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wasjustred · 2 years ago

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See Me After Class - NSFW Larissa Weems x f!Reader

Summary: Your new boss pays you a visit.

Pairing(s): Larissa Weems x femprof!Reader

Warnings: Smut, under-negotiated dynamic, Mommy kink at the very end if you squint, cunnilingus (reader giving), fingering, orgasm denial, dom!Larissa and sub!Reader

Word Count: ~3.4k

Author’s Note: My first reader insert as well as my first attempt at smut! I hope y’all enjoy - feedback is always welcome (and greatly appreciated, especially as this is an un-beta-ed work)! ♡ ╱ AO3

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”

You allow the air to settle before prodding your students, perched comfortably against the front edge of your desk. “Someone explain for us what Lord Henry meant by this.” The usual array of hands shoot up, eager and willing as they are, swaying discreetly in anticipation of being called upon. It’s everything you had hoped for before starting this job; you spent weeks prepping lesson plans and brushing up on Outcast literature before your official interview had even been scheduled, losing sleep and your appetite equally over the thought that you might not secure the position, and almost more so that if you did, the students wouldn’t take to you. But this sight… it is as reaffirming as any. With a modest hope of hearing from someone new, your eyes roam the rows and columns of seated students. But it’s an unexpected figure who draws your attention to the far back:

“Principal Weems.. Please, indulge us.” You gesture widely with an open palm. Your nonchalance frankly betrays the anxiety her presence brings. Another observation so soon after the first? And so early in the term? You have to wonder if one of your students has complained, or perhaps another professor. Were you doing a bad job? Were your lessons subpar?

It’s clear, though, that despite her authority Weems is embarrassed to have been caught, even more so to have been called out on it so unceremoniously. Perhaps you’re not as powerless here as you thought.

“Well,” The blonde pulls back her shoulders and levels her gaze on you. “It has been a minute, but if I’m not mistaken, I do believe Lord Henry was referring to Dorian’s seemingly virtuous nature in comparison to his own glaring hedonism. By all accounts, we desire and are captivated by the things we refuse ourselves.” She continues, arching a brow, “I believe Lord Henry also said that ‘the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself’. It is both a warning and a call to pleasure.”

Any surprise you might have felt at Larissa’s adeptness, any residual apprehension at her presence, is easily overpowered by the sudden and shameless wave of heat that comes to rest between your thighs. She must notice as she grins wickedly at your attempt to play it off, crossing one ankle over the other and lowering the open book in front of your lap.

“Very good. I’m glad to see your Nevermore education paid off.” Sparse chuckles crop up from your students as the final bell announces the official end of the school day. They waste no time in rushing past each other towards the door, and you’re glumly aware that your calls to read the next two chapters for class tomorrow fall on deaf ears.

“I didn’t realize Mr. Wilde was still part of the curriculum.” Larissa follows the steps down past your students’ desks and comes to rest in front of you, hands clasped behind her.

“And yet you’ve proven yourself to be a remarkably apt student. Impressive.” Your eyes twinkle. The degree at which you have to tilt your head back is not an unpleasant one, stretching muscles that had already been whining after the hour-long class session. You break eye contact briefly to reach behind you and toss the worn copy of today’s topic on your desk, and in that short timespan Larissa evidently decides to test your professional resolve.

“Remarkable students are rewarded for their diligence, are they not?” You swivel back to her, brows raised. … intriguing. Hot, even, you have to admit.

“Was it diligence, or pure luck?” Larissa scrunches her nose at this response, clearly - amusingly - displeased.

“I’ll have you know I’ve been reading at the pace of your lesson plans.”

“So you did know Mr. Wilde was ‘still part of the curriculum’?”

“... I don’t appreciate your tone, Ms. L/N.” Larissa looms over you, forcing you back against the edge of your desk. Your hands instinctively shoot out behind you, white-knuckling the oak in an attempt to keep yourself steady (both mentally and physically). Your brain rapidly ricochets between processing how little space remains between the two of you and the fact that the school’s headmistress, your boss, Larissa, has taken to following your lessons plans of her own volition.

“All due respect, you do pay me to read between the lines, Principal Weems,” you respond. She seems delighted with this, a puff of warm air landing against your lips as she chuckles. Your fingers twitch against your desk. If you stretched them out, there’s a chance you’d reach her, brushing against the clothed expanse of her thigh.

“You have a very interesting understanding of what you’ve been hired to do here.”

“Oh?”

“Mhmm.” Larissa closes the leftover distance, reaching long fingers up to grasp the tip of your chin. It feels like whatever air you can get here, eye-level with her chest, is trapped in your lungs. “.. look at me, darling.”

It takes everything within you not to moan once you meet her gaze and realize she looks absolutely ravenous: pupils blown, tongue running slowly along the length of her bottom lip as she watches you. Chest rising and falling in time with her rapid heartbeat.

“Oh.”

Your lips meet in a hot, desperate clash of tongue and teeth, no indication as to who’s moved first. You grasp wildly at her forearms, shoulders, neck - any stretch of skin you can dig your fingertips into, pushing yourself up as tall as you can to reach further into her. A phone rings somewhere off to your left and you grunt, shoving the contents of your desk off to the side in a clatter. Larissa laughs.

“Eager, are we?” Before you can form a coherent response she’s making a grab for your thighs, lifting you effortlessly onto the top of the desk and parting your legs as she comes to stand between them. A shiver rolls through you toe-to-spine as her fingernails drag tantalizingly - painstakingly - up your sides, rounding out at the tops of your shoulders and coming down so harsh along your back you’re positive she’s marked you through your blouse. You whimper despite a valiant effort not to, eliciting a devilish smirk from the blonde.

“Larissa, th-the door. Please.” She’s nothing if not sensible, immediately abandoning the space between your legs to switch the lock with a satisfying ‘thunk’. The less pronounced sound of a shade being drawn reaches you, as well, before the steady refrain of her high heels against linoleum. You keep your eyes trained on the climbing rows of seats before you, the anticipation of her sudden touch, unforeseen, curling deep within your stomach.

Her footfalls grow slower as she comes to stand behind you. Just over the sound of your own heavily beating heart can you hear her breathing, pitchy and shallow, in the expanse above your head. Neither of you budge. A tingle on your right tells you she’s on the move, hovering at your shoulder. The suspense tightens in your core as you imagine her phantom touch in the very places you ache for her–––and you tighten your grip on the desk’s edge in order to suppress the urge to spin around and jump her.

A passing group of muffled voices - students - evidently inspires Larissa to act first, however, as she clamps a hand over your mouth and pulls you flush against her, back-to-front. Her breath is hot on your neck.

“Shh, sh… Not .. a .. peep, Ms. L/N…” You nod against the force of her grip on your face, biting back the impulsive desire to take her fingers into your mouth. It’s only when her other hand sneaks around the softness of your waist, sinks down, down, and under the hem of your skirt that you realize exactly what she has planned for you. It’s bold, especially for someone like Larissa, whose dedication to this school and its students comes before all else–––which prompts you to wonder what kind of day she’s had and if she’ll be taking it out on you, one frustration at a time.

The thought makes you squirm. A pool of wet heat’s collecting between your legs at her touch and she finds it with a swiftness, applying a searching pressure along the entire length of your sex, humming against the shell of your ear when her fingertips meet the strip of dampness there.

“Such a slut,” she rumbles. Your teeth come down hard onto the inside of your cheek, eyelids fluttering on their own accord the moment Larissa nips at your earlobe. Christ, she’s already ruined you. She sweeps the satin of your panties aside and immediately presses a finger against your core without warning, and your entire body jerks at the feeling, hopelessly attempting to choose between pressing itself further back into her warmth or to thrust itself in the chase of her fingers. You’re left somewhere in the middle, head braced against her shoulder while your hips slide against the top of the desk towards her touch.

A flash of blonde and bright red swoops into your peripheral at the same time that her hand shifts to cup you: “I’m going to remove this hand now,” her nails dig sharp into your cheek, “but if you make so much as a whimper…” The threat tapers off but her meaning is clear: there’s a punishment lurking there that you won’t enjoy. You nod again, shakily this time as your chest heaves.

“That’s my darling girl.” At your assent her hand migrates from your mouth to the swell of a breast, kneading harshly in tandem with the rolling movements of her other hand, the heel of her palm pressed against your clit, fingertips resting just at your entrance. Any dignity you may have had is quickly fleeting; Larissa’s intoxicating, overwhelming, robbing you of all sense with just her fingers. You reach a hand behind you to grip the back of her neck, urgent as you search for some semblance of relief. The word ‘please’ balances precariously along your tongue.

It almost slips out when she sinks her teeth into your shoulder, hard, and simultaneously buries two fingers into your cunt. Every ounce of breath left in your lungs rushes from you at once as she sets a punishing pace. The distant thought that you’re both somehow still fully clothed echoes against the back of your skull, but it’s overrun by the sensation of her fingers tightly curled inside you, nearly rocking you with their force. Simultaneously, she presses absent, open-mouthed kisses to the skin almost broken by her teeth, drifting to the space where shoulder meets neck, below your ear, the edge of your jaw.

“You’re mine.” Larissa’s voice is coarse with desire. It’s a new declaration, tongue flicking out with her words as the taller woman twists a nipple between her fingers. She’s claiming you for herself, hardly a month into the term, and you’d be entirely out of your mind to complain. Suddenly the number of times your eyes have met during staff meetings, the lingering touches when she passed by or handed a paper off to you, her willingness to compliment your work at every turn has taken on new meaning.

Her thumb seeks out that little bundle of nerves, hitting each new wave of pleasure that the pumping of her fingers brings with excruciating accuracy. You’re so close, throbbing, and when her hips buck and collide with your back your breath hitches, indistinguishable from a squeak, … and it’s then that you realize you’ve ruined it.

Her fingers stall inside of you abruptly, the others that are clamped around your nipple finding a sudden homeostasis of pressure.

Shit, shit, shit.

“I’m s-sorry, I––” You’re on your back, no longer supported by her weight, her fingers roughly pulled from you.

“I gave you very clear instructions,” she all but growls, staring down at you now.

You swallow. Loudly. Your legs are shaking at the loss of her touch, teetering still on the edge of an explosive climax.

“If you’re not going to listen,” Larissa grits out, hiking her dress up over her thighs, “then you’re not going to cum. Now earn it.” Without another word she yanks you back by the shoulders and moves to straddle your face, hands planted at either side of your waist. It takes only a second to right yourself–––and then you’re wrapping your arms firm around her thighs, flattening your tongue along the slickness of her cunt.

No underwear.

She had every intention of being serviced when she came to your classroom unannounced, greeted your students, faked literary smalltalk. You’re a toy to her, a pet she knows with absolute certainty will kneel when called. Fuck. You could bring yourself over that edge with her taste alone. A natural tradeoff.

Larissa jolts above you and you lap at her with a renewed fervency, sliding the tip of your tongue between her folds, plunging into her as deep as you can from this position. The heat of her soaks your face: she’s sharp and metallic, a lingering note of something deliciously tangy. You’re going to taste her in your dreams for weeks after this. You’re vaguely aware of her hand on your chest as you alternate swirling your tongue along her, rolling in waves, and sucking her swollen clit into your mouth hungrily.

“Tch, right there, darling,” she murmurs, pitching her hips as she rides you. “That’s it.” Her voice trembles at the pace of her increasingly frantic rocking, breaths coming in heavier than before. Your smugness at unraveling her so quickly, so efficiently, is surpassed by the raw desire that rushes to your core when she weaves a hand through your hair and uses it to balance herself against your face, to more thoroughly fuck herself into reckless abandon.

One of your hands adjusts to squeeze a handful of ass, the other still fastened tightly around her thigh. The supple skin there twitches and you know she’s close, doubling-down on your devotion to her clit. You have a feeling you know what it’ll take, and with a gentle scrape of your teeth you’re rewarded, savoring the juices that flow from her as she clamps down on your face, quaking. She sounds heavenly as she cums: Larissa whines into the collar of her dress, breathing in short, sharp bursts that come in a heady mix of gasps and whimpers. There’s no disguising what’s happening to anyone on the outside; you entertain the bemused thought that in punishing you, Principal Weems has violated her own rules at least once over.

It takes her a moment to dismount but you pass the time in contentment, nipping at her inner thigh, tonguing the arousal there, gathering the residual cum in your mouth. Just like ambrosia, fucking nectar. When she does finally lift herself away from your mouth, she has to grip the desk with both hands.

You take it as a sign of a job well done.

Your eyes follow her, upside down still from your position, as she pulls her skirt back down over her ass and shimmies into place, smoothing her blouse down with it. When she meets your gaze, there’s a deepening blush spread across her cheeks.

“Well. You’ve certainly proven yourself capable of following directions. There’s no excuse as to why you can’t continue to adhere to any rules I provide, hm?” If it were that easy you wouldn’t have found yourself on your back in the first place, but there’s no doubt she’s fully - perhaps gleefully - aware of the fact. In an effort to abide by those rules you only nod in response, wary of what a verbalization will bring you–––but this rule is evidently a time-sensitive one, indicated by her bemused smirk.

“You may use your words now, pet.”

“I’ll follow directions.”

“I’ll follow directions what?” Larissa approaches again, a softer air about her now despite the firmness in her voice, and eases you up with her hands beneath your shoulders. She turns you to face her, guiding your legs up and over the top of the desk. When she looks at you expectantly, you respond with an honest hesitation.

“I–– I’m not sure what you like to be called.” You’re not sure what you’re expecting her response to be either, but what you’re met with is a dazzlingly grand smile.

“You’re such a good girl, aren’t you?” You suck in a sharp breath; that went straight to your cunt. You can feel the warmth unfurl across your face at the praise and purse your lips in a rare lapse of shyness. “Mistress or Mommy – whichever your preference.”

The instinct to whimper is an ardent one. You’re exceedingly aware of the backwards order of things, only now discussing titles and retroactively negotiating, no prior agreement on limits or safewords, but it’s too little too late to pretend you’re bothered by it. No one’s ever accused you of listening to your brain over your libido, and Larissa’s looking far too smitten with you to start changing that now.

“I’ll follow directions, Mommy.” Her hands come up to cradle both of your cheeks, thumbs working gently over the blush that still remains. You’re promptly reminded of how she felt straddling those very same cheeks and feel all the blood rush to your face once more.

“Thank you, darling.” Your hips wriggle in anticipation when Larissa leans in to brush her lips against yours––but she’s instead reaching around you to grab a tissue from your desk. “Here,” she says, rubbing at your chin with a delicateness only she could muster. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

You watch as she works in silence, tilting your head to and fro with her prodding hands, studying the faint wrinkles beneath her eyes and along her forehead. The right corner of her lips draws downward as she focuses, tongue peeking out in concentration. Her brows raise, just minutely. There’s something of a twinkle in her eye when she wipes away your ruined lipstick.

She’s beautiful.

“What?”

“–––Hm?” You freeze at the same time her hand does, though Larissa proceeds within the matter of a second like she never stopped, a renewed smirk lined in crimson.

“Beautiful, is that so?” You imagine your face matches the color of her lipstick, and not due to a frenzied makeout session. She doesn’t seem perturbed by the admission, however … may in fact even enjoy your little slip-up, so you might as well own up.

“.. Yes. Is that alright?” She snorts but covers it just as quickly with the back of her hand.

“Of course,” which translates to: Do you really have to ask?

Larissa pulls away and tosses the tissue into a wastebasket beneath your desk, still smiling rather haughtily. Her hands clasp in front of her as the image of the consummate headmistress falls back into place. At this point you think she’s figured out that disregarding your own orgasm isn’t much of a punishment when you so thoroughly enjoyed ravishing her; no doubt she’ll have something far less agreeable lined up for the next time you disobey.

“I enjoyed this.. ‘private lesson’ on the nuances of literary hedonism. Perhaps we could schedule another? If you’d be amenable?” It’s largely symbolic––this will happen again. And again. And possibly again. But Larissa’s offering something valuable to you: The power to decide how, when, and where this will play, if at all. The gesture doesn’t escape you.

You slip off of the desk and take slow, measured steps towards her, coming to a rest with less than a foot between you. A hint of anxiety slips through her otherwise flawless mask and you reach up nearly on tiptoe to smooth it away. “I’d like that. Maybe a coffee date is in order first,” which translates to: God yes please, but we are going to have to discuss things before we make a habit of this. Larissa releases a relieved breath and nods, covering your hand with her own.

“The Weathervane? Thursday, during your lunch period?”

“Sounds perfect.”

She leaves soon after you schedule your next rendezvous, but not before settling you into a breathless haze with a series of intense, bruising kisses, her hands snugly fitted into your back pockets.

One orgasm that wasn’t even yours and you’re already whipped. God help you.

#apologies for any mistakes! i tried my best :')#larissa weems x reader #larissa weems x female reader #larissa weems imagine #larissa weems x y/n #larissa weems #principal weems x reader #principal weems imagine #larissa weems x f!reader #larissa weems smut #larissa weems reader insert #larissa weems x you

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tonitheloftwing · 2 months ago

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Just curious, do u have any tips on how to do edits? Specifically your pfp for example, I’m trying to edit some of the NES art of little Mac to make him brown (that boy ain’t white in my heart 💔) but I’m just having trouble since a lot of the NES art is really low quality. Sorry if this is kinda random 😓😓

I’m by no means an edit expert - especially not with hand drawn ones, Im more of an AMV gal myself.

But, I can give you tips still!!! :3

For the little Mac one, what I did was take the NES art…

And exported it into IbisPaint. IbisPaint is the app I use for all my art stuff!

Then, to get the colors, I just color picked them from Mac’s Wii art.

