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forever-rogue · 2 years ago

Note

Hey! Can I get a Din x reader where a droid goes rogue and attacks and hurts the reader and obviously as we all know Din HATES droids and this just triple enforces that? ANGST. Droids are genuinely so terrifying and I feel this would be a good plot.

AN | Please, this was such a good concept! Enjoy🥰

Warnings | Nondescript mention of injury

Pairing | Din x Fem!Reader

Word Count | 2.8k

Masterlist | Din, Main

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Din,” you caught up to him and reached for his hand, giving it an excited little squeeze, “I’ve found something exciting!”

“Slow down, cyar’ika,” you could hear the amusement in his voice as he kept you upright as you almost tripped over your own feet, “don’t need you hurting yourself.”

“Sorry,” you grinned at him, cheeks warming up as you slowed down and fell into step with him and Grogu, “I got excited - obviously.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he squeezed your hand in return as Grogu babbled happily, “just be careful - now tell me what’s so exciting?”

“I was just talking a walk around and I came across this little store,” you waved your around as you often had a tendency to do, much to your husband’s amusement, “kind of an out of the way place - don’t worry it wasn’t that bad - and they sell droids there! All kinds of different-”

“Droids,” he echoed as you offered him a sheepish smile. He’d had a long and complicated relationship with droids and you were pretty sure he was on a downward trend with them at the moment. You stepped in front of him and started walking backwards so you could grab both of his hands and look at him with a saccharine smile, “you are….what is so exciting about these things?”

“They’re all rescued and reprogrammed,” you insisted but you knew there was still a frown under the helmet, “so they’re clean slates. And they have protocol droids and gonk droids and R2 units!”

“Mhmm…go on,” he insisted softly, wondering where this was going, “tell me more.”

“I just…I’ve always loved the old R2 units,” you prefaced, waiting for his little telltale sigh, “and I think it could be helpful to have one around…you know for when we’re busy with stuff. Or I could have some company if you’re gone and I can’t come.”

“Busy,” he echoed as you nodded, hoping you were doing enough to sell him on the idea, “I don’t know…there’s no real need is there?”

“Oh Din, we could use it for lots of things!” your eyes grew wide with excitement and your smile was beaming, “and it could be fun. Plus, it’d be a rescue little droid….you do have a tendency for liking rescues after all.”

You and Grogu exchanged a look before you turned back to him. He’d found and helped nurse you back to health and ended up taking you under his wing, just as he had Grogu. Din knew you had a point and looked between the two of you, hands on his hips and finally letting out his little sigh, “okay-”

“Yay!”

“Okay, we can take a look and then go from there,” he finished and you practically jumped into his arms in excitement. You wrapped your arms around him in a tight hug as best as you could with all of his armor on, “alright, alright - don’t get too excited. No promises are being made here.”

“I know,” you promised, but deep down you knew that Din hardly ever said no to you. You pressed your forehead against the cool beskar of his helmet, “I love you.”

“I know cyar’ika,” he touched your cheek, “I love you too.”

Grogu babbled happily at both of you.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Look at him,” your hands were clenched at your sides in excitement as you tried to appear as calm as possible. You were pretty sure (dramatic as Din would insist) that you were about to combust from the cuteness, “isn’t he the cutest thing in the world?!”

Grogu tugged on the leg of your pants and gurgled at you with a concerned little look on his face. You reached down and scooped him into your arms, placing a gentle kiss on his head. He relaxed into your touch as you grinned at him. Din, meanwhile, was much less impressed, looking down at the R2 unit in front of him with disdain.

He was an older unit, a remnant from the era of the Clone Wars, but was reset and given a second chance at life. He was more on the square side, but a pretty silver and dark pink color. In your eyes he was perfect - to Din he was a menace.

“Are you sure?” he turned towards and when he saw the big smile on your face, he already knew that this droid was the newest member of your family. You looked at him and nodded shyly, “you’re sure.”

“Please Din?” you were absolutely willing to use Grogu as a manipulation tool if needed, “I won’t ever ask for anything again. He’ll be so useful to help around the house and everything!”

“I don’t know about that,” you could detect the disdain in his voice, but you appreciated the fact that he was willing to make this sacrifice and be more open-minded, “but if it’ll make you happy, it’s worth it.”

“You won’t regret this,” you kissed the spot where his cheek would be, the smile on your face switched from ear to ear, “I promise.”

“Hmmm,” he mused softly, tracing his fingers along your jaw, “let’s get him home then and we can see what he can do."

"Thank you," your eyes grew soft as you looked up at him, "for always being so wonderful. You truly are the best."

"Nothing to thank me for," he promised, his own features growing soft under the helmet. If it hadn't been for the armor, he might have melted into a puddle. You were his weakness and he'd do whatever you asked of him, he'd do whatever you wanted in order to put a smile on your face. You and Grogu were the beat of his heart and the blood that rushed through his veins - essential. There was no life or reality which he could imagine that the two of you weren't in.

"I know," you whispered, "but still - thank you. I love you so terribly much."

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Your new droid friend, named R-4Z and affectionately nicknamed Arezy, fit right into the home you'd built along with Din and Grogu. He helped around with chores both outside and inside and often liked to play with Grogu. More than anything he was good company when you were left alone.

Left alone was a dramatic way of putting it - there were times when you couldn't accompany Din and Grogu due to either working at your little apothecary or Din asking to remain behind. It used to make your skin prickle with hurt and annoyance but you knew that it was only because he wanted you safe. Nowadays it was more endearing than anything else. Unlike your boys, you didn't possess any tactical training and weren't force sensitive. But you were the brains of the operation as Din so sweetly put it.

This particular weekend found you and Arezy by yourselves. You'd decided to give your little shop a revamp since you had the time and the season was changing. You were puttering around, giving your companion directions for a few things as you did the other tasks.

You were enjoying your conversation with your friend but after a bit you noticed that you were basically speaking to yourself.

"Arezy?" you asked softly as you walked out of the small back room and towards the front. Nothing seemed amiss at first but then you heard some angry beeping, "what's wrong, buddy?"

The answer you were treated came into the form of a sharp shock in your side, the jab making you yelp in surprise and pain. You turned around to find the droid behind you, its arm out and pointed towards you. He started coming closer and beeping angrily - it was completely different from anything you’d seen before.

“What are you doing?” you grew worried as you ducked out of his way, trying to put some distance between the two of you, “what’s wrong?”

Apparently he didn’t want to talk because he kept trying to come after you. If you weren’t worried about actually getting hurt, you might have laughed; it was probably hilarious to watch this droid rolling after you. But he wasn’t one to be underestimated either, he could deal damage if he wanted to.

Which you found out the hard way when he set out some tripwire and you…managed to trip right over it. You landed on the hard concrete with a loud oof, and untangled the wire from between your legs, trying to ignore the fact that you’d managed to scrape your knee and it was now bleeding.

Your hands were shaking but you finally managed to break free, but not before he managed to come up and give you a few more shocks. They didn’t seem like much, but they did hit deep and shook you up.

Luckily it didn’t last very long - Arezy shut down as quickly as he had turned on.

“Kriff,” you scrambled to your feet, stepping back just in case. You looked up and found Din standing there with Grogu at his side; you didn’t need to see his face to know there was a giant scowl on it.

“What happened?” he came over and took your face in his hands, looking to make sure there wasn’t too much damage. Your lip trembled with effort not to cry; you weren’t terribly hurt but you were more shaken up than anything else. You just hadn’t seen this coming. You heard him make a small sound in the back of his throat as you he took in your knee and the bruising that was already welling up on your arms, “cyar’ika…”

"I'm okay," you let out a shaky breath as you blinked back your tears, "I-I don't know what happened. He was just fine and then all of a sudden he just started attacking me. I didn't do anything and nothing happened."

He gently took your chin in his hand and turned your face up to his. Despite your best efforts, a few tears slipped down your cheeks and Din didn't hesitate to tenderly wipe them away, "droids."

"It's not," you didn't want this to further taint his view of droids, "it just happened. It was just an accident. These things just happen sometimes."

"The bad things always come from droids," he huffed as you sadly looked at Arezy, “what if…I hadn’t gotten here in time?”

“But you did,” you whispered softly, “that’s all that matters, Din. It was just…a malfunction. It’s an old droid, and I’m sure he can be repaired-”

“No.”

“Din-”

“I said no,” he said sharply, causing you to recoil slightly. He’d almost never snapped at you or spoken to you in any sort of harsh manner. Grogu had siddled up to you and hugged your leg, trying to convey the love he carried, “we’re going home.”

“Okay,” you weren’t about to argue with him when he was worried out of his mind. You knew your Mandalorian better than that. You knew that he’d come around - his heart was way bigger than he’d ever let or believed it was.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Din had been mostly silent on the way home. WHen you stepped inside, there was a bit of tension in the air. You wished it wasn’t there, but you knew that it wouldn’t last. Things might have been bad in the moment but they wouldn’t last; the good always far outweighed the bad. You weren’t going to push him - you wanted him to come to his own conclusions.

“C’mon,” he picked you up without hesitation, causing you to make a small sound of surprise as he walked you into the fresher. You felt like you were weightless in his strong embrace.

He set you down and moved to slowly pull off your pants, after looking for permission. You sat on the edge of the tub and watched as he pulled off his helmet in order to properly study your knee. It wasn’t the worst, but it certainly looked bad.

He pulled out the first-aid kit from under the bathroom sink, and took out what he needed. You watched as he moved with care to patch up the wound, making sure it was all clean and disinfected before bandaging it up. He trailed his fingers along your arms, taking in each mark. You could see the worry and upset in those pretty brown eyes.

“Din,” you whispered his name, capturing back his attention as you put your hand on his face, brushing your thumb over his cheek, “look at me please.”

After a moment of hesitation his eyes met yours and you offered him a small smile. He swallowed thickly, “I don’t want anything to happen to you. Ever.”

“I know,” you could feel him gently leaning into your cheek, “I know you don’t, my love. I don’t ever want anything to happen to you either. I’ll keep you safe, just like you always keep me safe.”

“I couldn’t today-”

“What happened today was a fluke,” you insisted softly, “it could have happened to anyone. If it hadn’t happened to me, it would have happened to whoever else got him. That’s just it, that’s life. But the thing is, Din, you did rescue me.”

“You’re so forgiving,” he took your hand in his and pressed a kiss to your knuckles, “you always see the bright side.”

“I think it’s not too bad of a way to live,” you laughed softly, and Din couldn’t help but smile. He swore the sound of your voice was the best thing in the world, “it’s how I got you to let me, isn’t it? Look where we are now.”

He chuckled softly, shaking his head fondly at you, “I guess you’re not wrong, cyar’ika.”

“I’m not,” you insisted, “will you promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“Don’t let this one moment, this one thing ruin your perception of all droids,” you insisted and you could hear his little huff, “please? I promise this won’t ever happen again.”

“I’ll try,” he promised and you could feel that he was being honest with you, “for you, I’ll try.”

“You’re a good man, Din Djarin,” you leaned in and kissed him softly, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Almost a month had passed since the incident and neither of you had brought it up again. You figured it was better to let things happen as they did.

But then Din managed to surprise you once again.

“Din?” you made it back from the market with Grogu at your feet, both of you carrying some food. He hadn’t come with you, insisting that he had a few things to do at home. You let yourself in and the two of you made it to the kitchen. But something was different, something was off.

You heard a few small beeps that caused you to turn on your heel to find the source of the noise. In the opposite doorway you found Din along with-”

“Arezy!” you almost dropped the goods in your arms, but Grogu was faster and kept everything from falling. You ran over to the droid and dropped your knees in order to give him a hug. He beeped merrily at you, “you’re back! Oh, I’ve missed you. I hope you’re feeling all better.”

“He is,” Din smiled softly, “I took him to Anzellans and they were able to fix him right up. There was some sort of issue with the motherboard, but it’s been fixed.”

“You did this,” you took up and hugged him. He chuckled softly before wrapping his arms tightly around, “you sweet, wonderful man. I can’t believe it…how? Why?”

“Accidents happen,” he echoed your words from earlier, “but that doesn’t mean they have to cloud our opinions of everything else. I listen sometimes, cyar’ika. I figured that if you decided that you can forgive him and move past what happened, I can do the same.”

“You’re a wise man,” you kissed his cheek, “listening to your riduur. Thank you for this. You’re…the best.”

“That is you,” he promised and Grogu cooed happily from where he was climbing onto Arezy, “I’m glad you’re happy, cyar’ika.”

“I am,” you grinned, “and I am very much in love with you too. You are everything, Din.”

“You,” he grinned as he took your face and pressed kisses all over it, “are everything. I love you.”

“I love you, Din Djarin.”

#din djarin #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #din djarin x fem!reader #pedro pascal #the mandalorian #star wars #din djarin one shot #din djarin imagine

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answer2jeff · 11 months ago

Text

fixer-upper. // lip gallagher

lip x biker-girl!OC

warnings : public sex, oral (m!receiving), praise kink, light to rough hair-pulling, unestablished relationship, intense and obvious flirting, porn with plot and detail, mentions of smoking (tobacco), cursing, OC is just as full of herself as Lip, knows she's a bitch, kinda has a weird sense of possessiveness over him?? clunky and overly detailed writing with a journaling/diary style.

authors note : trying something a little different! using the first person POV with an original character. first time writing this way—still getting the hang of it <3 this is REALLY long...sorry.

song : beauty school.

disclaimer : you can picture the OC however you like! her name is really just used for aesthetic purposes. there isn't much description on her appearance other than the fact that her hair is long enough to put it in a ponytail. enjoy!

Great. Fucking great.

One of my tires is punctured. The visor in my helmet is cracked. My elbows are etched with surface level scratches and dried blood. And the engine cover of my bike has finally snapped off. I had it coming. It was an old piece of rusty junk from my cousins garage sale from 2012, anyway. But it had charm. I knew I was gonna miss that bike for the good couple of hours, possibly days, I would reluctantly end up leaving it in a repair shop down the street from my apartment.

I can hear the squelch of skin, the seal between my hot breath and sweaty skin breaking as lift my helmet from my head. I hope to feel a rush of cool air, but the humidity tells me to go fuck myself. I'm pulled over onto the curb. I can't totally remember how I got there; being in the middle of the street on a scorching summer day wearing denim shorts that chafe up my inner thighs and rub my skin until it is raw and red and unbearably itchy, was not my vision for today. My handlebars are loose. That would explain it.

If I just take it to Born Free Cycles, leave it overnight, and come back in the morning, I can act like this whole thing never happened, and I'm not horribly irresponsible.

40th West View Ave.

Oh. I'm close actually. Barely a block away. I should go there now. I can call Mikey and have him drop me and the bike off at the garage. I'll see that kid with the grown out buzz-cut and black motor grease on his knuckles that somehow always transfers and blots on his face. Specifically on his strong jaw and right before the peak of his hairline. I wonder if he notices. Maybe he doesn't clean it off because it gives him edge that he doesn't need. Like the nickname on his name tag on a black uniform hadn't given his thirst for trouble away already. And the circles under his eyes are almost the same shade of smudged charcoal grey.

I wonder if he notices.

—

"So the engine cover popped? Just—" he shrugs, looking up at me as if I can't understand him "clean off?"

The sunlight bleeds in through the open garage door. It shines behind Lip, casting a shadow that makes his face hard to see perfectly. But I know the look he's conveying. His eyebrows are raised but drawn slightly closer together, his teeth are gnawing at the inside of his cheek so he can stifle a smile and the laugh that will follow soon after, and his blinks remain slow. I try not to smile too. But I fail.

I've only been here about 3 times, really. The first time was to get handlebar grips from Eddie. That was when I saw Lip. I chose not to make any kind of move, but it ate at my insides until the second time. That time was with Mikey. I was preoccupied with the blue-eyed kid, propped up on a workbench and throwing mindless flirty implications at him while he took long drags from a cigarette, to remember why Mikey was even doing there and why he dragged me along with him. His laugh, the playful eye-roll after I complimented his sweat-laden blonde curls weighed down by heat humidity, told me he was on board.

But I wasn't done.

I knew this time I'd pounce for what was mine.

"Yeah," I breathe out, crossing my arms and peering down at him, "And I mighta' been redlining the RPM a little too much. Probably fried the fucking thing."

Lip nods, the corner of his mouth curling up just a bit. He beckons his hand toward himself, telling me to kneel down beside him to inspect the bike. "This things kinda old, huh?" He teases, turning his head to me and finally letting a real smile break. It warms something in me. I shrug. He glances at my white tank-top, covered in black stains of dirt and oil.

"It's not great, no. It's a piece of shit. But it's cute!" I play along with him, taking the hairband on my wrist and twisting my hair into a high ponytail. Lip huffs though his nose, shaking his head and laughing again.

