#being able to give precise grounded details makes such a difference to how real your world feels

[saphirered]

Saph I hope you feel better! I really liked the VM Snow White you just posted, but could you also please do the same prompt but with M9 boys including Molly? If you’re not feeling up to it that’s fine too!

Thank you! The meds are beginning to do their job luckily. I'm glad you liked the last one. I blinked, my hand slipped and now it's here. Prepare for some angst. Hope you enjoy! 😘

(Caleb)

Caleb had always known his past would come to haunt him. He was prepared for it. Prepared to take the hit, take responsibility for everything and he’d face his past be that with or without the people he loves. Part of him, once he got used to having these fools around, having you around, wanted it to be on his own, to protect them and protect you. To not have any more lives lost in the grand scheme. The people he loves becoming collateral would be unacceptable. But you had become collateral in the grand scheme of things.

When it became clear to his enemies he was a bit more attached to you than the others, they took this weakness and exploited it. They pushed his buttons before, using you as a tool, verbal bait even, but he never fell for it. His reluctancy to act on his feelings, to keep them to himself instead, were the very thing he hoped would keep those loose ends from latching onto you. His love is a curse, the objects of his desire always to be torn away from him no matter how hard he tries to prevent it. He’s lost you to that same curse. Not lost. Almost lost.

You’ve been cursed, your conscious mind separated from your unconscious body. Simple healing spells wouldn’t do the trick here. This curse holds no roots in the divine. He’s spent days researching and that much he could confirm. This curse would take an arcane approach. Something he prides himself in to be his specialty. Lucky you. Lucky him. He had the others bring all books, ancient scrolls and other sources of knowledge brought to him, along with a wide variety of components once he’d made a significant dent in the research matter, assuring him this would have the greatest chances of success.

It’s not the soft canopy bed with the plush pillows from the fairytales you’re placed on. Instead you lay on a wooden table, inscribed with all sorts of arcane sigils. Nor do you look like some angelic peaceful being. Your brow is furrowed in discomfort, your hands balled into fists at your sides. Caleb moves a brush against areas of exposed skin, painting symbols to match with precision and care, afraid to even make a single mistake, triple checking every mark. He speaks the incantations while incorporating the components varying from precious gems crushed and whole, herbs and incense. And then he waits. He doesn’t expect the effects to be immediate, often with these magics it is not and he knows that but that doesn’t get rid of the impatience and fear.

“How I long to hear your voice again. I know this will work but that doesn’t ease away the sliver of doubt. What if… What if… That’s what I keep asking myself. I know it’s stupid.” Caleb wipes an hand over his brow as he pulls up a chair and sits at your side, elbows leaning on the table careful to avoid any sigils just in case.

“It also faced me with the harsh reality that I held off telling you how I feel. It looks so stupid now in hindsight because what good did it do anyone. In the end you still ended up paying for my mistakes. I was stupid to push you away, try to convince you your own feelings were unreciprocated. I know I didn’t have you fooled in the slightest but to know I could have loved you, it makes me feel like I am to blame for wasting that opportunity and possibly shortening our time together. The thought of losing you before having given you my love will forever be my greatest regret.”

Caleb watches the muscle of your hand unclench and relax. He hears a deep intake of breath and staring at your face he’s met with your smile, one filled with love as he helps you sit up. All is good once more.

(Fjord)

Fjord’s drenched to the bone, out of breath, anger running through him like he’s never experienced. Still he’s unsure if his anger is directed at the one responsible for your eternal slumber or at himself for making a ballsy move that didn’t pay off in the slightest and in fact backfired in a worse way he could have ever imagined. He played a game of chicken with Uk’otoa and lost. He’d have been fine by letting someone else pay the price for him. Why should he care about some stranger becoming victim to the leviathan? The one who paid the price, became the victim to his actions didn’t end up being a stranger. It had to be you of all people hadn’t it?

Uk’otoa must have been watching his dreams, even his waking actions if that were possible and have seen his infatuation with you. When the leviathan threatened Fjord in another briny dream of his mentioning your name he had called bullshit. The snake had never been able to reach out to anyone it didn’t already have some kind of grasp on. Little did he know Uk’otoa had just that. Just enough of a sliver through him, and the Cloven Crystal to get to you.

So there Fjord sits at your bedside. You’re just as drenched as he is, hair dripping, skin glowing in the candle light of the room reflected off the water particles. Your lips are tinted blue, a redness around your eyes, your skin is cold. The sleep you’re in is a state of perpetual drowning and Fjord knows what it feels like, to drown. He can only hope you’re spared that pain. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to forgive himself if you are tortured like so because of his actions. Clasping your hand between both of his he runs his fingers over your knuckles. He bows his head. It still feels so wrong to not have you respond to his touch. So wrong.

“I want you to know that I am to blame for your fate. I’m about to do a very stupid thing to make it right. I know you’d tell me not to but I can’t sit by and watch you suffer like this. I’ve tried everything. I’ve begged and bargained. I’ve shouted at the skies but I got no reply. Everything comes up empty and I see no other choice than to do this. It might sound stupid but I came to ask for your forgiveness.” Fjord pauses. Usually he would have gotten a reply. He would sell his soul for just having you tell him everything will be alright. It’s a good thing he’s about to sell it for so much more than that. It’s worth it. It’s worth having you alive and well.

“I won’t ask for forgiveness for what I’m about to do because I will never regret it. I ask only you may one day forgive me for what I might become. I need you to know I love you and did, will do all of this out of love. That’s why I hope you’ll never see me again after I give myself to Uk’otoa. I can’t bare to watch that affection in your eyes being replaced by hatred, but most of all disappointment. I hoped to be worthy of your love and I will always regret never having truly experienced it.” Fjord’s voice cracks slightly. He studies your face, as if to ingrain every detail into his memory, as if he thinks he might never see it again.

“I’m afraid. I’m so deadly afraid.” Fjord whimpers pressing a kiss to the back of your hand before he lets go. He checks his supplies, taking out the Cloven Crystal, glaring at the orb intensely cursing the thing to oblivion. Coughs pull him out of his staring match with the crystal. Your body moves, leaning over the edge of the bed vomiting up brine. Fjord drops the orb and his belongings running over to you and helping you gather your bearings until you’re no longer chocking on sea water.

“You better not do what I think you’re planning with that orb or so help me Storm Lord, I will drown you myself.” Fjord can’t do anything but laugh despite the very real threat on his life as you pull him into your embrace.

(Caduceus)

Caduceus isn’t bothered by death. Death is part of life as much as living is. It’s inevitable. Every soul will move on, leaving its vessel for the earth, the fire or the wild things to bring forth something new. What does very much bother him are perversions of death, those who try to cheat death, upset the natural balance, maim and manipulate that what is and should be. He hates it with a passion and seeks to rectify it, return the world to that balance when faced with it. That’s where you come in. You much like him have a respect and understanding of life and death similar to his own. Very few people understand that. Very few people do not fear the end when they see it coming. You’re one of those very few people.

You understand Caduceus on a different level, in his sentiment and mannerisms while others may think him strange. Not that he cares if people do, you’ve been his filter in the big shiny new world past the borders of his grove. You’ve been his safety net, his grounding force, his safe haven when the world seems against him and he thinks his senses might be wrong. The Wild Mother must have gently blown her winds to bring you together.

That’s why it seems so wrong you’re affected by this darkness having taken hold over your body, leaving you in a state of not entirely alive nor dead. Resurrection has been futile as much as draining your life and allowing you to move to the care of the Wild Mother herself. You’re trapped and that’s why Caduceus fears what would happen should you die. He’s seen what this perversion of life and death has done to his home, the forests surrounding it and the creatures living in it. He’ll do everything in his power to prevent that from happening to you.

Caduceus has put your body through the typical burial rites and rituals, preserving what he can by using wards and the divine blessings granted to him by his goddess, sending her prayers of your recovery but you appear to be even beyond her reach now. He moves a damp cloth across your arms and face, brushing aside your hair, humming to himself until he’s done, moving on to clean the room around you, getting rid of the dust, placing things back where they belong and replacing the decayed flowers with fresh ones. Caduceus gathers his tea, preparing a cup for himself as he watches you.

“Can you show me how they’re doing?” The wind grows cold. He knew that would be the answer but still he could hope maybe that answer could change.

“Are they in pain?” The wind grows warm but then cold again. You were, but not anymore. It seems that the new wards he’s put up are doing their job. That’s good.

“Is there a cure?” The gentle breeze disappears. She doesn’t know then. This goes even beyond the goddess herself but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Caduceus will keep hope, though it is dwindling fast, for your sake he’ll have hope. He’s always spoken to the dead before and while you’re not really dead, there’s a strange comfort to something that feels so final.

“Hey. I’d ask you how you’re doing but that’s not gonna work now, is it? Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine. I know you are. You’ve managed to keep me alive with the others for much longer than I’ve been taking care of you like this. I think we’re going to be fine. I know you’re here but I still miss you. Calliope makes for terrible company watching things unfurl between the others. She’s too much of a hopeless romantic. You forgot to tell me the recipe to that special brew of yours. I’ve been trying to recreate it but I haven’t been able to. I think what I’m trying to say is, I could really do with having my best friend back. That’d be nice.”

Caduceus sips his tea, face devoid of his usual dopy smile. A sudden breeze hits through the window, blowing it open. A few lighter weight and loose items go flying but the thud of a heavier one is clear to hear. Caduceus closes the window and feels something solid hit his boot. It’s a crystal from the ones surrounding the grove. He picks it up, feeling the warmth run through it. The breeze directs towards you and he feels himself walking over to your body. The crystal calls to you and when it touches you your body runs with energy, pulsing, like you’ve been forcibly pulled back to this world. You look around eyes wide breathing heavy.

“Hey.” Caduceus smiles. “I made tea.”

(Mollymauk)

Maybe pretending you and him were some high born assholes was a questionable decision. Taking on an invite directed at the said people you were impersonating even more so, and stealing, sorry, borrowing without asking, some things from their summer cottage to swim in luxuries, an out right terrible idea when these people happen to be very well connected.

So when these fancy folk came back to the cottage earlier than expected, the two of you had grabbed what you could before making your grand escape, chased by their private guards until you lost them. A safe distance away you set up camp. Time to inspect your findings before returning to the carnival. Your eye for valuables had always been much more keen than Molly’s and your appraisals usually spot on. It was only natural he would let you do your thing but he’d still help you.

Particularly proud of getting some ornate jewellery box Molly had pried it open and revealed the jackpot. But of course you couldn’t just sell recognisable jewellery as is and you couldn’t keep such a thing on you very long. So of course you went to work, prying the stones from their settings. A particular necklace was giving you trouble, not even your tools being able to pry it out, you even broke one so you left that one for last.

The two of you had argued, eventually setting on just smashing the stone with the pommel of Molly’s scimitar, the broken gem still providing plenty of pay and not being as recognisable in peaces. So you held the necklace across a stone while he smashed it. When it did a spark hit, next thing he knew you were on the ground, your hands burned where you held the precious metal. At first he thought you were simply knocked out but when you didn't wake up he grew worried. Splashing water in your face, shaking you, lifting your legs, nothing got you to wake up so instead he carried you and the jewellery back to the carnival. Two days and still you didn’t wake up. It became clear this bloody gem was cursed when dark veins started crawling up your skin as the days passed.

Since this was technically on him, Molly took care of you. He makes quite a doting nurse when he wants to be but never without an inappropriate comment or two. It was quite strange to not hear you laugh at or scold him for these comments. Nevertheless he’d fluff up the pillow beneath your head, provide you an extra blanket when the night was cold, tell you stories, or simply the events of the day, the people who came to the carnival, some things he lifted from people’s pockets and so on. Molly has to say he’s ashamed to admit he’d got frustrated with your unresponsiveness or rather the fact you still hadn’t woken up and there was nothing the others could do for you. A healer would still be a week or so out.

“You know, while I’ve really begun getting used to these little one-sided conversations and your lack of judgement at some of my more terrible decisions I really prefer sharing them with you in the moment. I’ve gotten caught by the guards twice now and without you, Gustav is getting a bit sick of bailing me out. I miss our little flirtations. I miss your sometimes wrong opinions, though you’d say they’re proven facts. I miss your company. I think our time apart has given me time to reflect how much you truly mean to me and how much I need you in my life.” Molly leans on his elbow as he studies your face unmoving. You look so peaceful and asleep but he’d much rather get lost in your eyes when you’re awake.

“I laughed at you when you told me the most valuable thing in the world anyone could ever give another is their heart but I think I know what that means now. I’ll offer you mine if you will have it. So please, come back and make sure my head doesn’t get up too high into the clouds or I might just float away.” Molly leans back looking at the ceiling of the tent with a sigh. He’s pulled out of his mind by a snicker.

“A dramatic confession of love to the unconscious target of your affections? And you call me cliche.” Molly looks at your face, eyes still closed but smug grin clear on your face. He pokes your side making you jump.

“You are insufferable.”

[astranva]

TPWK Music Video

Word Count: 3.5k (omg shut up I didn’t think it’d be longer than 600 words)

Category: Fluff

Warning: idk a few swear words I guess? no proofreading is done on this blog ok 😭

Summary: Long-term girlfriend Y/N isn’t only the choreographer of TPWK, but she’s Harry’s dancing partner in the music video as well. Harry is in love, and can also be a pest.

reposting because tumblr hates it when i appear under tags

// masterlist //

..

For as long as you could remember, you were a dancer.

From pictures taken of you as a child by your family on your tippy toes in ballet costume, to professional ones of you ranking as first in dancing championships as a teenager as you experimented with styles other than ballet, to you befriending some of the biggest names in film and music industries as you choreographed the dances for them in the studio you owned, having had bought one at the age of only 22 and it being one of the most successful dance studios there is, with people flying from all around the world to attend your workshops and get a glimpse of what you create.

You were friends with people you had never thought, as an aspiring teenager, to know and help create choreography for, along with all the musical movies you helped bring a different tune to by the dance steps you created, and to mention one name of many, you were most proud of The Greatest Showman.

Initially, you were a friend of a friend of Harry’s.

You met the English man 3 years ago; flirting with one another for 7 months on end – Harry liked to remind you that you would’ve been together way sooner if it weren’t for the both of you being in different countries so often during that time –, dating for 1, officially being together for the rest of the 2 and half years and until that very moment.

“Look, Y/N just sent me the video they made at her Tokyo workshop.”

“I can’t make it, guys. Y/N created the choreography for Ari’s new video, and she’s in it. It premiers tonight.”

“Like my hoodie? Exclusively got to be the first person to wear Y/N’s new merch collection. Looks sick, doesn’t it? Worked so damn hard on that one.”

“Have you seen Lizzo’s new music video? Y/N made the choreography!”

If anything, your friends and family liked to joke about how Harry was a fanboy of yours.

Taking Harry with you to your studio made Harry resemble a child on a Christmas morning, or a child accompanying a parent to their work for a “take your kid to work” day. He never denied the pride he felt whenever he watched you in your element, watching you gracefully do your thing, so beautifully and passionately, in a studio that looked different from his.

“We were thinking,” he said one night as he got under the covers with you, smiling and closing his eyes as you reached to rub a missed spot of his night cream on his forehead, “Of creating a music video for Treat People.”

“How many music videos are you planning to make, really? 12? For all 12 songs on your record?” You had joked with a smile, watching him snuggle into the covers with a giggle.

“And what about it?”

“Just the fact that you never warn your poor fans,” you had chuckled, “What do you have in mind for it?”

“It’s all too fresh,” Harry said, “But I have a concept in mind.”

You had hummed, resting your head on your pillow, sitting face-to-face with Harry under the covers before he excitedly propped himself up on his elbow.

“Retro. Just retro, a casino, and a dance.”

Your eyebrows went up, a surprised look on your face, “Not what I had in mind but go on.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Lots of people, kind of like a parade thing in the street.”

“That’s nice,” he smiled.

“But...” Knowing him well enough, you continued with a roll of your eyes.

“People won’t expect a vintage video, will they?”

“I don’t think they’ll expect a video for Treat People to begin with, baby.”

“Right,” he nodded, “So, what do you think?”

Just as you were about to confirm your excitement to the concept, your face had shifted to an expression of confusion;

“Did you say a dance?”

It didn’t take Harry long to discuss the concept with his team, going through the theoretical bit of creating a music video before Jeff asked the one question Harry had been excited to answer;

“Who’s going to do the choreography? Who’s going to be your dancing partner? We need to go over some pe-”

“Y/N.”

“What?”

“You really think I’ll let anyone but my girlfriend do either of that?” Harry asked sarcastically with a smirk, “Planning on asking her tonight.”

“You son of a bitch, you already have it all planned.” Jeff laughed, shaking his head at his client and best friend.

And Harry stayed true to his word.

Insisting on driving you to and picking you from your studio after your workshop, Harry greeted you with a quick kiss once you were seated in his car, groaning about how ready you were to get in bed.

He was a little impatient, he’d admit. Holding a conversation about your day seeming to have had distracted him just a tad until you were both home and in comfortable mismatched PJ’s, indulging a late-night snack in your kitchen which consisted of quick sandwiches.

“And then he calls me, tells me that he wants me to come up with a dance for his tour promo video in a day, H! A day! Can you believe that?”

“Fucking idiot. What did you tell him?” Harry frowned, moving to remove a piece of crumb from the corner of your mouth with his thumb.

“Declined for sure. Told him that it was too short of a notice, like, what am I supposed to do? Stop the time?”

“And what did he say?”

“Whined like a baby,” you scoffed, nodding to Harry’s annoyed expression, “I know!”

“Who does he think he is?” He rhetorically asked, “Calling one of the most demanded choreographers and expecting you to just do as he says. As if.”

Despite your annoyance at the said celebrity, your frown faltered at your boyfriend.

“And you know what’s funny?” He went on, “That you’ve been trying to reach a common ground, like, a solution that would be convenient for the both of you but he’s being an unhelpful, ungrateful twat.”

You pouted, reaching to pull him closer by one of his hoodie’s strings, pecking his lips, “Thanks for sharing the same annoyance and trash talking him with me.”

“Just wish some people weren’t dicks to you, love,” he sighed, “You don’t deserve it.”

“I can take care of them.” You smiled.

“I know you can, you deal with them so well, I don’t know how you do it,” Harry said, “But I still think some people need to stop giving you a hard time. Pisses me off.”

“Yeah? It’s hot.” You teased him, leaving a lingering kiss on his lips.

Harry’s posture eased, chuckling at you as he held on to your waist. “Glad you think so.”

“Always do,” you confirmed, “Now, what do you want to tell me?”

His eyebrows came together in confusion, “How did you know that? How- How did you know that I have something to say?”

You chuckled knowingly, giving him a shrug, “It’s a little offensive that you think I don’t know you well,” you sarcastically began, “But to answer your question, you tend to touch your bottom lip more often when you have something to say. And you have this look on your face.”

He might have fallen in love again and again that moment, opting to say silent for a moment as he took what you had said in – as he took you in.

Harry let out a sigh of contentment, wrapping his arm around your shoulders and bringing you closer in a hug before pressing a soft kiss to your head, “Love you so much.”

“Love you, too,” your muffled voice replied, “Now tell me.”

“You know how I told you I wanted Treat People to have a dance? And it’s all retro and all that?”

You nodded, looking at him.

“How do you feel about creating that? Being in the music video with me as my dancing partner?” He bashfully asked, eyes twinkling and smile innocent.

Your eyes widened, “What? Me?”

“Who else?”

“Are you being for real right now?” You laughed in disbelief, “Not only do you want me to create the choreography, but- but you want me in it?”

“Precisely, yes.” He nodded with a smile.

“Wow,” you smiled, shaking your head, “Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He asked, “You’re so fucking talented and good at what you do, people know we’re together, I have been impatiently waiting for you to join me in any of that stuff, and it’ll be fun,” Harry listed before shrugging, “What do you say?”

“I mean, I see the fun part,” you replied, “But when do you want that? When do you want to start filming? I’m going to need more details.”

