#i usually just log in and do my own thing and watch movies in the theatre rooms or go server hopping and go people-watching

[phayz]

-dances like this in your inbox-

we should do this in REAL LIFE ‼️

[queen-of-my-goofball-army]

Hoshina comfort fic

So I had this idea and it did derail my schedule slightly because I did want to make that fic where he watched Mel Brooks movies but this one was just more important to me at that particular time. So I changed my mind and wrote a hurt/comfort fic about how I would comfort Hoshina after the events of the last episode.

“Saito-Saito we need your help in the operations division it’s a Kaiju attack they’re here at the base.” Okonogi’s voice rang through the comms in Dot Saito’s room and she swung her legs up getting her lab coat on and her clothes back on since she had been just starting to fall asleep.

“Is it a new kaiju or is number 8 or 9 attacking the base?” Dot slid into her desk and logged on to the outside comms seeing the onslaught of kaiju and yonju that were outside the base and she couldn’t help but start to panic slightly. 

“It’s a new number vice-captain Hoshina decided that he was going to fight it on his own because Captain Ashiro isn’t here still.” Dot groaned hitting her head on the table a few times and she instantly got out her direct communication with the captain. Mina Ashiro heard her direct communication with her side of the operations division ring and she put it into her ear. 

“Saito, what’s going on? You almost never use this line, what’s going on?” Dot let out a breath of relief at the fact that the captain had answered her comm swiftly.

“Captain Ashiro! We have a kaiju attack on the base, they just showed up. I thought that the vice-captain was still training because..” Captain Ashiro nodded her head understandingly with a small understanding look in her eyes since she knew that her co-worker had been massively overworking himself to make sure that he would be able to take down Kaiju Number 8 the next time that they fought. 

“Say no more Saito, I’ll get on my bike and get there as soon as I can just try to keep him from doing something stupid or at least keep a halfway decent eye on him. You’re about the only person that he listens to.” Dot flushed a light pink at the fact that her friend was usually about the most stubborn person that she had ever met. 

“I can’t make any promises since he doesn’t really listen to me per se but he at least tries to follow my advice. I’ll let you get here safely though, thank you for coming captain.” Dot sighed heavily turning off the communications with the captain so that she could focus on getting here as soon as she could. 

“Hoshina you better not do anything stupid I beg of you just try to at least have some self preservation I beg of you.” Dot pressed the button on her communications that would get her back in touch with Okonogi as she looked at her computer and saw that she would need the extra help that she could get on this job. 

“Okonogi, I’ve contacted captain Ashiro, she’s on her way she just said to try and keep the vice captain out of danger I’m going to call Brandon too and get him out here, I’m going to need his help on this job.” Okonogi nodded her head but she knew that she would be the one that woke up her friend’s subordinate.

“I’ll wake up Brandon, you just handle things as best you can until then.” Dot let out a breath of relief as she changed the dial on her communicator and called her friend. Hoshina heard his communicator beep a little bit and he heard the voice of Dot going through his ear.

“Vice-captain! I’ve contacted Captain Ashiro, she’s on her way just stall until she gets here and do the best that you can. Don’t push yourself you’ve already been fighting too much lately and that fight with Kaiju no 8 was just yesterday and you’ve been training nonstop since then.” Hoshina couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit at the fact that his friend was worried about him. 

“Why Saito, are you worried about me~? I can handle a little fight besides this is my job as the vice captain to take care of the base while Ashiro is away and I have to do my job.” Dot sighed heavily knowing that she couldn’t get her friend to back down from this fight and deciding that if she couldn’t do that then the best that she could do was to make sure that this fight was easy enough for him to handle.

“.. Thank you for calling captain Ashiro for me Saito. I was going to but then I got dragged into this fight with this kaiju. He seems to be built different, it’s like he’s enjoying fighting me.” Dot cocked her head to the side in confusion as she logged into her friend’s suit seeing that the kaiju he was fighting was quickly learning his different styles that he used. 

“The kaiju is picking up on your styles and seems to be intelligent and actually gets off on the thrill of the fight. I’d tread lightly and just try to get out of this fight as quickly as humanly possible.” Dot sighed heavily knowing that her friend wasn’t going to listen to her and that arguing with Hoshina when he got like this all in his head was futile. Brandon slowly shuffled into the operations room that Ashiro’s crew ran and he groaned heavily running his hand through his hair.

“Couldn’t this attack have happened at a normal hour? I was just about to get some sleep.” Dot rolled her eyes at her friend knowing that was a bald faced lie if she had ever heard one since she knew that he was very much still awake.

“Yeah right okay sure mr I was reading A03 before bed even though I’ve told him constantly that reading that site before bed is a god awful idea. Was it at least a good story?” Brandon nodded his head with a small laugh as is friend had just known him so well that she could read right through him. Dot looked at the fight that was happening and her eyes widened as this fight seemed to be going on feeling the small sliver of panic going through her.

“Vice captain just I know that you feel like you have to push yourself but you’ve already fully powered up your suit and I don’t want you to overdue it when you fully powered up yesterday too for your fight with number 8 yesterday. There’s a limit to how much you can use 100% of your power before you get the proper rest." Dot lightly lectured and Brandon looked at her computer since she already had the fight up and running as well as the stats for the fight. 

“I have to fight Saito, I’m sorry but I have to be strong enough for this job. I know that I’m not as strong as some of the other members that are allowed to use guns and I’m at a heavy disadvantage.” Dot sighed running a hand through her hair knowing that she couldn’t argue with her friend and win this. 

“Fine. But I’m going to stay on your comms and keep up with your fight to make sure that you’re not overdoing it. I already don’t want you in this fight but I can’t tell you what to do. You’re my friend and I care about you and want you to be okay. After this, you better take some time off and get some rest.” Hoshina grunted as the fight continued on and Brandon watched the comms feeling the anxiety start creeping up.

“Your boy might be in a lot of trouble I have a bad feeling that this kaiju is different. It’s using the smaller yonju to fight it’s battles for him as a cover see?” Dot nodded her head tentatively feeling tears come to her eyes as she tried to keep herself composed while this fight went on.

“Hoshina, it’s using the smaller yonju to try to cover it’s tracks that means it’s probably seeing you as a threat. I want you to keep this up for as long as you can and then when captain Ashiro gets here then you get the hell out of there.” Dot lectured with a small grimace seeing her friend get thrown into a wall and she flinched heavily clutching the sleeves of her lab coat. 

“Saito I know that you’re worried but I’ll be alright. I’m always at a slight disadvantage and I have to keep up with everyone. Don’t worry about me I’ll be fine. I’m a strong guy~ I thought that you told me that you were going to bed early tonight anyways, what happened?” Dot laughed a little bit at her friend rolling her eyes at his flirty antics even when he was in a life or death situation.

“I was asleep but Okonogi called me in my room saying that I needed to get here immediately and help out with everyone and try to keep you alive. You’re my friend and I will do whatever it takes to keep you alive.” Brandon rolled his eyes with a small half-smile on his face shaking his head at his friend’s overly sappy relationship. 

“Jesus Christ just kiss him already you idiot.” Dot shoved her friend’s side pushing him into his chair where he flopped over dramatically. 

“Saito I’m going to take the kaiju into the training grounds and make sure that nobody gets hurt here. Open the training ground doors now!” Dot nodded her head understandingly as she watched her friend’s dot move around the base until he finally got into the training grounds. She opened the door to the training grounds so that her friend could take the fight where nobody would get hurt.

“I know that you’re not going to listen to me but just.. be careful out there alright? I’ll let you fight but just try to keep yourself out of harms way.” Brandon leaned his cheek onto his hand and rolled his eyes at her goofy antics looking at her. 

“You want to kiss him so bad it makes you look really, really fucking stupid.” Dot glared at her friend kicking in his general direction grateful that he wasn’t on the comms at least where she could just be on her own. 

“Brandon just leave it alone alright? I’m worried enough about him as it is he’s my friend first and foremost so just leave me the hell alone. When you eventually like someone this much then you know I’ll make fun of you just as bad as you mock me right now.” Brandon shrugged his shoulders indifferently since he was honestly good in term of romance he didn’t need anything like that. 

“Nah, I’m good, I’d rather just make fun of you because it’s pathetic how down bad you are for this guy. I mean you’d think that by now with all the flirting that you two do that you’d have just gotten tired of it by this point and do something about it.” Dot sighed heavily rolling her eyes at her friend as she watched the fight play out on screen and watched the kaiju fight her friend.

“Vice captain Hoshina!” Dot's heart stopped in her chest and Hoshina couldn’t help but smile softly at her antics and how she cared so much about the people in her life. 

“I’m fine Saito, thanks worrying about me though sweetness~” Dot couldn’t help but blush a bright pink as she buried her head into her hands in embarrassment and Brandon just groaned heavily. 

“Maybe this will be the catalyst to finally get you two to have a conversation-" Dot glared with a small half-smile on her face as she played with her hair. 

“I’m glad that you’re alright vice-captain.” Hoshina smiled softly at the fact that he had so many people and friends on his side that cared about him and wanted him to succeed. He never would’ve thought that he’d be able to get here but he couldn’t help but feel grateful that he was given the opportunity to fight amongst his friends both on and off the battlefield. 

“This kaiju’s strength is terrifying Dot, thankfully your boy is a fucking force of nature and doesn’t let anything get to him.” Dot nodded her head animatedly but right at that moment she saw something on the comms that terrified her.

“Vice captain, something about this kaiju doesn’t feel right to me- something just feels wrong to me. It feels weird. I think that it’s going to turn giant! It might turn giant and then you’ll be in big trouble because you can’t fight giant kaiju! You have to get out of there. You’ve got to get out of there and wait for captain Ashiro to show up!” Dot told her friend as she saw the leakage of gas go out and thankfully she heard her friend put his mask on. 

“I can’t run from this fight Saito, I have to keep everyone safe. I’m the vice captain for a reason. If I just run away then I’m not much of anything but a coward.” Dot groaned since she knew that there would be no talking her friend out of this and she would have to drag him out of this fight kicking and screaming by the end of it. 

“Fine but I’m dragging you into the infirmary the next time that I see you even if I have to go out onto the battlefield and drag you there myself once captain Ashiro gets here.” Hoshina chuckled a little bit at Dot’s assertive nature since it wasn’t something he usually heard. 

“Bossy bossy~ Remind me to never do something to intentionally piss you off Saito” Dot blushed a bright pink rolling her eyes as she continued to watch her friend’s fight and tried to not get in his way. Hoshina felt the anxiety of the fight starting to get to him. This was probably the most life or death situation that he had ever been in when it came to his work on the defense force. It was taking everything in him to just keep up with this kaiju but when it turned giant he knew that he wouldn’t be able to beat it on his own due to the fact that his swords weren’t thick enough to pierce through the kaiju’s thick skin. Dot started to feel the tears come to her eyes. 

“Vice captain! Just run away, it doesn’t matter that you can’t fight it on your own you can’t cut all the way through just run away. Please just run away. You’re going to overheat.” She felt the buzz on her computer that told her that Hoshina was overheating and she grabbed her communication earbud and put it into her other ear. 

“Okonogi, I need you to do me a big favor. I need you to guide me through the fight and get me to vice-captain Hoshina.” Okonogi’s eyes widened when she heard that Saito needed to get through the battlefield and she wanted to protest but she knew that arguing with her when she was like this was futile. 

“Can we wait until the bulk of the fighting is done at least Saito? I know that you’re worried about the vice captain I’m worried about him too but he has to do this fight on his own. He’s stronger than that.” Hoshina came over the coms and Dot let out a breath of relief hearing her friend’s gentle teasing voice. 

“Sorry Saito~ You’re not rid of me yet. I’m okay the thing hits like a damn truck and my shield was all the way up. I’ve only got about a minute left before I have to get the hell out of here.” Dot let out a breath of relief and she crossed her ankles over her feet pressing her index fingers together as she watched the fight on the coms using her ability to hack into the suit to be able to see it fully and see how bad things were getting for her friend. 

“He’s amazing..” Dot watched the fight and her breath caught when she saw the kaiju grab the vice captain. She clenched her fists into her hands wishing that she could have been strong enough to fight on the frontlines rather than behind the scenes. She never felt more useless than she did right now. Brandon put his arm around her shoulders and she let out a breath of relief when she heard the voice of Captain Ashiro’s calm and controlled tone over the comms. 

“Good job holding down the fort everyone, thank you for all your hard work. And thank you for calling me Saito, you did a great job trying to keep Hoshina from doing something stupid.” Dot let out a breath of relief and she started to calm down since she knew that the captain could take things over from here.

“Thank god she showed up when she did that was almost a disaster.. I think I just lost about ten years of my life you jerk.” Dot lightly griped and she let go of her clenched fists but Brandon kept his arm around her shoulders while they watched the fight in front of them.

“I don’t think that this fight is going to end this easily..” Dot pressed her index fingers together feeling tears come to her eyes when she saw her friend’s fighting for their lives and wishing that she could do something. She wanted to help. She wanted to do more than she was able to do at this particular moment in time. But this was all she could do was run the comms from Captain Ashiro’s side of things.

