#but the starting text is from an earlier version of this post

[aritsukemo]

Been thinking about..

Sal's partner being obsessed with his voice in every way. The raspiness, the depth and how well his tone of voice mixes with it, how he pronounces words—everything. So, once a day, they request he tell them about his day in almost concerning detail just to hear his voice for an extended period of time. ( It takes him months to figure out why you saw such lengthy talks as such a necessity )

Sanemi's partner absolutely not believing it when people tell them about how cruel and harsh he is because of how differently he treats them in comparison. Who only knows him as a man who only speaks to them in gentle whispers, never lets them do any heavy lifting when he's around, massages them despite the fact hat he's the one constantly going out and exerting himself to slay demons ( and all because they simply mentioned in passing that their toe was hurting from standing too long or something ), spoils them, and brings them gifts after almost every mission as an apology for being away for so long and possibly giving them a scare.

Gaara's arranged fiancé being completely and utterly intimidated by him to the point that they constantly avoid them. Poor boy, of course, knows no way of fixing this and ultimately goes to Kankuro for advice—who suggests he starts by breaking the ice over a nice dinner—and Gaara, despite having zero experience in the kitchen, opts to take said advice and run with it. His fiancé comes home after a long day of hiding to find the kitchen a complete mess and Gaara standing in the middle of it—covered head to toe in his many earlier failures—with his lackluster dish in hand and their heart absolutely melts at the sight.

Chifuyu, who scares Takemichi half to death with nonstop text telling him to come over his house asap. His best friend, thinking the worse, rushes over only to be asked if you'd find it corny if he attempted to match with you for your date tonight.

Nagisa, who was nervous about meeting you for a date after cutting his hair. Who feared his worst fears were right all along and that you only loved that version of him that his mother spent years crafting against his will..only to find out that you were in the same boat; had also cut your hair and feared his reaction to your new look. It made him feel silly for blowing such a simple thing up in his head.

Dividers were made by me, pictures used are from Pinterest, post formatting is inspired by @xxsabitoxx

[ruporas]

post-trimax vash meets stampede wolfwood

[ID: Black and white comic of Vash and Wolfwood of their Stampede versions. The comic starts with Wolfwood continuing off a conversation, saying “I didn’t mean t’say anythin’ bad to her. She just took it the wrong way. But anyway...” Wolfwood speaks with a hand gestured flippantly while Vash, who’s seated next to him, just listens. Vash thinks to himself, “Talks more about himself... Honest expressions... Immature, though he was pretty immature too.” He smiles and continues to think, “And yet...”

A panel of Vash’s eye directed now to the sky. He thinks, “Some things are bound to be the same with us...” He thinks of a memory, the version from Maximum of him and Wolfwood, back shown as they chatted underneath two moons, one moon with a hole through it. Vash continues, “Isn’t that right, W-“ His thoughts are interrupted by Wolfwood coming into a view, a close up his deadpan expression. Vash utters out “-olfwood..?” with a nervous expression. He starts to explain, “Um. Sorry if it seemed like I wasn’t listening, I was! So, let’s keep talking?”

Vash smiles and puts his hands together as he says, “okay?” Wolfwood glares at him with gritted teeth and Vash immediately remembers, “Right, he’s more short-tempered...” He continues to think, “Maybe Plan B works with him—“ before he’s grabbed by his coat collar aggressively and changes thoughts, “OK, never mind, brace for impact..!” But he’s surprised when he’s tugged instead, him and Wolfwood flops against the ground. Wolfwood puts an arm over Vash and says, “I don’t need to be entertained, blondie. If yer tired, we can go to sleep.”

Two close up panels of Wolfwood and Vash’s eyes looking at each other, Wolfwood taking off Vash’s glasses as he says, “Am I wrong?” Vash thinks to himself, “Actually... I was being genuine when I said I wanted to keep talking. I don’t feel tired at all. But, I think you know this body more than I do.”

Vash’s thoughts continue, “I can’t deny the me you’re fond of from being taken care of. And I could never deny your kindness. Even though...” Vash finally smiles and says, “You’re not wrong...” Wolfwood smiles back before tugging Vash closer and says, “Then, let’s sleep.” Vash asks, “Should we get a blanket?” Wolfwood asks, “Why?” before kissing Vash on the cheek, “I’ll keep you warm.” Vash puts his face into both his hands and flushes. Wolfwood smiles cheekily and asks, “What?” Vash responds, “I was caught off guard..” Wolfwood says, “You’ve said worse though.” Vash responds, “Did I...” The panel phases out and the dialogue returns to Vash’s thoughts. He thinks, “I want to stay a bit longer. Talk a bit longer.

You’re tired here too. The future is always going to be unfair to you. I want to protect you from it. I want to hold you close so you won’t go far.” The thoughts overlap the scene of Wolfwood now sleeping peacefully against Vash with an arm over him, Vash’s jacket draped against him as a blanket. Vash looks at him and a small thought bubble thinks, “He can fall asleep first...” His previous thoughts continue, “I know I can’t. I already had that chance.” A close up of Vash putting his hand over Wolfwood’s. He continues, “I wasn’t capable once, I can’t be sure I’d be capable a second time. And in a way...”

Vash’s thoughts continue with the back drop of the sky, Stampede’s sky of two moons without holes, “Some things are bound to be the same. But I know you’ll be loved again and again in a way I’d never know.” A split panel, one half contains the sleeping face of Wolfwood from Stampede, the other of Wolfwood from Trimax. In turn, the Vash lying down looking fondly at Wolfwood shifts to the post Trimax Vash while the other versions, Stampede and earlier Trimax, are faintly drawn next to him doing the same. Vash closes his eyes and finally drifts to sleep as the final text reads, “Goodnight, Wolfwood.”

[prodbymaui]

Stress No More

and you're my centre, you keep me tethered

PAIRING: jung jaehyun x reader

GENRE: stress relief

WORD COUNT: 1.6k+ words

WARNINGS: consensual somnophilia, sub space, daddy kink

SYNOPSIS: Stressed because of work, CEO Jaehyun seeks the comfort of his wife. So when he finally clocks out of work, he didn’t waste any time to quickly drive and get home.

A/N: this was a revised version of one of my fics months ago. thought I had to at least post something as a compensation of my long overdue series. forgive me for the typos, grammatical errors-- yadda yadda yadda. enjoy reading! share your thoughts?

Jaehyun sighs as he starts to clean up his desk and gather his things. Fashion week just finished and the whole company had been busier than ever. As the CEO, it’s his responsibility to make sure everything falls into the right place with no flaws and show a much better performance than other brands do.  Utmost success doesn’t just come immediately, it demands sleepless nights and burned out minds. Responsibilities as the owner of his own company requires him to spend most of his time signing papers, going over proposals and designs, visiting and participating in the outside works himself, and many more.

Guilt fills Jaehyun’s body when he sees the texts you had sent him earlier, he scolds himself for not replying to you not even once despite clearly, it was his work that had hold him back and made it quite impossible for him to check his phone, especially during meetings. Turning his heels, Jaehyun quickens his pace, urge of going home burns inside him as seconds passes by.

The moment he arrives, he calls out your name softly, announcing his arrival. A couple more and he is yet to receive a response. Oftentimes, when you are free from the shackles of your own job, you like relaxing at the patio, chewing on your strawberry cheesecake all the while laughing at whatever film you’ve decided to watch—or there are times where Jaehyun finds you in your shared bedroom, playing on your phone or taking a nap. After going to the patio first and sees no sight of your figure, Jaehyun opted to head to the second in ranking of your favorite places.

There he finds his lovely wife all sprawled out on the bed, sleeping peacefully with your black silk nightgown that he loves so much. A smile of adoration appears on Jaehyun’s face, walking towards your peaceful sleeping figure while taking off his coat and tie. He settles his things on the table not far from the bed, resting his knee on the mattress and takes in the sight.

Jaehyun feels his breath hitch at the look of your exposed collarbones and thighs. Like a cue, one of your talks prior the busy weeks pricks Jaehyun’s mind. In that very conversation, you had mentioned about wanting to give somnophilia a try. Jaehyun was clueless back then that an explanation was needed. Being the gentleman that he is, Jaehyun expresses worry over the procedure and said that having sex requires verbal consent, he doesn’t want to disrespect the only woman he loves other than his mother. It took quite a few convincing and batting your eyelashes before he agreed.

Cheerfully, you assured him that he have your consent of touching you anytime, anywhere—conscious or unconscious. There are words you’ve established to signal any discomfort or want to stop the actions anyways. Too caught up with work, you didn’t have time to try it. But Jaehyun thinks that this might be the right time.

He plants a soft kiss on your forehead, caressing your cheeks, as he stares at you lovingly for a minute. Jaehyun tugs the hem of your nightgown upwards, there lies the flimsy fabric barely covering the plum cheeks of your pussy. He feels his pants get tighter.

Parting your legs slowly, Jaehyun thinks it’s pathetic to torture himself like this. The thin fabric doesn’t do much of covering what is between those legs, partially showing your clit. He curses under his breath, reaching down to unbuckle his belt to let his hard cock breathe some air, eyes never leaving your cunt.

Jaehyun settles comfortable in the middle while unbuttoning his shirt. He wets his lip as he parts the pussy lips with his thumbs and diving into the pool of sweetness. Jaehyun must’ve saved the world in his previous life to be rewarded by this delicacy. Sliding his tongue in, from the hole to the clit, tasting his wife’s arousal. He closes his eyes as he gets lost to the sweet wetness, licking and sucking on the clit, hungry for more. He looks up to watch your face without stopping the work of his tongue, he can see the calm breathing as it turns heavy and the peaceful face changes into a confused frown.

Your husband observes you, dipping his wet muscle inside the tight warm hole completely. Ghosts in your house would think he’s the one getting eaten out by how he moans and hums at your taste. He flattens his tongue and licks up to the clit, letting his middle finger enter the warm cave, flicking his tongue lightly at your button of pleasure.

Soon, three fingers are already inside and your pussy is now all puffy from all the sucking and licking. He pulls away and stares at how his digits move in and out of your soaping cunt. Letting a muted moan, stirring a bit, Jaehyun chuckles lowly when your legs spreads wider as if to give him more access. Even in deep slumber, you wouldn’t hesitate to offer yourself to him.

Jaehyun presses a kiss on your clit before pulling out his fingers, taking off his pants and boxers. He strokes his cock at the delicious sight of his pliant wife. God, he is certain he’ll come anytime soon just by looking at you, so fucking rewarding after all the stress he had gone through since morning. Without wasting any time, Jaehyun hovers over you, hands beside each side of the your head to hold himself up as he slowly penetrates your soaked hole. Jay lets out a long moan. You feels so good, so warm, so tight.

His thrusts becomes rough and fast almost immediately, not even bothering to lower down his moans and slow down for his wife. You like it like this. The way his cock rubs the insides of your walls is so enticing that you were pulled out from your dream, fluttering your eyes open as the feeling of being full registers in your brain. Whimpering at your husband’s appearance, sweat peeks at Jaehyun’s shoulders, his mouth and chin wet. You are not dumb to be unaware of what just took place, not dumb to know that it’s your wetness that lies on his face, not dumb to realize that what you thought is a wet dream is indeed happening. Fina-fucking -ly.

“Oh, daddy.” You whimpers, hands shooting up to grip on your husband’s biceps, hips bucking up to meet the purposeful thrusts. Jaehyun opens his eyes and sees the pleasure in his now awake wife. He leans down to finally have a taste of the mouth he had been craving ever since this morning, wrapping his arms around you to feel the warmth that he had been seeking after all the stress work had given him.

Picking up his pace, Jaehyun orders you to hold on to him, whispering filthy shits against your ears, knowing how it pushes you to the edge even more. With his wife’s beautiful noises and the clenching of your pussy in his cock, Jaehyun feels himself getting close. He used to last longer than you, but due to the pleasuring clenches of your walls and the beautiful sight of you falling apart in his arms, it’s embarrassing to say that he can cum in just a few minutes.

“Fuck baby, you’re bulging.” Jaehyun looks at your stomach stretching up whenever he thrusts in, the shape of his cock making an appearance. He presses a hand at that very part and starts to pounce roughly, wanting to feel how big his cock inside your small hole.

Sobbing at the merciful thrusts, you tighten your arms around his neck. He feels so so big that you could feel him almost literally breaking you into two. Jaehyun leans back to sit up, placing his hands on his your waist as he fastens his pace, giving you more than what you can take. Your arms goes everywhere, not knowing where to place them, you need to grip on something.

Jaehyun groans when your hands proceeds to grab the big teddy bear on the side of your bed, giving the illusion of innocence with how you’re crying and hugging the stuffed toy like a bullied little kid. Jaehyun puts both of your legs on his shoulders to thrust deeper and harder, You can’t do anything but to scream about how good Jaehyun is making you feel. The complaints from the neighbors are definitely guaranteed.

“Daddy daddy— gonna c-cum— ‘m gonna cum— daddy cum!” You thrashes underneath him and starts to clench on his girthy cock. You want to come so bad, fuck. Your tummy tightens as you discard the stuffed toy to the side and makes grabby hands to your husband. Immediately, Jaehyun complies and leans down, letting you wrap your arms around his neck once again as he whispers encouragement to your ears.

“Come for me, baby. Come on princess, show daddy how good you are for him.” With a few more strokes, you are clamping down hard on his cock and Jaehyun is thrusting uncontrollably. His cum mixes with yours as Jaehyun moves slowly, riding out your high. Once you’ve come down from your climax, he pulls out of you carefully and grabs a towel on your bed side and starts to clean up the mess made by the both of you. Your hand prevents him from going to the bathroom, “Where are you going?” Gosh, those teary eyes—will anyone blame him if his flaccid dick gets hard again by the mere doe eyes?

