#finally did something with real colors i love this color combo

[ambivartence]

FIX ON

[coffeelovesdramasalatte]

LITA Ep. 5 Rewatch Thoughts Part 1

(edit bc I started writing this post like 6 months ago - hi! I'm gonna finish going through the rest of the phayurain episodes of LITA finally! I've lost all sense of shame so these posts are just gonna be love letters to Eul, hope that's ok) Hi hi hi! I find it absolutely hilarious that the notes on the final part of my episode 4 rewatch post (which contains my best screenshots of That Scene) has like triple the notes of the rest of the parts. I love the thirsty LITA fam <3 I think I kept it mostly clean for the first 3 episodes but LITA brainrot is real and from here on out I'm putting down all my deranged thoughts into words so enjoy

Onwards to episode 5!! Ok so y'all should know by this point that BossNoeul sang the opening right? I added it on spotify and have listened to it on repeat so much over the last week that I could probs (badly, bc my singing voice leaves much to be desired but I can and will belt it at the top of my lungs) karaoke it now. If y'all haven't heard the full version check it out bc they rap a few bars and Noeul has this line "shake your bo- shake your bo- shake your body" that makes me lose it every time

The recap sees us revisiting some rather adorable moments from the previous episode including PhayuRain in the rain and tub. Imagine if they stuck the leg kiss in the recap >.<

We open to sunlight pouring in through the curtained windows on the morning after. I kind of wish the last episode had ended with this scene bc it would have been a soft transition after the intimacy PhayuRain shared rather than the abrupt cut to credits. But I digress.

Phayu's hair looks glorious out and I wish we'd gotten to see it like this more. In fact I think we should've seen Rain push his hands through it and grip it during episode 6's NC scene. Also the definition of that bicep? Sir pls.

I ADORE how sweet Phayu is towards Rain all the time, and this is yet another example. I love it when characters look fondly at their lover (I finally get to use that word for them!!), cover them with a blanket, and then give them a forehead kiss before sliding out of bed. SO FOND

I just think it's really attractive when people do this. Rain was really missing out by snoozing.

The state of Rain's neck and chest sends me into hysterical giggles every time. Phayu you did not have to go that hard with the marking bestie (let's be honest though, looking at the state of Phayu's neck post episode 6 they both have marking kinks) - everyone's gonna know Rain's officially yours soon enough. Also throwback to how like two months ago (or something like that idk the exact timeline) Rain was like hmph I never want anything to do with P' Phayu ever again. I didn't hear any complaining from you last night hmm??? Also I love how confident Rain was in his abilities to seduce Phayu, so true of him

I'm DECEASED

OK WAIT I think I finally get the whole yellow-blue thing. It literally is just that yellow is Rain's representative color and Phayu's is navy blue. So by making Rain put on Phayu's navy blue shirt for the "morning after" they're just reiterating that Rain belongs to Phayu now. Mystery solved :)

Obligatory shot bc he's worked hard for these gains and I think he deserves some appreciation ft. Rain who's making the same face as all of us. I think they spent like 30 whole seconds on Phayu's shoulders and that's so valid of them

Sir, do you have a good reason for striding in here shirtless and sweaty to wake your new bf up? Methinks someone was hoping for round 2

Ok, and we're back to Rain in a yellow t-shirt looking very feverish. He's holding his teal green phone (case) up though which is a combo of yellow and blue, isn't it? I'm sorry my color theory is lacking. His eyebrows look really nice here and I don't know why I noticed. I hope he has a good nap! But oops he misses calls from Phayu...

This episode's title is "the Calm Before the Storm" which implies it's gonna be a mostly tooth-rotting fluff episode and that drama is on the way next week. I'm already smiling so wide my cheeks hurt so the title is apt.

Phayu (dressed in navy blue!) is here to make sure his precious Rain is ok and Mama is already planning the wedding in her head.

The first three or four times I watched this, I was paying too much attention to their faces and probably missed a lot so let's break it down a bit. Phayu comes in, Rain's surprised and sits up, and Phayu sits down next to Rain on the bed but facing away. Phayu is slightly upset that Rain went away without saying anything and he was worried that since Rain was sick that him driving home alone was dangerous. The second Phayu sits down this way, Rain reaches out to grab his arm but Phayu pulls away. Compared to couples in other dramas, PhayuRain depend on touch a lot to communicate so obv the situation is quite serious plus Phayu is not immediately making eye contact with Rain.

The next couple of shots are just back and forth where Phayu asks why Rain left and Rain tells him what happened and apologies for worrying him. He looks v v soft and fluffy here

Gonna take a second to appreciate the background music bc it sounds so serious and doom-y right now but they're literally about to clear it all up so it was unnecessary to go that hard. Sound artist I love you

Throughout this conversation, Phayu starts far away (which for PhayuRain means there's like 1.5 meters of distance between their faces instead of 0.15 meters) but he moves closer and tilts his body more in Rain's direction as Rain gives each justification. He also lets Rain grab his arm. It's very subtle but I like the acting choices here.

Phayu, Rain is sick. Can you pls stop staring at his lips bff give him some rest (spoiler alert I counted like 5 lip-looks in the next 10 seconds, Phayu didn't hear me)

OK this hug. Exquisite. The gap has been bridged, all parties are happy again, and they both absolutely sink into each other.

Boss' little shoulder rub here is so soft and gives us more PhayuRain believability. We can see how worried he was and how relieved he is now that Rain is safely in his arms again.

Rain's cheek-smushed nod agreeing to never disappear from Phayu's side ever again is everything to me.

I don't actually think this was what I was supposed to get out of this but there's something about the symmetry of this hug and them being in the shape of a triangle and how technically their first encounter as a couple involved Phayu's triangle tool etc. etc. etc. Also headpat alert!

More subtle and soft gestures from Phayu. Rain is down bad.

HANDS!!!

We really heard the MWAH here and I want to forehead kiss whoever placed the mics

Everyone needs to observe Rain's expression right after Phayu asks this question bc it's very sus

(I couldn't get it in motion but Rain straightens up a bit and raises his eyebrows. Someone thinks they're about to get spanked like before)

Except this is not that kind of punishment and I can't believe Phayu really brought along a rectal suppository. To his credit though, I believe they're supposed to be more immediately effective than oral medicines because they absorb more directly into the body so he just wants Rain to be healthy faster. Although I wish Phayu would've not proceeded to yank Rain's pants off without permission, it's fiction and I hope if Rain had shown signs of major discomfort he would've listened. I do have to wonder if Mama put on headphones though bc Rain was really loud with his protests. I also think this must've been funny to film bc if you look closely before it cuts to Rain's mom, Rain looks like he's holding back laughter.

Uh-oh, Mama it's better if you walk away now

This sequence was actually so adorable and funny. I love purrito!Rain and Phayu is looking way too smug. Mama Rain walked out of there trying to name all the yellow and blue flowers she could for the wedding centerpieces.

omfg Phayu calling Rain's mom "Mama" is so friggin cute and I love how smoothly he just slid into son-in-law position

Rain's like excuse me I'm sick I should NOT be slandered right now

To part 2 with all the cute shots!!

[dootmoon]

Some thoughts on Ex Astris

Okay so the TL;DR is: Go play it if you're someone who is mainly motivated by gameplay, it's one of the most enjoyable games i've played in like 10 years (im not kidding). the story is not bad, but it's very poorly told and leaves a lot to be desired. I should also warn that i'll probably spoil a couple of things, mainly on the gameplay side (because yes, I do believe some encounters are better if you dont know the gimmick).

Where do I even start, I only watched like 2 trailers before playting, i had 0 idea of what i was getting into, all i really knew about the game was that it was a full game release by the AK guys and that it was a turn based rpg. I legitimately bought it out of morbid curiosity, I was not expecting to find my favorite jrpg in a literal decade.

I'll go over what I liked the most and then explain the couple of issues I have with the game, it might sound like i loved it (which i did) but it's far from perfect and i think there's room for improvement. I think the combat is the real deal in this title, for those unfamiliar with it: it's a classic turn based jrpg but it has layers. The main 3 mechanics that make it stand out from other games is that each turn you have AP (action points) which limit what you can do each turn, however you can directly manipulate them with a combo system that gives you back AP. The second one is a parry system, during the enemy turn you can directly parry their attacks, you have 2 colors for parrying, both colors have different properties and there's certain attacks that can only be parried with the respective color. And lastly, theres a stagger bar, similar to FFXIII or posture bar in sekiro, although i think it's more akin to stagger in FFXIII. Once you break said bar you can enter hyper time for a few seconds where you have unlimited AP so you can combo them for massive damage. The combo system is very enjoyable, you will be blindly experimenting your combos for optimal damage each time you unlock new moves in the skill trees. Theres a very satisfying feeling to landing a big combo on an enemy that feels like it was entirely something you came up with. This sadly comes with a downside, once you figure out your big damage combos, there's not much of a reason to try anything different. It doesnt mean it stops being enjoyable but this is a wall most of games with combo systems have. Now the parry system, while it's fun, it sadly makes the game too easy. Sure theres enemies that will mix their timings to throw you off and a couple of unparriable attacks. But really, if you get good there's no reason to ever get hit. "But what about the unblockables?" yeah about that... Theres really just 3 enemies in the game that had them, and 2 of them were bosses, which you get a hard counter to the unblockable in the first boss that has it. I wish the game had more ways to work around you to make it more challenging. The only time the game REALLY tries to fuck you up is the final boss (this is a good thing) however it was still too easy. She really just makes the screen black and white and makes you parry based on the icon, then she makes you parry based on the color of the attack. This was sick and i wish there were more moments like this in the game. Now the dungeons were great, they feel like they belong in an older 3d zelda game. Sadly they dont get too crazy on the gimmicks, they were just box puzzles where you have to move them in the correct spots or point lasers to certain switches. Apparently this game has plans for DLCs so if theres something i wish upon to get explored more it would be this in particular. The rest of the game is the towns and the sidequests inside them, they're very usual stuff for a jrpg so you know what to expect, i cant elaborate much on it. Overall I think the game is meant to be replayed, by the end you're only able to fully build 3 characters out of 5 party members, sidequests expire and there's a bunch of stuff to mess around to make a playthrough different from the last one. The game changes a lot when you already know how it works or what really happens in the story.

Now the elephant in the room, the story: Yeah it's kinda just there, it's very poorly told. However it's HG and i can tell there was a lot of thought put into the wold building, it's very well made. It's just a shame that i could barely care about anything happening in it, even though I was kinda invested by the final hours i dont think that excuses the really bad storytelling. However starting my second playthrough is when I noticed it was indeed meant to be replayed. There's a bunch of stuff that feels so incredibly cryptic or really make no sense, once you go over it already having context it all makes sense and you just go like "oooh so that was they were talking about". I'm not excusing bad writing though, this is bad, but at least the story feels better on a second playthrough. Anyways, i'm kinda upset this was a mobile game, maybe if it wasnt, 10 people would've played it instead of just 5. I cant stress enough how this is a phone game that is way better than most of modern jrpgs in the market. it's like the devs went back and asked themselves what was the main appeal of the genre and what they thought made them fun to them and made an entire game around it. This is probably gonna be the biggest surprise of the entire year for me and i'm gonna have brainrot about this game for a while.

[autisticbokutoenthusiast]

playboyy ep 12 stray thoughts

- “damn i hate myself” real

- first soong being cute 🥹🥹

- you know shits about to get emotional when the soundtrack switches to yoiyami

- “you called me a friend when you weren’t pretending to be nant” AND WHAT IF I LOSE MY MIND

- zouey and nont besties agenda

- OH GOD ZOUEY BACKSTORY wait noooooo

- i guess the evidence is staying hidden then like boy are they in their failvestigator era oh nvm they found something (that they already knew but still that’s more than they usually get

- promnont !!!

- hold on they finally showing zoueyteena. they can never just give a quick handy either always gotta be invoking the religious implications of a renaissance painting… good for them (yes i include the popcorn scene in this) also top zouey truthers this one was for you!!!

- what are you hiding under that tarp zouey 🤨🤨 i think it’s of nant

- hold on teena’s necklace lmao. is the t for troy no it’s for *too sleepy to finish the bit*

- NO GET A JOB!! STAY AWAY FROM HER!!!

- finna beat the shit out of jason lee give me 10 seconds i could take him out

- what does he mean by keep an eye on…

- oop that scarf zouey in his horse girl era

- THEY DOING WHAT TO WHO?!?!?

- she is not scared of them at all like two absolute kitty cats of toruturers MEKEKFKKRKRJFJFJF NOT THE DUSTERS I CANT

- the drop of sweat deserves an award for perfect timing and i’m being so serious about this

- AHH PROMNONT i can’t handle them being affectionate like it makes me lose my oh not the fuckass product placemntsjdjjdjdjrjrjjejdjr you know what i got me some promnont crumbs i’ll take it

- so i’m gonna see this scene expanded in fic later right 👀 i’ll give a million kisses to anyone who decides to do it

- they can never argue using simple sentences it’s always “i feel bad that you feel bad that i felt bad” and “im mad that you got mad that i got mad” and “if you have a problem that we have a problem than the problem is you’re invalidating my feelings” “i didn’t think you would think about me thinking” like besties….

- see but zouey was kinda right… why is he being made the bad guy, first and captain kinda pissin me off

- girl YOU got him expelled. captain needs to be fr

- NONT WITH THE BIG PANT CROPPED SHORT COMBO THATS MY MAN

- these college athletes are plain evil

- puen lowkey the only one in this show consistently talking sense. i hope he gets his licks back on these bum bitches cause i’ve had it with them

- the coloring the coloring the coloring the coloring the coloring the projection the projection the projection

- THE. HESS BOARD BEING PROJECTED PLAYBOYY SURREALISM FOR THE WON ONCE AGAIN

- captain talking big game for someone who took sneaky clips. hoping this shows growth on his part cause deep down im still rooting for him

- captain sweaty blow up the whole establishment i support you

- NO CAPTAIN THATS NOT WHAT I TOLD YOU TO DO THATS VERY MUCH MOT WHAT I JUST SAID YOU LITTLE BASTARD

- ooo the outro track finally making sense!! kejrjejdnjdj

- i love the when soong carries first

- oh more food, user @jeffsatyr i’m so sorry

- firstsoong enthusiasts we are so back oh there goes firsts fuckass dad

- captain needs to stop picking fights AND CAPTAINS A YANKEES fan i can’t defend him anymore

- puen fight back!!! he was going easy on captain cause he’s a nice little boy oh shit now aobs gonna kill captain isn’t he…

- captainkeenpuen enthusiasts don’t lose hope!!! we can still win!!

- aobpuen enthusiasts were so back

- THE COLORING THE COLORING THE COLORING

- the characters and 'accurately assessing the media their in' saga continues

- porsche looks like such a baby here. jump listen to porsche pls do not see him again

- cry by johannes bornlof is playing they fr pulling out the nuthphop ballads for the other couples today

- puen is my boy and i will lay down my life for him actually

- NONT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT IM GONNA WALHAT WHAT WYHAHW ok sorry yall him with the gun did sumn to me

- nont once again will not be caught slacking holding someone at gun point be damned AND ITS CAPTAIN WITB THE STEAL POLL?!?!?!?

- nont… i need to know how he picks outfits like did he want the color to match the gun????

- nont chuckling in the corner... i fear he’s lost it

- playboyy once again with the themes of tech and privacy

- captain is lucky puen is lowkey a pacifist

- nont and captain: torturing aob and puen for info about the murder, zoueyteena: painting time !!

- oh my god yall im getting chills like fr speechless i am so…

NUTH MY BABY BOY

- nuth coming through with his amateur directorial visions let’s gooooo

- nont being like “please do a little bit of torture, just for me, please 🥺”

- he playing the funeral violin oh it’s not ending well oh god

- jason lee you will crumble i am so serious about this count your mother fucking days

- nuth scurrying away in the back… also nont where is your marksmanship now

- puen keeps suffering tremendously and he doesn’t deserve a single second of it. free my boy he fr has never done anything wrong

- i think i was right and nuths screenplay is autobiographical

- THEYRE PLAYING AMBIVRLANT THOGUHTS AGAIN NUTHPHOP PIANO BALLAD ENTHUSAISTS WE STAY WELL FED

- nuthphop my beloveds i love them so fucking much you don’t get it no wait why he deleting them oh shit ! phop play shitty games win shitty prizes dawg

- welp

yall this might be one of the strongest eps in a hot minute i loved this one had me at the edge of my seat the whole time

[sunshinelulusplatoon]

("Squirms in excitement and giggles.")

(Sage said I could post it, so here it is!)

The sound of pacing could be heard down the hallway of the Entra house.

Back and forth, back and forth, Lutarna was biting her thumb as she was lost in thought; frustration on her face.

“I could make dinner or I could buy out our favorite restaurant for the night. I have the money,” Lutarna spoke as she continued to pace.

Lulu was sitting on the floor in her room, bouncing Seth on her knee as Collin slept. Seeing her sister pace across her door once more, Lulu rolled her eyes and sighed.

“I’m sure whatever you do sis, he will like. I’m pretty sure he will say yes,” Lulu called out.

“It’s got to be perfect though. Not over the top. Something his style,” Lutarna groaned as she stopped at Lulu’s doorway.

“His style is color, games, and cleaning,” Lulu replied with a snort, “Dude, just slip the ring in an ice cream cone from Gir. I’m sure he’ll like that.”

“AND WHAT IF HE SWALLOWS IT???” Lutarna questioned with panic.

“Shuuuush!” Lulu huffed, not wanting to wake Collin up, “Once again, you are overthinking things. What did your other self say?”

