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iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia · 2 years ago

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How would the M6 react to MC being drunk in front of them for the first time? The kind of drunk that changes MC's demeanor, and now they're all giggly and reckless

The Arcana HCs: M6 reacting to a drunk MC

~ I love this request. Also I know some of you are going to read this and wonder what the M6 are like when they get drunk, which is why I'll be reblogging the original creator's response to that question right after I post this! Love you guys - brainrot ~

- to set the scene-

It has been a very, very long Friday and you have never been more ready for the weekend. Unfortunately, by the time you make it back to your living space, you find a little note from your beloved apologizing because they're going to be back later than expected. You sigh, drop your bag onto the table, kick off your shoes and lean back to relax. You had picked up some spiked lemonade on your way back to try with them, but you figure a glass ahead of time wouldn't be too bad. You take a sip and are immediately disappointed by how little alcohol you can taste.

Half an hour and two large glasses later you can feel your head beginning to swim. Surely you aren't drunk, that stuff has next to nothing in it - until you check the label attached to the back and your eyes grow wide at the numbers you read. Just as the humor sets in and you begin to giggle you hear the door open.

"MC? I'm sorry I'm late ..."

Julian

Did he expect to come home to a drunk and giggling MC? No. Is he mad about it? Also no

He can't help it, the first thing he's trying to do is evaluate you. How drunk are you? Will he also be having a few drinks tonight or is he going to be staying sober so you can let loose?

He watches as you follow Malak around the house, trying to mimic his hoarse cawing

Water it is

Come to think of it, this is a fantastic chance to display his theatrical talents. He's always had a knack for comedy

You make one of the best audiences he's had in years. Even the jokes he doesn't deliver as well as he wants to are met with uncontrollable laughter

Will absolutely act out a comedy sketch in one of his stolen wigs, the plot getting increasingly ridiculous as he gets swept away in the moment

Will die of shame the next morning when you start quoting his amphibian-inspired Romeo and Juliette improv around the house:

"Forgive me, father frog, I got the warts from the toad. But how was I to resist him? His croaking was so passionate -"

Asra

When they opened the door and heard your giggles they knew it was a good night

And then he rounded the corner and saw your flushed face and lidded eyes and dopey smile and knew that you were apparently having a really good night

They're just pulling out a chair to pour themselves a drink too when they feel a draft and look up in time to see you marching out the back door

Now he's giggling as he jogs to catch up with you, wondering where on earth drunk you has decided to go at this time of night

The docks, apparently. Their story about Faust in the palace garden maze has inspired you to try the same thing

In the middle of the night

While you are not as sober as you should be to practice life-preserving magic

The problem is that Asra is your best/worst enabler, so if trespassing on the ships to jump off of their masts is what you want to do, then that's what the two of you are doing

Three, if you count Faust

You are absolutely going to get nauseated from all the floating and puke all over him

They had it coming for enabling you, but what they didn't see coming was you pulling them into the ocean for an impromptu bath

Nadia

She's never seen you so drunk before, normally when you drink with her it's at big dinners so you don't even get tipsy

She's wavering on how to respond. Should she partake in whatever delightful brew you've apparently smuggled into the palace?

Or should she dedicate herself to taking care of you instead?

Oh but now you're giggling and collapsing into her lap, asking her about her day -

She's telling you about this one meeting with a certain courtier and now you're interrupting her, arms flung wide as you go on a drunken rant about them

Well. She knew you tended to filter your thoughts in the palace, but she had no idea your opinions were this colorful. Or hilariously stated

Now she's reaching for the bottle of spiked lemonade and pouring you another glass. What other amusing judgments have you been hiding?

Muriel

Will spend the evening taking the most excellent care of you while she prompts you for more rants

Here, lie down in her lap, drink some water, let her give you a massage, and tell her more about your thoughts on the chamberlain's most recent outfit decision, and how it resembled a stoned flamingo

Happy to hear that you're happy, but a little unsure of how to proceed

Were you planning on getting drunk? Did something happen to make you want to get drunk?

Oh, the lemonade was stronger than expected? Ok

Wait no stop trying to climb him. He's not a tree. You're going to bump your head

Oh, now you're wondering outside and loudly singing. And Inanna's going with you because she thinks it's hilarious

He's enjoying this uninhibited side of you but he's concerned for your safety

And for the safety of all the natural wildlife that may encounter you in this state

Wait no don't climb that tree

When did you get so good at climbing trees? He's never even seen you try by yourself before and now you're a good twenty feet up???

Does he climb up after you? How will he convince you to come back down?

"... MC? If you come down, I'll cuddle you."

A moment of silence. Did it work?

All he hears is a faint "catch meee ..." from high above his head before you come hurtling down through the branches

He doesn't know how he survived all the heart attacks you gave him that night

Portia

Immediately inspecting whatever it is that got you so happy. She wants in on your secrets

Spiked lemonade? From that market stall? Haha, no wonder you're plastered

She'll have a little bit, but what she really wants to know is if you'll hear out her crazy ideas for your magic abilities

"MC? Is it possible to do magic while you're drunk?"

She's met with a lopsided grin and an unsteady flash of the funniest looking sparkles she's ever seen

Were those supposed to be ... in the shape of Pepi? Or a sea monster?

Oh, this is going to be so much fun

Takes you out into the garden because she needs to know if Cinderella's pumpkin coach can actually happen (one of her guilty reading pleasures)

You come up with some abomination consisting of several squash, a whole mess of vines, and one terrified rat

The two of you end up going on a joyride through the fields behind the palace, lurching violently in all directions

There is now a rumor of the menacing giggling cryptid that wanders through the fields at dusk, scattering chunks of ravaged gourd

Lucio

Party time? Party time!!

Already loudly praising your drinking habits as he starts gulping straight from the bottle

Maybe he would savor it normally, but you started without him so now he needs to catch up

He makes the same mistake you did, of not reading the label and assuming it was weak, and the bottle is empty in minutes

"You know MC, I'm kinda surprised something that weak got you that smashed ohhhhh wait a minute -"

He just stood up and is now swaying in place, startled by the headrush

And then he hears you snorting with laughter at yourself as you try to tell the worst dad joke he's ever heard

Normally at this point he'd be caught up in the frenzy of an out of control party, what's he supposed to do when it's just the two of you?

Except you told the punchline first, and then the beginning, but now you're kind of backtracking through the middle, and you're breathless with giggles, and he's laughing too

That's it, that's how the rest of the night goes, ruining all of your favorite jokes and laughing until you're nauseated and his mascara is streaming down his cheeks

#ask arcana brainrot #the arcana headcanons #the arcana hc #the arcana #asra the arcana #julian the arcana #nadia the arcana #muriel the arcana #portia the arcana #lucio the arcana #the arcana game #the arcana shitpost #the arcana fluff #asra alnazar #julian devorak #nadia satrinava #muriel of the kokhuri #portia devorak #lucio morgasson

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ahsoka-in-a-hood · 4 months ago

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There was some post about the enraging purposelessness of mowing lawns and someone commented about using a scythe instead and somehow this got me thinking. What if someone decided to make hay by themselves on their lawn?

Hay is food for herbivores, with different animals having different preferences. It's also good as bedding or mulch for a garden even if the food quality isn't great. So there's a reason for hay.

While I would assume that american prairie is traditionally maintained just by grazing? I know that in europe hay meadows have become part of a specific flower and insect ecosystem that has suffered by evolutions in maintenance. Traditionally you would cut that grass just once, maybe twice, in a year. exactly when depends on where you are and what the weather is like- it could even be as early as may, it could be june, it could be july. (a second haying might be in septemberish.) What you need is a hot week without rain. The quality of the hay as food tends to be better the earlier you catch it, but it's better for the flowers and insects to wait. (and you can still use that hay as bedding or mulch, but even then, there's usually still some good food in there.) There can be ecological benefits to removing the sheer bulk of the spring grass, depending on where you are I guess.

It being an annual task makes it feel less sisyphean, to me, but the trade off is that it's a lot all at once and you do it when it's hot. One must make hay while the sun shines, to quote a historical porn fic that was definitely using that metaphor to talk about taking advantage of a boner.

Anyway, I would not underestimate the humble scythe. I have an old one I use sometimes for places I can't get with a tractor and while it depends on your technique and how sharp you've made the blade, it can be very satisfying the way it sweeps a large swathe. If you're dealing with just a little lawn, you'd probably cut it quite quickly- though probably not very tidily.

The next step is usually turning or tedding the hay- basically it just needs to be turned over. .... a hay fork might do it? I'm sorry, I have a really good mechanical tedder and have never needed to do it by hand.

How long you dry hay for varies on conditions. I sometimes bale hay at 48(ish) hours, sometimes 4 or even 5 days. Occasionally I get lightly rained on and have to wait for it to dry again. It's better if it's fresh, but if it's not dry it will just go moldy.

Hay rakes are a great design. It's a simple thing made of wood, but the angle is just right and it can move a lot of hay. Obviously you don't want to be raking a whole field by hand, but a lawn? You'd be done in like half an hour.

I can't really help you with the manual alternative to baling. I have no idea how people used to make haystacks, but I would guess it involved rolling it kind of like you do a snow ball. (that's... sort of how round balers work, anyway). I imagine that hand rolled hay would not keep as long as hay compressed by a machine, but it probably doesn't need to. You don't need hay that will still be good in two years time. You can give it to a rabbit or something. And put it around your tomatoes.

You would need to store it somewhere dry though.

IDK. I personally find making hay once a year way more satisfying than mowing a lawn every few weeks. But I have also never actually tried to do it all by hand. I just have shitty old machinery and have occasionally had to pick up the slack. (I want a new rake)

#writing nonsense at 11 at night

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dennisboobs · 11 months ago

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i think one of the biggest issues in modern fandom is that despite the abundance of autistic/adhd/audhd fans, a declaration that cringe culture is dead, and the fact that we're all watching the same show, there is large portion of people who participate in fandom as a popularity contest, where the focus shifts off of the main interest and develops almost a secondary hyperfixation with specific creators, blogs, accounts, in a way that at least borders on parasocial.

this is nothing new, but the attitude that springs from it then dictates a specific Way to interact with that fandom, meaning that those who aren't interested in following select clique leaders are outcast and seen as More Cringe because they don't speak or act within acceptable parameters. when people have a platform, there's a pressure to be funny, be entertaining, to produce more Content that your followers WANT to see, the stuff they followed you for. sometimes this leads to plagiarism, ripping off posts from other platforms or lesser known accounts because you feel a compulsion to post ANYTHING for engagement instead of what you WANT to post. speaking from experience here, i am something of a Former YouTuber with a sizeable following, and i've been through it on other social media with several other fandom sideblogs and shit.

different platforms, different friend groups, different subsections – depending on preferred characters, ships, etc. – are inevitably going to be far more insular, and especially long-time fans who are less interested in the general media and more about a selection of specific interests is going to fall into this trap eventually. however, i think social media influences this more now than it did even a few years back, especially on twitter where it's more difficult to find "content" without a well-known account attached.

a while back someone made an always sunny iceberg that had a bunch of shit i had never seen before, despite having personally trawled the waybackmachine and archived a bunch of semi-lost media, running and overhauling the wiki with its decades of collected trivia, and having been on sunnyblr. a lot of it was from the podcast, but the stuff i had no recollection of was obscure ass sunnytwt drama that only involved like. a very small group of individuals. the thing is that these few accounts are minor celebrities in the fandom, and everyone follows them. i myself followed one or two of them when i first got into the fandom because they were posting clips reblogged by non-sunny mutuals. there are a TON of sunny focused accounts on twirter, but only a few that have multi-thousand followings, primarily for this reason. this is essentially your only gateway into the sunny fandom on twitter. here (on tumblr), you can easily look in the tags and curate your followed blogs (or look at the iasip subreddit) but it's a lot harder to find fandom content without that organized space (most people don't specifically tag tweets), instead you have to rely on the few sunny accounts you followed incidentally to deliver you retweets so you can follow more accounts.

so then what happens? you follow more accounts? see a variety of sunny content? follow a tag to see fandom newcomers' posts, art, fics? no, you follow the same 5 accounts you started with and stay in the echo chamber, caught up in drama and taking sides based on your few mutuals' opinions, maybe things get a little too personal and you stay following someone even though you disagree with their posts because you really don't have much of a choice, they can see if you unfollow, and they put posts on your timeline. you make a private account and start quote retweeting them to get out your irritations, a passive aggressive reminder that they're wrong. your other mutual quote retweets someone calling them stupid, and you also decide to tell them how wrong they are, because it's a popularity contest, not an open discussion. there's a Content Draught during the hiatus and people start getting bored. it becomes less and less about the original show, and more about the cliques, the exciting new drama of the day, the actors.

new fans are lost, long-time fans who don't care about all this extra shit are alienated, and it leads to a very odd type of gatekeeping that has these Elevated fans looking down on people for actually wanting to engage with the source media. yes, this includes the fans on reddit who spout quotes. this includes the people who liveblog their first time watching the show. this includes people who care about the show because it's still fresh and exciting and they haven't yet been made to feel that it's something to hide because it's cringey or dated or stupid to take it Too Seriously theorizing and dissecting the Poop and Fart Show.

