#it feels really great to be able to look back at my art and think that :)

[emryx]

When two NPCs with maybe 5 total minutes of screentime have you so obsessed you give them a child 🏃🏻

BEHOLD—my Teiago fankid, Elias de Riva (plus an info dump about him and his parents below because I’m very normal abt them but you can skip that and jus look at all the art if you want 🫣)

Realistically, it’s really hard to imagine a scenario where these two have a kid. But that’s what fanart and hcs are for 🙌 As of right now, I hc that around the time of the dialog from one of the crows abt Teia and Viago being "on again" is when he's conceived. But they don't really find out until after the ending of Veilguard. Any symptoms Teia might experience beforehand are just written off as stress or straight up ignored because of how much they have on their respective plates with the Antaam and the gods. Viago even calls her out for never going home and insists she takes a contract to “kill a vacation.” So I don't think it'd be too far fetched for her to look the other way until things are settled in Treviso again because of timeline stuff.

No clue how they react after the initial news rn but that can come later. They start being a little less childish with their back and forth break-ups at least once the seriousness of it all sinks in lol

Viago did not like the idea at first, I know that much. Mans was STRUGGLING with Elias in the early stages. Babies are loud, unpredictable, often inconsolable little heathens that he can't analyze or have a consistent system for. It would drive him nuts. A tiny human who can't yet care for itself and constantly needs to be held and directed, paired with his touch-aversion, OCD, and need for set routines? Yeahhh…Teia understands, but on one hand that woman just went through 9 months of her own hell and she's shoving that boy into his arms sometimes regardless of his bad days LMAO

It helps, in the end. Pushes him to gradually get used to it over time. Viago starts to realize there is somewhat of a system to the whole dad thing and fatherhood grows on him because I said so.

He holds a lot of resentment and hatred towards his own father. As a bastard of the king and one of his drunk mistresses, I doubt Viago’s upbringing was too great. The whole “demon teeth” comment was enough to hint as such. He wouldn't be thrilled about taking care of a baby, but the thought of entrusting his son to nannies? Strangers?? No. That's something his dad would and did do and he’s better than him. This is his kid; He doesn't care if it's gross, he'd rather feel uncomfortable sometimes for the sake of Elias’s comfort than stoop as low as the king.

On top of spite, the paranoia with poison extends to Elias in a way; one of my favorite hcs I’ve seen is Viago being exposed to assassination attempts on the king or his mistresses/servants while he was growing up before joining the crows, whether it’s via stories or witnessing first hand. The thought of entrusting Elias’s life to anyone else gives him flashbacks to being a child himself, scared to eat or drink anything prepared by anyone because of how many times others were killed that way around him. Even doing extensive checks and handpicking a trustworthy nanny is not reliable and doesn’t guarantee safety. We love a paranoid dad.

Teia on the other hand? | think she'd like a family tbh. Maybe she didn’t react well to first finding out she was pregnant, but otherwise the idea grows on her quickly compared to Viago. As an orphan, she didn't get much of a family—the crows became her family, Caterina as her "nonna" and some of the older Talons as her weird uncles. Being able to experience what she never had with a child she can ensure has a good life feels fitting for her character. Heals a bit of her own inner child too, yk? 🫠 She’s such a caring woman despite her occupation and she’d make a good mother. Scary, but good LMSKSKX

Life as a crow is harsh. Being the child of not one but two Talons?? On one hand that kid is very protected but on the other he has a huge target on his back. If Viago was worried about people thinking House de Riva and House Cantori had an alliance, I can only imagine what a wholeass child would stir up. They both would prepare him well for the future in their own ways. It’s not canon to him, but the thought of Elias being ridiculously resistant to poisons because Viago started building his immunity up so young is funny to me 😭

Anyways ramble over. Some creative liberties were taken, such as his eyes being more golden like how Teia’s are described in Tevinter Nights. I may give Elias his curls back because he looks goofy next to Teia and Viago with his emo hair JAKAMC

I love their little family…

[amphibianaday]

day 1821 - half a decade!

redraw of day 1, 364, and 1000, but with a twist - now it's also my frogsona :D

for now i'll be taking a (maybe permanent) break for at least the rest of the year! see you in 2025!

previous versions for comparison below!

[fortunately-bi]

Do the followers know I'm a metal head? Do they know that I want to be covered in tattoos with an alternative look who listens to obscure metal bands and stuff? Or do I still come off as like, the nerd in the basement lmao

[nichuuu]

Beats Me - 7: Emails I Can’t Send

ft. Kim Minju

Word Count: 10k+

The first few minutes of your meeting are spent by Yeji and Yuna to catch up on life. 

You sit by the side, detached from the conversation as you sip on the latte (what did they put in this thing? It’s so damn good). They relive some highschool memories, ask each other what they’ve been studying—the usual stuff. The croissants at the counter look really good, and you’re wondering if they’ll taste as good as they look. Maybe you should buy one later. 

Yuna reminds you of Ryujin, only if Ryujin looked friendlier and less intimidating upon first glance. Her voice is distinct, her laugh even more so as she does that thing where she moves her feet like she’s running while she doubles over. Her eyes stay focused on her senior who—for the first time since you’ve seen her—is smiling. Yeji’s lanky fingers stay affixed to the straw, moving every now and then to disturb the ice as she stirs the drink. The coffee swirling in milk leaves light brown streaks against the side of her glass, creating these streaky patterns that look like they probably belong on an art piece. There are some details in her life that she briefly touches on but never delves into, probably because you’re there next to her.

Then it’s finally time. You’re dragged back into the conversation when Yeji says, “So you want to join the band?” and suddenly the cat that’s situated just outside the glass door doesn’t have your attention. Yea. Been looking for a chance to play, is Yuna’s reply, I saw you guys play at that bar the other time. You guys were great. 

Eunbi should be here. She would’ve been ecstatic to hear that.

Yeji nods her head, stirring her drink idly as she silently looks at her junior. You hope that Yuna’s stratagem to enter isn’t just flattery. A sinking feeling tells you that it just might be, judging from the way she’s shifting under the gaze of her senior.

“Remind me Yuna: how many years have you played the saxophone for?” Yeji inquires. Yuna’s response is quick, almost rehearsed—five years now. Never stopped playing for a single moment in my life—and Yeji seems rather pleased by it. Yuna sips on her grapefruit ade, casting a glance your way as Yeji drums her nails against the table. You shoot the younger girl a reassuring smile, and hopefully she gets the message that she’s doing great in your books.

Then Yeji unfolds her arms, taps a nail before your crossed arms that rest on the table to get your attention. The same nail points towards Yuna, and its owner simply gestures with her chin. You get what she wants you to do, though you would’ve appreciated it if she’d just told you what she wanted, and you clear your throat while sitting up a little straighter. 

“Um… Yeji kinda has me here to… Talk about my experience.” You internally cringe at your opening statement. What is this? An alumni sharing session? you chide yourself, all while you’re continuing on to whatever it is you have to say, “When you join this band, do expect yourself to be pushed a little. The hours aren’t all that taxing, but you gotta be able to… You know, strike that work life balance, as they say.”

And that’s just about all you have to say. Yeji neither smiles nor glares at you, only giving the smallest of nods as she focuses her attention on her junior. “If we give you a chart, you better learn it by heart by next practice. If we have a gig, practice will get more intensive. There’s a lot of things you need to be able to do Yuna. You can’t just think that you’re up to it; you have to be sure that you can shoulder all of these responsibilities.”

She’s making this sound like military recruitment, you’re thinking. Yuna’s definitely feeling a slight shift in atmosphere, and she’s fiddling with her glass as she stares straight into Yeji’s eyes. If you’re being honest: Yeji is definitely exaggerating the rigor of the band, and it’s probably scaring the poor girl. Your guitarist’s gaze isn’t at its peak intensity, but it’s enough to make Yuna purse her lips in silence, her smile fading from her face. Yeji greets her junior’s silence with a grim expression.

“So. Let me ask you again.” This time, Yeji’s tone is the furthest thing from gentle. “Are you ready to join us?”

Yuna stares at the melting ice in her glass. She takes a sip of her coffee, lets it sit in her mouth for a bit, and then swallows. “I’ll… I’ll text you when I’ve made up my mind.”

And all at once, it feels like all the happiness in the world has been sapped out of this cafe. Yeji stands up, leaving the rest of her latte untouched as she shoulders her bag and pushes in her chair. 

“I’ll pay you for the latte,” she says, albeit a bit too nonchalantly after she’d single handedly brought down the mood. “Text me how much it costs, then text me again once you’re sure that you want in.”

She doesn’t even wait for you, doesn’t even look at you; she just turns on her heel and leaves. And for a moment, you sit there in awkward silence with Shin Yuna. You can’t help but feel bad for the poor girl who’d just been subjected to unwarranted coldness; and you want to comfort her, but you don’t know how. With a sigh, you take the straw out of your cup, bring the glass to your mouth and down the rest of your latte. Yuna’s eyes stayed trained on her own latte, which was close to untouched. She watches as a single drop of condensation rolls down the side of the glass, landing on her coaster and getting absorbed into the material. 

“The band’s… Not as bad as she makes it sound,” you pipe, pausing for a brief moment to consider your words carefully. “Yeji tends to be a little… Mean sometimes.” Now that she has her eyes on you, you can’t help but feel a little shifty in your seat. She’s the type of girl that turns heads when she walks down the street, the type of girl that could probably get scouted by a model agency just by standing at a bus stop and looking at her phone. Not that her gaze is piercing or anything, but it’s just that she’s a little too breathtaking to make you feel okay sitting opposite her in a one on one. “Don’t think too much about it. I think you’ll make a great fit in the band.”

And then you decide to leave. It’s with great embarrassment that you state that you should take your leave, and it’s with great clumsiness and lack of grace that you stand up, bump your knee against the table, mutter a small and push your chair in before making a beeline for the door. The bell on the door chimes as you pull the door open, and it chimes again when you step out, and again when you close the door shut behind you—almost like it was laughing at you. So much for not being awkward. 

“Thought you’d stay in there for a little longer.”

Hearing Yeji’s voice makes you jump, and you turn to find her petting the cat at the windowsill of the cafe. She isn’t even looking at you, not even a glance in your direction as you walk up to her and stop just before her. 

“What the hell was that in there?” you can’t help but question. “You make us sound like we’re a fucking concentration camp while simultaneously making her feel like shit. How the fuck do you even do that?”

She gives the cat one last scratch between the ears, and the feline purrs under her touch. She rises from her squatting position and looks you in the eye. “That’s why I brought you here: to make her feel better.” She lets that linger in the air for a bit. “Okay. I’m going home.”

And she walks right past you like you aren’t going to be traveling in the same direction as her. A grunt of frustration slips out of your lips as you turn and catch up with her, matching her pace step for step. 

“Did you seriously think,” you ask as you match her stride, “that a small ‘it’s alright’ from me would be enough to make her join?” 

“Yep.”

“You’re fucking unbelievable.”

“Same goes for you.”

“What?”

The two of you stop at the traffic light, and she takes the time to adjust her hair over her shoulder and crack her neck like there isn’t someone talking to her on her immediate left. At this point, you are as good as a ghost to her.

“Why can’t you just be nice for once?” you don’t bother hiding the aggression in your tone, nor did you ever intend on doing so. “Is it really that hard? Do we have to go through a trial to earn your kindness?”

The light turns green and she puts away her phone. “I’m only nice to the people I trust, and neither you nor Yuna fall into that category.”

You bite your tongue, and you stay where you are as she walks across the road. She doesn’t look back, and you never expected her to. This conversation is hardly worth your time and emotional battery. You’re better off talking to some moss ball behind a dumpster, and the silence that you’ll receive is more welcoming than anything Hwang Yeji will ever say.

And so you walk elsewither from where she’s going and you just walk. You know for a fact that there’s no point in fuming over her behavior, and there’s definitely no point in figuring out how to get to her. Instead, you walk down a stretch of shops, letting your eyes wander across the various items that are being displayed at the windows: the jewelry, the clothes, the facial products, the bags, the—

Someone calls your name, and her voice is all too familiar. You’ve heard it just recently, over the phone with club music blaring over her voice. So yeah: you don’t need to turn to know who's made you stop in your tracks, but you do just because you need to see it to believe it

Kim Minju looks dazzling in her outfit:a set of black and short shorts that cover up the skin that’s exposed beneath the shirt-dress she wears. The lime green knitted Prada bag she has in her hands is a little bit jarring, a tad out of place on her monochrome outfit, and you guess that she probably grabbed it in a rush to get out of the house. Still: it looks like a purposeful mismatch, and perhaps your sense of fashion is just so bland that you simply just can’t appreciate the complexity of her outfit.

“Hey,” she greets—a mix of shock and surprise and glee on her face as she takes small steps towards you. It isn’t that big of a distance to cross, and she’s right in front of you in two-to-three small steps. She stops for a moment, lets her eyes wander across your face for a bit. “Didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

“Same goes for you,” you tell her. “Thought we’d just rub shoulders in the club and call it a day.”

Minju giggles, fidgets a little with the strap of her bag that sits nicely on her small shoulder. “You uh… you going somewhere?”

“Well um…” it’s hard to phrase what exactly it is you’re doing right now, because: a) you don’t exactly have a set location in mind and; b) you don’t know how to tell her that you were going away from somewhere that you were going to just now—ugh, it’s confusing to even think about. In the name of reducing the complications of your explanation, you opt for the best response you can possibly give at the moment: “No. Not really. How about you?”.

It’s not a lie; it’s half of the truth… Sort of? Ah fuck, why bother fretting over it?

She smiles, a toothless one where the corner of her lips gets tugged up by a set of invisible strings. It’s a charming little smile, and you have to admit that you love seeing the way it makes her eyes glimmer a little. “I just met my groupmates, and before you ask: it was a horrible session.”

You chuckle. “My condolences.” You rub your palms against your jeans as you speak, “must suck to be the smartest person in the group.”

She’s consistently been the brightest person in the room, perfect GPA, Valedictorian and everything. Sure: she already stands out because of her looks, but her smarts make her the whole package deal. The whole reason you met her in the first place was because you were failing Chemistry so badly in your first year that the teacher had to get her and her straight-As to step in and tutor you. She did a pretty good job, pulled your marks up from an E to a B and kept it there. 

