#it feels more recent than half the stuff that's happened since then even though the memories continue to get fuzzier

[elviratheepic]

Looks like I got stretch marks on my leggys from gaining weight after being chemo underweight beginning of last year. It's not saying a lot, but I'm chunkier than I've ever been. I consider this a huge win after skeleton time. Thinnest I've ever been (skelton) to thickest (lil squishy).

I need new jeans.

[jillsandwhichs]

Crazy girl, even crazier husband

Chapter 3 to RE Character x Reader Smutshot Collection

Masterlist

Pairing: Fem!reader x Leon Kennedy

Summary: Your husband and you go to the movie theatre to watch a new horror movie but this man just can't keep his hands off of you

Status of your guy's relationship in this oneshot: Married

WC: 6.1k

Type: NSFW

Warnings: Zoowee mama there are so many, Making out, Fingering, Tongue licking, P in V, Sorta public sex ?? , No protection, Biting, He fucks you hard in an employee storage room so enjoy :p

A/n: Hi! Hope you all enjoy. Please check out my masterlist, there's a lot of stuff there. You can get to know me, you can see the rules of my blog and then you can see all of my fanfictions. You'll be able to find the previous chapters to this fic and upcoming ones. You'll also be able to find my Wattpad & AO3. Comments, reblogs & likes are appreciated. Thank you

Window's rolled down, music on low, his hand on your thick thigh, your husband was driving you two to the move theatre in town. They were hosting some new random horror movie and the both of you thought it looked interesting, the idea to go on a date and watch it together randomly came up in a conversation last night. He's often times working so going out like this is rare, but whenever it happens, you absolutely cherish it, and so does he.

You could feel his fingers playing with the end of your skirt, occasionally gripping your thigh, his hand even leaving a mark. This is what he'd always do whenever he was driving and you were with him, he'd get you all riled up, all soaked up, and it's tortuous. The way his hand would slide up beneath your skirt was so painful, not literally, but he never even touched you, that made it painful. And half of the time, he doesn't even end up fucking you til way later or he doesn't at all. Such a man sometimes.

He wouldn't even acknowledge how horny you are either, he just knows, he loves making you feel all good inside just you leave you with nothing.

"We're almost there, by the way." You said softly, gazing out the window at the scenery outside. "Good to know, baby, thank you." Leon responded, his fingers trailing up her skirt again, just to simply not do shit. "Jesus Christ." You whispered underneath your breath, praying he wouldn't hear over the music. He was playing some song by Seether, it's all he ever listens to. You swear you know every song and every lyric by heart. Same with Hinder. This man and his early 2000s rock music, you swear.

The view on the way there was pleasant though. Mostly stores and other useless buildings but aside from that, you could spot tall & wide mountains in the distance. They're all able to be hiked too, you and Leon have done it before but in the summer heat, hell no. Luckily, it's autumn, no need to worry about that. Other than the mountains, the sky was gorgeous. That deep orange tint on the horizon was beautiful, it suited the night perfectly.

"What is this movie called again?" "It's called Smile, I don't know, looked creepy as hell." You spoke. "Yeah, yeah, the trailer was fucked." Leon snickered, one hand on the wheel still. "How much cash did you bring?" "Well, I brought my card, so a shit ton." Leon chuckled, "Using me for my money still, I see how it is." "What? You think there was another reason I married you?" You bit your lip, clearly, you were joking. He dug his nails into your thigh, causing your breath shutter. "Be quiet." He hummed, his teasing tone was deadly.

You couldn't help but let out a small giggle, he never fails to make you laugh. His humor is great, that's something you two bonded over immediately when you first met. You reminisce on that day often. Ever since, your life has been ultimately changed for the better. Leon was genuinely the light at the end of the tunnel for you, hopefully he feels the same way about you.

Just up a few more blocks was the movie theatre. This one is rather large, it was built more recently too. Only four years ago and it's held up well. When it was first built, you and Leon were still dating, now you're married, time flies by so quickly. The both of you have also been there a couple times before, about four times, each time was so nice. Leon really knows how to treat you. Every single date he takes you out on is special in it's on way. He's a miracle worker.

"Just up here." You whispered out, putting your phone in your little white purse that of course, Leon bought for you. He wasn't a poor man, rather wealthy. You don't know all too much about his job, he'd rather save the details, but from what you do know, he's a federal agent whose under the President, now that's saying something. And it all works out amazingly considering his love language is to spoil you with gifts, dates, travels, etc.. He truly never lets up on spending money on you.

"I know sweetheart." He leered, holding your thigh much more lightly now, his grip more gentle. "I'm praying they have sour patch kids." You snickered, Leon hummed at your comment. He's well aware it's your favorite candy... He's definitely spent hundreds on it. "Figured you'd say that." He snorted, pulling into the theatre parking lot. Surprisingly, it wasn't too packed. To your mental math, there was only ten or eleven vehicles, then again, it was a work night.

"Here we go." Leon grunted at he parked, taking the keys out of the ignition. "Grab my wallet for me, will ya doll?" "Yes babe." You replied, grabbing his wallet as you opened your car side door. Leon got out directly after, walking over to you. "Come here." He held his hand out. You handed him his wallet then grabbed a hold of his hand, squeezing it as you walked beside him. He was extremely tall, much taller than you. You were under 5'7, he was 6'2, you rather enjoyed the difference.

That instant hit of popcorn was glorious, it smelt like you'd just entered heaven. There was no one else in the lobby besides you and him, and obviously the workers. Not only did it smell so good, the decor was so retro, you loved the style of it. "I always forget how nice this place looks." You said in awe, loving the late '80s feel. "It is pretty." Leon huffed out before pulling his wallet out, "Go pick out whatever you'd like while I get out tickets." Your husband said deeply, pulling his card out.

You smirked at his words. You grabbed his arm and stood up your tippy toes to get to his ear, "Ask for popcorn please." You were sort of shy, you didn't wanna ask the employee yourself, plus you don't even have money to buy it, so. "I will, go on now." Leon chuckled as he then began to speak to the worker. You nodded, letting go of him and walking on over to the candy stand, they had a lot. But of course, your heart desired the sour patch kids the most, you grabbed them with haste.

You know Leon loves peanut M&Ms, he's always snacking on them, you grabbed a single pack of them for him as well. There was also some warheads in singular packaging, you grabbed ten, five for you and five for him, sour candy is your all time fav. You turned around, gazing over at Leon as he paid for you guy's tickets and the popcorn, you were excited for it. You were a foodie at heart, you could eat, and eat, and eat and never ever get tired of it. That's most likely why 80% of the dates you two go on are dinner dates.

Ambling back to your husband, you handed him the candy, your eyes locking on his. "Good, thank you." He smiled down at you, placing the sweets on the counter. "Good girl for getting my M&Ms." He whispered in your heart, his deep voice making your insides twist up like a pretzel, which was ironic due to the fact there were some in the hot food bar. "Heheh." You giggled, locking your arm with his, waiting on the popcorn.

"Your total is 16.20$." The woman behind the counter stated. Leon swiped his card through the machine, signing his signature too to verify the purchase. You grabbed the popcorn and Leon took your guy's candy, sliding the tickets into his back pocket. "Make it quick doll." Leon said from behind you as you began to butter it up. You loved the salty & savory popcorn, you'd drench it in that tangy yellow butter, but there is a point where it's too much.

Leon set his hands on your waist from behind you, his rough thumbs caressing the little sliver of skin showing from your shirt. You were wearing a tight shirt paired with your skirt, it had been awhile since the two of you went out so you thought it was cute. Despite only little bits of your hips showing, he still showed you he loved it. His nails lightly tickled at your midriff, watching you as you fixed up the food for the two of you. "All done?" "Done." You mumbled, turning around, his hands not moving though.

He leaned down, pressing his lips to your forehead gently before he then simply pressed his forehead against yours, "You're my everything." He hushly spoke. You were honestly caught of guard but maybe he was just in a lovey dovey mood...? "Love you too." You leered, kissing his lips swiftly, not wanting the employees to feel awkward. "C'mon baby, you know that ain't no kiss." He then gripped your chin, his lips settling upon yours for what felt like an eternity. You felt his tounge briskly swipe against your glossy lips, he could definitely taste the cherry.

He didn't go any further than that, pulling away after a few more seconds, "Let's go." He snickered, slipping his hand down your back as he lead you to the room. "You're so fucking crazy." You smacked his abs through his shirt. "Sorry, I just love you, is that so bad?" He acted sort of oblivious. Once again, he's such a man. "It's sooo bad." You dragged out your wording in a sarcastic manner, earning a titter from him. Making Leon laugh isn't too much of an accomplishment, he'll laugh at cat videos on the web.

"Just through here." Leon pushed the door open. The lights were still on too, proving the movie hasn't begun yet, luckily. There was only a couple other people in there, about five, they were all at the front. "Let's get in the back." Leon stated, gripping your hand firmly, "Why?" "Because I said so, be good and listen." He teased. You felt arousal stream over you when he said that, gosh, he's so good. You climbed up the stairs behind him, your hand still interlocked with his as you did so.

You two sat just a couple rows away from the very back, wanting to at least have a decent view of the massive screen. Leon sat down, then you did. "Here baby." You murmured, pulling the two ice cold water bottles from your purse. "Smooth criminal." He joked, taking his and placing it in it's holder. "Their drinks are more than their popcorn, it's ridiculous." You spat out, setting the popcorn in his lap. "Always making me hold it." "Mhm." You giggled. He glared at you, making your heart beat fast. You knew he was playing around but for odd enough reasons, it turns you the hell on.

You took the sour patch kids bag, ripping it out and setting it on the side of your leg, having it tucked between you and the seat. You'd save your warheads for later. "You gonna eat your candy?" "Maybe later, the popcorn is just fine for now." Leon assured you, taking a couple pieces in his mouth. Understandable. You ate a few pieces of your candy, the taste of them was immaculate, it could never get old.

-

After ten minutes or so of previews, trailers and commercials, the movie finally began. The lights went dark, setting the mood immensely. You could hardly see Leon's attractive face. "Finally." You uttered beneath your breath, taking some popcorn from his lap and eating it. The buttery, salty taste was too good, you practically moaned while eating it. The title card came on screen, the eerie noise playing in the background really suited the film from what you've seen.

At first, Leon wasn't paying too much attention to you, his eyes glued to the screen, he seemed to be into the movie so far. You tried to be, but that desirable burning feeling deep inside you wasn't doing you any justice. You could feel yourself pulsing, the mere thought of him had your panties soaked. He hasn't even done anything to crazy either, that's how good he is. He's such a dick sometimes. You can't even think about it, it makes you want him more. He can a man be so alluring?

As you snacked on your candy, you nearly lost your breath as you felt his hand slither onto your thigh, just as it was in the car earlier. Each one of his fingers caused an electric wave to course through you. The way they'd slightly lift off of your skin as they squeezed it, it was too much. You could feel as his pinky glided underneath your skirt, seemingly getting closer with his entire hand. "Movie is good so far, yeah?" Leon whispered to you, his hand going fully beneath your skirt now. Curse this man.

You didn't even reply, your body just simply reacted to his advances. You spread your legs open as much as you could in the tight chair, which wasn't too much but Leon definitely liked what you did considering he tightly gripped it, gaining a soft whimper out of you. "Look at how you responsive you are..." He murmured, not even glancing at you, making himself seem like he was just casually watching the film. At this point, you could care less about the fucking movie. You wanted his cock inside you. But maybe... His fingers would have to suffice.

"Finger me." You panted, looking at him, desperation plastered on your beautiful face. Leon didn't listen to your pleas, his pinky finger rubbing over your wet panties. That wasn't good enough, it never would be. You wanted him inside you, you wanted him to feel how wet you were for him. "Look how wet I am baby." You muttered. "Mmm, I can feel princess." He grunted, his entire hand planting itself onto your cunt through your undergarments, you whimpered quietly, needing to keep the act up.

"Please..." You gripped his arm. Leon sighed heavily, his eyes leaving the screen, his eyes locking on yours as he gandered down your body, taking the sight in. "So needy." He teased you. "You gonna stay quiet?" "Yes, I promise, please." You begged of your husband, your eyes never leaving his. "Don't make a single noise." He huffed out deeply, his voice husky. He pulled your dripping panties to the side, his index finger gliding through your wetness, causing you to sigh softly, not making a noise though. "Mmm." You murmured, resting your head against his fit arm.

His index finger continues to pick up your wetness, you could hear him sigh once more, "Fuck." He muttered, the sound of your sopping cunt was so fucking good to him. His fingers made their way to your nub, beginning to rub it with ease, a surge of pleasure bursting in your tummy as he did this. He made small yet fast circles on your clit, earning some subtle noises out of you ; Luckily, he didn't hear, the movie was starting to up itself in volume, good for you two.

"Does that feel good?" Leon purred out to you, his eyes shooting over to gaze at you, his eyes in a trance as he watched your face contort just by his touch. "Mhm." You moaned out hushly, your arms wrapped around his fit arm. "Good girl." He whispered, his fingers slapping your clit as they then went back down your slit, your wetness was practically dripping down your ass and onto the seat, sorry to the worker who'll have to clean your mess up...

His finger went all the way down before he then stuck it inside of you, your tightness grasping around it. Leon chuckled at how tight you were, you never fail to amaze him. He pumped his finger in & out of you, so moderately. "Gotta stay silent, remember that." Leon teased you, his thumb going to your clit, now fingering & rubbing you. This two in one deal was going to be the end of you. "Jesus..." You whimpered, your teeth sinking into his arm, causing him to only thrust his finger into you faster.

Your wetness was louder now, each time his finger went back into you, it sounded like a lemon being squeezed. You love biting Leon, he loves it too. One thing Leon especially loves is when he's fucking you, he's right on top of you, making you lose your sense of reality then you just bite down on his bulk shoulder. Gosh, he loves when you do that to him. His entire finger was drenched in your fluids, it was shining due to the bright lights emitting from the ginormous screen projector.

"Keep it quiet sweetheart." He whispered, a light snicker playing off his tongue. He was such an ass. He knows you can't be silent for much longer. He's bringing you closer and closer and closer to the edge. You fear if he keeps going at this rate, you'll cum and scream his name, like always. "It's so- so hard." You stuttered, your nails digging into his forearm fiercely. "Oh, you can do it." Leon praised you, he knows you can't.

As his singular finger continued it's work, you clenched around him even more as he slid another one in, this time curling each finger with every pump. No one in the theatre had noticed, surprisingly. All of them were mindless souls indulged in the film. You also really wanted to watch the movie, but fuck this was so much more needed than to watch some stupid horror flick. His thumb continued to rub your nub, the most sensitive nerve causing your brain to lose track of itself and your stomach to do flips like it's a gymnast.

"Leon... Baby..." You panted out, your hair getting messy from how much you've been tossing and turning your head. He didn't reply. His face was staring directly in front of him, acting all innocent, no one would suspect a thing... Yet he was finger fucking you, making your pussy clench around his fingers more tightly than ever before. His thumb was stroking your clit with pace, he was relentless on it. It was as if he was trying to gain a rise out of you and knowing him, he definitely was.

"Seriously." You whined, pressing your forehead against his upper arm. This man was going to be the fucking death of you.

"What is it?" He calmly said, still not looking at you whatsoever. "Fingers aren't enough, fuck me, I don't care about the stupid movie anymore." You said with an seductive tone. "Fingers aren't enough, huh?" He chortled as he began to finger fuck you at light speed. You instantly closed your legs, stopping all of his movements. "Don't." You squeaked, removing his hand from between your legs. Leon giggled, his hand gripping ahold of your cheeks sternly as he forced you to look up at him.

"You need me to fuck you?" "Yes baby, please." You mooched off your husband. You needed him and you need him at this current moment in time. "Well, where do you want to be fucked? In here? Where anyone could possibly see? In the restroom? In the car-?" "Let's find somewhere, please." You stated loud and clear, fixing your panties and skirt. Leon get go of your face. "Mmm, lead the way gorgeous." He held your hand, following behind you now. It felt powerful to take charge, to tell him this is what you want.

You both jogged down the stairs but acted as normal as possible, acting as if Leon wasn't just feeding into your dirty needs. Pushing open the wooden doors, you looked around and only saw a bathroom and other doors leading to another theatre area. Leon gripped your hand tighter, trying to indicate something to you. You spun around, looking back at the door behind you. "That's an employees only room!" "I doubt anyone is in here, c'mon." Leon laughed quietly.

He wrapped his hand around the knob, twisting it and pushing the door open. All that was in there was a table, some random movie posters and a counter, probably a type of break room. "Dammit, come here." Leon expired, grabbing your waist and pulling you against him. He lessened the space between the two of you as he smashed his needy lips against yours, his moving against yours in a passionate make-out.

Your arms went to his shoulders, holding onto them with care as you set your entire body against his. There was absolutely no stopping between kisses, it was constant. Heavy breathing and kisses were all that could be heard. Leon's hands went from your hips and down to your ass, gripping it hard as he licked your bottom lip, so badly wanting entry. You, of course, granted him exactly that. You moaned into the kiss as he squeezed your ass, slapping it too, he tried to keep it down though. This is technically illegal, so...

As you two made out sexually, he pushed you up against the wall, his hands still beneath your skirt, going from playing with your rear and pussy repeatedly. You'd randomly feel his fingers against your clit for short periods of time. Your nails scratched into his shoulders, you were so into this. Your sense of relief was this. He knew what to do and how to do it to you. Leon's tongue swiped against yours, his practically engulfing yours. He loves doing this.