First, I erased Doc the best I could since I wasn’t editing him 💔 his hand is still there, but oh well

I lost the OG file (I deleted it for storage) so this is a quick recreation. But then I used the eraser bucket tool to erase the background. I’ll clean up the raw edges later with the regular eraser tool

You want to make sure your brush is similar in thickness (and in pattern) to the brush of the original work. I just do this by messing around with the thickness & type and making comparison lines until it looks right (mine is the red line)

After that, it’s basically tracing! (Which you shouldn’t usually do for art, but for edits, it’s OK)

Make the initial layer of what you want to edit transparent. The actual transparency % doesn’t rlly matter, you just need to be able to see through it

Then, do the painstaking task of going over every line and shading element in the color you want to change it to. Do this on the layer UNDER the actual image. (Use the brush stabilizer, it helps a lot.) I also used two layers for the eye, because the white shouldn’t go over the outline

The only different thing I did with this edit was edit out Doc’s hand. For that, I did the same process as above - draw a black outline for Mac’s shoulder under the image layer, a tan line to show where I stop coloring, and then drag them up on the canvas and fill in. The skin tone looks wrong bc this is a shitty recreation of what I did when I wasn’t rushing lol

I ran out of images but I hope this helps!

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riceballoon · 1 year ago

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Hi! Hope you're doing well. I really like the way your art looks, and wanted to ask if you have any advice on how to stop the endless ctrl+Zing that happens when you're doing lineart? (Was gonna post a gif showing it but it won't let me send links in asks) -- Have a good one o/

Hi! first of all, thank you for liking my art!💞 to be honest i undo and erase my lines Very Often… but i tried my best to give an answer! my reply is going to be pretty long so i'll put it under a page break

it's pretty old, but here's a process video of me struggling for comparison lol (i assume the lineart you were talking about was my persona fanart!)

My process sort of feels like sculpting out the lines I want from my sketch. I just work on that same layer and refine the lines by erasing away parts I don’t like or redrawing it (hence all the undoing). Lineart on its own layer sometimes ends up looking a little weird for me, since I may lose a lot of the loose energy from the sketch.

In my experience, when I undo lines often it’s a sign that I’m not really confident in my line quality which is the real cause of the issue. The lines that I’m most satisfied with are those that are bold (one continuous line without fraying), have varied line weight, and create interesting shapes with sharp angles that show the object’s 3D form. To do this I make lines heavier when they’re in shadow and thinner where light is hitting the form or when two forms are touching. I sometimes go over the same line multiple times to give it weight (since my favourite brushes usually don’t change size with pressure).

I’d say making sure your lines are confident + stable, and varying your line weight by knowing where to make a line thicker/thinner is the most important part of line quality! Then knowing where to place the lines by going slowly and making deliberate choices. (People practice this by only drawing with pen on paper, which makes sure every line you place is done with intent and if you do make a mistake, to work with it and adapt. Honestly I should do it more often too) You can also try drawing from the elbow or arm to make your lines really stable, or use a stabilizer on your brush. Oh and this is a pretty general tip but use references!! They're so helpful for visualizing the end goal for the drawing and you can easily spot any errors. They really make you more confident!

This was so long TTOTT I really don’t think I’m qualified to give out advice but I hope this helps! and thank you for the ask, it was helpful for me to analyze my own art 🫡 I hope you're doing well too and enjoy your day today! ☀️

#asks #rookyrooks #to be honest i actually enjoy the process of undoing and erasing lines... it's mindless meditative work almost #this does mean that i draw Super Slow though...

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chirpycreations · 2 years ago

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I know a lot on drawing tablets, so I hope you don't mind me waffling a bit.

You absolutely need a drawing tablet, especially if you're looking at getting into it more full time. You can do it with your phone (and I know a lot of people do), but if it's something you think you'll really get into and do a lot of, you risk injuring and straining the muscles in your hand. As someone who's got wrist/hand problems and lives daily with the consequences, you want to avoid that at all costs.

You don't need an expensive drawing tablet, (especially if you're just starting out).

There are two types of tablets (… technically 3, but the computer one is waaaaay out of a normal budget): Graphic & display.

There are many brands out there to choose from, the top 3 being Wacom, XP-Pen and Huion (in that order). I've never used a Huion tablet before, so won't be talking about any or recommending them personally.

Graphic Tablet

A graphic tablet requires hand and eye coordination. I started out on (and still use) one of these. For the first month it's frustrating, however, once you get it, you've got it and from there it's steady improvements as you get better with your coordination.

Above on the left is my Wacom Intous Art (Old Version). This was my first tablet, which I've had for 5 years now. Lovely tablet, works well and does what you want. The only problem I've ever had is a pen fault which developed after two years, and then having to argue back'n forth with Wacom Support it wasn't a driver issue for a FULL MONTH. It took two months before they agreed to send me a replacement. No issue since.

On the right is my XP-Pen Deco Pro S. I got this because I needed a drawing tablet while arguing with Wacom Support. Another lovely tablet. The sensitivity isn't as good as a Wacom tablet, but we're talking a 10-20% difference here (which given the price difference isn't an issue at all). Hands down, the best thing about this tablet is the scrolling wheel. Never has changing brush size/zooming in & out been so convent.

(For anyone wondering why I have paper and masking tape on both tablets, it's my screen protector. I found paper doesn't disrupt the signal or sensitivity, so I use a thick paper to protect the tablets from being scratched. Yes, this works, and usually lasts about 10 months before getting thin in areas/tearing.)

PROS 🟢

*Simple set up, plug in and go. No fighting to configure settings and set everything up and then troubleshooting when something's gone wrong.

*One cable, or no cable :)

*Fantastic for travel. Mine came back'n forth to school for classwork for a full year with no issues, and being a small size meant I could work on any size desk or even under a tree outside.

CONS 🔴

*Need good hand & eye co-ordination and/or patience.

*Need to work on a desk/surface, or with the right size laptop & tablet you can sit it over your keyboard.

*Need lots of practice. When I started out, I was devastated how drastic the difference was between my traditional drawing skills and digital were, both in quality and time needed. Be prepared for the learning curve and don't expect it to look amazing immediately.

(from 2018, comparison - wobbly lines, off-looking shading, taking waaaay too long and just... painful. I remember being very frustrated for the first 3 months as nothing ever looked how I saw it in my head, or like on paper.)

Using a graphics tablet takes a lot of work, but with time and practice the end product can be just as amazing and quick as using a screen tablet.

(Among Us - Graphic tablet | Stickmin Display tablet - Practically no difference. I find the display easier for line art and digital painting feels more natural, but otherwise it's just as easy and quick on my graphic tablet. )

The key thing to remember is, it isn't the equipment that makes a good artist, it's time and practice. A good drawing tablet helps, but without learning the skills needed, you'll only get so far ^^

Display Tablet

A display tablet is one with a screen which you can draw directly onto. No hand & eye co-ordination, just drawing :)

Above is my younger sister's XP-Pen Artist Pro 13.3 (originally a recommendation from a friend). I haven't used any other screen tablets to compare, but this guy works well and is enjoyable to use. A little heavy and comes with a side of cable spaghetti, but otherwise it's good (and has a scrolling wheel~). It's a good size to draw on without being too big that it's uncomfortable for me to sit in my lap, but not too small so it feels cramp on my wrist.

I've had driver issues, but I'm highly suspicious it's because it doesn't like my Mac's M1 chip and er... I've been too lazy to update the driver ^^;

Only thing to note is the pen is super fragile, treat it with respect. God knows why, but my sister dropped it after 2 days (the pen), and it stopped reading pressure. No idea why, it might be a known fault, but the support team had a new one shipped out the next day after emailing *cough* not two months Wacom *cough*.

I should also mention the pen comes with it's own protective tube it lives in while not in use. So no worries about carrying it in a bag if it's safe within it's home.

The main thing I'd say is it feel a lot more comfortable to draw with than my other two graphic friends, especially for line art, which remains my biggest issue with digital art for drawing from scratch. Normally tho, I'll draw my line art on paper, scan it and then trace over it, which saves me the headache of trying to get my line art done from scratch.

PROS

*No hand and eye co-ordination needed.

*No/reduced learning curve

*Feels like drawing on paper, pen draws exactly how you want it, no redrawing lines again and again ^^;

CONS

*In most cases, it's cable spaghetti >>

*Easily twice the price or more of a graphic tablet.

*Set up takes a while/and can be annoying.

*Can have driver/ tech issues. Like for me, it crashes the touch bar on my 2017 MBP every single time and I have to restart my Mac to fix it.

Recommendations

For your case, I'd recommend looking at an XP-Pen tablet. Wacom is usually pricey, unless you can find a second hand tablet.

Another reason is if budget is a problem, XP-Pen have sales about 6 times a year. They have one currently going, but from my research the best deals are during Black Friday (Nov), their birthday sale (Sep) and the Lunar New Year (Feb). In general tho, if you can celebrate it 8/10 times there's a sale for it, lol.

When choosing, SIZE IS IMPORTANT!

Do NOT get a small tablet. Theses aren't practical for illustration (only photo editing) as the cramp space and lack of wrist movement will put a lot of strain on your wrist and hand, risking injury.

Look for medium/larger sizes, and remember to check for active drawing area, not the tablet's full size. The Deco Pro S I have is 9X5 inches which is OK, while my Wacom Intous Art is 10X6 inches which is a much nicer size, so I'd recommend looking 10 inches+ if you can.

Some of XP-Pen's tablets are also android & Chromebook compatible (be sure to check the model tho), so you can use them with your phone, which might be good for you, since it sounds like you draw on the go. Also, a lot of their tablets are designed to be friendly for users of both left & right handedness(?) Is that a word?

For graphic tablets, which is what I'd recommend to you unless you've got your heart set on a screen/ know your hand and eye coordination is atrocious, I'd say have a look at these:

(Links to tablet reviews)

*Deco Pro S/M -> Good if you like shortcut buttons and have the budget being the more pricey of what's available. Some people do find the scrolly wheel annoying and easy to knock tho, but I've never had that issue.

*Deco 03 Wireless -> Heard a lot of great things about it. Has an older version of the scrolly wheel which isn't as easy to knock and has this nice controled *click, click* to it, not spinning superfast like the Pros. Won't connect to android tho being an older tablet.

*Deco LW Graphic Tablet -> Good price, decent tablet and being newer it does android too.

Do be wary of any products with an X3 pen software. It's not they're bad, but I've heard there is a slight wobble (could be due to the low activation pressure needed), so if you don't use pen stabilisation in your drawing app, you might notice that. I haven't heard too many complaints, so it's clearly not too much to worry about.

For Display tablets, I'd say look for the lower end prices. You really don't want to spend a ton in case you find out it's really not for you, or you don't enjoy it. Also, a lot of models aren't practical for travel.

*Artist [SIZES 10, 12, 13 & 16] (2nd Gen) -> Supports USB C (one cable, no spaghetti), good screen a few sizes to choose from, and just a good tablet for a beginner.

*Artist Pro 12/13.3 -> Good tablets, they're a bit older so they're only going to work with Mac/Windows, but they X3 chip if you're worried about the wobble. Stay clear of the 15.6 inch version tho, if you go on the XP-Pen Reddit, you'll find that name everywhere for issues (looking on the Reddit is also a good place to find known bugs and what people talk about alot). Also, it has the scrolly wheel, and no I won't stop bringing it up, that thing is literary the reason I stopped using my Wacom.

If you really want that bigger size and have the budget, take a look at the Innovator 16, or the updated version Artist Pro 16. Personally, I think they're a bit pricey since you are just starting out, but up to you.

I'll also leave you with a link to this guy's video on starting out in digital art. He's really good and knows what he's talking about for both professionals and people starting out, you'll find a lot of great advice on his channel in general.

Also, this guy, he does lots of comparison reviews and tackles tablets for every artist given good recommendations based on usage and your art level and budget.

Xp-Pen Store

Wacom Store -> I'll leave a link since their tablets are great, just pricey in most cases (and don't do android).

Any question, feel free to ask :)

Debating on something:

So, I want to get into digital art MORE than I already do, but I feel it's difficult to for a few reasons:

My phone screen is small compared to my fingers, and using a drawing app is pretty difficult with this, as I can't see what I'm doing - Any and all stylist I buy end up missing and/or stolen

To use my laptop, I have an external drawing tablet, but (even though it's made protable) it's very.. Clunky, and a bit of a hassle to set up, especially in a public space.

Would it be smarter to save up towards a drawing tablet, or just continue with the resources I have? Regardless, if I were to use a drawing tablet, have any recommendations?

#helpfulstuff #drawing tablet #graphic tablet #advice

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samuel-de-champagne-problems · 4 years ago

Text

I Can’t Say Anything to Your Face

Summary: Lunchtime is Spencer Reid’s favorite time of day and not because of the crappy endless coffee, dry sandwiches, or the occasional chocolate donut. Spencer’s favorite time of day comes in the shape of a little post it notes and fits perfectly into his heart.

Pairing: Spencer x Female Reader

Content: Fluff (1 use of a$$)

Author’s Note: The idea of for this came from @shemarmooresfedora for giving Spencer compliment cards

Word Count: 2.6 K

I Can't Say Anything To Your Face

When Spencer checks his watch for the twelfth time that day, he can practically feel Derek’s eyes roll. He tries to cover up his action by picking at his sleeve, but that just seems to draw attention to the situation. Derek raises his eyebrows at Spencer, as if to tell him, I saw that.

When it comes to teasing Spencer, Derek doesn’t miss a beat.

The team, minus Derek and Spencer, continue to work diligently. JJ walks back and forth from her office to Hotch’s, constantly shuffling through piles and piles of paperwork. Emily seems to keep herself busy with the 33 tabs that she has open on her screen. Y/N, who’s tongue slips out of her teeth in concentration, doesn’t look up from her mound of case files. Spencer likes studying how each of the members of his team works, but he particularly likes to watch Y/N. She always sticks her tongue out when she’s deep in thought. Sometimes she’ll close her eyes and rub the butt of her palm against them. Other times she’ll push her glasses up on top of her head and her hair frames her face perfectly. Spencer couldn’t care less what she looked like or how she wore her hair, but watching her was his favorite part of the day.

In a totally platonic, non-creepy way.

A beep distracts Spencer from being distracted by Y/N. It’s an IM from Derek, telling him something to the effect of asking Y/N out. Instead of responding, Spencer decides to send Derek a more direct message. He shuts off his computer, which isn’t really used, besides for Y/N to send Spencer requests for online scrabble.

Spencer, ignoring Derek’s gloating, walks from the bullpen into the team’s lunch room. It’s a small kitchenette with a couple tables, a very old coffee machine, and an even older refrigerator. Peeking into the refrigerator, Spencer takes out two lunch boxes. One is light green with patterned purple and orange dinosaurs all over and the other is a light blue with green plants. Like clockwork, Y/N rounds the corner with a smile plastered to her face.

“What’s got you smiling like that?” Spencer asks, placing his lunch box down across from Y/N’s seat.

“It’s just my favorite time of day,” Y/N responds, unzipping her bag and taking out her banana, water bottle, granola, and turkey sandwich.

Spencer tries to hold back his smile at Y/N saying that lunch is her favorite time of day. He likes to believe that it’s because of him and not because of the top tier kitchen facility the government provides for them. But who’s he kidding, there’s no way that lunch is Y/N favorite part of the day because of Spencer when he’s up against a crappy coffee maker.

“Did you know that sandwiches were only called sandwiches because the Earl of Sandwich ate his meals with bread, meat and cheese like modern day sandwiches? However, there’s much debate if sandwiches existed prior to this. Researchers actually believe that sandwiches were simply referred to as bread and meat or bread cheese, depending on the ingredients. There’s hundreds of works of literature that help to determine this,” Spencer says, as he unwraps his leftovers from dinner the previous night.

Y/N, who takes a bite of her turkey sandwich, listens intently to Spencer’s oral history of sandwiches. She starts to respond to Spencer, but before she can even get the chance, Derek interjects into the conversation.

“Hold your horses, there Reid,” Derek says, his voice tainted with sarcasm and Spencer braces himself for a clipping comment, “you don’t want to scare away the newbie,”

Y/N, ever quick witted, rolls her eyes dramatically at Derek. She gets up and moves her seat closer to Spencer who’s heart rate, at the thought of her sitting even closer to him, speeds up. He knows that it's just an effort to tease Derek. That she'd rather suffer next to Spencer, than to have to entertain the idea of sitting next to Derek. But still, Spencer is a dreamer; he'd like to think she'd sit next to him even without the added bonus at avoiding Derek's playful teasing.

“Derek, leave Spencer alone, I happen to adore his facts. You know, I’ve seen I’ve been here I’ve been a Jeopardy beast. And when are you going to realize that I’m not a newbie, I’ve been here for what 2 years-”

“2 years, 4 months, and 4 days,” Spencer says, cursing himself silently for interrupting Y/N.

Derek grabs his lunch from the refrigerator, and sits down across from Spencer and Y/N.

“You remember the day I started?” Y/N asks, turning her attention from Derek to Spencer, whose face is twisted in what he can only assume is an extremely unattractive deer-in-head-lights look. He shrugs off Y/N’s comment, as if to say it’s just normal for him.

"Of course I do, I remember how long each of us has been here,"

"Oh, right. Eidetic Memory," Y/N mumbles, almost like she's slightly disappointed in something.

Suddenly Spencer’s mouth is quite dry; he reaches into his lunch bag to grab his water bottle, but his fingers brush across a small card taped to the outside. Forgetting that showing the card to Morgan would give him enough ammunition for the rest of day, Spencer quickly scans the card. It’s a small piece of paper, but it suddenly has become Spencer’s most treasured object. More than the set of Chaucer tales that his mother gave him, or Gideon’s watch, or his first microscope that his biology teacher in high school gave him at his graduation.

The one side of the card is decorated in small hearts and there’s a sketch of a dinosaur on the other side. In careful handwriting, the giver of the card wrote “Are you made of Nickel, Cerium, Arsenic, and Sulfur? Because you got a NiCe AsS!”

Spencer’s eyes grow a couple sizes once his brain registers the meaning of the card. Handling it less than gracefully, he chokes on his water, which catches Derek and Y/N’s attention.

“You okay there, Spence?’ Derek asks, questioning what sent Spencer coughing and choking on water like that.