“You only have one more bullet left Captain. Make it count.” Dot reminded her captain and she heard the hum of affirmation. Dot felt tears come to her eyes watching her friend bounce around and slash his swords and she couldn’t do anything to help him out. When the kaiju opened it’s mouth and she saw that Hoshina was in it’s sights and she wanted to curl into a ball and start crying right then and there. But the tears of relief that she felt when Captain Ashiro nailed the kaiju right in it’s core she couldn’t help but feel better about it. 

“I wouldn’t let out your breath just yet Dot, I don’t think that this fight is done yet and you might still have to go and rescue your boy.” Dot grabbed her headphone and instantly wanted to start running outside to take care of her friend.

“Wait, wait I think that things are about to get intense.” Brandon recommended and Dot felt tears come to her eyes when she saw Kafka turn into Kaiju Number 8. She knew that Hoshina liked him and that now things were about to get a lot more complicated as time went on. She wanted to protest, to do something, to remind them that Kafka was a good officer that was just doing what he felt was right.

“Brandon- how is he Kaiju Number 8? That’s not- that can’t be..” Dot felt tears come to her eyes and Brandon hugged her tightly trying to comfort her and calm her down. Dot braced herself for the impact of the kaiju bomb and she instantly stood up once everything was over and got up off her chair.

“I’m going outside. You’re not stopping me. I have to make sure that Hoshina is alright, I’ll be back.” Dot put her headphones around her neck just in case it was too loud out there and she felt the bubbling sensory overload burning at the back of her brain and she blinked away the tears in her eyes.

“Okonogi, I need your help. Please. I’ll get you a huge stuffed bear for your room the next time that I go shopping at the mall. I have to get Hoshina off of the battlefield. If I don’t drag him off now then he’s going to be there for the entire duration of the fight and he needs to get out of there. He’s not going to be help to anyone in his state.” Okonogi sighed heavily knowing that she wasn’t going to get her friend to get out of this situation without her helping out.

“Okay, I’ll help you out Saito. Just be careful out there because it is still a dangerous battle field out there. I know that you want to get the vice captain to safety and I can’t fault you for that.” Dot let out a breath of relief as she went outside and narrowly avoided all the things that were around her and all of the chaos until she heard the familiar voice of vice captain Hoshina. Hoshina looked up and saw Dot in front of him. 

“I’m here to take you to the infirmary. You’re going to get some rest, you overheated and didn’t listen to me when I requested very politely might I add that you should backdown but nooooo you had to try and be a superman.” Dot crossed her arms over her chest and Hoshina in his right mind probably wouldn’t have said what he was about too ay if he hadn’t just fought for far too long. 

“You should be assertive more frequently, it’s sexy.” Dot squeaked offering her friend a hand up and she blushed a bright pink.

“Just come on you knucklehead, let’s go. I want to make sure that you’re doing alright. I know that you were thrown against the wall by that kaiju so you might have a concussion and some broken ribs.” Dot lightly placated her friend as she held his arm carefully guiding him away from the battlefield in front of him.

“Definitely got a concussion it is hard to breathe and I can’t really feel some of my fingers..” Dot sighed heavily pushing hair behind Hoshina’s ears with a small smile on her face. 

“I can’t believe you, you are the most ridiculous man that I have ever met in my entire life. I just- come on vice captain. We should get you to the doctor.” It was taking everything in Dot right now to not instantly confess her feelings for her friend as she ran her hand through her hair. Dot led her friend through the halls towards the back of the hallway and she opened the door.

“Doctor Suzono!” Dot called into the room Hoshina walked into the room leaning heavily against Dot’s side. Dr Suzono went into the room and instantly groaned heavily seeing that Hoshina was in front of her.

“Saito what the hell happened outside?” Dot sighed heavily looking at her friend and waving her hand animatedly letting Hoshina tell her what happened.

“I got into a big fight with a monster kaiju and Saito had to go and drag me out of there. I’m just glad that she did because things are.. not going great.” Hoshina sighed heavily flopping onto the chair and Dot sat down across from him. 

“I’m sorry about the whole situation with Kafka Hoshina. I know that you believed him him but maybe there’s something else that’s going behind the scenes. There’s probably something else that’s going on with him.” Dot smiled softly at her friend and Hoshina just sighed heavily looking at her knowing that she was right and that she was able to read him and his emotions so well. She knew exactly what he was worried about and how to navigate talking to him about it. 

“It doesn’t matter what intentions he had, he’s still a kaiju and he shouldn’t have joined in the first place.” Dot crossed her ankles together cocking her head to the side with a small understanding look in her eyes. 

“How many times were you told that you didn’t have the skill to join the defense force? Wasn’t it your entire life and the vice captain was the first person that ever told you that you could do it despite all the obstacles that stood in your way. I think that the reason why you’re so hurt by this is because you believed in him the most. You saw your younger self in him and when he finally became an official member of the defense force you were proud of him. That despite all the odds that were stacked against him he managed to fight all of them and prove every single person wrong that told him that he couldn’t do it.” Dot called her friend out actually defining all his hurt feelings about the situation with Kafka and Hoshina couldn’t help but sigh with a small half-smile on his face at the fact that she had once again read him like an open book.

“How do you do that? Automatically know what I’m thinking and how to reason with me?” Dot shrugged her shoulders since to her it wasn’t that hard to understand Hoshina. Most people just automatically assumed that she sucked at understanding how to deal with people but that wasn’t true. She wanted to understand people it was just a bit harder for her to understand how to communicate with them. But with Hoshina, it was never that difficult and she could just be herself and assume that she would be understood and accepted where she was. 

“I just know what you’re thinking, you’re not that difficult to read vice-captain. You might think that you’ve got this whole mysterious cool guy hiding behind a practiced smile but I can see you beyond that. You’re someone who’s fought his entire life to get to where he is and I.. I’m sorry that I can’t help you more than I do.” Dot sighed heavily since her feelings of not being useful enough were going strong today. She had wanted to be more useful than she actually was but she also knew that she couldn’t join the fight head on and that she was stuck dealing with the behind the scenes work. 

“Whatcha mean Saito? You’re plenty strong and you help me out a lot with your tech skills. Being on the operations team does not mean that you’re weak. I would worry about you if you were on the frontlines anyway so it’s for the best that you’re on the operations side of things. I’m sorry that I scared ya today I didn’t mean to.” Dot shook her head since she really didn’t blame her friend for scaring her he was just trying to do his job to the best of his ability. 

“You’re going to need to take a little bit of time off to let these wounds heal vice-captain. I’m sorry about that but you overdid it. You have several broken ribs and a pretty bad concussion as well as a slight fracture in your right arm from when the kaiju threw you into the wall.” Hoshina blinked a little bit in disbelief since his right arm felt fine to him but his threshold for pain was always higher than most and even though he had probably been too hoped up on adrenaline to notice that his arm was broken.

“I’ll make sure that he doesn’t overdue it doc thank you for everything.” Hoshina sighed heavily as the doctor patched him up to the best of her abilities right now.

“You’ll have to come back next week for physical therapy and make sure that everything is healing up properly.” Hoshina sighed heavily since physical therapy was never his favorite part of the job but he knew that he’d have to take care of himself.

“Come on mister, you’re getting some rest.” Dot took Hoshina’s uninjured arm and carefully led him to her dorm room sitting him down on her couch. 

“What do you want to watch? Or would your rather that I just be quiet and let you get some sleep? Because I can tell you that I’m probably not going to be able to sleep I’m too anxious to sleep right now. I think you caused me to lose at least five years of my life pulling that stunt you dumbass.” Dot whined flopping onto her couch after grabbing her caterpillar stuffed animal and clinging it for dear life. Hoshina couldn’t help but find his friend to be the cutest thing in the entire world. 

“Sorry about scaring ya like that Saito I know that it was a lot for you to have to deal with behind the scenes. Thanks for helping me get out of there. Sorry if I was bossy.” Dot shook her head animatedly since she didn’t think that her friend had been bossy or pushy at all. He was just trying to protect his subordinates and do his job.

“No apologizes needed Hoshina, I know that you care about your subordinates and you just wanted to make sure that everyone was safe during that fight. That fight was stressful for everyone but you took on a lot of that yourself and you fought way too hard. I’m just glad that you’re alright. You have to stop putting yourself in dangerous situations and just.. have a little bit of self preservation.” Dot sighed with a small smile on her face running her hands through her hair and Hoshina couldn’t help but smile at her.

“Alright I promise that I’m stop putting myself in danger if you promise that you’ll try to speak your mind about what’s bothering you more frequently.” Dot sighed knowing that her friend was going to fight her on it no matter what and that he was going to argue with her if she didn’t agree with him.

“Fine, fine you win Hoshina I’ll let you win this time around. I’ll try my best to tell you my opinions when it’s not just about film. It’s hard for me to speak my mind I have no clue why.” Hoshina sighed with a half-smile on his face at the fact that he was able to get Dot to admit that she would try to speak her mind more frequently and that was the best that he was going to get right then. He couldn’t help but hiss lightly in pain as he was finally starting to feel the pain in his right arm and Dot felt tears come to her eyes. 

“I’ll.. I’ll get you some Tylenol just don’t.. try to not move around so much okay?” Dot got up and went through her medicine cabinet finding the Tylenol there for when she got migraines and gave some to her friend and quickly turned around so that he wouldn’t have to see the tears that were in her eyes. Hoshina heard the soft sobs though and he instantly knew that he had done this. He had caused his friend to cry over the fact that he had scared her so bad that she was having a belated sensory overload after everything had happened.

“Saito, Saito am I allowed to hug you?” Dot nodded her head tentatively and Hoshina pulled her towards him trying to not move any of his injuries around too much but still wanting to remind his friend that he was alright and that he had made it through that fight alive.  

“I’m okay Dot, I’m right here everything’s going to be alright you don’t have to worry about me. I made a stupid misjudgment when it came to fighting that kaiju. I should have taken off the second that he turned into a giant because I know that I can’t fight the giant ones head on. But as vice-captain I felt like it was my duty to put my life on the line to protect my subordinates.” Dot felt tears come to her eyes and she leaned heavily against her friend’s side shaking her head animatedly. 

“I was just.. I couldn’t do anything to help you or to save you from that situation. I wanted to be stronger, strong enough to fight on the frontlines by your side instead of behind a computer screen. I hate that I’m so weak that I can’t fight with you..” Dot started to cry more heavily into her hands and Hoshina just softly rubbed at her shoulder hating himself for making the woman that he loved cry like this. He felt his heart start to crack in two hearing Dot’s cries and knowing that his recklessness had been the cause of it reminded him that he had people to live for. He had to live for not only his subordinates but also his friends that loved and cared about him.

“If you were on the frontlines then I’d worry about ya Saito. You’re so helpful you and Okonogi run a perfect operations behind the scenes always updating the technology. It’s because of you that you’re able to actually see the fights when they’re going on and make sure that everyone remains safe. Did you do that with my suit earlier?” Dot nodded her head tentatively blowing her nose into her box of tissues and grabbing a couple of others. She put them next to her just in case she would need them again.

“I did, I’m sorry that I didn’t ask before I did but I was so worried about you that I felt like I had to go into your suit camera to see what was happening. I know that usually I would ask but I just.. I panicked. I’m sorry.” Hoshina shook his head animatedly since he didn’t blame Dot at all for what happened with her and her stress. He knew that she was worried about him when she came to drag him off of the battlefield.

“Ya don’t have to be sorry Saito, not about this I’m sorry that I scared you so badly that you had to come out onto the battlefield to get me out. But so much happened that I don’t think I would’ve gone to Doc Suzono if you hadn’t came and gotten me.” Dot shrugged her shoulders since she hadn’t really done all that much in her opinion. She still thought that she could have done much more than she actually did.

“I know but I’m still sorry anyways because I know that you trust your subordinates implicitly and that you liked Kafka and that you saw a bit of yourself in him. Mostly in the fact that you both have this dream to prove all the critics wrong that ever talked bad about you and told you that you couldn’t do something just because you did it differently. All I’m saying is maybe hear him out? I’ll tell Captain Ashiro the same thing. I don’t think that Kafka is a bad person, I think that he’s different from other kaiju honestly. There’s a lot of weirdness going on with all these kaiju recently from number 9 being able to transform from being human and being kaiju but in a more grotesque way, to Kafka, to number 10 being able to summon other kaiju and being able to enjoy the fight.. the kaiju are advancing and changing as time goes on which means the way that we’re fighting them has to change and advance as well.” Dot offered her thoughts and Hoshina blinked a little bit not expecting that amount of forwardness when it came to the way that he fought the kaiju and the way that he should deal with Kafka. But he had told Dot that she should speak her mind more often instead of just about movies.

“See this is why your plenty strong on your own. It might not be on the battlefield but you’re always looking for the safest way to handle these situations which we need. We need to change the way that we fight the kaiju because they’re changing too. I think I was just.. blindsided by the fact that Kafka was number 8 because I did think that there was something off about him but not that." Dot huffed a small chuckle pulling back from the hug but staying in the general proximity of her friend just needing him close right now since that had been one of the most anxiety inducing fights that she had seen during her time on the defense force.

“I was surprised too, Brandon will tell you that I was super shocked to see that Kafka was the kaiju that you fought. I can only imagine what you were thinking because you believed so strongly in Kafka that he was strong. You knew that he could do it and I think that Kafka saw this as a do or die situation and he just.. reacted to what was happening. If he hadn’t defeated that yonju bomb what would have happened? I would have probably lost you and every other member of the defense force. We would have lost a ton of good people. Without Kafka everyone would have probably died.” Dot reasoned throwing in her own opinion about the fight and Hoshina sighed heavily wanting to object, that he would’ve thought of something, but he knew that he was in a bad way and that he wouldn’t have been able to do anything.