You slightly stuck your tongue out mid kiss, Leon immediately jumped at the opportunity. He swiped his tounge along yours so deliberately, the sensual texture of it causing your pussy to literally drip more than it was before. Leon then grabbed your chin, tilting it to get a better angle. His entire tongue licked yours, then he wrapped his lips around it, suckling. Your moved your hands from his face and down to his waist, holding onto his shirt for what felt like dear life.

After sucking on your tounge for a few seconds, he pulled away swiftly, pecking you once more and now kissing down your precise jawline. You tipped your head back, allowing him to gain more access. His kisses were so slow and gentle, he really took his time. His heavy breathing was so sexy, it showed how much he needed you. He truly yearned for your presence, your touch, your everything. "You smell amazing." Leon breathed in, giving the end of your jawline a quick nibble. You giggled, kissing his cheek before going back to the same position as before.

Leon smooched down your throat, relishing in your perfume and it's enticing smell. "Mmm, what scent babygirl?" "Honestly..." You began, "I don't fucking know." You chuckled, earning a snicker from him. He licked from the top of your neck and all the way down, leaving a strip of saliva just there. He kissed all along the strip, you couldn't help but whimper, each kiss and every lick was to die for. You couldn't get enough of him. Leon groaned, his hands holding your ass - He couldn't get enough of you.

Making his way down to the middle of your neck, his hot breath sat on that same spot for a few moments before you felt that painfully pleasing feeling of his teeth lightly sinking into your skin. "Fuck." You moaned, your nails sunk into his slim waist. You felt his tongue going erratic on your neck as he continued to bite you. "Leon..." You soughed out, tilting your head to the side even further, wanting him to leave more love bites on you.

Heading you call his name, he pulled away from your neck, he gave you a fast peck before pressing his forehead against yours. "What's wrong sweetheart?" Leon panted, his right hand on the side of your neck where he was just feasting upon you seconds ago. "You make me feel so good." "Yeah?" "Make me feel even better." You whispered, your arms now encasing around his neck, embracing him closely. "Oh babygirl." Leon sighed out, caressing your neck carefully. "I'll make you feel just fine."

Your husband turned around, scanning the room. "Lay down on that table." He snickered, stepping away from you. "Okay..." You giggled, walking over to it. You pulled yourself up onto it, sitting with your feet dangling off. "Lay back baby." Leon hummed out to you, his voice soft. You obliged, laying all the way on your back, your legs bent upwards on the table. You angled your head so you'd be able to watch him. He unbuttoned his black pants, allowing them to drop along with his underwear, revealing his hard cock.

You bit your lip with a giggle. You get so giddy seeing him this way, he's so sexy. "Don't look at me like that." Leon chuckled, placing both of his hands on each one of your knees. "I'll look at you however I'd like." "Oh? Is that so?" "Mhm." You cockily mumbled, placing your feet on his chest. Leon's large hands wrapped around your ankles, rubbing them lovingly as he stared you down. His eyes were lustful, darkness bursting in his iris's. "Look at you." Leon whispered, taking both of your socks off, setting them to the side. "What?" You sighed deeply, your cunt pulsing at his cooing tone.

Bringing one of your feet up to his face, he placed a kiss on the side of it, then on the other one. You weren't into all that feet stuff, neither was he, but Leon will and does kiss you absolutely everywhere. He set your feet back down. Leon's hands went towards your waist, holding onto it firmly as he quickly pulled you down the table, earning a surprised gasp from you. "A warning next time?" You scoffed. "No." Leon responded sternly, being playful with you, per usual.

His fingers trailed up to your panties, locking them into the waistband of them. "I'm so wet." "I know honey, so wet for me, hm?" Leon whispered seductively, never breaking eye contact with you as he pulled your cute white panties all the way off, taking them off of your ankles afterwards. You spread your legs widely for him, the entire view of your core at his service. It was like he was trying to make it not look obvious, but it was so clear he was gazing at you down there. "So beautiful." Leon complimented you, you were his wife after all.

Grabbing his erection, Leon jerked it a couple times, maintaining eye contact with you, only breaking it for a tiny bit to look down at himself. "You have me fucking pulsing." Leon grunted, wasting no time as he swiped his dick through your wetness. You moaned, staring up at him, his tip would stroke over your clit and make your center have an even bigger heartbeat, that's how it felt at least. "I love how I make you get." Leon continued. "All wet, needy, clingy... You're so pretty." Leon shared, kissing your knee again.

You nodded in reply, he was right, he does manage to make you feel all of those ways. "Yeah..." You muttered out.

Without zero warning, you felt him plunge into you with haste, his entire length being grasped around your warm heat. You felt your stomach twist and turn when he did this, it gained a whimper from you, a rowdy one. "Holy shit." You panted out, like a dog on a hot summer day. "Can't wait any longer." Leon cackled, his hands on your hips as he started his movements. Each thrust was life altering. It felt like you were in Heaven with what he was doing. His mouth was sort of open, you could hear his quiet gasps, you were making him feel a type of way too.

You held onto his wrists for stability as he fucked you, his thrusts were causing the entire table to shake, you didn't want it to break or something. "What if a worker hears us? Sees us?" "Well, they'll see a woman being fucked real good by her husband." Leon replied. Could he ever not be snarky? You rolled your eyes, looking to the side, your face contorting as you felt his member reach deeper inside of you. "Don't roll your eyes at me, doll." Leon stated, his hands still on your midriff.

You never looked back at him, your eyes were stained on the other side of the room. Not that you didn't wanna look at him, you just know it'll make you cum sooner, and even make him as well, and you really want to draw this out. His cock moved in and out of you repeatedly, he switched up the pace every other second. One moment he was fast & rough and the other he took it slow & deep. Both ways made your heart beat faster and faster each time.

"Why aren't you looking at me?" Leon groaned out, his left hand groping your tit through your shirt, squeezing it. You didn't answer, you couldn't, you knew if you tried speaking your speech would only be slurred. "Look at me." You didn't listen. You just held onto his arms with more strength, indicating you were going to lose yourself sooner or later.

Although, next thing you know, he stopped thrusting into you. This ticked you off but before you could get a damn word out, you felt the hand that was once on your breast, now pulling your face to face him. "I suggest you start listening." Leon brought himself down closer to you, his body over yours. You nodded your head leisurely, licking your lip, then biting it. His demands were music to your ears. His movements picked up again, but he forced you to look at him. Something about staring down at you as he made you feel certain ways was so convincing.

After a minute, he let go of your face, trusting you'll listen to him now. His hands rested on either side of your head, his dick still surging into your pretty pussy. You felt like there was an imaginary percentage bar of how long it'll take before your orgasm implodes on you, and with each pump, it fills that bar slowly yet surely. "Fucking hell you're so beautiful." Leon moaned, tucking his head into the crook of your neck, his breath could be felt there. "You're so handsome." You added, your hand going up to his hair, playing with it.

You had a feeling he was going to do it, but once he did, it made your core tighten even more than before. His teeth once again made their way into your neck, he bit down on it. "Leon..." You grunted out, your fingers flowing through his soft hair. His thrusts were more slow & deep now, as if he was getting tired or something. It was either that or he was trying savour this special time together. "I'm gonna cum soon." You admitted, your arms going around his head, holding him close to your body.

Leon didn't say a word, he just nibbled on your throat, kissing & licking it every so often. That sharp sting of his teeth was erotic, it made your stomach get closer and closer to granting you that ultimate pleasure - your climax. "Baby... Harder..." You begged, letting go of him and instead grasping the white table underneath you. Once more, hit nibbled your neck, then your slender shoulders, before his face pulled back, going to stare at you again. "Harder?" Leon questioned, his moments all the same. "Yes, please." You tittered, your body so heated up.

Your husband did what he does best - please you. He began to fuck you, it wasn't anything vanilla, no, this was hard. Each thrust was rougher and rougher. Your eyes looked up into his, you could feel that they were watery, you looked innocent, like a doe in front of headlights. Leon looked back at you, his eyes much different. They are loving, yes, but also sexual desire was all behind them, his eyebrows also added onto the darkness of his face. "Don't look at me like that." The man grunted, closing his eyes as he pumped into your tight center.

"No, no, look at me, Leon." You reached up, holding onto his face. Now it was his turn. Leon slowly opened his eyes again, much more coherent than you were earlier. "Yeah..." You murmured, your hands caressing his scruffy cheeks.

Coming onto you was your orgasm, your initial release. You could feel how close you were, each thrust only brought you more and more to the edge. With his dick twitching inside you, you knew he was close to cumming as well. Your stomach was providing you with that all familiar feeling - The feeling of ultimate pleasure. Each time he fucked into you, your breasts would bounce, now that he was going much harder, they didn't get a break. Both of Leon's hands held onto your tits, he continuously squeezed them, he was like a teenage boy with how he was about boobs.

Leon gandered back up from your breasts and back at you, he never realized you were still staring at him. This, oh, it sent him over the edge. Your water colored eyes were like a death trap for him ; In this case, a sexual trap. "Fuck, why do you do this to me..." He grunted as he pumped only a couple more times into your cunt, his seed filling you, you felt the warm liquid shoot inside. "Why would you look at me like that?" Leon moaned, moving into you with short, fast thrusts, wanting to get you finished too.

You didn't reply, instead you just pulled his face down to yours, pressing your lips to his. Leon breathed out against your face, kissing you back passionately. You held the back of his head & neck, relishing in this moment. "Oh I love you." You moaned. "I love you too babygirl." He grunted, his cock still deep inside of you. "Cum for me princess." Leon began, "Have your pussy tighten around me." He stated, his voice husk.

Your breath shuttered when he spoke like that. He was so hot, every word he spoke made you feel all sorts of ways. You couldn't help it, even though you wanted to. You kept your lips against his, your tongue intertwined with his as you suctioned his length inside of you. Your orgasm withdrew you from the real world, your eyes practically rolling in the back of your head, surprised you couldn't see your own damn brain. "That's what I like to see." Leon paused his movements, just admiring his wife as she came all around him.

Both of you just sat there, your body felt super limp, you could feel his cock was soft inside of you. Everytime you guy's finish making love, it's like this. It's like the two of you are at a loss for words. You were still wet, you definitely needed to clean yourself up. You looked around the room, analyzing it. There was a paper towel dispenser by the sink on the other side of the room. "Could you please grab me some of that." You asked your husband. "Sure thing." He sighed gently, pulling out of you and heading over there.

Leon snatched up a few pieces of the towel, bringing it over to you. He didn't hand you them, instead he cleaned you up himself. You just watched him, heaving softly whilst doing so. He was a great husband. "Thank you baby." "Course doll." Leon replied kissing your inner thigh before helping you get back on your feet. "I'm not wearing these." You giggled, setting your panties aside. "Give them to me." He held his hand out. You rolled your eyes playfully, giving him your soaked underwear.

Your eyes widened as he sniffed them, the scent wearing off of them drove him crazy. As he pulled his own pants back up, he tucked your panties into his pocket. "Don't move around to much, I don't need your ass or pussy being flashed to the world." Leon chuckled, adjusting your shirt, you nodded in reply. He was right. "Let's go finish whatever time we have left of the movie." Leon whispered to you, his hand on your cheek firmly as he kissed you once more before the both of you made way back.

[girlgenius1111]

contagious

sol gets... pretty sick. ingrid and mapi try to help. basically. a sol sickfic :) so warnings for sickfic things

It didn’t even really occur to you to tell anyone that you weren’t feeling well. You were sick, you had an exam today in one of your classes, and there was no thought in your mind that considered not going to school. Now it was probably your fault that you were sick, honestly. 

This exam had been keeping you up for a week. It was the first big test you’d had since everything had happened. And you were determined, more than determined, to prove that you were better, that progress was being made. You hadn’t cared much for your grades since arriving in Spain, but you wanted that to change. 

It was this motivation, to give your sister and Mapi something tangible to prove that you really were trying to be better, that had you studying hour after hour, night after night. It was just… you wanted to be worth all the trouble that Ingrid and Mapi had gone through with you recently. And you really believed that if you did better, were better, you’d be worth it. 

So, your health was the least of your concerns. You’d run yourself down, you knew it, and there was nothing else to do but push through. It was around 7:30 am and you were going through your flashcards, once again. Your exam was in your chemistry class, and it was expected to be the hardest exam of the year. Your eyes were closing, and your head ached, but you pushed through, moving through unit card after card, whispering the answers to yourself. 

A soft knock on your door interrupted you, and you glanced up, making an almost identical movement to Scout, who was sprawled out on the edge of your bed. 

“Come in,” you replied, clearing your throat as your voice came out raspy. 

Mapi pushed the door open, a wrinkle of concern etched into her forehead. “Are you okay? You sound weird.” 

“Fine.” You said confidently, shaking off her concern. “What’s up?” 

“The training schedule got changed, we have to leave in 5. Is that okay?” 

You nodded, having already been dressed. “Yeah, I’ll go to the library and study more before class.”

“Make sure you eat something before we leave, Solstråle, it’s important.” Mapi reminded, and you nodded, agreeing easily, though you weren’t quite sure you could swallow anything at the moment; your throat felt like it was on fire. 

You got all your stuff together, shedding the sweatshirt you had on as you were rather warm, before heading downstairs. You accepted the coffee Ingrid handed you gratefully, stopping in the kitchen to grab a granola bar and an apple that you were sure you wouldn’t be eating. 

“You look pale.” Ingrid said, stepping closer to study your face. “Do you feel alright?” 

“Yep, fine. Just nervous about the exam.” You lied, mustering a half smile that you were sure was not believable. Ingrid reached her hand out, about to feel your forehead for a fever, when Mapi’s voice echoed through the house. 

“¡Vamos chicas!” She shouted. You slipped past your sister, heading for the door, and though she followed close behind you, Mapi asked her a question about training that successfully distracted her. Your slightly odd behavior slipped her mind as she contemplated the long training session ahead, even as you got out of the car at school, and both her and Mapi wished you luck on your exam. 

You walked into the building, ignoring the dizziness that was making walking in a straight line difficult, determined to make it to your 3rd class of the day, determined to ace your exam. 

--------

An all encompassing anxiety flooded Ingrid’s body when the assistant coaches pulled her aside, and handed her phone to her. It wasn’t the action that scared her, more the words that accompanied it. “Your phone was ringing like crazy in the locker room, Mapi’s too. It’s your sister’s school.” 

Making sure to thank the coach, Ingrid took the phone and stepped away from the pitch, a shaky hand bringing the phone to her ear as she called your school back. Were you hurt? Sick? Had something horrible happened? Were you having a panic attack? Did you get into another fight? The possibilities of why the school could be calling her so insistently swirled around chaotically in her head, until someone finally answered. 

“Hello?” 

“Hi, this is Ingrid Engen, I am returning your call about-”

“Yes, Ms. Engen. Your sister was brought to the nurse's office a half hour ago. She seems to have the flu, as her fever and other symptoms indicate. We have to send her home, but she cannot leave without your permission. Can you give us the go ahead to let her leave?”

Ingrid breathed a sigh of relief. You were sick, and that was something she could deal with, though the nurse’s words confused her. “Let her leave? By herself? Can you put her on the phone?” 

“Of course.” 

There was some shuffling, before your raspy voice came over the line, sounding horribly guilty, and horribly unwell. “Hi.” You sniffed, shutting your eyes and leaning your head back on the wall behind you. You’d barely made it through your first class before everything had caught up to you, and you passed right out at your desk. From exhaustion, or just because of your fever, you weren’t sure. You were cooling off now, though, an ice pack on the back of your neck, a fan blowing cool air on you, and you had the mind to feel sorry for interrupting an important training session. 

“Hey, solstråle. You’re sick? Ingrid said softly. 

“Yeah. Can you just tell them I can uber home?” You asked, not quite sure what she wanted to talk to you about. 

You were met with a scoff. “No, I cannot. I’ll leave right now and come pick you up. 10 minutes, max.” Ingrid promised, thinking the suggestion that you uber to be a bad joke. 

“You have training, Ingrid,” you sighed. “I can get home by myself, it’s fine.”

Ingrid rolled her eyes, beginning to walk over to Jona to update him on the situation. “I am sure that you can get home by yourself, but you don’t need to. I’ll come get you.” 

“I don’t- okay.” You replied finally, too exhausted and too ill to argue that hard. 

“See you soon.” Ingrid said, before hanging up. She told Jona what was going on, and he told her that, of course, she could leave early. Your sister practically sprinted to the locker room, fully colliding with Mapi in the hall. 

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Mapi said, her hands on Ingrid’s shoulders the only thing keeping her girlfriend upright. 

“Solstråle is sick, I have to go get her.” Ingrid rushed out, moving around Mapi and into the locker room to grab her stuff. 

“I knew she didn’t seem right this morning. Let’s go.” 

“María, you don’t have to-”

“I am coming. I am done in the gym for the day anyway. Vamos, vamos,” Mapi said, rolling her eyes. Ingrid managed to give her a small smile, before they were heading out of the building, and on the way to you. 

-------

It seemed a little ridiculous that Ingrid was leaving training for this for you. It felt more ridiculous when both her and Mapi came rushing into the front office, making a beeline for you. 