Spencer, not wanting Y/N or Derek, especially Derek, to read the card, attempts to put it in the front pocket of his lunch box. Unfortunately, Derek catches sight of the card and snatches it out of Spencer’s hand.

“Derek!” Spencer whines.

He can feel his embarrassment deepen as Morgan’s smile grows. Spencer seriously thinks that this is how he’s going to die. His death, being in his line of work, is something that plagues his thoughts from time to time, but any gory hero’s death pales in comparison to Derek Morgan reading Spencer’s love notes about his ass.

“Nice ass? I’m not too sure about this, Reid, but looks like your secret lover likes your ass just as much as your brains,” Derek teases, handing back Spencer his card.

“Those are private,” Spencer says, grateful that Derek’s going to leave him alone, places the card back in it’s temporary resting spot near his driver’s license and photographs of him and Y/N at the arcade.

“Hey man, I was just going to put in that shoe box you have tucked under your desk, you must have hundreds of them by now,” Derek says, taking a bite of his ham and cheese wrap. His eyes dash between Spencer and Y/N, like the pair of them is the most entertaining reality show he could think of.

“I have 645, now,” Spencer says, unable to help himself much to Derek’s amusement. Spencer hears the chair next to him screech and Y/N rushes to pack up her half eaten lunch.

“I completely forgot, Anderson needs me to uh, help him with something,” Y/N says, stuffing her water bottle into her lunch box in a flustered state. Spencer watches as she rushes, her need to leave the kitchenette quite evident. Spencer is left wondering why she has to go see Anderson, of all people.

“Anderson? What does he want with you? I don’t remember Hotch saying anything about that,” Spencer says, his voice comes off a little more bitter than he indented.

“Maybe Anderson has some extracurriculars that he needs Y/N’s help with Spencer,” Derek says with a wink. Spencer’s brow tightens and his blush deepens as if he’s trying to decipher the way that Derek’s voice is laced with suggestion. The only logical conclusion is that Y/N is flustered because she’s sneaking off to see Anderson, because she likes him.

Y/N likes Anderson? Something about that doesn’t taste right in Spencer’s mouth.

Like the wind, Y/N is gone and all that remains is Derek’s sly chuckle.

“What!” Spencer says, much too loud for him to continue the coy and unassuming demeanor he usually produces when Y/N gets hit on at the bar or on case by local cops.

“Nothing, Reid. You're just clueless. Just think about how many of those little compliment cards you’ve gotten,” Derek says. He reaches into Spencer’s lunch box and takes his brownie. Usually, Spencer would have protested, but Derek’s words sent him into a confused spiral.

“645,” Spencer responds.

“Okay,” Derek continues, “645 days you’ve gotten those cute little cards in your lunch box or taped to your hotel room door on cases. Now, Reid think. How many years, months, and days, is 645 days”

“That’s 2 years, 4 months, and 3 days,” Spencer starts, “now given if it’s a Leap Year that could change it a little bit bit-”

“Think about it Reid,” Derek says, talking slowly to get the words sink in and hoping that he doesn’t have to spell it out for him.

“Y/N?” Spencer asks, kind of like he can’t believe it, but desperately wants to believe it at the same time.

“Y/N,” Derek repeats, “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long, Reid. She’s been making eyes at you the day she’s gotten here. It’s almost sickening to watch you to dance around each other,”

“Y/N,” Spencer says, it’s like he’s saying her name for the first time. It’s the most beautiful string of syllables to ever come from his lips.

Spencer pushes back the chair and swings the door open. As he walks to Y/N’s desk he gets distracted by the little brown shoe box that sticks out slightly from under his desk. He crouches down and picks it up, hoping that it can be helpful. He approaches Y/N’s desk, but JJ stops him before he can go closer.

“Stairwell,” Is all she says before she brushes past with an armful of case files. Spencer, heading JJ’s advice, practically runs to the stairwell. As he approaches he can hear quiet sobs, which he can only imagine are Y/N’s.

Spencer opens the door and Y/N, startled, stands up and tries to mop the tears away from her face.

“Spencer, oh god, I didn’t know you were here, I’m okay, it’s just me being a little silly,” she says, trying to laugh through what she can only assume is going to be rejection.

“I really hope you don’t think these are silly, well some are kind of silly, but others were very poetic,” Spencer says, taking a step forward and gesturing with the shoe box to make it obvious to Y/N that he’s talking about the compliment cards.

“What are you talking about, Spencer?” Y/N says, feigning ignorance.

“Don’t play dumb, Y/N. You're much too smart to play dumb,” Spencer says, moving closer to Y/N so he can wipe her tear-stricken face with the sleeve of his soft cardigan. He tries not to focus on the way that Y/N seems to melt into his touch. He knows that if he can get another touch of that, he’ll never want to touch another person ever again.

“I’m not playing dumb, Spence. I just never planned for you to find out,” Y/N mumbles. Spencer’s face resembles a mix between shock and confusion.

“Why would you not tell me, I don’t think I made it anything but obvious that I’m crazy about you,” Spencer says, deeply wondering why Y/N would ever hide something like this from him.

“God Spencer, have you ever looked in a mirror?” Y/N asks him, sitting down on the third step, “you’re so gorgeous, Spencer, I can’t say anything to your face. So the next best thing was to write down everything that I wanted to say to you,” Y/N finishes, a little embarrassed. She tries to hide that embarrassment by not making eye contact with Spencer, who sits down next to her.

“You think I’m gorgeous?” Spencer asks, not entirely sure that he heard her correctly.

Y/N peaks at him with teary eyes and a runny nose. Spencer thanks science and the universe for his Eidetic Memory. He knows that there won’t be a single day of his life that he won’t want to think back to this day and remember the way that Y/N looked when she first told him that she thinks he’s gorgeous.

“I think you’re the most beautiful person that I’ve ever seen,” Y/N says breathily, her voice laced with restraint. She’s terrified of rejection, terrified that Spencer will turn her down still.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard that,” Spencer says, equally as quiet and equally as terrified. He notices that Y/N’s hand creeps closer to his. Spencer is itching to intertwine it to his and never let go.

“You deserve to hear it more often, hence the cards,” Y/N explains, moving her hand even more closer to Spencer’s. He has no choice but to wrap his much larger one in Y/N’s smaller one.

“You meant it, right?” Spencer asks, bravely putting her heart out there on the line, “because if you did Y/N, that I’d really like to kiss you right now. But if you didn’t then that’s-”

Spencer tries to finish the sentence, to give Y/N an out, but somehow she doesn’t take it. Somehow she decides to kiss him.

Spencer has kissed a total of three people in his entire life, but none of them ever mattered again the second he feels Y/N’s lips against his and her hands in his hair. Spencer doesn’t complain when Y/N starts to set the pace. Her lips roam across his face. They venture across his jaw, up closer to his nose and then back down to his lips. Spencer had no clue Y/N can kiss like this. It's a little passionate for a first kiss, but maybe it's just the pent up tension and frustration 2 years in the making finally being let out. He's dreamt of the way that Y/N's pillowy lips would feel when they were finally pressed up against his. Spencer, from the fibers that make him up to the hormones that surge throughout his body, tries to be brave. He places his hands so they rest on Y/N’s neck. He’s not passive, but he’s happy to sit back and let Y/N have her way as she continues her feverish assault on his lips.

Her ministrations are interrupted, however, when the box of cards falls from Spencer’s lap. It seems to remind both of them that they are in the stairwell of the FBI making out like over zealous teenagers for the first time. Y/N lets out a small giggle. Spencer wishes he can write down the feeling it gives him and tuck it away safely in a shoe box.

“I hope you know that those compliments aren’t platonic, Spencer. I really do think you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met,” Y/N says, her fingers gravitating to the brown curls behind Spencer’s ears. He has the softest, silkiest hair she’s ever felt.

“That’s a good thing, Y/N, because you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met,”

Standing up, Y/N winks and pecks Spencer on the cheek, “I hate to break it to you, darling, but I think I win when it comes compliments,”

--Thank you for reading--

Taglist (Comment & I'll Happily Add You)

@shemarmooresfedora

@april-14-blog

@willowrose99

@calm-and-doctor

@spideygenius

@measure-in-pain

@nomajdetective

#spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x reader fluff #dr spencer reid #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #spencer reid x reader one shot #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid x reader happy ending #criminal minds fanfiction

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andatsea · 4 years ago

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XP-Pen Artist Pro 24 Review

I drew this with an XP-Pen Artist Pro 24, which the team at XP-Pen kindly sent to me for review. I’ve had to opportunity to use this tablet on-and-off over the course of the past several weeks, and while there were a few issues my overall impression is positive.

Unboxing / Contents

Apart from the 24” display tablet itself, the package comes with the usual cabling peripherals, plus some bonus extras. If your machine supports a USB-C connection for display, you’ll only need the one cable (plus the power connection). Otherwise, there’s a HDMI and a USB-C to USB converter included as well.

The extras include: an additional stylus, a one-size-fits-all artist’s glove, and a microfiber cloth.

The container for the stylus twists open to reveal 8 extra stylus nibs. Its cap can also be removed to use as a stylus holder.

Driver (Installation & General Use)

There were a few issues with installation, mostly tied to interactions between the driver, Windows 10 and Windows Ink.

Initially, brush strokes were offset from the stylus’ point of contact with the screen by about 3-4 centimetres when attempting to draw in Photoshop CS6. Random straight strokes also occurred frequently. This same problem did not occur in MS Paint or Photoshop CC 2019. This was fixed by changing the UI scaling setting for the monitor in Windows settings from 125% (which was apparently the default) to 100%.

Initially, brush strokes had no pen pressure in Photoshop CC 2019. Photoshop CS6, on the other hand, did (but suffered from the previous offset problem). This was fixed by turning on the Windows Ink setting in the XP-Pen driver menu. So in other words: CC 2019 needs Windows Ink on to recognise pen pressure, while CS6 didn’t, but was affected by UI scaling.

Interestingly, if Windows Task Manager was in focus and Windows Ink was not enabled in driver settings, stylus input was not recognised at all. There may be other programs that have this issue, but this was the only one I encountered so far.

I will say that I’ve had many problems with Wacom drivers interacting badly with Windows Ink and other things in the past before, so these types of issues are not exclusive to the XP-Pen drivers.

I’m currently using driver version 3.0.5, a beta build that has a lovely UI; it’s clear and laid out well. I did also try version 1.6.4 initially, which was fine — the UI for that version was similar to the layout you find with Wacom drivers.

Apart from the issues during installation that required troubleshooting, I haven’t had many major complaints with the driver in day-to-day use, I do think that there are a few areas for improvement, however.

The driver stops working correctly each time the computer is set to sleep and woken up again. To fix this the driver must be exited from the system tray and then relaunched.

There also doesn’t seem to be a way to bind WIN+SHIFT+ARROW to any of the express keys. WIN+SHIFT+ARROW (left or right arrow) is the Windows shortcut to quickly move a focused window to another monitor, so it’s something I use a lot if I’m on a multi-monitor setup. Unfortunately, attempting to set this shortcut in the express keys menu will simply move the actual driver window over to the other monitor while the custom input is not properly recognised in the text field.

The driver does offer a “switch monitor” option for the express keys that when clicked will transfer your stylus input to another monitor, which is extremely useful.

Screen

At 24” with a 2560x1440p QHD resolution, images are sharp and crisp even when viewed from a close range while drawing. Genuinely, it feels great to paint on based off this aspect alone.

The colour temperature is set to 6500K by default in the the driver settings. I think initially it felt just a touch too saturated, but overall I’m fairly happy with the colour display.

The monitor has touch-sensitive inputs on the top right corner: a -/+ for quickly adjusting the brightness, a menu for further settings, and power. I found myself using these to adjust the brightness throughout the day frequently. The power input requires a few seconds of continued contact from your finger to react, which prevents you from accidentally brushing it and turning the monitor on/off.

The monitor comes with a built-in stand. I found it easy to adjust to different viewing angles and also incredibly sturdy. I had no problems leaning on the monitor while drawing.

The monitor also comes with a pre-applied anti-glare screen protector. I wasn’t bothered by it and it seems to be holding out well after several weeks of use. I think the screen itself definitely needs the additional anti-glare, as being a display tablet means that it’s significantly more reflective than my main display.

Stylus

My first impression of the stylus was that it’s lighter in comparison to the Wacom styluses that I’m used to — there is very little to no weighting on the back end of the stylus, which makes it feel noticeably different when gripped. To be honest, though, I forgot about it when I was actually painting. Still, I would prefer a bit more weighting because I do think it makes the stylus more comfortable to hold overall for long periods of time.

There’s also no eraser nib, but I’ve personally never used those on Wacom tablets (I always use shortcuts to switch between brush and eraser instead) so this was a non-issue for me.

The two shortcut buttons on the side of the stylus sit quite flat to the surface, so I think they would be less likely to bother people who don’t use them. I use them a lot, however, and found that they were still easy to click despite being quite flat.

Unfortunately however I ran into a curious issue with using one of the stylus buttons to activate the eyedropper tool. When the “alt” key is mapped to one of the triggers on the stylus, activation of the eyedropper function in Photoshop (tested in both CS6 and CC 2019) is somewhat unreliable. That is, when the “alt” key is held down, the expected result is that once you tap the stylus on the canvas, a “mouse-click” will be triggered and the eyedropper will activate. While this works perfectly fine if you hold down “alt” from the keyboard (or hold down an “alt” that’s bound to one of the 20 express keys), when you hold “alt” from a stylus trigger I found that tapping quickly with the stylus only seemed to activate the eyedropper about 50% of the time. In order to activate it more reliably, I had to press harder and longer with the stylus, which can become tiring and slowed down my painting process. I also found that frequently, pressing down longer would lock me into the eyedropping function until I clicked the trigger key again.

After submitting feedback about this XP-Pen’s R&D department, I was informed that this issue occurs because the stylus is only able to send one message to the tablet at a time. Pressing “alt” on the stylus and trying to “click” at the same time counts as two messages, which may interact with each other unexpectedly. This is why it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.

The buttons seem to otherwise work completely fine for any other functions that don’t require the stylus to send two simultaneous messages, so unless you’re like me and like to bind “alt” to a stylus trigger, this won’t affect you.

Pen Pressure & Activation Force

Most current-gen tablets flash a big number for the pen pressure levels as a selling point. Having used tablets with 512, 2k, 4k and 8k levels of pressure sensitivity, I’d say I noticed the biggest difference when switching from 512 to 2k, but in my opinion beyond 2k the change is minimal and has no real impact on the way I draw. The XP-Pen Artist Pro 24 comes with 8192 levels of sensitivty, which is a very big number, but in practical application all I can say is that it works the way I expect it to and I don’t have any complaints regarding the transition between pressure levels on the default linear pressure curve.

More importantly I did notice that the IAF (initial activation force) was not as low as I would have liked. Very light input is not recognised, or only partially recognised before dropping off and on again. In a practical sense this doesn’t actually impact me through most of (perhaps 97%) of the painting process, but it did give me pause once in a while when I wanted to make a really light stroke and had to adjust my method. The drivers for this tablet do come with a pressure curve you can adjust to your preferences, so this can help a little, although after some tests I preferred to leave mine on the default setting.

Summary of Drawing Experience (tl;dr)

I think the mark of a good tool or piece of hardware is that it does not draw attention to itself during the course of its use. An ideal drawing experience allows me to be fully immersed in the act of drawing without having my focus shifted to dealing with the tool. With this in mind the XP-Pen Artist Pro performed very well for the most part, but was held back by a couple of issues.

Pros:

The monitor resolution honestly feels great to look at; the pixel density means that I can basically forget about pixels even with my face positioned closer to the screen.

The parallax between the tip of the stylus and the actual position of input was very minimal and basically not noticeable for me, especially after the simple calibration process offered by the driver.

At normal room temperature (say up to about mid-20’s celsius) the monitor screen stays impressively cool to the touch and I was never bothered by resting my drawing hand on its surface even when painting for long sessions.

The 20 express keys and 2 roller rings are extremely helpful and I actually found myself using all of them, despite initially thinking that I’d only need half of them. The keys are also comfortable and responsive to click (which sounds like it should obviously be so, but having used some Intuos iterations in the past which had some very annoying-to-click express keys, I don’t take this feature for granted anymore).

Cons:

The driver needs to be restarted everytime the computer wakes from sleep in order to work.

Higher IAF was noticeable when very light strokes were desirable. Also, the input will on rare occasions glitch by performing a completely straight max opacity + max brush size stroke. This seemed to happen primarily when I was trying to get light strokes to register. (It didn’t happen often enough to bother me much since it’s just a quick undo, but it did happen enough times that I noticed it.)

The issue with eyedropping using “alt” mapped to a stylus trigger as detailed above. Quite unlucky for someone like me who has over a decade of muscle memory for this particular mapping.

Overall, as I said at the beginning, my impression of the tablet is positive. While I think it has room for improvement when it comes to driver performance and the initial activation force especially, it also has a lot to offer at a highly competitive price point ($900USD at retail), and it would’ve been amazing if something like this had been available to me back when I first started digital painting. As I do enjoy using it for the most part I’ll probably continue to use it on-and-off in future.

#xp-pen #review

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riddlecrux · 4 years ago

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Light seen through the windows: an analysis of windows as a literary tool in Elriel relationship

I would love to preface this meta with my favorite disclaimer that everything that I will be discussing is based on what I have gathered from SJM writing. The quotes used in this post will serve as a starting point for further analysis. Additionally, I will be using things such as symbolism, metaphors, and literary device methods to build up my reasoning and beliefs. On another note, this, as usual, is strictly pro-Elriel meta. If they are not your cup of tea and you wish to comment, please be civil and bring arguments supported by the text.

So many of us like to gaze and stare through the windows daily. Looking at the world behind the glass often is considered a form of tranquility that we feel. Windows are essentially doors that lead us to whatever lies behind them - the last border between being in one place and then in another. It isn't then surprising that windows serve as symbols and metaphors in literature. From the start, whenever I read a passage about windows in ACOWAR I was reminded of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. You may ask why?