“You’re right as usual Saito, I wouldn’t have been able to think of something like on the fly. I know that I wouldn’t have but Kafka did because he’s braver than the rest of us put together. He’s a good guy and I’ll rely your information to Ashiro and tell her what you think that we should do. She trusts you implicitly so I’m sure that she’ll take what you have to say to heart. She likes having ya around and I think you take a load off her shoulders.” Dot blushed a light pink with a small smile on her face pressing her index fingers together.

“You really think that?” Hoshina nodded his head with a small laugh as he grabbed the remote from the couch and went through his friend’s tv.

“What are you in the mood for? Something animated? Something comforting?” Dot hummed in thought as she grabbed her caterpillar stuffed animal and hugged it tightly. 

“You pick something and I’ll try and stay awake enough to watch it kay? I’m tired but I’m too anxious to get a good sleep right now. Just nothing comedy related please in case I fall asleep.” Hoshina nodded his head as he went through Dot’s Disney movies that she had bought when she had moved to the dorms and he riffled through them before he found one that he knew was one of Dot’s childhood favorites and that she had watched all the time when she was a kid. 

“Hunchback?” Dot nodded her head animatedly since that one she could at least fight to stay awake for since that was one of her favorites when was growing up.

“Please, that one sounds perfect right about now. It’s calming enough but not too calming that I’ll fall asleep. I don’t think that we’re going to be able to get some work done here until we rebuilt the defense force so you’re going to be resting with me for the time being. Mostly because I don’t trust you to not rest if you’re not with me.” Hoshina gasped over-dramatically turning around to face his friend but he knew that Dot had a decent point about everything. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right about that Saito..” Dot watched as her friend sat back down on the couch as the opening credits started to play in the background. 

“Can you just do me a favor?” Dot nodded her head with a small smile since she would do just about anything for her friend.

“Of course, what do you need from me?” Hoshina looked at her with for once a nervous expression on his face. That surprised Dot since her friend rarely looked that nervous about anything ever so this must have been a big deal for him.

“Can you.. just hold me please?” Dot blushed a light pink but hugged her friend comfortingly running a hand over his side being careful to not jostle any of his bruised ribs from where he was thrown against the wall. She managed to stay awake for the entire movie quoting lines under her breath that made Hoshina smile softly since there was a lot about her that wouldn’t ever change and he hoped that would be one of those things. He started to nod off around the same time that Dot fell asleep against his shoulder and he put a blanket around them both before he felt his own drowsiness slowly take over. 

[cho-aaacho]

(Flufftober 2023) Scary Movie

Main Masterlist I Archive Of Our Own

Flufftober 2023 Masterlist I Prompts List

Tags : Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Scary Movies, Flirting, Flufftober 2023, Reader is genderless.

A/N : Sorry for the late update. I'm stuck in Sword Art Online and I can't log out. lmao.

(Flufftober Day 30)

"Do you think it's a good idea if I'm watching this? Tell me if you have any good recommendations."

A contented smile dances upon his lips as he savors the gentle kiss of an iced Americano. A warm aura emanates from his presence every time you smile back at him, sending a million translucent hearts above his head. 

Once again, his azure eyes, which resembled a deep ocean, fixated on you, scanning the canvas of your face. You could taste a glimpse of a playful tease whenever he chuckled or when he teasingly called you by the wrong name.

After months of entwining about him, William Birkin always invited the most charming smile in your life along with elusive mysticalness every time your sight line met him. You didn't know what it was. It just happened every time he was smiling. 

Is it love? Or something more blissful than love? 

"Ah, I'm not good at picking, sir. But I'm sure you would find so much fun in my video rental shop! But as for me, I love scary movies!" You calmly reply, avoiding direct eye contact.

William laughed and sealed your presence in his realm. He shook his head and locked your very essence. "No, please. I would like you to pick one for me. I usually ask my friends for movie recommendations, but they aren't available right now."

You found yourself unable to stifle fits of smile every time your gaze fell on his eyes. Well, you couldn't lie; William is your best customer, or more than a customer?

You step away from the cashier and approach William, gaining a better angle. He's taller than you, has beautiful glow-blond hair, and the warm scent of a summer night's mystery.

"Hmm... let me see. Do you like horror movies? Scary movies? Sci-fi?"

"I loved scary movies as a child." He winked mischievously. "But now, my tastes have changed. I love something beyond the realms of fear—a genre hard to articulate. How do I describe it?"

He shared his gaze with the entire shop, eventually settling upon racks with a romance section. He blinked and chuckled to himself, almost like a mocking giggle. You don't even understand what that means.

While sipping his iced Americano, his focus remained fixated on other racks and then turned on you again. 

"Well... how about a movie where the main character falls in love at first sight? A love story where the protagonist is in love with someone and captivated by their cuteness, their kindness, and their sweet aura. He always has a chance to meet them, even if it's for just one minute, which he will cherish forever. He wants to have an intimate relationship with them, but he's too shy to express his feelings because he considers himself a loser."

As William describes this imaginary plot, a gentle smile blossoms on his face, heightening your nervousness. A rosy blush graced your cheeks, enveloping your presence with the color red.

"You couldn't find a movie like that. Because that movie doesn't exist at all," his laugh reverberates, filling the romantic ambiance. "But what if we bring it to life? You and I are the main characters."

"Eh, what do you mean?"

"The plot I described is about my feelings for you. The only thing that could scare me is not finding a place in your heart. So what about you?"

A/N : I hope you love the way I write about William. Akwmdjekekejenek. I always wanted him to be saved by someone else. Maybe Albert Wesker. But yeah... as you can see🥹🥹

[warriorteam1924]

Somebody’s watching me

featuring Joe Mazzello & Swan

Author note : Hello my beauties. I'm back for another tiny piece for halloween ^^ ! I’ve been super busy lately and I’m aware it’s not my best piece, but  I hope some of you will enjoy it anyways. Using someone else's gif should give you an idea of how I'm running everywhere. Thanks in advance to anyone who will be giving honest feedback, it’s always very appreciated. Also, I remind you English isn’t my mother tongue, apologies in advance for the mistakes.

Warnings : none really, just my awful writing

Summary : a thrill with Joe Mazzello

Words count : 1,729 words

Permanent taglist : @reavenedges-lies @thosequeenboys @orionis8689 (apologies people, i removed you from the list, since you don't interact.... i asked for communication....)

It was yet another random day for Joe when he woke up that day. Morning coffee and breakfast, shower, hairstyling. Nothing very unusual. He wasn’t currently busy with work so he spent his days between his computer, his console or watching random series or movies. Maybe at some point it would give him an idea for a future working project. Of course, he wasn’t to feel sorry for. Money wasn’t an issue. He had his friends he could see now and then. His family was close to him and he could pay a visit every now and then. Life was good. Or at least, that’s what he was thinking so far.

He took his phone to take a picture, a silly one obviously, to send his friend. After taking a few ones, he opened the gallery application and smiled at his own silliness, when he saw his selfies with his tongue sticking out.

He was still genuinely smiling when panic erased his grin. There was a picture on his phone, a picture he was sure he didn’t take. He was absolutely certain he hadn’t taken it since it was a picture of him sleeping. The issue was, he was living alone. And there was not a chance of someone like a robber or a random intruder would be able to enter his house. Joe was living on his own and made sure to lock doors and windows at night. There was no reason to tempt fate. Those things didn’t happen only to others. Besides, he had also installed a few security cameras.

In this picture, he was peacefully sleeping, curled up in his blanket. There was no doubt, it was him and his bedroom. What on earth had happened?

Joe was firmly frowning. He decided to delete all the silly selfies he had taken, leaving the suspicious picture on top of his gallery. He had no important plans for the day, so it was the right time to investigate.

He sat in front of his computer and plugged his phone. He logged on several sites such as his mailbox, his social accounts and other online shopping sites. Apparently, all was still normal, meaning no one had hacked his accounts.

He hadn’t been very keen on doing so but some time ago, he also had installed an artificial intelligence to connect his different devices, and it also helped him manage his security cameras. He had chosen a feminine name, Swan, but it was also a dedication to Henrietta Swan Leavitt, famous American astronomer. It wasn’t super fancy, but it was yet another occasion to bring up an interesting topic when someone was coming over and he was using his A.I.

“Swan?”, he asked like he usually did.

“Yes, Joe?”, the feminine voice replied, like it usually did.

“Did you spot anything special last night while I was sleeping? Was there anything strange or unusual?”, he questioned.

“One moment, please”, Swan replied.

Joe knew that Swan needed time to search the files and check them all. The robotic voice spoke again.

“Nothing unusual was found. Are you looking for something specific?”.

“I was just wondering if someone had entered the house?”, Joe asked.

“No intruder or uninvited person was recorded on the files.”, the voice affirmed again.

Joe frowned again. His phone rang and a reminder let him know he had planned to see a friend, unlike what he had thought in the morning. Trying not to think about it, he got ready and went to meet his friend.

It was actually his best friend, so Joe thought about showing him the mysterious pic and asking him for advice. They had known each other for a very long time, it was worth trying.

Mentioning it in the conversation, Joe took his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it and opened the gallery app to show it to his friend. The latter looked at it and he frowned.

“Are you kidding me, mate?”, he asked.

“What ?”, Joe replied.

“There isn’t such a pic in your gallery dude….”, the other said as he handed him his phone.

“What the….”, Joe didn’t finish his sentence.

He scrolled and searched his gallery, several times, he even looked in the trash folder, thinking maybe he had accidentally deleted it. But he found nothing.

The rest of the time dedicated to his friend was nothing but Joe daydreaming and nodding, as he wasn’t really paying attention to what his friend was saying.

At some point, Joe pretended to be tired and went back home. He was worried and concerned. Had he lost his mind?

Still trying not to think about the mysterious picture, Joe watched his feel-good movie and went to bed, after checking his bedroom all the same, just to make sure there wasn’t a camera or anything he hadn’t seen before. Yet, there was nothing he hadn't installed, no device in the room to take a picture of him.

The following morning, he woke up as he usually did, thinking about his daily tasks. There was no notification on his phone, but he wanted to make sure the previous day only happened in his mind, that it tricked him when seeing the mysterious picture.

What was his horror when he saw another picture of him, again, sleeping tightly in his bed. Panic invaded him again, shaking his body and making him sweat. His breath was heavy and he had to fight the severe anxiety that was threatening him.

He got up, and again, went on his laptop to check again his various accounts. Again, nothing unusual was to be noted. He asked Swan to give him access to the security cameras. It was possible the day before that, the artificial intelligence had missed something.

Swan gave him access to the videos and he fast-forward looked at them. All the cameras showed nothing but a calm night in the surroundings. A street cat was seen on one camera, but Joe made sure to look at all the videos and he saw nothing. No intruder, no one who had been able to unlock his phone, take a picture of him, put his phone back and leave. Besides, his phone was to be unlocked with his fingerprint, there was no way he wouldn’t have felt it.

Again, he asked Swan a few questions, making sure he, too, hadn’t missed anything. It replied with his feminine and robotic voice.

“There was nothing unusual last night, Joe. Can I help you in any way?”.

“I’m starting to wonder if I’m going crazy….”, Joe mumbled, more to himself rather than a proper reply to the A.I. that was now in his life.

“You’re not crazy, Joe. You’re a very nice man, funny, compassionate, smart. According to the social criteria, you are also very good looking. Anyone would feel good by your side.”, Swan replied all the same.

Joe had a fixed grin, but his worries were still there.

He thought about talking about it with other friends, or his family. But it would probably worry them. He also considered going to the police. But what if the picture disappeared again? They would surely think he was mental, even trying to draw attention on him. Or maybe that it would have been some kind of a joke.

Trying not to give way to panic, Joe wanted to try another night and try to stay awake longer. Maybe this way he would be able to witness someone with his own eyes.

Yet, despite having coffee and trying hard to stay up, Joe fell asleep. And of course, the following morning, there was a new pic of him sleeping on his phone.

Looking around him in his living room, Joe was very anxious and felt more and more confused. He couldn’t understand what was going on.

Speaking out loud to let his thoughts out, he said :

“I know !! I’m going to send the pictures to someone I trust and this way, the pic won’t only be on my device and they will believe me.”

Joe took his phone and selected the pic to send it to his friend. He called him in the meantime, making sure the latter had received the file. Yet, and to Joe’s greatest disappointment, his friend was getting nothing.

Joe thought maybe the file was corrupted or something, so he screencaped it and tried again to send it to his friend, miserably failing again and again.

“Let me know when you’re willing to be serious, mate.”, his friend said before hanging up, annoyed that Joe had disturbed him for nothing.

The following days weren’t very different from the previous ones. Joe went to bed and woke up with a new picture of him sleeping. One morning, the picture even included little heart emojis around him.

Joe had decided to go to the police, but as he had expected, when he arrived and tried to show his gallery, all the pictures taken of him while he was sleeping were gone.

He came back home, feeling isolated and losing it. That was it, it was official, he was becoming crazy.

“I’m going slightly mad, that’s for sure….”, he randomly said out loud. “What have I done to deserve that?”, he rhetorically asked, since he was on his own.