I am guilty of all of this too, i think for quite a while i've been feeling like i need to defend myself by lashing out at other people because i am extremely sensitive to being made fun of for actually caring about my special interest. but i think that analysis and criticism (within reason) are extremely important facets of fandom and we as a fandom should be trying to encourage that rather than make fun of other fans. i think this is probably the reason for a lot of the issues with fan superiority, gatekeeping, the general awful atmosphere in the fandom. it's easy to complain and make counter content to someone else's post, it's a lot harder to grow the balls to have a proper in-depth lore discussion with them, or better yet, make your own stuff. ive been joking about a fandom-wide rewatch, but i genuinely think we should organize something like that. and i think everyone should set aside the judgement and just enjoy themselves. i'm sick and tired of feeling unwelcome in a fandom that i dedicate a lot of time to because i'm unashamed about enjoying the source media and i suspect a lot of you probably feel the same. you don't need to push everything through an irony filter and self depreciate, you can just like sunny and want to participate in fandom.

#ada speaks #literally feels like every time i try to get real at ALL someone feels like its appropriate to fling shit at me #im sick of vagueposting and broken telephone and im sick of feeling like i need to fucking mask my autism #yeah i misinterpret shit #yeah im overly sensitive #yes i care a whole hell of a lot and i am passionate about things you think are 'stupid'#i wish it wasn't embarrassing to be compassionate or understanding or... empathetic #and i'm going to try not to give in to that shitty behaviour just bc other people do it #i dont know how to fix the problem of people indirectly replying to shit instead of reblogging posts to disagree #i feel like its largely due to us not wanting to bother op #but i think its less harmful in the long run if we can be civil #i think we need to work to have a more welcoming community to EVERYONE not just Acceptable Fans

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decent0distraction · 11 months ago

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*sigh* ok

So-

Listen-

I-

….

I didn’t want to do this. In fact, I have avoided this particular alternate universe as much as I could. But I got bored in Bio and started writing this dumb little thing instead of making flash cards.

I may fail Biology but I’ll never fail making strangely angsty and intriguingly amusing Our Flag Means Death AU’s.

(Update: I got a C)

This AU is, drum roll please….

HIGH SCHOOL/CHEERLEADING AU!

Yeah, not my best pitch. But hear me out. Or don’t. I won’t know either way. [as]

Sorry, I’ll get to the point now.

Stede Bonnet is a rich kid at a rich private school, King George Academy, until he decides he’s going to the nearest public school, Queen Anne High School. His girlfriend, Mary, only finds out he’s breaking up with her and leaving when her friends message her asking if Stede has a brain tumor or something (sparking the flames of “Stede Bonnet died” rumor)

But Stede isn’t dead! No, no, he just committed social-suicide to…captain the Queen Anne cheer squad??

There’s two problems with this. One, there isn’t really a squad for Stede to captain. I mean, there’s a few students who need the extra credit, a couple that have nothing better to do, and some who need it for their college applications. So yeah, if you count a bunch of weirdos and misfits who have no cheerleading experience whatsoever as a squad, then yeah, Stede’s good to go.

The other problem is that while the school itself doesn’t have a cheer squad, a group of talented students travel to the only top schools and their best games to cheer the teams on. This squad-for-hire is captained by Edward Teach and his head cheerleader, Izzy Hands.

Stede likes to think he and Edward are the same, but let’s get one clear. Edward is a captain because his team is so good that no one sees the need to strap a teacher or coach to the squad. Stede doesn’t need an adult chaperone because no really gives a shit. That lot is a team?? Since when? Ah, who cares?

Got it? Cool.

But by the time Edward and his squad return to Queen Anne, the word has gotten out that a fancy private school twink has built a team that’s attractive in the way that ugly purse dogs are cute. Or something like that. You know, the circulation of the rumor mill at this school is very concerning.

Edward sends the best of his team, Izzy Hands, to check out this new squad.

Total mean girls moment when Izzy approaches Stede with Ivan and Fang, the two of them getting into it and the principal getting involved.

And the principal, who I haven’t put a character to yet but the idea of Spanish Jackie breaking up this fight like the principal in Mean Girls, yk

“Hell no, I did not leave East High for this” or was it north east high? Northeastern high? Someone fact check this quote, please? Thank you.

Anyway, whoever the principal is, they pause bc

Stede Bonnet?? As in father’s the inventor of the toaster strudel, that Stede Bonnet?

Or was it something else?

Who cares; the point is, why is this kid in this principal’s school and why are they just now finding out about it?

That’s not important right now tho because it’s become apparent that this school doesn’t have room for two squads so they make Stede and Edward co-captain one large squad. And since it’s clear this is gonna be a problem, they assign the weird old history teacher, Mr. Buttons, to chaperone.

(If I find the flash card I wrote on, I’ll update with any extra details I wrote that isn’t already on this post)

#ofmd #our flag means death #izzy our flag means death #izzy hands #frenchie our flag means death #jim our flag means death #stede our flag means death #edward our flag means death #our flag means death brain rot #our flag means death au #ofmd au

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irrigos · 2 years ago

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Some people in the notes of my recent calligraphy piece said they were interested in manuscripts and stuff, so I thought you all might want to see some of my process pics (there are many! I've been working on this project for almost a year!)

Also, I think my own process is interesting, and I wanted to write it out. Very long post with lots of images under the cut:

I first had the idea for the piece as a submission for a zine that didn't come to fruition. I knew I really wanted to do a piece of text from SMEN, made to look like an illuminated manuscript, but I didn't really know how to... do that. And also I didn't know SMEN that well, so I went through all the text and pulled out some quotes I thought seemed kinda church-y, and drew up a few thumbnails for the finished photo. Honestly, the finished product didn't look that far off from that picture in the middle! Although I guess I was originally planning to use a fork as a prop?

Some of the very first drafts. I'm not great at figuring out layouts and line spacing, so I wrote all the text on a separate paper and cut the words out, so I could figure out where they should go. I kept them all in a little envelope, but it looks like I've lost a few, lol. The capital letter and border designs are from The Bible of Illuminated Letters by Margaret Morgan. I think it's funny to look back on these, because the hands they were done in (Foundational and Gothicized Italic, respectively) are ones I really haven't touched since, and am not good at at ALL. At the time, Foundational Hand was the only broad-edge script I kind of knew, and the Gothicized Italic was just me attempting to copy the exemplar from Foundations of Calligraphy by Sheila Waters (which, if you're interested in learning broad-edge calligraphy, is a book I cannot recommend highly enough)

I tried making a full draft using the materials (I assumed) I would be using in the final version. Seeing it altogether, I could tell that... well first of all, I obviously used WAY too big of a nib because I couldn't get all the lines on the page, but also that I didn't really like... any of it. I don't think it's bad (and I didn't then), but it really wasn't what I was picturing for this project.

I took a workshop on a new calligraphic hand specifically for this piece, because.... that's a good use of my time and money. Anyway, I tried writing out the text in Textura (left) and Fraktur (right). The workshop I took was focusing on Fraktur, but we learned some Textura, too, because Fraktur is just if you took Textura and, well.... fractured it. I think I planned on using this ink for the final version, but I didn't, because I... I think I just forgot to buy more? Maybe it would have been too much red.

Strictly speaking, Fraktur wouldn't be the hand one would traditionally use with the border I picked for the final piece. The white vine style of border originated in the 15th century, in the Renaissance (frequently they're called Renaissance white vines), and Fraktur started in the 16th century. Also (and this might be wrong), I think fraktur was designed to be a typeface, and not specifically for calligraphy? I haven't been able to find any handwritten manuscripts that used fraktur, but I might just be missing something. The white vine style border would probably be used with something more like italic calligraphy! But I don't know italics, and I liked the sharpness of Fraktur. I thought it worked well for a manuscript page that's supposed to represent a sort of... self-harm cult.

I briefly considered, instead of doing the full border and big capital like I did in the final version, doing a large versal with filigree, like the work of Benoit Furet. I took a workshop from him on how to do them, but tbh, when I tried to do it, it looked really messy and childish. I don't have any photos of my attempts at filigrees, but just know that I did consider them.

I decided I wanted to do a full border decoration, instead of filigrees, so I took a workshop on some. This was focused on Renaissance Floral Borders, like the one below, which is (as you can see) from the Visconti Hours (an illuminated Book of Hours from the late 14th century)

I designed one to put on the piece, and I also chose a different design for the capital- a big Roman N, with what was supposed to kind of look like a top-down well behind it. When I finally put everything together, I... well to be quite honest, I hated it. The different design elements didn't really seem to coalesce, instead looking more like I just cut and pasted different stuff than it did that time I actually did that, a few pictures earlier. This design is entirely thrown out, and we start over.

So I took another workshop! I love to learn, and I occasionally even enjoy being taught. This one was on Renaissance White Vine borders, like these ones:

I liked these because they seemed a little bigger and busier than the floral borders, and I thought that might be better for what is, really, a very simple piece. Here's some design attempts! The white dots in the background are actually very traditional, but I chose not to use them in my finished piece, because I thought it made the whole thing look too cute. Also I forgot.

Funnily enough, for all my investigation into manuscripts, the boarder design I used wasn't really from any actual historical piece! I liked this one a lot, so the final border was inspired by it. I'm not really sure who made it, or when. When I took this workshop, the instructor gave us a packet of examples, and this was one of them. The caption just says it's a page from "a beautiful album prepared by the Harris Studio, Chicago."

I don't understand how gilding works and at this point, I'm too afraid to ask. I have a bottle of Instacoll and some gold leaf sitting on my supply shelf, and I think they're there just to bully me. I would give them my lunch money if they told me to. Previous drafts were done with Coliro metallic watercolors (from left to right in the previous draft images, it was Rose Gold, Arabic Gold, and Moon Gold), and I decided I would just use that in the final version, too.

I mostly settled on my vine border/capital, so I did another full draft. Why did I do this one landscape, even though I was going to do the final version in portrait? Well, you see, it's very simple: I didn't wanna deal with my hand bumping into the binding on my sketchbook. And while I COULD have just torn a piece OUT of the sketchbook and used that, uh, well... I didn't.

Around this time, I got an iPad, so I decided to try making a digital draft in Procreate. I'm pretty bad at picking colors, and it was a real pain to have to mix up so much paint every time I wanted to try a different color scheme. And I was running out of red gouache! So I thought that, if I made it digitally, I could mess around with the colors a lot easier, and then use that to mix my paints.

After I did the calligraphy and added my border, though, I thought the whole thing looked pretty empty, so I extended the border below and above the text. I used a bottom border design like the one in this piece, which is from the same place as the other one I was referencing.

As for the top border, I kinda just made it up! I drew some swirls and some flowers and then erased it and redrew it until I decided I liked it.