Emily Bronte used windows as symbolism in her work. They are very important for her characters and their personal arcs. They are symbols of barriers, misfortunes that characters face. Windows there are metaphors of various obstacles estranging Bronte's characters from achieving their hopes - realizing that the dreams they had will be not fulfilled. As I don't want to get spoilery with Wuthering Heights, I'm going to draw conclusions in a very neat manner. Bronte used windows as a connection to nightmares that one of the main characters was suffering from - it ties to the fact that in his nightmares he sees the person he had loved, haunting him. Because of the relationship with a said woman, the imagery of windows in this particular scene symbolizes death, an obstacle that stands between both of them. Throughout the book, we also get glimpses of how windows might be used as a metaphor for social classes and the contrast between them, and how Heathcliff and Catherine have to go about it. Along with the windows, doors are also used as a symbol of trapping someone in one place, obstructing them from achieving their dream or preventing them from reaching out to their loved one. Not to mention that during a very particular scene with Catherine, she wants the windows open - a symbolism of her wanting to feel free, to connect with something she knows, she longs for. This leads to the conclusion that windows in Bronte's novel are symbols of life and death, they are the in-between - a symbolic barrier.

On the other hand, windows in literature signalize something called "art of watching", and usually it is connected to a female protagonist that observes life, events through the window. Not to mention, the most famous association to windows such as "windows to the soul" - which, of course, is more metaphorical. It allows us, the audience, to connect with the character's inner feelings, struggles, as we are presented with the emotional aspect of said person. They are the bridge between the inside and outside. Windows are also a source of light, which we humans crave. Looking through the window one can absorb the light, which can resonate as a symbol of growth and change. Metaphorically we see the light from the window when we feel a need to light up the darkness inside us. They expose us, our inner feelings, and struggles.

When I read ACOWAR I have noticed that SJM decided to use windows, quite clearly, in the indication of two particular characters. Azriel and Elain. For the first time, when we met Elain again in the third book the window is a big issue.

"The suite was filled with sunlight. Every curtain shoved back as far as it could go, to let in as much sun as possible."

We have a clear description of the sunlit room, curtains shoved to further underline the need for light.

"And seated in a small chair before the sunniest of the windows, her back to us, was Elain."

In the brightest place in the room sits Elain, in front of the window. She is exposed to the sun, to sunlight and is absorbing that light - which is highlighted during this scene (which makes it important to note).

"Her skin was so pale it looked like fresh snow in the harsh light. I realized then that the color of death, of sorrow, was white."

The sunlight exposes Elain, its harsh light makes her pale, almost translucent. Even Feyre realizes the graveness of this picture comparing this white hue to death. As you can see the chain of events in this scene played like that: sunlit room -> curtain swept away -> Elain sitting in front of the window -> sudden comparison to death.

"She had been always so full of light. Perhaps that was why she now kept all the curtains open. To fill the void that existed where all of that light had once been. And now nothing remained."

Feyre deducts that the need for light on Elain's part is a desperate call to brighten the darkness inside her - which perfectly aligns with the metaphorical usage of windows. Elain basks in light in a helpless cry for help. The very dark void that appeared within her after being Made eats her away. It sucks her immortal life away - the one which she yet didn't get used to. On the other hand, we as readers are presented with the fact that Elain is trapped. In this Fae life, in this room, in this situation in which she grieves for her past and many what-ifs.

Nothing. Not even a flicker of emotion. “Everyone keeps saying that.” Her thumb brushed the ring on her finger. “But it doesn’t fix anything, does it?”

Sitting in front of the window - a sunny one to be precise, which symbolizes life, growth, and change, Elain is presented in a contrast to her surroundings. To show that visible barrier that her person has to overcome. She realizes that her dreams are meant to be unfulfilled, that they are unreachable.

"My stiff, limping steps, at least, had eased into a smoother gait by the time I found Elain in the family library. Still staring at the window, but she was out of her room."

The next time we see Elain she is out of her room - her "cage", but even though she left the boundaries of her entrapment she still chooses to linger around the windows. As Feyre notices, Elain gazes through the window - we are obstructed from Elain's POV and it's hard to imagine what she could be thinking about. Yet the symbolic manner of using the window as some sort of mirror, a passage that happens throughout the series, allows me to think that the metaphorical usage of windows, in this case, isn't a far-fetched idea.

"Elain didn’t turn. She was wearing a pale pink gown that did little to complement her sallow skin, her brown-gold hair hanging in loose, heavy ringlets down her thin back."

SJM uses this sentence to highlight that it isn't just a quick glance out of the window - in fact, it is constant staring through it. It is important for us as readers to note that this thing, window gazing, is an occupation that lasts for long periods of time. It isn't something trivial, it is something that showcases the importance of said windows in Elain's journey.

“What are you looking at?” I asked Elain, keeping my voice soft. Casual. Her face was wan, her lips bloodless. But they moved—barely—as she said, “I can see so very far now. All the way to the sea.”

Feyre decides to ask Elain who is still gazing through the window. Her answer is very ominous and holds a great deal of importance, but also underlines the fact that she is drawn to the window. Not to mention that what she is seeing is the sea - another vastly discussed symbol. In this situation, I believe that the interpretation can lay in a more psychological aspect of the matter rather than a literary one. In the works of very well-known psychiatrist Carl Jung the sea "symbolizes the personal and the collective unconscious in dream interpretation". So from his notes there comes this annotation that caught my attention, "The sea is a favourite place for the birth of visions."

Elain is a seer who constantly gazes through a window which symbolizes the in-between, life and death. These two are connected to one another and SJM used many things to further develop Elain's character as a powerful figure.

"Elain only turned toward the sunny windows again, the light dancing in her hair."

After the whole conversation Elain doesn't move from her spot, quite the contrary she returns to her previous activity. Gazing through the window. Once again we are reminded about the sun and light - which signalizes that Elain tries to undergo through the process of rebirth, but also tries to break free from the unhappiness that came with lost dreams.

"Something in my chest cracked as Nesta’s eyes also went to the windows before Elain. To check, as I did, for whether they could be easily opened."

Here we have an instance of both sisters realizing that Elain spending so much time in front of windows can be dangerous, as in her attempting to jump from them. Once again, the symbolism of death.

"More steps—no doubt closer to where Elain stood at the window."

Elain is still beside the window when Lucien tries to talk to her. Even alone she seeks the place next to the window to stare.

"But sunlight on gold caught his eye—and Elain slowly turned from her vigil at the window."

Elain is still by the window, for the whole scene she is there not moving an inch from it. Furthermore, the word "vigil" is also an interesting choice. There are different meanings of it, but I find these ones very telling and suitable for this instance: a period of sleeplessness; insomnia, a watch kept, or the period of this and a devotional watching, or keeping awake, during the customary hours of sleep. We can speculate about what happened to Elain while she was in the Cauldron, what made her so withdrawn from life and so desperate for the light. I want to believe that we as readers will get our answers in the next book since Elain being a seer with unknown powers makes her a perfect target for Koschei with which she has already had connections.

She looked away—toward the windows. “I can hear your heart,” she said quietly.

Again, during the whole conversation, she doesn't move away from her spot next to the window. Windows for her, start to become a symbolism of change and rebirth - the things she probably wished while being confined to her room.

Elain only stared out the window, unaware—or uncaring.

We have another mention about staring - which further highlights how important windows are as a literary tool for Elain's character. She seeks light, she wants to overcome this barrier that was thrown at her the moment she was Made. She, perhaps, watched through the window to observe the life which was stripped away from her and turned her into this immortal being. Or, maybe she just desperately wanted to brighten up the darkness that gathered inside her because of that whole situation. Another important thing to note is that this scene is a first moment alone with Lucien - her mate, which should have been very painful for her. The conversation also held a lot of weight, yet she valiantly stood by the window as if somewhere behind it she could find an answer.

“So it can’t be a perfect system of matching. What if”—I jerked my chin toward the window, to my sister and the shadowsinger in the garden —“that is what she needs? Is there no free will? What if Lucien wishes the union but she doesn’t?”

Here we have an instance of "art of watching" in which Feyre observes Azriel and Elain through the window. By watching them she comes to the conclusion that both of them are better suited and actually can comfort each other in comfortable silence. The window here is used as a barrier to showcase parallels of two couples: happily mated Feysand and unhappily in love with other people Elriel.

"But I looked to Azriel, currently leaning against the wall beside the floor-to-ceiling window, shadows fluttering around him."

And here we are start with Azriel and windows (also in ACOWAR). He is another character that has an extraordinary connection to windows. He is often mentioned next to them and somehow parallels Elain's behavior - staring through windows, being near them.

"I blinked, realizing I’d been lost in the bond, but found Azriel still by the window, (...)."

As we can see Azriel lingers next to the window without moving away from it - as the scene progresses we know that the conversation lasts a good ounce of time, yet Azriel stands in his place by the window.

"Azriel didn’t so much as turn from his vigil at the window, though I could have sworn his wings tucked in a bit tighter."

The same wording, the same imagery. Both used for Elain and Azriel. Both of them keeping vigils at the windows, staring through them as if they could find an answer through them.

"The main room of the guardhouse was stuffy and cramped, more so with all of us in there, and though I offered Elain a seat by the sealed window, she remained standing—at the front of our company. Staring at the shut iron door."

This scene is when Elain is about to confront her lover - Greysen. It is underlined that she rejected her usual spot, which is by the window, and preferred to face the door. She was trapped, she knew that a very important discussion will take a place here. She chose to look at the door rather than at the window, which in this matter could symbolize hope for a change - she stared at the door which metaphorically means transition or imprisonment.

"(...) close to Elain’s side as she and my sister silently kept against the wall by the intact bay of windows."

Another instance of Elain and her being content with being next to the windows.

"I’d seen Elain staring out the window earlier—watching Graysen leave with his men without so much as a look back at her."

"Art of Watching", but also the window's symbolism of dreams that were unfulfilled. At that moment, we can assume, that Elain realized that her dreams concerning human life and her future with Greysen would only be unattainable dreams/hopes.

“What now?” Elain mused, at last answering my question from moments ago as her attention drifted to the windows facing the sunny street. That smile grew, bright enough that it lit up even Azriel’s shadows across the room. “I would like to build a garden,” she declared. “After all of this … I think the world needs more gardens.

At the end of ACOWAR, we have this powerful moment, in which Elain gazing out of the window sees sunny streets = life. A chance of rebirth, which also beautifully overlaps with the fact that she proposed building a garden! The in-between that she balanced on while gazing through the window for so many times turned from death and misfortunes into life and hopes of the future.

ACOFAS

"Elain politely refused, taking up a spot in one of the wooden chairs set in the bay of windows. Also typical."

From Rhysand's point of view, we can deduct that even they are aware of the fact that Elain and windows are something notable. It is a place where she feels comfortable and probably spends a lot of time.

"Beyond the windows, darkness had indeed fallen. The longest night of the year. I found Elain studying it, beautiful in her amethyst-colored gown. I made to move toward her, but someone beat me to it."

In previous quotes, we could gather information about how Elain craved the light and how desperate she was to lighten up her person. Here, we can see that she also started to embrace the darkness. She is again by the window, observing the darkness as if no one else was around her. And of course, the one person who goes towards her at that moment is Azriel, a personification of darkness in the books.

Azriel strode to the lone window at the end of the room and peered into the garden below. “I’ve never stayed in this room.” His midnight voice filled the space.

Azriel went straight to the window. And not an ordinary one, but the one through which you can see the garden. Life and light. I know many were theorizing if what kept Azriel so occupied by the window was Elain, but I would love to put some of my thoughts in this discourse. Yes, I do think that what caught his attention, or who caught his attention was Elain. However, Elain at that moment represents life and light - the things that are associated with windows. And if you spin it around you have Azriel=darkness, death staring at Elain=light, life. The in-between, the very initial symbolism of window in literature. Not to mention that in this scene we have Azriel watching the light and next we have Elain observing darkness.

“No,” Azriel said, not turning from the window.

Azriel remained at the window. “Will Nesta stay here if she comes?

“I’d still be surprised if they remember once the storm clears,” Azriel said, turning from the garden window at last.

We have a whole scene in which it is so heavily implied that Azriel was constantly staring through the window, not even bothering to move away from it. We also have another highlighted thing which is the fact that it was a garden window.

There was a tiny box left on the table by the window—a box that Mor lifted, squinted at the name tag, and said, “Az, this one’s for you.”

A small thing, yet a very sweet one. The fact that even his present was placed close to the window, which starts to become an Elriel thing.

ACOSF

"She’d barely slept for fear of Elain walking off this veranda, or leaning too far out of one of the countless windows, or simply throwing herself down those ten thousand stairs."

We have a reminder that during her stay at House of Wind, Elain was a symbol of death. She carried it on her while being associated with windows that were used as a source of light that helped her heal.

"Elain stood at the wall of windows, clad in a lilac gown whose close-fitting bodice showed how well her sister had filled out since those initial days in the Night Court."

Even when she visits Nesta, she takes the place by the windows. It is something that is strictly connected to her. As if the windows were part of her now.

Elain’s smile was as bright as the setting sun beyond the windows. “I thought I’d drop by to see how you were doing.”

Light, sun, life = Elain.

“You’ve got good coloring, I mean,” Elain clarified, striding from the windows to cross the room. She stopped a few feet away. As if holding herself back from the embrace she might have given.

SJM still used the passages to underline the passage of time that Elain spent standing next to the window. It is a place in which she feels good and perhaps safe.

"They’d sat in them, before this fire, so many times that it was an unspoken rule that Azriel’s was the one on the left, closer to the window, and Cassian’s the one to the right, closer to the door."

We also get the information that Azriel always was the closest to the window - which is an odd thing to add without a deeper meaning. As if to further build up that connection between him and Elain - that both of them are aware of the fact that they are also the symbolism of the allegory of windows. I believe that SJM really researched that light and darkness trope, with which she built and she is still building up Elriel. The windows are just another tiny nugget that further envelopes both of them as one. Because while Elain transformed from death to life, she still welcomed darkness and embraced it - and Azriel opened to the life and light, seeking it. As I said, windows are a literary tool, which perhaps wasn't the main idea in the SJM text, but the amount of parallels between both of them and even the same wording applied to different scenes tells me that it's yet another connection between them.

#elriel #pro elriel #elriel meta #azriel x elain #elain and azriel #pro elain #pro azriel

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kays-kg-works · 1 year ago

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Lmao cool arguments, thanks for taking zero accountability during like any of that for yes - going after individuals. The crusade bit? The definition of ‘crusade’ is ‘a vigorous campaign for political, social, or religious change.’

If I see people on here making direct accusations and getting called out about it, even if it’s against someone I don’t follow and have never directly interacted with before to my knowledge where the accused seems nice enough and is trying to provide proof of their innocence while you’re out here literally demanding further proof because you claim their initial one was insufficient for you to stop being a dick about it?

Yeah, I take issue with that.

Also, I don’t care if you’ve been ‘mostly inactive for over a year’ - if you have followers who are gonna see that and YOU are their acquaintance, friend, mutual, or fave and/or they don’t have critical thinking skills? Then yeah it is kinda your fault if one or more of those people wanders off and harasses that person based on your potentially flawed testimony.

Also, I never said I supported Madasama, anywhere in my reblog or mentioned them at all, even though I did see their reply to your post - I just said I didn’t support you going and accusing individuals without proof. Though it is funny to me that you used them as an example of ‘You think people who use AI have the decency to own up to what they’re doing???’ when Madasama... literally in that reply to your post openly said ‘Yeah I use AI for my work, what about it’.

Seeing everything in black and white kinda... sucks, historically speaking, and while you seem to think that it’s impossible, I’m here to tell you that... you can dislike something without taking it upon yourself to shame, call out, demonize, or otherwise rail against individuals that you see engaging in that behavior. Or in this case, people you think you see engaging in that behavior. You are not some divine authority on what human-driven art should look like and have already admitted that the tools you used later to try and prove that image was AI-generated aren’t always right so the fact remains that neither of us has true proof on our stances.

In my personal experience, it super duper sucks to be accused of what essentially amounts to art theft after putting time and effort into a piece - someone I considered my best friend at one time accused me of tracing a piece of their art when I did a sketch of their character for them because the nose looked too similar to the one they’d drawn, and on another sketch where I’d had a photo reference up to the side while drawing which is something I don’t usually do so surprise surprise - the image turned out looking different than my usual sketching style.

They only backed down after I literally laid the photo-referenced sketch over the original image to show them how off some of the proportions were in comparison - one eye right on but the other lower and slightly tilted, head shorter and a bit wider, etc. Initially, I brushed it off as “Oh, they’re just protective of their art and their reputation and it’s for their webcomic so they don’t want us to get in trouble and wanted to make sure I wasn’t up to no good :)” But the more I thought about it, the more it was like...

“Huh... this person really thought I would do that to them...”

Obviously the situation is different here in that you’re two strangers on the internet, but my point is that if you’re wrong?? You are directly harming someone who’s just taken a bunch of time and energy to make something and put it out into the universe only to be told essentially “Oh I know you didn’t make that because you aren’t that good and it looks too different from your normal stuff, why don’t you stay in your box if you don’t want people to think you’re a liar and a fake?” and no amount of apologizing afterwards if they DID provide you proof would put you back in their/my good graces.

For the sake of protecting my peace? I will no longer continue to interact with you, because you seem far more determined to maintain your stance on the issue that you are good and right and should definitely be doing this than I have the patience to dispute. I’ve got too many things to be doing with my time that are more important than sitting here arguing with you about whether it’s good to potentially bully someone off a platform in the name of ‘justice’.

And in case you take my future silence as proof that I’m wrong and you’re right like you tried to do with Skykashi?

