#but i wanted to cram the last few days on the page

[iovebarca]

hiii loved all of your fics… could you do a fluff one with marc guiu where they have been studying for school so they haven’t seen eachother for days and marc surprises her by going to her house? hope you’ve understood everything!

A Midnight Interlude - Marc Guiu

Authors note: First of all thank you so much! and I hope I did your request right :) 💓

WC: 1200+

warnings: incorrect grammar (probably), my first language isn't english so if you notice any mistakes please tell me, just fluff!

summary: Amid exam stress, Marc surprises you. After a cozy movie night and stargazing. Grateful for Marc's presence, you drift to sleep.

send me requests!! ❤️

You've been drowning in textbooks and notes for days, the looming exams consuming every waking moment. Each page turned feels like another step closer to the edge of exhaustion. But amidst the stress and late-night cram sessions, there's one thing you miss more than anything, spending time with Marc.

You and Marc have been inseparable since you met at a mutual friend's birthday party. From the first moment you laid eyes on each other, there was an undeniable connection. You've shared laughter, secrets, and countless moments together. But as finals approach, your time together has dwindled to brief text messages and occasional phone calls.

One evening, as you sit at your desk, buried under a pile of papers, you hear a soft knock on your door. Startled, you glance at the clock. Who could be visiting at this hour?

You open the door to find Marc standing there, a sheepish smile on his face and a backpack slung over his shoulder. His eyes sparkle with excitement as he takes in the sight of you.

"Marc! What are you doing here?" you exclaim, unable to hide your surprise.

"I missed you," he says simply, stepping inside and pulling you into a warm embrace. His arms feel like a sanctuary, a refuge from the chaos of your busy life. "I know you've been swamped with studying, but I couldn't go another day without seeing you."

You feel your stress melt away in Marc's arms. You've been so caught up in your studies that you hadn't realized just how much you missed him. His presence is like a soothing balm for your weary soul.

"Come on," Marc says, taking your hand. "Let's take a break from all this studying. I brought some snacks and your favorite movie."

You can't help but smile as Marc leads you to the living room, where he has set up a cozy nest of blankets and pillows in front of the TV. The soft glow of the screen illuminates the room, casting a warm, inviting light.

The sight of popcorn and chocolate makes your stomach rumble with anticipation. You settle onto the couch, tucking yourself into Marc's side as he presses play on the remote. The movie begins, but you find it hard to concentrate with Marc so close, his warmth seeping into your bones.

For the next few hours, you lose yourself in the world of the movie and each other's company. You laugh, you cry, and you share whispered conversations in the dark. It feels like no time has passed at all since you were last together, lost in your own little bubble of happiness.

As the credits roll, you realize just how much you needed this break. Marc has a way of grounding you, of making you forget about the pressures of school and just enjoy the moment. You turn to him, feeling a rush of gratitude and love swell in your chest.

"Thank you for coming, mi amor," you say, pressing a kiss to Marc's cheek.

"Anytime, mi vida," he replies, his voice soft and gentle. "I'll always be here for you, no matter how busy life gets."

You both sit in comfortable silence for a moment, savoring the closeness between you. Then Marc speaks up, his voice tentative.

"Would it be okay if I stayed over tonight?" he asks, his eyes searching yours for approval. "I don't want to leave you alone after such a long day."

A smile spreads across your face at the thought of spending the night with Marc. It's been too long since you've had him beside you, and the idea of falling asleep in his arms fills you with warmth.

"I would love that," you say, reaching out to take his hand. "Stay as long as you like."

Marc's face lights up with a smile, and he leans in to press a gentle kiss to your lips. "Thank you, mi vida," he murmurs, his voice filled with love.

"Hey," he says softly, turning to you with a gleam in his eyes. "It's a perfect night for stargazing. What do you say we take a break and enjoy the view?"

You smile at the suggestion, feeling a flutter of excitement in your chest. "That sounds wonderful." you reply, already imagining the cozy scene under the night sky.

Together, you gather blankets and pillows, creating a makeshift nest in the backyard. The air is cool and crisp, a refreshing contrast to the warmth of the house. You settle onto the blankets, snuggling close to Marc as you tilt your heads back to gaze at the stars.

The night sky stretches out above you, a vast expanse of darkness illuminated by pinpricks of light. Wrapped in blankets and each other's arms, you feel a sense of peace wash over you. The worries of exams and deadlines fade into the background as you lose yourselves in the beauty of the night.

As the hours pass, you share hopes and dreams, whispering secrets into the darkness. You talk about the future, imagining all the adventures you'll go on together once the football season and exams are over and summer break begins.

At one point, a shooting star streaks across the sky, and you both make a wish in unison, hearts filled with hope and possibility.

As you both lay under the blanket of stars, Marc turns to you with a soft smile. "What did you wish for?" he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

You glance at him, a playful twinkle in your eye. "I can't tell you," you reply with a teasing grin. "You know the rule - if you tell, it won't come true."

Marc chuckles, leaning in closer to you. "Ah, playing it safe, are we?" he says, his warm breath tickling your ear. "Well, whatever it is, I hope it comes true for you."

His words send a shiver down your spine, a rush of affection flooding your heart. You reach out to squeeze his hand, feeling the connection between you grow even stronger in the quiet of the night.

As Marc's question lingers in the air, a soft smile graces your lips. "I wished for our future together," you finally admit, your voice barely above a whisper.

Marc's eyes widen slightly, his gaze softening as he takes in your words. "Our future," he repeats, his voice filled with warmth and affection. "I couldn't wish for anything more."

You feel a surge of emotion welling up inside you, overwhelmed by the depth of love you feel for Marc in this moment. He pulls you close, wrapping you in a tight embrace as if to reaffirm his commitment to you and the future you both envision together.

Underneath the canopy of stars, surrounded by the quiet serenity of the night, you share a moment of pure connection and understanding. It's as if the universe itself is whispering its blessings upon your love, promising a future filled with endless possibilities and boundless joy.

As you lay there, wrapped in Marc's arms, you can't help but feel a sense of peace wash over you. Whatever challenges lie ahead, you know that as long as you have Marc by your side, you'll be able to face them together, hand in hand, with unwavering love and devotion.

And as you drift off to sleep, cradled in the warmth of Marc's embrace, you hold onto the hope and excitement of the future that awaits, knowing that with him, anything is possible.

[sleepynoons]

akaashi x gn!reader, sfw

cw: mentions of skin picking (akaashi picks at his fingers)

notes: sorry for being afk lol was moving back into college, and now that i have settled back in, here's my obligatory, written-in-30-minutes college!au akaashi bc he is The College Au. happy that i'm beginning to write for hq characters bc they all mean so much to me. also requests/suggestions are closing this weekend, so pls drop by my ask box by then if you want smth!! feel free to drop by for no good reason, too!

THE TWO of you don’t even have to say anything. one glance at each other, and you both shut your eyes and exhale deeply. 

to be fair, neither of you are surprised either. the two other students in your project group are notorious for skipping classes and buying homework answers off of other students. it should have been a given they wouldn’t help out on this presentation either.

the grandfather clock against the adjacent wall is an old thing, really – wood faded and paint chipped off –, yet the ticks of its hands click crisply in contrast to the soft sounds of laminated textbook pages flipping and footsteps rubbing against carpet. just like an old grandparent would, every tick of the clock is a nagging reminder directed at you and akaashi: “that’s one less minute you have to work on that project! oh, and another! are the two of you ever going to get started?”

you pull out your chair and sit next to akaashi, who looks more exhausted than he usually does. there are dark, dark shadows under his eyes, and there are swollen cuts around his cuticles from where he tugs on petty, persistent hangnails.

you shove a hand into the back pocket of your pants. i thought i had one on me, you think, pouting slightly as you continue to feel through crushed receipts, loose threads, and whatever other junk you crammed in back there. finally, you feel the familiar papery texture. there it is!

“akaashi, here.” you slide it over to him, and he glances at it before focusing back onto his laptop screen. it’s almost like he doesn’t recognize the object as he says nothing for a few moments, but then, he looks back and purses his lips, his best attempt at a grateful smile in his current state.

“thanks for the bandaid,” he mutters as he begins to open up the packaging.

you shrug your shoulders and furrow your brows. “i should’ve brought more,” you say. “that’s on me.”

he shakes his head as he wraps the bandaid around the knuckle of his thumb – the most tortured of all his fingers. “don’t apologize. i should be the one taking care of myself anyway.”

“i doubt a single college student can take care of themself, let alone a project meant for four people,” you groan. 

“they don’t count as people,” he deadpans.

you choke a laugh. “akaashi, don’t be mean.”

“i’m only stating a fact.”

at this point, akaashi has already returned to working, typing away and switching tabs every so often. you, too, grab your things to contribute.

the project is more tedious than anything, and luckily, the two of you had completed your respective one-fourths of the work ahead of time. however, the two of you were hoping – naïvely, might you add – that your other teammates would pull through, so you had procrastinated on finishing their parts until the day before the deadline.

and things continued downhill from there. you and akaashi were supposed to meet in the morning to dedicate the whole day to completing and revising the presentation. however, his research advisor emailed him last-minute to help with some urgent manuscripts, so the two of you delayed until 4pm. but then you got roped into a club event, which included dinner and a drinking afterparty, and not wanting to cause a ruckus with your seniors, you obliged. needless to say, it’s now 9pm and there is a whole half-empty presentation waiting to be filled.

at least the one thing that is working in your favor is your mechanical teamwork. you work on a section, akaashi on another, and when both of you are done, you switch to polish each other’s works. akaashi is also a fantastic writer and critic, so not only do you feel like you’re learning from his suggestions, you’re also not devastated in the process. even with potentially very shallow questions, he’s patient.

about an hour in, you mumble, “wait, i’m not sure if this makes sense.” you turn your computer towards him, and he leans forward, slightly in front of you, to see clearer.

from this proximity, you notice the way his nose twitches, along with the way his lips form a pout, as he readjusts the bridge of his glasses. you can also trace the curvature of his ears, following the round of the helix down to the lobe. and his eyebrows –

then again, these are things you’ve known for a while now. you’re just taking note of details you’ve already memorized. you’ve come to terms with your crush on akaashi since the second week of the fall term, truly having experienced love at first sight. but you’re too tired for a relationship, and if you’re exhausted, well, akaashi is probably having a worse time.

and by the looks of it, akaashi suddenly sniffles. you pull out a tissue immediately.

he chuckles as he takes it. “that pocket of yours is pretty handy.”

you frown. because you did miss a detail.

akaashi is flushed from his cheeks up to his temples and ears. and upon reflection, his voice sounded more gravelly, without its usual snark, when he was making the jab at your project mates earlier.

oh. 

“are you sick?” you ask.

the first time he doesn’t hear you, intently reading through your write-up. you ask again, this time also tapping his shoulder.

“sorry, what?” he mumbles.

“akaashi, i said, are you sick?”

a confused expression flashes across his face before ot returns to its typical unbothered look.

“don’t worry about it,” he grunts,

“you should get some rest,” you insist.

“and what about the project then?”

you really shouldn’t be doing this to yourself because it would mean pulling an all-nighter, but you also don’t want akaashi to work while he’s under the weather. “i’ll just do it myself. i’ll send you everything by the morning, so you can take a look over it when you wake up, and then we can submit it by class time, yeah?”

he gawks at you, terrified at your proposal. he shakes his head, adamant when he says, “there’s no way i could let you do that. you need to rest, too.”

“not as much as you,” you argue back. “if you’re not too sick, then you can sleep it off and wake up early to help. but right now, you need to go back to your dorm.”

he fights back, trying to convince you of otherwise, but you’ve already crossed your arms across your chest firmly and are staring at him with a quirked eyebrow, visibly unimpressed.

akaashi can only roll his eyes at your stubbornness.

as he packs his things, he looks over his shoulder at you and asks, “is there anything i can do to make it up to you?”

“akaashi, are you being serious? you don’t need to make up anything. just feel better for me, alright?”

now he’s looking at you like you’re a total idiot.

you just sigh.

“fine, just treat me to a meal or something, alright? now go.”

“i was going to take you out for dinner anyway, but fine. i’ll pay for lunch tomorrow.”