“Whatever you need.”

And again, Harry was a man of both words and actions, filling you with what you needed to know and enjoying how you seemed to glow brighter at the mention of your job and passion.

It didn’t take long before you were both in the studio after having discussed some technicalities with Harry’s team. On some days, you and Harry would goof around in your studio after you were done with the day. You’d occasionally teach Harry a move or two, and more often than not, Harry was the audience you needed to watch a new choreography of yours that you were either unsure or proud of.

But to be able to have Harry join you from start to finish in what you enjoyed doing had another feeling; one that neither of you could explain.

“You kick out with your right, then,” you demonstrated, “Step in.”

With pursed lips and his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, Harry copied your moves, eyes on himself through the gigantic mirror in front of the both of you.

“Good job!” You grinned, “Alright so it’s, 5, 6, go 7, and 8,” you began from the top, “Then 1, and 2,” you stepped with your feet as you moved, “Kick, step, kick, step, turn,” you turned, “Push to the side,” you recapped slowly, “Clap, clap. Come on, you do it.”

Harry took a moment, letting out a breath as he shook his limbs, “Alright, got it,” he mumbled, “Can you count?”

“Yeah, baby, sure,” you giggled quietly, “5, 6, 7, 8…”

“Ah fuck,” he groaned as he seemed to lag before the next step.

You approached him, resting your hands on his shoulders before cupping his face to have him look at you, “You’re nervous. Why are you nervous?”

“Besides the fact that it’s the first time I do this?”

“Do what? Dance? We took salsa classes together.” You reminded him gently.

“No, love, just- this, for a video. And you’re so fucking good. I didn’t think you’d put that much effort into my little video but the dance looks amazing and I’d just, hate to not do it justice.” Harry ended his confession with a sigh, shoulders slumping down.

“H,” you pouted, “Baby, you’re an amazing dancer,” at that, Harry rolled his eyes, “Nooo, you are!” You repeated, assuring him, “If you can’t see how far better you’ve gotten than you’re blind, H.”

Harry’s face softened, looking at you as you nodded at him.

“We’re both putting effort and I won’t rest until we give this all it takes for you to enjoy it, alright?” You leaned closer, pecking his nose with a soft kiss which seemed to work to make him giggle, reaching to scratch his nose,

“Tickles.”

“Oh yeah?” You jokingly wiggled your fingers into his sides, “In your spot, Styles, let’s go!”

You weren’t surprised that after all your little classes together, Harry had perfected the choreography. It wasn’t just in your time together that Harry practiced; you caught him in the kitchen, in the shower, counting under his breath as he sat with a dazed look on his face, and you had seen him far too many times watching the recorded tutorial you had made for him and your backup dancers.

You weren’t surprised because you knew that once he set his mind to something, he wouldn’t rest until he reached it.

But just because you weren’t surprised, didn’t mean that you were any less proud.

Far too many videos on your phones were added of one another during that time; Harry dramatically lying on the floor in the studio, sweaty and panting as you recorded him while laughing, zooming into his dopey but smiling face, your phone propped up as it recorded the both of you practicing the entire choreography, catching the bit when Harry dipped in your arms but you weren’t ready and he ended up falling, bringing you down with him as the both of you burst out laughing.

He loved seeing you in your element, that was an established fact, but being with you in your element? That was priceless.

“Jesus, this is heavy!” Gemma exclaimed as she tried Harry’s sequined, bright cropped blazer.

Filming came by, and there was nothing like seeing hard work pay off.

Harry chuckled at his sister, taking the blazer from her before putting it on, “Have you seen Y/N? Is she done?”

“They were retouching her hair.”

Harry’s stomach was filled with butterflies. If you asked him for the reason behind them, he wouldn’t know how to answer; because he was nervous he’d mess up? Normal jitters before filming? Or maybe, it was the fact that you were finally joining him and that alone was enough to have him giddy, giggly, and bouncy?

Gemma would say it was the latter, having had watched and heard Harry ask about his girlfriend during the entirety of the process of getting ready;

“Is she alright?”

“Feel like I’m getting married and I’m not allowed to see my bride.”

“Can you please tell Y/N to check her phone? She puts it on silent whenever she’s working but I want to show her my hair.”

In the dressing room beside his, you began laughing the moment Gemma stepped in, already knowing from her huff and annoyed look the reason behind them.

“Bloody pest! How do you deal with him being all clingy over you like that?”

“I don’t,” you joked, “He’s nervous.”

“And a little annoying.”

“Thank you,” you smiled to the hairdresser before getting out of the chair, “Where’s the man of the hour?”

“Whining outside that door,” Gemma answered with a raise of her eyebrows and a smile, “You look amazing, love.”

“Really?” You smiled bashfully, tugging on your vintage jacket and looking down at your shoes, “It’s a light outfit.”

“Should try Harry’s blazer,” she huffed, “So heavy.”

Walking outside the room with Gemma, you saw Harry standing with your group of backup dancers, smiles on all of their faces as he talked with them, you fully knowing that he was making sure they were comfortable.

“Here comes the bride!” Gemma joked, raising her arms up.

Harry turned, and everyone was sure that it might as well have been your wedding.

His eyes seemed to reflect the shiny blazer he had on, dimples showing as he grinned, opening his arms at you.

Concealing the shyness you felt under his stare, you laughed as you wrapped your arms around him in a hug, feeling his hand rubbing your back. “You look so good,” you said, pulling away to look at him, “Where’s Lambe- There you are,” you pointed at Harry Lambert who approached the both of you, “How do you do it? What’s your secret?”

“Only the best for Sue,” Harry Lambert said, tipping an imaginary hat at Harry, “And our Angel.” He kissed your cheek.

Soon enough, everyone was asked into place.

For the first shot, they decided to film Harry entering the stage with the dancers first.

Standing at a safe distance away from the camera’s view, you heard the director call before they began recording.

“I got a good feeling,” you watched Harry sing into the vintage microphone, TPWK playing in the background as well, as he leaned to the side.

A smile was on your face, hands clutched together under your chin as you watched Harry and the dancers stick to the choreography you had worked on for the last 3 weeks.

Seeming to be too into your own world of watching your boyfriend, you hadn’t noticed right away when Gemma threw her arm around you until she squeezed you into a side hug, “Did so well, love.”

You gave her a smile and returned the hug, at loss of words.

For your takes, Harry was exactly as what Gemma had called him – a pest.

“Harry, stop making faces at her!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll stop now.”

“Harry!”

“What? I didn’t do anything!”

“You took a picture of Y/N with your flash on!”

“Oh shit, sorry.”

But you couldn’t be mad nor stop laughing, enjoying it too much for anybody’s liking.

“This is why I don’t accept when you ask me to be in your videos.” You joked as you all took a break, munching on a banana.

“See? You deprive me too much, baby.” Harry giggled, pecking your cheek quickly before reaching to grab a banana for himself.

“You’ve been depriving all these people from going back home early for the last couple of days, and look,” you pointed at Mitch, “Mitch looks like he’s close to murdering you.”

“I think that’s just his face, love. He hates this.”

..

“Alright, are we ready?” The director asked, “3, 2, 1, action!”

Harry sang as he stepped on the table you were sat at with your “friends”, a smile on his face as he did, his palm open towards you.

“And if our friends all pass away,” he sang, the soft ah’s following which was your cue to put your hand in his, stepping up on the table with him, “It’s okay.”

Nobody knew how the both of you did it, but everyone was satisfied with the one take they took.

It didn’t feel like filming anymore to either of you the moment Harry threw his bowtie away as you faced one another on stage, genuine smiles on your faces as you broke into the choreography you could do without a thought at that point.

There were moves that Harry had struggled with during practice, one of them being when he held you as you did a cartwheel; but all these struggles were long forgotten once the both of you gracefully did that move.

The song played as the both of you danced in front of the backup dancers and Harry’s band, only adding to the smiles on your faces before it began to come to an end – the end.

Harry twirled, your eyes following him with a smile before you dipped up with one arm, your other raised in the air, while one of Harry’s arms was around your back, the other stretched out.

“Cut! Amazing job! Amazing, amazing, job!”

The both of you were panting, you looking down at him as you giggled before you leaned down, pressing your lips to his in a quick kiss as everyone cheered.

..

Harry sat on it, and you sure as hell were glad he did because after one eventful year, he took matters in his own hands to start 2021 right the moment he dropped the music video on the 1st of January.

“It hasn’t been 10 minutes and it’s trending,” you laughed in shock, scrolling through your Twitter, “Your power!”

“No,” Harry smiled gratefully as he watched you as the both of you cuddled on your couch as and after you had watched the music video together, “All yours.”

“Stop,” you dragged, “You’ve been crediting me for a year for this video as if I did everything.”

“You practically did, love. It was all about the dance and look at you,” he sighed in contentment, squeezing you against him, “Made a dancer out of me.”

“You’re a natural.” You patted his cheek.

Harry scoffed, mind shifting to his X-Factor choreography, “Trust me, I’m not.”

“But seriously,” you began after a moment, looking up at him and making him shift to look at you, “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” he repeated, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, you pest.”

“Hey!”

[ptitelidio]

“Black and White Contrast” a rivetra theory

Hi Rivetra fans, actually this is my first post on tumblr and I hope you will like it. Just to say a few words before beginning my rivetra theory, I ship Rivetra sooo hard but I like and respect other ships. Please if you get to see this post and like or share my opinion, an answer would be so cool! 

PS. Sorry for my English, I’m not a fluent speaker, but I try my best :) enjoy!

First, basically I called this post ‘Black and White contrast’ because I found out that the relationship between Levi and Petra is like this, a contrast, in many fields.

To show this I will use photos of manga panels, of the anime and Petra’s song, the light of two wings.

Let’s begin with the song. The first opposition we can see is in Levi personality; Petra describes Levi like that “Your sterness always stems from gentleness And I felt a warm light behind those harsh words“, basically she sees his true nature, behind the darkness, there is a light, that’s what she says. 

Now the other contrast is between the painful and the happy moments she went through:          “ I recall plentry of painful things.. But I made it to where I am , Free of doubts.. Sharing smiles and laughter along the way “

Now she says: “ Tiny feathers gather one by one Forming a white wing Fragile lives are lost one by one Leaving behind a black wing “

That’s when we get to read something with ‘black’ and ‘white’, here she talks about two wings, a black and a white. The white being composed of feathers (analogy with soldiers lives lost one by one), and apparently she talks about a black wing left behind... we’ll get to see more info about it further on. But it seems to be ralted with death, isn’t it?

“ Though a bird may be born to soar across the skies I’m sure it won’t be able to fly well with only one wing But you will shoulder the determination of all that is white and black And guide everyone to great distances beyond the walls “

She says that a bird can’t fly without two wings, so the black and the white ones. And he will ‘shoulder the determination of all that is white and black’, in other words the determination to fight of the deads and the living is something he has to carry on. She is talking to Levi, and says that he is the one to guide everyone beyond the walls, 

Then, she finally says before dying: 

“Don’t forget that you have the light of dual wings sprouting from your back                                                             And if I were to give a name to the light I felt…yes.. it would be… Hope..“

So once again that the light of dual wings (black and white) shows that he carry the spirit of the deads and the living, I repeat this on purpose because you will see that the symbolism of the contrast has not been chosen by chance, but on purpose. 

The second other point is that she perceives that light as hope, obviously we understand why, Levi is considered as the humanity’s greatest, so he’s the most expected to save the Eldian people. 

Now.. let’s show the black and white contrast elsewhere. 

Do a black and a white wings ring a bell?

Yup... exactly. And I’ll prove that they can symbolise Levi and Petra relationship. They can also show many other relationships in the SC but here, and with the song, it takes a different dimension, like thir relationship was like a black and white wing = black -> death, sadness... and white -> light, hope, or life

Petra is dead and Levi is alive,

Petra sees light inside Levi, whereas he grew up on a dark place (underground) and frequented bad people everyday (criminels etc...)

Now let’s focus on the anime...

What do you notice in this passage? This was when they were going to the former Survey Corps HQ with Eren. 

Petra’s horse is WHITE and Levi’s is BLACK, here Levi’s one does not seems so black but you can check on other photos in the Internet and you’ll see that he’s actually black, but now because of light and shadow it’s a bit light but whatever.

So, you probably notice that nearly every horse is colored in brown but not Levi’s, Petra’s and Erwin’s. Some other horses are colored in light brown but it’s not like them three, the colors are strikely different. And in the manga the horses were all brown basically, so why this change of color? Not for nothing obviously, the great messages remain in little details..

This photos shows that the horse are basically all brown.

Another contrast is Levi and Petra’s physical appearance, they are obviously different. He is black-haired, she is blond (ginger in the anime but the contrast stays with light color and dark color..) even their eyes in the anime are different but that’s not the essence of the theory, that was just a remark.

Now look at the Petra’s and Levi’s scene when she died and he looked down at her:

Isayama pictured the contrast in dark and light, notice how Levi appears in the light part of the grass and Petra in the dark one, she is dead and he’is alive. And bigger than that, there is also Levi’s Wings of Freedom emblem on his cloack, a double contrast where the white one is in the right and the black one on the left. Petra is on the ground, Levi in the air. They complete each other every time.

The contrast is even more striking in this panel:

The position of the panels for comparison, the position of the heads and eyes, Levi looking down and Petra looking up. The contrast in their hair is also emphcised here. Don’t you notice something else? If no, look at the Wings of Freedom emblem I put...

Yes... Levi is at the left (black wing) and Petra is at the right (black wing)... the analogy is here for those who searched for it.

And once again, their life status, one alive but painfully sad and the other dead but with an unfulfilled dream and she didn’t get the chance to confess to Levi, I quote:

“ And so.. I will die.. believing that.. Oh….how i wish this would last… But…it seems like my time is up… I have…one last thing…..I would like to tell you..                                            No… Nevermind…It’s Nothing….  “ (Petra’s song)

Let’s continue. 

Remember, we said that Petra tought Levi was the hope of humanity’s survival (she says it in her song). Now, did you know that Levi thought exactly the same of her? I will show it to you, and that was basically implied on Petra’s last scene. 

We all know how Petra put trust over all other things, work team was very important to her. The sentence that we remember the most of her is “trust us”, in her last scene -- when she and her team were riding horses and the Female Titan was hunting them -- she said that exact sentence to Eren. 

PS: It is written in French, but you can check it in English on your own if you want.

And everybody knows that Levi didn’t know if it was the good choice whether to put his trust on his comrades or to just rely on his own strengh. Well, on that day, Levi had a strong proof that he should believe in his comrades. 

Here: Petra: “Captain?!”, 

Levi: “He’s a real monster, I know that very well, not only because he has Titan abilities... no matter how strong he force with which it is immobilized, no matter how resistant is the cage in whic he is held. Nobody will ever be able to bend his will” 

-> So what does Levi say? He considers that Eren will to fight titans can’t be bend, in other words he is like a monster, ready to do anything to kill his enemies. But basically, Levi’s stance is that NOBODY can’t change his mind. He was sure of that.

And guess what happens? Eren hearing that from Levi wanted to prove that he was not a monster, he had enough. 

Eren “ I had enough. I don’t want to be treated like a monster...”

And the phrase that Petra told him definitely convinced him to do the choice to trust his new squad.

Now look at Levi’s face... he’s startled by Eren’s decision. Yes, he who was so sure that Eren will transform, Petra’s insistence to trust his team proved Levi wrong. That’s why he was so surprised. That scene and Levi’s expression is even on the anime, if you want to check it out.

Well, nobody before succeeded to do this: make Eren change his mind, he’s usually the one to ignore Mikasa’s advices even if he cares a lot for her. Petra, even if she was not so close to him, actually succeeded this task. This startled Levi. Who could change a monster’s mind? Yes, the one to carry hope for humanity. Actually in the anime, EVERY soldier carries that hope obviously, but in that precise moment, Petra was the hope Levi wanted for humanity. 

This reminds us of the song, when she says that she though Levi’s light was hope, actually she was also hope, like every one of her comrades. Now, Petra had that same light, hope. 

Oh and remember that panel from Chapter 112:

Yes. “Hope for Humanity’s survival” and beside what character? Petra. Everything is linked lmao, Isayama is a pure genius.

And now that I read this panel alone, it’s like Petra could have said these lines ‘I did it... because I believed he was the hope for humanity’s survival...” in other words, I sacrificed my life for Levi because I thought he was the hope for humanity’s survival. It could fit VERY WELL, I don’t think this is a coincidence because she said the exact same thing in her song...

PS: The Wings of Freedom can represent many pairs in AOT like Erwin and Levi for example, but Petra and Levi formed the wings of freedom too. That’s not a coincidence if Erwin’s horse was also white like Petra’s one, and we know that Erwin convinced Levi to joined the SC the day Ferlan and Isabel died. That day, Levi developed the Ackerbond with Erwin when the latter stated, with his federator charisma, that we can’t get to know the future etc. So Levi had the Ackerbond with Erwin so that’s quite obvious to justify why they can represent the wings of freedom, but what was Petra for Levi apart of a squad member?

Yes, she was special for him whereas he didn’t have the Ackerbond with her, and that’s why she’s even more significant, his blood didn’t play a role in his relationship with her. The only answer I find is, simply, love.

[itsuki-minamy]

PROFILE: HABARI JIN

Translation: Naru-kun Raws: Ridia

Real name: Habari Jin

Terms of address: Habari, Blue King

[PROFILE]

Birthday: February 1, Aquarius

Blood type: O Rh-

Age: 25 (When he died.)

[APPEARANCE]

Physique: 1.82 cm in height. Slim and well balanced, tall.

Face, hair: Smart and elegant. A cold, shadow less smile. His hairstyle is long hair.

Attire: Old Scepter 4 uniform.

Personal effects: Exclusive saber.

[HABITS, SKILLS]

· As "Blue King", he has the power to "control" everything.

· Fighting power as an individual is also top-notch. He fights using his own skill and his skill with the sword.

[IMPRESSION, OTHER NOTES]

· The image color is "blue".

· One of the youngest "kings" at the time of the "Kagutsu" incident. He works for social stability.

· "Red King" Both he and others have recognized that they are antagonists of the revelation of Miwa Ichigen.

· An ordinary person has an indecipherable side, but he is a positive person with no side hidden behind.

· In later years, it was said that his appearance was "like Reisi Munakata's", and that he may have the same qualities as "Blue King". However, there is a definite difference in whether or not there are points that make you feel "intimidating" or "inside out" in terms of personality.

[POSITION, OBJECTIVES]

Fourth King, Blue King. The head of the old generation "Scepter 4" security organization against the Strains.

At that time, "Scepter 4" had a strong personality as a secret organization under Kokujoji and, on a daily basis, it was never publicly named as the "Family Registration Division of the Tokyo Legal Affairs Office, Scepter 4 Branch" as a cover.

This position is the position that Habari himself desired for his ideal "social stability", and neither he nor Kokujoji have a sense of "hierarchical relationship." It is just an "alliance" between the "kings".

[PERSONALITY, CONDUCT]

A guy who excels at momentary judgment and intuitively moves things forward. To put it wrong, everything happens, but it is rare for him to make a mistake. The ultimate weapon is "speed of action" based on "infallible swift judgment" both as an individual and as an organization.

This "judgment" may be something that should be called a fateful prediction that goes beyond mere logical thinking and boasts divine precision, but for matters involving powerful Strains and kings. Sometimes, there were times when he couldn't read. However, even if there was an error in the judgment, the recovery of the situation derived from it was sufficiently possible and no significant damage was caused.

Hawari himself discovers that there is a section where it is interesting to him that he is in a situation where he cannot read, because he can read ahead of everything.

[FATE, ENDING]

As a result of considering "how to use my powerful and special ability for society", we naturally came to the conclusion of "stabilizing Kokujoji's system".

However, "security activities against people with powers" as a way to fully utilize one's existence eventually led to a confrontation with the "King of Destruction", Genji Kagutsu. The trigger may be the irony of fate.

