#i feel like the first piece i make after art block and the last piece i make before art block are the best ones

[mintjeru]

happy year of the snake!! 🐍 may all things go smoothly for you this year 🍊🍊

open for better quality | no reposts

[erodasfishtacos]

A Touchdown & Tears (NFL!YN x Sports Photographer!YN)

prompt: a chipped tooth, bloody nose, and a whole lot of feelings for a young couple who couldn’t make it last.

word count: 4k

warnings: blood, angst, breakups

author's note:

I upload a piece of writing every 1-3 days.

I recently started a second tier called The OG Tier where 2-3 one shots (1-4kish) are posted a week.

There are currently 350 + pieces available to read

Tier I - $3 USD where you get access to main stories, everything except the mini one shots.

Tier II - $5 USD where you get access to every piece of writing!

you can check it out here!

--

Harry doesn’t think the first time that he would bump into his first girlfriend from high school would be when he’s given her a bloody nose and a chipped front tooth.

Hear him out.

It was playoffs, Harry was playing like a beast and at the rate he was going, he was leading his team to the Super Bowl.

Towards the end, the opposing team, The Steelers, were coming up to tie the game because their defense had been lacking this whole time.

There were only six seconds left in the game when Harry did a sneak move where he faked throwing the ball but ran it to the end zone instead to score another touchdown.

With the momentum that he was running, he was running right towards the line of photographers, cheerleaders, other staff that lined the field.

He was just about to dig his cleats in to the turf to stop himself but an angry player of the opposing team hits him hard from behind.

It was unexpected and it sends him flying forwards into the line of staff, he winces when he falls directly on someone, and he unfortunately hears his helmet hit their un-helmeted head.

A yelp of pain is emitted from the person below him, he quickly pushes himself up, and onto his knees beside the staff member.

And he’s startled for a myriad of reasons.

The blood.

The tears.

The fact that he was staring at his first love.

YN.

Harry’s first girlfriend, first love, and honestly he thought that she might be his one true love, soulmate.

They’d been broken up for three years.

Three long years.

But Harry thought about her nearly everyday, wondering what she was doing, where she lived, and when he was feeling down - who’s bed she was in at night.

YN had blocked him, on every platform, and never unblocked from Harry’s checking - only able to creep from a finsta account.

Harry was down bad for YN, always had been.

They started dating in eighth grade, freshly fifteen, and so in love that it was stupid.

Nobody thought they would last, who would?

It was puppy love.

But time went on and they’d never broken up.

They decided on the same school, Norte Dame where Harry would go on to excel in football as she would in creative arts and photography.

Harry would have to rush home from away football games to come to her art galleries, typically making the whole team come with him.

They were fine until middle of senior year.

The stress was at an all-time high.

Harry was up for the Heisman Trophy (which he won) and was being scouted by the NFL, all while leading headlines on ESPN.

YN was a sure thing in his mind, the most stable and unwavering aspect which meant that he put their relationship on the backburner.

Like it would always be there.

He was loyal to YN, never once even remotely came close to cheating, that’s not what he means by neglecting their relationship.

Harry stopped randomly showing up to the media room after practice, instead choosing to go right to his frat to sleep.

Harry didn’t want to ever stay at her dorm anymore because he was always achey and her bed sucked which meant unless she agreed to sleep at a rowdy frat, she slept alone.

YN tried to keep the spark alive but she felt it slipping through her fingertips as Harry forgot to even mention that he got a sponsorship for Under Armor.

Harry was disconnected from everything but football.

He expected YN to deal with it, until it settled, and he got a spot in the NFL, then they could be perfect again.

He was stupid, greedy, and unfair to the person he loved most on this earth.

It came to a head when Harry was laying in his bed, a container of meal prepped chicken and rice on his stomach that he ate while watching a new Netflix series.

He hadn’t checked his phone, it had been on silent all day, and he didn’t have the energy to look at the damn thing.

Until his bedroom door comes swinging open and his girlfriend comes barging into the room with tear tracks down her cheeks.

She was dressed beautifully in a tailored suit with a structured bodysuit underneath.

Her makeup was smeared around her eyes but he was sure it looked impeccable before the tears had started.

“What the fuck?” Harry sits up instantly, going completely protective when he demands, “What happened? Who made you cry?”

YN doesn’t run into his arms like he expected when he opened them fo her.

No, instead she crosses them over her chest.

“You, you fucking did,” YN’s voice cracked on the last syllable, “I’ve been there for every important event for you. Even the less important ones, Harry. Since we were fifteen. You-you couldn’t even be bothered to care about the most important night of my college career.”

Harry feels a heart-stopping chill wash over him, like someone had just poured a gallon of ice on his body.

“Fuck, baby,” Harry starts to apologize, sitting up and uncaring when his dinner topples onto the floor and spills, “I can’t believe-“

It was her final presentation.

YN has been chosen to present her photographs in a gallery in the city, only two student got chosen, and she was one of them.

She’d been working on this project since the start of the year, it was her baby, and she had put her blood, sweat, and tears into it.

Harry hadn’t shown.

“I tried calling, texting, and you were just sitting in your bed? Carefree as fuck, huh?” YN laughs but neither of them think this is any part comical.

To hear the curse words leaving her mouth was odd.

Harry was the one in the relationship to have the mouth of a sailor, hearing it from YN in this context was almost…scary.

“No, baby. S’not like that,” Harry feels his throat tightening because he knows he’s fucked up, for the last few months, and this…this was bad.

“I can’t anymore, Harry,” YN sniffles as she blinks up at the ceiling, willing her tears to stop, “You haven’t been my Harry for the last eight months. I’ve been trying to be understanding but I don’t think you realize how poorly you’ve been treating me.”

“I can make it up to you, nut,” Harry tries desperately, standing up but hesitating when she takes a step back.

Nut- her nickname since they were in grade school.

YN bites her lip, the tears were uncontrollable, “This time, I don’t think you can. Harry, you haven’t come to one of my exhibits this year, you forgot our anniversary until the middle of that day, and haven’t once made plans for us. It’s always me now.”

Harry has a disgusting, sinking feeling because he knew that she was absolutely right.

“If you had fallen out of love with me, wh-why did you string me along?” YN asks quietly, he’d never heard her sound so broken, so tired, and hopeless.

“Don’t,” Harry gets louder, “Don’t you dare fuckin’ say that. I am so in love with you. Everyday it’s more and more.”

YN swallows down a sob, “I don’t want to be in a relationship where this is how someone shows me they love me. You’ve changed. You promised me football wouldn’t change you. You fucking promised me!”

“It’s hasn’t!” Harry defends sharply but he knows she’s right and he’s so disappointed in himself at this.

YN dabs her eyes with the heel of her hand, “I’m done, Harry. I love you. I imagined marriage, kids, my entire future with you. I…I can’t be with someone who goes out to a bar with their teammates while I’m begging you for attention and end up sitting in my dorm all alone.”

Harry shakes his head, “No! You’re not breaking up with me! You’re not fucking throwing away our relationship! It’s been fucking eight years!”

“I didn’t throw it away,” YN argues softly, her gentle tone makes it ten times worse because he knows she’s being rational, not emotionally driven, “You threw it away over and over again while I tried to pick up the pieces.”

“YN, this isn’t over,” Harry is yelling at this point, his heart was feeling like it was about to explode and there were fat tears streaming down his face, “Im not letting you fucking do this! To us!”

Harry isn’t thinking when he steps in front of the door, panicked and desperate to just have her listening, “We’re working it out.”

A knock and the door jolts open, a few of his teammates who had clearly been listening give their captain a serious look.

“H, you have to let her leave,” Niall says in a unsually subdued tone.

“Fuck off and mind your own god damn business,” Harry growls at him, his anger was uncharacteristic and frightening for the normally happy-go-lucky man.

“C’mon, YN,” Liam waves her over, giving Harey a firm look as he escorts her out of his room, “I’ll give you a lift home.”

-

Harry doesn’t sleep.

Harry destroys his room.

He breaks his most prized trophy.

His frat brothers throw him a party to cheer him up.

Harry gets so drunk that he sees double of everything.

He doesn’t know what’s going on as a girl shuts his bedroom door, giggling, and sloppily kissing at his neck.

He doesn’t like it.

It’s not YN.

He is about to tell her that when the door opens again to YN standing there with the most heart-shattering expression on he face.

“It’s been less than a day, Harry,” YN can’t stop the tears, devastated as she looks between the two of them, “I should have known I made the right choice. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

Harry pushes the girl off but YN already disappeared and he can’t find her anywhere in house.

He stumbles back upstairs and passes out, never feeling so low in his entire life.

-

Harry has a massive bouquet of flowers as he knocks on her dorm room door.

When YN opens it, she looks awful with dark circles from lack of sleep, bloodshot eyes, and greasy hair from lack of shower.

“Baby, please please please,” Harry begs as he presents the flowers, “I know I’ve been fucking up but I can’t lose you.”

YN doesn’t react to the flowers, “You’re six months too late, Harry. This gesture would have meant something then. I was considering my decision and then I saw you with that girl last night.”

“I was drunk and we didn’t-“

“Did you cheat on me? During our relationship?” YN’s voice shakes and he fucking hates that she’s even questioning him on that.

“What? Never. Not even close. When would I have had time? I was trying to get it in with you every second I got,” Harry tells her, it was true, he was obsessed with her, her body, her personality.

YN doesn’t look like she believes him and that feels like a dagger through the center of his heart and twisting it.

“I wish you the best, H.”

“No,” Harry nearly whimpers, he steps forward, dropping the flowers and gripping her jaw, searing their lips together.

Surprisingly, YN doesn’t pull away, just grips his biceps and digs her fingertips in enough that it stings.

“Please, I can never love someone like I love you,” Harry whispers against her lips, tasting her tears as they fall.

“Then you’ll have to learn,” YN replies simply, stepping out of his grip and shutting the door on him.

++

That was three years ago.

Since then Harry had some hookups, two very casual relationships, and despite how much he tried to love someone like he loved YN it had never happened.

So as he kneels in front of her, he falls right into familiarity and actions, moving into her space and putting his hands on her shoulders, “Tilt your head back, nut.”

The nickname just naturally rolled off his tongue.

YN listens, she felt like she was about to have a panic attack from the pain radiating through the center of her face.

“Hu-hurts,” YN gasps as Harry helps her tilt her head, he’s pulling off his jersey with his free hand, struggling a bit but he’s trying to wipe the blood off of her face and neck.

“I know, just hold on. The medics are coming,” Harry soothes as he thumbs over her jaw.

Everything felt a bit surreal.

If he ever doubted that YN was the love of his life, it was reaffirmed as he got coated in her blood, her nose absolutely gushing.

“Is this payback for me breaking up with you?” YN manages to crack a joke even though she’s in pain, that’s his fucking girl.

Harry lets an embarrassingly honking laugh as he shakes his head, “Never in a million years. I can’t -“

“Move please,” One medic orders but soon enough, Harry is being shuffled out of the way and his coaches are dragging him back to the team sideline.

The game was over, YN was carted away on one of the little trucks, and Harry had never been so inattentive in a post-game meeting.

None of the compliments, kudos, praise about his game-winning touchdown even registered because he was freaking out about YN.

Harry cancels his plans to attend the after party.

Then he bribes the one medic with season passes to tell him which hospital they sent YN to.

Harry doesn’t think anything through.

He speeds to the hospital, parks without paying, and rushing into the emergency department to the front desk.

The very very old receptionist has absolutely no clue who he is which is perfect.

“I’m here, looking for YN LN,” Harry drums his fingertips against the counter anxiously.

“You have to be on her visitor list to be able to go back and see her,” The woman, Ronda from her name tag, mutters robotically.

Fuck.

He didn’t even think about that.

There’s no chance.

Ronda clicks her mouse a few times, “Only one name on her list.”

Harry knows it’s going to be her mom or dad.

“Are you…” Ronda squints, taking her glasses off to look, “Uh, Harold?”

Harry has to bite his lip because of course that’s what she put his name in as.

Just like she did at every restraunt that had a waitlist or every time he went into pick up their takeout at a cafe.

“Yes,” Harry coughs to disguise his laugh, pulling out his drivers license to show as proof.

++

Harry was holding his breath, wondering why she put his name on the list, was this going to break his heart even further?

Harry knocks of the doorframe before stepping in, YN was sat up in the hospital bed, and watching a trashy reality television show.

“Surprised my name was on the list,” Harry starts quietly, shutting the door behind him and loitering near it.

“I…I didn’t know if you would come,” YN looks down at her hands, shrugging sheepishly, embarassed, “But I was hoping. I don’t know, it was stupid of me. You’re this big ole’ famous star and -“

“And I will always have time for you. I’d never make that mistake twice,” Harry interrupts her, only taking a few more steps in.

“I…it hurts to see you,” YN admits as she swallows harshly, a telltale sign that tears would be coming.

Harry bites his lip, he felt just as choked up, “I can’t even tell you what it’s like to see you again. God, I’ve just never seen anybody as beautiful as you.”

YN rolls her eyes, “You were dating a Victoria’s Secret model.”

“No, I went on one date with her. That’s it and it was for publicity anyways,” Harry corrects her and it was the truth, “What did the doctor say?”

“I have to go see an oral surgeon about my tooth. He said my nose was severely bruised but no broken bones. I’m just waiting to see about my concussion test. I’ll be discharged tomorrow morning.”

“I am so sorry, nut," Harry sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose in sympathy.

“I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Hell, I don’t even know if you’re dating anyone but I have one thing to ask,” YN sits up a bit straighter, he could tell she was nervous.

“Anything,” Harry agrees breathlessly, his hands clenching at his side.

“Lay with me. Hold me tonight, please,” YN begins to tear up, wiping at her eyes, “I miss you everyday. I know it’s a lot to ask or if you have places to be-“

“I canceled everything for tomorrow already,” Harry confesses as he moves forward, “Even if I didn’t. I would drop everything to stay here with you. I’ll hold you for as long as you’ll let me.”

YN squirms over as much as possible to give Harry room, he kicks off his tennis shoes, and crawls onto the bed until he’s on his back.

YN turns on her side, facing towards him, hand resting over his heart, and nuzzling her face delicately to be mindful of her nose in his neck.

He feels hot tears drop from her face onto his skin and all he can do is hold her, slipping a hand under her shirt and rubbing at the warm skin of back.

“M’here, I’m right here,” Harry murmurs shakily, overwhelmed as he buries his own face in her hair and begins to tear up.

God, he fucking missed her.

And more importantly, the scariest thing was confirmed for him.

He’s never, even for a moment, fallen out of love with her.

++

[nomi-c]

Pottery ventures

Professions (1/8) {San}

{San x Reader}

Wordcount: 7K

Genre: Strangers to Lovers, Smut, Pet names (sweetheart), cursing (fuck), Dominant San , Oral Female receiving, Protected intercourse, Fingering

A/n: as always with my ff's, this ff isn't meant to represent the artist in any way or form!

-Minors don't read-

With a last glance on your Phone, you cursed your best friend for cancelling on your monthly planned meet up in the very last second.

Are you sure you can't make it? You texted her, even though you already knew the answer. She spontaneously needs to stay longer at work because of some emergency at the ER.

If you would have known sooner you would've called the workshop owner and cancelled the appointment, but you were already in front of the little studio and the appointment would start in around 10 minutes.

The day was really calm and no one expected a emergency this size.... I'm sure you'll have fun at the workshop, we can still book another appointment at that shop for maybe next week?

You sighed and watched your breath form into tiny clouds as you took a sip of your coffee and pulled the scarf tighter around your neck and partly covered your nose and mouth from the biting snowy wind that caused you to shiver heavily.

I will ask him for another appointment after today, no worries. Stay strong! Love you xxx

Without waiting for another reply since you knew she was busy treating emergency patients, you took a deep breath to calm your nerves and gripped the door handle.

Staying a second longer outside wasn't ideal, seeing as in this part of the town not many people stayed outside after it got dark. It didn't matter that it was only 7pm on a Thursday, once it was dark people stayed at home. It wasn't like the area was criminally populated, it was more that the way the block was built gave off strange vibes and an eerie feeling once the sun set. Maybe it also had to do with the past of this exact block that gave you shivers whenever you thought about the mall tragedy years back.