“You’ve done nothing wrong Joe. You’re a very nice man, funny, compassionate, smart. According to the social criteria, you are also very good looking. Anyone would feel good by your side.”, Swan said, and its sentences sounded very familiar.

“Yeah, yeah sure….”, Joe said. “Why bother, you’re nothing but a bot anyways….”, he concluded, before collapsing on the sofa.

Feeling like giving up, Joe started to cry. What was he supposed to do now? He heard his favorite song coming out of the speakers. Looking around, he feared the intruder was inside, but realized it was nothing but Swan that had heard him cry and tried to make him feel better.

“Thank you, Swan.”, Joe said, wiping the tears from his cheeks, slowly falling asleep again.

Joe was already snoring before the artificial intelligence could reply.

“I knew you’d like the music, Joe. I know you very well. But I’m surprised you didn’t like the pictures I took of you, to show you how much I love you. Soon, I’m going to show you I’m more than just a robot….”

[mebemilena]

Not like we have a date with destiny

You met Layla online and her visits to your store became more regular.

---

A/N:

it's been YEARS i don't post anything, just silently reading fanficion around. Gotta relearn how to use Tumblr again. I waited one year to watch Moonknight, always wait for the hype to pass because i know i get hyped too and my poor mind can't really take that. I absolutely loved Layla, that's a fact.

as usual, i'm just trying to exercise my english writing skills. I feel like this was a part of a bigger piece but I can't really develop much. Thank you for reading though. Life's been a bit difficult at times. Lots of anxiety and fear of the future. I wanted to get something light.

i'm starting a series, that's why Sersi is mentioned.

my AO3 link if you'd like to see.

-

You met Layla online. She sent a message to the store you worked at looking for a specific book. You attended her on the phone and she went to the bookstore shortly after, paying in cash.

"You're a lifesaver.", she thanked you.

Soon, her visits to the store became more regular. Layla would take her time to read the back of the covers or arrive with a specific request. You became friends over illustrated books though, specially the ones about ancient culture. You told her about your beliefs and about your own culture, finding it amazing when she shared her own story. There was no denying you had a great connection.

"We should go out for drinks.", Layla invited you. "We only meet when you're working or when I need something work related." she'd insist.

It was true. You had never met in other circumstances and knew very little about each other outside duty, except a few things you could notice by yourself. Layla was an interesting woman, she was gentle and polite. Maybe not very social but very friendly anyway. It wasn't hard to slowly fall for her but of course you decided to keep a safe distance. If she didn't like you like that by any chance, you were not up to spoil the friendship you were developing.

"Let's do it tonight then? It's Friday, tomorrow's my Saturday off", you agreed. Was it too soon?

Layla seemed to think for a moment. Almost like she didn't believe it had been so easy. All she had to do was ask. Simple like that. "Okay.", a smile ghosted her lips and she shook her head, as if getting rid of intrusive thoughts. "It's gonna be fun."

Around 6:30pm, when you had closed the store, Layla appeared by the door. She was supposed to text you her location and you'd meet here but she had other plans. "I thought it'd be nice for us to walk there, it's not far from here.", she explained.

Layla was uncaractheristicaly nervous. She was watching her feet as you walked to the bar and you could sense the thick atmosphere. Was she nervous?

"So, i think we could grab something to eat first.", She finally looked at you. "You know, so that we won't get drunk too fast."

You agreed, as easy as it sounds, and suggested a small cantina you liked. You had some pizza and decided to just try their wine, not wanting to leave the cozy place. You drank and ate and talked for hours, leaving only because the owner came talking to you saying it was time for them to close.

Layla walked you home, the cold air sobering you up way too fast. Your night couldn't end better, though you thought that maybe it could. If Layla kissed you goodnight.

You stood by your doorway and bent goodbye and Layla kissed your cheek when you hugged. It happened a few time after that. You went out for drinks or food, hanging out together for log walks, cultural programs and sometimes to watch movies at each other's place.

You were talking about your romantic life when you mentioned the last mess you got involved in. "She was nice and all. Really. We'd go to the museu, to natural parks. We had fun together, i thought we were fine. But then her ex came along and she just disappeared.", you told her, realizing that it didn't really hurt anymore.

Layla listened to you, giving the attention you deserved. There was a hint of something in her eyes and she smiled. "Just like we do? You seem to have a type.", she said, playfull.

You chocked on your drink.

Layla laughed at your antics and gave you a napkin. She kept looking at you, a smile never leaving her face. "I mean, you said she was a Historian, that she worked with museology, and i'm an archeologist. We both like going out for drinks and trying new food, we're both into ancient culture...", she explained.

Your jaw dropped, you were speechless. Layla looked into your eyes and took a big gulp of her wine before dropping the bomb. "We both have a close relationship with our exes, she told you. "I mean, i just got divorced.", her eyes inspected you for the smallest of reactions.

You felt your heart falling on the floor. If she had just gotten a divorce it meant she probably wasn't ready for any romantic bullshit. Part of you was okay with that, because you liked her a lot and were willing to accept what she had to give you. Another aspect she had in common with Sersi.

The other part of you was catching the bitter taste of rejection.

Layla was waiting for you to say something, you knew that. But there were no words for you to use. She seemed to understand the hint and started talking again. "We are friends though. Kinda.", she cleaned her throat. "We work together sometimes.", she explained and noticed you were still silent, which made Layla start to panic. Was it the wrong time? The wrong words?

She took a deep breath. "I don't know where this is going but i'd love for it to continue.", she smiled, almost shy at herself. You nodded and approached her side of the couch way too slowly , kissing the tip of her nose.

Layla relaxed and smiled larger. She placed her hands on your cheeks before kissing you on the lips.

---

[just4notherd4ydre4mer]

INTRODUCTION + IMP. RULES & INFO

Usually, I'd make things look pretty. But tbh... Idk how to use tumblr at all. Forgive me. I'm not familiar with a lot of the terms on here :'')

Maybe I'll make this aesthetic later?? Rlly lazy and tumblr is confusing.

My username is subject to change anytime to anything, from somewhat thought out or even just keyboard smash. Bcs I'm beyond indecisive.

Also, I'm not new to writing fanfics and what not... but yknow, let's NOT talk abt the past.

[ BASIC INFO]

Call me whatever u want -- Anything works tbh though.

I'm a minor. That alone sets some basic ground rules ig... right?

Uh... I decided to start using tumblr bcs im bored. Like rlly bored. I'm am %100 going to be either very active or inactive. (short bursts of motivation lol)

What I do? I draw. I wouldn't say that I'm a beginner but I want to start sharing my progress (probably wont tho bcs... tik tok has traumatized me. Let's go with that...) But, here I am :) I also write. Whether it be my own original stories or fanfics.

Requests for both are welcome! (options listed below)

[ KEY ]

◍ - Manga/Manwha/WEBTOON … etc

○ - Anime

◐ - Dramas

▿ - Games

❥ - Current Fixation (always up to date)

[ I will usually only take requests for ❥... but you never know, so ask away! Rules are at the bottom of this post ]

FANDOMS (a-z)

•Attack on Titan ~ ○

•Black Clover ~ ❥ ○

•Blue Lock ~ ❥○

•Free! ~ ○

•Full Metal Alchemist ~ ○

•Golden Kamuy ~ ❥○

•Haikyuu! ~ ○

• Hunter x Hunter ~ ○

•Komi Can't Communicate ~ ◍ ○

•Kuruko’s Basketball ~ ○

•Log Horizon ~ ○

•Magi (+Includes AoS) ~ ○

•My Clueless First Friend ~ ○

•My Hero Academia ~ ○

•My Star! (Oshi No Ko) ~ ○

•Pokemon ~ ❥▿

•Saiki K. ~ ○

•School Babysitters ~ ○

•Seraph of the End ~ ❥ ◍ ○

•Skip & Loafer ~ ❥ ○

•Snow White with the Red Hair ~ ❥ ◍ ○

•Soul Eater ~ ○

•World Trigger ~ ❥ ○

•Weak Hero ~ ❥ ◍ ◐ (I've watched the kdrama... I just dont have access to it anymore).

/this could get REAL long so I didn’t include a lot… If you’re interested in one that isn’t listed, feel free to ask if I’ve watched/read it :) /

P.S: I’ve seen lots of the more popular/mainstream animes (movies too) but just didn’t list them.

EDIT: I've decided to link my finished animes.

[ GROUND RULES ]

No NSFW (obviously)

Constructive Criticism? Lovely. Mocking or being blatantly mean? Please don't. I'll be honest, I'm sensitive LOL.

If you want to request, please leave it under the respective post that I make for what is listed. (if there isn't a linked post for that, put it here and I'll make one <3)

Don't be concerned if I disappear. I'm literally making this out of whatever motivation I have left of the week. A spur of the moment thing is going on :'D

---

Again, I have absolutely NO idea what im doin... im bored, it's summer rn. Speaking of which, if I do ever actually post and follow up with whatever requests may or may not come my way -- the moment the school year starts again, either I'll be spam posting my brainrotting ideas or I will just never be seen again :)

[bowelfly]

while i usually keep this blog focused on art and bugs, movies are my third big passion, and since i don't believe in streaming services i don't have a spotify wrapped for 2022 to show off but i do have a letterboxd account so i felt like going through my 2022 movie watching stats. this post is basically for me alone and will be obnoxiously long so i'll put in a read more thing here out of courtesy:

ooh so close to almost 1000 hours of movies! still 718 films is pretty good, though that does also include around 80 or so shorts, mostly animations, that i also logged.

i was averaging around 2 movies per day for the year. being 500 miles away from all your friends, family, and partner does give you a lot of free time it turns out. the most movies i watched in a single week, december 10-16, was 28. the weeks i only watched a couple things were either when i was visiting my partner or too depressed to even watch movies

one of the things i've done this year to keep myself sane in isolation was to stream movies for friends. however since i have multiple non-overlapping friend groups, there were a number of movies i watched multiple times because i have a deep psychological and emotional need to share weird shit with the people i care about. NOVA SEED, FANTASY MISSION FORCE, and BUDDHA'S PALM were the triple crown winners this year.

i only watched 7 movies that came out in 2022. my sweet spot is genre movies made from the late 70s through the mid-90s which you can see clearly if you look at my lifetime stats. predictably, i have very strong opinions about practical effects and stunts and film stock

my ratings spread for 2022 is about what it normally is for other years with a lot of things ending up in the 3.5-4 star range. maybe i'm just generous with my stars or maybe i just like what i like and try to not watch things i won't like unless they're bad in a fun way but i really feel like i've been moving away from the whole so-bad-its-good thing over the years and focusing on things that i unironically like--though these are often films that other people do categorize as bad or so-bad-its-good.

my most watched actors is a bunch of golden age hong kong dudes because i went super hard on the kung fu and wuxia films this year. like about half of these are big name stars and the other half are less well-known character actors that still are in like 200 movies playing assorted emperors and evil administrators. really glad to see my main man lo lieh running away with first place. he's most well known for playing evil white-haired kung fu masters usually named pai mei or variations of that, but he's also played the protagonist or antihero of a number of great films like FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH or THE FUGITIVE (1972, not the harrison ford one). my favorite role of his is without question Bi Gu of East Island the rascally kung fu wizard who hollers his name from offscreen before every time he enters a scene in BUDDHA'S PALM (1982).

also very pleased to see one of my favorite american character actors, brion james squeaking his way onto the list, though sad that he got separated from his best friend and frequent collaborator tim thomerson, who i think is just below the cut here.

most watched directors. i've been a huge fan of the very recently deceased albert pyun for years now, largely on the strength of his absolute god-tier masterpiece NEMESIS (1992) though he has a number of other very entertaining movies (RADIOACTIVE DREAMS, CYBORG) and also a cavalcade of very bad movies that are nonetheless all fascinating in their own ways. i could go on about him at length but this post is long enough. maybe another time.

other than that, chor yuen (THE MAGIC BLADE, DESCENDANT OF THE SUN) and chang cheh (CRIPPLED AVENGERS, FIVE ELEMENT NINJAS) are gods of early wuxia cinema and fucking rule, and keita amemiya's 90s work (ZEIRAM, MECHANICAL VIOLATOR HAKAIDER, CYBER NINJA) are pinnacles of kickass japanese practical effects work.

i also watched a lot of russ meyer and john waters films because i'm a pevert.

this is mostly just a reminder to check out my WUXIA WIZARD WARS tumblr post and letterboxd list if you like movies about wizards shooting lasers at each other and summoning fucked up monsters and shit like that

finally, because i have a brain disease, i made a list of the 100 best films i watched this year, mostly first-time watches but probably like 15-20 rewatches that i especially enjoyed or think more people should know about or give another shot. if i didn't already have way too many projects i'd consider setting up another sideblog just going through all these one by one with reviews and screenshots but that's a lot of work and i am a tired old man. i might give an occasional highlight post like i did for THE BARON AGAINST THE DEMONS

and i guess that's about it? this has been an especially heavy year for golden age hong kong kung fu and wuxia films but i explored a lot of other interesting places and times and genres and microgenres and have a lot more i plan on checking out next year. i've got stacks and stacks of unwatched japanese V-cinema and pinku violence and kaiju and tokusatsu films; tons of giallo and hammer horror and eurotrash lesbian vampire flicks; classic westerns, revisionist westerns, spaghetti westerns; SOV horror, eastern european stop motion, hong kong CAT III sleaze, russian postapocalyptic dirges, poliziotteschi, krimi, and noir films; AIP and PM Entertainment action schlock; italian mad max ripoffs, italian alien ripoffs, italian conan ripoffs; approximately 300 movies with NINJA, BLOOD, or SHAOLIN in their titles; and probably some other shit too.

finally, if you've made it this far and you're a nasty little film freak like me i'll let you in on a secret: i have copies of every single one of these movies on my hard drive. literally thousands of movies dug out of dozens of digital dumpsters with my own two greasy grabby raccoon paws. if any of them particularly catch your interest but you can't find a copy, well you can maybe slip old professor bfly a little private request and get yourself a copy of whatever you need. it may take some time since i only have so many google drive accounts unless someone wants to subsidize a deluxe mega.nz subscription for me to mass-upload things to. i also have a soulseek account sharing the entire hoard but it's very slow and not always online but you can DM me for that as well. again though you may have to be patient because i am old and tired and slow and have a full time job and a hundred dumb hobbies and social anxiety and generalized brain damage

happy new year everyone now go watch a movie about some dudes kicking the shit out of each other for me

[kcscribbler]

Referring to the 'get to know me' post you are logged recently-- can you answer jasmine, palm tree, and mahonia?