“yeah, sounds good. now go!”

akaashi leaves, and you return back to your work.

the hours fly by. other students begin to filter out, and by the time it’s past midnight, you’re only accompanied by a night-shift student librarian and the grandfather clock. you lean back into your chair, taking a quick breather.

you think back to your conversation with akaashi before he left. gotta finish the project before he wakes up, only six more slides to go, i wonder what we should have for lunch, he did say we’d get to eat together another time –

you jolt. sitting upright, your eyes widen slowly as you recount akaashi’s words. he said he would take me out anyway.

are you hallucinating? so delusional that you can’t tell between fantasy and reality? he said those exact words, right? did he mean it the way you think it means?

the clock chimes loudly as a new hour begins. you’re thrown back to work, but really, you don’t even know how you managed to finish the assignment because, the entire time, you kept thinking about akaashi and his intentions.

what does he mean?

[aluhnim]

Hello!! When you start a comic, how do you go about deciding your panelling layouts?? If this is too big of an ask for covid brain, how about your favorite song of the moment / a song that really inspires you?? I hope you feel better soon!

I was searching around for an old write up I did for some Original Character Tournament folks who were interested in my thoughts on panels and layouts. To try and answer your question, I go off of vibe now that I’ve made a LOT of comics. However, as much as it doesn’t seem like it at times, I do typically stay as “conventional” as possible to make sure my readers are still following the plot. I make a lot of adjustments along the way. Smarter layouts allow me to draw less, and drawing less is better for me in the long run! It’ll allow me to put more time in other places of the comic.

Anyway, here’s my write up back in the day that’ll hopefully answer some comic drafting questions!

More conventional paneling is a necessary stepping stone because you know your reader won’t get lost and the structure will have you more focused on flow and pacing. It seems remarkably easy to do comics with more “static” or traditional panel layouts but they work for a reason. There’s no real need to break out of something that works, unless you want to! Breaking out of the structure can really add some OOMPH to your important pages.

Some tips, note that these have been my preferences and some definitions don’t quite match their descriptors.

Bleed

I consider open panels or panels that stretch out beyond the edge of the page to be considered bleeds. They’re simple ways to make you feel like your not just sticking within your margins and making your page feel less static without much extra effort. Manga does this quite often, and Western American comics, especially during action packed moments or large splashes.

Some examples of things bleeds can do:

- They can also be used as transitions between pages (first panel bleeding in, last panel bleeding out).

- They can be used to interrupt or add a beat to a moment. Although the example below is mostly bleeds, you can see the one full panel at the bottom stands out because it’s not like the others. A subtle beat.

- They can also just be used to extend a panel to make it bigger. That seems obvious, but larger panels do make people spend a bit more time on them, regardless if there is text or not. Though, “more time” means probably several milliseconds or even a few seconds more than usual.

- Collaging with a bleed is a really great way to think beyond panels and open the space. You will be spending more time thinking of how much you can cram in along with the flow of how your text is going to lead through a series of images.

- Removing panel borders can really open a space and allow for more room without having to go above and beyond the ideas of comics and panels. (sorry, gale galligan is just good)

Gutters

The space between panels is almost just as important as the panel itself. That’s where readers and inferring actions and time. You can only control so much of what the reader is doing between their eye shifting between panels, which is why composition within panels and clarity are so important.

Gutters can also be played with! A simple example is changing your gutters from white to all black. It can be a subtle shift in time, a transition to a new space.

Even the amount of space between panels leaves an idea of time! I think webtoons/manhwa really work well with the gutter space, leaving you to physically scroll and feel the effects of time passing with the amount of empty space you encounter.

It’s important to understand that the gutter has a lot more to do with reader imagination, and your goal is to have them understand that the next panel is somehow plausible.

THIS SCENE EMFIELDS DID IS VERY FUCKING GOOD. TIME, SPACE, GO OOOOOOFFFF KING

Panels themselves can be a part story!

This one is a difficult thing to write for, since I feel like there isn’t many examples out there. There are very structural examples of panels out there, like Watchman. While the 9 panel grid was intentional, it also was likely the only way to deal with Alan Moore’s script effectively without missing details. The panels themselves don’t ENHANCE the story, but a means to an end.

But it’s also an incredibly good example of how conventional comics paneling can still be effective, especially when you start breaking that mold just a little bit.

But then you have comics like M. Dean’s “Baby fat”. Where the comic paneling itself never strays from its original structure, but is indicative of the story itself, representing tiles, mirrors, patterns.

Or Robert Hunter’s “The New Ghost” which he uses circular motifs and has circular panels representing the telescopes sight line.

Predicting Reader Navigation

These are my rules of thumb when doing general sight reading panel by panel.

1. Text is what people gravitate to first. It’s the context needed to approach the next panel.

2. Faces are next, this provides context to what the subject is feeling.

3. Familiar people/animals/objects and SFX.

4. Everything else!

This is an example of sight reading notes I gave to my friend Holocene when we were collaborating.

[physalian]

On Tournament Arcs (I want more of these in lit)

The “tournament arc” is a staple of shonen anime. I’d find it very hard to believe anyone on here hasn’t at least seen gifs of it so here’s a quick breakdown: Your core cast of characters + extras and new adversaries are all thrown together in a tournament competing for anything from the low stakes of cash or bragging rights to who lives and who dies by the hand of the nefarious god throwing the tournament.

These are extremely popular for a few reasons:

They’re fodder for a ton of episodes without a whole lot of complicated story—the story is baked into the different rounds of combat

There’s a chance for a lot of different intense character interaction that might not normally happen pitting two random names against each other

They can sometimes artificially raise the stakes—in isolation, winning the Round of 16 in a series about saving the world doesn’t mean anything, but winning any one game might give the heroes the chance to stay alive just one more day

I just rewatched the first tournament arc of My Hero Academia a few days ago (the first sports festival) and man, I do miss when this show was good.

So! While tournament arcs aren’t exclusive to shows with super powers or magical abilities like Naruto—they’re baked into a sports anime—today’s essay is all about the efficiency and shake-ups that MHA pulled off, since its pacing is something you could realistically cram into a written novel, and, well, I like this one.

Disclaimer: This show is incredibly manipulative, in a good way (at least in earlier seasons it was in a good way). Elements are way more dramatic than they should be due to the music, the animation, and the pacing, but you’re having fun right along with the characters at the edge of your seat. The excitement isn’t manufactured, you’re hyped right along with the people in the stands. This isn’t very translatable to page, unfortunately.

Second disclaimer: I DNFed this show midway through an episode in season 5 and never went back. It got so bad I literally turned it off in both disgust and sheer boredom. I am not an MHA superfan.

—

Pacing:

For a shonen anime, this first tournament arc is brutally efficient. Take a show like Naruto or DBZ, shows known for their filler, and their tournament arcs for any given season will last 50 episodes or more. MHA’s is 11 episodes, 12 if you want to include the setup in episode 1. In that time, there’s three unique stages of combat and an entire three-tiered 1v1 tournament within the tournament.

Some fights last two episodes, some last about 30 seconds, but none are too drawn out, or too rushed, based on who’s fighting and what their powers are.

Example: Todoroki kind of has “instakill” powers (or at least he does in this arc, he forgets about it 6 episodes later) and if he’s up against anyone who doesn’t have the specific kind of powers that can counteract his, the fight’s decided pretty much instantly, like when he’s up against quasi-Spiderman Sero, and manifests a whole glacier from teenage angst. When he is up against somebody who he can’t freeze immediately, well, that’s where the drama comes from. This is his arc, after all.

Character fodder:

Not only that, but it’s not 11 straight episodes of 1v1. The first leg of combat is an obstacle race, the second is a “cavalry battle” with teams, and the last, the majority, is 1v1. These different challenges require the core characters to think different ways, and as the number of competitors thin dramatically, different side characters get the chance to shine at different points in the arc as more and more are disqualified.

But the way that this arc is written leaves even some core characters in the protagonist class on the outs pretty quickly, even those who make it to the final round, usually due to bad matchups. Characters who had excelled either in power, physical ability, or intelligence just aren’t suited to face whoever they’re up against and it shocks them as much as it does the audience. Even when it forces them to get creative—and that is one thing I loved about this show in its early years, how smart some characters had to be with their niche powers to compete with the natural born powerhouses.

A surprising standout fight was Bakugo vs Uraraka, where nearly every single person in the stands, including the teachers, all professional heroes, were like “dude you can’t hit a girl, you can explode shit with your hands, she’s only got anti gravity” and Bakugo did not give a single fuck about what’s in Uraraka’s pants. It shows that he’s smart, and that he’s a dick, but he has a shit ton of respect for other people’s power and determination when they have as much as he does. Only one other character, their personal teacher, Aizawa, notices: To go easy on her would be a far greater insult than to treat her like an equal challenger.

She lost, in a heartbreaking defeat, but she absolutely made him work for it. It did so much for his character, this whole arc did, but more on that later.

Audience expectations:

But the big reason this arc worked so well was how it subverted expectations. Midoriya is (or used to be) the show’s protagonist. In this arc, he’s got two real main adversaries in his way to gold: Bakugo, a kid with extremely impressive raw talent that he’s honed with a dangerous perfectionist streak, and Todoroki, who wants to win by half-assing it to piss off his abusive hero dad. Both of these two are far more competent with their powers while Midoriya still has the training wheels on his.

Usually, in these types of shows, if the hero doesn’t win, he comes in a very close second in the big dramatic final showdown. It’s part of his arc to be not quite ready yet. But usually, he wins, and the character he’d beaten to a pulp learns some humility and joins the hero squad in the next arc out of respect to their better.

MHA doesn’t do that. Midoriya never faces Bakugo in the 1v1 and he faces Todoroki in the semis, not the finals, and he loses.

The big fight of the tournament is Midoriya vs Todoroki. I used to hear it compared to Rock Lee vs Gaara (which I actually have seen despite not liking Naruto) and it’s… not, if only because it’s missing about 300 episodes of buildup and drama between these two.

But the fight isn’t just a fistfight. Midoriya wants to win, yes, but he’s a hero, first, and he wants to save his friend in the true shonen way of punching friendship into his enemies. Their fight plus the buildup takes two episodes, littered with Todoroki’s PTSD flashbacks (to a gorgeous score) that basically boils down to:

Todoroki: Wah I hate my powers, fuck my dad, I’m gonna half-ass this out of spite and my raw power is enough to win

Midoriya: Fuck you dude, if you want to beat me, you have to give it your all, and it’s not his powers. You may have inherited them, but it’s your power.

Well, Midoriya gets what he asked for, and Todoroki does not at all hold back.

And that’s the semifinal.

With Midoriya out, there’s still the rest of the semis and the final round. This does not happen.

So why did it happen? Because our hero isn’t ready yet. He’s so new with his powers, so inexperienced in combat, that so far he’s skated by on his smarts and his sheer raw ability the few times he’s able to let it out like releasing a pressure valve, seriously injuring himself in the process. Against kids who’ve been training their whole lives, being smart only got him so far.

It was the perfect path for his character, one we’ve only known for maybe 30 episodes in total at this point in the show. If he won or even just barely lost, that would have left so much less room for growth in later tournaments. He’s hella OP, but he’s not at all a Mary Sue, and his greatest strength—his heart—is what cost him the win. In the end, he lost the medal, but he won a friend.

And then the final round comes.

Bakugo vs Todoroki, the two most well-rounded kids in the class (in their whole grade level probably), after Bakugo opens the entire tournament with “I pledge that I’m going to win”.

Thing is, with Bakugo, he’s an asshole, but he’s an asshole who continuously puts his money where his mouth is. He’s never blowing smoke. If he says he’s going to do something, by god, he will do it.

So the final round comes and Bakugo tells Todoroki that he wants to win fair and square, that Todoroki'd better not hold back, he’d better give it his all, because going easy on Bakugo would be giving him the win, and he ain’t no charity case.

That… does not happen. One does not overcome a lifetime of childhood trauma by the Power of Friendship and one speech in this show. Todoroki botches it, gets his ass handed to him, and Bakugo wins the tournament, and he is pissed.