The next couple of minutes are filled with him telling me things I already know. Things I was too exhausted to manage on my own, defeating the whole purpose of why I was here. Fuck the bike. I know what's wrong with the bike. I know it's an old piece of junk and it's barely salvageable. You should know why I'm here. And maybe you do. But you should do something about it.

Lip has this way of speaking to me that feels ridiculously sweet and overly 'cool.' I know it's just his cadence and his cockiness, but I like it. I like that he thinks it makes me swoon. Partially because he's right, but mostly because I've mastered hiding it. He doesn't see my heart pound or the rising heat in my abdomen when he cracks his knuckles or puts a hand on my shoulder and let's it travel down to the small of my back when I crouch down beside him to look at another motorcycle he's trying to save. I'm almost certain he convinces himself that my gestures are nothing more than a meaningless flirt. I simply find him attractive, as does everyone. Nothing more.

But he's got it all wrong.

He knows my intentions somewhat well enough to the point where he can't not flirt back, though. He knows I haven't stopped him from letting his eyes travel from mine to my lips whenever I speak. He likes that I let him light my cigarettes for me. But he doesn't know this isn't just for fun. I'm so hyper-aware that it isn't out of the kindness of his heart. And neither are his compliments and lame jokes he makes to impress me. He treats my attraction to him as fact, but my genuine interest as a possibility.

Again, he's wrong.

I can't wrap my head around how he could reciprocate my efforts without ever pushing the envelope and asking to exchange numbers, or if I had a boyfriend, or maybe he had one of his own. No, no. He'd tell me if he had a girlfriend. He is, above all else, loyal.

Lip's what I want. I meant when I said his hair looked nice. I meant when I gave him a 20-dollar gratuity and a peck on his cheek just for giving me a repair cost estimate on my shattered headlight. I smile any time he says my name: Maeve.

Hey Maeve, back so soon, huh?

Hand me that box, Maeve.

Y'alright, Maeve?

Yo, Maeve, wanna bum one?

Maeve, Maeve, Maeve.

—

"Think you'll be back tomorrow to pick it up? No rush, though. I can keep it 'till you're ready," Lip asks me, leaning against the wooden workbench littered with microfiber towels and tools. His swell arms are crossed to his chest. I nod, coating my fingertips with a thin film of spin while I fish out some cash from my beat up faux leather wallet.

"A-huh. Thanks," I hand him 6 twenties before glancing at the opening of his button-down uniform.

The corner of my mouth lifts itself into a knowing smirk, my hand on my hip as I shift my weight to it, making my chest stick out and my spine bend correspondingly. My lips hang open a measly centimeter apart before I draw the bottom one between my teeth. I watch him sort through the cash, biting down harder on the flesh of my lip when he freezes.

"Looks like you're a good 15 short," he barely mumbles, looking up at me through his eyelashes. His brows narrow down to me again. I click my tongue coyly. I step closer to him, my hand, with fingernails painted black, pushing the cash in his palms down and his arms down with it.

"About that..." I pause, tilting my head with a look of naivety and not bothering to push away the strand of hair that has fallen from my ponytail and over my eye. Instead, I wait and let Lip set the pile of cash down and draw the curtain of my hair open to reveal my face. My stomach twists on itself, and I can practically feel his chest rising and falling with every anxious breath in my own lungs.

I beg to whatever higher power lies above us in this garage that a kiss will work. Not that it usually doesn't, but my form isn't as confident as it typically would be. The guys I wrap around my finger aren't as driven as Lip is. And God, none of them are part of my tantalizing daydreams nearly as often as he is. I picture his rough hands exploring me, squeezing and rubbing over the valleys of my skin. I imagine his breath is hot with the taste of mint and cigarettes. Every part of me wants to know if my predictions are accurate. If he's the type to sink his teeth into my neck and shoulder blades just to apologize to the reddening skin with open-mouthed kisses. The anticipation kills me. It's enough to swallow me whole.

"...Maybe I can pay you back a different way?"

I barely whisper and Lip scoffs, glancing away from my gaze, scanning the area just for it to be completely empty. He comes back to me. His eyes go a little wider than before. Almost to say, 'oh shit, you're serious?' I stick my tongue between my teeth and tug on his uniform, feeling the fabric rub between my sweaty fingertips. My eyes watch Lip's adam's apple bob as he swallows a breath.

"Yeah?" He thumbs my bottom lip and pulls it down, his free hand traveling down to my hip and pulling me closer to him, "what were y'thinking, Maeve?"

"Mmmm," I hum while pressing my hand against his chest while the other cups his cheek, and I let the pad of my thumb graze over the grove of his defined cheekbones. "Dunno yet."

My teasing is much to Lip's dismay, but he handles it quite well. It's sobering to see a guy as seemingly self-involved and easily impressed play into my mind games. It only pushes me further, and he knows it. I crash my lips into his, my hands anchoring themselves on his shoulders for support. He sighs into me, a hand reaching down to hook a finger through the belt loop of my shorts and drag me closer to him. His hand cups my cheek and pulls me into his mouth to let his tongue slip past my own. And he tastes just as I expected. Minty, smoky, and mine. I practically grind my self onto him in complete desperation, feeling him harden under me. Every roll of his hips threatens to send me over the edge. And fuck, his muffled groans of pleasure against my mouth that ring in my ears are hypnotic. But even with his sturdy, growing buldge forcing the fabric of my shorts to press roughly on my clit, I need this to last.

Blissfully and ever so slowly.

I finally pull away to catch my breath, the buck of our waists slowing down. My head feels fuzzy and heat rises in my cheeks when I open my eyes to see how flushed Lip's face is. Even the tips of his ears have turned a little red. I smile, giggling like a teenager who just kissed her crush in a closet at a house party as a dare. He laughs back in a way that asks 'what are we even doing?'

"Thought you had a boyfriend."

I pause, my eyebrows knitted. I try to think of who he could possibly be referring to.

Ah.

"Who? Mikey?" I try not to laugh, looking around to the imaginary audience to check if they're really hearing this nonsense too, "ew, no. He's like my brother."

Lip lets out a breath of relief he almost didn't realize he'd been holding. It surprises me. Probably a lot more than it should. But hey, for the other 3 times I've been here, I kept asking myself why his flirting was just as intense as mine, but he never asked for my number or made a true move on me. To think that my friend had been unintentionally cockblocking me with his ridiculous height and horrid American traditional tattoos all over his arms, and it wasn't because the guy had a girlfriend...it's almost funny.

"Oh," he replies, his eyebrows raising. Now both of his hands rest at my hips.

"What? Is that why you left me hangin' when I did this?" I press a kiss against his cheek, my palm rubbing over his shoulder to pull a chuckle out of him.

"I guess so, yeah. Just didn't want him to kill me for getting to close t'you," he kisses my cheek, smiling again.

"Geez. Mikey wouldn't hurt a fucking fly. He just...looks scary. Plus, nobody tells me what to do."

"Noted. Glad to hear that, actually."

"Mikey is—" I pause, biting the inside of my cheek "a sweet guy."

"Uh-huh."

"Too sweet. And I hate the aftershave he uses. He's—he's entirely too much."

"Mm."

"Whatever. Shut up."

"Didn't say anything," he shrugs, trying and failing to act clueless.

Fuck. He's fucking glad. He's glad I don't have a stupid-waste-of-my-time-cockblocking-boyfriend on my hip who's constantly watching my every move and stopping me from giving all of myself to Lip. Hell, I'm glad too. Very glad. With one swift movement, I take matters into my own hands again. I undo every last plastic button on his uniform, snaking down his chest and abdomen. I latch onto his neck, biting the skin and sucking a bruising hickey. He shivers beneath me and wraps his hand around my ponytail, huffing breathless chuckles and slowly getting more and more frustrated with my agonizingly slow, torturing pace for foreplay.

I bend my knees to begin my descend to the ground, kissing down his torso. My hands travel down his sides. Lip gently lets go of my hair to lean back into the workbench, never letting his head reel back so he can carefully watch me tenderly adhere to his needs while anchoring his hands behind him for support. I giggle to myself, relishing in the affect I have on him.

Shit. This is risky. Screw it. Pretty girl without a boyfriend who tips in 20 dollar bills and blowjobs? How could I say no? No part of me wants to back out, Lip's mind races, his grip tightening on the wooden slab as he clenches his jaw.

I wonder if he's nervous. Or maybe he's done this time and time again: fucking a girl right in this garage. Possibly bent over this very work bench. Those girls must've been so easy. I can bet on my life that they were never as fun, never as wet, never as needy as me. This would be different. I wouldn't give him everything he wanted and more that quickly. A girl deserves to have her fun. She deserves to watch the overly confident guy she's fancied for weeks, who continues to play hard to get, squirm and writhe with every slight of hand she gives him.

And that's exactly what I'm doing.

"Y'having fun down there?" Lip chastises me, chuckling lightly to himself as he tilts his head down to get a better look at my face.

My kisses stop right above the waistband of his jogger pants. I look up at him pleadingly through my lashes, my eyes big with lust and cunning seduction. I pull the middle of the waistband down just so I can drag my tongue across the exposed skin just centimeters away from his cock. The curls of his happy trail tickle my chin, but the full body shiver and the shaky exhale of "fuck," as he tries to keep his composure, makes it so worth it. He finally shuts his eyes, head reeling back. I lick my lips and smile, cupping his groin before he can even think about looking back down and feeling the blood rush to his cock again. His twitching dick underneath my palm sends me sitting on my heel, ready to slowly rock my hips down into it to fill my desperate need for friction. My cotton panties are definitely soaked.

I can't waste any more time.

I remove my hand from his crotch and quickly pull his pants and his boxers down with them. They pool at his ankles, and his cock strains hard and leaking sticky, crystal clear pre-cum from the thick and aching tip. My mouth nearly drops. I admire every vein, letting my hand wrap around the base of his cock once I've spit into it as makeshift lubricant. I'm so lost that I don't even register Lip peering down at me, swallowing impatiently.

"My, you're so worked up, Lip. And I haven't even started." I don't bother to look up at him as I rub my hand up and down his shaft, worried his pretty face will distract me. But I can picture him perfectly.

"Fuck you," he huffs through a struggled laugh, covering his mouth as he groans in pleasure at the feeling of my hand squeezing his cock every once and a while as I slowly pump him up and down.

"Later," I retort. I bite down on my bottom lip, looking up at him again for permission. He nods, almost as if he's able to read my mind. My eyes shut and my stomach flutters. Soft lips cover the head, swirling my tongue over the slit. His tip leaves my mouth with a loud pop, and I lick a bold stripe along the thickets vein I can find.

"Jesus, fuck, Maeve!" He writhes, his breath hitched in his throat by me hollowing out my cheeks and taking nearly 3/4 of his total length into my mouth. Moans of pure bliss at the feeling of his cock enveloped by the wet warmth of my mouth echo through the garage. I fear he's too loud, but I decide not to care. Not now.

My hand pumps the rest of his cock that I don't fit into my mouth at the moment, while my free hand reaches for his. My eyes remain closed and my sucking maintains a steady pace as I bob my head up and down his cock. I grab his hand and set it on the top of my head, but he hesitates.

"W—you sure, Maeve? I don't wanna hurt you," he swallows, accidentally bucking his hips into my mouth and running his unoccupied hand through his sweaty curls. I detach myself from him, wiping the mixture of pre and spit from the corner of my mouth and finally looking up at him.

"You won't," I take a deep breath, "I won't let you. I'll tell you if 's too much, kay?"

"Okay. Maybe just—" he clears his throat "tap my leg 3 times? And I'll...uh—I'll let go? Yeah?" He looks beautiful. Flushed, bare, and oh so needy for my touch. I wish I could keep him like this forever. He's so compliant, so understanding. But part of me knows that once I let him do this, it'll show me the side of him I've really been praying to see.

I nod, smiling contently and feeling myself blush when he twirls his fingers around my ponytail again. He bends over just the smallest bit to cup my chin and smile back. The pad of his thumb grazes over my skin before he lets go. I take it as my sign to go back, pressing my hands against either of his thighs and feeling clit jump with excitement when Lip tugs at my hair the moment I take his cock into my mouth again. I bob my head up and down, my eyes rolling back when his tip hits the back of my throat. Tears prick at my waterline as I struggle not to cough.

I grow even more desperate. My hand dives into my shorts and I slide two of my fingers inside of me, unfortunately never living up to the potential size and feeling of Lip's. The continuous ram into my gummy and tender spot causes me to fall apart, whining with his dick occupying the space in my mouth.

"Oh my God," Lip nearly whines, his grip tightening as he guides my head up and down his dick, but it's so gentle it never startles me, "so fuckin' good, baby. Jesus, fu—ah..keep doin' that. Yes, fuck.."

My tongue swishes over and under his cock in mind-numbing patterns, and I can't help but let little muffled moans escape my throat and vibrate against him. He almost can't contain himself: bucking his hips and practically fucking my throat. I do my best to cancel out the occasional gag so quickly he won't feel guilty and possibly stop.

Use me, I think.

Usually, I'd take the lead, never letting a head pusher take the role. But not this time. Lip's so pent up, so stressed with the complexities of his life. This is a kind gesture. One that involves tears of struggle spilling out of my eyes and streaming down ky cheeks. But fuck, I love it. It's filthy. It's nasty the way I nearly suck him dry. I can't remember the last time a blowjob was this fun.

"Such a good girl. Y'know that?" He looks down at me, biting his lip as his eyebrows knit in pleasure and desperate need to cum down my pretty little throat, "how'd you get so fuckin...so fuckin' good at this, baby? Shit—feels so good."

He babbles over and over again, and I'm taking strategic breaths through my nose and speeding the pace of my fingers as they thrust in and out of me so I don't stop him from releasing the way he absolutely deserves. Finally, he pulls my ponytail tighter than he ever has, warning me that he's about to cum, but by the time he tells me, it sends down my throat. He groans out, releasing my hair and going limp. I swallow the salty substance, blinking out the last few tears in my eyes and sliding my fingers out of me.

—

Lip: 1 message.

Hey. 11:47pm

Hey. Miss me already? 11:52pm

Something like that, yeah. 11:56pm

What's up 11:58pm

I get off early tomorrow. Just wondering if you wanted to come by the shop and hang out for a bit? 11:59pm

Sure. See you then. xoxo 12:03am.

—

current taglist : @lemmejustpulloutmylightsaber @sexyyounglatinoboy @febris-amatoria

#lip gallagher x oc #lip gallagher #lip gallagher smut #shameless x OC #lip gallagher x reader smut #lip gallagher x oc smut #shameless #shameless x reader #jeremy allen white #i hope you guys like this!!!#tried really hard with this new style

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rwby-encrusted-blog · 5 months ago

Text

(Based on an ask for @pilot-boi About a Wall-E Whiteknight Au, and given Wall-e was instrumental to my childhood, I cannot help but write something for it. Because it's an AU, and they're both Human and not Robots, I took a few Liberties with the scene in the movie.)

~~~~~

Weiss was beyond frustrated. Nothing, after nothing, after nothing - no signs of life aside from the most extremophile of bacteria, protozoans, insects, and the occasional mold on fecal matter to imply the continuation of species on this gods-forsaken ball of mud.

She slammed the door of the cargo ship she was investigating shut, the rust sticking to her now dirtied gloves. Ugh.

She drifted by the crane of it, not noticing the creaks as it followed her, eventually ripping her back onto the magnet that hadn't fallen in the centuries of just sitting there.

And so Weiss snapped.

She whipped Myrtenaster out, igniting the plasmic blade and slicing the disc that held her back to pieces, before using her energetic glyphs to shred the the hulking metal antique, making it into even more scrap than it already was.

It toppled into the next ship, and then the next one, like dominoes. Deep, resonate bellows of creaks from the sudden movement after centuries of dormant stillness shook Weiss to her core.

She watched them fall, and for the time since her landing, let her feet settle against the ground. It was hard, dry, and barren, like the rest of this abandoned home. Weiss sat against an anchor, the fire and sparks filling a growing void in her chest, not unlike the one meant for plant life in her pack.

She sat there in silence - something the Passengers spoke of when in the few times she was allowed to meet them crossed her mind - A campfire. Whatever that was, it was meant to be shared with Family, something she'd been missing for a long time, her siblings being designated to different vectors of maintenance and service.

"AHem?"

Weiss reeled, drawing her sword once more, and startling a nearby person - A Person?!?

"Wer bist du?" She asked on high alert - this planet was meant to be dead, she was meant to find life here - who or what was this ... Person?

The person didn't respond, shaking violently at the sight of her blade - they appeared masculine, broad shouldered with dirty-blonde hair, though it was difficult to tell if that was due to genetics or living situation.

"Quis es?"

No Response.

"你是谁?"

No Response, but they did seem slightly less frightened given the lack of aggression.

"Chi sei?"

Their shaking slowed as they looked more inquisitive and confused than scared now.

"Qui es-tu?"

"OH! Je- Je M'appelle 'Jaune.' Vous parlez Anglais?"

"Yes I speak English."

"Oh, good!"

'Jaune' continued glancing at the glowing rapier. They seemed frightened of it still. Until he drew his own Weapon.

It wasn't as elegant as Myrtenaster, clearly older and having been used more - an old working tool for scrapping large objects, the thin, yellow sheen of plasma raced across it's edges.

"This is my Cutting tool. Your's is cool to!"

Weiss, once again, was thrown for a loop. He had drawn a dangerous device and waved it like it was a piece of extra piping.

"Jaune? Do you have a title or last name?"

The (boy?) seemed to flush at her pronunciation at his name.

"Jaune, of the A.R.C. Ministry"

"Arc?"

"Allocators of Recycled Components."

"How are you alive? Are there others like you?"

"Oh yeah! A lot, like, two hundred, three hundred others in the Bunker? Primarily we survive on Spirulina Compound. It provide most of our Oxygen and Food stuffs."

Weiss stood for a moment, deactivating her sword and pondering this - They'd been living in space for centuries. Earth was dead, barren, she was only barely able to survive due to advanced CO2 recycling.

"Have .. have you been following me?"

"Yep! You just seemed so pret-"

He was cut off by an alarm in his overalls. He lowered the visor to the helmet he wore, staring past her Weiss's shoulder.

"We need to leave Now." Jaune said, grabbing Weiss' wrist with a surprising amount of force, which she took none too kindly.

She reactived her Blade as she tore her hand away from him. "WHAT make you think You can grab me-"

"SANSTORM!" Jaune shouted, pointing past her "WE NEED TO GO, FOLLOW-"

Before he could even move to grab Weiss again, he slammed a massive tower shield in to the ground, covering himself from the blast of sand that tore at her skin and suit -

Weiss was whipped away, barely able to keep upright against the torrential winds, her Glyphs her only saving grace.

She Called out for the boy, anyone, frightened and alone, her suit's helmet the only thing allowing her to keep her eyes open even as it because scratched and muddled.

A hand found it's way to her wrist again, a dim yellow glow standing out against the violent dust letting her know she'd been found by Jaune.

It gave her some small comfort to not be alone as he dragged her somewhere, hopefully safe.