[ABILITIES, TACTICS]

A mighty power like a "king". He has the property of "controlling" everything.

He's basically the same talent as Reisi Munakata, who was later the Blue King, but Munakata used the power in complicated ways like "taking apart and rebuilding objects", while Habari says "It's often used in more direct ways, like "barriers"and "shear reinforcement"." This is due to the tendency of Habari's personality to give importance to the "physical and intuitive".

Also, in organizational management, it is rare to make a plan that carries out, "First, let yourself run to the top and follow your subordinates", "Have your subordinates take action freely and naturally, we bring it together in one action" and we carry out the operation with high freedom.

Inevitably, "Scepter 4" in the Habari era had the characteristic of being a "minor elite combat unit".

[POWER]

A (Class "King")

[LIKES]

Liberty. Good weather. Sports in general.

[DISLIKE]

Drawback, Cloudy sky.

[HOBBIES]

Enjoy the mission of Scepter 4.

His personal hobby is unknown.

[FASHION]

As he is always in public service, he rarely wears clothes that are not uniform.

Private clothing is purchased as needed. There are no particular preferences, and every time he makes a choice it is sensory and judgmental.

[BODY]

The physical ability is very high, but he always uses different abilities, so it is not known how much "natural physical ability" he has.

It can be said that "the switch of incompetence remains on" and "self-consciousness as a superhuman".

[INTELLIGENCE]

It does not require logical thinking because you always "make the right decision intuitively" and "act as if everything is obvious".

This is the only quality of a combat organization that emphasizes "immediate judgment on the ground", but not without exception discourages communication with the general public.

[BELIEFS]

Act according to sensory goodness, not reason.

In a word, it means "the pursuit of happiness for all", but Habari himself does not make such a distinction between "himself" and "others and society".

He points to "social stability" by "being physically comfortable" and the feeling of continuity.

[RELATIONSHIPS]

[EARLY YEARS]

The details of his career before becoming "Blue King" are unknown.

[TIMELINE]

· 1974, Habari Jin is born.

· 1994, he Awakens as "Blue King". He started the activity of "Scepter 4".

· 1999, July. Kagutsu incident. Immediately after Kagutsu Genji's sword of Damocles fell, he was slashed by clan member Zenjo Gouki to prevent a chain of disasters. Scepter 4 was partially destroyed.

[ATTITUDE AND THOUGHTS TOWARDS OTHERS]

[TERMS OF THE ADDRESS FOR HIMSELF]

The first person is "Ore".

Although he has a soft tone and demeanor, he acts with an assertive tone regardless of his presence.

Since there is no such thing as "avoiding responsibility" or "judging", it is this guy's behavior, but he seems to "behave around the smoke around him".

However, since it is widely known to the people involved that he is an innocent king who always produces results in line with the public interest, there is no particular problem.

[TOWARDS ZENJO GOUKI]

He calls him "Zenjo" and other names are dropped.

Also, his subordinate calls him "Habari".

The old organization "Scepter 4" was able to be led by Zenjo, who has a strong sense of "letting go" and a strong tendency to act on his own, at his own discretion. However, it was believed that Habari's transcendental predictive power, or his gathering power, eventually resolved the situation the way Habari intended.

It can be said that he was an ideal teacher for Zenjo and his colleagues, who could fully use the outstanding "power" that he could have.

[TOWARDS SHIOTSU GEN]

He calls him "Shiotsu".

Shiotsu was called the "arms of Habari" alongside Zenjo. Shiotsu was in the position of "representative of the person of common sense" in response to Zenjo, which is said to be "the first person in the habit" among the old "Scepter 4" who is full of habits.

In the old Scepter 4, Shiotsu exclusively carried out common sense organization management, such as negotiations with the general public, organizational organization, and various plans.

However, Shiotsu's common sense plan often fails and must be adjusted due to the insane behavior of Habari and other members. In that state, Shiotsu often complains about the dogmatic behavior of Habari and his members (especially Zenjo).

On the other hand, Shiotsu himself felt that he was not close to the fullness of Habari's infallibility like other members, and felt a slight fall. According to Habari, his personality was also an essential element of Scepter 4.

[TOWARDS KAGUTSU GENJI]

He calls him "Kagutsu".

It is said that the "Red King" Genji Kagutsu, who measures others only by his "power", barely recognizes the clan member under his control.

It is said that only the other kings believed that that team was standing next to them, and above all, they viewed "Blue King" Habari, who was in direct opposition, as the "only good opponent".

Habari himself also had the intuition that stopping Kagutsu Genji, the "King of Destruction", was his greatest mission as "King".

[spockandawe]

What are your favorite chinese webnovels? What are some of the differences youve noticed between cnovels and other types of novels?

That second question is really, REALLY interesting, and I really want to answer it well, and I am REALLY sure I’m going to do a bad job of answering it, so let me just noodle about that first question for a minute while I try to think XD

I went through some of my TOP-top favorite novels in more detail yesterday, but generally speaking, mxtx and meatbun are both at the top of the pack. They’re really good at writing compelling main characters and balancing piles of angst with plenty of humor and pulling everything together into a very satisfying ending (which is something I don’t alwaysssss see, even in some of the novels I really like). After them, The Disabled Tyrant’s Pet Palm Fish (transmigration, ancient chinese prince falls in love with pet fish) and Golden Stage (ancient chinese gay arranged marriage between bitter enemies(?)) are two novels that I love a lot, which both have very cute romances and go a bit lighter on the main character suffering front, and which I broadly recommend to anyone who’s interested in the genre. They didn’t end stick the landing QUITE as hard as an svsss or tgcf, but they still were very nice.

Then, let me see. I’m trying to remember which books I’ve read in the last year, and am doing a terrible job, haha. I will say that a book I enjoyed for like... eighty percent of it and then the ending let me down terribly was The Dreamer In The Spring Boudoir (modern day career woman transmigrates into barely-fantasy ancient china novel as the disliked primary wife of a nobleman), which is also the only straight webnovel I’ve read so far. The main character and romance were delightful, but that ending... haha, wow, I felt betrayed. But I did like the first half very much!! I’m idly contemplating a deliberately-partial reread. Then I’m currently like two chapters away from catching up with the current translation of The Wife Is First (ancient chinese prince lives out time travel fixit fic, determined to treat his spouse better this time around). I’m also catching up on Heroic Death System (transmigration, across MANY universes, where the goal is to die heroically in each one, and also maybeeeee to find his boyfriend in each one. this shit gets fucking bananas. in one of them, he emotionally seduces his boyfriend while he’s a dolphin. in another one, he’s a sentient mushroom. i’m in the middle of a section titled ‘I Am An Evil Pen’. yes, like a writing utensil type of pen. this is the weirdest book I’ve read so far). Oh, and Thousand Autumns (righteous sect leader gets sabotaged and loses a fight, wakes up blind and amnesiac, demonic sect leader is like ‘lol i bet i can turn him evil’ and accidentally catches feelings along the way).

What else... I’m keeping up with (but behind on) some others. First, there’s How To Survive As A Villain (modern terminally ill CEO transmigrates into stallion novel, wakes up as villain, accidentally seduces hero). Then, we’ve got Transmigrating Into The Body Of The Heartthrob’s Cannon Fodder Childhood Friend (only modern webnovel I’ve read, young man transmigrates into beginning of gratuitous whump book, back in high school, and is determined to protect the protagonist from all the canonical suffering). Then there’s Pulling Together A Villain Reformation Strategy (guy transmigrates into story as the hero’s childhood friend who will eventually become his enemy and get killed, successfully acts out his part and dies, completely fails to realize he’s broken his friend’s heart in the process... and then wakes up in another character’s body). And then there’s The Villain’s White Lotus Halo (a transmigrator keeps bouncing from universe to universe as a cannon fodder villain, who gets like half a line before being killed. he tries to purchase an upgrade package so he can be a COOL villain instead, but accidentally gets sold a ‘white lotus halo’ package instead, so that no matter what he does, everyone is just DEEPLY moved by his appearance and is positive he did nothing wrong). All of those are EXTREMELY delightful. You may notice a running transmigration theme, which....... yeah, I think there are a TON of delightful stories in the webnovel scene that deal with this genre, which seem so rare in English language media.

Which makes a good transition point to what’s different about the cnovel scene! I’ve seen hardly any transmigration stories in English, and I’ve got a couple go-to examples for when I’m trying to explain it, but like. Only a couple. Which is such a shame! Like, there’s the default idea of ‘I was reading this book and then I woke up inside the book!!’ but it’s clearly such an established genre that people are playing with it in all kinds of interesting ways, like in The Villain’s White Lotus Halo or Heroic Death System setups. It’s kind of wild to me, because it seems like such a gimme for a nice easy story structure? Whatever kind of world you want to present, there’s no need to introduce it to the reader from the ground up, or find a good way to hook them in. Either the main character read the book in question and can explain the premise and why we should care in pov, or the main character is new to the universe too, and trying to find their own footing. I enjoy it a lot! I’ve sampled transmigration books that didn’t grab me, but I’ve sampled way more that did. 

And then, the one semi-technical answer I thought of to this question was the way that these novels tend to handle pov. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule that regular novels are restricted to one pov, or that pov can only change at hard breaks in the story, but if I saw a bog-standard american novel glide from pov to pov the way these novels regularly do, I would tend to wonder if it was sloppiness or a mistake, or I would grump to myself about how I don’t like omniscient third person pov. And I still don’t know exactly what I think about this, or why it’s different in here, but I’m pretty sure I like it a lot, especially for stories where the romance tends to play a large part :V 

I used to read a lot of Books About Writing, and read plenty of stuff about why you don’t DO this, but.... I like it! In dtppf, Jing-wang can’t talk, and when Li Yu is a fish, he can’t talk, and drifting from one of their perspectives to the other gives me lots of useful information about how they’re both feeling. Could that be conveyed through restricted pov? Maybe! But I’m typesetting the svsss extras right now, and I’m in the bing-ge vs bing-mei section, and we get a few brief flashes of bing-ge’s thoughts, and it’s so NICE. It’s information I would not have otherwise received, because Shen Qingqiu sure wasn’t going to notice it. But early in the story, that pov was withheld from me, which also made sense (or hua cheng’s pov was withheld from me FOREVER, which makes me so sad ;u;). There don’t seem to be any hard and fast rules, which makes me really nervous about writing fic and trying to match the style, but I do like it a lot! 

And I’m definitely not able to articulate this in the way that I would like to, or speak with any real authority (I’m not that widely read in the cnovel scene, and i’m not very genre-adventurous in english), but there’s something about the role that the romances play in these stories that’s different from what I’m used to expecting, and it’s VERY tasty to me. I only rarely read romance novels, because I’m not often interested in the romance as a primary plot driver, but the romances in these books play a more substantial role than I’m used to expecting. And I’m into it! It’s a balance closer to what I’d expect from, like, a shippy longform fanfic. Which covers a lot of ground and is NOT a precise measure, but there’s more emotional weight given to the romance than I would expect, but without the romance carrying ALL of the emotional weight, and it strikes a perfect balance for me in a way I’m not used to encountering. Now, some of this could definitely be due to me not finding the right authors, or right subgenres, or whatever. But in the genres I inhabit, it’s a subtle difference, but one I find compelling.

Oh, one last thing. The cultural differences, duh :P I’m only familiar with things like, say, ancient chinese court etiquette through a lens of fan-translated novels like these, and I didn’t grow up steeped in the culture in a way I’m used to the trappings of something like medieval european courts. But there’s a distinct flavor to the social dynamics of these novels, from the formal levels down to the casual, and I know it’s super intricate and detailed and that authors play with differing degrees of historical accuracy vs fictional fun, and I wish I was better equipped to speak to the nature of any of this. But I find it really compelling! I recognize that it’s only new to ME because I didn’t seek out chinese media before now. And, the point that I originally wanted to get to before I got super distracted: the flirting. The flirting and teasing are a very different flavor from what I would expect in most english language media, and I love it, even if I can’t speak to how much of that is purely cultural, and how much of it is like... the conventions of How Fiction Is Written varying by culture, if that makes sense. I adore seeing what flirting and affection and indulgence and attentiveness look like in different settings, and these books, with their heavy romantic focus, absolutely deliver.

[creative-classpect]

Seer of Life

The Seer of Life. One who sees and understands life and growth. Basically the best life coach you could ask for.

Seer- see and understand their aspect. They use the information to manipulate it.

Life- major themes of life force, opportunity, growth, and luxury. Minor themes of options and optimism.

Abilities

Innovative analysis

The Seer of Life gazes at life itself, from the simple cell to the vast ecosystem. Life is a tricky thing, with many interweaving systems that all interconnect and grow, build, ebb and flow in different directions and paths. By the study of biological life, they look at things with a new, advantageous perspective. 

At lower levels, the Seer is intensely knowledgeable about subjects like biology, ecology, and structures that relay between beings, anything from designing gardens and aesthetics to city planning. They know how things build together and flow and their source of knowledge makes them an expert over their respective field. They’re probably quite skilled in their own intuition and insight when it comes down to people, animals, plants, etc. 

As they progress further along their uncanny insight would become increasingly physical and grounded. The Seer would be able to quite literally observe the many layers of life, being able to view nervous systems, skeletons, and other biological functions in incredible detail. They could literally see when something is wrong, when something isn’t working right or actually harmful. They could expose enemy weak points and give diagnostic insight to injured allies. They probably have a radar sense for nearby lifeforms, being able to pick up and detect nearby enemies, allies, consorts, etc.

At medium levels the refinement of the Seer’s vision would expand, able to develop criteria and lenses with which to view the world. The ability to distinguish could lead them from checking person by person to see if they are poisoned to simply looking at a crowd and having the afflicted glow red to them. They would be able to look at an area and filter predator and prey, plants or animals, and so on. With such insight they could learn how to steer and control life, like a surgeon. Life can be moved, guided, or coaxed if given proper direction. With precise movements they could utilize pressure points to stun enemies, ally with plants and animals, perform life saving surgeries, and become highly attuned to their own form to perform nearly impossible feats of athletics, acrobatics, and more. All with a keen awareness of their own bodies and others.

By higher levels, the Seer of Life is all seeing. They can see and hear every living thing and, if they focus on their connection, can see and hear through their senses. The Tree of Life welcomes them as they become intune with its many parts. Every plant, aninmal, insect, consort. They would have an internal radar for all life and could speak to all of them, possibly even at once. 

Progression patterns

The Seer of Life can see and understand the growth and progression of things, not just biological. All things grow, develop, and change. Power lies in potential and probability. The Seer can look past such superficial things of what might be, and look at what *can* be and *should* be.

At lower levels the Seer of Life is probably quite skilled in foresight and their predictions, able to see what they want and what it would take to get there. This insight is not a very common thing. It could earn them quite a deal of accomplishments and achievements in whatever topic or field interests them. Crafting and construction would come quite easy to them. They are probably very good at multitasking (or possibly distracted by it). They also might simply write in-depth manuals and guides to help others instead. Either way, they likely have the drive to back up their intuitive roadmap and problem solving skills. Life finds a way~

By medium levels, the Seers abilities would progress exponentially, ranging from mere in depth foresight to literal visions and supernatural awareness.  The Seer is aware of potential, of how things grow and progress and the odd factors of chance and fate that might affect them. By utilizing this awareness they could definitely measure any given course of action, giving it percentages for success or even watching it in real-time inside of their own mind. The branching patterns are made ever more clear as they weave their way behind enemy territories, deftly avoid landmines, dodge enemies with ease, and more, guided by their keen sense of progress and change. The branches of reality open to them, always being guided by a stronger way forward, though the Seer or allies progress is not without costs.

At higher levels, nothing is impossible. Effort and will is an often underutilized resource. By honing it to a razor fine scalpel the Seer of Life is able to completely maximize all of their efforts and the efforts of their comrades. They can essentially, manifest will and perseverance with as few hurdles as possible.  Extreme resourcefulness could lead anywhere from jury-rigging enemy robots to performing complex surgery with only the bare minimum of tools. They would be like MacGyver, able to use all sorts of contraptions and minimal supplies to push forward.   They and their allies would be like dandelions growing in concrete. Never backed into a corner, never trapped, always able to find secret opportunities and chances for further development. There is no such thing as a dead end while the Seer of Life is there. 

Skills

Stat sight- you can see anyone’s health, stamina, stats, and position on the echeladder

Adaptive- you can respec your stats

Hierarchy- You know the power level and taxonomy of any consort, underling, or carapacian by sight - This post was commissioned!  If you want to commission me or support my content, you can find me @ https://ko-fi.com/kesscal or over at https://linktr.ee/Skywhale09 !

[hyrule-kingdom-updates]

Can we get some spare Launo headcannons for July?

Launo sucked big time at knight school when he first arrived—he didn’t exactly have any background help given no one in his family was a knight either. He was basically assigned the equivalent of “equipment manager” during the first few months. And when he did get proper actions with a broadsword or a bow, Launo struggled with footwork and precision and all the minute details of a duel so he often got his ass handed to him.

But one the top kids in Launo’s class thought he was cool anyways—that was, one Arcadius Hartell. Pretty, rich, ace with sword, bow, spear, and anything sharp, and pretty much had no flaws or weaknesses. Launo at first thought the guy was just pitying him, the kid who has never won a single sparring match and consistently put on training dummy duty (that is reattaching their heads when they got lopped off)

So it came as a bit of a surprise when Arcadius came to ask something from him.

“How do you do that?”

Launo turned from the training dummy he was working on. “S-Sorry, what?”

“The...the thing you do. With the...thing?” Arcadius pointed to the needle and thread Launo was holding as he was reattaching the dummy’s forearm. “How do you do that?”

Launo scrunched his eyebrows in confuzzlement. “This is, uh, well. It’s just sewing I guess. If this guy were real I guess it would be stitching, haha...” He patted the dummy’s wood shoulder playfully as if joking with a pal—the dummy immediately tipped over, Launo coughed and stepped in front of the mess to ignore it. Arcadius nodded thoughtfully.

“So, do you have a special technique or something?”

“I mean, not really, it’s just regular old sewing...”

“But I assume you’ve spent years training on the art.”

“I...uh...I guess? My mom taught me.”

“Oh! So it’s like...an apprenticeship...?”

“...Are you under the impression that sewing is some sacred gift that gets passed down to the worthy or something?”

“.........no....”

The two boys just stood awkwardly for a moment longer, Launo studying Arcadius’ face.

“You don’t even know what sewing is do you?”

“O-Of course I do! It’s the...thing.” He made a sword motion with his fingers, as if wielding a tiny blade. “You stab the stuff and it repairs. With the...” Arcadius squinted as he thought for a moment, “...stool...”

“Spool?”

“Yeah! That! So, look, you’re pretty skilled at everything—“

“I am??” Launo took a step back in shock.

“Yeah! You always fix the equipment, and somehow haul around all those weapons, and make us cool lunches—“

“I don’t know, I made Rubeo vomit last week cause I forgot he hates blueberries...”

Arcadius shook his hands. “N-Not the point. And he sort of deserves it. The fact is you’re obviously leagues ahead of the game—“

“I—Actually I wouldn’t say—“

“—so you just gotta teach me everything you know!” Arcadius pumped a fist and closed his eyes. “How could I ever call myself a knight if I don’t even learn the basics of equipment management! Who will mend the wounded holes in my soldier’s pride if I can’t even fix the tears in my uniform! A mountain’s peak is equivalent to the shallow shore if you have no bearing of the heights you soar.”

Launo blinked. “Are you...okay?”

Arcadius scratched his head. “Aha...sorry. That’s a quote from Aria Nori’s newest volume. Guess I was too into the moment there.”

“Oh! The Zora poet! I’ve read her stuff! I haven’t read her latest volume, but my dad often binds her books—“

“Really?!” Arcadius’ eyes were suddenly star struck. “That’s so cool! This is all the more reason you gotta teach me this stuff.” He waved again at the collapsed training dummy. “Maybe start with the beetle and thread.”