“To not over thinking it and go with the flow. People who truly love each other will be happy with what life throws at them,” Lutarna sighed.

“Collin never gave me a ring nor did I want one. He just asked me,” Lulu remarked, “Do something you two like and then just be straight forward about it.”

Lutarna sighed.

“I...I just want it special..but maybe you’re right. I just don’t know what to settled on,” Lutarna remarked; crossing her arms and looking defeated as she hung her head low.

“HEY!!!”

Both blinking, the twins turned towards the open sliding door that led to the front porch as they spotted Pixie rushing down the hill. Jumping and hopping over the porch railing, Pixie was catching her breath as the girls looked at her.

“Waz up?” Lulu asked.

“Puzzle ‘huffs’ Puzzle ‘huffs’ Arcade is having ‘huffs’ a double ticket night ‘huffs’ tomorrow,” Pixie replied.

Lulu blinked before eyes going wide and looking at Lutarna.

“Hey!!! That’s perfect!” Lulu spoke in excitement.

“How so?” Lutarna questioned.

“Crane games!” Lulu chuckled.

Lutarna was confused.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inviting Gideon over to hang out with them, the crew entered Puzzle Puzzle Arcade as Lulu and Joey were dressed up for the DDR rounds; Collin staying home with Seth. Hannah, Coraline, and Pixie were dressed in more party attire while Lutarna and Gideon were in the usual colors and pastel combo. Butterfly clips and face stickers on, Lutarna wanted to look as casual as can be as to not alert Gideon on what was going on. Arms wrapped around him, she was being her usual clingy self; hand tugging on Gideon’s takoroka windbreaker jacket as she smiled at him.

Earlier today, the twins with Pixie arrive at the arcade to tip the owner to let them play out their plan. Setting up the DDR machine, usually only running on Saturdays, Lulu and Joey were to be distractions for the crowd so nobody could see Pixie sneak into the crane game.

“Alright folks, let’s shred some steps and get this night rolling,” Joey laughed.

“We just got here and you already want to break high scores,” Hannah laughed, “That’s my Joey.”

“Hey, tonight is about fun! What better way than to show off skills,” Lulu chuckled.

“Hey, I need to run to the restroom real quick,” Gideon spoke, “We can start on skii balls after.”

“Sounds good,” Lutarna hummed as she let Gideon go.

Watching him head to the back, Pixie and Lutarna took the opportunity. Slipping a small box out of her purse, she handed it to Pixie.

“DON’T LOOSE THAT!!!” Lutarna huffed.

“Relax!” Pixie replied with a wave of her hand before poking Lutarna in the side, “I got this. By the end of tonight, you will be an engaged octoling.”

“I hope so,” Lutarna sighed.

Slipping it into her pocket, Pixie headed towards the arcade machines as Lutarna waited for Gideon to come back. Finally spotting him, she waved as she pulled some lollipops out of her bag.

“I forgot I had these,” Lutarna hummed as she handed one to him.

“Sweet. Thanks. Let’s hit those skii balls,” Gideon hummed as he took the lollipop from his girl.

Spending the first two hours on the skii balls, the two racked up a good bit of tickets as the two arrived at the counter.

“Oh! Honey Bunny! Look, they got turftable cards!” Lutarna pointed out.

At the bottom of the glass case for prizes was a box with packs in it. Both growing bright smiles on their faces, the two turned in their tickets for them. Buying the ten packs left, the two opened them up at a table.

“OH, HOLO BIG MAN!!” Lutarna remarked excited, “Honey Bunny, you’re missing this one right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to take from your collection,” Gideon replied with a chuckle.

“Nooo, take it,” Lutarna huffed and whined as she waved it in his face, “I know you were trying to make a deck with one. I’ll get mad if you don’t.”

Giving a laugh, Gideon took the card as he slipped it into one of the open packs.

“Fine, but I owe you a milkshake for it,” Gideon chuckled.

“I kiss will do,” Lutarna hummed.

Looking a little nervous, Gideon got up as he came over and taking a second, took hold of Lutarna’s lips. Sweet, simple, Gideon pulled away as Lutarna hummed and giggle.

“Alright you, we spent all our tickets on those. What do you want to hit next?” Gideon asked.

“I did hear there is a new pinball machine. Some medieval style,” Lutarna remarked as she pointed towards the machines.

“Sounds good,” Gideon replied as he held a hand out for her.

Smiling, she took his hand, before grabbing his hold arm, before leading the way; Gideon slighty a nervous mess again as he was dragged towards the machines. With distance from the counter, Lulu came up as she paid the owner the rest of the money for the night. Giving a salute, the owner went to the back to get the DDR machines on.

Seeing the lights go on and Lulu and Joey moving towards them, many of the kids and teenagers there stopped what they were doing to go watch the local masters go at it. Five minutes in and chanting could already be heard.

“Huh, wasn’t expecting them to turn the DDR machines on today,” Gideon remarked as he started to hear the crowd, “Lulu sure knows how to get people to show up.”

“Ha, that’s just sis. Brings in business though. We live off of music and what better way to promote than to show moves on the floor; well Dance Dance Revolution in this case,” Lutarna chuckled.

Switching between the three rounds, the two racked up a good score as Gideon moved onto a space version. Leaning on his shoulder, Lutarna looked towards the crowd as everybody’s interest was on Lulu and Joey. Taking it as opportunity, Lutarna spotted Hannah, Pixie, and Coraline. Texting them with her head phone, she watched as their phones went off and the girls looking at them. Heads looking around, they spotted Lutarna as she motioned her head towards the crane games. Giving smiles and thumbs up, the girls went to work. Waiting on Pixie, they watched as she found the center crane game, having been tweaked a little for intended purposes, as Pixie slide in through the prize door with the box in tentacle. Ducking down into the stuff animals as an octopus, she gave a tentacle wave to signal she was ready.

Seeing the signal, Hannah and Coraline came over as Lutarna went back to watching Gideon’s game; acting casual.

“Hey you two! How’s the pinball going?” Hanna asked as she leaned over the game machine.

“Pretty good. I like this one’s controls better than that new one,” Gideon replied with the lollipop in his mouth; having pulled it out when he started the game.

“Yeah, that’s new machines for yah. Got to wear the parts down for them to feel smoother,” Coraline shrugged, “Oh hey, did you guys hear?”

“Hear what?” Lutarna questioned.

“So, they added a new prize box in the pink crane game the other day. Owner says it’s something real special though nobody has pulled it yet. Heard if you get it, it’s worth a lot of tickets,” Coraline spoke.

“Oh, really? Huh, wonder what it is,” Gideon spoke as he lost his last pinball, “Maybe it’s a bike or something.”

“Maybe. Owner said it was just something worth a lot,” Coraline shrugged.

“Oh, Honey Bunny, you should try,” Lutarna remarked as she pressed her hand against his arm, “Everybody’s eyes are on sis and Joey so nobody should be bothering us to try after us.”

Scratching his head, Gideon gave a pout.

“I don’t know. I’m okay with those game but they do cost actual quarters,” Gideon remarked with concern.

“We can lend you some. We were going to play some ourselves but none of the plushies interest us,” Hannah replied.

“Yeah, that pink shark that was in there last week is already gone, so I got nothing worth it,” Coraline sighed with a hand wave.

“You sure?” Gideon questioned.

“Hey, you should at least win something nice for your girl,” Hannah teased.

Rolling his eyes, Lutarna having given him a fresh hair cut this morning, and giving a huff, Gideon shrugged.

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt,” he finally replied.

Lutarna was ecstatic as she gave him a cheek kiss; Gideon slight blushing as he rubbed his other cheek with his finger.

Leading the way, the couple found the said machine, Pixie ducking back down before being noticed, as Hannah and Coraline handed some quarters over to Gideon. Popping one into the machine, Gideon looked towards Lutarna.

“If I was a special prize, where would I hide?” Gideon asked.

Looking like she was thinking, Lutarna replied, “Probably in the middle but towards the back. Might have to move some plushies out of the way.”

Giving it a thought, Gideon gave a nod in agreement as he started to move the crane around. Following his movements, Pixie helped move the stuff animals slightly to help Gideon move them; letting the crane grab a teddy bear after two rounds to entice Gideon to keep going. The bear dropping out of prize shoot, Gideon handed it to Lutarna as she happily took it; planting another kiss on his cheek.

“Maybe move that blue hedgehog out of the way. It’s covering a big portion of that back,” Coraline suggested.

“Yeah, I can try,” Gideon replied as he put another quarter in; still flustered by Lutarna.

Once again, with Pixie’s help, Gideon was able to move the stuff animal somewhat out of the way.

Looking annoyed as his mouth twitched, Gideon saw only two quarters left.

“Two more tries,” Gideon remarked.

“It’s okay if I only get the bear,” Lutarna hummed, “I’m just having fun being with you.”

“Yeah, same here. I feel..safe and comfortable with you. I can be myself with you,” Gideon replied before blushing, rubbing the back of his hea, “Sorry, that was weird to say.”

Shaking her head, Lutarna smiled bright.

“No, not at all. I’m glad you feel the same,” Lutarna hummed.

Grabbing onto him again, Lutarna use a tentacle to tell Hannah and Coraline to go away as the two turned back to the machine; the two quietly backing away when the couple wasn’t looking.

“Hey Honey Bunny?” Lutarna spoke.

“Hmm?” Gideon questioned, taking his time to think on where he wanted to move next.

“You know I’m happy with you right? Like, really happy. Like would want to spend the rest of my days with you happy,” Lutarna began to speak.

“Yeah, I-uh, kind of caught onto that. You’ve seen me smell the laundry and haven’t walked away yet, so figured you were in the long run,” Gideon joked.

“And you seen me drink bleach and not want to run,” Lutarna joked back, “But I do mean it. I wouldn’t mind spending my days coming home and you know, the house being nice and clean. Maybe you in the kitchen washing dishes or just vacuuming,” Lutarna remarked as she scooted around and wrapped her arms around his waist; placing her head against the back of his neck.

Making his next move, Gideon missed picking a stuff animal up as Pixie had to move out of the way to not be noticed. Silent for a moment, Gideon finally spoke up.

“That would be nice. Helping you cook and us folding clothes together,” Gideon spoke.

Lutarna hummed to that as she planted a kiss on his neck.

“We could talk about our days and vent our problems,” Lutarna hummed.

“Sleep in together on our days off. If that little monster of yours will let us,” Gideon joked.

“Beethoven is not that bad,” Lutarna chuckled, “But that would be nice.”

Holding the last quarter, Gideon remarked, “Eh, one last shot. We can go back to pinball machines after this.”

“Could try a round of laser tag, but let’s test luck on the last one,” Lutarna hummed.

“Sounds good,” Gideon chuckled as he put the last quarter in.

Moving the crane, Pixie waited for the right moment. Coming down, modded some by the owner to go down farther, Pixie held the green box up as the crane grabbed it. Pulling up, Gideon blinked.

“Oh! Honey Bunny, that might be it,” Lutarna remarked; faking shock in her voice.

“It’s small though,” Gideon remarked as he moved the box over and dropped it down the shoot.

Letting go and moving out of the way, Lutarna remarked, “It could just have a color ticket in it to indicate it’s the special prize.”

Grabbing the box, Gideon looked it over for a moment; an eye brow raised as he pulled the lollipop out of his mouth.

Just a green box.

Finally deciding to open it, Gideon blinked as confusion grew on his face.

“Turn around”

“Tarts, it weirdly says-” Gideon began to speak as he turned around.

And then froze in place; going beet red in the face as the lollipop hit the floor.

She was down on one knee; both hands holding the little blue box up. Her hands were shaking a bit, obvious nerves, as her tentacles were starting to curl. She had a smile on her face but fear was slightly in her eyes; as if expecting rejection.

The ring was silver-ish with rainbow shine to it; the middle of the ring being able to rotate to reveal colored diamonds of the rainbow. Something perfect for a human AI who love color.

“I-I-I-I-I-I,” Gideon tried to speak, but words not forming.

“Gideon,” Lutarna finally spoke, “I love you with all my heart. I really do. I want nothing more than to be yours and yours alone. To be called your wife; to be called your love. I want to spend every day with you. As long as we have, I want you and only you!”

Gideon was silent for a moment. Starting to tremble a little, Lutarna was trying to hold tears back, sensing that maybe she had messed up, when unpromptly, Gideon got down and hugged her. Blinking, Lutarna quickly wrapped her arms and tentacles around him; burying her face into his shoulder.

“Wh-why me?” Lutarna finally heard Gideon speak.

Letting go as she set the box down, Lutarna pulled away to look at him; placing a hand on his cheek. Grabbing her hand, Gideon watched as Lutarna placed her forehead to his; nuzzling his nose.

“Why you? Gideon, you make me the luckiest girl alive. I can be myself around you. Every time I see you I smile. All I think about is you. You’re sweet, silly, smart, don’t take anybody’s carp. You know how to make my coffee right, you know my favorite smells, my favorite sweets and which movies I love to watch. What more could I want?” Lutarna spoke.

Getting a chuckle out of him, Lutarna continued.

“I go home and you aren’t there, I just feel empty. At work, I just want to text you the whole day and tell you I love you and I think your the most handsome man there is. I want you by my side,” Lutarna hummed.

Nuzzling her hand, Gideon sighed.

“I-I would like that. I just-um-” Gideon tried to speak.

“We can take a long engagement. Till we are both ready,” Lutarna replied.

“Are you sure? You know how I am,” Gideon asked; sheepish in voice and appearance.

Lutarna just chuckled. Wrapping a tentacle around his head, she pulled him into a kiss. Pulling away after a moment, she smiled at him.

“I am very much sure,” Lutarna hummed.

Grabbing the box up with a tentacle, Lutarna held it back up as he opened it back up.

“Gideon Ward, will you make this night one of the most special for me and marry me?” Lutarna finally asked.

Trying to hold back a tear or two, with a sniffle, Gideon nodded.

“Yes. Yes-please-okay-yes, I want us. I want to marry you,” Gideon finally spoke.

Smiling so hard, Lutarna pulled the ring out of the box. Holding his hand out, Gideon watched as Lutarna slipped the ring on; rotating the middle to show Gideon all the colored diamonds.

Placing a hand on her cheek, Lutarna was surprised at the unprompted pull into a kiss by Gideon; quickly wrapping her arms around him.

“YAY! CONGRATULATIONS!!!” Pixie shouted as she slid out of the shoot.

Surprising the two, Gideon looked at Lutarna.

“So you did plan this,” Gideon remarked; fingers brushing his hair as he still looked sheepish at the proposal.

“Well, I’ve been wanting to propose to you for months but couldn’t figure out how. This all was sis’s idea. Right down to getting the crane game modified,” Lutarna chuckled.

Realizing this, Gideon went beet red again as he looked at and fiddled with the ring.

Starting to clap, Hannah and Coraline came over; having watched from a distance.

“Congratulations you two! I’m so happy for you,” Hannah remarked with glee.

“Ooooh, I’m so happy for you guys!!! Awww, I love seeing happy couples,” Coraline hummed with excitement.

Chuckling, Lutarna held a hand out to Gideon. Taking it, the two got up as Lutarna wrapped her arm around Gideon’s again; leaning her head against his as she smiled.

Fiddling with the ring again as the two walked towards the DDR machines, Gideon asked, “How much did you spend on this?”

“Not telling,” Lutarna chuckled.

As the crowd chanted and bounced to the beat of the machine’s music, the couple were able to squeeze into the front to watch Joey and Lulu go at it. Having a mike in hand, Joey was beat boxing as Lulu was spitting rhymes from some of her new remixes.

“Even after a hatchling, Lulu still has energy,” Gideon commented.

“Motherhood hasn’t slowed her down,” Lutarna chuckled.

Spinning around with one move, Lulu noticed the two as she tilted her goggles down and held her hand out; pointing to the ring finger. Holding his hand up, Gideon showed the ring as Lutarna snuggled into him with a smile. Bouncing even more, Lulu held her hands up before shaking them; obviously happy her plan worked.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, any plans already?” Joey asked.

Lutarna just puffed her cheeks out.

“We’re not rushing,” she huffed.

“Given how long you’ve been trying to propose, I would think you would have had some ideas on what your wedding day would look like,” Pixie joked.

Lutarna just grumbled as Gideon chuckled.

Sitting on a bench in the local park, Gideon once again fiddled with the ring.

“T is going to find this interesting,” Gideon commented.

“He..kind of already knows and has been picking at me for taking so long,” Lutarna sighed.

Gideon looked surprised as he tried not to laugh.

“I’m surprised he never spilled the beans,” Lutarna sighed again.

“I think T knew you wanted it to be special,” Lulu chuckled.

“I know. Glad he kept quite,” Lutarna replied with a smile.

“Yeah, cause I would have never guessed,” Gideon replied with a chuckle, “You sure you want m-”

Lutarna didn’t give him a chance to finish that sentence as she pulled him into a kiss; planting a few more on his cheeks.

The others just chuckled.

“You know what would be funny,” Hannah joked, “If Gideon wore the wedding dress and you a tailor skirt.”

“I suppose I wouldn’t mind,” Gideon remarked as he pulled away from his fiancé in a very happy go lucky state.

Now Lutarna was just looking at him as the others busted out laughing.

[alette-stars]

Over 240,000 words, 45+ chapters, written over 4 and a half years. Blood, Water is complete. 

This post is long overdue. I finished the fic over 6 months ago (can you believe it?!) and I’ve been caught up in things offline, to put it lightly. But on the 5th (!) anniversary of the posting of the first chapter, i thought there was no better time than to, finally, put this out.