~~~~~

I fucking LOVE Wall-e. I made my First OC for Wall-e (Not that I knew what that meant at the time.) I had the Three-Disc Special edition, the Movie and it's Featurette Presto, The Second Disc with a gallery of the Bots, the Lots of Bots read-along, Burn-E (Who I imagine to be Qrow with his luck) and all the other special features, and the Digital Copy Disc to download it onto a Laptop or P.C. back when owning a digital copy of a movie was something special, and that's not even halve of it!

#rwby #jaune arc #weiss schnee #whiteknight #rwby au #crossover #wall-e

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holocene-sims · 6 months ago

Text

next // previous

september 1, 2021 6:15 p.m. basil's restaurant

ten minutes ago

[ktmurphy86] i might be a few minutes late, but i'm almost there.

grant scrolls through the metric ton of messages piling up in his notifications until he reaches the very end, and with a lump in his throat, opens it to respond. or like it. or send a thumbs up like a cool cucumber.

baby steps, he tells himself. one task at a time. the responses to all the messages from family, friends, and former co-workers inquiring about his exam results will come later.

just meet your sister first and–

“you seem different.”

he nearly jumps out of his skin as kelly’s high-pitched voice supersedes his thoughts.

“hopefully in a good way,” grant replies, looking up as he slides his phone off the table and into his back pocket.

it’s been nearly a decade since their last encounter, and he’d still recognize her from a mile away.

kelly’s hair is dyed platinum blonde like always, but now it’s twice as long, and her natural brunette locks–peeking through at the root–are streaked through with shocks of silver. her ice blue eyes are just as piercing, only underlined with tiny wrinkles. she’s still thin, too, but rather rail thin; her sweater dress seems to wear her more than she wears it.

“yes, in a good way.” kelly pulls out the chair opposite him and sits down with her arms wrapped across her waist. the candle between them casts a strange yellow glow over her wiry features. “you look better, much healthier.”

“uh, thank you. you look great as well.”

she half-smiles. “it’s just hair dye and botox. i look old. i didn’t inherit the ageless ó súilleabháin genes, so i'm going grey very early like all the callahans. by the way, you weren’t waiting long, were you?”

“oh, no, no, not at all. i have my car, but i didn’t want to deal with traffic, so i took the subway, but then that also kind of took a while. i pretty much just got here.”

“okay, good.” kelly pauses for a moment, her lips pursed. “well. i thought about what i'd say to you the whole ride over here, and now it’s all gone.”

for a moment, they exchange no other words. they drown in the silence, staring into each other’s eyes and into the past.

she’s surprisingly warm, all things considered. the last time they’d been in the same room–

grant is distracted again from his thoughts, watching as a strange sadness falls across her face. she reaches up at the collar of her dress and tug at it like it’s choking her, and her eyes then drift away to stare at an indistinct point on the table between them.

“it’s weird to see you again,” she admits suddenly, her gaze still fixated far away from him, “i didn’t think you’d message me back a few months ago.”

“to be honest, i didn’t mean to. i replied by accident one night and then just decided to follow through with talking to you. and now i'm here. yeah. um, anyway, why’d you reach out to me?”

“i was on facebook a couple months ago, and one of those ‘look at what you posted this day years ago’ things came up. it was a picture aunt bridget tagged us all in. it was the whole family at one of your high school hockey games, i think your freshman year state championship game.” kelly shrugs. “i didn’t even know any of those pictures were still there. that was a real surprise, given i unfriended and blocked everyone i'm related to on there when i left home after high school.”

grant nods. “a picture of me probably very sweaty and gross with helmet hair made you want to reach out to me?”

“not quite. my kids were with me at the time. we were in an airport coming back from vacation, so they were bored and nosy. ‘is that you? who are all these people?’ i was then immediately caught in my lie; i'd been telling them their whole lives i had no family left, and their only extended family was their dad’s parents.”

“yikes. i'm sure that was awkward.”

“it was,” kelly says plainly, “my oldest kids weren’t happy with the news. they’ve been, um, a little jealous of their friends for having lots of cousins and big family events for the holidays, and it didn’t go over well when they figured out they do have a big family. besides, they rightfully did see it as a betrayal of their trust. if mom lied once, what else might mom be lying about? the tooth fairy? santa claus? the easter bunny? yes, those, too. sorry. also, if you didn’t already guess based on my new last name, i married jack, and…”

“i figured you married him. you’d already been together a really long time even when i last saw you. we all grew up together, and you guys were middle school and high school sweethearts and all.”

“he’s a good guy. as i was about to say, though, jack is very partial to you. he always liked you. he thought you were a sweet kid, and he won’t let me forget what happened between us. so, after the facebook incident, he encouraged me to contact you, if only for the kids’ sake. after living in a huge family, i don’t think it’s all that fantastic, but he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder being an only child, and he doesn’t want the kids to have no one besides his parents in their lives. don’t get me wrong; i will never ever get involved in callahan or ó súilleabháin bullshit again, but i will consider reconnecting with you and letting you meet the kids.”

grant bites into his lip as that nagging anxious lump returns to his throat. “well, why me? why bother getting involved with any of us again after everything? even if it is for your kids, what's your motivation?"

kelly outright ignores his question. “tell me what you’ve been up to for the last, what, eight years? nine years? i don’t remember how long it’s been. you're at least talking to our dad, i hear.”

"how do you know that?"

"my in-laws may not know anything else about you these days, but they've seen you with him around our hometown."

#ts4 #the sims 4 #sims 4 #sims 4 story #sims 4 storytelling #simblr #hlcn: everything the stars promised #oh man y'all i've been planning out this scene for so long lmaoooo #it's weird seeing all these distant plot points come to fruition finally #but good too! because i like where the story is going :)#alsoooo give me your thoughts so far if you have any! how are we feeling about the return of kelly?#and do we think she's telling the full truth about her motivations btw?#i don't want to give away all my thoughts but one thing is you can still see the threads of the old kelly in her #and her appearance and how she speaks about herself are a big part of that #holocene.docx #holocene.png #hlcn: grant #hlcn: kelly

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foxymoxynoona · 1 year ago

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the way i would killl for a cute little scene between amended jk and lily when she was 4/5 doing something sweet like him teaching her something, or helping her in any way🥺🥺 I always imagined jk with a lil soft spot for her mini princess and i hope he does have it because lily is just the cutesttt!

I hope you enjoy this! <3

Story: Amended Characters: Jungkook and Lily Length: 2406 CW: Some soft cursing, mentions of blood, that's it

“Elbow pads,” Jungkook said and Lily held her arms out for him to check the straps, even though he’d only fastened them a minute ago.

“Check!” she said.

“Wrist guards,” he said and held his hands out for her to slap with the guards in place.

“Check!” she said.

“Knee pads.”

“Check!”

“Helmet.”

“Check!” Lily laughed and swatted at him as he drummed lightly on the hot pink shell protecting her blonde head from the sort of thing he would not want to have to explain to Isabella later. Isabella and Ezra were at a birthday party, one Lily was too young to participate in, which had led to many tears from the six year old who considered all of Ezra’s friends her friends too.

There were few things Jungkook disliked more than Lily’s tears of disappointment, so he’d decided to make good on a promise he’d been given more than a year ago.

“Lesson one, how to carry the board,” he said, pulling the shortboard off the wall in the garage where he’d fitted hangings for his skateboards. Eomma had been about to throw them out when she and Appa were cleaning out their garage, and then Isabella had been skeptical why he’d want them seeing as he wasn’t seventeen anymore, but one smooth (ok, a little wobbly) ride home on the longboard had reminded him how much he enjoyed it. And he’d ridden since high school! Not in a few years, but now he’d do a few runs of the driveway on them, if Ezra and Lily had them out to play. They thought he looked cool. Isabella said he looked like a hospital visit but then she’d kiss his cheek affectionately so he thought she just didn’t want to admit that her little high school heart still thumped for him riding. He was sure of it.

“I want to ride the big one,” Lily frowned and pointed.

“No let’s start with this one. That one will be harder for you to steer.”

She made a face but it quickly dissolved into a smile as he handed her the shortboard with its bright blue and yellow geometric design on the bottom. When she balanced it on her head, he showed her how to carry it under her arm instead.

“It’s scratchy,” she giggled. “I always scratch my butt on it.”

“That scratchy is really important, it’s going to help your shoes stay in place.”

“Like glue?!”

“Not quite but sort of.”

They walked together to the end of the long driveway, where many times before she would perch her butt or tummy on the skateboard and scoot down the slight incline. Jungkook had a terror of her rolling over her fingers so at least she knew to keep her hands up, but she’d definitely fallen off a few times even so. Usually when she veered into the grass and rolled off.

“Ok for starters, you’re going to just stand and I’ll help you go. I want you to get a feel for how moving your body changes where you go. Are you left footed or right footed.”

“I have both feet,” she assured him, looking up with wide-eyed innocence.

“Yes but which is your– nevermind. Start walking towards me?”

“Why?” she asked, taking several steps in his direction, left foot first.

“Ah! You’re goofy!”

“You’re goofy,” she glared and giggled and stuck her tongue out.

“No, we call it goofy-footed, I think your left foot is your dominant foot.”

“What does dah-mint mean?”

“Never mind. Here, you’re going to stand like this on the board,” Jungkook said, taking up a demonstrative stance beside her. He waited for her to mimic his foot position, then took a moment to adjust her weight and shoulders, told her to bend her knees, hands out for now. She bounced up and down to make a game of it, giggling. Little girl energy was very different from teenage boy energy, when he’d learned to board from YouTube videos and hid in the garage until he wouldn’t embarrass himself.

“Great. Now let’s give it a go on the board. Up you go,” he said. She stepped up only to immediately yelp as it slid out from under her. Fortunately he caught her but they had to chase the board down.

“Easy does it, try again.”

“It’s like getting on a nervous horse,” she giggled.

“Have… you ever ridden a horse?”

“No like in Barbie, duh.”

“Duh,” he repeated, eyes wide, shaking his head at her sass. “Ok, easy like you’re getting on a nervous horse.”

He let her try again and then the third time decided to more actively help her find her balance. She had her legs straight which would have sent her sailing onto her bum when the board when flying if Jungkook hadn’t been right there to catch her under the armpits. So he held her tight as she stepped onto the board the third time, and made her bend her knees, and then maneuvered her to help her find the right balance.

“Steady, steadyyyy,” he teased, slowly letting go of her.

Lily made a horse whinnying noise and promptly fell off. He didn’t manage to catch her this time. For a brief moment he watched her waver between whether she thought this was funny or not, but she decided it was ok and popped back up.

They tried it again and this time Lily could hold steady enough that he gave her a little nudge to get her rolling.

“Knees bent! Knees bent!” he encouraged, hands hovering around her as she wobbled. He hadn’t pushed the skateboard hard though and when it abruptly lost steam against a crack in the sidewalk, Lily pitched forward and he barely managed to catch her.

“Again!” Lily cheered as she spun her around and toed the skateboard back into place. Of course she thought flying was fun! Jungkook smiled and ignored the burning starting in his muscles at being so consistently tensed so as to keep her from eating shit.

They tried the routine several more times, each time Jungkook pushing her a little further and faster as she did her best to maintain balance. Gradually he moved his hands away from her, trusting her to hold steady.

“Shit,” he choked as that came back to bite him in the ass: Lily took a forward tumble, shooting the board back into his shins, which hurt like shit and also kept him from catching her in time. Knee pads and wrist guards clattered against the driveway as Lily let out an anguished cry. He scooped her up, checking for any major injuries as big tears rolled down her face, blue eyes the size of dinner plates.

“Anything hurt? Anything broken?” he demanded, looking her over. She sniffled and shook her head. “You didn’t bite your tongue or break a tooth or anything?”

“It was scary!” she sobbed and threw her arms around his neck.

“Ok. I know. Ok we don’t have to keep going, you did really well today. You were doing it!”

But Lily sobbed, “I want to do it all the way.”

“All the way what?”

“I want to do tricks!” she cried. “I want to go up the house.”

“Up the house?”

“Up the house and I do a flip.”

“No no,” he laughed. “Today we just go down the driveway. You have to skate a while before you can do tricks and not up the side of the house! We’d need to go to a skate park.”

“When?”

“Not today, Lilybear. We can be done now. Let’s go inside and–”

“But I only went this far!” she sobbed and held up her fingers an inch apart.

“You… want to keep going?” It seemed untrue considering she was still crying, but she nodded and held her hand high to be lifted. So he picked her up to her feet. “Ok, well, high five! Let’s try again then!”

She was very brave with her little sniffles, wiping her face off and then complaining about the velcro that scratched her cheek. Jungkook got the skateboard set up again, helped her on, and then did it all again. Now that she’d had one fall, she was tense at first, but after a few minutes began to relax again and she started riding further. And further. And further until she reached more of the incline of their long driveway and gained speed. Jungkook had to jog to keep up and she shrieked with laughter, knees bent, hands out to catch herself.

“Go!” he shouted as he realized she was stable and might be able to ride the whole length. “Go go! You got this! Go!” He cheered in the distance as she rolled onwards, gaining speed but not wavering.

Only to scream, “HOW DO I STOP?!”

“Shit–”

He set off at a sprint and just barely managed to catch her off the board around the waist before she slammed into the garage door like a bird at the window.

“I did it!!” Lily shrieked as Jungkook spun her around, his own cheers bubbling around hers, “You did it! You did it!” He was proud of her, yes, especially for getting back onto the skateboard after falling so many times, but also he was relieved as all fuck that she had suffered no major injuries.

“Ah, watching you is really inspiring,” he told her through a double high-five. “You want to go again?”

“Nope! I’m all done,” she beamed at him.

“For today? Or forever?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ok,” he laughed, and scratched the back of his neck. “Well… I’m going to do one lap up and back, watching you board was so inspiring.”

“I know,” she grinned, though he suspected she didn’t know what that meant. But helping her for so long left him desperate for a cool, smooth ride. And maybe to show off a little too, convince her that it was cool and she should practice it more. He thought having a skateboarder daughter would be pretty cool.

He got a running start and tossed the board down, stepping onto it with ease, a muscle memory still in his balance and legs. The breeze through his hair was nice as he stretched his arms and rode up the long driveway, occasionally pushing off to get more speed through the slight incline. At the top he tried to do a little jump to spin around but he was rusty and just stepped heavily off the board but Lily couldn’t see him fuck it up from the far end of the driveway so that was ok.

