#it's fine. it's got a point but not a very deep one.

[mrsshabana]

♡ 𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞'𝐬 𝐃𝐚𝐲 ♡ 𝐄𝐦𝐨!𝐆𝐲𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐨 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 ♡

꒦꒷‧₊ Content Emo!Gyutaro x female!reader, modern au, college au, fluff ꒦꒷‧₊ Note 1.5k words. Sorry I'm posting this so late, I had almost no time to write it so it's very rushed. But I wanted to give everyone something to read today even though it's short. Happy Valentine's Day!

God, did Gyutaro hate Valentine's Day.

Everything about it disgusted him. From the bright colors and sweet smells to the mushy feelings and love confessions. Thinking about the horrid day made him gag.

It didn't make sense to him. Half of these people who celebrate Valentine's Day together will be broken up before the year ends. So what's the point? Haven't they learned yet that love is a facade that only ends in a broken heart?

Maybe that's the emo in him speaking, but can you blame the boy for feeling that way?

His heart has never beat for another. To be honest, most people would be convinced that his heart doesn't beat at all. From his never-ending brooding attitude and his overtly emo attire.

Love isn't something he often thinks about. But deep down he does fantasize about having someone to love, especially around this time of year. That's why you'll rarely see him leave his dorm during February, except for attending mandatory classes of course.

Seeing all of these couples holding hands and being all lovey-dovey, a part of him yearns for it. Sure they are probably inevitably destined to end in heartbreak. But sometimes he wonders if experiencing love is worth the heartache. Maybe that's why people always come back each year to celebrate this dreaded holiday.

By now he's pretty convinced that love wasn't meant for him so he does whatever he can to drown everything out. Because there's no way in hell a girl would ever take interest in him, so it's better to just avoid them all.

When Valentine's Day finally comes Gyutaro begrudgingly leaves his dorm. But not before he puts on the heaviest, most anti-normal person emo garb that he has. Of course, he has his usual graphic tee, skinny jeans, and black jacket with the sleeves rolled up. But today he makes sure to put the black eyeliner on heavy and wear spiked bands around his wrists. The combat boots and metal chain on his hip top the look off.

He hopes this will be enough to deter anyone from speaking to him today. He only has two classes so as long as he can get through that then he'll be fine. Steering clear of any painfully romantic couples canoodling all throughout campus.

The day goes by longer than it should, but eventually, he gets through his classes.

Though he can't shake this heavy feeling inside of his chest. He tries to ignore it but as he saw more and more reminders of what today symbolizes the feeling only got stronger and stronger.

"Why am I feeling this way...?" he mumbles to himself as he clutches his chest. Inexplicably his eyes begin to water as the feeling worsens.

Panicked and annoyed, Gyutaro quickly leaves the building and walks towards one of his favorite spots near campus, a small secluded creek surrounded by tall trees that make him feel like he's in another world. He has to trudge through some shrubs to get there, but he always goes here when he wants to be alone.

Sitting down on a fallen log and lighting a cigarette, Gyutaro sighs.

He doesn't want to admit it, but he does feel incredibly lonely. Sometimes he internally curses everyone who has things that he doesn't, especially when it comes to having a loving relationship. He knows he isn't the easiest guy to get along with so the relationship would probably go south anyways. But that doesn't stop him from yearning for it. All he wants is to be loved. Is that really so much to ask?

He closes his eyes and takes a drag of his cigarette, trying to shift his thoughts to anything else.

But he's quickly snapped out of it when he hears a twig snap behind him.

"Shit," he mutters and puts out his cigarette. Did someone follow him? Maybe it's just an animal...

"Hello?" he shouts, hoping that it is indeed just an animal and not a couple that wanted to sneak away together.

"Erm... hi, um... sorry to bother you," you say with a shaky voice as you emerge from the trees.

"Y/N?" his eyes widen as he recognizes you as one of the girls in his art class. Honestly, he only remembered your name because he thought you were really cute. Not to mention sweet too. You haven't talked to him much, but the few times you did you were always abnormally kind to him. Something he wasn't used to from people.

"Yeah, sorry I um," you stutter not sure what to say as you realize how weird it would be to tell him that you followed him out here.

"What're you doin' here?" he raises a brow.

"I-I wanted to give you this!" you shout, your nerves getting the best of you as you force yourself to just spit it out already, "Happy Valentine's Day!" You swiftly hold out a velvet heart-shaped box.

"What..." he whispers in disbelief, "This for me?"

"Yes! I hope you like it," your entire face is red as you awkwardly hold the item, hoping he'll just take it already.

He narrows his eyes as if he doesn't believe you, but he takes the box anyway. Flipping it over, inspecting every detail, seeing his black painted nails shine as he moves his hand around the box. God do you love how he paints his nails.

"What is it?" he asks skeptically.

"It's a bomb," you respond.

His eyes widen as he stares back at you like you're a madwoman.

"Gyutaro, I'm joking!" you chuckle, lightening the mood, "Just open it already!"

He scoffs, holding back a laugh as he opens the velvet box. Inside are messily decorated chocolates in heart shapes.

"They taste better than they look, I promise..." you say sheepishly, hoping he won't hate them.

"Did you... actually make these?"

"Mm hm," you nod, "I tried to at least..."

He genuinely can't believe it. He doesn't even care that half of the chocolates look like turds, he's just touched that someone went out of their way to make something for them. Hell, he would have been happy if you just bought a box of chocolates from Walmart. But this? He never expected someone to do this for him.

"Are you trying to fuck with me?" he says in disbelief, his mind telling him that there's no way this isn't a joke or a cruel prank.

"W-Well um... maybe after a few dates..."

"... what?" his cheeks go red, "N-No! That wasn't what I meant- fuck um... never mind," he stutters, flustered by the thought that a pretty girl like you actually is considering having sex with him.

"Th-thank you," he spits out, "I love it." An awkward smile pulls on his lips, revealing his crooked teeth.

But it's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.

You've been crushing on him so hard ever since you met him this semester. He hasn't talked to you very much, but he doesn't seem unpleasant. Just quiet.

But when you happened to see him talking to his friends one day after class, you witnessed him smile for the very first time. And it was the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. You wished that one day you could make the cute emo boy smile like that.

And you finally did. Even if he ends up rejecting you, you don't care. You made him smile and that was what you were really aiming for. A rare reaction you barely see cross his face.

But honestly, Gyutaro doesn't know how to react. He's awkward and shy and totally not used to interacting with people like this. Let alone cute girls.

In an attempt to show his desire to get closer to you, Gyutaro scoots over and pats the spot beside him, "Wanna join me?"

"S-Sure!" You say eagerly as you take a seat beside him.

Gyutaro leans back, staring up at the sky as he tries to process everything that's happening right now. But there's one question he can't get off his mind, "What made you wanna give this to me?"

"I think you're really cool..." you shyly admit as you fiddle with your fingers, not brave enough to look at him as you confess your feelings, "I like your style and I always wanted to get to know you better. But I never knew how."

He's internally kicking himself for making himself appear so unapproachable. Sure it kept the normies away like he wanted but it also kept cool people like you away that genuinely wanted to get to know him.

"Aw man... thanks. I think you're pretty cool too," he smiles, putting his hand on top of yours, "Maybe we can hang out sometime outside of class... I-If you want to."

"Of course! I'd love to," you beam excitedly, not only because he wants to hang out with you but also because he's touching you right now, "Y'know I um... I'm not doing anything tonight."

"Me neither," he blushes and turns to you, "Wanna come over? I have a sick record collection we could listen to."

"I'd love that, Gyutaro," you say, squeezing his hand. Just happy that you get to see the emo boy smile. But this won't be the last time, you'll be seeing that crooked smile of his a lot more after today.

[shehungers]

ROOT ROT

possessed!scholar husband x reader |18+| 3.4k

following your husband's return from his deceased uncle's estate, he has not been the same man. you confide in your husband's best friend and colleague on the matter of these eccentricities, only for him to resurface a depraved recent past.

story warnings; dead dove do not eat, explicit sexual content, major dubcon, sort of coercion, implied double penetration, mentioned voyeurism, cumshot on stomach, cum eating, graphic + horrific details, unrequited love (ox to reader), smoking, drinking, heavy prose + detail, roughly proofread.

reposted from my old blog: theoxenfree

this is a concept piece and follow up to imposter. you don't have to read it, but it definitely helps for understanding!!

please leave feedback + reblog, it would mean a lot!!

“He is simply not himself!”

Bartolomé Medina knew his best friend better than you knew your husband, so you believed him when he said that your husband’s newly acquired, increasing eccentricities were not some fictitious imagining of yours.

Although, Medina himself could not explain the unexplainable and all of the oddness without growing visibly flustered. A bit flushed in the face, singeing the roundness of his ears. He'd stamp out your justifications for strangeness in the same way he did the fine cigars he'd been accustomed to sharing with his friend, yet had not for quite sometime now.

“And you say his garden is dead?” Medina looked stricken with dread, suddenly ill by repeating something so blasphemous. “Now, my dear, please don't mistake my shock as disbelief. I very much believe in what you're saying. I've seen Solomon and his weirdness! Why, just this morning over breakfast, at a time where you were still tucked away in deep sleep, he wouldn't drink his coffee. So bizarre! That man knows the thousands of tastes and varieties of coffee beans, and he spat the very stuff out on the floor like it'd never once touched his tongue!

“But his garden? A botanist without his garden is like a bird without wings. A dog without a tail to wag. A newborn without his mother’s teat! Vulgar, I understand, but you see my point.” He drank from a heavy glass in his hand. The inside had nearly spilled over at one point with light brown which glittered gold under the overhead light, smelling slightly sour and earthy. “To think that Solomon would let it all die. Something is wrong. Something has happened to my only true friend and to your husband.”

You did not drink with any enthusiasm or anguish from your own cup, rather you used those seconds of delicate sipping to gap the conversation, separate yourself from it all for just a moment. You'd had your time to grieve and contend with knowing the man you had married and come to love was not the same one who kept you awake at night.

Solomon had once been a reclusive and reticent man, the only son of David Agrippa and sole heir of the Agrippa Diamond Mines and Jewelry Galleria. He'd never been able to replicate his father's ardor for business and entrepreneurship, choosing towards academic ventures of entomology and botany and most of everything belonging to the natural world instead.

Among his most prized things was a sprawling, domed greenhouse made of large sheets of pale blue-green glass soldered with metal which shifted rose-gold in bright daylight.