I really couldn’t have finished this work without all the love and support i received while it was being posted. I know we like to say to write for yourself, not the crowd, but god that support really motivated me and brought so much happiness to my life. And i hope i was able to return some of that to you, through my work. 

Well you’ve all waited long enough. Let’s get started!

The inspiration of fic title is given in the fic summary. Blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. Although this quote is attributed as the full version of the common adage blood is thicker than water, it actually isn’t! It was coined later, though i don’t know by whom. (i actually didn’t know this when i first wrote the fic, but i stand by the quote—it’s great and very fitting)

I think i came up with the title like minutes before i posted the first chapter. I ended up posting it impulsively, kind of. I knew it was gonna be a big project but i wasn’t thinking about my other ongoing fics at the moment, i was so excited and i just had to start sharing this one

The entirety of the fic was written in a Google Doc titled Vampire 8. 

Seonghwa’s favorite kaomoji (as referenced in Chapter 11) is (❁´◡`❁)

All the prominent vampires in this have ‘unsexy’ ages, and that’s on purpose. I wanted to do something different from the typical centuries-old vampires. So, instead, at roughly 200 years Seonghwa is the oldest, while Mingi would still be a young man if he hadn’t been turned

Don’t ask about the progression of time in this fic. It went on so long (i wrote this over literal years) i genuinely forgot

I like to write other idols into my fics, and this one is no exception. Most prominent would be VIXX (current and ex members) as the coven essentially in charge of the vampire world, but there’s also Monsta X’s Minhyuk, whose conversation with Yeosang was brought up in Chapter 22. 

All our main coven’s makers were named after famous Korean actors and actresses. Ji Sung for Wooyoung and Yeosang, Nam Ji Hyun for Jongho, and of course Kim Tae Hee for Seonghwa. Mingi’s maker is never referred to by name but her name is Nara, after Jang Na Ra. 

Author has a cameo in Chapter 6! Cashier staring shamelessly at Seonghwa in his full vampiric glory :’) 

Seonghwa’s real-life fits were often used as inspiration, but one was straight-up duplicated. This was of course the teal turtleneck + mushroom hair combo from the amusement park date in Chapter 13.

I did do a little color theming for some characters, but nothing too strong. We have red for Hongjoong, turquoise/teal for Seonghwa, purple for San, and gold for Yeosang. 

Another theme i love for all my writing is space. Seonghwa and his planet/star comparison is probably the most obvious. Personally, i have a lot of fondness for the framing of Wooyoung and Yeosang as the sun and moon, and then the addition of San as the Earth. 

There have been some questions about the systemic issues in world of Blood, Water that i’ve kind of avoided answering because i wanted to focus on the immediate, personal story. But basically vampires are an open secret in the world that the government continues to staunchly deny. The vampire population has historically been very, very small. Vampire society, as a whole, didn’t exist until recently. Around 20 years ago, the government decided to crack down and eliminate the vampire ‘issue’ once and for all, leading to the hunting days that cost many vampires their lives—including Yeosang and Wooyoung’s maker, Jisung. When the regime changed, the new government stopped the state-operated vampire hunting. The blood den/club business that had always operated on a small scale—accessible only to the most connected/wealthy vampires—grew and even regular vampires (and humans) could get in. This reduced the ‘mugging’ operations less well-off vampires had to resort to, but bred new problems. Increased vampire-human interactions resulted in more turnings. By the start of the Blood, Water timeline, vampire population has started to outpace the blood available at the blood dens. Vampires of a certain level of society, like Seonghwa, are strongly advised not to turn any more new vampires, because soon the problem might get too big to hide. 

Technically there is no vampire leader, although the authority everyone defers to is Hakyeon and his coven. But, as Hakyeon himself would say, they’re not a government—they’re businessmen. Anything they do—keeping the surrounding areas safe, putting down dangerous vampires, providing blood and feeders for newborns and adults—is to keep their business running smoothly. Vampire society is officially lawless so, yes, if Wooyoung wanted he could kill another vampire. 

In the 4 and a half years from conception to completion of Blood, Water, a lot of things changed. My initial conceptualization of Yeosang was as a cold, dangerous individual, one that you might think would actually hurt San. Early on i decided to go for a tragic angle, so his sensitive, selfless nature came through.

Another change that got made very, very late was Yunho and Mingi’s ending. Don’t shoot me, but i initially plotted a different, sadder ending for them. After Yunho almost dies at the big house by newborn San, Mingi gets too into his head about Yunho’s safety and they break up. They uh don’t get back together. Yunho leaves Seoul for a better opportunity (a job, possibly a dance position—one of those things Mingi could never be a part of). It’d be kind of hinted that they’d get back together, but in the future, after Mingi’s worked through more of his vampirism issues and his anxieties. Obviously this isn’t what ended up happening, but, damn, it almost did. I decided not to do this because things were getting too heavy at the end there haha.

Finally, a not-insignificant part of Blood, Water was the chapter graphics that accompanied every chapter release on Twitter. It wouldn’t have been possible without all the wonderful stock image available for use online. A full list of resources:

Chapter 1 - people partying inside room by Pim Myten

Chapter 2 - Street Night Light on pixabay

Chapter 3 - Silhouette Photography of Trees by Jesse Bowser

Chapter 4 - Orchid Flower Blossom by anncapictures 

Chapter 5 - This was a composite of two images that i think i accidentally deleted from my laptop and i cannot for the life of me find anywhere online. I’ll update this if i ever find them, i am so sorry for my carelessness omfg

Chapter 6 - Jewelry Boxes Red Blue by furud

Chapter 7 - Silver and black laptop computer by Jay Wennington

Chapter 8 - Painting Abstract Background by mondschwinge

Chapter 9 - Bridge Night Architecture by nqcoc9

Chapter 10 - Full Moon Night Sky by Pexels

Chapter 11 - Sunset clouds background from the National Park Service

Chapter 12 - Fully made by yours truly

Chapter 13 - Ferris Wheel Night Shot by CloudyBird

Chapter 14 - Amaryllis Flower White Open by Sponchia

Chapter 15 - half filled wine glass beside half empty clear pint glass by Sérgio Alves Santos

Chapter 16 - Glass Piece Broken by qimono

Chapter 17 - Macarons Dessert Food by TheoCrazzolara

Chapter 18 - white pillows by Anastasia Mezenina

Chapter 19 - Daniel von Appen on unsplash. I believe the original image has been deleted

Chapter 20 - Cfl Spiral Lamp by Public Domain Pictures

Chapter 21 - a red and blue painting of a building by Jr Korpa

Chapter 22 - Red rose in dark room by Ben Decoster

Chapter 23 - Cakes Strawberry Sweetness by Alexas_Fotos

Chapter 24 - Nature Fire Flames by StockSnap

Chapter 25 - Milky way by Ivana Cajina

Chapter 26 - Sunset branches silhouette by lovexxpeace

Chapter 27 - Lightning Thunderstorm Night by anvel

Chapter 28 - Chandelier Glass by Tedd

Chapter 29 - Splatter, Blood, Paint by Clker-free-vector-images

Chapter 30 - Clear glass wine by Luke Besley

Chapter 31 - white cushion on bed near brown wooden nightstand by Annie Spratt

Chapter 32 - Blood Moon on a Dark Sky by Roberto Nickson

Chapter 33 - Red Light Behind a Door by Jamal Yahyayev

Chapter 34 - Flower White Wilt Black by bmartinseattle

Chapter 35 - Brown wooden bed frame with red bed sheet by Janko Ferlič

Chapter 36 - An Open Red Flush Door by Kei Scampa

Chapter 37 - two arcade cabinets by Ben Neale

Chapter 38 - Gambling Chance Luck by Ogutier

Chapter 39 - time lapse photography of cars during nighttime by Roman

Chapter 40 - Vine Plant Sprout by ngyuenbuihoai

Chapter 41 - Gold Pocket Watch by John

Chapter 42 - red and yellow thread in needle by amirali mirhashemian

Chapter 43 - Red hibiscus flower photo by Kai Oberhäuser

Chapter 44 - Node Red Knot by moritz320

Chapter 45 - Lighted Brown Bridge by Burst

Chapter 46 - Brown wooden framed glass window by Tim Rüßmann

Chapter 47 - the same as Chapter 1, people partying inside room by Pim Myten

You can find all the edited images in the Twitter thread. 

Fun fact: all the images follow the red/black/white color scheme, with one very glaring exception: Chapter 22 (and to a lesser extent Chapter 25) 

If you have any further questions (which i didn't cover in this super long post...) you can reach out to me on Twitter or retrospring!

Well, we’ve done it. We’re at the end of this post. Pretty long-winded but i figured if we could power through 240k words of the fic, we can survive a few paragraphs of my rambling. Thank you all again, so, so much, for all the love and support you’ve given my work. I really could never have done it without you. It was an honor and a blessing to go on this journey with you, and i wouldn’t give it up for anything. 

So what’s next? Keen readers might’ve noticed Blood, Water is part of a series, titled Ties of Blood and Silver. I do have plans for a direct sequel. Yes, our vampire boys will be back! With new challenges, new angst, and even new relationships. I’m organizing shit in my real life so it won’t be starting immediately, but you can all look forward to it! Until then, thank you, i love you, and see you all around ♡

[theselfshippingwitch]

Janine x Egon Wedding Questions

(This is for The Real Ghostbusters versions of the characters)

(also i'm gonna tag @ariel-seagull-wings bc they wanted to see my answers to this lol)

Imagine what music they would have? What food? Would it be outside? What kind of theme, if any, would they have?

I imagine Egon would want only classical music while Janine would be like PARTY!!! Lol she would still want the classic organ music as she’s walking down the aisle though, and at the reception they would have a combo, like they would start with classical and then go into more like dance music as the night went on. They would have their wedding in this amazing greenhouse venue in Brooklyn with this incredible ceiling. No theme, the venue is the centerpiece. 

The food would also tie in to the venue as they have a lot of fresh and light fruits and veggies (and mushrooms) for the cocktail hour and an amazing seasonally-appropriate salad before the main course.

Who would they invite?

Okay so Egon was definitely having like, a whole crisis about this bc his family is pressuring him to like, invite all these important figures from the scientific community and “uphold the reputation of the Spengler family within these prestigious circles” and whatever and Egon just wanted a small wedding but the guest list just keeps getting bigger and bigger and its so hard for him to ever say no to any of his family and it was like… 

It was Janine who encouraged him to advocate for himself and stand up for what he wants out of his big day bc she was not having all those stuffy scientific types at her party absolutely not

In the end, it was a celebration with extended family and close friends and louis who always ends up at janine and egon’s wedding no matter the circumstances of the occasion for some reason

jk louis is a close friend and we love and respect him is this house

Also Ray is Egon’s best man and Janine’s sister is the Maid of Honor

What season is it? Day or night? What colors do they wear?

It is a summer day (August 2nd, 1993), bright and sunny but luckily not too hot. The only other color beyond the natural green of the surroundings is the pink of the bridesmaid’s dresses and burgundy of the groomsmen’s ties.

Is it traditional or do they do something wild?

Traditional! It’s the wedding Janine has been dreaming of since she was a little girl (along with her Jewish wedding ceremony, which she had first). 

Did they write their own vows? Who is the person marrying them?

Because this is going to be the secular wedding (even though it has a lot of things based on Christian wedding traditions ik)  they wouldn’t have any religious figure marrying them. They would just get, like, a professional wedding officiant who just fits their vibe yk? And it was important to Janine that they write their wedding vows bc… she just needs to hear it, okay? She cannot just have Egon say “yeah, mmm-hmm” to whatever the officiant says, she needs to hear Egon say how much she means to him and we’re all gonna make him do it

Are they wearing suits? Dresses? Something else entirely?

Okay here’s the fun part FINALLY

Janine’s dress: 

Bridesmaid’s dresses:

Egon’s suit:

This means ray gets to wear his pea soup green suit that he already owns!!! Groomsmen’s suit:

What does their cake look like if they have one?

Does she throw the bouquet for someone to catch or does she pass out one flower to everyone to let everyone know they are worthy of love?

Janine definitely wants to throw her bouquet! Even though two of her bridesmaids are already married (her older sister, and her bff Violet who married Egon’s bff Ray last year)

Do they have a party afterwards? What music?

Yes!!! Yes they do!!! And the music is an eclectic mix of Egon’s classical music (with a live string quartet) and Janine’s playlist of party music with artists like Madonna and Cyndi Lauper (with a live DJ)

She also has a reception dress!:

Is it the wedding of their dreams or does something go awry?

Janine is too rich now for something to go awry

Also! How is the kiss!? Do they smooch softly? Sweetly? Passionately? Does he dip her into a deep smooch? Is it a soft sweet peck?

The kiss we’ve all been waiting for tbh

Very sweet and romantic. She puts a hand on the back of his neck while he holds her waist. He’s been mostly expressionless through the ceremony but he smiles as he kisses her, the softie

What is their honeymoon like? Is it a stay at home one? Do they go somewhere exciting? How long is the trip? Or stay at a hotel? Or maybe a cute little cottage somewhere?

They go to Cairo, Egypt! I feel like it’s the perfect mix of what they would both want out of a honeymoon. It’s an exciting city that’s got an ancient history and culture attached to it (egon is gonna study so many hieroglyphs you don’t even KNOW)

Does she take his last name or him hers? Do they keep or hyphenate their names? Or maybe they both take on a whole new last name together!

But they would have to change the name tags on the uniforms…

How many kids do they have? What are their names?

This is where it gets sketchy cuz fankids are a whole nother thing that I haven’t thought of yet for janegon but I DO know that they have a kid about one year apart from Violet and Ray’s oldest kid and they’re both boys and they’re besties who go on adventures together (the violet/ray kid is the timid one and the janegon kid is the bold one, you get where i’m going with this)

Where do they live?

In a penthouse apartment in Manhattan, where Janine can have space to write editorial articles for the magazine she created and runs, Egon can get to Ghostbusters HQ without too much trouble (even though he’s not part of the field team anymore he works on R&D with Ray out of there almost every day).

[littlelesbinonny]

The Devil’s Den

Chapter 7: In Which Everything Shifts

::Mentions of alcohol/drinking, read at your own discretion::

You can read this also on Ao3 at:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/46831621/chapters/117962293

You were nearly an entire bottle and a half of wine deep on this fine Friday night. Your music was blaring and you were having a grand old time dancing like an idiot as you tried drowning your sorrows.

It was a little pathetic.

But who could blame you?

You didn't. You knew your vices, you knew your coping skills, lacking as they were. But fuck!

The lady vampire who turned your world upside down vanished. A whole week, gone. No more feeling her near, no more catching her perfume on the breaths of the wind. You'd even gone back to the same spot you met her a second time several times over the course of the week, and nothing.

You still weren't entirely sure you hadn't lost your mind. There weren't any drugs you knew of that could last in your system to cause these long term hallucinations. So how could you chalk this all up to getting roofied somewhere? But, then again...

Nothing added up. You had just about driven yourself crazy trying to unravel this ball of yarn.

Deep down you knew this was all real, which was almost worse.

You could almost catch yourself needing to laugh maniacally about the whole situation; vampires were real???

What else about this life was a fucking lie or truth?

Whatever.

You did another jig across the kitchen floor as Maggie May by Rod Stewart came on.

"Wake up Maggie I think I got somethin' ta say to you! It's late September and I really should be baack at schooool - I know I keep you amuused - But I feel I'm bein' used - Oh Maggie I couldn't have tried, anymooOOoore! You led me away from home, juuust to save you from bein'aaalone - You stole my heart and thaaat's what really hurts... The morning sun when it's in your face reeally shows yooour age - But that don't worry me nooone, in my eyes you're everything..."

Going back to your pancakes you flipped the four and continued to drink your wine. It was about all you had left in your apartment and you knew you were going to need the carbs to soak up the alcohol so you weren't sick tomorrow. Plus, you loved pancakes.

As you were pulling them off the griddle your playlist took a nose dive into jazz and Louis Armstrong's La Vie En Rose began.

"Ah man, bit of a buzz kill," you muttered as you took a bite of the fluffy cake, eventually getting into the groove before too long.

"Actually... no, no this is good," you admitted looking down at your plate and glass of red wine, "great combo we got goin' on here!"

You grabbed another and stuffed it in your mouth, snatched your glass and wandered into the living room, moving elegantly with the tune. As you were humming along there seemed to be an echo, no, a different tone tangled in the air with you and the stereo.

It was then that familiar feeling finally broke its way through your inebriated barrier and settled into your system like a cat into a soft fuzzy blanket.

You froze, but not in panic.

Turning around slowly you found the shadow in the corner was not just your cushy chair.

There was undeniably a figure sitting in it.

A tall figure. And it was humming.

Her timbre was sultry and smoother than glass. Rich. Seductive. All encompassing.

Just like her.

You couldn't believe it.

She was back. In your living room. Slate colored hues boring into you once more.

Being inebriated was actually working in your favor at this point. You had reached the numbness stage of the alcohol, and thank god because had you gotten any farther you would have been a walking emotional garbage can on fire.

You took another sip of your wine as you watched her in the darkness, listened to her melodious voice, and did your best to keep your knees from crumbling away beneath you.

Apparently your playlist had come to an end as silence filled the space between you after the song stopped. You could make out the smirk on her face and something white in her hand.

"You know," she began, the warmth of her tone dripping off each word, "I didn't need an invitation... you had already given me permission when I brought you back that night."

You swallowed. Hard.