Character Arcs:

I already talked about Midoriya above and won’t repeat myself, but like I said above, tournament arcs are a fantastic way to do many things at once, which is crucial to pacing. It won’t feel stale, no matter how long or repetitive it is, so long as the characters are still developing within that repetition. This was about showing off their powers, yes, but the pressure to perform and get their names out their in a highly saturated, cynical heroism market of capitalism is a lot for 15 year old kids.

Some are out there to make money, being a hero to their families. Some are out there to be the best. Some are out there to be the friendly neighborhood super kid. Since all but one character must lose, everybody but Bakugo failed in some way, big or small, to make the impact they wanted on tournament day. And Bakugo, though he won, feels like he still failed because he won basically by default.

Since it’s set so early in the show, one would think that it would be a fantastic foundation for where all the core characters see themselves and where they go from here. If you’re writing this into a novel and you don’t have a million characters that don’t matter, it’s a brutally efficient way to establish the major players in high-octane fashion.

I’mma gush about Bakugo for a second now: He and Todoroki are two sides of the same coin in this arc. Both are plagued by expectations because of their powers, and both suffer because of it. Todoroki’s been beaten like a dog by his dad to hone his fire and ice powers to one day usurp the number one hero.

Bakugo, though, Bakugo is “the gifted kid” who suddenly entered a world where the gap between him and everyone inferior to him is a lot smaller. He has incredible power, which has always gotten him high expectations and little margin for fucking up and looking weak—cause if you’ve got the ability to make explosions with your hands, you have to be the best all day every day. There is no falling off the wagon, there are no sick days, there is no flab or fat or cheat days.

All of this is an undercurrent in this arc. He has such high expectations for himself, such high expectations thrown on him by hero society, such critical views of his attitude and his powers—he was literally called a villain when he fought Uraraka and didn’t treat her like a “frail” little girl—that when he wins because Todoroki throws the fight, it’s the biggest insult anyone could do to him.

Nobody else cares, but Bakugo cares. In his desperate quest to always be the best or else, winning by default doesn’t prove anything to him. He doesn’t want the medal, he doesn’t want this victory by his name, he doesn’t want anything except a rematch that truly challenges him. And mad respect to this kid for it.

—

Some things to consider for your tournament arc should you choose to write one

Every character should have their own separate goals and reasons for winning, beyond simply “winning”. Why do they want to win, or what will happen to them, internally or externally, if they lose?

Would it be better for your hero to win right now, or lose so they have room to grow? Who else loses and how? Are they disqualified, do they cheat, is it a devastating defeat or a photo finish?

What do these people do to themselves in their desperation to win? Do they hurt themselves, go past their physical limit? Do they bully themselves and pick their faults apart? Are they completely different people when they’re under this kind of pressure? Who’s overconfident? Who’s exactly as competent as they say they are?

What are the best matchups, not for spectacle, but for character development? In the written medium, character work absolutely comes before how pretty it might look one day on the silver screen, and that’s what will hold audience attention long after the arc is over and done with. That’s what will have people coming back to reread over and over again.

Remember: The tournament is never just about the combat, it’s about the combatants.

[spaceorphan18]

Bits and Pieces : Moment 1

This is the first one in an anthology of one-shots where I fill in missing moments during Season 3. Mostly, I just wanted to explore the unseen things we didn't get on the show, and do some character studies for Pen and Colin. The first one is set just as the season opens, from Pen's POV.

****

A stack of letters waits for Penelope on her nightstand.  She knows what they are, and yet moves around her room, attempting not to look at them. 

The summer had been… as good as one could expect given the abysmal end to the previous season.  Her sisters’ weddings had been dizzying affairs but at least they left Penelope in relative peace.  Left to sit in the corner to read.  To write.  To think.  And think and think and think… 

Oh how she had wanted to get out of her own head.  

Returning to Mayfair hasn’t been the worst experience.  Plenty of new faces showing themselves this season.  Plenty of new, lovely ladies -- many of whom she sees shades of herself in, making their debut.  Plenty of things for Lady Whistledown to write about.  

She isn’t able to make herself feel better but at least through her writing she could do better for others.  She is trying to atone for her past mistakes.  She is of the mind that even if she can’t do anything about herself, she can at least attempt ease for others.  She is not completely powerless.  

The stack of letters still waits.  

She tells Rae she doesn’t need help to unpack.  All of her books are carefully returned to their home on the shelves.  All of her hideous dresses crammed back into the wardrobe.  All of her secrets buried safely underneath the floorboards.  She has a lot to do now that she’s back.  

Yet the distraction on the nightstand is becoming unavoidable.  

She sits on the edge of the bed, and picks up the first one from the pile.  It’s thick and heavy in her hand.  She knows from experience that it’s not a single sheet of paper, but pages and pages of writing, front and back.  He used to write her everything.  Apparently he still does.  It makes her stomach turn.  

The postmark is from Dublin and dated a week and a half earlier. 

Oh god… is he close to home? Her heart involuntarily flutters at the thought.  

Of course he’s close to home -- the season is starting.  Francesca is making her debut this year.  He would want to be there for that, wouldn’t he? 

She stares at the letter and contemplates.

She had spent so long over the past few months trying to forget the gentleness of his face, the soothing sound of his voice, the protective grasp of his hand.  So long did she try to untwist the deeply rooted thorns of love so painfully ground into her heart.  

She looks at the stack of letters and wonders why every time she takes a step forward there’s always something to pull her back.  

She begins to flip through the envelopes, noting the vast array of postmarks on them and wonders even more -- did he miss her?

Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Bordeau… 

Her mind races back to that evening, back to that gut wrenching night.  The kindness she thought she saw in his eyes.  

I will always look after you. 

…Paris, Lyon, Zurich, Munich… 

The flippancy of his voice, how it tore through her heart like a knife.  

I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington

…Milan, Rome, Venice, Vienna… 

How could such sacred words to her be so hollow to him? 

You are special to me.  

…Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels…

How was it she could be deluding herself for so long? 

Not in your wildest fantasies

…Athens.  Athens?? 

It’s the last envelope in the stack, and the only one that gives her pause.  There’s no way… she tears open the letter, not helping herself, and notes the date from a year and a half prior.  It must have gotten lost or delayed.  

She unfolds the letter and a few dried, dark red flower petals fall out.  

Penelope, 

I spent the day wandering the beautiful gardens of our host and came across an array of poppies that reminded me of you.  Of the splendid color of your hair.  As much as I’m enjoying my tour, I suppose I’m missing home just a little bit.  And looking forward to the day when I can describe such beauty to you in person. 

Or maybe, I wish you were here to see these flowers in their natural glory.  

The best I can do is send a little piece of Greece to you.  

Colin 

She casts the letter onto her bed with a frustrated cry.  

Why? 

Why is there always something that makes her love him just a little bit more? 

She hops off the bed, collecting all of the letters, including the one she opened, and gathers them in her arms.  In a moment of anger, she rushes to the fireplace with the intention of throwing all of them in.  But she stops, mesmerized by the flames.  .  

Her brain is screaming at her to throw them all in and be done with it.  Nothing good will come of keeping those letters.  

Her heart won’t let her; keeps her frozen in place.  His letters are a piece of himself that he’s giving to her.  And she can’t so easily cast that aside.  

Resigned to her own predictability, she heads to her desk, and opens the bottom drawer, placing them gently against all the rest of the letters she’s received from him over the years.  She still won’t read them.  Won’t allow herself to read them. 

The poppy petals she has kept out, and puts them in a small jar on her desk with other small trinkets that she has kept over the years, smiling at them fondly as she does so.  

She has to try to move on somehow, someday.  

But today is not that day…  

It’s only later that she realizes there have been no letters from Eloise.  Her heart aches just a little bit more.  

[goth-boyfriends]

i just finished and scheduled part 5 of goth boyfriends! ; _ ; i did the last 8 chapters on a very short timeframe in the last few months… i started part 5 early 2023 haha, but then i kept getting sick and all that, but now i feel like maybe for a while i can work steadily so i will try my best!

Those are the last 9 chapters of part 5 in this pic! whoah! (i put the anniversary illustration on top to avoid spoiling, but all the rest are comics pages and cover! for those who discover it, each chapter is 7 pages!

i tried to put it with part 4, but it was a tad too much for the sleeve! : ( a little surprised as part 1 to 3 are in one, but i used printer paper (80 g/m² at best) which was much more slim! i upgraded to 200 g/m² but 'downgraded' to 160(ish) g/m² halfway because it was more than enough. thinking of trying 120 g/m² so i can carry more paper around. i have to test if it fits all mediums i want to use!

so new sleeve for part V it is! i don't think i can cram many parts in one sleeve anymore now that i use bulkier paper! I spend a lot of time (re) organizing the pages i have around this project! it really feel like such a workout now! ; _ ;

starting to take space on the bookshelf! i'm both proud and a little scared about the space as it's very small here. i had to move a lot of things around to possibly get a new bookshelf in the next few months if i can afford it!

So, until my may 2025 (it feels surreal to write this!) there will be a new page every 3 days if i scheduled correctly! (might be a day more or less in-between chapters because i suck at maths! ; _ ;)

me? i will be starting part 6 soon! hoping to find a good pace, and stay diligent to not be surprised by sickness or other life troubles too unexpectedly.

ganbatte everyone! : p

xoxo, ken

[whorekneecentral]

sugar daddy jenson! and the reader reading one of their spicy books on kindle. jenson wants to cuddle w them but they’re too invested in some smut. he looks at what they’re reading and you can decide what happens after lol

y’all get me. 

Hours roll by and Jenson had yet to get a text back from you. It was starting to worry him because even if you were busy, you'd text him that you were busy so he'd at least know you’re alive. 

Surely you’re just wrapped up in some project or a last minute cram session, but still, he decided to check in on you. 

Your car was in the parking lot when he pulled in, he peeked into your car and everything seemed fine so he buzzed himself up, using his key to unlock your condo door. 

“Sweetheart?!” He calls and your brows furrow, letting the book down when you hear him. “Jense?” You get up, meeting the man halfway between the living room and the front door. 

“I haven't heard from you all day, I just wanted to check on you.” He says, kissing your forehead. His arm slung over your shoulder as you two walked back to the living room. “What have you been up to?” 

“Just got caught up in my book,” you tell him, sitting down. 

He hums, picking up your empty coffee mug to take it to the kitchen. “How about we go for a drive? Get you out of the house for a bit?” 

“Can I finish my chapter first?” You looked up at him, puppy eyes and a pout playing on your lips. Jenson could never say no to you, especially not now. 

He sits next to you, arm back over your shoulder once again. “Fine, finish your chapter.” He kisses your head, letting you snuggle into his side. 

Jenson lets you read, switching on the tv and flips through the channels for a while before randomly settling on one of them. He can feel you shift a bit, your eyes fixed on the pages as you pulled your bottom lip between your teeth.  

That caught his attention so obviously, being the nosy person he is, he started to follow along with the words on the pages. 

Her cheat heaving as she looked up at the man. “Jack, please.” She begged him, he smiles at the woman under him. “What would he say if he heard you? Begging another man to fuck you instead of him?” 

Jenson pulls the book from your hand. “This is what you’ve been ignoring me all day for?” He asked, “word porn?” He scoffs and you roll your eyes. 

“Gimme my book.” You reached for it but Jenson got off the couch, taking the book with him. He skipped a few lines, reading over the just of the scene. 

“I can do this,” he says, setting the book on the coffee table before pulling you off the couch. 

“Jenson,” you warned him but he ignored you, moving you to lay on the couch. 

The man drops down to his knees in front of you, your legs over his shoulder and he kisses down your calf, to your thigh before he gets to your pussy. You lift your hips, letting him take your panties off, tossing it along with the other clothes.

His nose brushes against your clit, his tongue licking a stripe up your cunt. Your hips buck when you feel his tongue against your clit, your hand gripping on his hair.

Jenson’s hand on your hip rocks you back and forth slightly, just enough that he can hear his name fall from your lips. 

“Jense- fuck, there.” You pull on his hair, getting him to do what he did again.

He glances up, your eyes shut and your head tossed back and he can't help but smile; he’s broken you down to nothing but a whimpering mess but he wasn’t done with you just yet.