“I loved his garden, but I didn't much like to be in there with him,” you confessed, forgetting your manners as you kept your cup still against your lips, mumbling your words. “He liked to tell me about the plants and flowers he grew. Most of it I could never hope to understand, but… I loved seeing him come alive. He seemed to glow when he could tell me things, so I got into the habit of listening to him when he wanted to speak.”

Medina, not yet drunk or driven to any untoward behavior, set aside his empty vessel with jittering ice cubes and looked at you admiringly. “You said that you didn't like being in there with him? Why?”

“The bees. The bugs. The humidity. The fertilizer he liked to use because of the nitrogen content. He told me that it mattered what he used and couldn't just break up soil from the yard.” You said, tilting your cup.

After taking another sip, you determined you hated the taste of the liquor and how it slid down along your throat like fire trailing an oil spill, yet clung there with residual, syrupy stickiness that nearly made you gag.

“Why did you keep going inside?” Medina asked tranquilly, much of his previous frustration softened, body and soul warmed by the alcohol and how fondly he regarded your sweetness towards his friend.

You thought very little before answering, “I wanted to be where he was. It didn't matter to me if that meant his greenhouse or the coldest part of the arctic.”

That was the truth of it. Once you'd received the first crumbs of understanding who Solomon truly was beneath his stolid exterior built brick-by-brick from tragedy and grief and a lifetime of emotional ineptitude, you would've gone to any length to see more of him. To see his pale eyes gain a wild, flickering candlelight of passion, and the faintest of trembling smiles disguising how deeply your questions had aroused his soul.

In those moments, he revealed to you the things he loved the most and what you envied the most: the natural world.

The flittering, fat-bodied pollinators whose entire world were yellow and red flowers with succulent centers and lush, girthy leaves where they'd rest their weary, iridescent wings and could never understand your husband's appreciation of them.

The thousands of specimens he'd collected from every corner of the world and articulated thoughtfully against wood and felt. Their dead little limbs were pinned in place; perfect mimicry of how they would've been if still alive and crawling. He’d had them all meticulously framed and arranged across the walls in his office; trophies of his success, of his studies and hard work.

The innumerable plants and flowers he trimmed and watered in his greenhouse and the ones not contained within it. Some species he had planted in the yard, others in the cool shade of the nearby woods where they smothered native varieties with tendrils-like vines and climbed upside trees. More aquatic species were placed by the edge of the lake, growing into the water; buoyant; a woman's deep dark hair reaching forever for the surface.

He had turned the lonely, sprawling estate into a monument of life, of love that did not belong to you. And for that, sometimes you hated living there. Hated the things that he loved.

Choking the plants, poisoning their roots with any number of things from your father’s pharmacy crossed your mind more than once.

Feeding the bees something enticingly sweet and deadly; filling the greenhouse with noxious gas at night while they slept on their big leaves and your husband in his bed. It would've been such an easy thing for you to do—own your husband's grief as you held his face in your hands and comforted him in the morning when all had atrophied and rotted.

But, those feelings had become a reality you truly never wished to have seen after Solomon returned from his deceased uncle's estate months ago.

He was not the same man.

“Tell me what happened.” Medina’s voice buzzed in your ear from nearby, closer than it had been before. Your hand was caressed by tight warmth—his holding yours, his handsome face looking up at you from where he had crouched in front of your chair. “Tell me everything you've seen. It's of grave importance that you remember it all, as curing Solomon from his affliction relies solely upon you.”

You could not deny his earnestness, the squeeze of his fingers. A promise that he would not be easily shattered by what you had to say, and would think no less of his friend for it. Within his sincere stare, you saw the gleam of another, secret promise. The likes of which you pretended not to see, that he'd never speak of out loud.

“I…” you distracted yourself with the embroidery on your clothes, pinching loose threads and beads. “It was subtle, at first. I noticed some of the bees were dead on the ground. And then some plants had started developing spots. Leaves turned brown and yellow and fell off. A lot of them withered, even though their soil was still damp when I checked…”

And then, the morning came where you witnessed Solomon among a carnage of broken stalks weeping foul-smelling sap, leaves he'd ripped apart with his own hands, and some of his larger flowering plants with fiery manes completely severed. Their bountiful heads lay at his feet, flattened by the heel of his boot as he walked aimlessly, snipping and tearing indiscriminately.

“My god, Solomon! Stop!” you stepped around the countless tiny, contracted bodies of bees and other pollinators to reach him. He let go of the gardening shears as you grabbed them. “What are you doing?! What have you done?! Decades of work! Gone! Are you mad?!”

“Well, you've gone and ruined my surprise for you. I've been working on it for hours. I didn't expect you would be awake so soon.” Solomon said, sounding much like himself despite the savagery he stood surrounded by. He smiled at you in an unfamiliar way, as if trying to navigate his facial muscles around a mask. “Isn't it simply wonderful?”

The sweltering humidity trapped within this greenhouse of death had turned the air stagnant and foul, heavily pungent of detritus and mildew. Across all zones of the greenhouse, once painstakingly organized and labeled for the purpose of easier cataloging, no slithers of greenery or color remained. Each step you took in any direction seemed to sink you deeper into the decay, wet gurgling underfoot as you crossed stumpy mounds of plants and flowers he'd destroyed and thrown into piles.

“How could you? My husband spent almost twenty years building this garden and studying it. This was his life’s work!” You wished you could force life back into the severed plants; pray that the ground of yellow-brown waste would suddenly freckle with tiny, green sprouts and grow with thick stalks and thorns to keep his hands away.

“I am your husband.” Solomon took the gardening shears from your hand and tossed them aside. He leaned into your body, nose and lips pressed into the fabric covering your neck. “I've only done what you wanted. What you wished you could've done yourself, but never did.”

You flinched against the movement of his hands smoothing down your waist to the notches in your hips. Sliding inward, he unfastened the hook-and-loops and buttons holding your trousers up to push them down your thighs along with your undergarments.

“I know your thoughts and what you really think. I've been listening the entire time. I've always been listening.” Solomon let his hips roll along the back of his hand while he used his fingers to lay long, languid strokes on you. “It was tiring, wasn't it? Always competing for love and affection in a place like this. You were never going to have what you wanted. Not with this place still standing. Not with his ineptitudes and selfishness.”

His touch weakened you indescribably; like the caress of heat from the fireplace against your bare skin once the opium had taken effect. Swapping tiny pills on wet tongues with your maid until they'd dissolved into saliva and into your cheeks. You explored one another's bodies thoroughly on those cold nights, silky with sweat from the fire and exertion.

Yet, this was not the same as back then when the sexual appetite of two teenagers transcended societal morals.

Solomon encompassed you in a feeling; consumed you without ever digging into you with his teeth or nails. He could whisper hideous secrets and depravities to you to tip you over into searing euphoria. He had once penetrated you with a hot metal phallus resting on top of his own, thrusting with both until the metal cooled, and you still came anyway.

He'd put worse inside your body and done far worse than that in only a few short months since returning home, yet he never tired of the torture and you remained malleable and enthralled by it all.

“God, you are so beautiful. And you are mine.” Solomon had maneuvered both your bodies to the ground, atop of the soggy detritus. Your back was exposed to the mush, leaves, and crushed flower petals, weight pushing an indentation in the loose soil. “This is the fruition of your desires, darling. Don't you love it? Destroying what he loved so you could have it all?”

The one who came back to you was not Solomon; the one fucking you into waste and dirt was not Solomon, either. You told yourself you needed to love imposter as well, because he looked like your husband; wore his signet ring, too.

At night, you imagined only his softest expressions behind clenched eyelids when he wanted to have his way with you, as something else entirely took his place. A creature so diabolical and unsightly that the servants now awaited your screams to rouse them awake in the murky midnight hours.

Every time they arrived with their candlesticks and oil lanterns, the thrusting spectre receded into the dark as a black mass hardly distinguishable from shadow.

Only Solomon would remain, and he was swift to send the servants away before they could see your improper, disheveled state sprawled across the bed sheets.

In the daytime light, his face stayed familiar and comforting to you and you could bear to see him, form some coherent words.

“Someone might—might see us out here, Solomon. Mr. Medina is supposed to—oh, oh, mmm—he’s due to arrive at any time.” You were given several long kisses, which turned into severe caresses of hot breath when his thrusts turned savage, cock reaching so deep you were starting to feel numb below the waist. A feverous response. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

He adjusted himself to lay on your chest, the sweat on your bodies offering an effortless glide and new angle for his cock that made your moans deeper and dire. Such sounds, whether in agony or pleasure, were melodious to him. Addicting drags from a pipe in an opium den; an alcoholic's first sip at breakfast; a cheating man's night with a new lover.

“Wouldn't you like for them to see that? For someone to witness you being fucked into the ground? Surrounded by everything their master loved?” Solomon tucked his face into the curve of your neck and groaned, hips slow and stuttering. “Bartolomé would be the one to find it most tantalizing. His only friend in the world ruining the only person he's ever loved. Wouldn't that be a sight? We could invite him to watch.”

At the time, it had been quite jarring to learn Bartolomé harbored those silent, ardent feelings for you. It had sufficiently pulled you from whatever trance Solomon had lulled you into, reacquainting you with all the sounds of sex and the filth clinging to your skin. It was as though your mind had been locked into a mostly airless, noiseless void that he controlled and released at will.

You held tight to his shoulders as he molded you deeper into the muck and plant litter. The squat, friable walls of soil holding your shape like the cushions in a tomb, whereas Solomon was the man lowering you into the dark earth; the last to see your face before covering it in clay and dirt.

He was in your ear with loud moans that resonated through you, simultaneously as carnal as a beast amidst its seasonal rut, and velvety as the feathery smooth glide of fingers down your spine. His throat rumbled against you, resembling the intensity of a purring housecat nestled near your head in contentment.

At his tipping point, he removed his cock from your body and used the slippery stuff glistening off it to stroke himself; weepy, deep red tip to the base. You received the aftermath of his release in thick ropes across your abdomen and chest, the warmth of it already cooling on your skin while he continuously kneaded the head to force out what remained as if they were dewdrops made from pearls.

“How do you think Bartolomé would fare seeing you like this?” Solomon swept two fingers through the cum in an elegant curl to smear it around his cock. The viscous white thinned into pale gloss on his girth and a sticky residue inside his hand.

Your lips parted to give an answer, but his fingers and taste were faster than your words.

“And… that is all? Truly?” Bartolomé asked, shattering your visions of the recent past as he revealed a compact silver case from inside his vest, pulling a cigarette from within it. “You simply walked into the garden one morning and saw that he had destroyed everything? He gave you no explanation whatsoever?”