He set off again, a little faster this time, gliding smoothly side to side, arms raised in a victorious pose as she cheered for him from the front door where she’d already stripped her guards off.

Unfortunately, she opened the door. And Gidget, who had been kept inside so as not to “helpfully” knock Lily over during her lesson came sprinting directly towards Jungkook. He zipped to the side to avoid running over her, but he had miscalculated how close to the edge of the driveway he was.

The right wheels sank into the narrow space between concrete and grass and Jungkook pitched forward, frantically lowering his arms to catch himself. He landed hard on his left side, barely biting back a curse as Gidget leapt over him as if trying to smother him and finish the job.

He rolled onto his back and hissed at the burning sensation on his leg and arm, scowling and ordering, “Get off, Gidget. Down girl, stop!”

“Daddy!” Lily’s scream hadn’t registered with Jungkook as he ate shit but now her voice cut through as she sprinted over to him. He held Gidget’s collar with one hand and gingerly inspected his arm and knee with the other.

“Oh no you scraped your knee!” Lily gasped. His elbow too, both scratched raw like he hadn’t done in probably a decade, not since he played soccer. Honestly, maybe not this bad since he was a kid. He felt exactly like a six-year-old as Lily, now the adult, crouched over him and grimaced in sympathy.

“Dad.”

“Yeah, Lil?”

“You’re supposed to wear a helmet! What if you hit your head? You got hurt so bad! Where are your knee pads?!”

Jungkook made a face and sighed, “I don’t even own kneepads… I thought I’d be ok…”

“Safety first! Are you even wearing sunscreen?!”

Jungkook’s scowl grew all the way into a pout as he looked to the side and let Gidget go and sighed, “... No.”

“I know just what to do. We need our first aid kit. I’m not allowed to touch it but it’s under the sink so you can get it and um… I’ll hold your hand while you put a bandaid on it because I don’t think I’m allowed to touch blood and I don’t want to look at it anymore,” she said, full transparency, her gaze repeatedly jerking away from the bloody scrapes. “Maybe we should call Mom. I don’t ever want to look at your owie again.”

“We don’t need to call Mom.”

“It’s a lot of blood.”

It hurt, but her concern made him chuckle as he assured her, “It’s not as bad as it looks. Come on, help me walk into the house.”

“Did you break your bones?! Maybe you’re too old to skateboard!”

“Lily! I’m not that old!”

“No more skateboarding unless you have all the pads.”

“But–”

“It’s the rule,” she reminded him, exactly what he had said to her that morning when she had first complained that the elbow and wrist pads were uncomfortable. Damnit.

“Ok ok. I won’t argue with you right now. Let’s get me cleaned up… but I looked pretty cool before I crashed, right? You saw?”

“I saw you rolling.”

“It’s called boarding.”

“Did you do a trick? I was taking my pads off.”

“No, I didn’t do a trick, I just… boarded good…”

Lily just blinked at him. Jungkook let out a noisy sigh and lay back in the grass, surrendering to Gidget’s licks around his neck and chin.

“You boarded good! Now you need a bandaid and I need a snack,” Lily assured him. Jungkook heaved himself to his feet, wincing at the sting of the scrapes, and the two skaters called it a day and went for juice and cookies and a whole lotta Frozen bandaids.

#dad jungkook #stepdad jungkook #amended #jungkook fic #jungkook fanfic #jeon jungkook fluff #jungkook fanart #jeon jungkook x oc #jeon jungkook fanfic #bts fluff #jungkook fluff #jungkook fiction #bts fanfiction

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nonhumanresources · 2 days ago

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Author Of Her Own Story

Lil late but hey, this was meant to come out in October so y'know. It hasn't snowed here yet so you get some autumn vibes now instead. Also, this is the first story I'm posting from the commissions I opened up a few months back. More to come! This one was commissioned by @champloon, he's a cool dude! Go check him out!

Summary: Ryan attends the 16th Annual Harvest Renaissance Fair after several year of attempts, clad in the armor of a tinfoil knight and ready to have an incredible time. A disagreement with a vendor leads to a truly unforgettable experience with the patron saint of the harvest.

What to expect: Dragon transformation, TG, apotheosis, macro, forced language change, and some good old fashioned jousting.

Length: 4.5k words.

If you'd prefer to read this story in an easier format, here's a Google Drive link!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ryan’s greaves crunched on gravel as he stepped out of his car, raising one hand to block the noonday sunlight. It gleamed off the vehicle and his armor alike, wreathing him as if in some holy mandate—one that included a Honda, at least. He checked his pockets—wallet, phone, keys—then set off on his knight’s divine journey, into the great unknown.

Of course, it was only about thirty yards from his parking spot to the ticket booth for the Sixteenth Annual Harvest Renaissance Fair, but it still felt like some kind of mythical journey. After four years of work, inopportune family trips, and a particularly bad cold, he’d finally made it to the premier local late-summer festivity. Ryan had spared no expense on his cosplay; of course, with amateurish skills at the craft, “sparing no expense” meant using four rolls of aluminum foil to construct the vague approximation of a knight’s armor, but it had still come out alright. The foil wrapped around his arms, legs, and torso in large segments, secured to dark clothing, with a wooden sword slung in a sheath on his back and a shield on one arm with a crest he’d copied from an internet search emblazoned across the front. He’d opted for no helmet, leaving his long, brown hair to flutter in the wind. A leather bag was slung over one shoulder, half tucked under armor, less fitting but a necessity for any convention. He’d seen better, but it was difficult to look at him and think anything other than ‘knight,’ so he considered that an accomplishment.

Click on the read more for the rest of the story, as usual. I love comments and questions so don't hesitate to let me know what you think!

Ryan joined the ticket queue behind a witch and some kind of troll, anxiously awaiting his turn. Now that the day was finally here, he could hardly wait. This costume had been half completed at least a year prior, but his failure to attend had killed any motivation. Now, he was determined to make the most of it. The ticket line wait was made even longer by the blazing sun overhead, though fortune was clearly smiling on him this particular day, and the foil armor actually reflected a shocking amount of the heat back out into the sky (and onto those unlucky enough to be standing next to him, not that he could notice).

“Next!” a voice called out. The witch and troll duo shuffled away, leaving Ryan at the front of the line. He rushed forward and pulled out his phone. He flashed a QR code ticket to the elf sitting within the small ticket booth, who flashed him a practiced, tired smile as soon as it went though, and she stamped the back of his hand with a small pumpkin decal.

“The King welcomes you to the Harvest Fair,” she declared, talking fast. “All the kingdom’s greatest performers are present today, and eagerly await your fawning approval.” The elf glanced behind Ryan and groaned slightly, then pulled out a pamphlet, pointing at different sections of it as she rushed. “Map’s on page one and two, lore is right after that, read through it or talk to an actor and you can get an explanation on this year’s quest to serve the Goddess of the Harvest and whatnot. Vendors and food are inside on the left, performances are at the stage, jousting tourney starts in—” she glanced at her watch, “hour and fifteen, and bathrooms are marked on the map. Knight photoshoot times are listed if you care. Good day and happy harvest. Next!”

Ryan blinked. That was… some kind of way to treat a guest. He opened his mouth to ask about the quest, but the elf attendant was already waving the people behind him forwards, and he had to shuffle sideways to avoid getting his toes stepped on by a dwarf.

Well. He wasn’t about to let one rude employee ruin his day. She’s probably just overwhelmed running the booth all by herself, he reasoned. Not an excuse, really, but she had at least given him most of the information he was wondering about. He could always find an actor inside to get the rest if need be. As he walked through the front gate and caught his first glimpse of the fair, his heart swelled again, and he couldn’t stop himself from grinning. Flutey, medieval music floated over crowds who bustled between small, erected wooden castles and shops, while an incredibly colorful crowd meandered through the fair, taking in the sights and smells. Ryan took a deep breath and dove in.

The swell of people enveloped him immediately. Ryan rubbed shoulders with all manner of mythical beasts, races, and t-shirt wearing regular folk. He had to stumble to the side in order to circumvent a witch pushing a stroller covered in a paper mâché cauldron, then immediately duck sideways to avoid getting cleaved by a large ax that was resting on a barbarian’s shoulders. The whole affair was an utter jumble, but there was something magical about it all. And it’s not just the fairies, Ryan thought to himself, grinning.

The flow of the crowd had naturally taken him away from the stage, off to the left, towards the smell and sound of sizzling food. Ryan’s eyes went wide seeing a man no more than four feet tall walking away from a small hut with a turkey leg that seemed nearly as tall as he was. He’d eaten before leaving, though, just in case he was tempted to buy overpriced festival food, so he cut sideways through the flowing sidewalks and ended up getting dumped out into the slower moving foot traffic of what seemed to be the vendors’ area. He took a breath and used the opportunity to pull out that small pamphlet he’d received back at the entrance. One side panel listed events, confirming the upcoming jousting match; opening it up to the proper page on the inside, he found a large, illustrated map. He was shocked to find he’d traveled nearly a third of the length of the fair in arriving where he had. Standing on his armored toes and peeking over the top of the crowd, he was able to confirm that the entrance was quite some distance away, now.

Must be moving faster than I realized, he thought. The vendors’ area, labeled as The Harvest Market, took up a massive chunk of real estate on this side of the festival, which made sense based on how much of a community-built event this was supposed to be.

Might as well start here. Ryan tucked the pamphlet away and turned, stepping up to the first vendor he saw.

Various period-agnostic pieces of armor and filed-down weapons sat across tables and custom-built wooden shelves, providing the air of a blacksmith, perched atop a tablecloth likely purchased at a HomeGoods. A basket full of whittled walking sticks sat off to one side. Behind the tables, in the shade provided by a canopy poorly disguised as a storefront, a somewhat mousey man sat and squinted out into the sunlight (not to mention the light reflecting off of Ryan’s armor), dressed in a brownish tunic and coarse pants to give a sort of peasant-y vibe. A small name tag affixed to the tunic read Phil. He stood as Ryan approached and gave a wan smile.

“Welcome, Sire Knight!” he called, loud enough to be heard over the din. “I’ve wares to sell, should they be of interest to ye of noble ilk. Or nay, is it a quest ye seek?”

Ryan opened his mouth, then closed it before responding. That was more in character than he’d expected; he had some decent practice with voicework, but being put on the spot with an unpracticed tone was still difficult. “Ah. I seek to… browse. Good sir Phil,” he added hastily.

Phil nodded. His smile seemed to be propped against the side of his jaw, as if it were leaning on a wall. “Certainly. Rianne’s blessings to you, then, Knight.”

Ryan let silence fall for a moment, examining a dagger with a leather wrapped hilt. “Uh.” He coughed awkwardly. “If one… were to be seeking a quest, what would that entail?”

Phil, who had been moving to sit back down in his fold-out camp chair, straightened. “Aha! As the gods will it, so it be done, a Knight hath been sent to help!”

“Yes,” Ryan said, shuffling from one foot to the other. “And that help is?”

Phil’s grand presentation deflated slightly. “Why, only the quest of a lifetime? Rianne’s request, an epic journey only the bravest could hope to complete?” When Ryan only gave an apologetic shrug, he let out a disgruntled sigh. “The one on page four of the festival pamphlet and on the website when you scan the QR code on your ticket? That quest?”

“I got stuck on the map,” Ryan joked half-heartedly.

Phil groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Okay, well, doth the great knight feel inclined to consult page four of the festival pamphlet to receive his divine request from the goddess of the harvest, or would he prefer to browse some more?”

“Would you mind giving a condensed version?” Ryan asked, hopeful. That elf at the ticket booth had said to ask an actor, after all.

Phil threw a longsuffering sigh upwards (which, Ryan thought, seems kinda uncalled for, all things considered). “It really would be much easier if you just read it.”

“C’mon, I prefer acting anyway!”

“And I prefer when knights arrive ready to act,” Phil retorted.

Ryan folded his arms. “Aren’t renaissance fairs all about acting and improvisation?” He was feeling more and more put out by this being his first real interaction, after all the hype.

“First of all, it’s the Harvest Renaissance Fair,” Phil corrected, holding up a finger, “and second, I’ve had no less than sixteen tinfoil knights come through here with their dashing looks and ask me to read three paragraphs to them, and I’m getting real sick of it.”

At this point, Phil was looking quite worked up, and it seemed obvious there was no getting through to him. Ryan held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Okay, okay, listen, I—”

“No, you listen,” Phil growled, cutting Ryan off. “I’m clocking out. If you’re so interested in toying with precise narrative structure, then why don’t you try writing it yourself and see how much you like it? As the gods will it! Or god, in this case.” The man snapped his fingers and made a rude gesture in Ryan’s direction. It was his turn to grunt in frustration as Phil turned away after the frankly very confusing comment.

“Would you just wait one—” Ryan stopped himself and sighed. Whatever. It’s just one sourpuss. Don’t let it ruin the day. “Whatever. May your Harvest be merry, Sir Phil.”

Ryan furrowed his brow. “Excuse me. May the long nights bring light against fell dark.”

What. The hell. Something was wrong. He’d been trying to give Phil a few strong words, and perhaps an expletive or two, but the words came out… wrong. Obviously, that was not in fact what he’d said, twice. If it happened once he could chalk it up to distraction, but this was concerning. For his part, Phil just waved a dismissive hand from the back of his stall behind a large tote and said ‘bah!’

Ryan’s head felt… tight. Like his mind was pressing up against the inside of his skull, straining against the bone. He bent over, grabbing the edge of the table. With his head hanging low, he was able to watch as the sun flickered across his hands with an almost incandescent blue light, and with a series of small pops, claws erupted from each fingernail, poking into the fabric of the tablecloth.

Okay. Revision. Something isn’t wrong, something is seriously wrong. Ryan stumbled backwards, yanking his hands up to his face. Of course, embedded in the fabric as they were, the entire tablecloth came with them. With an enormous clatter, the weapons were unceremoniously tossed against each other and to the floor, crashing together all the way. Ryan couldn’t even attempt to help; the tablecloth was already tangling up his arms, hands balled up into the mass.

It must have just gotten caught on my sleeve. The claws had to have been some trick of the light off his armor. Tin foil was reflective, after all. Of course, he couldn’t actually check until this stupid fabric was taken care of. Unfortunately, each flex only swept more and more of it into the action, wrapping him up in layer after layer of fabric. He tossed one corner over a shoulder to keep track of it and somehow it managed to tangle up his whole arm. A series of knots almost cartoonish in their complexity were forming, and he seemed to be at their mercy. Several passersby were starting to stop and gawk, and Ryan could feel himself sweating as he struggled.

Finally, he hit a sweet spot and felt the fabric start to slide after tossing multiple layers of it over his shoulder. He took full advantage and yanked, the knots unraveling themselves like magic one after the other, hands finally, thankfully, sliding free. Ryan tossed his arms up into the air with a shout of triumph, not even bothering to check and discover that not only were they clawed, they were also blue. This was also the exact moment his chest decided to acquire a new look and promptly exploded outwards.

Ryan stared down in shock. He was used to being able to see his feet; this was distinctly not possible anymore. He found himself tipping forwards, and his arms pinwheeled wildly, trying to step forwards and catch himself. A numb tingling flashed across both legs, and they suddenly erupted into thick blue skin, pants straining. This did nothing to help steady him. He opened his mouth to yell, feeling like he was moving in slow motion, and it opened instead as a muzzle, pushed outwards and fused with his nose into one long snout, the yell emerging as a roar.

Just before he ate it, there was one final shhhRRRIP! from behind Ryan. He felt more than heard as his tailbone dropped the ‘bone’ suffix and became a full-on tail, the weight counterbalancing him. As if he was on a hinge, he swung back upwards. The tail impacted the ground with a dry smack, and Ryan was left standing stock straight, arms by his side, legs pointed inwards from their failed attempts to save him. With two belated flaps, a pair of wings unfolded from his back.

Around him, the crowd burst into applause.

This was so unexpected as to shock Ryan straight out of his stupor. His hands immediately flew to his face, finding a snout, horns poking out from his nose, his cheeks, his head, a pair of whiskers drooping down from either cheek. It only took a cursory glance to determine that the rest of him was similarly lizardlike. His entire knight’s armor had up and vanished; in its place was the tablecloth, tied across his shoulder and draped over his frame like a dress. A belt decorated with hanging jewels cinched it at the waist, and he was barefoot, though there were two large paws rather than actual feet, now. He was covered in vibrant blue scales from head to toe, but the ones across his neck and the front of his body were a hazy golden yellow instead, continuing on down the base of the tail that swayed behind him. He caught a glimpse in a polished shield and saw an unfamiliar reflection of a reptilian face that boasted yellow stripes across the snout, too.

Okay. Take stock. What can you actually do here? Ryan’s mind raced. She had to get out of there, find somewhere private to figure all this out. A change like this was bad enough; in public, it was one of her worst nightmares. The insane dragon body was the biggest factor, obviously. The new clothing was embarrassingly scant compared to a full suit of armor, but functional. She….