Your cheeks are red when you see him sit up, the lower half of his face glistening. You also can’t help yourself when you pull him down for a kiss, tasting yourself on him.

“Better than your book, huh?” He members, earning a giggle and a smack on the shoulder from you. 

[breakfast-cereal]

a cure for monotony

word count: 1.2k

description: Yagami Light was bored

notes: written for Day 1 of @deathnotetober 2024

[main masterlist] [work on ao3]

(c: Yayoi Kusama)

Yagami Light was bored, but not in the typical sense of disinterest. Light cared for various things: school, his parents, his sister, morality, justice. The list goes on. The thing is, life was monotonous. 

Every day, Light suffered the same idiotic ramblings of his peers. Did you hear that Aiko-chan is dating Haruto? I got so drunk at that party last night! Hey, Yagami-kun, do you have the answers to the homework?

It wasn’t limited to school. Wherever Light went, he was tortured with the knowledge of his superiority. These people wasted their time gossiping and chatting about nonsense, living out their immoral lives without a care in the world.

Maybe life was more than monotonous. It was torturous until Light saw the Death Note. 

He brushed it off as chain mail. Idiots loved those things. Forward this email, or you’ll be subjected to Reiko Kashima’s curse. Light scoffed but shoved the book into his school bag anyway. The black cover stained his hands. Call it morbid curiosity.

At his desk, Light flipped through the blank pages, fascinated and disgusted at the effort in creating the prank. He pushed it into his drawer, fighting the itch in his hands.

Light scribbled a few math problems into his workbook, glancing from his neat handwriting to the TV on his side table. He huffed and grabbed the remote. Morbid curiosity.

The news channel broadcasted the face of Otoharada Kurou, an older man hijacking a daycare. Light scowled as glee flooded his body. What depravity. 

In his seventeen years of life, he has heard several arguments against the death penalty but disagreed with all of them. Men like Otoharada deserve to die. When activists say it’s immoral to kill another human being, he nearly laughs. Is it not the pinnacle of morality to remove filth from this earth? The justice system exists to rid Japan of depraved criminals. He has never felt the urge to defend them.

Light scribbled Otoharada’s name, keeping his face in mind like the notebook said. He looked at his watch, noting the seconds ticking by. Forty seconds. In forty seconds, the world would be free of Otoharada. 

Thirty-five seconds passed, and nothing happened. Light flushed. He couldn’t believe himself, falling victim to a stupid prank like a common fool, too stuck in the emotions of it all. He shook his head, returning to his math problems.

The reporter gasped. Light swiveled, jumping from his chair to stare at the TV in horror. Otoharada died. Light killed him. Thickness welled in his throat, black like the ink staining Otoharada’s name on the Death Note’s page. Yagami Light killed a man. He wanted to vomit.

When Light picked up his pencil, his hands shook furiously. The reporter continued in the background, her words rattling between his ears. He couldn’t believe it worked. Was he a murderer?

He ran his fingers along the Death Note’s cover, sliding it inside his desk drawer. For the first time, Yagami Light was no longer bored. 

Light gripped his cram school books under his arm, slinking into the bright 7-Eleven. On his walk home, he watched the degeneracy unfold around him like clockwork. Darkness brought out the wicked, and he began believing the creatures of the night in horror films were nothing more than amalgamations of Tokyo’s midnight streets.

Drunks stumbling out of bars, harassing any woman they can get their hands on. Students around his age, hanging off the arms of older men from the club they got into with their fake IDs. People had no shame, no decency. It revolted him. While they weren’t criminals, Light couldn’t deny the world would be better off without them.

A scream sounded from outside the store. Light looked up from the rows of energy drinks, catching sight of a group of men assaulting a terrified woman. He sneered and ran his hands along the side of his bookbag.

Light pulled a magazine from the magazine stand and slid the Death Note between its pages. On the man’s lips hung his name: Shibuimaru Takuo. He scribbled a few iterations, crossing his fingers the kanji were right. Finally, he etched 渋井丸 拓男 [1] into the page next to plain characters reading traffic accident. 

The woman struggled from Shibuimaru’s grasp, starting down the street, her coat billowing behind her. Shibuimaru followed, revving the engine of his bike with furrowed brows.

Light scoffed. Of course, it wouldn’t work. He was naïve for thinking the first time wasn’t a fluke.  

He returned to the energy drinks, plucking out his favourite flavours. Shibuimaru’s gang shouted. Light stared at the scene; Takuo’s bike was crushed against the concrete. His hands shook, and he forced the Death Note back into his book bag. 

For the first time, Yagami Light killed someone who was not a criminal. Shibuimaru had not faced a trial in court, and he had not been found guilty.

Light stumbled out of the 7-Eleven, clutching his chest. He fell against the brick wall outside the store and felt dirty; his hands soiled with the death of an innocent. But that wasn’t a fair judgement. Shibuimaru was far from innocent. If Light hadn’t stopped him, he would’ve raped that woman. He would’ve been a criminal.

His body sparked with exhilaration. Yagami Light realized the Death Note was what he had been looking for all this time.

After Shibuimaru, Light spent his free nights scanning the NPA’s database and monitoring the news. Every stroke of his pen was liberating; every criminal erased from the world was a step closer to divinity.

The new possibilities unfurling elated Light. A world free of evil, free of cruelty. He held morality in his palm, and it was intoxicating. 

He understood the implications of his actions. Light was smart, smarter than the average person. He knew murder received the death penalty, but he would martyr himself if he had to. 

With the peoples’ interests at heart, Light trudged forward, correcting the NPA’s failures. He left the deaths blank but sensed the ripples of every heart attack along his spine. Light wanted criminals to know they were being punished. 

When he wasn’t studying or correcting, he spent some time on occult blogs, learning the intricacies of the Death Note. To his surprise, no Shinigami came to him. He imagined they observed him and agreed. 

The more he learnt about the Death Note, through use and reading, a strange reverence grew inside him. Not reverence for the Shinigami, but for the notebook itself. The gods blessed him with a tool to rid the world of evil. Light never wanted more. 

Light took his Death Note from his desk, placing it alongside his textbooks and a black pen. He scanned the list of names imprinted on the pages and flipped on the TV.

Morality and justice used to be concepts Light could only ever fantasize about. Now, he held the power to enact them in his fingers.

For the first time in his life, Yagami Light felt true, unequivocal love. 

[1]: The kanji for Shibuimaru Takuo

[heroictoonz]

So, I finished Red vs Blue. Just now like not even a few seconds ago as of writing this post. It was, well to say it bluntly it wasn’t great. I didn’t agree with pretty much most of the endings for these characters and I wish the final season had been longer than less than an hour an a half. Most movies are longer than that these days. But, I will say, that I cried. I cried and sobbed and am still crying writing this because even if I didn’t like how it ended it didn’t end horribly and I can tell it ended in love. All the characters, the ones they had in the season at least, got their emotional 15 minutes of fame. Maybe Tucker didn’t get much at all but, I dunno. As the guy whose only personality trait is liking Tucker RvB I weirdly didn’t mind all too much. Donut wasn’t in it either but he did great in season 17 so I also don’t mind that too terribly.

I will say, I don’t think there was any hope of RvB having an ending that I, personally, would think was ‘good’ or ‘satisfying’. Not perfectly at least. And I don’t say this to be mean. But, this was clearly the kind of show that was meant to run on till it was forced to die. They probably weren’t planning on ending it when they did and it took the company getting taken to pasture for it to be over. With as much random bullshit that they crammed into this show I never much expected for it all to be focused on or tied up in the finale. And this show didn’t start as something that took itself very seriously, but the ending was clearly taken with so much heart and care in mind and that’s all I can ask for from this show, I think.

They ended the show where it began. In a box canyon. They ended the story with Allison and Leonard. The people who unknowingly started all of this in the first place. They did what they could to tie in other loose ends and bring in some really cool ideas to make the ending interesting and still it’s own fun story. It made me sad to watch, honestly. Most the characters I have spent so many years loving just didn’t get the best endings. And I was always afraid of that but, hey maybe I’ll write a fic to give them a better one. Maybe it’s the endings that the RT team thought was most fitting for all of them, and I can understand why. I just, personally, enjoy happy endings. This one wasn’t as happy. But, it had hope in it. Especially Carolina and Wash’s last part. I hate the idea of some of these characters being dead and never coming back. I hate the idea of Grif leaving and never seeing any of the others again. But I get it, I understand the ending and I’m content with it. As weird as that might seem, honestly.

Whenever I finish something I’m always reminded of this Doctor Who episode I watched as a kid where he talks about how much he hates endings. How he will tear the last page from books he reads so they never have to end. It’s funny that without fail I think of that episode, that scene. Because in that episode the Doctor is forced to face an ending. One he doesn’t want but accepts anyways. This is me rambling but, I think every time I finish something I love this much and have loved for this long, whether the ending it good or bad, I think I understand that random Doctor Who episode more and more each time.

Did I like the ending season of Red vs Blue? Not fully. The ideas were cool but as with most of this show the execution wasn’t the best in my opinion. But, maybe I’m just a hard ass lol. But the ending did make me laugh, it made me cry, it made me smile and stim and feel. The ending made me feel. And it was a pretty good send off to a pretty great show. And hell, they got an ending. That’s harder to come by these days. Maybe that’s all I can ask for from it. Maybe that’s why even in my tears I’m content more than any other emotion.

But, it’s also weird. Like a really long chapter of my life is closing. I think this is also where I have to officially accept what happened to RT. As someone who’s followed RWBY, RvB, and Camp Camp for a really long time not to mention the lives and their gaming channel and all of that, it feels weird? Kinda bad, honestly, to see it end. I’ve, admittedly, been avoiding it. Avoiding talking or thinking about it. And I doubt the guys told all the stories they had for this show, but I’m glad they got to end it. I’m glad they got at least that much.

It’s 2am and I have work in about 14 hours. I think I’m gonna go read fanfiction.

[lackoftrumpets]

The TTRPGs I played in 2023: Part 2

Near the end of November, I asked for recommendations on one page TTRPGs I should play for a event I ran. The goal was to play a TTRPG for about 40-50 minutes before swapping to something new. While I sadly didn't get around to playing all of the recommendations, I still appreciate all of the games people showed me. Reading new game is something I enjoy doing, so I still had fun even if they didn't make it to the table.

Before I go into each TTRPG individually, there was a common running theme between playing all of the games that I feel like I should say. As much as I enjoy the concept and writing one page and other extremely small TTRPGs, I will admit that playing them was a rough experience. Working with that small amount of mechanics and concepts was something me and the table were not used to and I'm not sure if these kind of games are something I will play more of later. Whenever I got excited by a mechanic is one of these games, I always felt like I wanted something more. I think these types of games are great thought experiments for game design, but I can understand why these type of games haven't gotten much traction in the mainstream (with a few exceptions). However, don't let my thoughts discourage you from writing these type of games. I still love making them because its a fun challenge to see how much content you can cram into such a small space. This was something that most of these games did fairly well, so lets move onto that. If you want to check out any of these games or their authors, I have everything linked on this post.

Rollers of the Lost Artifact by JayBlnk6

This was the starting game and it left a good first impression. In this game players are archeologists looking for special artifacts. The simple skill system was nice, but what I really loved was the inventory system. Each item size has a certain shape and you have to fit it into a 3x3 square. I always love inventory systems that force you to play a Tetris (turning a mundane thing into something fun), and this game did a good job fitting it into a smaller system. Since we were playing multiple games at once, the players didn't get to sell the artifact, but I still appreciate the rules where players get a choice on what they wish to do with it.

Rats in Space by Jay Writes

I think the title of this game explains itself. The players are rats in space looking for a special piece of cheese. The theming of this game was a lot of fun to play with. The morale system was also an interesting addition to the d6 system I've seen a lot of one page games (including my own) use. It was fun to see the players start to panic as their moral system got lower because of a large streak of bad rolls. I also really liked the d6 table for determining one last consequence when the cheese is found. The players thought they finally found it, but then realized they had one last obstacle to conquer (that being the horrible smell in the room).