“Mi sol, how are you feeling?” Mapi asked kindly. You cracked your eyes open to see both your sister and her girlfriend crouched in front of the chair you were sitting in, looking like they had literally come right from training. 

“I’m fine, you guys didn’t have to come.” You mumbled, although you unconsciously leaned into the hand Ingrid placed on your cheek, checking your temperature. 

“She passed out at her desk during her first class, and she has a fever of 38.9°.” The nurse chimed in. 

You resisted the urge to glare at the woman, who had actually been very kind, and very helpful. 

“38.9°?” 

“Passed out?” 

Both Ingrid and Mapi spoke at the same time, frowning at you as you were clearly downplaying this for some reason. 

“I’m fine,” you emphasized. The two women exchanged glances, before deciding to focus on getting you home, rather than calling out your obvious rejection of their help. “If you tell them I’m fine, I can go back to class and take my exam.” 

You looked at them hopefully, shrinking a little when they both returned your gaze, looking astonished. 

“Absolutely not.” Ingrid said. “We’re going home.” 

“But-”

“No. Let’s go.” Mapi cut in, silencing your argument with her uncharacteristically harsh tone. If one thing really got to her, it was when you showed little regard for your own health or wellbeing. 

You frowned at them, but went quiet anyway, knowing the argument was lost. You stood, stumbling a little as you were dizzy and a bit unsteady on your feet. Ingrid steadied you, wrapping her arm around your shoulders, before guiding you out of the building. 

“Jesus, Solstråle, you’re like a furnace.” She said, wincing at how hot your skin burned against hers. 

“It’s warm in the school, I’m fine, really,” you began, weakly fighting Ingrid’s grip. They were making you go home, yes, but you’d rather have them run you over with their car than admit how awful you really felt.

“Stop it. You’re sick, we’re going home. No arguments.” Ingrid replied firmly, giving you a look that dared you to argue again with her. You didn’t. 

------

Upon arriving home, you stubbornly refused to sit on the couch while Ingrid and Mapi questioned you about your symptoms. You told them that you couldn’t really breathe through your nose, your throat hurt, your head hurt, and you were exhausted. Of course, you played all this down, not that either of them believed you. 

“Open your mouth.” Ingrid instructed. “Let me look at your tonsils, you might have strep.” 

“What, are you a doctor and I didn’t know?” You asked grumpily, shrugging out from her grasp, and trying to head up to your room. The last thing you wanted was to get them sick. 

“Stop, you aren’t going anywhere. Get on the couch.” Ingrid snapped, her impatience and worry getting the better of her. She softened, slightly, when she saw your expression waver, a bit of insecurity bleeding through the passive look you’d been sporting all day. 

“No, I'll go to my room. I don’t want to get you sick.” 

“We don’t care about that, we want to keep an eye on you. Especially because you seem pretty committed to pretending you’re fine.” Mapi said, handing you some pills and a glass of water. They both looked tired and worried, and you hated it. Both of them were still in their training kits. They’d left training, probably not gotten properly stretched afterwards, and rushed to you. And here they stood, not worried about any of that. Only focused on you. 

You could handle the flu yourself, you’d done so up until this point. “I’m fine, I’ve got it.” You croaked, feeling weirdly emotional. You blinked hard, looking away from both of them. 

Ingrid sighed. “Go put on comfy clothes, and then come back downstairs.” She said softly. Resigned, you nodded, wiping haphazardly at your eyes, before you headed for the stairs. You heard Ingrid and Mapi conversing in hushed tones behind you, but you were honestly too sick to listen very hard. 

You shuffled back downstairs a few minutes later, clad in one of Mapi’s Barcelona sweatshirts, a pair of shorts Ingrid thought she’d lost, and wrapped in one of the blankets from your bed. You looked miserable, your nose all red from using tissues on it all day, face flushed with fever. Ingrid smiled at you sympathetically, nodding towards the living room. 

“Go lay down.. I’ll be there in a second.” She instructed, happy when you did as she asked this time. 

You flopped onto the couch, accepting Scout’s offered snuggles as you were shaking, cold beyond belief even though you were covered by a fuzzy blanket. Mapi came in a minute later, freshly showered, and handed you the remotes to the TV. 

Mapi never let you pick what to watch, always insisting that you and Ingrid needed to watch Spanish shows with her to work on your mastery of the language. Really, you both knew her Norwegian was far worse than your Spanish, and she couldn’t keep up with the rapid dialogue in the shows you and Ingrid watched. Wordlessly, you put on a rerun of an old sitcom you’d grown up watching, curling up under the blanket, and next to Scout, until only your eyes were visible. 

Mapi snorted at the sight, settling in the opposite corner of the couch. “Comfy?” She asked. 

You gave her a thumbs up. 

“Need anything?”

You shook your head. 

“Is there a reason you aren’t speaking or is it just for fun?” Mapi asked casually. 

You huffed, sitting up a bit. “Throat hurts.” 

The Spaniard looked at you with concern. “Oh, nena.” She said sympathetically. You squirmed uncomfortably at her sympathy, looking away. Your sister walked in, then, her hands full of about 8 different things, which she dumped on the coffee table, taking a seat right next to you on the couch. 

“Okay. Temperature first. Sit up.” She instructed. 

Grumbling slightly, you did so, in the process dislodging Scout, who sighed dramatically and snuggled closer to your legs. Ingrid ran the thermometer over your forehead, frowning at the little screen when it beeped. She turned her phone flashlight on, instructing you to open your mouth. She ignored your eye roll, looking critically at your tonsils. 

“They look swollen.” She said to herself. “We should take you to the doctor.” 

Both Ingrid and Mapi watched in alarm as you sat completely upright, the color draining from your face. “No doctor.” You said through gritted teeth. 

“Honey,” Ingrid began, but you cut her off. 

“No doctor, Ingrid, please.” You looked near tears, and it was such a departure from your composed nature just seconds before, that Ingrid found herself nodding. 

“Okay, no doctor today.” You noticed the added today but decided not to comment, relaxing back into the couch cushions. Your sister settled down next to you, offering you a bag of cough drops, which you took, giving her a small thanks. 

You must have fallen asleep only minutes later, because the next thing you knew, a soft touch on your forehead and the smell of something delicious cooking wafting into the room were waking you up. 

“Wake up, nena. You need to eat.” 

You blinked open your eyes to find Mapi hovering over you, her hand softly pushing some hair off your forehead. You struggled to sit up, allowing the Spaniard to help you, before you spoke. 

“Lunch?” You asked not quite awake enough for full sentences, but very aware that when you’d fallen asleep, it was just before 11am, but you felt like you’d been asleep for hours. 

Mapi shook her head. “No, it’s 3, but we let you sleep. Ingrid finished the soup, though, and it’s time for more medicine.” 

Soup. Soup sounded good. You nodded slowly, chugging the water bottle that Mapi handed you. Your head felt all cloudy, your throat agonizingly painful, and you were unable to breathe through your nose. You could only lay limp on the couch, teeth chattering. 

“How do you feel?” She wondered. 

You shrugged in response, frowning. “Tired.” 

Mapi cracked a smile. “You can go back to sleep after you eat.” 

Ingrid entered the room then, carrying a steaming bowl in her hands, a large sports drink tucked under her arm. She looked undeniably a bit frazzled, and you wondered if it was from making soup from scratch, or from worrying about you. It was just a cold, honestly. Everyone was being dramatic. 

Ingrid handed you the bowl of soup, and you noticed that she gave you a little spoon. You hated using big spoons, even for the foods you were supposed to use them for, but you didn’t really recall telling your sister that. She must have just… noticed.  It was a nice gesture, and it shouldn’t have made you want to cry as much as it did.

“Thank you, Ingrid,” you said, voice barely there, but the sentiment was clear all the same. Ingrid smiled down at you, gently pinching your cheek. 

“Of course. Anything for you.” Ingrid murmured, sitting down on the couch next to her girlfriend. 

You ate a spoonful of the soup, blinking in amazement. You knew Ingrid was a good cook, but this was one of the best things you’d ever eaten, even with your taste slightly dulled from your illness. 

“Good?” Ingrid asked. 

“So good. What is this, and why haven’t you made it before now?” 

Ingrid furrowed her eyebrows at you. “What? It’s the chicken soup with dumplings, don’t you recognize it?” 

You returned her look of confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’d remember eating this.” 

“You’ve had this before.” Ingrid said incredulously. “Back in Norway.” 

Your expression changed, growing guarded and slightly angry. “No, I haven’t.” You said back, a bit sharply. You saw where this was going, and it was not the turn you wanted the conversation to take today. 

“Mom used to make this for us when we would get sick!” Ingrid continued, freezing after the words left her mouth, realization dawning across her face, as well as guilt. 

“Not for me.” You replied in a monotone, sipping slowly at the soup, trying not to seem too eager. You were annoyed with Ingrid now, angry with your mother, as you always were, and you didn’t want to seem too excited about the soup. Even if it felt like it was bringing you back from the dead, spoonful by spoonful. 

“Oh.” Ingrid said, ignoring the look sent her way by her girlfriend. “Well, I’ll make it for you whenever you want. Do you need anything else?” 

You shook your head, keeping your gaze fixed on the ceramic bowl in front of you. At that, Ingrid left the room, mumbling something about putting the leftovers away. Once she was gone, Mapi turned back towards you, and you knew before she spoke that her voice would be that soft one she used, that always made you feel like crying. 

“She didn’t know, mi sol.” Mapi murmured, watching your expression carefully. Her concern was for you but also for her girlfriend, who took every misstep with you like the world’s biggest failure. 

“I know.” You said.

“She thinks you’re upset with her, but you aren’t, are you?” 

“No. It's not her fault.” 

“Maybe tell her that next time? Ingrid is really sensitive, nena. And you have every right to react and feel how you need to, but try to be a bit easier on your sister. She’s trying really hard.” 

You bit your lip, trying to keep the tears at bay. You knew she was trying hard. Why did you have to make it so difficult for her? You didn’t say anything else, sitting completely silently as you finished your soup. Once you were done, you stood up from the couch, ignoring the way the room swirled around you, and the way your stomach turned at the movement. 

“I’m going to lay in my bed.” You said quietly, avoiding eye contact with Mapi. 

You thought Mapi was going to argue, make you stay downstairs, but she just nodded hesitantly, her gaze searching. “Okay. Shout or text if you need anything.”

You agreed, before you crept upstairs, avoiding the kitchen and your sister. She didn’t need to deal with you anymore than she already had today. No one did.

--------

Your goal of being as little trouble as possible after upsetting your sister turned out to be a lot harder to accomplish than you’d expected. Especially when the nausea caught up to you, and you found yourself stumbling towards the bathroom, trying to be as quiet as possible. You made it to the toilet, hoping that the sound your knees made when they dropped to the ground wasn’t as loud as it sounded to you. You were sick a few times, pausing briefly to catch your breath when you heard the door open behind you. 

“Honey,” Ingrid sighed, moving closer to you, intending to take your hair from your hands and tie it back. You recoiled, though, sending her a harsh glare. It was like a switch had been flipped. You didn’t need this, this comfort. You’d gone your whole life without it, and you definitely didn’t need it now. You didn’t need it, didn’t want it, didn’t deserve it.

“Get out,” you managed, not too distracted by how sick you felt to miss the hurt look on Ingrid’s face. 

“Solstråle,” 

“Out, Ingrid,” you snapped, before you were overcome with nausea again. You leaned back over the toilet, this time too preoccupied to push Ingrid away when she kneeled next to you. Gently, she took your hair out of your hand, tying it back for you. Her hand found your back, then, rubbing soft circles over your tshirt. 

“You’re okay, kjære, I’ve got you,” she murmured. She stayed with you until you were done, allowing you to collapse back into her, completely drained of energy. 

“Better?” She asked quietly. You nodded slowly in response, limp against your sister. 

“Sorry.” 

“You don’t need to be sorry, you’re sick.” Ingrid told you firmly. The door creaked open once more, and Mapi appeared, a wet washcloth in her hand. She gave it to your sister, who in turn put it on your forehead. You sighed in relief at the chill, but still, you hadn’t gotten your point across, and you couldn’t relax fully. Mapi stepped back out of the bathroom, giving you both some space.  

“Sorry I snapped.” 

You felt Ingrid sigh. “You don’t need to be sorry for that either. This is an adjustment for you, still, and you don’t feel well. I understand that you’re overwhelmed. It’s okay.” 

There she was again, being so understanding and kind, when you’d been nothing but hostile and difficult to her. “It’s not okay. You’re being too nice.” 

Your sister pulled you closer, resting her chin on the top of your head. “You deserve nice. You deserve to have people worry about you, and you deserve to have people that love you and want you to be okay.” 

You weren’t really sure what to say to that. 

A teardrop hit your hand where it was resting in your lap, and you realized you were crying. 

You weren’t really sure what to say about that, either.

-------

Falling asleep after that probably would have been hard, if not for how tired you were. And if it weren’t for how your sister sat on your bed next to you, holding an ice pack to the back of your neck, running her nails up and down your back. It was like a tranquilizer, and you were out before you knew it. 

Ingrid kept outdoing herself on the worried scale. Just when she thought she’d reach the peak of how much a person could worry about another person, something would happen with you, and it would get even worse. You looked younger as you slept next to her, your face devoid of the usual defensive mask you kept up. It made her sad, that you couldn’t just be a kid. You constantly felt like you had to protect yourself. She couldn’t blame you, not really. The issues you had weren’t issues that could just be fixed by a few kind words and promises. It was a process, one that wasn’t linear. This situation was clearly a step backwards; you hadn’t been this hostile with her since before. She hated it, hated seeing you sad or in pain. But right now, you were both. 

Mapi had to practically drag her to bed. Ingrid didn’t want to leave you, but Mapi insisted that she would be no help to you if she didn’t sleep, and that they would leave both doors open, so they’d know if you needed them, though they hoped you wouldn’t. 

It was only a few hours later, almost 2am, when loud coughing woke Mapi. It startled her from a light sleep, and she sat upright in the bed, shaking Ingrid awake next to her. 

In your room, you felt like you were potentially suffocating, gasping for breath in between rounds of coughs. It barely registered when Ingrid and Mapi ran into your room, frantically turning on the lights. You could only look at them, completely panicked, as you fought to get enough air in. 

It only took a second of listening to you for Ingrid to understand what was happening. “Asthma, she’s having an asthma attack. It must be worse because she’s sick.” 

You hadn’t known Ingrid knew you had asthma. You’d only found out about it after she’d moved out, and you were sure your parents had forgotten as soon as they’d given you the inhaler the doctor had prescribed. You hadn’t had an asthma attack in a while, definitely not since you’d been in Spain. Ingrid was right, the illness must have triggered it. The issue was, though, that you were suddenly very unsure as to the location of your puffer. 

Mapi was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, more panicked than you’d ever seen her. “What does she need? Water? Medicine? Tell me, I’ll get it,” 

Ingrid shook her head, moving closer to grab your hand in hers, and press it to her chest. “Relax, you’re okay, everything is going to be fine. Where is your puffer?” 

You wheezed in a big breath, trying to follow Ingrid’s chest rising and falling under your hand. “Don’t-Don’t know.” You gasped out. Tears were springing to your eyes, from panic or the violent coughing, you weren’t sure, and you reached out to grip onto Ingrid’s free hand, trying to convey your distress. 

“It’s okay, I’ve got one. Mapi, the medicine cabinet. Top shelf, in a little box.” Ingrid instructed over her shoulder. The Spaniard took off out of the room, Scout barking at her from where he was pacing on the floor. You didn’t really process your words, another round of coughing wracking your chest. 

“Ingrid, help,” you choked out. 

Her expression was one of calmness and confidence, and it was the only thing keeping you from being convinced that you were about to pass out. 

“Mapi’s getting it, solstråle, you’re okay.” She soothed, hearing her girlfriend’s footsteps thundering back down the hall. Mapi entered the room, almost falling in her haste to get to Ingrid. Once your sister had the box in hand, she whipped out the inhaler, batting your hands away when you tried to grab it. Instead, she held it to your mouth, instructing you to breathe in while she dispensed the medication. You took a few big inhales, relief filling your body as the drugs worked, and your lungs began to expand correctly again. 

Your body untensed, and you collapsed back into the bed, chest still heaving slightly. Ingrid didn’t let go of your hand. 

Mapi sagged onto the bed, the stress of the situation clearly getting to her. 

“Okay, mi sol?” 

“Good.” You told her, managing a thumbs up and a half smile. Ingrid brought her hand to your forehead, then, frowning. 

“You need more cold medicine.” She decided, moving to rise from the bed. You clung to her, though, gripping her shirt in your hand. She looked down at it, then up at you, before slowly sitting back on the bed. “María?” 

“On it.” Mapi said, rushing back out of the room, though significantly less frantically than she had before. 

“Ingrid?” 

“Hmm?” She replied, squeezing your hand once. 

“How do you have one of my inhalers? I didn’t even know you knew I had asthma.” 

Ingrid blinked at you. “I got one when you moved here, just in case. I knew because I talked to your doctor back home before you came, and he sent in the prescription so I could get an extra.” 

“You… you talked to my doctor back home? Before I moved here?”

“Of course. I’d been gone awhile, and mom and dad told me nothing. I needed to know your medical history.” Ingrid said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. She was looking at you almost earnestly, like every word out of her mouth was true, and still a testament to how much she cared for you. How much she always had cared for you.