“To the bathroom, I’ll prepare our bath.” You shake your head.

“No?” Tugging Jaehyun to lay beside you. Your husband only lets it be as you puts his arm around you and buries your face in the crook of his neck.

“We have all the time to do that, let’s just rest for now.” You sleepily say, yawning.

Just a few more days. A few more days and you will be consistently woken up with him fucking you dumb, just like what you had always begged him to do. Jaehyun smirks, a few more days.

[fruitmins]

Purple Car | jungkook

➭ summary: in which jungkook is a successful solo idol and your his long time girlfriend that he hasn’t seen in almost two months. again. it’s starting to feel like your more like distant friends more than lovers so when you unexpectedly disappear, jungkook goes the distance to try to find you.

➭genre: solo idol jk x reader, drabble

➭warnings: none really. a little angsty and depressing. there’s a couple bad words

➭note: first post🥳 | heard a snippet of the acoustic version of ‘car outside’ and this was the outcome sooo feedback would be appreciated.

Jungkook’s eyes begin to strain as he stared at the blue screen with wide and glossy eyes. He didn’t care how badly he was damaging his eyes. It didn’t even cross his mind for a second. He could barely process the information that was on the screen. But still, he stared at it in disbelief. How could he care about himself when the most important person he cared about was missing?

‘nearest train station’

‘train tickets to Daegu’

According to your laptop that was the last thing you had googled. The last time you had used it being almost an hour ago.

His heavy heart sank. Would the train be gone by now?

No. He didn’t want to think of the possibility that you actually left him. You two had always talked about going to Daegu together. Going out to hotels and spending the days happily touring together.

Jungkook’s throat ran dry as he thought about the word touring. When was the last time he actually spent quality time with you? He had just came back from a month tour, promoting his new solo album. He had spent weeks prior getting ready for it and his schedule became full in an instant.

He felt bad and had always planned on making up for lost time as soon as he was done. He knew that after his company would leave him alone for once and he was set on making you his top priority after.

He always made sure to call you at least once a day when on tour, or send little gifts and things to the house in an attempt to cheer you up.

Jungkook glanced around the room, some of his latest gifts not even out of the box. At first, he was constant with the calls and gifts. They would be sweet and meaningful. But as the tour continued the more tired he got. His calls were short and late at night and his gifts became small and less frequent.

His stomach swelled with guilt at the thought. How could he do this to you? Abandon you, make promises, and give you false hope. He remembered the words he said to you to cheer you up.

‘It’ll be over soon before you know it.’

‘When I get back we’ll have the best nights of our lives.’

‘I promise to call you more babe.’

‘I promise I’m fine babe, everything will go back to normal when I’m done.’

‘Stop fucking freaking out so much.’

Most of the time, his mind was clouded by exhaustion and pressure he forgot about the things he said. It felt like all the nights before he slept was like a drunken blur. All he could remember was being on stage and wanting to do good for his fans.

Well now he remembered. All the dry talks between you two. All of the half hearted things he said while slurring, barely awake. Sometimes almost yelling at you whenever you spoke to loud or to much. It was clear as time went he became more moody and distant.

He felt sick.

On the king sized bed, next to the earlier gifts laid your phone. No wonder you hadn’t been answering your phone. Did you really go the extra mile to leave everything at home?

No, he thought again. This must mean your in the house. Maybe the shower, or you went for a walk. Why would you leave your phone?

He tapped on the screen as it lit up. His handful of text showed on the screen. Your phone was almost dead and seemed completely untouched.

12:02AM

Even though he knew you never took showers this late, he went to the master bathroom to take a peek. Nothing. There was limited places you could be hiding, and he had already checked the place once he realized you weren’t home when he first arrived. You weren’t ANYWHERE. Not even in the guest bedroom.

Now he was really starting to panic as realization set in. He had screwed up. He had played with your emotions. He had left you one to many times. Now you were leaving him.

Now he was feeling everything that you had been for the past month and a half, and every other time a big event happened. He felt abandoned, sad, ditched and empty. How the fuck did he not realize what he was doing? How did he not realize how you were feeling? Why didn’t you talk to him? Did you? Not like he could really remember if you had.

‘nearest train station’

He clicked on your past search to see the exact responds. Shit. It wasn’t that far from the house. Only fifteen minutes to be exact. And you had been ghosting him for an hour.

He sprung into action at the realization. He would just had to hope that the train didn’t leave yet. To just hope that you went to early or that you had changed your mind.

He jumps into his car. Not caring that he wasn’t even supposed to be out this late, especially not in his recognizable purple car. Something even his fans knew was his prized possession since he and your favorite color was purple. In his purple car he felt like any other normal person. Especially when you were in the car with him. Now if just felt empty.

He practically sped to the train station (he actually did go over the speed limit a little), immediately parking his car in a random lot before booking it inside the large building.

Inside, he is immediately hit by a sense of bustling activity and the sound of people rushing to catch their trains as his eyes try to scan to look for you. Even though it’s early in the morning, there’s still a bunch of people.

Even when it’s a little dark inside the station since the sun isn’t up yet, he can spot a variety of posters and signs, displaying information about train schedules, destinations, and services available at the station.

He runs to the board, looking for the word Daegu and the color from his face drains when he finds it. The last train to Daegu had left at 11pm. Almost an hour ago. And what’s even worse is that he couldn’t even get a ticket till six.

He almost growled at the board out of anger. What he wasn’t going to do was sit around for five hours while you would be at a foreign place with no phone and nothing to defend yourself with. Especially since you were arriving at such a late time. He was not going to sit around when he had a perfectly good private jet.

Jungkook didn’t care who he woke up. He was the most successful man under his company and getting even more popular around the world. If he wanted a private jet ready at twelve o clock, he was going to get it.

Jungkook would be arriving to Daegu a big whopping thirty minutes before you, and it would take him a decent amount of time to get to the train station you would be arriving it. In short, Jungkook was seriously cutting it short.

If he was even a second to late, you’d disappear into the sea of people and his chances of finding you would decrease drastically by the minute.

Despite being exhausted and sleep deprived, Jungkook couldn’t sleep on the jet. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. All he could do is refrain himself from tearing out his own hair by repeating calling your number, listening to your voice mail for comfort since he knew you wouldn’t answer.

Once his phone had died, all he had was his thoughts. The depressing feeling of sorrow and loss took over him as he cried his eyes out. He missed you and he hated that he drew you away. He hate that he hurt you. He couldn’t imagine a life without you. He wanted to marry you for God’s sake. He felt like his chest was crashing the more he was away from you.

Finally, after he arrived he had a car waiting for him to take him to the train station. He had requested the same purple car he had left back at home, it didn’t feel right picking you up in an all black shaded windowed limo. Whenever you both went somewhere you took that car. You two had spent camping trips and dinner dates in that car. Sure it was newer and wasn’t his car but it was close enough.

He drove himself to the train station and ran inside the building as fast as he could. His face was hidden with a hat and mask as he tried his best to blend in with the people while still desperately trying to reach the platforms.

When he did, he saw one train already letting off a load of people. Jungkook immediately grew terrified. Did you already get off? Did he already lose you? A million thoughts ran through his head as his eyes started to water again.

He didn’t stop walking till he was at the front of the platform, watching as the people who got off with smiles reunited with family members or friends.

Jungkook watched the train empty, looking through the windows in hopes of getting a glimpse of you still inside. But it was mostly empty. You must of been one of the first people to get off. You must of been in a rush to get away from him. To start over. To leave him like he had done you.

Jungkook’s heavy head dropped, looking straight at the ground with closed eyes as tears started to fall. Grieving over the loss of his soulmate. And he could only blame himself.

He wished he could turn back time and do things differently, but he knew that was impossible. All he could do now was try to pick up the pieces of his shattered life and move forward, even though he had no idea how to do that without his wife by his side. But he would always missing you piece of his life..

“Jungkook?”

Jungkook’s body immediately froze at his name. The voice was behind him and spoke with a shaky voice but he was positive it sounded just like you. Was his mind fucking with him? Did he actually hear your voice? For the first time in a month? Were you still here? Did he still have a chance?

He swallowed a lump in his throat as he turned around, a little cautious. His breathing stopped when he met your red eyes. It was you. Only a couple steps away from him. You looked different. More skinny, you had on older clothes. Not the ones he bought you. And he could tell by your tear stained cheek and puffy eyes that you had been crying for a while. But you still looked beautiful. He missed your eyes, your touch, your smell..

Without giving it a second thought, he jumped towards you. His arms immediately wrapped around you as he gave you a tight hug and held you. His tears were spilling more violently as he sobbed into you. Relief rushed through him as he held you. You didn’t push him away, but you didn’t exactly hug him either. But he didn’t care. As long as he got to hug you. He was scared of letting you go. He didn’t want you to leave, and he didn’t want to leave either.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N.” He managed to choke out and soon enough you began to cry with him, becoming emotional in his arms. “I’m so fucking sorry.” He repeated, the first genuine words he said to you in a while. Your familiar soothing smell with the warmth of your small figure stopped him from having a full out panic attack.

“Jungkook I—“ you started to speak but he quickly shook his head, pulling away to analyze your face. He looked into your eyes with such relief and care but sadness still filled his expression. He was still scared you wouldn’t forgive him. That he had still lost you.

“I’m terrible Y/N. I didn’t realize just how much I let my job take over my life. Our life. I missed you Y/N I really did. I love you. I love you more than myself. I don’t wanna leave you anymore.” He said quickly pulling you back into a tight embrace, and this time he almost melted when your arms wrapped around him. He wanted to say so much more but he couldn’t form the words. It was paining him just seeing you cry.

“Please, give me a second chance to fix things. I’m not going anywhere without you Y/N.” He said, his desperate words spoken in a firm voice. He wanted to let you know just how serious he was about his words.

“Don’t promise anything..” you mumbled. The first proper-ish sentence you’ve said the whole time. He missed your voice, it wasn’t the same over the phone but your words stung. Did you not trust him? Did you think he would abandon you? Cause if so he’d get on his knees and propose to you right there.

“I just don’t want you to leave. I don’t want to leave you.” He sobbed into your shoulder honestly. Jungkook had always been a little shy with crying, even in front of you. But he was willing to expose himself to you. To let you know how he really felt.

“I-I won’t. Leave..” You choked out in a low voice and Jungkook was immediately over the moon. All his worries and fears washed away at your words. “I love you.” You spoke, this time in a stronger but gentle voice as his grip loosened a little around you.

He responded by pulling down his mask and kissing you with starving lips. His arms wrapped around your waist as he pulled your body against his. You kissed him back, melting in his touch as the world around you disappeared. You both had missed each others touch and you practically cried of happiness at the familiar warmth of his lips on yours.

When you pulled away to catch your breath, Jungkook leaned his forehead so it was touching yours. He closed his eyes and took everything in as he continued to hold your waist. Never would he be leaving you again. Never.

— A YEAR LATER —

“You ready for the tour baby?” Jungkook asked you in a gentle and soothing voice when he slithered behind you, wrapping his arms around you and putting his head on your shoulder. He gave you a kiss on your neck as he watched you pack your large suitcase.

“Absolutely. I can’t wait to visit all the different places.” You said with a wide smile as you leaned into his touch. When Jungkook cleared his voice you giggled. “And watch you preform of course.” A satisfied smirk showed on his lips at your response.

“Well I’m glad your happy.” He replied with a warm smile, his voice filled with joy and happiness.

Because what you didn’t know was that on the last day of the tour in Daegu, Jungkook was going to propose to you after singing Still With You.

[souryoong]

good for you | myg (18+)

Pairing: boyfriend!yoongi x f!reader

Genre: smut!! (18+ readers only pls), established relationship

Word Count: 2,278

Summary: you've been teasing your boyfriend over text while he's been away in paris for business, and he comes home early to teach you a lesson.

Warnings: mentions of sexting, cunnilingus, fingering, making out, clitoral stimulation, tongue kissing, praise kink, edging, reader gets teary, orgasm denial, hitting it from the back, creampie (god I still hate that word!!). also showering together is henced because after all, they are a couple.

Authors Note: hi guys!!! welcome to my own version of march madness (some watch basketball, I write smut. jk I do like basketball too.) I said it before, but just in case you didn't hear, I am celebrating yoongi's bday as well as my own this month by posting my favorite pisces 2 (or 3? its the aries in me to be a menace) times this month. enjoy the smut and happy birthday to my twin flame, yoongi!!

______________________________________________

Yoongi’s patience with you seemed to always be never ending. Nothing that you did ever seemed to cross the line, and when it did, you knew.

Well, today was one of those days.

Yoongi had been in Paris for work for a few days, and with the time difference, you got bored at night and stayed up late, sending him pictures and videos of yourself. They started off with sending him cute outfits that you bought, and then lingerie. However, he stopped responding when you sent him a video of yourself in the bathtub, making you wonder if you might have taken things a little too far. You didn’t want to interrupt him if he was dealing with important business.

Feeling kind of panicky and unsure what Yoongi was thinking, you eventually went to bed, hoping he would somehow not see it, or completely forget about it.

In the morning, you woke up to a text from Yoongi.

Yoongi: You like teasing me like that don’t you, distracting me from work?

You knew he wasn’t actually mad, he probably did enjoy what you were sending him, but maybe it was a bad time.

You thought for a second, and sent a quick text back to him.

You: Just thinking about you, baby.

Hoping that smoothed things over, you went on with your day. Since the time difference, you weren’t expecting to hear from Yoongi until later on in the night.

Later on, when you were winding down for the night, changing into your pajamas, your boss at work called a zoom meeting, discussing some business endeavors.

Since you were very much not modest — your pajamas were a pair of underwear and a big t shirt, your camera was turned off so no one could see you.