They were in the middle of renovating the block and erasing the ugly past with new parks and buildings and incredible cafés but nonetheless people didn't forget things that easily and you were sure it would take a long while till people would be walking here carefree again.

The little Pottery studio you would visit today however had a owner who only moved here 6 months ago and probably didn’t know the history of this area before he opened the newly build studio here. When you and your best friend searched for a cool new hobby, you found his website and his rating was 5 stars through the bench.

You decided to give him a shot since the comments were good and some of the pieces you saw on his website were drop dead gorgeous. It wasnt the first workshop you both visited, seeing as you made it your adventure to try new workshops and courses every few meet ups. From photography to drawing, and from parkour lasertag. Every thing so far was awesome and a few things got stuck with you. Two of those things being Taekwondo and Art.

You smiled at the many memories that rotated in your inner eye. With a last look around you, you cautiously pushed the door open and a little bell above you ringed quietly. You instantly reveled in the warmth of the studio as you stepped in fully, you never were the biggest fan of winter and today was a particularly cold day.

Your eyes roamed over the beautifully black and white designed lobby with incredibly expensive looking modern art pieces and others that seemed like landscapes and some others like momentous of people you didn't recognize.

Walking a bit closer to it, you noted that every Individual piece was lit on by a over head lamp that gave each one its own stage and moment to shine and next to each painting you saw a little silver plate that described the painting and mentioned it's artist.

All of them were drawn by the same person, Park Seonghwa. The name didn't sound familiar to you, but whoever he is, he is a incredible painter.

You moved a bit more into the lobby and your gaze fell behind the counter, where you spotted a big lit up showcase with some of the crafted pieces you saw on the website, and with it you again saw little metal signs with the names of the people who crafted them.

You had to give it to the owner, he had a love for crediting every person he had pieces of and everyone who created art in his studio. You decided then and there that you already liked the guy.

To your left, you saw a small sitting corner which consisted of two white couches on opposite sites of one another, a black fluffy carpet and a rectangular glass table with art and crafting magazines stacked on one side of it.

On the wall next to the sitting area, you saw a makeshift bistro station with a fancy looking Barista coffee machine.

Without doubt the owner didn't only have taste in aesthetic but also in what he consumes, and what he offers his guests you thought to yourself as you saw the variety of pastries next to the coffee machine.

With a last longing look towards the sweet and probably incredibly delicious pastries, you turn back towards the front of the store.

Your eyes travel back towards the counter ahead of you, it is all black and neatly organised from what you could see behind the counter, once you reached the front of it.

Your eyes focused on the jumping screensaver on the computer on the right, that was partly turned into your direction.

You started hearing louder growing steps and focused your attention on the stack of business cards that laid out next to the blooming Poinsettia.

Only when he made his stance behind the counter, you looked up from the business card and your eyes locked with his.

Your breath however got lost along the way, he was around one head taller than you, had dark brown almost black hair, deep brown eyes and a set of adorable dimples that demanded your full attention right instantly.

He seemed to work out a lot, seeing as his frame was huge compared to you, and by huge you were talking about the fact that you could disappear behind his back fully. Looking a bit further down, the black tight shirt he wore revealed to you that his waist seemed pretty petit for his body.

You caught yourself staring at the man before you, so you quickly cleared your throat. Your cheeks burned from embarrassment and you averted your eyes on your gloved hands.

You set the cup of coffee on the counter quickly and started removing your scarf and glove, feeling unbearably warm all of a sudden. "Hello, I am the 7pm appointment. My best friend couldn't make it due to a emergency at work, so it will be just me today. I hope that's still okay with you?" You asked with a slightly shaky voice.

The guy who until now watched you with a slight smile on his lips, leaned down to his computer and typed something on his keyboard. His eyes roamed over the screen and a few seconds later he gave you a quick glance. "It's alright, I hope the emergency isn't too bad. Do you want to schedule a new appointment on top? I won't charge it extra, seeing as you still came here today instead of cancelling last minute."

Your eyes widened in surprise. "I would love that, that is really kind of you Mr. Choi. Would next week at the same time work for you?" You asked with a smile on your lips as you removed your beanie and put it into your bag with the scarf and gloves.

He clicked on his computer a few times, his eyes glued to the screen. "It works perfectly for me, I'll set the appointment. And please call me San, we seem to be around the same age."

You nodded and gave him a smile. "Thank you, San. I'm Y/n, it's nice to meet you." You said as your cautiously extended your hand towards him with a unsure smile on your lips.

Handshakes were mostly out of fashion, especially in winter and even more after the pandemic but you would feel rude to not greet another person that way. Especially someone as kind as him.

San eyed your hand for a second before his dimples reappeared and he laid his hand on yours for a firm handshake. You couldn't help but notice the two rings that adorned his fingers, one golden on his index finger, and a silver infinity looped ring on his middle finger. Odd combination you thought to yourself but didn't dare ask about it.

With anyone else you would say it's a fashion crime to mix gold and silver, but you felt like they had a special meaning and in all honesty you thought that little inconsistency fit with him.

If San noticed he didn't mention it, when he waved his hand towards the pasties to your left. "Can I offer you anything before we get started? A New coffee or maybe some Pastries?" He asked you with a kind smile and warm gaze.

You quickly shook your head. "No, thank you. I still have my coffee. But Thank you very much for the offer."

He nodded and gestured to the right where a big set of double milk glass doors was located. "Shall we?" He asked you with a smirk.

You once again felt your cheeks heat up, something about him made you jumpy but not in the creeped out way. No, he made you jumpy in a manner of your crush replied to your Text message where you ask him to date you kind of way.

You tried to calm your racing heart with a deep breath and focused on the flowers in the corner next to the double door, right beside these broad shoulders attractive shoulders of-

No. Don't go there- you curse yourself out as you follow San through the Glass doors avoiding his body with your hungry eyes as if your life depends on it.

You practically drool over your teacher for your pottery workshop right now, but could anyone actually blame you? San's proportions and looks should've been captured on old paintings cause he had the perfect proportions in any kind of way and form. You were sure artists would fight over him to be their muse, look wise as much as body wise.

You could blame your reaction on the fact that you didn't have a boyfriend or a date in years and your... well, last time feeling like this over a guy was even longer ago.

Feeling San's eyes on you, you slowly lifted your gaze from his shoulders to his eyes and felt exposed by the raw intensity of his stare.

With a smirk on his lips, he shook his head and turned left towards a little table that had a clay sack on top. He grabbed two blocks and placed them one after another on two of the workstations. "You can pick any seat you want."

You woke up from your trance and unholy thoughts about broad backs and muscular arms and set your bag next to the door on the black armchair before you picked the right seat and sat down eying the clay block with interest.

San grabbed two bowls from the side of the sink on the wall to your right and filled them both with water, before he set them next to your clay blocks on the work stations next to the rotation disk.

"Do you have knowledge in pottery?" He asked with his back on you, as he went towards his desk where a bunch of pottery goods sat which he carefully grabbed to place them in yet another showcase to fully dry unharmed.

You shook your head, even though you knew he couldn't see it right now. "I don't know anything about it, me and my best friend wanted to try it and make cute mugs for our reading weekends together."

He nodded, processing your words for a second or two before he turned to his left where a couple of aprons hung on the wall next to the burning oven.

You followed his movements as he picked 2 aprons one smaller and one bigger black one which you assumed was his personal one.

When he turned back around to make his way back to you he had a soft reassuring smile on his lips. "Pottery isn't as difficult as most think it is, you might take a few tries but you'll get the hang of it quickly."

Once he was seated next to you, he handed you the smaller apron slowly. "Did you already think about what you want to create today?" He asked you with a curious expression on his features. His prominent cheekbones slightly rosy from the warmth of the studio.

You quickly searched your mind for possible things you could create and that were easy enough for a absolute beginner as you laid on your apron, but you only came up with a total basic idea. "How about a vase?" You asked as you remembered the beautiful vase you knocked off the dinner table the other day. It was the only vase you had since the many years you lived all alone.

San tilted his head to the side, his indexfinger with the golden ring tapping on his lip absentmindedly. "It's a good choice, easy but with a good purpose."

You nodded in agreement. San's eyes focused on the clay block in front of him before he shot you a quick glance. "I'm sure you already noticed the clay block in front of you, so what we want to do with it to begin, is to loosen it up. We archive that by kneading the clay like a you would with a fresh dough."

He took the clay in his hands and started kneading it and made sure you copy his moves before he spoke again. "We knead or wedge the clay to remove any possible bubbles inside, to make sure our work will be stable and won't break as easily after or during it's getting burned."

You nodded and quickly made a messy bun, already annoyed by the hairs that kept on blocking your view as you kept on kneading the small clay bock thoroughly.

Minutes ticked by with neither of you saying anything, the only sounds in the atelier were your breathings and the faint melody that flowed out of the ceiling speakers quietly.

Your arms were already getting sore and you felt a small droplet of sweat making it's way down your forehead. "How long are we supposed to knead it exactly?" You asked a little out of breath.

San's quiet laugh made you stop your work and look at him instead. He was still kneading the clay, your eyes focused on the strong muscles on his arms and how they moved under every movement he made.

He formed a small clump with it and set it on the middle of the rotating disk. "The longer, the better. It's tiring at the beginning but try to see it as a workout instead with a nice new pottery good as reward." He told you with a smile on his lips.

You shook out your arms, trying to ease some of the burning tension in your muscles and shaped your clay block almost the same. "Can I ask you something?" You asked San as your eyes darted through the artillier and you saw more framed photographies and art pieces on the walls, you even spotted a fallen angel stone figure in the far corner by the window which you didn't notice while entering the space earlier.

San turned in his twisting chair towards you and leaned his elbow on the workstation as he eyed you curiously. "Sure, ask all you want."

You turned towards him as well, glad to rest your arms a bit more as well as stilling your curiosity at the same time. You gestured towards the walls and the stone figure. "Are you interested in photography and art and stone sculpturing? I couldn't help but notice them right away." You said as you once again eyed everything in the room with adoration.

Seeing as you love art yourself you couldn't help yourself but standing up and inspecting it closer. It was like a invisible line pulled you towards the art he displayed and created. The color combinations and techniques the artist used drew you in, and the different vibes and auras each painting gave off seemed to tell a story you yet had to discover fully.

San who slowly walked up behind you, looked at the painting as well. You didn't see his face but could hear the pride in his voice when he spoke again.

"The paintings and sculptures and even the pictures are all from my best friends."

Your eyes went wide as you turned around and looked up at San's face with a dropped jaw. "These belong in big galleries and museums. They are masterpieces."

You saw a dimple form on his left cheek as he paced the room. You followed him, checking the art pieces with him with full attention. "Seonghwa is an artist, he draws everything that captures his interest, from people to objects, to abstract art. He wants to open a gallery in the future, but until then he asked if he could spotlight some paintings here. I loved the idea, it gives the studio flair and showcases his work at the same time."

When you guys reached another photography of what seemed to be a woman's back hugged by shadows and a industrial styled window front with San Francisco in the back, he stopped again as you took in the big framed photograph. "Wooyooung is a photographer, he always had a incredible eye for aesthetic and when he grabs his camera, you can be sure to see a masterpiece as result. He actually has his own gallery, but he gifted me some pieces as welcome present to my first own studio. He helped me a lot building this place."

Your eyes went even bigger as you continued listening to every word San said. He gestured to the angel stature and his smile got soft. "Yeosang is a Stone sculpturor, but if you ask me he should sculpture himself as well cause with his looks he doesn't stand the figures he creates behind in anything at all. I'm sure Michael Angelo would have taken him as student and muse if he would be alive still. His skills are impeccable, even if what he creates sometimes tends to be melancholic." He said as he grazed his hand softly over the broken wings of the crying angel.

You didn't take your eyes away from the stature, too much in awe about its raw beauty to look back at San. "Everything here is incredibly beautiful and has so much meaning behind it, this is breathtaking." You almost whispered as your finger softly touched the forever rolling tear of the angel.

You walked a bit further and carefully grazed your hand over one perfectly tailored mug, it resembled london as you quickly realized with the big ben in the background and a person that seemed to wait for something.

"What's your favorite style?" You asked him as you wondered if he drew the places on pottery that he visited or knew.

A soft smile appeared on your lips at a old memory of your trip there years back for your year abroad.

San sighed as he eyed the mug you softly cradled in your hand. "I don't think I have found my personal style yet, I'm relatively new with painting detailed pieces. I used to just glaze the pieces over in white. It's timeless and classic."

You nodded in agreement. "Does this one has a story? Looking at your work I would say you're a really talented painter as wellby the way."

San leaned against his desk in thought, thinking your words over in his mind as he looked around the office. "Isn't that what art of any kind is about? A purpose or a story that needs or should to be told? Like for example you chose a vase, is there a story behind it? Cause I could think there is one." He asked as he turned his attention on you with a raised brow and a twitch of his lips.

You felt your cheeks heat up in embarrassment. "Well, in my defense I really need a vase. Mine broke months back and since then I haven't been able to buy flowers anymore." You quickly blurted out.

San laughed quietly and opened his mouth to say something but you were faster. "Anyways, you don't need to talk about it when it's too personal. What I was trying to say was that your art is incredible. I'm glad I chose your studio to learn pottery." You followed up saying, trying to erase your embarrassment.

San's cheeks got a slight bit colored and you saw a hint of a dimple as he rubbed his neck awkwardly. "Thank you, shall we continue?"

You nodded and strolled back towards your work station, happy that he didn’t further commented on your choice of work for today.

Once you were seated again, he wet his hands and got the round plate of the workstation spinning. You watched him closely and imitated his movements, your eyes glued to his strong hands as he softly worked on the clay and managed to get the clay to part to a hole on the middle.

Surprisingly enough, you managed to do the same on the first try. A happy laugh bubbled up inside you, as you eyed his next movements like a hawke.

"For the next step, you have press from both the inside and the outside against the clay to thin it out while you also pull it slightly upwards to shape it to your liking." He explained as he wet his hands in the bowl a bit more and slowly did what he explained.

He made sure to place his hands and arms in a way that you would be able to see it perfectly from your seat.

When he was done with that part, he turned off the workstation and turned towards you.

You could easily make out the bigger body and slimmer neck of the vase, when the spinning lessened you had to say it already looked damn near perfect.

Your eyes connected with his for a second, and you saw nothing but kindness and patience in his eyes as he waited for you to start.

With a deep breath, you turned on the workstation with the button on the side, and wet your hands in the bowl with warm water.

You felt San move a bit closer, but paid no attention to him as you set your hands both on the inside and outside of the cool clay.

You recalled his instructions from ealier and started carefully molding the clay. At first it was a bit difficult because even after all the kneading, the clay felt a bit dense.

But easily enough you saw it get thinner and wobblier. It started to seem to spin out of control, and San quickly rolled his chair behind you.

His hands smoothed over yours as he pushed away your foot from the pedal to take control over the spinning speed of the table.

His warm hands engulfed yours easily, as he lessened the pressure you put on the vase. You watched it regain its composure almost immediately.

You felt his warm breath tickle the side of your neck as he leaned his head forward, at your back you softly felt his chest against you.

Your heart started racing as you watched him guide your hands over the body of the vase in an attempt to save it and to even out the thickness of it, seeing as it was pretty uneven. "The first attempts are always a bit out of control, that's totally fine and normal. When you feel it getting out of hand, you have to lessen the speed of the rotation disk. Otherwise you risk the clay to smack into your face."

He explained as you felt his thigh muscles contort and bump against your leg when he showed you how the speed would affect the rotation disk.

You felt your cheeks grow hot and you got unbearably warm. Your mind only seemed to care about his close proximity and his incredibly good smelling perfume. Of how his hands felt around yours and the breath of him that tickled your neck with each breath he took.

You watched as the clay induced liquid rushed over and between your hands as he started forming the neckline of the vase together with you. You caught yourself slightly glancing over towards his face that almost rested on your shoulder and noticed a few lose strands hanging close to his eyes, it was a effort to not automatically reach out and swipe them away.