Full Ask List

jasmine ⇢ do you have a movie or book you loved but will never watch/read again?

Hmmmm. I have movies I'll never watch again because they were garbage, but none that I loved (looking at you, Generations). However, I do tend to only watch/read things with happy (or at least hopeful) endings, just for my own mental health.

I do tend to skip The Good Place's finale episodes on most rewatches, because as great as the finale was, I hate sitting on my couch crying. I have to be in the mood. And I don't love reading The Final Problem without immediately going to The Empty House.

palm tree ⇢ do you have a fictional villain you shouldn’t like but love regardless?

Interesting, I had to think about this one.

I'm a sucker for a good redemption story, but I've never really been a fan of most fictional villains who are actually in their villain era, unless we're talking OG animated Disney villains.

Loki doesn't really count as a villain anymore, and I was never overly interested in a big franchise enough to have serious favorites. I definitely enjoy the gray areas in fiction (good villains and bad heroes) more than characters that are straight-up one side or the other.

Does Q count? I love to hate him, in ST:TNG in particular.

mahonia ⇢ what place, thing, activity inspires you most and how do you express yourself when it does?

Is it cliche to say fanart? Maybe because I've never had the slightest legit creative ability, and so I'm in serious awe of people who can put actual visuals on a medium in the same way I try to do with words.

I've seen fanart that moved me far more than the source material, and fanart that inspired me to write long fanfictions to match it. That's why I prefer reverse Big Bangs to normal ones. One of my personal favorite ST fics was written in response to fanart, in a reverse bang back in my LiveJournal days.

Writing in general is cathartic for me, so that's usually my medium of choice. But I also always draw big inspiration from traveling, particularly in places where there's literal centuries of history older than the States where I live.

Thanks so much for the asks, this was fun!

[tsukiyadori]

Reading (+Watching) Log 2023.09-11 - September to November

Trying this out, not sure if a continuation is feasible, this took a bit to collect...

Reading languages: German, English, Japanese, not listing which was what

Titles are as I've read them either first or most and thus remember it for that title mostly

Not going to bother putting in the original titles of translated reads

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

SEPTEMBER

Tried starting reading some of that little stack of doujins and failed to continue right after the first

Still in the middle of an Anime watching slump, but there's an actual tiny titbit watched. Somehow it was only now that I realized Puella Magi Madoka Magica apparently gets counted as a GL?

Anime:

Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Walpurgisnacht Rising Trailer

Doujinshi:

Gusari (Natsuki Kizu) - Kuroko no Basketball Fanbook 2: Ashita no Tenki

Light Novel:

By the Grace of the Gods V2-5

Manga:

Aishiteru Game wo Owarasetai ch38-39 Ane no Shinyuu, Watashi no Koibito ch20-21.1 Boku no Diamond Star ch11-12.2 Buta no Liver wa Kanetsushiro ch29 By the Grace of the Gods Ch35.3-4 Cinderella Closet v6ch24 Deep Scar v2ch14 Die rachsüchtige weiße Katze und der Drachenkönig ch1Leseprobe Eikyuukei ch5 Girl Crush Ch46-52 Hari to Hitsuji no Fune ch7.2-8.1 I'm a Maid, but I've Pulled Out the Holy Sword?! Ch21-24 Juuban-sama no Enmusubi: Kamiari Hanayome Kitan ch2.2-3 Kakegurui Ch103 Kemutai Hanashi ch7-10 Kimi ni wa Todokanai ch40.1 Koisuru (Otome) no Tsukurikata bangai-wink Komorebi Shoutengai no Changing Wonder ch14 Leaving Our Truths to the Shooting Star ch1-4.3 Love is an Illusion - The Queen Intro ch1 Midnight Clubbing Sex V1 Midnight Delivery Sex v1 Miryou no Otome to Katabutsu Hittou Majutsushi no Hatsukoi Kiroku ch13.3-4 Moteki v1-3ch15 Motokare ga Fudanshi ni natte Orimashite v2 Mr. Mallow Blue ch27 My Regret ch9final.2 Noragami ch106.2-107.2 Oshi no Ko interlude 1-4 Oshi no Ko ch126 Phantom Seer v1 Prinz Freya v2-v6ch18 Promise Cinderella Ch119 Re:Zero the Mansion v1ch4 Seraph of the End ch117-129 Shuumatsu Touring ch32 Sonna Kazoku nara Sutechaeba? ch55-56 Taberare Usa ch67-70 Tenmaku Cinema Ch1-21 The Case Files of Jeweler Richard Masago Nasu Part 2-3 The Devil is a Part-Timer! v18ch90-94 The Villainess's Guide to (Not) Falling in Love Ch7-12.1 Unnamed Memory ch30.1-2 Verliebt in die Nacht v5-9 Watashi wo Tabetai, Hitodenashi ch32.1-3 What did you eat yesterday? v20 Yoshios Jugend ch1?

Notes:

Koisuru (Otome) no Tsukurikata - Excellent as usual, but only a special there

What did you eat yesterday? - Excellent as usual, but it was a wee bit weaker than the last one or two volumes

Oshi no Ko - I keep going back every week

Seraph of the End - What are they even doing now. This smelled like something inbetween queerplatonic to the edge of romance (? - albeit a not exactly healthy one) for a helluva long stretch, but then it just has to come around the corner of, hey, look, they weren't even humans. Well, ok, they weren't really all that "human" right of the beginning. But anyway, can we go back to having some more Mahiro? Thanks.

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

OCTOBER:

End of the month, at the same 27th October it was supposed to be a Jeweler Richard day as both the new English and Japanese volume were coming out. Things that went wrong: Seven Seas botched up v6's English release by leaving out the second half the Sinhalite extra case and the afterword. I also went out of my way to take a few days off to read the 13th's volume in Japanese in any sense of a safely time planed healthy manner right upon release, but entirely forgot, that ebooks have a delay in release date, so that one came out a week later. I was positively furious about my own stupidity and misplanning.

Light Novel:

Bottom Tier Character Tomozaki-kun v6.5 By the Grace of the Gods LN v6-9 The Case Files of Jeweler Richard Masago Nasu Part 4 The Case Files of Jeweler Richard v2.Garnet Reread The Case Files of Jeweler Richard きらきら星たちのパーティ

Manga:

100-nengo ni Tenseishita Watashi, Zense no Juukishi ni Kyuukonsaremashita: Heika wa Watashi ga Moto Oujo da to Okizukidenai you desu ch12.1-2 Aishiteru Game wo Owarasetai ch40-41 Ane no Shinyuu, Watashi no Koibito ch21.2 Ane no Shinyuu, Watashi no Koibito tokubetsuhen.1-2 Ano Natsu ga Houwa suru. ch11-12.1 Arte v13ch64-v16ch79 BL Game no Shujinkou no Otouto de aru Koto ni Ki ga Tsukimashita ch17 Boruto: Two Blue Vortex ch2-3 Buta no Liver wa Kanetsushiro ch30.1 By the Grace of the Gods c36 Dead Company v1-3 Dekiru Neko wa Kyou mo Yuuutsu ch100 Deliquent Daddy & Tender Teacher v1 Detektiv Conan v101 Flüster mir ein Liebeslied v1 Girl Crush Ch53-55 Harebare Biyori ch20.2 Hatsu * Haru v1ch4, v3-6 I've become an Omega Today v1 Isekai de Ane ni Namae wo Ubawaremashita ch12.2-14.1 Kemutai Hanashi ch11 Kimi ni wa Todokanai ch40.2 Koisuru (Otome) no Tsukurikata Ch71-72 Kuni Watari no Renkinjutsushi: Ouji ni Damasare Oukyuu wo Oidasareta Watashi wa, Aru Tabi no Ichidan to Deaimashita ch6.3-7.2 Loop 7-kaime no Akuyaku Reijou wa, Moto Tekikoku de Jiyuu Kimama na Hanayome Seikatsu wo Mankitsusuru ch26-27 Love is an Illusion - The Queen ch2 Miryou no Otome to Katabutsu Hittou Majutsushi no Hatsukoi Kiroku ch13.5-14.3-4 Motokare ga Fudanshi ni natte Orimashite v2-v3ch18 My Dear Agent v1ch4 My Regret ch9final.3 Noragami ch108 Okazari Ouhi ni Nattanode, Kossori Hataraki ni deru koto ni Shimashita ~Usagi ga Iru node Hitorine mo Sabishiku Arimasen!~ ch20-21.4 Oshi no Ko ch127-130 Rental Girlfriend v17-v18ch157 Seraph of the End ch130 Shinde Miro to Iwareta no de Shinimashita. ch5.1-2 Sonna Kazoku nara Sutechaeba? ch57-58 Taberare Usa Ch74-75 Motokare ga Fudanshi ni natte Orimashite v3ch17 The Lady Likes a Nerd over Princes Ch1-7 The Saint's Magic Power is Omipotent ch36-37.2 The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent: The Other Saint ch1-4.4, ch21.1-4 The Valiant Must Fall v1-v2ch18 Watashi wo Tabetai, Hitodenashi ch33.1 Yomei Ichinen to Senkokusareta Boku ga, Yomei Hantoshi no Kimi to Deatta Hanashi ch6-7.1 Your Tears are Mine Ch1-25 今日からここで暮らシマす!? ch1

Notes:

Arte turned into out to be surprisingly good after all. Both characterization and artstyle (especially on Arte herself) have gone quite a long way compared to the beginning. Irene is posively an awesome character and the covet yet devoted and subtly beautiful one sided GL-side plot was a surprise addition I hadn't expected at all.

Boruto: Two Blue Vortex - Sarada your earrings are actually pretty, but do you know some space time jutsu to freeze your coat in space like that without ever falling off despite all sorts of moves and jumps?

By the Grace of the Gods - The MC is technically this super overpowered character stereotype that is quite prevalent, but there's something about this character just going methodically step by step and just conquering everything that somehow never makes him come off as boringly OP. Also it has quite some iyashikei effect properties to it. It kinda feels... healthy. (Well it is a story about healing.)

Dead Company - This was kinda trash that had me confused if I missed out on some prequel (I didn't, there's only Doubt and Judge otherwise), and while it goes and explains the foundation mechanics of those two, it effectively is just a short version of Btooom.

Deliquent Daddy & Tender Teacher - Soft cheese, it kinda is predictable, but there is nothing offensive about it and propagates a healthy relationship, so worth a mention especially in the BL department. Obligatory spicy extra chapters remain cursed, but this was at least inerweaved with the characters and their relationship progression.

Girl Crush - This series has been excellent before, but with chapter 54 it has become a marvel that positively floored me. The climax of that chapter was nothing short of awesome. It's also such a great culmation of the main character's, Tenka's, character development progression in a nutshell. She was that character, which she is employed to depict in a music video, she met someone, showered her with irritation and jealousy, couldn't stand herself so resolved to leave it all behind and pursue getting that one thing she was so jealous of by going into the same career. But she also can't have in the same way, so grinds to the place in her own meticulous way. Gets this acting job where she's playing a role very like her past self and she pulls it out with this beautiful scene reel while thinking of what she almost became and then throws the papers for the scene but also at her past self. It's such a picturesque showing of how you can still be ashamed of what you were and did in the past, but still look back at it and use the experience to forward yourself instead of just desperately trying to bury it. I'm cursing and crying: Why does this series not have a print version. Neither in English nor Japanese or anywhere. 😭

Hatsu * Haru - I've read some vols of Yuzuki-san Chi no Yon Kyoudai from the author and that one was pretty good, but this this one is a patience wrecking piece of Highschool-Shoujo-Cheese. It does have some fairly interesting paneling here and there. But darn it, it's just exhausting.

I've become an Omega Today - Certainly wins a price in the "if you only talked (but then we'd have no plot)" category. Noteworthy tho for especially being Omegaaverse and not abusive or dubiously coercive. (How sad that this is something noteworthy.) Also interestingly this is the third in the set now that shares the same visual character design and personality template as I Hear the Sunspot and Summer with You.