So it was true; she had brought you home, dressed you, taken care of you. Why?

"Then why have you been such a stranger?" you countered softly with barely a breath.

She smiled, seemingly completely at home sitting there cross-legged in your chair.

And you?

You. Were. Vibrating.

She rose, and holy mother of god she was so tall. You felt dwarfed. As she inched towards you you felt your bones rattling in your skin, her scent was filling up your lungs and you were pretty sure you whimpered. She was an other worldly phenomena and you just wanted to fall into her, head first.

Alcina lifted her hand and carefully traced a gloved fingertip over your jaw, catching your chin between her thumb and finger, tilting your face to hers as she admired you; intoxication and all.

Here you were. Within her grasp. Alcina's senses stumbled over themselves as your pheromones puffed off of you like pollen; the shaking of your flower buds? Her nearness, her touch, her smell. She knew. And, oh, how you were tantalizing, coaxing her insatiable needs. Had she not fed before she came, Alcina could not have been certain she could have restrained herself.

She locked you within her gaze, stoic face never giving way to her weakness.

Holy hell what was happening. All your mind could do was scream repeatedly to not fall down. She was so close and so beautiful. Clad in all black once again, everything hugged her perfectly, from her gloves to her coat to her pants and boots.

But why the turtleneck? You recall very vividly now the white dress she wore when you first met. The neckline wasn't plunging but it did her alabaster skin so many favors. Why hide such an exquisite work of art?

"Your mind never stops, does it." Alcina cooed.

No, it sure as shit didn't. And it had been working overtime since she came into your life.

"Never a moments peace."

Your reply hit home and Alcina considered you even harder. She knew precisely how you felt. Knew the plight of a mind so busy. Knew the relief that came if a silent moment ever did come. Knew how the seeking for said relief, for that moment of peace, could become just as tiresome.

She knew.

She knew... you.

Releasing your chin, a hum sounded deep in her throat. She was stepping onto a deadly battlefield, yet at this point in time all her fucks had flown.

Feeling slightly like your brain was short circuiting you grabbed the first phrase that popped into your mind; "Please don't run away again," you blurted, fearing she might slip away once more, and this time for good.

Alcina's crimson lips lifted back into an ever so gentle smirk, leaning into you, giving into the temptation that was wholly you, her lips almost touching yours. You didn't budge like she had half expected you to. So, she breathed you in deep. You smelled like wine and her fangs began to ache, "I won't," she reassured, nearly inaudible as she shoved her desires below the surface.

You shuddered violently enough you just about felt your soul exit your body. Shutting your eyes you took a breath, swallowed, and tried to keep your footing.

Drunk as you were, had this been any other situation you likely would have grabbed her and pulled her to you, crashed your lips into hers and fought her to your bedroom, ripped every article from her body and worshipped her until your body gave out. But somehow, for some reason, you were too terrified to do anything to spook her, lose her. You just wanted to keep her. In any way, shape, or form.

"What are you?"

Your question was so hesitant, scented with fear, but not the fear Alcina was used to. This was a fear of losing. Not of self preservation, to live and survive, not a fear of pain, or death. She pulled back but only slightly, jolted by the segue.

Where was your fear of her?

"You're not at all afraid of me, are you," she stated, eyeing you intently.

Brows furrowing ever so slightly, you licked your lips, "Should I be?"

Alcina couldn't help but hum again in contemplation of your quick counter. She really didn't know what to do with you.

"So... are you going to answer my question?" you tried again.

Alcina's eyes glittered as she pursed her lips, "You clearly remember what happened two weeks ago, and you're a very intelligent young woman; what do you think I am?"

You rapid blinked at how she skirted around that, a thousand and one more questions clawing their way to the surface. Was she testing you? Did she just not like saying it out loud?

"Listen, I'm 29 years old and until two weeks ago vampires were just myths, fiction in a story book, so you gotta understand... my entire view of the world was changed overnight... I am very, very confused. So, yeah, hearing you say it might make it a little easier to grasp," you chuckled softly, still grappling with the idea this was even happening.

She tilted her head, knowing how many ways this could all go terribly, terribly wrong, "Yes," she spoke deeper, "I am a vampire."

"Is that why you think I should be afraid of you?"

It was Alcina's turn to pause.

"It's usually common for humans to fear monsters, isn't it?"

"You think you're a monster?"

Alcina narrowed her slate colored hues, trying to decipher where you were going with this, wondering who was testing who at this moment, "Wouldn't you consider a brutal mass murderer of humans a monster?"

You observed her hard. Watching the spear of her defense fly through the air. It missed you, of course. Just a warning shot; an offer to back off or run right through.

You took the bait. Of course you took the bait.

"Humans brutally mass murder humans all the time... I don't see how you're any different," you offered softly but matter-of-factly, "I've met many monsters, they all look the same, but that's not what I see when I look at you."

Letting her off the hook this far in wasn't going to be an option so you needed to think quickly. You could tell she was considering this a game of chess. Sure, you knew she would be the better and more skilled player, but you didn't back down from a challenge, or a good game of strategy.

Or a game of cat and mouse.

"Please, tell me your name?"

What the fuck.

Alcina was starting to realize she had underestimated you in a deeply disconcerting way. She was starting to wonder if she would ever be able to successfully predict what or where you would go next. You were proving to be too satisfyingly tempting.

Standing there unmoved, eyes latched on yours refusing to show her falter, she took a deep silent breath and lowered her chin.

She knew this was the signing and sealing of a death contract the moment it left her lips.

"Alcina."

[in-arlathan]

Get To Know Me

Who dis? It's me! Been a hot minute, hasn't it? This year has been a pile of dung up until now, if I'm being completely honest, hence my absence from Tumblr and most social media. I had an accident in December and have been feeling like dirt ever since. But: I'm back now! Mostly thanks to my beloved @johaerys-writes and the amazing @mogwaei who tagged me for this game. Thanks to you two! ❤ It's been a please reading your posts.

And now: Let's dive in!

Share your wallpaper: I'm a very boring person who has her own artwork as a wallpaper on her phone (talking about this study I did last year). XD It reminds me that (every once in a while) I do create something that I actually enjoy without any self-doubt or regret, and I like that.

Last song you listened to: "Eyes Closed" by Ed Sheeran. I'm a very basic person, lol.

Currently reading: Let me check Goodreads real quick... Yeah, I'm reading far too many books at the same time again. So here's the top 3 of books I'm reading and enjoying the most atm:

The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman

Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

There's also a bunch of fanfic I need to catch up on but my mind has been all over the place.

Last move: "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves". My P&P podcast party had been invited to a preview 2 weeks ago and we had a fun time watching that movie.

Craving: Time off. I've been working non-stop for the past 8 months or so (with Christmas being the only exception) and I'm feeling super drained right now. Luckily, there are a few short trips coming up in April and July, so there is that!

What are you wearing right now: Basic black jeans and a white knitted sweater. It's spring but it's still flipping cold in my apartment. Ooph!

How tall are you: 168 cm or 5'5 feet (I guess?)

Piercings: Just the two for my earrings. As I said, I'm *very* basic. :')

Tattoos: Currently I got two but I plan on getting more later this year. Gotta save up some money first.

Glasses? Contacts? I got 3 different glasses (transparent, gold and brown frames) and contacts because I like to switch things up.

Last drink: I'm currently having some coffee with oat milk aka The breakfast of Champions. Or so I keep telling myself XD

Last thing you ate: Chicken wrap with lots of cheese. It was amazing.

Favorite color: My taste in color(s) shifts constantly but I'm currently obsessed with green in various tones. I keep getting back to like a warmer green because it makes me feel very cozy. But I also adore a good color combo of orange and violet/lilac or yellow and dark blue. It depends on my mood.

Current obsession: Truth be told, because of the current state of my mental health, I have a hard time being obsessed about anything. It's not like I can't enjoy things (I know that that feels like and I don't want to get back to *those days*) but there's not hyperfixation that lives rent-free in my head. And you know what? It feels terrible! I miss the feeling of being utterly obsessed about something. I crave that level of excitement, honestly!

Unrelated Obsession: Okay, I guess this means non-fandom obsessions. I do have one of those! A short while back, I read a book by the title "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" which was fascinating. I loved that it was not Euro-centric and instead focussed on the achievements of Genghis and his successors. I've been gobbling media with the same or similiar topics – including finally playing "Ghost of Tsushima" which send me reading up on the Mongol invasion of Japan. It's been an intriguing ride!

Any pets: I'm too allergic to have cats, dogs, and other animals and I hate it. I want a little doggo so badly... 💔

Do you have a crush on anyone: IRL? Not anymore. I used to have a crush for most of last year but since he started ghosting me a few months back, I decided to focus my attention elsewhere. I'm *done* with dating and have been for the past couple of years. As for fictional characters... I have to go with Solas, although (as I mentioned) my excitement has died down somewhat. I still love that boy to death but I'm not as obsessed as I used to be.

Favorite fictional character: How dare you make me chose one?! I have a trillion fave characters and they're all precious to me ;_; No, I will not pick one because I truly can't!

The last place you traveled: I went to Cologne, my hometown, three weeks ago, but I assume that doesn't count as traveling. I think my last real vacation was in 2019 when I travelled to the Leipzig Book Fair. Oh my... 😅 (And I was wondering why I felt so drained all the time, lol. Dang... what a reality check. This hurts!).

That's it! Hope you enjoyed the read :3

Time to forward some tags. As always, please feel free to join in or ignore the tag: @serial-chillr @faerieavalon @thebookworm0001 @ohmypawsandwhiskers @pikapeppa @oxygenforthewicked @fiadhaisteach @noire-pandora @ellie-effie. Sending all of you lots of love. I hope you're doing great!

Until next time, lovelies! <3

[technicianuprisingau]

Drawing the Rest of the Copy Ability Stars... Round 2!!

Me: Okay I think I should draw Round 2 first before I go and reboot the Technician Modes Me, realizing that I was so invested in Round 1, that I draw nearly all of them but 3 (minus the Contact Abilities): Me: ...YOU'RE TELLING ME HAD I DIDN'T STOP I WOULD'VE FINISHED THIS IN ONE ROUND?!

*SIGH* Let's get this over with. Here's Part 1 if you're confused.

Burning - This ability is kinda useless but uh, again, I guess Fire is offense and Burning is speed, so they can co-exist! Had to steal all the icons from Nightmare in Dreamland, Canvas Curse, and 64 just to make this. I hope it's sufficient and it's not just FIRE 2!!!

Ranger - I mean, I certainly didn't expect this ability to appear. But okay, sure! Kirby with a gun supremacy. It looks fun to play in Forgotten Land. I just decided to look at its illustration and have it the icon of the gun shooting a star... I might redo this in the future, it looks... Eh...

Drill - Ah yes, the ability that ruined Technician Uprising's canon standing. Before this ability was revealed, I deadset that Kirby's Technician ability would be Pure, which means he has capabilities unique to him only, in this case copying (and of course Robobot Armor shares that too with him due to partnership clause). Sure, the drill itself (which IS his weapon) was already in 64 but as a power combo which, as you may know, I made that state in 64 as a puberty state, which means that's not legit! So hell yeah, Kirby gets to use a drill. Bring on the Gurren Lagann references, people, he can thrive in it. BUT THEN FORGOTTEN LAND CAME. THEN THE DRILL ABILITY CAME. And so everything is ruined, the drill symbolism is no longer unique to poor Kirby. Thanks, HAL! Now I have to grasp at straws! I tried making the best of it though, all bias aside. It gave me a lesson to be more careful with making Technician Modes in the future though, as if the weapon matches the newest ability, I would be effectively screwed. WAHOO! Anyways stealing the ability hat for this one isn't it obvious.

Technician - My beloved. This design has not changed too much, even in its old days. Nothing much to say here.

Hypernova - Okay hear me out it technically has an icon but... The main reason I wanted to change it is because the Miracle Fruit is so mesmerizing. So I decided, screw canon, canon can eat my ass. In fact, I could've made it colorful too, but I restricted myself to three colors because Contact Abilities aren't supposed to exist! So it makes sense for it to break the rules! Yet I still want some boundaries.

Kabuki - Oh god I do not want to remember what the anime did to this ability. I have ranted about this ability before. So now, it's my responsibility to make it real. But the thing is, before I finalized what it would look like, I needed something to represent their magic, and no I do not want it to be Baton 2.0, so uh. Will-o-wisps! The supernatural Japanese thingies! I love will-o-wisps. So uh... yay.

Well, that means everything is settled... though I will have to do some minor edits to the spreadsheet, because GUESS WHAT?! I checked every file and realized that since I stacked each star one above the other, a small part of the other stars got into the imported picture. Now I have to redo everything AGAIN!!!!!

That being said. Please do enjoy.

[dokidokitsuna]

Spoiler-FULL Reactions to RWBY Arrowfell~

The thrilling sequel to this post. Most of my emotional investment has already faded by now (as is usually the case with RWBY media...) but, since I said I was gonna do this and I already made notes, why not?

Environments and NPCS -Not much to see in this game...the environments look cute in isolation, but as a gameplay element they’re just too simple (and repetitive...) to be immersive. Especially in Mantle and Atlas-- random stacks of ‘techno-blocks’ are not a real setting and they don’t feel like one. :/

-I just wish it could’ve had a stronger atmosphere...the main show already tends to ruin the little atmosphere it does create with baffling character placement and lackluster/absent color grading (seriously, the BG artists deserve better). And unfortunately it seems like the game just...copied that...

-The new NPCs were cute. A little silly, but cute; much more interesting and better for worldbuilding than the background characters in the show.  And of course the NPCs based on existing characters (Penny, Qrow, Pietro) were nice too. Even the Ace-Ops were kinda fun (Vine Zeki gained a personality trait! o_O)

-I liked how the quests tended to interweave together, like you’d complete one quest and get an item required to complete another quest as a reward-- which incentivizes you to talk to more people if you’re having trouble finding something on your own. It’s smart gameplay design like that that made me rate the game a C+; despite its simplicity you can tell it was made by professionals.

Enemies and Boss Fights -Yeah, the clone-enemies in the Atlas/Mantle portions are pretty embarrassing, but I think the selection of Grimm was nice. They all had different strengths and weaknesses and attack patterns for you to learn to deal with; you certainly can’t say they were lazily implemented. Even the clone-enemies at least invited unique strategies...I know for a fact that redheaded “BANG BANG BANG~” girl was specifically designed to be a rage-quit obstacle, and I love that for her. ^^

-The boss fights were pretty good too; nice selection of attack patterns and usage of space (especially for BRIR). Bram Thornmane wasn’t much of a final boss, all things considered, but at least he had something creative going on with the arrow patterns; there’s a little element of challenge there. Nothing super fun for any sort of mature gamer (even a casual one like myself), but I can see that being engaging for, like, a 5th grader. ^^; I guess.

-BTW: a lot of people in the comments of the release trailer remarked that the combat looks EXTREMELY lackluster for a RWBY game, like a ‘step down from Grimm Eclipse’...and although I do think Arrowfell does an okay job of being the type of game that it is, I also kinda have to agree with those people.^^; I’ve found more action-packed platformers browsing for Flash games in 2008...

Even just more expressive FX animation could have helped (a combo mechanic would’ve worked WONDERS); the act of fighting feels more like a means to an end than something the devs really want you to focus on and enjoy. It’s been said many times that RWBY no longer remembers why most of its fans were originally drawn to it-- unique, creative fight scenes that told stories about their characters through high-intensity action-- and that’s on full display here.

And on that note: if you just want to make a cheap RWBY game, a sidescrolling brawler against hordes of Grimm sprites, or even a simple PVP (put that bloated character roster to good use...) would be a much better fit for the franchise than even a REALLY GOOD version of Arrowfell. :T Just sayin’.

Plot and Characters -The moment we’ve all been waiting for~ ^^ *cracks knuckles*

-In brief: the plot sucks and the plot-relevant characters also suck. :/ WayForward at least did a good job building the game despite clearly not caring; as usual RT did not care about the writing AND did not do a good job. I went into it expecting the plot to be EVEN LESS interesting than those of the show, and I was STILL disappointed...

-Small things first: the repeated “I guess we’re doing this now” apathetic sarcasm from Team RWBY during the cutscenes was kind of...irritating, actually. Especially after we had to watch RWB sit around watching the plot go by for half of Volume 8...it’s bad enough when the audience starts to feel like the protagonists have no real investment in the plot (which has been a thing since V5...); it’s a whole new level of bad when the protagonists themselves all but admit it right to our faces. We’re supposed to assume that team RWBY is still here because ‘it’s the right thing to do’; they ‘don’t [want to] let anyone else die’...but more and more of their chances to actually portray that type of righteous character onscreen keep getting replaced by quirky, disinterested snark or pointless one-liners. And I don’t think RT realizes that if that’s all we’re getting...then the result is a story about characters who have no reason to be in it and don’t even want to. :/

-Re: Fifestone-- I’ve already said much more than I planned to say about him (through responding to those asks, if you remember ^^;) but my original note was as follows: in this day and age when workers’ rights are finally making a long-overdue comeback in the public consciousness, and ESPECIALLY considering the way RT treats its own employees, deciding you need an unnecessarily evil union leader in your fictional story is disgusting, vile and morally reprehensible. I used to think RT’s leadership was just ‘childish-bad’...y’know, selfishness and an unwillingness to compromise or improve making life hell for everyone else. But something like this feels more like ‘evil-bad’-- i.e. deciding that the hell you’re putting other people through is necessary, enough to justify and actively maintain through propaganda/manipulation. I’d...really hate to see RT go down that road. :[

-Let’s end on a lighter note by talking about Bram Thornmane: probably the most pathetic antagonist in the entire franchise. ^^;;; When I heard him admit that he seriously did ALL that just because he wanted to join the Ace-Ops (THE ACE OPS??? THE ACE OPS?!?!!!! o_O) I literally sat at my desk at work and laughed out loud, for like 5 minutes. ^^;

Seriously, though, it’s SO bad...I thought things couldn’t get any worse than Adam ‘my girlfriend left me’ Taurus, but here we are. And at least Adam looked cool (and his character assassination was absolutely hilarious; 50% of the reason I love him is because I spent Volumes 4 through 6 laughing at him constantly XD).