For the colors, I (as I said) am very bad at colors. I don't know how they work, and they scare me! I ended up coloring the border in grayscale, and then use a gradient map to get colors with the right values.

After that, I printed out the digital version and used my light table to trace it onto a piece of Arches 90lb Hot Press watercolor paper.

The lines were done in a sepia Sakura Micron pen. The calligraphy is mostly done in an iron gall ink with a Mitchell Roundhand nib size 3. The first line was done with a 2.4 mm Pilot Parallel pen, in Pilot Red. (The part that says "The Name" was the Pilot Red ink, but with the smaller nib.) I don't have any in-progress pictures of this part, but I did the calligraphy, and then the gold (in Coliro Arabic Gold watercolor), and then I painted the boarder background in Windsor & Newton gouache.

Then I set up everything for my photo! I draped a piece of black linen over my desk (including my very tall desk lamp, so I could get some verticality/block out the rest of my living room from the photo), and grabbed some of the props I'd been accumulating while working on this.

The resin knife and the candle/candle holder I bought off etsy, the red cup I got at Goodwill, and the ribbon is... I think just something I had on hand? You can't really see the cup in the final photo, but it was just out of frame to the right. I also had a few different colors of candles (one was white and one was clear red with gold foil that actually wasn't able to be lit) but the black candle looked best, AND was the right color for St. Arthur's Candle

I think that's everything I have to say!! Hope this was interesting, but if it wasn't: haha I just tricked you into reading that boring thing.

#long post #is this post interesting? idk but i had fun writing it all up #fallen london #(putting it in the tag so anyone who was interested in the piece can see it)

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meadowpond-tearoom · 20 hours ago

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a lesson Rain taught me...

It's been raining cats and dogs zebras and hyenas for the whole past day and night. I don't like rain, at all; neither its quiet tapping behind the window, much less when it's thrashing down which always feels kind of depressing. Rain and strong winds is the type of weather that's been always beyond my tolerance. .....Yet autumn is back in town, and yesterday at night I got it all. There was no way for me to wriggle out of going outside, so I called up all my sisu (no, I'm not finnish, but, I think, I have a pretty good deal of this invaluable quality in me 8), pushed the door open and went out into the street ready to fight the disaster, but...

.via pinterest

...strangely enough, I realized quite soon that I was taking such shameful weather calmly. It worked! The thing was I had decided to conduct an experiment and just try to not give that nasty meteorological event my attention! Because... well, because I really don't want to feel miserable every time bad weather happens. .....The very moment I spotted a budding sense of irritation rising inside of me, I reminded myself that I have a choice to choose the way I feel myself. And I can always choose my thoughts (feelings follow) instead of letting them happen with me. I don't want to keep primitively reacting to either unpleasant weather conditions or any other displeasing circumstances whatever they might appear in life. "Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times,” said Aeschylus; and was so right!

Rain On A City Street by Katharina Valeeva (Germany) .via icanvas.com

With all this in mind, I did all my outdoor chores, and though I got drenched to the skin, I felt peaceful and inspired because I was all in my happy thoughts. So, now I can tell it by first-hand experience, it's definitely the focus of our attention that defines the way we feel and, on a large scale, the reality we live in.

I came across this nice quote somewhere, - "𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. 𝗜𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹…"

Here I use weather as an example, but actually it's appicable to absolutely any kind of bothering situations - from daily trivial something to really challenging circumstances that might be full of stress and that is when one should be skilled enough in maintaining the right attitude to safely navigate turbulent waters...

Of course, there may be things in life that might call for cardinal changes other than just altering one's approach. Otherwise, "what you tolerate is what you end up with." But, it's another story 8]

.via pinterest

It's true, negative reactions to undesirable situations make one feel even worse than the actual amount of bother one might get from a negative event itself. And it's like a snowball - more and more things to be irritated about are getting attracted without us even noticing.

Well, imagine an unpleasant situation was... a person that really drives you nuts. You grab them by the lapels, and start shaking them furiously, you go on and on, and you cannot stop. A never ending circle, only because you're holding it so tight - with your thoughts and emotions. But in fact, annoying experience dissapears when and only when you give it your ignorance... simply by redirecting your attention to something else, something pleasant of course.

Macy's Rainy Day Walkers by Chin H Shin, oil painting on Canvas, 2022

Well, successfully having passed the test, and here's how I came to the idea of this post - sharing my little story accompanied by paintings of rain... :), I was walking down the street, when, just out of the blue, a subtle scent of gouache paint suddenly drifted into my nose. There was no reasonable explanation where this smell could come from, only maybe from a stationary shop I was passing by, and it lasted for a few seconds only. But all at once I was transported back to my elementary school days when I used to walk by a room where painting classes were held. And it smelled exactly like that every time I slightly opened the door and breathlessly observed children painting. It's not that I had an irresistible desire to paint, but certainly it attracted me much more than the elective my parents signed me for... ;/

.via pinterest

Sure, there may be situations when blowing off steam would be a healthy choice, yet irritability is by and large an ill habit if it 's happening continually and for no decent reason, even when it seems that we have all the rights to experience righteous anger. Telling the truth, I'm not an irritable person, yet some certain situations might still be triggering. That's why I decided to work on it.

Besides, what's the point of gaining knowledge if you don't use it? There's a fair statement - "Truth cannot be told, it can only be realized." Because really, nothing will ever change, even if we were given eons of years, until we put this conscious emotional alchemy into a regular practice. I decided to have fun with it, and now I can see that it really works. It´s like - "what if I try to behave like that and let´s see what happens," -- small steps for profound changes and with fun, isn't that great?

.found at snipstock.com

Now, to sum up - 1. Every time you notice that you start getting annoyed about anything, just take a few long deep breaths from your diaphragm - that's important, because such type of breathing will gradually get you into a relaxed state and help you ground in the present moment.

2. Keep ignoring the negativity of a given circumstance by consciously focusing on your inner world - just think about something that fills your heart with joy, peace or inspiration. "Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think." - Benjamin Disraeli. You will soon realize that your emotions follow the new thought pattern, as emotions never come just by themselves, certain thoughts always precede.

Instead of automatically reacting to outer irritants we may choose the way we respond to what's happening, and that's what is always under our control.

There now, stormy weather doesn't bother me anymore, yay!, though cold was always my weak spot, physically and thus mentally too. It was definitely a nice lesson to learn, especially because I could see immediate results; and the knowledge may be expanded further as needed to other areas of life.

Now, you who are reading this, don't forget to check daily your inner weather forecast and may it keep reporting - 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗲𝘀 & 𝘀𝘂𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲! ❥

p.s. While I'm typing this, another storm is raging behind the window. And as you might guess, I need to go outside. Well, I'm gonna go re-test my new ability ✌

#:pics & chat tearoom #:art & words #art #paintings #rain paintings #thoughts #writing #personal growth #mindset

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web-novel-polls · 4 months ago

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Tips for New Tournament Makers

Don't feel pressured to follow these to a T. You can do whatever you want forever, but I've been making polls for over a year and having a clear system and outline has really helped me.

Stages of a Tournament

Have a tournament idea & figure out the qualifications for contestants

Submissions - collect submissions for who or what will compete in the tournament. Google Forms are KING for this since you can edit questions if you forget something. Tip: if you have a propaganda question, make it a Long Form response instead of Short Answer.

Forming & Announcing a Bracket - To make the brackets themselves, I recommend BracketHQ and Challonge.com for standard brackets and Canva's whiteboard for non-standard brackets. Challonge has more features and is better for larger brackets you want to share with others. Bracket HQ is easier to understand/start out and to screenshot & edit the image if there's a tie. Canva has the most flexibility since you can straight up design the bracket entirely.

Releasing Polls - the Schedule feature is your friend. Space out individual polls, even if you're releasing a batch; the queue WILL post them out-of-order any chance it gets. I've heard "no less than 5 minutes between polls" as a rule of thumb, but whatever time frame works for you is fine.

Announcing Results

(You may want to decide what type of and big of a bracket you want before submissions since Double Elimination and large brackets take much longer and are harder to organize than a Round Robin or small Single Elimination tournament)

Organization

Figure out the bracket beforehand & write down an outline for when polls will come out. If running more than one tournament, I highly recommend using a google sheet for organization.

My first sheet shows everything "upcoming" in the queue, and once it's been posted, I move it to another sheet. I usually like to mark reminders with (R) to make sure I don't have two polls posting at the same time, and the "posted" column helps make a habit of checking the sheet. To freeze rows/columns, select the letter or number marking it > right click > view more row actions > freeze up to... Checkboxes are under "Insert."

Use a tag or tagging system, if possible. It makes finding polls and whatnot so much easier, especially if you put tag links in your pinned post or somewhere easily accessible.

Ex: #webnovel quotes tournament -> web-novel-polls.tumblr.com/tagged/webnovel%20quotes%20tournament

I like using masterposts (linked to my pinned post) & updating them with the bracket/schedule at least a few days before the polls are scheduled to start. It helps to have everything in one place & easily accessible.

Have a google doc with all the submissions and/or bracket prepared. It's helpful to have a section you can just copy & paste into Tumblr.

I have an outline for the polls of each round that's customized for what I need. The tags can be just copy-pasted starting with the first tag.

For larger brackets, I sometimes need separate docs for the full character list, the bracket, and whatever else, but putting the amount of submissions recorded at the top means I can check the google form responses without having to open 2 million google docs. Since the amount of responses on the Google form matches the submissions in the google doc preview, I don't have to open it, which saves more time than you'd think.

Interaction

Not everyone is online all the time, so reblog polls, submissions, whatever you want people to interact with! For polls, I reblog 24 hours before the poll is scheduled to end. For submissions, I cycle through what's open by reblogging whenever I have a relatively empty day. Some people also reblog 12 hours after a poll has begun to reach people in other time zones.

@ tournament-announcer - they(?) reblog submissions before a tournament starts (or for ongoing themed polls like "do you know this character?"); there might also be other themed blogs that'll reblog polls/submissions if you @ them or send an ask

Tumblr allegedly only uses the first 5 tags on a post (which I do NOT believe), so I usually tag the characters/fandom first, and then my organizational tags and tags to block.

Self Care

Remember: this is for fun! (Most Important Reminder; everything comes from this)

You make the rules. If you forget a poll or make a mistake, you can just change the schedule or whatever you need.

You'll sometimes get people who aren't happy with seeding, time frames, the amount of propaganda, etc. They are not entitled to anything. If you don't want to do something, don't.

HAVE FUN! If it no longer brings you joy, yeet it.

#not a poll #not a web novel #tips #tournament tips #tumblr tournaments #tumblr tournament tips #tournament running #tournament advice #web speaks #is this helpful? my brain is just NOT meant to understand brackets so I use a lot of stuff to make it work lol #there's also a huge community/communication aspect but Idk anything about that since I just started making polls and kept doing it #image id in alt

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capsgirl19 · 1 year ago

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Uhhh, hey, so did you guys actually... read this letter? Because a very small portion of it is about Palestine, and the rest is largely split between theocratic screed and regurgitating Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. If this letter "opened people's eyes about geopolitical matters," I deeply fear what exactly it has opened them to. Bin Laden points out some information about American imperialism which is and has been accessible through many, many less biased sources and it's frankly worrying how attached people are getting to the one which is mostly theocracy and antisemitism. If you learned something new from this letter, go read about it from someone who's not trying to convert the entire world to their religion.

On the document page, the Guardian explains that it was being shared without context and that they determined it was best to link to reporting instead in hopes of providing a fuller picture. I'll give you the full screenshot of that page, because somehow it wasn't included here:

The Guardian doesn't get much right, but they were right on this one.

This letter is still widely available online, and has in fact been available for your perusal since 2002. In hopes that you all did not actually read this whole awful thing and decide to advocate for its exposure anyway, I'm going to post a few choice quotes here:

"We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest."

"You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator.

"You are the nation that permits Usury, which has been forbidden by all the religions. Yet you build your economy and investments on Usury. As a result of this, in all its different forms and guises, the Jews have taken control of your economy, through which they have then taken control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense; precisely what Benjamin Franklin warned you against."

"Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts. Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies, media and economy."

Bin Laden, like all of us, was capable of saying true things, and sometimes did. He had very legitimate reasons to be as angry as he was. He was still a fucking bastard who would've had the world governed by his own religious views. What is happening in Palestine is awful, it's a genocide and it needs to be stopped as soon as possible. We cannot let that be corrupted by obvious antisemitism, and we owe our Jewish siblings better.

#cw antisemitism

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asoiaf-artbrdr · 3 years ago

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Tyrion Lannister

Then he saw the other one, waddling along half-hidden by his brother's side. Tyrion Lannister, the youngest of Lord Tywin's brood and by far the ugliest. All that the gods had given to Cersei and Jaime, they had denied Tyrion. He was a dwarf, half his brother's height, struggling to keep pace on stunted legs. His head was too large for his body, with a brute's squashed-in face beneath a swollen shelf of brow. One green eye and one black one peered out from under a lank fall of hair so blond it seemed white. Jon watched him with fascination. - Game, Jon I

Shop notes below!

It's been a few days! I've been bedridden recently and hadn't prepared my queue enough in advance. It gave me some time to think though, and I've decided I won't be bothering with including quotes in the future. There are over 80 portraits I've got ready to go, so finding descriptive quotes for each was becoming a time sink. Instead, I'm going to write about my process creating each portrait when I post them. Who better to start with than Tyrion?

First, a description of Artbreeder for the unfamiliar: it is a tool which allows the user (breeder, colloquially) to blend images together and adjust their contents and style incrementally. This is primarily achieved through the use of genes, which are something like filters on the image. They can produce all sorts of modifications, from hair color to the shape of the jaw. However, they're made by the community and can be very volatile! Often you'll get the hair looking how you want, only to have screwed up the expression or age of the subject in the process. I find using Artbreeder is a matter of patiently balancing these alterations until I'm satisfied with the result.

Tyrion's portrait was one of the earlier ones I began on. Unfortunately, there isn't much on Artbreeder aimed to represent dwarfism. What I did find was for the dwarves of lotr >.> I hope I've achieved proportions that feel authentic (I welcome any feedback on the matter!). At the same time, I wanted to maintain familial resemblance. Since I often futzed with my other Lannister portraits, I had to eventually go back and adjust Tyrion to match. For a long time, they all had blue-green eyes as the genes available then would mess with skin color or look too unrealistic, but recently there's been some better genes available for eye color. Artbreeder does have some major limitations - there is nothing that would allow me to show Tyrion's heterochromia, or create his scarring. His hair, I did my best on. I think with time I could make something more stripey (I've succeeded with my Ghiscari hair) but it would probably be at the sacrifice of the rest of his coloring if not features, so I'm leaving that as it is for now.

Overall, I like the end result. I struggle not to picture show!Tyrion, tbh! But Dinklage is way too old and much too handsome to really embody what's described in the text!

Thanks for all the positive comments, likes, and reblogs <3 It's made me feel very cheerful lately! I hope y'all like this portrait too.

#house lannister #tyrion lannister #asoiaf fanart #valyrianscrolls #artbreeder #megamikenzie #queue better believe it

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dax-enfinity · 2 years ago

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I'd love it if you just rambled about your godkill au. I love this au a lot. Just. Infodump.

Okay infodump time!

GodKill Toby first!

- The first time Connie ever started to suspect about her son would be when he first started coming home with multiple bruises

- Because in canon HOO / PJO lore the children of Ares have a natural aura that causes: anger, rage, fury, and pain like the angry kind.

- So thanks to that the Ares cabin often get into fights and have many rivalries, so Toby would naturally get into fights too

- Oh, and Toby would also have additional disorders such as:

- PTSD (Car crash and abusive dad)

- Dyslexia (Being a Demigod)

- ADHD (Also being a Demigod)

- C.I.P.A (Numbness to pain/injuries)

- Tourette’s Syndrome (His entire backstory)

- When Toby turned 11 his mother finally told him the truth and Connie got divorced (yay! :D)

- He got his personal weapon the Celestial Bronze Axe because he wanted to defend himself

- He sees Chiron like a dad to him (aww, but also daddy issues)

- He likes to play lots of pranks especially back in Camp Half-Blood but rarely does in the Mansion (since the whole edgy atmosphere thing)

- Unlike canon Toby, GodKill Toby doesn’t have the mouth scar

- Toby would be the one to wear simple yet fashionable clothes such as flannels, band t-shirts, ripped jeans, hoodies, and overalls with accessories such as necklaces, bracelets, sunglasses, beanies, and converse.

- He has a skateboard that’s all I have to say

- GodKill Toby is pretty much a normal teenager except for the Demigod abilities and reflexes

Now.. Onto GodKill Nico

- As I said in my other posts he’s an edgy serial killer

- His early life consisted of being happy until his parents and Bianca died

- Very sarcastic

- Emo

- Yet also like Metal

- He was put into the foster care system at a young age but there were many failed fostering attempts

- Each of the families stopped fostering him for different reasons such as:

- Killing small animals

- Trying to make mustard gas once

- Got suspended multiple times due to taunting bullies at school

- Stealing

- He managed to shoplift 3 times

- Scaring the neighbors

- Due to his multiple disorders and trauma

- He decided to kill his last foster family and run away which he did rather quickly since he had been planning their murder for a week and had already packed his bags

- He cleaned up the evidence for no trace of his DNA

- Nico got found by Slenderman at the age of 14, so he has been a proxy for about a year until he meets Toby

- Kills with one of those sharp hunting knifes

- Instead of aviator and bomber jackets GodKill Nico wears leather jackets and sweaters

- Nico listens to:

- My Chemical Romance

- Motörhead

- Black Sabbath

- Mötley Crüe

- He would be a bit more fashionable than Toby for example he would wear leather jackets, sweaters, chains, black military boots, fingerless gloves.

- His room in the Mansion is unexpectedly tidy since it’s filled with band posters, a bed with black bedsheets and red blankets, a large desk filled with a few plants a computer and markers/colors/pencils.

- His room in the Mansion also has a small bedside table with a framed picture of him and Bianca

(ha, angst)

- Along with a large bookshelf filled with mythology books, a few non-fiction books on pirates, and some poems by Edgar Allan Poe

- Spare knife in the bedside table

- Kind of an asshole at first meeting

- Swears a lot

- Has a weird thing for blood, like he likes to look at it

- average horror movie fan

- “Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time”

- edgy quote he probably says all the time

- “Whoops, My fingers slipped”

- Yes I took that from that one Nico fan art Viria made back in like 2013-2014 on tumblr

- also rolls his eyes often

whoah…

This is long…

#toby x nico #nicoby godkill #godkill au #reverse nicoby au #reverse nicoby #nico x toby #nico di angelo x ticci toby #nico di angelo x toby erin rogers #ticci toby x nico di angelo #nicoby #nicoby au #crossover ships #nico and the creepypastas

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kpoppwriter · 4 years ago

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A Simple Gesture

❧ Genre: fluff with the tiniest bit of suggestive (Tattoo Artist!Yuta x Baker!reader)

❧ Words: 1.8k+

❧ Warnings: language, it gets a tad suggestive but it’s mostly fluff

❧ Synopsis: Yuta had a day off but that didn’t stop him from coming to pester you (and by pester I mean be a big help to you)

❧ A/N: thank u again @itsjeonghananon for this ideaaa I’m still obsessed with tattoo artist!Yuta and will occasionally go and reread “Piercings and Pastries” even though I wrote it lol also I’m 100000% down to write more of this AU if people want I love it so much

Piercings and Pastries | A Simple Gesture | Make Me Insane | Birthday Cake | Wandering Thoughts

~※ Main Masterlist ※~

The wind was cool on your hot skin. A few stray droplets of sweat dripped down from your temple. The heat from the ovens and from rushing all around the kitchen made you feel so warm. Luckily the breeze was keeping you from completely burning up.

It was mid-afternoon and you were working diligently at your bakery. The morning and post lunch rushes were over so you had some time to work on making fresh pastries and some cakes. You’d gotten a cake order for that weekend so instead of putting it off until last minute you decided to get it done now. You were waiting for the cake to get out of the oven when you heard the front door open. You wiped your hands on your apron before stepping out from the kitchen. A large smile spread across your lips as you saw who walked into your shop.

“Hello baby.”

“Hi Yuta.”

Now, you and Yuta had developed a romantic relationship after he somehow convinced you to get your ears pierced despite your fear of needles. You guys have been dating for a few weeks- almost two months now. You made it a habit of spending a little time together throughout the day; most of the time Yuta came over to your shop to get something to eat between clients. But you were rather surprised to see him today as it was his day off.

“What’re you doing here? Didn’t you have plans to quote ‘stay home and sleep all day’?” you teased

“I did but I was really craving some sweet from you.”

The way he said that made your face flush a bit. You weren’t sure if he intended it to come off as sexual as it sounded but the from the satisfied smirk on his face, you knew he was just trying to tease you.

“Well, you’re welcome to any of the pastries you want- on the house, of course.”

He chuckled as he placed his elbows on the glass counter, his head resting in his hands.

“You’re far too good to me,” he said dreamily

You rolled your eyes as you shooed him to the small table by one of the windows. He obediently went and sat down. You brewed up some fresh coffee for him and prepared some of his favorite pastries. A few minutes later, you placed a cup and a plate on the table in front of him. You sat down across from him watching as he happily munched on your desserts. Your mind began to wander, thoughts and daydreams of the man in front of you taking over your mind. A dinging from the kitchen pulled you out of your thoughts.

“Oh it’s ready.”

You rushed off to the kitchen and pulled the layers of cake from the oven. You placed them onto the cooling racks to let them chill a bit before you started decorating. Once those were all set out, you walked back out to where Yuta was sat still enjoying his food.

“What’re you making?” he asked

“Ah, I got a cake order for this weekend,” you explained, “I just finished up making the cake.”

“Ooooh are you gonna decorate it?” he quirked an eyebrow up at you

“Well, yeah,” you laughed, “I have to wait for it to cool first.”

“Can I watch?”

“You want to watch me decorate a cake?” you asked

“Yeah, I wanna see what it’s like to do your job.”

You tried to conceal the wide smile threatening to appear on your lips. It was a simple gesture but a sweet one nonetheless. The butterflies in your stomach grew tenfold as you replayed the sentence in your head. You agreed to let him watch but you had to wait a while longer. You spent the time talking about everything and nothing. He recounted stories of that week’s clients to you and you told him about the new show you started watching recently. When you thought it had been long enough, you and Yuta made your way into the kitchen.

Your decorations and other supplies were already on the counter waiting to be used. You’d prepped all your supplies and even prepared some piping bags filled with frosting. Yuta moved to one side of the counter a bit out of the way so you could work freely but he could still watch. You made sure the cakes were cool before you went to work. You filled the layers with pink frosting and a sweet strawberry jam, the cakes sandwiching the jam and frosting. You grabbed a knife and the white frosting to coat the rest of the cake. You smoothed out the frosting until it was evenly spread across every inch of cake.

Yuta watched you in awe. You were so meticulous with your work, not letting a single mistake happen. You were a perfectionist when it came to your desserts and Yuta clearly saw that when you worked. He enjoyed the expression you wore as you were concentrated, your eyebrows furrowed and your tongue slightly poking out from the corner of your mouth. He found it quite endearing.

You grabbed the pink frosting again changing the tip on the bag to something smaller and with a star shape. Now normally you had a spinning tray that you put your cakes on when you were decorating them but it had recently broke after you accidently dropped it. You currently had the cake on a stationary tray making the next part of your decorating much more difficult. You had to line the base of the cake with pink frosting. You thought about it for a second and figured you’d be fine doing a smooth line while turning the tray.

Yuta watched your hands as you tried to balance piping the frosting onto the cake and turning the tray. It wasn’t working out in your favor. Not only was it a difficult task without the right tray but having Yuta’s eyes on you made you rather self conscious and in turn made your hands a bit shaky. After a few minutes of struggling, Yuta decided to step in.