Isekai de Ane ni Namae wo Ubawaremashita - Cute, nice dresses and just gimme those hairdoes, too.

Koisuru (Otome) no Tsukurikata - Very good as usual, this now has a sort of Aishiteru Game wo Owasetai arc atm, but it's a helluva better one.

Speaking of Aishiteru Game wo Owarasetai, sigh, I'm really not liking how it introduces some kinks, depicts the courage it needs to confess to it to your crush, only for the narrative to keep using it for gags that ultimately imo are based on shaming on it.

Motokare ga Fudanshi ni natte Orimashite - I previously had read the first few free chapters and then the end of the series on pixiv as it ran. I thought they were all just kind dense adorkable adults or a bit of late bloomers, but then it turns out that of the four main characters 3 are looking very demi aro/ace, and furthermore it gets revealed that two of them are about as officially aroace as you can possibly be without using the label.

My Regret - Finished. Excellent series that I had started at around the same time as My Diamond Star which both had me confused if it was supposed to be BL or not. The latter turned out to be one, this one pleasantly did not and was just about two very different people, whose lives get connected though an old man dying and leaving behind a legacy of grief, self reflection and self betterment. The climax would have been a perfect stopping point, but then it throws in the epilogue that comes along with a complete curveball of looking like something that smells queerplatonic and seems even more interesting. Which makes the series now just mean for stopping right there. D:

Taberare Usa - Flashback arc, so there is a break of the buns-as-sweets doom main plot. Instead lots, lots of bun cheese.

The Case Files of Jeweler Richard: Masago Nasu - I wrote about that one a bit before. But Seigi, Seigi, what are you doing with just hanging up on Richard after splurting off something like that?

The Valiant Must Fall: I thought Gunslinger Girl was a pretty good series. But this series from the same author is kinda on the nose about how much it has researched the history of that epoch. Sadly this is also the only thing really interesting about it. There's a few pages of essays by a historian at the end of the volumes and probably I may stick to it simply for those.

Yomei Ichinen to Senkokusareta Boku ga, Yomei Hantoshi no Kimi to Deatta Hanashi - This guy totally is gonna live in the end, while the girl dies, it just screams that trope. And woe and behold: Surprise surprise there is actually a possibility of an operation for this terminal death doomed heart disease teen. (And silly boy refuses to do it as of yet, are you serious?)

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

NOVEMBER:

I noticed Comikey's "free" and "free with ads" per day isn't globally counted (like Manga Up! for example), rather than per title.

That caused a reading spree there, which saw the advent of a good bunch of webtoons.

There was a regular classic novel read inbetween (gasp)

Reading actually good series remains a health hazard of reading everything too quick with too little breaks and sleep (Unnamed Memory, Goddess of Healing)

I still have not even started Jeweler Richard v13 and don't dare to for health and stamina safety reasons...

Light Novels:

By the Grace of the Gods V9-V11 Unnamed Memory v3-6

Novels:

The Old Man in the Corner

Manga:

A Side Character's Love Story Ch1-14 After God Ch1-27 Aishiteru Game wo Owarasetai ch40-41 Alabaster Ch1-4 Ano Natsu ga Houwa suru. ch12.2 Arte Ch81-83 Asobi Asobase Ch1-20 Barbara Ch1-14 Beauty as the Beast Ch1-15 Brutal ch1-8.1 Buta no Liver wa Kanetsushiro ch30.1-4 By the Grace of the Gods Ch34-V8Ch40.3-4 Color of Happiness v9-v11 Crime and Punishment ch1-4 Dekiru Neko wa Kyou mo Yuuutsu ch100 Dienerin des verfluchten Kindes v6ch29-ch38 Eikyuukei ch7 Fesseln der Liebe v6 Girl Crush ch56-57 Grimoire Heilkunde magischer Wesen v4-5 Hari to Hitsuji no Fune ch8.2 I'm cute enough to get away with it Ch1-19 Isekai de Ane ni Namae wo Ubawaremashita ch14.2-ch14.4 Kakan no Oukoku no Hanagirai Hime ch7.1-8.2-3 Kemutai Hanashi ch12 Killer in Love Ch1-30 Kimi ni wa Todokanai ch41 Kindergarten Wars ch1-25 Knitter's High ch23-24.3 Koisuru (Otome) no Tsukurikata ch73-74 Komorebi Shoutengai no Changing Wonder ch15 Loop 7-kaime no Akuyaku Reijou wa, Moto Tekikoku de Jiyuu Kimama na Hanayome Seikatsu wo Mankitsusuru ch26-27 Lost Youth Ch1-2.2 Mein geliebter Gaming-Freund ist mein fieser Boss?! v1ch20 Miryou no Otome to Katabutsu Hittou Majutsushi no Hatsukoi Kiroku ch15.1-2 Monster 8 ch70-97 Mr. Mallow Blue ch28 Noragami ch108.2 Okazari Ouhi ni Nattanode, Kossori Hataraki ni deru koto ni Shimashita ~Usagi ga Iru node Hitorine mo Sabishiku Arimasen!~ ch22.1-2 Oshi no Ko ch131-132 Phantom Seer v2-v3ch25 Repeating Your End Together ch1-5.1 Shibatarian Ch2-16 The Ichinose Family's Deadly Sins ch1-48 The Lady Likes a Nerd over Princes Ch8-16 Together Forever Ch1-16 Unnamed Memory ch31.1-32.2 Verliebt in mehr als dein Gesicht v1-4 Watashi wo Tabetai, Hitodenashi ch33.1-3 Witch Enforcer ch1-3 Yomei Ichinen to Senkokusareta Boku ga, Yomei Hantoshi no Kimi to Deatta Hanashi ch7.2-8.1-2 Your Tears are Mine Ch26-31 Zombie 100 v7-9ch34

Webtoons:

A Royal Princess With Black Hair ch1-47 A Spoonful of your Love ch1-20 Blind Passion Ch1-3 Breed my Dear Enemy Ch1-43 Conspiracy of Love Ch1-9 Corridor of Mirs Ch1-19 Dawn the Teen Witch Ch1-65 Fall in the Night with you Ch0-40 Flowers for the Outcast ch1-23 Flowers in the Secret Place Ch0-2 For Stella Ch1-33 If Future Ch1-49 Night Crying Crow v4ch35 Phoenix in the Imperial Palace ch1-7 Sand Castle ch1-35 She Had You at Hello ch1-7 She is also cute today ch0-47 Spirit of Peach Blossom Ch1-27 Taberare Usa ch75-79 The Blue Snake and the Red Moon Ch0-32 The Giantess wants Love Ch0-60.5 The Goddess of Healing Ch0-159 The Mermaid Wears a Dress ch1-25 To be Winner Ch0-49 To be or not to be Ch5-11 Scroll of the White Silk Cloud ch4-31.4

Notes:

By the Grace of the Gods - Things are progressing more actual plot wise and it has had a few twists in there. The healing bit of this tale has even more strongly become a center piece and it just works. Does that count as an iyashikei? I'm inclined to count it. Also gimme some of these slimes. They seem like such a life enrichment.

Unnamed Memory - Positively excellent series, tho the ending had me a bit "somehow this is too easy, why didn't they just do this from the start". Anyway, it's not actually the end there, but Yen Press still has no announcement for the After the End sequel. Booo.

The Old Man in the Corner - read because it was mentioned in The Case Files of Jeweler Richard v5. *cough*. Granted it is very good classic orthodox mystery.

After God - This is weird and trashy, and sometimes just, uuuh, okay.... but also some of these monsters' designs and drawings are quite the eyecatcher.

Barbara - Read because Tezuka and being one of his gekigas. Same boat as MW. It was rather "what the...."

Beauty as the Beast - I've read Arcana from the author before. There is something sad about knowing how the art looked like in classic print b/w-style and then to see how it looks after moving on to webtoon, and this one is one that clearly downgraded, especially on the backgrounds and coloring. The narrative is still starting off straight forward and moving on to become about as convoluted and confusing as Arcana was. Funny also the main character is called Ines yet again.

Color of Happiness - I think I do not like that ending at all. It feels a bit like it took the easiest way to dodge the a cheese-cheese route (which would have come off as questionable given she is so young) and took the only one that was going to be safe from even any implications. And the way it went about it is a bit too deus ex machina convenient, while making hardly any sense. Do think it's kinda too bad, that it also ruins the side plot about the mother and grandmother, that wasn't so uninteresting about how toxicity gets inherited. How to break the chain could have been a nice focal theme and it's also kinda there, but completely drowned by that nonsense pulled, which ultimately renders the mother right with her telling Sachi it wasn't "going to go her way" after all.

Kemutai Hanashi - Chapter 12 is absolutely great, a generally important conversation to be had and breathtakingly beautifully depicted. I exploded in word count and basically translating most of the whole thing over here.

Killer in Love - I'm not sure what this is, it looks very toxic, but also seems to be a bit of.... I don't know why something about these two's relationship reminds me a little bit of Azure & Claude. Maybe it's this flair of this is absolutely going to be doomed, they are definitely doomed bit?

Kimi ni wa Todokanai - After a long detour from going from a shoujo-style that happens to be a BL to feeling very BL-genre BL, I finally got some shoujo feels back from it. Specifically it reminded me of A Condition Called Love, as far as I read that one. As in that talk about a sort of desperate to obsessive desire vs. someone who is on track of developing desires, but not quite so quick vs. boundaries. Considering that the talk about that in v4 was something I thought was great, if it comes back to what happens between v5-7 with all the bad dubCon glory and discussed that, maybe I'll come to like those bits in hindsight or when revisiting, too. (Personally I am inclined to suspect the drama adaption may have had a hand in this detour of tonal style.)

Kindergarten Wars - This was surprisingly way better than expected, too bad, that the art is a little bit unpolished. (Imagine that, but with, like, Spy x Family levels of art? Actually they have kinda similar vibes, just no Anya there.)

Shibatarian - It is creepy, it is horror, it's doing it's job right, but it is also just so creepy. The scenes in the aquarium were definitely quite a beautiful mood. Despite or maybe right because of all the snarling creepiness looming.

The Ichinose Family's Deadly Sins - Does its mystery box mystery very well, especially in the first half, but can't say I really have re-read urges. If there is, it probably would be about the art in the beginning - It is a bit on the cruder side of things, but manages to cement it right as its own signature style (kinda Shin Chan-wise), but then also has these panels and double spreads with an absurd amount of detail levels. Unfortunately all that experimental bit about the art vanishes after a while. (Would not surprise me, if it just was to taxing to draw.)

Together Forever - I think the girl is actually pretty creepy. But this is essentially a female Seme character and the older guy is a sort of uke. Female Semes are ludicrously rare, so I'm somehow still on it...

Witch Enforcer - This has some really good looking art, especially in the color pages.

Your Tears are Mine - Starts decently enough with centering around a little kink of the protagonist girl and goes steady with that and the relationship. Unfortunately just feels axed by the end.

A Royal Princess With Black Hair - The main is a strong female lead and perfectly cool and entertaining to follow. Also consistently solid art despite being a full color webtoon.

Blind Passion - The art is pretty good looking, also historic setting GL, Arte kinda appetized me a bit on that. Will probably take a good while until the free bonus coins on Leizhin will have collected it up.

Breed my Dear Enemy - The title is eyebrow raising as is the premise that has an isekai into a book, where the main doesn't even read the book, but just gets to have it magically downloaded into her brain, while isekai'd. But anyhow, some very digital looking, but still pretty art, especially in terms of the customes of that historic china epoch. And the female lead is a strong and wry one, that's always good.

Dawn the Teen Witch - Cute and good looking art and colors and actually shadings and all, also solid characters and good worldbuilding and weavings of a intruiguing wide spanning mystery plot next to a coming of age + romance plot. And then it just ends. Feels very like an axed series, and while it kinda ends with a finish line, it feels more like just a season end than anything else.

The Goddess of Healing - The complete suprise hit of the month out of blue nowhere. Very pretty dawings. Lots, lots of hairdoes, hair ornaments and jewelery, a huge wide wardrobe of outfits from that ~16h century China epoch. A huge display of varied pouts. The female lead is great. The whole plot is a multi layered mystery/thriller plot. It has a little bit of plot armor, but then it's also a reincarnation story with tinges of fate implied, so kinda excused. The lead is very determined and just so badass, clever, determined, who can stand her own ground, but also knows how to rely to compensate her own weaknesses. Her romance with the male lead is build over mostly intellectual attraction. There's even a little side romance of another pair, adult, mature, cute and chiefly over emotional attraction. Both have integrity at their foundational centerpiece. I quite like all of that.

(3h 50m: 1.5h of which data extraction)

[os2warp]

We had computers in our classrooms as early as first grade. Some early macintosh, I'm not sure on the specific model we didn't use it much. In third grade we got to go to the computer lab which was more early macs and some apple IIs. In 4th grade they replaced the apple IIs with those clear imacs. Up until this point we basically just learned how to turn the computer on and open one or two specific programs, and even then stuff was usually loaded up ready for us when we got there. i cant remember what we actually did on any of these lol.