Thornmane, on the other hand, is a nothing character. No cool design, no interesting personality traits, no noteworthy connections to any substantial characters. I don’t even know what his semblance is (he mentions it during his boss fight, so I assume it’s in the game somewhere...does anyone know??).

So yeah, “I’m gonna steal unique technology and kill thousands of people to maybe hopefully make Ironwood look bad because he wouldn’t let me in the special club” is just the icing on the nothing-cake. Even a basic “I wanna take over the world” motivation would be better; it would at least make his actions feel justified...as it is, he just chose the most effortful, overly-convoluted way possible to express his anger over getting passed up for a team of huntsmen SO elite and SO special and perfect that they got washed by four newbie huntresses in 5 minutes. T_T Wowza. Now there’s an experience worth spending 30 bucks and 4 hours of your time...

-Easy Thornmane fix: Actually USE Arrowfell. They mentioned that Arrowfell was like an abandoned laboratory full of never-before-seen technology too dangerous to release to the world...USE that. If Thornmane wants to make Ironwood look bad, let him start handing this stuff out like candy to any thug on the street, and get people speculating about why such terrible weapons were even being made, and demanding that the General take responsibility (insert retroactive foreshadowing for his turn to the dark side in V8 here). Let him convince BRIR, the ‘guardians of Arrowfell’ (whatever that means) that this technology needs to be shared with the public to sort of ‘even the playing field’, let the people take back power from the tyrannical Atlas elites (insert morally-gray actually class-conscious Fifestone character here). Let him hoard some of the more frightening weapons for himself, and try to overthrow Ironwood (insert actually necessary Lt. Harper character here) and assume leadership of the Atlas military, to put himself in the position of power he always wanted. 

THIS STUFF IS NOT HARD GUYS; I came up with that in like 10 minutes! >_< And if I spent the amount of time you should spend on something you expect your fans to pay actual money for, I could do a lot better...

[fourseasonsfigs]

Everything I See is You

Like many Junzhe fans, I absolutely love the moment where Zhehan smiled at a hand-held fan with an image of Gong Jun. There are actually two different fig sets that memorialize this moment, and here's the first!

Both Zhehan and Gong Jun promoted Wahaha, a yogurt brand during the SHL promotional period. Zhehan showed up for an in-person event for them on August 4, 2021.

This is a type of hand-held fan sign we're talking about. They can vary but this is the general concept. You can see of course that this one has Zhehan on it.

Here's a clip from the event with the inspiration for this moment (sorry there are no subtitles):

This is a very popular event with fig makers - you'll see plenty more figures with these outfits going forward as well!

Our two little guys arrived safely in their polystyrene boxes. Junjun needed a little extra space for all his supplies!

Here's everything. You can see Junjun has his chair, a lightstick (?!), and not one, but two handheld fans! The one on the right is the original one that came with the fig. There was an option during production where you could order another fan, the one on the left. Dear reader, you know I ordered it!

And here's the back of everything.

You can see here how Junjun's hands are ready to hold all kinds of stuff! This is one of those figs where people could get real creative and have him hold balloons, other signs, etc. My much less creative self tried both these fans in both hands, but they only fit in the hand on his knee (as designed). The hole in his hand that he's holding up is smaller, to hold the teeny tiny base of the lightstick.

I had to really inspect the fans to tell who was who! As always, I did it the easy way - I just looked for the beauty marks. Zhehan's is the one on the left, and Junjun's (the fan that came with the base model) is the one on the right.

Junjun does not sit by himself in his little chair - like many little chairs of this type, it's just too lightweight to hold the full weight of a heavy-headed fig. Junjun would either slide right off or topple backwards, both unacceptable options. I fiddled around a bit with museum putty (too bulky) and museum wax (not strong enough) and finally gritted my teeth and glued his tush to the chair. Once he was firmly attached to his chair though, to my surprise he balanced just fine. I have him sitting on a fig stand here, as you can see, but he's actually not anchored down at all. I just put him there to level out the heights, since I had already fastened Zhehan to a fig stand at this time.

Speaking of which. Zhehan actually stands just fine on his own, but I while I was waiting for the glue to dry on the Junjun / chair combo, I thought, hey, this is a good time to put Zhehan on a stand. Forgetting that I hadn't taken their spin-o-vision shots! I like to take them without the stands, if they'll stand ok, because I think it is nice to see them by themselves. But in this case, my being scatterbrained efficiency got the best of us.

The art on these is a little different than a lot of my figs, but I just love it. I think the faces are super sweet. I mean look at Junjun's face. We've seen that exact look on him, looking down (yet somehow up) at Zhehan! The bright blue eyes echo the colors of their clothing, making this just a cheery, happy set.

I also really love the detail we have here on Zhehan's Wahaha event outfit. The earrings, the stitching on his jean jacket, and of course the asymmetrical color blocking on his pants.

You can see here that Junjun's sitting just fine in the chair now. It fits him great, it just needs something sticky to keep him in it.

I like the little details we can see on Junjun's jeans, and how the stitching on the sides also echos Zhehan's jean jacket.

You can see the asymmetrical color blocking on Zhehan's pants really well here.

We have typical Zhehan Curvy Fig Proportions here, as per most fanmade figs! I love the sweep of his hair here, and how it comes a bit back off his neck. Just so many great details with this set.

Junjun being the fan here with his folding chair and his fan props is just too adorable. You can tell he's here for the long haul, ready to sit and cheer for hours! I really love this concept.

I love Junjun's little relaxed pose here, it's surprisingly involved - it could have just been him simply sitting there with both legs bent, but it looks great like this. Of course, his little t-shirt is also entirely charming!

Here's Junjun holding his fan with Zhehan's face on it! This is a really cute look since we have Junjun himself being the fan in this circumstance, so it makes sense he'd have Zhehan's face on it.

This is a nice angle to see the little details on the bottom of Zhehan's beautiful flower bouquet. I love how it looks very much indeed like the crinkled bottom of a fancy bouquet! This is also a great view to see how clean and neat the details of Zhehan's silver earrings are. It's very easy to get paint overspray on little details like his earrings, but these look great.

I really like how the fig maker did Zhehan's combed back hair with the few wispy bangs that were blowing around in the breeze. They did a great job on it, as you can see in the card art below!

You can see here on the box how the fig maker pictured the event - Zhehan up there on the event stage, and Junjun cheering along in the audience! So cute!

I am absolutely in love with this fig set. And good news! As of today's date, the fig maker actually still has some remainders left over up for sale, so if you want the link, message me and I'll send it to you!

Material: Resin

Fig Count: 370

Scene Count: 25 (I don't think this set quite counts...I need a stage!)

Rating: You are all he can see, too!

[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]

[aikoiya]

Oh my God! I just got back from seeing the Super Mario Bros Movie & holy shit! It was amazing!

I loved it!

9.8 or 9.9 outta 10! Leaning more towards 9.9.

Now, spoilers ahead!

Do not read if you haven't seen the movie yet!

Now, literally, the only things that I'd change was that I would've gone with the Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi series' more varied & unique models for the toads. They could've at least had girl, kid, & elderly toads running around. It's just weird that they're all guys & all the same age with the only variations being color. The most unique toads were Toad & the one that I'm fairly sure should've been Toadsworth. You know, the one with the super deep voice? Him.

The only other thing I would've changed was the Kong Kingdom's vehicle designs. I would've preferred it if they were built more reminiscent of Diddy's inventions (not Cranky's though, Cranky's were perfect), but honestly? I'm willing to let this one slide because I get why they went this route.

It wouldn't make sense for the Kongs to have carts all ramshackle & patchwork without Mario, Peach, & Toad's also looking the same. And the entire point of having the carts in the first place was to be a reference to Mario Kart. So, that wouldn't have worked.

I mean, I also get why they did the colorswapping toads thing, at least, theoretically. It's probably easier to just use the same design & change the colors. Also, I remember something about Nintendo being weird about all the toads looking the same with Sticker Star, so that might've also contributed. Which I thought was disappointing even back then, personally. I really liked how different they all looked. So, I guess that it just feels lazy to me.

Otherwise? Perfect!

Like, omG!

Bowser stole the show!

His expressions! When he was angry, you could see it in his eyes as he got progressively more unhinged! Just so wide & "Imma fuckin' murder you, shortstack!"

And those little hints near the end from him that he might've not had the best life? "I was finally going to be happy!" & "Make you miserable like me!" 😧

INTERESTING!! I hope we get some stuff about that going forward!

Like, what if he grew up in an abusive household & that's why he's so good to his own kids?

Also, I loved how much like a teenager with a, really pretty toxic, crush he acted like!

I hope that, if there's a sequel? The Koopa Kids show up & we get Bowser & their dynamics! Not just Junior, but also the Koopalings from the Super Mario Brothers Super Show & Superstar Saga!

Speaking of Superstar Saga! I hope that the Firebrand & Thunderhand come into play! That is literally the only game I see them in & I loved them so much! I especially loved how Luigi got an element of his own besides just getting fire like Mario.

Also, all those little combo moves that the 2 performed in the Mario & Luigi series! It'd really highlight their teamwork!

Something else, but not like a must for it to be good? I would be very delighted if Daisy showed up in a sequel (with accurate spunky, feisty characterization) & her & Luigi just hit it off like a house on fire! I low-key ship them more than MarioxPeach.

And I loved that, while Luigi has obvious anxiety issues, being afraid wasn't his entire character. That would've very quickly gotten very old!

I also loved the obvious love the Bros had for each other. Like, even though it was fairly obvious the information that Bowser was fishing for in his interrogation & his own prominent fear, Luigi still had the cohones to tell this literal fire-breathing monster that "Only the princesses with good taste" would find his brother attractive. He might've been scared shirtless, but his admiration for his brother is REAL, ya'll!

I also really liked how Mario & Luigi's accents were very obviously Brooklyn, but wasn't in your face. That was a nice touch.

Also, DK? He was great! He was an egotistical ass with daddy issues, but he was a funny & likeable egotistical ass with daddy issues.

I liked the sort of razzy, frenemy-type rivalry poking at each other thing that he & Mario has at the end. Like, they obviously got beef, but there's no real heat to it at the end.

Peach was super cool too. She wasn't a damsel & she did shit! Also, she had a lot of badass moments! Loved the ice dress!

I also liked that they didn't just jump into the whole MarioxPeach thing. Like, they had great chemistry, but the movie wasn't about them. It was about Mario's brotherly relationship with Luigi. It's obvious that Mario & Peach are just friends & I think that's pretty realistic, all things considered.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a little shipping whore too & I'd definitely like to see them together at some point, but this is not the time. It'd feel too rushed. I'm not saying that it won't happen. Just that it shouldn't happen yet.

Also, the Psycho Paratroopa who definitely has issues & merced the shit outta Rainbow Road with a blue shell!

And the dog who very obviously has some anger issues that slipped under the radar of his masters! He was a dog on a mission! He wanted to fuck Lu's day up! Then, at the end where he gives that sorta nod of begrudging respect? Hilarious!

Just AAAAGGGHHH!!!

I will say, the nihilist Luma? Yeah, either he wasn't like that before he was captured or he's bullshitting about wanting to die & is being a little shit. Otherwise, he'd have pulled the trigger himself a long time ago rather than waiting for Bowser to sacrifice him in a fiery display of his passion for Peach. Just saying.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Banjo-Kazooie Spotlight

Hello, all! Guest writer Bynine here with an article on my favorite game of all time! Despite the immense popularity of this beloved N64 classic, the enemies of Banjo-Kazooie are not something that often comes up in discussion. Well, I'm here to change that!! Or at least, write well too much about some choice picks from the bestiary. Let's go!

Topper

Topper is the first in a small collection of sentient, googly-eyed vegetables that live in Spiral Mountain, where heroes Banjo and Kazooie also reside. Get used to those googly eyes, by the way, because you'll be seeing them a lot. Anywho, I really like the name Topper. You know, like "carrot top"! Great names are another feature of this series.

Bawl

Speaking of which, here's Bawl. Bawl is a fun name! It's hard to say without a southern drawl - bawwwl. Besides that, I don't have much to say about this hopping onion, but I still appreciate you, Bawl.

Colliwobble

The finale of our vegetable trio, and I'll be honest, I've saved the best for last. Sorry, Topper and Bawl, but it's a flying cauliflower called Colliwobble! How can you not love that? It flaps around gently with its big leaves, sustaining flight in a physically improbable yet adorable manner. How come the real thing can't do that, huh? No amount of bourbon roasted, brown butter baked cauliflower can convince me that we didn't get the short end of the stick here.

Gruntlings

The henchmen of the villainous witch Gruntilda, these oafish ogres patrol the halls of her lair, running after Banjo in a stance I'm sure they think is very intimidating.

Or maybe they want a hug? C'mere, big fella.

The most striking thing about Gruntlings to me is their impeccable fashion sense. They come in a variety of colors, and each one has a rakishly charming cloak to match, emblazoned with a fetching skull emblem. Would you mind stretching your arms out, Mr. Black Gruntling?

Thank you. Did Gruntilda coordinate these outfits? I'd believe it - she has a great ensemble herself, replete with a gorgeous purple striped scarf. And this is the same lady who's decorated her entire lair with images of her own face, after all...

Shrapnel

These ornery armaments are in the tragic category of enemies whose only goal in life is to detonate directly next to you. It's fitting then that they're based on a naval mine, but they also (perhaps unintentionally?) resemble sea urchins! How fun!

Normally they look fairly docile, even cute with their little underbite, but when Banjo draws near they growl and do... this. You okay there, buddy?

They're also the only enemies that appear in every Banjo-Kazooie platformer game! Clearly Rare knew they had a winner on their hands. Look at their pretty colors in Banjo Tooie! Look, but don't touch, please. It won't end well for anybody.

Sir Slush

Anyone who's played Banjo-Kazooie will be familiar with these goons. Living snowmen are usually quite jolly, and Sir Slush is no exception, with his consistent and hearty laughter. However, instead of frolicking in the snow, all Sir Slush does is pelt our heroes with snowballs. Rude!

Similar to the platonic ideal of living snowman himself, Frosty the Snowman, the life force of Sir Slush seems to be concentrated in its hat. It's invulnerable to most forms of damage, but if Kazooie strikes its hat at high velocity, it will be blown into icy chunks. Is this a similar principle to the "aim-for-the-head" zombie-killing technique? Are snowmen not merely zombies, extra ice, hold the flesh? Human bodies are 70% water anyway! 

Slappa

Another classic bestiary staple, the living hand! Slappa are gargantuan mummified arm-hand combos that pop up without warning from the dusty sands of Gobi's Valley, the requisite desert level of Banjo-Kazooie. True to their name, their main method of attack is a slap, where they simply fall over, crushing anything in their path. The most confusing thing about Slappas is that they have the ability to speak - they laugh if they manage to land a hit, and groan in pain when defeated. How are you talking, Slappa? Do you have a mouth hidden under those bandages? Maybe a whole face?

Artist's interpretation

There also exists a single non-violent Slappa called Grabba, who clutches onto a Jiggy and hides underground with it if you get too close. Should you manage to grab it, they mention having had it for a thousand years, but then congratulate you on your technique. Of all the traits to be assigned to a mummified hand, "sportsmanlike" was not one I was expecting, but I'll gladly take it.

Tee-Hee

Another winner of a name! Tee-Hee! That's great! This design is great too, in my humble opinion. You wouldn't expect a ghost to have such a goblinoid appearance, but Tee-Hee delivers both flavors of common RPG monster at once in an elegant package. Naturally Tee-Hees can phase through walls and are invincible to most attacks, staples of any Game Ghost (TM), and their pursuit is marked with constant laughter. Admittedly their laugh is more of a "mua-ha-ha" than a "tee-hee", but I'm willing to forgive it.

There's also a purple version! This one ignores Banjo and Kazooie entirely, preferring to move around in square patterns. Don't worry, though, it still laughs a lot. What's so funny about squares? Only the purple Tee-Hee knows.

Grimlet

Appearing on a ship known as the Rusty Bucket, Grimlet will disguise themselves as ordinary pipes, only showing their eyes and fangs when Banjo and Kazooie draw near. Despite their metallic appearance, they can stretch their bodies way out to take a bite out of bears and birds alike. You know, I like this design, but I feel like it could be improved somehow. Hmm...

Ooh! The beta version of Grimlet has a really interesting twist- eyes in its own mouth! Of course, any monster is improved when it puts its peepers in its gullet, and Grimlet is no exception. Well, let's keep going! 

An even earlier screenshot shows them with white, human eyes... and with a fleshy inner maw... Nope, I don't like this one bit. Abort!

Ahhh... Much better. Now that's a sentient cowl ventilator that I'd let take a chunk out of me. No, I don't have a problem! Quiet, you!

Of course, there are many more denizens of the BK universe worthy of scrutiny - in a universe where even common collectibles will strike up a conversation with you, that's not surprising. In particular, a Banjo-Tooie showcase would be a lot of fun... But I have to stop myself somewhere. Until next time!