Good job, you defeated me 🙄 Enjoy the view from your high horse, Grand Inquisitor

Logging in after a busy weekend irl, and seeing no further responses from @skykashi presumably they've blocked me after I asked to see the layers of the artwork. I was anticipating it, but it's really funny nonetheless.

The easiest and simplest way to disprove my theory would've been to post a screenshot of all the layers in the art file, or better, in a video like here, but instead they went off on a lengthy 30 min video about irrelevant topics.

At the end of the day, they know what they have done, and no amount of defensive posts or deflection will take away from the truth. AI art obtained by a few clicks of the mouse for social media validation may feel nice temporarily, but I hope one day they truly improve their skills to match those of the artist they entered as prompt on mid\journey or the likes.

Going forwards, they will either have to use AI for all their future arts to maintain style consistency (or rather, inconsistency, since they said in their explanation vid that their style actually varies dramatically as per their wishes, which is. Cool?)

Or, the more desirable, but less likely route - they'll revert to their original art style, in which case, AI won't be used, which was the original point of the conflict.

#begone thot

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dovechim · 4 years ago

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blessed be the fruit 01 (m)

➾ 3.6k, taehyung x reader, future OT7

➾ loosely based off The Handmaid’s Tale. In the New World Order that is Gilead, your life depends on your ability to bring a new one into existence.

➾ warnings: unprotected sex, mentions of infertility, pregnancy, mentions of dubcon

➾ a/n: I had serious hesitation and doubts about this. but after a three month break and looking at it from a distance, I still want to go ahead with this AU because I want to draw attention to the themes of reclaiming agency & identity whilst under oppression. So I hope that you could get the message I’m trying to convey rather than focus on the noncon indubitably present in this AU.

I'm saying this to clearly outline my intentions, for I do not condone rape or non-consensual sex whatsoever.

that being said, I have plans to turn this into an ot7 series fic, but here is a little starter just to kind of test the waters a little :-) if you’re here, I've already warned you about what you’re signing up for, so please skip this if uncomfortable and refrain from sharing any malicious thoughts with me.

Crimson is the colour that denotes life. But these days, only the rare few have the privilege to don that colour; the deep red hue of the cloak that is meant to simultaneously draw attention to, and also hide your figure.

Handmaids are to be seen and not heard. They are to speak only when spoken to. The white wings that adorn either side of your head keep your gaze lowered reverently at all times. Meek and subdued, but always watching, waiting.

The supermarket is quiet and orderly as you stroll through the aisles with your partner close by your side. You have never seen more than a glimpse of her face, neither have you heard more than a few words of her voice other than the greetings you exchange when you meet every morning.

Even the task of grocery shopping, which you used to enjoy before the rise of Gilead, has become nothing but a sham. There is no decision to be made. Your purchases are entirely dependent on the coupons given to you by the Wife of your Household. Today, it’s the usual rice and vegetables, with one or two oranges thrown in as a request from the Cook.

“Under His Eye,” you murmur as you pass the other Handmaids and their partners, all doing their shopping with their partners.

You can’t see it with your head lowered, but there are armed guards stationed throughout the grocery store with guns cocked and menacing stares. The Eyes are always watching and listening, and you begin to feel suffocated.

“I believe I have everything I need,” you speak in a lowered voice, turning slightly to your partner, thinking of how to best hurry her along without making it too obvious. “Is there anything else you lack?”

“I too, am done, OfJeon,” your partner replies back, and you have to physically stop yourself from flinching.

Even though it is the proper way to address another Handmaid, you avoid using the names bestowed upon you by their Household’s Commanders. You try your best to not associate yourself with that name, for fear that you might come to forget your own in due time, but it gets more and more difficult as the days go by.

‘Of’ denoting possession, and ‘Jeon’ for your Commander’s last name. Put together, they form your identity, the identity that Gilead has carved out for you as an object.

The moment you forget your real name is the moment you lose yourself.

“Let us depart, OfPark,” you say with tightly clenched lips, grateful for the white wings that hide your bitter expression as you turn toward the exit of the grocery store.

Your basket is heavy with groceries, and the wind whips up your red cloak the moment you step outside. You glance up for a moment to see the gray skies, feel the wind on your cheeks before you dip your head down again, cautious of exposing your face for more than a second.

Here, to blend in is to survive.

“Have you made all the necessary preparation, OfJeon?” Your partner asks as she links her arm through yours, and you begin the slow march home.

You drag your feet slightly, hoping to prolong the walk. Aside from the brief half hour of grocery shopping every day, you hardly get a chance to be outside. To remember what the real world feels like, even though it is changing so quickly every day. You’re too busy trying to memorise the way the wind feels against your cloak that you are caught slightly offguard by OfPark’s question.

“Preparation?” Your voice comes out slightly unsure.

“For the Ceremony, of course,” comes her reply, and you can’t stop yourself from inhaling sharply.

Is it already that time of the month? How could you have lost track?

A lump forms in your throat as you attempt to calm yourself. “Yes, OfPark. Everything is ready.”

You are lying through your teeth, but the thing is, interactions are kept to such a bare minimum that no one knows you well enough to know that you are lying. If today is the day of the Ceremony, it means a visit to the doctor’s this afternoon. Your breath speeds up at the thought of it, palms becoming sweaty.

OfPark comes to a stop outside of your house, and unlinks her arm from yours.

“Blessed be the fruit,” she says by way of farewell.

“May the Lord open,” the automatic response falls from your lips without much thinking.

Then the gates open, and you enter the house quietly, setting your basket on the kitchen counter. You can hear footsteps coming from the main hallway as soon as you take your white bonnet off.

“You’re back, I was just about to send a guard to fetch you.” In her royal blue dress that tapers at her waist and falls nearly to her ankles, the Wife of the Household is always neatly pressed and well put together. Kim Yeri fixes you with an annoyed glare as she brushes her silky blonde hair behind her ear. You haven’t known her by that name in a long while, because like any other woman, she is only to be addressed by her title in society.

“Did you forget your appointment?” She demands, crossing her arms. She has never been outrightly mean to you, yet her manner is far from friendly. But its totally understandable, of course. Which woman would be content knowing her husband was required by law to fuck a baby into someone else?

“No, Madam. The line at the supermarket was-“

“Get in the car. We’re already late.” Yeri is not interested in your excuse as she cuts you off, turning to grab her purse, and her dress flows gracefully behind her slim figure as she walks to the door.

You barely have time to put your bonnet back on, fixing it so that it is presentable once more before following her outside. Yeri is already in the back seat of the black SUV car, and you climb in beside her. You catch a glimpse of Driver Jung’s eyes in the mirror, but quickly glance away before Yeri can catch you.

Drivers aren’t allowed to have Handmaids of their own. Instead, they live to serve the Household of their Commanders. As the car pulls smoothly out of the front gate, you begin to wonder who Driver Jung was before Gilead. If he had loved ones that he lost. If he too, was slowly starting to forget the person he was back then.

The blacked-out windows of the car don’t allow you to see anything outside. It is a tense journey made in complete silence as you can feel Yeri’s annoyance slowly mounting into a barely withheld fury. It is the same every month. You try to sympathise with her, to put yourself in her shoes as someone who has to accompany the woman her beloved husband is to have sex with to a fertility check-up.

When the car stops, Driver Jung rushes out of his seat to open the door for Yeri first, then he crosses to your side and opens your door. You thank him with a shy nod, careful to keep your eyes fixed on the ground as you follow Yeri into the clinic.

The waiting room has about one or two other Wife-Handmaid pairs. As you walk in, you catch the eye of one of the Handmaids who is heavily pregnant. Her swollen belly protrudes from her red cloak, and her hands look so small in comparison as she strokes her bump reverently. The Wife sits beside her, a look of pride on her face as if she were the one pregnant.

It is such a rare sight to see a pregnant Handmaid these days. Even though the Handmaids were specially selected because of their fertility, your lack of a baby bump is bearing down on you. Each Handmaid is given three chances at each assignment. Three chances to conceive before they are moved to the next Commander. Three assignments in total before she is sent to the Wastelands.

Lining the walls are portraits of Commanders dressed in black, and their Wives dressed in blue, holding little bundles wrapped in white. The couples are all smiling with joy and pride in their eyes.

The Handmaids are nowhere to be seen in the happy families of three.

You don’t know if you should envy or pity the heavily pregnant Handmaid.

Thankfully, due to Yeri’s- or should you say your Commander’s- high status, you are bumped to the front of the line. The receptionist tells you to enter the doctor’s room, but Yeri waves you on with disinterest.

“I can wait outside here, can’t I? She won’t dare try anything,” she says this last part with cold frown, settling herself down on one of the waiting chairs.

“Of course, Mrs Jeon,” the receptionist says with a pleasant smile, then turns to show you into the doctor’s office.

You read the name on the door before you are shuffled into the white, sterile room.

Dr Kim Taehyung.

Two female assistants help you to take off your red cloak and dress you in the standard white gown. You sit on the chair, legs spread wide into the stirrups. The assistants lower a privacy curtain that conceals your face, leaving your lower half anonymous as you hear the door open, then the doctor’s footsteps.

You don’t even get to see his face before you feel his touch on your knees. Dr Kim Taehyung clears his throat before he moves to the side, dipping his gloved hands into a small dish of what you can only assume to be lubrication. The white privacy curtain is nothing but a thin sheet, so you can still make out his figure as he bustles about. You can even see the slope of his nose as he turns his side profile to you for a second.

It’s not until he speaks that you are jolted out of your thoughts by how deep his voice is. “How are you today?”

“I’m good,” you answer hesitantly, unconsciously crinkling your medical gown in your fist. No one has ever asked how you’re doing.

“That’s great, now let’s have a look, shall we?” You can hear the smile in his voice, and you feel your body relax a little.

He seems to be kind enough, this Dr Kim Taehyung. Much different from the doctor you had on your first visit. Dr Kim Taehyung has his bedside manner down pat, and even though you can’t see his face, he makes you feel a little bit less tense. His voice soothes you as he talks, saying random things about the weather as he spreads your legs.

Dr Kim Taehyung positions himself in between your thighs, and you feel his gloved hands dangerously close to the apex of them. “So, it says here on your chart that tonight is Ceremony night for you.”

“Yes,” you swallow hard at the reminder. “It is.”

“And how are the Jeons treating you? Everything okay at home?” You can feel him spread your lips with his fingers, starting to poke and prod around as you close your eyes.

“Yes. They treat me very well,” you answer.

He must have caught the monotony of your voice, because his fingers pause.

“You know, you can talk to me. If there’s anything you need.” His concerned voice is like a beacon of light, but your eyes dart around the room cautiously.

You think about the millions of things that you could tell him. How unfair it is to be reduced to a walking womb, and yet, how desperate you are, knowing that this is your third month at the Jeon’s household, and if it doesn’t work…

You swallow all of these thoughts with your fists clenched. You can never let your guard down. He might be one of the Eyes, pretending to be kind so that you might let slip a blasphemous comment about your Commander. There’s no way you’ll incriminate yourself like that, so you just keep your mouth shut. After a while, he goes back to examining you.

“… Alright then,” Dr Kim Taehyung says in a resigned tone. “Let me just check you over and make sure everything is good for tonight. This might feel a little uncomfortable, but just relax for me alright?”

You can’t help but tense up, ironically, at his instruction. But then you feel the warmth of one of his ungloved hands on your thigh, and as he bids you to relax again, he slides his fingers into you, and you can feel his fingers, thick and solid. Your thighs twitch, coming into contact with his hips that are in between them, and he lets out a gentle laugh.

“It’s okay… just a little more.”

Then, he withdraws his fingers slowly, and you let out a breath of relief. It didn’t feel bad, definitely not like the first visit where you felt violated. Dr Kim Taehyung’s gentle and respectful manner is… almost pleasant. You’ve long forgotten what it’s like to be treated like a human being, and not just an object.

“Looks like everything’s in shape, you’re due to ovulate these few days,” he declares, taking off his rubber gloves and tossing them in the bin. “Not that it matters, anyway. Jeon’s probably sterile. Hell, all of the Commanders are sterile.”

You freeze at the sound of that blasphemous curse word. But more importantly, you have to make sure you heard correctly.

“Wh-what do you mean?” You watch his shadow behind the sheet as he ticks a few things on your chart.

In this society, ‘sterile’ is a forbidden word. There is no such thing as a sterile man. There are only women who are fruitful, and women who are barren. But you know better than to subscribe to such damning ideology.

“Darling. I’ve seen so many top Commanders’ Handmaids in this room. In and out, month after month they come back and their Wives ask me why they aren’t pregnant yet.” He places a hand on your knee again, and that human contact makes you realise how much you crave the warmth of another person.

At the same time, his words awaken the hollow desperation in your chest. If… if Jeon is really sterile, that means no matter how many times you try, you won’t get pregnant. If all the Commanders are really sterile, then no matter how many assignments you get…

“It’s your third month here, isn’t it?” His kind voice accompanies the gentle stroke of his thumb on your knee.

Before you can answer, he steps away from you, walking to the door and double checking that it’s locked. Then, he’s between your legs again, and this time, his ungloved hands are caressing the top of your thighs. You can feel his hips pressing against you insistently.

“I can help you,” he says in a low whisper. “It’s your last chance.”

Your mind is in a fog. It’s hard to think clearly when you are craving his touch on your body, and the way in which he wraps your legs around his waist so delicately has you wanting to give in. Let this be a form of rebellion. An act of reclaiming your body and your agency, giving it to a man who treats you like a human being, and more importantly, deciding who you give it to. So that when Jeon performs the Ceremony with you tonight, no one but you will have the secret pleasure of knowing that someone else was here before him.

And if you do get pregnant, you will have the last laugh as you watch Jeon raise a baby that isn’t even his to begin with.

How’s that for rebelling? It’s no longer just about getting pregnant.

“I’ve helped many other Handmaids before,” Dr Kim Taehyung continues furtively. “They were all on their third Assignments. I saved them from the Wastelands.”

You don’t need any more convincing. You reach out and pull the thin privacy sheet aside, finally revealing Dr Kim Taehyung’s face. He looks taken aback at your bold actions.

“Do it, Doctor,” you fix your eyes on him with determination. “Get me pregnant.”

Dr Kim Taehyung looks as if he wasn’t expecting you to say yes to him, and delight slowly spreads across his face. But he can’t help himself from bringing one of his hands to your face, brushing your cheek and admiring your silent, resilient beauty.

“U-um, okay. He-here goes,” he fumbles with his dress pants, and the confidence from minutes ago is nowhere to be found. It occurs to you that he might have been fibbing about helping the other Handmaids before you, but it doesn’t matter. It’s no longer just about getting pregnant, anyway.

Thanks to the lubrication, he slides in easily. You catch a glimpse of him before he does, and a second later you feel his girth acutely. During the Ceremony, the lights are always turned off, so you never have a chance to see what Jeon’s dick looks like. If you were to compare, it feels around the same as Dr Kim’s. Except this time, you are doing this of your own accord.

The squeaking of the chair against the floor is deafeningly loud as he begins to thrust earnestly, and the thrill that you could be caught at any moment makes you feel more alive than you’ve ever been since the rise of Gilead. You can feel him at your cervix as he grips your thighs, and you make sure to wrap them around him tightly.

In an unprecedented move, Dr Kim reaches down to brush his thumb against your clit, and your walls clench around him in response. He swears under his breath as he shifts his position to rest his elbows on either side of you so that he can increase the strength behind his thrusts.

“Sh-shit, you feel so good,” he groans as he sneaks his hand in between your bodies once more to pinch your clit. No one has cared about your pleasure like this in a long while, and you feel your body responding to his ministrations, your orgasm rapidly approaching.

“Ha-harder, Doctor,” you feel his cheek press against your breast. “Cum inside me.”

You swear you can feel him twitch inside you, as he bites his lip hard. You have a hard time holding back your derisive laughter as Dr Kim Taehyung gets more turned on than ever. So this is his kink? This is the perfect job for him. Seeing Handmaids who are more often than not desperate to get pregnant, no matter by whom.

You feel a modicum of power back in the palm of your hand, which is more than you’ve felt in ages. The feeling of having power over someone else as you watch the pleasure take over Dr Kim Taehyung’s expression is addictive. The man is losing himself in between your legs, his fingers digging into the flesh of your thigh. Meanwhile you are the one watching him rut pathetically, straining to reach his end.

“Cum inside me, Doctor,” you say again, squeezing your walls around him and relishing his groan. “I’ll make you cum inside me.”

“Pl-please, call me Taehyung,” he pleads, raising himself up on his elbows to beg for a kiss.

You oblige, watching his desperation slowly take over his entire being. His lips are soft as he kisses you like a man starved, and you wonder who was the last person he kissed like this. Does he kiss all of the Handmaids he impregnates?

The next words you say are perfectly calculated. “Taehyung, I want your baby.”

There’s no reaction other than his hands clenching into tight fists, and his breathing getting harsher and harsher as his cock slams deep into you, and you clench around him one more time, only to feel him fill you up with his cum. The seed that you need to get pregnant and save your own life.

He doesn’t stop thrusting. His cock is still twitching inside you, and you can still feel the cum threaten to leak out. Dr Kim Taehyung lets out a long sigh of contentment as he expertly tilts the chair so that your hips are slightly raised.

When he’s satisfied, he slowly pulls out, eyes glued to the mess in between your legs. Only a little bit of cum is dripping out, and he reaches for a tissue to clean it up. The way he’s looking at you, a little bit too fondly, makes you realise that this is getting a bit too personal for your liking.

“Blessed be the fruit,” you remind him, and the phrase is like magic. You are all reminded of your roles in this society, and the forbidden act which you have both committed.

Dr Kim Taehyung seems to sober up when he hears this, as he tucks himself back into his pants and attempts to straighten his doctor’s coat.

“May the Lord open. You should… um. Stay here for the next ten to fifteen minutes. The nurses will be in to help you get dressed shortly,” he clears his throat as he lets the privacy curtain fall back into place. “And um… good luck.”

