“Remind me not to believe you,” he murmurs, settling himself between your legs, “when you say you’re too shy to do this out in the open.”

You laugh as he drags his tip over you, catching on your entrance. “Don’t push it, this is a special ca—ohh.”

Ohh, indeed. Soobin moans and drops his forehead against your temple, feeling what little remains of his sanity obliterating the further inside he eases into you. You’ve been intimate like this before, but no matter how prepared Soobin thinks he is, every time feels like the first time all over again. Nothing ever truly prepares him for the scalding hot, wet glide into unimaginable tightness, for how even when you’re relaxed, he has to bully himself into you inch by inch. He’s shaking with the effort to be gentle, nudges his hips slowly until bit by bit, all of him is enveloped snugly inside.

“How can you feel this perfect,” he groans, most of the willpower left at his disposal exerted on lasting, good god he needs to last even just to feel you around him like this for longer—

You laugh again, breathless, and the way that feels when you’re connected like this is sinfully good. “I try.”

“No you don’t,” he gasps, rocking his hips gingerly into yours. “You just are.”

You whimper as the angle of his hips drives him into a sensitive place inside of you. He grinds into the spot again, careful, his restraint threadbare but hanging on.

“Please,” you pant, hitching your knees further up, and the adjustment of angle forcing him even deeper.

Soobin nearly chokes on his own tongue. Fuck. He thrusts like he’s afraid of himself, mantra of don’t come don’t come don’t come flooding the forefront of his mind, sheer force of will.

“I won’t break,” you plead, voice so breathy and fucked-out it belongs in high-end porn. Sweet merciful god, he can’t do this.

He feels your mouth drag along his shoulder, and then a flash of sharpness. His body reacts to the bite before his mind can catch up, hips surging hard against yours, strangled noise punching out of his throat. Your legs tighten around him, intimate muscles clenching in that way that means hell yes, and the groan from deep in his chest is inevitable as he snaps his hips again. Fuck.

Yeah, okay, he can do this for you. That base instinct in his gut purrs like a feral dragon at the way you can no longer hide your moans, being fucked like this. His new goal now is to build stamina, he’s determined, needs to be able to do you exactly how you want it for hours without stopping. He thinks he might be moaning too but he can’t hear, so preoccupied with drinking in every clench of your muscles around him, every little pleasured expression on your face, addiction to every part of you wrapped around him like this so intense he feels lightheaded.

He can’t tell if you’re shaking or he is, only knows you’re pulling him in like you aren’t already as close as it is humanly possible to be, like that somehow isn’t enough, like you can meld yourselves into a singular being if you try hard enough. Your fingernails dig hard into his shoulders, your breath stuttering in that way that tells him just what’s coming next, and then you shatter around him.

You become impossibly tighter around him, bearing down with rhythmic spasms luring him deeper inside, as if that’s even possible, like he hasn’t been working himself as deep into you as he can go, purely for selfish reasons. He never wants to leave, would live inside you if he could, and he loves that you get like this with him, loves the way you go soft and pliant when the release begins ebbing, god, he loves—

His release hits him with no warning, no buildup, hard as a bullet train. Fuck. It feels like nothing that’s ever happened to him before, and a stab of panic electrocutes him through the feeling. His ears are ringing, alarm bells tolling danger in his bones, and he feels out of control, completely gone, glass making impact at last and shattering into far-flung pieces, impossible to gather again. It’s all he can do to gasp for breath, clutching at you like handfuls of sand that keep slipping away, hips rocking into you, slow, rhythmic, with a mind of their own.

Your arms slide around his back, warm pressure like an anchor point, and just with that, with your tight embrace and each deep breath you take, you’ve found each piece of him, binding him back together. Only now the essence of you fills in the cracks, the healing balm, each sinew of him now limned with your glow. A moth made of flame.

Soobin tries to take as even breaths as possible, tries to sound calm, rests his face against the chaise next to your face and feels a hot stinging drip from his eyelashes.

He knows what that look in your eyes was earlier, he realizes. The unidentifiable emotion. He knows because it’s clicking for him right now, the knowledge that he feels that way, too.

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[bluesnails]

Reminder to self : You don't have to draw on hard mode....aka making up the pose in your head, if you see a pose you like, and that inspires you, just use that reference....

[lupinsweater]

Teacher!James Potter x Single Mom!Reader 💌 1.3k words

thank you to @moonpascal to beta reading for me!

♡ ~ ♡ ~ ♡ ~ ♡ ~ ♡

You hated running late to things.

It wasn’t your fault this time- Charlie’s sitter had been a few minutes late, and then he had thrown a tantrum about you going to his school without bringing him along. You tried explaining over and over that it was just a boring meeting for grown-ups- no fun, no snacks, and nothing he'd enjoy- but Charlie wasn't having it. Eventually, the sitter lured him away with the promise of cartoons, and you finally slipped out the door, already running five minutes behind. Cursing to yourself as you started your car, you did your best to avoid breaking any traffic laws as you hustled to the school. You made it there in record time, parking your car and running into the building. You weren’t sure what to expect from parent-teacher night, but Charlie has been talking about his teacher, Mr. Potter, non-stop since school started.

You were grateful for the signs as you navigated down the hall and into your son’s classroom. There was a small table outside the door with some empty name tag sticker sheets- one sticker was left, and Charlie’s name was written on it. You grabbed it and stuck it onto the front of your shirt, then nervously smoothed out your shorts, mentally slapping yourself for not putting on something a little nicer. You slipped through the cracked classroom door, trying to avoid drawing attention to yourself.

The other parents were seated at the tiny desks, chatting amongst themselves. At the front of the room, a tall, broad-shouldered man was laughing with a couple of parents. His dark curls were slightly messy, like he’d run his hands through them a few times too many. He wore a light blue shirt, the sleeves casually rolled up to his elbows in a way that showed off his surprisingly muscular arms, and he was gesturing animatedly as he talked. He must be Charlie’s teacher.

“Ah! Mrs. Y/L/N, right?”

The moment you heard his voice, your heart skipped a beat. He was looking right at you, his smile wide and genuine. You weren’t expecting to be called out like this, especially not in front of a room full of people. He made his way over to you, his eyes lighting up as if he was greeting an old friend.

“You must be Charlie’s mom!” he said, his voice full of energy. “I’ve been hoping to meet you.”

For a second, you were thrown off by his friendliness. Most teachers you’d met were polite, sure, but there was something different about him. Something warmer.

“Yeah, that’s me,” you replied, chuckling awkwardly as you offer your hand. “And it’s just Ms, actually. No other parent.”

“Oh, sorry! James Potter,” he said, shaking your hand with a firm but friendly grip. His eyes lingered on yours for just a beat longer than you’d expected. “But you probably already know that from Charlie. I swear, the kids are better at introducing me than I am. They’ve got me pegged already, bad jokes and all.”

You laughed, feeling your shoulders relax a little. “Charlie hasn’t mentioned any bad jokes yet, so I think you’re safe.”

James grinned, flashing a playful look. “Good to know. I’ve got a reputation to protect, after all.” His tone was light and teasing, but there was an easy confidence in the way he talked. “I hope he’s told you at least one good thing about me. I’ve been trying to bribe them with extra recess, so my odds should be good.”

“He’s been pretty complimentary, actually. I don’t think you need the extra recess,” you said with a small smile, putting your hands in your pockets. His eyes followed your movements slightly, but they focused back on your face quickly.

“That’s a relief,” James said softly, smiling at you like you were sharing a secret. “Though, knowing Charlie, I’m sure he’s a tough critic. He’s one of those kids who doesn’t miss a thing.”

“That sounds about right,” you replied, smiling. “He knows me better than I know myself. And he’s always asking questions.”

James grinned. “Same here. He’s a curious one—loves to figure out how everything works. I love that about him. Honestly, kids like Charlie make teaching fun. It keeps me on my toes.” You smiled as he continued. “But listen, if he ever asks me to explain quantum physics, I’m sending him right back to you. That one’s above my pay grade.”

You giggled, shaking your head. “Don’t worry, I’m not even sure I could handle that one.”

“Good to know we’re on the same page.” He winked, and there was something about the way he did it that caught you off guard—like he’s flirting, but in a way that feels easy and unforced. “How are you holding up? I know kindergarten can be a big adjustment for parents, too,” James said suddenly.