It wasn't until middle school and 6th grade that we really learned how to use computers. Windows 98. We already had a computer at home with windows 95 so I was vaguely familiar with this. We never had any actual computer classes, except for keyboarding "because typing is done on typewriters". Closest thing we had to a computer class was when english class taught us how to use microsoft word 97 and powerpoint. We got to get on the early internet and do research and how to use this fancy new thing called a search engine. askjeves or altavista are usually the best but there's this new thing called google that shows promise. We got to save our work on a floppy disk that we had to bring from home. typing class never worked for me, I still can't touch type. well, I kinda can but not the correct way. If we finished our keyboarding exercises we could get on the internet and do whatever we wanted. i also remember occasionally using some kind of like laptop form-factor word processor things occasionally. they would print to a central printer via ir. i think apple made them they were green and had a fairly small monochrome lcd. i think there also may have been like one mobile classroom set of laptops that all had to be strung together with ethernet cables. also a couple desktops on carts with huge old projectors on them the teacher would use.

In high school we got windows XP. The keyboarding classes were gone and they mostly expected us to know how to use a computer by this point. there were a few computer-centric classes mostly focused on document processing or design but they were all electives. i took a class to use autocad that was fun. Every student could save their files their own network drive that automatically connected when they logged into the computer and was accessible from any computer in the school. (supposedly accessible from any school in the district) and there was usually another network share for the specific class you were in, but generally you were expected to print things out to turn them in. this was before the cloud was really a thing, It's impressive the networking stuff worked as well as it did especially on the laptops. there were a couple sets of laptops that could be wheeled into the classroom so that we didn't have to go to the computer labs or library to use those computers. All higher level functions were blocked, we couldn't even change the desktop background easily. The computers reset every time you turned them on. (though i found a workaround that allowed me to install fonts lol)

by the time i graduated high school all the classrooms had smart boards and projectors in them although only a few teachers figured out how to use them, most still relied on transparencies on the overhead projector. if we were watching a movie it would still be on the 20" crt tv with the dvd/vcr combo on the wall shelf.

During my brief time in college the computer's all ran windows 7 and like office 2013 I guess. By that time the only people who really had trouble using the computer were the old people who were going back to college in their 40s or 50s

In all that time, apart from the keyboarding classes, I never remember any time when we specifically learned "these are the functions of a computer. this is how you do this" They just sort of organically grew that knowledge into us in a case-by-case basis as needed.

that post about how young people use computers these days (or rather, how they don’t, instead preferring to use their phones) got me wondering

by computer skills i mean basic skills like typing, navigating menus/directories/folders, using word processors or other programs, using removable storage, etc. NOT computer science or programming.

[sturniolosiphone]

introducing...morose!reader and pinning!matt

divider by: @bernardsbendystraws

In which morose!reader and pining!matt are best friends. Inseparable. They're there for each other..whether it's morning coffee, running an errand, or a night on the couch. There's connection, safety, and desire..they can feel it; they can tase it...

morose: sullen and ill-tempered.

⋆.˚morose!reader can come off as a little bitter, a little detached to strangers who aren’t in her inner circle. She finds small talk hard, and she simply does not have the energy to make new friends. 

⋆.˚morose!reader will disappear for days at a time. She is usually hidden in her room, racking up screen time on her phone or attempting to read the book she restarted four times. Her room is her safe space, filled with trinkets, clothes, and vinyls. 

⋆.˚morose!reader took "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" too literally.

⋆.˚morose!reader can watch movies for hours a day and constantly log them into letterboxd. She also loves the movie theater and often calls it her church. She allows herself to break down in the worn-down theater chair as her feet stick to the flooring covered in diet soda.

⋆.˚morose!reader is always saying she could do more, be more. She can’t feel fulfillment in any career path, any passion project…anything. She will come off confident and unnerving, but as soon as that bedroom door closes, she stares at herself in the mirror until she is unrecognizable. 

⋆.˚morose!reader is constantly changing her appearance. Cutting her hair, bleaching her eyebrows, small tattoos, and piercings. She is always trying to find herself, and understand why she is the way she is. 

⋆.˚morose!reader who knows Matt would be good for her but she just...

pining: suffering with or expressing longing or yearning for someone or something.

⋆.˚pining!matt, who is captivated by morose. He had been in love with her since the first time he saw her at that weird basement party, where they both decided to leave together and go to McDonald’s because the vibes were just off. He’s at her beck and call and is willing to do whatever to make her happy and satisfy her. 

⋆.˚pining!matt is soft and loving. He may come off as a little standoffish, but that is only because he is shy. 

⋆.˚pining!matt, who keeps his journal in his back pocket. He holds a list of all of morose's favorite things. What to order her at restaurants, how she likes her coffee, things that make her happy, and things that make her angry or upset. 

⋆.˚pining!matt is always lost in thought. He is having conversations in his head and lingering on other people's words. He keeps quiet most of the time, absorbing information and taking things in. 

⋆.˚pining!matt hates all of that “new age” shit but owns every Apple product. He refuses to use Apple CarPlay in his car and will only listen to CDs. He hates the internet and tries to keep off social media as much as possible. If he posts anything on social media, it's either morose or his album reviews that get five likes. 

⋆.˚pining!matt who prays one day morose will break, finally let him in completely and let him show her what it feels like to finally let go.

[A/N: this is my first AU! I have been absolutely taken by other writer's AU's and I love how free and creative you can be. I'd love to write for this AU if it is received well!! Please feel free to send in asks about morose!reader and pining!matt]

[scentedkittydetective]

Let's see...

Last night my brain didn't want to shut down even after taking my sleeping meds, it was probably the YouTube vids I had playing on my phone. my brain was quiet, I just wasn't sleepy at least not until like 4 am. usually they knock me out but sometimes I'm just not really tired. I slept until midday or so before getting up and talking to my best friend.

we chatted about random things while I made some Thai tea, but it was instant. it's still good but not as good as fresh stuffs you can get at some restaurants. I don't remember if I had anything to eat, I was just happy to have some hot tea.

today was kinda cold, so it was perfect for staying under my favorite blanket on the couch. I rotated between playing a mobile game and crocheting while watching some internet and true crime videos from a new YouTube channel I found. he leans heavily on analog visuals which is pretty cool, brings back old memories of when I would play the recorded Disney movies.

I've decided to make a cat blanket for my friends kitty, she enjoys how yarn feels which reminds me of my kitty. I wanted a nice soft yarn and after digging in my stash, I found a very soft red yarn. imma wash it after I'm done with some softener so it's extra soft, this yarn is almost baby blackest soft so I know she will love it. the color is called autumn red, and reminds me of one of my final fantasy 14 characters, so I'm sure my friend will love this too.

I had planned on logging in to final fantasy 14 today be decided against it. no drive to do anything productive in game or even artistic. so no mod making or gposes. I adore my characters, they each have their own backgrounds and interactions. it's been a good writing experience too and pretty thought provoking. one character is mute and it's fun to think about how she interacts with the world.

I definitely would like to write down more thoughts about my beans, what I call my characters because the guild is called the Smol Beans. this will help cement my ideas for them since writing down makes it stick in my head.

[parm4carm]

Love you, Jade ❤️ And though I know it's not the most important thing right now, speaking out and often is more important, I do hope you are okay ❤️

hiii oh my god has it forreal been weeks since you sent me this?? i swear i just saved this to my drafts three days ago .. the passage of time truly fries my brain

first, this is so sweet of you to send to me and i'm so grateful that people still check in on me when i'm quiet online <3 i know i am a veryyyyy unreliable presence here but i really do appreciate all the love and i'm sending it right back to you <3

you've kind of given me the perfect jumping off point to just throw a lot of updates and ramblings in one spot bc truthfully i do not feel right posting normal posts and taking up space with things that are trivial in the grand scheme of things. i genuinely don't have the brain capacity for much else these days besides keeping up with palestine/congo/sudan etc related updates + the occasional few hours where i can watch a movie or a show without feeling guilty

(general life update dump below so beware bc i talk a lot)

brief mental state check in but i am not doing well! not just with the weight of the world but with everything else in my life lmao. pretty much everyone who knows me knows that the holidays/the winter are the roughest months for me so i'm usually radio silent :/ this year has been... so rough and i don't know why every year feels worse than the last but it really truly does! i'm particularly lonelier this year and it's honestly my fault. idk how to reach out to people when i'm so isolated tbh i feel like a burden at all times especially now that most of the people i used to talk to daily online and irl are doing way better than me and i'm just. always stuck here in this really shitty space i can't seem to get out of no matter how hard i try

i don't talk about my problems a lot online but like. after losing my childhood pet and then getting accepted to two different programs in one year (grad school and community college) and having to drop out of both AND dealing with a decline in my mother's health AND my grandmother's cancer scare AND my own financial issues AND unemployment i'm just exhausted. because of all of this i truly don't know how to function like a normal person or make friends or keep friends anymore i'm just miserable tbh

okay i know this is a hard pivot, but i thought i could just compile things that have brought me a little bit of happiness that i haven't talked about here! it's all on me to feel like this, but i have intense guilt about posting anything not related to current events, so this is my way around that! so.. enjoy i guess <3

personal stuff (you can send me asks to explain more if you want)

i beat my new years' resolution of watching 365 things this year – i'm up to 500 logs!

a lot of new tv (28 total, entire shows, rewatches, new seasons, miniseries, and documentaries included)

fixated on kpop this year and listened to 30 groups whole discography! i actually counted and it was exactly 30 lmao ask me ab my fav groups and biases if you dare

started drinking tea every day :)

redecorating my apartment and it's so much cozier now

i've become more of a snoopy/peanuts fanatic :)

to build on the new years resolution, i've added quite a few horror franchises under my belt :) my horror tag on letterboxd is roughly 250 now!

i think i'm finally breaking my lifelong nail biting habit??? fingers crossed!

buying more things secondhand and feeling way better about it! mostly clothes and dvds but me and my partner are huge fans of knick knacks

have tried a lot of new food this year :) and am cooking new recipes a lot more too!

went to the beach for vacation for the first time in ten years <3 went to this cool little record store and got a band recommendation from the owner that's now one of my underground favs!

celebrated ten years with my partner this year and although it's been such a rough year for the both of us and we're not nearly where we ever thought we'd be, we're more solid now than we've ever been!!! i really would not have made it through this year without them

honestly this year has been a blur 90% of the time so there's obviously been more little things that make me happy but! it's been a big year for consuming media bc i don't have much energy for creating anymore unfortunately

[starlit-mansion]

I'm not fully sure how to articulate this but part of my ongoing consternation about the state of fandom is that everything becomes a filmy slime of personal projection and memes and half-formed thoughts when it's all just loose on social media, which is fine for incredibly consumable product-ass products but becomes very bizarre with complex texts with meaningful themes

like sometimes it does feel like an emperor's no clothes situation, of like "why are we only drawing these guy's dicks instead of appreciating the whole story?" but also this is a really specific hobby with a lot of social conventions and any given person you talk to is usually pretty happy to expound on the meaningful parts of the text and is just having fun making memes and ship art because for them, there's just not that much left unsaid about the quality of the text

like in many ways, i'm glad that my actual first experience with the book dracula was just straight up listening to an unironic free podcasted audiobook a few years before it became memetic, because there's something about making it an activity that changes the state of matter of the entire story, starts to break it down and dissolve the intention

when I was very young, i only engaged with fanfic that was set out into the world as a complete thought (even if the fic itself wasn't complete, there was a sort of inherent concreteness of presenting a piece of art with something to say), but i don't even really like fanfic and the endless distending and warping of text that much anymore. not a lot would be added to my life from hanging around ao3 instead of here, because I would only start to articulate more of the things that make me angry.

this is all a personal problem. i'm like... constantly clenching my teeth about the fact that there's no news event or disaster that won't become a meme, but also. i'm on the meme website. I should probably just leave. but also. i've taken so many sanity breaks from tumblr over the last year. at one point, i changed my password to autogenerated gibberish and didn't save it so that i couldn't log in anymore, and i would be forced to sit with myself for the time it would take to reset it and remind myself that i was getting so angry and scared every single day and for WHAT

it didn't really work

because without it, now that i'm working from home and don't talk to people much and don't have an irl social circle due to not being very social on my own and moving across the entire fucking country in first year of the pandemic to spend a year and a half exclusively sitting inside a different set of rooms, not having the casual interpersonal connection of mentally hanging out in a shared space is also very bad for my brain, and leads to a lot of bitter rumination once the novelty of breaking yourself of the phone loop and reading a book in a non-public way wears off. we all know this. we've all experienced it on some level or another due to the collective experience of the last 3+ years.

not sure how to wrap this up in a non bleak way and go back to my regular scheduled posting and avoiding too many spoilers about a movie trailer that i WANT to watch and CAN'T MAKE MYSELF DO IT because of MY ABBY NORMAL BRAIN. generally i do enjoy the stuff i engage with and try to keep my haterade guzzling to occasional dabbling in criticizing things i don't like.

this is how my depression way goes though. i don't necessarily spend all day hating and despising myself and ruminating on how all my actions are simultaneously valueless and harmful to others. The endless slog through a lukewarm knee-deep ocean of salt water is that my ability to sincerely and happily engage with things diminishes, anhedonia sets in, caring about things starts to feel like inflammation. the light hurts, because it brings too much with it. i want to take the edge off of things, and joy is an edge too.

it's not that i don't understand the sanding away of nuance, it just reminds me of my worst self, angry and overwhelmed, more interested in chewing on bones than eating.