He leaves the room hurriedly, and you close your eyes, squeezing your thighs together and feeling the warmth that his cum leaves behind, feeling like your body is finally yours again.

You don’t know how much time has passed before the nurses come in and help you get dressed, and when you walk out of the room, Yeri makes a pointed remark about how long she had to wait. You follow her without a word to the car, waiting as Driver Jung opens the door for her, then you.

All the while, a secret smile upon your lips as you feel the cum from earlier drip down your inner thigh.

#bts #bts smut #future ot7 #bts kim taehyung #bts kim taehyung smut

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rocorambles · 4 years ago

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Trapped

Pairing: Sakusa x Reader

Prompt: Fantasy

Genre/Warnings: Yandere, Toxic Relationship, NSFW, Fantasy AU, Sorcerer Sakusa, Rape/Non-Con, Mind Control, Manipulation, Obsessive and Posessive Behavior, Degradation

Summary: You should have trusted your gut instincts, the lessons you had learned the hard way about just how cruel powerful men could be.

Author’s Note: This is my contribution for my HQ Discord Server’s NSFW collaboration. There are so many talented writers on the server and I highly encourage you to check out the collaboration masterlist here to see how everyone decided to run with this prompt. (Masterlist goes live Friday, October 30th 11:00pm U.K. time!)

You splutter awake, laughing, but also groaning as a wet tongue slobbers all over your face and you lightly shove the fox that’s currently standing beside your resting head, intent on waking you up to play. Blearily you blink your eyes, trying to gauge what time it is based on the light seeping into the cave you’ve come to call your home. Judging by the bright rays of sunlight, it’s already mid-morning and you stretch your arms above your head, petting your furry companion behind its ears before standing up and treading out into the forest, your friend walking right beside you, its tail brushing against your leg.

The familiar peace and quiet of the wind rustling past branches and the faint chirping of birds wafts through the air and you smile as you continue making your way to the nearby waterfall, various four-legged animals that have come to be your family and friends popping their heads out of grassy patches and from behind trees in greeting. You can’t even remember the last time you’d seen another human being and you grimace at the thought of your last encounter.

Orphans, especially female orphans like you, rarely survive for long and you bitterly remember the years of being a street urchin, never knowing when your next bite of food would come, never knowing who to trust in a world full of both humans and magical creatures who’d do horrible things to an unclaimed child and you shiver at the thought of possibly being eaten or harvested for ingredients for countless dark magic spells. But life had only gotten harder the older you became and as a single, vulnerable woman, you began to attract a different attention, no longer able to blend as seamlessly as you once had with predatory eyes trailing after you, resting too long on parts of your body that you desperately wanted to hide from the world.

You tried sticking it out, finding ad hoc jobs here and there as a maid, as a seamstress, as a waitress. But corruption ran deep wherever you went and disgust makes you recoil when you remember all the times you’d been cornered by all types of men and creatures, received unwanted touches in hidden corners and degrading remarks of what your only purpose in life was. And after being left to sob, pain lancing between your legs, your clothes ripped to shreds, knowing no one would ever take your side, knowing that this would just continue happening over and over again, you vowed to never have anything to do with another sentient being ever again.

You’d heard rumors of the forest, about its enchantment, about the stories of terrible things hiding away in its heart, but you couldn’t imagine any monster worse than the ones you’ve already encountered and you determinedly march forward, never turning back to look at the city you’re leaving behind. And as you step past the border of trees, even you, someone who’s never had anything to do with magic, can feel the surge of power, feel the crackling energy as you delve deeper and deeper. But maybe the forest could sense that you meant it no harm, maybe it knew that you were just a lonely, helpless soul, maybe it felt generous, felt pity for the damaged woman seeking refuge. Whatever the case was, it left you alone and in all the years you’d made a home in its lush vegetation, not once had you met any of the ghastly creatures you’d heard so many horror stories of. And maybe that’s why you let your guard down when you meet him, finding a false security in the wood and grass-filled world you now live in.

You don’t bother being quiet or stealthy as you walk. Why would you when there’s never been anyone else around? So imagine your shock when black human eyes are staring at you as you round the corner and reach the water’s edge and panic laces through you when you see how masculine and strong he looks, overwhelming fear making you tremble when you take in the staff you see laying next to him.

A sorcerer.

You’d learned the hard way that men were never to be trusted and that men with power and wealth were the ones to be even more wary of. Fortunately you’d only dealt with vile wealthy men and as awful as they had been, you know men gifted with an affinity for magic make those nobles seem as harmless as kittens in comparison. You’d seen firsthand the havoc sorcerors could wreak, seen the charred, mutilated, disfigured bodies put on display at the city gates as an example of the fate for anyone who rebels against the crown. To your knowledge, all sorcerors worked for the royal family, rarely leaving the walled fortress unless sent on a mission or task, but never in a place like this so-called cursed forest. So what was he doing here?

The urge to flee thrums through your veins, but when he makes no move to stand or get any closer to you, curiosity gets the better of you and you stay rooted to your spot and before you can stop yourself, you find yourself asking the first question that comes to mind.

“Who are you?”

When Sakusa had ventured outside of the castle walls for a break from the irritating humans inside the cramped corridors and bustling courtrooms, he had purposefully chosen a place where no other soul would be. His hand had immediately wrapped around his staff as the sound of approaching rustling interrupted his thoughts, but when you had made your presence known, he could only stare in awe, staff forgotten as he took you in.

You’re different from the usual noble women he sees on a daily basis. For one, you’re barely wearing anything, a makeshift dress of strung together leaves, flowers, and grass the only thing covering you and he can feel his face grow hot as he tries not to blatantly stare at your bare legs and arms. But as he really regards you, he can’t help but feel something wild, something primal in you and he blinks in shock when he realizes that you have the same energy as the forest, as if the forest has claimed you as one of its own and he’s so entranced by his realization that he’s startled by the sound of your voice.

From anyone else, he would have scowled at the forwardness and bluntness of the question, but for some reason, coming from you, he finds himself easily answering.

“Sakusa Kiyoomi”

People, conversations, human interaction. Those are all things Sakusa abhors and yet, as you tentatively draw closer to him, staring at him in wide eyed curiosity while the two of you exchange words, he thinks he doesn’t mind any of those things when you’re involved. He comes to visit you as often as he can, something warm blooming inside of him as he sees your hackles relax, notices how you inch closer and closer to him every time he arrives, and he can’t help but compare you to a wild animal and behind the warmth in his chest, something darker lurks, and he wonders what it would be like to tame you, claim you back from the wooded forest that had taken you in, mark you as his own.

And that thought festers and grows inside of him.

He does his best to keep it at bay, play it off as just a fleeting idea, but when your eyes and body begin to seep into his dreams, into his every waking thought, he can’t keep the desire down any longer and when he strides towards you once more, he drops to one knee in front of you, asking for your hand in marriage.

In hindsight it probably was foolish to think that you were as smitten with him, foolish to think that someone who had been scarred enough to escape from civilization would easily just return to the place full of painful memories, and yet red hot anger blazes through him when you turn him down. It doesn’t matter how sweet and kind you are about it, gently letting him down and telling him you’re sure he’d find someone much better suited to being his wife, someone prim and proper, someone educated and knowledgeable of court intricacies.

Humiliation only fuels his rage as he rises back to his feet and he can feel his magic churning, waiting to be used, dancing at his fingertips, and he has half a mind to forcefully drag you back with him, but he retracts it, pushes it down deep inside of him as he takes a deep breath. No, he wants you to come back and grovel at his feet, beg him to take you in, to help you. He wants you to feel the same need for him that he feels for you and he bites his tongue and restrains himself as his mind begins to plan and strategize.

He tries to remain as normal as possible, still going to visit you as often as before, but his nails dig into the palm of his hands at the pity in your eyes and he clenches his teeth at the way that you tread around him like he’s a wounded animal. But he takes those feelings and lets them drive him late through the night as he chants strange words, flips through old scrolls, experiments with different spells and ingredients and a rare smile stretches across his face when the pieces finally come together.

It’s time to take set his plan in motion and in the middle of the night while most of the city is fast asleep, there’s a strange flashing light, a rush of something sinister in the air, and the murmurs of masculine chanting swirling in the air, lingering, and foreshadowing the dark days ahead. But you remain asleep, peacefully ignorant of the shift in the atmosphere, naive to just how much your life will change.

You wake up, surprised by the lack of a warm furry body or tongue lapping at your face, and you vaguely wonder if you’d woken up in the middle of the night, but the sunlight filtering through tells you a different story. You feel strange, warning bells beginning to faintly clamor in your head, and you gingerly step outside of your lair only to freeze at the dead silence surrounding you. It’s always quiet and calm in the forest, but where there is usually the sound of nature and creatures, now there is only a deathly silence and you stare in horror as the forest seems to decay right in front of your eyes. What used to be green grass is wilting and brown. The trees you’d spent years climbing and picking fruit from are completely bare. But what makes a choked sob get caught in your throat is the corpses of the animals who’d you come to be so fond of littered around you and your slow stuttered amble becomes a frenzied run, as you race through your dying home, hoping to see any sign of life left.

But days pass and the state of your home only gets worse. Your throat is parched without clean water to drink, all the water sources near you murky and littered with fish corpses indicating just how toxic they’ve become. Your stomach aches with hunger, no vegetation, fruits, or animals nearby for you to ingest. And a deep loneliness churns inside of you and once again you feel as alone as you did when you were just a dirty street urchin trying to scrape together a living off the streets.

So when Sakusa comes for his regular visit and finds your weakened body slumped on the floor of your cave, it just makes sense to you, survival instincts kicking in, to drag yourself over to his feet, fling your arms around him when he finally bends down, and sob into his chest. You don’t question the way he’s slow to crouch down to your level and comfort you. You don’t see the cruel smile on his face when he sees you pathetically laying at his feet. You don’t notice the glee in his eyes as you beg him to take you with him. And when he asks you if you’d like to come and be his assistant, you eagerly nod your head and cling tighter to him, burying your face in his comforting and familiar presence as he teleports the two of you back to his living quarters.

Months pass and despite your initial wariness of returning to live among other beings, you find that Sakusa seems to dislike being around others just as much as you, and the two of you find a comfortable way of life mostly holed up in his living quarters with only the other as company. You’d never really been exposed or taught anything about magic growing up, so you’re genuinely fascinated as you watch Sakusa chant, attentively listening as he tells you what each ingredient is, eagerly following his every step as he shows you firsthand how to mix different potions. And Sakusa thinks that your aptitude for learning, the perfect synchronization the two of you have as you seamlessly work your way into his rhythm, preparing and setting things up before he even needs to tell you, speaks volumes of just how perfect the two of you are together, speaks volumes of how you were meant to be together.

He continues strategizing, gaining your trust, letting you grow accustomed to his presence, smiling at the way you don’t even bat an eye when his hands linger on yours a bit longer than normal when he hands you something, at the way you don’t tense up anymore when he presses his body against you from behind as he physically guides and shows you how to do something. And he knows he’s on the right track when you take the initiative to swipe a strand of his hair behind his ear as he concentrates on a task at hand, when you perch your chin on his shoulder, peeking over his shoulder as he jots down notes.

But even the greatest minds make mistakes and when he sends you off to find a certain piece of text for him from the bookshelf in the corner of his room, he forgets to clarify where on the shelf to look and not wanting to bother him, you meticulously comb through every book, forehead scrunching in curiosity when you find a notebook tucked behind, as if it was meant to be hidden. You consider just passing it over, not wanting to intrude on Sakusa’s privacy, but having gone through most of the books and not finding what you need, you wonder if perhaps the thing he’s looking for is in here and that this had just been misplaced or accidentally pushed towards the back of the shelf.

As you flip through the pages you quickly realize this is a book of Sakusa’s own spells and you stare in awe at how much work he’d done, how extensive his own self-created spell repertoire is, but suddenly your heart freezes when you flip to the last few filled pages. You’re not as fluent as Sakusa is when it comes to the ancient magical language, but you know enough after the time you’ve spent with him, the lessons he’s taught you, to recognize ‘plague’ and ‘forest’ and your throat and heart feel both heavy and panicked when you realize the implication of what you’d found. And suddenly you remember the day he had proposed to you vividly, ice cold shock and realization making you shudder when you remember a flash of something dark in his eyes when you had rejected him. And your hands tremble when you see the very last page, taking note of the phrase ‘mind control’. But before you can dwell on it, you squeal in surprise when the book is plucked from your hands and you’re rooted to the spot by dark eyes pinning you down.

You want to scream angry words at him. You want to escape. And yet, you do neither, frozen with fear when you remember exactly what happened to the victims who’d defied sorcerers.

“Hmm. This spell’s not quite ready yet, but I guess we can test it out early.”

And before you can even register what’s happening, a firm hand is placed on the top of your head, the other wrapped around your throat to keep you still as magic surges through the air and you vaguely hear yourself pleading for him to stop, until suddenly you feel trapped in your own body, the connection between your conscience and physical figure severed and you stare in horror as your body goes limp and docile in his arms.

Sakusa peers into your eyes in interest, humming in thought as he scrawls a few more notes in his notebook.

“The end goal of this spell is for me to be able to completely control your mind, but right now it looks like I only have control of the section that handles your physical functions if that ugly hate-filled look in your eyes is any indication. But let’s test my theory shall we?”

And it feels like a bad dream as your body submissively makes its way to his bed, seductively swaying your hips as you sprawl out on his bedsheets, eagerly wrapping your arms around the back of his neck as he joins you, bringing him down for a kiss. He’s rough and invasive as he tears your clothes off, calloused hands touching and contaminating every inch of you and you feel disgust as he examines you like you’re a piece of prime meat he’s purchased, coldly and meticulously pinching and prodding you as he observes what makes your body react. And for once, you hate how observant he is, how in tune to your smallest shifts he is, how sensitive your body is as your nipples perk up, as little moans escape past your traitorous lips when he pinpoints your weak spots.

But what you hate most is the triumphant grin on his face when his dexterous fingers swipe against your lower lips and you internally flinch at the glistening slick that coats his fingers when he holds it to your face, evidence of the heavy arousal mixing with your humiliation and hate. And you try to think of anything else, imagine you’re anywhere but here as he begins to wonder out loud while his fingers twist and turn inside of you, reaching and touching places you’d never been able to explore yourself, if he even needs to tweak his spell anymore seeing how you’re a slave to your body’s natural desire for pleasure. Maybe there wasn't a need to completely control your thoughts and emotions as well.

He hadn’t realized what a slut you are, getting off to anyone using your body, and he leers down at you while he continues questioning you, knowing full well you can’t answer or retort to his crude remarks. And he idly wonders if your mind would naturally break without additional magic if he pleasured you enough, transformed you into a warm body that constantly seeks and craves his touch.

The fear in your eyes at his words only fuels his need to completely dominate you and he grits his teeth as he slides into your drenched hole, eyes closing shut as he just stays still and revels in how tight you are, how perfectly you wrap around him. And when he opens his eyes and sees the glassy-eyed lustful look on your face from being filled, he finally releases himself from the controlled facade he so carefully always wears and lets himself dive headfirst into the sultry, dizzying, primal embrace of lust as he pistons his hips in and out of you at a brutal pace, dark eyes never straying from your face as your eyes begin to roll back and your wanton mewls fill the air.

He can feel his end approaching, but he’d be damned if he didn’t make you fall apart with him, drown you in inescapable pleasure, and his hand slips between the two of you, fingers finding your aroused clit and all it takes is a few rubs and thrusts before your body is tensing up, back arching, mouth opening in a silent scream, body convulsing and writhing underneath him, your cunt milking him as you’re forcefully brought to your peak. And he joins you over that edge, thick white spurts coating your twitching walls.

You pray that he’s done, that he’ll release you now that he’s thoroughly tasted and had you, now that you’re just sloppy seconds, used goods. But you’re startled when he lovingly kisses you and tenderly strokes your hair, and your stomach churns at the genuine affection you see in his eyes. And your heart drops, any last bit of hope you had extinguished as he holds your body close to him in a mockery of a loving embrace and whispers in your ear about the future he has planned for both of you, a future where you stay by his side as an obedient, submissive housewife, a future where you’re willing and eager to please him, to love him.

That was always his goal for the both of you, he insists, and a flame of anger burns inside of you at the exasperated and patronizing sigh he directs your way as he blames you for forcing his hands, for forcing him to do this the hard way, for forcing him to resort to magic when you could have saved everyone the hassle by just accepting his proposal all those months ago.

Hate and anger twist and coil inside of you and yet, when he kisses you once more, your body instinctively leans into the soft touch before obediently going lax as he tells you to sleep, eyes automatically closing at the command, and Sakusa smiles at your slumbering figure. It’s not exactly how he had planned to go about this, the mind control spell being more of a back-up option he had been trying to avoid, but you’re finally irrevocably his and that’s all that matters.

#yandere haikyuu #haikyuu yandere #yandere #haikyuu smut #yandere sakusa #sakusa x reader #tw: yandere #tw: rape #tw: noncon

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thenaivestatice · 3 years ago

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"....She must be so disappointed in me, you know?"

".......She wouldn't. She would be proud of the kind of man you have become. I know it."

"..............."

@asoryuu-week ..................So, I'm late again, huh?

This is my contribution to asoryuu week day 3: family/double date. I'm so sorry, I swear I wanted to post it in time, but my schedule is a waking nightmare right now 😓

I chose the family prompt. And, ok, that said, I think this might need a liiiiiittle bit of context: it's settled a couple of years post canon, and Kazuma has returned from England. He is visiting his mother's grave alongside Ryuunosuke, paying his respects and asking forgiveness for breaking Karuma.

I'll give more of the context and about my personal thoughts of Kazuma's mom under the cut, and I'll also explain something about the grave....

The in-universe context of this piece: Kazuma, he....I got the feeling he wasn't very proud of the person he became, and had a lot of self-worth issues to get through, and all this time he like..... couldn't bear to face his mom??? He felt like he was undeserving of visiting her, and it's now, when he has healed and grown a little bit that he feels that he, at least can finally face her, even though he still feels undeserving. Ryuu is there for emotional support.