The meeting felt like it was going on for forever, you had one of your AirPods in even though sometimes you felt like you probably weren’t even paying attention. The good thing was is that you probably didn’t have to talk.

You pulled your knees in towards your chest in your chair at your desk, taking a drink from your glass that was next to your computer mouse. Suddenly, you heard a knock, but brushed it off as one of your coworkers making noise. You didn’t look away from your computer screen.

A few seconds later, there was another knock that was slightly louder than before; making you realize it was in the room and not coming from the computer. You looked around the room and was almost in disbelief when you saw Yoongi leaning against the doorway, one of his hands in his pocket of his tan colored suit.

“Yoongi?” You questioned him quickly. “I thought you wouldn’t be home until tomorrow.”

Yoongi stepped towards you. “My manager told me there was an earlier flight, so I left right after my event; hence why I’m so dressed up.”

“Yeah, you look so sexy.” You complimented him as he walked behind you. “What made you decide to leave early?”

That was a stupid question.

“Oh did someone suddenly forget what she did to me?” Yoongi’s large hands were on your shoulders.

You were silent, looking at your computer.

“Hey sweetheart. That was a question.” Yoongi leaned down, his low voice in your ear.

“I forgot about it.” You responded, reaching to rest one of your hands onto his.

“I’m not mad. You can send me whatever you want; you know that.” Yoongi brushed a piece of hair away from his face. “But to send me a video of you in the bathtub, while I’m sitting at a meeting? I had to cover my lap like I’m a goddamn teenager.”

You smirked to yourself at his reaction, not realizing he wasn’t done talking.

“Now I’m in the mood to edge you until you cry. Make you learn your lesson.”

You bit down on your bottom lip. Fuck. You knew Yoongi meant it when he said things like that.

“Yoongi, I —" You started to speak, but you were cut off.

“Hey, looks like someone has a meeting to listen to, right?” You wondered how long he was standing there earlier as he planted a few kisses along your neck, making you close your eyes. He was for sure pushing your buttons as you hummed in response.

“How was Paris?” You tried to distract your mind, at this point you weren’t even paying attention to your meeting.

“It was nice. I think you’d like it. Next time you should go with me.” One of his hands was now on your inner thigh, and you knew for sure that you were probably soaking your panties.

“I think —“ Your words were cut off when Yoongi’s fingers brushed against your clothed clit, making you swallow hard.

He moved one of your legs to rest on top of the desk, giving himself full view of your panties that were in fact soaked.

“Already worked up for me?” It was a stupid question to ask; you always were.

“Yoongi.” You spoke, a neediness in your voice.

He moved your chair back, somewhat startling you. Then he was hovering over you; his face close to yours. He gave you a quick kiss, making your heart flutter.

He slipped his fingers underneath the waistband of your panties. “Lift your hips.” Yoongi suddenly spoke, and you did.

Yoongi pulled down your panties, swearing to himself when he saw how wet you were. Stuffing them in his suit pocket, he turned your chair and got on his knees in front of you.

“Fuck.” Yoongi muttered to himself, putting his hands on your thighs. You felt like you were holding your breath. Trying to focus on your computer screen, but also trying to brace yourself for Yoongi’s tongue or fingers.

Yoongi barely touched your clit with his thumb; making you jump. He pressed harder, moving in slow circles.

You let out a sigh, practically feeling your arousal dripping out of you at this point. Yoongi paused for a second, pulling your hips towards himself so that you were sort of laying back in your chair; and more comfortable. Just as you looked away from Yoongi, you felt him push his middle and ring finger inside of you, pressing against your front wall hard.

You cried out his name, leaning your head back.

“You’re so fucking wet.” Yoongi grunted. “Fuck.” He was right, you could hear the squelching noises from his fingers going in and out of you.

Yoongi didn’t say anything before leaning down and sucking your clit into his mouth; forming a rhythm with the way his fingers were moving in and out of you.

Your body shuddered when his fingers brushed against your sweet spot; and you knew you weren’t going to last long if he kept going like this.

One of your hands was in his long, dark hair; trying to hold him there. You could feel yourself getting close, hanging on the edge of your orgasm.

Until suddenly, Yoongi stopped.

“Yoongi!” You were so frustrated, panting. “What the fuck?”

“Baby.” Yoongi spoke lowly, kissing your inner thigh. “Did I say that you could cum?”

“No.” You sighed, looking towards your computer screen.

“Be good for me.” Yoongi glanced up at you, giving you a look that gave you chills and reminded you that you were practically naked in your home office, while he was still fully clothed.

He suddenly stood up in front of you, removing his tan suit jacket; and then throwing it off to the floor. Yoongi leaned in close, grabbing your jaw and giving you a deep kiss; making you taste your own arousal.

“Can you do that for me?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“Yes.” You answered, even though it didn’t sound very promising. “But Yoongi, I think I might have to talk in this.”

“Then you can talk.” Yoongi pressed three of his fingers against your clit, then in a half of a second they were inside of you again.

Yoongi was going way harder than before; fucking you with his fingers. He stood up, trying to get better leverage. You felt his fingers bump your sweet spot, making you grab onto him; practically begging him not to stop.

“Yoongi, don’t stop. Please don’t stop.” Your voice was a whine as your walls were clenching his fingers.

On the brink of your second orgasm, you could hear the squelching noise coming from between your legs; realizing that you were probably gushing at this point.

“Yoongi.” You whined, pulling him in for a kiss.

You felt his fingers leave you again, making you let out a sob of a moan against his mouth. At this point you wanted to cry. You wished that your stupid meeting was over and Yoongi was pounding you into your mattress.

“Yoongi, I don’t know if I can take it anymore.” Your voice was shaky as you exhaled.

“I think you can handle more.” Yoongi answered you. He was right, you always liked to push yourself until you found your limit.

You let out a whine when you felt his fingers teasing your entrance again. “Yoongi, please.”

In what seemed like perfect timing; you heard everyone in your meeting saying their goodbyes and wrapping up.

“Alright have a good night everyone, see you Monday morning.”

You watched Yoongi in front of you undoing his belt, and throw it onto the floor with a thud. You quickly unmuted yourself in the meeting to say good bye, then left.

You took out the one AirPod you had in your right ear just in time for Yoongi to grab your chin with one of his hands, kissing you with such a force you thought he’d bruise you.

You grabbed onto his wrist when he simultaneously slipped his tongue into your mouth as his fingers started rubbing your now over sensitive clit.

Yoongi let out a moan into your mouth, making your core clench around nothing.

You broke away from the kiss, his face was still close to yours. Practically aching for him, you whined. “Yoongi, please.”

Swiping his tongue over his bottom lip, Yoongi stood back up, and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Go to the couch. With your back towards me.”

As Yoongi’s shirt was discarded onto the floor, you got up out of your chair; your legs feeling like they didn’t belong to yourself at first. The couch was only a few steps away from your chair at your desk.

You put your knees onto the seat of the couch, then leaned your upper body onto the back rest. Never thinking you’d be having sex in your office; you were glad that this couch was surprisingly roomy.

Hearing movement and fabric rustling, you could only assume that Yoongi’s pants were now off. He moved his hand along the small of your back, pushing your t shirt up to expose more of your body to him.

“Fuck.” Yoongi swore as you arched your back, getting ready for him. “Look at you.”

You let out a moan when you felt his cock head against your entrance, and you moved, trying to fuck yourself onto him.

Yoongi grabbed a hold of your hips, keeping you still he pushed himself inside of you; bottoming out in one thrust.

“Fuck!” You let out a moan, your mouth falling open.

Yoongi sucked in a harsh breath. “God, you feel so fucking good.”

You put your knees further apart on the couch in attempts to feel him a little deeper.

“Yoongi, fuck.” You slightly turned, grabbing onto his wrist as he held onto you. “Don’t stop.”

You felt him nudge your g-spot, making your walls abruptly clench around him. You could tell that your orgasm was somewhat close.

Suddenly Yoongi pulled you up so your back was against his chest; the new angle making you feel him so deep it was like he was in your stomach.

Your eyes were watering as you still clutch onto him. “Fuck, Yoongi I’m so close.” Leaning back into him, he planted a few kisses along your shoulder and neck.

Yoongi reached between hour legs with one hand and started to rub your clit, and your legs started to shake underneath you.

Your eyes were getting teary as Yoongi’s pace never faltered. “Yoongi, please.” Your voice was a whine. “Let me cum.”

“Yeah, you wanna cum?” Yoongi’s voice was breathy against your neck.

“Please.” You leaned into him, one of your hands making its way to his dark hair as you craned your neck to kiss him. “Tell me I’m a good girl.”

Yoongi grunted, starting to fuck into you so hard that you fell forwards back onto the couch. “My good girl.” It was almost as if he was enunciating the words with his thrusts.

“Oh god.” The words left your mouth like a sob as your orgasm crashed into you; this time Yoongi doing nothing to stop it. Your body nearly trembling as Yoongi continued fucking into you. “Fuck.”

“Shit.” Yoongi swore under his breath, his hips stuttering before releasing himself inside of you.

“Yoongi.” You whined at the feeling before it was apparent it was running down your inner thigh. You laughed slightly. “My couch.”

“What?” He was panting, then laughed with you. “Sorry, baby.”

You turned to face him. “God, what time is it? I’m exhausted.”

“You’re telling me. I’m jetlagged as fuck right now.”

You looked up at him, both of you were sweaty, fucked out, and exhausted.

“I’m happy you’re home.”

Yoongi smiled at you, pulling you up off of the couch. “Me too, now let’s take a shower and go the fuck to bed.”

______________________________________________

Tags: @dearlyjoonie @thepurpleghost @che-er-ful @thoughtfullysassysublime @yoongiscta @polyparkj

[prokopetz]

Hi. I just found your The Far Roofs post and I'm smitten by the beauty of the prose and the images it evokes. I'm reading through the kickstarter page and I'm going to look up what I can about the author, but it doesn't do harm to ask you directly too:

I'm not necessarily into playing this or the other games by the author, but I absolutely need to get my hands on more texts like the one you shared about Unicorn. Are the rulebooks the only place to read them? And if so, is there a grander story (that would necessitate reading the books in a particular order) or are these just flavour texts accompanying each new chapter or game mechanic?

Sorry if this is A Lot, I just hadn't read anything like that and it moved me in ways I wasn't expecting for such a brief excerpt.

(With reference to this post here.)

There's a grander story in the sense that, like many of Dr. Jenna Moran's games, The Far Roofs has a default campaign structure with some fairly specific plot beats. Technically the rats and the Mysteries are part of a broader setting set forth in greater detail in Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (an earlier game by the same author), though it's not necessary to have played or read CMWGE to understand what's going on in The Far Roofs.

If it's the prose in particular that grabs you, however, you might check out Dr. Moran's published novels. The Night-Bird's Feather is probably the most accessible starting point of the lot, being a collection of literary fables loosely structured around the life story of a minor NPC from the CMWGE canon. My personal favourite is An Unclean Legacy, though I wouldn't suggest starting there; it's a less refined and more eclectic work, and getting your hands on an electronic version may be problematic if you're participating in the Amazon boycott, as I don't think the e-book is presently available elsewhere.

(Also, strictly speaking An Unclean Legacy is fanfic with the serial numbers filed off, and if you're going in unspoiled, you will be so mad when you figure out what it's fanfic of.)

[changes]

Tuesday, February 7th, 2023

🌟 New

🌈 Important Internet Checkmarks are now rainbow! You can purchase them from TumblrMart. 🌈

Everyone now has access to polls.

The text formatting options in the post editor on web have been updated to better support keyboard navigation and screen readers.

In the mobile apps, some folks will see a new lightbox view for images and videos that we’re trying out.

🛠 Fixed

On web, the dashboard was unreachable for about 30 minutes earlier today.

Fixed an issue on blog themes where the photo lightbox (the feature where you can click an image to view its high-quality version) wouldn’t automatically be available for posts loaded in via endless scrolling.

Fixed an issue in the post editor on web where text could be black in any color palette, making it very difficult or impossible to read.

��� Ongoing

We’re still awaiting more details about Twitter’s plans to shut off free API access. We’ll provide an update about how this will impact Tumblr when we know more.

🌱 Upcoming

Nothing to share today.

Experiencing an issue? File a Support Request and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can!

Want to share your feedback about something? Check out our Work in Progress blog and start a discussion with the community.

[thefoxholecast]

The Original Foxhole Court Extra Content (Archived from Nora Sakavic’s Tumblr)

We copied the following text directly from the pre-2024 version of the Foxhole Court Extra Content page on Nora Sakavic’s Tumblr blog (korakos.tumblr.com/fox). In March 2024, she did “some spring cleaning” by shortening the list of links and deleting/hiding old posts. The links in this copy lead to archived snapshots of the old posts on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Some of the links are broken. If you have copies of these posts, please let us know so we can fill in missing content!

Because Tumblr only allows up to 100 links per post, we're unable to replicate the full list here. View the full list of links on our blog here: thefoxholecast.tumblr.com/FoxArchive

The Foxhole Court

ETA 2023: most of the posts here are from 2013-2015. Some of them overlap with older drafts. Some answers have evolved over time, even if they haven’t been updated here. Most I haven’t changed my mind on, for better or worse. Take ‘em or leave ‘em, and good luck making sense of ‘em around all the drunk rambling and detours. One day if I have the energy I’ll just sort it into a coherent reference.

~~

Two sections here: the questions submitted by tumblr users, and a miscellaneous collection of stories & factoids pulled from the oft-neglected blog. The questions aren’t in any particular order, though I did try to organize them by subject matter. Ish. Once the dust is settled a bit I’ll try to find a better sorting system. Also, the tumblr tag I use for questions is http://korakos.tumblr.com/tagged/foxhole-court-questions-and-spoilers

Lots of spoilers for The Foxhole Court ahead!

Preface: Why are Asks disabled in 2016?