Oh. Wait. Okay, point three: Ryan was now most certainly a girl, and somehow the pronoun reference in her own head had already shifted. Disconcerting to think about directly, but it seemed fine to leave it alone, so she let that one slide for a bit. Not like she could pass as a man right now anyway.

Last thing: the crowd. She needed a way through. Ryan raised a hand, and the voices all died down to a murmur. She opened her mouth to politely yell at least one expletive and several panicked requests for people to please get out of the way now.

“Thank you! Thank you!” The raised hand became a wave as a feminine voice cut the silence from deep in her own throat. Ryan swallowed hard. Again. This time, she pictured the words before speaking them. Please get the HELL out of my way. Just eight words.

“Please, refrain from praising a humble goddess, citizens!” Wrong eight words. Ryan felt himself withering inside. This was out of control.

Someone stepped forward from the crowd, an elf with a badge that read ‘Nurse,’ looking concerned. “Are you sure you’re okay, Rianne?”

It’s Ryan, she tried to say. It didn’t work. “Your care lifts an immortal soul,” was what came out instead. “But Her Lady of the Harvest is well. ‘Twas naught but a minor altercation with a disagreeable sword!” Rianne—Ryan—let out a hearty laugh. Inside, she was yelling. She couldn’t stop herself from going along with this.

Maybe… maybe she had to play along. That made about as much sense as the rest of this. She chose her words carefully this time. “Though… if thou insists, take all pains to assuage your doubts as to my safety,” she said, holding out an arm. That was as far as she managed to push it towards Please give me an x-ray and tell me I’m just in some kind of nightmare bodysuit.

The elf reached out and grasped her arm confidently. The moment the nurse made contact, though, she froze. Her gaze connected with Ryan’s, and she could tell that the nurse knew that this wasn’t any kind of improv. That was real, bonafide dragon flesh. A strange haze passed over her eyes, and she stepped back before Ryan could do anything.

“Our Lady Rianne is perfectly healthy!” she declared to a flurry of applause. Ryan tried to reach for her, but she vanished into the crowd, whispering into the ear of some kind of half-demon fellow whose arm she grabbed along the way. There went that lifeline.

Rianne. That wasn’t a mispronunciation of her name; that was the name of the Goddess of the Harvest that Phil had mentioned. The one who was supposedly giving out quests and making requests of brave adherents, and who ruled over the entire festival, granting blessings of bountiful harvests and community bonding. That was…

Oh, gods, that was her. Ryan had somehow become Rianne, and now she couldn’t stop talking like a goddess. She couldn’t fathom the reasons behind it, but that must have been why she sounded like a bad reenactment of the legend of Saint George.

The worst part was, that almost certainly meant that she was stuck here. The goddess of the festival couldn’t very well leave. Even if she tried there was probably some kind of contrived method of keeping her put. She was well and truly screwed.

Although. Although. A thought surfaced that made her flush. This crowd… they were focused on her, yes, but it was positive attention. Clearly the goddess of the fair—one whom they all must assume she was some kind of mascot representing—would be popular, especially among those undertaking her quests. So, if she was so popular…

…what was keeping her from enjoying the fair like this, anyway?

Okay, listen up. “My dear merrymakers!” Okay, that one was better than her original thought. “Let not one accident cause you grief. It is a day of joy! Please, continue the festivities!” Her mind raced, trying to come up with something she could say that would get interpreted in a favorable way by her new rules. “Worship comes in many forms, and today that form is togetherness. So please, show Her Lady how you can bring this community together first-hand!”

A last round of cheers, and the crowd began to disperse—all but a loyal sect clamoring for attention. Rianne did a mental fist pump as one stepped forwards, pointing down the row of vendors, towards the stage. Maybe this would be fun after all.

~~~~~

Tessa the elven nurse dragged her friend, Anthony, through the crowd. Her vision was sharp, the colors bright. By the time she finally stopped, Anthony had gone from laughing and plucking at her grip to worried. He came to a halt and looked down at his shorter friend.

“What’s wrong?” Anthony asked, the demonic costume creating a humorous contrast to the caring question.

“Rianne,” Tessa hissed, pointing towards the dragon. What she’d thought was just an actor.

“Yeah, we get a goddess every year,” Anthony replied. “Is there something wrong? Did she actually get hurt?”

“No!” Tessa almost wanted to scream. “Dude. Look closer. She’s real.”

Anthony cocked an eyebrow. “Did you get hurt?”

“Anthony!”

“Okay, okay, fine, I’ll look!” He turned away from his friend, who raked a hand through her hair. She felt like her skin was on fire. This was… it was good, actually. Her blood was electric. At first she’d thought it was a fever; now she recognized it for what it was. She was filled with belief.

She watched Anthony’s face. Saw the skepticism melt into shock. “Hooooly shit,” he breathed.

“This is insane.”

“I know,” Anthony said, reaching for his phone. “I have got to tell the guys.”

~~~~~

Rianne had no way of knowing that as she was paraded through the festival grounds, word of her divinity was spreading through the fair, and it was spreading fast. The next hour went by in a blur. She blessed vendors, received offerings, gave a toast, she had officiated a real ass wedding. Her head swam. Her paws buzzed with power. Whatever Phil had been on about was nonsense; ‘writing the narrative’ felt intoxicating. What she really needed, though, was a break.

Sadly, breaks were not an option, as just then she found herself being introduced to the festival organizer, who was vigorously shaking her paw and bowing their head in supplication.

“Now, Rianne, could you watch over our most cherished tournament, the Fall Joust?” The organizer flashed a grin full of fake teeth to the crowd. Suck up, she scoffed. Rianne had plans, anyway. Definitely not.

“Nothing could please me more!” she crooned. Great. Her goddess side had other plans. So it was that she found herself sat on an actual, real-life throne in the center of the covered wooden platform that lined the side of the jousting arena, the organizer on her left, a recently-crowned King Of The Festival on her right, who had earned the title by winning a costume party. It felt small; her horns scratched the ceiling of the room. Had she grown taller? Her scales felt itchy, even in the shade. Something felt… off. A paw brushed the side of her buxom chest, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from making noise. Every part of her body was acting up all at once, and she was not keen on sitting through multiple jousting matches.

The viral spread of belief had, by this point, reached its tendrils throughout every part of the fair. It wasn’t quite dominant, not yet, but it was approaching a critical point—one strong enough that Rianne was able to detect it. There was a taste in the air that her godly form translated into the ambrosia of belief, and lots of it.

An announcer droned on from a box somewhere at the end of the field. Conversations continued on either side of her. Rianne heard none of it. She folded her arms over her stomach and tried to keep from hurling as she rubbed against her own sensitive skin.

“...for their contributions to the fair. And lastly, we have one last guest to thank.” A bit of the announcer’s tone crept through into Rianne’s ears. “The one to whom this festival is dedicated. Our… hm?” Feedback came through the mic as it was suddenly covered due to commotion in the announcer’s booth. When he spoke again, moments later, there was true reverence in his voice. “Our immortal goddess, Lady Rianne of the Harvest! Please, everyone, put your hands together for the first TRUE appearance of the Goddess herself!”

Oh, God.

Rianne’s body could no longer take it. She fell forwards from her chair, stumbling out into the jousting arena on all fours as she quite literally doubled in size, body stretching to a full fifteen feet long. As waves of shock and understanding rippled through the largest crowd the festival had to offer, the belief in Rianne grew stronger and stronger, and she grew right alongside it. Paws rubbed along scales uncontrollably as she erupted like a glorious, godly volcano, dwarfing first the attendees, then her own previous size, then the arena itself. It was only once she tried to stand, head now poking at least twenty feet above the roof of the covered seating, that she had the presence of mind to yank her (miraculously growing) dress down and snap her legs together to try to keep from flashing the crowd, face turning a brilliant shade of maroon in the process. She managed to only knock over a couple of wooden fence supports as she wobbled out of the arena, one paw tucked between her legs, the other held tight over her chest.

“B-blessed Harvest!” she cried out, trying to smile and failing to fully remove the flustered expression from her face. She needed out of there fast, and at this size, there was no one able to stop her. “Your grace is EXTREMELY well received! P-please calm your prayers, lest Her Lady expose… f-frighten you all with her godly form! And rest assured she will return, year after year, to ensure Her will be respected and celebrated!” As she spoke, some of the energy crackling across her form was sapped out, and she felt the words cement themselves into reality. She would be back. Rianne’s stomach dropped like a rock. This was going to happen again. Year after year, she’d be back here, transformed into a dragoness once again to celebrate the harvest. She snapped her jaw closed before she could damn herself any more.

The entire festival could see her, now, and they all erupted into raucous applause and cheers. Rianne choked out one final “Happy Harvest!” before turning tail and running, the glimpses of her rear through the slitted dress as purple as the cheeks up above, each softly embedded paw print in the landscape bigger than the last as she dashed off to find a couple buildings to hide herself behind. The only thing that the goddess could think of that embarrassed her more than accidentally flashing a festival of supplicants was that, deep down, she knew that she was excited for next year’s Harvest.

#writing wyrms #dawdling dragons #transformation #tf #dragon tf #dragon transformation #language change TF #apotheosis #god transformation #renaissance fair #tftg #mtf tg #my writing #my stuff #champloon

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theonetruegnome · 4 months ago

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The critters are all sitting together at lunch. SunnyShoat is telling a joke

'ok, and then?'

'Well then the barkeeper says, 'Is that damn nun here again?' Baahahahaha!'

'I… Don't get it.'

'Yeah, explain please Sunny?'

'Well *heh* You- you see *Hehheh* It's cause nuns can't drink. So...'

Nobody is laughing, but Conk is smiling very widely.

'Well it was funny when my uncle said it!'

'Oh, well that explains it.'

'Oh? what did I do wrong then?'

'You're our leader Sunny, not our uncle. Uncle jokes only land if you're an uncle.'

'I mean, if we're doing uncle jokes now, I think I have this down pat. *Ahem* Two guys walk into a bar. The third one ducks.'

'Good try, but we've all heard that one before Munchy! Okay, my turn! They say life speeds up as you get older, which is why my grandpa is always wearing a crash helmet.'

'Ha! Very good Callum, much better than me. I only have a Joke about unemployment, but it doesn't work at the moment.'

'He he he he!'

'Jesus Christ I need better material.'

'May I have a go please?'

'Leah, you don't need to walk on eggshells around us, we're friends! Just tell a joke if you want to.'

'Oh ok, sorry, force of habit. Ok, so um.. L-last time I was invited to a party, it said on the invite 'Look smart.' So I went dressed up as Mana!'

*Complete silence*

'Oh. okay, sorry. never mind, sorry I said anything...'

'It's not your fault Leah. It's just that nobody here is an uncle, so nobody here can make uncle jokes funny. Simple physics.'

Dandy raises her hand, 'I'm an Aunt'

*WHIPLASH INDUCING CAMERA SPIN ONTO DANDY*

'...How, you're eleven?'

'Last year my third-cousin Lydia had a baby, so I'm technically an aunt. Here, wait I have photos...'

'OOOH, LEMME SEE, LEMME SEE!'

'That still doesn't change the fact that the joke won't land. You need to be an Uncle, dandy.'

'Same difference. So, last time I was in Madrid, I got sick while staying at this little hotel. Luckily, they told me 'Oh we have our own doctor here', so I went to see him, and within the hour I felt better. I told him, 'I would never have thought a small hotel like this would have such a skilled doctor as you.' He shrugged and said 'Nobody expects the Spanish Inn physician!''

There's a small delay as the jokes is processed but soon everybody is laughing, with dandy at the centre, grinning from ear to ear. Man she's cool!

Callum, who just snorted milk out of his nose, looks up and his laughter dies down.

'Hey, where are you going Kitty?'

'Oop, Sorry guys, I just saw some old friends outside, need to catch up. I'll be back in in a second.'

'Wait, Callum-!'

'I'll just say hi, don't worry!'

'But your food-'

Ting-a-ling! The last glimpse of the cat is his long tail almost getting caught in the restaurant door.

'Huh. Didn't know callum had other friends'

'Probably from following his dad to work.'

'Oh yes, probably. A lot of noble house servants bring their children to work to keep an eye on them, so the kids usually become friends. It's sort of a tradition.'

'Really? I have no idea what It's like to be taken to your dad's job, tell me more!'

While the others laugh, Sunny and munch look across to each other. Something about this seems... off... But, they might just be jealous 'cause he has other friends. The thought passes, Callum sheepishly returns, and soon all eight are talking and amicable again.

Have a guess, what noble house do you think Callum's dad works for? Best answer becomes canon!

#shifted critters #swap au #smiling critters #callum cuddlekit #eli electrophant #leah lensbear #dandydoe #mana mare #conk out cockerel #sunnyshoat #munchypup #Slice of life #Comedy

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hoardlikegoldenirises · 1 year ago

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blurple time.

finally finished this~ months after he appeared 😅

you can tell there's a bit of a punk/industrial vibe infusing the whole design. i also drew from various details in the comics, and other random things like bulletproof leather jackets.

closeups, ramblings, (and a version with a cape) under the cut:

i was originally not planning to add a cape cause i wasn't sure if i could make it work and tbh. still not sure. i like the way the purple cape looks from behind but the inside is like. idk. if it's purple then it looks weird, but the black feels off to me too... I don't think any of the other colors would work.

oh also i decided this glows in the dark (predictable as always)

Helmet's been through some sketches and stuff, spent a while figuring out the mechanisms and so on and settled on this design in the end.

Obviously you can see here the top is leather, it's based on a combo of a motorcycle cowl (with an angled zip you can just see there, and then the shoulders from an armored motorcycle jacket i was looking at. then the blue is meant to be a (heavily) modified like, boilersuit or whatever those are. mechanic's jumpsuit.

Plus all the spikes. Obviously there's no spider-punk in this setting but I like the aesthetics, and I like giving Hobie like a little thing of his own in terms of hobbies/interests so I thought adding that punk aspect would be fun, esp as it ties into his whole thing with being unsure of himself and being a little different and so on.

the lenses are one piece each, just with different colors of film on them, like you see on a variety of custom motorcycle visors. used chrome silver for the white "eyes," which i think would look cool and matches the metal hardware. very reflective. hobie prob won't be the only design with chrome/mirrored lenses for reflective purposes (thinking about the hobgoblin) (well. technically peter will also have aluminized lenses at one point but that's a spare mask for fires, not a main look)

earlier concept which i drew on my phone actually lol. some of this i obv jus copy-pasted cause it was fine as is, other stuff got tweaked, like i ended up changing the lens shape to look a little more like the comics and i did end up scrapping that shape for the faceplate/chin.

and you can see there i edited a pic from the comics playing with what colors i wanted to use. i liked the steel blue that showed up in some of the older painted art from the Prowler's earliest appearances, and I felt like I wanted to give him a color other than purple and green, though I didn't wanna ditch the purple either, so I ended up with this kind of neon blurple + navy combo that I liked a lot. And the silver too.

back of the jacket and helmet. Didn't originally plan on adding all those spikes but then I was sketching this out and I was like, oh... that would look cool... so i committed!! i like how it looks.

Originally I also had no logo/symbol on the front of the chest so I decided to put one on the back. Then I ended up adding that flat panel to the chest and added the symbol there too, and decided to keep the back one as well. i can def see a 19 year old being like, hell yeah... sick... people will definitely take me seriously now. and you know what. he's right.

i will admit i ended up a little dissatisfied with the story i told involving the Prowler in the linked fic, but... I also probably shouldn't have tried to wedge it between like five warring subplots. But it was like, the spot that made the most sense. If this was a cartoon I think it would be a like... 1-2 issue special focused more on him. And also peter would jump out the window. (The real tragedy that I didn't include cause it's hilarious, poor Hobie XD)

Anywho. Is this mechanism needlessly complex? Perhaps. I tried to simplify it at one point but then the more I thought about it the less the simplified version worked so I stuck with the OG idea here. I mean, i guess I could have ditched the locking mechanism entirely but i thought it would be fun if the helmet was self-locking! I also wanted a way for it to rotate/go visor up even with the spikes, thus it being a pretty large rotating faceplate with the spikes on it instead of elsewhere. not that he ever puts it up in the fic. peter just takes hobie's helmet off there 😂

He's also wearing a balaclava under there which I didn't bother really drawing, mostly to protect his hair (which I put in twists for related reasons of helmet-wearing) (I briefly had been considering braids but then, well, ATSV and Miles G. happened and I said, well now I cannot do that XD) (I mean I COULD have but I wanted to do something else here lol) Anyway. The idea here is that it's a kind of slide lock with a spring-loaded peg that slots into the holes, and the square hole with the square peg locks the faceplate in place and prevents it from rotating, but when the square peg is in the round hole, the faceplate can rotate freely. The only wrinkle here would be that Hobie has to pull on both locks simultaneously or as close to it as possible or he'd risk cracking the helmet (i assume? stress and pressure etc.)