You were, once again, at a loss for words. Ingrid didn't seem like she wanted to push you into talking, though. She just helped you sit up as Mapi entered the room again, handing you your water and the pills she’d brought. 

They both watched on, anxiously, as you took the pills. You studied them as you did so. They both looked exhausted and stressed, but for once, it didn’t make you feel bad. 

All this time, they’d been telling you they cared, and you hadn’t been quite sure you believed it. Especially when you pushed away their attempts to show you that they cared. If you let them show you, though, it was something that could never be in doubt. They cared, and they loved you, and they clearly thought you were worth all of the trouble. Even when you were sick and grumpy and stubborn and hostile. They weren’t ever deterred. 

You didn’t like to think of yourself as someone worth fighting for, someone worth the difficulty. And though it was still relatively incomprehensible that Ingrid and Mapi felt very much the opposite, it was something you were beginning to accept as fact. 

And when your eyes began to close again, of their own accord, [or likely due to the nighttime cold medicine Mapi had brought you], you didn’t fight it. You knew they’d be there when you woke up, if you needed them. And even if you didn’t. 

-------

More about Sol’s doctor-phobia coming soon 🙃🙃

hope you enjoyed and everything makes sense because it really might be a complete jumble of fever induced words.

[nocreativityfornames]

THE BROTHERS AND THE CELESTIAL REALM (SPOILERS: ALL SEASONS)

Alright, let's talk about it. It's been a long time since the game started flirting with the idea of the brothers forgiving Father/God and changing their views of the Celestial Realm as a whole and it's very odd, to say the least.

The first big red flag was this moment with Lucifer back in Season 3 of NB, that was the most concerning one considering that this was recently fallen Lucifer, when the war had ended only a year ago and they had just lost Lilith, and when he and the brothers had just escaped eternal punishment being trapped at Cocytus forever for betraying Father.

The contrast of recently fallen Lucifer speaking this positively of God when even the present one (who's had who knows how many centuries to process everything that happened) has shown to despise the idea of coming back to the Celestial Realm, mostly remember his time there in a bad light, and outright fear Father is JARRING.

And these moments keep coming, and the brothers keep showing more and more positive feelings towards the Celestial Realm. Forget everything we learned about the CR and what they went through, or the feelings the characters expressed towards the Celestial Realm before Nightbringer.

You're telling me that God wanted to wipe their sister from all existence and half of the realm, angels who they thought they could trust, opposed to them when they dared to protect her, went to war with them, and had her killed (probably along other angels who sided with the brothers to save her because the whole realm was divided) and now the brothers are just going to forget all of that and be all "the Celestial Realm wasn't that bad, actually. We always loved it there and wouldn't mind going back"? Really...?

I mean, even beyond all the Lilith stuff the Celestial Realm had always been a bad place for the brothers. Remember what Lucifer said: most of his memories from that time aren't good. The brothers already didn't like the Celestial Realm before Lilith; they already felt out of place there, and they already had their doubts. Hell, the reason they grew to have such a strong bond as angels to begin with was because they were outcasts, the ones who didn't fit in and were looked down on.

Mammon was close to being cast out and no one knew how to deal with him, Lilith was too chaotic and far away from being the ideal angel, Beel couldn't control his strength and destroyed everything around him, Belphie had no interest in following tasks, had a unique fascination for humans and preferred spending time in the Human World than the Celestial Realm, etc. And Lucifer was the one who took them in and accepted them as they were because even though he was far from an outcast and looked like the perfect angel on the outside, he still had his internal conflicts and struggled under pressure just as much in secret.

All of them suffered living there. Even Simeon opened up to MC about how he thought that angels weren't allowed to have dreams and that he probably wouldn't have found out otherwise had he stayed in the Celestial Realm. And that was on Nightbringer, not an old card from the OG but a recent one, so what's going on here?

It could be Solmare's way of setting things up for Raphael & Michael to become recurring characters since they don't want them to be seen as the bad guys (shout out to @cnl0400 for being the first to talk about this), but they don't need to flip the script and change the brothers' established feelings towards the Celestial Realm and God for this to happen. Raphael and Michael are also victims of the way angels are conditioned to live and are likely just as traumatized and have as many issues as the brothers, which developed from the strict rules they have to follow to be considered "good angels", the War, etc.

And we already had moments in SWD that showed that the brothers still care for Raphael & Michael and vice versa, despite everything that happened between them (though the same can't be said about the CR and God). So why not explore that, instead of having their view of the realm as a whole change so drastically with no explanation?

The brothers not only look at the Celestial Realm fondly now but would happily visit. The place where their worst memories took place and where so many of their loved ones died, the main source of their traumas and the traumas of everyone who survived the war. I mean, just before NB Simeon was harshly punished for saving MC's life and cursed with mortality, just another reason for them resent the CR and their strict rules. And don't even get me started on Father.

Assuming that their goal is to write a redemption arc for the angels who didn't take the brothers' side during the war and paint the CR in a better light so players won't hold a grudge against Michael & Raphael, this isn't a good way to go about it. Burying everything under the rug and acting as if the brothers just came to change their minds over time is insane because we didn't see anything that could've led to that development. Yes, we were gone for months but it lasted so long in the timeline we were taken from that no one even noticed our absence. So what major event could've happened while we were gone that led to this?

Unless this is all part of an overarching plot where we find out that these aren't the brothers we know or our original timeline, the "we're cool with God and the Celestial Realm" ordeal is just frustrating and makes no sense for the characters as we know them.

[swirlygigg]

VHS Store

This is a hypnokinky story idea I came up with a while back while perusing some spirals for my own fun... *ahem*. Hope you enjoy reading this ^^

It was a nice apartment, all things considered, but you were ready to get out of it for a little bit. You’d just moved to this new city a handful of days ago—but your friends happened to be out of town this weekend, so you’d spent a fairly miserable half a week just lugging things up and down the stairs, before collapsing onto your bed and just snoozing.

But now, it was time to explore. You were lucky enough to move to a neighborhood that was pretty walkable: you were just a block away from a trendy boba shop, two blocks away from a small boutique, and next door to a quaint little bookstore.

More curious to you, though, was the video rental store.

It was pretty unusual nowadays to see a video store, let alone one that seemed to be thriving in the age of streaming. But even when you were just a visitor and not a resident, there always seemed to be a flyer for it. It leaned heavily into the 80’s aesthetic with bright neon zigzags and confetti like an arcade carpet, with a television you could practically feel the static radiating off of. In bold VHS styled font, it proclaimed “We’ve got what you want! SWIRLY’S SUPER VIDEO!”

With a whole week before your new job started, you decided to make your way to Swirly’s Super Video, which was a slightly longer walk from your place. That didn’t pose any real problems to you though, since the sun was still high in the sky.

As you strolled down the street, you mused about what videos you were hoping to see in there. You guessed no one was pressing any of your more recent favorites, so you thought back to your younger days and what you’d had on the old VCR. You vaguely recalled a couple animated films and anime episodes, along with maybe one or two old spy shows. You wondered to yourself if they even had a comprehensive selection—or maybe it was one of those places that just pretended to be a laundromat or a bookstore or whatever, then sold something else. It wasn’t a bad idea for a speakeasy.

But you weren’t in the mood for day-drinking. You were more interested in what the store that you now stood in front of actually held. Gazing up at the sign, you noted that it was an actual neon one, with a stylized VHS tape containing the store’s name inside. This was yet more proof that this store was making bank somehow, piquing your curiosity even more.

The bell atop the door jingled merrily, and a blast of cool air hit your face. The store had less of a corporate feel than you remembered in Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. There were wide open windows at the sides that let light in, streaming onto the rows of organized VHS tapes in white shelves. The carpet had the same arcade pattern they used for the background of their flyer. It also seemed to have a backroom section. You mused silently if this place was making their money by selling adult videos. Not that there was anything wrong with that.

From behind the glass counters filled with movie snacks, a person stood up to greet you, “Hey, welcome in!” They wore a vaporwave style button-up, which matched both the theme and their tan skin. They had purple dyed hair, with two pink strands in the front. Their eyes, a honey golden color, crinkled a little as they smiled, revealing two buck teeth. “I’m Swirly and this is my super video store!” They waved their hands as if to present the place. Then, they chuckled. “Can I help you with anything?”

You blinked a few times before you responded to them. “Um… I guess I just wanted to see what was here? I can’t believe it’s actually a video store.”

Swirly chuckled again. “Oh, well! A lot of people ask me about how we got so successful as VHS store nowadays. I think it’s ‘cause despite the name, we’re worker-owned. But you know, socialism wins and stuff.” They shot you a grin. “But we also have a pretty unique collection!”

Your eyes wandered back over to the cordoned off area. “Such as…?”

Swirly either ignored you or genuinely didn’t hear you… you couldn’t tell which as they brushed over your gaze. “I don’t know, tell me about the most obscure movie you can think of as a kid.”

You racked your brain for a second, as Swirly put their elbows up on the counter. “Um, I don’t know? Pretty obscure anime?”

“We have a good selection of anime. We’ve got Gregory Horrorshow, a ton of OVAs, and we talk to a lot of amateur archivists to get a collection going too,” they replied. “Plus a lot of nostalgia bait for people. We’re Back: A Dinosaur Story, The Jungle Book, Totally Spies, even Whirlpool.” Swirly continued to list a few more titles, watching your reaction.

For some reason, you flushed as they mentioned a certain title—then you realized, as you recognized a few more, they were naming media you were familiar with because you’d watched the hypnosis scenes in them with just a bit too much interest.

Swirly smiled, and you were certain now that they were watching for the reaction you were currently having, though you weren’t sure how—!

“Okay, yeah, I kind of figured! I’ve been experimenting with different subtle hypnotic symbols and now I know for sure it has that effect on people!” Swirly looked delighted. “You know, for a lot of people, we are just a regular VHS store, but that’s not what makes us the most money.” Swirly came around the counter and leaned back against it, surveying you more closely. “We have a lot of subtle hypnotic symbolism that helps draw in people who are interested in our super collection.”

As if already in a trance (you weren’t exactly sure what they meant, but you knew it made your head dizzy), you walked back with Swirly to the separated section of the store, seeing your reflection approach the back wall in the security mirrors.

You opened the door to another jingle—no, a special jingle that made you stand just a little more at attention—into a room that was smaller and more intimate than the rest of the store. It was darker too, with no windows, but large screens on each wall without a door. Each flickered with a different but equally relaxing slow strobing pattern, painting each wall a beautiful array of colors. You realized that each of them had the same calming whirr of VCRs humming around the room. There were several small, low shelves with another collection of tapes, with a pleasing purple box instead of the standard white ones.

“Y’see, people who are susceptible to the signals we put into our flyers and the bell out front are the kinds of people who like this niche selection we have,” Swirly said, seating themselves comfortably onto the cushions on the floor. “They spend a little money to either hang out here or to rent our videos and have a session or two or however many they want at home.”

You understood the appeal intimately—it hit you square in the kinks. Being lulled into hypnotic bliss among all these screens or in the privacy of your home, glued to your own TV was tantalizing. Imagining doing it with someone else back here, especially someone as cute as Swirly was, laid out on the cushions… was doing something to you.

Maybe you were already in a trance since that new jingle took your attention, but now the spirals were taking it away again, and you understood how fun it could be if several people kept coming in and out of the room, fractionating you up and down.

“We have a bunch of different spirals that make you feel different things,” Swirly spoke in a low voice, watching one of the spirals with you as you flopped down near your favorite one. “Doesn’t that one feel so good?”

You nodded sleepily and slowly, before Swirly put their hand gently over your eyes. You nearly groaned, sad to have the spiral suddenly disappear from your vision.

“But this is just a preview. You gotta be all the way up and then decide if you wanna pay for,” and you could practically hear Swirly wiggling their fingers in the air, “the membership experience. You just pay us monthly and you can come check out two videos per month, or more based on your tier. And you can spend time back here.” With a little lilt in their voice, they said, “With me.”

You were supposed to have a well-paying job. And you wouldn’t mind having an excuse to spend time with a new, pretty face. You nodded. “Sure, I’ll pay. This is cool so far.”

Swirly sounded excited. “And it’s always nice finding someone who’s into the same thing as you are!” They lifted their hand from your eyes, stroking the side of your face. “Isn’t it?”

The touch of their hand on your cheek, combined with the new, comforting spiral, felt like it wrapped your brain in the same fuzzy static as the one you could feel on your old TV. It was soft yet tingly, quieting down every other thought in your brain. Just the beautiful, magical pulsing of the spirals around you, making everything slip away into trance…

The sun would be pretty low once you’d finally left that room. And if you accepted a drive home from Swirly, with a couple new tapes in tow… well, that would just make sense.

Like this story? Support me on subscribestar at swirlygigg! Or tip me on Throne!

[qqueenofhades]

Hi Hilary I know you’re only replying to so many politics asks — I can only imagine how many are sitting in your inbox rn — and you’ve already been such a comfort to all us folks who’ve really appreciated your insight time and time again! But I did want to ask about all the posts I’ve seen more recently about signing petitions and reaching out to the White House for a recount. I feel like at this point we’re really reaching — everyone’s talking about how there’s evidence suggesting cheating on Trump’s part, and while I would never be surprised by that, I have yet to see any trusted sources backing those claims. It feels like we’re long past that point, even though the results came in so much faster than I ever expected, but I was wondering if you have an opinion on all that? Take care in the meantime, and thank you for all that you do!

I will make this the last politics ask for the night, and hopefully for at least a few days (no promises, though), but --

This, most unfortunately, is not going to work. For one, Biden/the White House cannot request a recount in state-level races. There are strict rules governing who can and cannot request those, it's usually either triggered by a certain percentage margin or requested by the candidate, and then it also has to be paid for. Kamala has given her concession speech and the Democrats are not going to go down election-denialism rabbit holes. It is hugely unfortunate that the worst people in the world who launched a coup after losing last time are the ones to benefit from it, but... yeah. It just sucks all the way around.

The election interference happened on the day with all the Russian-linked fake bomb threats in blue areas of swing states, the ballot boxes set afire, etc etc. I fear we have only begun to see how bad it will be in this and any future elections, as with many other things, and the reports of people's ballots disappearing or not being received etc are obviously disturbing. But there is, as you say, scant evidence aside from social media chatter backing this up, people are angry and hurt and looking for something to make it not be real (me too, man) and that's easier than thinking that half the country simply shrugged and chose fascism because of grocery prices and trans panic. And it sucks absolute shit, but this is what happened. It happened broadly consistently across the country and was a symbol of the anti-incumbency that's been going on since Covid (New Zealand's liberal government also fell victim to this and elected reactionary conservatives, so this is a thing). We can split hairs about this or that policy decision by the Democrats, and believe me there needs to be a messaging revamp and the firing of basically every Democratic Corporate Consultant TM, but we need to face up to the truth that many, many ordinary American people chose this. They wanted it. And if we are going to do anything about it, we have to reckon with that fact instead of looking for conspiratorial excuses. For one thing, that's what those assholes do constantly, and fuck them.

Likewise, results came in across the country much faster due to the fact that people once more voted largely in person on Election Day, and not early/by mail as they did in 2020. They came in largely matching the expected timelines given by election officials of both parties beforehand. If there is basis to all this missing-ballot stuff, then yes, obviously, it should be investigated (though I have very low confidence that it will be if they are already making preparations to close the federal cases against Trump). But at this point, as you say, this is not something that has logistical legs and is going to undermine a lot more. It sucks. Sometimes I wish we didn't have to be the adults in the room and could just be whiny cheating shitstains like the Republican Fascist Party -- it seems to work out for them that people want Democratic policies and then elect Republicans to punish Democrats for not instantly and perfectly implementing all of them. The exit polls largely matched with what the results turned out to be. It absolutely sucks almighty shit, but it's true.

I am old enough to remember George W. Bush getting reelected in 2004, and it sucked, though not as much as this just because Trump is so crazy and extreme and the GOP has abandoned even the basic pretence of democracy and decency. It's a race to the bottom and through to the center of the earth for them now, especially since they have literally no incentive to reform or do anything but double down on their extremism. Why would they? They just won a major election and got popular legitimacy, something the Republicans have lacked for a long time. This is only the second time they've won the popular AND electoral vote (the first likewise being 2004) in the 21st century. We got the blue trifecta in 2020 because we benefited from the same desire for reversal of course that the Republicans are getting now. In and of itself, this does not indicate fraud. Terrible things about America and the future, yes, but not fraud.

So: Yes. We need to focus on the things we can control and prepare ourselves for what is still to come. It will be hard and it will suck and as I keep saying, it was completely avoidable, but people didn't want to avoid it. They're now going to learn painfully why they should have, but we can't do anything about that either. It is very much going to be a case of picking your battles, drastically limiting your daily news consumption, and a lot of other protective measures, and that is where, at least IMHO, we should focus our effort.

Take care. ❤️

[quotidian-oblivion]

So I woke up today and found the house empty. Turns out, my dad was at work, my siblings were at Islamic summer camp classes and my mom was out shopping and no one would be home for a few hours.

I was left unsupervised for several hours straight at home.

And so, in all my teenage rebellion glory, I decided to have chocolate milk for breakfast. Because you know this girlie pop loves her choccie milk.

And so I quickly freshened up and eagerly leapt to the kitchen for my delicious breakfast. I didn't wanna go all the way to the store and purchase a choccie milk, so I decided to make my own.