You shook your head slightly to clear your thoughts, and averted your eyes back towards your forming Vase. He adjusted your fingers on the vase slightly and applied a bit of pressure to your grip before he spoke next. "When you use just about the right amount of pressure, it will turn out just how you want it. This is about the thickness it needs to ensure it's stable and won't break while burning." His voice was raspy and close to your which didn't help your current situation at all. You took a small breath as your legs pressed together Involuntarily.

You nodded, not trusting your voice to not betray you more than your body already did. He angled his arms a bit more to be able to guide you better and in the process his back was now flushed against your back and his arms were pressed against yours further which caused tiny goosebumps and a shiver through out your arms and the back of your neck.

You could swear you heard his breath hitch for a second but you wouldn't allow to let your mind travel to the possibility that he was reacting to you the same way as you reacted to him.

You watched as he guided your hands further up the neck to work on the top rim of the vase. He let go of your hands and dipped them into the bowl quickly and set his hands back on yours.

His head turned towards you slightly. "Do you like it like this? Or should we try out another Design?"

The air rushed out of your lungs as he accidentally grazed your ear while speaking, your back pressed against his chest slightly in response.

You quickly opened your eyes in mortification and quickly shot up from your seat, hitting yourself on the workstation hard enough to probably leave a bruise behind as you fumbled your way out from being wedged between San and the workstation.

You dipped your hands in the now tainted water and wiped your hands on the apron, before you removed your the cardigan and walked the few steps towards your bag to place it on top carefully.

You felt San's presence somewhere behind you vividly, which only worsened the throbbing inside of you. "I gotta use the restroom real quick." You all but blurted out as you quickly exited the room.

You had no clue where said toilet was but you needed distance before you would jump him.

"Second door on the right!" He called after you from where he stood as you barged through the door and almost ran into the restroom.

Once the door was locked, you rested your back against the cool wood and slid down to a crouch.

Deep breaths. In and out. Calm down. You can do this.

After collecting your thoughts for a second, you went up to the sink and splashed your face with ice cold water to get a grip.

Your hands gripped the edge of the marble sink tightly as you eyed yourself in the mirror. "Calm down and focus!" You told yourself with strict face before you patted your face dry and unlocked the door.

The temperature in the lobby felt significantly colder which you gladly welcomed as you walked up to the little table in the sitting area and poured yourself a glass of water from the pitcher.

You took a deep gulp to get rid of your dry mouth as you peaked inside the studio again. You didn’t see him immediately, but you spotted his work station empty.

You stepped inside quietly, scanning the room quickly and spotted leaning against his desk in thoughts.

He wasn't turned towards you, instead he seemed to watch the vase, his vase, do it's thing in the fire oven.

You creeped a bit closer towards him, gripping your water in a death grip as your heart was beating a thousand miles an hour. Once you caught up to him and only a few steps separated you, you cleared your throat to announce your presence without startling him.

His head snapped in your direction and he straightened, before you saw him made a step towards you. "I'm sorry." His voice sounded sincere, but his eyes seemed to hold that same barely contained restraining that you were sure would be mirrored on your own eyes as well. "I'm sorry if I acted unprofessionally towards you, I don't know what I was thinking."

He turned away from you and your had to strain your ears to hear his next words. "That's what I should say, right? Even if I don't mean it." He raked his hands through his hair frustratedly.

Your stomach tightened as you registered his words and saw his exquisite back muscles flex with his movement.

You made a step towards him, as you felt your need coursing through your body violently. That much for calming down.

You set the glass of water down on his desk, as he turned back towards you quickly. His gaze was wild and pure of need as he fixated your full lips and then your eyes. "You know what? I'm actually not sorry. Since you walked in, I can't think fucking straight. I should be professional, I know that, but all I can think about since you stepped into my studio are all the different ways I could fuck you senseless inside of this god damn place. I just want to-"

You didn't let him finish as you closed the distance between you in light speed and crashed your lips against his.

He caught you around your waist reflexively as he tensed up for a second, but then his restrain snapped as grabbed you by your neck and janked you flush against his chest.

A small moan left your lips when your hips connected with his and you felt him hard against your stomach.

You felt his tongue graze over your teeth, asking you for entrance and without thinking twice you let him in. Your tongues started a instant battle for dominance, as you moved your hands through his silken hair and tugged slightly.

You could feel him smirk against your lips as he pushed you back until your ass connected with the desk.

His hands wandered down your sides, setting every inch of clothed skin on fire until he reached your thighs, he gave you a little nudge and you jumped enough to up wrap your legs around his waist thightly.

His hips pushed you onto the table hard and another moan left you at the sensation. His mouth started traveling from your lips onto your neck where his tongue drew lazy circles over your sensitive spot. You felt the fabric of his shirt wrinkle under your tightly fisted hands on his chest as you moaned his name.

One of his hands rested flatly on the desk while his other sneaked over your shoulder in a feather light touch and pulled your straps down, fully in contrast to his wicked tongue. "Please." You bagged as you tugging on his shirt.

He sucked sharply on your neck in response, as your head fell back from the sensation. "Please, what sweetheart? Use your words."

Your back arched as he kissed his way further down your neck. He softly pushed down your tanktop until it pooled at your hips as he clasped open your Bra with his other hand. Out of the corner from your eye you saw your Bra flying to a random corner. "P-please touch me." You begged again as your hand went back to his hair and fisted it?

His indexfinger travelled from your bare right shoulder down onto your hard nipple, where he gave you a slight pinch. "That's what I'm doing right now, no?"

Before you could respond his mouth cupped your other boob and his teeth grazed your sensitive skin.

You pulled on his shirt frantically, desperate to feel his skin under your finger tips. As a whine left your lips, the feeling already overwhelming but at the same time not enough. He released your boob with a pop. "So responsive." He smirked and pulled the shirt over his head to give you a perfect view of his incredible physic.

You let your hand wander over his soft and muscular skin. A growl left his lips as he gripped your wrist and yanked you towards him, his lips crashing on yours in a devouring kiss again.

He unbuttoned your jeans in a swift move and linked his thumbs in the fabric of your jeans as he janked town both your pants and underwear down in one move.

His indexfinger with the golden ring travelled up your bare tigh before it disappeared between your legs where he raked a finger through your soaking folds. Your head fell back in bliss. "Gods"

San eyed your expressions like a hawk, as he cupped you and dipped a two fingers inside of you. Your walls tightened against him as he started pumping inside of you. Your hand gripped his biceps forcefully as your hips rocked against his fingers, taking everything you would get.

Endless moans echoed through the studio as he crashed his lips back on yours. He slightly bit your bottom lip as he curled his fingers inside of you which made you scream out his name.

You could feel your release rapidly build inside of you. "Please.... I'm..." You managed to say, but it was all to overwhelming.

San shook his head with a smirk as he removed his fingers from inside of you. "You're finished when I let you. And I'm dying for a taste." He all but purred before he settled between your legs and looked up at you directly.

It took all your left restrained to not come at that sight directly, and he seemed to notice it, because he grabbed your knees and spread you apart further before he placed your legs on his shoulders.

His smile was deadly as he eyed your bareness before him and dived in light speed.

His tongue laid flat against you as he swiped up your center, your head rolled back as a loud moan left your lips.

San's hands flexed around your thighs as he pulled you closer to wards him. He backed up enough to look back at you. "I want you to look at me, sweetheart."

Your eyes found him reflexively as he dived back in and dipped his tongue inside of you. A rumbling moan left his lips as he started devouring you like a starved man.

While your hips ground against his face shamelessly and greedily. You felt your climax build up in light speed as your legs started trembling. He sucked in your bundle of nerves once twice and your hands gripped his fair painfully. "Come." He ordered and thats all it took as you screamed his name and started seeing stars.

Your release washed over you in intense waves as he picked up every drop of you greedily. You were still shaking uncontrollably as he got up and pulled you flush against his bare chest. His lips found yours and you could taste yourself on him as he spinned you around and bend you down on the desk.

You heard him shuffle and open a condom behind you as your head laid on the side, eying the crying angel stature.

His hand trailed up your spine sensually as he wedged his bare leg between yours and spread your legs apart. You felt his chest against your back, and your ass instinctively pushed back against him.

You felt him twitch against your entrance, as his mouth nipped on your ear before he gave you another soft kiss on your neck.

Without another warning he gripped your hair in his hand and janked your head back as he slammed into you fully. A scream left your lips at the feel of him inside you.

San's voice sounded taut as he pounded into you with enough force to make the whole table move. "Fuck, you're tight."

You slammed your ass back against his hips in desperation as he pulled out of you almost fully and slammed back into you. "You're perfect." He groud out betwen his teeth before his lips found your shouder where he gave you a small kiss.

The glass you set on the table ealier, spilled more and more water on the table but you couldn't give less of a fuck as it just like you for the second time in a row edged closer to destruction.

His lips slammed back on yours as he picked up speed, a trail of moans left both your lips as he pounded in you mercilessly. The scandalous sound of smaking skin, moaning and harsh breathing almost overshadowed the scraping of the table as it moved further and further towards the wall opposite of you.

His movements grew slowly erratic, indicating you that he too was close. As his other hand wandered between your legs where his index finger drew lazy circles around your bud.

You screamed his name as you started shaking and saw blinding white light and stars. His other hand drew soothing circles against your back, much in contrast to his harsh thrusts that had his balls slamming against you with force repeatedly and said. "Let go."

Your back arched and your ass slammed back against him with force as your hands gripped the edge of the desk so hard it was starting to hurt as another scream raked through your body and shattered you into sweet oblivion.

San cursed under his breath as you felt him twitch hard inside your spasming walls. He thrust in you a few more more times, before he too came apart inside of you with a curse of your name on his lips as he rode out both your highs.

Once your both caught your breath a bit he pulled out of you slowly but continued drawing soothing circles on your back. "You know, I've been dreaming of seeing you again from the moment I saw you that day by the namsan tower years back."

Your eyes snapped open in shock, that day you saw him, you realized now. Across the crowd you noticed him and his friends and already back then your breath caught in your lungs.

You've been staring at one another for few seconds when he made a step towards you, waving some of of the peddles from his view.

You were just about to make a step towards them too before your best friend pulled you with her towards the boarding bus.

It followed you for a while on vacation, but you eventually forgot about him. Hell, you didn't even trust yourself that you didn't make the whole thing up back then seeing as your best friend didn't see them at all and said you're crazy.

His Hand massaged the back of your neck under your hair softly. "You asked about the mug earlier, I made it as first art piece once I arrived back home. I was searching for you everywhere that day after you left with your friend, but I couldn't find you."

You set back up on the table as he went up to the sink to wet up a clean cloth, you didn't notice it before but you saw now that he was wearing his underwear again and a loose white shirt.

You pulled up your tanktop again but were still in shock about his recent words. "It's been you? I wasn't sure if I didn't make you up in my mind. My best friend didn't see you guys and said I'm delusional." You laughed to yourself as you already looked forward to clowning her about the whole thing.

After he carefully cleaned you up, he sat you back down on your feet and you quickly pulled up your pants as he did the same.

"Wooyoung never really stopped looking for your friend either by the way. He said she would be his perfect muse." He said with a smirk that highted his dimples even more.

A soft laugh escaped you as a thought formed in your mind. "You just gave me an idea for her next single workshop." San mirrored your knowing smirk as he laced your hand with his and led you towards the work station and your almost finished vase.

He turned towards you with a shy smile. "It might be a bit out of order, but would you like to go on a date with me? I would love to see where our story goes."

You gave him a big smile in return and nodded your head. "I would actually love that."

He took a seat on his spinning chair and pulled you onto his lap before he gave you a kiss on your temple and turned he workstation back on before wet his hands. "Let's start with finishing up your work first."

--

A/n: I tried to proofread this FF as best as I could, but English isn't my first language, and I'm dyslexic so I apologize for the eventual mistakes. I hope you liked this ff.

Little Bonus: I found this while looking for inspos for the thumbnail pic. ♡

[leconcombrerit]

This thing had been rotting in my files for a year (minus three weeks but that's basically a year). It was a redraw of one of my first ever pieces for this fandom, and I still find it quite okay if a little stiff in places, so I thought I might as well share it since I don't draw that much anymore.

And then I had second thoughts, which obviously led to me posting it anyway, as you can see, but I realized I've almost made it a point not to draw anything related to Sasi anymore. As in at all. I can't, and I don't want to, and even sharing old art feels a bit 'meh'. It's too directly linked to my long going art block.

What I mean by that is that if I took all the followers I have out there and asked them what they know me or initially followed me for, you might have a fair amount of Lis 2 and the occasional Desert Bluffs afficionados, but you'd get an overwhelming majority of Sanders Sides. Sanders Sides fashion posts even. I was by no means famous for it or anything, but at my small artist scale, it was the biggest success I had.

And it makes it much harder to go back to it at all now. One, because I don't give a damn about the show anymore. Two, because I haven't been properly obsessing over anything in a while (there was a series early this year but given the actual emotional distress I get thinking about it I'm ruling it out). I haven't had real engagement from my own brain, nor real engagement from a broad audience -which makes sense, I'm not posting for anything that will reach a broad audience. But it takes its toll regardless.

Even when I finally finished writing a long fic, I couldn't help but feel 'all this for what ? Ten people or so and two hundreds have dropped it ?'. Which is a bad way to think about stuff you write for your own enjoyment but, you know, the brain gets happy with external validation even if you pretend really hard you don't care.

And so it feels tempting to go back to the golden goose just the time to get the creative juice pumping back, and I try, and I always end up frustrated and angry and feeling even less like making art that before. I'm not having fun with Sasi. Like an old friend you have nothing to say to and yet you have so much to say otherwise, so you get a bit frustrated, you know ? Not sure I'm making much sense, but that's how it feels. I want to have something like that again, but it won't be with Sanders Sides, and I somehow just want if off my radar.

It was left hanging, then lost its spark, and then I stopped caring altogether and I most likely won't even watch the finale when it does come out. I'm over it. I wish I wasn't though, because it does feel like the artistic spark won't come back all on its own this time, and the buzzing community made it so much easier to bounce back and do shit when your brain got wired all wrong.

It sounds like I'm just bawling after love and likes and stuff, and I guess that's part of it, in a way ? Like I'm in no place to do things for myself, and seeing the one thing I used to use to get back in the flow giving me a bored sense of dread doesn't feel too great.

Yet this drawing is still good ! I find it good ! I don't remember everything, but I can tell from the looks of it that I spent a while on it ! It's nice ! I should celebrate that. So I'm sharing it. I think it will be the last piece of Sasi I ever share, though. I'm not watching the finale when it comes out. I don't care about it. I'll just keep doodling my OCs and characters from cool books every once in a while. I'll write little things.

I just really, really need to stop trying to go back to it when it's clearly not working and not even for good reasons. It was a fun ride though ! So yeah. Basically. A whole ass rant for a one year old piece of art. I'm in my bi-annual depresso mood, nothing too surprising there.

[theus-what-are-you-doing]

DAY 30: COLD

Yet another addition to @cinderellaboyincorectquotes and their anonymous submitter's "Last week of October Challenge". I thank you both for the prompts as always, It was quite fun to work on this one, especially as I had more time to work on it today!

With you guys seemingly liking the prior entry with the fic, I thought it would be good to do a less angsty oneshot to help ease those feelings caused by our poor scared Buddy yesterday. It admittedly has been posted much later than I intended because writers block held my ass in a chokehold midway through. Nevertheless, I made the fic a little longer to try and make it up to you all for the wait. As always, I hope you all enjoy it!~

(If you guys stick around till the end, you might get another art piece linking to the fic too 👀)

=================================

“Look like you’re Freezing”

Cinderella Boy OneShot || 1988 Words

Tonight was a special night.

It was Buddy’s first night of proper freedom, after all. The first night he had a chance to go outside after spending weeks smuggled away in the attic of the one and only Chase Everett Hollow, the first night he would be able to feel the soft autumn breeze on his skin or hear the soft crunch from stepping on the vibrant leaves that lined the streets. The first night that the chapter of his new life started.