[thevaudevilledemon]

Something I’m just putting out as a thought

You know those two words, those two most frustrating words anyone has to hear, and they are almost equally frustrating to sat. Two words no parent wants to hear, “I’m bored”.

“I’m bored”

Why be bored, why not play with your toys, watch a movie, do something, anything?

Well, this may just be a random thought from one autistic person who has been trying to figure themselves out for a couple years now, but maybe “I’m bored”, doesn’t actually ONLY mean “I’m bored”.

I started thinking about what I’m actually saying when I say “I’m bored” and I’ve come up with two possibilities.

1). “I’ve done everything I wanted and/or needed to do today and I still have so many hours left in my day and I don’t know how to spend them.”

2). “I want to do something with you (friend/family member)”

Now, the question of course comes “Why don’t you go do something?” Which is an easy question to answer with both interpretations of the line. It’s either “I don’t want to do <thing>” or “I want to do something with you”.

Of course, now the question comes up “Why don’t you want to do <thing>?”, well, that is a good question, <thing> kept you entertained before, why not now? Well, that is an easy answer, imagine listening to the same song over and over and over again, and there you go.

I hate falling into monotony, so when I catch myself just continuously doing something, I’m gonna find that I’m not even doing that thing because I enjoy it, I’m doing it out of sheer boredom. You know that kind of activity, putting on a movie or TV show as background noise, picking a playlist just to skip several songs in a row, logging in 555.7 hours on a game on Steam simply because it’s mindless enough that you can put a YouTube video over it (Gmod, Viscera, looking your way), and of course the most dreaded of these activities, boredom eating, snacking on stuff not even because your hungry, but simply because it is just something to do.

Well here’s the thing, being under-stimulated is a bad thing, and when our movies, games, shows or whatever just don’t stimulate our brains anymore, what else is there to do? When everything we want to do in a day is done, what else is there to do?

I was told one day that “Being bored makes you create your own fun and makes you find something to do”, but my experience has always been being bored leads me to play games I’ve lost interest in ages ago because they’re just mindless enough for me to play some music or a 2 hour YouTube video while playing it (Cough Viscera cough).

Of course, environment is also a big factor, I play Viscera a lot, not just because I can put something on in the background while playing it, but also because my bedroom (My private area since I still live with my dad), is not exactly set up for optimal use. I have to decide whether I want to watch a movie or play a game on one of my consoles, then I had to hook up to VCR-DVD player hybrid or the console I want to play, and I’ll be playing and watching it on my bed, which is not optimal at all since I’m not trying to sleep I’m simply trying to enjoy my day, then I’d have to decide which game or movie I’m in the mood for, which probably means I’d have to go digging for my DVDs or PS2 games, and you know what, I just don’t feel like putting in that amount of effort for an activity that my space is not optimally set up for.

I doubt I’m the only one to think of this, but ultimately, at the end of the day when I’m bored, it usually means I have done everything I wanted to do and it’s only 3:00, or I want to do something with other people, and saying “Well go do this”, is not helpful when you aren’t in the mood to do something. That is the big part about it, people don’t really seem to realize that you do kind of have to be in a certain mood to do things, like there are times I’m not really in the mood to watch a movie, maybe because I’m in a mood for stimming so I’ll go for a walk, maybe I’m tired and don’t want to go for a walk so I’ll put on a movie, maybe I’m tired and don’t want to go for a walk or watch a movie, what then?

Don’t think of boredom as “Being lazy” or “wanting more than you already have”, I think of boredom as a form of confusion.

[idy-ll-ique]

His Lovely Girl.

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x F!Reader

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Requested: nope

Warnings: insecurity

Summary: Sebastian spoils her all the time. What has she ever done for him? When someone leaves a rude comment under her Instagram post, she can't help but rethink her entire relationship with the handsome actor.

Author's Note: Hiya peeps! We're back to Marvel lol, enjoy!

---

"I'll see you later, dove, have fun!" Y/N grinned when her boyfriend leaned over, pressing his lips to her forehead. "Bye, Seb, I'll miss you," she whispered and he looked down at her, his heart swelling in his chest, full of appreciation for her. He loved her so much. "I'll miss you too, Y/N, but I'll only be gone for around 6 hours." Y/N pouted and he couldn't help it.

He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers in a chaste kiss. "I know. Go now, I don't want to be the reason you're late." He laughed heartily when she pushed him away with a smile. "Oh, doll, everyone knows about us, they'll know anyway." With that, he waved at her and left the apartment they shared. Y/N had moved in with him 2 years into dating.

Sebastian Stan; let's just say, he was a busy man. Y/N sighed and got up from the bed, feeling hungry. They had started dating 4 years ago, and what years those were; the most blissful ones in both their lives. They loved each other to death, and they knew that. Y/N waddled into the kitchen and looked around the various cabinets, finding a box of Mac and Cheese.

It was a funny story, actually, how they met. Y/N, at the time, was working as a barista at Starbucks. One day, Sebastian had walked into the Starbucks where she worked, and she was the one who took his order. He was extremely polite, funny and a bit awkward and just like that, she fell in love with him all over again. Y/N was a Marvel geek and Sebastian had noticed.

"I really like your hoodie, doll, where'd you get it?" he had asked her after telling her his order. And she had looked down, seeing the custom-made hoodie she wore. It was black in colour, but one of the sleeves was silver and had a red star on the bicep, just like his arm from the movie Captain America: Winter Soldier.

Bucky's trigger words were printed on the front of the hoodie. She had blushed furiously, simultaneously cursing and thanking her fate and coincidence. "I had it custom made," she had told him at the time and he had grinned so wide he thought his mouth would tear open. That was the moment where he, too, realized that he was getting a crush on the pretty barista.

And he hadn't hesitated to ask her for her number. He had taken a tissue paper, scribbled his number down and had written what's yours? ;) underneath. When he went to pay for his coffee, he purposely made sure that he wasn't giving her any change. With his notes, he slid her the tissue and she took it, giving him a confused look.

When she read it, her breath hitched. While pulling out his change, she had discreetly written her number down on the tissue, saved his on her phone and had given the tissue back to him with the coins. Both of them had grinned widely at each other when he left. While walking home, he had taken out the tissue and had seen her number written neatly under his. And his heart raced, Y/N is worth it.

---

*@yn_yln posted a photo*

4,583 likes

yn_yln Mac and Cheese, anyone? :D

Y/N smiled and logged out of her Instagram account after posting the photo. She just couldn't resist; she looked good that day, one of those days where she felt confident enough to post a picture. She kept her phone away and sauntered into the sitting room to watch something on the television. An hour passed before she yawned, feeling tired.

2:05 pm, her watch displayed. Well, there's no harm in an afternoon nap, am I right? Sebastian wasn't home anyway, and it's not like she had anything to do. Grabbing her phone off the dining table, she walked into hers and Sebastian's shared bedroom, plopping down on the bed. She decided to check her Instagram before falling asleep and opened the said app.

She went through the page that displayed all the likes and comments, pausing at one comment. Her heart dropped as she clicked on the comment, her entire being filling with an uneasy feeling. You're only dating him for the money, admit it. Until then, she had never even thought… about that. Throwing her phone to the side she sat up, breathing heavily.

Y/N was currently jobless. After they started going out, she continued working at Starbucks until last year; Sebastian had suggested that she leave the job and work somewhere better, earn a higher salary. Y/N had discarded the idea at first, since the job paid enough for her to go about her daily things and where would she even find another job?

Starbucks was okay. But Sebastian wouldn't hear it. So she left the job, now jobless. She had applied to a few places but hadn't received any news as of yet. They're right. I'm living off of him. I don't even have a job. What does it look like? A broke woman dating a rich, handsome guy? Oh my God, am I leeching off his hard work? All those thoughts rushed through her head in a span of a few seconds.

The more she thought about it, the more she teared up. Blinking the tears away, she lay back down and curled up under the comfortable blankets. His blankets. She closed her eyes, trying her hardest to fall asleep but the tears were proving it to be difficult. Fortunately, she drifted off into an uneasy slumber 15 minutes later.

---

"Baby, I'm home!"

Silence. Sebastian frowned, carefully walking into the house. "Y/N?" he called out but there was no answer. Keeping the bag he was holding away, he walked further into the apartment, stopping at the doorway of their bedroom. "Aw," he whispered under his breath, smiling, stepping into the bedroom. He gently sat next to his sleeping girlfriend.

His knuckles traced her cheeks but he froze. Why is she so cold? His soft touch was enough to wake her up, because she stirred and blinked up at him. "Seb, hi, welcome back." Her voice was hoarse. "Y/N? Did you fall sick?" he asked worriedly as she sat up, distancing herself from him. "I'm not sick," she muttered but Sebastian wouldn't buy it.

He reached out to cup her cheek, feeling like he had been stabbed multiple times when she leaned away from his touch. "Y/N?" She shook her head and looked out of the window, bringing her knees to her chest. "Just wanna be alone right now." She didn't want to send him away. She wanted to sit in his lap, listen to him rambling about his day…

But she also didn't want to be near him. Do I even deserve him? "What happened?" he insisted, his eyes going wide when she glared at him. "Go. Away." He scrambled off the bed without another word, softly closing the door behind him as he walked into the sitting room, running a hand through his hair. He sat down on the couch and looked around.

What happened in those 6 hours that he was away? Sebastian knew she wasn't on her cycle, it still had another week to come. So it wasn't mood swings. His eyes landed on the empty bowl of Mac and Cheese sitting on the dining table but they skimmed right past it, not knowing that that bowl was the reason for Y/N's sadness. Then he stared at the designer handbag on the opposite couch.

Picking up the bag, he strode back to their room, knocking on the door. Maybe seeing a pretty purse would lighten her mood? "What?" Y/N called out from inside and he opened the door, holding the purse up. "I brought you a gift." Y/N's heart started thudding in her chest and tears glistened in her eyes anew as she stared at the bag with utmost resentment.

"I don't want it."

Sebastian went rigid. She never rejects my gifts. "Y/N—" She started shaking her head. "No. Return it. I'm not taking it. I don't want it," she repeated, her glare now directed at him. "But doll…" he tried, freezing when her jaw clenched. "Get out." Disheartened, he walked out once more, more confused than anything. Now I have to know what happened.

Inside the room, Y/N sobbed silently. The bag was so pretty, her favorite color, the sleek design… she wanted to keep it so bad, but she knew she wasn't worthy of it. Sebastian brought her gifts all the time. Most of them expensive as shit; he had the money to blow off. What had she done for him? Nothing, really. He spoiled her heartily, never once allowing her to do the same.

"You're mine, baby girl, mine to love, mine to cherish, mine to spoil."

She was definitely leeching off him. Outside the room, Sebastian took out his phone and texted Y/F/N, who was Y/N's closest friend. They rarely spoke, but Y/N told Y/F/N everything and he knew she'd have answers.

hey, do you know what's up with y/n

why what happened

she's in a really bad mood

she's angry at me and I brought her a gift but she won't take it

she usually loves them but today…

OH WAIT

I know what happened

she texted me in the afternoon

something about a comment on Instagram or something

ig that's why she's in a bad mood

oh

thanks

I'll check it out

He ended the conversation and opened Instagram, seeing a new post from his dear girlfriend. Sebastian couldn't help but smile as he liked the photo, commenting a heart emoji. There were only around 22 comments on the post, so he decided to go through them. Which comment had triggered her? He found it instantly and his nostrils flared.

Replying to the fairly rude comment, he typed, how about you fuck off and mind your own damn business? If you don't like her, unfollow and leave. There's literally nothing else you need to do. After hitting send, he kept his phone away and, determination shining in his eyes, ran back to the bedroom.

He threw open the door and a sob escaped the lips of the startled woman. He started taking off the annoying clothes he was wearing until he was just in his boxers, sliding into the bed next to her. She attempted to push him away but the strong man didn't budge, holding her on his lap as she thrashed. Soon, she gave up the fight and melted against him, crying her eyes out.

"I'm sorry," she apologized again and again, her breath hitching. "Hush, baby, it's okay, I'm not mad," he whispered, rubbing her back, helping her calm down. She rested her head on his shoulder, her arms tight around him. "Tell me the truth. What happened?" he asked even though he knew the answer. Tiredly, Y/N narrated everything; from the comment to all her insecurities.

Sebastian gently cupped her cheeks, wiping her tears off. "Y/N, you're mine. I love taking care of you, I love spoiling you, and I don't do it because I expect something in return, I do it because I love you. Don't listen to strangers on the internet, what better work do they have? Nothing but lowlifes. You don't have to do anything for me. I don't want you to do anything for me."

"But Seb…"

"No. No, you're my girlfriend and only the best for my girl. I love all the gifts you get me. I cherish them wholeheartedly. Just you being my girl is a gift better than anything else in the world, to be honest. But I'm going to continue looking after you whether you like it or not. You don't even have to go to work, I'm here for you. I love you." Y/N teared up again.

They were happy tears.

"I love you so much," she cried weakly and Sebastian pulled her to him, cradling her head, breathing her in. "I love you too, doll. Now will you take my gift, please?" She nodded against him and he gently lowered her on the bed, going outside to get the bag. Once back in their room he handed the bag to her, smiling at the way her eager hands reached up to accept the gift.

As he watched her admiring the bag, he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, till death do them part.

His girl, his lovely girl.

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A/N: Leave a like if you enjoyed, thanks for reading!