“Oh shut up,” she sighs, though the smile on her face never fades, “you know I hate it when you say shit like that.”

“Do you? Could’ve sworn that you lived off compliments back then.”

She clicks her tongue in annoyance, slaps your shoulder with the back of her hand. She hasn’t changed one bit. “Fuck you. You always were too damn cheeky.”

You shrug in response. She pushes back a strand of hair.

“You wanna grab a coffee?” Her question is one you’ve expected from the moment you bumped into her. 

“I just had a latte, but I wouldn’t mind getting a Croissant.”

***

“You were one mark away from an A—this close to breaking your B streak.”

“It was an A in technicality. Careless mistakes that fuck me over don’t count, Minju.”

“Tell that to the Chemistry department then.”

“I think they would've dunked me in a vat of acid.”

“What type of Acid? Can you still remember which ones can melt skin off bone?”

“Welcome back Little Miss know-it-all.”

“The information will save you one day, mark my words.”

“Well I doubt I’ll ever come into contact with skin-melting Chemicals any time soon.”

“Don’t jinx yourself.”

“Hey, don’t tell me that when you were the one who was dubbed ‘bearer of bad news’.”

“It’s not my fault that I always have to relay the bad news to the class! I was the fucking class president!”

“Oh right.”

“Oh right. You sound so stupid.”

“Says the one giving me a lecture.”

“I’d hardly constitute this as a lecture.”

“Look at you using big words.”

“I’m going to throw this fucking coffee at you.”

“It’s a good latte. I wouldn’t recommend you wasting your money like that.”

“You’re a child.”

“Aren’t we all young at heart?”

“Young at heart is one thing. Immaturity is another.”

“I’d argue that you’re the immature one here.”

“Says the one who’s always getting himself involved in some shit every other day.”

“I wouldn’t blame that on my immaturity.”

“So you do admit that you’re immature.”

“Now you’re just putting words into my mouth.”

“It’s not my fault that you say stupid things.”

“But it’s you that uses my stupid things to… Fuck. That won’t sound right.”

“Did you just lose your train of thought mid sentence?”

“I was running what I was about to say through my head.”

“You do that while you speak? You’re so weird.”

“Oh so you’d rather me spit out nonsense all the time?”

“Yea, so I can insult you over it.”

“Ugh. You’re so kind Minju.”

“Thank you. I pride myself with my heart of gold.”

“The same one that made you a pushover with your ex?”

“We both know that he manipulated me.”

“And you kept making excuses with him because you refused to see the bad in him.”

“Okay, I admit that that was a bit of a misplay on my end.”

“You dated him for two years.”

“I didn’t want to be lonely, okay? Everyone in the damn friend group was dating, I felt left out!”

“But we were in healthy relationships. Yours looked like the physical embodiment of type two diabetes.”

“Oh. So you’d consider your relationship with Kim Chaewon a healthy one?”

“It was till… You know.”

The silence that follows is deafening, and Minju’s smile fades.

“Shit. I went a little overboard with that one,” how apologetic she sounded made you feel bad. Not that you ever intended to be a wet blanket, but the hesitance in your voice must have killed the mood or something. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

You waved it off. “All jokes,” you assure her with a forced smile. “Nothing was or has been taken to heart. I promise.”

She purses her lips, and when she parts them, they make a small smack. You take a moment to take another stab at your croissant and send another bit into your mouth. And yes: it does taste as good as it looks. 

“How are things with you and her anyway?” She asks, setting down her half-full glass of latte. “Are you guys doing alright? Talking now?”

You imagine the look of shock on her face when you tell her that you made out with your ex and fucked her after you took her home, and make the executive decision to skip the details and give her a more vague (and untrue)  answer: “We’re uh… Reconciling I guess.”

She nods, and you can’t tell if it’s one of approval or one of disappointment. She’d been the number one supporter of your relationship with Chaewon; imagine her shock when you told her one fine morning over the phone that the two of you had broken up.

“Forgive me for continuing on this subject, but,” the addition of that but really spoke volumes of how she wasn’t gonna let you interject, even if you really wanted to just stop talking about it. She’s not one to be self-centred, but when she has something to say, you have a guaranteed earnings if you bet on the fact that she’ll get it out one way or another. You always let her get away with it, only because you have a bit of a soft spot for her, and she has a bit of a soft spot for you too—you did spend a large amount of time in your first year of highschool in the library with her after all. “I always thought that you and Chaewon would be, you know, a ‘forever couple’.”

“Well I’m sorry we ruined your drama fantasies,” you reply, trying to bring the conversation back to the light-hearted talk it was just a couple of minutes ago. “Some things just don’t work out in the end—the relationship was just one of those things.”

This time, you decode her nod as one of understanding and sympathy. “Well… As long as you’re okay now.” she rolls her straw between her forefinger and thumb, watching as it twists left and right in her fingers and disturbs the latte before her. “You seem to be doing well with your whole band gig and all.”

“You could say that.” You set down your fork and dab the corners of your mouth with a napkin while you swallow the rest of your croissant. “Chaewon and I will learn to… Coexist eventually. I hope so at least.”

“You guys better sort it out,” she muses. “I doubt I can keep baby-sitting her at the club for much longer. I have a life too, you know?”

“I feel like that’s more of a problem for her to settle than us.” you’re barely hiding the disdain in your voice as you stare at crumbs that are left on your plate. “It’s not my problem if she gets drunk. She made the choice to go drinking herself.”

“But you made it your problem just a day ago,” Minju points out. 

“Only because it was the only way to get her out of that damn club.”

“You could’ve chosen not to come.”

“And leave you guys to deal with her?”

“It was me and Eunbi. We could’ve dragged her out.”

“But—“

“Just admit that you actually cared. You and I both know that you’re too much of a fucking sweetheart to ever let someone struggle when you can help.”

And she stumps you with that one, because you don’t know how to reply to that. Is that a compliment or an insult? Frankly, you didn’t know, but you do know that you’re surprised by the fact that anyone can ever use the word sweetheart in such an aggressive manner. It’s like telling someone you love their outfit before punching them in the face. 

Okay, maybe not that extreme… But you get the gist.

“Maybe I did have a soft spot for her,” you mused. It’s half self-realisation, half-reply. “But even so: you guys would go through all nine circles of hell just to get her up and out of the club.”

Minju draws her lips into a thin line. She lifts her straw to her mouth, lets it hover just in front of her lips for a bit, then places the glass back down on the table heavily. A small, substantial thump sends a small tremor through the table. She stares into her glass. “What even happened when you took her home anyway?”

You shrug and put down your fork to wipe your mouth—actions that mask the fact that you want to cringe at yourself over what happened. You’ve done a lot of lying today (what would your mother say?), and you’re pretty sure that all of this will come back and bite you in the ass some day. But for now, you’d like to save yourself some embarrassment as you say, “Helped her with her hangover. Gave her a meal. Then she left.”

Minju looks at you for a moment. Then she sighs and shakes her head.

“You’re too kind for your own good,” she mutters. Her fingers stay wrapped around her glass as she speaks, beads of condensation slowly running down the clear walls of her cup and sliding down her knuckles. She raises her head, just enough to establish eye contact with you. “Then again: your soft little heart was the reason I had a crush on you.”

Okay. She skipped a lot of ground there.

You blink. You blink again. She stares straight into your eyes throughout—doesn’t break eye contact or anything. Not that you didn’t take her seriously, but just that you were a little… Well, stunned.

“Bottom line: you care about her. Don’t let her manipulate you okay?” Minju tells you, finally raising the star to her mouth and taking a nice long sip from her latte. When the straw is released from between her lips, she smacks her lips in satisfaction and leans back in her seat. You’re still staring if anyone’s asking, and yes: you are indeed thinking, what the fuck?

Minju shoots you a look of disdain. “What?” she asks as she straightens the collar of her shirt dress. “Why are you looking at me like that? Cut it out.”

Okay: aside from the fact that you’re shocked by the fact that she isn’t addressing the elephant in the room (the one that she placed there by her damn self), you’re reeling over the fact that she’s just casually dropped this hell-of-a piece of news on you like it was just an update on life or something; oh I used to like, you know, see you more than just a friend, but no biggie.

You blink. You blink again. She grabs the straw and tosses it out of the glass, gulps the rest of her latte in a single swallow and wipes her lips with the back of her hand. 

“If you’re wondering if the feelings are still there, the answer is no,” she tells you, picking up a napkin to clean up the corners of her mouth. “The keyword was had you big dummy. Stop thinking so much about it. You look stupid.”

The faculties to reply return to you, but you can’t do much but sputter a very confused wha? as Minju examines her nails for a bit. She smirks, then grabs her bag and rises from her seat. 

“If my news is killing you that bad, why don’t we talk about it over a nice dinner?”

***

True to her word, she does open up about everything over the course of the meal, albeit after a couple of glasses of wine.

“You were so cute and so damn loveable,” she muses, unashamed as she pours herself another glass. She took you to some nice restaurant a few streets away, and you’re kinda regretting your decision to eat that croissant for tea because fuck does the food here taste good. Minju settles into her seat, glass in hand as she stares at the scarlet liquid. “You bought me dark chocolate on my period, got me a snack after we had a session because I was hungry… You’re pretty fucking handsome too, you know that?”

All of this is, of course, news to you, and you’re struggling to internalise the fact that she would ever think about you in such a way. Your own wine glass has remained full for the entire duration of your meal, and you choose this time to take a sip to help you process all of… Well, this. 

“So… How long did you, you know, like me?” you can’t help but ask. Not that it was the first question on your mind or anything, but more of the fact that you needed to say something to prevent this conversation from descending into awkward silence. Comfortable was the last word you’d use to describe how you feel. 

“Huh…” Minju mutters. She swirls her glass for a bit. She takes a sip, swirls more. Her gaze turns inwards and her mouth moves in a soundless count. “If you don’t count the summer break where I figured out that I wanted nothing more but to kiss you? About a year and a half.”

You do the maths in your head and come to an epiphany. Minju beats you to it and verbalises your thoughts: yea, yea… I liked you while you were dating Chaewon, which means that I liked you when I was dating that deadbeat baseball player, which meant I was unfaithful by technicality, but I stuck with that sick fuck to try and make you jealous.

Frankly, you’re not too sure why you are being thrown into emotional situations with people of your past over the course of the last two days. You want this to be some sort of dream, and you want, so badly, for Minju to burst out laughing and hit you with a, this was all a joke! I just wanted you to accompany me for dinner, that’s all, and call it a day. Maybe you two could get ice cream afterwards, laugh this silly prank off on a bench somewhere and then bid farewell for the night. But judging from the way Minju stares solemnly at her plate, you can pretty much infer with full confidence that she means every word she says. Even as she chews her steak slowly, you can feel her lingering on some thoughts that she won’t verbalise—not now at least. Maybe she’ll text you about it a couple weeks for months down the road, and all of this will just resurface for, like, a day or two at most. Bottom line: she’s pretty serious about everything she just said, and she’ll most likely remind you of this conversation in this nice restaurant that you can never come back to again. The food is nice but it's nowhere in your tax bracket. 

“So uh,” Minju brings your attention back to her. She leaves you hanging for a bit as she pokes a cherry tomato with her fork and sends it into her mouth. You hear a soft crunch as she chews, and you can’t help but feel a little bit uncomfortable with the presented silence that follows. She dabs the corners of her lips with a napkin. She swallows. “About what happened with Chaewon after you took her to your place: did you leave out the part where you fucked her in the ass on purpose? Or did she drug you and you forgot everything?”

And it feels like time freezes as she picks up her wine glass and gulps down the rest of the scarlet liquid in there. When she looks at you with those piercing, knowing eyes, you wonder how much she knows about you and Chaewon; what does she know and what are the details she has sitting in some locker in the corners of her mind. 

“Chaewon has a pretty big mouth you know,” Minju remarks, a small—almost mocking—pout on her lips as she plays with the vegetables on her plate. “She tells me just about anything and everything that goes on in her life, just saying.”

So that’s enough to tell you that she knows more than she should. You wonder if there are any other people Chaewon runs her mouth to.

“If you’re gonna call me a loser, just do it,” you mutter. You suddenly find the urge to down the rest of your wind irresistible. You act on your impulse, and you grimace a little as the alcohol burns your throat on the way down. It’s probably not recommended to consume liquor the way you are drinking it right now, but you couldn’t care less at this point. You kind of need this drink right now. This day has been full of unexpected things: unexpected meetings to unexpected feelings to god knows what else is on its way. “But before you say anything, she started it. I was the victim.”

Minju chuckles. You don;t really find anything about this entertaining right now, but there will certainly be an element of humour to this conversation that you will probably discover after some hindsight. Minju sets down her cutlery and folds her arms. “I understand”, she tells you, making sure to hold your gaze as she rests her cheek in her palm. “Trust me. Calling you a loser is, like, the 2nd thing on my mind right now.”

“And what’s the first?”

She looks left, then right, then leans in a little. “Was the sex good?”

Honestly, you shouldn’t be shocked. She’s always been a bit cheeky in nature, a little bit lickerish and maybe a little indecent. You’ve seen it, heard it, known it for the longest time—yet you can’t stop yourself from raising both eyebrows when she drops the question on you. MAybe it’s the lack of hesitance; the question coming right at you like a fastball after you gave her your end of the situation. It’s a little devious: the way she just gives it to you straight without any room for silence and pondering. You’ll give her that.

“I mean,” she continues, not even giving you time to even try and rationalise the question. “I imagine that her pussy’s already tight as fuck. Her ass? God I can only imagine what that was like for you.”

Now it’s getting a little confusing. The lines between wry and genuine interest are being blurred here, and you’re not even sure if this is really a conversation you’re having with her right now. Her bluntness and lack of consideration towards you is a little appalling given her remorse in the cafe. Maybe it’s the wine. Yea, it’s probably the wine…

“What the fuck?” Is all you can manage as you affix your gaze on her with a look of shock that could probably win you an award if this was a movie. Minju pushes back some hair, fingers deftly tucking them behind her ear as she fixes you with a look. You have no idea where this conversation is going, and you really, really hope that she doesn’t continue on this line of talk. Of course, you have a bad track record of getting what you wish for. 