“Needle. D-Do you not know what a needle is?”

Arcadius’ eyes glazed over. “...no...oh my gods that’s not gonna be on the test is it?? I’m so screwed—“

“Nonono it’s not, I’m just...” Launo bit his tongue. Now that he thought about it, he never really saw anyone else in his class do mundane house chore stuff. They were far too busy sharpening swords and bragging about their parents or grandparents or great uncles or cousins that totally were war heroes and high ranking political figures. Sewing could just be a Hateno thing, could it..?

“Can’t you just hire someone to teach you?” Launo started. “I mean, I’m super flattered! Just that, I’m not exactly a master at this, so I’m sure there are adults out there that are more accomplished.”

Arcadius hung his head. “I don’t think my dad would let me...Pretty much everything not sword related he just hires someone to do for me. And he’s super picky about what training I focus on.”

“Well it’s not really official training, it could just be a hobby.”

The boy raised an eyebrow, sounding out the word. “H...Hob...?”

“O-OK, just forget that. H-How about...” Launo didn’t meet his eyes as he absentmindedly kicked the dirt. “Y-You like poetry, right? You can come over to my house and look at my dad’s collection. And when we’re there, I can let my mom...” He scrunched his eyes, trying to nail down the words, “...apprentice you? On the...art, of sewing?”

Arcadius’ eyes were wide enough to reflect the heavens themselves. “R-Really?? You’d do that??”

“I don’t see why not. It’ll be after call and,” Launo’s eyes suddenly sparked, “...You can just tell your dad that you’re training me! Say that you were asked to help your fellow classmates cause you’re already so far ahead from everyone else.”

Which isn’t exactly a lie, Launo thought, bitterly.

“Hmm...” Arcadius tapped his chin, before shrugging. “Might have to tweak the explanation to ‘getting extra credit for top grades by tutoring’ cause I don’t know how he’ll feel about me helping the competition.” He articulated the last word with a mocking, adulting tone. Then he held out a hand. “But I think it sounds like a deal! I’ll give you some pointers, and you introduce me to your mentor.”

“My mom.”

“Yeah, that.”

Launo shook his hand, still a bit timidly, given he now noticed that a few other boys in the training yard were watching the prodigy student interact with the glorified janitor boy.

So they both tutored each other: Larc, in the art of knowing what sewing magic was (Larc bringing the most expensive and ornate needle Launo had ever seen, even though Larc claimed he just found it in his father’s closet) and brewing delicious broths (“Wait, you have to stand around this pot for hours and cook this stuff?? I thought you just made soup in a bowl! You know, like how servants take off the silver cover on the tray and the soup is already there?” “We...dont have waiters or anything...so our method of cooking different.”) Meanwhile, Launo was able to make some progress with knight training—keyword, “some.”

“Don’t make your stance so wide.” Arcadius shoved Launo’s back foot with his boot. “Keep your feet closer together, you only want enough distance so that your front foot can hover an inch off the ground while your back foot stays planted. Any further, and you’ll topple too easily.”

Launo adjusted his stance as instructed, and readied the rapier again. He set his jaw. “OK. Come at me!”

Arcadius nodded. He picked up the wooden sword and swung (a bit slowly and wide) at Launo’s side.

Launo immediately shoved his rapier point left to counter his attack, but instead moved with such force and vigor that he practically fell onto Arcadius’ blade.

Arcadius chuckled, dropping the sword and helping Launo up again. “You don’t need to use to much force when you swing. In fact it’s better to work with simple quick movements with any rapier or piercing sword, since the damage is done by the tip, not the weight.”

“S-Sorry...” Launo mumbled as he got up again.

“Don’t be! Oh hey!” Arcadius suddenly went back around towards the pile of weapons and pulled out a claymore. “Actually, maybe a sword like this will work better for you! You won’t have to worry as much about holding back, or being finesse. All the power is in that downward swing—!” Arcadius swung the sword into a nearby log to demonstrate, nearly cutting it asunder.

He offered it to Launo. “And don’t let the size fool you, it’s not actually that heavy. Large weapons still need to let soldiers be quick enough to parry and block attacks.”

Launo turned the claymore around in his hands, studying the blade and handle.

Arcadius gestured to the log. “Well, go on! It’s similar to the grip I taught you with the broadsword, but this time you use your other hand in the bottom to support the weight as it turns on an axis. Try that downward swing I showed you!”

Launo paused for a moment, thinking. Then, he planted his foot down, and swung the claymore down with all his might, aiming for another soon-to-be piece of firewood.

The claymore whistled as it fell, and it cut into the log deep—about halfway. Yet, still not nearly as deep as how Arcadius had done it.

Nonetheless, he was hopping with joy for Launo. “That was awesome!! You did great!!”

He sighed as he left the claymore in the log. “No I didn’t...”

“What are you talking about? That was probably the best blow you’ve done all night!”

“Yeah! And it’s not even a quarter of the damage that you did with your swing!”

“Well, it still took me a while to—“

Launo gestured to the other log. “It’s been how many weeks?? And I’m not even CLOSE to being as good as you, much less being a top student...” He plopped into the dirt and laid himself out like a starfish.

Larc stood over him, confused. “Why would you want to be a top student?”

“BECAUSE I SUCK ASS, DUDE!” Launo held up his arms, exasperated. Larc, on instinct, stepped back and held his hands close to his chest as he fiddled with his thumbs and mumbled an apology. Launo immediately sighed.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound like I’m mad at you. You’re really great, Link. You’re so nice to me and you’re talented and I’m so grateful, but I’m just...” He shifted in the dirt again. “I don’t think I could ever be like you. I’d even dare to say it’s impossible.”

Larc stilled, playing with his thumbs, before daring to step closer and sit in the dirt beside him.

“Can I tell you a secret, Launo?”

He was quiet, but he nodded a yes.

“I think my brother’s a stronger fighter than me.”

Launo furrowed his eyebrows confused, but he continued.

“He just never takes his knight training seriously, because of my father. But I bet if he really tried, he’d be great at it.”

Ah. So that’s what he meant.

“But I AM trying.” Launo whined. “I guess compared to you it doesn’t seem like much but—!”

“Nono! Sorry that’s not what I meant!” Larc quickly cut in. “I just...” He trailed off.

“...There’s a reason I have to be the best.” Larc finally said. He was looking out into the woods, but Launo felt that he wasn’t really looking at anything in particular, maybe deep in thought. “There’s a reason I can’t settle, I can’t rest. It’s really important that I get this all right. And I guess that makes me admirable to most people but...”

He looked down at Launo, still spread out in the dirt. “I didn’t really choose to be a knight, unlike you. I didn’t actually choose to be the best, and I don’t get why so many people do train to be at the top out of their own violation. It really...sucks ass.” He articulated the last part in Launo’s tone, and they both giggled.

“So...I guess that I’m trying to say here is that...” He thought one his words a moment longer. “I think so many people are afraid of trying new things, because they fear not being the best at it, not being at the top. And I suppose ambition is good but...” He tilted his head and shrugged at Launo. “As someone who’s supposedly at the top, I would say I envy anybody that can make progress that their proud of. You choose to be a knight, and you’re training for it out of your own strength and courage. That’s more than I’ll ever have, so you should probably get off the ground and realize that soon.”

Launo’s eyes widened, a bit unnerved by how uncharacteristically blunt Larc was being.

“In my opinion, anyone that aims to be better than everyone is stupid—maybe that’s just me, but...I would think that if I was you, I’d be proud of any progress I made. If I was more skilled than I was yesterday, that’s really all I would care about. Why would I care about being the top of my class? I would kill to just be satisfied with being a better me.”

There was silence as the boys took in Larc’s words. Then he suddenly stood up. “G-Goddess Hylia, sorry I’ve been talking for so long, I didn’t realize how late it was getting.” He went to collect his things. “You can keep the claymore, I think you’d be great at it, just...”

Larc packed his swords and backpack, before turning back to the flopped out Launo. “...I think you’re really cool, Launo. So don’t tap out for my sake—I’m not the person that matters in your training, am I? So don’t give up for any silly reasons like that.”

Launo perked his head up to meet his gaze. While Arcadius was usually serious and controlled during training at school, Larc always seemed to have genuine excitement about swords when it came to him. The bright smile on his face caused his cheeks to warm and he immediately flipped his head back to hide it.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Launo!” Larc ran off into the night, a cobblestone streets in the distance swallowing his figure.

“See you...” Launo whispered.

He lay in the dirt a moment longer—his mother would probably berated him for the stains again—when he finally got up and looked at the claymore in the log. He walked up to it and observed it further, it was another a sixth of the way deep. He glanced at Larc’s log, which was nearly split in two, and sighed. Then he glanced back at his own work.

“Well, it’s better than when I first started I guess...” Launo mumbled.

No one responded.

The boy let out a huff, and gripped the sword again in his hands.

“But I can do better.”

By the time Launo was 16 he was finally beating his classmates with ease, specializing in longswords, axes, and hammers. And while he definitely still “sucked ass” in things like archery and lance work—to which some boys still teased him for—he found overtime that he no longer cared about what they thought. They had their strengths, and he had his. And to top it off, absolutely no one in the academy could make a lemon cookie like him. So at least he had the best in show for that angle.

Even years later, after certain incidents transpired concerning House Hartell, Launo always welcomed Larc to his house for “training.” Although after a while, it would be hard to still call it that when a large chunk of time is really just spent running their fingers through each other’s hair.

“But we’re friends, right?”

“Yeah.”

And even years after graduating as part of the top ten in his class and working as a knight, some of his old classmates would tease him for being the “rich boy’s lap dog,” Launo would find that he still really didn’t care—after a punch or two was thrown, of course. He found that his new lack of anxiety and concern heavily stemmed from that night, when Larc had told him about his envy for choice and satisfaction. Thinking back at the memory of his handling with a sword and his happy little smile once made Launo blush so hard his father teased him about it for the rest of his life—his mother claimed he went so red he would fit right in with the tomato stew. One of these days, Launo would pay Larc back for the endless teasing he got from his parents. And pay Larc back he would, indeed.

I mean, he already had the ring.

[ga-yuu]

Genjiden~Eternal Contract Story Event~Ibuki Route

‘(Just for those who don’t know what this event is about? This is the 2nd ‘What if’ event following the Shirabyoshi Event. In this event, Yoshino(MC) is a demon from birth, and stories are formulated in such a way showing how the male leads and Yoshino will meet and fall in love if she was a demon. Imagine the real prologue without Yoshino in it, because this story is happening after that.)

*

The beautiful flowers of the Otherworld bloom and sways even though there is no wind.

There are similar ones in the human world, but I don’t when it is at its best there....

(Okay, I think it’s time to go to the human world.)

I’m a demon, who often visits the human world.

It’s fun to experience different landscapes and creatures from the human world.

(Of course, that’s not the only reason why I go there.)

As I wondered if today would be the day I would achieve my goal, I stepped towards the gate.

???: “You’re here again.”

(Hm?)

I see a strange man blocking my path.

He had rich long golden hair and two horns were growing out of it----

Yoshino: “-----Oni?”

His frosty eyes shine brightly.

Oni: *Smiles like a creep*

(Ummm...)

I stepped back immediately when I felt the intimidating feeling seeping out of him even when he doesn’t talk.

(I can feel that he’s not just any Oni.)

Oni: “I am Ibuki. Have you heard of that name?”

(Ibuki? Hmmm....)

Yoshino: “Are you saying that you’re the Demon King?”

Shuten Doji, Ibuki. That was the name that came to my mind.

The Demon King or more precisely Ibuki-sama looks down at me in amusement when I was looking back at him in surprise.

Ibuki: “I’ve heard that you’ve got a rare gift. I’m a busy man you know. But I still came all this way to see you, and it wouldn’t hurt to make me happy, right?”

Yoshino: “Eerrmmm....”

(Actually, it’s true that I have a one in a million rare power.)

Yoshino: “But why did you wanna see me?”

Ibuki-sama slowly takes a step towards me.

Ibuki: “Your exceptional powers might attract humans. So I thought, you would make a very interesting toy.”

I raised an eyebrow at his insinuations.

(You want to use my powers to destroy humans? How dare you!)

Yoshino: “Sorry. I can’t cooperate with that.”

Snickering at my rejection, Ibuki-sama lifts one hand casually.

Ibuki: “It seems you have mistaken. I’m not here to negotiate. I’m here to do what I want.”

(Is that thunder!?)

I had a bad feeling and quickly ducked down.

The next thing I knew, a bolt of lightning strike the spot where I was standing.

(Is that Ibuki-sama’s powers...!?)

Ibuki: “What’s wrong? Isn’t it time to run? Come on, run away and I’ll keep chasing you.”

Yoshino: “I will, even if you don’t tell me to.”

I turned my back to Ibuki-sama, and started running as fast as I could.

Ibuki: “Not bad.... It’s fun to chase someone so fast.”

(I’m totally being played. It’s frustrating.....but I have to get out of here now anyway!)

.................

I continued running till I reached my limit and then fell onto my knees in the flower field.

(No more...!)

I was breathing heavily and my legs were shaking.

Ibuki: “You’ve done well for a little girl, but that’s the end of your marathon.”

Yoshino: “Ah!”

Before I knew it, Ibuki-sama was standing right behind me, his arms holding my waist.

Like a predator, he pushed me down on the ground and held me by the nape of my neck.

(Is he going to kill me?)

Ibuki; “Don’t be so hard on yourself. What’s the point if there’s no response?”

Yoshino: “Eh?...Ah!!”

A fleshy wet thing touches the edge of my ear and a shiver runs down my spine.

(He’s also biting...!)

When I turned my head in surprise, our eyes meet and Ibuki-sama was laughing seeing my ridiculous reaction.

Ibuki: “Hehe, the face you’re making now is nasty.”

Yoshino: “M-My face...?”

Ibuki: “Your face is telling me that you can’t look at anything else but me and you’re anticipating something more.”

Then, Ibuki-sama inserts two fingers in my mouth and plays with my tongue.

Just as I was about to sink my teeth into his fingers, he sweetly tweaked the nape of my neck, and my whole body jumped in excitement.

Ibuki: “You’re resisting like a kitten. How cute.”

Yoshino: “Nnn...nnn....”

Ibuki: “Now, why don’t try saying ‘Meow.”

(No way!!)

Ibuki-sama’s long fingers tickled the sensitive parts of my mouth and laughed while watching me struggle.

After my tongue was released, I started breathing sweetly.

Yoshino: “Why....are you doing this....?”

Ibuki: “Why?”

Ibuki-sama’s wet fingers traced down my neck and I felt a chill and fear at the same time.

Ibuki: “Because your reaction is human-like and it’s very intriguing.”

(Why...)

Yoshino: “Why do you want to do terrible things to humans?”

Ibuki: “We both are demons. Isn’t it natural for demons to torment and corrupt humans?”

Yoshino: “No! I won’t do that! All I want to do is make a deal with a human.”

Shaking off his fingers on my neck, I pushed away Ibuki-sama.

Ibuki: “You want to make a deal? Did you hit your head or something?”

A glimmer of interest shines in Ibuki-sama’s eyes.

(Looks like I have to tell him what’s going on.)

I decided to give up the idea of running away and told him about my goal.

Yoshino: “...As you already know, I have the powers to heal a person. But when I heal someone, I have to take away the life force of another living being. And, I have no control over this power.”

Ibuki: “So you want to make a deal with a human to weaken your powers.”

Ibuki-sama chuckled after guessing my goal correctly.

It’s kind of embarrassing to be seen through, so I didn’t argue.

Ibuki: “You really are stupid.”

The corners of Ibuki-sama’s mouth moves up and it didn’t hide the fact that he was amused.

Ibuki: “Humans are cute but stupid creatures. Creatures who dream something beyond their reach and will do anything to achieve even if it means to get their hands dirty.”

(Of course, I’m well aware that not all humans are good...)

Yoshino: “But Ibuki-sama who has never made a deal with a human, can never understand my feelings!”

Ibuki-sama, who is so strong and can conquer different powers perfectly, is so beautiful.

I’m so disappointed that I can’t do anything but say it back to him like a sore loser.

Ibuki: “......”

I saw Ibuki-sama looking down at me emotionlessly.

(Did I offend him....? I did offend him, didn’t I? Looks like my time is over.)

I clenched my fists and mentally prepared myself to be struck by lightning.

Ibuki: “Do you want to play a game?”

(It’s not a death game, right?)

With unexpected words, Ibuki-sama pinched my forehead.

Ibuki: “If I win, you’ll agree to be my toy and let me torment you.”

.............

A month has passed since that day. Ibuki-sama brought me to the human world since then and I’ve been living with him at his base.

The rule of our game was simple-----If I don’t find a human within the next three months to make a deal with, Ibuki-sama wins. If I did find one, I win.

(And the loser has to surrender to the winner.)

(So I’ve no intention of losing!)

Ibuki-sama opened his mouth to start small talk, perhaps after seeing me trembling thinking about the wildest things that would happen if I lose.

Ibuki: “You’ve been eyeing a daughter of a noble family, weren’t you....She does charity for the poor out of vanity. But I heard behind the scenes, her attitude towards her servants is the worst. How about seducing a man with your pretty face? There was a guy asking for you-----”

Yoshino: “I don’t want to hear that.”

I slumped my shoulders thinking about the number of humans I’ve been striking off from my list in the past month.

Ibuki: “And there’s this another man, who is was an official, famous for his integrity. I did a little bit of digging and found out he got into embezzlement.”

Yoshino: “I said NO!”

Ibuki: “You never do any background check before agreeing to one. Be grateful that you don’t have to deal with weirdos.”

(Yeah...It’s hard to accept it.)

I initially doubted Ibuki-sama when he told me about these facts and went to find out by myself.

No matter how many times I repeat the confirmation, I’m only reminded that the words are not false.

(I hate to admit it, but he has been sincere about this game from day one.)

Yoshino: “If only I had been able to scare humans into doing bad things like Ibuki-sama....”

Ibuki: “I don’t like doing boring things like that. I’m more into breaking them right away.”

Yoshino: “And you’re seduction skills are too good.”

(You’re strong and clever, if only you were also a good person....I might have been attracted to you.)

I sighed, but Ibuki-sama reaches out to play with my hair.

(...Hm?)

Ibuki: “Hey, Yoshino. Are you ready to admit it? That it’s better to play with humans than to make a deal with them.”

Yoshino: “I haven’t given up yet.”

Ibuki: “Good. It’s the ones who don’t give up easily are worth breaking.”

At the same time, when Ibuki-sama smiled at me----

???: “Ibuki!”

The front door opens to reveal a pale-looking man.

Ibuki: “Akihito? What’s wrong?”

(Akihito-san? For a human being, he has a very strange aura.)

Even after seeing, Ibuki-sama’s two antennas he’s calm. Looks like he’s aware of demons and the Otherworld.

Akihito: “It’s Yasuchika. He’s serious.”

Ibuki: “What?”

Yoshino: “Who is Yasuchika-san?”

(Who is he? and he’s fatally injured?)

Looking at me from the sideways, Ibuki-sama shrugs.

Ibuki: “He’s an Onmyoji and human, but I don’t think he’s someone suitable for your case.”

Akihito: “Who is this, Ibuki?”

(!!!)

I met Akihito-san’s eyes and bowed lightly.

Ibuki: “Don’t worry. She’s a fellow demon and a playmate of mine.”

Hiding me behind his back, Ibuki-sama turns to Akihito-san.

Ibuki: “More than that, What actually happened to Yasuchika?”

Akihito: “I’m not sure of the details yet. It seems like he was badly injured in a rash attempt to exterminate a demon at the request of his superior.”

Ibuki: “........Ohh?”

Akihito: “They did everything they could to treat him on the road. But on the way to Kyoto, the wound got infected and he lost consciousness. The pharmacist has told me that if things continue to go badly, he could lose his life.”

Ibuki: “.....I see.”

(So he’s suffering from a life-threatening injury.)

Ibuki: “But this news is new to me.”