COURTING MADNESS

—Exy Rules & Regulations

—Exy: A History of the Sport

—Palmetto State University

—The original “What Happens After King’s Men” post

—SON NEFES, the cousins’ freshman year through Renee’s eyes

——One . Two . Three . Four . Five

—Nicky Hemmick

—Seth Gordon

—Aaron Minyard

—Matt Boyd

—Kevin & Andrew

—David Wymack & the Monsters

—Wymack & Andrew re: Neil

—Dan Wilds is recruited to the Foxes *

—Allison through Dan & Renee’s eyes *

——pulled from an abandoned, unfinished book about the Foxes’ women

TUMBLR

NEIL

—Neil’s life on the run

—Do they ever celebrate Neil’s birthday?

—What if Neil told the truth earlier?

—Neil through the Foxes’ eyes

—Neil through Ichirou’s eyes

—Neil’s looks post-book and relationship with his reflection

—Does Neil ever talk to Bee?

—Neil’s millions

—Neil’s fight training

—Who’s Neil closest to beside Andrew

—Neil’s fashion style

—Cellphone ringtone

—Christmas/birthday presents for Foxes

—Does Neil ever cry?

—Neil’s lonely fifth year

—When Neil’s overwhelmed

—Does Neil crush on his teammates?

—Neil & Ichirou’s intimidation

ANDREW

—Andrew’s sober look at his teammates & Neil

—How did Andrew react to Cass’s letter?

—Andrew’s medication and the follow-up

—Has Abby seen Andrew’s scars?

—Andrew & Mama Bee

—Andrew & Roland

—How far has Andrew willingly gone?

—What animal figurine did Andrew buy Betsy?

—Andrew’s eye color

—Andrew’s opinion of the cats

—What’d Andrew say to Nicky in TKM?

—Andrew’s honest opinion of Exy

—Andrew’s thoughts on Neil’s binder

—Andrew and his sexuality

—If Andrew had met Neil’s mother

—Andrew’s thoughts on Neil’s sexuality

—Andrew’s fondest memory of Neil

—Andrew’s aforementioned withdrawal

—Do you think Andrew is really really really awesome?

—Proust and Andrew

—What happens to Proust?

��Andrew’s reaction to Neil’s bday blood

—Andrew on Neil eventually changing out

—Does Andrew get grumpy?

—Does Andrew get less dead inside?

—Does Andrew call Neil by his name?

—Why give the Foxes crackers?

—Andrew’s first choices in winning a fight

—Who liked knives?

—What got chopped from Drake’s arc?

—Does Andrew get off thinking about Neil?

—Post Andrew & Bee’s side story?

—When did Andrew start thinking Neil was interesting?

—Any other words he can’t stand?

—What does he think about nicknames?

—Explain Andrew’s fatal disease in the comic version

—Andrew’s canon mental state

—How did Andrew not know about Tilda’s abuse?

—Why punch Neil for “Sorry”, and when Andrew is sick

—What’s with Andrew and promises

—Andrew’s thoughts on Roland’s premature confession

—Andrew’s arrest

—Wanting nothing vs not wanting anything

—Why was Andrew laughing after Drake?

—If Neil had chosen Dan & Matt over Andrew

NEIL & ANDREW

—The other 10%

—Which teammate caught on first?

—Do Andrew & Neil go on dates?

—When did they first hold hands?

—When did Andrew clue in?

—Exites self-censure

—Betsy’s & Aaron’s reactions to the news

—Roland’s opinion of things

—The breaking point

—Who tops?

—On tying people up

—Their domestic life aka Sir Fat Cat

—I love you

—Andrew and the bed issue

—Nightmares

—Do they learn to talk to each other?

—Blaming Neil for Drake

—Andrew comforting Neil?

—Neil’s fondest memory of Andrew

—Neil getting Andrew off for the first time

—Neil seeing Andrew naked

—Neil & the sex how-to

—How was the first time

—Where’d it happen?

—When was their first hug?

—“I won’t let you let me be”

—Their roadtrips

—Neil waking Andrew up

—Andrew’s real smile

—How does Andrew show appreciation for Neil

—Their happiest moments

—Does Neil ever make Andrew laugh?

—Does Andrew take comfort in Neil

—Does Andrew get protective/possessive?

—Doesn’t Neil crave affection?

—Andrew re: Neil’s panic attacks

—Media reaction to Andrew/Neil

—Further reaction to Andrew/Neil

—On “accidentally” sitting in laps

—What if Andrew died?

—What if Neil died?

—Reaction to getting hit on by others

—Do they celebrate anniversaries?

—The first time Neil pushes Andrew down

FOXES

—How tall are the Foxes?

—Why is everyone so short?

—Where did their names come from?

—What were their majors?

—What do the Foxes look like?

—What are their Hogwarts houses?

—Reaction to the kidnapping

—Do Neil & Renee become friends?

—What did Allison do with Seth’s urn?

—Nicky’s evolution over the drafts

—Do the Foxes get their skiing trip?

—Does Andrew know Nicky kissed Neil?

—When did Aaron & Katelyn fall for each other?

—How did Andrew and Wymack end up handcuffed together?

—Kevin’s favorite things

—Kevin and Andrew’s on-court kerfuffle

—Dan’s haircut

—Dan & Matt’s relationship

—Dan & Matt’s first kiss

—Matt bouncing back from Columbia

—Matt rooming with the monsters

—The other what-if OT3 aka D/M/N and the dynamic

—Do Allison and Renee have the hots for each other?

—Matt forgiving his father

—Any mistletoe shenanigans?

—Thanksgiving and the Foxes

—Kevin’s best friend

—Janie Smalls

—How did Kevin and Thea meet?

—Foxes’ favorite ice cream flavors

—Kevin & Andrew’s on-court argument

—Foxes’ taste in music

—Kevin’s middle name & drink of choice

—Do Kevin & Neil want to kiss?

—Which Fox would Kevin kiss, then?

—Kevin’s best non-Exy memory

—Allison’s three bets

—Why is Allison’s middle name Jamaica

—Kevin, Andrew, and Neil staying friends

—“Joan of Exy”?

—Can the Foxes sing?

—Some of the Foxes’ previous bets

—Do Nicky & Allison become friends?

—Are Foxes based on RL people?

—Nicky when Neil asks about friendship

—Dan & the monsters in Columbia

—What if Kevin was killed?

—Renee and her near-death experiences

—More background available on Renee?

—Why doesn’t Aaron let the Foxes in?

—Team’s reaction to Drake, Andrew’s reaction to being outed

—Andrew & Aaron’s time with Tilda

—Does Aaron reconcile with Andrew over Tilda?

—Nicky & his parents after Drake

—Foxes thoughts in Baltimore

FOXES POST-TKM

—The Pro Teams

—The Weddings

—Neil as the Best Man?

—Kevin after TKM —Thea, Jean, Foxes, and Riko

—How does Kevin & Wymack’s relationship evolve?

—Renee after TKM

—Nicky after TKM

—Aaron after TKM

—Allison after TKM

—Dan & Matt after TKM

—Dan and the US Court

—Any pro-period scandals?

—Andrew & Neil’s relationship with their team

—Would Neil hold Matt’s children?

—Neil & babysitting the Foxes’ kids

—Which Fox’s child would curse first

THE FUTURE FOXES

—Who is Robin Cross?

—Neil and Jack

—Andrew’s reaction to Neil punching Jack

—Foxes’ reaction to Neil punching

—Kevin and Jack

—Neil’s new recruit

—Andrew and Jack

RIVALS

—Who is Riko Moriyama?

—Riko & Kevin’s evolving relationship

—More about Riko & Kevin’s past

—How did Riko break Kevin’s hand

—Riko’s brutality toward Jean

—Any draft where Riko wasn’t killed?

—Were Riko, Kevin, and Jean involved sexually?

—Does the Fox-Trojan rematch happen? Also how do the Trojans & Jean get along?

—Do Alvarez & Laila (Trojans) have backstories?

—Thea’s number & thoughts on Raven brutality

THE “ADULTS”

—Kayleigh Day & David Wymack

—Abby Winfield & David Wymack

—Wymack’s parents

—Did Wymack cry during the trilogy?

—Did Kayleigh know about the Moriyamas?

.

.

.

.

Nora & the Foxes

—Fancast and Andrew

—Changing opinion of Foxes over the years

—Bits of the scrapped K/N/A threesome here and here

—The KxAxN AU where Kevin died

—Will there be a sequel?

—What inspired you to develop Exy?

—Fox fanfictions, collected by coldsaturn

—Why a pseudonym?

—What came first, characters or story?

—Were you the artist of the comic version?

—What did the comic-Foxes look like?

—What do you do when you’re not writing?

[panda-writes-kpop]

Dreamcatcher - Reaction to Reader Having A Sinus Infection/ Cold (Requested!)

a/n: two posts in less than a week???? who is this more motivated panda??? jk i'm trolling myself but i really wanted to have the two requests done in the same week. also happy jiu day!!! here's to the hope that her fic won't come out three weeks late! :] ❤️

tw: gruesome descriptions of a cold, food mentions, my brain went brrr when it got to Dami's section so hers is longer

related fic: le sserafim's version

♡ Masterlist ♡

Prompt: You swear you didn’t feel this terrible yesterday. All you had was a bit of congestion and a scratch in your throat. Today, when you woke up, you could barely lift your head off of the pillow due to the congestion in your head. You were sure that you had enough snot to fill a trash can within your two nostrils. All you wanted to do was lay down and rest, but the ding of your phone causes you to lift your head again.

My Love: Do you mind if I come over? I miss you :(

You text her back with what you think is a comprehensible answer, and you rest your head against the pillow.

The next moment you’re awake, your girlfriend is sitting right next to you. So much for self-isolation.

“Darling, I’m here for you.”

JiU’s voice and gentle touch pulls you out of your slumber. You sniffle for a bit as she starts to rub your arm in a comforting manner.

“I can tell you’re sick,” She frowns for a moment before softly smiling to herself, “and I’m going to try to help you. What do you need from me?”

You cough into your elbow before sitting up in bed.

“You could cuddle with me, if you don’t mind getting sick?” You joke to yourself before seeing JiU move to your side. “I’m joking, please don’t make yourself sick-"

“If it’ll help you feel better, it’s worth the risk.” She wraps her arms around you as you gently pull her into the bed.

“I always feel better when you’re with me, Minji.”

A stuffed animal to the head isn’t an ideal way to wake up, but it sucks more when you’re sick and your sinus headache flares up immediately.

“You’ve been sick for days, and you didn’t text me earlier?” SuA scoffs as you toss the stuffed animal to the side.

“I would’ve, but I was afraid of that sort of reaction.”

“C’mon, I’m your girlfriend! I can take care of you when you need me. You do the same for me when I need you most.” SuA looks disappointed, and you sigh to yourself.

“Alright, Nurse Bora, you can take care of me. But don’t take it as an excuse to rearrange my whole apartment-” You state as she laughs happily.

“I won’t, I promise! You won’t regret this.” SuA gives you a big hug, which tackles you further into the bed.

“Is this supposed to be healing?” You joke.

“Is it working?”

“Oddly enough, it is.”

“Babe, wake up.”

You rub your eyes before looking over at Siyeon.

“Siyeon-ah?” You croak out before she shushes you.

“I saw the tissues and the medicine on the counter. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s wrong,” She looks around in her bag for a moment, “but it does take a genius for me to remember my gift for you.”

Siyeon continues to dig in her bag as you grab your water.

“Siyeon, it’s okay, I’m just happy that you’re here with me,” You try to reach out to her with your hand, but she’s preoccupied, “Siyeon?”

Siyeon pauses for a moment, blinks twice, before gently placing her hand on her forehead.

“I forgot your care package at the dorms, I’m so sorry-”

You go to grab Siyeon’s hand, and you successfully do so before tumbling out of bed.

Siyeon laughs as she lays on top of you, apparently you pulled her down with you, and you find yourself doing the same.

“Feel better?” She smiles at you.

“I do.”

You wake up, alone, and you attempt to reach for your phone, but it’s not there anymore. You fumble in the dark for a few moments before a soft light appears next to you. Handong (who looks absolutely beautiful in the light) sits next to you.

“Sorry, love, your phone was almost dead and I wanted to make sure it was charged for you.” Handong adjusts the light as you cough and sit up in bed. “I wasn’t sure you were in the mood for company.”

“I’d rather have you here.” You weakly say. “Thanks for coming.”

“Good, because if you asked me to leave, I would’ve stayed in your living room until you passed out from exhaustion or fell asleep.”

“Geez, Handong, it’s like you’re obsessed with me or something. What a perv~” You chuckle as she scoffs before lightly smacking you. “Wow, hurt the ill. Way to prove a point.”

“Glad you’re feeling better.” She smiles before rubbing your shoulder. “You deserved that, by the way.”

“I disagree, you’re so mean to me.” You whine before laughing alongside her.

"Hey Siri!”

You raise your head, checking for Yooh’s phone, before burying your head back into a pillow.

“She’s not here.” You mumble to yourself.

Yoohyeon calls out to her phone, again, before opening the door to your room.

“Have you seen my phone?” She asks as you rise from your bed.

“No, I don’t think you’ve been in here. I would've woken up earlier if you had been.”

“Oh, you’re totally right!” She closes the door for a moment before opening it again. “I bought a few things from the store, and I’m going to order food when I can find my phone. Just stay in bed until you feel better, and I’ll bring you everything, alright?”

“Yooh, it’s okay, I can get out of bed.” You try to pull off the covers, but Yoohyeon’s disapproving glare causes you to stay in bed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you… once I find my phone.” She sighs to herself before facing away from the door. “Hey Siri!”

You’re happy to have Yoohyeon as a caretaker since you know she’ll take good care of you once her affairs are in order, of course.