You blinked, surprised by the question. You weren’t prepared for him to be asking about your wellbeing too. “I’m managing,” you said with a small smile. “Work’s been busy, so…”

“Tell me about it,” James interrupted seriously, feigning a winded look. “I swear, I’m late to my own classroom half the time. You should see me in the mornings—I’m running around like a headless chicken just trying to beat the bell.”

You laughed again, feeling more comfortable. “Really? I’d peg you as a guy who has it all put together.”

“Ha! If only,” he said, shaking his head with mock exasperation. “Trust me, it’s all smoke and mirrors. But hey, as long as I’ve had my coffee, I’m halfway there.”

The way he talked—so easy and natural—made you forget you were in a room full of other parents, some of whom were probably annoyed by your ongoing conversation. He wasn’t just making small talk; he was making you feel like you belonged there, like you weren’t just Charlie’s mother, but someone worth knowing.

“I get it,” you said with a sympathetic smile. “It’s hard enough being a single mother. I can’t imagine being in charge of that many five year olds, even if it’s only for part of the day.”

“Well, it sounds like you’re doing an amazing job,” James said, his voice softening, and suddenly, you realized how closely he was looking at you. You felt yourself blush as he said, “Charlie’s a special kid, and that’s all you.”

You weren’t used to compliments like that. Especially not from someone who was looking at you the way James was at that moment. “Thanks,” you managed, your voice a little quieter than before. “That means a lot.”

“Of course. And, hey, if you ever need an extra hand—or someone to vent to about the chaos of kindergarten life—you know where to find me,” James said with a lopsided smile. His tone was light, but there was something in his eyes that lingered, something that made you feel like he was genuinely offering more than just a teacher’s support.

You felt a flicker of something unfamiliar—something you hadn’t felt in a long time. Was he… interested? Or were you reading too much into this?

Before you could dwell on it, James clapped his hands together and turned to address the rest of the room. “Alright, folks! Let’s get this show on the road. I promise to keep it short, but if you’ve got any good stories to share, I’m all ears. I’m a sucker for a good tangent.”

The parents chuckled, and you found a seat, still feeling the warmth from your conversation with him. James was everything you had hoped he would be—open, friendly, funny. And the way he looked at you…you couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, something in your life was about to change.

[puppyxprincess]

Training Logs, Entry #2

6/23/24

I’m happy to report that her training has been a continued success.

The subject is eagerly submissive to me, her dedication grows in intensity with every passing day.

Our baseline levels of trust have far exceeded my expectations for her, which I attribute to her sharp judge of character. She has deemed me “safe” and has in turn, handed herself over to me willingly. I’m gaining a strong appreciation for subjects so happy to be trained.

I just concluded a rather impromptu training session, the subject requested I ask her some questions to further my knowledge on hypnosis, utilizing her existing stores of information on the subject. She suggested i drop her, making her incredibly tired and deep in trance before asking these questions, to see if she could recall our conversation in full.

At first I was intimidated, I must be transparent. An impromptu session stripped away my ability to be prepared for anything, to have my goals and path mapped out, my triggers pre-planned, all of it, gone. I almost told her no, I wasn’t feeling up to it, I couldn’t possibly engage in anything successfully. Better to wait than risk damaging progress, damaging her faith in my abilities, is how i reasoned with myself.

But something possessed me. Maybe it was the two drinks i’d just finished, maybe it was my intuition, my unwillingness to let the opportunity slip out of my hands.

I agreed to her request, how could i deny an eager puppy the chance to train?

I set up my equipment and took a deep breath. I began my greetings, already donning that syrupy, lilting tone reserved near exclusively for her, and I hoped inspiration would strike me.

I asked about her favorite inductions, how to decide on one, how to avoid falling into routine and allowing it to become predictable.

She began to explain using some comparison to a math concept I couldn’t really grasp, but I began to understand her point when an idea appeared to me.

Previously, my pet had mentioned to me that the bell jingling on my cat’s collar worked as an “ears perked” sort of effect. Instantly capturing her focus and drawing it to my words.

I removed the cat’s collar and shook gently it a few times near the mic. The puppy immediately lost her words, it was so wonderful to see. I prompted the pet to continue, but only let her get a few words out before i let the bell chime again. She lost her train of thought, immediately becoming focused on the sound of the bell, her thoughts slipping from her mind.

It was hard not to laugh, seeing the composed, intellectual subject immediately reduced to a brainless puppy. The efficacy was truly shocking.

I took the opportunity to wield her focus against her, knowing her predisposition would be to go deeper, to agree with anything i might suggest.

“Do you even remember the point you were trying to make?”

“Can you even answer my questions, pup?” The subject clung to the explanation that she could, but that she was just so focused on me, it was hard to let anything else take precedence.

“Doesn’t it seem like it would be so much nicer to put all that aside and be a Silly Puppy for me instead?”

At this point, her responses consisted only of an eager “mhm!” or two, if she was feeling very excited by the suggestion.

I interspersed the jingling bell over any pauses, increasing her focus on me each time. This began to work so well she stopped being able to respond. At this point, I asked the subject if she’d prefer to remain under and fall asleep, or if I should bring her back up. She requested “Up,” so after a few more moments i began to bring her out of trance.

The subject was still dazed when she began to communicate her amazement at my insecurity, even going as far as to ask if I had been joking, fully aware of my ability to drop her so quickly and effectively.

I laughed, assuring her that the entire session had been unprepared, allowing my ego to swell at the high praise from my far-more-experienced subject.

Over a brief discussion of the session, as my pet spoke to me, I couldn’t resist the urge to use the bell against her again. She slipped back down easily, blindly obedient once more.

After playing with my favorite subject a bit more, I brought her back to herself, and had to force myself to stay quiet. Every time I opened my mouth I pushed her back into that sharp focus and her brain into a state of arousal that rendered her unable to sleep.

One of the last things we talked about before I finally allowed her to rest was how towards the very beginning, when she first lost her train of thought, she found it difficult to grasp what she had been speaking about even once out of trance.

Something of note regarding this pet is that she has often recounted how ineffective memory impacting trances have been for her, likely due to her history of hypervigilance and perceived need to protect herself. Communicating that my spontaneous session may have allowed even a small memory to slip out of her grasp has emboldened me to try again and test my skills with a more overt memory play session with her.

It definitely serves my purposes that she’s so eager to hand over full control to me, not one ounce of doubt or distrust towards me present in her pretty little mind.

My next goal has been set: Make the puppy forget something.

I think it will prove easy enough.

[impishjesters]

Agents of Cat-astrophe

warning(s): none unless you count Jax note(s): This gave me a good chuckle as someone who's consistently dropping more curse words than regular words, I'd imagine the system to just censor anything and everything that comes out of my mouth at that point. A/N: (In response to the requester) I wish I was taking breaks (I mean I am sorta), I'm fully aware I'm running myself ragged right now. But it's hard for me to stop myself... I'm caffeinated and chaotic and I don't wanna stew in my brain for too long. At least I get up and stretch every now and then. Request: Anyways, I’m requesting a Jax x reader (crushing stage) where the reader is sorta at the same level of meanness as Jax and likes to do pranks with him on the other characters. Also the reader’s digital form is a short cat that at first glance makes them look nice/friendly (obviously not an actual cat but yk what I mean), and they have a sailor’s mouth that is unfortunately censored but that doesn’t stop them (can also purr and does so when they’re content which is usually when there chilling in Jax’s room or with Jax in general). I think it would be fun if the reader surprisingly was sorta nicer to Kinger and has a small soft spot for him and does more playful pranks on him than mean/harmful ones.

When you first showed up, you looked so small and frail, like a literal little kitten completely out of place in this big colourful nightmare world

Ragatha thought you’d be like Pomni, and boy howdy was she wrong

You just ended up being another Jax—who you later met and found out was also an agent of chaos

Similarly to Pomni you cursed up a storm when you first arrived and the endless censorship that came with it

You have a knack for testing Caine’s patience when it comes to your sailor’s mouth, much to Jax’s entertainment. It’s not every day Caine loses his cool like that and you’re just a newbie, needless to say, you caught his interest

That sailor’s mouth also gets used towards the other’s and Jax won’t lie and say it’s not funny because shit’s hilarious.

Sure they all curse from time to time, but you just laid out an entire sentence that was completely and utterly censored. Like the system said “fuck this I’m gonna censor the whole damn sentence”

Unlike Jax who doesn’t show any remorse for who he pranks or how cruel they are, you draw the line at messing with Kinger.