See, a few weeks prior, Buddy and his key companion, Violet, managed to flee from the restrictive grasp of Ex Libris and the cage that they were locked within under his servitude. How? It was quite simple, or at least it was for Buddy. He was just waiting around in his cell for his next orders when he heard the door unlock and braced to see his master, only to see the face of…Deacon? He would soon be pulled from his shackles, encouraged to flee from the room. That's when he would come across Chase in the main hall running circles around the being he had grown to be so terrified of, purple key in hand and laughing. He would always ask how they managed to find the location and get in but it was always a mixed reprise about hunting them down over the last few years and Deacon’s brilliant plan to break in but not to get out.

Nevertheless, Buddy was thankful, even now as he stood by the window of the attic, staring down at the streets below with his breathing heavy and arms shaking. Despite being out of the control of Ex Libris, Buddy couldn't help himself, still having a deep fear rooted within, present within his nightmares. A despair that one day he would wake up and be back in that damned cell, or that he would open his eyes to the figure of Ex Libris looming over him, ready to snatch him and the keys back, to hurt his precious Chase.

Speaking of the devil, footsteps interrupted him from his winding thoughts, just as arms wrapped around him from behind and gave a cheeky but affectionate squeeze. A cheery voice met his ears, pleasant and always managing to calm him.

“What are you doing brooding up here?”

“I’m not brooding”

“Uh huh…~”

Buddy took a deep breath, turning around with his features still shaking. Such a sight caused the owner of the voice, Chase, to stiffen a little, eyes growing clouded with worry as he took his hands. He knew what this was about, It had been like this for the past few weeks and he wasn't an idiot.

“Still worried about them returning, huh..?”

This earned a soft noise and a following nod from Buddy as he sunk his weightless and lanky body into him, giving Chase something akin to a hug, but lacking any arm movement. The blonde’s arms moved up to wrap around his waist to make up for it however, just as his voice hushed down into a barely audible whisper.

“Well… We’re going to head outside together today…We need to get you some clothes. You can do this..”

They both glanced down at the oversized crimson hoodie that Buddy had practically lived in for the past few weeks, A strange phenomenon of never changing out of it unless forced when it needed to be washed or until he was showering, becoming an even stranger cycle as he insisted on staying in his towel until the hoodie had been washed and dried. As cute as the raven looked in it, however, he admitted he needed a change, both of them did. And so, with a moment's hesitation, Buddy nodded to the suggestion of leaving, soon pulling away and moving to slip into some shoes that he had actually borrowed from Deacon.

The two would make their way downstairs passing the keys as they travelled to the door, and Buddy couldn't help but make a note of what was happening with them. See, Chase’s hunt for keys inevitably made its way to Grandad Ralph finding out about their existence. Despite his initial shock, he did allow them to have access to the rest of the house after feeling a little bad that they were stuck in the attic, but only if they agreed not to cause any destruction (which in all honesty, they were quite good at somehow doing the opposite, leaving the rooms cleaner than when they first entered). They made quite a few games with their new found freedom, but they were currently making flower crowns out of origami paper provided by Prunella's mother, yet another person who found out about their existence, even befriending a key herself. 

Buddy made some sort of amused noise as he spotted Violet towards the back of the table, feverishly and methodically making flowers for her sister, Silver. She glanced up after catching sight of him, grinning with her opalesce eyes shining, and soon called him over.

“You're going out?”

“Yeah… I thought it was about time.”

“How brave! What exactly are you doing?”

“I believe getting clothes…”

“That's exciting! Make sure to get yourself something nice! And… oh! Could you get more of these paper things? They're rather fun to play with!”

Buddy nodded, finding it hard to not grin with her infectious excitement. He couldn't deny that ever since Violet had reunited with her siblings under the care of the Hollows, she seemed… So much happier, like the colours in her eyes were brighter and more radiant. It was nice to see such a positive effect. Yet he couldn't dawdle, with Chase watching from the door and unintentionally pressuring him to hurry up. He bid his “See you soons” to her and quickly got to the door.

The next events went by in an overwhelming swirl for the poor raven, all too much as he was pulled out of the house, pestered after meeting up with Deacon and Prunella, and whisked away to the shopping centre. Once there however, he would admit that the seemingly infinite stores were impressive at least, with most of his interest focusing within what Chase described as “Alt shops”. Many of the outfits there reminded him of what Violet was so fond of dressing him in back in their old life… and although such outfits were linked with quite a bit of negativity, he couldn't help but gravitate toward them. Nevertheless, he had managed to collect quite a few things he adored, including but not limited to: band tees, loose jackets, an array of villain themed jumpers and hoodies that he thought Violet might enjoy and boots that he only got because they made him even taller than Chase.

Before he knew it, the trip was over, and the three had made their way through the automatic doors of the shopping centre, leaving to what seemed to be quite the bit of a different environment.

Buddy seemed to stumble, pausing a bit as he exited, finally taking note of the changes around him. The sky had turned a deep orange and the streets were dimly lit by the warm lanterns lining them. But there were so many shadows, things he couldn't quite see.

So… this was night?

Of course, this wasn’t the first time the boy had seen the evening sky, having a tendency to always quietly admire them from the attic window. But to actually be out in it was a completely different story. Every shadow could hold them… he could be dragged in and no one would even know. There were those nerves again from before, causing his fingers to tremble. Deacon and Prunella had seemingly started to walk off, not wanting to get caught with the chill in the air and a little busy talking about a horse top Prunella had forced Deacon to buy.

But Chase paused and lingered beside his frozen friend, approaching quietly and snapping his attention to him as he drew him into a hug. Although the affection wasn't returned immediately, he eventually felt the raven hair tickle his jaw as Buddy began to bury himself into the crook of his neck. They spent a few moments like that before they both pulled away, Buddy's hands slipping to Chase's hips and his own hands resting on the other's chest. Feeling the beating heart under his fingertips, Chase suddenly understood what was happening. But they had come so far! Buddy was enjoying himself up to now, would it have been the best response to point it out? 

That's when Chase had decided, and in not wanting to bring it up and make buddy self conscious after they had come so far, he sweetly smiled before taking a different approach. Taking a brand new striped scarf that Buddy had gotten while out, he took a moment to drape it around both of their shoulders, earning a confused glance from the raven.

“What are you doing?”

Chase let out a giggle

“Just giving you a bit of warmth! You look like you're freezing!”

Buddy took a moment, eyebrows furrowed as some cogs began to turn in his mind. Yet they stopped after a moment, confusion meeting his expression again

“That's not… My shoulders aren't cold..?” 

Chase had to stifle a laugh at the pure adorableness of Buddy not entirely understanding what he was trying to do. He promptly pushed a little further, seeing if that could achieve his goal.

“Then perhaps another part of you is… Your legs, your chest..”

Chase's hands began to glide over his chest area, causing a bob to form in Buddy’s throat. What was that feeling? Like his stomach was flipping and wriggling… it wasn't unpleasant but certainly new. Chase only continued with his suggestions.

“Your face, your ears… maybe even your lips?”

So that was his plan, hoping he could distract him with flirting, strange but not entirely uncredible, that had worked in the past after all.

Buddy went bright red with the suggestion, mind lingering on the lips. He wouldn't deny that he had been wanting to kiss Chase from the moment that he and deacon had saved him. Scratch that, he's wanted to kiss him from the moment he started providing him with food within their book based adventures, ever since he slept in that damn hoodie when Chase first left it behind, way before he was saved. 

For so long now, he had longed to pursue him. But Buddy wasn't entirely sure how to initiate such a relationship, strange since he had seen so many books where the hero kissed the Heroine, so many initiated kisses. But none had ever been the Heroine and the villain... All he could do was try, lips parting as he answered 

“Well… My lips are a little cold… I don't suppose you have a way to warm them up, do you?” 

Chase couldn't help but bite his own lip, looking up with a bit of a starstruck expression, kind of surprised that Buddy was actually entertaining him. He nodded softly, muttering a “Can I?”. Once receiving a nod from Buddy, he took a bit of an anticipating breath before leaning up. This had been the moment that he had waited for, the moment he had… admittedly dreamed more times than he could count.

His eyes closed as he planted a soft kiss upon the others thin and cold lips, pressing into them and receiving a similar motion back. What was meant to be a sweet peck soon would linger, neither boy willing to pull away. Buddy's eyes closed slightly just as drew Chase closer by his waist, a warm and unfamiliar feeling blooming in his chest and easing his anxieties and fear. His shaking finally began to stop, and although occupied with what was becoming an admittedly heated kiss, a faint thought crossed his mind. 

Perhaps he was finally safe after all.

[allaboutalf]

At this point Buck & Tommy shippers/multi shippers just need to not engage with the toxic buddie shippers at all. That’s what I’m going to do.

They’ve reached a level where there’s no reasoning with them and the negativity is off the charts. Anything you do now will just egg them on. Don’t quote them, don’t screenshot the weird things they say, don’t argue their theories, don’t post the anon hate, don’t try to argue sense to them. Just let them be and close the door to them so they can’t impact enjoyment of the show. Leave them to their echo chamber. Block them and don’t engage.

Instead be loud and proud about what you enjoy about the show in your own spaces and around the general public, on official accounts, and when relaying your appreciation to the cast/producers/crew/writers. Create the art and write the stories and talk to people who enjoy what you do too and let’s get back to the relatively positive space we were in just after 7.04.

The only thing I think you should still do when it comes to any toxic people is call out when they attack real people like fans, fan artists and actors and writers. When they do things to bully and harass. I think it’s good to not let that slide. I’ll still call that out.

But anything else, it’s just not worth putting yourself in that space. Let them act like toxic children over a TV show and just feed their misery to each other.

And the few extreme people on the Buck & Tommy side, I hope you can take this onboard too. Cause at first I did get it. I still do get the want to defend yourself and to push back when you’re being bullied just cause you enjoy something. But the few who are basically the Buck & Tommy version of toxic buddies now are making it harder for us all. The negativity hypes up the negativity of others, especially when you’re seeking them out to argue with no cause. The whole thing is starting to annoy those in the fandom who are neutral and those who agree with you but feel like it’s going too far now and leaving a bad taste in the mouth.

I think it’s doing the ship a disservice to be exactly the same as toxic buddie shippers cause all it does is turn people off the ship like the toxic buddies are doing to the buddie ship. And personally I just want to enjoy the ship for however long it lasts and look back with positivity whenever things are done (be it soon or way down the line).

Look obviously you do you, I’m just saying my piece and you can ignore it but I really recommend just leaving them be beyond calling out the truly terrible, toxic stuff. For your own mental health and for everyone’s enjoyment of the show.

[potol0ver]

Ask; Hello, I read you have your request open, and I really like how you write about Erik. So, if you feel in the mood, I like some scenario (GN or AFAB) in which y/n starts to work ato Opera House like an skilled effect artist and one night, when y/n finally has some time free and alone, Erik found her playing something like ROxxanne tango with the cello, because she play it but only for herself.

Tags; Fluff, GN reader (you and yours),

A/N; Hey, I’ve been silent for a while and I’m sorry for that. I wasn’t motivated to post any fics and was in writers block. Now I need to focus on my health because a serious health concern has come up for me, so I apologize for continuing to be radio silent. I’m a little out of it while I’m writing this so I’m sorry, Please injoy this fic, it will most likely be the last for a while. (You may continue sending asks just be warned I might not be able to get to it for a couple of reasons.)

With a heavy sigh you put aside your art peice, a stage mask that just wasn’t holding up to your standards. You’ve painted over your dried paint and wiped it off to many times to count already. Your hands had become shaky long ago as you sit at your desk that was in an obscure corner of the Opera house.

You push your chair back that gave a screech and sluggishly walked back to your small room in the Opera house. Thankfully it looks like none of your roommates are in the room which means you can properly relax and wind down. Most importantly in your mind, it means you can practice your cello without disturbing anyone.

Quickly you set up your space, adjusting your chair, setting up your music stand, making sure your bow has enough rosin. Flipping to your favorite cello peice you take a breath and start playing. Letting your fingers and how move on the strings fluently, you we’re getting entranced by your cello. Unknown to you, you weren’t the only one being entranced.

Somewhere deep in the Opera house, the Phantom can hear your playing faintly thanks to the echoing of the monumental walls. Intrigued, Erik quietly yet softly made his way to you until he could hear you clearly. Leaning against a wall he let his eyes shut and get wrapping up in your music, loving where you crescendoed and adding your own flare.

When you got to the end of the piece and pause your playing to find another to play, he finally peeked a look at you. He thought you would’ve been apart if the orchestra, but he didn’t recognize you, it also looked your your cello while well kept, was quite old to. Erik became very fascinated by you now, he started by “testing” you. Slipping new and harder pieces for you to try, and if you did play them he’d be happily surprised with how well you make the notes come to life.

Next, after you passed his “test”, he worked hard to see if he can find you a proper newer cello. Only the best for his new found talent, that day by day he was slowly falling for. The more he became infatuated with you he got more determined to find a cello to match your one of a kind soul.

After a while he did find a very good cello, a one of a kind, just for you. So, Erik made quick work to insure it’s yours. He personally polished and cleaned it, making sure no scratches were on the instrument. While you were working hard at your props job for the play, he made diligent work to set up the present in your new room. That of course was also a present from him. How could he let his musical muse share a room with a bunch of strangers?

Leaning the cello against the bedside table he placed a rose and a note next to it. Despite watching you for so long and being so devoted to you, he never got to the courage to say anything to you. Hopefully the grand presents will be a good first impression.

Groggily you walk back to your room, only to be told you don’t sleep there any more. Which after the long day you had of making props wasn’t good for your anxiety. As you followed the directions to your new room, you think about how you could’ve gotten on the bad side of someone to get an even more run down place to sleep in than what you have already had.

All of those thoughts quickly got washed away when you opened the door to your new room. It had everything you needed to live alone, a small kitchen/living room, a nice bedroom with a decent sized closet, even a space to practice your cello. You were so stunned at what you did to deserve this new room that you didn’t question how everything you own was already there.

Quickly, your eyes caught the sight of the luxurious cello next to your new bed. Gently you caressed it, looking over all of the fine details, it looked like a masterpiece that was specifically catered to you. The red rose next to the cello caught your eye next, along with the letter that had a skull stamp.

Carefully opening the letter you scanned the words, a mixture of your emotions sitting in your stomach as you read.

“My dear, I have heard you playing for a while now, and I must say the way you make the notes come to life is hauntingly stunning. You have caught my interest in the best way.

I know you haven’t seen me or heard me before, which is why I hope your new room and house warming gifts are a good first impression. If you wish, I can also arrange a seat for you in the opera’s orchestra so you don’t have to continue working in the messy arts department.

P.S. If it’s not to much to ask, I would like to hear back from you, so please consider us to be pen pals now. Also, if you ever need a quiet place to practice you can always come to my lair to whine down, maybe that way we can play music together.

~Yours devotedly O.G.”

A single thought ran through your mind as a mixture of unease and swooning butterflies ran through you…

What have you gotten yourself into?

[thepenandthepistol]

Empty Page (Pearl x reader)

When hit with a creative block, you spend some time on the Hermitcraft server, Pearl's base being your last stop. An evening spent in her newly constructed ballroom changes your perspective, for better or for worse.

A/N: This was really fun to write, at first, it was going to be just some fluff but I can't help myself and I made it a bit sad- The next piece after this will probably be a bit longer, so here's something shorter and sweeter to keep us going in the meantime. Inspired by Empty Page from the Crane Wives. (1261 words)

Art by @/applestruda and dividers by @/cafekitsune

Summer has taken over the fields. Flapping in the wind, mills and turbines drone constantly into midday, as smaller, trilling bots harvest the countless crop circles dotted around a giant factory. Despite the sun’s place high atop the cloudless sky, your shadow casts long upon the walls of the workshop. With your easel in front of you, beside the vibrant green and blue of the land below, you are now more than ever terrified at the sight of the pure white canvas. 

You’re a tourist, not a hermit, staying briefly to gather ideas for your work. Beautiful paintings lined your halls back home, scenery and portraits, all ten cent copies of better works. This excursion of yours is the longest you’ve been away from the house. Still, the fresh air that would usually jump start your creative muscles has done little to help get you out of your rut. 