Rough Beginnings by @tornioduva

This was the most unique game I played that night and despite some odd moments, I had a lot of fun with it! The players are simple group of adventurers, but there is a small element of mystery to it. They each have a secret personality trait and one of them is secretly try to sabotage the rest of the group. I love the creative ideas this game had, but it was a bit of an awkward play. In order for the adventurers to escape, the GM needs to roll a 9 from a 2d6 on the scenario table. The first round, I rolled a 9 for the first scenario. The second round, I rolled a 9 after the players went through about 15 scenarios, the majority of them being the players getting HP for succeeding. I love the concept of this game and I think it inspired me to make my own deception based TTRPG, but it was rather clunky. I have no issue with that at the end of the day. I love playing games that take risks and try new things!

By String and Song by @efangamez

I've enjoyed participating in game jams run and reading some games by efangamez before, so when somebody at the game community mentioned one of their one page games but couldn't remember the name, I knew where to find it. While the game they were recommending was Barbaria, I ultimately ended up going with this game because bards seemed like more fun to play and most of the games in this series seemed like they were reskins of each other. I feel kind of bad saying this, but the game just felt like one page D&D 5e. It's a d20 game which seems to be rare for one page TTRPGs and the way everything was written with Skill Checks and attacking seemed to invoke that game. I guess if you wanted to introduce smaller games to people who have only played D&D I guess this could be a good starting point, but I think most people would just ask to go back to D&D. If I had to guess, most of my negative feelings about this game likely come from me just being burnt out of D&D. It was written well and the enemy descriptions were flavorful, but I don't ever see myself going back to play this.

Honey Heist by gshowitt

Whenever I hear one page TTRPGs discussed, this game always seems to be recommended. After playing it, I can see why. The concept of being normal bears trying to break into a convention was already an instant sell. I loved the idea of the balance of trying to keep your bear and criminal parts from not taking over. It was one of the most interesting ideas for a fail state I've seen in a game. This the game we played for the least amount of time because it was near the end of the meeting and we were all tired, but the random animal chaos mixed in with surprisingly intricate criminal planning made for a fun mix.

[daintyduck99]

leaving notes for Rulie plz

The last day of school is always ridiculously—

Julie pulls Flynn out of the way as a large trash can barrels by, sighing as cheers erupt around them and a jock pops out.

Chaotic. It's ridiculously chaotic.

She just hopes that the guys aren't too involved in the chaos. The last thing they need is to get in trouble on their very last day of school.

Her hands move faster at the thought, sweeping stuff she no longer needs into the nearest jockless can. She starts cramming other things into her backpack to sort later, mostly shirts and sweaters.

One of them looks like Reggie’s, and she pulls it out to confirm that, yes, it's a flannel she stole from him months ago.

Flynn takes the opportunity to rifle through Julie's locker as Julie pulls the flannel on, quickly reclaiming a few items of her own.

She wrinkles her nose at the thick notebook lying in the bottom of the locker.

"Ugh, Jules, throw that away already."

Julie takes it out gingerly, shaking her head. She hugs it to her chest as Flynn groans, ducking her head to hide a blush.

"But you hate math!" Flynn exclaims. "Almost as much as I do. If you won't spike it into the nearest trash can, can't I?"

"No! Go spike your own notebook."

Flynn hums. "Nope, now I gotta know what's special about that one. Spill!"

Julie bites her lip. She finds a well-worn, dog-eared page and flips it around.

Flynn visibly melts, cooing as she reads.

These lines aren't for chatting / but your voice keeps me going / when my mind wants to roam / it leaps from each one

"That's cute. You wrote that part?"

Julie nods. She knows the silly, impromptu little song by heart, one that she'd totally forgotten to rip out before Reggie could see it, along with her sunshine doodles.

The page is also peppered with several of his smiley faces, a sunflower with hearts for leaves, and his equally silly response:

I'll always be cheering / On the rewired lines you're hearing / There's no problem you can't own / I'll be your number one

Flynn starts to flip through the pages, but Julie snatches them back. There's a good chance Flynn would land on his actual annotations, but there are also some conversations she'd never stop teasing Julie about, along with some she just…

Doesn't feel like sharing. Dream box material, scraps of secrets, sacred wishes.

Flynn beams. "I always knew there was something going on between you two!"

"Nothing official," Julie murmurs. "He's…"

"Sort of perfect for you?"

"In a band that's about to make it big!"

Flynn flaps her hand. "Long distance is a thing. I think you two could make it work. I mean, hello? Those lyrics alone?"

Julie sighs. She carefully tucks the notebook away in the back of her backpack, in the slim space for a laptop.

"I don't know, Flynn…"

Flynn grasps her hand. "Just come on!"

"I wasn't finished!" she yelps as Flynn drags her away, barely holding onto her backpack as they weave through the chaos, thankfully avoiding more jocks.

"Eh, you got everything important."

"But the janitors…"

The rest of her protest dies in her throat.

Reggie's laughing at something Willie drew on his little magnetic whiteboard, grinning like the absolute sunbeam he is, and Julie's heart starts to race. Especially…

Especially once his eyes land on her.

They get impossibly brighter, and his grin gets broader, and she might pass out.

"I better go check on Bobby," Willie says, which is entirely valid, but something about the way he says it and the look he exchanges with Flynn makes Julie squint.

Flynn adds, "And I'd better check on Carrie before she decides to throw away perfectly good sunglasses again," which, also valid, but—

"Oh, and Julie has to tell you something!"

If she didn't love Flynn, she'd be so dead.

Her and Willie both, honestly.

She giggles nervously as the two of them make their hasty retreat, only scooting closer to narrowly avoid an elbow to the face as another senior rips a folder in half.

Reggie just waits, looking at her with those bright, curious eyes, and she bites her lip.

Her gaze lands on his whiteboard, half taken up by Willie's drawing of a dog on a skateboard, and she moves without thinking, reaching for the marker.

Reggie makes a curious sound. "Wh—"

"No peeking!" she says through more nervous giggles, although they become a bit more genuine as he spreads his hands in an exaggerated show of surrender.

She scrawls a little sunflower, along with a handful of heartfelt words:

I want to be your number one, too. I love…

Which is when she runs out of room.

Huffing, she circles the you in your and draws a little arrow that leads back to it.

She steps away with shaking hands.

Reggie's breath hitches. "Julie—really?"

She nods, only to squeak as he scoops her into a fierce hug, hiding her flushed face in his chest. Her arms circle his waist.

It's nearly drowned out by a bunch of shouting, but he says, "I love you, too."

And she's always happy to see it in writing, texting him constantly during his first tour.

[justice4billy]

You're the worst- part seven

Warnings; smut and alpt of kissing, Christmas day theme

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Been working on this most of the day, had to keep taking breaks between socialising. Hope you enjoy!

Billy x fem reader/ enemies to lovers

"OH MY GOSH!" Mariah screeched making Camille awake with a start. She blinked at the alarm clock the bright red lights hurting her eyes, she better have a good excuse for screaming at six in the morning.

"CAM!" Mariah squealed as she burst into her bedroom door.

"What is it? Its six am" Camille groaned rubbing her eyes.

"All flights have been cancelled till the twenty-eigth" Mariah stated.

Camilles eyes bugged out of her head. "You're lying" she accused getting  out of bed and running into the living room, the news was playing on the TV. A big headline stating all flights to New York were cancelled. No, her flight was supposed to leave in five hours. "No, I'm checking the web" she cried out rushing to get Mariahs laptop.

"Already checked hun" Mariah stated handing her the open laptop.

Camille scanned the page and logged onto her emails, there were countless emails sent stating her flight was now rearranged to the twenty eight of December. "You planned this" she accused glowering at Mariah who looked at her with a smug grin.

"Aww, diddums guess your stuck with us for Christmas after all" she stated smugly turning on.her heel.." I'm going back to bed" she called.

"But I don't have anything to wear" Camille cried out, she had only packed enough for a few days.

"We'll go shopping and get you one" Mariah called out her voice getting more distant as she exited the living room.

Camille groaned. "On Christmas eve! It's going to be hell" she groaned.

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

The mall was hell. Just as Camille predicted, it was full.of people cramming in last minute shopping, she lost count of all the deprecate men she had seen scrambling to.get a last minute gift for their partners.

"There's not going to be anything left" Camille grumbled as they got off the escalator.

"Will.you quit moaning?" Mariah tusked as she took Camille dragging her to Macys, stopping dead in ber tracks and making Camille almost run into the back of her.

"Billy?" Mariah asked.

Camille felt her face grow hot, she was sure she looked like a tomato right now. Plus, she was wearing one of Mariahs sweaters that was too tight for her curvy frame. Not that her outfit was important.

The hulking male turned around, his brows furrowing a look of.frustration on his face.

"What are you doing here?" Mariah asked.

"Trying to look for a turkey" Billy replied bluntly.

"Why?" Mariah asked.

Billy huffed. "Because I've been working my ass off at the garage and forgot to get one" he admitted cooly.

"Oh my Gosh, you are kidding" Mariah stated dramatically.

"Apparently take out isn't an option according to my sister" he stated with a shrug, before his eyes fluttered over to Camille who was stood behind Mariah. "Thought you'd gone home" he stated.

"Flight got cancelled" Camille responded meekly.

Billy smirked. "Shame" he replied. Camille wasn't sure if there was a hidden message behind those words.

"Well, problem.solved you won't need a turkey now because you and your sister are coming to us tomorrow" Mariah stated making Camilles eyes widen.

"S'okay we can manage" Billy dismissed.

"Nonsense, you won't find a turkey now and we've got an extra guest now.anyways" she winked at Camille who gave her a murderous glare. "I insist, Danny wouldn't want his best friend to.starve" Mariah pushed.

Billy scratched the back of his head. "You sure?" He asked.

Mariah beamed. "Absoloutley, dinner is at two but come anytime before then" Mariah stared.

"Okay, umm thanks" Billy replied still sounding unsure.

"Must dash" Mariah called giving him one last wave and pulling Camille along with her.

"You're such a schemer" Camille hissed glancing over her shoulder, to see the back of Billy's ass walking away. Jesus, now she was having a hot flush.

Mariah quirked a smile. "Wow, do you want two people alone on Christmas day? With no turkey? That's heartless" Mariah gasped with a wink.

Camille groaned. "You know what I mean" she groaned.

"Nope, I dont" Mariah replied with a smirk. "Oh my gosh this is perfect for you!" Mariah cried changing the subject and dragging Camille into the store. But Camille didn't even see the outfit, her mind of a certain blonde that was probably going to fuck up her life.

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

Christmas day came too quickly, much to Camilles dismay. Her stomach felt like it was rolling around, nerves rippling through her at the anticipation of how the day was going to go.

"Are you sure this isn't a bit over the top?" Camille asked pulling at the red jumpsuit.

"Of course not" Mariah stated dismissively as she perched on the end of camilles bed. "Oh shit, it's like eleven I need to go and finish the prepping" she stated.

They had been up and early exchanging presents. Camille had paid to have Mariahs gifts shipped a week ago, thinking she wouldn't be here Christmas day. But fate had other plans. God, she could have saved on the postage she thought as she surveyed herself in the mirror. The jumpsuit hugged her in all the right places, a cheeky amount of skin on display as the suit gaped at the back.

She sighed making her way towards the kitchen. "Can I help?" She asked looking at a frantic Mariah.

"No, I don't want you ruining your outfit" she dismissed.

Camille rolled her eyes. "What is the obsession with this outfit?".she asked.

"We have a special guest and you need to look good" Mariah asked.

Camille quirked a brow. "You mean guests? As in plural" she stared.

"Yeah, that's what I said" Mariah dismissed.

Camie huffed knowing she wouldn't get through to her friend, before deciding to stick on the television, watching mindlessly to kill the time. The doorbell rang alerting her, as she sat up straight and wiped the crinkles out of jer outfit.

"Danny! The door" she heard Mariah yell.

Camille hesdd frantic footsteps thundering down the hall, her stomach gurgling as she tried to calm her breathing. What the hell was wrong with her? She thought.

"Mom! Dad!" Danny exclaimed.

Camille sighed, pushing down the small pang of disappointment that  fluttered in jer stomach.She heard the voices of Dannys parents before the living room door pushed open, two familiar faces popping through.

"Camille!" Rhona, Dannys mom exclaimed.

"Hi, its good to see you" Camille stating standing up and giving the older woman a hug.