Minju leans in even more, gets even closer. You’re not sure if you should move or do anything at this juncture. She cocks her head a little, smirks.

“Wanna find out if I’m a better fuck then her?”

***

Why did you follow her back to her apartment? You don’t even know. Best guess: you weren’t really thinking after she spoke and just went with it. Or maybe: you might have looked at her all weird and somehow ended up agreeing (she’s a sweet talker and you certainly wouldn’t put it past her). There are about ten possibilities that you can think of—eleven if you added the one that just formulated in your brain about a second ago—all of which are equally confusing and hard to fathom. It’ll take some time and probably a cup of coffee or two to figure out.

But focus up: there are a lot more pressing matters right now, matters like the fact that her lips are firmly pressed against yours while your back is against the closed and locked door of her apartment. Frankly, you don’t even know how the hell you two got locked in this kiss; could’ve sworn the two of you were just talking at the restaurant a couple of minutes ago. Everything’s a little hazy, and it’s a little worrying considering that you only had one or two… Maybe three? Yea, probably three… Let’s just say there was a couple more glasses of wine after she asked if you if she could potentially be a better fuck, and here you are now. It seems like your relationship with alcohol and women all lead to the same destination. It’s a problem for sure, but you can settle that later. 

There’s a rather loud smack as she removes her lips from yours—for air of course. Gazing deep into your eyes, she smiles as she tells you, god I’ve always wanted to do that, before she re-establishes the connection of lips. The kiss is aggressive: nothing short of fervent and definitely not holding back on the restraint. If there was a way to properly kiss someone, Kim Minju was certainly taking it up another step. Her tongue pokes through your lips, invades past your teeth and pushes itself deep into your mouth till it dances with yours. It’s starting to get a little messy, a little more raunchy and, uh… Well—you get the gist. Your brain’s certainly not functioning the way it should be. 

Are you drunk? Probably not.

She starts to pull you by the shirt—away from the door and towards the living room. Her place is pretty big, and there's enough space for the two of you to stumble and fumble around till you find a flat surface that you can proper her up on and spread her legs. The surface in question is a table. It’s probably her dining table, and it creaks as Minju undoes the clasp of her sheer shorts that really shouldn’t be classified as shorts in any world. The article of clothing comes off together with your jeans, and they’re both tossed aside before your hands are on her hips and pulling her towards you. Her ass slides over the wood, hissing as her skin drags along a small distance so that she can grip your face in her palms and crash her lips against yours. You close your eyes, enjoy the feel of her warm body pressing against yours while those gentle hands sink fingers into the flesh of your cheeks. A dark part of you takes a little pleasure in the pain.

“Fuck.” You love the lilt in her voice after she breaks the kiss. “I see why Chaewon likes to kiss you now,” she lets her hands roam across your face, brushing away the bits of your hair that fall in front of your eyes, almost as if she wants you to see her and only her. “You kiss so well. Feels like I’m kissing a marshmallow with lips.”

“Do I even want to know how you came up with that analogy?” you question. She grins.

“Just trust it. I did get a higher score than you in just about every subject except music.”

You chuckle. She goes in for a kiss; you make a beeline for the column of milky skin at her neck, savour the sharp inhale that sucks air through her teeth and sounds like more of a hiss. You kiss her jaw, trail it up to her neck then back down to her collarbone. Every touch of your lips on her skin makes her sigh.

“Try not to mark me where people can see,” she whispers. “There’s only so much skin that makeup can cover without ruining my outfits, and foundation is really fucking expensive these days.”

(Now there’s the debate of whether that was a challenge or a precautionary measure. She’s always been a bit of a cheeky one: trying people on and giggling as she does so. You’ve been the victim of her antics before, but it’s kind of hard to deduce whether she’s telling you, don’t do it or inviting you to leave hickeys all over her neck and wherever you could get your lips on.)

“And if I do?” you can’t help but ask. Minju chuckles and pushes you away by your shoulders.

“Don’t.” She’s firm when she says it, almost like she’s chiding you for ever considering it. For a moment, you look each other in the eye as your breaths poke holes through the silence. It’s a little chilling yet a little thrilling, and you can’t help but take in the way she looks in the dim light of the night. In the midst of stumbling in, neither of you ever considered turning on the lights. She’s painted in soft strokes of moonlight, eyes shimmering in the gentle glow of night. Beautiful. She’s always been so beautiful, but never this beautiful. “I know you want to, but don’t,” she reiterates. You’re a little disappointed, but there are, of course, other ways to leave your mark on her.  

And so your hand snakes down and finds its way between her parted legs. Your other hand slithers around that small waist, and it holds her in place as your fingers press against the fabric of her panties. In your arms, she tenses—bristles as you start to feel the outline of her lips against your fingertips. You increase the pressure against her heat. Minju tilts her head back and moans.

Fuck. You don’t think you’ve ever heard such a sound: angelically filthy, airy and soft. It’s already hard enough to grasp the concept of her, one of your closest friends that you haven’t seen in a few good years or so, propped up on her own dining table while you trace the outline of her pussy through her panties and leave her squirming atop the wooden surface. Add the small choked up cries she’s making into the mix and by God do you have a recipe for a haze. Where to begin? This situation shouldn’t be real at all; none of this should be real, this should be a dream. This heat against your fingers. The sight of her mouth parted and her body twitching with each stroke of your fingers. The very realisation that this is as real as it gets, and it’s unfolding right before you by the second.

“Why are you so fucking wet?” you ask, noting the way she shudders as you let your finger hover over the base of her opening for a bit. Her thighs—pale skin painted in the lightest shades of moonlight—twitch in anticipation, almost as if the blood in her veins is loading up inside there and would shoot forward the moment you start moving again. She can’t predict what you’re gonna do next, and it’s killing her in a way that brings you this sick satisfaction. Minju whimpers; you chuckle. “Do you really want it this bad Minju? Has no one touched you like this before?”

(Her bottom lip quivers as she struggles to compose herself. She breathes: raspy and staccato. Strands of hair hang in front of her face, the same one that has this pleading look superimposed over bratty frustration. It’s hot, really satisfying and really challenging you take some liberties with her. Sure: it’d be really fun to just stuff her full of cock and just have your way with her right here and now, but where’s the fun in that? You’ve known her as this smart, preppy girl who’s always gotten what she wants because she’s smart and rich. You can't remember the last time you saw her fail. Maybe she did face a bit of a setback when she was starting out in university, but as far as you’re concerned, she’s in need of a bit of humbling.)

It’s all enough to drive anyone mad really. So you can’t really blame her when she cries oh god just fuck me already! at a volume that would probably get her a noise complaint from one of her neighbours. It’s a little jarring, and it makes you stop and look at her for a second or two. She looks back at you, giving you those fuck me eyes that you didn’t know she was capable of as she starts to bite down on her lower lip. 

With that face and that aura, she—whether unwittingly or not—painfully reminds you of Chaewon. That same bratty persona mixed with that undeniable look of need—it’s killing you to look her in the eye a she starts to grind herself against your fingers, pleading you to get on with it—please, please, please just strip me and fuck me and make me your good little toy—while she fixes you with that pleading look. Her doleful eyes coax you, and it feels dangerous to even look into them, let alone gaze into them as pulls you closer with her legs and grabs your shaft through your underwear.

“Tease me all you want later,” she squeezes your cock—sweet, sinful pleasure. Those weapons of a pair of eyes slice into the deepest depths of your mind, appealing to the darker part of you to let loose and take control. She wants it, needs it more than anything else right now. “You can finger me, eat me, whatever… Just put this fucking cock inside of me and make me scream before you do anything else.”

She’s given you a list of priorities, and they really speak volumes of her personality. Funnily enough, it’s pretty in line with her character: goal oriented and focused on that success rather than the process. You wonder what would happen if you refused to give her that final goal she so desperately craves; what it could do and to what extent would it break her. You take some time to consider this as you slip your hands into the spaces between the upper buttons of her shirt.

“Minju.” You call her name out of politeness in wake of what you’re about to ask her. “How much was this shirt?”

The glint in her eye when she catches your implicit message is enthralling. She pushes her bottom lip behind her front teeth; fixes you with this look that tells you that she's' about to say something that’s gonna satisfy your desires just because she can and she gets off on it.

“It’s Prada,” she tells you. “But I can always get another.”

You grin, and with more strength than intended, you pull against the fabric of the shirt. Unfortunate buttons go flying as the fabric parts forcefully like velcro ripping apart. Nothing tears (surprisingly), but the shirt is most definitely unwearable for a while. You hope she knows how to sow.

She gasps when the cold air of her apartment suddenly hits her skin. You can’t really blame her — it all comes in a rush after she is stripped from her sole piece of clothing. She takes a moment to assess the damage done to her clothes. Her eyes wander along the naked strip of fabric her shirt buttons once called home. Then she looks at you, smirks.

“Hot,” she muses, lowering herself down till she’s on her elbows. “But I think you can do better than that.”

You like a good challenge. And with not too much kindness in your voice, you tell her to get rid of the rest of her clothing. There’s a smouldering look in her eye, and a smirk on her face as she tosses her hair out of her face. Then while she holds your gaze, she hooks her fingers into the waistband of her panties and pulls them down — keeps going till there somewhere far enough down those long, creamy legs for her to kick them aside. 

“That was a limited edition piece, can’t have you tearing that,” she explains, looking at the freshly discarded article of clothing. “My bra though? I got it at a convenience store in Japan. Do your worst.”

The bra doesn’t survive. It’s a shame really… It looked kinda nice. 

And basking in your gaze is a very naked Kim Minju, her skin practically glowing on top of her table as she looks up at you with those eyes of want. You take a moment – admire the supple curves in all the right places and the way her skin seems to ripple a little as she shudders. Three’s no doubt in your mind that the surface she has her back against is cold as hell, but  Fuck… this probably was the best place to have her like this – she looks like a fucking meal.

“You know,” you whisper, your index finger roaming up her body – starting from the base of her belly button and making its way up an imaginary line that you’ve drawn on her body. “You’re kinda fucking perfect.”

She chortles. “Um… Contradictory much?”

“Spare me the lesson,” you mutter, cupping her cheek firmly yet tenderly. You have no idea what this feeling in your chest is right now, but you do know that it’s gonna take you down a path you never explored before. “Now I just wanna make a mess out of you.”

You don’t wait for a reply. Heck, you don’t even give her time to craft a reply. No teasing, no testing the waters; you just get your cock in your hand, line it up with her slit and pump yourself into her for the first time.

And even though she has this look of offence on her face, you know that this is probably the hottest thing she’s ever experienced. It’s a non-verbal statement that tells you that: her eyes burn with a heat you often see in Chaewon when she’s just being a downright bitch, yet her lips part and her head tilts back to let a moan be drawn out from the deepest parts of her. You don’t quite know how you’re processing these cues with the novel sensation of her hot cunt around your cock (it squeezes and pulses at just the right places that make you twitch inside her and it’s like… So fucking hot in there) that welcomes you into the depths of the woman beneath you. Every little thing is just hitting like a fucking sledge hammer now. You can feel her heat around you, burning like fire in this cold apartment. Alcohol must really be setting in.

Minju takes a moment to collect herself, and after she does, she looks at you to send another non-verbal cue your way. 

This one means fuck me.

This whole situation is far from sophisticated; a little more filthy than you care to admit. It’s not what you’re used to with the other women you’ve been with. Eunbi likes teasing, Ryujin likes to play around a little; Karina is just downright submissive, Yeji a little more subservient than she lets on; Chaewon is… well, Chaewon – bratty and really whiny when she fucks.

But Minju? This is a whole new chapter for you. 

First impressions tell you that she’s just downright needy; a little bratty like Chaewon as she starts to whine a little while you start pumping in and out of her slick heat. Her legs lock around your waist, feet crossed behind your back. She pulls you in each time you thrust into her – pulls you deeper into her warmth and moans a little louder when you hit the right spot. You match her speed, and soon you're thrusting her with firm, fast strokes. It makes her throw back her head for a bit, a cry leaving her straining throat as she sets rolls with this tempo.

Her torso remains supported on her elbows, her small breasts that sit proudly atop her chest bouncing with each smack of your crotch against hers. She realigns her gaze with yours. Her eyes stay wide open, gazing right into yours as she holds your attention with this debauched gaze that makes your mind fill with wild, wild thoughts. You’re fucking her on the table, but you’re thinking about what it’d be like to have her against the wall, against the counter, on her knees; riding you on her couch, jumping on your cock on her bed…  

This woman is gonna fucking ruin you.

“Chaewon said that the dick was fucking good,” she’s quipping between her moans, and you know it’s taking considerable effort for her. She has to close her eyes when she speaks, and in doing so she frees you from her hypnotic gaze. “No that it’s actually filling me… I think she could be downplaying how good you feel.”

And you have to smirk. “You think so ?”

Her eyes snap open, traps you yet again. “Do you have any idea how fucking hot you feel inside me?” she gasps. You have to admit that it sounds a bit more like she’s demanding you to figure out how good she feels right now/ ow fucking good your dick feels in my pussy? How–ngh… How good you fuck me?”

Emphasis on ‘fuck’ tells you that she likes this pace, this no-nonsense playing field that you’ve established from the moment you filled her for the first time. She never struck you as one to like it rough, someone who likes it when it kinda stings when you fill her. Then again, you didn’t expect her to hold feelings for you either, so you guess the world just has a bunch of mysteries that you have to unpack in your own time.

Currently, you’re just trying to unpack how fucking good she feels around you.

“You’re fucking filthy,” you hiss through your teeth. “Never knew Miss valedictorian liked being railed like this.”

She smiles through her pleasure – a half-curl upturn of the corners of her lips as she lets the sighs and gasps freely depart from her open lips. It would be a cute smile if it weren’t for the fact that you’re literally fucking her on the same surface she eats on. Not that she has any problem with it; it’s just kinda telling of how badly she wants you right now. Pretty hot honestly – feels a little dark but you like the fact that she just couldn’t wait and just found the nearest flat surface she could spread her legs for you on.