I got the milk, sugar, cocoa powder, drinking chocolate powder, ice and blender. All the basic ingredients cuz we didn't have much at home (which was why my mom was out shopping).

Now the thing about the blender is that my mom often refers to it as her precious gold. The blender is sacred in this household and whoever so much as even sets it down too hard, invokes the wrath of my mom. So, in order to preserve my life, I took great measures to make sure nothing happens to it. But while pouring the milk, I paused.

I knew that the blender had a minimum capacity for it to do thr blending, but I didn't know what. So I just poured it till the first measuring line. I made my chocolate milk, meticulously measuring each ingredient with my soul and even adding some coffee to it.

And then, it was done! But with everything blended together, the choccie milk had somehow risen in volume even though all the ingredients were milk and powders. So I grabbed the biggest glass in our house and that thing is HUGE. It's as big as my water bottle.

But even after filling the glass to the brim, there was still, like, half of the contents of the blender left. I shrugged and plopped an ice cube in, resolving to drink the other half after I did my chores. So I drank the first glass and since I was hungry, it didn't take long. I was chugging the glass like a man who had just gotten through a breakup, paid bail and had staggered into the first bar he found.

I did my chores and stuff then poured the rest of the blender contents. It filled the entire glass yet again. Fyi, half the contents were not foam. The foam took overall 4% of the space, the rest was pure chocolate milk. Idk how my quarter-blender chocolate milk turned into a three-quarters-blender chocolate milk, but I'm starting to think now that there is a reason why my mom loves that blender more than her husband and children and the reason might be that I think the Spirit of Chocolate Milk decided to cross over from the Spirit World and take the mortal form of Blender (I recently started watching atla).

Anyways, it took me a while to chug the entire chocolate milk. And when I did, I fell sick.

Now, you might ask me, "Quo, why didn't you just share it with your siblings when they got back?" The answer is: If I had to trade chocolate milk as ransom for my siblings, I would shoot them myself.

(For legal purposes, this is a joke, but the seriousness is there)

And I couldn't very well share it with my parents because they're recently started talking about physical health and gyms, enhancing my gym-phobia and increasing my desperation to start a badminton club myself because the only physical exercise I find comfortable is taking a racquet and beating the shit out of cocks. Shuttlecocks. So if they found out that I had, most likely, roughly a litre of chocolate milk for breakfast, they would freak. So I had no choice but to finish it.

Anyways, as soon as I finished the huge ass glasses of chocolate milk, I started to feel the consequences of my unregrettable and unsupervised actions.

My stomach became sentient and decided to master water-bending and bend the water inside itself to torture the shell that held it. I felt like puking my breakfast out, but no way in hell was I gonna let my stomach get in the way of my one true love. So I refused to puke out the chocolate milk.

I endured the attack of the Puke Nation and finally prevailed. And of course, lamented to my friends about it because I'm a dramatic bitch.

I quickly washed the blender and the glass and cleared everything out just in time as my mom and sisters came home.

And guess what she brought for me. No, guess.

She got me chocolate milk. She went to the store, saw a bottle on clearance, and bought it. And if I don't drink it today, it will expire.

Anyway, it's been 6 hours, that's enough time to give my stomach a break from a litre of chocolate milk, right?

If I don't update, you can correctly assume that I committed death via chocolate milk overdose. Drink on, soldiers 🫡

[correlatedcontents]

the uncle who works for nintendo: ten years on

10 years ago today i released a game called THE UNCLE WHO WORKS FOR NINTENDO. with art by Kim Parker, multiple endings, a metafictional structure, and extensive sound design, it was (and remains) my most ambitious completed solo dev project. initially conceived as the gamergate harassment movement sprawled over social media, and coinciding with the attacks on residents of ferguson, mo following the police killing of michael brown, it's often seemed in retrospect that this was a moment where the loathsome present really crystallized

for my part, the response to the game was beyond all expectation; kotaku linked it and totally obliterated my webhosting, incurring a huge overage charge. i was a poor grad student and people helped crowdfund the cost. that was amazing, but the whole thing kind of scared me, honestly!

that's mainly why my projects from this point scaled back, then ended as i turned my mind toward finishing grad school: i didn't have the time or resources to technically expand in the ways that i wanted, and furthermore i was leery of becoming a guy who was expected to make Statements.

the intervening years have been… well, they've been something. you were there, presumably. one of the people namechecked in the game's author notes, a target of harassment at the time, is now a noted unprincipled political hack, and i'm not talking about zizek. but remember quoting zizek?

the world turns. i recorded my first podcast because of this game. it got onto people's best of the year lists. paste called it "the indie game of the year." it won the xyzzy award for best npc.

and none of the stuff that distressed me so much that i made the game went anywhere.

there was a lot of talk in the early 2010s about the power of games to change people and make them better. and i think that's probably true--all encounters with art can change you, for better and worse--but i've long been skeptical of strong and positive claims for art's "efficacy."

i didn't think my game was going to solve any problems, but it was at least going to index them. and i think it indexed gamergate, though it did nothing to stop that ravening, juvenile nostalgia mindset from wholly subsuming the gamer cultural sphere, to say nothing of spheres beyond it

Liz Ryerson, another influence on UWWFN, recently wrote a long essay about just this.

but one thing the game's reception did show me is that there are in fact people who want to think, ant to interrogate the easy bindings between experience and unreflective thought, and find ways of thinking and feeling contrary to the ever-rising tide of culture's venom. the world is not settled.

the game cemented my friendship with Cameron Kunzelman, and the podcasting work we've since done for Ranged Touch has been (to my mind) more useful in this regard than any game i could make, modeling engagement with the weirdness of both art and the world critically and thoughtfully. and gaming is not kaput! i was fortunate to make connections within the twitter dev scene, and currently work at Half Mermaid on a project that will not make you a better person, but might offer ways for thinking about life in a turbulent world where our ugliness is sold back to us at a premium.

10 years is somehow both a short time and, it turns out, an incredibly long time. a lot happens, and it's never enough, and it's also way too much. and sometimes a decade on, even when you're a guy who doesn't want to make Statements you still feel like there's something worth remarking upon. thanks

[wardingshout]

Since I didn't draw anything for like half of 2024 I did an updated colour wheel instead! featuring only the newest of stuff I could find that fit.

I have also compiled a dump of many thoughts I want out of my head, like a little text post dump I guess. the tldr I guess I will just make "thank you".

Putting the most important thing first here which is. Every single time I catch myself thinking "no I need to draw smth other than alttp" a couple of very specific tags and messages pop into my head and I get so fired up to draw more alttp !!! the power I feel from that!!!!!

IIIIII feel like there used to be a way to do linebreaks but I can't remember how so my new text bit divider is random crap I can find lying around in my files

Ok here goes me being dramatic about something that only matters to me but feels so very important to get out for the sake of others too. I guess the gist of it is that tumblr is a rly important place to me and I'm so endlessly grateful for people always being so nice. at the end of the day I don't think I really care about much else in life than drawing and getting to share it with others makes it a much less lonely experience for me. I mostly just for myself, but I'm so grateful for the extra joy associated with posting it online too.

I feel a bit bad I can never seem to give back the kind of nice energy you guys give me. despite how much joy this place brings me, I'm just a naturally anxious person and I often chicken out of doing things myself. I'm so endlessly happy that people still bear with me or at least stick around to look at my art.

thanks to people's kindness I often find myself breaking out of the anxiety and getting a lot closer to initiating stuff myself, but I always get run over by some kind of irl issue instead, usually mental, but recently also physical health. I had so much fun on here this summer especially and I was so certain that this was the time I would make it last only for irl stuff to yet again show up and knock me out completely. every time that happens I feel like I have to rebuild whatever social bravery I had aquired from the beginning again and at this rate I won't ever get anywhere.

after weeks of very few work days, I feel like I'm finally rebuilding the courage to post and the concentration to manage drawing at all. it's not a lot of progress but I can feel it growing. from tomorrow it's back to full time work with no other breaks in sight and I'm scared my groove will be cut short already... I like my job but I've acknowledged I just can't thrive with full time work. I can bear it fine though, but it doesn't leave energy for much else in life.

I think the point here is. I know it's just social media but I've had so many good experiences on here and they're really precious to me. I hope one day I can be well enough to be that kind of influence for others too. my activity with art and presence online has become surprisingly reflective of how well or bad I'm doing irl, so I never I never want to give up on become a more present person.

the most important thing is art though, so finding the courage to get back to posting even if it's all I do, makes me happy too. thank you so much to everyone else who posts are too. I'm endlessly excited about all the cool things I get to experience and see online, thank you!

it is absolutely absurd how many drafts I have of just very frustrated moments where literally all I type is "if I have to be sick one more time I will lose my absolute mind holy shit" and having just been sick again? really feeling that !!!! it's also like. frustrating to feel you're making progress mentally and then you constantly get knocked into bed by phsyical health instead like come on I'm finally learning how to get Out of that place... and then every time you get sick, routunes have to be rebuild all over after, it suuuuucks....

I finally got a PC which has been absolutely life saving, However. I am still drawing on tegaki only... I'm so excited I can get back to bigger works on csp but I've gotten so used to seeing only my tegaki stuff, I'm scared of how much I'll suddenly hate my art when I see it differently again... hating your own art is probably a feeling that will never disappear but even so. I think I'm at a pretty content place right now and I'm worried about shaking it up. I can't let something like that knock me down when I'm only finally getting back to drawing regularly again... I already copied over the palette for some comfort so hopefully I can find a brush that feels similar too! at least I'm super excited about getting to pick some more colours !

and a very belated tag game thing !! I completely lost the original post by now but it was from @lele5429 and I've had it in my drafts this whole time, so better late than never to fill it out!

Last song: Alt Hvad Jeg Vil by Von Quar

Fav colours: warm yellows or light oranges!

Last book: switching between Assassin's Quest and Our Wives Under The Sea!

Last movie: The Princess Bride I think?? it was long ago so I feel like I'm forgetting something else though...

Last tv show: my roomie and I binged Twin Peaks season 3 as well as most of True Detective over christmas break we went Ham

Sweet/spicy/savoury: sweet !!

Relationship status: not interested

Last thing I googled: "nosferatu rats"... I see.....

Current obsession: alttp auish shenanigans... this one has not changed since I first drafted my response to this... on one hand I feel like I'm just filling out the gaps between games, but on the other it's getting very close to full au stuff... I always wanted to draw comics but had no ideas and for the first time in my life I'm drowning in ideas and fully held back by fear and skills haha

Looking forward to: actually surprisingly nothing at all? I'm looking forward to whatever good times I can create for myself I guess. the last few things I was looking forward to didn't go so well, so maybe it's nice to have nothing but the most normal and boring daily life ahead haha

[vertigoartgore]

Dave Johnson : "Blah,biddy,blah,blah,blah. What's there to say ? I did design the new Punisher logo. Pretty happy with it. The cover itself is OK. Not my favorite by any means. But then they can't be all my favorites."

Dave Johnson : "Tried to get that quiet mean vibe. The 'he's so bad, he doesn't need a million guns to kill you' look. And yes, after doing it I realized the Venture Bros. skull thing going on. Wasn't my intent. But what are you gonna do? It was bound to happen.

100% real paint on rough watercolor paper."

Dave Johnson : "Half traditional/ half photoshop."

Dave Johnson : "This one feels a bit like Steranko. I guess I could have sealed the deal by adding a swirling , hypno graphic to one of the backgrounds to really drive it home, but that really wasn't what I set out to do. I'm really enjoying the fact that since I re-designed the logo, I can now use it in the overall design as opposed to letting it just sit there on top of the page getting in my way like most comic cover trade dress. Too bad I still have to deal with the horrible scourge called the UPC box. I mean, seriously !?! Does it have to be so freaking BIG ! Not at all. But nobody wants to rock the boat in the name of beauty."

Dave Johnson : "Red, red, red. Why do I love that color so much? It dominates my work like skulls dominate Mignola's work. My chair is red, I got 2 cars that are red. Devilpig is red. My homemade Samurai armor is red. 

Oh well, why fight it. We all like what we like. It's just that simple.

Damn Equis !

*note* X-Ray is a photo that was manipulated to show all the broken bones. Except the pinky. Because Punisher can kill you with just his pinky. He's just that bad ass."

Dave Johnson : "Ahhhh, Bullseye. You really know your way to my heart."

Dave Johnson : "What a crazy cover. To me, it just screams "insane" ! Maybe I was inspired by a certain DA member that entered into my life recently. Even though I did it before he started sending me death threats (haha) I guess I had an episode of fore sight."

Dave Johnson : "Even though I haven't posted the cover to no.7 yet (because I still need to finish it) I'm posting this. It's a 5 issue story arc involving the character Bullseye. So, I'm trying to do 2 things.

To have every cover involve a bullseye graphic element (so far, so good)

To do all the covers using a blue color palette to reference the original costume of Bullseye (even though the character in this story never dons the outfit)

Also, I realize this cover is kind of a book end cover to an earlier Punisher cover. This one… [link]

But hey, it just worked out that way. If I'd have know that Bullseye was coming up in my future I might have not done the earlier cover. But that said, I wasn't about to NOT do this cover because of that. It fits to well with the story.

But maybe I'm thinking about it too much because the reality is, that it's a stupid comic book cover and the world will go on as is, no matter what I do, haha."

Dave Johnson : "I really had a good time on this one. Bullseye looks like he's really lost it and has become obsessed with getting into Punisher's head.

I gotta say, in some ways this cover assignment has been more fun than 100 Bullets covers. And that's saying a lot. Plus, about a week ago, I was talking to Tim Bradstreet. He said that if I ever needed a fill-in he'd be happy to do so. I told him 'he's have to pry it from my cold, dead hands'. Hahaha."

Dave Johnson : "Ahhh, the Bullseye motif is in effect for one more cover. Actually, I have one more to do with this story line. The writer (Jason Aaron) said that Frank wears a gas mask in this issue. Which is crazy timing because I had started to write back and forth with this guy :icondarkasylumxxx: about a trade. Art for a gas mask. He had asked if I could use his gas mask design on a cover, and I told him that kind of stuff was in the writers hands not mine.

Crazy how the universe works like that."

Dave Johnson : "Hot of the presses. The last cover for the "Bullseye" story line. The bullseye motif was fun to play with. And I can't wait to see what comes next for ol' Punisher. I'm willing to money on the fact that whatever happens, it'll be mondo violent."

Dave Johnson : "Man, this cover fought me all night. I started around 11pm with a basic idea of Punisher holding prison bars so tight that blood was coming outta his hands. But the execution eluded me until 4:30am. The angle I liked, but how to make it say 'Punisher' ? Then the idea of the key brought it all home. Finished it up by 6am and off to Marvel on the East coast just in time for them to get it when they open up the doors. Yeah me!

I think this is my favorite Punisher cover so far. Not sure what you'll think, but I'm sure you're tell me, haha.

Going to go to bed now. I feel like a vampire.

Update Got this response from :iconprimeless: "I'm nobody, so I guess my words will mean nothing to you. Also, my art won't ever be as good as yours. I love this cover as I'm fan of your work, but I continue thinking that your work for 100 bullets is the best you ever did.

The reason is that i find that the Key is saying that "Punisher got somebody into jail" not that "punisher is in the jail".

Sorry. My english is not very nice."

And here's my response: "The cover is not meant to be taken as a literal statement. It's main purpose is to tell you 1. It's a Punisher book 2. It takes place in prison. Obviously, the key isn't a real key. It's a story telling device. Whether or not you personally see it "Punisher got somebody into jail" or "punisher is in the jail". Without the key, it's just a guy holding onto prison bars. With it, it's a guy who, may or may not be Punisher. The goal is to make you pick up the book and find out."

Posting this because I thought it would clarify any future questions. Thanks"

Dave Johnson : "It's a simple cover with a simple idea. Punisher is prison, prisoners not happy about it. Rinse, repeat. Call me in the morning."

Dave Johnson : "You know what sucks ? The way I work. I agonize for 2 weeks to come up with a cover design that I don't hate, and then it only takes me 1 day to do it from start to finish. Imagine if that were the other way around? I'd probably be over rendering and adding so much detail it would make your eyes bleed. But instead I wait until one day before the deadline to force me into doing something. 

Bah! I guess it is what it is. 

This one was hard because I've already done a Punisher cover dealing with Frank's origin story. Seen here [link]"

Dave Johnson : "Mmmmm, Electra vs. Punisher. Sure, why not."

Dave Johnson : "This cover kind of turned out to be a little partridge family bus art style or if you please the art that inspired that art style on the bus [link]

Well, it's not my best cover, but it's not my worst. I really dig how Punisher's face turned out though. But maybe you hate it.

Discuss."

Dave Johnson : "Punisher cover time. Mostly photoshop if you're wondering. No real paint was harmed in the making of this cover."

Dave Johnson : "Another Punny cover. Enjoy.

*note* if you notice, no blood on Frank in the photo. It's the little things."

Dave Johnson : "Sadness."

Dave Johnson's cover run (+ commentaries for nearly each of them) on Aaron/Dillon's Punisher Max Vol.1 #1-22 (2009-2012). Source

[sluckythewizard]

Keep calm, and drink soda

[CW for blood and gore and vomit] takes place a day or two after emizel was sired. just two boys adjusting to a shift in their daily norms. would YOU drink your homies blood? still not used to writing fanfic so any and all advice IS appreciated. i hope u enjoy.