The imposter had stolen much of your dignity over the months, but enough of it remained for you to omit every significant detail from your story. You'd only told him that Solomon had cut the heads off of rare flowers, mumbled in a disorienting way, and gave you no difficulty with the gardening shears.

Bartolomé went away from your side for an open window across the spacious sitting room, matching his cigarette and blowing gray plumes out into the dense summer air.

“This is concerning.” He spoke loud enough for you to hear, even with his thumbnail tracing the underside of his lower lip, muffling him somewhat. “Solomon is considerably worse off than I first thought. We need to investigate this, retrace his every step since the moment he left you that night for his uncle's estate.”

“Oh, Bartolomé, that will be very unnecessary.” Solomon announced himself as he walked in through the open doors, offering you a tepid smile, which came nowhere close to reaching his eyes. Your chair jostled slightly as he stood behind it, a weighty hand landing on the tall back above your head. “Why trouble yourself with employing some ludicrous scheme when you could, ah, inquire as to what haunts you instead?”

Bartolomé tamped out his cigarette on the windowsill and pocketed it. “You are ill, Solomon. You may be suffering from some form of hysteria. It's time you visited a doctor, my old friend.”

“Well, that just isn't true.” Solomon kept the neutrality in his tone, but you tracked a rumble of agitation; a warning not far off. His hand followed the curvature of the chair down to the arm that you leaned against, fingers touching your shoulder, lightly kneading you through your clothes.

He was sure to be in Bartolomé’s eyesight as he did this, further aggravating the heavy disquiet. You didn't dare to move out of reach of his touch.

“But, it is true, Solomon!” Bartolomé insisted, gesturing toward the window. “What of your garden? All of your life's work now means nothing, you damned fool! You've snapped, old boy. See a doctor before you do something you regret.”

“That garden was more a source of misery than it was a boon. At any rate, I'm quite finished listening to you harp at me for one night, my dear friend.” Solomon lightly stroked down your cheek with bent fingers, coaxing you to look up at him. “It's time for bed, darling. Us impropertious brutes have kept you up for too long.”

You hesitated, and then stood when Solomon took your arm. “Alright.”

“As usual, your accommodations should exceed expectations. I'll have a servant wake you for breakfast again tomorrow.” It was too soon to call those Solomon's departing words to Bartolomé, as he stopped with you in the doorway, your hand caressing the meat of his forearm. “You know, Bartolomé, I would recommend marrying soon. There is no greater feeling than having the one you love so close to you, don't you think?”

Bartolomé became unreadable as he fished a hand into his vest pocket for the cigarette case again. You were led away for the bedroom before anything else could be said, but you knew that Solomon had struck a nerve.

“That was cruel.” you said.

Once in the bedroom, your back was pressed flush to the door while he unfastened the buttons to your outerwear and the blouse underneath it. Solomon kissed your lips slowly, first, before moving underside your jaw after shucking you down to your undergarments.

“And you are mine. You made your vows to me. Remember that, my sweet.”

You watched him strip out of his clothes and then stroke the length of his cock until it was hard.

“I married someone else. Not you.”

As he dimmed the lights within the space, sweeping the bedroom under a shroud of near pitch black, your annoyance shifted into a swell of anxiety both freezing cold and burning hot. Your body pulsed in rhythm with your wild heartbeat, throat clenched as tightly as infantile flower buds.

You waited for Solomon to touch you, startling once he finally did. His fingers had elongated and sharpened, his touch now far more delicate and methodical.

“Don't worry, he’s still in here with me.”

[arsquare]

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is my Heishin Exchange piece (event hosted by @heishinvalentineexchange2025) for oreganocactus on Ao3! The prompt I used was: "heishin yuri would be awesome…i love explorations of how gender would affect how characters behave/change so that would be cool :)"

Thoughts and process under the cut!

And also an NSFW sketch at the very bottom btw. as a treat for clicking on the readmore

So originally I had wanted to do a comic retelling the Murdered Diplomat Case Except They're Both Girls This Time AKA Heiji's debut case, but I got about 8 pages into the storyboards before I realized it would be impossible within the exchange's time frame. The Murdered Diplomat case is really really long, even if I cut everything about the case out LMAO... here's what I had if anyone is curious!

It was already sprawling by my standards here. We're on page 8 and Heiji has nary shown her face in the Mouri Detective Agency (also boy Kazuha is there? The part with the details of the case was supposed to be sort of timelapsed through a bunch of texts Kazuha sent Heiji because he was worried about where she was) So in my desperation I tried redoing it from page 7 to be more concise:

This was the point where I was officially like yeah this is not happening this is going to take one william pages at this rate and I just am not going to have the time to do that!! So I scrapped it and started working on the final product you see up there.

(BTW IT'S REAL!! about 80-90% of the comic actually exists in the real world!! I actually drew and inked it physically this time!)

I had really WANTED to retell the Murdered Diplomat Case because I would have been able to totally recontextualize Heiji and Shinichi's relationship, because I do think it would have been kind of different.

For one, I think Heiji's adoration of Shinichi would have had a more desperate quality to it. Between the two of them, Shinichi is definitely the more self-assured one of the two. With her laissez-faire parents who just does whatever they want, I'm sure they would have been fine with letting Shinichi pursue her detective dreams (though I'm sure Yukiko's even more sad about Shinichi not being a child actress </3 whatever though who cares about that), and so she's more confident that it's something she can be.

Heiji on the other hand comes from a more traditional family. I think her parents would highly disapprove of her detective pursuits, and as a result she becomes a more rebellious child-- but one who harbors a deep insecurity about whether she's doing the right thing or not, even if she knows she wants it.

When Shinichi vanishes off the radar, it's more than just a person that Heiji's developed an intense parasocial relationship with going off the grid, it's an entire nail in the coffin of the idea that being a female high school detective is something that's possible at all. That's why she's so desperate to find Shinichi-- she needs assurance that this hiatus that Shinichi is taking is not because society or the world put her into her place and made her quit doing this, but because of... something else. It has to be something else.

This I think would really bleed into how Heiji ends up treating Conan. In canon Heiji's super dismissive of Conan, initially only treating his as a nuisance on the crime scene before he figures out that he's Shinichi, despite the fact he no doubt was in those shoes a decade ago. But because of the continual pushback from her parents, the officers on the scene, and friends (cough boy kazuha), the struggle of being treated like she isn't supposed to be there on the crime scene is much fresher in her mind. She sees herself in Conan much more than he does in canon.

So I guess all I'm saying is that I think Heiji would have been nicer to Conan in my retelling LOLLL

As for what's going on in the comic I actually posted... well, you know, this wasn't my first choice precisely because I don't think it's necessarily gendered as much? Like, I can see this playing out if they were both still guys as well, maybe even more. After all, girls in general are more able to be physically affectionate with each other while suffering fewer consequences.

At the same time though I think Shinichi has an intense "not like other girls" thing going on. This whole thing is actually a subset of my genderbend universe where the whole teenage cast gets swapped and actually it was originally me just wanting girl Shinichi to comfort boy Ran (but badly because she's lowkey kinda autistic and not great at that...) as his parents got divorced LMAOOO. But anyways it would mean that Shinichi's closest friends are... Sonoko and Ran? Who are both guys...

So I think she would intentionally distance herself from that physical affection girls are able to have. She feels like if she indulges in that, then everyone else will take her less seriously and think "oh she's just a girl after all" and all the negative connotations of not being as capable or as smart as she actually is. In my head, she associates physical affection with being manhandled as a kid.

Another thing I kind of waffled on was... what should Heiji and Shinichi call each other? And maybe it's a bit of a weird choice for them to still refer to each other by last name but like. Hear me out.

I think to refer to each other by their last names is a token of respect, especially from Heiji to Shinichi. He keeps slipping up in canon and accidentally calling him Kudo, and while I do agree that part of it is him being careless and possibly inconsiderate to some degree, I also think... he really wants to call him Kudo? Like, this is someone he deeply respects. He wants to be professional equals to him more than he wants to be friends at the start, but never was able to actually GET that kind of relationship due to contrived circumstances of Shinichi getting shrunk. He can't call Conan "Edogawa", that's weird as fuck, so he has to wait until Conan's back to being Shinichi to even begin calling him "Kudo" for real. I think he'd really relish it, as a long-time-coming kind of thing, and I don't think it's any different as girls. In fact I'd argue it's even more intense because of that.

These two characters are both in such an intense hurry to grow up. Hell, Shinichi even dislikes it in canon when his mother calls him Shin-chan, and I think it's because he feels like this diminishes his self-perception as a "grown person". All the more since they're girls: I think this type of affectionate, diminutive name-calling would have been used against them to try to coax them away from crime scenes they wanted to be at. Like, "Oh, come on~ You're just a little girl, you shouldn't be here, Hei-chan~", something like that.

I think this is sort of an implicitly understood undercurrent that lies between them. If we have nobody else in the world who respects us we at least have each other. So when Heiji tries to push their relationship a bit, tries to become more than just friends, Shinichi sees this as a betrayal in some ways. Even if she rationally knows that Heiji isn't trying to belittle her, she can't help but conflate her recent experiences as a little girl again with how Heiji treats her now in the comic.

This whole thing could have been avoided if Heiji was more straightforward about her intentions btw but of course see above careless and possibly inconsiderate PLUS he's also kind of a tsundere character like everyone in detco when it comes to the person he likes so. inevitable... </3

Anyways thank you for reading all of this nonsense. Originally this comic was going to be longer and like, (this is a grossly incompetent summary,) they'd have a yuri makeout session in the Kudo Mansion Study. But we can't have good things in this world because there's not enough time so I only have this to show for :(((

I hope everyone likes it 👍️

[boxboxblog]

What To Expect From 2025

Hello my friends, it's been a while. Sorry for the lack of posting, decided to take a break along with the drivers during our off-season, but as the weeks creep closer and anticipation grows, we must start to rev up for the first day of testing. As such, i wanted to do a little deep dive into what changes or special things to look forward to in this upcoming F1 season.

Some New Regulations

Heavier Cars: Starting 2025 the minimum weight for F1 cars will be around 2 kg heavier than they were in the previous season. This regulation change comes with another regulation change, one that has to do with driver wight. The old rule used to be that drivers must be at minimum 80 kgs, and has been switched to 82 out of concern for taller drivers (and probably also due to the fact that the average height for drivers has gone up considerably in the past few years). While this may seem like a small thing, it has impacts because drivers who were previously encouraged to hit that low weight so they could be faster will have a little bit less pressure.