“Here, let me help.”

Yuta took the piping bag from your hands. He moved closer to you, your back pressed up against his chest. His warm breath tickled the shell of your ear. You used every ounce of your willpower to keep from reacting to the sensation. He delicately piped pink frosting around the base of the cake as you slowly spun the tray for him.

“There. That doesn’t look half bad,” he said triumphantly when he finished

“It actually looks very good,” you praised him, “You have very steady hands.”

“It’s a skill I’ve developed from my own job.”

His hands took purchase on your waist, his chest still pressed up against your back. You continued working as best as you could with Yuta’s hands on your waist- you were hyper aware of the fact that they were on your body and it was quite the distraction. The two of you were quiet for a moment, Yuta letting you work for a while. He watched how your hands danced along the counter grabbing the decorations you needed before delicately placing them onto the cake. Your jobs were rather similar when you broke it down- you were both creating art. And Yuta loved watching you at your craft.

His mind started to wander a bit. He looked down to see if there was anything he could do to help you bit another idea popped into his head when he saw the piping bag still on the counter with a little frosting left over on the tip. A smirk tugged at his lips. His finger picked up the pink confection and smeared it on your face. You let out a small gasp and turned to face the male.

“Yuta!” you pouted

“I’m sorry, babydoll. I couldn’t help myself,” he laughed

You let out a little huff of annoyance (even though you weren’t actually annoyed). Yuta moved closer to you, his hands now taking purchase on your hips. He leaned forward and licked the frosting off your cheek. You stared at him wide-eyed as he leaned back. You tried to say something but your mind was blank.

“Look at you. You’re blushing,” he cooed

He pinched your cheek gently before pecking your lips. Still shocked by Yuta’s actions, you tried to avoid his gaze even though you were standing right in front of him. He chuckled to himself enamored by your shy state and flushed cheeks. He pecked your forehead and walked towards the other side of the kitchen.

“You finish up with that cake and I’ll do some cleaning so we can get you out of here quicker,” he said

You let out a little hum in response since you weren’t sure your voice was ready to be used yet- your brain still a little scrambled. Yuta smirked to himself but didn’t say anything as he started sweeping.

“I never leave this early when I have a cake order,” you hummed

“See, aren’t you glad I came by today?”

“Yes I am,” you grabbed Yuta’s hand, “Thank you for helping me out.”

“Of course. I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he kissed your temple

You locked up the front door to your shop before scurrying out the back door hand in hand with Yuta. He walked you out to where your cars sat in the parking lot, his car parked right besides yours. You threw your things in the backseat before turning to Yuta.

“Well, I need to get home and make myself something to eat,” you laughed airily, “I’m starving.”

“Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to come over to my place for dinner.”

You blinked at Yuta. You’ve never been over to his place before and honestly you were quite curious to see how he lived. He could tell you were thinking about it, your furrowed brows giving you away. He took both of your hands in his slightly swinging them between you two.

“Come on, I’ll make you dinner and we can relax for a while. It’ll be a good time I promise.”

“I should be cooking for you since you helped me out today!” you giggled

“You’ve been baking all day. You deserve a break from the kitchen.”

You smiled as you accepted Yuta’s proposal. He broke out into a large smile as well squeezing your hands excitedly. He kissed your lips gently then rushed off to his car telling you to follow him to his place. You just shook your head with a laugh as you watched him scramble into his car. You couldn’t help how your heart fluttered at the simple action, his excitement rubbing off on you. You knew were in deep now and you wouldn’t want it any other way.

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flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash · 4 years ago

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Irresistible Danger - Part 51

Synopsis: After being caught outside the compound on your own, Negan decides to punish you in the best way possible ;)

Words: 3,279

Warnings: nsfw, smut, swearing

ID Masterlist can be found HERE

Masterlist of all my fics can be found HERE

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Author’s Note: Holy crap, can y’all believe I dove back into writing this fic after almost two years with no updates?! I’m still shook over it haha. I will say that this fic has gone way off canon at this point (I haven’t watched the last few seasons of the show and also didn’t finish the last few issues of the comics). However, I’ve had a vision for certain characters and events for the last how many years, so I don’t plan to change them just to try and fit canon. I also now realize that while I tried to make “you” as nondescript as possible, there are physical traits and actions of her character that haven’t been as inclusive of all potential readers as I had thought when first starting the fic 5 years ago. I apologize for that, and plan to be more aware of those things with any reader characters I write in future fics. My plan is to post a chapter update every Friday from here on out, until it’s over, so fingers crossed I can accomplish that. Enjoy! :D

Cloud Nine

You surfaced from the depths of sleep slowly, rather than the more abrupt jolt to consciousness that usually started off your days. Feeling cozy and relaxed, a slight smile tipped your lips in contentment. It didn’t take long to realize that the reason for your positive mood was the large, warm body with which you were currently sharing the tiny, twin-sized bed.

Eyes blinking open, you took in the delightful sight of masculine bare skin. You were curled up against Negan’s side, cheek cushioned on his chest and both legs were wrapped around his nearest thigh. The bedsheet was pulled up over your back and ended teasingly right above his hips. One of your hands lay palm-down on his stomach, fingers twitching slightly in delight at the feel of the hard muscles beneath the soft skin. You could tell from the curve of his body that he was sitting with his back reclined against the rickety headboard. You might’ve found his positioning odd, but you were still a little hazy from sleep and so could only feel happiness at not waking up to an empty bed, like last time.

You were on cloud nine after talking things out with him last night. Being able to work through a conflict together had been major progress, and you had been proud of yourself for laying down your boundaries regarding your here-to-stay friendship with Ben, as well as standing your ground regarding the situation with Trixie and the pregnancy test. It was important that Negan learn to trust you when it came to situations such as those, and it seemed as though that message had finally gotten through to him last night.

The fact that he had even come to your room and taken the huge step of apologizing for his hasty reaction still had you a bit in shock. The evening had panned out much differently than your original plan of going to bed angry. Instead, you had gone to bed very satisfied, and then woken up next to the man who was very quickly becoming essential to your daily happiness.

He must’ve felt you shift against him, one hand coming down to rub your bare shoulder as he gave a soft, “Mornin’, doll.”

His raspy morning voice sent tingles down your spine, even as your brain fought to stay awake. It still felt way too early to be sitting up and conversing, so instead of returning the greeting, you buried closer into his side and grumbled, “What time is it?” The words were muffled against his skin, nose pressed into his chest hair as you inhaled the glorious male scent of him.

You felt him lean over towards the side table. He must’ve been checking your watch, because he replied, “‘Bout 6:50.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Language.”

“Hmph. Do you always get up so early?”

“It’s more productive than sleeping half the day away and being late to everything.”

That got more of a response, as you finally lifted your head to glare up at him for the jab. However, he didn’t notice, as he was too focused on the book held in front of him. It was then that you realized why he was sitting up in bed, a smirk crossing your face at the novel he had open and was intensely reading. You felt a spark of desire low in your belly, the sight of a sleep-tousled and naked Negan lounging in your bed while reading Harry Potter an unexpected, but welcomed, aphrodisiac.

“Thought you didn’t read ‘fucking kid books’?” you sarcastically asked, quoting back his initial description of the series.

You received only a low grunt in response, his eyes not leaving the page. You weren’t offended, since you’d probably react the same way to someone trying to interrupt a reading of Harry Potter. In fact, you were a bit jealous that he got to experience the magical world for the first time. His curiosity must’ve gotten the better of him when he saw it lying on your bedside table, and it appeared as if he had already read a small chunk of it.

He didn’t seem to notice you staring, his attention still focused on the book. In fact, he held the page a scant few inches from his face, eyes squinted into slits. The sight was a tad humorous, though you wondered how long he had been struggling to see the words.

“I thought you needed glasses to read?” you asked.

“Fuck, you always so full of questions this early in the morning, doll?”

You pinched his side hard enough to make him jump and growl out another expletive, before giving him a saccharine smile and lifting a brow expectantly when he glared down at you.

Attention finally taken off the book, he reached over and plopped it down on the side table before rubbing his eyes with both palms. “I do. Felt like it took me a fucking hour to get through that last page.”

The fact that he had continued trying to read and hadn’t easily given up, despite his struggle to see the words, told you more than anything how much he must’ve been enjoying the novel. A warm thrill settled in your chest at the thought of him taking an interest in something he usually wouldn't bother with simply because you enjoyed it.

The warm thrill morphed into more of a low heat and traveled down your body as your gaze refocused on his bare skin. Moving the hand on his stomach upward over his chest, your fingertips traced the outline of the tattoo on his left pec.

“What prompted you to get this?” you asked, curious if there was a meaning behind the skull and criss-crossed rifles.

Giving a low chuckle, he replied, “Youth and stupidity.”

Giving a huffed laugh in return, you trailed curious fingers over to the other tattoos on his arms, inquiring about each one as you went. Some had a story behind them, others not so much (you had tried not to roll your eyes when he explained that the revolver on his right forearm was the same one he had handled once and thought was ‘fucking cool as shit’). He also had a few scars on his upper body, some from before the apocalypse but most from after. You listened intently as he opened up about each one, drinking in as much personal information about the man beside you as possible.

Not wanting to stop the exploration just yet, you pushed up on your other elbow and journeyed over his throat, tracing his Adam’s apple before running your fingers delicately through the surprisingly soft beard framing his gorgeous mouth.

Capturing the questing hand in his own, he brought your fingers to his lips. The breath caught in your chest when he kissed the mostly-healed scar from the knife injury you had acquired a few weeks prior. Heart beating frantically at the gentle gesture, you smiled up at him when he released your hand and allowed it to resume exploring.

“So,” you tried for calm and casual, fingers moving up to lightly trace his ear before diving into his thick hair and mapping the streaks of salt within the pepper. “What are your plans for today?”

It took him a few seconds to answer, his eyes having fluttered closed as your nails gently massaged his scalp. You smiled at his obvious enjoyment of your touch, at how he had lowered his walls in this moment and was allowing himself to be both physically and emotionally vulnerable.

“I wish they were to stay here and enjoy this fucking delightful body of yours all day, but I have a meeting with my Saviors at eight.”

The thought of spending an entire day frolicking in bed with Negan caused a dreamy sigh to leave your lips. His eyes opened and zeroed in on your mouth at the sound, that magical tongue of his coming out to lick his bottom lip as he added, “Though, that’s still about an hour away…”

At that, he quickly rolled over so his lean body was pinning you into the mattress, his lips cutting off your squeal of surprise before it even left your throat. The hand still in his hair tightened, causing him to give a low groan and grind his hips down into yours. You tried to make a mental note of his reaction to the touch, but seeing as how there were no barriers keeping his quickly-hardening erection from pressing into your thigh, all higher levels of brain function quickly flew out of the room.

Bracing above you, he leaned down and started kissing your neck, a move guaranteed to make you melt. When his mouth descended over the curve of your breasts, you tried to lift your head to watch his downward progress but a sharp pang of discomfort at your scalp made you wince and try to jerk away, which only succeeded in making the pain even worse.

“Ow, wait!” you blurted, causing Negan to instantly freeze and look up at you in alarm.

“Doll, what-”

“You’re on my hair! Move your hand!”

Quickly realizing his mistake, Negan moved the hand that had accidentally been pinning a large chunk of your hair, and by proxy your head, to the mattress.

“Fucking hell, I’m sorry, doll,” he cursed, making as if to lift his body off you entirely.

Now wanting his faux pas to ruin the moment, you pushed his shoulders sideways and hooked a leg up over his hip before commanding, “Roll over.”

He hesitated for a moment before relenting, the two of you somehow able to switch places on the narrow, twin-sized bed without falling off. Once the semi-awkward resituating was done, he was on his back and you were straddling his hips. The move caused the sheet to fall off, exposing your entire body to his gaze. Based on the way his eyes grew hazy with lust as they took in your bared curves, not to mention his obvious erection, it was safe to say that he didn’t mind this change in position one bit.