In your bag, you rifle through your sketch book. Assorted scenes line the pages, Gem’s antenna, Skizz’s pyramid, other smaller locations. None of them are interesting. Experimenting with composition has led to nowhere, which is how you know things have gotten dire. 

After years of creating and creating, maybe you’ve just run out. Used up all your best ideas, some of them in the stupidest ways, and now you’re dry. The postcard you’d sketched when first arriving calls to you from out the other belongings. A nice sunset, easy. It looks decent, but something’s missing. This isn’t as good as it could be. It’s not yours.

“Hows the painting coming along?” Pearl pops out of her workroom and you almost send your bag rolling downhill.

“Uh, not smoothly?” You say, grimacing from the slight shame. You’ve been up here since dawn with nothing to show for it except a wad of folded paper in your pocket. “Here, thanks for letting me stay with you. I wanted to make you something better, but in the meantime, I hope this’ll suffice.”

She takes the sheet from you with a curious grin and gawks when she sees the charcoal image: her dogs in a variety of poses, one jumping at the camera, another snoozing under a tree, the others doing much of the same. 

“This looks incredible.“ She points to one of the hounds, salivating on a piece of beef. “You got his face just right!” She grins and stares a little longer at the page, carefully folding it back up.

“It’s no use being a perfectionist.” She offers tentatively as you snicker and bring your knees to your chest.

“That’s rich coming from you.” You snort softly. “It’s not the issue, though.” The muscles around your throat close as you speak through gritted teeth.

“It’s alright if the juices aren’t flowing.” She wiggles her fingers at the word. “You’ll get them working, eventually.” 

“You don’t get it Pearl. I’ve been at this for weeks now! It’s not a matter of inspiration or whatever.” You ball your fists into the grass with a sharp sigh.

“It’s like every brushstroke is a part of someone else’s vision. I can paint sure, but I can’t make the important stuff, the stuff that makes my art mine.” A second passes. You consider brushing her off, making a joke and pretending you aren’t as affected as you are.

You quietly yelp as Pearl pulls you into her soft embrace, a hand on your back and another in your hair. “You will eventually. Until then, there’s not much to do but try again.”

Her marred alabaster skin feels like a fever against your own, as if the sunburn scars dotting her shoulders could return the heat that caused them.

“If you weren’t hugging me right now, I would’ve called you a callous ass.”

“Hey!” She squeezes you and even in the face of that barren canvas, you laugh along with her. 

The rest of the week goes by and once or twice you feel that maybe your spark will return, but it never does. Pearl is a constant, keeping you silent company as she works on a building just out of sight. It’s a massive construct of arches and polished stone, bricks placed one by one making up the roof. 

On your last day, you ditch the oil paints, leaving the tubes scattered at your bedside, to watch the sunset. That scorching ball of light fades into the horizon as Pearl hops down from her project, finally finished, to watch it beside you.

“It looks really good, Pearl. The arches are so detailed.” You crane your head to look at the building, trying to see through the stained glass inside. Pearl grins beside you and turns to lean against the rock dividing the terrain into terraces. 

“It’s gonna be a ballroom.” She states, crossing her arms and puffing her chest. Her eyes narrow, as if she can see the future through them, all the things that could be.

“I’m a bit sad I won’t be around to see it.” Your departure has been a topic avoided even in the days leading up to this one. Your things are packed, all that’s left is the mess of paints and pallets. 

“You can take a look at it now! Come on, I want to show you something.” She grabs your hand, dashing up the steps two at a time. Her hat almost falls as she looks back to the darkening orange sky. 

“You really outdid yourself.” Your voice echos as you take a hesitant step inside, guided tenderly by Pearl. Her hand is calloused from hauling materials and spending all her time building. They’re kind not in spite of the roughness. 

There’s something about her. Even now, her steps are passionate as she brings you to the center of that empty room. Her back and shoulders are sculpted, with skin that has seen days of work spilling slightly over an inky undershirt. 

“Here, let’s give you one happy memory before you go.” She untangles your hands, letting one fall to your waist and the other sit comfortably on your shoulder. A figure bolts just out of sight, high up in the rafters, and music pours from a jukebox. You can’t help but chuckle in disbelief. 

“You’ve given me tons of good memories.” Trying to ignore the outline of her fingertips on you, they readjust their grip as she takes the first steps of a waltz. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I know, but you didn’t get what you came here for. Pretty disappointing trip, if you ask me.” She moves slowly, looking to you as your footing mirrors hers.

“I think I need to find what sets me apart.” Your grip on Pearl’s own waist firms, taking a silent breath and moving along to the music at its normal pace.

“You’ve helped with that.” The words come out of your mouth in a whisper as the music crescendos and with a palm to her back, you dip her. Dangerously close to the floor, but still safe in your hold. “So no, not disappointing at all.”

Her earnings reflect the fading crimson of the sky outside, peaking through the windows and casting your joint shadow on the wooden floor. Her hand reaches back towards your hair, fingers finding their perch on the nape of your neck, thumb ghosting the curve beside your lip.

“Come back whenever you like. I’ll be here.” Her brows knit as you pull her back up, keeping her close.

“I will, I promise. When I do, I’ll paint you and it’ll be the best thing I’ve ever made.”

[afreakingdork]

Yeah, I'm not taking this sitting down. Man, I really am not trying to have beef out here, but I refuse to have my good fucking name tarnished. To make a public post about me? Yeah, I'm going to share my side. The facts are as such:

I approached wolf on 12/20/23 about a NSFW commission inspired by one of their works. It would feature my sona and an aged up Donnie. As they mentioned, our initial conversation was good. We went back and forth during the sketch phase and I requested quite a lot of edits. I asked if I could pay them for these corrections.

it was right after this that wolf asked about Donnie's battle shell since it wasn't illustrated.

After this message, I did not hear back from wolf after 2/9/24 until I sent them a follow-up message 3/27/24

I did not hear back from wolf until today 5/6/24.

Now I cannot share the images of the art I received because it is NSFW, but I can tell you that the grey from my sona's body appeared to be missing. The ears of my sona were grey, but the body only looked yellow. Donnie was missing his purple arm marks, and his knee pads were still the same only now they were colored in black along with his mask. From here I will just send the conversation in its entirety.

For reference, this was the reference sheet they had.

I was then sent two pieces where the grey on my sona was very obvious and Donnie's markings were now present with the following text.

Now again, I wish I could show you the pieces, but I can't. I was offered a 50% refund for my troubles, but I was not interested in taking it because wolf had already done all the work.

I will say that I was extremely frustrated with the whole affair so the next part I will admit was a bit salty because while corrections had been made, I wasn't able to give any input so there were still mistakes in my sona's colors (specifically the underside of the tail was yellow instead of white and my grey arm had one side yellow) and Donnie's mask was still black. The following is our last correspondence on my blog.

This would have been the end of it for me. Except, I did not get the email. I waited in hopes it would come in, but none did. Since I was blocked I was forced to reach out from one of my side blogs @thisgoesouttoyoubaby which feel free to check. it's my reblog sideblog that I use to send my bestie memes. It dates back YEARS and is not used for spam.

As you can see I was blocked here.

Now I have been refreshing my email feed waiting. I know emails can take time, but I have no way to confirm if I'm getting my work because I was immediately blocked on thisgoesouttoyou with no response.

So I used another sideblog, this time @plowingon which you can again, freely search, its not a spam blog, but a blog I once made to record the live of my old german shepherd I had years ago when he was getting older.

And wouldn't you know it, I got my first email from wolf at

Coincidentally, only after I sent my last message to them.

Now I'm not interested in hurting wolf's reputation. I think you should still commission them if you'd like. I still am a fan of their art. I have no ill will, but fuck if I will stand by as someone tells me that I won't pay an artist. I never even said i wouldn't pay. I was just frustrated because they wouldn't follow their own three correction rule. They allowed me no recourse, and then they were petty before I could even confirm that I received the email.

Could I have been nicer?

Of course.

Could I have been more clear?

Absolutely.

But there is no world in which I tried to gaslight anyone. I pride myself on my honesty. I was not shy when paying them. I sent payment before we even began. I offered to pay them more and acknowledged I was a needy customer halfway through. So I apologize for this long post, but I wanted to make sure all of this was visible because how dare you call me a scammer, wolf.

You disappoint me.

[goofygoosegoblin]

Rafayel's Intertidal Zone rant

Thoughts on Rafayel’s intertidal zone. This is going to be a long rant. I’ve seen a lot of people talk about this card, while I agree to a certain extend I think some people misinterpret the card. This is my take on the non-spicy bits:

The memory starts off with Rafayel having lost all inspiration. So much so that he can’t manage to draw anything. He draws something illegible on a napkin, the MC tries to cheer him up by using her imagination on the lines. Not only is his inspiration gone, he’s also not feeling well. Later on in the memory Rafayel mentions that art is an integrated part of his life. So much so that his body even seems to malfuntion when he hits an artistic block. The drought in the desert is reflected in the sense that the well of inspiration within Rafayel is also dry. He treats MC’s presence almost as though she is his sole oasis. He may no longer be able to draw inspiration from his pain anymore but he can now draw inspiration from a much gentler source: MC.

“To create a piece of art, I must transform my feelings about nature into a demand…I’m afraid of such a purpose. If one day, I become someone who only takes from you…would you leave me?” This is Rafayel spelling out his fears to us. He’s afraid he’ll be destructive to the things he holds most dear to him. He used to be able to love and appreciate his surroundings without having to transform it into art, into something to profit off, he’s afraid that his love for MC may also transform into something like that. That their love will be tainted by him taking her love and turning it into profit now that she is his main source of inspiration. He is being very vulnerable and open to MC in this card. Thankfully, MC is quick to assure him that she wouldn’t leave even if that were the case.

Throughout the memory Rafayel struggles with his dependency on MC. Let’s not forget that this is a man who has only ever fallen in love once. In fact he fell so hard that he sacrificed his people, his godhood and his heart for us. Rafayel is Lemurian, who basically imprint on the person they love. Every sense of their being is attuned to their special person, they can’t go against their wishes even. His bond, his wedding vow to MC has lasted for 800 years. Imagine how much yearning and feelings of loss he must have felt waiting for his bride to return. And when she did, she wasn’t the same. She even hurt him, which still haunts him. In Ebb and Flow he accuses MC of ‘being with them’, the people who hurt him and cut off his tail. He’s afraid MC will hurt him again, because it has happened before. This makes him more cautious with her this time around, even if he wants nothing more than to be with her again.

In Intertidal Zone we see Rafayel struggle with two basic needs: his love and desire for MC and his fear of being hurt again. Most of all, he’s afraid she’ll leave him partially because she doesn’t remember their past and he’s a changed man from the one she met in their first life together. What if he lost that spark that made her fall in love with him? He’s terrified of her, so he keeps her at arms length while simultaneously needing to be close to her.

“I’m restless. Especially, when you’re by my side. But I can’t let you go…What should I do? And you don’t want me to let you go either. Right?” again he’s telling us how he feels, how he’s scared and needs assurance.

In this memory Rafayel constantly seeks MC’s physical affection as a reminder that she’s really there with him. She’s not leaving. It’s in the way he nuzzles her palm, presses his face in her neck and cuddles her close to feel comforted even before they do the deed. The genuine concern MC shows for him douses his doubts a little, yet he’s terrified of becoming too reliant on her. This quote really says it well “Do you wanna turn me into a sea creature that’s beached n the sand after the ocean recedes…And leave me to suffocate when I come out of the water?” He feels as though if he gives into his need for MC and surrenders to his feelings that he gives her the power to destroy him completely if she does leave. He’s afraid that if he can’t be apart from her this will end up killing him when he loses her again. A prospect he thinks is inevitable as he’s aware of MC’s nature. One day she will die and be reborn again, having forgotten him all over again. And he can’t bear the thought of having to go on without her again if he truly had her this time.

So, that’s why he goes off to the art gallery by himself though on the way he realises he’s fighting a losing battle with himself. Maybe the pain of being without MC, of burning up for her love, is worth any future pain this may cause him. That there’s never really been a choice. He’s always lived for her, his entire life has been shaped by him choosing her. So how could he not choose her again? MC shows him he made the right choice by being accepting of him and soothing his fears when he opens up to her. By telling him that she doesn’t want him to burn for her. She won’t hurt him, nor does she want him to hurt himself for her. Also by asking him to sing her a Lemurian love song as after care, she shows him indirectly that she truly does accept him and his heritage. It’s a side of him she wants to embrace, to get to know more of.

The memory ends with something again to a wedding vow.

Rafayel: Will you accompany me to seek those other parts in life…Whatever lies outside of pain?

MC: I’ll always be the one who walks along the shore with you. Of course, diving to the seabed is fine too. If it can snow in the desert, then there will be a day when the ocean returns.

MC is promising him that she’ll be by his side during the good tranquil times in their lives but she will also stick with him when life gets rough. He’ll never have to be alone again. With the last line MC wants to give Rafayel hope. Even though things seem really bleak right now, if seemingly impossible things can happen like snow in the desert then other equally as impossible things can/will happen as well. Meaning that Rafayel won’t have to be lonely anymore, maybe MC will not lose her memories again, maybe they will be able to stay together this time and maybe Lemuria will one day return without needing to kill his beloved bride.

Someone give this poor traumatized fishy a hug. I need to lie down.

[yeonjuns-beanie]

Halo Pt.2

warnings: less plot, but still plot, 18+, smut, unprotected sex, biting, light blood(play), light hair pulling, body worship, oral(f receiving), light degradation, yandere themes, dub-con, think that's it

summary: in your free time you do freelance writing, doing interviews with people most would consider strand and unusual. when you recognize that one of the regulars in your coffee shop only visits in the evening, you pose the question of where you can interview him, upon his agreement, you realize this is unlike any other interview

a/n: holy shit, i am alive actually. i feel kinda horrible that i last posted in september. life got kinda crazy, i was slammed with uni and work, and had intense writer's block. anyways, i hope those of you who enjoyed the first part enjoy this one even more! i'm not entirely sure how active i'll be this semester, but i'm not going to make any promises lol. as always, i hope you enjoy and have a great day! :D ~nero

word count: 5.4K

Vampire!Seonghwa x female reader

pt.1

Seonghwa looked off to the side, inhaling a calculated breath before he spoke. 

“The nightlife. Where I was before was too prosaic and mundane. It lacked character. But here? There’s a flame that ignites when the sun goes down.” 

You scribbled down his last sentence wanting to maybe use it as the title for the piece when you finished. Looking back up at him, you felt your body relax and suddenly everything felt easy. 

“Where were you before?” 

“Everywhere. I’m a bit of a nomad, you see? I can’t stay chained to one place for too long.” 

“Did you find your last locations to grow boring, or was it something else?” 

“Something else. Rather of my own doing, but needing to keep my needs satiated is a necessity.” 

You paused for a moment and glanced at your notebook littered with questions trying to find the next avenue you’d walk down. You hadn’t been faced with someone so careful in their speech. He was answering your questions, yes, but not in the full detail that you desired. He was making you work. 

“Being a nomad, you must have a flexible job. What do you do for work and what’s your haven for play?” 

A smirk formed on his face, like he knew he was stumping you. Running his fingers through his onyx locks, he went to lick his lips and you noticed the length of one of his canines peeking from behind his upper lip. 

“Ah, yes. For work, I was lucky enough to benefit from years of generational wealth, but I hated the fact of that being my only accolade. So I sought after art. I always rendered an interest in building things so I thought, why not extend that to an artistic field?” 

“What’s your medium?”

“Sculptures and charcoal portraits. I love capturing time in a piece. I don’t know how long this life will grant me so I enjoy partaking in affairs that allow me to immortalize that time. Remind me to show you some of my portraits.” 

Nodding, you remembered the busts you saw when you entered his home, the question crossed your mind if those were his art.

“Those busts that you have in your entryway, did you make those as well?”

“So you really were quite entranced. To answer you, yes, I did create those as well. They’re of my family who have since passed on. I don’t have many left in my life so it aids me in keeping the memory of them alive.” 

Moving your hair out of your face to look at him, you furrowed your brow feeling sorry for him as you processed his statement. 

“Are you all alone out here?”