Akihito: “He didn’t tell anyone about this mission because he didn’t want me to get in trouble.”

Ibuki: “That’s because.....that moron loves you too much.”

His tone was the same, but...when he said ‘moron’ I felt a different temperature, unlike the usual.

(I think I may have never seen Ibuki-sama’s face like this before.)

Akihito: “I was naive. I should have seen this coming.”

Even Akihito-san's cool countenance is now tinged with anguish.

(A human named Akihito-san, an Onmyoji named Yasuchika-san and the Demon King Ibuki....I don’t know what their relationship is nor the circumstances of these three.)

(But I can at least make out that, the person named Yasuchika-san is an irreplaceable existence for both Ibuki-sama and Akihito-san.)

Above all that----

I was moved by Ibuki-sama’s earnestness. So I made my resolve.

Yoshino: “Ibuki-sama.”

Ibuki: “What? I’m busy. We’ll play later.”

I didn’t listen to his rejection and stepped forward.

Yoshino: “Please allow me to use my powers.”

Ibuki: “What!?”

At my words, Akihito-san also blinked his eyes.

Akihito: “Your powers?”

Yoshino: “I have the powers to heal others. ...But there’s a problem.”

I gave a brief explanation of the drawback of my ‘healing abilities’ to Akihito-san.

Akihito: “I’m surprised. I never thought I would see a demon with such a rare gift.”

Yoshino: “You’re right. But when it comes to a fatally injured person, it takes a great deal of life force to heal him. If I take too much life force to heal Yasuchika-san, I might end up killing the other person I took it from.”

Ibuki: “And she can’t control her powers by herself.”

Ibuki-sama calmly points out my problem.

(When I hear him say that, I feel sorry for myself.)

But I can’t just overlook a problem because of that.

Yoshino: “I can’t control it, but Ibuki-sama, who is a demon, is sure to be immune to my Otherworldly powers.”

Ibuki: “...Yeah, so?”

Ibuki-sama narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously.

Yoshino: “Here’s the plan, I’ll use Akihito-san’s life force to heal Yasuchika-san.”

Ibuki: “......”

 Yoshino: “But if heal him fully without leaving a scratch, Akihito-san’s life will be in danger. So when I go out of control, I want you to stop me with your powers.”

(It’s actually hard to guess exactly when to stop, but....)

Yoshino: “A smart demon like Ibuki-sama should know what I’m capable of and would save Akihito-san, no matter what, right?”

I could feel the intimidation raising as I openly challenged him.

Ibuki: “...Yeah, whatever.”

Akihito-san smiled softly, not taking into account the tingling atmosphere of Ibuki-sama.

Akihito: “I don’t mind. Half of my life for him is a small price to pay.”

Ibuki: “You’ll always be you, selfish.”

(Akihito-san is quite a man to be able to tame Ibuki-sama.)

Ibuki-sama sighed and shifted his gaze to me.

Ibuki: “Yoshino.”

He gives me a sharp look as if to see my true intentions.

Ibuki: “---Why are you doing this? You shouldn’t have any reason to do this.”

(There is no point in lying to Ibuki-sama.)

Yoshino: “When Yasuchika-san’s injury news came to you...for the first time I saw Ibuki-sama showing a slight difference from his usual self. Yasuchika-san must be a very important person for Ibuki-sama.”

Ibuki: “Oh, are taking pity on me?”

Yoshino: “...No.”

(I can’t suggest such a scary thing out of pity.)

If Akihito-san or Yasuchika-san were to lose their lives because of my powers, then......my legs ache just thinking about it.

I became honest towards Ibuki-sama as to why I am doing this.

Yoshino: “I’m just curious to know what kind of person Ibuki-sama, who knows so much about the negative side of humans, is worried about.”

Ibuki: “.......”

Yoshino: “...I wonder what kind of face Ibuki-sama will make if I help him. I want to see it.”

(I know I’m saying something bold. But I really want to save Yasuchika-san but....)

(Also with the same strong feeling, I’d like to see Ibuki-sama’s expressions that I don’t know.)

Ibuki: “...Heh.”

Then his thin lips gave out a smirk.

Ibuki: “So you want to have some fun with my heart? You’ve got some nerve.”

A faint heat flickered behind Ibuki-sama’s eyes.

Yoshino: “Can’t I?”

Ibuki: “It’s not a good idea to use a human’s life as a shield against a Demon King.”

The words that were supposed to be like a threat turned out to be much warmer.

(I’m supposed to be sacred, but I can’t see or hear anything but Ibuki-sama.)

A quiet heat had seized me and was about to engulf me.

Even so, I kept my face up because I was proud of what I said.

Ibuki: “It’s not good, but....it’s certainly a demon thing to do, to act on one’s own interests.”

(Ahh!!!)

Ibuki-sama big arm intertwined my faintly trembling hands and held them tightly.

Ibuki: “I’ll go play your game. So don’t be afraid to help me.”

Premium END // Epilogue

For the Anon, who wanted to see this.

[fanartfunart]

@sapony01​ commented on one of my Sides Swap posts: Can you explain their function and personality a bit better/explore them? Some are kinda obvious but some kinda confuse me

And, but of course! I’m totally open to it! (I’m mostly making another post for it because otherwise it’ll get absurdly long)

To summarize, the main idea is that they keep their personality and secondary traits they represent (Like Ego, Emotionality, ect), while further representing the Main Trait (like Anxiety, Creativity, ect)

The rest under the cut:

Anxiety

Roman: His key representation of Anxiety would befall closer to overemphasizing bravery and ignoring problems, and of course, insecurities. Thus a focus on Dangers you can Fight, and avoiding things you can’t. A emphasis on the Knight theme as a representation of bravery. He’d use ego and theatricality as a cover- a ‘be weird before people can accuse you of being weird because then it’s on purpose’ type logic.

Patton: The type of Anxiety where you emotionally over extending yourself because you’re scared of social-emotional repercussions. Caring so much that there’s no time and energy to care for yourself. Also a good representation of the Dad-Friend override for Anxiety.

Logan: A representation of over-analyzing the world like an outsider, that emotional distance that, while you’re curious of all the things around you, you can’t help but focus on the bad. Avoidance becomes a key factor and everything is categorized as bad or good off of exaggerated ‘proof’.

Janus: Very self protective to the point that things outside the Comfort Zone are almost always negative and overwhelming. Sarcasm, brittleness, and lying as a way to avoid things outside the Comfort Zone.

Remus: Overthinking creating an Anxious reaction. Basically seeing things in the shadows and over-analyzing interactions. Essentially worries cropping up out of the idea of various terrible things you can think of possibly coming at you from the smallest of hints to it. Also Knight theme because why not.

Creativity 

Logan: A more organized and analytic approach to creative works. Prone to being a literary critic. Draws from media to explain a point. As creativity would likely be the type of writer that hides details and metaphors in everything, focus on foreshadowing and the such.

Janus: Never lets anything be direct, people should be able to make their own conclusions about the meaning of the text. Probably thinks method acting is fun. The kind of actor/writer that easily shrugs on different types of characterizations that it makes other people dizzy seeing him switch between them.

Virgil: Your inner Emo Art Phase personified (everyone has at least one somewhere in there). Would prefer to be either a lesser known creator, or not let Thomas use his real name (thus Ghostwriter), because being Known is Awkward and his work can get too real, being known as a real person could detract from the art. Focus on art as an outlet for expressing negative feelings and stress relief.

Patton: Take your craft-happy relative who always hand-makes gifts and you’ve got Creativity Patton. Just wants to have fun and share the fun. Draws from positive emotional experiences for creativity because he wants to give everyone who sees said art a hug through said art. (Yes, his design is vaugely based off of Disney’s Pinocchio Geppetto aka Pinocchio’s dad.)

Remus: Take Remus as he is, and then take the ‘intrusiveness’ out of him. He basically has all the same horrifying ideas, but he doesn’t use them to make Thomas upset or anything, he’s just making stories.

Logic

Patton: Sorta a relaxed logic, understands not everything can be solved with a clean logical solution and that emotions hold a important space in people’s actions. Is that little logical voice when you’re super mad going ‘you’re mad because this, this, and this, and this is probably an overreaction to what you’re expressing your anger to, but it’s still valid.’ Prone to emotional fallacies though.

Virgil: You know any super cool teacher/professor who teaches you what the book says and then closes the book and says ‘ok now guess what, they’re also wrong, and I’m probably wrong too’?? Virgil as logic. (also why I kinda gave him the ‘tired + university hoodie’ style) Emphasizes learning from various sources and never trusting any of them 100%. Doesn’t trust his own information either, and it makes him stressed.... but like, he’s always stressed anyway so it’s chill. 

Roman: Bounces from topic to topic to learn. Very curious and easily inspired- also easily distracted. The definition of what a liberal arts education should be doing- aka, connecting seemingly unrelated topics. An Encyclopedia of very specific information. But, once he’s got a set of information it’s hard to let go of it, which makes it hard to adjust to being told he’s wrong.

Janus: Emphasis on how information is always being adjusted, and people’s biases are always present in studies and interpretation. Focuses on debunking things. Also kinda makes it hard to 100% be sure of any information presented.

Remus: Enjoys abusing the ‘technicalities’ in things. A little hard to follow in terms of train of thought. Disturbing Facts are still facts.

Morality

Virgil: Emphasis on sympathy and ‘do what you’d hope people would do for you’ moral arguments. Focus on social structure for the ground rules for moral behavior. That guy who’s constantly nice because he wished someone was nice to him, ya know? Hates the idea of being a bad person so much that it causes a lot of guilt and mistrust of the self.

Logan: Thinks of moral behavior as an equation of sorts. People do good things and that causes good things and that allows the social structure to work as it should, so do good things. Draws on philosophy and other social sciences to argue his points. Easy to readjust his thinking with proper reasoning.

Roman: Just wants people to be happy! And to be good! Emphasis on the reactions of others and how that effects your social/emotional well-being. Do good because it feels good kinda guy (he wants to be somebody’s Hero, ya know how it be).

Janus: Understands that morality is such a grey place that most anything can be seen as bad if you argue it enough. Places value on the self as someone deserving of feeling good as well, and bases moral values on what you as an individual wants to do. Also still kinda morally grey in general and probably shouldn’t always be listened to.

Remus: I Follow no Rules but My Own. Full rejection of social pressures. What precisely that means for his resulting moral standing is up to debate.

Deceit

Logan: Woorsst lair because he’ll twist truth and facts into it and it’s hard to pick out what’s the lie. Very blunt about his role as deception and its benefits and drawbacks. Very good about remembering which lies were told when and to who. Not the kind to lie more than seen necessary.

Roman: Focus on lying as acting and getting to where you need to go in life. ‘Fake it til you make it’ is his motto and it also includes mental states. Makes it hard to be honest about feelings. Very much a ‘lying to yourself’ aspect.

Virgil: Lying to avoid perceived negative repercussions. Lying still bothers him- as lying can also cause negative reactions. Focus on lying in reaction to events, less so on lying to the self. Not every lie is especially necessary though, knee-jerk reactions and fear make it very easy to lie. Lies of omission being the most utilized.

Remus: The opposite to Roman’s ‘lying to yourself’. Lying to others just to see their reactions. Uses being ‘blatantly honest’ about taboo subjects to seem honest about other things.

Patton: Lying to spare people’s feelings and being perceived well. Focus on lying or omitting the truth to seem like everything’s awesome.

Intrusive Thots

Patton: Makes emotional reactions overwhelmingly hard to gauge and control, results in terrifying thoughts and feelings with little control or filter. Gets stuck on ideas because of how hard he’s trying to push it away (yea know, like the white bear experiment).

Virgil: Thinks in problem solving, but the problems are of course, the thoughts of his own creation. Incessant about ‘solving’ the perceived problem.... not much else changes.

Logan: The Mad Scientist aesthetic is fun, what can I say? Takes facts and focuses on the scary parts, and then brings them back up on the slightest hint of relevance, and sometimes just Because. Some of it is curiosity taken into a frightening territory and gets overwhelming.

Janus: Emphasis on what happens if terrible things happened. Also likes using the ‘you’re gonna go to hell anyway just dive in with me’ argument. Occasionally pops up in a way that sounds almost nice, then turns horrifying very quickly.

Roman: Take Roman, make his ideas more Remus. He’s already Loud and Proud, just make him scarier, and a little more incessant and probably a little more arrogant for good measure.

[kimberly-spirits13]

Haunted (Request)

Paring: John Constantine Protégé (reader) x young justice

Synopsis: It’s basically the episode, “Haunted” from Teen Titans where Robin sees Slade but he isn’t there but it’s with the reader

Notes: Y/F/C = Your Favorite Channel   

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2336

           Constantine had told you to be extra careful after you had returned from missions or what he liked to call, hell bound adventures with him. You’d always been, it was part of the job of course. That didn’t mean however, that sometimes, something would go a bit ... awry.

           You were crashing on the couch after getting back from a mission with your teacher. John Constantine was a different kind of person to everyone, but for you he was like a weird uncle or estranged father figure. You had just gotten back from cleansing yourself of anything that might attract some sort of negative spirit or energy into the cave. He lectured you on that before you two had come in through the zeta beams. You rolled your eyes thinking of it as the remote that you were using made the tv flip to new channels every few seconds. You passed Conner’s favorite, static, and then made it to your own favorite channel Y/F/C.

           It was some time before the team had come in from their own mission. Kid Flash was the first to greet you as he sat threw himself over the top of the couch to sit down by you.

           “Hey beautiful.” He said making you cringe internally.

           “He- get your hands off of my popcorn Wallace.” You said without looking at him, instead opting to keep your eyes on the screen.

           You felt him scoot over some at your tone. He knew not too touch your food, especially after missions. The one time you did share, everyone was half dead and happened to have stuffed a few snacks in your pockets. You only looked up when you heard the rest of the team walk near the living room and kitchen.

           “How was your mission with Hellblazer?” Artemis asked sitting down on the floor next to you.

           “It was ... long.” You replied with an exasperated sigh, “Honestly, I could use a nice movie night for once.”

           “I second that.”

           After a few minutes, everyone was showered and in pajamas. Bean bags, pillows, and blankets were strewn out in every square centimeter of the living room and a movie was underway. The movie was a nice distraction from the night’s events. You almost had this fear that if you looked away, you’d see something that you didn’t want to. It was a fear that you finally told yourself that you needed to face in order to enjoy your night as much as you possibly could. It was a fear that came true the moment you took your eyes off of the tv. You didn’t have to squint to see the massive black figure lurking in the shadows. It stared back at you almost daring you to move. You sat still, tensing up some after looking to see if it could be anyone that wasn’t sitting by you at the time. Then you confirmed it, the entire team was accounted for and the shadow was moving closer to you.

           “Everyone get to the mission room!” You yelled out making the rest of the team jump.

           “What’s wrong?” Robin asked standing up.

           “Don’t ask just go!”

           It was a known fact that if Constantine’s kid was telling everyone to get away from where they were, you left. The team sprinted off to where you told them to go as you rushed into the kitchen hold your hand out in the general direction of the being and chanted something that only you could understand. The cage that you put the spirit in wouldn’t last for long and you knew that. That wasn’t the point though, right now, you were after paint, and a marker. Once you had those items, you ran into the briefing room where missions were given out calling out protection spells and scribbling the corresponding symbols on the walls with the permanent marker. The rest of the team looked on in horror as you ran closer and closer. They couldn’t see what was quickly trailing on behind you, but they knew that if you were this panicked, it must be something serious.

           “Move together in a group.” You instructed running around them with the salt, “You know the drill, don’t touch, move, blow on, don’t do anything with the salt unless I say so!”

           “Y/N, there isn’t anything there.” Robin said looking around.          

           “I can’t even sense anything.” M said crossing her arms some.

           “I know you can’t, that’s why you have to stay here.” You said drawing symbols around the circle, “Someone get a hold of Constantine, I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment.”

           You stopped and looked behind you seeing the shadow coming closer and closer to the door, “Shit!” You hissed standing up, “Take these, if anything happens and you have to leave the salt circle, make sure you have these around your neck. Don’t let anything happen to you.”

           You handed each of them a necklace with a protection charm on it, “It’s after me, so, in theory, you guys should be fine unless it kills me.”

           “W-wait... Kills?” Wally asked making everyone turn and stare in the general direction you were looking.

           “Precisely my dear Watson.” You started chanting something again before yelling out in pain clutching the protection tattoo over your arm. There appeared scratches much to the horror of the rest of the team.

           Blood dripped down slowly and in smaller amounts than you expected it would. The heat off of whatever scratched you seemed to have cauterized most of the scratch, that wasn’t a good sign.

           “What do you want?” You asked in a different language that was foreign to the rest of the team, “Whom do you seek?”

           “The blood of Constantine.” It replied.

           Now you knew it was after you. You had the blood of Constantine, at least with being his kid and all. That was when you started running. Your bedroom would be the safest place for you right now, just not the team. The team wasn’t typically allowed in your room because of everything inside of it that they were not ready to be around at all. Some of the things might cause them nightmares, others a state of delirium that you had been trained to be accustomed to. There, in your room, you had the spell books needed to vanquish whatever was after you.

           You knew that the team probably wouldn’t be able to get a hold of your mentor. The communications were probably down by now. If anything happened, there would be no one there to help you. Not even Zantana was here. She would be nice to have around right about now. Then again, almost anyone with skills in magic would be helpful to have around right now so that wasn’t saying too much.

           You had to run through the living room and kitchen once more. The shadow was right on your tail when you turned around to see if you could find it. The moment you did, it disappeared.

           “Damn it!” You murmured before turning around, wide eyed at what you saw about to run into you, “Should have remembered eyes on the roa-“

           The shadow picked you up. You didn’t expect it to be able to do that. Maybe scratch you a bit, but certainly not lift you off solid ground. Kicking and thrashing around seemed to be doing nothing for you at that moment. The being laughed at your antics before lifting one of its claws to your cheek and slowly cutting into it drawing the smallest amount of blood. You screamed out in pain, all the while trying to articulate a spell to put distance between you and the shadow. It did its job and the next thing you knew you hit the ground running. The stumble and fall didn’t hurt that bad at the moment, you had too much adrenaline in your system for that kind of common pain.

           You slid into a different hallway and then down one more before getting into your bedroom and shutting the door. There was no need to make protection spells in here since they were already there. As quickly as possible, you ran to the book shelf and started trying to find the book Constantine had always told you to use if something like this had happened. You found the book, a navy blue leather bound book with old paper and tarnished gold details. Opening the book on your bed, you flipped through it rapidly trying to find the page needed for the spell that you were about to cast.

           Once you got to the correct page, you saw that you’d need something to give you some time. It involved a few different things to make it work, all of which you could do quickly with some other spells, but not fast enough to keep yourself safe.

           “M? Can you hear me?” You asked over the mental link.

           “Loud and clear. Are you alright?” She asked.

           “Not the best but there’s no time to complain about it, listen if you can, I need you to do something for me.” You said, “It’s dangerous and if you don’t want to do it, I’ll think of something else but you should be fine with the protection charm I gave you.” “I need you to fly out of the salt circle, as in, don’t touch it. Then will you go into the hallway outside of my room, looking like me and lead it to the zeta beams. Go as fast as you can on that part. On my signal, change back into yourself and go invisible. I don’t want you in sight during this part. Get back to the salt circle.”

           “If you think it’s best, I’ll do it.” She answered after a few seconds of silence.

           “Good. Now go.”

           After a minute or so, you felt the shadow following something else. Your plan was working and all you had to do now was beat the two into the room entrance. You took a different route that wouldn’t be anywhere near were the two of them were and once you were in the right place, you dropped to your knees making the correct markings on the floor and setting candles around it. You had done this countless numbers of times, but now that this thing was threatening your only real family, it felt a bit personal. You stood up once M announced to you that she was entering the room. You hid behind Conner’s motorcycle and at the right moment, leaped out in front of it telling M to leave.