Okay, that’s a lie you still mess with him but it’s not like how you mess with the others. Kinger has this sweet unstable dad/grandpa vibe and it kind of makes the place more homey in a weird way. (plus that man has been through enough trauma, give him a break, and talk about his bug collections or some shit)

The upside is that his mind is so scattered sometimes that using the same pranks on him always results in something hilarious. So you really don’t need to try for any new material. (he also really needs to consider actually using the lock on his door, he makes it too easy)

Jax considered you his little partner in crime the more time passed—not exactly a friend nah, but like a good ol pal that also likes to partake in joining him and his bullshittery

The first time he hears you purring is when the two of you are lazing about in his room, he’d gotten distracted collecting things for a prank on someone and heard the loudest rumbling coming from behind him

“Are you fucking purring?”

It’s a little embarrassing at first, you’ve uh, never done that before..

Jax has the biggest shit-eating grin, if he wasn’t using dumb cat-themed nicknames before he sure as hell is now

“Oh, like you don’t stomp your feet like a petulant child you overgrown rabbit.”

He does not stomp his fuckin feet like a temperamental rabbit, thank you very much (that’s a fuckin lie if I ever heard one)

Jax already had mixed feelings about you before, nothing particularly bad, just feelings he couldn’t place…that was until the prank…

He doesn’t know how you did it, or how he got so wrapped up in it. But you pranked him, and you pranked him good.

Oh, oh okay that feeling is new… butterflies don’t typically belong inside your gut, now whether Jax has ever experienced a crush before or not is probably beyond him. But these little butterflies are a bitch and it takes awhile of placing two and two together to realize he’s… caught feelings to some degree

You, however, probably had a crush on him for a while, perhaps really noticing it after the whole purring fiasco when you learned that it only happened around Jax

[bloodyodyssey]

(Repost) Comms still up with 8 slots, 3 for busts, 3 for half body, and 2 for full body! Each listing also allows for up to one extra character to be added on at half price!

***If you don't want to commission me that's also fine i'd apreciate just a regular kofi dono or just sharing this around bc my finances are low, I've been averaging on $20 a month and struggling to pay hospital bills from earlier this year. i will also be considering opening a google doc or some other order form to allow payments via cashapp if there's any interest. Anyways heres a general breakdown of the pricing system and my will's/wont's under the cut:

So how do I (you, the buyer) choose what I want?

SO when you open up the request form it should look something like this!

We're using the bust order as our example here. At its base price, $15, it is set for the black and white option. If this is what you would like, then you don't have to worry about the add ons at all and you go straight to submitting your request! Now, if you're choosing add ons, it'll look something like these:

The first would be an example of an order of a flat color bust + an extra character bust with flat coloring as well. The color option adds the extra $10 (to match the listed price on the poster for $25), and the extra character with flat coloring adds half of that $25 to the order (well a little less bc i knocked off the .50 cents) which is why it comes out to $37.

The second would be an example of a black and white bust order with an added black and white bust character. This just adds an extra $7 to the price totaling $22.

What will you (the artist, me Brutus) draw?

If you want me to draw your oc or fanart of your favorite character I GOT U!!!

I'm also comfortable drawing blood and gore though I'll have to keep it on the lighter side (I enjoy blood if it isnt obvious by my url though so depending on what you want we might be able to go a little further with that).

I can do characters with armor as well, however I will require a reference of some sort from you, the client, as I'm frankly not going to attempt armor off the dome. I won't design armor myself either.

Pinups (not full nsfw due to how much of a struggle it is to navigate different site policies) and other suggestive works are also a-ok! a tity does not bother me if that wasn't made clear by my commission card 👍🏽

What will you (the artist, me Brutus) NOT draw?

Im not comfortable trying to draw real people as of right now sorry! I'm just not really a caricature or realistic portrait artist but this may change in the future.

I also won't do furry/anthro just because that isn't my forte as I haven't practiced drawing animalistic characters. There r plenty of talented furry artists for you to choose from and I could talk to someone to guide you to a few .

(I CAN do more humanoid fantasy characters however. like mermaids, satyrs, etc)

More extreme gore and body horror is also off the table. (so like spilling guts stuff like that)

I may love mecha but as it is like armor and a bit more extreme, I'm not drawing it sorry. And also as stated above I'm not drawing armor regardless without a good reference.

Certain fandoms are a no-go for me due to my own comfort. A quick list would be: mogeko games, omori, south park, hetalia, attack on titan, mcyt, hazbin hotel/helluva boss. if you're not sure just ask!

I reserve the right to decline any comission request for any reason. Getting paid is nice but my comfort is nicer yknow.

And that should cover everything! If you still need to ask me anything, my messages are open. Thank you so much for reading and a little extra thank you if you decide to commission me ❤️

[sillygirlactivities]

Let Me Be Your Girl

Summary: You decided you weren't a little girl anymore. Pairing: DBF Leon Kennedy x Younger Fem Reader (y/n) Tags: older Leon (mid 30s), reader is 20, IM SORRY I DIDN'T WANNA USE Y/N IT JUST HAPPENED, f masturbation, p in v

A/N: first (official) fic! Feedback is appreciated !! Please enjoy! ₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊ (he has a slight accent DONT CARE IF ITS NOT CANON IDFC)

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I loved wearing short skirts, tight tops, little bows in my hair.

I loved parading myself around knowing I had everyones eyes on me.

But boys my age would never be what I wanted, I always wanted something older. More bitter. Like how I always would take whiskey over cheap beer. Sweet wine over a shot. Just like how I wanted him from the start. Leon has always been close to my dad. Whenever my dad was on missions, Leon was there to watch me. Held me over my first breakup, gave me my first glass of whiskey. I mean what about him was there not to love? "You'll find older is always better hunny." He told me after pouring me a glass. Leon always wanted me to be safe. Drinking with him than at some stupid party with drunk boys. "Teenage boys don't know how to treat someone like you yet baby." He said to me that night. That's when it started, my little teenage crush on Leon. Whenever he came over my shorts got shorter, my tops tighter. I always did my hair up for him, my makeup a little nicer than usual. I started to wear the bows in my hair for him when he said drunkly to me, "You should wear these more often. Make you look pretty." he said stumbling all over his words, mindlessly moving my hair out of my face. I tried making my crush on him obvious, brushing my hand along his, bending over to pick stuff up, listening to him talk about his hard day at work. Batting my lashes at him, practically giving him fuck me eyes. Never did he ever do anything back. Moved away from my advances even. Now I'm 20, still having him babysit me like some stupid teenager. I'm not some stupid kid anymore who can't take care of herself. I pull my tits into my lacy cami top, braiding my hair putting little bows at the end, just like he said he liked. My pj shorts rested low on my hips, barely doing anything to cover up the pink lacy underwear underneath.

Tonight I was going to prove to Leon I wasn't some dumb kid he needed to protect and watch over, but rather a girl who could love. A girl he could fuck. No more restless nights in my bed, fucking into my own hand thinking of him, I needed him. Just once. To ruin every other man for me, just like he said. "Older always better."

I hear the door open downstair, "Hey baby, your daddy said I had to watch you tonight." I hear him yell from downstairs. I skip down the stairs checking myself in the mirror before going into the kitchen. I smile big before jumping into his arms. "Leon!!" I can hear him chuckle as he holds me back. His hands resting on my lower back, never any lower. I lean my head back to look up at him, "Don't you think I'm a little old for a babysitter?" Leon tilts his head at me, "No but I also rather not lose my job because I told your dad off." I roll my eyes at him, "Daddy likes you to much, he'd never do that." Leon walks around the kitchen, in what I'm assuming is making us dinner. So I perch myself up on the counter, trying to position myself in a way that would draw his attention to me. I hear him sigh, "Yeah, I guess I am a favorite of his ain't I?" He puts the pan on the stove next to me, and he leans over me. I lean into him more, "Yeah, and I think he knows I'd be mad if I didn't see you around again." I say smiling, bringing my face closer to his. Leon immediately backs up. I pout a bit, going to get off the counter before, "You need to stop that." He says gruffly from his spot on the other side of the kitchen. I tilt my head, walking towards him. "Stop doing what Leon?" He turns and stops me in my tracks, my face almost colliding with his chest. "Parading yourself around for me, I'm not stupid y/n." I look up at him, giving him the best fuck me eyes I can give. "Than give me what I want Leon." I put my hand out onto his chest, "I've only been asking for years now. Just one time is all I'm asking for." He grabs my wrist and leans into my face, "Baby, one time would ruin you. Would risk me my entire job. What if your daddy found out huh? I think he'd kill me." I tilt my head, pouting out my lip a bit, "He doesn't have to find out, you're a government agent, I know you can keep a secret."