Before you rise out of bed, you pull the mysterious, foreign (wet?) object from your face. When you realize that it’s a washcloth, you put it back onto your face. Laying down with that thing on your head feels like the best thing possible, since it helps relieve your headache.

Unfortunately, the drainage from your nose prevents you from completely lying down. You suffice for a half-up, half-down method of lounging before reaching for your phone.

Your hand meets a glass of water before your phone, and you happily drink from it as you are provided with some temporary relief from your sore throat. You wonder who did all of this… you didn’t text anyone, did you?

When you get to your phone, you notice multiple missed calls and messages from Dami.

My Love: I’ll be over in a few minutes, I need to grab a few things from the dorm.

Are you alright? You haven’t answered me yet.

One of your work friends texted me that you called out sick, so I’m guessing that you’re resting. If you see this, I’ll be there when you wake up.

“Dami, honey, where are you?” You call out to her before coughing.

“I’m in the living room, darling. Do you want me to come in?” Dami asks from the other side of the door. “I came in earlier to put a washcloth on your face since you were running a fever, and then I grabbed water in case you wanted it.”

“You can come in, if you want.” You set the water down as Dami opens the door. “Thanks for the water and the washcloth.”

“I don’t mind helping you out since it looked like you needed it.” She says before a light smile breaks out onto her face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Thanks, Dami,” You sit up fully and readjust the washcloth, “I appreciate the sentiment. Hopefully, you weren’t busy before you came over.”

“I wanted to see you, anyway. How are you feeling?”

“Not great, but I’m managing. I get these sinus infections every year.” You shrug to yourself. “They’re terrible, but after a day or two off of work, I’ll be back to myself… mostly.”

She smiles to herself before looking you over again.

“If there’s anything you need, at all, I can get it for you.”

“Thanks, love, I appreciate it.” You say before Dami closes the door and leaves you to get more rest.

“Why did you text me? I'm right here next to you.” Gahyeon grumbles for a moment before turning to face you. “Listen, I know you're upset with me for getting you sick, but I'll make it up to you-”

“-with hugs and kisses and lots of affection?” You force your cutest expression as she tries to hold back her laughter.

“I was going to offer to pay for dinner, but I can go for the free option if you would like.” She wraps her arms around you after you pull her closer. “I'm really sorry, babe, I didn't mean to get you sick after you took care of me.”

“It was worth it, seeing you so happy. I'd do it all over again for you.” You say before covering your mouth for an incoming cough.

“You're so sweet,” She blushes as she mumbles into your chest, “and I love you so much.”

You hear her sniffle as you chuckle to yourself.

“I love you too, every bit of you. And you don't need to apologize for getting me sick, I was probably infected before I came over to your place.”

You both laugh as your ailment drifts toward the back of your mind, at least until you feel the urge to sneeze.

[ranticore]

selected pages from Shapeshifter Problems, a small exploration of old old concept art & thoughts on shapeshifter tropes (specifically the question of the 'true form') i posted to patreon earlier this year. there's a bunch more haha. here's some OLD art and bg process for writing said the black horse. I don't like my old art but looking back at it I'm really happy how I've developed since, I used to make everything too sharp, straight-sided, or skinny. I had to make a conscious effort to change that and now it's so much better.

image transcriptions under the cut (just the text sorry)

Image 1: "These are more of those older designs - the horns were a deliberate play into devil imagery on Puck's part while giving Félix this form (all to cause more torment of course) but again I couldn't vibe with it. Such clear statements of intent didn't work for me.

The scars remain canon but not quite so stark, more a difference in texture (again, moving away from visual details). His forehead scar is ALWAYS there."

Image 2: "Félix. These are really old - from 2019-2020. They're the first attempts at Félix's horse form. At the time I was leaning into some goat-like attributes. I liked the idea of something that looked like an emaciated amalgam of many familiar creatures but if you look closer, it actually doesn't look like any animal at all. The original body shape and proportions were inspired by moose. I didn't know how to draw convincing horse shapes which is why he had these hands and claws for so long. I still draw the little flower wheel pattern on his sides sometimes... a secret just for me. His belly fur, squared off ear shape, and beard are still defining characteristics"

Image 3: "More old art from 2020. Bottom left is my first ever painting on my iPad using Procreate. I still prefer SAI for creature drawings, or at least the original sketches underpinning a lot of my art. Below on the bottom was my attempt at a scarier form for the character but I ultimately decided that it ran contrary to the atmosphere I was trying to create. Top left is my first 'real' horse painting and it includes the tail shape which has not ever changed, and feathers, which I nixed because I wanted to learn how to draw the feet and legs properly and not rely on covering them up with flowing hair (my favourite thing to draw)"

Image 4: "Like the black horse designs, these humanoid designs for Félix (circa 2019 - OLD art!) started very complex and simplified over time. I decided to avoid visual complexity, but made the mistake of solidifying specific 'rules' for how the Púca servants' bodies work, and I deeply regret this. Because I wrote Said the Black Horse in 2021, I was still operating under the old mindset and that caused it to become somewhat established canon.

In his original iteration his tattoos represented magical contracts between him and various faeries, so they were supposed to be always visible as a reminder of that contract.

<- a really early furry version, I was playing with the eye on the neck as a design feature. Ultimately I feel that although it looks cool, the medium he exists in is proser. So I needed to move away from visually complex designs and towards designs which were interesting to different senses instead."

Image 5: "As time went on the design simplified. I enjoyed making fun textures using procreate brushes. These designs lack his forehead scar but do include his impalement scar. If you've seen my Hanged Man card you'll know how he got that one. But when I made the charts like this about how his body 'worked' in 2020, again I ran into the same issue I always do when writing about faeries... the more I explain it, the most 'logic' and 'science' goes into it, the less it feels like a faery story to me. Overexplaining is anathema to the faeries of Inver. so even though I like these design notes they just don't fit in this setting."

[frattweek]

This blog is happy to announce… FRATT WEEK 7 !

From October 28 to November 3, this blog is hosting an entire week about Matt Murdock and / or Frank Castle, but their exact relationship is up to you - lovers, fuckbuddies, enemies, friends, partners… you pick! You can also do a Matt-only or a Frank-only work. OT+ (Fratt+) welcome!

All versions of Frank Castle & Matt Murdock are welcome: comics, TV shows, movies… All lengths and sizes, all types of fanworks welcome: fic, art, fibercraft, translation, podfic (don't forget to check in with the original creator if you're podficcing/translating!)... or a new chapter of a fic, an outtake from a series...

Halloween is also right in the middle of FW 7 so if you're in the mood for a little spook... feel free to add bats, spiderwebs, or ghosts to all your Fratt content!

Each day comes with a theme: Monday 28: Blood Tuesday 29: Bar Wednesday 30: Trust Thursday 31/Halloween: Spirit Friday 1: Pray / Prayer Saturday 2: Bag Sunday 3: Free topic / Amnesty day if you couldn't post before!

You can participate as much or little as you want, it’s all up to you!

If you create art / graphic works, a description for accessibility purposes would be much appreciated.

Don’t forget you can already post in the dedicated AO3 collection earlier - one month before the start of the event, the collection will be set so that all new works are invisible! All newly posted works will be revealed on Fratt Week, so you can start as early as you’d like ^_^

On Tumblr, just @frattweek us and #frattweek in the first five tags :-) More info in the FAQ (open the link in a browser!) and if you can’t find your answer, send an ask or leave a message on DW!

Banner art by @nkeiiin

Detailed ID under the cut, as well as extra ideas for the prompts!

Digital art of Matt Murdock and Frank Castle stand back to back on the left of a dark red grid background. Matt is in his red daredevil suit, hanging upside down and his head resting on Frank's right shoulder. Frank is angry frowning and looking up. Two white lines form a tilted X are on the right side of the art. The text on top of the line is "Fratt Week 7 28th Oct - 3rd Nov", the text at the bottom of the line is "Frattweek.tumblr.com"

1/ Blood -- bleeding, family, kin, clan, spill, martyr, thicker than water, vampire, fake, communion… 2/ Bar -- drinking establishment, bar exam, disbarred, rebar (construction worker!Frank, anyone?), ka-bar knife, to bar someone from something, things going fubar... 3/ Trust -- trust fund, to trust, trust in god, mistrust, trusty (gun, fist, baton, friend/partner…) 4/ Spirit -- ghost, alcohol, spiritual, spiritism, spirited, sprite... 5/ Pray / Prayer: religion, Madonna (Like A Prayer;-), misheard prey... 6/ Bag -- under the eyes, heavy bag, grocery bag, to bag (a criminal?), baggy (clothes?), gym bag, duffle bag, bag over the head, bodybag, bagged a criminal…

[margareth-lv]

🏳️‍🌈 Every girl needs a gay best friend 🏳️‍🌈

Last week, I wrote a post here about the morbid shyness of a certain music manager.

My text was based on an interview Caitríona gave in mid-February 2018, shortly after her so-called 'engagement' and after she'd just won the Irish IFTA for her work on Outlander.

In the interview, Caitríona talked about how she met her fake fiancé. In the February 2018 version, Caitríona met her PA through one of her best friends.

So I decided to look into the subject of this "best friend" who brought the unfortunate music manager to Caitriona.

What I'm going to write today is, I think, 100% obvious to veterans of the fandom. But for those just starting out, I hope it'll be news. And I, well, I'm somewhere in the middle, between newbie status and more than three years of wading through the facts and the myths.

For me, the fun part has been reconstructing the chronology of events. The dates are interesting.

*** *** ***

The beginning of my story is quite surprising. Because we reach Caitríona's 'best friend' by clicking on a link in an article published in 'People Magazine' on 15 August 2019.

The article is entitled: 'Everything to Know About Caitriona Balfe's Super Private Relationship with Husband Tony McGill' and it tells us that: 'the couple tied the knot in England last weekend'.

😱

What excellent investigative journalists People Magazine have (bravo, bravo!), that in a twelve sentence article they could link to a post from Donal Brophy's Instagram.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

And look at this description:

"It’s unclear exactly when Balfe and McGill started dating, but the earliest evidence of their romance dates back to 2015, when a friend posted a video of her sitting on his lap at a bar in Ireland on Instagram. (McGill was not tagged and does not appear to have any social media accounts of his own.)"

🤯

Isn't that brilliant work from Starz/TPTB/whatever's PR Dept?

*** **** *** From the above it seems fair to conclude that the 'best friend' who brought Caitriona bad luck in the form of an unfulfilling music manager was Donal Brophy, because who else could it be?

*** *** ***

And now, let's take a quick look at the Instagram post (dated 1 January 2015) linked to the 'People Magazine' article. We all know it, of course! Here is the irrefutable proof of the passion between our two lovebirds: the rhythmic (and how sexy!) patting on the hip.

🥱

Well, hip-slapping is boring (and not at all sexy).

Far less boring, however, is the look on the music manager's face, the look that seeks Donal's approval (tell me I'm patting her well, do tell!). Could it be that, like the People Magazine link, this video was made to show? I wouldn't rule it out.

*** *** *** Now let's talk about dates: the sexy (not 🤢) slap on the hip was posted by Donal with a date of 1 January 2015, but two days earlier, on 30 December 2014, Donal shared another photo on Instagram featuring both the hapless music manager and Caitríona. ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Perhaps the decidedly less seductive and sensual appearance of the 'fiancée' in the December photo was the deciding factor in "People Magazine" not publishing a link to it?

Who could know?

*** *** ***

It certainly wasn't love at first sight. The new boyfriend seems rather tired of Caitriona's presence. 😉

I know this is a mischievous conclusion. I am so, so sorry, my friends.

❓

But one thing is for sure: Donal is an old friend of Caitríona.

I haven't done too much in-depth research, but the oldest photo I've been able to find of both Caitríona and Donal is… a photo in a Flickr album belonging to Caitríona's ex-boyfriend, Dave Milone. The photo is dated… 2002.

😨

You get the idea - Caitríona's ex (and real) boyfriend, Dave, Donal, and after many, many years a new 'fiancé'. It feels like my brain is exploding. 🤯🤯🤯

*** *** ***

But back to Donal: I have a feeling that Donal may have been Caitríona's +1 at times when she did not have an official boyfriend.

*** *** *** And let's not forget: Caitríona has a sweet and tender relationship with Donal.

June 2013, Miss you babe!

December 2013, Caitríona on IG:

December 2013, Donal on IG:

April 2014: They even went hiking together in the Scottish Highlands.

I wonder, by the way, who was their mountain guide? Was it an unfortunate music manager? I think not.

I would rather point to someone else, someone who loves (and knows!) the (S)cottish (H)ighlands. But I won't name him.

⛰️🧗🏻‍♂️

*** *** ***

For those who are unfamiliar with the name Donal Brophy, here are a few words about his professional profile:

You know, it works for me: "While in New York, Donal was also known for epic parties. Everything he organized automatically became a “must-attend” event for New York’s most with-it residents."

You know, that kind of vibe (2007):

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

*** *** ***

Had he been Caitríona's false fiancé, it would have been easy for us to believe in the beautiful, loving bond that existed between them. But he was only the messenger of bad news. What wouldn't you do for your best friend?

❓

PS. Unless something has changed, Donal was married to Emrhys Cooper, a British actor, singer, dancer, and filmmaker. Together they run Idyllwild Pictures, an entertainment company.

Taken in July 2023:

[January 23, 2024]

[phoenixyfriend]

Can you explain the Iran-Israel situation please?

Alright, let's get to it. Please note that I'm writing this on mobile during my lunch break, so I can't include reference/source links as much as I'd like. Thankfully, most of what I'm going to be telling you should be easily located by searching for an article on one of the following: APNews, Reuters, BBC Global News Podcast, Democracy Now!, NPR, or The New York Times. Long-term background is probably best found in videos by the YouTube channels Real Life Lore or tldr global news, or on Wikipedia if you prefer text.