"I swear you get more beautiful everutime I see you" Rhonda exclaimed. "Doesn't she Jeff?" Rhona asked nudint her husband.

Jeff beamed. "She does indeed" he agreed reaching to give her a hug.

"Wheres Mariah?" Rhona asked.

"The kitchen" Camille replied.

"OH, I best not disturb her" Rhona replied.

"That would be wise"Camille agreed. Mariah was like a bat out of hell when it came to cooking.

"Say, where is that handsome fella of yours?" Jeff asked.

Camille felt bile rise in her stomach, her mouth feeling like cotton wool. "We broke up" she murmured.

Rhona and Jeff's face changed, their faces morphing into sympathy. "Oh dear, we're so sorry" Rhona stated placing a hand on her arm.

"It's okay, turns out he wasn't the best guy" Camille.replied

"Rhona! Jeff!" Mariah exclaimed saving the awkward exchange as she bustled through the door.

The afternoon ticked on. Mariahs parents arrived around twelve-thirty, the adults falling into a comfortable conversation which Camille chewed nervously at her lip. Around quarter past one she decided to take a break from the mindless chatter, making her way to the kitchen where Mariah was finishing her prepping.

"I need a drink" Camille groaned trying to calm her nerves.

"Dont get to drunk, we still have guests coming!" Mariah chided.

Camille rolled her eyes downing her glass of prosecco. "He isn't coming" Camille stated trying not to sound bitter. Like she cared.

"Of course he is" Mariah stated.

"He probably found a turkey" Camille deadpanned pouring herself another glass.

Mariah opened her mouth, a retort on the tip of her tongue before being interupred by the doorbell ringing. Camille stopped trying not to drop her glass on the floor.

"You were saying?" Mariah inquired with a smirk on her face. "Go and get the door" she commanded.

"Can't Danny go?" Camille asked.

"No, he is with his parents now go!" She dismissed with a wave.

The doorbell rang again making Camille swallow down the bile in her throat. She took a deep breath as she walked towards the door, she could see the outline of Billy and a much shorter girl through the glass door pane. She huffed before reaching out for the door knob, her palms sweaty as she opened the door.

Her breath hitched as she took in the sight before her. Billy stood before her, in a blue button down shirt a button undone showing a slither of his tanned skin, his pendant resting against his sturdy chest. Her eyes fluttered away to the young red head beside him who was messing with the green dress she was in, clearly not a fan of the garment.

"Hi" Billy stated, a flirty undertone in his voice.

Camille blushed. "Hey" she squeaked trying to play it cool.

Billy smirked. "Sorry were kind of late, shit bird here didn't want to dress up" he stated nodding towards the girl beside him.

The red head scowled. "Quit calling me that idiot, I'm not thirteen" she spat back at him.

Billy chuckled. "This is my sister Maxine" he introduced.

"Its Max" the girl replied sassily.

"Maxine" Billy warned through gritted teeth.

"Hi, I'm max" the girl stared drinking her hand out.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Camille" Camille replied accepting the handshake. "You guys should come in" she stated opening the door and gesturing for them to come in.

Canille held her breath as Billy brushed past her, stopping short as his eyes romadd her outfit. "Nice outfit" he whispered sending her a wink before walking towards the living room.Camille let out a breath before shutting the door.

She decided to join the otjerd in the living room whilst Mariah came to greet Billy and Max.

"Oh, I swear this young man vets more handsome everytime I see him" Rhona cooed at Billy. "Doesn't he Jeff?" She asked elbowing her husband.

Jeff smiled. "That he does" Jeff agreed with his wife. "Say, son do you have a girl yet?" He asked.

Camilles ears perked slightly as she picked up a biscuits and nibbled away. Accidentally putting herself in the eyeline of him.

"Well, not currently but ya never know" Billy replied taking a sip of his drink, making eye contact with Camille who looked away flushing.

"How come? A handsome guy like you" Rhona gushed.

Billy shrugged. "Ain't found one worth settling down for, plus I've been working alot" he stated. "Things might change" he stated looking pointedly at Camille.

"Aww, let's hope so" Rhona stated missing the looks between the pair.

"Dinner!" Mariah called out. "Camille, would you grab that other bottle of prosecco out the kitchen?" Mariah asked.

Camille nodded making her way to the kitchen, furrowing her brow at the selection of drinks on the counter. "Which one" she murmured to herself.

"I think the one on the right is good" she heard a voice sound out behind her, making her still frozen in place.

Camille turned around to see Billy leaning in the open doorway, his eyes raking her body and a smirk tugging at his lips. "Thought you could use some help" he replied coyly moving into the room and shutting the door behind him.

"Well, if your an expert in champagne then I could use your help" Camille quipped proud of herself for stringing a sentence together.

Billy laughed. "No, but I did get you a present" he stated moving towards her, stopping a few inches away his tall frame towering over her.

Camille's face fell. "Oh shit" she swore. "I didn't get you anything" she stated biting her lip awkwardly.

Billy reached out, smoothing his finger over her lip and freeing it from between her teeth. "Actually it's more of a last minute thing, doesn't cost any money" he replied eyes raking over her face.

Camille furrowed a brow. "What is it?" She asked confused.

"Look up" Billy urged his eyes flitting to the ceiling.Camille looked up noticing the mistletoe that Danny had placed as an excuse to steal kisses from Mariah.

"You got me a kiss?" Camille guessed.

Billy nodded, his thumb reaching out to brush her cheek. "If you want it" he stated. Camille nodded, the words dying on her tongue as he moved closer, their noses brushing.

The door opening had them brushing apart from each other, Billy coming to stand beside her.

"Cam, come on everyone's waiting" Mariah asked brushing through the dior, stopping in her tracks giving her and Billy a suspicious look.

"She needed help with the champagne" Billy stated holding up a bottle.

"Perfect choice" Mariah complimented giving Camille a coy look. Great, she was going to be hounded later. "Come on, I need someone to carve the turkey and Danny has nimble fingers" Mariah stated pointedly looking at Billy.

Billy nodded. "To be continued" he muttered coyly to Camille before making his way past Mariah and out of the kitchen.

"Dont say a word" Camille warned giving Mariah a pointed look, the girl smiling at her. She made her way passed Mariah not giving the girl chance to interrogate her as she went into tjr living area, where a big table had been set up, conveniently she was sat across from Billy.

Dinner went by without a Hitch. Camille felt guilty as she couldn't eat much, not when Billy eyes kept finding hers every five seconds. He hardly turned away when in conversation with someone else, he was like a magnet attracting each other.

She needed to escape his intense blue eyes, volunteering to do the washing up as a form of escape. She signed to herself when she plonked the dirty dishes in the soapy suds.

"Mariah said you needed some help" Billy stated.

"OH, did she?" Camille asked rolling her eyes at her friend's blatant antics.

"Ouch, I can go if you want" Billy stated a teasting lilt in his voice.

"No!" Camille exclained all to quickly. "I mean that would be nice" she finished lamely berating herself. Nice. What kind of stupid word was that?

Billy smirked coming to stand infront of her. "Great" he stated with a smirk. "You know we never got to finish what we started" he stated reaching to brush a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

"Oh" camille replied dumbly, leaning into his touch slightly.

"Think we have time?" Billy asked.

Camille nodded. "Uh huh" she replied dumbly her breath hitching when his knuckles brushed her lip, his blue eyes boring into hers.

"BILLY!" a voice called as the door bustled open.

Camille.cleard her throat pushing at his chest as Billy groaned, turning around to face the intruder. "What Max?" He snapped.

The red head narrowed her eyes at his tone. "Wheres the bathroom?" She asked.

Billy grunted. " The fuck are you asking me for?" He swore with a scowl. Camille elbowed him. "I mean why didn't you ask anyone else?" He repeated in a more polite tone.

"I don't know anyone else" Max deadpanned.

"It's upstairs on the right" Camille answered.

Max quirked a smile. "Thanks".she beamed turning on her heel and heading off to her intended destination.

"Damn, we keep getting interrupted" BIlly groaned with a chuckle.

"We better do our duties before we get interrupted again" Camille smiled trying not to hide the dissapointmrnt in her voice.

Billy sighed. "Alright, fine" he stated not sounding to happy.

The pair worked in comfortable silence. Camille washing up and Billy drying meant the chores were done in record time. The pair joined the rest of the party guests, who were chattering animatedly amongst themselves and drinking far to much for their own good.

"I'll be right back, need to use the rest room" Camille stated to Mariah who gave her a small nod.

She used the restroom and was just washing her hands, when a small knock sounded on the door. Curiously, Camille unlocked the door and swung it open, her brow furrowong when Billy stood on the other side.

"Oh, do you need the restroom? It's free" she stated opening the door wider and gesturing to the room behind her.

"As a matter of fact I do" he stated his hands landing on her hips, walking her back into the empty room and kicking the door shut with his foot, locking it for good measure.

"What are you doing?" Camille asked breathless as his hands landed on her hip, grazing the top of her bottom.

"What I've been trying to do all day, ain't risking anyone interrupting us" he stated lifting her up and planting her on the counter, before coming to stand between her open legs.

"Someone might need the bathroom" she proposed with a smirk, looping her hands around his neck.

"Then they can piss themselves" he stated cruedly landing a soft kiss on her exposed neck.

Camille groaned her head titling backwards, exposing more of her vulnerable skin to his sinful lips. "Billy" she murmured.

"Been thinking about that night, haven't slept right since" he confessed.

Camie blinked in shock. "Really? She stuttered as his lips assaulted her neck.

Billy moved away, taking her chin in his hand. "Dont tell me you haven't" he stated.

Camille bit her lip. "Yesh, I have" she confessed. She too hadn't slept since.

Billy chucked before connecting his lips to hers, the familiar fire roared in Camille's belly as she locked her legs around his thighs whilst threading her fingers through his locks. Tongued meeting each others in a passionate kiss.

A knock on the door interrupted them, the pair tearing apart panting and breathless.

"Fuck sake" Billy swore under his breath

"Camille, are you okay dear?" Rhona called out.

"Shit, hide!" Camille whispered shoving Billy toward the closed shower curtain.

"Bloody hell" Billy swore as he clambered clumsily into the tub.

"Are you okay? What's that noise?" Rhona called.

"Nothing! I'm looking got some spray" Camille stated spraying some fragrance before opening the door.

"OH, thank goodness I need to use the restroom" rhona stated.

Canille panicked looking over her shoulder. "No!" She exclaimed meeting the shocked face of Rhona. "I mean, I would give it five I had an upset stomach" she stated embarrassment flowing through her. Jesus how was she meant to look at Rhoma again.

She heard Billy let out a scoff, coughing to cover up the noise.

"OH dear, I think Mariahs dinner does that to you" RHona stated. "I'll take your advice" she stated before going down the stairs.

Camille arched her disappear before opening tur shower curtain. "Dont say a word" she warned looking at the grinning face of Billy.

"Keeping these lips sealed" he finished with a wink before clambering out. "Was close" he muttered giving her a surpirsing peck on the lips.

"We better go" Camille suggested. "I'll go first" she bargained giving gim a pat on the shoulder, before turning on her heel and walking back downstairs. Billy followed about ten minutes after, Mariah giving the pair a knowing look discreet to the rest of the party.

Soon enough ten pm rolled around, most of the adults were asleep on their chairs. Mariah and Danny were watching Die hard on the sofa, Mariah sniffling a yawn whilst Maxs eyes started to droop.

"Eugh, I'm beat" Mariah grumbled.

Danny landed a kiss on her shoulder. "Not surprised babe, you've been awake since six" he stated.

Billy cleared his throat, the pin wheel from the cracker that he had been messing with long forgotten. "I think we should head off" he declared nudging Max who opened her eyes with a start.

Camille gave him a soft smile when their eyes connected.

Mariah nodded following with a yawn, before her eyed widened. "Oh shoot" she stated sitting up and facing Camille witu a sheepish look. "We kinda gave your room to.my parents" she stated.

"Oh" Camille replied panic settling in her stomach.

"I'm sorry hon, we didn't think you would be here when you agreed to stay, so we agreed to give your room to my parents and Dannys are sleeping on the pull out" she admitted.."but I can book them a hotel" she rushed.