Flex-Wing Restrictions: Does anyone remember the 'mini-DRS' that McLaren had for the 2024 season? Yes, the little flexible wing that allowed them to gain massive amounts of speed in the straights has been officially declared illegal. The new regulation states that the minimum gap in the rear wing will be decreased from 10-15mm to 9.4-13mm. I am very curious to see how this effects the performance of the McLaren car come the first race, it was quite clear that the team lost their dominant momentum once they got rid of it last year.

Driver Cooling Systems: Good news for everyone who felt concern during any of the wildly hot races that had drivers vomiting in the past few years, a new regulation has passed that states that a driver cooling system must be in place temperatures go over 30.5 degrees celsius. It will be interesting to see how well this helps (hopefully a lot).

No More Fastest Lap Point: A sad day for anyone who enjoyed seeing drivers push their cars to the limits. The fastest lap point is officially gone, which means we might see drivers keep it calm toward the end of races now.

Setting the Grid: This one is interesting, and is most likely due to what happened in Brazil 2024. Anyone who watched all of that live remembers the worry you felt watching the drivers qualify that Sunday morning in terrible conditions, and this new regulation could prevent that. It states that if a qualifying to set the grid is impossible, the starting will be determined by championship standings. If it is too early in the season, it will be up to the stewards to decide how it sets (whatever that means).

"Driver Behavior": I am sure everyone has heard of this one, and I will not dive too deeply into all the ins and outs. Just know that drivers are pretty much flat out not allowed to curse, make political statements, yell, express frustration, or getting anywhere close to any sort of 'bad misconduct' without incurring massive fines, or suspensions, or even a docking of championship points. We will see how this one goes when the season starts.

Some New Team Dynamics

One thing to look forward to is the massive shift the entire grid has done. Only two teams retained both of their drivers, McLaren (Piastri and Norris) and Aston Martin (Alonso and Stroll), and we have rookies on top of rookies to go along with that. Really tells you how much of F1 is musical chairs in truth.

Hamilton and Leclerc with Ferrari:

A dynamic that is bound to be interesting. When two number one drivers are on one team it tends to make sparks fly, but perhaps that won't be the case with these two. Both are rather mature people and drivers, and for the past two years Hamilton has played second driver to Russell after all. So I think honestly there may be some moments on track, but they will work well together.

2. Ocon and Bearman with Haas:

This one will also be interesting, in my grand opinion. On Ocon's side, he has switched over to Haas after years with Alpine (not so great years at that), and now he is the senior driver for the first time ever. For Bearman, everyone knows how well he can race an F1 car, so I wonder how Ocon will react to being second fiddle (to a rookie this time), which no doubt be will be.

3. Bortoleto and Hulkenberg with Sauber:

This one I feel like will go really well. Hulkenberg knows how to be a team player, and is generally a nice guy. On top of that he has many years of experience, and will be a great asset to help build his rookie teammate up. For Bortoleto's part, he is an extreme talent who just came off winning the 2024 F2 season. I think in truth Sauber has one of the best line-ups of the midfielders.

4. Lawson and Verstappen with Red Bull:

Lawson will either be chewed up and spit out by Verstappen, or wholeheartedly ignored. Verstappen is very obviously the first driver, completely undisputed, and apparently Lawson has agreed to that. But how many times have we seen a hungry rookie ignore that fact? *cough cough* Charles Leclerc *cough cough*. All I do know if taht both drivers have a rather aggressive style on and off track, which usually doesn't lend itself to being teammates.

5. Hadjar and Tsunoda with RB:

This one I feel like will be kind of meh. Tsunoda will most likely outscore his teammate, and he has done for the past years, and it will be typical RB things. Hadjar is talented, but Tsunoda is too. The question will be who wants it more.

6. Doohan and Gasly with Alpine:

Another meh one, the only real drama stemming from the fact that Doohan might be an F1 car for a blink of an eye. Alpine has their eyes set on bringing Franco Colapinto in if Doohan doesn't do well by I believe five races, and lets be clear EVERY rookie needs more than five races to get used to racing in F1. So looking at this pairing, I can only hope Doohan performs better than he did in Abu Dhabi. As for Gasly, he will do fine.

7. Antonelli and Russell with Mercedes:

I am split on how they will do. For one, I think Russell is being replaced as the golden boy, which might rub him the wrong way. If he is outperformed by Antonelli, that could spell the end for his time as the first driver. On the other hand he could also massively out do his teammate, which really wouldn't be a surprise. I do wonder if the pressure of being on a top team right away will get to Antonelli.

8. Sainz and Albon with Williams:

Ah, another pairing that has drawn lots of attention. it's not often a driver switches from a top team down to a back of the grid team at so young an age, but when they do it often spells trouble for either them or their new teammate. Some say Sainz will straight away out perform Albon, I think different. It may take him some time to get used to having a slower and less reliable car. There is something to be said about pushing a car harder than it allows, and he will have to override the instincts that he honed at Ferrari for years. We will see though, both are solid drivers.

Reserve Drivers

So we have talked about who will be the drivers, but who will fill in for each team if something were to happen? Something always happens, after all. Not all the teams have announced who their reserve drivers will be, but I will list the ones who have below.

Ferrari: Antonio Giovinazzi and Zhou Guanyu

An interesting lineup in truth. Zhou drove for Sauber/Alfa Romeo for the past couple of years, but was booted to make way for a new lineup. Giovinazzi also drove for Alfa Romeo a wile back, but was well known for... having some difficulties. It would be nice to see Zhou in fast car after being in the slowest car period for his entire career.

2. Mercedes: Valtteri Bottas

And Bottas returns to his old stomping grounds once more. Not a massive surprise, he was a Mercedes driver for years, and it would be fantastic if he was able to fill in for a race or two, just to seem him in a fast care once more. Bottas is a talent, after all, one that has been almost forgotten about after his tenure with Alfa Romeo/Sauber.

3. Aston Martin: Felipe Drugovich and Stoffel Vandoorne

In truth, I am kind of meh on this one. Drugovich was the F2 2022 winner, so he of course is a solid driver (and is most likely destined to come into F1). Vandoorne has been in F1 before, back when McLaren was a midfield team. Both are pretty safe choices for reserve drivers.

4. Alpine: Franco Colapinto, Paul Aron, and Ryo Hirakawa

Ah, as always there is Alpine drama. Three reserve drivers is just greedy in my opinion, and it makes you think that Alpine is probably enjoying the influx of new sponsorship money. As for the drivers, Colapinto is solid, Aron is a fresh face who has done well in the lower categories, and Hirakawa has an immense amount of experience. Really I think they are almost hoping one of their drivers (Doohan) will need to be replaced.

Calendar Changes

Australia back as the opener

Bahrain and Jeddah moved a month later for Ramadan

Suzuka and Shanghai switched up a month

Barcelona now after Monaco

Hungary now last race before summer break

Vegas start time pushed back to 8 PM local time

Spa will replaces Austria as the hosts of a sprint

Important Upcoming Dates!

Haas Filming Day - February 16th

F175 Season Launch - February 18th

Ferrari Event - February 19th

Mercedes Reveal - February 24th

Pre-Season Testing in Bahrain: February 26th-28th

Season Begins in Melbourne: March 14th

That is essentially the basics of what to expect! I will do driver profiles for all the rookies (except for Lawson, who already has one) once we get closer and then do an analysis of testing when that comes.

I am excited for the season to get started, and more than ready to see our cars back on track. Hope you all are too!

Cheers,

-B

[boybandbaby]

The Sweet Escape Part VII

911 AU (Prince!Evan Buckley x Fem!Baker!Reader)

previous part

word count: 2316

warnings/tags: lots of buck tears, parental toxicity, verbal and physical argument, name calling, as always if I miss anything please lmk

note: I’m so sorry for lagging yall imma crunch out the next chapter and hopefully post tomorrow

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

One thing you’re not is a liar. Evan was really not in your bakery or in your home at the time of the incident and you’re grateful for that. You’re not sure how he would’ve reacted but you can guarantee it wouldn’t have been good. Plus, you don’t think you’d want to see him like that.

He, on the other hand, wishes he was there. Wishes he was there to defend you and wishes he had the courage to stand up to his parents like you did.

He’s also very very embarrassed that they acted that way towards you and in your place of business, in front of so many people, and on a day where you’re already dealing with so many emotions. He feels like everything is his fault and he’s not sure why you’re being so nice to him.

He knows you guys have surpassed the bickering, non-friends/enemies stage but after this he would’ve expected you to hate his guts. You could never though.

So here he is, standing between your thighs as he holds a bag of peas to your cheek. Every so often he lifts the bag and kisses at the cold skin. His cheeks are stained with sticky tears not only from your recollection of the argument but also from his visit to Daniel’s grave.

Buck doesn’t know why he went there but as he knelt at the grave, he let his tears fall. Tears of sadness from not having his older brother around but also tears of anger for Daniel leaving him. Daniel’s death was long awaited but still surprised him nonetheless.

Buck didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye as he’d been away for school.

Buck wishes he had Daniel here to help him get through this but he knows if Daniel was here he wouldn’t be going through this at all.

“Buck? Hey, come here.” He hears your voice. He feels your hands pull him to your chest. He doesn’t register that he’s crying again until he’s buried in your shoulder and your soaked top clings to his face.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about everything.” He sobs. “You don’t deserve any of this. It’s all my fault.” It comes out choked and broken.

“Stop, stop.” You whisper into his ear, petting the back of his head. “None of this is your fault, you hear me?”

“How can you say that? I feel like I can’t do anything right.” He looks up at your face.

“Can you take a deep breath for me?” You cup his jaw, thumbing away his tears. He nods, sniffling. “I don’t want you to worry about what happened with your parents okay? I can handle myself. I just want you to focus on you and what you want.”

“What if I don’t know what I want?” His voice is so small.

“I think you do, Evan. You just don’t want to let yourself have the things you want. Things you deserve.” He doesn’t say anything else but you can see him trying to process everything. “You look so handsome today by the way.”

“Do I look like shit every other day?” He quips immediately.

“Of course not.” You laugh. “Look, I’ve got to help Albert out front. He’s been doing everything today. Go up to my room, get some sleep and we’ll figure everything out together okay?”

“You’ll join me after?” He shyly asks.

“Duh. Now go get some rest okay?” With a peck to his lips, he’s running upstairs.

When you go upstairs just over an hour later, you find your grandma and Buck cooking dinner in the kitchen.

“What is this? You,” you point at your grandma, “are supposed to be on bed rest. “And you,” you cross your arms and glare at Buck, “you’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“We got hungry.” Buck shrugs, nonchalantly.

“I’ll cook, both of you sit please.” You sigh.

“Babe, we’ve got this.” Buck ushers you to sit down, pulling out a chair for you. “You’ve had just as much of a rough day as we did.”