Sliding the lock forward also slides the whole plate forward, which lets me (in theory) have a flush, smooth silhouette while still allowing it to come forward enough to push up. It's not vacuum sealed or anything though. But it does have like... air filters and a voice modulator and some other things. MOST of the suit is super low tech and doesn't require electricity but the helmet probably has batteries or something. (peter's new webshooters at this point are also battery powered lol)

Helmet is pretty typical fiberglass construction with foam pads inside. Idea there is that Hobie made a lot of this stuff using campus workshop resources like autobody or machining shop on campus, for stuff like getting fiberglass, having a space to work in, making polycarbonate lenses etc. Though it's totally possible to do fiberglass work at home too. (peter also uses campus resources for his lenses specifically btw)

Gauntlets!!! Uhhhh ngl very difficult. Trying to design armored gauntlets that don't look like knightly armor is very hard for me cause I always just google reference pics of knightly armor. LOL. I think these came out alright. There's a hint of motocross influence there too (though really even in modern days armor is armor so there end up being shared traits) The gloves ended up being mostly leather with some armored parts, though there is probably some inner armor which is not visible. The claws I left bare since you would not be able to sharpen claws coated in plasti dip—

oh yeah the purple color on all the hard parts is plasti dip, which is basically rubber paint.

The wrist gauntlets are very very very loosely based on a guy's grappling rope web-shooter thing which you can see in this youtube video: link. though i didn't wanna just rip him off so i mostly just said, alright, tubes and a harness—which the prowler already has in the comics anyway, albeit smaller. so really it's pretty much like the comics anyway.

Right wrist has the green laser dazzler, both have grapples, left wrist has EMP (not pictured) which Hobie uses in the scene I have him and Peter fight except then I realized recently I didn't actually explain what that was or how it was working 😂 I probably should have done that scene from Hobie's POV in retrospect. It's an EMP though and it scrambles Peter's spidey sense via interference/signal noise.

(electromagnetic signals being responsible for several cases of irl "hauntings" —> spider-man's haunted)

waist utility belt... I like the way the silver belt on the old art looks! So I decided to make these hard silver hinged cases instead of soft pouches (originally were soft but I changed my mind while coloring) — IDK if these really are metal or if they're just fiberglass with chrome paint lol but either way, shiny chromey, hinged to open, the insides are probably padded... buckle is actually metal though.

Boots—modified snow boots. These are loosely based off of a real thing btw: link to blog post

The silver things are the magnets. Gauntlets are probably also magnetic but those are not visible like the boot ones. I also read some comments saying certain kinds of electromagnets would be preferable for something like boots but ultimately, IDK how to draw that, so I just drew it like they look in jen foxbot's prototype.

There was some other stuff I initially planned on including that didn't make the cut, aside from the cape. I was toying with stuff like a jetpack (or really, a jump jet), gliding/wingsuit, etc. but... I didn't use any of those. Kept it simple and streamlined for the most part. so no gliding for this Prowler, but hey, he's got magnet boots.

maybe in the future if Hobie ends up with an Iron Man-esque collapsible suit, perhaps he'll be able to fly, but for now, he's a college student making a supervillain persona so he can keep himself from getting evicted...

And his face!!! cutie :3 loosely inspired by Greg Eagles' face (the voice actor for grimm from billy and mandy) Not that ATSV had no impact on this design but that was the main thing. Twists to keep his hair protected in the helmet under the balaclava etc. and something he can do himself, and then a twist out afterward.

plus you can see the nose rings I mention in Creep here.

#yes i did use the Peter base for this—they are supposed to be the same height and similar build #nadiart #fanadiart #arghdesign #hobie brown #the prowler #came in through the window last night #shiny art

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spiderh0rse · 8 months ago

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freeman's mind noted part 5, e21-25

e21

images just come to him like a prophet for an angry god

a lil scared of big blue lobster out in Power Up

could solve all his problems by exploding things with his mind

wants marshmallows....

FUNNY NOISES. "HERE'S JOHNNY". MANNNN

thinks headcrabs would make cool lawn ornaments

"rubble rumble rubble rumble rubble rumble" he just likes saying words real quick together

he thinks he's a good liar

doesn't want green slime on his suit :(

not amazed at the orange HEV suit but admits it's good otherwise

THE SUIT DENTS WHEN YOU SHOOT IT SO STOP SHOOTING IT

(not sure why the formatting is doing this.)

e22

"pyew!"

has seen The Terminator

"what's the point of being an honest citizen if I'm just gonna get shot at anyways" FUCK THE TROOPS

has seen Rambo

concerned about accessibility!! :D

"lasers!" Said in the samw done in laser/caution

urgh the electron measurement nonsense. I hate that. Particle and wave. Depends on what you know about it

new sport? Houndeye killing?

Gordon I don't think the soldiers care about fixing the generator

had an old apartment where the basement got flooded because he did a cannonball so sick his bathtub sunk into the floor

"bbbrrrrrrp!"

"NYYYAAA"

hey if you survive the electricity you'd have a sick scar

high five Death!

e23

yes the military is incompetent we all know this

doesn't know how to play guitar

is very polite asking people to not kill him

thinks the radio chatter is dissing him

stresses to the soldiers that he graduated from MIT

seems less bothered by having killed a bunch of people now. Interesting difference from earlier

beepbeepbeepbeepbeep

"I don't like to beep too much" YOU HAVE BEEN BEEPING. ALL SERIES

thinks radios are how The Man finds you

grey map? Haunting.

smushing more words together without proper words to put them apart,, man after my own heart

smuggling an elephant almost wouldn't surprise him

would love rubber on the HEV.

cheery about leaving behind the dying guard

he is not happy right now

e24

may believe cavemen had to deal with gargantuars and HECU. May be ironic

wants to go up

he's a CAT. (meows multiple times) (hisses)

says out loud that he's scared

straining noises,,,

karma strikes him often

thats why the dinosaurs went extinct! Him!

expert in atomic level electricity

has frequently had to sit through family members shitty photo albums

one of the perks of killing everyone: no one can yell at you

he's in great shape! and has been exercising all day! please give this man some food!

likely not forklift certified

would like henchmen throwing switches for him

would sacrifice minions for good parking

threatens someone and then says he won't actually do it because it's be gross

wants to hit the clubs after a good shower

slur count four.

e25

could climb over the concrete but wants a nice ride

thinks a train derailment (shakes violently bnsf derailment-) would look cool

talks about some story about one teacher of his asking if crashing a motorcycle into a haybale or concrete divider is more dangerous at 60mph. My bet is on the haybale. Lots of little things that'll run you through. Nasty stuff. Straw impales telephone poles sometimes. Wear a helmet.

if he were a conductor killing his passengers would be his idea retirement

since no one can see him confused he's still a genius

barnacles now dubbed "string things"

he's covered in BLOOD again

cant emulate turtles and hide in his bright orange shell

expects to find a cult in On A Rail. string theory crowd......

ongoing commentary about if the aliens are demons or not

percussive maintenance does do wonders

pro slavery. not racist somehow. Gambling instead?? I have no idea where he gets these ideas from.

there are just. Unholy screams btw. in the background.

doesn't have a bandolier :'(

hey a switch!

poor guy is Not getting paid for this. Community service.

continues to be grossed out by the barnacles. Reminds him of the summer he worked fast food

"QUIT BEING METAL"

If he were a wizard he says

#freeman's mind #gordon freemind #every time i have to tick up the slur counter i wail in despair #rmanotes #mindverse

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thecheeselord75 · 1 month ago

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Character intros

This will be the main gang. Its a superhero team called The Vanguard. They're nothing special, Valor is mostly super human so they is a over abundance of super heroes. if you think about how many kids irl want to be spider-man, imagine how many want to be that when they have real powers. The majority of the Vanguard are between the ages of 15 to 16. I will be introducing 3 of them here because the others are gonna be introduced independently because they don't start off on the team

Kevin Bellingham

Kevin is 15 years old. He is the nerdiest one of the Vanguard, only really joining for the sake of seeming cool in front of his peers (which doesn't really work with a mask on). Kevin has the ability of randomness. Every time he uses his power it changes, these could change from standard stuff like laser eyes to hyper specific stuff like being able to control everybody in a 10 mile radius who has ever unironically said cowabunga (this also theoretically includes reality warping but to me that feels way to OP). Physically Kevin is lanky, pale and always looks like he's about to get shoved into a locker. He has a mess of hair on his head he really needs to cut, it doesn't go down, more just goes up like a mullet without the length in the back. He also for some bizarre reason wears a unholy amount of flannel. Superhero wise he goes by Wild Card due to the randomness of his powers. His suit is the strangest of the group, he wanted it to reflect the randomness of his powers but it kind've just ended up looking like a visual cacophony. He made every major part of the suit a different colour, its a sort of normal looking spandex suit with a domino mask. The left arm is green, the right is yellow, the chest is orange, the left leg is red, the right is blue and his mask is purple. He consulted literally nobody about his suit before getting it made

Oliver (Ollie) Campbell

Oliver (who is referred to as Ollie by pretty much everyone) is 16. Ollie is the most immature of the group, think like michelangelo from TMNT. He (he for now at least) is the sort to make a joke out of anything or set up weirdly elaborate pranks, like so elaborate you start to wonder how he (for now) is failing their classes in school. He (once more, for now) joined the Vanguard mostly because it seemed like something fun they could do with their friends. Ollie has the power of shapeshifting. it can work in two ways, for example the Jake the dog style stretching or Mystique style face changing. The first being much more useful in combat but the ladder is still used, mostly for mischief, but still used! Ollie is gender fluid, this is why I kept on going "for now" in the brackets. Due to his shapeshifting he literally changes genders day by day. I'm gonna describe Ollie now but it doesn't really matter if he can just change his appearance for fun. Ollie is dark skinned with his hair in dreads. Those are normally the only constants aside from fashion sense (aka exclusively hoodies) . Unless you really know him like how he smiles or something it's actually quite hard to tell who he is. Everytime he shapeshifts, unless he has a picture, he can't exactly turn into himself. It's like playing the sims and randomising everything except his hair and skin colour, all of them will vaguely look like him but be different then the others they'll be shorter or taller then before or have a different nose. His super hero alias is The Changeling. His suit (this is going to sound weird but he is kinda always naked when he's in hero mode. If he wore clothes he would just stretch through them. So his suit is more of just shapeshifted onto his skin, it still feels like a suit but it is flesh) is pure white and only original vanguard suit to be actually protective. Its fabric with plastic like plating on top, in his knees, elbows, chest and helmet. Speaking of his helmet, its quite simple, its just a white helmet that goes around his whole head with eye holes.

Molly Smith

Molly is 15 like Kevin. Molly is the nicest of the group, a literal beacon of hope. Like its uncanny how positive she is, could probably be attacked by wild dogs and end up keeping them as pets. She's the one who had the idea to start the Vanguard because she believed that if someone possessed abilities like this, they should at least use them for good. At Least the reason is better then the hundreds of other superheroes in Valor who do it for fame or money. Molly has the power to change size. Basically just ant man powers, except she doesn't get tired from going big. She keeps her strength whenever she shrinks, but this is actually better for fighting then normal sized Molly. It's the same punch despite the size but one is compacted into a much much smaller surface area. She doesn't go big much, mostly so she doesn't cause collateral damage, big mode is mostly for rescue operations since she can just shove hostages into her pockets. Molly can shrink or grow objects she's in contact with, she can do the same with people as well, but only with consent. I know i'm talking a lot about her powers alot but her and another yet to be revealed characters are my favourites so they get thought about more, so the last thing i will say is that her growth is limited by the area she is in. If she shrinks and gets trapped in a jar, she cannot grow out of it. With that all finally out of the way, its time for appearance. Molly is dark skinned and the shortest (at base size) of the group, her hair is put into two downwards facing buns on the back of her head and always has a smile plastered on her face. The amount she smiles people would think it's a facade or something to hide some dark sadness within but most people that know her quickly realise she is that positive and happy naturally. She is normally wearing a sweater of some sort. Her hero name is Ms size and her suit is basic like Kevins without the complicated colour scheme, grey and purple spandex with a domino mask.

Anyway that's the vanguards founding members

#oc #original character #Character:Kevin #Character:Ollie #Character:Molly #superhero #superhuman #Valorcity

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silvertherogue715 · 1 year ago

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Hey. It's been a hot minute since i've posted any art. I really just post for myself, but i felt especially proud of the progress ive made over the course of (many) months designing the Sunstar of my BrainrotAU. Feel free to disregard! I'm just gonna ramble. Art will be included in the 'keep reading' section though.

I didn't want to deal with uploading the actual art files, and just used snippet to capture pieces of my art instead. The pictures could be irregularly large or small as a result--I don't have a good way to control then when using snippet. Sorry! Some old art of Sunstar.exe (not in order):

So, as you can see above, a lot of blue. It's kind of overpowering, honestly, and it took me a while to figure out I needed to start making changes to his color palette.

This was his first half body reference sheet. A ton of blue. Also my only REF of him with his back showing. I haven't updated his back design yet, but the final product will be much different.

Eventually, I decided to make his shoulder-braiser things orange instead of blue, as well as the sun-like gem on his helmet. I also started working out any built-in flaws I wanted to force his character to work around--like his hands being constantly on fire, or extremely hot. This just means he has to be extremely careful touching anything or anyone. It's not something he can just "turn off". Also, I think this was my first attempt at a proper full body design for him. It's fine for a second first attempt, and I was happy with it for a few months, but eventually I started thinking it shared the bulky OG robot master traits, rather than the 'netnavi' look I was wanting.

I started tinkering with his colors again, but only made minor changes. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what was 'off' to me without a proper full body to experiment on, but I very rarely have the willpower to make one. Some of these expression snippets were more helpful for me to use to at least get a read on exactly how expressive he can be in the AU, if he wanted to. Another big thing this helped me realize was how limited his expressions felt with the current colors (like his eyelashes), especially with how dark his face was. It made his nose/mouth harder to see. I end up making it a lighter shade in future doodles. Oh, and I wanted to start integrating pieces of Duo.exe's design into him as well--like the flat nose.

Woe, Sunterra doodle be upon ye. I need to finish this some day, but a big thing this helped me identify were: 1.) I desperately need to work on poses. 2.) I needed to figure out how to give Sunstar a "soft" look. In the expressions practice above, this was one of his faces i really struggled to get down. Still working on that. 3.) Another reminder he was too clunky to match a normal Navi design. Terra looks much more 'navi'-like. I needed to do a whole ass reboot for Sunstar from top-down. Anyway! The most recent stuff will be below. A few (bad) attempts:

And then I basically went "screw it" and went goblin mode at a full body attempt. Here's what I finally ended up with :")

For now I've decided to stick with a (mostly) cool/silver base with some warm orange and yellows mixed in in (hopefully) unobtrusive ways. Maybe this will change in the future, but for now I'm happy with his design :)

The orange on the bottom of his cape is meant to be a fire-y design, but I'm too tired to refine it (or anything else) further. Hopefully I'll have more art to update. eventually.

If you made it this far, thanks for sticking around, lol.

#my art #brainrotau #mmbnau #stardroids #sunstar #megamansunstar #sketch #doodle #megaman #mega man battle network

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yayneloveart · 7 months ago

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I suddenly feel like I need to record my initial reaction to RvB Restoration. We'll see how this goes

So that isn't Maine in the trailer, it's just a dude in his armor. I guess it makes sense since Tucker just ditched the armor after Epsilon died, anyone could have picked it up. I shouldn't assume someone in a Locus helmet must automatically be Locus.

Holy shit, did Grif start raising chickens like Geoff did in that long minecraft series?

Lol, Caboose could speak Spanish the whole time but he never spent time with Lopez so we never knew.

Caboose is literally R2D2.

WASH HAS A PICTURE OF A CAT IN HIS ROOM.

Okay, I like the direction so far. Doing some backtracking into some loose ends from previous seasons.

I guess the AI survived the EMP inside Maine's armor? I wonder if they got Elijah Wood again.

Okay, so Epsilon isn't alive, it's a smart recording that Church made before he fell apart. A little cheap... they kept killing him only to find that they wanted to bring him back one more time.

Uh... do I have voice blindness now, along with face blindness? That guy in the armor did not sound like Tucker. Unless he borrowed Tex's voice modulator. Or Epsilon is wrong and its not Tucker, it's some other fucker who ended up in the Meta's suit.