The short version: Israel attacked Iran's consulate in Syria to get at some of the military commanders that were there, which is legally equivalent to attacking Iran itself. Iran responded by sending about 300 bombs at Israel, most of which were shot down in transit. Given that they still called it a success, even though it seems only one person was even hurt, my understanding is that it's very likely that they only intended the rockets to be a show of force, rather than an actual escalation, because Iran can't afford a war right now.

To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post OR this post.

The long version:

Okay, let's start with some background on Israel, then Iran. This is... a lot, so if you already know the broad strokes skip down to 2023.

Israel was established following WWII by the English and French, following borders the two countries had secretly drawn up decades earlier in the Sykes-Picot agreement. The intent was to give the Jewish people a place to go... or, depending on who you ask, a place to send them. Their ancestral homeland was viewed as the best choice, sort of like a deportation millennia after a diaspora. Given that WWII had just ended by the time Sykes-Picot was actually put into effect, 'getting out of Europe' was something a lot of Jews were given to agree with.

The Arab world was not happy, as that land had belonged to the Ottomans for centuries, and had long since 'naturalized' to being Arab. I'm not going to pretend to know the nuances to when people do or do not consider Palestine to have been its own nation; it was an Ottoman state until WWI, at which point it came under British control for just under three decades, and that period is known as the British Mandate of Palestine; it ended after WWII, with the creation of Israel. Palestine's land and people have sort of just been punted around from one colonizer to another for centuries.

Iran is the current form of what was once Persia. They were an empire for a very long time, and were a unitary monarchy up until the early 20th century; in 1925, Iran elected a Prime Minister who was then declared the monarch. The following several decades had Iran's monarchy slowly weakened, and occasionally beset by foreign interventions, including a covert coup by the US and UK in 1953. The country also became more corrupt throughout the 1970s due to economic policy failing to control inflation in the face of rising oil prices.

In 1979, there was a revolution that overthrew the monarchy and the elected government, replacing the system with a theocracy and declaring Iran to be an Islamic Republic, with the head of state being a religious authority, rather than an elected one. This was not popular with... most countries. 1980 saw the closure of all universities (reopened in 1983 with government-approved curriculums), as well as the taking of over fifty American hostages from the US Embassy in Iran. You may have heard about that in the context of Ronald Reagan encouraging Iran to keep the hostages until the end of Carter's term in order to force the election.

So, the West didn't like having an Islamic state because it claims to like democracy, and also because the Islamic state was explicitly anti-American and this has some Bad Effects on oil prices. The Soviets didn't like having an Islamic State because a theocracy goes directly against a lot of communist values (or at least the values they claim to have), and weakened any influence their supposedly secular union could have on Iran and the wider middle east. The other countries in the Arab world, many of them still monarchies, didn't like the Islamic republic because if the revolution spread, then it was possible their monarchies would be overthrown as well.

(Except Oman, which is not worried, but that's the exception, not the rule.)

This is not a baseless worry, because Iran has stated that this is its goal for the Arab world. Overthrow the monarchies, overthrow the elected governments, Islamic Rule for everyone. That is the purpose of its proxies, like Hezbollah (Lebanon), the Houthis (Yemen), and Hamas (Palestine), along with less well-known groups like the Salafi Jihadists in Mali, who are formally under the umbrella of al-Quaeda, which Iran denies having any relation to but is suspected of funding. In areas where these proxy groups have gained power, they are liable to enact hard Shari'a law such as has happened in Northern Mali and other parts of the Sahel region.

While other conflicts have occurred in these countries, I think the above is most relevant.

Israel has repeatedly attacked, or been attacked by, other nations in the middle east, as they are viewed as having taken over land that is not theirs, and as being a puppet of the US government. The biggest conflicts have been 1947-1948, 1968/1973, and 2014.

And then, of course, 2023.

Now, Iran, more than any other nation in the Middle East, hates Israel. They have for a very long time, viewing them as an affront to the goal of spreading Islam across the whole of the middle east, and as being a front and a staging ground for the United States and other Western powers. Two common refrains in the slogans of Iran and its proxies are "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."

Due to Iran's military power and virulence towards Israel, the United States has been funneling money to Israel for decades. It has more generally been to defend itself against the Arab world at large, but it has narrowed over the decades to being about Iran and its proxies as relations have normalized with other nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Cue October 7th, 2023. Hamas invades Israeli towns, kills some people, and takes others as hostage. Israel retaliates, and the conflict ramps up into what is by now tens of thousands of dead, some half of which are children.

In this time, Hamas's allies are, by definition, Iran and the other proxy forces. Hezbollah, being in Lebanon, share a border with Israel's north. They have been trading rocket fire across the border in waves for most of the past six months. The Houthis, down in Yemen, claim to be attacking the passing cargo ships in order to support Palestine. Given that the attacks often seem indiscriminate, and that the Houthi's control over their portion of Yemen is waning in the face of their poor governance, this is... debatable. It's their official reason, but given that "let's attack passing ships, claiming that we only attack Israeli or American ships and that it is to support Palestine" is rallying support domestically for their regime, it does seem to be more of a political move to garner support at home than about supporting Palestine.

Iran, however, has not attacked Israel. They've spoken out about it, yes, but they haven't done anything because nobody wants a regional war. Nobody can afford it right now. Iran is dealing with a domestic crisis due to oil subsidies bleeding the states' coffers dry, and the aging Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of Iran, refusing to pick a successor. They are looking at both an economic crisis and succession crisis, and a regional war would fuck up both situations further. Iran funds most of its proxies, and they can't do that, and fight a war on top of it, while their economy is in its current state. Pure self preservation says they don't want a war, especially with the ongoing unrest that's been going on for... well, basically since the revolution, but especially since the death of Mahsa Amini.

Meanwhile, in Israel, Netanyahu has been looking at corruption charges and legal issues since before the Hamas attack. It's generally agreed that if Israel were to hold new elections right now, he would lose and be replaced, and also immediately taken to court. Netanyahu wants to stay in power, and as long as the war on Hamas lasts, he is unlikely to get voted out. A change in leadership in the middle of a war is rarely a good idea for any country, and he's banking on that.

However, the war on Hamas rests on the shoulders of American money and supplies. Without that military support, Israel cannot fight this war, and America... is losing patience.

Officially, America and most of the western world have been telling Israel to not fucking escalate for the majority of the war.

There have been implied threats, more or less since Schumer's big speech about how Israel needs a new election, of American legislators putting conditions on any future aid. There have even been rumblings of aid being retracted entirely if Israel follows through on invading Raffah.

So...

American aid to Israel has, for a very long time, been given in the name of defending Israel against Iran and its proxies.

Israel has been fighting this war against Hamas for six months, killing what is by now innumerable civilians, on the power of US military aid.

Netanyahu benefits from the continued war due to domestic troubles.

Iran does not want a regional war, or really any big war, due to its own domestic troubles.

The US is, in theory, losing patience with Israel and threatening to pull the plug on unconditional support. It's very "we gave you this to fight Iran. Stop attacking civilians. If you keep attacking civilians, then you're going to have to rely on what we already gave you to fight off Iran so that you won't keep wasting it on civilians."

Israel... attacks Iran, prompting a response, and is now talking about escalating with Iran.

I am not explicitly saying that it looks to me like Israel, which is already fighting a war on two physical fronts and even more political/economic ones, has picked a fight with Iran so that America feels less like it is able to withdraw support.

I just... am finding it hard to understand why Israel, which is in fact fighting both Hamas and Hezbollah, would attack the Iranian consulate in Syria otherwise. They can't actually afford to fight this war, escalating to a full regional conflict, on a third front.

Not without pressuring American into keeping the faucet of military funding open at full blast.

To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post OR this post.

[winxwannabe]

Winx Season 9/Reboot Leaks

Okay here's the tea: earlier today a twitter user by the name of Cataclysm_Power started posting a video they claimed was from the new Winx season/reboot. When pressed for further information, they linked to a telegram chat with what appeared to be assets from Rainbow (17 screenshots/2 videos). After some C-grade internet sleuthing, I am here to give my (worthless and possibly wrong) opinion on which ones I think are real and fake.

A note before we jump in: I'm not posting full images on my blog, because again I do think some of these are real and if the leaker is to be believed, they hacked Rainbow to get them. You can look yourself through the telegram link, or others who've posted them on the Winx Club tag. I also think the leaker themselves is scammy because they've tried charging for Miraculous leaks before. Do NOT give them any money if they ask.

Real: Bloom, Stella, and Icy's asset sheets, Bloom Full Body Pose

A lot of these leaks are 3d modelling assets, and these 3 are the ones I'm totally convinced are real.

The biggest clue of their validity is the bottom banner. All 3 sheets have them, along with the same episode code and notes in Italian. They're all also linked to the same person: Pasqualino Masciulli is Rainbow's 3D modelling supervisor, and has been with the company for at least 9 years. He's done videos on Rainbow's youtube channel as well, using his shortened first name Lino. My main point is that's way too niche for someone to fake just to make some convincing leaks, and it would make sense for the assets to be tied to him.

Likewise, there's a full-body frame post of Bloom with fucking ugliest denim leg warmers credited to a g.riccobono. This is likely Giulio Riccobono, who is listed on Linkedin Italy as a Rainbow employee.

Probably Real: Tecna's asset sheet, Bloom's detailed asset sheet

Both of these are likely real but have weird things about them that make me pause. Bloom's more detailed asset sheet is missing the name, date and episode reference on it, and the notes are in English. Tecna's is missing the bottom banner entirely, and there's some weird cutting around her head that makes it look like someone hastily made a png and stuck it on there.

Unsure: Computer File Tab, MD Concept Photos, Videos

There's a screenshot of a folder with both 2D and 3D assets of all the girls. in the files. I'm not sure if this is from a computer at Rainbow or the hacker's personal folder, so it goes in unsure. I do think most of the assets in it are real - it's low res but the eyes on the 2D sketches are so similar to the ones on Rainbow's newer images of the girls I think they have to be connected.

There are also some full body concept photos for Bloom, Aisha, and Stella. They all look pretty legit (as they're updated version of images we've already seen) but Stella's has other images for 'possible pallets' included. She's the only one with it and the images look like they came from a flash dress-up game, and it gives me pause.

Lastly, the teaser videos of Bloom are probably real based on the outfit, animation and that stupid fucking Bloom shelf being in the background, but I'm placing it in 'unsure' because of the bandicam.com logo burned into the top. If it really came from Rainbow and everything else was downloaded, there was no reason for the hacker to not get the raw file. I think it's real, but I don't know if it came from Rainbow.

Something Ain't Right: Group Shot

What gives me pause in the fully-rendered group shot (even though its shown in the computer file tab) is it shows transformation we haven't seen teased and has a 'Lorem Ipsum' placeholder text. Aisha's hair also looks like it was done with AI - the back of her wings clip through the hair, and parts of it look copy-pasted. I'm stupid, it's the end of her braids. The 'Lorem Ipsum' thing still stands, but I'm re-filing this under 'unsure.'

Probably Fake: Darcy and Damien's asset sheets

I'm showing things from here on out because I'm so convinced it's fake please let me be right. Unlike the other character sheets, the ones for Darcy and 'new character' Damien have no bottom banner, are marked as 'Winx Club Season 9' with an outdated Winx logo, and have notes written completely in English. Darcy's has a bit of 3D modelling, but it's too different from Icy's. Maybe they're super early concepts for Darcy, but Damien...go home, buddy.

You're in the Wrong Place: Rainbow Pants Girl

I'm convinced this girl is from a different show and was saved to the 'Winx Club' folder by accident. Different clothing, hair, and shading. May you end up somewhere better than this reboot, Mystery Girl.

[yamayuandadu]

Consulting the convoluted history of supernatural foxes, or why is Tsukasa like that

I know I said you should only expect one long Touhou-themed research article per month, and that the next one will be focused on Ten Desires, but due to unforeseen circumstances a bonus one jumped into the queue. For this reason, you will unexpectedly have the opportunity to learn more about the historical and religious context of the belief in kuda-gitsune, or “tube foxes”, as well as their various forerunners. Tsukasa is clearly topical thanks to Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost, and I basically skipped covering Unconnected Marketeers in 2021 save for pointing out some banal tidbits, so I hope this is a welcome surprise. The post contains spoilers for the new game, obviously.

Obviously, in order to properly cover the kuda-gitsune, it is necessary to start with a short history of foxes in Japanese culture through history, especially in esoteric Buddhism. Early history: the Chinese background Early Japanese sources pertaining to foxes show strong Chinese influence. There was an extensive preexisting system of fox beliefs to draw from in continental literature, dating back at least to the Han dynasty (note that while the well known story of Daji is set much earlier, its modern form only really goes back to the Song dynasty). This is way too complex of a topic to discuss here in full, sadly, so I will limit myself to the particularly interesting tidbits.

A multi-tailed fox in the classic Chinese encyclopedia Gujin Tushu Jicheng (wikimedia commons)

It will suffice to say that historically the fox was perceived in China as a liminal being, and could be associated with pursuits regarded as ethically dubious, ranging from theft and banditry to instigating rebellions and promoting divisive religious views (so, for example during the reigns of firmly pro-Taoist emperors, Buddhist monks could be associated with foxes). Literary texts focused on supernatural foxes emphasized their shapeshifting abilities. In contrast with some of the other well attested supernatural beings in Chinese tradition, they could take a range of human forms, appearing as men and women of virtually any age. Often they favored mimicking people who lived on the margins of society, like bandits, courtesans or migrant laborers. It was also emphasized that they displayed a considerable degree of disregard for authority. The fact these animals lived essentially alongside humans without being domesticated definitely played a role in the formation of this image.