[get-shiggy-with-it]

Book Drop Boy (Twice x Reader)

✧ pairing: library student worker!Twice x afab!student!Reader

✧ word count: 9.9k

✧ ao3 mirror

✧ warnings: college au/no quirks, maladaptive daydreaming (twice), twice is chaotic af, commits library related crimes, use of the term sweetheart a few times, smut, vaginal fingering/sex, doggy style, afab terms, no pronouns for reader, gratuitous swearing this is potentially the softest thing I've ever written, like she's pretty tame idk what Twice does to me

✧ summary: In which Twice learns that sometimes dreams do come true, except those dreams are just the maladaptive fantasies of a broke library receptionist and, while sexy, also involve more fraud than he expected.

✧ a/n: Hey y'all, this is set in the same universe as my shiggy college piece, but you don't need to have read that. There are some fun little easter eggs though if you have tho. This is like the most tame thing I've ever written and it's way longer than it was meant to be but oh well. Anyway, Twice deserves some love. Enjoy <3

Logically, Jin was aware you probably had no idea who the fuck he was.

But that really didn’t have any effect on the wildly intricate fantasy life he had created for the two of you during his long shifts behind the library reception desk. That, in fact, was the only reason he hadn’t up and quit just to save himself the embarrassment of another loud outburst in the middle of the most silent place on campus.

What was truly more shocking was the fact that none of those said outburst had gotten his ass kicked straight out the door.

But he held out.

If only for you.

Late nights or lazy afternoons you were always in the campus library—studying he assumed or…

'Studying,' because a lot of the time he noticed you’d show up with a drink from the cafe a few blocks down, set out a line of colored pens and not touch a single one of them for hours, content to stare blankly at the chipped desktop. And even that Jin was more than happy to watch.

He did a lot of watching.

Mostly because he wasn’t permitted to leave the desk unattended unless there were piling up returned books which needed to be replaced quickly.

So instead, he pretended to be busy scrolling through something on his old as hell monitor—which was conveniently set up directly across from the comfy chair/desk combo you always managed to grab—and he indulged in day dreams where you’d bring him a coffee from the cafe when you came in and set it on his desk, maybe kiss him on the cheek, maybe loiter by his workstation and play with his hair and—

Yeah.

It was a lot.

But you were always in that chair, always working or pretending to work and you never seemed to notice the uninterrupted hours of staring Jin did, so what was the harm?

If you never knew, you’d never get creeped out—cause it was creepy, he knew that, oh fuckin' boy did he know it was real goddamn weird.

He just couldn’t seem to give it up. Especially when the conditions presented perfectly for some good uninterrupted, totally not stalker-y at all, fantasizing.

Sometimes he thought you might have some mundane superpower that let you always snatch that perfect seat right across from his computer, and made it so the library was just cool enough that he’d get to watch you shrug on that cute extra sweatshirt you always brought. So he could catch a glimpse of some skin—in a totally normal and not invasive way—when your arms went over your head. So he could imagine it was his ratty old sweaters you were wearing just so you could smell him on you and god he really wanted to get close enough to smell you—was that too weird? No. Yes? No.

Not at all.

But the best part, the part that really convinced him on those awful days when he really just could not be bothered to drag himself out of bed and walk the couple blocks to campus just to sit in awful silence alone, in his head alone with the fucking thoughts that made him want to rip his hair out—

What made it worth it was those times every few weeks when your classes would get new assigned readings. Because then you’d have to check out new textbooks, since you were one of those geniuses that had figured out the library kept a ton of those books in stock. Of course you were, cause you were fucking perfect.

And when you had to check out new books, you had to come to reception.

Jin got to watch as your lovely figure moved through the stacks like you were ballroom dancing along the halls of faded, sea-green shelves, almost floating over the linoleum trying to find just the right volume in the right addition before anyone else beat you to it.

It was one of the most gorgeous things he’d ever seen.

Spinner would call him a fucking simp if he ever dared to uttered any of that out loud, but it didn’t matter.

If it was you, he’d simp for fucking life.

And then, you’d walk that fucking glorious ass over to his desk and plop the books down, smiling—cause you were polite like that, so fucking perfect he couldn’t hardly believe it sometimes—and asking how his day was while he checked you out in every sense of the phrase.

In a completely platonic and not freaky way.

So Jin kept coming to work, to that god awful job he really hated and which hated him just as vehemently. He clocked in every day and waited patiently like a fucking puppy counting the hours till its workaholic owner arrived home, ears perking up when you walked through the door and flashed your ID to the attendant.

If only for that.

He’d put up with his boss’ complaints and the weird stares he got when the thoughts just wouldn’t stay in his head anymore and he had to start talking to himself to fill the silence.

If only for that.

Those few hours when he could lose himself in the fake inner life where you were waiting for him when his shift let out, waiting to gather him, tired and understimulated, into your arms. Where you’d sneak into the back room with him just to chat and lace your fingers with his and maybe sit that fucking wonderful ass up on the tables so he could stand in between your thighs and you’d pull him down to—

Yeah.

That was enough.

***

It wasn’t until Tuesday when he had to come in again that week, and he already knew it was gonna suck balls.

Friday he’d gotten another round of complaints from some stuck up fucking business students—it was always the fucking business majors with those silver spoons so far up their asses—snitching to his boss that he’s been ‘disruptive’ and ‘disturbing’ during his last shift.

“Not my fucking fault,” he muttered under his breath, kicking a rock along the side walk he’d picked up two blocks before. “Yes it is. No it’s not!”

Jin groaned and tugged at his hair, wishing he’d brought a Tylenol or something to curb the headache that was already sticking it’s ugly ass claws into his temples. He really, really heavily contemplated just ditching, calling in sick or some shit. Technically he was a student worker, so they had to work with his DRS accommodation and he was actually having a bad fucking time.

But one of his friends had already texted to ask if he’d try and reserve them that sweet ass study room on the third floor and Jin wasn’t really looking to disappoint anyone else this week. Besides, it was fun to abuse his minuscule power. Fun to go corrupt for once. Fight the system and all that.

He liked to think you’d be proud of him for it, based on the kinds of texts you checked out at least.

So, he dragged his sad ass back to the looming library looking far too much like a prison than was necessary and clocked in. Actually, the first thing he did was check the chair—your chair and nobody else’s chair, he might actually make a fucking scene if somebody ever did steal it—and his face visibly fell when you were not occupying it.

It was a bit early, Jin supposed as he paused briefly when he noticed the can of Monster and rando vending machine chips sitting next to it by the reception computer. The sticky note slapped to the top read 'For your troubles' in familiar handwriting and that pulled a bit of a smile from him as he quickly rearranged the scheduling of study room sign ups so the fancy third floor room would be free for the rest of the night.

Then Jin sat, staring at the study room schedules for a moment, feeling his eyes softly glaze over until a hand slapped down on the raised lip of the reception desk.

“Hey bro,” Spinner greeted him with a wild smile and a flurry of bright pink hair.

Jin had to blink a few extra times to get his vision to clear. When it did he saw, horrifyingly, that he’d been staring at the fucking blank screen for two hours without moving.

Why was it that his head was either deadly quiet, devoid of even a single errant thought or so loud as fucking shit at all times that he couldn’t physically keep the thoughts in?

“Hey, dude, what’s up?” Jin asked, running a hand through his unruly hair.

“Aren’t you supposed to like shush me or something?”

Spinner chuckled a bit at his own god awful joke and Jin couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed, too glad for the company.

“I mean,” he shrugged, popping the can of Monster and ignoring the dirty looks he got for the sound. “I would if I was, uh, good at my job.”

“Which I’ve heard you definitely are not,” Spinner wrapped his fingers over the lip of the desk and leaned back on his heels, swaying side to side idly.

“You’re just figuring that out now?”

Jin didn’t bother watching while Spinner nearly tripped over himself fidgeting as he spun to stand at the little gate that corralled Jin inside like livestock. He was too busy glancing over to check you hadn’t slipped in while his brain had taken a trip to the astral plane without him.

“No, I been knew, but my sources tell me you’ve gone off the rails my friend,” long legs stepped over the wooden partition until the only friend he had who was quite possibly more annoying than Jin himself was sat on the counter next to his computer. “Finally been radicalized have you?”

Jin huffed and sipped his Monster, “Guess it fuckin’ took me long enough.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Spinner was messing about with the stacks of multicolored sticky notes littered across the desk before glancing up to wink at Jin. “So what can I get you to do for me in exchange for free food?”

“Now I really am gonna fucking shush you,” Jin smashed his finger against Spinners grin only to get a hand covered in spit for his trouble.

“Right, right,” Spinner held his hands up in defeat, “can’t have you cheating on your sweetheart.”

“Not my—yes I’m in a committed fictional relationship thank you very much—ugh!”

Jin could feel the heads shooting up from laptop screens and textbooks to stick daggers in his back with their angry stares. Spinner at least had the good sense to look a little fucking guilty for egging him on.

“Sorry bro, I had to shoot my shot ya know?” a hand disappeared into the mop of bubblegum locks in apology.

“It’s fine…” Jin trailed off, mumbling and blushing more than a little profusely as he turned to check the book drop box. “Not like I’m ever gonna fuckin’ shoot mine anyway.”

“Oh we are not gonna have that kinda of shit discussion,” Spinner’s hand shot out and grabbed him firmly by the shoulders, spinning Jin in his chair. “On god bro, we’re gonna get you a date one of these days.”

Jin didn’t dignify that kind of lie with a response.

Spinner once again, had the good sense to not push the envelope any farther.

“And in the meantime, you can come to the League meeting tonight!”

“Your gaming club thing?”

“Yeah, it’s Smash night and we need to fill a space sooooo…”

Jin knew Spinner and his roommate—the same friend who he’d gone study room rogue for—had started a gaming club their freshman year. Spinner had been trying to strong arm him into attending ever since. To, as he put it, ‘socialize,’ and ‘make new friends.’ All things which Jin was patently horrible at and avoided like the plague.

Needless to say, he’d refused every time.

It wasn’t just the whole being alone with like two people he kinda knew in a room full of strangers. Games themselves were just a lot for him. The flashing colors and the loud noises made his head—which was already so fucking full all the time and he really needed to keep any extra scrap of space for extra random facts he picked up about you and your future married life together—get a bit misaligned.

They just weren’t his jam most of the time.

“I’m good, thanks for the offer though,” Jin twisted out of Spinner’s grasp and craned his head to check your seat again.

Still empty.

He sighed.

Spinner continued to ramble and Jin continued to only half listen. It wasn’t as pleasant to day dream when you weren’t there for the added visual aesthetic. And he was trying to not be a dick and ignore the one friend he had managed to keep around over the years. But it was hard when his mind had a mind of its own.

Wow.

Meta.

“Jin?”

The voice—deep and dark in such a dramatically ominous way it might have been funny if it didn’t belong to his permanently disgruntled supervisor—interrupted his already derailing train of thought.

“Oh, uh, hello sir,” Jin stuttered, turning to find Kurogiri leaning against the reception desk with one arm, turning only slightly to accommodate Spinner’s form bolting over the gate and out the library doors.

He did manage to throw a fading, “See ya later, bro” over his shoulder before he disappeared around the corner.

Yeah thanks for the warning, bro.

“Aren’t you supposed to be reshelving the books from the drop box?” Kurogiri sighed, perpetually disappointed in a way that had Jin’s face burning and shame bubbling up in his throat.

He hated this job. He was objectively terrible at it, and so usually he wouldn’t give that much of a shit at not doing it well. Kurogiri just had some type of vibe—like daddy but not in the sexy way Spinner always joked about—that made it really, really upsetting to let him down.

Father figure? Yeah that's what it was called.

“Right, yeah um, sorry,” Jin nodded quickly and leapt from his chair, only mildly bruising his knee on the desk as he reached to empty the book drop.

Another incorporeal sigh was the only acknowledgement he received as he loaded the cart with wheels louder than Jin on a particularly bad day and rolled the pile of books back to the stacks. He paused once more, just before the sea green shelving units swallowed him up, to sneak another futile peak at your chair. But it still sat empty—empty and lonely with no you and cold without your body pressed against the worn upholstery.

Jin felt a chill too, a slow tingling thing that worked its way up from the base of his spine. It drove him deeper into the walls of books, away from the empty spaces.

It was harder to look.

Harder to be reminded of what he did not have.

Of what he’d never have cause he was too much of a goddamn pussy to ever just fucking talk to you—

But then what if he did? What if he did talk to you? What would happen then?

Those were the types of questions he tried to avoid when crafting your intricate, fictional lives together. Precisely because they were the easiest to answer.

You’d realize within the first five minutes or so of conversation—if Jin could even make it that far without embarrassing himself—that he was just a generic brand weirdo that all your pretty, normal, aesthetically pleasing friends would warn you to stay away from and because you were also pretty and normal and not a fucking idiot, you’d have the common sense to listen.

He’d lose you in the blink of an eye.

Your chair would sit cold and empty forever and the imaginary garden he’d been planting for you to come imaginarily home too would wilt and die like all the other happy thoughts in his head.

It was quite the conundrum and one Jin was not keen to solve soon.

Not that things ever really went his way. Cause problems could only be avoided for so long before all that time spent ignoring them came back to bite him full on the ass.

Which, apparently, came this time in the form of what had to be quiet, muffled sobbing drifting in between the shelves from the back hallway.

It was dark here in this section of the building—free of most windows so as not to cause any sunning damage to the books—and Jin had seen more than enough horror movies to know that it was a horrendous idea to follow the ominous crying sounds coming from the bowls of this old as fuck building. But even as he made up his mind to ignore it, the hand currently working one of the returns back into its proper place dropped the book to his cart as his feet slowly turned to face the corridor.

He looked around skeptically for a second, not entirely certain his poor brain hadn’t simply malfunctioned again, as it was wont to do, and fabricated the sound entirely. But as he peaked out from between the stacks, and down the dimly lit hall, he heard it again.

Echoey and soft in the wide, empty space it—was definitely coming from the hall and it was definitely a person.

Jin caught himself moving without ever meaning too, the books laying forgotten as he crept towards the source of the noise and paused just before leaving the stacks entirely. This hall was full of small alcoves built into the centuries old walls and led to the lesser used storage portions of the library that only the janitorial staff and the university librarians ever entered. He really didn’t want to stumble across someone from the special collections department bawling over a damaged or lost manuscript.

But his wayward feet pushed him forward, too sympathetic for his own good. He found himself shuffling down the abandoned hall, peering into each small dip in the walls to find the source of his distraction.

And when he did, Jin was—for once in his life—thankful for his lack of self-preservation instincts.

And cursed his blatant lack in interpersonal skills.

Because it was you.

You curled with your knees to your chest and your head in your hands, shoulders shaking, as you cried into your palms.

The universe had handed him maybe the only golden opportunity he would ever get on right on a platter.

But Jin didn’t have a fucking clue what do with it.

And there certainly wasn’t much time to formulate a game plan as his nervous breathing and sudden intake of breath upon discovering his imaginary lover sniffling right in front of him, had certainly alerted you to his presence.

Your head shot up in an instant, knocking dully against the stone wall with a thud.

“Shit,” you cursed and hands flying up to cover the area as Jin jumped on the spot at your outburst.

“Are you okay?” he asked lamely as you glanced over at him, eyes red and wet and so fucking sad oh fucking god, widening as you realized you’d been caught.

“Huh? Ye—oh uh, yes,” your words came out jumbled, legs unfolding quickly to push yourself off the bench and hands wiping furiously at your eyes. “I’m fine, sorry.”

“You sure about that?”

Jin cringed visibly and frowned at the way you deflated under his stare. God the first fucking time he actually talks to you and he already made an ass of himself.

Spinner’s roommate was such a liar, it really fucking sucked to be right sometimes.

“I mean,” you crumpled back down onto the ledge and Jin took a careful step closer, “no, but yes. Like I’m definitely having a breakdown in the back of the fucking library but I don’t wanna, uh, bother you with that. So, yeah I’m good.”

“You can bother me,” he replied way too fucking quickly.

But he couldn’t really be embarrassed about it. Your voice was just so captivating, and you weren’t talking to him in that raised pitch anymore like you usually did—the way everyone does when they’re trying to be surface level and polite. No this was your voice how you sounded when you were relaxing with your friends or making breakfast in the morning or talking to yourself in the shower (he liked to think you did that, or sang maybe as you worked the soap into your skin, one of the two but he always imagined you filled silences with how fucking pretty you were).

“No, really. That would be weird, right?”

Jin grimaced as you fixed him with a watery yet suspicious stare.

Yeah it was weird.

Everything he did concerning you was weird, objectively. He was definitely being over-familiar and too eager, especially considering you didn’t fucking know him.

But he knew you.

Jin felt like he’d known you for all months he’d spent pretending to be by your side.

And you were crying and he had to do something.

“I mean, yeah I guess,” he mumbled, taking a risk and plopped down on the opposite end of the alcove and resting his head on the wall. “But not any weirder than having a breakdown in the employees only section of the library building on a Tuesday.”

You kept staring blankly for a few moments before the most miraculous thing happened.

Jin had to physically stop his jaw from hitting the floor when the quiet giggle bubbled up from your chest and spilled out into the hall, warm enough to melt even the freezing linoleum floor.

“Yeah, you’ve got a point,” your voice cracked a bit as a few more tears slid like pearls down your cheeks.

“My name’s Jin,” he said, shocked stupid both by your laugh and the apparent success of his comforting methods.