But... those were just memories of the AI, not the original ones. Epsilon was one slice of the whole Alpha, he couldn't have split himself further to recreate the AIs like they were before. They would have been a slice of a slice, and much smaller than the original ones. I can't imagine them having enough power to do the same amount of damage Maine took as the Meta. It's like the difference between being hit in the head with 6 rocks, and being hit with one rock split into 6 pebbles.

Hey wait, where's Donut?

Wow, they really shoehorned Felix in there. He never put on the armor as far as we know, and if Charon somehow obtained his intelligence, then they must have Locus' too.

But... they can't recreate the Alpha??? The Alpha was destroyed by the EMP along with the other original AIs? If they rejoin, they just recreate Epsilon. They went back to address old plot lines and erased a huge section of the story.

Interesting design choice, giving the Meta's armor Felix's color scheme. And I just realized that the Meta's helmet is the opposite of Locus', the entire thing is a visor while the Locus helmet doesn't have one at all.

Is Wash hallucinating Doc? That would be a first, instead of Doc being there and no one noticing, he's not there and Wash thinks he is.

Oh yeah, didn't Donut leave or something after season 17? To go soul searching? Maybe he's in Paris.

For 2 seconds I thought Sheila called Locus. My heart skipped a beat and I got so excited. Nope, season 19 breaking my heart- HOLY SHIT THATS 479ER. IT TOOK ME A SECOND BECAUSE I HAVENT THOUGHT ABOUT HER IN YEARS (beyond me selling merch with her face on it). I take it back, she might not be Locus, but she's still cool as fuck.

I guess they left Lopez behind to look after the base?

... if the Meta is still here... then what is Tucker/Meta wearing- oh, he's just hiding in there.

'Its okay Tucker, I forgive you' *weeps hysterically*

Sarge isn't dead... is he? They can't kill off the Red team leader, right? There's no dirt to throw over him. His armor is just going to do that locking thing like with Donut when Wash shot him?

Sarge?

Sarge..?

SAAAAAARGE!

They really killed him. They killed Sarge. Season 1 killed the blue team leader, the final season killed the red team leader.

They actually bothered to give him a headstone? The first time they thought he died they just threw some dirt on him and walked away.

Grif is literally asking Simmons to run away with him.

Press F to pay respects.

THERE WAS A SPARE THE ENTIRE TIME???? THERE WAS A WHOLE PLOT WHERE BLUE TEAM NEGOTIATED WITH RED TEAM TO BUILD NEW BODIES FOR CHURCH AND TEX.

So they killed Sarge and now they're resurrecting Church. I guess there can only be one team leader at a time between the Reds and Blues.

Doc couldn't save a life to save his life- Did Wash just jump off a cliff?

Oh hey, did Meta/Tucker just damage Simmon's cyborg arm? This is the first time they've ever shown him having one.

I know a lot of people were hoping Grif and Simmons on top of each other... but I don't think like this...

... what launched Caboose like that?

Oh wow, they brought back Tex AGAIN? Well, she was the best fighter in Project Freelancer, and doesn't have an organic body like Tucker.

Maybe they will use this opportunity to fix her story?

Oooooh, there's Carolina! I forgot about her.

Wait, is she and Tex going to team up to take down Meta/Tucker? FUCK YEAH BEST TEAM UP EVER.

You know, I had a hard time believing Tucker could be this good, but the AIs must be piloting the suit. Charon must have collected data on Felix's fighting skills and the AI downloaded it. Combine that with the enhancements and you have a pretty good killer.

ARE THEY GOING TO EXPLAIN HOW TUCKER GOT INTO THE ARMOR???

Oh, I guess Doc is real.

Okay, they are GONE. NO MORE RESURRECTIONS, NO MORE RETCONS.

HOLY SHIT WAIT DOC DIDNT SURVIVE CHORUS?????

IS HE FOR REAL DEAD???

Oh, hi North! And Wyoming! Hey, it's the whole gang!

I'm not crying, YOURE CRYING!

I don't believe Doc is dead, he's probably hidden out somewhere on Chorus tending to a garden with Donut.

Oh, this must be someone from the season I didnt watch.

I guess they didnt need Donut because he already had a good sendoff in season 17... oh wait didnt Doc show up post Chorus? He fought Donut in season 16 for that hammer thing.

Ah, they didnt get Elijah Wood back, they had Miles do Sigma. But they had Burnie's youngest do Theta, like how his older brother did it before! That's cool.

My final thoughts on season 19?

0/10, there was no Locus. Unwatchable.

#rvb #rvb 19 spoilers #rvb 19 #red vs blue restoration

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theyogs · 9 months ago

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May i humbly request that you ramble on abt anything to do w jar/ihe plzplzplz? Hot takes, silly assumptions/headcanons, favorite vids, fanfics or fanart you wish you could make (or see someone else make), anything at all!!! Make it as long and annoying as you please even if you think no one will care bc I WILL care <3

I NEED to hear other ppls thoughts abt these boys or i will go crazy

posdacted ily but you have put me on the spot and now i fear Every single piece of ihe/jar media knowledge has left my brain……….

my favourite jarcast of maybe all time is the snugglebrothers cast they did recently… like wow.. if there was no james upskirt censor it would be the most Perfect video of all time Let me see up there. i loooooveee when the boys are all comfy and cosy looking it’s so heartwarming and cute Plus this moment was so cute

i think my favourite stand alone alex video is trying to watch star wars christmas special idk why but when alex sings porn helmet wookie time it changed something in my little 14 year old brain and at 21 years old i still sing that to myself skjdowjdi

i want jartists to draw the boys in Cute pyjamas and i think they should have a Pyjama cast where they’re all in cute matching pyjamas and it’s dark outside and they have candles going…… WAIT I JUST REMEMEBRWD SOMETHNG There was a james blab on the og jar channel called is james racist - james blab and in 2022 i was GOING THRU IT emotionally like crying all the time and that video was genuinely the only thing that would cheer me up but it’s deleted or got taken down idk it’s not up anymore and i’m so sad about it because it was so funny… alex’s editing on that was Cwazy in another life he would be making ytp.. all old jar is so nostalgic and especially like old fan videos… ;-; i love jar so much they’ve changed my vocabulary permanently. i also really enjoy “the WORST video on youtube” idk what it is about that specific video but it just Gets me

i don’t really have any hot takes i don’t think i guess i think james is Really Awesome and cool for his opinions on pornography and i admire him a lot for that especially when all the comments were kind of disagreeing with him but i thought it was Epic And Cool especially coming from three different men :p i disagree with his opinion on the film cars tho, that is one of my favourite movies and i had a (serious) cars fan blog on here at one point.

i want more stand alone videos about Vidya game because even if i haven’t played/don’t have a desire to play any of these games i loveeee to hear their opinions on them like yayyyy ❤️ i think i just love to hear their opinions on anything because it’s like a Trip into their brains and i enjoy that :3

i’ve seen liek 2 or 3 tweets recently like hating on alex/the i hate everything culture of the 2010s and Waow i did not think i was still so autistic about alex&jar i got so offended because YOU FONT KNOW HIM LIKE I DOOOOOO you’ll never know the first and only podcast on youtube you don’t know Smosh hates us?! they will never understand just how meaningful i hate everything and jar media was to me as a teenager like they got me thru so much and continue to get me through hard times JAR MEDIA IS FORVER <///333333 ok i’m emotional now and i think i’ve ran out of things to say so

tl;dr make more fanart of boy in Pyjamas and allow us to have james upskirt as a Treat

#posdacted #idk how long this post is but #i hope you enjoy #asks #i really did not tbink i had this much to say i wish i had more but my brain is EMPTY

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cawfulwriting · 1 year ago

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Bottom of the Ninth

[I wrote this story back in 2019, and kept telling myself that I'd go back and clean it up so that I was a little happier with it. Somehow I just never managed to find the time or motivation to do so, though. At this point, I think I'm willing to admit that I'm not going to revisit it, so here it is, warts and all.]

She stepped into the batting cage, the familiar, cool steel of her baseball bat feeling comfortable in her palm. The net of the cage only surrounded her on three sides, with the fourth open to the shared batting space. The room was wide, but she rarely paid attention to anyone else who was batting at the same time as her, so it may as well have been a corridor for all she cared. At the far end of the room, a machine like a cannon sat ready to spit its next ball.

At least once a week for the past six months, Chieko had gone to the batting cages on the south side of the city, and she’d paid for an hour’s worth of batting time. She was usually the only woman there, if not the only person there at all, but she’d grown used to that. Her physical therapist would have a fit if he knew that she was coming out here as often as she was, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

There was a simple reason why she did this every week. One – if she didn’t, she would get out of shape. It didn’t matter anyways, because they’d never let her back on the softball team, not with why she’d been kicked out in the first place, but she refused to give them the satisfaction of knowing that they’d taken this from her too.

And two – because she had to remind herself of how a bat was supposed to feel. There was a visceral difference between the feeling of a ball hitting a bat at sixty miles per hour, and the feeling of a bat breaking bone. They both made the screws in her left shoulder rattle like an old engine, and they both satisfied that primal urge that made her want to watch things break. Car windows, beer bottles, and skulls all broke the same. Balls, though, had a very different feeling. They just kept going.

She tapped her bat against the plate, and then brought it up into swinging position, left hand snug at the top of the grip. It shot forward, and she swung. The ball slammed into the bat, and the vibration drummed its way up her arm until it hit her shoulder. Pain shot through the old wound like a thunderbolt, but she didn’t drop the bat. She still had two more balls until her round was up.

Once again, she readied herself, and swung, another jolt of pain shooting down her arm in the motion. The ball hit the back of the cage a split second before she realized that she’d missed.

“Shit,” she murmured, and readied herself one more time. The machine ticked from its end of the cage, and then fired.

This time, she felt the motion click. The ball slammed into the meat of the bat with a satisfying crack, flying to the far end of the stadium and hitting it like a bullet. She lowered the bat, resting its tip against the ground, as she watched the ball roll to the ground.

Suddenly, the net began to shake.

“Excuse me! Ms. Sato?”

She turned around to see a man standing at the door to the cages, his hand wrapped through a few links of the net. He was wearing a clumsily put together suit, and even though his hair was slicked back like he was trying to look cool, he had a noticeable stubble around his face.

Chieko pulled her helmet off, her hair sticking to her forehead, and said, “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Kimura! Remember? I sent you a message on LINE this morning?” he said, and he pulled a smartphone from his pocket, holding it up for her.

“No,” Chieko lied. It was coming back to her now. She’d gotten some message out of the blue from someone who wasn’t on her friend’s list about how he wanted to meet up with her after school got out.

“Oh, come on! I went through all of that effort to get your screenname, you might as well hear me out!” Kimura said. He pointed to his phone vigorously as he spoke, as if to emphasize the importance of the messaging app.

“I’m sure you did,” Chieko said. He must have shaken down some of her “friends” to find it out. Like they really counted all that much, anyways. They just happened to hang out in the same back alleys to smoke cigarettes and skip school together. The only time they had fun was when they were breaking windows or shaking down middle schoolers for their allowances. So she could easily see one of those girls giving up her username if it meant getting this guy to leave them alone.

“Look, just listen, okay? Don’t you want to know where your boyfriend went?”

A cold chill ran down Chieko’s spine. She turned around stiffly, her face quickly darkening.

“What did you say?”

A small smirk crossed the man’s face.

“Daisuke Hino? He is your boyfriend, right? Or, was?”

“Talk.”

“No, no, not until you get out of that cage. Come on, I’ll even buy you dinner if you just hear me out.”

Chieko sighed and placed the bat against the side of the net. She didn’t know who the hell this guy was or why he was here, but she couldn’t just ignore that. If he was just pushing her buttons, she was going to break his kneecaps. She placed the helmet down on top of the bat, and then stepped out of the cage. The man stepped back from the door as she stepped out, and she found herself face to face with him.

He was a full two centimeters shorter than she was. Fantastic.

“Fine,” she said, “but I’m picking the place.”

-----------

She led the way through the narrow back alleys of the ward, passing pachinko parlors and men with fliers advertising host clubs, the man following close behind. As she walked, she’d bunched up her shoulders so that her varsity jacket sat higher on her back, hoping to make herself look a little smaller so that the people in the streets would at least leave her alone for this moment. It hadn’t worked particularly well – she’d had to less-than-politely negotiate her way past a few chatty greeters – but after several minutes of walking, they made their way to their destination: a hole in the wall ramen joint on the corner of a building.

“Wow, I didn’t even know this place was here! You’ve got a good eye, Sato!” Kimura said as she’d led him inside. She ignored him. The two of them ended up taking a seat at one of the tables away from the counter after ordering, and in short order, their bowls had arrived. Immediately after their noodles were served, Kimura started chowing down.

The air in the restaurant was hot and steamy, and it was making her jacket stick to her back through her t-shirt. It was probably because of how cramped this place was – there was just nowhere for the air to go. Her guest had already taken off his suit jacket and slung it over the back of his chair. Part of her thought about pulling off her jacket too, but the part of her that was here for Daisuke won out, so she kept it on.

In between slurps, Kimura said, “So, Chieko Sato, huh? Is that supposed to be like the anime character, or...”

Chieko gave him a dark, flat stare.

“What’s that look for?”

“You said you wanted to talk about Daisuke.”

“I’m gettin’ to Hino, hold your horses. I need food in me first.”

Chieko’s stare did not waver. Kimura swallowed and pointed his chopsticks at her face.

“You’ve got a really scary face, you know that?”

“I’m leaving.”

Chieko stood up and started walking toward the door.

“Wait, wait, geez! You’ve got no patience, I swear!”

She turned back toward him, scowling.

“Look, I was getting there, okay? So come on, sit back down, okay?” Kimura pleaded.

Chieko stood in the doorway, staring stoically for a second, and then sighed before turning back around. She plopped back into the chair with her arms crossed, and Kimura let out a sigh, placing his chopsticks on the table.

“Great, now that you’re done running off on me, let’s talk.” He folded his hands together on top of the table. “I’m a detective. An independent private eye – I’m not a cop.”

“Good,” Chieko said. Kimura quirked an eyebrow, but kept going.

“Hino’s family hired me to look into his whereabouts. From what I understand, he went missing a few months back, but for whatever reason, they decided not to have anyone investigate until now. Got any idea why that might be?” Kimura asked.

“He’s on bad terms with his family. I don’t think they even realized he was gone,” Chieko said as she snapped her disposable chopsticks in two. The break was uneven, with the left chopstick ending up as a thin sliver compared to the right. Figured.

“Right, right. So, from what I understand, you were the closest to him before he disappeared, so you might be able to enlighten me in ways that most people can’t,” he said. He paused, looking down at Chieko’s hand as she scooped up a handful of ramen. “You eat with your right hand, but you bat with a left-handed grip?”

“Does it matter?” Chieko said, before taking a bite. Kimura shrugged. She finished slurping down a bite before saying, “If I knew anything that was worth following up, I would have done it on my own. You might as well go home.”

“Aw, come on, Sato, you’re killing me here. Look, tell you what, you let me pick your brain a bit, and I’ll leave you alone, okay? Promise,” Kimura said.

Chieko looked him in the eye, and then, after a moment, she broke eye contact. She squeezed the space between her eyes. No, she didn’t want to let him “pick her brain.” The last thing she wanted was to let some stranger into her memories of Daisuke, even if he was apparently trying to help. Of course, his family had taken as long as they had to even bother calling anyone. Of course, because God forbid, they show any concern toward their delinquent son. God forbid they even tell their son’s girlfriend that they’d even bothered to do so. Never mind that she’d been stressing out for months over where the hell Daisuke had gone. Never mind that she cared more about them than they did.

Her head hurt. She needed a smoke.

“Fine, whatever,” she said, wrinkling her forehead. “I can show you his apartment, you can look around. Landlord wanted me to clean the place out anyways. But that’s it.”

“Attagirl,” Kimura said, and tapped his chopsticks to his bowl.

-----------

Daisuke’s apartment was in a dingy, U-shaped apartment building on the less shiny part of town, not too far from the ramen shop and batting cage, but far enough that the neon lights of the pachinko parlors and hostess clubs had given away to concrete and narrow alleys. Chieko led Kimura up the stairway onto the open-air balcony, occasionally checking to make sure that he was still following behind her. She was pretty sure she could take him if it came to a fight – never mind their height, it was near guaranteed that she’d been in more fights than he had, even with their age difference. So long as he didn’t try anything, though, she’d leave him alone.

They stopped in front of door 301, and Chieko motioned for Kimura to stop before reaching into her jacket pocket and pulling out her key ring. She fingered through its array of rings silently, looking for the one she recognized as Daisuke’s.

“So, that letterman jacket, is it Hino’s?” Kimura asked.

Chieko stopped, mid-turn of the ring.

“It’s about two sizes too big for you, and you’re a big girl as it is. Didn’t think Hino was the sporty type too, though, from what I heard about you two,” Kimura said. “Heard a lot more about you two beating kids up after school and smoking on street corners, though.”