The grip he had on my wrist got a little tighter, and he gave me a harsh look, like he was trying to figure out what he was going to do to me. That look, the grip he had on me, made me wet. I step closer into him, "Leon, please?" He dropped my wrist, "Go to your room." He turned away from me, going back to cooking. "Your sending me to my room?" I stop my foot on the tile. "I am not a fucking child Leon!" He swiftly turns, "Your sure actin like it!" I sniffle and climb up the stairs back to my room. I slam my door before letting out another little sob. I was not a little kid anymore. I lay in my bed, cuddling my pillow. I sniffle again drying whatever tears were last till I had another idea. Why be sad when I can make myself feel better? I reach into my bedside table grabbing my pink vibrator, before removing my pj pants.

I sit up on my knees, before turning it on and placing it on my clit. I moan, loudly at the feeling. If I wasn't going to get the attention from him, I'll give it to myself. I spread myself out onto my bed, ass up, starting to grind into it. "Y/N! Dinner is ready!" I moan, turning it on to the higher setting, ignoring Leon. I hear him start to climb up the steps before swinging my door open. I don't stop. I open my legs wider, exposing my wet cunt to him. I keep chasing my high before I feel a pair of hands grab me and flip me over. He grabs the vibartor out of my hands, and throws it across the room. "What the fuck do you think you're doing." I tilt my head, "Pleasing myself cus you wouldn't man up and do it for me."

Leon grabs my hips harder, digging his hands into my hips. "You're real stupid to think this would work on me." I get my foot in-between us, pushing on his lower stomach. "Well something down there is say something else, hun." Leon grabs me again, pushing my leg out of the way, putting me flush onto his hard on. He leans down, putting his face right in mine, "Well, Hun, me ever fucking you, is not an option. I could lose my job, your dad's friendship. It doesn't matter how badly I want you or your tight ass cunt." His grip on my hips feels bruising now, causing me to lock my legs around him.

"Leon nobody has to know, please. I can't explain to you how much I need you. " I plead to him. "I know, you think I can't hear you up here? Walls are pretty thin here baby, and do you know how hard it is to not come up here and treat you the way you're begging?" He seethes out of his mouth. "Trust me I've had blue balls for months Y/n."

I let out a shakey breath, "Nobody, Leon, has to know." I bring my hand up to cup his cheek, "I can keep a secret and my dad would never know any better. Please." I beg. Guess my pleading worked because next thing I know his mouth was on mine. Hot, feverish, sloppy, kisses. In a mess on tongue and teeth clashing, panting into each others mouth. He moves down to my neck, leaving hickeys on my collarbone, "Gotta stop wearing those stupid tiny little camis, drive me fucking wild baby. I know every other boy is staring at your pretty little tits too, but they'll never see em' will they baby?" He continues his assault on my chest, "No, nuh-uh." I drunkly mumble out.

I can hear him chuckle as he moves his hands under my shirt, "We haven't got to the good part and you're already drunk on me, ain't that cute." I whine at his words, "Leon~". I tilt my head back, trying to grind myself into him, (very unsuccessfully). He finally pulls my shirt off of me, before running his hands back down to my thighs. "Just because I think you've been left so high and dry for so long, I'll give into you but next time you're gonna have to work for it, k baby?" I frantically nod my head, desperate for him to touch me, "Yes Sir." I watch him smirk above me as he starts to play with my clit. "I like that." He says to me, before he slips in one of his large sized fingers, causing my to moan. "Fuck aren't you wet, I really get you going huh hun." I can sense the shit eating grin he has on his face, but my eyes are rolled so far into the back of my head I could give a fuck less. He continues to finger me open, before I start to come undo around his fingers. "We aren't done yet baby, still haven't had my turn." He flips me over and pulls me to the edge of the bed, lifting my ass up to meet his hips. He puts the tip to my entrance, circling and tapping on it just to get a reaction out of me. It worked, I was squirming and moaning beneath him. "Leon, fuck, please just fuck me already." I cry into my sheets. I feel him push into me, causing me to gasp at how wide I was being spread open. "You said you wanted it." He says from behind me. And he took advantage of it. The grip he had on my hips would leave bruises in the morning as he pounded his cock into me. Leaving me a drooling, moaning mess, gripping onto my sheets. He moves one hand under my chin, bringing me up to him, "You can't even say how good you feel I'm fucking you so good, huh baby?" He chuckles as nothing but a broken moan escapes me as I paw at the hand on my chin. He spits into my mouth before pushing me back into my sheets. Keeping one hand on my head, pushing me down and the other still bruisingly gripping my hip. He starts to pound into me faster, "Come on baby, I'm close, I know you close. Can feel your little pussy squeezing me." I can hear his low groans as he pounds into me faster. I let out a loud, broken moan as I feel myself cum around his cock. He pulls out just in time, coming all over my ass as I twitch and squirm underneath him. He moves a piece of my bangs out of my face, leaning over me. "You alright baby?" I nod, contently (after having the best fuck of my life) before he smiles, "Well let's get you cleaned up then and we can have dinner. I made your favorite." And he did, he showered you, helped you change your clothes, he even let you pick out the movies you guys watched as y'all ate. You cuddled up into his chest after, him running his fingers through your hair, both contently holding each other, falling asleep on the couch.

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A/N: AAAAAA I hope yall enjoyed!! much love if you read this far !! <33 :3

[squarebracketsmileyface]

Toxic jaylex incoming 💀

I've been on a drawing kick recently, so had no motivation to write. but i finished a 27 hour drawing yesterday so i needed a change, so If It Ain't Broken is being written while listening to Mika songs. Honestly theres a couple songs my him that actually really fit with Sorry It's Locked. Like, good wife? Ring Ring? Happy Ending? they feel pretty S,IL to me (ignoring how funky and fun and upbeat they are, but the lyrics work pretty well)

Anyway, my boyfriend says Jay's a cunt and that he needs to get slapped slapped for this which, yeah, yeah he does. That man's gonna end up beaten black and blue 💀

Alex: tries to be nice and check in because Jay's been acting off nearly the entire time he's been here

Jay: no fuck you I'm gonna throw this awful thing i did to you in your face to make you angry so you stop trying to make sure im comfortable, because you being nice makes me more uncomfortable, even though i keep complaining to myself about how i wish youd be nicer to me

god they're such a fucking mess i hate them

[kimeepki]

So Sunday I watched the MHA episode with Ochaco and Himiko and, let me tell you, I’ve been in my feels ever since. It’s weird because I already knew Himiko’s backstory and never paid much mind to it before I saw the fight animated. Maybe I was already triggered by a conversation I had with my cousin the previous day, but the scene made me reflect on my own life experiences. Especially childhood experiences.

I grew up kinda shunned by my peers (and at times, my family) because I was a bit intense, I guess. A lot of people didn’t like me and I was often told to be nicer and quieter about how I was feeling. It felt like no one understood me. It was like I spoke a different language or something because everything I did was misconstrued. I was called mean, b*tchy, bossy, selfish, etc. I was a kid, mind you, sometimes being called this by adults. I couldn’t be myself. So I got really depressed and quietly hateful of people.

I’d like to say I’m better now, but this sorta thing continued to happen even into adulthood. I found a group of friends at work that I thought I could finally be myself around. But I screwed it all up by being too emotional and too intense again. There was a lot of unnecessary drama and a lot of people ended up not liking me. I still have a few of those friends, but I hold them at a bit of a distance now. I mask a lot and try to keep my head down, for fear of being misunderstood again. There are people who want to get to know me, and I feel like I can’t let them in.

Anyway, all that is to say I related to Himiko and how she was basically told to suppress herself and was shunned by society instead of helped. That might be cringey of me lol. But I drew her to kinda get some of that feeling off my chest. I might draw her again, her smile really was fun to draw. Sorry for the long post, but thanks if you read it!

[donnerpartyofone]

This morning I went over to the church to see my favorite guy, who is so often surprising and challenging. He seemed a little out of sorts today, stammering and losing his place; I sometimes worry about this old guy, and I was paying attention. Then at the end of the mass he said that they're having air quality problems in the rectory and the EPA is involved. I hope he's not getting brain damage!