“Oh, hi, well I guess I don’t have to call you book drop boy anymore,” you rubbed at your face again and tucked your legs back into your chest, though it looked a bit more relaxed this time.

Not so trying-desperately-to-fade-out-of-existence.

“You called me that?” Jin asked, brain still functioning at half capacity, only shocked at the fact that he existed as a concept in your head enough to have a name and realizing a bit too late how accusatory he must have sounded. “Shit, I mean it’s totally fine I just didn’t think you, uh, well I mean, like, knew about me I guess?”

You finally smiled and his brain power cut out another fourth at being personally graced by the expression this close up.

“Yeah, you always check me out—fuck sorry not that you check me out, just you scan my books and I just called you ‘book drop boy’ in my head cause I never got a chance to ask for your name but I have it now so that’s cool….”

Your head dropped back down to your knees as you groaned and Jin suddenly felt a lot less nervous than he had a few seconds ago.

You were weird too.

For so long you’d existed on this pedestal thousands of feet in the air, and now you were stepping down from the heavens and onto earth. Not in a bad way! Just, Jin had never really stopped to think that you might be a person too.

Well.

No, he knew you were a person, just he never thought you might get flustered and ramble and be nervous in front of him.

Cause he was a fucking train wreck—the bar was so goddamn low.

It was almost as comforting as your smile.

“Oh, yeah sorry I’m not the best at customer service if you couldn’t tell,” he sighed and ran a hand through his wild hair.

You looked back up with a wry grin, “I don’t know, I’d say you’re going above and beyond right now.”

And you were funny.

He was gonna fucking combust.

“Ha, yeah, I try,” he trailed off for a moment before glancing back at your curled in your corner, fuck he could just imagine sitting behind you, your head on his chest while you—”So uh, did you wanna talk about it or…?”

“Uh, yeah,” you picked idly at the grouting of the stone and mumbled, “I guess it’s not so weird if we’re on a first-name basis.

And that was how Jin discovered that you’d been hiding in the back of the library bawling your eyes out for hours—since even before his shift started. Apparently you’d gotten here extra early, even skipped a class, to snag some super specific required text for your final thesis and right before you got to the shelf some jackass swooped in, effectively hit and running with the only copy of that book on campus.

The book in questions was one of the newer additions that had special added footnotes you needed for your paper and was a whopping 500 fucking dollars to rent from every other place online. You couldn’t afford it, and honestly what fucking student could? But you needed it to complete the paper or you’d fail and Jin very much understood the need for a good breakdown after a catastrophe like that.

“Damn, that’s uh, fucking awful,” he frowned on your behalf as your head hit the wall a second time in frustration.

“Yeah so, I’m like royally fucked either way. Now I just gotta decide which hole I’m taking it in I guess,” you groaned.

Jin’s eyebrows raised at your choice of words but they were apt, he supposed. People really do get comfortable with each other pretty quick when bonding over shared institutional rage.

“Well,” he began, wringing his hands nervously at what he was about to suggest. “You might be in luck cause I’ve recently decided to abuse my library powers for good and I maybe, possibly, could try and see if there’s some strings I can pull?”

You perked up a bit, looking at him incredulously.

Jin felt comfortably full under your stare.

“Seriously?”

The word was soft and it bounced off the walls just as much as it did the inside of his skull.

Swapping study rooms to help a friend out was one thing. But falsifying checkout dates for someone he barely knew—had essentially married in his maladaptive fantasies—could get him fired.

He hated this job but he needed it.

Were you worth the risk?

Of course, he found himself thinking without hesitation.

You were everything.

“Yeah, sure,” he nodded, any lingering uncertainty washing away at the way you looked at him through your lashes. “I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it.”

“Are you always this nice?”

Jin didn’t answer right away. He was too caught up in how you’d leaned forward on your hands across the bench, peering like he was some exotic animal or a stray cat in the parking lot—all soft wonderment with fingers curling like they ached to grab hold and rescue him from this parchment scented monotony.

“Not always…”

“Should I feel special then?”

If his face wasn’t red before, it was now. Red and blistering under the summer campfire heat that radiated off you—woodsy and warm and so painfully familiar like an old friend’s hand.

“...I guess you—fucking definitely, ” he quite nearly shouted the last bit, startled by his own volume and already mortified at the outburst but then you chuckled again from beside him.

He turned to see you standing and offering a hand which he gladly too if only to feel the weight of your palm against his.

“Well, you’ll have to let me pay you back then.”

“Oh, no you don’t actually—”

You held a hand up and the words turned to ash on his tongue in an instant, mouth glued shut by your gesture.

“Coffee on me or something, there’s a nice cafe a few blocks from here,” you dropped your hand and your eyes were clear now, no sign of the previous afternoon sobbing alone in the hallway. Jin felt a surge in his chest knowing he was the one who did that. “You gotta pass off the contraband anyway, and I don’t think it would be that great of an idea to do it here.”

God you were fucking perfect.

“Can’t argue with that.”

***

Jin was sweating profusely as he snuck past the library attendant, totally inconspicuous and not not all looking like he was doing a single thing wrong in the slightest.

Yeah they definitely didn’t suspect a thing.

The process of fraud was actually a lot less complicated of an undertaking that Jin had expected. All he had to do was search up the book, find the student that had stolen the success of his sweetheart’s educational career and flag his account. They’d get an automated message about the flag, instructing them to return any borrowed items or they’d be forced to pay fines while the account was examined.

Technically he needed administrator credentials to report student accounts, but luckily Kurogiri had his login info written on a sticky note hidden on the back of the monitor. All in all it was a pretty easy job.

The whole thing had taken only a matter of days, in which time you had returned to the library only twice—the first to get confirmation on the success of Jin’s newest descent into low level crime which had set his heart thundering in his chest as you bent conspiratorially over his desk, your face just inches from his.

The second time, Jin had horrifically been absent from his desk, however he was met with possibly the most wonderful sight of his life upon returning from the labyrinth of shelves.

On one of the hundreds of post-it note pads that littered the library reception area, there were scribbles that he was sure hadn’t been there before. He almost tossed it, but upon closer inspection, you’d written your number there and signed just below it. In the cutest fucking handwriting he’d ever seen—cute not for any stylistic reason, but it simply felt that way just by virtue of it being yours—was written the digits and “-for book drop boy”

The noise he made reading that turned more than a dozen heads and almost got him fired there on the spot before any of his indiscretions were even discovered, but he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it.

So, nerve wrackingly, Jin texted you as he nearly sprinted home from his shift after that piece of shit asshole who made you cry had trudged angrily in and dropped off his ‘stolen’ book.

— HEY IT’S JIN!

— from the library

— shit sorry that wasn’t meant to be in caps

— n e way….

— I’ve intercepted the ~package~ so whenever you’re ready for the hand off, I’m good

Most perfect fucking human being to…

Oh my god thank you so much!!!—

Is tomorrow at like 5ish good for you?—

Also send me your order—

so we don’t have to do that awkward waiting in line for drinks bit—

Holy fuck you multi-texted too! Spinner would roll over in his fucking grave, he hated when Jin did that. But there was always so much to say and he could never think of it all at the same time. Plus, you wanted to save him from that god awful silence where you both stand in line next but he can’t talk cause he has keep repeating his order in his head over and over or he’ll blank when he gets to the register so it’s just this painful weird glancing back and forth—

Ugh, maybe all the shit about manifestation that girl who always loaned him exacto knives in his sculpting class always talked about was real.

Cause there was no way you weren’t just heaven-sent, handcrafted especially for him and all his general brand of weird.

The hours which usually flew by without Jin’s notice dragged all that night. He was so full of excess energy that made his hand shake and his thoughts race, not sure what to do with themselves now that they didn’t need to fantasize about you.

He decided to use all that extra motivation to vacuum the kitchen at 4:30 in the morning, much to his roommates' chagrin. She liked to get a nice solid eight hours every night and constantly reminded Jin of this, trying to sell him on that sleepy time tea before bed, though he really hated the smell of camomile.

Magne may lose out on some of her beauty sleep—not that she needed it and Jin would tell her that constantly, even if he did have some patently horrible judgment most of the time so he wasn’t really the best at offering reassurance—but the kitchen would be clean when she woke up so win-win really.

When she did wake up—wandering out of her room looking effortlessly put together in a way Jin could never hope to emulate—she sat at the table, sipping her tea and appraising him worriedly.

Jin was still in his jeans from the day before, hair spiking in every direction but down, and chewing his nails nervously despite losing most of them to the hour or two of early morning floor scrubbing.

“Babe,” she shook her head slowly, “take a breath.”

“Yeah okay,” he sighed and inhaled deeply, letting himself slide off the couch cushions and to the newly sparkling floors on the exhale.

“There, now wanna share what the hell is going on?”

He glanced up at her from the hardwood and groaned as she looked back down, brows furrowed over her glasses.

“Huhh, okay. So that absolute work of art from the library is meeting me for coffee later cause I have trade over this book I sort of stole, it’s a long story, and I don’t know if it’s a date—it sounds like a date, cause that’s where people go for dates and shit—but it might just be to pay me back for stealing the book. And if it is I’ve only ever been on that one date before which was with fucking Spinner like two years ago so—”

Magne held up a hand to quiet Jin before the speed of his words tied his tongue in physical knots. She looked contemplative, taking another soft sip of tea and nodding her head for a moment getting up to crouch on the floor by his head.

“You think too much for your own good, but never about the right things,” she mumbled, smoothing some of the hair from his face. “Does it really matter if this is a date or not?”

Jin blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” she chuckled in that way people do when kids ask them obvious questions—kindly, appreciative of the curiosity, “either way you cut it, you’ll be spending time with this person you like, yeah?”

“Mhm,” he hummed and sat up to face her as she stood.

“A date is just hanging out with a special name anyway,” Magne’s hands were firm but gentle as she hoisted Jin off the floor and onto his feet. “You’ll be fine.”

His shoulders slumped both in mild relief and dejection that he’d waisted so much precious time he could have been preparing possible topics of conversation or strategies to ask you out for real date on worrying over how this first time would go.

How did Magne always fucking know all this stuff?

Other people were such a mystery to him.

To be fair, though, Jin was a mystery to himself most of the time as well.

“Thanks, sorry for not saying anything about it earlier,” he sniffed as she smiled and pinched his cheek way fucking harder than necessary.

“It’s alright, I’m only a little insulted you waited until now to tell me about this massive crush you’ve developed.”

“Yeah it’s got its own gravitational pull at this point.”

Magne laughed at that and Jin felt the room lighten.

“I do expect details when you get back though,” she said pointedly, finishing her tea wandering back to her room to grab her bag. “Spinner asked me, very begrudgingly might I add, to fill in at another of his club tournament things tonight so I’ll be out late.”

“Really? I didn’t think you liked that stuff.”

Jin shuffled over to her doorway and peaked into the neat little space. Magne was rummaging through the meticulously organized closet and frowning as she answered.

“I do, Spinner just doesn’t agree with my battle strategies,” she huffed. “My alignment is far too ‘chaotic’ and ‘recklessly violent’ for his tastes apparently.”

“Oh, yeah that makes sense,” Jin laughed this time just envisioning the two of them stuck on a team. “Well have fun with that.”

“Yeah well,” she brushed by him into the hall, keys jangling as she went and calling over her shoulder. “Text me how it goes, and wear that new button up you got last week, it looks good on you!”

***

Much to Jin’s surprise and delight, Magne was right.

He was fine.

He was fine.

Fine was a bit subjective—as he was most certainly still highkey panicking on main as he got out of his last class and walked the short few blocks to the cafe on campus—but regardless he was perfectly okay.

Of course that all went right out the fucking window in the split second between him walking in and you already staring at the door as he entered. Your eyes widened just a bit and this smile broke out slowly across your cheeks when you waved him over and it was like suddenly every single creepy as hell day dream had just become reality.

It was a little overwhelming to say the least.

His heart may have actually stopped in his chest for a bit and he did contemplate the possibility that Kurogiri might have actually discovered his little plot, murdered him in cold blood and stuffed his body in the records room. This might all just be the afterlife, but that would mean that Jin had gone to some kind of heaven which didn’t really add up with his current tract record.

But it was fine.

Because you were really fucking easy to talk to.

Like, really fucking easy.

It was sorta strange actually, how you seemed to know all this shit he was into before he even really mentioned it.

After you traded off the goods, you both sat in the big comfy couches upstairs in the loft and you listened to him info dump, inevitably getting lost down innumerable unrelated tangents. You managed to keep up well enough though and not question the winding conversation.

“Damn,” he said, sipping at the last dregs left behind in his cup. “How do you know about all this stuff?”

“Uh,” you paused then, looking maybe just a bit sheepishly into your own drink. “I may or may not have spent a considerable amount of time eavesdropping into your conversations while you’re on shift.”

He saw flashes at that moment—dial up sounds going off between his ears.

Jin.exe has stopped working.

“...What?”

You grimaced and hid your face in your hands for a moment, “I know it sounds really creepy, my friends just sorta made a, um, game out of it? They tease me a lot about going to study at the library just cause of the cute guy that works there, so we all kinda stalk you a little bit just—wow this is sounding exponentially worse and worse every second.”

He gaped a bit despite himself as you cringed visibly and Jin tried to discreetly pinch his thigh to make sure this really wasn’t some sort of cruel, cruel fever dream.

“You think I’m cute…?”

He blinked once and your eyes shot up to meet his, a pained, half smile caught between your teeth. “I mean, yeah. I kinda thought I was being a bit obvious, sorry.”

“What no, holy fuck,” he spluttered, face on fire and legs bouncing restlessly against the couch across from you. “Don’t apologize, I have a, uh, staring habit too I guess.”

“I know,” you rubbed at the back of your neck and Jin didn’t think it was possible for you to be anymore endearing. “I’ve noticed, that’s like the whole reason I insisted on buying you a drink.”

“So wait is this a date?”

Jin wished almost immediately that he hadn’t asked, because Magne was right, it super didn’t matter but fucking shit on a stick he really wanted it to be a date!!!!

“Yeah,” you nodded. “If you’d like that.”

“Yes!—ah, I mean, uh yeah mhm,” Jin choked on his spit with enthusiasm, but it did earn him a concerned shoulder pat so he’d take the win.

It also afforded him the opportunity to walk you home after hours chatting until the streets were lit by burnt orange lamps and the cafe was closing. You didn’t live all that far from him actually and when you stopped to point out your door, the two of you were overcome by that telltale, charged silence.

Filled with potential.

Like a gas stove waiting for a spark to go up in flames.

It was you that struck the match.

“So, um, I promise I don’t just, uh, do this with everyone but, do you wanna maybe come inside,” you let your hand trail down his arm and slip into his palm, “I don’t feel like you’ve been properly compensated for saving my ass.”

Jin’s mouth was watering at the thought. He nodded slowly, eyes like saucers as you pulled him up your steps and through the door which shut promptly behind him.

Your place was nice in the sense that it fit you. He wasn’t really paying all that much attention to his surroundings as you locked the door and squeezed his hand in yours, leading him towards the end of the entrance hall.

When he stepped through to your bedroom, you toed off your shoes and he did the same, staring nervously and waiting for you to show him what exactly you meant by ‘further compensation.’

It was exactly what he’d hoped.

You approached him, still in the doorway, and stepped close so your chests brushed together. It was soft, the way you looked at him, sort of fuzzy around the edges while your hands trailed down his arms to place his palms at your waist.

It wasn’t like Jin hadn’t done this before—he totally had and definitely remembered all of it and wasn’t shit faced at all nope—but it hadn’t really mattered before. He knew in theory that he should take the lead, be a gentleman and make the first move and holy fucking god he was dying over there with the desire to finally live out his months and months of fantasies

But what if he did it wrong?

What if he ruined it now when he was so close to the finish line?

He’d never fucking forgive himself for it, and he could goddamn hear Magne in his head.

“You think too much for your own good.”

And he did, and he was right now, cause the room was only dimly lit by the street light streaming in through the window and you were reaching out to loop your arms behind his neck.

Should he lean down now?

Tilt left or right?

What if he clacked your teeth together?

What if—

Your lips were soft and hot against his, rubbing at the stubble on his chin before pressing close in that precious, puzzle-piece way human bodies fit together. He didn’t do much thinking after that.

His hands were too busy digging into the flesh of your hips separated by way to many fucking layers of fabric, and he couldn’t quite stop himself from indulging just a bit. Jin sucked gently at your lower lip, knees going weak at the glorious fucking sound you made in the back of your throat as he licked over the taught skin and tugged it between his teeth.

He could feel you smiling into his mouth, sharing breath and raking your fingers through the hair at the base of his neck. Jin groaned and you—fucking cheeky little bastard—slipped your tongue right past his lips and licked at the back of his fucking teeth like a popsicle in July.

Your hands in his hair hard tugged and his breath was coming faster, lips gliding against yours as the room turned to steam around him.

Through the haze he clung to the few remaining seconds of clarity.

Jin pulled away for one painful second to mumble against your lips.“You meant have sex, right?”

“Yeah,” your voice was barely more than a whisper, but you nodded frantically and rolled your hips against his.

“Ohh fuck, ‘kay good, thank god.”

For once Jin had nothing more to add.

And you weren't exactly willing to give him back his tongue long enough for any interruptions anyway.

***

“Holy fucking shit, look at you,” Jin gasped into your ear.

Both of your clothes had been discarded long ago, and he had your bare back to his chest while he sat propped against the headboard with your legs hooked on either side of his knees. It didn’t afford him the best view, but he got your head resting on his shoulder and pretty moans spilling right into his ear.