“Sounds like you know everything you need to know about us,” Chieko said coolly. She flipped to the next key in the set. Idly, she thought about palming the key ring, and slipping each of the keys between her fingers like claws. See how he felt about her when he was bleeding in about three places in his stomach.

“Well, I found out a lot more about you from asking around than I did him. That’s why I’m here. So, did you actually steal all of that cash from your softball team when you were in middle school?”

“What do you think?”

Kimura didn’t answer, and Chieko didn’t look to see what his face looked like. Finally, she found the right key and slipped it into the lock. It turned with a click, and she pushed the door open, stepping inside first.

The apartment was a cheap, three-tatami room with barely enough space for a kitchen and bath. But on those nights where the two of them had come home together, when Daisuke had been done with his part-time job at the mechanic’s, and Chieko had gotten bored of hanging around the girls in the local gang, the two of them had tangled together on those mats and engaged in the kind of pleasure that good high school girls weren’t supposed to talk about.

Not that she’d consider doing that now. There was a musty smell in the air from the uncleaned tatami, and she was pretty sure that the mats hadn’t been vacuumed in so long that they were growing mold. That was something that she’d never had a problem with back in her place – her mom owned a western style apartment, so they had hardwood floors instead.

She stepped into the middle of the room and pulled down on the hanging light cord, switching on the ceiling lamp. The apartment was just as it was when she’d last come here, after Daisuke had stopped answering his phone – his futon, folded in the corner next to the closet door; the switched off countertop stove unit next to the microwave, the pile of unpaid bills on the floor right next his collection of car magazines and pocketknife catalogs. That was something she’d never really gotten either – there was something about guys and knives that she just couldn’t relate to, but God, had she tried, because there was this way that Daisuke’s face always lit up when he was talking about them. Aside from those things, he’d never kept much in furniture – there was a folded-up table that she knew was in the closet, and the television that Daisuke had used to have broke about a week before he’d gone missing.

She turned back toward Kimura as he walked in. He let out a low whistle. “Yep, these are bachelor digs, alright. Reminds me of when I was getting my degree.”

He pulled out his phone and knelt beside the pile of bills. There was a shutter sound from his phone as he tapped it.

“What are you doing?” Chieko asked.

“Getting evidence. Can’t count on you being around to show me all of his junk next time I need to see it,” he said.

“Great. Look around, and then get out. I’m gonna have a smoke,” Chieko said, and walked right past him back out to the balcony. She reached into her jacket, pulled out a lighter and a small cardboard box, and flipped the box open. She pulled a single cigarette from the box and pinched it between her fingers, before stowing the box and pulling out her lighter. As she placed the cigarette between her teeth and leaned forward to light it, she could hear more shutter noises from behind her. Maybe she should have cared more that this guy was combing through every part of Daisuke’s home right now, but there was a tiny part of her that wanted to trust him. She was sure Daisuke would understand.

She pulled her cigarette from her mouth leaned onto the banister. She let the smoke burn her insides for a couple of seconds, and then blew out a cloud.

“I knew it, you are left-handed!”

Chieko twisted around to see Kimura walking out from the apartment. She glanced down at her cigarette as he walked up to the banister, and then leaned his back against it. Oh, she had grabbed it with her left hand.

“The hell’s that matter?” she asked.

“I thought it was weird that you were batting southpaw. The girls I was talking to said you used to be a lot less mean, until you wrecked your shoulder and couldn’t pitch anymore. Said you were a hell of a pitcher, too,” Kimura said. He waggled his finger toward the box of cigarettes in Chieko’s hand, and she sighed and shook the box. The top flipped open, and she held it out toward Kimura. He plucked a cigarette from it and pulled a lighter from his pocket as well. A second after taking a drag from the cigarette, he pulled it away from his mouth and started coughing. “Virginia Slims? Really?”

“Kiss my ass. Were those the same girls who told you I stole from the team?”

“Told me you punched the shit out of the coach when he pulled all of those receipts on you, too,” Kimura said with a grin.

“Yeah, well, I don’t like being used,” Chieko said with a scowl.

“Well, if it means anything, I don’t believe that you took that money.” Kimura took another drag from the cigarette. “So, can’t you tell me a bit more about you and Hino? Help me fill in the gaps a bit? I promise, it’ll help a lot.”

Chieko took another drag. Her head felt heavy. The last thing she wanted to do was let anyone else into her life, but that tiny little part of her that still believed in the good in people and God’s mercy and all of those optimistic things that hadn’t been true for her in ages wanted to believe in Kimura too.

And, suddenly, it all came spilling out.

She and Daisuke had met back in middle school, when she was on the tail end of her suspension from punching out that coach. They’d found a kind of carnal pleasure together, first from breaking car windows and punching out delinquent kids from the next school over, and then, as they’d gotten older, in each other. Even as the environment had changed, and Daisuke couldn’t run around playing gang leader anymore, they’d stuck together.

He’d understood her in a way that most other people couldn’t. It wasn’t just that he got what made her tick – he’d understood when she needed her space, and why she was angry about the things she was. He knew her as more than just the scary outsides, the too-tall girl with the no-nonsense face and the violent rumors. She knew him as more than the too-strong boy who’d been kicked out of his home at sixteen and taken it out on everyone around him. They completed each other, somewhere between the haze of violence and sweaty nights on the tatami mats.

Daisuke had graduated high school a year before she did, so while Chieko had tried to focus on passing her exams for the first time in years, he’d gone and started working at a car mechanic in the area. It was steady, honest work, or at least it had sounded like it to Chieko. But then, one day, a few months back, Daisuke had just stopped answering her phone calls. He’d left his job on time that day – his boss had said that much, but he’d just never made it home. She’d tried calling the cops – and God knew how much it took for her to call the cops – but they hadn’t found anything either, and she wasn’t sure if that was because they weren’t taking it seriously, or because the trail had just gone that cold. And that had all been months ago. Months of no answers, months of just her on her own, with her other half just gone.

Not that she expected Kimura to understand that. Oh, sure, people talked all the time about their high school sweethearts, but how many people believed that kind of thing was real? But she knew she and Daisuke had had something, or, at the very least, she remembered it that way because it was the only way she could process everything. It had been so long since she could speak honestly to anyone, that she felt like she’d just jumped at the first person who’d listen to her.

But Kimura didn’t scoff or laugh at her. He just pulled out this memo pad from his pants pocket and started scribbling away.

By the time she’d finished, her cigarette had burnt down to the filter. Her mouth suddenly felt very dry. Quietly, she rubbed it out on the top of the railing, and tilted her head back toward Kimura.

“So, there you go. That’s my whole side of the story,” she said. She flicked the cigarette butt over the railing, and watched it tumble into the parking lot below.

“Sounds like you’ve had it rough,” Kimura said. He closed his pad and turned toward her. He opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again, biting his lip. Awkwardly, he scratched the back of his head.

After a second, he reopened his pad, scribbled something down, and tore off a page. He handed the pad and pen over to her.

“Here. Write down your phone number for me, and I’ll give you mine, too. I’ll be sure to get back to you if I find anything out, okay?” Kimura said. She did just that and passed the pad back, and he handed her the piece of paper he’d torn off in return. “You’re an honest kid, even if you don’t wanna say it. Try and hang in there.”

“Sure. Whatever.” Chieko slipped her hands into her pockets.

“Well, it’s getting late, so I’d better head out, see if I can glean anything from this. You go ahead and lock up, alright? I’ll call you. Promise,” Kimura said. Chieko didn’t respond, and only turned back toward the balcony and stared off at the skyline.

Kimura gave her a wave, and then started walking back down the stairs. She heard his shoes clanging on the metal stairs more than she saw him walk away, honestly, but it wasn’t until the sound had stopped for a good minute that she could peel herself away from the railing. She felt this ache in her eyes, like she should have cried, but couldn’t. But then, it had been a while since she’d been able to work up the energy to do even that.

Sighing, she stretched, and then turned back around toward the door to lock it once more.

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

Two months passed without incident. Kimura had never called her back, and Chieko had gotten back to her life, the thought of that strange afternoon still sitting uncomfortably in the back of her head. She’d cleaned out Daisuke’s apartment, and she’d handed back over her key, though she knew the landlord was probably going to change the locks anyways, just in case Daisuke came back after all. Daisuke’s stuff had ended up stuffed into a couple of boxes in her closet. The school year had dragged on – her grades remained, predictably, terrible, but she’d tried.

She’d spent Christmas alone at the batting cages, the echo of balls hitting the far wall mixing with the sounds of Christmas carols over the speakers. Most years, she went to church for a couple hours with her mom – even if she was the only girl she knew at her school who did. The past few years, she’d spent it with Daisuke, going on a date with him like all of the other good Japanese girls did. This was the first year in a while that she’d spent it alone, with nothing but herself and that twinge of pain with every swing to keep her company.

It was the day that the winter holiday ended and the next semester started that she finally got an answer to what Kimura had been up to.

She was on her way out of the school when she saw a couple of girls giggling over a magazine suddenly stop when they saw her pass. She turned toward them, scowling.

“Is there a problem?” Chieko said, pulling her hands from her pockets. The girls looked up at her, their voices caught in their throats. Suddenly, they dashed away, the magazine falling from the girls’ hands. Chieko clicked her tongue as they ran past, and then bent down over the magazine. The cover was a mess of bolded, brash kanji declaring bizarre headlines about celebrities she barely knew the names of. She picked it up like she might a piece of trash and straightened up.

“A tabloid…?” she murmured. Vaguely intrigued, she leaned against the wall and began to flip through it, until her thumb stopped on a very familiar photo.

It was a picture of herself, her face just out of view, standing in the walkway of Daisuke’s apartments and smoking a cigarette.

“HE JUST LEFT WITHOUT A WORD” – TALES OF TEENAGE SEX, LOVE, AND VIOLENCE IN TOSHIMA

By Masayoshi Kondo

Her body felt like it was moving on auto-pilot as she read over the article. Every word of it felt like poison straight into her veins. It was a collection of chopped up, choice quotes from apparent on-the-ground interviews with boys and girls just like her. But the majority of it she knew all too well, because they were things she’d told Kimura himself, blown up and exaggerated to the point that it was just barely recognizable. The writing dwelled on the curves of her body and how she was just “barely legal”, how Daisuke had “cruelly abandoned” her. Not once was her name stated, but it made no point of hiding Daisuke’s. Anyone who mattered knew exactly who it was talking about.

Her hands started shaking. This had to be a joke.

Suddenly, her legs started moving on her own. Vaguely, she knew where she was going – Daisuke’s brother attended the same school, so maybe he was still here. That kid was a goody-two-shoes, so he probably stayed late just to make sure the cleaning got done right. There was no way he could have gone home.

She pushed her way through the crowds heading out of the school building and down the stairs to the second-year classrooms, continuing to weave her way through the halls until, finally, she saw a head of dyed brown, permed hair heading out of his classroom.

“Hey!” Chieko yelled. The boy turned around, blinking at her, and then broke eye contact and started walking further down the hallway. She shoved a kissing couple out of the way as she ran through the hallway, ignoring their shouts of protest. Finally, she caught up to the kid and grabbed him by the shoulder, tugging her around toward him.

“Ow!” He slapped her hand away, but she held her ground. “Christ, Sato, what’s your problem!?”

“What happened to that detective your family hired?” Chieko asked.

“What?”

“The detective, Yukio! The one that was looking for Daisuke! What happened to that detective?!”

“What are you talking about? We never hired a detective,” Yukio said, his expression the picture of confusion.

Chieko’s grip loosened on the magazine.

“Look, I need to go, okay? Please don’t talk to me at school anymore unless you have to,” Yukio said, and he pushed his way past her. She followed the back of his head, watching as he retreated down the stairwell, and then turned her gaze back toward the magazine. This had to be some kind of mistake.

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

She practically threw her outdoor shoes off as she came running into the apartment, the magazine curled into the crook of her arm and the door slamming behind her. The hallway was dark – her mom wasn’t home yet. Her chest rose in quick, clipped breaths as she retreated into her bedroom and ran to her desk. She pushed cups and papers aside until, finally, she found the small sheet of paper that she’d been given two months ago. Gingerly, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She tapped her finger against the screen several times, every button press feeling like it took more effort than anything she’d ever done in her life.

Finally, with a shaking hand, she lifted the phone to her ear, and waited.

“I’m sorry, but this number is not in service…”

“Goddammit!” Chieko pulled her phone from her ear and jabbed at the screen. She pulled the magazine from the crook of her arm and flipped to the back, where an array of business numbers revealed themselves. Angrily, she punched the numbers into her phone and waited for someone to pick up.

This time, someone did – a high-pitched man’s voice. “Hello, you’ve reached the offices of Spa! Magazine. May I help you with something?”

“I need to talk to Kimura.” The words were out of her mouth before she could even think about what she was saying.

“Kimura? I’m sorry, but we don’t currently employ anyone by the name of—”

“Kondo, Masayoshi, I don’t know what the hell he’s calling himself! That’s what he told me his name was when I talked to him!”

There was a moment-too-long of hesitation before the voice on the other end of the phone answered. “…I’m sorry, but Mr. Kondo isn’t in at the moment. I can—”

“This isn’t what he told me was going on! This is bullshit!”

“Our reporters always act with the highest integrity, and—"

“HE TOLD ME HE WAS A FUCKING DETECTIVE!” Chieko screamed into the receiver. There was a click from the other end of the line. A dial tone droned back at her from the phone speaker, as if mocking her. She let out a scream and threw her phone at the wall, and then, she buried her head in her hands and fell to her knees.

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

She didn’t go back to the batting cages for another week after that. Every trail she’d tried to follow had gone cold. The LINE account that Kimura had originally messaged her on had been deleted, and he wasn’t responding to emails either. The publishing company had blocked her number. She’d tracked down their local offices, on the other end of town, but she knew better than to go inside. They’d probably arrest her on spot.

The only thing to do had been to crawl into her dark fantasies and wallow in them, and then, when that hadn’t been enough, she’d dragged herself to the only thing that made her feel anything anymore and pumped so much money into that machine that it would be hours before she went anywhere else. The wait for the ball to fire and the reactionary swing of the bat formed a hypnotic rhythm. It helped her forget where she was and put her in the ideal world of her mind.

In her head, she found that man in his publishing company’s office. She followed him, slowly, through the dark, empty offices (they were always empty in her fantasies). He stumbled over himself, pulling chairs from their cubicles and throwing them at her to try and stop her implacable progress.

She swung her bat at the ball, and it impacted with a crack. A jolt of pain ran up from her fingers into her shoulder, and she winced. From the far end of the range, a screen announced that she’d hit into left field.

In the fantasy, she tapped her bat against her leg as she walked. She slammed it into a decorative potted plant, and it shattered, scattering dirt and plant parts across the ground. The kind of plant was irrelevant and indistinct, but today, it felt like a fern. The man stumbled over himself as he ran into a storage closet, falling onto the flats of his arms. He twisted himself and started scurry backwards on all fours, his back pressing against the columns of storage cabinets.

She swung at a flying ball just a bit too late. A speaker loudly announced a strike as she got back into position. Throbbing pain ran all the way up her arm like an alarm bell.

The man of two names begged for his life, his back to the cabinets. He kicked out, still trying to scurry backwards when there was nowhere to go. He apologized over and over again, and promised her the world. And the Chieko of her fantasies didn’t hesitate. She just lifted her bat above her head, and slammed it down into his skull. She did it over, and over, and over again, until he’d stopped apologizing. And she looked down at his body, and felt nothing.

The pitching machine blared out a warning, and fired. The Chieko of now took a swing. Halfway through the swing, something in her shoulder tore.

Pain seared all the way through her chest and arm, white-hot like a bullet. The ball hit the net behind her as she fell to her knees, grasping uselessly at her left shoulder as the bat tumbled from her fingers. She dug her fingers in through the sleeve of her jacket and grit her teeth. She tried to scream out, but her voice caught in her throat. Her nails dug in harder as she doubled over, pressing her face nearly to the ground.

Behind her, another ball hit the net and rolled uselessly to her side. She carefully crawled to the side of the cage, and then, she pulled her fingers from her shoulder and looped them through the holes in the net. With the support of the net, she pulled herself to her feet, and, shaking, pushed herself back through the door.

She collapsed onto a bench in the lobby, her hands in her lap. She needed to drag herself to a doctor, and see what she’d done to herself again. She needed to, but –

“You’re an honest kid. Try and hang in there.”

But the only thing she could think about was what that asshole had said the last time she’d seen him. The chokehold on her throat let up for a second, and at that moment, the corners of her eyes started to burn with a ferocity that they hadn’t in months.

She bowed her head, sweat dripping into her bangs, and began to scream.

#writing #short story #cawfulwriting

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