           She did as you instructed leaving you to finish the spell. You felt your energy draining more and more as it got closer. You were leading it right where you wanted it, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t hurt you. By now it had scrapped you up a bit. There would be bruises in the morning considering you made it to then.

           The shadow laughed at your pain, lifting its hand to knock you into a wall. You grunted in pain before stumbling back onto your feet, not letting it break your concentration. You dodged a flying wrench and then screwdriver before feeling a sharp pain on your leg. This thing was toying with you now, trying to get you to drop the spell. The intensity of the spell ended up making the lights flicker on and off, finally killing them. You felt multiple cuts forming on different parts of your body. That was when you caught it. It tried to keep moving but was now stuck in the symbol that you drew. You smiled some suddenly having a bit more energy and hope that you’d finish. With confidence, you ended the spell. The sound of the high pitch screeching made you hold your ears closed in pain. You fell to your knees before telling the team that it was okay to come out. The lights came back on and the last thing you remember was a bright white light and then silence.

“Come on kid, wake up.” You felt someone shaking you awake. The voice sounded familiar but panicked like if you didn’t open your eyes at once, they’d lose it.

Under you, you felt the concreate of the cave floor. It wasn’t the best feeling in the world in the slightest especially with your aching bones. Around you, you felt multiple people, none of them to be evil. Then, slowly, you blinked your eyes open, light flooding your senses before you were adjusted.

“I-is it gone?” You asked rubbing your head hearing the sigh of relief from your mentor.

“It is.” Constantine said helping you up and catching you as you stumbled over, “I didn’t think you’d be able to handle a demon of that size. I’m impressed you did, but you need rest.”

“How’d it get in?” You asked looking around some to see the team fully intact.    

“I’m still figuring that out right now Y/N/N. The ole bastard didn’t stand a chance against you though”

“Y/N, are you alright?” M asked not really wanting to come closer to you with John there.            You nodded, “Yeah, I’m fine.” “Are you guys okay?”

“We’re all fine Y/N... w-what was that?” Robin asked, “None of us could see whatever it was that was here, it seemed to just be you.”            “It was a demon. Must have followed from my last mission away from you guys. You couldn’t see it because it didn’t want you to. It was after me, but once it got me, I’m sure it would have gone after all of you.”

Constantine stayed a little while longer to help make sure that there was nothing else there. You told him that it was after him which wasn’t unheard of at all but he needed to be more careful than he typically was for a little bit. After he was gone, the team dragged you into the living room where you promptly fell asleep during a movie.

           This was fun to write. I find it funny that two people kind of had the same idea, that was pretty funny. Anyways, I hope you guys liked this one and are having a great day. I’m going to still try and post even with my laptop gone but that all just depends on what happens. I hope you’re all staying safe and healthy and have a wonderful week and rest of the day!

[f-nodragonart]

Vertebrate Wings, PART 6: Details

Return to main post + TOC >>HERE<<

Details TOC

  Elbow Spines

  Wrist Spikes

  Palms

  Thumbs

Elbow Spines

I was admittedly a LOT more anal about elbow spines in the past. No way no how, I didn’t accept elbow spines in any way, shape, or form. Nowadays, I’m simply wary of elbow spines. I still believe whole-heartedly that a proper wing will have enough membrane stability and surface area all on its own, without the need for an elbow spine. BUT I can absolutely see the aesthetic charm in certain designs, and elbow spines can make sense if designed properly.

The interesting thing is that there ARE real-life “flying” animals with elbow spines—anomalures.

(I honestly wish I had skeletals to show off but I can’t find any, so if anyone has anomalure skeletal photos/diagrams I’d greatly appreciate it)

Technically these animals can’t “fly” but glide, much like the similar (but not necessarily related) flying squirrels, who also happen to have ‘spines’ at their wrists.

Even the recently discovered Yi Qi could be used as comparison, with their highly-elongated wrist spines.

Despite these real-life animals with wing spines supporting their membranes, there are still ways to do wing spines wrong, so keep these tips in mind if you want to add elbow spines to your creature’s membranous wings:

  1)      Animals with these spines are GLIDERS

The living animals with similar spines—flying squirrels and anomalures—are gliders, NOT powered flyers. IE—these animals don’t flap or otherwise move their arms/legs in very complicated motions; their limbs/spines are almost exclusively built to keep the membrane taut during gliding. While we can’t know of the Yi Qi’s specific style of flight at this point, I have reason to believe they were also gliders, not flyers. Again, I can’t prove this for certain, it’s just what I can reason out from what’s currently available about the species.

Either way, evidence points to the idea that these sorts of spines (at least supporting the main body of a membrane—yes I know about pteroids) are exclusively found on gliders, not powered flyers. This makes sense, given that spines don’t have joints, so they wouldn’t give membranes NEARLY the same flexibility and precision as fingers. But since gliders don’t necessarily need that kind of precision, this doesn’t hinder their “flight”.

Now, this fact on its own doesn’t negate the possibility of elbow spines on a powered flyer, but it is a cautionary reminder to take proper integration into account, which the following points will describe.

  2)      Spines are NOT fingers

Elbow spines are not endemic to arm structures—the structures wings evolved from. Thus, an elbow spine would have had to evolve into a wing design for the express purpose of membrane stability and/or widening the membrane surface area.

There is absolutely zero reason an elbow spine would have a claw, pad, or otherwise be implied to be a modified finger. Fingers are based exclusively on the hands (and feet, if you want to get technical), and would NOT migrate down to the elbows just to expand the wing membrane. Hell, even most of the ACTUAL fingers of bat wings don’t have any claws (besides the thumb of course) because claws on the tips of wing fingers are usually useless, since there’s no feasible way to use them for clinging, digging, or scratching purposes. Plus, claws/padding add unnecessary weight to the tips of the wing fingers, which SHOULD be the thinnest/lightest part of the wings, sans open membrane. Claws are only really useful on the shortest, front-facing fingers of bat wings.

However, I will acquiesce that jointed spines aren’t entirely unbelievable. I personally don’t know of any real-life animal with jointed spines, but I don’t think that joints would be necessarily exclusive to fingers. Unlike claws or pads, joints would provide a distinct purpose to the wing by allowing the spines more malleability and delicate control of the wing membrane shape.

  3)      Try not to interrupt the elbow joint

Again, I would appreciate an anomalure skeleton here in order to see exactly where the elbow spine attaches on the arm, but I guess we’ll have to wait on that.

Sans the anomalure (whose elbow structure is impossible to see under the fur), I don’t know of any cases of real-life animals with 3 different, independently-moving bones sharing the same joint (I’m not counting wrists/ankles here considering the specialty of the carpal/tarsal-based joints).

As it is now, I advise caution when placing the base of the spine at the elbow. It may certainly work, especially if the underlying bone/cartilage base of the spine “floats” a little ways away from the elbow itself, as can be seen in this EXCELLENT Dragon skeletal by Sammy Torres, yet again--

But please, do NOT slot the elbow spine directly INTO the joint between the upper and lower arm.  

This would block the range of joint flexibility and important muscular connections between the upper and lower arm.

  4)      Try to form a paddle

As explained in the Membranes and Feathers section, a bird’s remiges are ONLY based in the bone of the lower arm and hand sections. This helps to form a more stable “paddle” out of these sections of the wing, while other feathers (tertials, axillaries) simply close the gap between the body and the remiges.

While feathers shouldn’t be conflated with membranes, I think in this instance they provide a decent reference for spine placement, since many birds are powered flyers. Thus, if the spine isn’t based at the elbow, I think basing the spine on the lower arm just past the elbow itself would work just fine.

Either way, definitely DON’T put a spine on the UPPER arm—it would just be useless. The membrane is already so close to the body on the upper arm (considering how short the upper arm typically is compared to the lower arm) that any extra stability or widening of the membrane isn’t going to do much good. Plus, it would be rather uncomfortable to fold a spine against the body on the upper arm.

Wrist Spikes

(Not to be confused with spines, which I use to refer to projections that support a membrane. See above sub-section for those)

This is yet another anatomical detail I was MUCH more anal about in the past, before learning that many real-life birds actually do have wrist spikes called wing spurs (and clubs, spikes, etc.).

Some have even retained claws on the ends of their fingers.

The claws are the easiest to understand—they’re retained from birds’ clawed ancestors. The spikes and spurs, however, are a bit novel to our human understanding of anatomy, as they can sprout from the metacarpals, carpals, or even the radius of the arm!

The takeaway here is that these spurs/clubs/etc. are used exclusively as weapons (whether against their own or other species). Thus, they are firmly based on an already-present bone (either the carpal, metacarpal, or radius), and don’t move independently. They don’t provide any help in clinging, nor can they fold up against the wing like bat thumbs.

(I highly recommend checking out Darren Naish’s articles on wing spurs if you want a much more in-depth analysis of wing spurs in different bird species)

Just keep the basic anatomy of the hand in mind if you add wrist spikes. For example, if your wing has a thumb, then you’d likely need to base the spike on the radius rather than the wrist bones, or else the spike would interfere with thumb movement. Also be careful not to interrupt the front-edge membrane when adding wrist spikes—wings still need that membrane to function, whether they’re being used for battle or not.

Palms

Now I know I said in the Basic Anatomy section that bats don’t have palms-- just wrists carpals and extra-long fingers. This is likely because of what I discussed in that section about proportions-- the longer bones forming bases of the fingers provide stability to the fingers, while the carpals simply hold all the fingers together at one point, allowing for rotation and flexibility. A proper palm may end up destabilizing the wing, since the base of the hand needs long-bone stability, but the bones of the palm would be shorter than the bases of the fingers.

However, this is merely a possibility-- while palms aren’t technically accurate to real-life bats, I don’t think they’re necessarily impossible, if designed right.

Namely, we need to keep in mind weight and shape.

The wing palm should NOT be too thick/wide relative to the wing arm, since the overall mass of the wing thins out across the arm, from shoulder to wrist. thus, if you slap a heavy palm on the end of the wing, it’ll throw off the whole balance of the wing.

Shape also affects the stability of the wing-- the leading edge of the palm may need thicker support against oncoming air currents, while the trailing edge might thin out some to help with aerodynamics.

So, we can assume that a humanoid palm would be too thick with padding, too large proportionally to the arm, and not shaped correctly for flight.

Instead, I would suggest a couple options.

You could slightly emphasize the wrist space the bases of the fingers share, making for a round, unobtrusive palm. Hell, you might even be able to argue the palm is *just* the carpals, depending on how you draw it-- it’s just a little wider than on bats.

Or, you could lean into a longer, but more asymmetrical palm, with a thicker leading metacarpal, and the rest of the metacarpals shortening/thinning in progression.

Just remember that with either design, the palm should still be fairly small compared to the arm.

Thumbs

When thumbs aren’t being used as a base for feathers like a bird’s alula, they’re usually used for clinging. As it turns out, clinging is more effective when the knuckle of the thumb rests against the object being clung to, thus this knuckle gets a lot more padding than the rest of the finger.

This padding could even be compared to the paw pads of a cat or a dog, especially when the thumb is used as a resting point when bats are on the ground.

While I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a sin to model a wing thumb after a human thumb, it does make more sense to model wing thumbs after bat thumbs so they can properly cling and support a membrane.

-Mod Spiral

[xaviersystem]

7 Day Prayer Miracle Review Amanda Ross (2020)

7 Day Prayer Miracle by Amanda Ross

Does it Work?

Almost everyone is familiar with the word Prayer, as well as the concept of Prayer. So when we come across someone offering a 7 Day Prayer Miracle, it is possible to have some questions popping up in the minds of people. Does it work? Is it effective? Why it is so popular? So I thought of bringing this blog 7 Day Prayer Miracle Review — Does it work?

So before we proceed, here is a synopsis about the product:· 

Product: 7 Day Prayer Miracle Review· 

Author: Amanda Ross· 

Bonus: Yes· 

Official Website: 7dayprayermiracle

What Will You Get From 7 Day Prayer Miracle?

Here in 7 Day Prayer Miracle coaching, you get a shocking tragedy that manifests itself in a great blessing.

It contains a prayer composed of four sentences. This helps approximately many ordinary people to highlight the miracles of health, finances, and relationships.

This miracle program gets related to the secrets of Archangel Michael. Hence, you get a blazing stream of miracles.

You get heavenly wisdom to show the fairy tale. This helps to choose the best pair of dreams.

It helps to boost your life. And you can spread your wings and move on to the next level.

You experience good, irreversible changes in your life by this guidance. There is no place for negativity in your life.

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Manifesting Miracles by Using Prayer

When The Secret first came out, it renewed hope in millions of people for manifesting the things that would make their lives more livable. A few years on, most of those millions have lost hope, again. The “Law of Attraction” seemed to be missing something.

More than 2,500 years ago, the Prophet Daniel discovered a method of prayer that worked miracles and gave him prophetic visions of the future. Not only was he able to save his own life and that of all the wise men of Babylon, he told the king what he had dreamed and then told him what the dream meant.

We now know why the Law of Attraction works when it does. We also know why the prayers of most people don’t work. This knowledge is power — the power to manifest miracles at will. The 7 Day Prayer Miracle program contains distilled wisdom that details the differences between the two halves of reality so you can know where you stand in relationship to heaven.

Never before have we had such clarity in understanding about how prayer and miracles work. Yes, this is exciting stuff.

Imagine taking the guesswork out of your life. Imagine setting a path and having it appear right in front of your eyes. Prayer done the right way is the most powerful tool we could ever imagine.

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How the Course Can Help You

Well, the course has:

1. Verified Techniques:

The big problem we’ve had with programs like “positive thinking” or “law of attraction” is that they remained vague on how to get to the desired state of mind. There was too much “pie-in-the-sky,” feel-good stuff that didn’t have a sufficient connection to the real world.

The 7 Day Prayer Miracle requires that you develop and exercise the ability to achieve the proper feelings for delivering prayers that match your conscious thoughts. The course shows you exactly how to do this with several, step-by-step exercises. This has been the area of disconnect in so many other programs

The exercises in this course raise your critical awareness of your environment and your own internal feelings so you can know when you’re aiming your prayer correctly.

2. Establishes Within You the Proper Skills:

The reason why the 7 Day Prayer Miracle works and has so many enthusiastic testimonials is because of the deep, spiritual understanding behind it — an understanding grounded in science and critical thinking.

No matter what your starting point, you will find yourself moving further from “lack” all the way to “abundance” — not merely physical abundance, but spiritual abundance of unconditional love, utter humility, perfect responsibility and fearless confidence. The map has been laid out. All you have to do is to walk the path.

The 7 Day Prayer Miracle is not only about wealth, health and relationships. It repairs the basic issues in your thinking and attitudes that would otherwise prevent effective prayer and, all too often, result in self-sabotaging behavior that spoils any gains you may make. All of these pitfalls have been handled.

Needless to say, the spiritual half of reality has its own rules and quite often doesn’t work at all like the physical half. This program is the manual for understanding what’s different and how to use those differences to your own benefit.

Because we each have our own set of bad habits, the course book covers a broad range of exercises to strengthen your awareness of your own thoughts, attitudes, intentions and — most importantly — your subconscious “feeling” attention. The 7 Day Prayer Miracle does these things far better than any book or program we’ve seen before.

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3. Proper Preparation:

No amount of thinking will ever accomplish anything truly worthwhile. Thought is a useful tool, but it’s only the starting point. And you can’t fix a great dinner in a dirty kitchen.

Bad habits and bad attitudes can cloud your spiritual vision and prevent your message from reaching heaven.

It’s a bit like 50 very loud people shouting while you’re trying to talk to someone on your cell phone. Sometimes, you can’t even hear yourself think.

The 7 Day Prayer Miracle helps you clear out not only bad habits, but also the daily garbage of stuck attention on little crimes we all commit from time to time — like being late for work, not taking out the garbage, forgetting about a commitment we’ve made, and more.

Becoming more aware of our stuck attention points, we can actively clean them up and ensure that our prayers make a direct, clear connection to heaven.

4. Reliability and Dependability:

By having you acquaint yourself more thoroughly with your own mind, ego and spirit, you will find yourself capable of using every part of each prayer with precision skill and powerful, spiritual effect.

Like a ship finally allowed to leave sight of land, you will enter spiritual territory you never knew existed. You will come to think of your body as merely your current vessel. And the control switches of physical reality will seem as real and natural as any physical device you’ve ever mastered.

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The Course Contents of 7 Day Miracle

Learn how to Grabbing The Attention of Heaven ( The ebook that gives you a crash course on your relationship to the spiritual world, to God and to His angels, and how to exercise your ability to connect directly to heaven).

· A Prayer Journal (a PDF journal that includes 7 prayers for 7 days, designed to give you miracle results).·

  · Divine Hearing — How to Recognize Crucial Messages from Your Angels (The ebook that helps you recognize messages from your angels).

· Divine Numbers — How to Interpret Angelic Sequences and Unleash Their Blessings (ebook that helps you interpret sequences of numbers and individual numbers like 11:11, 555, etc).

· The Prayer of Daniel (a handy, 1-page reprint of the biblical prayer that Prophet Daniel was using to achieve his miraculous results. This is the template upon which all effective prayer is based).

· A Song of Shifts (MP3 file, angelic music, using the “miracle frequency.” If you like, this can be played while you are performing your own prayers to help enter the theta wave band of meditative thought — the prayerful state of mind)

· Chances are you would be quite amazed to have so much content included for such a reasonable price.

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Features of the 7 Day Prayer Miracle Course· 

When you have the power of prayer, you never have to be worried again.

· Once you learn how to pray, prosperity flows in to you from an infinite source

· The 7 Day Prayer Miracle shows you how to choose the right option

· You learn to cultivate the right feelings all the time. When you learn to have the right feeling, things seem to go very right.

· Life suddenly becomes perfect, almost all the time.

· With prayer you can invite better health and healing for your body

· Boost Your Love Life With Prayer

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7 Day Prayer Miracle Testimonials

From the website of 7 Day Prayer Miracle, here is a reproduction of the testimonials of some of the individuals:

“I was only 5 days away from being declared a bankrupt. Almost all my savings gone. I then stumbled on to Amanda’s teaching. Just 2 prayers later, the bank actually cancelled my debt. Holy smokes, this works!” — Leanne R.

“I had terrible, terrible fights with my husband and I was on the verge of leaving him… Then one day I stumbled on to Amanda’s writings. I consumed it, prayed the prayers and now not only has my marriage been restored — the relationship sizzles in a way not seen since the honeymoon.” — Jane A.

“I’d always wanted to connect to the divine and talk to angels, but I never could. After the 7 Day Prayer Miracle, it was almost a suffocating blanket was removed. I can even now feel the breath of God and delve into the secrets of the universe.” — May R.

“I was left destitute by my cheating husband. He left me with my 2 young kids and moved in with his mistress half his age. After going through the 7 Day Prosperity Miracle, cheques suddenly came in the mail. There was sudden mysterious deposits in my bank account. Now, I have more than enough for me and my children to live a good life.” — Miranda A.

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Conclusion

The 7 Day Prayer Miracle is a complete system that’s more comprehensive than virtually every other book in this genre… Of course, the number of pieces alone is not enough. Each piece needs to be valuable and worth your time.

7 Day Prayer Miracle takes control of your life to improve. It has already helped approximately 100,000 women and men to fulfill the purpose of their lives.

You have a great opportunity to take the first step of a new movement. It comes with a 100 percent money back guarantee.

If for some reason, you are not satisfied with this program, the money will be refunded immediately. This is the claim of the seller organization. You have nothing to lose except for problems.

So go ahead and place your order 7-day Prayer Miracle. Do not miss the opportunity to take advantage of the wonderful wonders of your life.

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7-day Prayer Miracle

SOURCE: https://youtu.be/iHEUgA_4eSA

[relaxedreptile]

Habit

Pairing: Hyunjin X Female Reader

Sexual content: protected sex. Swearing. Mentions of cheating. Jealousy.

A/N: I tried to channel as much emotion into this as possible while struggling to still keep any sexiness! I hope you all enjoy this.