The concerned look on your face quickly fell to anxiety as you feared you may be prying too much into his personal life. Getting ready to speak again, Seonghwa stopped you with the gentle raise of his hand and smiled. 

“You’re not overstepping any boundaries, my dove. When I agreed to sit with you, pen in hand with the recorder running, I alleviated all forms of privacy for you. You may ask me whatever you feel called to ask. I’m yours for the evening.” 

A soft smile pulled at your lips as you silently acknowledged him, and thanked him for being so tender with you. His velvet voice pulled you from your thoughts. 

“To answer your previous question though, yes, I am all alone. It was lonely at first, but after a while it became comfortable. Perhaps preferred. I did find that recently though, the exigent desire for a partner has been pulling at my heartstrings.” 

“With your interest in the nightlife here, surely it shouldn’t be too hard to find yourself a companion. Not to mention if you’re speaking romantically, I’m sure you’d find yourself plenty of options.” 

You regretted it as soon as it left your mouth, but it was already in the air now and you just had to hope and pray that he’d let it slide.

“What are implying?” 

Of course, he wouldn’t. 

“I’m just saying…that, you know, you are an attractive guy. It seems like you’d have a particularly easy time…weeding through people.” 

“You think I have a lot of suitors?” 

Seonghwa had his arms folded across his chest now, gaining pleasure from making you squirm. 

“I’m saying that I think you’d have a fair amount of people to choose from, not necessarily that they’d be worthy of your time.” 

You brought the pen up to your lips, feeling your anxiety swirl in your body as Seonghwa continued to hanker down on you. You glanced over at your notebook again, seeing what you could ask to divert the subject but before you had the chance to speak, Seonghwa was prying. 

“Worthy of my time?” 

“From first impressions, you seem…difficult to entertain. Not to be impressed by the bare minimum, which if considering this town, there is a lot of.”

Seonghwa leaned forward, smiling without showing his teeth. His aura radiated a slimy smugness that irritated you but also ignited a fire within you. 

“I’d beg to differ. There are a select few I’ve come across. I wouldn’t be so certain in your statement.” 

Your mind was swarmed with questions, most of them centering around who he was entertaining and if you even spared a shot with him. 

“Have you found a lover yet then?”

With Seonghwa still hovering over the desk, he looked so much larger than usual. He commanded even more attention and you couldn’t bear to tear your eyes away from his as he stared you down. When he spoke, he raked his eyes over your form and was begging whatever deity was out there that you’d pick up on his hints. 

“I’ve found who I want to be mine, she just doesn’t know it yet. I’ve been leaving her clues, paltry I know, but I beg that she pick up my scent soon.” 

“Like a secret admirer?”

“You can call it that, yes. What I feel for her though is more than what a secret admirer could possess.” 

You felt your heart drop, not even letting the delusion have time to manifest to let you think that this “she” was you. You nodded your head and looked toward your notebook again scanning over your questions to see where you wanted to take the interview next. As you went to look up at Seonghwa again, you noticed that unabated gloss cast over his eyes again. The other thing you noticed was that his eyes seemed to change color. It was hard to tell for sure in the dim lighting of the study, but you swore you were seeing flecks of red in his irises. 

As you inhaled to speak, you felt your body freeze and an indistinguishable tingle ran rampant through your limbs. Panic registered across your pupils as you tried to move but soon recognized that you were glued to the chair. Your limbs were attached to the wood of the desk as if your skin were made to melt into the surface. Suddenly as you looked at Seonghwa, you realized that you recognized this feeling, the energy that was emanating across from you. It was all too familiar.

It wasn’t sleep paralysis. It was him.

“Ahh, yes it was, my dove. I’m disheartened that it took you this long. Thought the journal would’ve been clue enough.” 

Feeling that static in your fingers trail up your arm and down through your body, you felt control over yourself again. You pressed your back flesh against the chair, a feeble attempt at creating space between you two. Your vision was unfocused for a moment and in the blur created, you understood that the man across you was the figure in the corner of your room last night. Your breath quickened with fear, but something else mixed in with your emotions that you couldn’t quite place yet. 

“Y-you we’re in my room last night?… Why?” 

Seonghwa stood up slowly, his hands planted firmly on the desk. His frame which was at first sleek and inviting was now imposing and ravening. His eyes were boring into you making you feel so minuscule under his gaze. His tone was low, almost near a whisper, but his next words sent a chill down your spine. 

“Because I can’t bear to leave you alone.”

Your eyes blew wide in panic, fear present in your features. You wondered how you could find a way out of this, a way to remedy the situation but you felt completely and utterly trapped. You looked behind you to the door of the study and defeat enveloped you as you came to the conclusion that any attempt you made to escape would prove to be fruitless. As you returned your gaze to Seonghwa, he was shaking his head, a grin cast on his face. 

“How could you even think about leaving so early when we haven’t finished the interview yet, y/n? I’ve looked forward to this all day, I’d hate for it to end so soon.” 

Seonghwa furrowed his features into a pout, persuading you to swallow your fear and sit forward. Maybe, if you indulged in him he’d let you leave. As Seonghwa sat back in his seat, a new wave of questions ran through your brain. Whether or not you’d include this in the posted interview, you needed closure for yourself. Asserting yourself in your spot, you sat taller, your gaze piercing his as he did to you moments before. Your voice carried a dominance that hadn’t been present all evening. 

“How long have you been following me?” 

“Fiesty are we?”

“Hwa, how long have you been on my tail?”

“My dove, I’m disappointed. How could you not realize all those rotten feelings you felt when you stepped out of your car were because of me?” 

His face was sickening, he was enjoying this. The smile that painted his face was sardonic and it made acrimony bubble within you. All those weeks where you felt like you were going brainsick were because of him. 

I can’t believe him right now

“Better start believing y/n. At least you have the comfort of knowing you’re not demented.” 

“Stop doing that!” 

It was freaking you out that nearly every thought you had about him he had a response to. He was inside your head and you couldn’t place how he was doing it. 

“Doing what, darling?” 

“That! Being in my head! How are you doing that?!” 

Your fear was making you hostile and agitated. You felt completely out of control and you hated every second of it. You were in a stranger’s house, agreeing to come based on the hopes that you’d get something out of this and now you were shackled in this room with a stalker. You stared down at your notebook trying to fit the pieces of all of this together. The thought finally dawned on you that he knew where you lived, and it was no mere coincidence that the journal you found at your front door perfectly matched the pen he gave you. Your eyes landed on a bookshelf behind you and you noticed a horrifying similarity between what was sitting on the shelves and what was resting underneath your hands.

“Ask me.” 

Your head whipped to Seonghwa’s voice, not daring to disrespect him for you were fearful of the consequences. 

“Ask you what?” 

“Ask me how I know your thoughts.”

You inhaled a deep breath, trying to prepare yourself for the answer you were about to be given. Sighing you looked straight into his eyes, and that’s when you noticed the color of them changed. A deep carmine colored his irises now. Your eyes squinted, trying to understand his motive now. 

“How do you know what I’m thinking.” 

He inhaled a breath, mocking you. He smiled at you, something sickeningly sweet about it. 

“Vampirism. Vampirism is how I know. Vampirism is also how I’ve been able to stalk you without the thought of me ever crossing your mind. It’s the reason why I was in your bedroom, why I could never leave your thoughts, why you were entranced by me. By design, you were meant to be allured by me and you were. Which is why you’re sitting across from me.” 

You were stunned. You always entertained the idea of supernatural creatures, but never did you think that were actually real. Never in your lifetime did you think that you’d be face to face with a vampire and with that knowledge you were now more fearful of your situation. Your next words flew from your mouth without any chance to filter. 

“What do you feed on?” 

Seonghwa leaned forward and smiled, the tip of one of his fangs peeking out onto his bottom lip. 

“Whatever I can get my hands on. I have to say though, the more fear that exudes from my dinner makes the taste that much more delectable. And you, my sweet y/n, are absolutely intoxicating right now. Almost as sweet as last night. Gods, it took everything in me not to devour you then.” 

You held your composure, but something stirred in your lower stomach. Radiating heat between your thighs. 

Arousal. 

You were feeling aroused by his words, and you were ashamed by it. Here you were, at the mercy of a stranger and yet, you were aroused by the transparency of his truths. You tried to push the feeling to the back of your mind, but something was bringing your innermost fantasies about Seonghwa forward. His eyes were indulging in you in sheer gluttony, looking at you like prey and you couldn’t help but think that he was holding back on what his inner monologue consisted of. 

“What are you thinking about right now?” 

You leaned forward, asserting yourself now that a lustful wave crashed over your body. 

“So that’s what gets you off? Carnal urges, is it?” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“While true, it is what I heard prior to you speaking.” 

Rolling your tongue across your teeth, you were through with the antics. 

“What’s on your mind now, Hwa?” 

He smiled flashing his teeth, his fangs on full display. 

“Truthfully, I’m running through all the ways I want to consume you. To make you mine. And it’s becoming quite painful to ignore.” 

You wanted to call his bluff, to catch him off guard even with the disadvantage of him invading the privacy of your mind. You stood up from the chair, the legs creating a painful scratching sound across the wood. You walked around the edge of the desk and positioned yourself in front of him, gently laying your hand on the table in front of his, your fingertips barely touching. Leaning down, you stared into his piercing garnet eyes damning yourself to cosset in the feelings that were licentious in nature. Wetting your bottom lip with the tip of your tongue, you felt your eyes blow in temptation and you knew he was aware of every second of it. 

“Then do something about it. Live up to this lavish vampiric character you’ve laid out for me.”

With the passing of a second, the roles of power drastically shifted. His body moved with a swiftness that you hadn’t experienced and before you had a chance to register what happened, you were caged underneath his frame with your hips nailed against the side of the desk. His slender hand snaked its way to your neck, wrapping his deft fingers around your face and forcing you to look at him. 

“Careful, pet. I don’t think you understand the gravity of your words.” 

Eyes darkening with lust, you smirked at him feeling a sense of power as you watched him lose control in front of you. Moving your body to sit on top of the desk, you rolled your neck, exposing your most vulnerable space of skin to him.

“You reek of luxuria, have you any shame?” 

“Not any more than you.” 

Wrapping your legs around his waist, you trailed your hand up to the nape of his neck, goosebumps forming in its wake. You curled your fingers into the hair resting on his neck feeling fulfilled as you watched his body shiver in unabashed desire for you. His chest heaved heavy breaths as his lust for you was becoming harder to control. Seonghwa let his head fall into the conjunction of where your neck and shoulder met, his breath creating an intense humidity that only aided your arousal. 

Pulling at his hair, you positioned him to look at you head-on. His eyes were blown wide, the red of his irises nearly covered up by the black of his pupils. His breathing was still heavy and you could feel a small bulge prodding at your inner thigh. Rolling your hips into his, you watched his eyes roll to the back of his head, only the white of his sclera showing. As he breathed out, a small whimper was swallowed in his throat. Pulling at his hair, he opened his eyes to look at you. 

“Devour me, Seonghwa.” 

Any suppression of his feelings turned into a zealous carnal display of affection. His lips were on yours in a second, hot and impassioned. His hands roamed over the exposed flesh of your thighs, indenting the skin with his fingers each time he squeezed. Your head was squirming with floating ideas and wrestling with the plain fact that you were getting exactly what you wanted. 

As Seonghwa swiped your bottom lip, silently asking for permission, you parted your mouth just enough to grant your tongues the freedom to fight for dominance. With one roll of your tongue into his mouth, the side of your tongue was swiped by the point of his fang. It sent a chill down your spine but excited you even further. Feeling bold, you closed the space of your lips and bit down on his bottom lip, pulling away from him as you watched him with hooded eyes. 

Letting your hands snake down his torso, you hooked your fingers into his belt loops pulling him closer to your clothed center. Gently rolling your hips, you were thankful that you wore a skirt as your aching cunt ghosted over his jean covered cock. Looking up at him, your eyes were blown and you could feel the sexual adrenaline raging through your body. 

“I want you, Seonghwa. I want you to make me yours.” 

Seonghwa looked down at you, a knowing smirk painting his mouth as he gingerly put his finger under your chin. 

“Aww, how sweet. But darling, you were mine the moment I laid my eyes upon you, don’t you get that? I just needed that sweet invitation to fall from your pretty lips.” 

In the blink of an eye, Seonghwa’s hands found their way underneath the fabric of your shirt. His hands were like ice, but the contrasting temperature soothed the raging heat dancing across your skin. There was an uncontrollable need and you felt like you couldn’t get close enough to him. Your body kept rolling into his and you couldn’t quell the small moan that escaped your throat. 

“Excited, hmm?” 

Your eyes were pleading, needing to feel something other than his hands roaming your body. 

“Do something, please. I’m begging you.” 

Seonghwa brought his face to the side of yours so that his lips grazed the shell of your ear. He was breathing slowly, almost methodically and it made your heartbeat race. When he spoke, your eyebrows furrowed at his lower tone.

“Just something?”

You mewled at him, tired of the teasing, but what he did next was not what you expected. One of his fangs made contact with the sensitive skin of your neck and you moaned out as the tip of it impaled your skin. Seonghwa pulled away, his tongue swiping at the tiny drop of crimson staining his tooth. His eyes darkened as he smirked at you and indulged in your metallic taste. You felt him roll his hips into yours, his cock growing harder as he imagined how it would feel to feed off of your naked body. 

Growing impatient from the wanton ache that settled in your cunt, you pushed Seonghwa away from you and your body off of the desk. Making yourself as big as possible, you guided his body backward until his knees met the lip of the couch in the study. As his form gracefully plopped into the cushions, you tore your top off throwing it on the floor behind you. You straddled Seonghwa’s thighs, grinding your hips down into him as you made contact with his lap. You cupped his face as you let your body control your actions rather than your mind. Pulling him close, your lips danced a dangerous waltz of spit and tongue as he began to feel dizzy from the intensity.

Seonghwa was enjoying this obscene side of you, his nimble fingers gripping at your skin any chance he got. Pulling away from his lips, his mouth chased yours not ready for the kiss to end so soon. Placing your hands on his chest, you allowed yourself the time to admire his form. His perfectly sculpted body that was encased so delicately by the mesh he wore. You sucked your bottom lip behind your teeth as you gripped the fabric into your fist grinding down into his erection. 

His hips rolled up into yours and his breathing quickened as he devoured you with his eyes. 

“Enjoying yourself?” 

“More than you know.” You panted out

Seonghwa patted your thigh and nodded his chin behind you. 

“Up.”

You pushed yourself off of him, suddenly hyper-aware of your insecurities. They didn’t have long to manifest as his voice pulled you from your thoughts. He grabbed your hand leading you out of the study, down the hallway, and guided you into his bedroom. 

“Never. Think such dreadful things about yourself, my dove.”

Seonghwa gently placed you down on the edge of his opulent bed, his bedroom far too extravagant for you to fully appreciate right now. Nodding his head behind you, you understood his cue to scoot back and your eyes never left him as he crawled over your body. 

“It’s simply just, if I’m going to ravage you in the ways I’ve dreamt so vividly, it wasn’t going to happen on that vapid couch.” 

He placed gentle kisses on your jawline, nipping slightly at the skin near your earlobe. Seonghwa then dragged his nose down the valley of your breasts and stopped at the hemline of your skirt. The heat and your arousal turn near suffocating under the constraints of your panties. 

“You deserve to be tasted, worshipped. To be given a night of passion. And I, my sweet y/n, am going to give you all of that and more.” 

His voice turned more gruff the more his sentence trailed on. What you failed to realize was that due to the angle he was at, your arousal was like his personal parfum and it was dreadfully intoxicating. He acted with no haste as he dragged your skirt down your legs, taking your underwear with it. You felt embarrassment quickly wash over your body as you felt the stick of your arousal stretch between your needy lips and the ruined cotton. 

Now fully exposed to him, you had nowhere to hide and it excited you. He pressed his nose against your clit, the action sending a savage bolt of lust through your body. Your body shivered as he took a deep inhale of your scent, his tongue following soon behind with a flattened lick across your folds. The moan that left you was covetous and echoed off the walls of his bedroom. 