The meta context of this piece: I already had an idea about what I wanted to do for this prompt, but originally, I planned that the grave this two would be visiting would be Genshin's, but then, I remembered that Kazuma, when explaining his Tragic Childhood Backstory ™, mentioned that, after learning about the fate of his father, his mother's health declined and she ended passing away, leaving him all alone. And, I seriously thought we would get a little more info about her? And, we didn't. And, I kinda feel that Kazuma would have had a very strong bond with his mom, seeing that they only had each other for a very long time through his childhood(the kind of relationship I personally imagine they would've had is one similar to that of Gregory and Miles Edgeworth). Anyway, I remembered the fact that we, as a fandom, tend to brush aside the character of Kazuma's mother, and I felt like I had to remedy that a little, y' know? So he is visiting his mom. Also, *gasp* spoiler captain obvious alert!: His mom obviously never hated him. The "sword" and the "honor" are the last things in her mind! She is glad her son has grown up, is healthy and is happier than what he has been in years. And that, in turn, makes HER very happy 💖💖💖

And finally, about the grave: if you look, you'll probably notice that 1) there's two names there, and 2) one of them is colored red. About the two names: Japanese graves have monuments with the name of the deceased engraved on them, but when a married person dies before his or her spouse, the name of the spouse is usually also be engraved on the stone, with the letters painted red. After the death and/or the burial of the spouse, the red ink is removed from the stone. This was usually done for financial reasons, as it was cheaper to make a single grave for both spouses in one go instead of making another one later, but was also used a sign that they living spouse is waiting to follow their partner to the grave. It's like saying "Someday, we'll he together again; this, I promise". The name in red is the name of her husband, which is STILL red because, if I remember correctly, his rests were never returned to Japan, so even if he died, (and died first, at that) his name in his wife's grave would still be painted red, seeing as he is not resting beside her yet. I thought it would be a little romantic and a little heartbreaking??? Idk, I just wanted to draw that....

The kanji must look almost unrecognizable in the grave, but here's the name I used for Aso-Mom:

亜双義紗也香, (Asougi Sayaka). I chose it in reference to THE Asougi's Mom OC created by Tumblr user kelseymichikoart. (Go see their stuff, it's wonderful! And their fics, are simply ✨beautiful ✨ go do yourself a favor and read them if you can.). I chose this variation of the kanji for the name "Sayaka" because I noticed that the last of the pictogram has similarities to the kanji for flower.(I then discovered that it's because, by itself, the kanji "香" means "fragrance", as in "the fragrance if a flower")

And here's the kanji for Genshin's name, in case any of you are curious:

亜双義玄真 (Asougi Genshin. Fun fact: he shares the same kanji of his first name with his son, "真"(which means, by itself, truth, real). Kazuma's is written "一真",(which means "one/only truth". ) and his father's name is written "玄真'"("玄", which means "mysterious, nebulous, ambiguous". So his name means "false/unreliable truth")for comparison)

It seems as if I'm making "chibi, but angst" my thing now...

#asoryuu week 2021 #asoryuu week day3 #asoryuu week day 3: family/professional #asoryuu #asogi mon #kazuma asogi #ryunosuke naruhodo #ryuunosuke naruhodou #kazuma asougi #tgaa #the great ace attorney #dai gyakuten saiban #tgaa spoilers #tgaa 2 spoilers #it's slight spoilers at least #gotta be safe #karuma the katana #stat's art

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luminouspoes · 4 years ago

Text

let my heart be your shelter

summary: poe seeks out the reader’s comfort during a thunderstorm

warnings: angst (with a happy ending), poe has a guilt complex the size of several parsecs, some self loathing (poe’s pov). no pronouns are used for the reader.

read on ao3

It’s too much.

Poe wakes up and his bedroom is entirely too small and too dark, and he can hear the echoes of bombers and X-Wings and transport ships turning to dust in between the cracks of lightning that slice through the Ajan Kloss’ night sky.

He’s barely aware of his own movements, his mind racing and churning as a sense of overwhelming emotion and a dash of panic clutches tightly in his chest, eyes burning as one thought runs over his head over and over again: my fault, all my fault.

Poe stumbles out of bed, almost tripping on the thin blanket. His bare feet shuffle across the cold floor, out of his quarters and into the hallway, the fear still suffocating him.

The Resistance was decimated because of him, there was more blood on his hands than he ever wanted, and he’d let down the one person who mattered the most to him, who guided him out of some of the darkest parts of his life, gave him the purpose he’d been seeking his whole life.

Leia forgave him, told him as many times as he needed to hear it. The Resistance backed him on Ryloth’s moon. But Poe can’t forgive himself, can’t stop hearing those screams, can’t stop -

He’s just a soldier, just a pilot, he’s nothing. He’s made so many mistakes and he doesn’t deserve the faith Leia has in him, doesn’t deserve the praise and kindness from everyone else, can’t they see?

He’s fading away; there’s no excitement in flight anymore. He’s shorter now, he knows, more easily frustrated. Terrified out of his mind that this is all for nothing, that they’re one bad day - one mistake, one more failure - away from being snuffed out for good.

Poe Dameron can barely recognize himself anymore. He wonders where the Resistance’s best pilot went, the one who could take everything in stride with a charming smile and a quick joke. Everything’s easy for Poe Dameron, right?

He can’t even pretend anymore. He’s so damn exhausted.

His feet stop moving and he realizes he’s gone to your quarters automatically. There’s a hint of light piercing out from underneath, so before he can think better of it, Poe knocks on the door. He knows the code to your room - has it memorized better than his own - but he doesn’t just want to spring in on you unannounced.

The door slides open a second later, you on the other side. You’re in your night clothes, your holopad clutched under your arm and he figures he interrupted your nightly habit of reading before bed. He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Instead, he flinches when another roll of thunder cracks across the sky - another X-Wing down, another death on my hands - and you immediately reach for him, concern knitting your brow together.

He wants to tell you it’s alright, but he can’t find the words. You gently guide him inside the room, closing the door behind him and toss aside the holopad before you return to him. You hesitate, unsure if he’s okay with being touched right now. Poe manages a quick nod and you place your hand on his biceps.

“What is it tonight?” You ask quietly, eyes filled with so much gentleness that it nearly shatters him because he doesn’t deserve this kindness, don’t you understand that?

“Everything.” Poe wants to close his eyes because he’s so damn tired, but he’s afraid if he does he’ll just see more fire and more death. He’s not sure he can handle another memory.

“What can I do?” Your grip on him tightens, grows more firm as a rush of protectiveness surges through you, recognizing the look written on his face: the guilt, the regret. The way it’s been eating away at him, til the point that he’s barely the same man you met when you first joined the Resistance.

It kills you, seeing how this war has taken so much from him. Your chest aches at the thought of it, your eyes burning with unshed tears, and if you could you would tear down the First Order with your own two hands for taking this man who was once a brilliant, blazing sun and draining his light and fire.

But what was worse was having the knowledge that the haunted look in his eyes was from his own guilt, how he blamed himself for where the Resistance was now, no matter how many times everyone tried to assuage that guilt. The fear of letting Leia down again was a constant weight on his shoulders, and it was agonizing to know there was nothing you could do to prove to him that he was more than what he feared.

“I -” his voice cracks and you don’t even wait now, you pull him to you and he melts instantly, shoulders shaking as he buries his face into the crook of your neck. You feel the shoulder of your shirt grow wet as you rub soothing circles against his back, your own tears spilling down your cheeks because you hate this, because you can have his back when he’s out in the field but how can you save someone from inner turmoil and self-hatred?

How can you make someone realize they’re so loved when they don’t think they deserve it?

After a few beats, Poe’s shoulders still and you pull back slowly - so he knows you’re not going far and that if he needs to, he can stop you - to get a glimpse at him. His eyes red-rimmed, eyes dark without so much as a shine to them. You miss how easily he used to smile, how happy he used to be.

Maker, you’d do anything to see him that way again. You’d cross the whole galaxy, turn back time, fistfight Kylo Ren himself if needed, just to bring that smile back.

Poe breathes out your name, bringing you out of your reverie. He brushes his thumb across your cheekbone, swiping away your tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispers and something inside you snaps.

You wrap your fingers around his wrist, drawing it away from your face so that you can press a kiss to the center of his palm, “No.”

You close his fist, bring it up to your lips and press more kisses to his knuckles and say it again, more firmly: “No.”

When you finally meet his gaze again, his eyebrows are drawn up together, his lips parted somewhat. You step forward, cupping his face with your hands, and you press a kiss to his right cheek, then his left, and then it’s all bubbling up over the surface and you can’t stop raining kisses along every part of him you can reach: his brow, his eyelids, the corner of his mouth -

“You have nothing to apologize for,” you enunciate each word with another peppered kiss, drawing back when the only place left for you to kiss is his lips. “You are so good.” Your hands are trembling now, to the point that Poe reaches up with his own to take your wrists to steady them.

His mouth twitches as he inhales sharply, trying to gather the words. “I’m not, though. Everyone keeps saying that I am, but - we’re in this mess because of -”

“We’re in this mess because of the First Order,” your voice is sharper than you intend for it, but Poe barely reacts to it. “Not because of you. You made a mistake, you failed a couple of times, sure. But don’t you ever fucking lose sight of who put us here. You didn’t destroy our fleet, you didn’t destroy the Hosnian System, those -” your vision blurs, your voice cracks and there’s so much emotion roaring through your chest you’re surprised there’s even room for breath - “those beasts are to blame for all this, not you. Never you.”

Silence falls between you as your chest heaves. Thunder rumbles distantly, but it’s muffled in comparison to the way your heart drums out a tattoo against your ribcage as you realize neither of you have let go of the other yet.

“Why do you believe in me so much?” Poe asks.

“Because you’ve never given me a reason not to.”

Something shifts in his expression now and he takes a quiet step forward, closing the rest of the gap between you. “I can think of plenty of reasons you could hold against me.”

You shake your head just slightly, a quick dismissal. “You’re more than what you believe you are, Poe Dameron.”

His dark eyes search your face for a second and just as you start to question whether or not there’s a spark building in them again, he presses his lips to yours, one hand moving up to cup your cheek, his calloused fingertips feather-light against your skin.

You freeze against his touch and before you can properly register what’s happening, he’s pulled away with a panicked expression. He opens his mouth, presumably to give another apology, but you cut him off by grabbing him by the shirt and dragging him down to capture his lips with your own for a second time.

He wraps his arms around your torso, pulling you close to his chest, as you memorize the feel of his mouth against yours, his stubble brushing against your skin, and then as you slide your hands up into his hair, what it’s like to card your fingers in his curls.

You’re determined to show him what he can’t believe, so when you pull away for breath, you immediately press quick kisses to the corner of his mouth, his jawline, his neck, then back up to press another kiss to his lips, gentler this time.

You take a step forward and guide him backwards to the mattress, not breaking the kiss until he almost trips on a blanket and you snatch your hands out to steady him before he can fall on his ass. “You okay?” You ask and you can’t quite recognize your own voice.

His cheeks are darker than usual when he replies, “Yeah. No. I don’t know -” he shakes his head, sits down on the mattress. You hang where you’re at for a second, standing over him a couple inches away, rocking back and forth on your heels.

The kiss wasn’t too much of a surprise — there was always something undefinable between the two of you, there was no right term for the bond you shared, just...that it was a bond, constantly shifting, full of devotion and loyalty and fierce protectiveness for the other — but you can’t help but feel self-conscious about what just transpired, even though rationally, you know that’s not as important as the reason he came here in the first place.

Poe looks up at you and, as if he read your mind, whispers, “Not about that. That was…” his lips quirk upward slightly, not quite a full smile — not that broad grin you fell in love with — but it’s more than you’ve seen from him in such a long time that you feel like you just watched a sunrise for the first time in months. “That was great.”

You smile and cross the room to him, sinking down next to him. “So what is it?”

Poe closes his eyes and exhales slowly, when he opens them, you can see the fear in them. “Do you really believe I’m a good man?”

You open your mouth to reply of course, but you hesitate. It’s not that you don’t believe he’s a good man, you know that in your bones, but the trouble is that he doesn’t. You can tell him as many times as you want that you believe he’s a good man, you can kiss him until the sun comes up to show him how much he’s loved, but -

But he’s drowning in the fear that he isn’t, and sometimes when you’re that far beneath the surface, it takes more than just someone telling you they believe in you to make a difference, as horrible and terrifying as that is.

So, instead, you reach forward and push back a strand of curls from his forehead, linger slightly where you remember finding a bruise blooming after he returned from being held aboard the Finalizer. You meet his eyes, see the trepidation in them, and you make sure your voice is firm and certain but gentle when you answer him, “I think that you try to be, and I think that’s probably the point. Everything you’ve done, you’ve done because you thought it was the right, just thing, because you thought it could save people.”

“I got people hurt because of that.” Poe whispers. “I got people killed because I had to play hero.”

“Yes you did.” If he won’t mince his words, neither will you. “You were a stubborn ass who refused to listen to orders and your luck ran out. But how many people have you saved, Poe? What about on the Raddus? Who was giving us hope when we had none? That was you.”

“My plan failed and I almost got Finn and Rose killed for it. The First Order found out because of our transport ships because I sent them into the heart of the beast -” you cut him off by pressing your palm to his lips. He raises one eyebrow in surprise.

“Our luck ran out. People got killed, yeah. Nothing’s going to change that, we can’t take it back, but you weren’t the one who shot them out of the sky, were you?” You hang your head, hand dropping from his mouth, heart seizing - wondering if he’d ever believe you.

To your surprise, Poe whispers, “I guess not.”

You snap your head back up. He doesn’t look entirely convinced by your argument, but he seems to be considering it. He looks up at you, another smile tugging on his lips. This one’s even weaker than before, but it’s a start.

The thunder has died away completely, leaving only the soft patter of the rain.

Feeling embolden, you twist and curve into him, pressing your foreheads together. He shifts to meet you, wrapping one arm around you, his hand splaying across the small of your back as you crash your lips to his again. He gently falls backwards, using his elbow to cushion the fall so it’s not terribly awkward, and your legs twist together.

You stay that way for minutes or maybe hours, parting now and then for air and a shared chuckle before melting against each other again. Eventually, you slip off of him and into the space beside him, his arm underneath you as he rolls with you to capture your lips again, this time in a quick peck.

He looks more content now anyway, eyebrows soft as he lays on your pillow beside you. You turned off the lamp a few minutes ago after you caught him yawning for a second time, and now you were both lying underneath the same blanket, still holding onto each other - but it’s different from when you’d fallen backwards onto the mattress, then you’d clutched at each other like lifelines, now it was just adjusting to this new familiarity.

You’re curled up against his side with one hand over his heart, fingers lightly twisting around the fabric of his nightshirt as he leans down to press a kiss to the crown of your head. “Thank you,” he whispers against your hair.

“For what?”

He hesitates, like he’s not sure how to phrase what he’s thinking. Finally he lands on, “For not giving up on me, for trusting me - even when I don’t think I deserve it. Especially when I think I don’t deserve it.”

“Always, flyboy.” The nickname falls from your lips with as much affection as it did the first time you used it on him, but Poe doesn’t respond. You huff out a laugh, realizing he’s fallen asleep. You shake your head and snuggle up closer to him. Just before you close your eyes, you whisper the truth you know he doesn’t believe, “You’re the hero.”

Because heroes aren’t just daring and reckless with no sense of self-preservation: they inspire people to be heroes in their name. They find hope in the impossible and offer it to the people who’ve had everything taken away. They listen to the people most would be eager to dismiss, they’re encouraging to those around them. They fight against injustice, stand up for their beliefs, even at great personal cost.

These are all traits Poe Dameron has in spades.

So yes, you muse to yourself just before sleep claims you, he is a good man.

He always was one and he always would be one. You just hope that one day soon, he’ll come to believe it himself.

#poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron x you #poe dameron imagine #poe dameron imagines #star wars x reader #star wars imagine #star wars #myfic

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firebrands · 4 years ago

Text

the square root of infinity | stevetony

2.7k, established relationship, first fight angst | on ao3 | for @maguna-stxrk

***

Tony finds out with his hands deep in JARVIS’ code. Former-JARVIS, actual-JARVIS, he hasn’t really decided on what to refer to the mess of numbers of letters that formed his former AI, and now, well—Vision, too. It’s all a mess, really, and Tony wanted something simple to do with his hands, minimal focus, low-risk.

He should have known better, really. Nothing about him, his work, his life, has ever been low-risk.

It’s a command from Steve with a privacy protocol. Search, identify, and surveil Sergeant James “Bucky” Barnes, also known as The Winter Soldier. Missing, found, and missing again as of six months ago. Tony frowns at the monitor. He knows he hasn’t read it wrong, but can’t believe it; he reads it again.

Somehow, in the span of time of Steve coming back from Washington, of them settling in together, he’d done this. He’d asked JARVIS to do this for him, and keep it from Tony.

Tony leans back against his chair. “FRI,” he says.

His new AI chirps to life. “Boss?”

“Gimme everything JARVIS found on this.”

“It’s on your phone now, boss.” In front of him, a hologram materializes as well, displaying hundreds of photos, grainy and filtered, and copies of reports on sightings. Tony stands up, takes a step back and frowns some more. He opens his mouth a few times, borne of his need to verbalize even without anyone listening; he’s angry. He’s more shocked than angry, but the anger is there, low and simmering.

Beneath it, though, is a grain of doubt: Why? Why did he keep it hidden? Especially now—after all the truth came spilling out of them, crystallizing into something Tony held dear. And after all Steve had said, about keeping secrets, about trust. He briefly considers asking FRIDAY to print it all out, just so he can throw the sheaf of paper in front of Steve and demand: what the fuck, but he’s better now, more mature. Or so he likes to tell himself.

So instead, he walks to the penthouse and finds Steve reading.