-

“Did you get home safe?”

It took him a few minutes to respond.

“Yeah, got a ride with Chan”

It took you a few minutes to figure out how to word your next text.

“I had at least three people send pictures of you and Jisoo”

You took a deep breath and watched as the three dots popped on and off your screen.

“Jesus Christ”

Not what you were expecting.

“We didn’t even fuck”

There it is.

You were giving yourself a moment to think before you typed back but Hyunjin must have spent too much time on “read” for his liking and opted for calling you.

“Are you really that mad?”

“What the fuck do you think Hyunjin?” You usually kept your cool for longer whenever this kind of thing happened, this must’ve been your tipping point.

“Come on! I told you nothing happened-”

“No, you just said you didn’t sleep with her and I know exactly what that means.”

Hyunjin was stunned, simply breathing into the microphone.

“I’m coming over.”

“No, not this time. I’m not letting you inside just so you can get in my pants.”

“…I’ll be over in ten minutes.”

“Hyunjin you’re drunk-”

“I’ll walk,” he cut you off, “just keep the door unlocked if you’re gonna be such an asshole.”

He hung up right as the words left his mouth and you were left with the silence of your bedroom.

Your feet hit the ground next to your bed and you searched frantically for a sweatshirt to throw on, hoping to look as unappealing as possible to make Hyunjin second guess any plan he had in place to win your favor. 

No matter how desperate or anger either one of you were, you would never force the other to do anything but you were more worried about giving in to your own desires than something like peer pressure. 

Hyunjin was probably the most beautiful boy in your city (you would argue for a wider sphere) and everyone knew it. Anyone who didn’t like boys watched, jealous out of their minds, as everyone who did like boys drooled over the perfection that was Hwang Hyunjin. 

Both his hair and his body were always styled to perfection along with his proportions to match. One moment his eyes were practically ordering you to get on your knees and the next he flashed you a smile with his half-moon eyes and you were weak for a totally different reason. 

This was precisely the reason why Hyunjin practically had girls hanging off his dick no matter where he went, regardless of him or the chick’s relationship status.

You never expected Jisoo to be his next prospect but you couldn’t blame him.

Catching sight of yourself in the mirror, you inspected your appearance. You turned side to side to get the full picture, scrutinizing your butt, your waist, your hair, anything of yours that didn’t look like Jisoo’s.

This happened every time, the comparisons. It usually didn’t last very long, even the few times that Hyunjin wasn’t able to come over and mumble countless comparisons of his own into your flushed skin, comparisons that always put you above the other girl.

While you would love some reassurance right now, you knew the comfort would fade and leave another hole in your heart that would be filled by Hyunjin whenever the next thing that wasn’t you piqued his interest. 

Your socks glided across the floor as you sulked over to the front door, answering the call of three signature knocks.

You had to tilt your head up to stare into Hyunjin’s eyes. They looked clear enough, no red in sight, an uncommon sign of sobriety for him after a party. 

“I didn’t have sex with her.”

He wasn’t even inside your house and was already starting something.

You stepped aside, signaling for him to come in to avoid your neighbors hearing anything. You didn’t want anyone knowing how much of a fucking loser Hyunjin made you out to be.

“Seriously, my dick’s been soft all night! You know I don’t get horny when I’m high.”

“You are something else, Hyunjin.” Disgust was evident in your face. “Cheating isn’t just sticking your dick in other people! Everything I saw in those damn photos counts and I have a right to be upset about-”

“How can it be cheating if we’re not dating, Y/N? I’m not your boyfriend and I never said you were my girlfriend.”

“Dating or not, if you didn’t feel guilty about all the shit that you did then you wouldn’t come over and apologize.”

He took a step closer. “Or maybe I just know you’ll spread your legs for me regardless.”

You took a step of your own and raised your eyebrows. 

“You expect me to believe that you go through all this trouble just to fuck me? Even though you can obviously go to anyone else and get it there?”

“Maybe I like the chase,” he shrugged.

“Or you’re just an immature little boy who’s only capable of thinking with-”

“Stop acting like I’m some airhead! I know what I’m doing, okay?”

You had never heard him say something like that before.

“It sucks not being able to have the one girl that I want because she’s ‘too busy’ for a relationship or whatever the fuck your new excuse is. You treated what we had between us as some type of anomaly back in high school and managed to carry it with us into the real world too. You don’t come to my games, you won’t hold my hand in public, and you refuse to come to any parties with me.”

“We just like different things Hyunjin. You’re a dance major! The homework and projects you get are just an excuse for you to do the thing you love more than anything but I don’t get that luxury. I have essays, annoying partners, and hundreds of pages of readings a night; how am I supposed to make time to get high with you? Especially when I know what’s gonna happen if I leave you alone for more than a second.”

Hyunjin laughed, a quick burst of air from his lungs and a pump of his chest left you confused and a little bit annoyed.

“I thought you were smart, Y/N.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t have sex with girls because they’re there, I do it because you’re not.”

Your brain shut down, your mouth stayed shut.

“Every time we fight, it ends with us spending the night together without fail. This is the only surefire way I can get you to admit to and show how you feel about me.”

Hyunjin started walking around your kitchen, pacing back and forth as his hand slid along the countertop to his left.

“You may think I use those girls to get off but I’m really just using them to get back at you. I want you to feel as pushed aside as I do.”

A tear splashed onto the countertop. 

Hyunjin always cried first.

“Jinnie.”

Nothing. “Jinnie, please look at me.”

You wanted to keep some distance between the two of you but walked towards him anyway.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t… I didn’t know that was how you felt. I was convinced you didn’t care, that you were just doing all of this because you could.”

You knew that kind of accusation was going to make Hyunjin mad so you kept talking.

“But that was incredibly stupid of me! You’re my best friend, I know you better than that and I never should’ve let my jealousy alter how I felt about you.”

You took a deep breath. 

“I love you so much, Jinnie, I was just too afraid to show it because I thought you never would. I didn’t want to be clingy and end up pushing you away because I know you could have anyone else in the fucking world if you wanted-”

“But I’ve never wanted someone else. Sure, sex is nice, but I only do it because these people that throw themselves at me want me in a way that you don’t.”

“That’s not true, I promise that’s not true. I want all of you Jinnie but I’m… I’m so scared that I don’t deserve it or that you’ll take it all away from me one day.”

Neither of you could get rid of the other’s insecurities no matter what you said or did. There were things that would never change, habits that could never be broken, but there were steps you both could take to offset any pain, to prevent any future problems.

You and Hyunjin were standing right in front of each other by this point, desperately clinging onto the love that you felt for one another and hoping it would be enough. 

You rose up on your tip toes to wipe a tear off of Hyunjin’s cheek and he used this as an opportunity to grab your arm and pull you into him.

Now chest to chest, you could see all the details of Hyunjin’s face. It was no secret why everyone loved him, but you suppose it wasn’t the love that he wanted. It wasn’t the kind of love that you gave him.

“Can we show each other? Can we show each other how we really feel?”

Your answer was stolen by Hyunjin’s lips, chasing yours as hungrily as ever. Your fingers tangled themselves in his hair and held him close to you as Hyunjin’s hands did the same as they gripped your hips.

You could feel Hyunjin’s nose pressing into your cheek and still it wasn’t good enough for either of you. He was kind of right unfortunately, thinking about Hyunjin with someone else always doubled the desire you had for him in the sense that you desperately needed to be that someone. 

The honesty that had surfaced in your messy kitchen had developed such a strong sense of vulnerability in both of you and the need to be reassured and touched and loved was overwhelming.

Your fingers left Hyunjin’s air with a gentle tug that made him moan into your mouth and you willed your hands to stop shaking so you could unbutton Hyunjin’s shirt as fast as possible. Another pair of hands joined in from the bottom so that you could meet in the middle in record time.

You were allowed one moment to admire the smooth skin of Hyunjin’s toned chest before lips were dancing across your neck. Marks were to be expected and the harder Hyunjin sucked the deeper your nails sunk into the ridges of his stomach. 

He came back up to kiss you again, softer than last time but this time he was using his tongue in a way that made your eyes roll back behind your eyelids.

One of your hands slid down his body, fingers resting on the waistband of his jeans before continuing a few inches lower to trace the outline of Hyunjin’s hard-on. You cupped him through the fabric and applied enough pressure to get his hips to jerk into your touch. 

You might not have been as confident as Hyunjin was when it came to sex, but you knew what he liked and what to do to make him feel as good as you felt with him.

“Take your sweatshirt off,” Hyunjin forced out. He was so out of breath and still dived down for another kiss before beginning to work on getting his belt off. 

“Why are you wearing so many layers?” You were still working on your tank top and bra while Hyunjin’s belt clattered against the floor.

“To try and control myself.”

Hyunjin reached around your back to unclasp your bra, “Am I that irresistible?”

His lips were already attached to your left nipple before you could tell him to shut his pretty mouth and he was sucking on the sensitive skin before you could even steady yourself with a breath of oxygen.

Hyunjin had always loved your boobs and touched them whenever he got the chance. Even when you were friends in high school, they were always the first part of your body he complimented when you asked for outfit advice. He picked the dresses that showed the most cleavage when he came along for prom dress shopping and surprised you with a necklace that sat right between your boobs when he asked you to be his date.

It was hard to ever feel insecure about them when they were covered in hickeys.

While he was working on marking the other side of your chest, you stretched your arms so that you could start unbuttoning his pants. He swatted your hand away and you whined, confused as to why he didn’t want to go farther. 

“We’re not having sex on your kitchen floor and I can’t carry you to your room with my pants falling down.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “Kitchen sex would be kinda hot though.”

Hyunjin pecked your lips. “Next time,” he promised. 

You gave his hair a tug and his lips a kiss to seal the deal. You tried not to focus on the way Hyunjin’s fingers danced across your skin, closer and closer to where you needed him most with every eight-count. 

He didn’t even bother teasing, his hand slipped right underneath the waistband of your sweats. The underwear you were wearing was barely a barrier because of how wet you were. Hyunjin’s skilled fingers knew exactly where to go first and you swore you could’ve cum with just one of his fingers pumping in and out of you, his palm applying the most delicious pressure against your clit at the same time. 

You were practically clinging onto Hyunjin for dear life, your legs started shaking when he added a second finger and picked up speed. He probably could’ve supported you all on his own while still making you feel good but you didn’t wanna waste any more time on his fingers. 

“Please,” you pleaded, “please fuck me.”

Hyunjin’s hand stalled before gradually slowing down. The other nudged you towards the closed door at the end of the hallway, forcing you to move while you were still practically getting finger-fucked. 

He followed right behind as you stumbled to your bedroom, his knees just as wobbly as yours with anticipation. Hyunjin knew you were practically dripping underneath all those clothes which meant not being inside of you was a major inconvenience for him at the moment.

You and Hyunjin had walked down this hallway so many times together already. Sometimes while tearing clothes off the other, making out, or making the executive decision to just fuck right there against the wall. This time, it felt three times as long as any other night (or day) you two had spent together (with or without the prospect of sleeping together).

By the time you had finally made it to your bed, Hyunjin had already unzipped his jeans and was searching through your top drawer for a condom while you watched from on top of your bed. 

Hwang Hyunjin truly was the definition of beautiful. Not pretty, not handsome, he had a universal beauty about him that combined masculinity and femininity into one. A sweet smile, striking eyes, and a jawline that could kill you. Toned muscles, dimples, and legs for days. 

You knew his looks were a soft spot for him and this made you appreciate his sympathetic nature, sense of humor, and kind words more than his body. Your best friend was beautiful inside and out, something you made sure to remind him of.

When he finally got what he was looking for, he held it up with a proud smile on his face and dove down to kiss you. 

You wasted no time in pulling him on top of you and nudging him in between your legs; the weight of his body on top of yours was the biggest relief to you in that moment.

“Can I take your sweats off, princess?”

You usually would’ve cringed at the pet name but it sounded so good coming from Hyunjin’s pretty lips.

He curled his fingers around your waistband after you nodded and tugged your pants down your legs at an agonizingly slow pace. The offensive fabric was tossed off the side of your bed and Hyunjin bent back down to kiss a trail up your thighs before getting rid of your underwear too. 

You sat up to watch him pull his jeans off and actually whined when you saw the bulge in his black underwear. It wasn’t about your body needing his anymore, you were so desperate to have this boy in every sense of the word and he was taking so damn long.

“Why do you choose tonight to take your sweet time?” You tried to mask your neediness with a joke.

“Shouldn’t I be taking my time?��� Hyunjin climbed back on top of you. “We have all night, Y/N.”

“Don’t get me wrong, you’re nice to look at, but I don’t wanna spend all night watching you roll a condom on.”

You were laughing at your own joke until Hyunjin raised his eyebrows and handed said-condom out to you, waiting for you to take it.

“You do it, then.”

You gulped, taking the shiny packet from him and sitting up. You were embarrassed to admit you had never put a condom on anyone before, Hyunjin always did it himself and it was a bit too intimate for you to want to do it for any of the rare one night stands you had encountered.

He helped you yank his briefs down and he groaned once his cock was finally free, resting on his smooth stomach.

You rose up on your knees as you pulled the plastic open. Hyunjin watched your face, smiling a bit at how concentrated you were.

“You’ve seen me do it a million times.”

“I’m usually too distracted to focus on your technique, Jinnie,” you replied as you placed the condom on the tip of his cock, holding it in place as you rolled the rest of it down his shaft.

“Good girl,” Hyunjin’s praise made your thighs clench.

“You like that? You like being called a good girl?”

You buried your head in the crook of his shoulder and whined, pleading for him to stop teasing you.

He giggled, the sweetest sound you had ever heard, and wrapped his strong arms around your waist.

You enjoyed the contact only for a moment before pulling back a bit to look at Hyunjin’s face. He brushed the hair out of your eyes and pecked your lips, making you smile and give him a deeper kiss in return. 

You pressed your hips down into his, trying to relieve some of the pressure in your gut by grinding against the hardness between his legs. You tried to ignore how the slick from your pussy made it all the more easier (and messier), but this didn’t escape Hyunjin’s attention.

“You’re dripping down your thighs, baby.”

Hyunjin stared at the most beautiful cunt he had ever seen in his life and was left in awe of how much your body wanted him, he just needed the rest of you to confirm it.

“Are you ready, baby? Can I show you how much I love you?”

You kissed the tip of his nose. “Make me yours, Jinnie.”

Hyunjin held you in place with one of his arms while the other went between your legs, sliding his dick back in forth through your wetness to make the stretch easier. You locked eyes with each other as you sunk down on his length, throwing your head back once all of him was inside of you.

The hands on your hips helped guide you as you rocked back and forth on Hyunjin’s cock, crying out whenever his lower stomach rubbed against your clit in just the right way. Hyunjin’s eyes were glued to where you two were joined, amazed at how tightly your cunt was always wrapped around him. He seemed to disappear inside of you, your body trying to pull him back in every time you rocked forward enough for just his tip to be left inside of you.

The pace was slow, but just what you two needed for the time being. The ability to enjoy each other’s bodies was appreciated, but nothing compared to what being nose-to-nose did for the two of you. Every gasp of yours was stolen by Hyunjin’s lungs, every vibration from his throat swallowed by your chest. 

You fought the urge to close your eyes and lose yourself in the moment, choosing instead to keep eye contact with the boy you loved. The pressure building in your lower stomach and blooming in your chest was overwhelming, only heightened by the intimacy the two of you were sharing in the moment.

Hyunjin pulled your body closer to his, leaning forward and repositioning the two of you so that he could hover above you while you laid on your back. You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling Hyunjin closer as he rocked into you.

You new it was just your mind playing tricks on you, but you swore Hyunjin had never felt this deep inside of you. You’ve had your fair share of sex but nothing else compared to what you were feeling right now and you let Hyunjin know with every whimper and whine that left your lips.

Hyunjin was smirking into your shoulder, relishing in the sound of his skin slapping into yours with every thrust of his hips. Any moment spent outside of your warm cunt was a sin, he was thinking of slamming back into you the moment he pulled out. 

Hyunjin’s pace quickened, now going impossibly fast. His cock was hitting that spot inside you with every thrust and you were being stretched in the most delicious way possible because of how thick he was. You couldn’t even breathe properly, electricity was being shot through your veins every time Hyunjin moved his hips and you thanked the gods for making your boy a dancer.

One of his arms left the space beside your head to go between your bodies, sliding against your clit effortlessly with every movement because of how wet you were. 

“I love you… I love you so much,” you dug your nails in Hyunjin’s back to get the words out. “You make me feel so good,” you continued, “you always take care of me, you-”

A sob was torn from your throat as the knot in your stomach finally came undone, your body being reduced to a burst of light and what felt like endless waves of pleasure.

Your pussy tightened around Hyunjin’s dick, making him groan into your shoulder as his pace faltered. 

“I’ve got you, baby, you did so well,” Hyunjin promised.

With a final snap of his hips, Hyunjin forced himself as deep as he could go inside of you, releasing into the condom. You ran your fingers through his hair as he leaned his head on your collarbone for support, his orgasm taking too much out of him for him to hold it up himself. 

His pretty lips left open-mouth kisses on your chest, tracing the marks from earlier as he was too spent to leave any new ones.

Hyunjin was so fucking sweaty it was almost funny but in reality, the way his hair stuck to his forehead was kinda hot.

“You’re so sticky, Jinnie.”

He groaned in embarrassment, sliding his body against yours with the movement and further reinforcing your point.

“You love it,” he offered.

You giggled and nodded, smiling harder when Hyunjin nuzzled deeper into your chest.

“I love you too, by the way.”

You hummed in acknowledgment.

“Rest up, okay? Now that I’m your boyfriend, I’m taking you out for breakfast in the morning.”

“We’re gonna fall asleep like this?”

“I don’t plan on pulling out so…”

They say it takes two months to form a habit and one to break it. However, you and Hyunjin were years in the making and neither of you planned on spending any more time pushing the other away. Your deepest insecurities were out in the open and you both had silently pledged to help the other ween away from such thoughts.

Hyunjin had spent a lot of time and many nights between your legs in hopes of achieving what had finally transpired tonight. 

While dreaming of sharing hot chocolate with the one he loved most, Hyunjin slept like a baby.

[fuse2dx]

November ‘20

Cross Code

Cross Code is a game that is trying so very, very hard. The story is based around your character being an avatar within an MMORPG, and its this kind of game-within-a-game setup that is used as a cheeky way to skirt the fourth wall and have its characters make snide remarks at certain design decisions, while also going full steam ahead with them regardless of the fact. Don’t think we didn’t notice, dev team! It plays out as a 2D top-down action RPG, but clearly has aspirations that extend far beyond this framework. Each of its environments is thoroughly layered with subtle verticality, with parkour-esque platforming having you constantly working backwards from your intended destination, and requiring meticulous attention to detail in order to find where it is you’re able to begin your elaborate series of jumps from. There’s a huge array of materials to gather and channel through traders and to craft into gear, and the combat they benefit is both precise and complex, requiring plenty of on-the-fly thinking as well as tight execution. As well as these set-piece battles, the game’s dungeons are full of puzzles that though smart in construction, are tough enough in isolation, and frankly brutal in their relentless frequency. One particularly ill-advised chapter has a series of three such dungeons in quick succession, and perfectly illustrates that just because you can, does not mean that you should. 

On a more positive note, one thing the game does have in spades is charm. The sprite work is admirable; even though characters are a touch on the tiny side to be too effective on their own, their portraits and dialogue provide a solid emotive connection to them and the story that builds up around them. In all, it is a game that can be a lot of fun, and plenty rewarding - but the entire thing is overly long and far too regularly punishing. It’s tapped into a number of 16-bit action-RPG ideas well, but has perhaps unintentionally also managed to become the most masochistic presentation of these ideas to date.