Seonghwa lapped at your folds like a ravenous dog and your sounds only egged him on. Your hips were riding his face, unable to get enough of him. When your hand found refuge in his inky locks, he moaned into your pussy, the vibrations bringing you to the precipice of your orgasm. With one hand gripping at his hair and the other fisting the sheets, you were moaning like a rapacious whore. 

“Hwa, fuck! Hwa I’m gonna cum!” 

Seonghwa gripped his hands tighter around your hips, shoving your cunt as close as possible to his mouth. Seonghwa focused on your clit, fluttering his tongue against your sensitive bud before sucking your orgasm right out of you. 

“Fuckfuckfuck!” 

Seonghwa didn’t give you a chance to ride out your first orgasm, instead, he continued sucking on your tender rosebud and let the aftershock of your second climax wash over you. Your body shook in intervals of vibrating lust. Chillis littering your body as you relished in the feeling he just bestowed upon you. Lifting himself from between your legs, he hovered over you with a satisfied smirk plastered on his lips. Soon his lips were on yours again and the tangy taste of yourself swept across your tastebuds. Pulling away from you, he began unbuttoning his shirt. 

“You taste even better than what I dreamt of.” 

You couldn’t quite wrap your head around the fact that he wanted you just as bad and your mouth moved quicker than your mind. 

“Y-you’ve dreamt of me?” 

An airy chuckle left his throat. 

“Darling, if you question my likening for you one more time tonight, I’m going to have to chain you to my bed and fuck any trace of doubt out of you.” 

Your hole squeezed around nothing and courage found itself in you again. Flipping your bodies over, you sat on top of his lap, your arousal spreading all over the top of his jeans. Undoing his belt, the sexual tension was fervid and it was as if you couldn’t move your hands fast enough. His cock was straining against the layers of fabric and you needed it straining against your walls. 

Pulling his jeans down his legs with his underwear, you knelt down, prepared to offer up all your oral skills known to man. Before you could ghost your lips over his tip, Seonghwa’s hand found your chin and titled you to look up at him. 

“There will be plenty of times for you to taste me, tonight though is about our collective ecstasy. To lose ourselves in one another.” 

His hand pulled you closer to him and you straddled your legs over his. His leaky and libertine cock teasing your entrance as you hovered over him. His hair lay disheveled across his face all thanks to your hands and he somehow looked even more desirable than before. With puffy lips and heavy eyes, you needed him in every way imaginable. 

Lowering yourself down onto his cock, you weren’t prepared for how big he’d feel as you took him in inch by inch. He thickened as you reached his base and made you feel so full. As you bottomed out on him, both of you moaned in harmonious synchrony that made you wish you could have it on repeat. 

“Hwa~! You’re so—so big.” 

Your eyes rolled to the back of your head as you squeezed his length inside of your velvety walls. You placed your hands on his shoulders needing something to ground yourself on. Seonghwa’s hands purchased themselves on your hips awaiting your movements. 

“Call me that again.” 

You rolled your hips, your walls fluttering as you looked down at him. 

“Hwa~” 

You let your forehead rest against his as your body began to ride his perfect cock. Your moans creating the quintessential licentious atmosphere. 

“Hwa, baby…you feel so good.” 

Your mind was racing, not really paying attention to the words that left your mouth. But you wished you did. 

In seconds, the use of the pet name rendered you at his mercy. Only for a moment did his cock leave your seraphic cunt as your bodies were flipped once again. Seonghwa entered you with such a force that you could only describe as concupiscent and raw. Your nails immediately dug themselves into his back and the sounds that left him were more obscene. 

“Oh, God!”

“God is nowhere in this room, nor will he ever be, Pet.”

His moans were tantalizing, hypnotizing you even more so under his spell. His thrusts were deep and calculated, abusing your G-spot with every hit. If God wasn’t in this room, all that Seonghwa was making you feel definitely felt like it. You’d never felt euphoria like this before, it was sinful in every sense of the word and made it feel like there truly was a reason for Him to have died for our sins. Feeling a pool of heat begin to settle near the bottom of your stomach, you wrapped your legs around his waist caging him to you. 

“Y/nnn, I can’t hold myself back much longer.” 

As your walls fluttered around him one more time you shook your head, your voice coming out with more air than you anticipated. 

“Me n-neither.” 

You kissed him again, impassioned and frenzied. Panting against his lips, your nails found solace in his back again. His breath was creating humidity in your neck and you enjoyed every second of it. Looking into his eyes, there was more swimming in them than just lust. 

“I want all of you. I want to feel every part of you Hwa. I need you. I need you so bad, H~wa!” 

Your eyes rolled to the back of your head and your nails dug deep crescents into his skin. As you begged him for all he had to give he did just that as his mouth snuck its way to your neck and his fangs sunk into your skin. 

The feeling of the puncture was just what you needed to peer over the horizon of your orgasm and crash into the sea of its entirety. Seonghwa was still pumping his hard cock into you and then you felt a familiar warmth flood your walls. Your body squirmed underneath him and slowly your vision began to blur. Before you had the chance to completely lose consciousness, you watched Seonghwa slice his tooth into his wrist and felt the crimson drain over your lips as he pressed his wrist to your mouth. 

“Drink, my sweet dove.” 

His voice was so sweet. Like a siren’s as you drifted into a slumber that was filled with nothing but pleasure. 

~*~

When you awoke, you were still lay in his massive bed, but your body was covered in a black silk nightgown and you smelled faintly of sandalwood and frankincense. You turned your head to the left and then to the right only to find that the bed was empty. 

Where did he go? 

You pushed yourself up to sit in the bed only to be met with the worst headache in your life. It felt like your entire body was pounding in pain and the drumming of it only kept getting louder. Wincing, you heard the handle click open on the bedroom door, revealing Seonghwa with an assortment of food, water, and a glass of red liquid. Wine maybe? 

“I could hear you worrying from across the house. Trust, I’ll never be far from you. Now—I know you’re probably in a decent amount of pain right now, but it’ll soon fade in the next few days. Your body can still take normal food just not in large quantities. Here.” 

His voice trailed off as he tore a piece of the croissant laying on one of the few small plates on the tray. Holding it up, he raised his eyebrows encouraging you to open your mouth. Obliging, you gently took the piece of bread from him, chewing slowly as you tried to make sense of your reality. 

“Did you…did you turn me?” 

“Yes.” 

You nodded. 

“So that means, I’ll be like this forever? Like you?…With you?” 

You saw something like fear flash in his eyes for a moment. Or maybe it was regret?

“Yes. And if you’d like to spend your days with me then it does seem that way my sweet dove. If you feel otherwise I will not hold you back. Although, I will admit I will have a hard time staying away from you.” 

He smiled, almost jokingly in a way that softened your heart. 

This must be who he is behind that mask

“Forever with you doesn’t sound so bad.” 

You blinked up at him, a smile spreading across your own face. 

“I was hoping you’d say something like that.”

taglist: @blackswann-53098 @tunaasan @bellamuerte1987 @seonghwasstar

[hools]

Sorry if this is a weird question, but how do you come up with your drawings? What does through your mind while making them? I find your compositions so gorgeous and intriguing but I can't really figure out how you approach things since everything's very shifty and abstract. It's really gorgeous work, I'm so glad I discovered your art :,)

hey first of all this isnt a weird question at all & i'm really glad you enjoy my art heheheheheehe. there's an incoming large largely unformatted block of text that i hope you dont mind!

Honestly there are a billion things going through my mind at a time while I'm drawing and they all sort of bump into each other and cancel each other out like opposing particles. If you've seen any of my streams i'm usually very fast and iterative in a lot of my process and i rarely ever slow down even past the early parts like thumbnailing and sketching. i kind of let my hands do the talking more, yknow? but even then theyre never talking about a single thing at a time. everything interacts with everything, which is probably why i always end up getting lost and meandering. composition is not independent from color & value and neither are they from texture and perspective. its hard thinking of all of the ways they mesh and react to one another so i spend less of my energy thinking and more of it doing, and then assessing once something interesting comes about it. i guess then i prioritize my Hand Movement Actioning and Eye Vision Seeing over my Brain Neuron Assessing. but even though iterations can come and go quick this kind of informed throwing-against-the-wall isn't really the Fastest. but its fun. and you get to stuff all the unused ideas in your pocket for later.

even though i did say how connected everything is i always seem to start with composition. it kind of affects and informs everything the most at least on an individual piece level. with thumbnails & composition in general i think youre supposed to think huge right. so i Always think huge. push everything as much as you can. start with a crazy angle (not necessarily angle meaning "perspective" but like an angle between two lines) and border your scene within it. take an already steep foreshortening and steepen it further with the transform tool & see what shapes form from the empty & filled space. shrink your subject to only fit 3/4ths of the canvas and build around it to make it work. blow things up (enlargen) and blow things up (remove & obliterate). with composition you have so much room for fuckery if you give yourself the grace to accept the fuckiness.

and i guess this freedom to fuck around and iterate and build and build and build upon comes from how most of the time my initial ideas are very. vague? abstract like you've said. sometimes its Just a song or a song lyric and nothing else (no characters to attach to just the feel and my gut). sometimes its a less than 5 word phrase i felt strongly about throughout the day. in my me-only discord server i have messages in #to-draw channel that just say shit like "something about guitar straps" "thanks for knowing me!" "angel don't look at me" "DITHER QUEEN" (<-been meaning to make something with that). for things that have specific guidelines i spend more time thinking conceptually (the "rare animal" coelacanth drawing being an example) but otherwise it mostly comes out after. again. the first strokes. after you put the meat and bones on the canvas. an artist at a workshop i was at last year when i was in my own head about Needing to have a fleshed tangible Profound concept before being able to start something told me not to underestimate the stories that can be told just by your hands. and i think thats what stuck with me the most.

& one last thing i wanna mention is how despite how much i revel in the chaos of the process ive found how important limits are. i don't like cutting back on everything but i like cutting back on some things. sometimes i cut out backgrounds for solid fills and i love them that much more. sometimes i have little subconscious rules in a piece that i try not to break to keep a little level of consistency. if somethings a big wonderful mess already then i love a limited pallet and i love keeping parts empty and i love being able to breathe a little. yknow. but still go over the top in the other parts you have so much permission to. less is more but have a little more in your art than less. YKNOW?

but yeah thanks again for your kind words and wanting to listen to me talk. i havent been drawing much at all so these arent too fresh on the mind but i think i got a lot of what i wanted to say out. i hope u and others can get things out of this! if i made any sense <3

[dragon-spaghetti]

Hey! I hope its alright im asking anonymous, you're kinda my idol so im a little shy sorry :,)

Anyways my question would be a kinda commonly asked one but i would like to hear your advice on "How to find your artstyle?" Your artsyle is truly AMAZING and unique to me and inspired me a lot so i thought i would ask you this. I'll stop writting now cause its getting long 😅

(One last thing: You're the best and keep doing the amazing work you do cause im obsessed with it and its truly amazing and have a pawsome day/night!!)

It's absolutely ok!! That's why I have anon on after all ;v; (and thank you omg that's flattering 🥹💖)

Okok so here's the things with artstyles; it's literally just doing what ya want!! You don't need to have a specific one!!

So for mines, it's literally just been me picking things up over the years. I got my start through drawing my little pony, and that still shows through how I draw eyes tbh ;^^ and as you can imagine, over the past few years the hellaverse has had a massive impact on how I draw!!

If you like how an artist does something?? Try and analyse how/why they do that; I grew up watching speedpaints on youtube and taking into account just how people did things, for example if they colour picked for their rendering or if they used layer settings etc!!

Having one artstyle can honestly be really restrictive though, which is why I honestly don't believe you should focus on having one specific style if that makes sense??

These pieces are all by me, but all have different rendering styles!! The first one is significantly more recognisable imo as my style since cell shading is generally what I do, however when I'm feeling particularly art blocked I'll sometimes go for a more paint-like style ✨

A really close friend of mine (who gets referred to as my husband lol) can do so many different styles, yet his art is extremely recognisable on sight to me every time somehow and I'm forever in awe lmao 😭 his art account is @/draconicdeityarts if you want to check out his stuff, cool af

Genuinely my greatest piece of advice? Just have fun and don't be afraid to try new things ;v; trying to put yourself in a box of "it needs to be in this style" will stunt your growth in my experience!! And over time you'll find the things that make your style yours because, generally, they're the part you enjoy doing the most, which can only be found out by experimenting!! My favourite part is rendering and I feel that shows, but the reason I love it so much is because I'm regularly experimenting still with how I do it rather than sticking to one way!!

I hope this helped at all, just remember that art is for fun, and trust me when I say that your art will always have its ways of being recognisable as yours regardless of if you have one style or 20 different ones 💖

For fun, have some of my older art to see The Development lmao; I believe the years in order here would roughly be 2014, 2016 & 2015 (forgive the quality the photo won't properly load), 2019, 2020, 2022, and finally 2023 ✨

[genericpuff]

Lore Olympus Art Analysis - Getting to the Bottom of It

For ages now it's been a common point of discussion - what's the process involved in Rachel's creation of Lore Olympus?

As a community, we've all discussed and speculated Rachel's process among herself and her assistants and how it seems to result in cheaper art each week. Same face syndrome, the overuse of the multiply tool, the dull backgrounds that often enter nightmare fuel territory, the lack of color vibrancy compared to Season 1, the repetitive poses and shots, the theories that different assistants are handling different aspects of individual panels, the clear lack of buffer, the list goes on and on.

But I think we've finally gotten to the bottom of what's going on. Or at least, deeper than we've gotten before and it feels like now we're closer to fully understanding Rachel's process than ever before.

Normally, I wouldn't care this much about dissecting the steps of creating a comic. Everyone's process is different, and when you're working with a team, that can introduce a whole new layer of understanding. I've worked with my own assistants in the past, trained to work in the animation industry which relies on coordination between people, and fully understand what's required to go into making a finalized piece of work put together by multiple people. All that's to say, having assistants doesn't necessarily mean you do less work.

When it comes to LO, though, I do feel this compulsion to tear into it more because Rachel seems to completely lack this understanding, and it shows in her work.

Before I continue, I want to throw in a quick disclaimer - when we criticize Rachel's art, it's not to throw any of her assistants under the bus. All of her assistants are incredibly skilled in their own right. When I criticize Rachel's art as a whole - regardless of who helped shape it into its final form - I'm criticizing not just the art itself, but her direction. Rachel is, essentially, a director of a team, and how she manages that team reflects how her work looks in the end after it's all been put together. I will be showing pieces of art from her assistants in this essay, none of this is to promote any shame or hate towards these people. This is purely an essay speculating on Rachel's directing capability and how she manages her team and is not meant to be taken as objective fact beyond what I am capable of proving as an outsider looking in. I consider her assistants people who are just being hired to do a job, I do not condone holding them responsible for the nosedive Lore Olympus has taken in quality over the past few years. These are simply points and speculations that myself and the ULO community came to after discussing it at length.

Alright, so, where to begin?

This essay started with me having a simple conversation with @loreolympusminoredits over on Instagram. They had pointed out a couple panels from a recent free episode where you could see the texturing wasn't being applied properly. You have to look really closely, but once you spot it, you can clearly see the outline of a square where the texturing block wasn't repeated.

It's VERY obvious in this last panel of Hades, look along the back of his shirt, you can clearly see the color warping from the texture block overlaid on top of him.

Now, I have a few theories for this on its own, it really depends on what drawing program these assistants are using. Some of them use Clip Studio. Others use Procreate. There is no consistent requirement in workstations or software among the team, which is Rachel's first mistake. There's a reason why the animation and film industry requires everyone to be using Adobe products whether they like it or not - because it keeps things consistent across the board. It doesn't matter how good you are at Clip Studio or how much you like Procreate, you need to be on the same software and hardware as everyone else to ensure that you can access the same tools, brushes, and workflow as the rest of the team. No one wants to have someone working primarily in Clip Studio who can't access the same brushes or files as the people working in Adobe. As much as I personally hate working in Photoshop, if I were to get an industry job, I would be expected to work in Photoshop, no questions asked. It's part of the job.

Moving on from that, this led me to wonder which assistant was doing these panels, because it's clear that this texturing problem is mostly at the end of Episode 242 during the Persephone / Hades conversation. There's also one stand-out feature that tells us it's the same person making these panels - the bobblehead necks.