“I’ll let you in on something,” and it really looks like she’s pushing back moans in her throat. She isn’t very successful. Effort is commendable though. “As sweet as any girl looks, we all kinda like being fucked like a slut.”

You manage a chuckle. “And does that apply for you?”

You love the way her eyes gleam. She lets herself lie flat on her table. 

“That’s for you to find out.”

And you understand why she’s laid herself across the table for you. It’s an invitation to her body, a request for you to touch the parts of her and hold her like she’s yours. She’s watching you intently, waiting to see what you’ll do while you keep pumping in and out of her. You respond by grabbing her shoulders, pulling her up straight till her chest flushes against yours. Her hands wrap around your neck, her breath in your ear.

“Come on you pussy,” she drawls. “I’m not Chaewon or Eunbi, so stop fucking me like you’d fuck them.”

Your hands find purchase in the firm flesh of her ass. Your fingers dig into the skin.

Then you’re fucking her – hard, fast. It takes her by surprise, by storm. Her gasp is strained, her voice louder in your ear now that she’s dug her chin into your shoulder. Her arms tense around your neck, her thighs tighten around your waist. You can feel her start to tremble as she struggles to keep herself upright. She holds you tighter, closer. She starts to moan more than she gasps. Her sighs turn to whines, her whines to cries and then to keening. 

In a matter of seconds, she’s found herself lost in her own pleasure, willingly and blissfully letting herself slink beneath the steadily growing stream of perverse want and need that flows from her mouth. She doesn’t have any smart quips left in her, no lessons or lectures – just this burning ache for you and the meat between her legs. You can feel the throbbing in her pussy, hear the squelch of your cock sliding between her lips getting louder as you go faster. You want—so badly—to lose yourself in her warmth and her heat. You want nothing more than to just put your lips on hers and kiss her through this wave of passion you’re feeling. 

So—against her wishes—you put your lips on her neck, starting sucking. You sense hesitation in her body, but it quickly fades and she tips her head to the side. She lets you have your way with her, relenting against you and letting you nibble on her skin as you piston yourself in and out of her. 

“I hope you’re giving me something no other girl will experience,” she rasps. She’s shaking a little, her nails starting to dig into your back. “Fuck me like I’m the one that matters. I need it.”

You lift your lips off her neck. The skin is starting to change colour. “Minju,” you don’t know how you manage, but you just do. “You’re the best woman I’ll ever fuck.”

“Mhm?” she hums. It’s a little shaky and it’s high-key hot. “Is—mphm… is my pussy better than Chaewon’s?”

And there’s that common thread between her and your ex: that desire to know that they’re better than someone else. You’ll please her for tonight. “So much better.”

She quite literally twitches at that, reeling in the thought that she’s taking cock better than her friend ever would. “Ngh– am I tighter? Am I wetter?”

You move so that you can look her in the eye. “Shut up and let me fuck you, would you?”

The look in her eyes tells you that she’s proud of what she’s done. She lets her forehead press against yours. Her eyes close. “Okay… But only because I still kinda love you.”

How are you going to deal with her? With this?

You don’t. You dive back into the crook of her neck, lengthen your strokes into her. It’s all too much to handle right now. Too many emotions are in play; too many thoughts need attention. You just want her, no strings attached and no need to spout all this nonsense about love and wanting to be loved. You kinda hate her for it, so you fuck her harder. You don’t like that she’s bringing feelings into this like Chaewon, so you fuck her harder and harder till she’s almost crying. 

She loves it, every second of it.

“Yes,yes,yes…” you can tell that she’s trying not to lose it all together, or maybe you’re just projecting. You can’t shake the feeling that your silence in response to her confession tells her that you’re gonna let her live this fantasy down right now. “Oh god you… Oh my fucking god.”

For long minutes, there’s nothing on your mind except her. You love the way she tenses and relaxes in your grasp, how she lets her body respond freely to your movements; the way her milky, smooth skin starts to bead with sweat, her hair sticking to her back; how her voice is kinda hoarse, how her lips claim your earlobe and she bites a little. As much as she’s frustrating, she’s entrancing. She’s hot, admittedly tighter than some of the girls you’ve fucked but also charming in her own way. Her moans aren’t the guttural type you get out of Karina or Eunbi, but more like a gentle yet kinda sordid exclamation of pleasure. Her breath is hot on your skin, a little hotter than you expect, but hot nonetheless. Her slim figure rocks against you, jolting when you get yourself nice and deep in her cunt, turning her into a nice bundle of nerves.

“I… Fuck… I’ve wanted this for so long,” she gasps. “But you’re here, actually here and… Fuck you’re just so fucking hot.”

And you know that’s her way of telling you that you’re better in real life than you ever will be in her wildest dreams. She’s turned on by the fact that you’re here, in the flesh and fucking her the way she likes it. Even though she surrenders to you, she’s gotten her way tonight. You’re fulfilling her desires just by being here, and your rock hard shaft drilling its way inside of her is really just a cherry on top.

(She’s kinda right: as sweet as she is, she likes being fucked like a slut.)

Even though it’s kinda her fault, Minju is your distraction, your break from it all. You give in: lose yourself in her smell, in her skin, in her flesh.  You let yourself get absorbed in it all — her gasps, her cries; the way her pussy only gets tighter, the way her legs shake around you; the fire in your chest that drives your cock in and out of her cunt in firm, long strokes; the heat of her body against yours as she starts to tense in your grasp.

Then she’s cumming — a hot mess on her dining table as cock spears into her through her orgasm. Her walls clench around you, her nails claw at your back. She cries your name. She says she loves you over and over and over till the faculties of her speech give way and she goes a little slack in your arms. You revel in it, do your best to block out the parts that make you ache a little on the inside; fuck her through the wave of an orgasm she goes through and relish the feel of her tight pussy getting tighter and wetter. You don’t know how to put it into words, but all you can really say is that she’s fucking beautiful through it all – smutty art or maybe even straight up porn. 

When you join her, you don’t even ask if you can cum in her; she’s gotten enough of her way tonight. With a final few pumps into her, you relent to the tingling in your shaft and bury yourself inside her. Your grunt is rather guttural, your load hot inside of her slick wet cunt. She sighs, almost as if she’s welcoming it into her body. You savour the moment. It’s a treat for yourself. 

You stay like that for a bit — leaning against Minju and panting while you gather yourself again. She gently strokes your hair as she smiles at you, more than happy to keep you with her as you regain your bearings. 

And just because she can, she kisses you on the cheek.

You can’t meet her gaze much longer. You turn your gaze downwards as you remove yourself from her pussy, watching as the mix of your juices flow out of her freshly-fucked cunt. She hums as it flows down from her slit. 

“Forget what I said okay?” she requests, sounding remorseful as she takes your cheek in her hand. “You’re good at not taking things to heart, so do that for me, would you?”

You manage a small smile and nod. 

Then she kisses you, softly. 

“Thank you…” she breathes. “You just helped me delete some emails to you that I can never bring myself to send.”

***

You’re kinda in shambles to be honest.

Minju’s showering, which means that you have enough time to think about what your life has become. All these emotions are coming forth so suddenly, so quickly. You barely have time to process your school work and now this has come along and fucked you sideways. It makes your head hurt.

You decide to leave before she can get out of the shower. You can’t bear to see her again, but you do drop a text—Thanks for letting me crash. See you around—once you’re out of her apartment complex. You’re ashamed, but you were raised to know better than to leave without saying anything. But even though you do what you feel is right, something about what you’ve done doesn’t quite sit well with you. 

And you’re in the park when the realisation hits. On the bench, you bury your head in your hands.

You’ve done to Minju what Chaewon did to you.

Had this one sitting in the drafts for quit some time. Realised I actually never posted it so here it is I guess. Happy New Year everyone! Have this unedited work as a gift while I work on another fic because I can.

[parkerluvsu]

ANGELEYES (virgin! art donaldson x fem! reader)

(my first halloween fic.. i don't have the energy to do kinktober <3)

art donaldson is a virgin. a big fat virgin. it's his biggest secret, the only person who knows about it is patrick, and he endlessly makes fun of him for it. it's hard living in the shadow of such a sex prodigy like him, patrick had been relaying stories of heavy makeout sessions and 7 minutes in heaven with random girls ever since middle school. art has been on a multitude of double dates with patrick, only for them to end with him and a girl sitting awkwardly next to him while patrick and his date messily makeout on the couch next to him.

of course art tried to mimic patrick, his smooth words and even smoother hands.. but never successfully. the longest he's ever had a girlfriend was only 5 months.. and she broke up with him on valentines day. this year was the first year he actually had a girlfriend on a semi-romantic holiday. or at least art thought it was, he remembers every year that couples in cute costumes walked by and made him want to cry. and even worse was the halloween parties, with drunk college students wearing stupid costumes and grinding on each other, leaving art to sip on a room temperature beer in the corner.

art was abruptly brought back to reality when you tapped on his shoulder, alerting him to the fact that he wasn't still in a stupid party, he was lodged in a costume store dressing room, holding on to the costumes you still wanted to try on. "what do you think?" you spin around, showing him the back of your cheesy tennis player costume. art chuckles, shaking his head, "i think it's offensive.." he jokes, of course you look cute but he can't stop himself from thinking that you'd never be able to move around a court in that stupid uniform. "hand me another one art.." he gives you the next costume, turning to face the wall while you change. "you know you can look.. right? im your girlfriend aren't i?" art blushes and he's thankful you can't see his face. "i- im just being respectful" he says, seeming genuinely concerned about offending you. you let the issue go as you zip up the costume, tapping art on the shoulder.

when you got home, you set down your costume and turned to art. "so now what are you gonna be? we should match right?" he nods shyly, not exactly knowing how to enter this unfamiliar territory. "i guess you could be a devil too and then we could match.." you look at art for inspiration, and settle on his baby blue eyes, biting your lip before getting an idea. "oh i know! you should be an angel! it'll be great!" you say, already envisioning art in a pretty white costume. art blushes, "isn't that.. like a girl costume?" he doesn't mean to offend you and it's not like he hates the idea but.. he doesn't want to embarrass himself. "no not at all! cmon art it'll be so cute.. you'll be my little angel!" you almost squeal, immediately taking out your phone to look for costumes. art nods slowly.. realizing that he doesn't really care what he dresses up as.. as long as he's yours.

art almost drops the costumes he's holding when he sees the little red skirt, tank top and horns you have on, accompanied by a pair of fluffy wings on your back. "what d'you think? it kind of looks silly don't you think?" you turn back to face art. he shakes his head silently, his eyes wide, looking you up and down. you giggle, "guess we have a winner then!". you leave the store that day with a devil costume in a bag, and art leaves with a tent in his pants.

art has never considered himself religious. he was raised to go to sunday school and church and all those other fun events, but he never believed any of it. so why did he feel so guilty when he got hot and heavy seeing you in that costume? maybe it was the fact that he was always reprimanded as a child for liking things that he shouldn't.. playing with dolls, stealing his moms clothes... and maybe even looking a little too long at girls from church. now he still felt like he could get caught any moment doing something he wasn't supposed to, even though he wasn't in that environment anymore.

you're putting on lip gloss, using your phone for a mirror when art pops out of the bathroom, having a little trouble getting the fake wings to fit though the doorframe. you put your things down, standing up to meet him, "oh art.. you look so good.. this costume is perfect for you, don't you think?" you say, looking him up and down. art blushes, trying to avoid your gaze "i- i guess so.." he says, trying to downplay the fact that he likes the costume so much. you pick up on his tone, and decide to speak up. "what? you don't like it?" he shakes his head quickly, "no.. no that's not it.. it's like the opposite.. maybe i like it a little too much" he looks away, shifting from foot to foot. you smile knowingly, not surprised that he feels this way. art let's you guide him to sit on the edge of your bed. "well, why do you like it so much?" you ask, wanting to see if he'll be honest.

.・。.・゜✭・.・。.・゜✭・.・。.・

when halloween night finally comes around, art finds himself staring in the mirror, tugging at the tight white t-shirt that came with his costume, shifting his back and shoulders to re-adjust the wings sitting heavy on his back. god.. what's patrick gonna think about this? he's probably gonna be made fun of relentlessly.. but there's a feeling in the bottom of his stomach when he looks at himself.. he can't deny that he likes what he sees. he's just nervous for you to see him too, what if you laugh? what if you think he looks silly? what if you make fun of him? all these thoughts swirl around in his head as he leaves your bathroom, stepping into your bedroom as you look up from your phone.

art mulls that over in his head, pretty.. did he feel pretty? was he pretty? he's a boy isn't he.. was he even allowed to be pretty? even with all these thoughts swirling in his head he knows the foundational truth: he likes when he say that, he likes when you call him pretty. you bring art back to reality by kissing him softly, leaning closer to him. arts tentative hands grab hold of your waist, squeezing tight when you slip your tongue into his mouth. "won't you let me take care of you art?" he nods, knowing that you saw the bulge in his pants the moment he stepped out of the bathroom.

you run your hands over arts warm skin, swinging your leg over his lap in order to straddle him. "we'll go slow, alright? don't be scared" you whisper, pressing your lips to his once again. art whines against you, his hips jerking under you even with the simple makeout session. art finds it easy to let you take the lead, you always do, in every facet of your relationship, and art likes to just turn his brain off when he's with you. he lets you run your fingers through his hair, pulling off the silly halo headband while you do. art shivers when you make your way down to his neck, sharp canine teeth poking and pulling at his skin. you pull at the hem of arts shirt, "can i take this off?" you ask, waiting for a nod before pulling it off of him, pressing your lips on his again and raking your nails down his chest, almost making him curl up on himself.

you were so warm inside, hot even, he could feel your every move from the inside, every ridge and squishy spot made him take a shuddering breath. you try to lift up again to establish a rhythm, but arts hands keep you still, taking deep breaths to calm himself down. after a few seconds, he takes his hands away, letting you start to bounce gently. his moans and whines become almost screams, "k-keep goingg please.." "y'r so warm 'nside" "never wanna stop.. wanna do this f-forever" he feels himself approaching his peak far too quick, but he cant stop, he couldn't even if he wanted to, he needs you to keep going, he needs you to touch him, he needs you to love him. you can feel art start to move his hips with you, planting his feet on the mattress and pushing up, slamming into you with the last of his strength before his whole body goes taut, shaking and shivering before you feel him cum inside you, even through the condom.