A contemporary statue of Bixia, a deity in the past associated with fox beliefs (wikimedia commons)

At the same time, foxes enjoyed a degree of popularity as objects of semi-official cult, still practiced here and there in China in modern times, for example in Boluo in Shaanxi. The religious role of foxes was reflected in, among other things, the development of terms like hushen (狐神) “fox deity”, or huxian (狐仙), “fox immortal”. The belief in such “celestial foxes” (tianhu, 天狐) was relatively common, and there is even a legend according to which there was a formalized way for the animals to transcend to higher states of existence, with the goddess Bixia making them undergo the supernatural fox version of the well known imperial examinations. If they failed they were condemned to live as “wild foxes” (yehu, 野狐) with no hope of transcendence. There are also accounts of foxes pursuing the status of a xian through illicit means, through a combination of praying to the Big Dipper and draining people’s energy, as documented by He Xiu in the 1700s. Note foxes were already portrayed as worshiping the Big Dipper during the reign of the Tang dynasty, but back then it was only believed this let them transform into humans.

The ambiguity of foxes is evident in the Japanese perception of these animals too. Supernatural foxes are probably among the best known youkai, and especially considering this is a post about Touhou I do not think the basics need to be discussed in much detail. They were believed to shapeshift and to steal vital energy, much like in China. Their positive role as messengers of Inari, a kami associated with agriculture, is generally well known too. The earliest sources documenting encounters with supernatural foxes are obviously, as expected, the earliest chronicles like the Nihon Shoki, where they mostly appear as omens. By the Heian period these animals are well established in the written record. For instance, Nakatomi Harae Kunge includes “evil magic due to heavenly and earthly foxes” among phenomena which require ritual purification. In addition to the tales imported from China being in circulation, some setsuwa written in Japan involved shape shifting foxes. However, supernatural foxes only gained greater prominence in the Japanese middle ages due to the growth of relevance of two deities they were associated with, Inari and Dakiniten. The latter is more relevant to the topic of this article.

Foxes, Dakiniten and tengu

Part of a hanging scroll depicting Dakiniten riding on a fox (wikimedia commons, via MET; cropped for the ease of viewing)

The connection between foxes and Dakiniten reflected their associations with the dakinis, a class of demons in Buddhism. Originally the dakinis were associated with jackals instead, but Chinese Buddhist authors presumed that the animal mentioned in this context is basically identicial with more familiar foxes, and that belief reached Japan as well. It was strong enough for Dakinite, the dakini par excellence, to be regularly depicted riding on the back of a fox. Dakiniten was originally a regular dakini, according to Bernard Faure specifically one who appears in Heian period Enmaten mandalas (Enmaten is related to but not quite the same as the better known king Enma, for the development of two distinct reflections of Yama in Buddhism see here). However, she eventually developed into a full blown deva in her own right, and her prominence was so great that it basically resulted in the decline of references to the generic dakinis in Buddhist literature in Japan. She was particularly popular in the Shingon school of Buddhism, and at the peak of her relevance played a role in royal ascension rituals, developing a connection with Amaterasu in the process (Amaterasu acquired many peculiar connections through the Japanese middle ages, it was par the course). A Tendai treatise equates her with Matarajin instead, though. An interesting phenomenon related to Dakiniten is the occasional fusion of beliefs pertaining to foxes and tengu, which might have originated in the similarity of the terms tengu and the Japanese term for the already mentioned “heavenly foxes”, tenko. Its best attested examples include the inclusion of tengu in mandalas focused on Dakiniten as her acolytes. However, a different deity ultimately exemplifies this even better. Iizuna Gongen and "iizuna magic"

Iizuna Gongen riding on the back of a fox (Museum of Fine Arts Boston; link to the source is temporarily dead, the image is reproduced here for educational purposes only)

The indisputable center of the network of connections between foxes and tengu is Iizuna Gongen (飯綱権現), depicted as a tengu riding on a fox. As you can probably guess, he was a (vague) basis for Megumu, as evidenced by the similarity of the names. While many other aspects of his character aren’t really touched upon in the game, I’d hazard a guess he’s also the reason why ZUN decided to include a kuda-gitsune in the same game as Megumu - the evidence lines up exceptionally well, as you’ll see.

Originally Iizuna Gongen was simply the deity of Mount Iizuna (飯綱山), located in the modern Nagano prefecture. Near the end of the Japanese middle ages he spread to other areas, likely thanks to traveling shugenja (also known as yamabushi), mountain ascetics belonging to a religious tradition known as Shugendō. Two aspects of his character are particularly pronounced, his role as a martial deity and his association with foxes.

I was unable to determine when Iizuna Gongen’s connection to foxes originally developed, but it was strong enough to lead to the use of the alternate name Chira Tenko (智羅天狐; “Chira the heavenly fox”) to refer to him. Foxes also appear in a legend describing his origin. It states that he was one of the eighteen children of an Indian king, and arrived in Japan alongside nine of his siblings on the back of a white fox during the reign of emperor Kinmei (the remaining eight went to China and became monks on Mount Tiantai). His connection to foxes is also reaffirmed in an Edo period treatise, Reflections on Inari Shrine (稲荷神社考, Inari jinja kō), which declares that names such as Iizuna Gongen and Matarajin (sic!) are used in the worship of wild foxes to hide the true nature of the invoked entities. The author further states that the true form of “these matarajin (plural) and wild foxes” is that of a three-faced and six-armed deity, which curiously has more to do with early Matarajin tradition than with Iizuna Gongen as far as I can tell. The two were not really closely associated otherwise, but it’s worth noting that apparently shugenja perceived them both as similar tengu-like deities. 

The key feature of conventional iconography of Iizuna Gongen, the fox mount, has nothing to do with Matarajin strictly speaking, and likely reflects the influence of Dakiniten. However, the animal in this context developed its own unique identity thanks to the presence of foxes in a type of ritual focused on Iizuna Gongen, which could itself be referred to as iizuna. The shugenja community centered on the worship of Iizuna Gongen was not very formalized, which led to poor understanding of their practice among outsiders, with the term iizuna basically acquiring the vague meaning along the lines of “magic”. and rather poor reputation. These rites are where the kuda-gitsune comes into play. Kuda-gitsune in iizuna magic and beyond

The kuda-gitsune, as depicted in Shōzan Chomon Kishū by Miyoshi Shōzan (Waseda University History Museum; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

At first glance, kuda-gitsune is just one of many local variants of the standard supernatural fox, similarly to the likes of ninko, osaki-gitsune or nogitsune. The etymology of its name is straightforward. I’m sure you can guess what the second half means, while kuda (管) in this context refers to a bamboo tube. You’d think the name would basically guarantee it was universally accepted that’s how one could carry such a critter undetected, but apparently there was an alternate explanation, namely that it was invisible. I have not seen any further discussion of this in literature, but I assume this might be connected to shikigami beliefs, as these quite often are described as invisible. Do not quote me on that, though. Even more bizarrely, there is no consensus that the animal meant was always a fox. According to Bernard Faure it is distinctly possible the term referred to a weasel. Kuda-gitsune could be described as a type of shikigami, but note that this term had a much broader meaning in real life than in Touhou, and referred to basically any supernatural being which acted as an extension of the powers attributed to “ritual specialists” (祈祷師) such as onmyōji, shugenja or Buddhist monks. In Buddhist context, the analogous term could be gohō dōji (護法童子; “Dharma-protecting lads”), though there are also cases where gohō and shikigami are contrasted with each other. The shikigami category didn’t just consist of animated papercraft and animal spirits typically designated as such in popculture. Even the twelve heavenly generals defending the “medicine Buddha” Yakushi could be labeled as shikigami. Obviously, kuda-gitsune is closer to the familiar meaning of this term than to Buddhist deities, though. People relying on kuda-gitsune were referred to as kitsune-tsukai (狐使い), which can be loosely translated as “fox tamer”, and it is said they were often shugenja. Given the popularity of the associated deity among them this shouldn’t really be a surprise. Various supernatural abilities were ascribed to the kuda-gitsune. The ability to possess people attributed to other supernatural foxes was the domain of kuda-gitsune too. Apparently people afflicted by it were compelled to eat nothing but raw miso. Purportedly they were bringers of wealth - but said wealth did not necessarily come from legitimate sources. That, in turn, could lead to distrust or outright ostracism of people allegedly relying on foxes to acquire wealth. They also provided aid in divination, and could supposedly reveal past, present and future alike this way. However, they could look into the soul of anyone using them this way and learn their secrets. Bernard Faure notes that occasionally it was said that they even could even be utilized to kill enemies who attempted casting spells on their owner.  Shigeru Mizuki's kuda-gitsune

Kuda-gitsune, as depicted by Shigeru Mizuki (reproduced here for educational purposes only)

While there isn’t much information about kuda-gitsune in scholarship, especially scholarship available online in English, they received extensive coverage in various books about youkai written by Shigeru Mizuki, famous for arguably canonizing the modern concept of youkai. Note that while I am a fan of Mizuki's works, his encyclopedias are best understood as something closer to Borges’ Book of Imaginary Beings, complete with some dubious sourcing and possible fabrications. However, ultimately modern media about youkai, including Touhou, owes much to him, and arguably he continued the tradition of night parade scrolls which often invented new creatures wholesale, so it strikes me as entirely fair game to summarize what he has to say too. Shigeru Mizuki cited the Edo period writer Matsura Seizan as an authority on kuda-gitsune. He states ccording to the latter, certain ascetics (yamabushi) were provided with these critters upon finishing their training on Mount Kinpu and Mount Ōmine. In his account cited by Mizuki there are a lot of details I haven’t seen elsewhere. The storage tubes after which kuda-gitsune are named apparently had to be inscribed with a certain sanskrit phrase (left unspecified, tragically) so that the animals didn’t have to be fed. However, releasing them and giving it food was necessary to gain their help in divination. There was a downside to this - kuda-gitsune were apparently hard to place back in containment once released without the help of a seasoned specialist. Also, they refused to provide anything of value unless fed well, and they had quite the appetite. Mizuki cites the particularly disastrous case of an ascetic who kept multiple kuda-gitsune in a single tube, and eventually couldn’t pay for enough food for his collection since the animals kept multiplying inside. According to Mizuki  it was believed that a kuda-gitsune could be gifted by its owner to another person, but the creature would come back if it was not satisfied with the food provided by the latter. If the original “fox tamer” dies before passing their kuda-gitsune to someone else, it will instead go to the Ōji Inari shrine located in what is now the the Kita ward of Tokyo.

Conclusion: Tsukasa and her forerunners

In theory I could’ve kept pointing out “see, it’s just like Tsukasa!” in virtually every single paragraph of this article. To answer the question from the title, evidently she is like that because that's how foxes have been in folklore both Japan and China for centuries. It is not really hard to see that ZUN is genuinely great at research when he wants to be, and Tsukasa's character is remarkably accurate to her real life forerunners, both as an adaptation of kuda-gitsune specifically and as a representation of the broader tradition which lead to the portrayal of foxes as supernatural creatures of questionable moral character. She engages in morally dubious “get rich quick schemes”, she definitely provides advice (of variable quality), and her self-declared ability from her omake bio pretty clearly reflects skills actually ascribed to the kuda-gitsune in folklore. In the newest game the ability to provide information is clearly in the spotlight - Tsukasa seems to be reasonably knowledgeable (she brings up Kojiki in a line aimed at Hisami, among other things), and other characters generally agree she’d be more useful doing something else than fighting. I do not think there’s any real reason to doubt this is what is meant. I think it can even be safely assumed that Zanmu’s decision to pressure Tsukasa to partake in her assassination bluff is rooted in genuine tradition. I’m obviously not going to say that Tsukasa reaches the platonic ideal of Okina, the quintessential character aimed at fans who like research, who largely seems to exist to get people to dig deeper for sources explaining the dozens of religious allusions in her dialogue, spell cards and design, but I do think it’s worth appreciating that the series reached a stage where even the minor animal youkai can be enjoyed as multilayered representation of centuries worth of genuine folklore and mythology. Bibliography -Bernard Faure, Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 1-3 -Michael Daniel Foster, The Book of Yokai. Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore  -Berthe Jansen and Nobumi Iyanaga, Dākini (Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism) -Xiaofei Kang, The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China -Shigeru Mizuki’s assorted writings on kuda-gitsune (collected online here)

[felassan]

This post contains a transcript/text version of the dev commentary in the IGN 22 Minutes of Gameplay Video. the transcript was written and put together by Bluesky user Kiranox, they kindly sent it to me with permission to post it (thank you!!).

the post is under a cut due to length and containing what some peeps may consider spoilers.

KB: Kat Bailey, IGN CB: Corinne Busche, BioWare JE: John Epler, BioWare

The transcript also contains a note of dialogue from the game. these are included in this post as images.

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KB: What's up everybody I'm Kat Bailey and this is our extended look at Dragon Age The Veilguard's gameplay I'm here with BioWare lead developers Corinne Busche and John Epler. Corinne, what are we looking at today? CB: Hey y'all so today we're going to be helping out one of our companions, Davin. This is part of his personal arc to rescue the griffons, long thought extinct. We're going to take a quick journey through The Lighthouse, your base of operations. We're going to head into the crossroads and make our way to the dark swamps of Hossberg wetlands JE: So you're in the lighthouse as Corinne mentioned, this is your base of operations that you inherited willingly or unwillingly from Solas. It is located in the fade, it's where Solas was able to start planning his rebellion against the Elven Gods millennia ago. Right now you and your team have occupied it, started to build it, started to shape itself around your personality. As Corinne mentioned we are going to go talk to Davrin which is who is located up above Each of these spaces kind of shapes itself around your companions as they live - as they basically spend their arcs in those rooms CB: And we see here the glowing light above indicates Davrin's ready for us. Let's check in with him

JE: So earlier in Davrin's arc you were introduced to his nemesis the Gloom Howler, a creature that's been hunting and stalking wardens for quite some time. It has kidnapped a bunch of other griffons and Davrin has been trying to track it down, now he's got a lead so we're going to go find this and go track this thing down CB: Now Davin he prefers the direct approach we're going to choose a tough response and see if we can get his approval

KB: Have to say that I find the griffon adorable JE: And very importantly, I know this is a question on everyone's mind -- yes you can pet Assan KB: Well thank goodness for that. And all right what are we going to be doing next?