It was sort of funny, though, because the homily was about having trouble focusing--not being able to concentrate, and having anxiety about the future. That was pretty relevant to me, medically and otherwise. I'm writing this on the morning of the new moon, just to be extra flaky, about how much trouble I have forming goals.

Pursuing goals is also hard, but step one should be having a vision, and that's the really impossible part. When I was a little kid I had two ambitions: to be a writer, and to be dead. The latter thing represents one of the main motivating forces in my life, which is pain avoidance. I think this is the chief motivator of many people without them even realizing it; comfort-seeking itself can be a form of pain avoidance. Pain avoidance is not a legitimate goal, it's more of a reflex, and it can become a preoccupying distraction from any kind of actual ambition (especially as fulfilling ambitions often involves some amount of discomfort). Focusing on what you do not want is not equivalent to focusing on what you do want.

I never had a very good idea of what I want. I found this out when I went into therapy as an adult; I couldn't formulate any notion of what I wanted out of life. I couldn't even come up with any masturbatory, pie in the sky fantasies. I might vaguely be able to say something like "a bigger, nicer apartment", but I can't come up with any compelling ideas about what that would even look like. I try, but I know I'm faking it. Certainly part of my interest in religion and occultism is the idea that I could train myself to really clearly conceptualize any kind of goals or desires. In the case of occultism specifically (and, let's be honest, many forms of self-help), visualization is always a key element. In recent years I learned that I am abnormally incapable of forming mental images, and I have come to believe that this is intimately connected to my inability to figure out what I want or how to get it.

Nearly all of my thinking is verbal. I found out what aphantasia was while talking to my dad, who is extremely visual with an excellent grasp of spacial relations (something I have almost no concept of). He was shocked when I said I can't really picture anything, asking me "Then how do you do anything?" He said when he decides to make a sandwich, for instance, he automatically sees himself performing the actions of sandwich-making, and sees the aspirational sandwich in his mind's eye. Visualizing is essential to his entire executive process. It so happens that I am aphantasic and I have a lot of executive dysfunction. I no longer think this is coincidental.

(I'm also very faceblind, and I think this is connected; something to do with the ability to reconstitute a visual memory and relate it to something that is presently in front of me. But anyway...)

Perhaps oddly, I am an artist, or at least I have been. But I've never been able to draw from my imagination, like at all. The best work I've ever done is all swipes; I am a great believer in swipes, it can reveal a lot about your personal style and obsessions and when you re-draw someone else's art. But I can't just sit and think up something fun to draw, even when I try to just doodle I'm usually responding more to the lines I see emerging on the paper than anything I'm thinking or feeling. I think this is related to the fact that I'm an obsessive scopophile; I take in a lot of detail from my environment, and I watch movies with the same attitude and frequency with which most people listen to music. Recently I started to joke that I have an image deficiency and that's why I have to consume huge amounts of visual media, I need the external infusion. But like, it's not that much of a joke, maybe.

In my 30s I randomly developed this condition where scar tissue grows over your corneas, and I had to have a series of freaky eye surgeries. My doctors always asked if I grew up somewhere warm and sunny and windy, if I do a lot of outdoor sports (sometimes this condition is called "surfer's eye"); I thought this was pretty funny since I couldn't be more of an indoor kid, although maybe cycling is somewhat at fault. Still, my preferred diagnosis is that I watch so much trashy and violent crap that it literally scars my eyes. It's as good an explanation as any! And it does have this weird synergy with my other visual problems.

Anyway, it's not as if I've done absolutely nothing with my life. Quite a few personal achievements piled up in just the last couple of years; certainly I've benefited a lot from luck and the good will of others, but nothing would have happened without my own creativity and commitment. I just wish I had more, you know. Vision. I spend too much of my life "taking one day at a time" and waiting for things to happen to me, assuming I don't have much control over my experiences. I'd rather be able to imagine something that I want to happen and act on it; regardless of whether the thing is going to happen, I'd like to be able to formulate a goal other than paying the rent, or like, not waking up and going to sleep in a state of stark terror. I'm not sure how to get myself to that place, but maybe saying that that's what I want can count for something.

Anyway here are some photos of the thoughtfully planted shrubbery from the church. I missed the full bloom of the weeping cherries, but as soon as they die off the shrubs below turn bright red, pink, yellow, and white. It's pretty inviting I must say.

[starleska]

*pokes head in* hey guys!! did i miss much? i missed you 🫂💖

bit of a ramble/venty-type post under the cut:

my apologies for being away for a bit. i had a pretty major trauma anniversary clashing with some painful interpersonal stuff, and i realised being online all of the time was really sapping my mental health. i spent a few days disconnected from social media, and it helped tremendously. then i decided to try an experiment: what if i logged on to my usual socials each day, and scrolled until i came across something saddening, angry, or discourse-heavy...and then logged out, not to use it for the rest of the day?

i did exactly that, and was astonished. every day, it was within ten minutes. the first day, it was within 2 minutes. the second, it was within 7. the third, it was within 5. this has really caused me to re-evaluate my relationship with social media and fanworks creation. i was in the middle of an extraordinarily painful, ridiculous dispute that just wouldn't happen in real life, all while creating at an impossible speed and burning myself down to the wick everyday, convincing myself that it was fun and i was enjoying myself. now i've had time to be free of those self-imposed responsibilities and disconnected from algorithms engineering me to be sad and angry. disconnected from awful, painful imagery and discussions every second of the day...and it works!!! my mind feels so much freer. i've been writing, and drawing, and reading, and meeting with friends. life's been moving forward in a good way. it's been interesting, not having the weight of social fandom begging me to Make Stuff. i'm still very sad about recent events, but i think it was a wake-up call that i just. need to step away more often. be more present irl. take better care of myself physically and mentally, including walking away from situations which aren't good for me. and if you're feeling that kind of hair-trigger anxiety where you're exhausted, burnt-out and always doomscrolling...maybe try giving what i've done a shot. the first 24 hours really are like a withdrawal, but you feel so much better afterwards 💖 but yeah - i'm glad to be back, although i'm going to try to be less active. Twitter was the main offender - i've always found Tumblr to be a much nicer, more curated space where i'm less likely to be exposed to triggering material, but this shouldn't be my life. the thing i missed most was chatting with you guys, and seeing your lovely, silly posts and art. i don't want to be connected 24/7 anymore, but i do want more moments like that 🫂

[jarvis-cockhead]

Sorry actually its been long enough now I need you all to see the shit that made me have a breakdown earlier this month because it's so. Twitter furry drama is so insular and chronically online and america centric it drives me nuts. never ever draw supermarkets as furries guys its not worth it bc holy fuck

FOR THE MOST PART people were enjoying this esp british people but i genuinely lost mutuals & had people attack me for 'bootlicking corporations' and giving 'free advertising' for uh checks notes. drawing all the major british supermarkets as furries. Half the people didnt even know they were british supermarkets. so many people kept asking me to draw american supermarkets. NONE of the people like the person above were british or had any real sense of our comedy culture and how much we clown on this kind of thing anyway. it was possibly a poor choice of timing of me to coincide this with the drama around people drawing the target dog as a furry (because its...... supporting the company and free advertising, apparently.) anyway. british people on my tumblr im sure u understand how nuts this is. 'free advertising for some shitty company' im sorry ig ill just not shop anywhere for my food then lest i support a big evil company 🤷‍♂️ no food for me 😊 jesus christ. i cant think of a single person whod be swayed to shop at a different supermarket because some random on the internet gave it a slightly better fursona. except maybe m&s given how viscerally down bad everyone was for her.

god forbid british people joke about they supermarkets and the stereotypes surrounding them.. it was complete satire anyway in reference to all those anthro/personifications people used to do of products/companies, this isnt even my normal style!! oh but if you try to explain yourself it apparently makes it 1000x worse and makes people feel entitled to openly and directly attack you. the random ass hollow but disgusting rape and death threat i got in dms was nicer than the way people on twitter treat someone if their posts blows up. 0 compassion or thought that the person at the other end did not expect nor want this to happen.

+ the posts stats so u can see what i was up against 🧍‍♂️ (I locked my acc for a few days and turned off replies otherwise it would've kept going for sure) jeeesus christ

i cant even bring myself to keep reblogs on here for fear of this spreading further than this account 🧍‍♂️ LMAO

[the-martyrfication-of-the-matron]

Hi! I have a question about your art- how did you get comfortable in drawing/art and sharing it? I've been drawing for forever and have since decided to study fine + visual arts in college. I'm a little insecure in my art as of late... Any thoughts are appreciated! Thanks so much!