“Fine, fine. I’m going to shower and change. Please shout for me if you need me.” You smile at him. You give your grandma a kiss on the cheek and squeeze Buck’s hips.

“So, you and my granddaughter are an item now?” She wiggles her brows.

Buck laughs nervously. He scratches the back of his neck and nods. “I would say so.”

“Good.” She stirs the pot of soup. “Will you be staying with us?”

“Oh… I- no ma’am. I wouldn’t want to impose. I’m going to figure everything out tonight.”

“Stay for the night. Worry about everything tomorrow.” She smiles.

“I couldn’t really-“

“Evan, please don’t be difficult.” She points to the cabinet and then the bowls once he opens it up. Buck brings three out and sets them on the counter.

“Thank you.” Buck says earnestly. “I’m sorry about everything.” About today’s event, about his family, about the loss of her daughter, your mother.

“Don’t.” She shakes her head. “It’s okay. Now help me carry these to the table, and grab that loaf over there.”

Buck grins and helps your grandma set the table before pulling her chair out for her. He asks where to find cups and pours three drinks for a pitcher in the fridge. “Just take good care of her, Evan.”

“I will ma’am. You have my word.” He takes a seat.

When you appear, you’re fresh faced and squeaky clean. Buck jumps up from his chair with a bright face. “Hi, you look pretty.” He whispers as he holds his hands out. You grab his hands, aware of your grandma’s prying eyes.

Buck guides you to a chair and caresses your neck, then along your shoulder as he moves to his seat. He wants to kiss you so bad but knows it’s not appropriate right now.

“What have you two been talking about?” You grab a napkin and place it on your lap.

“Not much.” Buck looks to your grandma.

“Actually, Evan here was telling me that you’re dating.” She smirks. Buck chokes on his water.

“Is that so?” You giggle. “He has yet to ask me.”

“In time.” He winks at you.

“Okay you two, I’m going to get ready for bed. Be on your best behavior. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, grandma.” You smile.

“Thank you for dinner.” Buck stands to offer her an arm and walk her to her room. She pats his bicep before retreating to the room.

“Oh, you can sleep in the same bed but the door has to be open.” She calls out.

Buck’s cheeks redden and you drop your face onto the table with a thud.

As tired as you both are, you hardly sleep. You’re both too excited to be in each other’s arms that you don’t get a wink of rest. Your bodies and brains are exhausted but you’re savoring this moment together.

You have no clue what’s going to happen moving forward. You still have doubts that Buck will cave in and go back home to get married. Buck has no clue what his next steps are but he knows he has to start somewhere. He figures he can rely on the people he trusts to most to guide him in the right direction.

In the morning, after many sleepy kisses, he tags along with Albert to conduct the daily delivery. He figures this is the best way to sneak back into the palace without being stopped by guards. If he can just talk to Bobby and get some guidance, the knot in his stomach can unravel a bit.

It really doesn’t take much for him to get in which should alarm him but he figures it’s not his problem anymore. Albert goes in first and gives him the all clear that it’s safe to come inside.

“Well, look who it is. Our runaway groom.” Bobby raises his brows, lips in a small, teasing grin.

“Hey…” He chuckles.

“You’re bold to come back, Buck but I’m glad to see you.” Bobby brings Buck in for a hug.

“Thanks, Bobby. I’m sorry about yesterday. I hope I didn’t get Athena into too much trouble.”

“Nothing she can’t handle.” He smiles. “You hungry?” Buck shakes his head. Bobby already has a knowing look on his face.“How’s y/n doing?”

“Better than yesterday.” He cringes. “If I don’t see her today, tell Athena thank you for coming to y/n’s aid.”

“Will do.” Bobby smiles and nods his head behind Buck. Buck spins so quick he gets dizzy.

“Maddie!” Buck gasps and rushes to her, enveloping her in a hug.

“I’m so glad to see you.” She immediately breathes a sigh of relief. “Let’s go somewhere private.”

Maddie sneaks Buck into his room. She waits for him as he showers and changes out of his wedding attire and into something more relaxed.

“Thanks for this. I really needed to get out of those clothes.” He rubs his hair with a towel before beginning to pack a bag of clothes. “Think you can sneak me back out?”

“You’re leaving already?” She stands.

“Well, I can’t stay here. I just came to get some clothes and money.”

“What are your plans? Where will you stay?”

“Y/n and her grandma are letting me stay until I get on my feet. I’ll help out around the bakery until I get a job.”

“So that’s it?”

“What do you want me to say Maddie? What do you want me to do?” He zips the zipper a bit too aggressively.

“Talk to them.” She pleads.

“For what? They don’t listen anyways. I told them I didn’t want to marry June and they didn’t listen. They pushed me to this point and now they have to live with it.”

“Please Buck, don’t leave like this.” She places a hand on his bag.

“I have nothing to say to them. I’ve decided to live my life the way I want to. Look, we’ll stay in touch. You know where I’ll be.” He gently holds her shoulders. “I love you but I’ve got to go.”

“I love you too. If you’re happy, then I’m happy.” She wipes her eyes. They’re too caught up in their moment to hear the door open.

“Evan?” Margaret cautiously calls out.

“Fuck…” he groans.

“Where have you been?” Her voice comes out sweet and concerned.

“That’s none of your concern anymore.” He grabs a hold of his bag.

“You’ve embarrassed us for the last time.” Phillip stands tall behind her.

“See Maddie? This is exactly why I didn’t want to talk to them.”

“Talk?! Evan, you don’t talk about things, you runaway.” Phillip steps to the side and in front of Margaret.

“I wouldn’t have to run away if you acted like parents and took into account what I want for my life.”

“God,” Phillip groans. “It’s always me me me with you. Your brother was never this selfish.”

“Dad-“ Maddie starts, stepping between them.

“It’s fine. You both think you’re stellar parents when in reality you never should’ve had kids. You hear me but you don’t listen to me. I’m asking you to listen.” Buck steps forward.

“We don’t listen because you don’t say anything of substance.” Phillip spits. Maddie holds her hands up, pushing both of them apart.

“You’re so insufferable! It honestly amazes me. I didn’t come here to beg for forgiveness or to argue with you.” Buck pulls Maddie’s hand from his chest, dropping it softly.

“Then why are you here, Evan?” Margaret pipes up, voice shaking with fear and something else that Buck can’t decipher.

“You can disown me if you want but I’m 25. I’m old enough to make my own choices and I’m deciding to not be king. If that means not being part of your family, then so be it.”

“And what are you going to do, huh? You’re going to run off with that… that gutter rat?” Phillip yells.

Buck sees red and his ears ring. He can feel his blood boiling before he’s shoving Phillip against the closest wall. Buck’s fists ball up the front of his dads’s vest and he’s lifting him just barely off the ground. The tips of Phillip’s shoes graze the floor as his feet dangle. Maddie is lucky enough to move out of the way.

“Stop! Stop!” Margaret cries as she hold onto Maddie’s arm.

“Buck, don’t!” Maddie screams. “Go get Eddie!” She shoves her mom towards the door. Margaret doesn’t stop to question as she bolts out of the room.

“Don’t ever,” he barks, “ever talk about her like that again. She’s a better person than you’ll ever be.” He whispers the last part, voice dropping with venom.

“You’re going to end up in the streets, Evan. Why would you want to leave us? You could have everything you ever want!”

Eddie’s rushing into the room with Chimney and Bobby behind him. Their faces full of concern as they pry Buck off of him. Hen rushes in to unfortunately check on Phillip.

“I don’t want any of this.” He looks around the room. “Don’t you get that?” Buck struggles to move against the three pairs of hands holding him back.

“You’re making a big mistake.” Phillip rubs the back of his skull as he is guided to sit down. “You’ll be back, Evan.”

“Well, don’t wait up for me.” He sasses, turning to leave. Bobby and Eddie are hot on his trail as Chimney stays with Maddie.

“You can stay with me.” Eddie offers. “We’ll help you through this.”

“Don’t worry Buck, we’ve got you.” Bobby pulls him in for a hug.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Evan Buckley hereby declares his irrevocable determination to renounce from the throne including any future descendants. This abdication takes place effectively immediately.

Phillip and Margaret Buckley wish their son the best in his future endeavors. King Phillip will continue as King until further notice.

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

next part

[britneyshakespeare]

i listened to the fall out boy version of we didn’t start the first (listing 1989-2023 world events) and can i just say. first of all the original song is silly and not that deep in its commentary but at least it was like an original idea. there’s a reason your 11th grade history teacher played it in your class in the cold war unit, right? it sets a scene and a mood without even having to do anything but listing a bunch of pop culture and political iconography. but there’s also like, a sequence of events. fob’s really just throws events and names of things together sloppily in no particular order other than if they kinda rhyme. it has a lot less impact when thinking about the recent historical or present moment bc it’s just like “thing you remember, other thing you remember, other thing you remember” but from one object to the next they have no particular connection to each other in space or time. it’s poorly associated. 

[teddybeartoji]

PHOBIA OF SEAWEED IS AN ACTUAL THING?????????????????? you see i am not afraid of the open waters nor am i scared of the things that live there,, like i regularly spend time watching deep sea videos i think they're so cool but oh my fucking god the idea of KELP IS MAKING ME LIKE ACTUALLY TWITCH EEEEEEEEUUUUUUUGHHH okok actually looking at it is kind of fine but the thought of it touching my feet is genuinely making me wanna throw up😭😭😭😭😭

[arolesbianism]

Finally fixating on some nugget relationships that aren't horrible for everyone I love friendship <3

[ragsy]

MOTW NPC Rach Lombardi, Mark's toxic ex who got ripped to shreds by dogman and then whose revenant ghost latched onto someone else who was on their own dogman revenge quest (player character Tatara)

she's fun.

[brunetteaura]

woke up with the lyrics from this song in my mind

[jaxthedragon]

That’s because they never wore helmets as kids

[kamitv]

Your best friend Sukuna is a complete slut.

Though you’d never say that aloud—albeit more than true. That's the only way to describe him because why else would he be in your bedroom, sitting on the edge of your bed, with his legs spread wide open, fingers wrapped around his thick cock, and groans of your name leaving his lips?

Because he’s a goddamn slut, that’s why. And normally when you interrupt his… sexual acts, you quietly apologize and rush off as quickly as possible.

Yet, here you were, being ordered by your best friend not to run away this time.

“I’m not gonna repeat myself,” Sukuna’s raspy and slightly husked voice drawls out to you, eyes boring into yours from across the room, “Bring your ass over here.”