Warm, calloused palms drifted up over your thighs, hips, and the sides of your waist, before cupping breasts that were begging for his touch. Leaning down, your already-hardened nipples pressed into his palms as you kissed him hungrily. Shifting your hips, you started rubbing forwards and backwards over the erection pressed between both your lower stomachs. You moaned into each other’s mouths at the sensation, pussy lips parting around his girth so that your wetness coated his cock, the fat head bumping against your clit with each slide.

“I think I like being in charge,” you purred.

Giving a dark chuckle that sent shivers down your spine, he replied, “Enjoy it while it fucking lasts.”

Planning to do just that, you reached over to pluck a condom off the side table, incredibly grateful to whatever deity helped you successfully open the foil packet and smoothly roll the latex down over him on the first try. Tossing the empty packet over the side of the bed, you wrapped slightly trembling fingers around his swollen cock and lifted your hips, lining him up with your entrance. Maintaining eye contact, you slowly slid down his length, mouth falling open on a whimper at the feel of him parting overly-sensitive flesh that was still a bit sore from the activities of the previous night. Despite Negan’s initial threat over you stealing both coconut oil from the kitchen and condoms from his room, his only “punishment” last night had been fucking you relentlessly into the mattress until you had multiple orgasms and could barely even remember your own name.

In spite of the slight burn as sore muscles again stretched around his thickness, you didn’t stop until he was fully seated inside. His cock felt so big in this position that it was almost overwhelming, but you sat up so that your hands were braced on his chest and used your thigh muscles to start a slow up and down rhythm.

His fingers reached up and pinched your nipples, causing you to clench around him. He groaned at the sensation, gaze becoming more intense when you slightly picked up the pace. It felt magnificent, but at the same time you craved more of the hard, rough friction that he had given you the night before. Body trying to find that friction on its own, your hips swiveled in a circle as you sank back down, which must’ve felt just as amazing for him as it did you, since he gave a strangled moan at the same moment his hands immobilized your hips in a bruising grip.

“Alright, doll. My turn.”

That was the only warning you got before he braced his feet against the mattress and moved up in you, hard. Falling forward onto your palms with a gasp, fingers curled into the bedsheet and hips writhed in pleasure when he repeated the move. He continued the sharp, deep thrusts, watching your face closely before wrapping a hand around the back of your neck and pulling your mouth down to his own. His tongue thrust into your mouth possessively, as if trying to claim as much of you at once as he could. The pace was brutal yet unhurried, each thrust feeling like a deliberate attack on your sanity as his movements drew fire over your skin and consumed you, body and soul.

Pressing down into him while leaning forward caused your clit to grind against his lower abdomen in the perfect way with each thrust, building up the orgasm that had previously hovered just out of reach. Breaking the kiss with a cry, you saw the expression of intense concentration on his face as he continued to move your bodies together in perfect rhythm. Breasts pressed into his chest and mouth panting at his ear, your body gave into his, letting him drive you up and over the edge, into the abyss of pleasure.

“Negan,” you moaned, muscles tightening then releasing as the orgasm washed through you. His answering grunt and curse signaled his own release, though he continued his driving rhythm through it all, wringing each drop of pleasure from your body until it collapsed limply on top of his.

Resting your head on his shoulder, you again traced over the tattoo on his chest, waiting for your heartbeat and breathing to slow back down to normal. Glancing up his body, you found him already looking back down at you, a relaxed and satisfied grin on his lips that was only witnessed behind closed doors, when the two of you were alone. His hand idly stroked over a piece of hair laying on your shoulder, the gesture making you think back to earlier when he had accidentally pinned you to the mattress, and the resulting ungraceful maneuvering to switch positions in a bed that was entirely too small for two adult bodies. A light laugh escaped you that caused Negan to raise an eyebrow in question.

“Just remembering your super smooth move from earlier,” you teased. You wouldn’t admit this out loud, but it was actually a bit of a relief to know that even Mr. Harem-of-Wives, Sex-God Negan wasn’t always flawless in the sack.

“Making fun of me, doll?” he growled.

“Maybe.”

Whack. The loud crack, accompanied by the slight sting of sensation against your left asscheek, caused you to jump and look at him in wide-eyed shock.

“Did you just spank me?!” you exclaimed.

“Maybe.”

Before you could form an appropriate reply, he silenced any retort with his lips. Shallow creature that you apparently were, the move worked, and when he pulled away a long minute later, your brain conveniently forgot why you were supposed to be coming up with a retort in the first place.

Negan glanced over at the side table, where your watch sat. Also looking over, you saw that it was now almost 7:30am, which meant he had half an hour to go back to his room and become presentable for his 8am Savior meeting. You were curious what the meeting was about, but didn’t want to ruin the perfection of the morning by bringing up a potentially serious topic.

“Much as I hate to say it, doll, duty fucking calls.”

Your expression must’ve showcased more than you thought, since he gave a chuckle and said, “How about I make it up to you by finishing our fucking chess bet?”

Interest instantly piqued, you sat up on his chest and replied, “The third outing?! Can we go today?”

He looked at you consideringly, before giving a slight nod and agreeing. “We fucking could, but I won’t be free until the dinner hour.”

Much as you didn’t want to skip out on your duties, even if it was with the leader of the establishment, you also weren’t about to turn down more alone time with Negan, especially outside of the Sanctuary.

“I could meet you at the front gate at 5?” you suggested. That would give you just enough time to make sure dinner was fully prepped and almost ready to serve, since the community ate their meal from 5 to 7pm. It lessened the guilt, since you wouldn’t be completely leaving Ben and the staff short-handed.

“Works for me, doll,” he said, gently rolling you off his body and to the narrow strip of mattress free beside him.

Biting your lower lip to keep from gasping at the empty sensation when he pulled out his now-flaccid dick, you watched him rise slowly from the bed. You took possessive pleasure in viewing his naked body, thighs clenching at the sight of him stretching muscular arms up towards the ceiling with his head tipped back. The pop of his back and resulting grunt made you comment, “I think from now on we might be better off in your bed. I have no clue how we even managed to fit in mine all night.”

“Thank fucking god. If I have to spend any more nights in that fucking thing, I’ll be stiffer than a cock in a brothel.”

Rolling your eyes at his that’s-so-Negan one-liner, you pulled the sheet up over your chest and settled in to watch him get dressed. You felt a bit like a voyeur when he removed the condom, tied off the end, and tossed it into the little garbage can. You felt a lot like a voyeur when he leaned down to pick up his boxer briefs and the sight of his bent-over ass almost made you whimper out loud.

“You sure you can’t skip the meeting and stay here?” The words left your lips before your brain could even stop them.

Turning to look at you, the desire must have been written all over your face because that muscle in his jaw ticked and he ran a hand down over his beard in obvious frustration. You swore he started to take a step back towards the bed, but he caught himself and instead returned to the task of getting dressed.

When he was done putting on the navy tee and dark grey pants, complete with his signature black boots, he did finally come back over to the bed. Leaning down, he cupped a warm hand possessively around the side of your neck and placed a heated kiss on your lips before slightly pulling back and saying in that sinful, husky voice, “5 o’clock, doll. You better be ready for me.”

With that, he straightened, crossed the room, and let himself out. As the door clicked softly shut behind him, you replied with a dazed, “Yes, sir.”

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#negan #negan fanfiction #negan smut #negan fanfic #negan fanfics #irresistible danger #ash writes #twd #the walking dead #negan x reader #negan x you #slow burn #twd negan #the walking dead negan

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hotpinkhoshi · 4 years ago

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kiss it better | five

pairing: mark tuan x reader

genre: angst, eventual smut, brother’s best friend au (sort of)

warnings: tw for death, death of a parent, reference to drug addiction

word count: 4.5k

summary: you were off limits for more reasons than mark could count. but everything changed for him the day you walked into his tattoo shop with those big innocent eyes and a laugh like his favorite song. he couldn’t. he wouldn’t. and yet…

a/n: hi babies thank you for your patience, i know it’s been many many months since i’ve updated! the last time i posted for kib was all the way back in may, which is crazy, i know. but life has been weird and it’s been difficult for me to find the motivation to write. it’s slowly coming back for me and i’m so glad you guys have stuck around with me even if i haven’t been consistent. i’m more grateful than you know!

✩ index here ✩

“She did what?” Dahyun asked, her bite of gimbap nearly falling right out of her mouth.

Youngjae threw his head back and broke into laughter entirely at Mark’s expense.

Mark ran his tongue over his teeth and refused to look up at his friends, focusing awfully hard on the sketch he’d been working on in between appointments. He quickly realized that they had absolutely no sympathy for him.

“Yeah.”

It had been two weeks already since that night, and Mark was just now feeling comfortable enough to spill what had happened after he took you home. He liked to take his own time to process his thoughts before he revealed them to others, and quite frankly, he hadn’t even wanted to tell anyone. But he was starting to think maybe he needed an outside perspective.

“She has guts,” Youngjae said, after finally pulling himself upright in his chair. “Was it good?”

“Dude,” Mark warned, far from amused.

Dahyun cut in. “It’s a good enough question. From what I’ve seen, you guys have some intense sexual tension. If the kiss was hot, maybe it’s worth exploring.”

“We don’t have sexual tension,” Mark defended.

Youngjae snorted.

“Sure. But, let’s say if you did, and the kiss was good…” Dahyun trailed off, wiggling her eyebrows.

Groaning, Mark tapped the end of his pencil against the desk. He glanced up at the wall, his eyes naturally drawn to the photo of your shoulder, of the tattoo he’d designed and permanently inked onto your skin. It wasn’t the only photo he had pinned up of his previous work, but it was the one he looked at the most.

“She’s a kid,” he said, little to no conviction in his voice.

But you weren’t a kid. Mark knew in every way, you were an adult. Even mentally, emotionally, you seemed more mature than he felt most days. Packing up your belongings because you refused to live a life you weren’t satisfied with? He couldn’t imagine anything more grown up than that.

“Mark,” Youngjae’s tone was firm, serious this time. “It’s not the worst thing in the world if you have chemistry with someone. I know it may not be the most convenient girl for you, but… you’ve been by yourself for a long time. You can’t tell me you aren’t lonely.”

He hadn’t thought he was lonely until you came into his life. He had been fine, so fine, living on his own. Waking up alone, eating dinner alone, focusing on his work and living one day to the next.

But now, he looked forward to the sound of your keys in the door when you got home from your evening shift. He bought your favorite brand of orange juice instead of his. He didn’t mind watching outlandish and obviously fake reality shows if it meant that he got to hear your commentary along with it. More than anything, he’d gotten used to the way you made him feel. In the simplest of terms, he was happy.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mark said. “I already fucked it up.”

Dahyun narrowed her eyes. “What did you do?”

He rubbed some of the tension out of his forehead, relaying the conversation he’d had with Taehyung that night to his friends. The exchange wasn’t longer than a few minutes, but it was long enough for Mark to potentially ruin everything you’d built for yourself in the last couple of months.

“I didn’t tell him everything - I couldn’t do that. But I told him I’d seen her in the city, that I thought maybe she worked in one of the restaurants near the shop…” A knot of guilt coiled in his stomach. “Fuck.”

He’d just wanted to do the right thing. You were young, you couldn’t see that your parents cared about you. Taehyung cared about you. They deserved to know where you were, especially after everything they had done for him. He could at least point them in the right direction.

“Well, shit,” Youngjae offered, a sympathetic frown on his face.

“I fucked her over, and I haven’t been able to look her in the eye since. We’ve just avoided each other for the last two weeks and I-” Mark heaved a breath, leaning back in his chair. “I hate it.”

He missed you. Even if he couldn’t say it out loud.

“I have an idea,” Dahyun said, her whole body perking up. “Don’t look at me like that, sometimes I have good ideas. Why don’t you invite her along for Yugyeom’s camping trip?”

“You mean the couple thing?”

Dahyun sighed. “It’s not a couple thing. It’s just… everyone there is part of a couple. Anyway, it might be a good way to make things less awkward.”