I keep making really long posts for this haha, i'll try to keep this brief

Positivity - Talking nicely about your art does weird wonders. it won't make you entirely secure in it, and it won't work straight away, but the nicer you talk about it, the nicer you'll think about it. Every time you draw something, even if you think it sucks, just go 'look what i did :D' either way. It's important to be nice to yourself.

Redraw - Find your old art and redraw it. It'll give you a good point of comparison for improvement, and show you the good parts of your art. It's also a good way to make yourself less insecure about old drawings you don't like too much, because if you redraw it, then you have a better version right there! Consider all your bad art a future redraw.

Variety - I mostly do digital fanart, but i think it's important to do variety, not even just for skill purposes, but just to remind yourself of what you're good at. So, whatever you usually do, put that aside for the day and find another medium, or technique, or subject matter to depict. I occasionally find myself drawing still life and landscapes in graphite, and i am actually more proud of those drawings than my usual art haha. So maybe you'll find a skill you're good at to be proud of (even if it's not particularly your favourite)

Sharing - Show your friends your art. Do it, if you don't already. Show your classmates, your teacher, do it somewhere public, or just whip it out of your bag somewhere random just to show it off. It can be daunting, b u t, most people are very appreciative of art, even if it's not great, and showing it to people irl will help you feel a lot more comfortable about posting it online.

i'm not great at advice. and honestly i'm only comfortable about sharing my art because i have a huge ego. but... i am happy to help :) if you ever need anything, feel free to ask

[celandeline]

Summer of Like // Farleigh Start x OC (3)

It takes me a few days to be able to find my way around Saltburn without Venetia’s help. The room I’m staying in - across the hall from Venetia’s - is tucked away in the eastern wing of the house, which makes it easy to get to the dining room and the kitchen, but hard to get to the library (which I don’t know why it’s called a library when it’s very obviously a living room). In a house as lavish as Saltburn, you’d think there’d be plenty of landmarks to guide me, but all of the portraits look the same when they’re not my relatives. 

Still, by the third day, I manage to make it down to the library after changing out of my bikini without getting lost. 

Venetia is lounging on the couch when I come down the hall, and I plop down beside her, letting my head fall nicely onto her shoulder. “Hey.” The scent of vanilla wafts over me, and I find my eyes drifting to the necklace that hangs on her collarbones. “You’re more done up that usual - should I go back upstairs and put something nicer on?”

She gives me the up-and-down that totally means I should go back upstairs and put something nicer on. “No, that’s cute. It’s not like anything - Felix and Farleigh are supposed to get in today, is all.”

“Ah, yes Felix.” I say. The brother that I’ve heard so much about, but not yet met. I feel like I know him just about as well as Venetia does, just from how much she talks about him. If she hadn’t told me that he was her brother, I’d think he was her long distance boyfriend. “I can’t wait to put a face to all the stories I’ve heard.”

“Farleigh will be so excited that he’s got another American to talk to.” She says. 

“Yes, you’ve been saying.” I say, making myself more comfortable against her side. It sort of feels like she’s already trying to pawn me off on her cousin so that she can spend more time with her brother, but I shouldn’t take it personally - she’s just missed him, I think. And after being surrounded by pretentious Brits at Cambridge for a year, having another American to talk to does sound pretty refreshing. 

She rests her head on top of mine. “You have to promise me something, Evie.”

“Yeah, of course.” I say.

“You can’t fall in love with Felix.”

The seriousness that she says it in almost makes me laugh. “V, I’m not going to fall in love with your brother. You’ve told me stories about how he used to piss his pants on purpose to have to come home from elementary school.”

“Primary.” Venetia corrects, and I can feel her cheek move against the top of my head as she grins. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I? You can’t tell him I told you that.”

“Cross my heart.” I say. “And cross my heart that I’m not going to fall in love with him either?”

“Promise?”

I don’t get a chance to answer before the sound of the massive front doors creaking open filters through the room, and Venetia shoots up from her seat beside me, brushing her hands down her front before heading out of the library. Not wanting to be left behind alone in the library, I quickly follow along. 

Ahead of me, Venetia moves through the house with ease, breezing down the hall towards the massive foyer, blonde hair fluttering out behind her from her own breeze. I keep up a few steps behind her, and try to calm my nerves. I’ve already met her parents - so why am I nervous about meeting her brother? Just because Venetia thinks so highly of him doesn’t mean that I will, but after hearing all the stories, it’s a little infectious, her reverence of him.

As we round the bend into the foyer proper, Venetia squeals, rushing forward towards a very tall boy who I can assume is Felix. He grins wide when he sees her coming, and scoops her up into a hug when they crash together. He looks like her in the way that all siblings look like each other - and it makes me think that maybe beauty just runs in the family. I can see why Venetia was worried about me falling in love with him. 

“Hi.”

Another voice to the right draws my attention away from Venetia and her brother. Another boy, just as tall as Felix, stands a few feet away, a halo of curls around his head and a wry smile on his face. Everything about him exudes confidence, down to the little smudge of glitter sticking out of the collar of his tee shirt, like he simply hasn’t bothered to wipe away last night’s partying. 

By process of elimination, I can assume this is Farleigh. 

“Hi.” I return, shooting him a smile back. 

It’s as if my voice jolts Venetia back to reality. “Oh- Felix, Farleigh, this is my friend Evie, from school. She’s staying the summer with us-” She steps back from her brother. “Where’s yours, Fi?”

“Oh, Ollie?” Felix asks. “Yeah, he’ll be down in a few days, poor lad got stuck with the last round of exams so he’s still at Oxford.”

“Poor lad.” Farleigh repeats, exaggerating his pout. 

Venetia grins. “You don’t like him, Far?”

Farleigh returns her smile, and leans forward to flick her on the tip of the nose. “Not in the slightest.” When he rights himself, his gaze turns to me. “Venetia says you’re American.”

“I am.” I say.

“Where from?” He asks. 

“New York.” I say.

He cocks his head, and grins. “Brooklyn?”

I can’t help but smile back. “Is it that bad?” I laugh. “What about you, where are you from?”

“Rhode Island. Bristol.” He says. “But I lived in Manhattan for a little while with my dad.” 

My attention is stolen when Felix sticks his hand out to shake. I grin as I take his hand, and he returns the gesture. “Lovely to meet you Evie. It’s so exciting that Venetia’s brought a friend for the summer - I’m always worried she gets sick of all the testosterone by the end of holiday.”

“I was starting to think you didn’t have any friends, V.” Farleigh adds, his eyes flicking over to Venetia. 

“Shove off, Farleigh - when was the last time you brought someone back for the summer?” Venetia says, taking her brother by the hand and starting back towards the library. Farleigh and I follow along in their wake, Farleigh’s nose wrinkling up as he frowns. “You know Mum and Dad would let you if you asked.” She says. 

Farleigh just rolls his eyes. 

“Where are Mum and Dad anyway?” Felix asks, tilting his head like they might be hiding in one of the rooms we pass. 

“Mum went off with Pamela to town, one of the boutiques, I think, and Dad should be around here somewhere.” Venetia says. “Probably got lost in a book. Anyway- you’ve got to catch me up, it’s been months since Christmas, tell me everything!”

Farleigh rolls his eyes again, but this time it’s playful, and he looks at me pointedly, like I’m in on the joke. And in a way - I am. I know exactly what he’s thinking. I’m beginning to see it myself now that Felix and Venetia are in the same room, and I smile back, sympathetic.

< previous part | next part >

[ellraiser]

Mudborne - Devlog #02

Hey everyone! Been awhile since I opened up Tumblr to write something - I've been trying not to add the pressure to make myself post every single month, as half the time I don't have much to say and the other half making it something I HAVE to do prevents it from being something I WANT to do But it's been a little while of working on Mudborne stuff in between all the final APICO update stuff, and I wanted to share where I've got to so far with your new fav frog game

Back To The Drawing Board

So if you haven't already seen, one of the main things I'm doing with Mudborne is updating the style and the art. The gamejam version was made in a week, and a lot of that was shameless art rips of APICO with some reskins - which was still cute but after working in the APICO "style" for nearly 5 years now I wanted something different. For that I'd already played with a few ideas:

The game is set in a pond, so I wanted it to be mostly water. This meant thinking about what the landmass or even buildings would be like - I've always found the land style I did for APICO really weird as it's severe top-down but all the sprites are like sortof side view? So I wanted to work with that in mind and have the land match that perspective more. I also really liked the idea of the stone slabs as the land instead of dirt, as it had a nicer overall vibe and helped the mud stand out from the "dirt" of the early ideas. I also wanted to have lots of plants and nature stuff that wasn't necessarily interacted with but added to the overall scene. One thing I really hated with APICO is it relied on the trees/shrubs for balance of the overall palette, so this time I wanted enough flora scattered across the waters to make it look pretty all the time not just before the player has a killing spree with their axe. What I ended up settling on after a few weeks was this:

As you can see it's mostly water, with some large stone slabs to act as "land" and break it up, and lots of green. I wanted a consistent darker outline for anything you can interact with, which then let me have a lot of "background" flora and scenery.