Tony clears his throat.

Steve looks up. “Hey,” he says, setting his book down. “You done working?”

Tony smiles, pained and tight. “So,” he says, sitting at the foot of the bed. “Bucky.”

Steve’s eyebrows meet, looking concerned. “What about him?”

Tony shuts his eyes and counts backward from five. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Steve inches closer to him and rests his hand on Tony’s knee. Tony doesn’t open his eyes.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Steve says very quietly.

Tony’s eyes fly open, the anger now boiling over. “Oh is that it?” He asks sarcastically. “So you decided to use JARVIS—without my permission, to look for him?”

Steve’s mouth works, and he looks genuinely shocked. “You said I could talk to JARVIS.”

“That’s not the point!” He pushes Steve’s hand off him and stands. “Why would you keep that a secret?”

“I—I didn’t,” Steve says haltingly. “I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to know if JARVIS could find him, but I knew it was almost impossible anyway, so there was no real point—”

“If there was no point,” Tony says, voice lowering, “then why’d you do it?”

“Tony,” Steve stands now, too, tries to reach out and touch Tony’s elbow, to disentangle Tony’s arms that have crossed over his chest on their own volition. “He’s my best friend. I’m worried about him. I just thought it was something I should do myself.”

Tony nods, not really listening. His head is swimming with what he thinks could be actual reasons why Steve had kept this from him. A tangled mess of fear and insecurity, then shock at his ability to be aware of it. Is this maturity? He doesn’t like it much. Better if it stayed Steve’s fault—and it is Steve’s fault, it is. But maybe Tony doesn’t need to work himself up like this. But then again, Tony’s already worked up. “Stop,” Tony grinds out.

So Steve stops, a foot away from Tony, looking more scared than Tony’s ever seen him.

“I’m going to go.”

“Don’t.”

Tony looks up at Steve. He hadn’t even realized he’d looked away. Steve takes a deep breath, closes the space between them, and takes Tony’s hands in his.

Tony sighs.

Steve threads their fingers together, squeezes Tony’s palms. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Want to say more than one syllable, maybe?”

A joke? Now? Tony feels his frown deepen.

“No.”

“Is this a fight?”

Tony looks up at him. “A fight means you don’t think you should be sorry.”

“Now, hold on a second,” Steve says, a small frown beginning to form on his face. Barely perceptible, if you didn’t know the signs. “I already explained why—”

“And that’s supposed to make it okay?”

“Where is this coming from?” Steve asks, letting go of Tony’s hands, which means he’s mad too, which drives Tony insane.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“There’s no need to raise your tone—”

“Don’t fucking use your de-escalation tactics on me.” Tony hisses, turns on his heel, and walks out the door. He gives himself the satisfaction of slamming it shut.

***

The next few days are filled with small acts of penitence: a cup of coffee on the bedside table when Tony wakes, a sandwich in the workshop, a completed report for a day-old mishap. It’s on Thursday that Tony’s heart finally softens. Over nothing, really, just a small doodle on his desk. He realizes, in that moment, that of all his achievements, perhaps learning to understand Steve Rogers should rank highest. Right up there with being understood by him, too.

Tony’s lying in bed, reading a report on his tablet, when Steve peeks in.

“Hey.” He sounds tentative.

Tony sighs, sets his tablet aside, and takes off his glasses. “Well, come in.”

Steve’s barely able to hide his grin, and nearly bowls Tony over when he hugs him. “Hi,” Steve says, burying his nose against Tony’s neck.

“Hello to you too, you overgrown labrador,” Tony laughs, pushing Steve away a little lest he be crushed under all combined weight of supersoldier and three bowls of pasta that Clint prepared for dinner.

“I missed you,” Steve says, hugging Tony closer to him. He looks up at Tony, resting his chin right on Tony’s sternum. “Was that our first fight?”

Tony snorts. “Unlikely to be our last,” he says.

“Hey,” Steve chides, leaning up and brushing Tony’s nose with his. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. Anyway,” Tony leans closer, brushes their lips together. “Make it up to me.”

Steve arches an eyebrow.

“Don’t start,” Tony warns.

Steve huffs out a laugh, tips them over until they’re lying down, and makes it up to him.

***

As a man of science, it behooves Tony to conduct experiments and to test hypotheses.

First, identify the problem.

Second, conduct research.

Third, develop a hypothesis: follow if / then structure.

Fourth, test through experiments: ensure factors are varied one at a time.

Fifth and final, draw a conclusion.

Tony’s tapping the tip of a screwdriver against his bottom lip as he thinks, and then two strong arms wrap around his waist and just like that, the problem has identified itself.

(One frustrating blind spot in Tony’s life: relationships. Which isn’t to say he hasn’t tried to make sense of them, sped read through self-help books and trawled through Reddit. Unlike everything else, research pales in comparison to experience, and there’s only so much he can do to make sure this one precious thing in his life is perfect.)

“Busy?” Steve presses a small kiss on the back of Tony’s neck. Tony can barely suppress a shiver.

He wants to say, I was, until you showed up. It doesn’t just apply to this moment. That fact shouldn’t hurt.

Instead, Tony says: “Yeah, kinda.”

“Okay,” Steve says easily, pulling away. He comes back to press a quick kiss to Tony’s cheek. “See you later?”

“Yup,” Tony says, and okay. Maybe he needs to spend a day or two really figuring out who the problem is, here. (It’s him. He knows this. He’s always the problem.)

Two days later, Tony settles on having to review related literature. In this case, this means sitting alone in the workshop as he relives every moment when Steve was distracted. Was that a sign? In a brief moment of clarity, Tony asks: “Fri, am I crazy?”

“Signs point to no, boss. But I can pull up recent results on the search engines?”

“I’d rather not hear what the general public thinks, thanks,” Tony says, sighing. He rests his face in his hands. It’s not like he meant to think of this—what is wrong with his brain, that the intrusive thoughts come in the form of the few moments he’d asked Steve what was on his mind, only to be brushed off?

What did that mean?

Did it matter?

Step three: if that was a sign, then there was a problem.

If that wasn’t a sign, then there wasn’t a problem.

If Tony didn’t figure this out, then there would definitely be a problem.

This isn’t how a hypothesis is meant to sound. Tony’s a terrible scientist.

“Fri, call Bruce.”

“Tony?” Bruce’s voice is rough. He sounds annoyed.

“Hey, seven PhDs, how do I form a proper hypothesis?”

“Fuck you, Stark.” The line clicks off.

Tony turns his wrist, checks his watch. Three AM? Figures.

He stretches out his back. “Friday,” he says, standing up. “The search functions for Barnes.”

“On it, boss.”

“Atta girl.”

***

Try as Tony might—and he’s trying, which in itself feels like a failure, because Tony stark does or does not and there is no need to attempt—he feels like something has shifted between them, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

Maybe he’s just making it all up in his head. That’s the easy solution, isn’t it? And that’s usually the answer: start with the easiest answer and work your way up. He can already see Natasha rolling her eyes at him. Maybe the solution is to stop treating your relationship like it’s quantum theory.

Steve’s hand is on his lower back, steering him inside a restaurant. He thinks only of what Steve said, all those weeks ago: I had to do it myself.

Tony wants to argue, right this moment. But how can he? It’s awful that they can be so alike. The only reason he keeps his mouth shut is because he knows that Tony’s used that argument before. Maybe this is growth, to know when to back down from a fight. Or to avoid one totally.

Steve reaches over the table, brushes his fingers over Tony’s wrist. “You okay?”

There are a lot of answers to that. Tony settles on the truth. “Not really.”

Steve’s brow creases with worry. “What’s wrong?”

Again: an infinite multiverse of answers to answer a question that simple. With this, Tony does struggle for a moment, and the next words are much harder to say—they almost feel caught in his throat, like a lump of meat. “I don’t know.”

“You can tell me anything, you know,” Steve says gently. So gentle, it almost breaks him; Tony doesn’t deserve this. Steve doesn’t deserve this.

“I know,” Tony says, and this is him lying through his teeth, and this is what he’s good at, and maybe this is why he’ll never know how relationships are. It’s a trust issue, probably. He doesn’t know if the issue is with Steve, or with himself. “Don’t worry about it.”

Tony tries harder, now: smiles more, eats with gusto. He knocks Steve’s thigh with his knee, looks up at him from under his lashes. This is what life is like for Tony Stark: it’s acting. He knows the approximations to get his point across. As their evening goes on, the small wrinkle on Steve’s forehead smooths out, and maybe Tony wishes he wasn’t so good at pretending.

Maybe he wishes that Steve read him better.

***

The moment of epiphany is often described as transcendental.

This one hits like a ton of bricks—literally, because Tony does know what that feels like, and the suit is shock proof, sure, but that shit still fucking hurts, and even in moments of epiphany, somehow he still manages to go off on a tangent. The point remains: Steve’s hand is on his hip, and they’re in bed, and epiphanies usually equate clarity, peace.

Tony freezes up.

“Tony?” Steve murmurs, sliding his hand up Tony’s side.

“I’m sorry,” Tony says, sitting up. “I know I’m being difficult.”

“I didn’t say you were.” Steve sits up beside him, rests his hand on Tony’s shoulder, and turns Tony to look at him. “Who said you were being difficult?”

“Me, I’m saying it,” Tony says. Panic is beginning to bubble in his belly, slowly rising up his throat. Typical of him to mistake a eureka moment with a panic attack. Par for the fucking course for Tony Stark. “I’m being difficult right now.”

“No you’re not,” Steve says, rubbing up and down his arms. “Tony. Look at me.”

Tony breathes out through his mouth, then in through his nose. Steve tips his chin up and meets his gaze.

“Here are the variables,” Tony breathes out, is afraid of what he’ll say next, his brain is fogged over and full of static. “I love you, and I don’t know what to do with that.”

Steve takes a deep breath, takes Tony’s face in his hands. “Here’s a constant,” he whispers, breath warm on Tony’s cheek. “I love you. I love you. You, Tony Stark. I love you.” He kisses Tony, hard and close lipped, more aggressive reminder than affection.

“Okay,” Tony says, because there’s a wild part of him that still thinks—there was a problem, there was a problem and if this is love, then what comes next? If this is constant, then what variable will arrive to change all of that?

Steve kisses Tony again, almost desperate, this time. “Is this about Bucky?” Tony sucks in a breath at the question, horrified at being discovered. Steve hums, then he runs one hand down Tony’s back, up his arm, down his side. A reminder of his presence. Tony is suddenly grateful for it.

“And if it is?” he murmurs.

“Tony,” and somehow, Steve sounds fond, which throws a wrench in this whole debacle, and deep in the recesses of Tony’s brain, rationality begins to take root. “He’s my best friend. You’re the love of my life.”

Tony breathes.

“Did you hear me? You. You’re the love of my life. Please don’t make me compare,” Steve huffs out a small laugh, and it warms Tony all over, like sunshine peeking through the clouds after a strong rain. “And maybe you don’t believe me just yet,” Steve touches their foreheads together, then rubs his nose against Tony’s, the affection plain and chaste. It makes Tony feel more loved than he’s ever felt in his life—not that there were many moments to compare against, but still.

“I feel a little crazy,” Tony says, finding it in himself to smile up at Steve.

“A little crazy in love?” Steve asks, grinning.

“I can’t believe you just made a Beyonce reference. In the middle of my panic attack.”

Steve bites his bottom lip, a poor attempt at stopping himself from laughing. Tony flicks his forehead. “Say it again,” Tony says, and his smile still feels a little wobbly, but it’s a step.

“Crazy in Love?” Steve asks, pulling Tony close and wrapping his arms around Tony’s waist.

It’s an odd angle, and eventually Steve shifts to lift Tony up onto his lap. “Ass,” Tony says. “You know what I meant.”

Steve smiles again, right before pressing a kiss to Tony’s shoulder. “Step one,” he says. “The problem is you’re afraid I don’t love you. Step two: find out how to show you that I do.” He pauses, and Tony feels breathless as he presses another kiss to Tony’s bare skin. “Step three. Hypothesis? If I show Tony I love him all the time, then eventually he’ll believe me.”

“Sounds like a shaky hypothesis,” Tony says, but his voice quivers a little as he says it. He can’t explain how he feels, other than warm in Steve’s embrace.

Steve tuts. “Step four, experimentation. Small gestures, date nights.” Steve rubs Tony’s back as he speaks, and stops to tilt Tony’s head up to face him. “Am I getting this right?”

Tony smiles. “I don’t know, what’s the conclusion?”

Steve wraps his arms around Tony’s waist once more. “You’re here. I’m here. I love you.” He leans up, brushes their lips together. “Is that enough?”

#stony #steve rogers #tony stark #stevetony #(well hello) (sometimes you just want to write something warm and familiar. i thought i'd forgotten how.)#things i write

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marshmallowprotection · 4 years ago

Text

By no popular demand, let’s talk about the Children’s Day Title Screen which is the first time that we’ve seen everyone together at the RFA party. I think we’re all crying about it but I’ve definitely had the time to sit down and think about all of the little details for Saeran. We’ve all met me. We know that I’ve been trying to make sense of everything that I see to rationalize and explain in some kind of meta way.

There’s going to be spoiler CG in this for Another Story, like, all of it, so you have that warning now.

My apologies in advanced because we know that I don’t know how to shut up when it comes to Saeran. Look at him. Look at him. I swear to God, you have to look at him. Okay, now that we’ve established that you have to look at it so I can cover this:

Finally, we’ve got a canon party outfit for Saeran to talk about and cry about, frankly. I knew that he would have something pink because you will never see this man far from something pink, black, or red. That’s just what his assigned colors are. I’m not surprised that it’s pink. I love seeing Saeran in pink.

He really can’t be separated from the color pink because we’ve all given it to him tenfold at this point.

I’m just assuming this is GE Saeran, to be clear with you, because that seems to be the most possible option. Now, they gave him a blue rose, which could mean that they’re covering their bases so it’s not a spoiler for people who haven’t had the chance to play Ray Route and see what plays out, so they may think it’s just Ray, but we who have already played know that it’s GE Saeran.

His eyes in this style are very light and they’ve styled them to look a though he’s truly happy and not masking with a false smile.

You can usually tell them apart by the way their eyes are drawn in this game, honestly, but I have a post about that if you need to glance at that for more of my info-dumping for no reason at all.

Anyways! Saeran has seemingly styled his hair differently, or had a haircut. It’s definitely shorter than what it is in the route, which is, quite reasonable, honestly. He’s had to take care of his own hair for the most part.

He carries around a brush at all times according to his diary, and Ray mentions that he often takes care of Rika’s hair for her as well, so he’s got his own knowledge of how to at the very least, take care of his hair to keep it out of his eyes.

It’s quite possible that he’s been able to get a haircut for the first time after the events of the good ending. That’s a positive sign of progress. It’s a small trim of course, since it’s just a bit shorter than what we’ve seen in some of the ending CG for the route.

It could just be the art style, but I have the tendency to look at style choices as something reasonably meaningful for what happens in the life of a character.

I’ll slap a CG for comparison if you want to check that out for yourself. It can be a style choice. It can be a healthy step in him living a normal life. Because that’s seemingly a very casual thing that all of us contend with, but that’s a move for him that seems like he’s comfortable with it.

I just think that’s a neat touch, no matter if it’s just a style choice.

His little suit is a lot more detailed here than the suit that we see VAE Ray wear. That is a pink suit as well, but that one is much lighter in tone than the one that we see here. I sat here comparing the two for a little bit because I wasn’t sure if it was the same suit top or if it was two different outfits entirely.

At the end of the day, I’m definitely sure that it’s not the same outfit. They’re both pink but it’s not the same shade.

However, it’s close enough that you could frankly assume that they’re the same in the long run, but I think I’ll leave that up to you guys to figure that out because the CG with his suit in VAE doesn’t show the front of his outfit.

So, we can’t see for sure if it’s the same. Artists can have had to take some liberties to draw it in their own way because of the reference that we received! It appears as though the VAE suit is lighter and the suit in this title screen is a little bit warmer.

What do you guys think? Either way, I’m in love with the little bowtie. Frankly, he always chooses bowties. We’ve seen Saeran use them, Ray use them, and if we count the Christmas DLC, Unknown. The only one that we haven’t seen use the bowties is Suit Saeran, who wears an actual tie instead. Bowties are a bit more slender and pop more. You tend to see them on more boyish characters.

I tend to think that Suit Saeran wears a tie because he feels like it adds maturity and makes him look stronger, but they all just generally prefer bowties. I do think they’re really cute myself. I tend to draw him wearing bowties myself. It could just be a style choice, rather than him deciding between if a tie is mature or a bowtie is youthful.

Speaking of that, I think the buttons are really cute. There’s no purpose for those buttons on the chest of his jacket but they’re neat. The pockets are asymmetrical for some reason that I can’t discern. I think that’s an interesting choice to have in the outfit but I’m not sure why he’d pick something like that.

He tends to be the kind of person that makes style choices because, “I think it looks cool,” or “I kind of think this reflects my emotions.” Which is why all of them, if they had a say, would’ve picked something dark and edgy looking as that reflects “power from being sharp” and “I feel dreary and I feel like I should dress that way.”

Pink is a color that often means hopefulness, light and care, and innocence. It’s a love for others and for yourself. So, by him choosing this, it’s reflective of the fact that he’s learning how to love himself and we love to see that. Saeran’s love for the world and his growth is... honestly, something that helps me feel like I can wake up in the morning.

The funny part about this is I think his favorite color is blue. It has to be blue. Because the sky is blue.

That, my friends, is a carnation. That is a pink carnation. Pink carnations tend to mean I'll Never Forget You, that’s one of the more popular meanings that comes to my mind. I think one of the other meanings is gratitude.

It’s the official flower for Mother’s Day, as well, in America, anyway, if you didn’t know that fact! I think they gave him carnations because it’s about his faith and love for his MC that has shown him how to have strong gratitude and how to be thankful for every breath in his body. So, I think we should go ahead and cry on this one.

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