There were very few things that Soda enjoyed more than well, drinking soda. It was a hobby, an interest, a comfort. And by extension there were very few errands that Soda would look forward to more than the occasional soda run.

The gas station closest to the Demons hideout had stopped selling Faygo entirely about a month or two ago, and it was near impossible to find it anywhere else. The closest place was now this janky little Shell gas station, lovingly titled the Shady Shell, that thankfully sold more flavors than any of the other ones ever did.

It made the hour and a half walk here entirely worth it. Even if this side of town made his skin crawl. Normally he would ask someone to accompany him on this daring little quest, but everyone at the hide out tonight just seemed too tired, too preoccupied, too uninterested.

He knew not everyone really got the soda thing, but they were accepting of it for the most part. Soda is something that, clearly, Soda really loves, but he knew not everyone else was into it.

Which was fine, of course. They didn't need to get it. But, still, sometimes Soda found himself wondering how much of it was a bit, and how much was him.

Emizel gets it perfectly though. He would've been the first person Soda would ask to go on this soda run with him, but, well. He's been preoccupied too, with the whole vampire thing.

It's been a bit more than a day since Soda had last seen his close comrade. For a friend that he saw just about everyday, going without him this long left him feeling a little emptier.

That was fine, though. Emizel had shit he was working out, he had things he needed to do. It's not like he could go out in the day anymore, so of course Soda wouldn't be seeing him at all the usual times.

It was a lot of weird and heavy magical stuff, it made Soda think about those superhero shows. Where the hero needs to keep his identity hidden from everyone. Family especially. He knows how much of a piece of shit Emizels dad is, so he hoped that Emizels home life wasn't stirred up all stupid-like over this.

He hasn't told anyone else, about what happened that night. For the last 2 days, Soda would spend time with close friends and not let them know a thing about what happened to Emizel so, so recently. Why he's so suddenly absent, so distant, so.. off…

'Maybe his dad's just giving him a hard time', he would say, hoping to smother their questions. The less questions they ask, the better. At least until this vampire stuff gets figured out a bit more. Should Emizel wear a disguise when he goes out at night now? Just like a superhero? What kind of hero outfit would Emizel have anyways? Soda figured it would be something really cool.

If anyone could figure out a way to balance all this vampire stuff, and all the leaderly responsibilities that come with being the biggest dog in the Demons, it was Emizel for sure. That guy is so seriously cool.

He was sure this rough patch would even out, and they would weather the next rough patch together no problem. There was really nothing to worry about! All Soda has to do is stay positive, and well, drink soda.

As Soda walks quietly down the crumbling sidewalks of this dreary hive of strip malls and shops, he goes to pull his backpack around to his chest, fumbling with the zipper in the dark. Which was a little annoying, considering the tab of his zipper had fallen off forever ago. He really needed to get around to fixing this damn thing. Maybe another ziptie and a soda tab will do the trick.

Humid air hangs heavy in the night, the sidewalks still somewhat warm after a hotter day. The diesel-soaked air provided enough warmth on its own that Soda had considered taking his jacket off a few times, only for the occasional, annoyingly sharp and chilly breeze to brush by, reminding him to keep the thing on.

Tripping only once and only slightly on an uneven sidewalk, Soda manages to pull a bottle of Faygo from his backpack, a smile glowing on his face. Another short fight with the zipper seals up the bag, and he slings it over his shoulder again.

His flavor of choice tonight was actually the Red Pop, the tried and true, the absolute classic, one of the best Faygo flavors for sure.

But, this kind wasn't actually his favorite. Normally he would stock up on the cotton candy ones, but something about the last few days had him craving the red stuff.

Securing his backpack all the way, he goes to crack open the bottle. Just the clack and the hisssss of the fizzy drink were enough to lift his mood.

Not that his mood needed lifting or anything. Of course. Sure he missed his friend and sure he found himself wondering what he’s doing and where he is and if he's okay. Maybe sometimes he found himself wishing they talked about funeral plans more.

Emizel talked up all sorts of crazy funeral ideas for himself, usually involving the use of his dead body as an inconvenience for others. Outlandish and hilarious ideas, like filling it with explosives and tossing it into a busy road. But what would he want seriously? What would Soda ever do if he just stopped showing up one day?

He had to swallow down all these unnecessary anxieties, so he took a swig of his soda. Sweet, bubbly, comforting. He felt better already! Just stay positive, and drink soda..

It was a lovely night out, and he didn't come all this way planning on letting it go to waste. There was a place he was heading towards, a particular alleyway in this particular place that led off to a particularly tall concrete ledge.

 It was a run-down little space, littered with trash and shitty trees and those bushes with just too many goddamn ants in them. But the view was fairly nice, overlooking a massive deformed intersection. A particularly stupid one, at that; about 3 times a week you could witness a gnarly crash at this spot. Soda always heard people saying that LA folks can't drive, but he was just starting to figure that maybe no one can drive.

That was the place he really wanted to go to enjoy this soda, and he wasn't too far off from it. Just a few more blocks, and he would be there.

Oh wait, didn't he still have a bag of chips in this backpack somewhere? Hell yeah, he couldn't wait to sit down and relax with a good soda, a good snack, and a good view of the night.

Living as a Demon had its fair share of stresses. He felt lucky to have this life, but he knew well that it could be better. That not everyone has to worry about survival the way they do. That not everyone gets injured on the regular and not everyone has to worry about being sick and never getting better.

Living is hard. But it's finding the small moments of joy that make it all worth it. Dying would be scarier anyway. He didn't want to die, and he felt glad to feel so confident in that nowadays.

The sudden   THUNK  of something slamming into the ground just a block away from him, jolts him out of his thoughts, all his gears screeching to a halt as he freezes in place. What the fuck was that?

It looked like a person, laying flat on the ground with only their head and shoulders peeking out of the alleyway ahead. Fuck. He hated this side of town..

Anxiety churns in his stomach as he debates just turning around, but the way the victim reaches an arm out, attempting to crawl away; it made his heart ache aswell. he's no goddamn fighter, but he couldn't just leave someone like th-

The body is suddenly yanked back into the alley, snatched at a startling speed. It didn't feel exactly real, how could something vanish so fast? It reminded Soda of something from a horror movie, or whatever. What the fuck was that??

His foot takes a step forward, before the rest of his body notices its rebellion and locks down again. Was he seriously going to investigate that? He could just walk away and take another alley. But that was the one he was supposed to turn down! All the other alleys are either walled off or gated off and he wasn't about to go climbing over a damn wire gate. His soda would get too shaken up! Fuck!

Another foot goes in for another step forward. He's gotta get the fuck out of here. He could hear more commotion in the alleyway, a scuffle, a skirmish. He could hear someone cursing through a choked breath. A loud and nauseating crack echoes out from the alley, and yet, Soda takes another step forward.

This was stupid, he shouldn't be getting tangled up in someone else's business. What if something happened to all this soda?

Thankfully, it was that thought that actually got him to pause, and take in a deep breath. It wasn't worth it, maybe he should head straight home.

Atleast, that was the thought his heart and mind were about to agree on, until a particularly familiar grroowwwwlll bleeds out from the alley.

Emizel?

All reason immediately evaporates as Soda makes that connection in his head, stepping right up to the corner of the brick walls, and peering around to investigate.

There was a body on the floor, face down in a puddle of red, head split open in a way that reminded Soda of a smashed watermelon.

But standing over that body, was the familiar, blackened coat, and short blonde hair, of Sodas closest comrade, Emizel.

Despite the carnage on the floor, Soda couldn't help the smile that lights up his face. That was Emizel! That was his boy!

But before he could get over just how happy he felt to see his best friend, something else caught his eye. Movement, behind the dumpster closest to the vampire boy. A person, rising out from the shadows with a glinting baseball bat clutched fiercely in their hands.

"Oh fuck, look out!" Soda speaks up, and Emizels gaze immediately clicks over to him, silencing Soda with just that startlingly red stare.

He had forgotten just how uneasy those red eyes made him..

The attacker, silent and professional, rushes up behind Emizel and CRACKS the metal bat downwards onto his blonde head, the sound ringing out like a  gun shot  in that dark little alleyway.

Soda cringes from just the sound of the impact, but was amazed to find that the bat had warped under the force of it!

The attacker hardly had a chance to process his mangled weapon before Emizel whips around to retaliate.

It looked like he had just swung his hand at his opponent, so the way a shower of red spills outward from the slash, catches Soda completely off guard. The monster boy had cleaved an excruciatingly massive gash up from the attackers right hip, to his left shoulder, the slice spewing with scarlet.

 It wasn't until Emizel had pulled back his arm, that Soda could process the way it had darkened with more than just blood, distorted into an odd, spear-like shape.

The victim hardly had a chance to yelp before that blade swoops up into his chest at the speed of a snapping bear trap, plunging through meat and bone with disturbing ease, and forcing blood and viscera to erupt outwards. The red patters down onto the concrete behind, the sound similar to rain...

With another low, inhuman snarl, Emizel brings the twitching, dying body closer, until that signature squish of teeth sinking into fresh meat bleeds outward into the space.

What a disgusting sound, Sodas first instinct was to simply avert his eyes, but as the sound persists, he resolves that he has to do something.

He finally steps out into the alley, and speaks.

"Hey ma-"

He could hardly get two words out before Emizel suddenly rips its teeth away from its victims throat, tearing out a hefty chunk of jellied meat, and slamming the remaining fodder onto the concrete floor.

It immediately whips around to stare down Soda, red eyes glowing with reflected light, and with hardly a chance to process the moment-

-It's immediately right infront of Soda.

A gasp lurches from Soda's lungs as he almost stumbles back in shock. How was Emizel so fucking fast?

Other than that single step back, Soda was frozen in shock, his tongue buzzing with the physical pain of such a startling jolt. 'White boy jumpscare' is something that came to mind, but while usually such a thought would evoke some sort of laugh from Soda, this time it offered no such comfort. Okay maybe it did a little.

Emizels snarling face was only inches away from Sodas. Its eyes were wild and unnatural, teeth menacingly sharp and reddened with so much fucking blood. It was everywhere, coating most of his face, smothering his shirt and his coat, and absolutely choking the air with its thick, metallic stench.

Soda would gag if he felt he was safe to even move. He felt like he was locking eyes with that of a creature, something he would only ever see in his nightmares or in scary movies. But it was real. Those monsters are real. And his best friend is one of those monsters. His bestest friend in the world...

His mind was skewered on that unnatural glare, completely frozen with anxiety. Stalling too hard to come to a proper conclusion, Soda instead falls back onto what Soda does best.

"H-hey man... You want some soda?"

He very gently presses the opened bottle of Faygo into Emizels chest.

The two boys stand there for a moment, locked in a tense, silent pause, before the monster boy finally peels its gaze down to the bottle.

It's quiet, for a few seconds, the gears turning in its head. Until the monster blinks, and its eyes clear, and Emizel processes the sight of the bottle.

"Oh, fuck yeah dude, is that the Candy Apple Faygo? Man, that stuffs my favorite!" Emizel smiles as he goes to accept the bottle, and immediately takes a massive swig.

Soda tries to disregard the way his hands were still shaking. "Uh, n-nah man, its just Red Po-"

The words are bit off as Emizel suddenly retches, a heavy flood of red blood and red Faygo spewing out onto Soda, as the vampire boys body entirely rejects the fizzy drink.

The shock of getting fucking projectile vomited on had snapped Soda out of whatever daze he was just in, and it seemed to snap Emizel out of it too. Soda backs up with a groan, looking down at all the blood and bile and pop on his shirt and coat.

"Ohhh fuck dude, what the hell??" He cringes, not even wanting to try smearing any of it off with his hand.

Emizel was coughing, still holding out the Faygo bottle, but hunched over as his body dared to convulse again.

"Ohhhhhh fuck, ohhooohhh fuuuuucckkk" he grumbles towards the floor "Fuuuck I’m sorry dude, I don't know what fuckin- oohhhgg shit,” He coughs and groans,  offering the bottle back to Soda.

Soda was still staring at his messied coat with a displeased grimace, but looking up to meet Emizels eyes...

There was a guilt on Emizels face that Soda didn't see too often, and it helped wash away that irritation he felt. This sucked, but Emizel was probably going through a lot more. 

“It’s, uhm.. don't, don't worry about it, man..” Soda decides to reassure him, offering a sympathetic smile, and a hand on Emizels shoulder, as his comrade spits out the remaining blood and bile.

"Fuckin hell… I’m uh, I'm sorry about your shirt, man."

"What? Nahh it's okay man, don’t worry about it." Soda shrugs, taking the Faygo bottle back. "I mean, are you okay man? That uh.. looked like a pretty crazy fight."

Emizel was rubbing his eyes, smearing more blood across his face as he seems to be collecting himself. he spares a glance back at the carnage behind him.  

"Ah.. yeah.. I thought I uh.. I thought I saw that one fucker from uh. That one night. Yknow, the one that uh.." He snaps his fingers, as if trying to summon back the memory. "Vampire bitch... Anyway after that I just kind of, uh.."

He seems to space out again as he looks around. It was as if he was just woken up from a deep sleep, like he was certain he had just known what he was doing, but found the dream escaping him. "I guess I just.. went crazy on these guys. I dunno, they're Fangs anyways." he finally shrugs it all off, but Soda still felt unsatisfied by the answer.

"Oh.. huh…” is the only response he manages to scrounge together. Sure they were Fangs, but did they really deserve.. all that? It just seemed a bit brutal, even by Emizels standards.

He found his eyes wandering over to the split-open head. It was mostly red and bloody, but even in the dark, he could still make out some of the finer details of the gray jelly seeping from the gash. A human brain. He wondered if his own brain looked the same on the inside..

“So what are you doing out here, man?” Emizels question helps Soda pull his eyes away from the gore, instead looking over to his bloodied comrade.

Emizel looked messy and even exhausted, but his drowsy gaze was focused on Soda with a worried expression. 

“Oh, uh, yknow, just a soda run. Decided I would stock up on some Faygo from the Shady Shell.” Soda shrugs, his eyes flickering down to the opened Faygo in his hand. The top was covered in regurgitated blood. unnaturally blackened blood…

“Are you.. okay, by the way? Other than the whole..” Soda gestures vaguely at the gruesome crime scene. “Are you hurt?”

The question has Emizel pausing to consider. He straightens his back and stretches his arms, as if trying to detect any pain from any possible injury. Nothing seemed to be bothering him though, and after a second, he decides to shrug.

“Nah, I'm all good.”

“Oh.. That's good, I uh…” Soda found himself looking over Emizel aswell, searching for any wounds the monster boy might be simply disregarding, as he often does.

There was a fairly gnarly gash on his shin..

“Hey uh, I was actually gonna go hang out by the ledge down that way. Yknow, the one with the funny intersection.” Soda says, gesturing off towards where he intended to go. “Wanna come with?”

Emizel looks back that way, before turning back to Soda with a big smile on his face. 

“Oh hell yeah I do! I love the funny intersection!” he starts to walk down the alley, about to step over the body of the broken skull, when Soda speaks up.

“Uh, hey, shouldn't we uh.. Do something about the.. uh..” He waves a hand over towards the bodies, trying not to look directly at them. 

Emizel spares the corpses an inconvenienced glance, and a sigh, but ultimately shrugs them off. “Ehhh I'll just dump 'em in a dumpster again.. That's what I've been doing anyway.”

“And you're not worried about, like, anyone finding them?”

Soda anxiously watches on as Emizel paces around the body with the torn-out throat, licking the blood from his own mouth. Was his tongue always that long and pointed? That's neat, and normally Soda would point it out, but he was a bit.. preoccupied right now 

“Nahh not really. I haven't had anyone bother me at least.. Anyone been bothering you?” Emizels eyes finally flick back over to Soda. 

“Nah, I'd say things are actually more lax than usual. Anything that would end up being trouble’s been pretty much crushe- er, killed- destr- stamped out, by uh, by you.” Sods was cringing with every attempt to find a word that didn’t make his stomach turn, but Emizel didn’t seem to notice or mind.

Emizels eyes were currently a bit more focused on the body laying before him. He had that weird look on his face again… 

“Uhh, yeah, yeah that's good that uh, no troubles coming back to you guys…”

There’s a moment of quiet between the two as Emizel stares at this corpse, and Soda was about to open his mouth to fill the silence, but Emizel speaks up instead.

“Hey uh, why don’t you go ahead of me? I’ll uh, I'll meet you at the place.” He suggests, pointing vaguely off down the alley, but not removing his eyes from the kill. 

Soda certainly hesitates, his eyes narrowing before he even forms a thought. He opens his mouth to object, but then his eyes flicker back towards the body.

“Are you gonna eat this one too?”

The question leaves Sodas mouth as soon as it comes to mind.