you kiss some more, before you pull away to take a breath and look at him. arts pretty pink cheeks and white wings contrast perfectly, only making your heart beat faster. "do you wanna see me?" you gesture to your chest, covered by a skimpy red tank top. art nods very quickly, almost getting dizzy. "y-yeah, yes please" he says, watching with stars in his eyes as you strip off your shirt, exposing your chest to him. art almost gasps when you take hold of his hands and place them on your boobs, letting him experiment and touch and squeeze to his hearts content, you want to giggle at his facial expressions but you don't want to make him self conscious. "c-can we keep going?" he asks, hands still on your breasts. you smile and laugh, nodding. "alright art.. can you take off your pants for me?" art almost thinks his heart stops when you ask him to do that, still getting it through his head to nod slowly. he shuffles them down his legs, his blue boxers already a little stained from the precum leaking from the makeout sessions. you shift closer to him, sitting between his spread legs. "ill be gentle okay?" you start slow, running your fingers softly over his bulge, smiling when you feel him twitch under your touch. tapping his hip to signal him to lift his hips up, art complies, suddenly feeling self conscious at the fact that no one has ever seen him like this before.. he doesn't even know what he's supposed to do, or say. you notice this of course, placing your palm on his hip, "you're doing great art" he visibly relaxes at your touch, sinking into your bed. he lets you touch him softly again, with no barrier this time, he's softer than you thought, his pretty pink head already drooling, the pronounced veins on the sides pulsing. you wish you could take a polaroid of this moment, the look of his innocent white wings contrasting from the very lewd image in front of you. art slaps a hand over his mouth, his brows furrowed, he's never had anyone else touch him here, your hand feels so much different than his own, so much softer and warmer. art has to concentrate his best on not cumming immediately, the sensation of your hand jerking him off becoming overwhelming. he has to reach down and push your hand away before he cums, wanting to save the best part for later. "i-im sorry i didn't wanna.. cum" he says, his face flushed red. you smile, understanding his predicament. "it's okay, i did the same my first time too.. do you have a condom?" art nods quickly, opening up a packet of condoms he bought a little prematurely maybe.. but he wanted to be prepared no matter what happened. art had taken a sex ed class before, but putting a condom on himself versus a banana were very different, so you had to help him roll it down his length. art does nothing but watch you throw your panties to the side, again climbing into his lap. "like i said, we'll go slow, tell me if you don't like how it feels yeah?" art agrees, placing his large hands on your hips in an attempt to prepare, but nothing could prepare him for this.

you move your hips slowly to let him cool off, before slipping off of him and settling down beside him. you take off the condom for him, cum dripping onto his stomach before you can throw it away. you place your head on arts chest, unable to resist dipping your finger into the drops of cum on his stomach, the translucent liquid almost glowing on his pale skin. you can't help the word that escapes your mouth, "angel..." you whisper against his skin, not thinking he's back to his senses yet. art perks up a little, hoping he heard what he thought he heard, "w-what?" "nothing" <3

art sighs, not even knowing why he likes it so much. "i dunno, i guess i feel.. nice in it.. like it's natural?" you nod along with his words, encouraging him to keep talking. "like when i put it on, it kind of made me get butterflies.." you nod, seeing where this was going. "you thought you looked pretty yeah? i mean i always say you look like an angel, this just proves my point" you remark, placing a gentle hand on his thigh. "yeah.. well you're right as always.."

[jesuistrestriste]

thinking about art student!reader who has to practice drawing human anatomy/physical form so they ask art to model for them !

and art’s okay with the idea of it; he thinks he’s just gonna sit on your couch—watching tv—while you sketch him for an hour or so.

but then he’s suddenly sitting on a stool in the middle of your living room, and he’s being told that he has to be naked.

it’s nude modeling. and god, he feels so fucking stupid!

his whole face and neck burn bright with embarrassment, and he desperately wants to back out, but he’s already at your place and he really, really doesn’t want to let you down now:(

so he strips. shirt comes off first, then his shorts, and his socks, and.. then his boxers. he swears his hands are shaking as he finally pushes them down to his ankles and then kicks them off.

you make him nervous enough as is, so this is basically his worst nightmare. situating himself on the stool while he cups (shields) his parts in his palms, unable to shake the lingering nerves and self consciousness.

he certainly hasn’t shaken them off nearly enough to feel comfortable exposing himself fully, he knows that’s for sure.

but you see it on his face, and like the great friend you are, you walk up and smile softly. you shake your head. “you seriously don’t have to do this.”

ugh, your stupid pretty smile gets his heart racing faster than ever. and weirdly sends a shudder of heat down into his gut. it swirls around in his body and causes him to swallow thickly before he’s abruptly having to shift his hands to accommodate the.. growth that’s happening..

“i.. no, it’s—like, i’m fine, i’m just a little…” he pauses, his words getting stuck in his throat as he swallows again and looks into your eyes.

“i got you,” you say gently with a chuckle, “it’s not weird on my end. i’m not gonna objectify you, it’s for school, yeah?”

and he nods, and he watches you walk back to your chair several feet in front of his, and then he’s easing one hand away. and the other comes off soon after. he grips the sides of the seat he’s on, completely white-knuckled.

the look on your face that you’re barely able to stifle, the lift of your brows and the lowering of your gaze, is all art needs to see before he realizes what you’re staring at.

he’s got a very obvious boner..

and you’re about to draw it.

[mellowwillowy]

Yan! Boyfriend x GN Reader

—𝒀𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒐𝒃𝒆𝒓 - 𝑳𝑰𝒇𝑬 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕 , NSFW

Yan! Boyfriend who you thought to be a golden retriever only to have him turn into a Doberman the moment you are away from him.

Yan! Boyfriend who is the "all 5 love language combo" for you and you only!

Act of service? Fun, especially when his head is buried into your crotch. That aside, yes he does all those sweet ass stuffs. Anything you think of, he has done it, even to the very most downbad shit you could think of.

Physical touch? PDA if you are into that, else either a hand around your thigh, squeezing them with love or shit ton of pecks.

Words of affection? 'My love looks so gorgeous as usual! What a refined beauty my love is, no wonder I can't stop falling head over heels for you!' And you were on the bed with bad hair, drooling on your pillow.

Gifting? How many gifts have you received today from him? Starting from something little to something large? The most surprising would be him coming home with a pet for you.

"Ta-daaa! You've been saying you want a pet so I think you will like this!"

Quality time? Not a problem for him. He has a lot of time for you. Hm? Work? Better not question him further about it. All that matters is that it's enough to give the two of you more than enough, even allowing the two of you to laze around. (Unlike Yan! Lawyer Husband and Yan! Antagonist who barely has any time for darling pfft-)

Yan! Boyfriend who is practically on his knees like a dog waiting for his treat when you are about to do something ✨️ r o m a n t i c a l ✨️ on him. Say who's a good boy and you could have sworn you saw his non-existent tail wagging excitedly.

"Who's a good boy hm? Who's a gooood boy??"

"Me! Blue! Blue is a good boy!"

Well, at least he is now because he wasn't when you first met him. He's changed a lot just for you, didn't want to disappoint you the next time you see him.

Yan! Boyfriend is the guy who you can really depend on for everything. Financially? Yes. Wanna beat the fuck out of someone? Call him and that person will have a taste of all the martial arts he has learned back then, not to mention he was quite the delinquent back then. Mentally? Yes. He's always there for you, either making it worse or better.

Yan! Boyfriend who likes to show you off to his friends and co-workers so much as though you are his prized possession. The hand that never leaves your waist and the dagger he shot at the people who stared at you for a bit too long are threatening enough to scare them away. Will definitely have a separate chat with them later,

"The fuck you are looking at my love for hm?"

Ignore how their nose is red and bleeding okay? If only Blue was able to do more, he would have had his fist buried into their face even more and harder like in the good ol' days. Has no choice but to be good else someone might rat to you about his behavior again.

Yan! Boyfriend who really likes to sleep on your lap, being able to feel you this close just makes him feel all giddy like a teenager in love. Would litter kisses and licks if you are not wearing anything that covers your thighs.

Yan! Boyfriend who will almost have the same taste in music as yours because he's just like that. Sucking in everything about you and ends up liking it.

Yan! Boyfriend who will vibe with you nonstop. If you are the crack type person, he will just be as crack as you, making people think whether the two of you are high in crack or not. Will always make you feel like it's okay to do anything you want without having to be embarrassed. Too shy to sing? Well, watch him scream his lungs out (Lemon and Grape chilling with ear muffs) and his hand motioning you tag along.

"BABY WON'T YOU LOOOOVEEE MEEEE"

"What do you say we gag him up with the mic?"

"Great, I'll hold him by the neck."

Yan! Boyfriend who really loves watching you sleep. No, he's not a somnophilic bastard like Yulian. He just adores seeing you resting so peacefully. (while Eleanor panicking over darling sleeping)

Yan! Boyfriend who enjoys cooking breakfast for you. You'll wake up greeted with him standing by the kitchen or sitting by the dining table waiting for you to wake up. Hm? If the food has gone cold because you woke up late, he'll just reheat it. Nothing biggie so no need to feel bad about it ^^

Yan! Boyfriend who is always keeping his mental state in check just in case it cracks open the ugly side of him again. He's embarrassed of it yet he is grateful for it because it brought the two of you to meet. Just staying next to you is enough to keep him sane so try not to stray too far from him okay? He might really snap again and the place you once called home might be nothing but ruins.

"Love you... dear."

Yan! Boyfriend who hates being away from you! If his work suddenly requires him to be somewhere away from you, he will bring you along with him! (I might make a chart of the difference for all the LIfE Pro casts)

"Almost feels like a vacation eh? Let's visit this place once I'm done with work love!"

Although he always brings you along, there are times when he'll have to leave you with Lemon or Grape, either asking them to stay with you or you stay over their place.

"Try not to dent his sport car again yeah? He was yapping at me for hours ahaha! I will ask Grape to watch over you as well, she'll do well as your nanny. Hm? Not a little kid anymore? Oh no no, better be safe than sorry. Don't want those nasty ghosts keeping you awake during the night yeah?"

Afternote:

Blue is my second favorite! Yulian has always been the first so no one sees Blue that much... he's just so sweet... although the story he shares with Eleanor tangles everything up...

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Neil talking about the responses to Good Omens Season 2 - from the Neil Gaiman interview with Brian Levine for The Gould Standard (x,x)

BL: The audience that you have built is a very passionately engaged audience. They, frankly, they love you. And one of the reasons they love you is that you fit into what I think of as one of two great divisions in art. There's, or in writing, um, there is: I'm entertained, I'm amused. I may be even enchanted; and then there's this hits me at a visceral level. You understand me as no one else does. You have touched something very central to my experience. And it seems to me that Much of your writing, maybe all of your writing, actually reaches your audience at that latter level. You know. I would say in the former category, sort of my quintessential and beloved example would be P. G. Woodhouse. He amuses me, but I don't feel like he's revealed my inner self at a very deep level. Um, were you aware that you were going to be able to achieve that? Um, that this is something... was it a startling thing when people began coming up to you, who'd read your work and said, this means so much to me?

Neil: Yeah. It was huge. And it wasn't expected. I... if I had a mountaintop I was heading towards, it was gonna be P. G. Woodhouse. Um, I wanted to be a proficient entertainer with a clear prose style who could tell stories. Um, it probably wasn't until Sandman that I found... I started to realize that in order for a story to work, I had to show too much. In order for a story to resonate, in order for a story to matter, I had to let it matter too much. And, and I remember the first people who would start coming up to me and saying, um, you, you know, your, your Sandman comics got me through the death of a loved one. Your death character got me through my child's death, through my parent's death, through my partner's death, through my friend's death. Um, and that left me kind of amazed. I'm like, well, I didn't write it to do that. I wrote it to feed my children. I wrote it to satisfy myself. I wrote it because nobody else had ever written it. And if I didn't write it, it wouldn't be written, but I don't think I wrote it to give you what you've taken from it. And I spent really about 20, 25 years feeling awkward about that. And then my father died, in March 2009, and never got to cry about it. Never... I, you know, I've, I've got on a plane and I went to the UK and dealt with the funeral stuff and organized all of that stuff and came back and go toff the plane and went and did Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report and wearing the funeral suit because and that was all I had with me and carried on. And then, somewhere in the middle of summer, I was reading a friend's script. They'd sent me a script and said, can you look this over? And I'm reading it, and on page 20, the lead character meets somebody, and on page 26 maybe, she's dead, and I burst into tears. And I'm bawling. I am sobbing. It is coming out of me in giant racking waves. And I realized that it's everything that I'd been, hadn't let myself feel, or hadn't been able, hadn't stopped enough to let myself feel, was suddenly being given permission to feel by the death of a fictional person who I'd met six pages earlier, ia script. And I thought that... and it was huge for me, and I thought, okay, that's that thing that people are talking about sometimes, when they come tome and they say, you, you did this. So right now, I'm in this weird, wonderful place where I think a lot of people in Good Omens Season 2 thought they were signing up for the P.G. Woodhouse, and didn't know that, no, no, no, you've, you've signed up for the whole thing. You've signed up for the feelings. You've signed up for the emotions. I... it is my job to make you care and to make you feel and to feel things you haven't felt before. And which meant that the first week or so after Good Omens came out, I was getting angry, furious, deeply upset messages on every possible social medium telling me that I had betrayed people, and it was awful, and they couldn't stop crying, and why would I do that to them, and did I hate them? And they hated me. And then a weird sort of phenomenon happened as people would watch the show again. And again. And now they started to know, okay, this is where it's gonna go, this is what's gonna happen, this is how it works. And they started realizing that they were actually feeling things, and that was good. And that they were caring about two people who don't exist. You know, I made them up, and then and Terry Pratchett made them up, and then, um, David Tennant and Michael Sheen gave them life, and then they get to walk around on a screen and you know they don't exist, but you can cry for them, you can love them, they can make you laugh, they can make you exult, and most important of all, they can make you care. And the number of people who are now writing to me, saying, 'This was so important to me. This has changed my life. This makes me feel like I belong. This makes me feel like I can cope. And it's let me sort of find myself. P. S. I hope you get to do Season Three.' is, is huge.