Bobblehead necks have been a very noticeable feature in the comic's art decline over the past while. They typically happen when a character - especially a female one - is being drawn from the front. They're usually also defined with noticeable jugular and collarbone lines.

So, which assistant is it drawing the bobblehead necks?

Rachel's art team switches up a lot. Sometimes she has 3, sometimes she has as many as 8. Some assistants tag in, others are consistent.

So far the most noticeably consistent assistants in terms of participation since S2.2 (i.e. post-time skip S2) are Dnaeri, HardHeadedWoman, AmyKing89, and HeyItsJaki (as credited on their episodes). They're the usual team credited at the end of episodes, with the exception of maybe one artist not being present or an extra artist tagging in.

Upon checking their Instagrams, I am becoming way more certain of who does what and how Rachel does her process.

Let's start with HeyItsJaki:

Very thick lineart, distinguished collarbones, defined fingernails/fingers. Thick shading underneath the neck. Sometimes pouty lips if the expression calls for it.

Now let's look at HardHeadedWoman:

Very Disney/Warner Bros reminiscent art, with most notably, thick necks and distinguished jawline features on guys and hourglass figures/thin wrists/thin fingers on women.

And then we have Dnaeri:

It's harder to pin down her style because she seems to just draw whatever she's feeling like, but most notably are how she draws hands and collarbones, very similarly to Jaki, but with one noticeable difference - softer and rounder lines and shapes.

The irony is that Dnaeri and HeyItsJaki both have the same name - Jaki - so them having similar tells in their styles is just something I wanted to point out. Just a funny thought.

That said, Dnaeri DID post a drawing of Persephone once in her own style/interpretation, and there are definitely things to note here.

The collarbone distinction. The anatomy of the fingers and toes. The lighter lineart. The little 'dip' along the edge of the smile.

Moving on. Let's talk about the last assistant who I feel deserves a specific mention - AmyKim89.

You see, Amy is what I'm going to call the smoking gun. All thanks to this post:

Recognize that panel? That's the flat of Dream Persephone from Episode 204.

And this is what the final panel looked like.

Now, Webtoons cropping aside (don't mind the seam running through Persephone's chest) this confirms multiple things for us.

1. AmyKim89 was not the one to shade this panel.

2. The assistants are working purely off Rachel's sketches.

3. The assistants can be in charge of their own lining, which would explain the inconsistent lineart throughout each episode.

4. There are no backgrounds present meaning someone else is in charge of the backgrounds.

5. Flats can be changed and added to after the assistant has already done their job.

To talk about #5 first, notice the pantyhose that were added that make her legs disappear into her cloak. The baby's face changing. The added flower and necklace. Her eyes changing direction.

Regarding #1, look at how the shading makes the art so much more dull. The previous version of this panel with just the flats genuinely looks so much better than the finished piece.

This was, as I'm sure you can imagine, a pretty big find. While I'm sure Amy would probably not be happy to see me using her innocent post as proof for my hyperfocused ramblings tearing apart Rachel's process, I'm glad she posted it nonetheless because it finally shows us a smidge of what the process might be like during production.

Going back to the shading really quick - Amy was not the one who shaded that panel. But I did notice that out of every little inconsistent thing in LO, the shading is some of the most consistent, and it's consistently awful. Dull muddy tones, lack of consideration of space or lighting, clearly the multiply tool being used even when it really shouldn't be, placement of shading primarily under the eyes even when it makes the face look too dim to look good.

It's always being done with the same watercolor-like brush, with the same multiplied tones, and the same 'edges' along where the shading hits the light.

We also know that Rachel eyedrops her colors.

I don't think it's farfetched to believe that her assistants likely do too to a degree. Or they're working off color palettes from previous episodes they've done before which is resulting in this color dissonance where characters change colors, sometimes in between panels.

Considering the constant muddy shading, and the fact that the assistants may not be doing it, I believe it's Rachel doing the shading in the post-production. If you need more proof, here's a reel of her shading in Hades with the exact same techniques seen in finalized panels.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rachel Smythe (@usedbandaid)

Otherwise, if it's not Rachel doing the shading, it could very likely be Dnaeri, as they're one of the longest-running assistants on the team (they came on during S1).

Moving on from that, let's circle back to AmyKim89's drawing of Persephone. She specifies she did the flats and lines for that panel, working off Rachel's sketches. But one noticeable thing is that there's no background.

This lead a bunch of us in ULO to speculate that Rachel is also the one throwing in the background and throwing PNG's of the characters on top.

Proof? How about the fact that there are panels out there with crunchy characters and pristine backgrounds?

I already suspected that the character was zoomed in and the background wasn't, but Amy's post confirms more than that - that the assistants are essentially drawing PNG's which don't get backgrounds until Rachel - or another one of her assistants - adds them.

Here's another panel that I strongly suspect was done by Amy judging by the colors (but the lineart feels like it could be Jaki):

Look at how she's floating in empty space. This wasn't drawn background first and Hestia second, this was drawn with Hestia first and they slapped a background behind her.

It would also explain why we get panels of characters missing their bottom halves or their limbs - because the backgrounds ended up being larger than they were anticipating in the final shot.

There are a whole bunch of things we can speculate on here knowing what we know from past essays and what I've laid out here.

Rachel may only be involved in the beginning and end of these episodes. She does the roughs, hands the sketches out to her assistants, which they flat and line, and she puts in the shading, dialogue/speech bubbles, texturing, and last details after they're all handed in. This would also explain why there are so many typos - lack of time to edit/proofread - and why sometimes there will be characters speaking but their mouths won't be open.

Rachel hands out the sketches to her assistants individually who flat and line it and hand them back. Sometimes they're handed individual panels, other times they're handed entire pages with a few panels on them. This would explain why we can go an entire scene with a character looking one way and then looking completely different by the next.

Think back to all those previous essays. Everything we've learned so far - that Rachel's buffer is miniscule, that she's shading with the multiply tool, that she's clearly only contributing the roughs and few panels that she makes from random drawings she did on a whim and waits until she can find a chance to shoehorn it into the comic.

Rachel started off drawing this comic just on her own. When she took on assistants, there were only two - AmbitiousIcarus and Madd_Joey.

But eventually, she took on more and more. Two became three, three became five, and nowadays, she maintains a consistent art team of 4-6 people per episode, not including herself or the rotating artists who come and go every now and then.

This has been happening steadily since the Episode 50's range of S1.

The summer when Lore Olympus' licensing rights for animation were sold to the Jim Henson Company.

I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that the assistants were the downfall of LO. I think they're all amazing artists, each in their own right - but their art is clearly failing to shine through in the wake of Rachel's poor management and organization. Rather than delegating single people to single roles - lines, flats, shading, texturing, etc. - she's handing things out panel by panel as she sketches them out... and considering how poor her time management is as we've all seen, it's not hard to come to the conclusion that these assistants are all being put in positions where they have to rush out lower quality work. Rachel is haphazardly dividing up the work between more people all the while contributing less and less on her own end in pre-production, post-production, and quality checking as time goes on. The final episodes weren't immediately noticeably bad as soon as she started taking on more assistants, but it's clear Rachel's involvement in the comic and its quality control has been declining rapidly since the Jim Henson purchase.

Again, this isn't to point fingers or assume the worst of anyone, but it really is food for thought. I hope that this was, at the very least, informative for those of us who've wondered over the years what Rachel's process is like. It definitely seems messy from what we can tell on the surface and frankly, if I could be in the same room as Rachel, I'd be using all this as an example of why she needs to manage her team and her time better. But that's not my place to do so. All I can do is speculate on it and spend way too much time writing an essay about it LMAO None of what I've written here is 'proof' of anything, as I'm not in the position to be able to do such a thing - that's reserved solely for Rachel and her assistants - but it's becoming plainly obvious what the workflow looks like and why the comic looks shittier and shittier every week.

All that said, I don't feel like her assistants get nearly enough credit for the work they do for Rachel. She can't even be bothered to remember the name of the guy who edited the books for her (it's Edwin, by the way) and you never see her bring up her assistants when she talks on interviews about how hard she works or how difficult it is to make a webcomic. At this point, Rachel may as well be the Queen of England - all the pomp and reward and credit, with nothing to show for leadership or actual work ethic.

It's not your work we're seeing each week - it's the work of people who are rushing to meet your deadlines, win your awards, and do your homework.

You are the sum of the parts you utilize in your workflow. You are not here purely of your own efforts. It can barely be called 'your work' at this point. Lore Olympus has become the Ship of Theseus - barely recognizable for what it once was after being haphazardly pieced together by the efforts of others.

And that's all I'm gonna say on that.

[hkthatgffan]

As someone dying of lupus (it's hard to draw atm due to shakey hands), and is slow with comissions, I never ask for money first, rather than after i finish. And if I don't get it done in 3 months, I apologize and try to give them a free doodle of their choice, no money given to me at all.

Even if I moved slow, I'd always keep them up to speed with what was happening, if I can/cannot do the drawing or give them something small and free to compensate for the months gone by so at least someone gets a little something for waiting.

And if I get it done, then I get my payment (since my health is unpredictable, I like to get paid after. Makes me feel better, to not be paid upfront because it makes me feel better on touching up, asking if changes needed to the art, anything added, etc. Or if my health simply won't allow, at least they'll get something in the end.)

Idk. I just find it rather cruel to leave people in the dark like that. I deal with abuse, awful illnesses litterally tearing me apart, i've lost half if not most my family and had to do artwork or refund/explain if artwork couldn't be completed regardless.

There's no excuse to leave people behind, block, ignore,ghost, and run off with cash.

I've met really rude people in this fandom, and I really wish people would just take five seconds to go "ok here's what's happening, do you want your cash back?" Like it's not hard.

The day of the last few gf episodes, I was in the hospital because my organs weren't working properly and almost exploded my digestive track due to nerve damage,

Yet I still managed to

Let my friends know the art trades will be unfinished and you won't need to give me anything in return (because i always prefer to do them first incase something happens)

Let those who did used to pay me first get their 15 bucks back

All while my insides almost ruptured from gastroparesis 🎉🥳 and my friend died all in the same day i went and stayed two weeks in the hospital desperately trying to apologize for the delay and doing whatever I could to explain my situation and if they needed anything in return/makeup for it.

That's straight up MEAN to ignore and block someone and run off with the cash. There's no excuse.

Even when I was screaming in agony in my hospital bed, I still managed to give a refund or something or talk to the person and not leave them in the dust. :/

I am so sorry you were left in the dark.

OMG, I'm so, so sorry about all you've been through. That is honestly a truly painful and horrible thing to endure I wouldn't wish on even my worst enemies and people who like with you, made me endure some of the worst that I've seen from people in this fandom.

But also you're right. No matter the reason and no matter how long it may be, a person who has accepted a job...be it an art commission or something else, should at the bare minimum, communicate with the person they are being paid to do that for.

The sad thing is that me and everyone I mentioned in my post had been doing things the right way for ages. We gave Kiki-Kit time (more than we should've), communicated to her through the proper channels she had set up, were nice and patient and yet she never responded to any of us. It literally left us with no choice but to call her out...something none of us wanted to do!

That's what really disappoints me about it all. IDC if she was to take another year to finish my commission. It was a non time sensitive comm I just got from her cause it was a chance to support an artist I respected and admired who was going through a rough time and get a personalized art piece from them. But her lack of communicating really has been upsetting. No matter what she was going through, she could have at least made a post or update to us saying things would take time or even just not say an arbitrary completion date and then miss it with months without another update. No one would be mad at her if she just communicated with us better. That's all that this boils down to; lack of communication!

I get upset and apologize if I miss messaging someone back even for a few hours. And I feel even worse if I miss a DM or message sent my way and then see it maybe days later. None of us are after Kiki-Kit or want her to be remembered for this by the fandom. It pained me greatly to make that post. But with all that has come out, it was overdue.

I still believe she can rectify this all if she just responds and agrees to refund or complete comms from everyone still waiting, that's all it'll take. I doubt anyone will wanna buy a comm from her again who are aware of all this, but at least it's better than not responding to people who fucking paid her and are waiting!

At this point personally, I'm getting my money back from her if she does offer it and so are probably everyone else who I've spoken to. It's not something I want to do given the whole reason behind why she did those comms in the first place...but this whole situation has just left a bad taste in us all and quite frankly, we've had enough.

I just hope if or when Kiki-Kit does address this all, she does better moving forward.

[hatsunemimikyu]

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition First Impressions

Started playing yesterday after having it sit on my Steam library for years and thought it would be fun to note down my first impressions of the game!

Tales Experience

For note, this is not my first game in the series. I've played a significant part/finished Symphonia, Abyss, Zestiria and Berseria, and also played a bit of Phantasia and Arise. My favourites are Abyss and Berseria!

The Plot

I've gone up to Shaikos Ruins by now, so I haven't seen muuch of the plot, but knowing Tales I can predict some conspiration of those in power that relates to the ancient technology lol

I don't mind most Tales games sticking to a tried and true formula as I think the best part of those stories is how they tie to the development of the characters. And talking about characters...

The Characters

I already like Yuri a lot tbh. I love how he's simultaneously too tired for this shit but also cares too deeply to not help others in need. Combat-wise he's your sword main character(tm) which I always appreciate since I'm not that good at combat to play with the more intensive chars lol. Cool dude 10/10.

Omg Estelle is another one I'm loving?? She's kind and sheltered but she's also funny and a book lover. I love her dynamic with Yuri, sheltered noble x world weary (ex-)military makes me think of Luke x Tear who I have always liked a lot. I also love her dress, it looks like a flower!

Extra notes on her and Yuri's relationship, I'm curious to see how Flynn will play into it but I'm already envisioning the "this is my boyfriend Yuri and this is my boyfriend's boyfriend Flynn" thing lol

Also she and Yuri already had the "would you still love me if I was a worm snake or frog?" conversation and I love that for them tbh

https://youtu.be/RIlLpX4fmVY?si=4kR0_lmSoKr9YEpS

Mechanically she's a healer so... sorry girl, probably not going to play as you so much :'D and please stop using sharpness on yourself!!! Still 10/10

Doggo/10, what's more to say?

Ok but Repede is really cool! The only part of his design I'm not a big fan of is the electric blue fur on his head. I'm pretty curious on what's his story with his previous owner and how he came to hang with Yuri (I'm pretty sure the pipe is a memento?)

Mechanically he's the faster but frailer guy which is... ok I guess lol

He's scared as fuck and he has a big ass tote so he's very relatable lol I'm pretty sure him knowing to lockpick will be significant somehow, maybe a hint of his past? 8/10 let's see what he has in store

Mechanically he's the big swing guy which I always enjoy playing as even tho I'm bad at it

Smartass ass lil lady/10. This is a "type" of character I always like in Tales so happy to see her there lol. Still have to finish the ruins to see how will she decide to tag along the party. Mechanically she's the offensive caster, found her nice to play at but I don't like to stay still for long so I don't play caster very much.

Now that I'm done with the characters for now, let's get to...

The Gameplay

This is one of the Tales with the lanes + free movement duo. I'm playing on normal bc I'm a scrub, but I still feel that blocking at the right time/free moving to reposition is pretty important as some enemies can hit quite hard. Usually it gets easier with time bc you get more characters/spells, but for now I'm feeling the difficulty is in a nice place. Skills being learnable from weapons adds some more levels of choice (do I equip every new stronger piece of equipment or do I wait to learn skill X?) which is interesting. I'm glad I'm playing on my Deck as I don't have to worry about save points since I can just put it to sleep.

Now for the last part...

The Visuals

As I've stated before, I'm playing this on a Steam Deck, so I can't comment on how this would look on a giant screen, but for the Deck at least, it looks pretty good! The art direction is pretty strong and all the environments I saw up to now have been distinctive and very nicely crafted. The characters also look pretty good, and the overrall effect is like you're playing an interactive anime. Really shows how a good art direction makes a game look good no matter how old it is.

Anyways having an overrall nice experience with this one! I'm curious to get more characters and see how they develop. Idk if I'll write any more of this but it has been fun to ramble about lol. If you read this all thanks for reading lol have you played this game?