Emizel pauses, and considers, before giving a shrug. “I don't see why not. Perfectly good blood.” He reaches down to grab his kill by the shirt, the one with the split open head. As the corpse rises from the concrete, gray matter drips and sloughs from the crack in its skull. Once again, Soda felt the need to look away, and yet his stupid eyes remained fixated on the horrendous sight. Emizel looks over the spilling brain of his meal, licking his lips curiously. “Dude, what do you think would happen if I ate his brain?” Emizel asks, looking back over to Soda with a wild, bloodied smile. Something about that look made Soda shiver, but.. Not really in a bad way… “Uh, I.. Dunno…. Eating a persons brain is how you get like, mad cow disease right? But you might also be immune to disease.. Are you immune to disease?” “Uhhh, I don't know yet actually. I'm still figuring out how much of this is like video games,” Emizel says, rubbing the back of his head as he idly sways the body of his kill around, watching the blood and gore drip and drop from its broken head. “Eh, I'll chance it later.” Without another word or thought, Emizel goes to sink his teeth into the shoulder of his kill, a pleased growl radiating from him as the blood gushes around the bite. More fresh blood upon less fresh blood upon old blood upon older blood. Just so much fucking blood. Soda thought he was used to seeing blood, but this… this was just egregious. Was he really starting to get used to this? It’s just blood after all, and it’s not from his comrades, so it's… fine… He finally manages to pull his eyes away from the gruesome sight of Emizel feeding, but his eyes instead wander down to the blood on his own shirt. Emizels blood was strange, darker than usual, and carrying a different scent. Something about the smell of his blood was more savory, more appealing than the standard metallic miasm. His shirt was smothered in it, his jacket was coated in it, and his opened bottle of Faygo was also splattered with the deep red ichor. Ink swirls within the bottle of red fizzy, spreading out into all sorts of odd patterns. It was a lot of blood. He was certain a lot of it came from however many people Emizels been feeding on. With how much hes been terrorizing the Fangs in just the last few days, and with how nonchalantly he feasts on his kills, who knows how much blood hes actually ingested… Soda swirls the bottle, watching the blood inside thin out into strands, dancing within the bubbly soda as they gradually dissipate, fully assimilating into the drink. A bad idea chews at the back of his head… The sound of ripping flesh once again knocks at Sodas head. He doesn’t look up this time, but he knew Emizel was just playing with his food again..  Did blood taste good to a vampire? Did some blood taste better than others? What did Sodas blood taste like? What did Emizels blood taste like? There's a visceral snap of something among the chewing and ripping, very clearly a bone or a joint snapping out of place. It made Soda shiver a little. When did his heart start pounding? There's an animal standing only 8 feet away from him, feeding on its kill. That animal is a person, and so is its kill. He wanted to know what vampire blood tasted like, but he already knew what human blood tasted like. It hung so densely in the air, he could feel it forming a vile film over his tongue. The blood of a person just like him. Eaten by an animal that eats people.  All this stress was no good. This bile rising to his throat was no good. This creeping anxiety was no good. He's friends with an animal that eats people. Would it eat him? This weird feeling was no good. Maybe it will never eat him. But it needs to eat people. This worry was no good. He needed to wash this awful taste from his mouth, replace it with something sweeter. He needed to keep his head clear enough to be there for Emizel when he needed to be. He needed to hold a light to these shadows. And he needed to stay positive, and drink soda. He takes a swig of the open Faygo bottle.

[the-chessboard-is-personal]

ii s3 liveblog

I'm a bit sad rn so sorry if my reactions are bad this time

1 - I'm not supposed to relate to Balloon am I. y'know. the guy that did something bad in the recent past and now everyone hates them even though they're trying to change.. sigh. wHAT? h. how is he here?? HOW IS SHE HERE??? ...does MePhone look different from how he was in the first half of s2? it's been a bit since I watched that but I swear there's something different about him. oh, new intrthe island is alive. warp pipe.

2 - yup sure :) 👍 right okay BOW is glitching now. something to do with chairs and maybe she lost her memories? she was obsessed with chairs before she died, so..oh fuck I'm taking as many notes as Cabby huh

3 - oh I thought I had something to say about this one. sorry

4 - if the floor gets eliminated, how will that work? .yo WHAT is going on with candleMUMBO JUMBO CATCHPHRASE ... I. I don't think that's what polishing a screen does.?

5 - what if Box wins lol ..oh. wait there was no formal elimination, I guess that got replaced with Box being pulled this episode

6 - them ,,,,,they,both of them,, the cool(s) -> ☯

7 - well call me a camera because [screenshots the auras file]. . . . . . . . . . a. ..nobody knows about this joke yet but if I had a- uh. nickel. for every time a series I know about had a character named Bow with trigger words, I would have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice what is going on with Bow and chairs. HEY MARSHMALLOW TOO?? yes I will keep doing this strikethrough bit

8 - oh fuck I just realized. "iii" as in Inanimate Insanity Invitational but also as in 3 (roman numeral) because it's season 3. also just based on the title I have a bad feeling about this episode (<-half-right??) wait WHAT. MePhone what the fuck does that rnean. whhaaAAAA- oh. agdjhk s ghdclod damn it the commercial is pLOT RELEVANT. hhhhey quick question. how uh. how do we know that everyone's back in the right body..? like. there were some characters who weren't onscreen after they all died again. uhh

9 - th. this episode is probably not like. actually worse than the other ones or anything. but, with the bias I had already formed because I distrust people with the name of the one this episode is a collab with, some stress I was already feeling today before even starting this liveblog, something Balloon said at around 9:14, said pre-liveblog stress making me associate the whole "animation machine" thing (which is seen as bad) with something I like but everyone else hates, I personally have nothing good to say about it.

10 - why is Cabby gold. oh it's whoever has the Immunity Cookie. wait did Cabby forget about TBD because her file was burned??

11 - bat? pokemon. the game you're thinking of is pokemon. wait did he say backstab HOW DOES HE KNOW CANDLE SAW BETRAYAL?? ..yeah I was wondering how that would work

12 - I knew it. I knew Cabby would forget stuff that isn't in a file! urghhh can they Please vote out silver spoon already. he's not gonna WIN, right?? sorry. but I don't like him.

13 - oh the intro reflected Bot's change in appearance. neat! nononoononoNONOONNO GAUhokay. listen I know it's probably not going to happen but I really want YinYang to win. and holy shit that "for the rest of your life" was foreshadowing.

14 - okay off to a start that makes me want to punch something. okay. okay. it's not a real ad. good. HUH HE GLITCHED holy shit, damn uzumaki lookin rooms what is this /positive(?) ☯ 👈 GRIAN INSTINCT (which. to be fair, mood). p u r p l e . PURPLE ACKNOWLEDGED. WHAT WAS THAT! ohhh what the hell. you fuck off this INSTANT you silver shitface. ohh I hate him. I hate him more than I hate Cobs. ..does Cabby not have parents? SPLRINGY IS FAKE. SPRINGY IS A ROBOT OR SOMETHING MADE BY COBS I'M CALLING IT NOW. please please please kill the spoon kill the spoon plEASE- ARRGHHH

15 - seeing as the next episode has Blueberry in the thumbnail and is called The Great Bluish Bake Off, I have a slight prediction on who will win the rejoin. wait what. yeah I'm gonna be honest I don't think it was murder. NO NONONOONO DON'T NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WAUGHHH,,,,,

16 - why....why am I finding Nickel so relatable. w h a t . now I've never had oatmeal raisin cookies, but I don't think they're the Number One Cause of global warming. I know it's a cartoon and awHAT THE HELL HE JUST DIED

(between 16 and 17) m. MePhone knows. MePhone knows what's going to happen when the season ends, doesn't he? that's why he doesn't want it to. that's why he's desperate. but the question remains, what does he know that the viewers don't?

17 - wait this episode is from 10 months ago. is- is the series not over? damn it! I prefer to binge watch stuff so I don't forget while waiting for new episodes. oh don't even fucking go there. 14:01 FUCK OFF.

(between 17 and 18) y'know I was trying to watch this to ESCAPE all the drama and discourse everyone hates me for. this just feels personal at this point. but hey, who cares about me, right? onto the next damn episode!

18 - there's another 4 under that 4. are they all 4s. ohhh noooo, what an inteeense moooooment. wow it's really fucking difficult to care right now.

19 - again final episode so I'll break this into sections. kinda

..,.Cabby..I think I understand a bit more about my own..situation because of Cabby. wait wait. "built" to? BUILT to?? HMMMMMM 4S is still here?? what ??? ? well at least the one that YinYang wanted to win won..!

and that's season 3 huh.

well. that was kinda filler? tbh?

and the message in episode 17 sucked- ..eh. hold on. I'm getting too angry over some discourse. I need a break from typing this.

okay after like half an hour I realized something. they were trying to win an award. I like AI art, but I don't think it should ever win any awards in competition with human art. the two are fundamentally different. I don't think there should be any competitions that have both, especially high prestige ones. that line at 14:0whatever was too far though.

my opinion is that human art and AI art are both art. but they're VERY different forms of art, and should probably be kept that way.

overall I liked the season. sure, YinYang didn't win and episodes 9 and 17 are...like that. but it's not that bad tbh.

probably gonna watch the rest of s2 tomorrow, but for now I just want to play minecraft.

[puffskeeter]

Hey I’m such a big fan of your art and I very much enjoy watching your YouTube channel 🤍🤍

And I want to ask you why you don’t ship the ppgxrrb and I want to hear your opinion about it which I can very much respect.

Plus another question that what type of fashion you think your au of the Powerpuff, Rowdyruff, and your Original Characters fall into between I really love how you draw them?

OMG TYSM!! I think i've seen your comments on my videos and TYSM for those too!! :D

I'll make a seperate post for my fashions/aesthetics for RRBORN characters! this one is pretty long even though i wanted it to be short lolz

Why i dont actively ship PPGxRRB:

I'm scrapping my drafted essay post about this for now because its really uncalled for and unnecessary. IDK sorry to anyone who looked forwards 2 it, but i just dont think i illustrate my point very well and more than half of it is lowkey a biased vent post and pure rambling. Either way this is the TLDR for the post you'll never see LOL.

But actually, I do ship PPGxRRB, i've just drifted away from it over the years. I think one of the biggest 'problems' i have with PPG x RRB is mainly with the portrayal of it. My main issue is with how a lot of people mischaracterize the RRB/PPG and completely deconstruct them as characters so that they can be love interests for the eachother and nothing more. One of my points in my scrapped post was that; I have no idea how an entire fandom managed to gender-bend the Bechdel test, but it is rare that i find PPGxRRB media where the RRB have actual lives, interests, hobbies, and friends that have nothing to do with the PPG. Half the time they can barely have a thought if it isn't about the PPG. As i said, Gender-bent Bechdel test.

Another point was that: ppgxrrb has gained a horrible reputation for itself over the years. Back in its "Glory" days, Toxic fans of the ships had bulldozed anything that differs from their favorite empty dynamics. Those usually being The Reds, Blues, and Greens. Nowadays i still see almost nothing in the realms of variety between creators interpretations of the ships. Almost every time i see a PPGxRRB post, it can fit into a set dynamic that the ship is already infamous for.

I want to be able to see the creators love and passion for their ships. I want to know how and why these characters ended up together. If a story is to be told, i want to hear it. I know that the majority of PPGxRRB creators are, by default, amateurs (they dont get paid and its not on a professional scale), but after seeing the exact same badly written love story hundreds , maybe even thousands of times with little-to-no variety, I've gotten bored and tired of people devaluing my favorite characters to be nothing more than overplayed dynamics and shipping fuel.

A lot of people like shipping because of the dynamics, but ship dynamics don't hook me in, and ive noticed that most PPGxRRB stuff is purely ship dynamics and nothing more. Theres nothing wrong with loving ship dynamics or being drawn to ships for their specific dynamics! I just dont care about dynamics, i care about chemistry and story. But most amateurs cant effectively show the chemistry or write the story, a lot of them can barely characterize the 2 characters in their ships.

FYI this isnt about anyone specific or even many recent fans of PPGxRRB. I've been in/around the online PPG fandom since before 2016, and a lot of my thoughts/feelings on the matter have a lot to do with stuff that happened over the years i've loved this series, and more specifically, The RowdyRuff Boys.

To be clear: When i say that they are mischaracterized, i'm not talking about HC's. I'm just tired of seeing the PPG and RRB dulled down into one-note personalities with stereotypical characterization and almost always no tangible character development. A love story is still a story, and a lot of shippers seem to half ass the "story" for favor of the "love".

I dont hate or even dislike PPG x RRB. I'm just really tired of rarely seeing people do the RRB justice, and i want these characters to be treated with the full respect that i think they deserve.

WOW this post is way to long already... still a lot shorter than my OG post. Sorry for being insane about the RRB. it will happen again.

[wowbright]

Chapter 18: Busy

Figureskating!Blaine/designer!Kurt Olympics AU for december klaine fanworks challenge. Also on AO3.

You might expect an Olympian at the Olympics to be incredibly busy, but for Blaine’s first few days at Sochi, he didn't have much to do as he waited for the games to start besides unpack, tour the facilities, chitchat in Russian with any Russian who would speak to him, and play foosball in the lounge with Mike and Sam (who had become far less insufferable since the backflip incident).

Blaine wanted to go into Sochi proper and see if he could find any locals to talk to about the effect of all the new construction, but it was an hour drive each way—and even though he didn't have much to do, the few things he did have scheduled were sprinkled throughout the day. He slept a lot and practiced a little and managed to escape the Olympic village with a bunch of teammates long enough to go on a hike in the foothills. The park looked absolutely nothing like Garden of the Gods, but it reminded him of being with Kurt anyway, and he felt an ache in his chest that he simultaneously wished would go away and also wanted to wallow in because it was so new and precious. He snapped a photo of the waterfall and sent it to Kurt with a text that said Wish you were here and then immediately regretted sending such an unoriginal sentiment to such an original person, so then he sent another message saying I ache when I think of you and I love it and wondered if maybe that was too much but whoops he had already sent it.

I might be a bad person was the next message Blaine received from Kurt when he was back in the Olympic village. Blaine wondered if his texts from the park had failed to transmit.

What happened? Blaine asked.

Because I like the fact that you ache. It means I'm not alone in the feeling.

The feeling of missing you? Blaine texted, half flirtatious and half concerned that was what Kurt literally meant.

You’re cute, Kurt texted back. It’s not me that I’m missing. And then, a while later, Sue thinks I'm distracting you.

Ugh. So that’s why she had interfered with Blaine’s last conversation with Kurt in Colorado Springs. Not to talk about costumes or trip logistics. But to— Did she threaten you?

It took a few moments for Kurt to respond. Unsure. Her tone was kind of threatening, and she did say something about punching me in the face if I kept you from medaling, but she also promised to get me a kitty cat I would fall in love with if you didn’t medal. Sue is very confusing.

I'm sorry. It's my fault. It's because I was late to that meeting. But you're not a distraction. At least, not in a bad way. If anything, Kurt was an inspiration. Before Kurt, Blaine had been approaching the Olympics half-heartedly. And then Kurt had shown up, and by the simple act of being himself, he had helped Blaine remember why he had fallen in love with figure skating in the first place. The way Kurt’s eyes lit up when he had a new idea, the way he talked about the process of co-creation inherent in costume design, the obvious joy he felt in bringing a shared vision to life—it reminded Blaine on a visceral level that what he was doing was art, and art could transform lives.

When Blaine had been younger, his dreams had so much bigger than figure skating. He’d wanted to help people through his art. Giving people a respite from their day-to-day struggles by having something beautiful to look at was part of it, of course. But it was more than that. He’d wanted to be a person gay kids who were in the closet and multiracial kids who wondered where they fit in could look to and feel a spark of hope, knowing that there was someone famous and respected who was like them. That's why he wanted to be a champion—not for the bragging rights, but so he could inspire others.

Those feelings had motivated Blaine through most of his career. But recently, he’d lost sight of them. Maybe they got buried under all the dysfunctional stuff with Eli, or maybe it was a natural period of burnout after more than a decade of pushing himself and being pushed. In any case, he had stopped caring about winning. Sure, he told himself that he wanted to win. But deep inside, he had the niggling thought: What did it matter, who got bronze or silver or gold? Every year, the competitions came and went and the medals inevitably ended up with somebody. Why should he care if he was one of them?

Those doubts had haunted his performance in the seasons prior to the Olympics. The only thing that had kept him going was the challenge of adding more rotations to his jumps and trying to make the odd new spin combinations Sue kept coming up with work. In retrospect, it was a miracle he had medaled at all, and even more of a miracle he was now here in Sochi. Sam had been right about one thing. Blaine hadn't earned his place on the team. He was a second stringer who made it to the top three only by dint of someone more deserving getting injured. And even after his place had been secured, even with Sue doing every weird thing she could think of to motivate him, even after designing  programs with the goal of reviving the energy and focus of his younger days—even with all that, he’d kept thinking that maybe it was his time to fade into the background and let the likes of Sam Evans and Yuzuru Hanyu take over the sport.

And then Kurt had shown up and put Blaine back in touch with his heart.

In those private moments in the costume room, they had talked about the boycotts and the media frenzy and how fatiguing it was sometimes, wondering if there would ever come a day when politicians who were failing to address the real problems affecting their constituencies would stop using random minorities as scapegoats. It was all so impersonal and calculating, and yet the effects of it were deeply personal, transforming real people's lives, making it harder to live and breathe and just get by in the day-to-day, much less to find happiness.

But somehow, Blaine was finding happiness anyway. He wanted to help others find it, too. It was the most beautiful sort of defiance, to live and love and create in a world that wanted you to believe you were nothing.

You inspire me to be better, Kurt. I don't know how I would do this without you.

You've done it plenty of times before without me.

No, I haven't. This time is different.

How?

Blaine wasn't sure how to distill it into words that would fit on a phone screen. Because I'm different and the world is different. It's about something much bigger than me.