Mark blinked a few times, waiting for Dahyun to say ‘just kidding’ because it was an absolutely ridiculous idea. “What? How would that make things any less awkward?”

She shrugged. “I mean, it’s a great opportunity to break the tension. If you know what I mean.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Mark scowled.

You spent your entire shift thinking about Mark. Thinking about how you had completely messed up your relationship, and trying to figure out how to fix it all. It had been a stupid, drunken mistake, and you would take it back in a heartbeat if you could.

The past two weeks had been torture, tiptoeing around and trying your hardest to avoid him. You’d picked up extra shifts almost every day, figuring that if you were working, at least you didn’t have to pretend like everything was normal.

All you wanted was to come home, curl up on the couch with Milo and watch your favorite ridiculous TV shows while Mark snickered next to you, entertained by the disgustingly wealthy families on the screen no matter how much he pretended to hate it. You wanted to be able to lean into him, feel the body heat radiating off of him when his shoulder brushed yours.

You missed Mark. Even if you couldn’t say it out loud.

After much debating, you decided that the best way to apologize started with food. And you owed him, anyway, after he opened his home to you and let you stay there free of charge. A dinner was the least you could do.

You could tell once you walked into Paradise Tattoo just before closing time that Mark hadn’t been expecting you in the slightest. He was at the desk, going over papers with Dahyun, when the bell dinged to signal your entrance.

In his ripped jeans and muscle tee, all of his tattoos were on display for you, even the large quote he had inked onto his ribcage. You gulped and shoved your feelings down. That would only make things worse.

“Hi,” you said, greeting both Mark and Dahyun.

“Hey.” Mark scratched his head and straightened his posture. “What are you doing here?”

“Well,” you started, wringing your hands in front of you. “I wanted to see if you wanted to get dinner? On me. I owe you, anyway.”

Dahyun piped up, a mischievous smirk on her lips, “That’s a great idea. Mark was just talking about how hungry he was.

Mark cleared his throat and shot his co-worker what looked suspiciously like a glare. “No, I’m fine. You really don’t have to-”

“Come on,” you said, hiding a smile. “How about burgers? There’s a good place around the corner. It won’t kill you to let me pay, will it?”

You could see Mark weigh his options as he chewed his lip. Either end up hungry, settling for some quick frozen food later on, or bite the bullet and let you pay for his dinner. You knew it would hurt his pride to do so, but you wouldn’t back down. It was more than just the free room and board that you wanted to make up for.

“Alright,” he finally agreed. “Let me grab my stuff.”

It only took less than ten minutes for you to walk down to the burger place, but it felt like an hour as awkward silence hung around the two of you. It wasn’t until you were both seated at a corner booth inside the restaurant that you finally spoke up.

“Listen, Mark,” you said, looking up from the packet of ketchup you’d been nervously squishing between your fingers. “About that night…”

“No, you don’t-” Mark was quick to interrupt, but you held your hand up.

“Just let me, okay?” You sighed.

You’d rehearsed these words countless times in the bathroom mirror, and right now it felt like they were slipping right out of your fingers. Where were you supposed to start? With the kiss, straight away? Or getting so drunk that you’d needed to be taken care of in the first place?

“I’m just… really sorry. I was stupid to drink that much and it’s not your job to watch after me. I should be able to take care of myself.”

Mark stopped you again. “I didn’t mind taking care of you.”

“But it’s not your job, Mark. I’m an adult, and you’re letting me stay with you and asking for nothing in return. The least I could do is make it easy on you.”

“Y/N, if you could have seen me at your age, you wouldn’t feel so bad. We all get drunk and stupid sometimes,” Mark said with a shrug. It almost relieved some of your guilt until you remembered the kiss in the bathroom.

“Well...” You shook your head and looked back down at your hands. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him for this one. “I really shouldn’t have ki-”

“Hi! My name’s Lana, I’ll be your server tonight. Can I get you two something to drink while you look over the menus?”

A cheerful brunette appeared in front of you, a pen behind her ear and a wide grin plastered on her face. You glanced at Mark, then up at your waitress, not sure if you were grateful for the interruption or not.

“Um, can I just have a water?” you asked, voice small and uncomfortable in your throat.

“Same for me,” Mark agreed.

“Perfect! Let me know if you have any questions about the menu!”

You let out a long breath before you were able to look at Mark again. He was biting his cheek, his lips all twisted and holding back a laugh.

“What?” you asked.

“Her timing,” Mark got out, just as he let go of his laughter, throwing his head back.

To your own surprise, you found yourself shaking with laughter as well. Either from Mark’s contagious laugh giggle or the simple ridiculousness of the situation. Here you were, in a burger restaurant, apologizing to your older brother’s best friend for kissing him while you were heavily intoxicated.

You covered your face with your hands to suppress your own laughter, letting your back slump against the cushions of the booth. It all came to you then, just how silly you’d been the last two weeks.

“I am sorry, though,” you said, after you both settled down.

Mark’s eyes glinted as he watched you from across the table, the ghost of a smile still on his lips. “It’s alright. I mean it. Last time I was that drunk, I’m pretty sure I ran around the block in my underwear singing the Canadian national anthem.”

You giggled again at the mental image. “What? How did you even-”

“No idea. It’s like I was possessed by a drunk Canadian mischief demon.”

It was strange to imagine Mark and Taehyung in their teen years, since you’d been so young at the time, you could barely remember anything from that time of your life. You remembered Taehyung wearing the same pair of purple skinny jeans for three months because a girl at school had told him she liked them.

You remembered Taehyung letting you sit in the basement in your favorite cushioned chair while he and Mark played video games on the big screen. It had been your favorite place to read then, tuning out the rambunctious cries of defeat while you got lost in other worlds.

“So we’re okay, then?” you asked, after Lana had come back to take your order and left once more.

Mark nodded, a genuine smile on his lips. “We’re okay.”

“Maybe it’s weird, but…” you began, staring down at the wrapped silverware on the table instead of looking Mark in the eye. “Even though I grew up seeing you as Taehyung’s friend, that feels like a lifetime ago. And now I just kind of see you as… my friend. Like somebody I can trust.”

When you finally looked up at Mark, his expression was unreadable. His bottom lip was between his teeth, but his eyes looked somewhat uncomfortable. You worried for a second that you’d crossed a line.

“I owe a lot to your family,” Mark said after another long moment passed.

Even though you didn’t remember much about Mark from your childhood years, you knew his upbringing had been rough. His parents had been addicts, the kind that never should’ve been together, let alone bring a child into the world.

You’d never met his mom, but your own mother had made enough snide comments about her after Mark had gone home for you to understand just what kind of person she was.

“One of those low life, worthless drug addicts. Sleeping around with anyone that can help her out, if you know what I mean. Never should’ve been a mother.”

She had a funny way of showing her compassion sometimes.

Taehyung brought him over once after school and your mother had gotten one look at his threadbare clothes and hollow cheeks and taken him in as her new project. At first, he ate dinner with your family almost every night, and then she started making Taehyung pass over his any extra clothes he’d gotten that didn’t fit properly or that he simply didn’t like.

Mark did owe a lot to your family.

You didn’t know what to say. You’d been so young there was no way you could take credit for anything your parents had done for Mark, but still, you itched to comfort him. Even now, with the unsaid words lingering in the air, you sensed that he had never been able to fully open up to anybody. Though you didn’t deserve it, you wanted to be the first.

“Your mom,” you found yourself saying. “Is she…?”

Mark shook his head. “She’s gone. Passed away a couple years ago.”

Your face fell. If anything, you had expected her to have taken off for good or maybe gotten into some trouble she couldn’t get herself out of, but you hadn’t expected her to be gone.

“Oh, god, Mark. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

To your surprise, he only lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I hadn’t seen her in a long time before that. Maybe two, three years. Then my aunt showed up on my doorstep with a box of her things and told me she OD’d in a gas station parking lot a week before.”

His voice wavered only slightly, but enough to tell you he cared more than he let on. You could only imagine how painful it would be to hear of your own mother’s passing a week after the fact.

“I’m sorry,” you said again.

Mark shook his head. “Don’t be. It’s weird,” he said, tongue running over his lower lip as he paused. “I’d stopped seeing her as my mother so long ago that… I felt like I’d already mourned her death. Fuck, that sounds bad, doesn’t it?”

“No,” you answered as you reached across the table, fingers laying across the back of Mark’s hand. “It doesn’t. At all.”

A moment passed between the two of you. You caught Mark’s eyes glancing down at your hand resting on his skin, but he made no move to avoid your touch.

“I never even went through her things. The box is just sitting at the back of my bedroom closet collecting dust.”

“Do you want to go through her things?” you asked.

Mark paused, chewing at the inside of his lip before he answered. “I don’t know.”

You nodded, somehow understanding exactly what he meant. Though you hadn’t gone through the same thing, you were familiar with avoiding a potentially painful and uncomfortable situation by simply pretending it didn’t exist. Hence why you had four unopened voicemails from your brother and parents.

You found yourself stroking the back of Mark’s hand with your thumb. It didn’t feel wrong to touch him like this, even though maybe it should have. All you wanted was to bring him a shred of the comfort he had deserved to have for much longer than you’d known him.

“Alrighty, and here we’ve got the bacon cheeseburger and sweet potato fries for the lady,” Lana exclaimed, immediately bursting your bubble as she returned to your table with your food balanced on a tray. You were quick to snatch your hand from Mark’s. “And a BBQ cheddar burger with curly fries for the handsome man.”

You didn’t miss the way Lana winked as she placed Mark’s food in front of him. This girl was not getting a generous tip from you, that was for sure.

“I told you, after that depressing dinner conversation, we need to do something fun,” you told Mark as you carried your skincare basket out from the bathroom into the living room.

“And this is fun for who?”

You threw him a playful glance and plopped down onto the floor in front of the couch on your knees, setting your basket on the cushion and sifting through it.

“Both of us. Just trust me.”

Catching the skeptic look on Mark’s face, you could only grin to yourself as you pulled out a tube of your favorite clay mask. He didn’t know just how relaxing a good face mask could be, but you were willing to show him.

“I’ll even go first,” you told him.

Mark lifted his feet to prop them up on the coffee table as Milo curled up like a tiny ball of cotton on his lap. You’d both changed out of your work clothes into comfy clothes, and you couldn’t help noticing how warm Mark looked in his white joggers and oversized black hoodie. You wouldn’t mind snuggling up into that space between his side and the couch cushion…

You sighed and shook your head, attempting to clear the less-than-platonic thoughts from your mind. If you were going to make this friendship work, you would need to stop thinking about him like that. Immediately.

“Can I ask you something?” Mark said after a beat of silence as you popped open the cap to your mask.

“Hm?” you asked, propping your personal sized makeup mirror on the couch so that you could see yourself while you applied your mask.

“Yugyeom’s family has a yearly pass to this campground, and every year he does this weekend camping trip…” he trailed off for a moment and you forced yourself not to react, instead focusing on applying your charcoal mask to your cheeks. “This year, it somehow ended up as a couple thing, so Dahyun suggested I invited a friend along. So…”

Lifting your eyes from your own reflection, you watched as Mark struggled to finish his thought.

“So…” you said, helping him along. “Are you asking me to come with you?”

Immediately, a neon flashing red alarm screeched in your mind. ‘This is a terrible idea! You must say no!’ it screamed.

“Only if you want to. I mean, it’s a cool place. Their lot is right by this swimming hole and there’s a fire pit, so we normally bring a ton of booze and cook our own food over the fire…”

Mark ran his fingers through his deep red locks of hair, his nerves displayed clearly on his face. You weren’t sure why he was so nervous to ask you, but it came off as incredibly endearing. Despite the warnings blaring in your mind, you found yourself nodding.

“Okay.”

Mark looked at you then, his eyes finally locking on yours, and the corner of his lips lifted in a hopeful smile. “Really?”

You couldn’t help grinning as well. “Yeah. I mean, on one condition…”

“Oh?”

“Mhm,” you replied, holding up the mask tube and popping the cap back open. “You let me put this mask on you.”