"No way! They shouldn't give up their plans just because mine were ruined, I can just sleep on the floor. I'd get try and get a hotel but I bet they are fully booked" Camille stated. "Plus, I kinda spent my money on the plane ticket" she admitted.

"I got a spare bed" Billy piped up. Camille noted his hesitancy, noting how Max had gave him a not so discreet elbow to his ribs.

"OH, no it'd okay I couldn't intrude" Camille dismissed, her cheeks blushing at thought of what happened last time she was in his bed.

"S'okay, you can't sleep on a floor" he stared witj a shrug. "You can have my room.and ill have the couch" he bargained.

Camille chewed her lip, thinking over her options. Risk a repeat of last time or risk a bad back from.sleepint on a floor, either option wasn't the best and she couldn't brig  herself to toss Mariahs middle age parents out of their own daughters house.

"But what about your back?" She asked.

Billy grinned. "My backs pretty sturdy" he stated, a hidden meaning in his words making Camille flush.

"I mean, if your sure" Camille replied hesitantly looking st her nails.

"Positive" Billy quipped. "Max has my other room or else I'd offer you that" he stared.

"I feel so awful now hun" Mariah chimed in.

"Honestly don't, I jnserstand i mean I was supposed to be gone by Christmas Eve and I don't want your parents giving up their comfort" she stated. "I'll be fine" camille reassured her noting thr guilty look on mariajs face.

"Just call if you need anything, we can come get you in the morning" she stated.

"I gotta take Max back so don't mind dropping Camille off" Billy shrugged.

"I couldn't ask you to do that".Camille stated feeling like a burden, just like her mother always said she was. She shook thst memory away, she didn't want to think about it and end up crying.

"It's fine honestly" Billy stated, his eyes piercing hers with a reassuring look as if he noted her change in mood.

"Okay, just give me five and I'll get some stuff" she rushed noting Billy giving her a nod before sje went up thr stairs. She grabbed her holdall putting in some bed shorts and tank top witu some clothes for tomorrow, face wash make up and her toothbrush. She did not want to risk having morning breath. She zipped up the bag before padding down the stairs.

Mariaj was waiting at the end of the stairs, a guilty look on her face. "I feel like the worst friend ever" sje confessed reaching out to hug her.

"I'll be fine, its not like your sending me off to war" Camille snorted.

"You ready?" She heard Billy call noting him standing by the door.

Camille nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow" she smiled at Mariah who gave her a nod. She gave Danny a quick hug. "Tell your parents I said bye, I don't want to wake them" she stated to the pair.

Billy made his way to Danny, doing a weird handshake thar Camille couldn't understand before saying his thanks and goodbyes to both Danny and Mariah. They exited the house and into tjr famialr Camaro that was parked by the curb. This was going to be an interesting night.

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

Camille felt her eyes droop slightly as the low rumble of the Camaro was brought to life  the car travelling at a relatively slower speed than usual. Max had feel asleep, ber mouth hanging open and soft snores exiting from her as soon as she got in the car.

Bully turned down the radio, looking over at her tired form. The pair falling into a comfortable silence during the short trip back to hid apartment. CAmille felt like she had only just closed her eyes, before she felt the car jerk to a stop causing her to snap them open.

"Were here" Billy stated putting the car in park and craning his head to the back seat. "Wake up shitbird" he grunted reaching over to give Max a nudge.

Max awoke with a start. "Ugh, where am I?" She grumbled tiredly wiping her eyes.

"At my apartment, wipe the drool off your chin it's disgusting" BIlly reprimanded her.

Max graced him with a middle finger making Camille stifle her giggle. "Like you don't drool" she muttered.

Billy grinned. "Dont know, why dont you ask Camille?" He quirked with a smirk.

Camille gauped.."Billy!" She screeched.

Max wrinkled her nose. "Not you too, please don't say you slept with my idiotic brother" she groaned.

Camille gave her a sheepish look, biting her lip as she met Maxs eyes.

Max groaned. "I better not here any gross noises tonight" she stated giving Billy's seat a kick.

"You won't!" Camille rushed out, a pink dust settling on her cheeks.

"How can you be so sure?" Billy grinned, clearly loving riling her up.

Camille glowered. "Because I meant what I said" she stated as Billy rolled his eyes muttering a small.sure under his breath, before getting out of the drivers side and letting Max out.

Camille followed suit shutting the door with a soft click, Billy shut his and locked the car. The trio entering the dimly lit apartment.

"I'm going to bed, night both" Max stated stifling a yawn.

"Night" they replied in unison watching as the red head made her way to her room, situated on the left side of the apartment.

"Am I okay to use the bathroom?" Camille asked.

"Sure, I'll put your bag in my room" Billy replied plucking the bag from her fingers.

Camille nodded in thanks, being super to take her toothbrush and wipes out before heading to the bathroom. She stripped her make up off not wanting spots to form on her clear skin, before making work of brushing her teeth. She needed her comfy pyjamas on and then she was ready for bed, she thougjt before switching off rhe light in tje bathroom and opening the door.

She stopped in her tracks noting Billy's muscular bare back in her eyeline, he was setting up an arrangement of pillows and blankets on the living room couch. A pair of tight grey sweatpants hanging lowly on his hips, she could almost picture the V line dip thst led to his forbidden area. Her mouth watering as she pictured what was underneath.

"Oh, hi" Billy grinned turning to face her.

Camille willed herself to move. "Hi" she replied coming to stand intrornt on him. "Setting up camp?" She asked her eyes fixed to his face, trying not to let them wonder.

"Something like that" he stated placing a blanket down.

"I can sleep on the sofa" Camille offered.

Billy shook his head, a grin worming irs way onto his face.."Wouldn't want to put your back out" he finished with a wink.

Camille blushed, her eyes widening at his insinuation. "Well thanks for letting me stay, I think I'm going to head to bed it's been a long day" she stared.

Bully nodded. "Night" he muttered.

"Night" Camille replied, before shuffling past him and into the safety of his bedroom, shutting tje door and leaning against it. "No more dirty thoughts" she muttered chastising herself before slinking away from tje wood and peeling the comforter back. She got into the comfortable bed, her senses on overload as sje basked in the scent of Billy her eyes drooping as she turned out the light.

The clock in the quiet room ticked by. Camille jsd been tossing and turning for the last hour, but no matter what position sje lay in sje couldn't het comfy. She had gone out like a light at ten thirty, but then she had a heat filled dream which left her to wake up with a damp patch in her knickers. Now she felt sexually frustrated and wide awake.

She turned to look at the alarm clock on the chest of draws, groaning to herself as she saw the digits of one and two zeros looking back at her. One in the freaking morning, what a drag she thought before deciding to get a drink. Maybe thar could calm her nerves she thought before throwing the comforter back and getting out of bed.

She opened the door, holding back a shocked gasp when Billy stood on the other side.

"Shit" she hissed her hand flying to jer chest. "You scared me" she gasped.

"Sorry, couldn't sleep" Billy shrugged. "What aboit you?" He asked.

"Same" Camille replied. "Thought a hot drink may help, how come your awake?" She asked curiously.

"I'm horny" he replied playfully, a glint in his eye.

Camille nearly chocked in her own spit. "What?" She asked.

"Im horny" Billy repeated, putting his hands on her hip. "And I guess from the way you were looking at me earlier  that you are too" he whispered his breath hitting the shell of her ear.

"I-" she started letting out a small gasp when his hands moved to the curve of her ass, pulling her against him. Her breasts pushed against his bare chest, a thin amount of cotton keeping them from meeting.

"Are you?" He goaded.

Canille nodded. "Yes" she stated.

Billy sigjed, clicking his tongue. "Shame, we can't do anything about it" he stated.

"Why?" Camille asked playing into his games.

Billy tusked. "Max might hear us, plus I'll fall asleep after and max will be up at Six if she catches me not on the sofa I won't here the end of it" he replied replied a shrug.

Camille looked up at him from under her lashes, reaching up.to play the the pendant resting on his broad chest. "How about I keep quiet?" She bargained.

Billy locked his lips. "You could, but that doesn't fix tomorrow's issue" he stated.

"Set an alarm, be up before she does" Camille suggested, a low moaneavung her lips when she felt his erection brush against her bare leg.

Billy reached down to squeeze her ass. "Thats a delicious sound, baby" he rumbmed surppressing his own groan. "You suggesting we be bad?" He asked.

Canille nodded. "Maybe" she replied biting her lip.

Billy reached his hands under her sleep shorts, squeezing her bare ass cheeks before landing a light slap on the, causing her to gasp. "I always liked being bad" he whispered before crashed his lips into hers. He picked her up, wrapping her legs around him before walking her through the open bedroom door and shutting it with his foot.

He set her down on thr chest of draws. "Cant do it on the bed it squeaks" he muttered peppering kisses into her exposed neck, before pausing yo take her tank top off. Pausing to stared at her clothes breasts. "Fuck me, we really gotta keep quiet" he stated staring at her tits before unhooking her bra, licking his lips when her breasts spilled out.

Camille held back a groan as his tongue found her nipples, suckling in the erect buds like a man starved. "Oh shi-"she started to groan but was muffled by his hand covering her mouth.

"Were gonna find it hard if you make noise, sweetheart" Billy stated. "You gonna be my good girl and keep quiet for me?" He asked.

Camille felt the wetness pool between her legs at the name. "Yes" she whispered when he moved his hand from her mouth.

Billy tapled her instructed her to loft her ass up, she obliged willingly as he took of jer shorte and wormed her knickers down her legs. Camille reached forward to dip her hands under his sweatpants, arousal at the fact he was naked underneath them as she grabbed onto his erect penis.

"Fuck, baby" Billy whispered lowly throwing his head back as she fisted his cock in jer warm hand, sliding it up and down his shaft. "Carry on and I'm gonna combust" BIlly grunted grabbing jer hand and moving ot away, he shimmed off his sweatpants his cock springing against his abs making Camilles mouth water at the sight of it. He reached to open jer legs, loxkonf his lips at her arousal. "My turn" he smirked before dipping his head towards her core.

"OH, fuck" Camille swore lowly as his tongue worked around her bud, her hands fitting in his blonde curls and hips bucking. "Shit, Billy" she groaned lowly feeling her coil about to snap.

Billy pulled away eating her to whine at rhe loss of her oegasm, he grabbed onto her hips with one hand whilst lining up his cock at her wet entrance. "Ready?" He asked.

"Fuck yes" CAmille panted biting jer head to keep her from moaning loudly, when he entered her.

Billy pressed his head into her shoulder, muffling the sound of his moans as he bottomed out. He began to move at a slow and agonising pace making Camille annoyed snd impatient.

"Faster please" she commanded.

"This is gonna hit off the fucking wall" he stated trying to increase his speed. "Gotta be careful angel" he stated.

Camille hit his shoulder. "Hold on, just remove yourself" she commanded.

Bully furrowed his brow. "What?" He asked.

"Remove yourself" she commanded hitting his shoulder again. Billy grunted before obliging as Camille got off rhe dressed, turning around so her elbows were leaning on it and her bare ass was facing him.

"Oh, you kinky girl" BIlly crooned slapping ner ass causing her to jolt forward, before softly entering her again. He gripped jer hips and bucked himself into her, causing her stiffle a moan into her arms. "You like that?" He grunted.

"Yes" CAmille whispered trying to surppress her moan.

"You gotta be quiet" BIlly stated reach to cover her mouth as he rutted his hips into her at a forceful speed.

"I'm close" Camille cried muffled by his Jane.

"Same" Billy grunted bucking his hips again.. "ahh fuck" he whispered as he spilt white hot cum.inside of her, at the same time Camille came.

Billy slowly removed himself leaving Camille to whine at the loss of him, he reached dout to give her breast a squeeze as she straightened herself up and turned to face him.

"I'll set that alsrm" he stated giving her a coy grin.

Camille grinned as she climbed back into bed, sleep hitting her quickly as she felt a pair of arms around her and some lips on her head. She was blissed and fucked out.