[xamag-draws]

BBR thoughts 2024

Since I mentioned that I finally dusted off an old project of mine and was ruminating on how I'd remake it, I thought I'd elaborate a little, now that I've solidified some concepts. For funsies

This is gonna be a bit of a long and unfocused one, but I don't share my personal thoughts here often, especially the stuff about my projects I always marinate in. And for once it's something that people have existing context for, so hey why not

So for anyone who hasn't been following me for a gajillion years, The Black Brick Road of OZ was a webcomic that I posted around 2013-2015, back when I was in highschool going on college (which is kinda crazy to think about). It was sort of a darker twist on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, although I definitely leaned a lot more into dark humor more than anything in those first few chapters

I don't think it's available to read anywhere anymore, and I know people have been asking me about it. So here's the full proper archive of BBR, as full as it can be with deceased Flash

I totally used it as an excuse to shamelessly and self-indulgently experiment. It had interactive pages and GIFs and was wayyy too overproduced for what I could handle or what was necessary, but I did have great fun making it while it lasted

Unfortunately, that excess and the fact that I've changed too much as a person by the time I was in college is what ultimately killed it. The direction I wanted to go in was practically unrecognizable from the original idea started back in 2011, so there were many old hold-ups that I felt ruined it

At the time I kinda wished I could start/rewrite it all over, but considering that I pretty much had the entire script done at that point, it felt like a pointless sisyphean task. So I just put it on a shelf and didn't look back for about 8 years, because I didn't know what else to do

Now to be fair, the nature of my art has always been iterative and cyclical; when I feel like my creative juices have run dry I prefer to leave a project to marinate and move on to something else; cycle through other old things and bring in new skills and perspectives into the mix when I'm ready again. Not very productive, but it is what makes me happy to work on my OCs; I'm doomed to hit a wall with them eventually and I need some time to be able to find a new direction

So that said, I'm glad that BBR was left to marinate for that long. I don't think I was prepared, emotionally or intellectually, to tackle it again until now. The Wizard of Oz book (and the entire series of them, really) has always been near and dear to my heart, but there's a lot of context around it that I'm only unpacking now that I'm older

I think I always inherently feel negatively about the stuff I've made in the past, like its faults always jump out to me more than the positives, especially the more time passes. I've never liked that, and I do really appreciate the kind things people have to say about BBR to this day. The fact that it still can be recognized and remembered is very sweet

When I left it, I already found it "kinda cringe", and that feeling only deepened with years. When I took my first look back at it, asking the question "how would I rewrite it now?", at first I took a very cynical approach, as in "everything would have to be torn down"

But the more I sat on it, the more I found that I still see some merit and charm in the ideas I was putting out; I just didn't know how to execute them at the time (not to pretend that I know what I'm doing now, but I certainly know more at least). Turns out a lot of my old concepts could be changed substantially with just a few small tweaks. So I'd say that's a nicer way to think about my previous work

If you haven't seen yet, I posted a first draft of my new designs for some of the characters (the main group, the Goods and the Wickeds). Definitely subject to change, but more or less how I see them now

I'm just playing with these concepts; by no means would I attempt to remake BBR right this moment. Call it a pipe dream among my other ones. But just for fun, this is the direction I'd like to take:

Nowadays I'd probably make it a visual novel, with more emphasis on the visual part than the novel because I'm no English prose writer by any means. It'd still let me play a little with the interactivity while helping cut some corners on the drawing part (only some, I imagine I'd go hog wild anyway)

I've always intended for some events inspired by the sequel books to take place in BBR's past. Stuff like Jinjur's revolt or Ozma's rule preceeds the main events here. So I think it would be fun to follow the past of a few key characters alongside the main story. One chapter focusing on the present quest to see the Wizard, then one focusing on the past events (that are maybe reflective thematically); rinse and repeat

I'm also sticking a little closer to the original text in some regards. Not everything that I enjoy from the books would be translated here, it's still just a very loose fantasy on the material; but I'd like to be closer in spirit at least

I like mature, wise and powerful Glinda, I like kind and vulnerable Tin Man, I like the Wizard being a pathetic yet loveable liar, so I'm sprinkling in more of that for example

I'd like to keep some whimsy, but make it more grounded and a bit more serious to be coherent in tone. I think the original TWWOOZ book was a more realistic fantasy in some ways, even for the standards of the time; I like its simple but vivid tactile descriptions and details like bringing attention that Dorothy needed to eat and sleep

I find it funny that Baum specifically was averse to making his books scary or unpleasant, finding that unnecessary for telling a compelling kids story, but they still can get pretty dark and disturbing, at least for our modern sensibilities. Let's just say that I intend to use the Evoldo and Chopfyt storylines for my purposes. In that way, I feel like a "darker" Wizard of Oz retelling can still mostly be tonally in line with the original and balance it with enough heart and occasional humor

I slowly grew to appreciate the quaint old-timey quality of the original series, as well. The first book is both timeless and very much a product of the 1900s. Originally I tried to give it a little modern or at least anachronistic spin, but it was moreso because it's what I knew best, so these days I'd rather intentionally lean into the time period. Still not fully historically accurate by any means, but at least directly acknowledging the influence

The events of the story span across 40 years of these characters' lives, so I'm drawing inspiration from the entire so-called La Belle Epoque: the time period around 1880s-1920s. Basically I'm cooking, and my soup is old Victorian fashion morphing into Edwardian fashion and slowly inching towards flappers

Some new Dolly outfits

Lots of crazy things, political changes and innovations were happening at the turn of the century, which I think is noted and reflected by Baum in the books as well; the character of Tik-Tok might not blow any minds now, but he was one of the first robot characters in literature at that point; and don't even get me started on Jinjur, etc. Plenty of really interesting stuff one could lightly ponder in an Oz adaptation these days

Aesthetically, art nouveau has always been a big artistic influence for me, and it'd definitely be its time to shine here. John R. Neill's illustrations of the Oz books often keep me company as well. Nouveau architecture in particular fits that fairytale whimsy extremely well imo

I'd allow myself a little bit of art deco here and there, but ultimately its intimidating geometrical splendor is an antithetical to the flowery nature of nouveau and I associate it with a completely different era. Definitely fitting some characters like my Wicked Witch of the West, but shouldn't be overused

One of my main problems with the original BBR was that eventually I lost track of what it was even about; and the original ending felt too mean and unfulfilling to be worth it. Now I'd like to stick to the theme of home and family as my main theme, but in a different, more bittersweet way than in the book

An interesting connection I made is that a lot of my aforementioned older key characters (the Witches, Jinjur, the Nome King, etc) all came from the same reformatory as kids, that's how they know each other. In my recent research I learned that in those reformatories it was usually frowned upon to release the children back to the families, which were seen as the original corrupting influence regardless of the circumstance. The reformatory did everything in its power to cut that connection and make itself the only family those wayward kids were supposed to know and love. That's an unexpected tie into the theme of home that I'd like to explore as well

So yeah that's the current state of it. I have a bunch of outfit concepts I'm slowly cooking, although I'm now sure whether I'd post them... But I do miss these funny guys, and I'm glad some people still do as well :)

[dailynnt]

CAPTIVE OF HIS ATTENTION

♡ Summary: You're an art and design student at Seoul National University, trying to maintain your independence and focus on your studies. Your peaceful life is shattered when you meet Jungkook , a charismatic, stubborn, and unpredictable guy who pairs up with you for a group project. He starts to annoy you by challenging your principles. Jungkook, who loves to be the center of attention, uses his charming and playful nature to play with your feelings and control the situation. You are constantly trying not to succumb to his manipulations, but gradually you find that his influence on you is becoming stronger and stronger. The relationship between you is a game of power, desire, and sensation, where each tries to leave their mark without letting the other take over completely. But will you be able to maintain your independence, or will Jungkook eventually make you his?

♡ Couple: Jeon Jungkook/ Fem!Reader

♡ Characters: The Reader, Jeon Jungkook, Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung, Min Yoongi, Kim Seokjin, Kim Namjoon, Jeon Hoseok.

♡ Age restrictions: 18+

♡ Relationships: ⚤

♡ Number of part: SNEAK PEEK

♡ Tags: university life, students, from enemies to lovers, everyday life, mild longing, sex, protected sex, unprotected sex, alcohol, smoking, profanity, tags will be added as the story progresses

♡ From the author: Guys, I want to share with you the announcement of my new project when I finish working on Friends within Touching Distance. This is an interesting idea that came to me while reading the comic. This story is also supposed to be a series, but I don't know how many parts it will be. I would appreciate any feedback, but also please let me know in the comments if you like my idea 🙏🏻🥹💜

♡ Warning: English is not my native language, so there may be mistakes in the text. Please don't get mad at me too much! Those under 18, please don't read this story!

SNEAK PEEK

The library was quiet, filled only with the soft rustle of pages turning and keyboards clicking. In the farthest corner, where time seemed to stand still, Jungkook and you sat down at a table. Your determination to complete the project was evident in every movement, while he seemed to have come here just to pass the time.

“It's a great place,” he said, stretching his words. “Quiet, cozy. I'd even say it's perfect for... sitting and a little sleep.”

You put the papers down, looking at him reproachfully.

“Do you really think it’s work like that? If you don't make an effort, I'll just not put your name on the project.”

Jungkook smiled, leaning slightly toward you.

“And then what? Aren't you afraid that I'll convince the dean and my name will be there without question? I'm sure this project will be the best in the class. And it's all thanks to me.”

You sighed, unfolding your notes.

“Your reputation speaks for itself. I think the dean will be more likely to believe me.”

His eyes sparkled and he laughed.

“You sure know how to hold your own, Y/N. It's kind of fun.”

You didn't answer, staring at your laptop. Your fingers moved quickly over the keyboard, and your gaze remained stern and focused.

Jungkook propped his hand on his cheek and began to look at you. In the soft light of the lamp, your features seemed almost perfect: your dark blonde hair was carelessly tied back in a ponytail, and a few strands were playfully falling over your face. Your lips, slightly pursed from concentration, looked as if they might say something harsh at any moment.

You looked pretty sexy. Your figure was attractive. Jungkook looked at your breasts and noticed that they were the perfect size for him. He would like to see them without all these clothes you are wearing. Trying them to taste. How could he not notice you before? You are full in his taste.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” he suddenly asked, not looking away.

You froze, your hands stopped on the keyboard.

“Do you care?” you answered dryly, not looking up.

He leaned closer, almost crossing the invisible line between you.

“I would say yes. I'm wondering what kind of guy you would choose. Probably some bookworm who also likes to sit in libraries?”

You looked up and your eyes sparkled.

“It’s none of your business at all.”

Jungkook smiled wider, noticing you blush slightly. Your ears turned red, and that only fueled his curiosity.

“Why are you blushing, Han? Did I make you think something? Did you imagine me as your boyfriend?”

You immediately turned away, hiding behind your laptop screen.

“You're too confident. You're not attractive enough for me to think of you as my boyfriend, Jeon.”

He laughed again, but this time his voice was lower, more intimate.

“And you seem to know how to make me interested.”

His words sounded as if he were challenging you. Your heart beat faster, but you forced yourself to remain calm.

“If you think that such tricks work on me, you are mistaken,” you replied, trying to sound cold.

Jungkook leaned back, looking at you with satisfaction.

“We'll see.” He said quietly.

He realized that you were not like the others. Your reaction to him gave him a strange desire to test you even more. Girls always fall for his words easily, not to mention those who goes wet at the mere sight of him. But you are different, you are cold and indifferent to him. But does it ever happen?

The sexual tension between you has become almost palpable.

Jungkook moved his chair to sit as close to you as possible, pretending to be interested in what you were typing on your laptop. His hand barely touched the table next to you, and it made you tense.

“What are you writing there that's so serious? Maybe I should contribute to the project so you can put my name on it?” he asked calmly, leaning in so close that you could feel his warm breath on your neck.

“I'm trying to finish the introduction,” you answered briefly, not looking up, but your fingers slowed on the keyboard.

“Introduction?” he repeated, as if savoring the word.

Jungkook leaned even closer, almost touching your face. His perfume-with notes of fresh citrus and wood-filled the space around him. He was so close that you could no longer ignore his presence.

“You're too close,” you said dryly, moving away slightly, but not being able to go far, there were only a few centimeters between them.

“Don't you like it?” his voice was quieter, almost a whisper, but that only made him more intriguing. His handsome face was so close that you could see it in every detail. Black eyes like two buttons that looked at you slyly. Long, thick eyelashes. A mole under the lip, which is now clearly visible, lips with a bow with a loose lower lip. They had an attractive pink color. They glistened slightly, as if he had licked them beforehand.

He tilted his head as if he were looking at the screen, but he was actually peripheral vision watching you with a studying gaze. You turned back to the laptop screen, your ears still slightly pink and your lips pursed as if you were trying not to react. You felt him leaning down to your ear, going down to the jaws and taking a quiet, deep breath.

“You know,” he says, “you smell so good.”

You froze, trying to remain calm, but your cheeks betrayed you again, turning even more rosy. You move a few centimeters away and quickly said:

“Will you just move away and stop violating my personal space?”

Jungkook laughed, leaning back a little, but his eyes never left your face.

“You're blushing really cute. It's even nicer than I imagined.” you looked at him angrily.

“You have no respect for other people's boundaries, do you?”

“I respect,” he replied with a smile, “it's just that with you I want to violate them a little.”

His words made you feel confused for a moment. Your heart was pounding, and you hated yourself for letting him influence you even a little. You forced yourself to take a deep breath and put all your emotions aside.

“If you're not going to work, then I can work alone. But you remember what I said,” you looked at him sternly, “then your name will definitely not appear in this project.”

Jungkook smiled again, but this time his smile was a little warmer than usual.

“Okay, I guess I'll have to work a little harder if I want you to keep reacting to me like this.”