He didn’t need to see your pussy anyway.

The slick pouring out of your pretty fucking hole and coating his fingers as he pumped two of them into you was more than enough. His other hand wandered in the lovely expanse of space between your chest and your waist, running softly over the skin and pausing to pinch and roll your nipples just to hear you whine.

His cock was so fucking hard, trapped between your ass and his stomach, twitching every time you thrust your hips to meet the movement of his wrist.

“Jin, fuck please-”

You used his name every time you begged him for more and it was really going to his head.

“You’re so goddamn perfect, I’m gonna fucking ruin you,” he groaned and sunk his fingers deeper into your soaking cunt while his mouth dropped to your neck and sucked hard to mark you lovely skin.

He licked at the indents of his teeth, tasting your sweat on his tongue that tangled with yours again as your hand reached for his cheek and pulled him in. It was less of a kiss and more of a sloppy forming of your mouths that left you connected by a silvery string of spit that flashed in the low light. Jin sighed at the sight, rutting his hips against the cleft of your ass.

Your thighs twitched where they were spread and your hips lifted off the mattress to meet the languid thrusts of his fingers that curled up on every push in to hear the hitch in your breath.

He took pity on you and brought his other hand down to rub circles on your clit, listening for the telltale whimpers and the way your nails dug into his arm to find the perfect rhythm.

“I don’t really—mm, there fuck—feel like I’m paying you back right now,” you mumbled nipping your own trail of stepping stone bruises onto his throat as he picked up the pace and held steady on that sweet bundle of nerves.

“Are you fucking serious?”

He didn’t really mean to full on growl at you then, but just the thought that you’d really believe he wasn’t about to fucking drown in ecstasy just from watching you get off—just from touching, speaking, being in anyway acknowledged by you at all. Jin nudged your head to the side and bit down harshly into the crook of your neck, shuddering as you moaned and arched against his chest.

In any other scenario, he could never really find the right balance between too many words and not enough. The sheer volume of thoughts and interjections that raced like cars reaching the end of rush hour traffic made the formulation of any coherent conversation impossible, but now—

Now with your body so pliant in his hands, so willing and sweet and wanting him.

Wanting him.

What a concept.

He needed you to understand, to know how fucking over the moon, sunshine bright you had him burning.

And for once, he finally had the words to do it.

After all, he’d had months to prepare.

It was surprisingly easy to change your positions, to pull away from you for just a moment so he could roll and cage you on your hands and knees under him, ass in the air nestled against his cock.

“You really don’t think I’m getting anything out of this?” he groaned into you ear, rocking his length against you both for emphasis and because it felt so fucking good.

“Ah, well ya know,” your voice was so wrecked he was desperate to find out how much it would take for you to lose it entirely. “When you put it like that—mmh—I just feel bad you’re doing all the work. ”

You had this cheeky fucking grin on your face when you rocked forward so back so his cock slipped down to your dripping lips. The heat of your cunt was mesmerizing and it took a fuck ton of self control Jin was unaware he possessed to not ram straight into you right then.

“Yeah cause I’ve wanted to for fucking months goddamn it’s driving me insane.”

“What?”

Now that he’d started, Jin couldn’t find it in himself to stop. His hands dug hard into your hips, rocking so the tip of his dick caught your clit and you shivered below him, hot skin sliding with the motion of your bodies.

“It’s all I think about whenever I see you,” he was shaking when his hand reached down to grip himself, spreading your folds and soaking his length in your slick. “When you come in to work I just fucking lose myself thinking about how bad I want you to be mine, my pretty fucking thing to bring me coffee while I work and let me fuck you in the backroom.”

You whimpered under him, face pressed into the mattress as he draped himself over you, chest to back with his breath ghosting over your ear.

“Literal hours I just sit there at that awful fucking job and I only keep coming cause of you, cause I can watch you sit all cute in your chair and watch the way your cheeks squish up when you put your face in your hands and imagine they’re my hands and I’m about to spit in your fucking mouth so you remember who you belong too.”

“I—” you were nearly choking on the drool that soaked through your sheets as Jin lined himself up with your pretty little hole, pressing just the tip into your heat. “I didn’t think you ever—nggh, shit—noticed much about me.”

The corners of his eyes burned as sweat dripped down his forehead, he had to hold back a sob as he sheathed another inch into those perfect walls.

“Notice you? You’re all I fucking think about,” he pressed his lips softly against your shoulder, hands running from your chest to your sides as you took his cock and every word that slipped from his lips without complaint. “I could take such good care of you. I just fucking know it, just please, let me take care of you?”

“Fuck Jin,” your voice was closer to a sob than anything else but he needs you screaming. “You don’t really have to convince me—”

His patience had run out long ago, not even willing to let you finish before he’d sunk in to the hilt, spearing you on his cock with one final thrust. You ass was flush with his hips and his balls hung heavy and tight against the back of your thighs. The strangled little cry that worked its way out of your throat had gooseflesh erupting across his arms where he held you to him.

Jin couldn’t really be sure—it wasn’t like his brain was all that functional on a day to day basis and it most certainly was not now—but your walls clenching around him and that addictive warm, wet feeling milking his cock was on a whole other level than any fuck he’d ever had before.

There was something about the curve of your back against his chest, and the way you seemed to suck him in, drawing his length back in just seconds after he’d pulled out. Some about the feeling of your chest in his hands, of the sweat on your skin that he licked off in a long strip up your spine. Like you really were made for him. As though all those months spent in dream land, concocting your pretend lives together had spilled over into reality, molding you into the perfect shape to take him deep and hard and cry while you came on his cock just like he knew you were meant to.

“Oh, fuck yeah, gonna make you feel so good, I promise,” he mumbled, forehead pressed to the nape of your neck as his hips drew back and he sunk into you over and over again.

He needed you to moan louder, needed your neighbors on the other side of every wall to hear what he did to you, how he fucked you dumb on his cock and made you drunk with the pleasure of it—slutty and perfect and better than any fantasy he could ever concoct.

The room was filled completely with the wet slap of your bodies—his balls tightening up just at the squelch of you taking him—leaving only enough space for your cries and his grunting, no room left for any bitter doubt to creep in and ruin the sweetness in the air.

He could feel the surge growing in his stomach, the tensing in his thighs as his hips stuttered, but he needed you to cum first. Wanted to tip over the edge to the feeling of you spasming around him, so he let a hand slip from your hip to your folds. Jin only paused for a moment to run a finger around your stretched hole, feeling himself plunging into you, before drifting back up to your swollen clit and working the sensitive bud.

The mattress creaked and rocked along as Jin increased his pace, shifting his hips until his tip knocked against something that had your hands fisting in the sheets and your tongue lolling out in between cries of his name.

You didn’t give him much a warning, not that he minded really. Just a muffled shout with your head smashed into the pillows and the tightening of your walls surrounding him before he felt your whole body wracked with tremors so hard he had to wrap both arms around your middle and hold you while he rammed into you.

Jin wasn’t really keeping track of the filth that was pouring from his lips as he brought himself closer to release. A lot of encouragement, that you were taking him so well, cumming so pretty for him, mixed with a lot of thanks—for letting him have this, have you, for not casting him aside like everyone else always inevitably did.

He did have the clarity to drag one arm up and link your fingers together, pressing hard into the bed while blood pounded in his ears and his hips stuttered in their relentless rhythm. When Jin did finally cum, it was a strangely silent affair, all the words and sound that usually roared inside him dying on his lips as his cock spilled milky release deep inside you and your walls fluttered at the fullness.

And then it was as though every muscle in his body changed physical states.

Boneless, he collapsed onto you with a little huff. You didn’t even complain, just squeezed his hand tighter in yours and hummed at the weight of him.

“Well I think that was a, um,” you panted while he nuzzled his face deeper into your neck, “pretty equivalent exchange yeah?”

“I don’t know,” Jin kissed and nipped at the sweet skin of your shoulder, “I think you might have over paid a bit.”

You laughed, the joyous movement of your chest jostled him from your back and had his soft cock slipping from you in a gush of combined release. “I doubt that very much, I didn’t know I’d be getting to take your fucking load as part of the deal.”

“Shit,” he felt his heart seize in his chest, raising up on his elbows to look down as you turned to him. “I’m sorry, I should have asked.”

Your hand came up to stroke his cheek, clammy but welcome. He sat up enough so you could lay on your back and pull him back down to your chest amidst the sweat and cum slicked sheets.

“Don’t worry about it, I would have asked you to anyway,” you kissed the baby frizz at his hairline and if Jin hadn’t already melted into a puddle, then he certainly was now. “If I’d been able to talk at all.”

“Ha, yeah….”

A short silence descended in your dark bedroom. The noise of cars and the occasional shout filtered in through the window, but there was no other sound than your evening breaths. Jin tried not to ruin the peace while he had it.

It was such a rare commodity.

But he couldn’t say he mourned the quiet when you finally spoke.

“Did you wanna stay the night?” you asked in that soft way he always envisioned you would.

Soft so he’d know it was just a courtesy.

That you didn’t want him to leave.

“Uh, yeah, yes I would,” he stumbled over the words a bit, trying not to sound too eager but wanting you to know he would work a thousands shifts at the reception desk if it meant you held him for just a second longer.

“Good,” you sighed.

He felt you scoot down the bed and flopped onto his back so you could settle your head on his chest and drape an arm across his stomach. After another few minutes he felt you go limp at his side, soft and relaxed as you slipped away into dreams.

But though his muscles ached and his eyes felt heavy, Jin resisted the call to sleep.

He didn’t need to now.

You were here, in the flesh, and he could study you intently while his eyes were open.

No need for his brain to conjure up scattered images of you.

Because he had you now, tucked safely under his arm for him to keep and hold and fuck and love the way he wanted.

So there was no more need for sleep.

And no need for dreams.

[omg-im-such-a-masochist]

BLUE IS MY FAVORITE COLOR

Prompt: When Roman and Y/N share a hotel bedroom, he will find a secret object she takes with her everywhere she goes. That very same secret, will take their friendship to a whole other level.

Word Count: Long-ish

Pairings: Roman Reigns x Reader

Warnings: +18, smut, power play (dom x sub), vibrator, masturbation (female), marking kink (by ejaculation), dirty talk

Editor: @thenightmareismyreality

Tag: @ziasaph , @marlananicole , @akiko-tanaka , @wickedsunfire , @sassymox , @nicolewoo , @saccreigns , @mindofasagittaruis , @reigns-5sos , @drewmcintyrekoccsrocbwdgfan , @auawdo , @lustyromantic , @babydee17 , @yungbludjazz360

Notes: If you’d like to check out my previous works, you can find them on my Masterlist 😉

We had finally arrived at the hotel room, and I couldn’t wait to just take a warm shower and sleep on a comfortable bed.

“I’m going in first” Roman screamed, as he ran towards the bathroom when I opened the hotel room door

“Like hell you are! What happened with the ‘ladies first’ rule?”

“I thought you were pro gender equality, baby” He teased

“Oh, you jerk! That’s not fair, let’s flip a coin”

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow

“YES! C’mon, choose: heads or tails?” I asked, taking a coin out of my pocket

Roman sighed heavily “Heads”

I flipped the coin and I groaned when it fell on his choice, which made him smirk as he took his shirt off

“No” I whined “Two out of three?” I begged

“Not a chance, babygirl” He laughed and entered the bathroom

I tugged on my hair out of frustration. I was tired, in a bad mood and turned on, which is a very bad combo!

Roman is my friend, one of my closest friends actually, but I’m a human being with human needs and a pair of eyes! He is a very handsome (and hot as fuck) man, and I may or may not sometimes (everyday) use my vibrator and think of him…

And no, I’m not thinking how he’s naked and wet in the room next door! I’m not thinking about how the water is dripping down his dark hair and tanned skin, or how his muscles contract as he slides the soap on his body, or how big his-

“Are you ok?” He giggled in front of me, making me stop my daydream

*And of course he’s wearing nothing but a towel around his hips! Send me to hell already, will you?* I thought to myself

“Y/N?”

“Huh?”

“Is everything alright? You have a funny look on your face” He tilted his head to the side

“Ummm..yeah! Just tired”

*Fuck, it is so unfair how hot he is! Now, I’m never gonna be able to sleep with this amount of sexual frustration. I need my vibrator and I need it NOW! But how am I supposed to get it, never mind USE IT, with Roman in the same room as me?*

“Y/N!” He yelled, which startled me, making me jump “Do I need to take you to the emergency room or something? You’re starting to scare me”

I shook my head “No, no. I just need a shower, a long shower” I said and quickly ran towards the bathroom, slamming the door

………………………

Roman’s POV

“Weirdo” I chuckled when the bathroom door closed

Grabbing my suitcase from the floor and placing it on top of my bed, I opened it to find Y/N’s clothes

“Great, I had to grab the wrong suitcase!” I said loudly and sighed

As I turned around to grab my bag, hers fell on the floor with a loud thump

*Fuck me* I thought to myself, as I stared at the pile of clothing on the floor

I began to put her clothes back in her suitcase, when a small bag caught my eye. It was a light blue bag with a little tag written ‘Roman’ on it.

“What the fuck is in this bag and why is my name on it?” I asked myself

I knew it was utterly wrong to open a bag that belonged to Y/N but I couldn’t resist the temptation of curiosity to know what was in the bag, and more importantly, why it was labeled with my name.

“It’s just a sneak peak, she won’t even notice” I said to myself as I opened the bag

I expected a lot of things, but I didn’t expect THAT!

“Well well well, aren’t you full of secrets Y/N?” I smirked, and the bathroom door opened

………………………

Y/N’s POV

I hummed softly as I made my way to my suitcase so I could grab some fresh clothes

“Do you mind telling me what is this about?” Roman asked as I combed my damp hair

“What?” I looked up to meet his gaze and I could swear my heart stopped beating for a few seconds

He was holding “my Roman”, otherwise known as my blue vibrator.

“Where did you find that?” I asked in a whisper

“Why does it have my name on it, Y/N?”

“Why were you touching my personal belongings?”

Roman cackled at my embarrassment “What’s wrong, Y/N? Don’t get all shy on me now, baby”

“Give it back, please”

“Did you buy a blue one because it’s my favorite color?” He tilted his head to the side

I held back my tears from embarrassment and said

“Please, give it back”

“Answer me first” He turned the toy on, and the light buzzing sound filling up the bedroom

“Isn’t the humiliation I’m going through enough for you?” I asked, not able to look him in the eyes

“Humiliation? I don’t mean to humiliate you, Y/N. I just don’t understand why would you buy this when you can have the real one instead?” He said and I looked at him

Roman smirked before continuing

“And to be honest, you could’ve bought something more faithful to the original product...I’m way thicker AND longer than this” He shook the toy in his hand “Would you like to see it for yourself, baby?”

I dumbly nodded in response

“I can show it to you...If you show me how good this little toy can make you feel” Roman stepped in front of me and placed the toy upon my lips “Will you do that for me, Y/N?” He softly asked and I nodded

“Will you do everything I say?”

“Yes, sir” I panted

“Good” He grinned “Now, open that pretty little mouth and suck, baby. Show me what you can do” He said and slid the vibrator inside my mouth

I made sure to relax my throat, so Roman could take the toy as far down as he wanted. I began to move my head further down, so the toy could reach deeper down my throat

“Deep throat, huh? Who would’ve thought that this beautiful angelic face is so fucking dirty” He smirked and took the toy out of my mouth

Yanking the towel off my body, Roman quickly placed the buzzing toy on my clit, making me gasp

“Look at that” He cooed “You look so beautiful” He whispered to himself

Pressing the toy harder against my clit, he asked

“Does it feel good, baby girl? Tell me”

But I could only moan loudly in response

I grabbed his thighs for support and unwrapped the towel around his hips, freeing his erection. I wasted no time and closed my fist around his length, spreading the pre cum all over it, so I could slide my hand up and down.

“Oh” He chuckled, amused “That’s how you wanna play, huh?” Squeezing my cheeks together, until my lips formed a pout, he continued

“Look at this pretty face” He smooched my lips “I bet you will look even prettier with cum smeared all over your face, wouldn’t you?”

“Please, Ro”

“I love a begging slut!” He smiled confidently, and pushed me down on the bed

“Roman” I sighed

“Beg me again” He said, with an icy tone in his voice

“Please, Ro, please give it to me” I whined

He smiled widely “What do you want, baby? Say the word”

“Please, give me your cock. I need it, inside of me, stretching me. Pl-“ I gasped, when his length began to slowly enter my core

He bit his lip forcefully “This pussy is so fucking good...Fuck”

My eyes were half shut in pure euphoria, with goosebumps taking over every inch of my skin as his lips were kissing mine

“How do you want it, Y/N?” He whispered

“However you want” I answered and he smirked

He kept a steady pace of deep and slow but suddenly changed to a fast and rough pace, just so he could return to the first pace of slow and deep and so it went on.

I could feel the all so familiar burning rising inside of me

“You’re gonna cum for me?” He asked

I moaned a ‘yes’

Roman adjusted our position, so with every thrust forward, his pelvis brushed against my clit.

Unable to hold back my orgasm, I came around him, coating his member with my release.

Soon after, I felt him throbbing inside of me

“Cum on my face” I smiled

Roman quickly pulled out and did as I requested

Licking one strand of cum that was dripping down my lips I giggled

“Yummy”

Roman laughed “You are wicked, young lady” Leaning down he kissed me passionately

“Wanna take a shower?” He asked, smiling

“With you? I would be crazy if I said no” I giggled

Scooping me up in his arms, he took us to the bathroom, where we managed to get more dirty than clean...

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