CB: Alright we're going to finish getting this information from Davrin on the Gloom Howler and we'll be off to Hossberg and the Crossroads

KB: So, I assume that Assan can be helpful during the gameplay? CB: Oh, absolutely, in fact a lot of Davrin's abilities revolve around calling Assan in the heat of battle. I in particularly love when you're going against enemies and you see Assan swoop down -- especially if it triggers a combo between your companions JE: As Corinne mentioned earlier one of the interesting fun things we've done is if you see the lights on in a room, companions have something to say. You can see Harding up in that space there, Neve behind you as well and Bellara, but we have a mission ahead of us. We're going to go find the Gloom Howler if we can and we're going to go through the crossroads in order to do that. And -- the crossroads if you've played previous Dragon Age games - Trespasser in particular - is a location in the fade that contains a number of eluvians, allowing you to travel across Thedas in a matter of minutes. But at this point the crossroads are under assault by the other Elven Gods, it's a dangerous place and we are going to be in for a bit of a fight CB: And this eluvian, the vi'revas, is the central focus point of the lighthouse. This is going to take us to Solas's pocket area of the crossroads and it might look a little bit different from what you've seen in Trespasser KB: Can you tell us a little bit about the role that the crossroads plays in the structure and the gameplay? JE: Yes, so the crossroads is -again- it's the area that you spend a lot of time traveling through as you go from area to area. It's also a space that has at one point served as Solas's main base of operations and training ground for his rebellion against the Elven Gods. So as you go through it you're going to find fragments of the past, things that Solas had done previously that are going to give you a bit of insight into Solas as a character, but also into the Elven gods and their motivations

CB: Some of my favorite content that you'll find if you go exploring in The Crossroads is these opportunities to actually relive some of the memories Solas had during his rebellion. You actually get to take part in this ancient rebellion JE: And here we have the Caretaker, a mysterious spirit that was actually here before Solas was and started to help Solas with his rebellion, but also to turn this into a safe haven for spirits

JE: Again, as I mentioned before, the gods are assaulting the crossroads so it's no longer the safe haven it once was, but you're going to work with this caretaker through quite a large amount of ancillary content to rebuild this into that safe home for these creatures, that if anyone knows Solas, he has a tremendous amount of affection, for spirits CB: Alright, now we're going to get into combat here and this time we're playing as a mage. Now, mage is one of my favorite classes to play, it's primarily a ranged attacker and when we're surrounded by swarming darkspawn I really have to use a variety of strategies to control the battlefield. I'm going to use my heavy charged attacks to knock down these ghouls, get them out of the way and of course darkspawn are vulnerable to fire, so we made sure to equip our fire staff and have our fire abilities on hand JE: You may notice something about the darkspawn is that they look a little bit different than they have previously and part of that is because Ghilan'nain, who has always been focused on using the blight as essentially a "crafting material", a way to alter life itself, has been enhancing and changing these darkspawn as part of her army KB: Corinne, I noticed that you were doing a combo opportunity. Can you tell us a little bit more about how the role that plays in the actual combat? CB: Yes, so the combat system in this game, the deep strategy behind it, is really to manage the various abilities your companions and Rook have in concert. So in this case Harding has a combo opportunity with "shred". It's going to apply the sundered effect and deal a high amount of "stagger". Now you'll notice I can combo that with Rook's ability "Spirit Bomb" that's going to cause a detonation combo

JE: So again, one of the things you'll notice about the terrain here is it's very snowy, very mountainous. The crossroads is a realm that reflects the waking world, in this case it's an amalgamation of all the real world spaces that are tied to it. In this case we've got Hossberg, we've got other mountainous regions, so it's kind of this mix of the swamp and as you'll see, as we move towards these eluvians, the architecture around them very clearly reflects what's on the side we're not going to spoiler and tell you exactly what's on the other side, but you can maybe make a few guesses based on what you're seeing KB: Do I have to do the crossroads, or can I just fast travel right through? CB: So it depends how you progress through the game, the first time you go to any of the new regions in the world, you'll traverse the crossroads to get there. Subsequent times we of course support fast travel, but it behooves you to actually go back and explore the crossroads, as some of the deepest secrets lie within JE: So now you're in Hossberg Wetland, it's an area that has been almost completely consumed by the blight. The grey wardens have set up an outpost here, again, if you know anything about the grey wardens, they fight the blight anywhere they see it and they're noticing something strange is going on here. The blight is not behaving as they expect it to and as it historically has so they've set up shop in this place called Lavendel and you are here to work with them, help them out and help them find an answer to the questions about the blight that they're asking

KB: Tell me a little bit more about this area, it looks a little bit like a hub where you can get a lot of quests and things like that? CB: That's right so here we find one of the bases of the Grey Wardens so you'll see they've really built up a small fighting force here to hold off the darkspawn. What's more, the Grey wardens are a faction we're going to be working with throughout the game. We've got Holden, one of the Grey Warden quartermasters, we're actually going to upgrade his shop and see what items he has in store for us, see if maybe it gives us an edge in combat JE: And the Grey Wardens are much like the other factions, they understand the stakes of the Gods being out they want to help you, but you need to help them first. They have -again as Corinne mentioned- they're holding off the darkspawn here, they have other priorities, so getting them more powerful allows them to more meaningfully contribute to your fight against the Elven Gods

KB: So where are we going next? CB: All right, so we're heading out of the Grey Warden Fortress into the small town of Lavendel. Now this used to be a beautiful place full of life, flowers and you can see what effect the blight has had

CB: But the residents are still here, they're trying to make the most of their lives and you can see there's plenty of opportunities to help them, in fact we're going to quickly check in with Flynn The Physician and see what he has in store for us JE: So Flynn -again one of the focuses of this game is characters not causes

JE: And Flynn is a warden who you will do quests with. We wanted to make sure that the side content of dragon age the veil guard felt as meaningful and tied to the overall conflict of the game as anything else you do. We don't want to you to just go off and do random tasks. Everything needs to feel meaningful either contributing to your fight against the gods or contributing to the growth of your companions and the factions that you need at your side to stop the gods

CB: All right so we picked up a couple of quests in Lavendel, but we're here to help Davrin, so we're going to make our way through the perils of Hossberg and try to get to this Warden fortress of The Cauldron KB: Seeing a lot of - kind of organic matter, I suppose that's the blight? JE: Absolutely. So the blight at this point -as mentioned before the wardens understand it's changed, it's become a lot more organic, a lot more alive. You know, back in Dragon Age 2, Inquisition, Origins, the blight -while it was a slow moving wall. It didn't have this almost thought behind it and obviously we've talked about how the gods that are out are blighted, that probably has something to do with it and it's made this area far more dangerous than it would have been before CB: And you might notice as we get into combat with some of these darkspawn that they do look a little bit different than before and that's very intentional. Ghilan'nain the god of monsters. She uses blight like a medium to sculpt and warp the darkspawn to do her bidding, to suit her purposes JE: So right now you'll see a couple of Hurlock, uh one with some pretty disgusting growths on its back -again the idea that the darkspawn and the blight is an organic weapon, they're not just coming out and you know making swords, making armor. They're using the blight to augment themselves so they can more effectively defeat you and also give the gods the world that they desire CB: All right now I'm actually going to switch to my orb and dagger on the mage and those of you that were a fans of the Knight Enchanter in Dragon Age Inquisition, you might feel right at home with this. This is a more melee focused, more agile version of the mage. One of the main mechanics here is you can use this elemental orb to apply stacks of elemental damage to the enemy and then unleash them with your dagger to detonate them JE: So -again you'll notice that there are blight pools, the darkspawn aren't just coming out of nowhere, the blight is spawning them. Again, part of Ghilan'nain's attempt to turn this into an army for the gods is to use these darkspawn not just -again whereas you have the Venatori and the Antaam, one case representing magical power in the other case representing physical strength the darkspawn are representing overwhelming force KB: That was a pretty clutch heal a little earlier by the way CB: You know we've talked at length before that our fans have asked us "where is the healing magic? Can you bring it back?" and Neve in this game is happy to oblige with a kit of healing spells JE: So one of the interesting things that I love about our companions is each of them, their abilities, the way that they're built, they're very thematically appropriate to the character. They're very focused on making sure that the gameplay and the narrative are as close aligned as possible in the case of Neve versus Bellara versus Emmrich, our mages, each of them has a healing ability that is thematically appropriate to them, makes sense when you know them as a character

KB: Watching you play I'm struck by sort of the size and the scope of this particular area. It seems like there's a lot of explorating that I can be doing right here CB: That was really one of our goals with these areas, of course we are a mission-based game but we really emphasize player autonomy. You can revisit these spaces, they're full of secrets, puzzles, some pretty incredible bosses and treasure. And of course as we saw earlier in Lavendel, some really narratively rich side quests JE: One thing that's interesting is you'll find we're going on a quest for Davrin, but Davrin is not currently in our party. That's because Davrin has gone ahead of us and is waiting for us at The Cauldron. This is - again we want the followers, the companions to feel like they have autonomy and while they won't complete the quest on their, they will go ahead and get things ready so when you get there you can talk to them, you can have a conversation with them and it feels like they're as invested in the success of their journey their stories as you are KB: This looks like a pretty contiguous zone, is that right? CB: It is yes. So it's full of branching paths, different areas to explore and what I love is the more content you do in the area, the more shortcuts you're going to discover, you're really going to have a lot more flexibility in how you navigate between your remaining missions and quests JE: What I think is something really interesting too about the way that our team has built these spaces is there's this idea of each space has its own story to tell and while those quests - you know we talked earlier about those quests and side quests being narratively relevant they also contribute to a more of a meta narrative, meta story about the space itself. So in the case of Hossberg, we talked about how this is an area surrounded by blight and you're kind of getting to the center of what exactly is going on in Hossberg and Lavendel and these quests that you do and the content Corinne is currently engaged in helps to tell that story CB: All right we can see our companions are up here attacking this darkspawn on their own, let's give them a quick hand - all right, now I love positional gameplay making use of the environment to your advantage KB: And I just saw that you could do a takedown move, so it's kind of a finishing move?

CB: You can, now in this particular build I'm really focused on using necromantic energies to siphon life force, but if I for instance wanted to go the Stagger route I could go a full takedown build if I like. It's a really powerful heavy hitting style of gameplay

JE: All right so you'll notice Davrin is waiting for us, so let's go see what he has to say … Assan flies in

JE: So something tore through the gate that's probably not great, looks like we should probably get moving

JE: So because we don't have Davrin in our party he's going to move ahead and wait for us while we bring Neve and Harding along to clear a path for ourselves to find Davrin and get to where he is KB: Can you talk a little bit about how Nev and Harding uh sort of synergized during thecombat? JE: Yeah so Neve and Harding. Neve is a mage, Harding is a rogue and each of the classes -and you can build a party entirely of one class if you want- but the idea is that the classes synergize and they can set up and detonate each other's abilities in a very interesting way. Now because you have a lot of freedom in how you build your character you can - again as said - you can have all Rogue party, all Mage party, all Warrior party, it still works. But in this case Neve and Harding are very effective at setting up and detonating in this case, as Corinne's going to show CB: So we're in danger here and this is really what I love about the tactical layer of combat: if you get in that clutch situation where you've got this devastating incoming attack, great time to pause game play weigh your options and in this case I'm going to go back to our combo here and see if I can just quickly get out of the way … All right, you can see I've applied siphoning to these enemies so I'm actually going to be leeching their health when I use my mage beam Now you'll notice there's blight boils throughout the area and that's part of our philosophy on the combat encounters. If I don't destroy these blight boils, ghouls are going to continue to emerge. So I'm really focused on "what targets do I take down first?" this enemy is a little bit weaker, I think I'm going to have my companions focus on them while I deal with this grenadier that's giving me some problem JE: Yeah I will say Corinne is much better at this game than I am CB: As you say that! [Corinne nearly dies] JE: Well most of the time, yes, 100%. But each enemy - again really leaning into the organic - what I love about the grenadiers is they basically rip off pieces of themselves and throw them at you which explode as blight and again really leading to the idea that the blight is organic and disgusting KB: One thing that I'm noticing is that the combat encounters can get pretty intense, you'll end up fighting a lot of different enemies, you can absolutely die if you're not careful CB: Yes and this - as we mentioned earlier - this is well into the game so combat counters have really ramped up and it really shows the importance of positioning using your companions wisely and looking for those synergies and combos. [Corinne dies] Now this is interesting. We just went down. We've built our companions to be able to come to our aid, so we're actually going to use a revive here and Neve to the rescue! JE: and as Corinne mentioned, this is later in the game and Hossberg itself is what I would consider a later game area and the encounter is a little bit more challenging. It's a more dangerous space, this shows up in the encounter but it also shows up in the visuals the storytelling here. This is a place that you don't want to be, you don't want to be in Hossberg, it is full of darkspawn full of blight and generally not a pleasant place to be KB: Well we'll be able to explore more of The Cauldron when Dragon Age the Veilguard comes out on October 31st. In the meantime we are going to be continuing on with our IGN first coverage of Dragon Age for the rest of September and for everything that's great about games and RPGs keep it locked on IGN

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note: this transcript was written and put together by Bluesky user Kiranox, they kindly sent it to me with permission to post it (thank you!).