“React?” you asked again, raising an eyebrow. “My only reaction is to want to finish the project and never work with you again.”

Jungkook tilted his head as if he was seriously thinking and whispered, leaning into your ear:

“Let's see how long you can stay away.”

His words sent a chill down your spine, and although you pretended not to be affected, Jungkook noticed your breathing become a little faster.

He leaned back, pleased with himself, and took his phone out of his pocket.

“All right, partner. Where do you want to start?”

Feeling your heart beating wildly, you turned back to your laptop, trying to focus on your work.

You knew that working on this project was going to be a living hell for you. And Jungkook would be your main torturer.

[captain039]

PART 7 LAST PART Unconventional Alpha

Alpha!Viktor x omega!reader

Warnings: Heats, suppressants, AOB, light swearing, Viktor’s not dying but still disabled, reader has chronic pain, plus size reader, nesting, Older Viktor, Professor Viktor, artistic reader, age gap reader is in their 20s +, smut?, oral f receiving

Previous part <-

It’s a routine eventually, he gets up, makes you breakfast of simple toast and butter, brings you your meds before lying back down in your nest. He simply holds you during these times, his fingers gently detangling your hair his other hand resting on your hip or waist. He sleeps with you at night, his long lean body wrapped around your bigger frame. Your heat isn’t as bad now, probably having an alpha close pretty much 24/7 has done its trick. By the seventh day you feel better, you don’t sweat as much, the need goes to a simmer and your flare up goes down. You shower properly, feel better about yourself and even do some art out in your small lounge area of your dorm room. Viktor goes back to his work once he sees you up and about, catching up assignments and whatever else professors do no doubt. By the tenth day you’re fine, your heat is gone, you feel different though, calmer with Viktor around like he was always meant to be there. Being off your suppressants too makes you feel more like yourself, rather than suppressing your omega nature. Viktor goes back to class on the eleventh day as do you, you hope to avoid any rumours or anything but highly doubt that nobody didn’t talk. So you keep a low profile, not that your profile wasn’t low anyway, you just make it extra low. You go back to the doctors and Dr Marion confirms you’re in the clear and able to take your suppressants again as long as you don’t double dose again, which you will not. You sit in the cafeteria around lunch, earphones in as you listen to some music. You notice a small band approaching though and frown a bit hoping their walking past with no such luck. You take your earphones out.

“Hi?” You say.

“What’s it like to fuck a professor?” You almost joke on your food at the blunt question and feel your embarrassment rise up.

“I didn’t- do that” you say, who even was this woman?

“That’s why Professor Viktor was in your dorm for eleven days huh? You smell fresh out of heat too” she crosses her arms over her chest.

“I-“ you didn’t think this far ahead.

“You should leave before I decide to make you all fail my class” You tense up a bit at the sound of Professor Talis behind you and glance back to him briefly. The students walk off though and you sigh.

“Y/n? Right?” He gives you a smile.

“Yeah” you answer.

“Can I sit?” He asks and you nod. Great now two Professors that aren’t yours are suddenly talking to you in the cafeteria.

“How you feeling?” He asks and you tense up at the question.

“I just meant your overall well being I wasn’t-“ You watch as Professor Talis stammers over his words and goes a shade of red over his tan skin.

“I’m ok” you nod and he sighs in relief nodding.

“That’s good” he smiles.

“Viktor’s caught up in some meetings for the day” he explains as he starts to eat his lunch.

“Oh, thanks for letting me know” you say nodding picking at your food feeling awkward.

“I’m making you uncomfortable” he says.

“No- it’s ok” you say.

“No, it’s not, two professors that aren’t yours talking to you in cafeteria puts a target on your back for rumours” he smiles gently and you nod not sure how to answer.

“In all honesty I’m an admirer of your art too, I’ve seen it in the academy gallery” he says and you perk up.

“Really?” You ask and he nods smiling.

“Yeah it’s amazing, and the one in the council room? I could never paint like that” he chuckles and you feel a smile on your lips.

“Just practice” you shrug.

“No, you’re hell of an artist, like seriously talented” he says and you feel warm at the praise. It’s been hard to accept praises from people about your art, always looking at it and finding mistakes in tiny details.

“Well you’re a seriously talented inventor” you chuckle and he rubs the back of his neck sheepishly with a cute smile.

“Only sometimes” he grins. You feel at ease as you talk more, Professor Talis going on about your art work like a fan boy it makes you smile having only seen him as this super smart tough inventor who invented a hextech hammer and gauntlets. You loose track of time before his watch buzzes.

“Shit” he says standing up abruptly.

“Sorry, I gotta go I’m late to my own damn class” he says and you laugh waving him goodbye as he rushes.

You return to your own art class for the day lost in the strokes of the brush before you realise it’s late. Your stomach grumbles for food as you stand and you glance to the clock before heading to the cafeteria. Your heart rate increases a bit seeing a familiar figure there sitting down at your table. You grab a tray of food before walking over.

“Can I sit?” You ask watching the alpha lift his head a small smile on his face as he nods.

“Was starting to think you weren’t coming” he says as you sit down.

“And miss dinner? Who do you take me for?” You tease and he chuckled softly.

“Of course” he says. You look at him for a bit before you look at your food and start eating it.

“Professor Talis sat with me at lunch today” you say.

“Jayce did?” Viktor says frowning a bit and you nod.

“Had a rather blunt rumour of me uh fucking a professor and Professor Talis said he’d fail them all if they didn’t leave” Viktor’s frown narrows.

“I didn’t say anything - if you’re wondering I haven’t-“ you trail off stuttering a bit.

“I know you didn’t, I’m just-” he sighs.

“You’d think in a place such as the academy silly rumours would be a thing of the past where people used their damned brains for once” he sneers a bit and you smile.

“Damned brains huh?” You say and he looks to you his frown softening.

“Indeed” he smiles.

“I’m sorry if I caused any problems” you say poking your food with your fork.

“Look at me” he says and you do.

“I don’t care what anyone says, they want to talk let them, you needed me in a vulnerable time and I’m happy you trusted me, any alpha would’ve been privileged to-“ he frowns a bit suddenly.

“What?” You ask quietly.

“Would you like to go on a date?” He says his eyes staring into yours and you forget how to breathe.

“A date?” You ask and he nods.

“Like a date, date? Outside the academy?” You continue.

“Yes” he says.

“You want to go on a date with me?” I smiled a bit and leans forward.

“Yes Miss Y/n Y/l/n I would like to go on a date with you” he says softly.

“Why?” You blurt stupidly.

“Because the thought of you finding another alpha makes me want to use my cane for violence than aid” he says seriously and you burst out laughing at the sudden imagery of him attacking someone with his cane.

“And I do enjoy seeing you laugh” he says more softly and you feel your cheeks warm.

“I also do love enjoying being the one who makes those pretty cheeks of yours go red” he says voice dropping lower making you warmer.

“I could go on, however….” he trails off and smirks and you see the cockiness in it making you glare at him.

“I want to be the only one buried between those gorgeous thighs of yours” he whispers and he’s right you’re no doubt red as a tomato. You reach over and slap him and he smiles taking your hand in his instead, his fingers gently running over your hand.

“But I am serious, the thought of another alpha with you, staying with you in that time made me realise I want you, and I’m hoping you want me too” he says his voice soft as he gently caresses your hand.

“So, will you go out on a date with me?” He repeats and you nod. He smiles brightly, full teethed and natural, you see his slightly crooked teeth as he lifts your hand to his mouth and he kisses your knuckles.

Taglist:

I hope you enjoyed this story!

@imithicwolf

@donnie-is-here

@justmoniesworld

@sseleniaa

@charliepoopyfart

@fuckisthatahotghost

[springtyme]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐎𝐟 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ♡

Derek Morgan x reader || Main Masterlist || Spotify

summary: It was not your plan to dump into a tall, handsome FBI agent, but sometimes you get lucky.

word count: 666

𝐎𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞: 𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟔) 𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐂𝐮𝐭𝐞

It is a typical Tuesday morning at your favorite coffee shop, a cozy little place where the rich aroma of roasted coffee beans mingles with the sound of clinking mugs and soft chatter. The morning crowd buzzes, and you are nestled in your favorite corner, sketchbook open, pencil flying across the pages as you capture the vibrant energy around you.

You are so engrossed in your work that you don’t notice when the line for coffee snakes its way closer to your table. Your concentration breaks when the barista calls out a name, you stand up, but you didn’t really hear what was called and you are unsure whether it was yours or someone else’s. You look up, slightly confused, just in time to see a tall man brushing past you, his shoulder barely grazing yours.

“Sorry about that,” he says, his voice deep and warm. 

You glance up to look him in the eyes and your pencil pauses mid-air, he is muscular with a charming smile and warm brown eyes. He wears a leather jacket that hugs his athletic frame, and you can tell he is someone who knows how to take charge of any situation.

“No problem at all,” you manage to say, trying to keep your composure. “I get lost in my own world too.”

The man chuckles as he leans over your sketches, an appreciative glint in his eye. “Wow, you’re really talented. Is this coffee shop your studio?”

“Something like that,” you reply, your cheeks warming at the compliment. “It’s a great place to people-watch,” you say, gesturing to the rest of the coffee shop.

He glances around the bustling coffee shop, a glint of mischief in his eyes as he returns his gaze to you, smirking, a spark of interest flickering in his eyes. “People-watching is an underrated art form.”

“Sure is, I like capturing the small moments… It’s nice.”

He glances around, then back at you with a smirk. “You might be capturing my moment, then. I was just getting coffee to gear up for what could be a long day at the office.”

“Office?” you ask, intrigued.

“Yeah, FBI,” he says casually, as if it is just another job.

Your eyes widen in surprise, thoughts racing. “Like, really? You must have some incredible stories to tell then.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” he says, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “But I can’t share those. Privacy and all that, you know?” He winks, making your heart skip a beat.

Before you can respond, the barista calls out his name: ‘Derek’. It suits him, you think. He sighs dramatically, turning to grab his coffee. “Guess I’ll have to keep some of my secrets, but I think I’m able to tell a few… Perhaps you can exchange  stories with me sometime?”

His boldness catches you off-guard. “Sure, if you promise to tell me one of yours, I’m telling one of mine.”

As you exchange smiles, something shifts in the air between you. You jot down your number on a napkin, along with your name, handing it to him as he reaches for his drink.

With the warmth of your touch lingering on the napkin, Derek looks at you, a confident grin plastered on his face. “I’ll take that as a challenge. Coffee soon? Or maybe a drink?”

“I’d love a drink,” you reply, heart racing in anticipation, feeling a secret thrill at how easily the conversation flows between you.

Derek jots down a quick line on his own napkin before handing it back to you. “Text me when you want to meet up.”

With that, he turns to leave, but not before glancing back over his shoulder, that captivating smile promising an adventure that lies ahead.

As the door chimes behind him, you can’t help but feel that maybe, just maybe, fate has decided to add a dash of excitement to your routine. You smile to yourself as the barista calls out your name and you turn to get your coffee.

[snakeredbirdbatkatana]

It was another competion the entire family all shoving and pushing each other into the car to see more of Damian's art.

Tim is excited for Damian.

He knows what it's like, to stand there and have no one show up. To be there all by yourself for hours the only one to visit your booth being the art teacher.

Ms. Carrington who would ask questions and ignore the tears that pooled in his eyes before helping him pack everything up, sometimes even driving him home because of course neither his parents or Bruce could be bothered to pick him up.

He can't really help the envy that he can feel building in his chest mixing with a good chunk of repressed anger.

A elbow being jabbed into his ribs distracts him.

"Hey what's with the face? Perk up Boy-Loser it's Damian's night."

He turns to Steph the smile that he had been attempting to plaster on falling. It's such a stupid thing it's a nickname so what if it's demeaning, he gets called pretender or replacement by Jason what does it matter.

"Do you ever think it's kinda fucked up that not a single person in this family calls me anything that isn't an insult?" He snaps.

She looks shocked. How fucking dare he have an ounce of self esteem. Someone alert the Media Tim Drake isn't a dormat.

He turns away sliding into the crowd.

There's less then half an hour left before he can leave. Pratically throwing himself down in the empty hallway as far as he can get from this entire night.

"Baby bird and Timmy aren't insults? Or are they I can't seem to keep up with the kids these days."

He turns, of course. You might be able to run from Batman or lie to him, but you can never escape the grasp of Big Brother Nightwing.

"So your admitting that your old?" he joins the banter.

His muscles start to unclench another superpower only Dick Grayson seems to have.

"Never, something you want to talk about?"

Does he? No. Should he? Yah.

"Maybe I just don't want be insulted every day of my life. So weird who doesn't want to be reminded they suck?"

He can hear the whine, he can also hear that everything he just said isn't gonna matter. You don't take whiny little boys seriously. And that's what he is.

"Hmm you know I get called Dickhead or really a lot of just penis related jokes. Always hated them not that it really stops anyone."

He looks finally making eye contact with his big brother. Because he's right. How many times has he heard anyone in the family other than him and Damian call Dick anything nice. Never not once. Maybe Bruce but he can't really picture it.

"Also don't think I didn't notice how annoyed you are with Bruce about this entire night, which I don't blame you for. You know I love Damian kiddo, but yah Bruce is not winning a mug from me or you."

He doesn't really want to acknowledge any of that already exhausted and he will have to apologize to Steph and if he opens the box it will be a car ride from hell home.

"Luckily for you I have a car parked a block up we can escape get ice cream and have a nice sleepover in bludhaven."

He wants to so bad, he wants to throw himself at Dick who knows him so well, who followed him out here, who isn't blinking, the only adult who has ever not somehow fucked him over.

"What about Damian? He will be pissed at me for stealing you or something. He doesn't need another reason to stab me."

He turns to look back at the floor.

"Foolish Drake I will be coming with you Father is being insesently annoying and I much rather talk about art with someone who has a brain cell."

Both him and Dick whip around to see Damian standing there a slight blush on his face hesitation making the corner of mouth twitch. He sees Dick looking on unsure. He doesn't hesitate.