Funny how he said he wasn’t going to repeat himself only to follow up with a literal repeat of his initial order-

“Now,” He hums, his voice sending a chill down your spine.

You stiffen up where you stand, trying your absolute best to keep your eyes anywhere and everywhere else except for the hand he had stroking his cock.

Gulping, “Sukuna-,” He shoots you a pointed glare and you start getting nervous. “You can’t just… j-jerk off in my room and expect me to… to help you.”

“Fuck,” He hisses, your eyes nearly falling on him again as the low noise makes you fidget, “Fine, then get out,” Sukuna tells you.

Your brows push together at the audacity of him, not that it really surprises you anymore, “But-“

“Out. I’ll be done soon,” He cuts off, sitting back and fisting his cock at a quicker pace, eyes drinking in every inch of your still figure.

You didn’t want to look at him. Nor did you want him jerking off in your bedroom. But, you also didn’t want to leave for some strange reason.

Hence why you just stand there and look around your room as if you don’t know the interior already. Sukuna can’t help but crack a smirk as you stand there, his breath growing heavy before he calls your name— watching the way you flinch at the sound.

“Kinda’ awkward if you just stand there, y’know,” He chuckles out to you, finding you oh so amusing.

You frown, “Kinda’ awkward if you just jerk off in my bedroom.”

“It wouldn’t be if you came over here,” He snaps back.

You hate how quick he always is with his responses, something you still haven’t gotten used to throughout all your years of friendship. Swallowing, you just barely glance at the man, “What?” You huff out.

Your eyes were on his and his were on yours. Tension was vexed into his gaze, desire pouring out of his maroon shaded eyes and making you so utterly nervous as you stood across the room from him.

All as he just sat there, shirtless, tattooed and chiseled chest very difficult not to gaze at, large thighs spread lewdly, and hard curved cock twitching within his grasp as precum oozed out his tip.

You couldn’t help the way your gaze dropped for a moment, catching sight of his cock and the way his plump tip glistened under your dim bedroom lighting. His hand movements got noticeable faster as you watched and you drew your thighs closer together.

Sukuna lets out a deep sigh, “Y’know,” The sound of his voice makes you flinch yet again and you lift your gaze as though you’d been caught doing something wrong, seeing the smirk on his face, “You can come get a closer look.”

You bat your lashes at him, “W-What?”

“Is that all you know how to say?” He chuckles, “Hah, just c’mere already,” He suddenly requests, voice softening ever so slightly. “I won’t bite.”

And that’s… roughly how you ended up on your knees in between his legs. With a mouthful of his cock, you don’t even remember what’d come over you after you listened to his request and came close to him.

One moment you started shyly teasing him about being a pervert who jerks off in your bedroom and the next you were curling your fingers around his shaft and making your way down to your knees. Sukuna had let out a long shaky sigh as he watched you settle in between his spread legs, his urge to tease you dying off as some other emotion swelled within his chest.

He’ll never admit it to you but, he was shy. How could he not be when your soft hand begins stroking his cock like he’s just some kinda toy for you to play with—what’d you expect him to do when you look up at him and lean forward to wrap your lips around his drooling cockhead? 

Unfortunately for him, his expression gave away everything and as soon as his dick began disappearing into the warm caverns of your mouth, he was a goner. A hand was now tightly gripped onto your scalp, his breathing unsteady as he watched you suck him off with that pretty ass mouth of yours.

He’ll never be able to forget the sight of drool spilling out from the corners of your mouth while you tried your best to take him all the way into your throat. And his mind just about blanks when you move your hands to his thighs, push them further apart, and then sink down completely—your lips meeting his base.

Now that was a sight to see. 

“F-Fuck,” Sukuna stammered, the sound alone leading you to choke a bit as a moan attempted to leave your throat. His darkened eyes were seconds away from rolling to the back of his skull with how sexy he found the sight of your lips bulging around his thick cock.

When you finally do pull your mouth off of him, he doesn’t even get a moment to breathe before your hands are wrapping around him. He goes from leaning back slightly to sitting up a bit straighter and moving his hands down to one of your wrists, his lips unknowingly quivering.

Then a pant escapes him and you’re bringing your eyes back up to look at him. “Slow, woman—fuck, go… hah, slow.” He says hoarsely.

Oh the desperation on his face was priceless. Why ever would you listen to him when using two hands to jerk him off is all it takes to receive a slightly pouted lip and furrowed brows from him. He probably doesn’t even realize the face he’s making at the moment, too grumpy trying to take control of the situation to feel his features faltering. 

You coo, “Aw, go slow? But, ‘Kuna, I thought this was what you wanted?” 

The nickname you just threw at him has to be evil in some way, shape, or form because the wild twitch it invokes is enough to have your hands tightening their grip around his thick cock. 

Sukuna grits his teeth and you can see a vein popping out in his forehead—he’s so annoyed with you now that the roles have reversed, it’s cute. “Fuck you,” He curses, as if that’ll help him avoid the embarrassment bubbling up within him right now.

“Oh, there he is,” You purr, removing one of your hands just to angle his cock back toward your lips and then tapping it against your skin gently. “S’kinda hard to be mean to me when I’m makin’ you feel so good, isn’t it?”

He swears you’ll be the death of him. He’s never experienced this side of you, nor was he aware it even existed. All he’s ever known you as was his shy roommate who’s so unintentionally attractive that it pains him to be around. Is this really the same woman who was stuttering moments ago when she walked in the room and caught him jerking off??

Sukuna huffs out an almost bratty breath of air, “Stop… talking.” Just as he’s never seen this side of you, you’ve never seen this side of him and fuck is it hot. He’s usually such a big intimidating man and yet here he is literally folding and gasping to your touch.

You completely strip your hands away from his cock and then open your mouth, staring right up into his eyes as you whisper, “Make me.”

All that embarrassment and temporary shyness is gone within the blink of an eye. Sukuna’s stumbling up slightly to his feet and grabbing a firm hold of the top of your head, letting out a gruff sigh while taking his dick into his hands and properly aligning himself with your mouth.

His chest is glistening in sweat and his head is pounding, he was all nervous seconds ago for what? Because of you? Oh please.

It only took those two words of yours for him to remember who the hell he is as he then thrusts his hips forward and quickly fucks himself into your mouth. “That’s more like it,” Sukuna grunts, giving your mouth some mean thrusts as he forces your head to move and meet each one of his motions. “Fuckin’ slut, m-makin me nervous,” He admits hoarsely, his tone aggravated with you. “Who do you think you are, huh?”

You’re obviously too busy getting your face fucked to answer that properly but the moan you let out that leads to drool filthily dribbling out your mouth is enough of a reply for him. Especially when he catches how it drips down onto your thighs. 

Sukuna releases a pretty groan out into the air at the mere sight of you. He thought he was losing his mind before but now it’s even worse. You don’t even have your hands on his thighs to try and brace yourself or control what’s happening—you just let him have his way with your throat, taking things a step further and moving your hands behind your slightly arched back.

Fuck, he needs a picture of this. He desperately needs this display of you burned into the forefront of his mind for the rest of his life. Especially as he starts hitting the back of your throat and you purposefully choke against him. Sukuna’s other hand lifts to cover his mouth because he swears he almost whined.

Your throats too fuckin’ tight, you’re holding eye contact with him for too damn long, and if he feels your tongue flick against that specific vein of his one more time—

“Hnngh—” Sukuna moans, his grip almost bruising as his head flies back and his cock presses right against the very depths of your mouth, hips stalling with the way his orgasm comes rudely rushing out of him. 

Then he feels you swallowing and even though he was trying to keep you head still, you begin to bob yourself back and forth on his cock while he’s cumming and that’s when a whimper is choked out from his lips. Sukuna’s whole body just clenches and he’s letting out all kinds of sounds as his hand, now shaky, holds onto your head for dear life.

Even when he stops cumming, you’re still sucking and his eyes roll back, voice coming out strained. “S-Shit, fuck—stop,” Sukuna moans again, “Please?” Never in all your years of living did you ever think you’d hear Sukuna Ryomen begging you for something and yet here you are.

You steadily pull your mouth off of him with a slick pop, sting after string of saliva hanging in between his tip and your glossy lips. He’s above you panting for a moment before stumbling back to sit down on the edge of your bed again.

A hand of yours moves to causally wipe your mouth off and you don’t even know if you wanna tease him now or later about what just happened. “So, that was—”

“Don’t speak,” He cuts off immediately, his voice surprisingly airy. “Ever. Never bring this up again.”

You snort, “Promise me you won’t jerk off in my room again, first.”

Sukuna scoffs. “Tch. Whatever.”

Like the vixen you are, you begin to lean toward him again and you don’t know if you image it but he flinches ever so slightly. “Promise me,” You say as your hands meet his knees and you begin to lift yourself up.

His eyes go wide and he internally panics at the sight of you moving. “Fucking fine. I promise.”

Smiling, you move to lean over his tensed body and plant a kiss on his cheek, “Good boy.”

…

Yeahhh, his brain just powered off.

[cursingtoji]

summary: clan leader!gojo needs a favor from your clan but as the leader you refuse, so he proposes to give you a child since your husband is unable to.

"and what am i to do when the child comes out with a white head of hair and blue eyes?"

“if that happens…” he undoes the knot that holds your kimono together and pushes the material down your arms with no resistance from you, “…then i’ll kill your husband myself and marry you.”

nsfw ahead cw: historical au, infidelity, pregnancy, creampie, child birth, satoru is pathetically in love. featuring samurai bodyguard geto and toji.

“i thought we had solved all our business with the gojo clan” your husband says from the door he leans on.

“and i did” you emphasize the i since the head of your clan is you and only you went to the clan meetings that got things solved. you tapped your lips a little bit more to place the reddish pigment looking at the mirror, “but satoru summoned this meeting and gave no details.”

“satoru huh?” your husband points, not letting go unnoticed the fact you used his first name without formalities.

“all right” you take one step back checking if your kimono is proper, “see you tonight” you peck his lips lightly to not ruin the tint on yours and proceed to the carriage outside.

for years the gojo clan and yours avoided each other due to some very old beef that no one remembers or even was alive when it happened, so when your mother passed and you assumed as the new head you soon decided to reach out to make peace with the current head of the rival clan and a friendly relationship was restored. more often than not you two met, sometimes with other clan members or even other clans when necessary, but today gojo insisted on being just the two of you.

toji, your bodyguard, opens the carriage door when you arrive and give you his hand for you to step out.

to avoid any issues the place of the meeting was always the temple middle way your residences. from time to time your families attended the prayers there, that’s when your husband saw satoru for the first time.

“where’s his wife?” he asked the first time you pointed the white-haired man as the clan head after you made peace.