“Aish,” Mark said and shook his head. “No way. Not worth it.”

“Oh, come on, you big baby!”

You stood from the floor and climbed onto the couch, crawling to his side and squeezing some of the mask onto your index and middle fingers. “It’s not that bad!”

“Get away from me!” Mark exclaimed with a laugh, dodging your fingers. Milo hopped up onto the arm of the couch, stomping his cute little paws a few times.

“Just let me pamper you, Mark!”

He let out another laugh, louder this time, trying to reach for the mask to steal from your grasp, but he wasn’t fast enough. You giggled, ducking to miss his hands as he grabbed for your wrists.

Somehow, you found yourself straddling him, thighs resting on either side of Mark’s waist.

“Real men wear face masks!” you exclaimed with a shout of victory as you finally managed to smear a good amount of the clay mask across Mark’s left cheek.

“Oh, you little-” he replied, hands reaching for your sides underneath the long sleeved shirt you were wearing. He tickled your sides, a joyful laugh falling from his lips when you started squealing.

Milo yapped a few times from the arm of the chair, presumably because he thought that you were hurting Mark or vice versa, but his protective barks only made you laugh harder.

“Mark! Stop it!”

You gasped for breath, wriggling on top of him and dropping the mask tube, fighting between giggling and trying to swat his hands away.

“It’s what you deserve, you sneak,” he said, his hands still squeezing and tickling your sides, unknowingly drifting further up your shirt to your ribs.

Twisting and turning, you finally managed to grab his wrists and yanked them from under your shirt. You held them firmly in between your bodies, even though he could have easily overpowered you.

Your chest heaved up and down with the last of your giggles. Mark stared up at you, still smiling and out of breath. The air suddenly became thick as you held eye contact, your hands falling from his wrists to his chest.

“Y/N,” Mark whispered.

‘Danger! Danger!’ your mind yelled.

Mark’s hands, now free from your hold, landed on your hips. You felt his thumbs slip under the hem of your shirt, stroking the bare skin of your stomach. Your heart pounded beneath your rib cage at his gentle touch.

“Mark,” you said, intending on telling him to stop, but it quickly died in your throat.

His chin tipped up, making you realize just how close you were to him now. You weren’t sure who had leaned in first, but only a few mere inches separated your lips from his now. If you only bent forward a bit, you could…

It reminded you, all of the sudden, of the kiss in the bathroom. It had been quick, but long enough for you to slide your tongue past his lips. You remembered the shock to your system the moment you had felt the cold metal of a tongue piercing.

“Y/N,” Mark said again. “Tell me to stop.”

His voice was quiet but you felt like you could read between the lines. He didn’t want to stop, and the only way he was going to stop was if you made it clear that you didn’t want this.

But you did. You’d wanted it from the moment he ran his fingers over the tattoo he’d inked onto your skin one of those first nights, a soft ghost of a touch that made goosebumps form on every inch of your skin.

You weren’t stupid, you knew that this was all wrong for a variety of reasons, the least of which being that he was your roommate. But that meant nothing to you compared to the way his hands felt on your skin.

Before you could open your mouth, tell him that you didn’t want him to stop, an 8-bit version of the Mario Kart theme blasted from somewhere behind you. You jumped, your heart skipping several beats from the surprise.

Mark took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, blinking a few times before he gently guided your hips to climb off of him. “Sorry, I should…”

The ringtone felt familiar but you couldn’t figure out why. Even as you watched Mark grab for his phone off the coffee table and immediately silence it, you wracked your brain to try and remember where you had heard that ringtone before.

It was as if Taehyung had known, the moment that Mark quieted the little voice in his head telling him not to be so close to you and that this was wrong in so many ways, and finally accepted his feelings for you.

Maybe he had a sixth sense.

The moment that had passed between you then had been effectively ruined as soon as he was reminded of two things: you were his childhood best friend’s little sister, and he had already ruined your life even if you didn’t know it yet.

But he’d been so close to giving in. You’d been on top of him, smiling in that innocently beautiful way that you did, your thighs caging in his hips. He hadn’t missed the fact that he could feel you with every inch of him, considering how he’d begged his body not to react, not to harden beneath you. Between the thin layers of his sweats and your sleep shorts, there was no way you wouldn’t notice.

Later, after you’d grabbed a washcloth so you could both wipe the face mask off your faces and awkwardly watch TV for an hour before enough time could pass for you to realistically head off to bed, Mark listened to the voicemail Taehyung had left.

“Hey man. I just wanted to let you know that uh, I’m going to try and head to the city and look for Y/N in a few weeks. If you see her again or have any idea where she might be, let me know. I really appreciate it, my mom’s been going crazy… anyway, maybe we can grab a drink or something once I’m in town. I’ll hit you up. Thanks again, Mark.”

Mark was glad he was in the privacy of his own bedroom when he listened to the message so you didn’t see the way he threw his phone down on the bed, muttering curse words to himself and trying to forget how heavenly you had felt on top of him.

It was impossible. All he could think about was your skin under his fingertips, how your lips had been so soft and smooth and close to his, and how the weight of you on top of him had been enough to make him hard.

His only option was to shut himself in the bathroom and crank the shower all the way to the coldest temperature that he could stand and pray that it would be enough to keep him from sneaking into your bedroom that night.

#mark tuan #got7creators #kibfic #got7 fanfic #mark tuan fanfic #mark tuan angst #mark tuan fluff #got7 mark #got7 imagine #writing

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tenthgrove · 3 years ago

Text

La Squadra 30s AU: Overview

(A/N: So I literally thought of this on a whim and decided to write it down. You're welcome to use this AU for your own stories since I probably won't, but please give credit where due.)

The year is 1934. In the throws of the Great Depression, poverty and crime continues to be rife across the urban east of America. But as many titans of the mafia world collapse with the end of prohibition, the growing syndicate known as Passione begins to swell in numbers and wealth like never before.

The recent immigrant, Risotto Nero (age: 28, real name: Rosario Nero) was picked up practically at the dock by Passione for his formidable appearance and fighting prowess, not to mention lack of other viable prospects in America. Indeed, his journey across the Atlantic was most certainly an act of desperation, but what he was running from, he won't say. Risotto guards the infamous Passione nightclub after which the syndicate gets its name. He also receives a number of orders to pursue the group's enemies in a more... direct manner of confrontation, and there are high hopes for his career as a Mafioso owing to his great sense of honour and budding reputation as unkillable. The greatest hindrance to this goal is at present, a simple matter of communication. He knows barely a word of English.

Hoping to remedy this issue is a Passione associate known to the group by the codename Prosciutto (age: 37, real name: Christopher Perkins), Professor of English Literature at a local university. Why this mild-mannered, rather stuffy young teacher is beholden to Passione is anyone's guess, though he staunchly rebukes any claims of Italian heritage. His impeccable skill at the language, however, speaks for itself. Christopher supports the syndicate financially through his great inherited wealth, as well as providing alibis for its members, many of whom are filed through the corrupt institute as 'students.' Prosciutto is one of the few Risotto would call a friend, and the two meet regularly for Risotto's english lessons. Unknown to anyone but the leaders of Passione, is the truth behind Professor Perkins' unfortunate predicament. In truth, Prosciutto is both a murderer and a patricide, his victim- his own father, the former Don of Passione. Back in 1920 when the Don was found dead in his apartments, it was dubbed the murder mystery of the decade. The case has since gone cold, however, all thanks to the new leadership of the syndicate.

Nowadays, Prosciutto finds solace in his students, of which he hopes the young post-boy he nicknames Pesci (age: 15, real name: Peppi Sciaccia) will soon be joining. Pesci is a poor but cheerful boy, raised by his ailing mother and doting grandparents. The identity of his father is subject to many jokes in the family, some even saying the man was a murdered mafia don whose illegitimate children were all whisked away to be raised in secret, but in truth, Pesci has no idea who he is. Anyway, he recently found work as a post-boy for the university campus, catching the eye of Professor Perkins for his polite and helpful attitude. The professor now tutors him regularly in the hope he might receive a scholarship once he reaches 18, and obtain a good career that would lift his family out of poverty. A pity that Passione, with it's secret ties to the institute, has its eye on the boy as well, and is using him to carry orders without his knowing.

Meanwhile in the Passione nightclub, one Illuso (age: 30, real name: Michelle Illuso), works his fraud. He is an attendant at the casino, though in truth he has full permission of the club's owners to scam and steal from his customers. His talents come from his side-hustle as a magician, tricks he frequently shows off to his victims as a diversionary tactic. His partner in crime is Formaggio (age: 26, real name: Danny Fabbri), a popular Jazz musician at the bar who frequently assists in the swindling. Formaggio, so nicknamed for his unbearably cheesy personality, was until recently impoverished, until coming across the abandoned loot of a bank heist totalling at $50,000. Passione would have killed him if they realised he had taken the whole lot, but instead they simply requisitioned his services at the nightclub. He continues to indulge his newfound wealth in secret. Illuso and Formaggio are friends by necessity to Risotto, who steps in to save their asses whenever a swindle goes wrong. They're trying to improve his social life by taking him out in his free time, but the friendship is a little stony due to the language barrier. Neither Illuso or Formaggio are entirely fluent in Italian, even less the thick Sicilian Risotto speaks.

A few streets away from the Passione Club lies a rather innocuous looking flower shop run by a pair of quote on quote "brothers in law" nicknamed Sorbet (age: 40, real name Nicolo Farina) and Gelato (age: 35, real name: Elia Farina - taken after an unofficial marriage to Sorbet). The pair are quite beloved in the neighbourhood, a kindly, approachable pair of businessmen who would happily offer their wares for free to those experiencing tragedy, but in truth the flower shop is a front for a life of criminality. The couple offer a variety of services to various local mafias, Passione included, and it is known in their past they were a ferocious pair of assassins. A murdered man's coffin is most often adorned with flowers sold from their shop, and quite frequently, his end was delivered by a hitman found through their network, purchased with a large commission, naturally. In terms of murder themselves, however, Sorbet and Gelato have long ago put down their guns, the reason quite domestic.

Sorbet and Gelato have one son, who they adoringly nickname Ghiaccio for his icy temperament (age: 18, real name: Arthur White). Ghiaccio was kicked out by his impoverished biological family at just age 8, after which he broke into the flower shop for shelter and was promptly taken in by the owners. The couple used their contacts to forge papers stating that Ghiaccio was the child of Sorbet and his late wife (who of course, never existed). Ghiaccio is incredibly zealous about keeping up this false story, to the point of putting on a fake Italian accent to visitors which is quite frankly, hilarious. Sorbet and Gelato are both very insistent that Ghiaccio stay out of mob life and as a result, sent him to university under the professorship of Christopher Perkins. They have no idea how much closer to the criminal underworld they've just pushed him. Ghiaccio's best friend is Pesci, who he beat up after Pesci accidentally drove his bike into him on campus. Sorbet and Gelato were incredibly angry with him for this and forced him to make amends, leading to the unlikely friendship. They take shifts at the flower shop together when Sorbet and Gelato are out on dates.

Finally, there is Melone, (age 25, real name Harry Nelson) who gets his nickname from his absolutely terrible handwriting when writing out his real surname. Melone is, quite frankly, a quack physician, operating illegally under a myriad of fake identities throughout the city. He made the mistake of swindling some senior Passione members and ended up being forced to run narcotics for them, a surprisingly easy task considering cocaine is still considered a perfectly good medicine at this point. He is a frequent at the Passione Bar through which he knows Formaggio and Illuso, as well as a student at the same university Prosciutto works at, which he is attending in an attempt to learn some actually viable medical knowledge. Against the odds he has managed to befriend the professor, with whom he discusses the many gruesome crimes the group perpetrates. There are rumours, it is said, that Passione wants to establish an assassination squad, and with many of the more obvious choices already known to the police, it is said some more unconventional individuals may be chosen for the role.

#la squadra #la squadra di esecuzione #la squadra x reader #formaggio #illuso #prosciutto #pesci #melone #ghiaccio #risotto nero #sorbet and gelato

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