The stone slabs also felt like a perfect place for buildings - I'd tried an attempt at a few building designs, but overally didn't really like how they fit in with the world

Having the stone slabs as the buildings felt more natural and the little extra details of grates and drains and windows I think helps sell it more as lived in. Also by having a fixed "size" of the blocks in tiles, I could match that for the inside so all the spaces matched up when going in and out (and also means I'd be able to show "hidden" rooms while inside that give you a clue to how to get into them)

To finish it off, I worked on the menu designs to see how the UI would fit in - there's some similarities to APICO's basic UI style but I changed the colors a bit and added more space around all the elements. I also wanted some clearer slot stuff, so like mushrooms and their powder/magic mud to have a small icon for the mushroom, buckets to have a liquid icon - I'd made a few sprites in APICO that were far too similar, so I wanted to avoid that this time round.

I also wanted to keep the main UI as minimal as possible, just some indicators, a current quest log, and then the tooltips if hovering something - this means I've got some flexibility later to add some more stuff. Once I got this coded up I'd tweak a few things, including the design of the titular mud itself, but overall things pretty much match those final concept arts above.

===

Lost In A Dream

With that done I wanted to work on the next main part of the design - the dream world. In the gamejam when you dream you visit the big frog god and they tell you your progress, but what I actually want is a whole dream world that acts as an "opposite" to the waking world.

With APICO I always felt like the gameplay was fun but the NPCs and story and exploration was pretty non-existant. In Mudborne I wanted to expand that, have a similar "maths for fun" genetic puzzle to work on as the core game but then have a much richer world to explore.

With the dream world I could have things change between the worlds - new doors and rooms appearing, broken bridges now fixed, stone lilypads disappearing. By using the big froggy pools the player can switch between the two, and access new areas they couldn't before, along with new frogs or mushrooms or NPCs. This ends up with a sort of APICO x Metroidvania in a way, you find different mushrooms, create new frogs, and based on the frog genetics you can "unlock" these gates to get to new areas - some part of the main story, others optional to learn more about the secrets of the world, but the different frogs will gate your progress and exploration. It also gives me a lot of scope to do fun things with the differences between the two worlds, whether thats trees turning into jellyfish that float around, or NPCs being different and saying/selling different things.

It also has some importance within the story itself so I think it should end up as a nice mix of fun gameplay, cool vibes, and a nice story to tell.

===

Something Old Something New

With the overworld itself I'd done a lot of changes, looking at the gamejam you can see just how much differs, not just colors but the world objects too.

Some of the items I still liked, like the mushroom designs or the basic tools, some I think make for a fun "nod" to APICO, (like the frogspawn being the honeycomb sprite but modified), with the objects themselves though I wanted to try and match that new "perspective" shared by the stone buildings and the trees.

I also wanted to start using some more colors and have things less flat, so it was nice to finally move away from a lot of the stuff I'd drawn for APICO. When it came to the menus though, I still think the rough style of menus worked really well - it's been battle tested and I know what worked and didn't, but the UI has always been pretty solid. The main changes I did was update the spacing between elements to give the slots + UI inside menus more space, and then I wanted to change some of the border/header styles slightly and have the tiny lilypad icon in there too. To start with I just fleshed out a bunch of the machines I had in the gamejam plus a few extra ones (also yes thats a slightly different shade of brown to APICO, you have good eyes!)

I really liked some of the menus have these sort of "mini" interfaces inside that showed a bit more of what is going on in the overworld, so wanted to lean into that a bit with some of the other machines. I also still liked the idea of having some mechanism stuff - for APICO players I appreciate it's lost the charm, but anyone new to Mudborne thats never heard of ol' bee game can still appreciate it!

===

Maths For Fun

As I started implementing the mechanics some of the menus changed a bit - for the current "vertical slice" I'm making for pitches, the main machines I needed were: - Spawner (frog+frog = frogspawn) - Grinder (mushroom = powders) - Cauldron (mud+powders = magic mud) - Nursery (magic mud + frogspawn = tadpole) - Feeder (tadpole + bugs = frogs) - Bed (skip ahead time)

The main differences to the gamejam version is the extra step with mushrooms (so that you don't have to find + pick as many mushrooms as you'll get multiple powders from one), the cauldron accepting up to 3 powders that can be the same or different (so one magic mud can have 3 buffs), and the nursery having multiple layers (so you could do 3 different genetic changes or use a +1 mushroom 3 times for a +3 in one step) The nursery change is the most important here, as being able to do 3 buffs at the same time is important as it's part of the genetic puzzle I'll explain later - but it also removes some grindyness, instead of needing to do 3 cycles for a 4 trait to become a 7 trait using a +1 mushroom, you can do just 1.

The feeder expands the process to include bugs you find to feed the tadpoles - once they grow they'll appear in the overworld as actual frogs again to catch, but this time they might be some new species depending on the genetic modifications you made with the mud. I'm still playing with what the different bugs might do or how which bugs are decided as needed, but I think it gives me a lot of room to play with from a mechanics standpoint. The final "new" machine I needed was the actual teleportation pools - these would have the genetic "lock" that you need to make a frog to match.

The puzzle starts off simple enough, get a frog that matches the 7 traits the pool requires. Putting a frog in the pool starts the little coloured lines to "move" from left to right, stopping if the number the frog has doesn't match whats needed. Once you have a frog with all numbers matching, all the dots can join up, and the pool unlocks to be used to travel between worlds.

"That's easy" I hear you say, and yes! To start with this is easy enough, sure you might need to combine different mushrooms to counter certain modifications you don't want, but you can cycle frogs as much as you want to keep modifying until you get there. However this is me making a game so obviously I need to then show you something that makes you cry - which is when I introduce the concept of ancestors to the genetic locks

Instead of just looking at the traits of the frog, it also looks at the traits of the frog of the previous generation, and maybe even the generation before that! So starting from the first "column" you need to jump to the next one in a single frog cycle, using the right mushrooms to modify the numbers in one leap (ha). 

You then might need to do that again (and again) until you have a frog that has each previous generation matching whats expected. There'll be some tools to help you "predict" this, as well as lots of different mushrooms you'll find as you explore that do different things, +1, -1, *2 AND -1 etc. Planning this out is a nightmare as you can imagine...

Also having 7 traits each with 7 values means a lot of combinations (823543?!?), which means I can "hide" a lot of frogs to be discovered. For example go scroll back up and look at the "finished" concept art without UI for both the waking and dream world - notice that piller on the left? By travelling to the dream you can get the missing numbers that give you a trait "key" you could make to find a new frog.

In this way there can be a bunch of frogs you have to find to progress through the pools to new areas, some frogs you can get through experimenting (what if I do 777777?) and some found through clues in the world. 

===

What Next?

So right now I've planned out all the mechanics and I've been starting to implement them into a prototype of sorts (in my new favourite engine LÖVE) to make sure it all feels fun and has the right vibe, so lots of little bugs/critters roaming around, a cute day/night cycle, weather etc

I'm trying to spend more time on little details and effects in the world, all very small stuff but all adds up without the player realising, reflections or pollen or subtle movement. 

The goal is to then finish that as a vertical slice I can use to pitch to publishers, cos although APICO did well that was a couple years ago now, and outside of this final update I essentially have no releases until Mudborne is done so money is pretty tight :')

While doing that, I'll be continuing on with the game, starting with the first "training" area that will essentially become the demo. My plan is to release the demo later this year showing that first area, while I continue finishing the game to release in 2025 - right now the demo on Steam is still the gamejam version, which while it has some of the vibes it's not the full concept of what I want Mudborne to be, so I'd like to get that updated to really show people what they can have to look forward to.