“he doesn’t have one.”

“fiancée then?”

“i don’t think so” you both watched discreetly as he greeted the monks.

“i find that quite odd. what about the black-haired man?” he pointed to geto, gojo’s bodyguard, “could they be involved romantically?” geto leaned to whisper something to his master, a little bit too close if you might add, a few more inches and his lips would be touching satoru’s ear. his romantic life was no business of yours but you didn’t like the idea of him having any partners, didn’t seem right, though deep down you knew it was very unlikely for a handsome man like him to be alone. both men somehow found your curious gaze.

“geto” you greet the known bodyguard as you enter the temple, and he bows to you, your bodyguard nods at him as well and you’re guided to the secret room.

the conversation went on for almost an hour, satoru served you tea when he noticed you finished yours, which was unusual for a clan head to do such a mundane task but he always insisted no servant join on your private meetings. you always thought he was particularly paranoid about spies, but that suspicion was dismissed when you had your first meeting with other clan heads and he didn’t oppose the people that stayed in the back of the room waiting for their master’s orders.

“satoru we went over this on the last meeting, why am i here?” you are getting impatient, satoru always seemed relaxed when he was at the temple like it’s the one place people don’t come to him with problems, so he tended to do things without any rush at all.

“so impatient…” he smirks, “i was getting to the point but fine. i need your doctors for a few weeks.”

because of the many wars and the necessity to heal mainly the samurai your clan became specialized in healing techniques and remedies instead of combat.

“is someone injured?” you raised your eyebrow, it wasn’t likely for satoru to ask for something like this when he could’ve sent a letter.

“no. but we are expecting a conflict soon and—”

“let me stop you there satoru” you raised your hand and for a second you saw a glimpse of annoyance cross his features, “we don’t get involved with battles anymore, the healers go through extensive training and i can’t risk losing them in battle.”

“so instead of putting their knowledge into practice you rather keep them locked in a room reading books?”

“they are busy with research at the moment” you raise your chin unwilling to budge on the matter.

“is that so?” he tilted his head smiling “and how many people does it take to figure out your husband is infertile?”

you widened your eyes, this is way too personal of a matter for someone else, especially another clan head, to know.

on the other side of the door, geto and toji guarded the room, they were close enough to listen to the conversation and without turning his head geto looked at toji with his eyebrow raised, to which toji only nodded confirming the rumors.

“you’re not the only one with little birds across territories, sweetheart” his smile only seems to grow.

“that is no business of yours. besides, lending you my healers will only harm my clan and, as i said, put them at unnecessary risk” you managed to find your composure back and avoid the infertility topic.

“don’t you trust i have the best warriors? you seemed to when we came to your aid” he reminded a time you asked for their men.

“i paid for that.”

“and what makes you think i won’t?”

“we don’t need money.”

“i’m not talking about money” he drops the volume of his voice.

“listen, satoru—” you rise to your feet sensing the tone of this conversation is off.

“i’m listening, for a very long time i’ve been listening” he rises as well and takes a few steps in your direction, “you know what i listen to? the rumors about your family threatening to make your brother head of the clan if you don’t bear an heir soon.”

you take a step back.

“or the resources you’ve been spending to research a treatment for your husband. tell me, darling, can he even get it up for you?” he is too close now, you can see all the details of his insanely blue eyes.

“he— that’s not a problem” you accidentally confess.

“of course it’s not, look at you” his finger brushes your cheek and the touch makes you burn under your skin, “i could give you a child” he lowers his head to your ear, running his lips on it, “a healthy, smart, beautiful child” he presses his hand on your belly over the thick material of your clothes, “and it wouldn’t even be an effort” he presses his hardened member on your hip.

“and what am i to do when the child comes out with a white head of hair and blue eyes?” you look into his eyes challenging him to a solution.

“if that happens…” he undoes the knot that holds your kimono together and pushes the material down your arms with no resistance from you, “…i’ll kill him myself and take his place as your husband.”

you gasp, not expecting such an answer from the man you always watched trying to find a way to avoid violence.

satoru kisses your jaw then your cheek and when he gets close to your lips you turn your head, your conscience only now, in this intimate act, attacking you.

“he’s not fulfilling his duty” he whispers, letting go of the knot on his kimono, taking your hand and putting it on his chest. you open your eyes, not even aware you had closed them, and see his sculpted torso, so close to you, so warm…

“it’s not your fault, can’t you see?” he raises your chin, “it wasn’t meant to be, unlike us” you know he’s just telling you what you want to hear, but in his voice everything made sense.

“you’ll see” he picks you up and lowers his body with you back to the mat in the middle of the room, his kimono is still around his arms while yours was forgotten somewhere else, leaving only the very thin, dress-like, white undergarment that pretty much showed everything.

satoru lowers his head to your chest, his tongue wetting your nipple over the material, “i bet you’ll become even prettier” he replaces your breast with his hand, big and hot, and goes to the other nipple, “with your breasts heavy and a big belly” he sucks on you, hardly, you put your hand over your mouth.

satoru raises your legs over his shoulders, “your feet will get tired” he kisses the inner thigh, “but you’ll still come and see me” you thought it sounded like a question, it was a statement.

his head goes down, as he kisses your folds your back arches, he licks a stripe ending on your clit and flickering it.

satoru starts to lose himself, he gets too intoxicated by you, almost forgetting time is running against him here. he doesn’t have much longer until your bodyguard gets suspicious and calls for you, and by the way your hand is tight against your mouth he doubts you’ll be able to give a proper response.

he wants to make you cum before he shoots his load, suguru’s intel told him you asked one of the doctors if the woman needed to come to increase the chances. it doesn’t take much medical knowledge to interpret that question.

you cum on his tongue pulling him out of his dreams where he imagined himself doing that every night after those boring fucking meetings he has to attend at every slight inconvenience in his clan.

“it’s gonna be okay, just relax for me” he pushes his length slowly before you get the chance to see his size. you whisper his name behind your hand and he can’t stand not seeing your whole face, so he takes your hand out of the way and kisses your wet lips pushing his tongue and swallowing your moans as he goes deeper and starts to pick a pace.

satoru holds back a curse, reminding himself he’s in a sacred place and although anyone would say that’s ironic given what you’re doing in the temple he would argue that’s even more sacred than what most people prayed for.

you start to feel his weight down on you as he trusts get sloppier, he’s still kissing you, holding your lips with his when he twitches and fills your insides, in your drunk mind you think it’s so much more than what you’re used to.

after he catches his breath he pushes himself up and out of you, you allow yourself to close your eyes for a brief moment but you open them wide again when satoru pushes his cum back into you with his finger, “keep it deep and warm for me, yes?”

one hour later you pass through the door your bodyguard slides open for you to enter your chambers. on the way there you realized there’s no chance he and geto didn’t grasp on what was happening inside the room.

“toji?” you call before he can close the door and go to his personal room, he stops, indicating he listens although he doesn’t respond with the formality others usually do, “i trust you won’t share with anyone what happened today” you speak firmly looking the tall man behind you over your shoulder, his scar stretches slightly with his smirk, the man bows and closes the door.

they said it was a road accident, the horse got spooked and ran, by the time they found it there was no rider so they searched your husband and found his body down the mountain.

the ritual was long, you wore the traditional widow clothing, accepting the kind words of the clan members and the prayer of the monks. though you really were sad, all this pity was making you sicker than…

“at least you didn’t have kids, no child deserves to grow up with a dead father” an old lady says to comfort you while holding your hands.

“excuse me” you turn around walking slowly to not raise suspicions and as soon as it is just you on the other side of your home you bend your torso and throw up all you’ve eaten before the funeral.

you cough and when a tissue enters your field of vision you immediately take it and clean your mouth.

you feel your stomach empty but the light volume below it reminds you of whose fault it is.

you raise with the tissue on your lips to say thank you and the sight of the white-haired man makes you choke.

“shh, it’s okay, i’m here as an ally, to give my condolences to a friend in grief” there’s absolutely no seriousness in his tone.

“what about the war?” you ask through heavy breathing.

“that was child’s play, don’t worry, your healers will return safe and sound in a few days” he puts his hand on your shoulder to calm you down, you do.

satoru takes a second to drop his sight to your belly, it has been a month since your last encounter, and by your sensitive stomach he knows that one time was enough for you to get pregnant.

“do you think you can hide it for another month until the wedding? then when the child is born we’ll just say it was a premature birth” god, your former husband’s body was barely cold and gojo is already planning the wedding and what to say about the baby.

“why now?” you look up at his mischievous eyes, he knows what you’re asking truly.

“i don’t know what you’re talking about, it was an accident right?” he touches your face, brushing away a tear that came out, more of a natural body reaction of your gagging than a sadness reaction.

“satoru, tell me” you demanded.

“i just reflect a little you know? when i said i would kill him you never asked me not to. besides, i don’t want another man to think they own what’s mine” his eyes are darker, you think he’s talking about the child in your womb but by the intensity of his gaze, you realize he’s talking about you. “if you need anything tell suguru, i’ll have him staying in the village until we announce the wedding.”

“no, i have toji, don’t want anyone suspecting geto’s intentions” you defend.

gojo doesn’t seem to like it, but he doesn’t argue either, “either way, i want to see you. meet me at the temple in five days, we’ll talk about the arrangements” he leans in and kisses your forehead before turning away and then back “i almost forgot” he reaches for something inside his sleeve and pulls out a shiny golden bracelet with gems and puts it on your palm, you know you can’t wear it now but god it’s gorgeous, “came from the west especially for you” he puts his hand on top of yours and leaves it there for a long moment as you look into each other's eyes. satoru is fighting the urge to kiss you, if someone catches you he can’t say he’s comforting his recently widowed friend, so he forces himself to let go of you and go head back to his village.

the midwife instructs you to push harder as her helper dabs a wet cloth on your forehead. you’re squatting, on your knees giving your all to push the baby out.

finally one last push is all that it takes for the little one to come out, you want to lay down and close your eyes, but you need to see the baby first so you mumble something with your arms open, the midwife cleans baby’s face through crying and screaming.

“it’s a boy” she whispers putting him in your arms. satoru enters when he hears the cries and kneels in front of you. behind him are both suguru and toji, who aren’t allowed to enter but the men are also very eager to see the child they can’t help but try to peek.

you balance the boy in your hold for a little bit till he stops crying and when he opens his eyes you see the blue sky.

“give him to the father, we’re not over” the midwife says.

“what?” you, satoru, toji and suguru ask. the last two get an angry look from the midwife and remove themselves from the scene.

“the next one will come out soon” she puts new towels below you.