Crimzon Clover: World Explosion

A game I’ve technically owned for years now, however the lack of a Windows PC has held me back from playing it - with this debut on the Switch finally granting me the opportunity though to get hands on. Although I’d gleaned plenty from watching super players decimate it before now, even my feeble credit feeding through the game’s five stages has given me plenty of additional appreciation for just how good it is. 

It looks brilliant, with chunky, detailed enemies animated beautifully as they move about the screen. The music pounds along to an energetic beat, and the game keeps a solid pace all while plenty of bullets swarm around you in creative and considered patterns. Turning the tides with Break Mode is an incredibly satisfying way to take control of hairier moments, and while I can’t speak for every intricacy of its scoring system, I know that it’s developed by a team that demonstrably understands the value of these. What I can more reliably add to that discussion is that you’re unlikely to find yourself reliant on any one hook to find your fun though; even the most pedestrian appreciator of the genre should find plenty to enjoy. Thoroughly deserving of its regular appearance alongside the biggest names in the genre.

Holovista

There’s often a reasonable amount of scepticism that comes from some folks when you talk of gaming on a mobile phone. Flipping the conversation though, and instead to talk of one of my favourite advantages of the format, it’s great that a developer can lean on the familiarity and the personal connection that you have to the device you’re playing on. As a device that lives by your side 24/7 and increasingly encroaches further into every aspect of your being, Holovista leverages this connection amazingly, spinning its story in a series of interfaces that mimic how your phone acts when you use it yourself. Taking pictures and interacting with people in particular are key interfaces, and that are done in a way that neatly puts you right into the shoes of their character. 

It begins with said character taking an interview for a new job that is hoped to herald a new tide of good fortune, and promptly introduces the circle of friends that are there to help with this and that celebrate alongside. As you learn more about the job, things slowly begin to get a bit weird, and then take a turn that is something akin to Black Mirror meets nightmarish introspection. Though not overtly unpleasant, there are some memorably unsettling moments along the way. Sensibly, it does have content warnings that offer some sound advice for those it might not sit so well with, but self-care does end up being a central takeaway from the game as a whole as well as for its cast. On the back of circumstances we’ll generically chalk up to this year’s being what it is, this ended up feeling like a lovely little palate cleanser -  a considered refresh, thoroughly original, and a very worthy afternoon’s entertainment. 

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

One thing that’s always been great about Link’s Awakening came as a result of the technical limitations imposed by the Gameboy - that the Zelda format needed all the fat trimmed, while the mixture of puzzles and action were to be distilled down into their most potent and compact form. Even with the (entirely optional) extras they’ve slipped in with this remake, this still shines through in its design now, where it couldn’t be any further removed from the risks of overly long, dragged out pacing. A small overworld it may be, but it’s full of variety, secrets, and memorable moments. Dungeons are similarly economical with its good ideas - giving you new tools, laying out smart ways to break you into their use, and then letting you get on with things. 

While the remastered music is also utterly charming, the real upsell here is the total visual do-over; its tilt-shifted cartoon aesthetic pushing each and every scene to look like a shiny, hyper-cute diorama. For all of the different visual styles that the series has dabbled with in the past, this one definitely feels like the right match for the light-hearted whimsy that comes through from the story and the characters. That’s not to say that it’s flawless either - the blurring at the screen’s edges can be overly intense at times, and the overall presentation does cause the performance to stutter and feel a little sluggish at times. I point at these things only given the bar is raised so - something unavoidable when you already know a game is a stone-cold classic from the off. 

Astro’s Playroom

Coming pre-installed on your shiny new (and hopefully not scalped) Playstation 5 console, Playroom begins as a humble introduction to the capabilities of the Dual Sense controller. Touch control, haptic feedback, adaptive triggers and the like are introduced and may well generate some cooing and low-key positivity, however this enthusiasm is elevated by a mighty factor when the game truly begins and everything is put so deftly into practice.

It’s not a complex or particularly challenging title as far as 3D platformers go, with frequent checkpoints and no life counter in sight. Any mould-breaking to be done comes instead from the diversity in how you control various sideshows, with the entire kitchen sink’s worth of interface options being showcased as you climb into a monkey suit, blast off a rocket ship, bounce around as a pinball, and so on. All of these demonstrate ingenuity that could’ve easily gone awry, yet are quickly understood, and grounded in a level of both tactile and in-game feedback that maintains a natural feeling. The game’s worlds serve as virtual tours through colourful, fantasy depictions of hardware components that demonstrates an excellent level of both pride and playfulness, with fellow bots littering both the through-fare and the unbeaten paths, dressed up and enacting smart homage to generations of games and their characters, all while Playstation-themed collectables are doled out in tandem alongside smart, well-natured puns. It arguably borders on propaganda at times, such is the intense positivity. That said, the more extensive your tenure is with Sony’s platforms, the more likely it’ll dull your better judgement to this, instead letting slip a grin at what is essentially the grandest love letter to all things Playstation, and the warmest, most celebratory pack-in for a new console Sony could have ever hoped for. 

The showcasing of new features and hardware aside, it’s also a subtle and unofficial coronation of Astrobot as Sony’s newest (and best) mascot. There’s been plenty of candidates in the past who’ve half-heartedly assumed to own the position, but it’s the silent, cheerful charm which makes Astro that much more of an endearing figurehead. G'wan the little guy.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

For someone that loves Suda51 and adored No More Heroes, my reaction to No More Heroes 2 on its original release was comparatively tepid. With a third game due next year, this re-release felt like the right time to revisit it and see it through, and although I found some things to enjoy, I certainly found plenty to remind me why I had bounced off it previously.

Roaming about in Santa Destroy between missions is gone, instead replaced with a short check list of destinations. While not a fan of the change myself, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing - though it does give a misleading impression of tightened focus that is very quickly lost as it lays out a spread of half-baked, and frankly clumsy mini-games. As well as being your prime source for money and upgrades, these do a lot to artificially increase the length of the game, and put simply, they’re just not fun enough to warrant this level of prominence. Even the main story has frequent moments where it veers away from the core 3D hack and slash gameplay, and again, these do more harm than good to the game’s flow.

The fighting underpinning it all has undoubtably been done better since by any number of titles, and though imperfect, it is still serviceable and enjoyable for the most part. Boss battles definitely hold the lion’s share of the game’s highlights, but there’s a few that also stick out with some poorly executed designs that tars its lasting impression. Shades do remain of the ridiculous, irreverent charm of the first game, although they are certainly more infrequent, and a more modern lens also brings into question just how sincerely we should take the sending up of Travis, when cast upon a backdrop of frequent fanservice. Not the best sequel then, but let’s hope 3 gets things back on track.  

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #454

Top Ten Launch Games 

Oooh, it’s finally here!  

By the time you read this, the Xbox Series X/S consoles will be out, and the PlayStation 5 will be imminent if not already with us. At the time of writing I’ve yet to sample either console, although hopefully that will soon change. However, it’s a bit of a weird console launch, especially for Xbox owners, as there’s not much in the way of actual launch titles. PlayStation has the excellent-looking technical showcase (in that it shows off their sexy new controller, if not necessarily the excesses of the console’s visual prowess) Astro’s Playroom. But on the Xbox side, the only genuine first-party exclusive (not including the port of rather smashing PC title Gears Tactics) was to be the troubled Halo Infinite, which has now been pushed to next year to deal with some of its apparent graphical deficiencies. For what it’s worth, as a Halo fan, I thought the actual gameplay presented looked as good as it always has, so I’m still very excited, but it’s a shame not to sample something genuinely new and shiny at launch. For me, then – as someone not getting a PlayStation this year – I’m going to have to contend myself with updated versions of older games, and hopefully something like the really exciting-looking The Falconeer or, eventually, Cyberpunk 2077.  

Of course, it’s not always been like this; in the past, a landmark game has often been the core reason to upgrade to a new console. Certain titles have defined their hardware platforms, offering a taste of the experiences to come, be it through revolutionary control systems, previously-unimaginable graphics, or simply by shattering preconceptions and expectations. As such, this weekend I’m celebrating my favourite launch titles. 

Now, a couple of my usual caveats. I’ve hardly owned any consoles in the grand scheme of things; I was a computer gamer until the launch of the first Xbox, and even then was PC-first until about midway through the 360’s life. As such I came to a lot of these late, or played them on friends’ systems. I’m sure a videogame historian would give you another list, one that was able to put each title into its historical perspective. For my part, I’m mostly basing it on how much I like the game, but I am also trying to weight it in terms of its “importance”. I mean, one of my favourite “launch titles” of all time would be Lego Marvel Super Heroes on the Xbox One/PS4, but that seems a bit of a ridiculous game to call a launch title, especially as it doesn’t really show off the hardware or define the generation in any particular way. I just think it rocks. So I’m trying to judge it also in terms of how effective a given game was at being a launch title, as well as my personal preference; as such, some games, which I think are more emblematic of their time or their hardware, might end up higher in the list than if I was otherwise just ranking my favourites.  

Christ, that was boring. Look, here are ten games that I like that came out when a console came out. Have at it. 

Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox, 2001): it’s not just that it made playing an FPS on a console as comfortable and enjoyable as on PC, but it revolutionised what an FPS could do. Expansive open landscapes, dynamic combat with intelligent enemies, an ingenious shield/health combo, two weapons, drivable vehicles, and frankly outstanding graphics. And for Xbox – a curious underdog, a big black sheep devoid of cool or class and feeling like Microsoft was trying to buy its way into the console space with a hefty dose of brute force – here was something unique, something incredible. I don’t think anyone quite expected Halo, and it’s arguable that it single-handedly changed not only Microsoft and Xbox’s fortunes but the entire game industry too.  

Wii Sports (Wii, 2005): the Wii was this strange outlier, a tiny white box that eschewed the grunt and girth of its rivals, and seemingly built around its unique motion controller. Would it work? Wii Sports proved that yes it would, a delightful bundle of games that perfectly showed what the console and controller could do. Immense fun in and of itself, but the Wii’s ability to lower the barrier of entry to non-gamers meant that your dad could thrash your brother at bowling. And that is a thing to cherish forever. 

Tetris (GameBoy, 1989): depending on where you look, Tetris may just be the best-selling game of all time. It’s on everything now, from the Xbox Series X to your watch. But there was a time when “Tetris” meant “GameBoy”; that four-colour greenscreen box of wonder that everybody had but me. It was beyond ubiquitous, and its short-form nature and simplistic styling made it ideal for the portable console, its chirpy and iconic music sounding perfect coming from those tiny speakers. And above all else, of course, Tetris is fantastic, one of the greatest games of all time. It was a perfect marriage of software and hardware. 

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch, 2017): so here’s the thing: I like Zelda, but I’ve never fallen in love with it. I didn’t grow up with it, so coming to Ocarina of Time, there were too many old-fashioned trappings in the way; it just didn’t feel as enthralling or as fun to play as, say, Half-Life or Deus Ex. BOTW changed that; the limitations were gone, the world was blown wide open. It no longer felt like an 80s game in three dimensions, it felt new. Better than new – it felt like tomorrow. Despite the Switch being graphically weaker than its contemporaries, BOTW was and is simply gorgeous to look at, but it’s how it plays, how it feels like a vast but real world, how it has its own rules and they make sense instantly. It’s the greatest open world game of all time, and emergent physics sandbox, and yet it’s still unquestionably Zelda, emphatically Nintendo. Okay, it technically came out on the Wii U at the same time, but who the hell played that? This was the game that made you want a Switch.  

Super Mario 64 (N64, 1997): this is often the game people cite as being one of the great revolutionary launch titles, but I must confess its charms were lost to me at first. Taking what was great about Mario and converting it expertly into 3D was a heck of a feat; graphically for the time it certainly impressed in the scale of its worlds, and whilst back then I felt it lacked the detail and granularity of some PC titles, in retrospect it was a perfectly-suited art style, offering smooth textures even when right up close. But it was its precise controls and the open, hub-based nature of its worlds that was revolutionary; many games aped its style, but it took a long time before anything really matched it.  

Hexic HD (Xbox 360, 2005): not every game here has to be some genre-busting graphical powerhouse; they can be simple but quietly revolutionary. Hexic HD is a terrific puzzle game with a simple hook, brilliantly executed, and enough intrigue and nuance to keep you coming back for one more go, to beat your high score, to get to the next tricksy level. But the time and manner of its release, and what that signified, marked it out as something more important. It was the first Xbox Live Arcade title; Microsoft’s curated gallery of smaller, more indie-flavoured games. More than that, it was free, coming pre-installed on all Xbox 360 Pros (the ones with the removable hard drive). It was a taste of what was to come, introducing audiences not only to the idea of playing these kinds of smaller, less intense games on a console, but also the idea of purchasing and downloading them digitally. It was great and ground-breaking in equal measure.  

WipEout (PlayStation, 1995): I kinda missed the PlayStation generation. I was still, more or less, in my PC-centric “consoles are toys” mindset (which I wouldn’t fully shake off till the release of the N64). But I came to appreciate its qualities as a cool, exciting, super-fast futuristic racer. I’m pretty sure it’s not the first 3D hover-car racing game, but it was presented in such a groovy package that it ticket all the boxes, and helped show off just what the PlayStation was capable of in terms of its 3D graphics and CD sound. And, of course, it helped define the console as being a bit more edgy and grown-up than the previous Nintendo and Sega stalwarts. 

Super Mario Bros. (NES, 1988): what can be said about one of the most iconic games of all time? Mario Bros defined not only a console, not only a generation, but arguably an entire artform. Creating what we now know as a platform game, it expanded and surpassed the basic template of Donkey Kong into a roaming adventure, part twitch-gaming reaction test, part puzzle game. I played a lot of copycat games on my Amiga, but even then, as a whiny computer brat, I knew that Mario was better. Even when my cousins got a MegaDrive and Sonic, I knew – deep in my heart – that Mario was better. It's a deep game, an endlessly replayable game, a supremely fair game despite its difficulty. I think it’s hard to overstate just how good, or how influential, Mario was. 

Project Gotham Racing (Xbox, 2001): I tried hard to pick a different platform for every game in this list, but I couldn’t exclude PGR. This may be tied up with my biography a little bit, but my other half and I played this game to death. I never think of myself as a big racer fan, but every once in a while a title comes out that I just really, really get into – Jaguar XJ220 on the Amiga, Midtown Madness on PC, the Forza Horizon series nowadays – and PGR did that in spades. A gorgeous arcade racer, it was a great launch title to show off the sheer grunt of the Xbox; then, as now, the most powerful console on the market. It also offered a terrific four-player split-screen. But its Kudos feature – borrowed from semi-prequel Metropolis Street Racer – offered ways to win outside of sheer racing graft, awarding cool driving. I still love the original, and I kinda wish they’d bring back or reimagine its city-based driving for a future release or Forza spin-off. 

Lumines: Puzzle Fusion (PSP, 2004): okay, so this is a bit of a cheat as I've barely played the original PSP version, but Lumines is just phenomenal; the best moving-blocks-around game since Tetris, and probably the most influential one since then too (for the record, I've played it extensively on multiple other platforms). An excellent spin on a Tetris-a-like, its use of music and colour made it a beautiful, brilliant sensory experience. With Sony entering the handheld market, the PSP needed a USP, something vibrant and cool that suited a portable experience, and Lumines provided it in spades; also its funky visuals and music was a good fit for Sony’s brand.  

Well, that was fun, and a lot harder than I expected. If you’re enjoying a new console this Christmas, then hopefully you’ll have fun with one of the new launch titles too – even if I doubt any (apart from maybe Astro) would trouble a list like this in the future (although I do think The Falconeer looks all kinds of cool). 

[focusfixated]

february fic rec round-up

month #02: february - good omens, it, the goldfinch, little women, maurice

(please feel free to reblog)

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jesus died for somebody’s sins (but not mine) by @lavellington

rating: G

fandom & pairing: good omens - aziraphale/crowley

summary: 'So you're going to start, what – praying?' 

'I already pray,' Aziraphale says, primly. 'I am an angel.'

'Yes, but it's different, what you do,' Crowley says, impatiently. 'It's not all sitting around trying to decipher mistranslated Hebrew, and searching for the Virgin Mary in your tea leaves. You're on the staff!'

notes: sharply beautiful, and a whole-ass queer mood in terms of the idea of awakening, of being able to fully occupy your own self and identity. there is a really lovely thing here of aziraphale finding a new, human way to express his faith and understanding of what god means to him, and it's explored in a way that is both incisive and uplifting. very well-observed, in terms of character, and crafted with such a light touch when it comes to the pace and wit of the dialogue. a joy to read the whole way through.

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not exactly where i need to be (and yet it seems so close) by varnes

rating: M

fandom & pairing: IT - richie/eddie

summary: Richie runs all the way to Eddie’s. He has a bike but he can’t remember, just now, where he put it. Everything feels real, feels — the gravel hurt his shoeless feet, his lungs burn when he gets tired, there’s a cut on his chin that aches a little. It feels real but things always felt real, with It. You can’t trust how you feel or what you see. That’s the core of the terror of It. That everything is real and nothing is real and all of it can kill you.

notes: a subtle and thoughtful look at how your outlook changes over time, how your life shifts as you grow up, at the ways you can still make a difference. this is such a strong concept, and a masterful execution of a complicated, dimension-hopping story. full of world-building details and wonderfully in-depth character study. cathartic and emotional and beautifully written. 

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24-pack card and sticker valentine kits by @stitchyblogs

rating: M

fandom & pairing: IT - richie/eddie

summary: Eddie grabs a bottle of Elmer’s and starts tracing each letter with glue. There’s a dopey, sort of proud feeling in Richie, watching him carefully craft the letters of his name. He could of picked Bill or Stanley, gnashing away on the other side of the table with their pinking shears, or the teacher - but he picked Richie. 

notes: structured as a series of valentines from 1984 to 2019, this is such a neat way of telling a story. a brilliant set of snapshots of richie's life, his trials and emotions, the absolutely compelling highs and lows. each segment is coloured by wonderful background details, sharply-observed, and the dialogue flows at such a pace, it sparkles with this characterful wit that is an absolute DELIGHT to read. 

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feet on the ground, head in the sky by @suzybishops

rating: T

fandom & pairing: IT - richie/eddie

summary: richie and eddie put themselves back together, one long-distance phone call at a time.

notes: just a really lovely story of someone putting in the work to get better. taking the time to heal. learning how to be themselves again. captures the essence of fear and self-doubt - specifically, how richie feels about his writing, and about his potential lack of talent in the aftermath of any magically-boosted success - and leads us on a slow, soft walk towards renewal and acceptance.

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a renaissance, another day by @tiny-steve

rating: E

fandom & pairing: the goldfinch - boris/theo

summary: Two years after Amsterdam Boris shows up on Theo’s doorstep in New York and he hasn’t had a hit in twenty-four hours.

notes: this is just INCREDIBLE. a deeply-felt, keenly-observed, brilliantly-constructed bit of storytelling. uses gorgeous imagery that is dramatic and sordid and beautifully-drawn, showing us the horror-show of drug withdrawal in a terribly visceral, awful way, but which also clears a path for something that gives us hope for the future, in a story that is otherwise characterised by its trauma. a brilliant end-piece to where the novel left off.

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the home front by kindkit

rating: G

fandom & pairing: maurice - background maurice/scudder

summary: Alec Scudder and Clive Durham meet again in 1915.

notes: so neatly-conceived and executed. a lovely character study of scudder, full of warm, bright details of the world around him. a really gladdening thing to read and to imagine that, amongst the turmoil, the strength of this connection survives.

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all this practice and still no grace by @drawsaurus

rating: E

fandom & pairing: little women - jo/laurie

summary: Laurie would have taken any humiliation, tenfold worse than this, to be as close to Jo as he was allowed now.

notes: a fascinating look at the gender-play between jo and laurie, the way they form their roles in opposition to each other. this is such a brilliant dynamic to play with, and is done in a really neat, sharp way, vividly-painted with economic and precise language. this is a look at people who are unsure of themselves, and the way they feel their way through something unfamiliar in an attempt to gain the freedom to get what they want. such a good read. 

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previously:

month #01: january