[summaryi]

When the Moon Hatched - Sarah A. Parker

reluctant 2/5

ok i havent finished yet but

the world is interesting so far

not enough known about characters

-------

but the one thing that might push this into DNF territory for me DESPITE THE INTERESTING WORLD

is the fucking fantasy spelling of known and existing concepts

like fucking dae and day

if you make up a creature person place concept whatever

yeah have it your way

use the beautiful spellings of faerie instead of fairy

but fucking

having to read dae which means day when the word day already exists and dae just means day

not my cup of tea

but i press on

wanna know about these moons

and the POV switches are in such tiny font compared to the rest of the text i was flipping back and forth to find it

and something just happened but im like?? i didnt have the time to get invested

so this doesnt mean anything to me

---

ive kept reading and im really torn???? some parts are breathtakingly sweet and soft, like a nostalgic memory

and some parts are

so

disjointed

huh??

i feel like a third of it is lovingly crafted

and tbe other two thirds are just slapped together to fill pages

its a weird fucking experience

-----

im fucking incensed what the hell

one of the chapters ripped my heart out and tore it into shreds

and three chapters later there are so many fucking unnecessary made up fantasy words just crammed together holy hell

was this written by two different people

and if youre going to use your own made up words

give us some fucking explanation or show and tell

if i dont know whats going on because none of the words make sense how can i fucking read jesus christ

what the hell is going on in this book

im actually pissed because the quality of the writing is so inconsistent

----

ok i finished it

am i fucking stupid? is it the kindle editions? or do all these books keep fucking putting pronunciation guides and glossaries at the back with zero indication they're there, not even a * or page at the front

maybe its a me problem but holy fuck

put the map at the back and the definitions and pronunciation at tne FRONT

AND THE FUCKING TRIGGER WARNINGS TOO WHY ARE THEY the last possible item

is it me??? am i the problem???

but like, ok, have the separate pronunciation guide and the glossary or definitions at the end

i still want some kind of BRIEF in-story explanation

people DO this to GREAT effect

it's fucking practical

and it does NOT break the stupid "show, dont tell" rule to have a character just do a quick "oh, MC is new/amnesiac/willfully ignorant, here's a 2 sentence primer"

anyways

overall, hate this book

it is NOT for me

i can sort of see why its paced and split the way it is? but also i cant

it feels very.......... it just feels like only a tiny sliver of the entire book is well polished

and the rest of it is slag, just tossed in

like????

the parts that i enjoy were enough to get me to finish the book but holy shit im pissed off

it could be so good!!!! but it's not!!!! overall the idea and the plot and all the strings are very good!!! but its so badly woven!!!!!!! except for a few shining hero moments

but what the fuck!!! it should all be equally good!!!!!!!!!!!

am i just a hater??? idk everyones fucking sucking this books dick and like

its like

a delicious meal that got dropped in a puddle full of shit

like there are pieces i liked! they were good! i see the potential! but fucking christ it was not a michelin experience and those tasty bites were not worth the rest of this meal??????? aaaaakrslhbgliugraiaubefigawrlharfk

[spaceorphan18]

The Letters

A/N :: This is just a reworking of something I put up originally as a multi-chapter, and decided they'd work better as one-shots. So, the series is now called Bits and Pieces; and it's a collection of canon-compliant one-shots. This is the first one.

This is set pre-3x01, and is about Penelope deciding what to do with all the letters Colin has sent her.

Read it on Ao3 if you like

****

A stack of letters waits for Penelope on her nightstand.  She knows what they are, and yet moves around her room, attempting not to look at them. 

The summer had been… as good as one could expect given the abysmal end to the previous season.  Her sisters’ weddings had been dizzying affairs but at least they left Penelope in relative peace.  Left to sit in the corner to read.  To write.  To think.  And think and think and think … 

Oh how she had wanted to get out of her own head.  

Returning to Mayfair hasn’t been the worst experience.  Plenty of new faces showing themselves this season.  Plenty of new, lovely ladies -- many of whom she sees shades of herself in, making their debut.  Plenty of things for Lady Whistledown to write about.  

She isn’t able to make herself feel better but at least through her writing she could do better for others.  She is trying to atone for her past mistakes.  She is of the mind that even if she can’t do anything about herself, she can at least attempt ease for others.  She is not completely powerless.  

The stack of letters still waits.  

She tells Rae she doesn’t need help to unpack.  All of her books are carefully returned to their home on the shelves.  All of her hideous dresses crammed back into the wardrobe.  All of her secrets buried safely underneath the floorboards.  She has a lot to do now that she’s back.  

Yet the distraction on the nightstand is becoming unavoidable.  

She sits on the edge of the bed, and picks up the first one from the pile.  It’s thick and heavy in her hand.  She knows from experience that it’s not a single sheet of paper, but pages and pages of writing, front and back.  He used to write her everything.  Apparently he still does.  It makes her stomach turn.  

The postmark is from Dublin and dated a week and a half earlier. 

Oh god… is he close to home? Her heart involuntarily flutters at the thought.

Of course he’s close to home -- the season is starting.  Francesca is making her debut this year.  He would want to be there for that, wouldn’t he? 

She stares at the letter and contemplates.

She had spent so long over the past few months trying to forget the gentleness of his face, the soothing sound of his voice, the protective grasp of his hand.  So long did she try to untwist the deeply rooted thorns of love so painfully ground into her heart.  

She looks at the stack of letters and wonders why every time she takes a step forward there’s always something to pull her back.  

She begins to flip through the envelopes, noting the vast array of postmarks on them and wonders even more -- did he miss her?

Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Bordeaux… 

Her mind races back to that evening, back to that gut wrenching night.  The kindness she thought she saw in his eyes.  

I will always look after you. 

…Paris, Lyon, Zurich, Munich… 

The flippancy of his voice, how it tore through her heart like a knife.  

I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington

…Milan, Rome, Venice, Vienna… 

How could such sacred words to her be so hollow to him? 

You are special to me.  

…Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels…

How was it she could be deluding herself for so long? 

Not in your wildest fantasies

…Athens.  Athens?? 

It’s the last envelope in the stack, and the only one that gives her pause.  There’s no way… she tears open the letter, not helping herself, and notes the date from a year and a half prior.  It must have gotten lost or delayed.  

She unfolds the letter and a few dried, dark red flower petals fall out.  

Penelope, 

I spent the day wandering the beautiful gardens of our host and came across an array of poppies that reminded me of you.  Of the splendid color of your hair.  As much as I’m enjoying my tour, I suppose I’m missing home just a little bit.  And looking forward to the day when I can describe such beauty to you in person. 

Or maybe, I wish you were here to see these flowers in their natural glory.  

The best I can do is send a little piece of Greece to you.  

Colin 

She casts the letter onto her bed with a frustrated cry.  

Why? 

Why is there always something that makes her love him just a little bit more? 

She hops off the bed, collecting all of the letters, including the one she opened, and gathers them in her arms.  In a moment of anger, she rushes to the fireplace with the intention of throwing all of them in.  But she stops, mesmerized by the flames.  .  

Her brain is screaming at her to throw them all in and be done with it.  Nothing good will come of keeping those letters.  

Her heart won’t let her; keeps her frozen in place.  His letters are a piece of himself that he’s giving to her.  And she can’t so easily cast that aside.  

Resigned to her own predictability, she heads to her desk, and opens the bottom drawer, placing them gently against all the rest of the letters she’s received from him over the years.  She still won’t read them.  Won’t allow herself to read them. 

The poppy petals she has kept out, and puts them in a small jar on her desk with other small trinkets that she has kept over the years, smiling at them fondly as she does so.  

She has to try to move on somehow, someday.  

But today is not that day…  

It’s only later that she realizes there have been no letters from Eloise.  Her heart aches just a little bit more.  

[redfoxdiary]

How to art with Adhd

This is something i've realized is difficult. Any job is difficult with Adhd. Staying on task is hard enough, task switching, and prioritizing is also difficult. There is so much to do, and so much that can be done. There is always something to do and Adhd brains put it in the all important or none...or wrong priority order entirely. Doing things daily is something that I found I can do for a few months at a time for a certain duration before it slips...and usually stays gone.

Im trying to get back into doing art and potentially making my own business out of it, which requires much self discipline...something that is tricky. What im going to try to do is create a backlog. Make lists of things that I want to get done, but give really general or long timespans to achieve these things. E.g monthly or even yearly. Not sure if this will work, but trying something is better than trying nothing. At least for me.

Remember ADHD has weaknesses for sure, but...it also has strengths, remember that time when you had to cram for school, a test, an exam...you got distracted an left it until the last minute, then by some miracle you passed or even did well? That time when you blitz cleaned your house because you were guilty and your parents were coming to visit the next day? Yeah, those moments. Some people, neurotypicals even...might spend months of daily self-disciplined study and still not achieve those things. They might cram and forget to do the one thing that was most important to get done. Believe and trust in your own intelligence. We have lived our lives falling, and learning to catch ourself, to keep up with the rest of the neurotypicals around us. We've learned how to catch up usually very quickly and in as little time as possible if we fall behind. Out of necessity. We had very good deductive reasoning and learn very quickly. E.g you got called on by the teacher/boss to answer a question at work/school. You have literally a few seconds to figure out what is going on because you weren't paying attention, you see what page other people are on in their books, or you look at the board to get context clues, you remember the last topic you were all talking about and go from there. If you still can't find the right answer or question, you might probe a little more, reach out for the extra context clues you're missing give a thoughtful "Hmmmm" even an "im not sure" or "I was just wondering/thinking about that" and depending on the reaction you might be able to then deduce where everyone is at. You can then catch yourself up to speed. You not only just learned the information you missed out on while you were distracted or zoning out, but also ways, tools and tricks on how to catch yourself, and catch up in future...the more tools you learn, the faster you become at using them. Even the "weaknesses" can become strengths depending on how you look at it. I might hyperfocus on research about one particular aspect of art, or get distracted and watch videos on art which then turns into videos on gaming or cooking...again though...is that really a loss? One day I might want to draw food, and i'll use that information as reference, or maybe I might want to do pixel art and 3D graphics and watching youtubers playing a game will show me what they most enjoy, and how they navigate a space, what they're drawn to explore, where there eyes are attracted to, what evokes emotions from them about what they're seeing. For me, I treat everything as a learning experience, and no knowledge is useless knowledge. Just because I am not using it right now, doesn't mean that I will never need it. There's absolutely no way I could possibly ever know that its useless and i'll never need or want to use it :)

[satoshi-mochida]

Some thoughts on my last Gamefly rental, Carto(Switch version).

Carto is a girl living with her grandmother on an airship. Her grandmother is a cartographer with a map that can rearrange the terrain around the user. One day, Carto decides to play with the map, moving a thunder cloud close to the airship, causing it to be caught in a storm, with Carto and the map being blown out, and the pages being scattered. 

After Carto wakes up, she travels to gather the pages and try to meet back up with her grandmother, meeting many people and seeing/exploring the land.

Carto’s main gameplay consists of finding map pages and using them to see more of the current area’s story, solve puzzles, and navigate areas. Most of this takes place outside, but a few are in caves and house interiors. Pieces can’t just be stuck together willy nilly, though, the terrain has to match where it’s being connected to, making you need to think about more about how to arrange the tiles. 

The controls for arranging map tiles are simple:

L and R to rotate, and A to select or place a tile.

A nice little detail that I noticed is that when pieces are connected, the land always looks ‘natural’ when you see them outside of the map, and not just like they’re pieces crammed together.

I really like the game’s art style. It’s nice and charming, and fits well with the rest of the game, and the character designs fit in well with it, too. The game itself is very laid back, wholesome and funny at times.

Some of the puzzles were a bit too much for my puny brain, so I had to use a guide at times. ^^; The game does usually give you enough clues to figure out most puzzles yourself, though.

There are also 6 Secret Pieces to find throughout the game. Finding them all unlocks the Airship to look around in from the main menu after finishing the game. In here, you can look at concept art and a Thank You message from the developers. Here’s how to find them all.

Also available after clearing the game is a Chapter Select. Starting a new game from an empty save slot lets you pick where you want to jump to. This makes it easier to get the Secret Pieces, and those are saved to System Data once found.

Carto’s not incredibly long, 10 Chapters, but I think is well worth it. Might get it the next time it goes on sale.

Next game being sent is: No Straight Roads.