I have a lot of the full game mapped out now, in terms of the story, areas, npc, general mechanics etc. I'm also literally mapping it out, each area on some graph paper, so will be interesting to see how closely I follow this for the demo + full game, esp. as I've already changed the houses (and is a nice analogue break for my poor eyes)

===

As I mentioned at the start, having to force a devlog every month didn't work great for me, I'd rather do larger devlogs now and again to catch you all up with what I've been doing over a couple of months otherwise it feels like I'm scraping the barrel some months when I've been busy on other stuff. I do share the odd video + sketch in Discord now and again, so if you want to come chat about it I'd love to see you there, but I'm committing to do devlogs when I can so you can keep up with everything <3 ~ Ell

[with-love-from-hell]

Heyy Storm 👉👈

I hope you're doing better again and that you can get some free time to rest too. I've been thinking about writing comfort headcanons for myself for a Mc with hypermobility but I feel like it'd be even nicer if someone else were to write it for me and I thought of you! Of course, there's no pressure and I won't be upset if you say you don't want to or can't for some reason /gen

My idea was writing smth about how they would try to help/take care of Mc when they get hurt because of their hypermobility, especially Beel and Barbatos for obvious reasons hehe. I do feel like it'd be really soft with Lucifer as well tho, and Simeon!

In case you're not sure about hypermobility, it means (in my case anyway) that I can bend/move my joints more than the average person and my cartilages are softer than usual too. Thus, they are more vulnerable and my joints can get dislocated easier, (I should only use 3/4ths of my strength) and sometimes even just a simple movement turns out wrong somehow and it hurts and click clacks. Especially my knees are a big problem because I struggle walking when they're hurt and they get hurt the most with me, which I do have support bandages(?) for but you'd still see me limping down the street tryna not cry :')

I am in another Lupus flair up, which is why my writing has been scarce, but I'm not flu-ish anymore! I can absolutely take this on, Oji! I'll try my best! (I hope you like it 🥺)

Mc with Hypermobility

Genre: Headcanons, Comfort Characters featured: Barbatos, Beelzebub, Simeon, and Lucifer Wc: ~ 1.9k Written for a Gn!Mc (you/yours) CW: mentions of disability and injury, some mentions of the boys helping you bathe/clean yourself, a little bit of over-protectiveness

Barbatos

First of all, don't expect anything less than utmost one-on-one attention, no matter the circumstances.

Obviously he has to serve Diavolo, but after your relationship solidifies, you are on par with his diligence to serving the future king (if not more important to him)

If he doesn't already know what hypermobility is after you disclose your condition to him, he will research the hell out of it to ensure he knows everything there possibly is to know about your condition and your needs, and will ask pointed questions about how your condition affects you as he feels the need to, to fill gaps in his research.

He knows how fragile humans already are, and he is already very careful and cautious about things that will cause you harm, but he can't predict everything (though sometimes it really seems like he can) and accidents happen.

When you do eventually get hurt for whatever reason, he will drop whatever he's doing to tend to you. It doesn't matter what or when or why or how, but he will make you his #1 priority.

Be prepared to be doted on for a very long time. You wont have to cook, clean, or do really anything on your own unless you are very insistent about it. He will even help you bathe unless you draw a firm line with him about it.

He will do what he can to mitigate any pain, and probably try to talk Solomon into finding a cure for your ailment using magic if he can. Obviously, you wanting said cure after it's discovered is up to you and he won't force it on you, but he doesn't want you to have to live in pain.

He will be more than willing to massage you or give you any sort of help with moving, doing his best to ensure he's well educated on the things he's doing to help. If you insist that it isn't his duty, he will at the very least help you get access to whatever care would be helpful in the human world- no matter the cost. (Also expect him to come with to every damn appointment and critique the PT or OT on what they're doing and how it could be better. lmao)

Beelzebub

Beel is a very active and motivated demon, so sometimes he forgets that his routines for exercising and other interests, as well as just his sheer strength and size, may take a lot out of a human- especially one who has hypermobility.

Despite the occasional air-headedness though, he always checks in to make sure you're okay with what you're doing when your with him, whether it be walking to a restaurant, helping him with his workout, or even just watching a movie and cuddling.

You are one of two most important people in the world to him, so he tries to be careful when he's doing anything with you, but he's not perfect, and neither are you, so sometimes you'll end up overextending or hurting yourself around him.

No matter how many times it happens or how often you reassure him that it's not his fault, Beel will still feel guilty whenever you get hurt- even if it wasn't involving him at all.

Because of the guilt he feels, Beel will often try to make up for it by essentially making it so you dont have to do anything. Like, ever.

I'm talking carrying you anywhere and everywhere, getting anything you need so you don't have to get up, or even feeding you.

Generally, after you're injured, Beel is extra cautious with you and ensures he treats you especially gently. He will also get very protective, and may even growl at one of his brothers if they are being too rowdy near you.

Expect lots of check ins- especially surrounding food. Are you thirsty? Do you want a snack? Are you sure you don't want a second helping at dinner? Oh, did you want this very specific condiment? He'll grab it, don't worry.

Simeon

Simeon is already so gentile by nature, but once he learns of your hypermobility, he somehow becomes even -more- gently with you.

Expect him to constantly hover where you are. Not suffocatingly so, but he's always within earshot, so if you call him he'll be at your side in a second.

He knows how dangerous the Devildom can be for any human, but it can be 10x worse for a human with a condition that makes them vulnerable. He has an inherent need to protect you, so he'll try his best to ensure you are safe from harm.

Unfortunately, he can't prevent -everything-, so there will be times where you do over-extend or get hurt. You've had the condition long enough to where you probably know how to handle it, but Simeon will be a difficult person to convince of this.

At first, before learning more about your condition and your needs, he will bombard you with questions of how he can help you. Once he learns though, the actions become second nature to him (You may have to remind him though that consent is important before he tries to pick you up and carry you somewhere lol)

Generally, he will try to be around you more when you're injured. It may take a lot of convincing for the brothers to let him spend the night, or allow him to bring you to Purgatory hall for a few days, but he probably wont take no for an answer and cart you off anyways, as long as you're willing. The brothers can be rowdy, so he wants to make sure you have a respite wherever you are.

He will dot on you lots, and get you anything you could possibly need- and then some. Often he will convince Luke to bake some extra sweets if you injure yourself, and you will always find him trying to do things to make you smile during times where the pain is really bad- like writing you a poem or doing something to make you laugh

Lucifer

Lucifer was already sort-of protective and helicopter-y over you before he would learn of your condition, but after you talk with him about your hypermobility, its going to be near impossible to get rid of him lol.

He tends to mother you quite a bit, and sometimes it can come off as nagging, but he generally does it because of how anxious he is. It might not be lectures, but just small reminders so you don't injure yourself. Ask when you need something in a difficult to reach place. Stretch frequently when you sit in odd positions. Make sure you don't push yourself too hard.

Lucifer constantly has an eye on you if he can. He will insist on doing any homework, projects, or cleaning in his company, though he cant watch you -all- the time, of course.

When you ultimately do get hurt or over-extend yourself, Lucifer's first instinct is to find out exactly where you're hurting, and do his best to tend to the area. His second instinct, though, will probably be to lecture you- especially if something that caused the injury was preventable with one of his many...many... reminders.

Despite the bit of callousness he may display when lecturing you, he will immediately take on a nurturing role afterwards.

Don't expect to really have to do anything. Often times you'll find he's already done the things that needed to be done. Any homework or projects will magically be finished, any chores or cleaning will be done with no mention of it, and there will always be plenty of your favorite snacks, desserts, and drinks within reach, even before you know you want them.

He will also neglect his own work to spend time with you when you're recovering or in any pain. He will distract you by playing a round of chess, or playing some music for you- either on one of his records or live in the music room. He will either constantly be in your room, or constantly have you in his. He wants to make sure you're as comfortable as possible.

He will also do any personal grooming for you if you allow him. Whether it be bathing, getting dressed, brushing/combing/styling your hair- any of it. He is more than happy to tend to pretty much any of your needs.

He may be a bit dictator-y about your time and activities while and just after you've been injured though. He will scold his brothers when they are too rowdy around you, and try to prevent you from getting involved in any of their activities out of fear that you may get hurt again.

His over-powering attitude toward your care can sometimes be annoying, but it definitely comes from a place of worry for your wellbeing. He hates seeing you hurt or in pain, and wants to prevent it as much as possible.