"Thank god I know a great place with that Vegan Cookie Dough you like. What you waiting for Big Bird? Let's go. "

Climbling to his feet he grabs Dick and Damian dragging them to the exit he hears Dick's confused muttering sharing a secret smile with Damian before ignoring it.

The night is finally looking up.

[feyhunter78]

Sidewalk Kisses

Art cred: mia_bobrhia

“No, so then we get to the next chapter, the one we were supposed to read before class, right? And this dumbass goes wait, who’s Ophelia again? We’re literally reading Hamlet; the book cover is that super famous painting of Ophelia, and he doesn’t even know who she is.” You rant, waving your hands wildly in frustration, recounting the drama from your last class as you and Miguel take the back way to your next classes. You’re walking down the cracked sidewalk, the large looming trees above, birds singing in their branches, it’s quiet, no one else is around.

Miguel hums in halfhearted acknowledgment, and you look over at him, slowing your pace.

“Sorry, I know I’m being dramatic, but it just pisses me off.” You say, and Miguel can see you curling in on yourself.

“Don’t apologize, I’m just enjoying listening.” He says, trying to blink himself out of the trace your beauty has put him in. “And looking at you.”

You look so pretty, your hair tied up, a few strands falling perfectly, framing your face, the sun on your skin, the flowers blooming on the trees and bushes behind you.

You give him a shy smile, looking up at him through your mascara adorned lashes. “You’re so sweet.”

It’s his turn to be shy, and he ducks his head. “It’s easy to be sweet to you, you deserve it.”

You smack his arm playfully, full on beaming at him now. “Shut up, I adore you.”

I love you. The words sit on the tip of his tongue, poised, ready for action, but he chokes them down. “Now who’s being too sweet?”

You giggle, and it’s like music, like bells, like everything he’s ever wanted to hear. He loves to hear you laugh.

Miguel wants to kiss you, but he knows once he starts, he won’t be able to stop, and you both have classes to get to.

“Yeah, yeah, but anyways, so Dr. Wrinkler is like young man she is the very reason we’re reading this book. And dumbass just says I thought we were reading Hamlet because of Hamlet. Literally starts arguing with the professor! And I’m just sitting there dumbfounded, but also happy because I didn’t actually read the chapter before class, so I don’t mind him wasting class time.” You admit, giving Miguel an impish smile.

“My girlfriend, the ever-diligent student, is secretly a rule breaker, who would’ve known?” He jokes, glancing over at you when you stop dead in your tracks. “What’s wrong?”

You smile and go up on your toes, pressing your lips against his cheek. “I just don’t think I’ve ever heard you call me your girlfriend before; I like it.”

His cheeks warm and he ducks his head. “I…I like it too.”

You coo at him and smother his face with quick kisses, wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him down to your height, angling your lips against his in a way that feels both romantic and wildly inappropriate. His head spins and he can’t stop a whimper from escaping when your nails graze against the nape of his neck, and your tongue traces the seam of his lips.

You smile against him, tangling your hands in his hair, manicured nails massaging his scalp, his glasses digging into the bridge of his nose a bit. He doesn’t care, you could devour him, break him into tiny pieces, melt him down, mold him into something new, whatever you want as long as you keep kissing him.

His hands go to your waist, pulling you closer, instinct taking over as he explores every inch of your mouth, the tip of his tongue running across yours, his grip tightening when he feels your breathing speed up.

You break away, breathing harshly, leaning into him like your knees are weak. “You’re um—you’re really good at that.”

“Only with you, mi dulce.” He says, and it’s not a lie, it’s the truest thing he knows. He likes kissing you, it comes naturally, everything he does you like and vice versa, there’s no wrong moves with you. “You inspire greatness in me.”

“Who knew you had such a silver tongue?” You tease, looking up at him with your pupils blown wide, your hands trailing lower, caressing his broad back.

Maybe he could convince you to skip class?

“If you would let me, I could show you more of it.” The words are honeyed, far smoother than he thought they would be, and Miguel holds his breath as he waits for your response.

Your breath catches in your throat and blink at him, stunned, flustered, lips parted in shock, or maybe anticipation? It’s an intoxicating expression, one that fuels him, fills him with courage.

“Déjame mostrarte cómo me has inspirado, mi musa, déjame arrodillarme ante ti, pintarte, tocarte, adorarte.” He whispers, drunk on your reaction, on the feeling of all your attention focused solely on him. Trsl: Let me show you how you have inspired me, my muse, let me kneel before you, paint you, touch you, worship you.

“Oh…” You breathe out, as you tilt your head subconsciously, your eyes flickering down to his lips.

He doesn’t need any other instruction, and he closes the distance, humming at the way you melt into him. He could do this forever, just you and him in the quiet of the day, sheltered by the shadow of the trees.

A sharp wolf whistle breaks you two apart.

“Damn, y/n, is that Honor Council approved?” Kelsy, one of your sisters’ calls, making you turn on your heel.

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me, Ms. Honor Council Chairman?” You call back, rolling your eyes playfully.

“It’s not, but we’re going to be late for class, so I’ll excuse it.” Kelsy says, linking her arm with yours and pulling you towards the direction of your class, casting a sympathetic look over her shoulder towards Miguel. “Sorry lover boy, gotta steal your girl, good grades and all that.”

He just nods, feeling back in that daze from before. It’s only the sight of you blowing him a kiss that breaks the trance, and he forces himself to head to his own class, the feeling of your lips on his still lingering.

I KNOW THIS ONE IS SHORT BUT I'M TRAINING THE NEW GIRL AT WORK SO I'VE HAD ZERO TIME TO WRITE + EDIT, SO THIS IS ALL I'VE GOT TILL SHE CAN STAND ON HER OWN SO SORRYYYY

TL: @bat-bae, @nyctophilic0vitnir, @smokeywhalee, @obi-mom-kenobi, @prowlingforfood, @penggion, @crystal-crax, @oharasfilipinawife, @generalkenobitrash, @melsimps, @chrishy973, @farrowroyale, @palesatan, @scaryplanetdestroyer, @denzmallows, @36namey, @scoobysnakz, @ihateuguys, @idkbros-world @smartyren, @deputy-videogamer, @blackrose8425, @amberpanda99, @marshhbs, @queerponcho

[medlilove]

(Edited to add headshots because tumblr hates detail) I've etched away at this is a lovely few weeks, so click for full res and all the little details, okay? It's my love letter to the journey I've found myself on

This is long-ish, so its under the cut (but worth reading...)

I had been thinking a lot recently about that double feature episode, you know the one? I half remembered it then, when they chased a bunch of alien spies so fast through the solar system they all got thrown back in time. Half the crew went on a little undercover adventure in Toronto in 2024. It was great because they got completely cut off from the Enterprise, so half of them, well mostly Uhura and Spock if I recall correctly, spent their time collecting as many radios as possible and worked on building their own communications. Uhura and Spock were basically taking turns constantly tweaking radios by the window with wires everywhere. Oh yeah, their base of operations was the whole top floor of a worn out old building looking over a big square. They ended up in the really arty/queer part of town full of art galleries and thrift stores.....??

Chapel and Chekov were sent out to those shops to find disguises for everyone. I loved the joke that Chekov was puzzled and slightly alarmed that Christine just knew everyone's clothes sizes and measurements with no explanation. Later on, they ended up getting separated from the rest of the group and getting held up by B story shenanigans, mostly getting lost and running into culture shocks. It was fun to see them having their own adventures and made for a pretty interesting combo. Spock and Uhura spent most of their time with the tech, accidentally listening to the times most popular music while changing frequencies. Jim and Sulu paired off to search for clues, and getting supplies and spent a lot of time talking to the locals setting up for a Pride parade. McCoy, feeling paranoid and irritable that he had practically no equipment, wandered around with Dr Alfred Nahdi, the Botanist, who kept picking random weeds and talking about how extraordinary the little dandelions were. Oh and together they stole a whole medical bag out of an ambulance?? It was pretty funny.  Anyway, the main issue was they couldn’t risk leaving the area because all these alien spies had assimilated into the population and they had to track them all down and bring them back with them so as not to disrupt the timeline or something. They had to track down the aliens while making sure the aliens didn't pick up on who they were or that they were also out of place. They ended up being there for around two whole ass months, I think. The spies were spread out all over and there were about 30 of them, but it ended up being the Botanist, Alfred (Alfie) Nahdi who found the enemy base of operations by complete accident. Alfred, who had spent most of the time studying all the common flowers and weeds that were so ordinary at that time but were extinct in their time, figured out where the aliens' base of operations was because the big plant shop at the end of the square had a few succulents that could not have existed in 2024. It was a big "woah" moment. And there was this whole thing where he had to act like he hadn’t just figured it out because the florist, who was almost certainly a spy, was watching him and McCoy. But soon after, it all went to hell anyway when a fight broke out and Sulu was straight up shot with the aliens' weapon that had bullets made from alien metal. So then Bones had to perform old school surgery on him in their HQ, with only 2024 equipment. Jim, Spock, and Uhura were out fighting and ran into Chapel and Chekov and were able to finish them off, but it got really crazy because there was a Pride parade in the square at the same time so they had to make sure no one noticed them. While Bones was pulling bullets out of Sulu, with the botanist assisting him until Chapel (who had been sent by Jim) appeared and took over. McCoy said something like, “Christine, I’ve never been so glad to see you in my life,” and they sewed him up all old school. And it worked out! But Bones was a mess because he had to do messy surgery with none of his kit, and so much pressure, and more blood than he was used to... Chapel stayed with Sulu, and Bones and Nahdi went to sit on the fire escape stairwell and had a sweet scene of Bones just full of adrenaline, his hands couldn't stop shaking. They sat hand in hand for a while listening to all the people on the streets below. Then Spock, Jim, Uhura, and Chekov appeared at the stairwell and they all had a happy, albeit exhausted reunion. After a day of everyone recovering from all the excitement, Uhura and Spock used some extra tech they got from the aliens and finally made contact with poor Scotty who was up on the Enterprise losing the will to live. Anyway, their outfits were iconic tbh.

I invented this whole thing to draw Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy in a sweater. I lost control of the situation. I spent a lovely two weeks etching away at this with the support of my lovely ST server, I love you guys. This ones for you.

[art]

Creator Spotlight: @jijidraws

Jiji Knight is a latina pinup illustrator. Her work is overall geared toward thick ladies and dedicated to fat positivity out of a purely selfish need to create art she wished she had seen growing up. She often features sexy and soft macabre themes on vibrant or sweet colours and takes great joy in making folx feel good about themselves with her work. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration and operates out of her very sunny hometown of Las Vegas.

Check out our interview with Jiji below!

Have you ever had an art block? If so, how did you overcome it?

Oh my gosh… I have art blocks all the time. My favorite way of overcoming it is by making fanart. Funnily enough, that’s something I don’t do in my own work anymore. But there are still IPs I return to that still bring joy to my heart. I love returning to drawing Sailor Moon like when I was in first grade. Or I’ll even look up the last fashion week and start drawing the fashion week outfits from the Paris or New York show. Stuff like that is what gets my creative juices flowing.

What medium have you always been intrigued by but would never use yourself?

Resin. Resin art is so stunning. People make the most amazing and beautiful sculptures using resin, and I don’t think I could ever bring myself to play with something so complicated. There are a lot of ways to cure it, and sometimes, it doesn’t cure properly…I already work with enough chaos as it is! I respect resin artists, but I don’t think I would ever touch it. I’ve admired it from a distance. There is an artist I follow who does these resin layer paintings. So they’ll paint a layer of resin, then cure it, and paint on top of the cured layer. They build up these amazing paintings using resin…I could never. Maybe one day!

What is one interaction you had with a fan of yours that has stuck with you over the years?

I still remember…It was my first and only Flame Con in New York. I had a fan come up to my booth. They didn’t say hello or that it was nice to meet me. They started to cry! They cried, and the first words out of their mouth were, “I’ve never seen myself in artwork before.” So, of course, I started to cry! So we were just crying across the table at each other. It was just one of the sweetest interactions, and it really sticks with me still to this day.

What is a recent creative project that you are proud of?

My latest collaboration with the artist Missupacey. We’ve been collaborating for two years now, and our last collaboration was for Midsummer Scream. It was two very cute clown girls, and I designed our T-shirt. It was one of the most fun projects we’ve done in a long time. We love doing collaborative work because it keeps working in the art industry fresh—being able to bounce ideas back and forth. So we do it where someone picks the color palette, and someone picks a theme. We’ll get references together, put them on a big board, and send each other sketches. It’s really nice to work with somebody else.

How has technology changed the way you approach your work?

Honestly, it changed everything. I mean, I used to draw for myself a lot. And while I still do that, I now predominantly draw for my Patrons. For a while, I was drawing for the internet. So I was drawing stuff people wanted to see in terms of plus-sized versions of characters—a plus-sized Poison Ivy or a plus-sized Sailor Moon. My Patrons have allowed me to start drawing for myself again. But technology, for a while, essentially dominated what direction I was taking with my art, so I’m grateful to take some of that power back.

If there is one thing that you want art enthusiasts to remember you by, what would it be?

Body positivity. I would love for them to remember that there is an artist making work that is making people feel good about themselves and about the way they look at themselves.

Top tips on setting up an Artist Alley booth?

Have a method of taking money, have a method of displaying your work, and have a way to take a break. I have a plastic picnic cover that costs like a dollar at any store. All I have to do is clip it to my display grates, and it covers up my entire display. I feel secure enough to take time for myself in a 10-hour workday to eat something, go to the restroom, or even take a moment to breathe and reorganize my inventory. So it’s so funny that this one-dollar piece of plastic is like the most life-saving item in my display of items.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

@mayakern comes to mind. She is another body-positive artist who expanded into making body-positive clothing. She’s amazing, and just to see someone else out there promoting body positivity. Maya’s been doing it longer than I have, I believe. It feels good to know that I’m not alone. Her work is always stunning, and I love her body-positive DnD characters and the fact that she’s still plowing through the clothing industry. For example, she’s expanded from skirts to button-downs and even custom-wrap shirts. I love to see what she’s doing, and it inspires me to pursue different avenues with my own work.

Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing, Jiji! Be sure to check out their Tumblr blog over at @jijidraws.