I think I get it, Kurt texted. I'm glad I can be there for you. I want to be.

~~~

If anyone was a distraction Sue should be worried about, it was Cooper. Before that interview at the Olympic Training Center and every day after, Cooper had bombarded Blaine with messages like Whenever you want to make a public statement I'm ready. And even though Blaine deleted every one of them, he couldn't delete the pain of receiving them. But Cooper was so single minded. He put his entire identity into his work. When he'd been in the NHL, everything was always about the NHL. And now that he was sportscaster, it was all about that.

ButAll Blaine wanted from his brother was for him to be like other people's brothers, sending him stupid texts about the latest episode of Homeland or his obsession with playing The Last of Us or even, you know, wishing him good luck.

Blaine wanted to believe that Cooper meant well. That this was his way of reaching out and saying I see you, but I don't know how to have a conversation that does not tie back to my identity as a media figure, so even my best efforts at communicating with you in a supportive manner will be couched in those terms.

That’s how Cooper’s support had always been packaged. Back when Blaine had decided to come out publicly, Cooper had run interference with their parents. “Of course we support you, Blaine,” his mother had said. “But what you do in private should stay private. You know, you should talk to Brian Boitano before you do anything rash. There’s a reason he never came out publicly. It would have ruined his career.”

But Cooper, who had already been in the public eye for nearly a decade at that point, had used his career in the NHL to persuade their parents to support Blaine. If he didn't come out, Cooper explained, he would be plagued with incessant questions about if he was dating and who was his girlfriend, and he wouldn't be able to answer any of them honestly. And since Blaine was absolutely terrible at lying, the public would know he was lying, opening him up to rumors and speculation and scandal. If Blaine wasn't keeping any secrets, he wouldn't have to worry about any of those things.

Blaine shouldn’t look askance at that. It was the right thing to say to their parents. They wouldn't have been persuaded by emotional appeals or arguments about integrity and being true to yourself. Blaine had already tried those. And to be fair to Cooper, sometimes he actually could say something nice and supportive without referring back to himself. After that taxing conversation with their parents, Cooper had said privately to Blaine, “I'm so sorry our parents are like this. I can't imagine what it’s like for you. But I’m glad you’re my brother. Our parents need to stop being such homophobes. They should be proud of you for who you are, not just your skating. I am.”

And Blaine had thought Cooper was being a little harsh, because their parents weren't virulent homophobes; they were the milder kind, the kind that could have gay friends and be fine with it, but for whom having a gay son was inconvenient and disturbing because it upended their expectations for a daughter-in-law and grandchildren and heteronormative Christmas photos. They we're proud of him in their own way. But also, they would have preferred him to be more like Cooper.

But Cooper didn't need Blaine to be like Cooper. So Blaine had cried and Cooper had hugged him, and even Cooper cried a little, and Blaine hadn't felt this close to his older brother since Cooper first taught him how to skate.

Blaine wanted to believe that Cooper was trying to be supportive again, to offer Blaine the opportunity to say what was on his mind publicly so that it didn't seep out in unproductive ways. But what could Blaine say that would make a difference? His teammate Ashley Wagner had already told the Today show “it’s horrible the treatment the LGBT community gets in Russia,’’ and Brian Boitano had finally come out and been appointed by President Obama to the U.S. presidential Olympic delegation along with already-out Billie Jean king and Caitlin Caho. Weren't those pretty big statements in themselves? Blaine didn't know what words he could add. Maybe the biggest F-you he could give to Putin would be winning the gold.

The day Kurt was supposed to arrive in Sochi but didn’t because his flight was delayed, Cooper texted, You speaking up could help people.

If Kurt had been there—if Blaine had picked him up at the airport that morning and Blaine had sat contentedly in the corner of his hotel room as he unpacked and they had gone to lunch and then for a walk along the Black Sea—Blaine would have had someone to talk with about this. Sure, there was Mike, but he had his own pressures to deal with right now. And there was Sebastian, but they didn't really talk about this kind of thing. But with Kurt, Blaine felt like he could talk about anything, even the parts of himself he was unsure about and didn't understand.

It shouldn't only be that way with Kurt. Family was supposed to be like that, too.

This time, Blaine didn't delete the text. He texted back, You know what would help? If I could talk to you without it turning into a story. I want you to be my brother, not my interviewer. If you can't do that, stop messaging me.

~~~

That night, Blaine woke up only a couple hours after going to bed. He’d been dreaming about being with Kurt in the Garden of the Gods, only in this dream it was summer and warm, and sometimes the sunset shone through the rocks, lighting everything up in pink and orange, and sometimes it was night and the Aurora Borealis illuminated the dark with dazzling streaks of green and purple. Kurt had on short sleeves and an ascot—a tantalizing blend of skin revealed and hidden—and they were holding hands, and Kurt said something that made Blaine’s heart ache in that increasingly familiar, delicious way, and Blaine ran his fingers over the Kurt’s forearm and Kurt smiled and Blaine's heart overflowed and he said, “This is my home, Kurt,” and Kurt understood exactly what he meant.

Blaine lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. The curtains were flimsy, letting plenty of light into the room and Blaine’s eyes now that he had pulled his sleeping mask off. Inside him, another long-buried dream was awakening. Once upon a time, Blaine had dreamt of sharing his life with someone—really sharing his life, not just his bed and his body, but his hopes and aspirations, too. He’d dreamt of having a husband and creating a home that would nurture them both, a sanctuary where they could explore life together and bring out the best in each other, where every day Blaine would discover something new about himself and also be challenged to look beyond himself as he learned to understand the world through another person's eyes.

He'd gotten glimpses of that in some of his relationships. As a teenager falling in love for the first time, he’d been so open and generous and naïve. But with each breakup, he’d pulled his armor a little tighter around himself, always holding something back because he knew he would eventually get hurt, and the blows would cause less harm than if he never revealed the parts of himself that were vulnerable.

Around Kurt, Blaine didn't feel a need for armor. He wanted Kurt to see and know everything. And sure, that was risky.

But this time, with this person, it would hurt more to never take the risk.

Blaine lay in bed for ten minutes, maybe twenty, listening to Mike snore and thinking about Kurt, before realizing he was not going to fall back asleep anytime soon. His body was convinced it was early afternoon, and Blaine didn't feel like fighting it. It wasn't like he had to go to bed early and get up early like he did back in the U.S., anyway. All his slots were scheduled for late afternoon or evening. As long as he was adjusted enough to feel awake and revived for those, it wouldn't matter if he slept when it was dark or light.

Besides, Blaine had something better to do than sleep.

He grabbed his phone from the nightstand, tiptoed into the bathroom, and shut the door. It was a nice bathroom, with walls covered floor to ceiling in large twenty- by forty-centimeter tiles like you’d find in a fancy hotel—way more posh than Blaine had ever seen in a normal Russian apartment. He wondered if the people who’d been kicked out of their homes to make way for the Olympic complex would move in here after the games were over, or if the luxe bathrooms would go empty and unused while people who could benefit from them languished in substandard housing.

Blaine hated the Olympics sometimes.

He checked his phone to see if Kurt’s final plane had landed in Sochi yet. No. It was still in the air, and with customs, he likely wouldn't arrive at his hotel for another couple hours at least.

Which gave Blaine time.

He composed a text.

Sebastian, I have an idea.

~~~

“Before you check in, I have good news and bad news,” Sebastian said when Kurt stepped into the lobby with his customs-cleared luggage and the strong desire to take his travel frustrations out on someone. He just wanted to see Blaine. And obviously he’d known Blaine wasn't going to be here because it was the middle of the night, and that was completely logical, especially because they weren't even technically boyfriends or anything yet, and Kurt hadn’t even known Blaine a few weeks ago so really he should be able to survive just fine another day without him, but also Blaine made everything lighter and better and more joyful and …

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” Kurt said. He figured whatever the bad news was, it couldn't be that bad: Blaine was alive and healthy; they'd been sending each other flirty and suggestive texts about their mutual versatility just minutes before when Kurt had still been in taxi. “Why are you even awake?”

“I'm awake because I love the nightlife, and I like to boogie. Also, it can’t wait. You’re staying in my room.”

 “You’re kidding me.”

“Well, it's a suite, technically. One door, two rooms. I'm being nice and giving you the bedroom with the door that actually closes.”

That was better than sharing a single room, or much worse, a bed. As long as the sheets had been changed since Sebastian had last used them. But— “I've been through four different airports in two days and you probably thought I was thrilled to be rerouted through Charles de Gaulle since I actually speak French, but in Munich they have sleeping pods you can rent, where in Paris it was just benches or the floor, and I missed my flight in Belgrade and the next one was late and they made me go through customs just so I could go to a hotel and shower and sleep in an actual bed for a few hours, and I’m starting to get a tiny grasp on Cyrillic but that doesn't really help when I don't actually know what any of the words mean, and I tried to sleep some more on the airplane to get adjusted to the new time zone but the turbulence was insane and also the person next to me was eating cayenne covered edamame even though they clearly couldn't handle the heat because they coughed every single time they swallowed and kept asking the flight attendant for more milk and water, so of course every time the seat belt lights went off they were climbing over me to get to the bathroom, seriously I don't understand how a four-hour flight can be so miserable but I hate people and I hate everyone and I'm supposed to have my own room.”

Sebastian smiled. He smiled. As if Kurt’s irritation was amusing. “Look, I'm not thrilled about this either. But somehow among the most expensive Olympic preparations the world has ever known, somebody forgot that the media would need housing too. All the hotels are overbooked. They gave your room to somebody else when you were flying over the Atlantic.”

“Fuck me.”

“No. But that brings me to the good news. Turn around.”

“Oh, yippee. A bar. I don't want a drink, Sebastian, I want— Blaine!"

Blaine was there, in the bar, smiling at him. Blaine. With his sparkling eyes and his hair that Kurt longed to touch and his beauty and kindness and generosity. He was real and physical and here. Kurt forgot that he hated everyone in the world and just wanted to be alone—or rather, a switch flicked inside of him and he no longer felt that way, because Blaine was a person and Blaine was beautiful and Kurt wanted to be with him. He abandoned his suitcase with the still-chattering Sebastian and almost ran across the lobby, his heart pounding from nerves and excitement and something that felt an awful lot like love and probably, in fact, was. No, not probably. Kurt had already known falling in love with Blaine would be inevitable. Here it was.

“Care to join me?” Blaine said, his expression radiant with hope and a little shyness. “I know you've had a long trip, so if not—”

“Of course I do,” Kurt said, sitting across the two-person table from Blaine and touching his shoe to Blaine’s. “It’s been too long.”

“Ahem.” That was Sebastian, holding on to Kurt’s suitcase and setting a keycard on the table. “I'm going back to the room for a minute anyway, so I guess I'll deliver your luggage there, Mr. Hummel. And then I'll be going out for a few hours. You know, in case that information is relevant to you.”

Blaine turned pink. It was precious. “Sebastian, you don't have to—”

“I have a life too, you know. I’ve made plans. The dance scene here is off the chain. The snowboarders know how to party, unlike some Olympians I know. Da svidania, boys.”

And then Sebastian was gone, and it was just the two of them, and Kurt wasn’t tired anymore.

[ratlesshonret]

Something that has struck me from being in the Limbus community a while now, and having recently joined the Limbus subreddit, is that Limbus Company has a big problem...

The Onboarding Experience.

THE PROBLEM

When I started Limbus, the sheer amount of shit to get was overwhelming. So many IDs and EGOs, all of which individually were so expensive that it took a ton of grinding just to get one thing.

That was ten months ago. I believe the amount of IDs/EGOs in the game has increased by at least 50% since then.

I grind a lot more than the average player, doing about 2 MDs a day, as well as all my dailies. It takes me about a week to save enough Shards to gain one Identity/EGO, not including any limited-time events or new BPs coming out. Right now, I have... I'd say just over half the EGO, and all but two Identities. After ten months of playing.

This is woefully slow. Sure, you don't need every EGO/ID to play the game, but if you want good teams, it'll likely take at least 2-3 months to Shard enough IDs and EGO to build enough good teams to reliably take on Refraction Railway without headache.

There's also the story content. For the first... almost four Cantos, the game is so easy that you don't really need to try. Just do Pulls to get 1-2 good IDs and then throw them at the story until you get through. Though of course, 4-48 always takes people by surprise. And then 5-30. And then Canto V Dungeon. And then BHK. And then--

Even me, who grinds a lot, was actually pretty underleveled until Canto VI, where I was just slightly underleveled. Because getting EXP Tickets, especially for a whole team, is slow as shit. And UT3ing a whole team, for a new player, is actually a serious time investment just for the bare minimum. I see people going into Ricardo with UT2 team members because they don't have Thread. And UT4? Forget about it.

Sure, you can say Limbus isn't very hard, but a lot of stages sort of play like stat checks. And getting those stats can be rough as a new player.

I know they've done stuff to remedy this, like the "New Players Event" or whatever, and they'll be tapering off the EXP Curve for levels above 45, but it doesn't seem like enough.

New players have to grind a lot just to get a good enough team to beat story content. Especially now that Canto VII has such rough encounters.

So what can we do?

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

-Improve the "New Player Track" to add enough to level/UT a full team

Feels like a bandage solution for such a serious problem.

-Bump up the rewards for ALL Thread and EXP Luxcavations

Could be a good solution, if done well. Though if you buff it too much, you risk making early and midgame content too easy.

-Bring back old Mirror Dungeons and Railways.

This is my personal favorite solution. Letting people run old MDHards as they came out to get rewards feels nice. And old Railway rewards definitely wouldn't break the game, since most of them came out at a time when people just generally had less stuff anyway, so the rewards are only okay by today's standards.

Also gives players more stuff to do other than the "Story > Thread/EXP > MDNormal" loop. And justifies the inclusion of those mini episodes they release upon a new RR/MD dropping to a modern audience.

This still doesn't "fix" Shards though. I feel like Shard economy is still really rough as a new player. I think my solution is just to increase how many BP Levels doing an MD gives you based on which one you're doing. So maybe MD1 gives two levels, MD2 gives three, MD3 gives four, etc...

If that happened, new players would have ways to get Shards as they do now, with more Shards the further they get into the story. And I wouldn't have to grind for a week to get one ID.

But maybe I'm insane and Shard economy is fine, who knows.

CONCLUSION?

no idea.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/663370772509802496/do-you-know-what-the-origin-of-the-sold-to-one

So I was looking at this old post of yours (in your fandom meta tag) and has anyone else noticed that Hogwarts AU fanfic and meta about if this or that character from another fandom would be Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw has completely disappeared? I assume that this is related to JKR’s transphobia making her (understandably) persona non grata to a lot of online queer people of the kind who dominate fanfic fandom at least on AO3 (I’m less familiar with Wattpad or other corners of fandom that are overwhelmingly cishet and writing het, and the Bridgerton drama has taught me a lot about just how out of pace a lot of them are with even elementary queer stuff, yeesh). but I was wondering if others have noticed that. It did seem to really start to crater around 2019-20 when she stopped being coy and blaming it on “middle aged moments,” and started openly making transphobic tweets and writing essays about it rather than just “liking” others’. Like when I was into Yuri on Ice circa 2016-18, it was still all over that fandom, even though people were already souring on the actual official franchise stuff such as those terrible Fantastic Beasts movies.

So I’m mostly active in anime, JRPG and Western genre TV fandoms so I was curious if this was also happening elsewhere. I’m also wondering if the fact that actual HP fandom seems to be increasingly divorced from canon (like fanon pairings of characters who never interacted in canon being the most popular lately) is related to this too.

Cuz having a Hogwarts AU used to be a sign that a fandom had Arrived. I remember in 2016 you saw people doing house sortings for the people on the frickin 538 political podcast. Now I never see any of that even with huge fandoms.

It’s interesting to me given that it feels like her transphobia hasn’t dented much of her popularity with non online nerd culture. Like the third Fantastic Beasts movie failed but those had never been good and had been declining in box office numbers already. But the Hogwarts Legacy game sold really well. You still see HP in stores all over the place with other nerd culture staples like Star Wars and Marvel. Still constantly see brands doing collabs. I often find non online friends and family, including many who are genuine allies to the trans people in their lives, who have no idea about her transphobia. Or they’ve only heard a little and assume it’s some weird insular online culture thing that is just fans nitpicking, maybe having heard about some other Twitter “canceling” over nothing and figuring it’s like that. They’re always shocked and horrified when I tell them what she’s actually saying and doing.

--

Interesting question.

For me, as an Old, it just feels like Hogwarts AUs are part of my childhood, and why wouldn't they be less common now? But realistically, if they actually are declining, it does mean something.

There's no way for us to know if the "Would X be a Hufflepuff?" posts are really a thing of the past. That could be a question of whom one follows or of fans leaving one's platform. But we can at least poke at some AO3 tags and see if they show a pattern.

The relevant tags are Alternate Universe - Hogwarts and its metatag Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting.

There are 21,426 works in the metatag. Obviously, not everything uses the tag, but it's a starting point. (Some cursory playing with filters on big tags makes me think that maybe around 3/4 of HP AUs are actually tagged with a relevant AU tag.)

If we look at the AU tag itself, the numbers have come down in the last few years. (This year is obviously only half over, so we'd expect those numbers to be smaller.)

But we have to take into account how big the archive itself was. It's been growing significantly since it opened to staff accounts in late 2008 and then more widely in late 2009, so the overall rise doesn't mean much, but the recent drop might.

It does seem like there's a downward trend lately, but it doesn't look like it's falling off a cliff.