“two children? at once?” you ask in disbelief then look at satoru who can only smile apologetically.

after god knows how long you’re finally allowed to rest as the babies were cleaned and fed. the second one was a girl, with identical blue eyes as her brother and father.

“i can’t believe you put two kids in me” satoru is outside the wooden tub, breaking all tradition by helping you bathe after the birth.

“can’t say i’m sorry for that” he rubs your shoulders, “you were incredible” he confesses now that there’s only the two of you. satoru refuses to even let your feet touch the floor, he takes you out of the tub once the water starts to cool down, placing you on a dry surface and getting on his knees to dry your feet, you reach out to touch his face.

“i love you, satoru” you blurt, overwhelmed by your feelings for the man who was once your rival.

he looks up from his position, taking the hand on his face and kissing your palm, then your pulse, he kisses inch by inch of your arm until his lips are on yours, “i love you.”

"pay up, pretty boy" toji approaches geto.

"excuse me?" suguru looks up from the sword he's polishing now that gojo dismissed him for the rest of the night.

"i said it was gonna be a boy."

"yeah and then a girl came out right after so the bet was invalidated."

"there's no such a thing, the boy will inherit it all anyway" toji crosses his arms, geto laughs, fishing a coin from his pocket since he knows toji will say anything to win the bet.

"and what makes you say that? there's two clans and now two heirs" toji snatches the coin as soon as he sees the silver glow.

"that's just how it has ever been" he turns his back to geto who drives his attention back to his sword.

"things are changing old man.

dividers by @/cafekitsune

[slvttyplum]

being roomies with a guy wasn’t what you had in mind, but what could you do when he was the only one offering the deal you wanted?

a bright smile on his face as he folds his arms over his chest, leaning against the marble counter, his eyes trailing your body.

“of course i can do that for you; don’t worry about paying a deposit; i got you.”

and with that, you were eight months deep into rooming with suguru, only catching each other for a couple of minutes every other day.

“what’s up? you hungry?” his hair tied in a messy bun with his shirt off and his pajama pants hanging low.

ugh… put some clothes on.

offering you dinner every time you came into the kitchen, his eyes dropping to your ass when you passed through to get to the pantry.

he didn’t know why, but he just couldn’t stop looking at you every time he got the chance; you were his type to a T.

suguru thought that was all it was ever going to be, just looking at you and exchanging a few words before you left the apartment or went into your room.

until he heard something, something he was never meant to hear.

when you did your “activities,” you made sure to be respectful; sometimes it even felt weird to do it when someone else was in the house, but you had needs. keeping it quiet, not risking a peep slipping through.

this time you got a little bit too carried away, but you just couldn’t stop. one hand working in between your thighs, your fingers pumping in and out of you at a good steady rhythm, while the other rubbed over your body, and suguru was there to hear it all.

suguru slowly walked to your bedroom door, leaning against the wall by it with his arms folded, red smeared all over his face as his heart raced, the sound pounding in his ears.

the walls were thin, the only downside of this place, but suguru found himself smiling at the fact he could hear you.

trying to imagine what position you were in, if you were using your fingers or a toy, the lewd faces you were doing, if you were building a sweat at this point, questions flying through his head.

he felt like a creep listening in just a few feet away, which he totally was, but your voice was keeping him there.

suguru loves your voice; it sent tingles down his spine every time you would speak, even if it was just a single "no, thank you." when asking you if you wanted dinner.

it was so soothing, so soothing, in fact, that he would purposely prolong the small talk just to hear your voice bounce off the walls of the apartment, his mouth salivating while he listened to you.

keep going, please.

your moans weren’t loud, but they could be heard; they were very distinct, but he could still make out your sweet voice, and that turned him on more than it should have.

unfolding his arms and grabbing for your door handle, if he had to listen to your moans for another minute, he was going to combust; he was going to go fucking insane.

sliding his hand off the handle and putting a knuckle to the door, calling your name as he knocked lightly, loud enough for you to hear.

“… i cooked; did you want anything?”

his eyes slowly looking over to the kitchen that was lightly lit, closing his eyes trying to come up with another excuse, while you quickly scattered, licking your fingers and throwing on the shorts beside your bed.

fast walking to your door and opening it, a bright smile on your face, trying to act normal.

"im fine, suguru; i already ate." your eyes sliding from his beautiful face to his body, once again shirtless with pajama pants hanging low, showing his v-line, but something else caught your eye.

suguru mirrored you, sliding his eyes over your figure and your disheveled look, feeling his dick growing more, his cheeks flushing as he slowly puts his hand over his bulge, making eye contact with you.

a lump was caught in his throat, his chest rising and falling so fast like he just came back from a run.

he needed you, or he was going to go fucking insane.

"do you want to fuck?"

[dilfosaur]

well i haven't spilled my guts on tumblr since i was in college but it's the platform that's felt The Most Mine thru the years, so

let's talk!

i've had a huge chip on my shoulder that i wanted off before the year ends. very bad professional experience to follow

so firstly to get ahead of the speculating, i'm not naming names or anything. some of you will puzzle out who i'm talking about, but please don't bother anyone especially not on my behalf. i've worked hard to distance myself from them the past few months. shit happens, especially when you're a dumb bitch (that's me!)

but also this person was someone i considered a close friend and it makes me uneasy to possibly direct backlash at them. "then why post about it" bc i did intermittent work for them for over a year. this is just about that. so hear me out

basically it started off fine. i initially did some commission work for good pay, then was invited to become more involved with their team. unfortunately as i became more involved with their operation it became more disorganized over time. projects started then forgotten, constantly shifting schedules, lapsing communication between roles, confusing financials, and often inconsistent if not late payments. during mid 2023 i was doing colorist work, sometimes on a one day turnaround (all while also preparing drawfee's summer merch launch). the payroll wasn't set up correctly so i wasn't paid for that work for over a year (more on that later), tho to be fair that was largely my own fault at first as i just didnt realize the payments didn't go thru lol

i always consider myself decently capable of separating friendship and coworker-ship; i run a company with 4 wonderful friends, going strong for almost 5 years. that didn't really work out in this case. by early this year our friendship was on the rocks; work issues fed into personal issues and vice versa. so as the rest of this shit plays out, we had just had our first "big fight" which i felt very bad about and added to all the upcoming tension

a huge point of friction was the fact that i really wanted to work with them to make a music video for one of their songs. i've always wanted a chance to make a music video, was confident in a concept i came up with, and even did some concept art for the idea. everyone insisted they loved the concept and that we should do it, but we kept pushing it back for various reasons. it ended up becoming a huge sticking point for my frustrations, which i tried to express productively. TLDR, we eventually got around to discussing it seriously around april.

i planned to ask for $4000 with negotiable add-on for the whole project, which was my Friend Discount price. i was offered a contract for $1000 flat rate, as they insisted that was the only budget they had for it.

don't ask me why i signed it lol. i didn't even counter offer

there was some girlmath to it: i wanted an extra 1k for a student scholarship i provide every spring and well, there it was. but if i had to guess, i saw it as something i just couldn't back down from any more. i caused these folks- my friends- a lot of problems bc i dug my heels in so deep to chase this project, so fuck it we ball

i had about 4 months to solo a 3 minute music video. they wanted it done in august so they could release it before summer ended, bc "it was a summer song". to be fair i was asked if i needed them to pay for anything extra like assistants (which i would have to find and manage) but i was so immediately overwhelmed that i didn't wanna slow down to wait on that process lol. there was very minimal communication other than brief progress check-ins every few weeks. i did everything for that project myself: the original concept, character designs, storyboards, layouts, backgrounds. i even did the editing/compositing for the final cut of the MV. the only favor i did myself was limiting the amount of it that was actually animated to simple loops and motions. hardly my best work but it was work still done

i did it all in between my full time job. i ended up having to take nearly a month away from most of my drawfee duties (with the support of the others) to make the august deadline. i only ever asked for a 3 day extension (notice given about a week in advance, around the same time i was given the final song file lol). i finished the music video at 6am on the final deadline and recorded drawfee the next day on 2 hours of sleep

but it was done, coolies. the team was very happy with the final product. honestly, without getting into it, those were a very emotionally taxing 4 months. on the professional side, i regretted agreeing to the project and especially for the dogshit rate they offered. i felt like a hypocrite- as someone who always wanted to advocate for younger artists demanding their worth in a world that's getting increasingly hostile toward creatives, i failed myself

so when i met with the manager to discuss the release plan, i told them to do whatever worked best for them as i only had one request: i wanted my credit removed from the project

tbh... like... lmao this dramatic bitch right!! but really, i decided that bad practices only breed worse business. friends or not, it was unprofessional of me to accept such a low paying job so i just didn't want my name used in association. everything felt so muddled to me and i was just really tired at this point

the manager was very understanding and then offered that i could be paid more. they said that their team "was surprised" i accepted their low rate and they would be happy to up the amount. this confused me as the initial budget seemed pretty set and at no point between april and august was i offered a better rate. i knew these guys weren't made of money. so, i declined. i didn't want to put anyone out of their means over work that was already done and agreed upon. but more importantly, i was over the whole thing and didn't want to prolong the project with a contract renegotiation. i just insisted my name be removed

they decided to use a pseudonym (which i was fine with) so they could create a story about a character who made the MV (this sounds really convoluted but i don't know how better to put it without getting specific, sorry). that way if people asked about the credit, they could speak comfortably about it without signaling that something went wrong behind the scenes. ok, kind of a silly narrative imo but whatevs. and maybe this is where i finally went truly wrong but. yolo i guess

i gave the name "D. Smithee", D as in dilfosaur and Smithee as in Alan Smithee. look it up for fun film trivia ig! was it passive aggressive of me to reference that in this context? yeah, honestly. but i thought it was kinda funny and really not that deep. if it was a problem, i have other real, non-cheeky pseudonyms i regularly use. the manager accepted it and all i had to do was wait for them to post the video and i could leave the whole experience behind me

a week later i received a message from the manager that my pseudonym had been denied by the rest of the team bc one of them got the reference. fair enough lol. however, they decided that rather than ask for a different name, the were going to make one up for me that they liked and would "fit the [story]", without asking me

and that! is when i finally snapped!

i was so tired of giving them concessions at this point and having a credit made up for me without any input from me felt genuinely violating and unethical. i started to Panic bc of how stressed i was, and asked for my overdue payments (aka the $500 still owed on the MV, and the colorist rate from a year prior that was never paid even tho i reported it in january) to be scheduled ASAP as i was leaving the work discord immediately

i finally told them off for exploiting me throughout the months while i kept trying to just be nice and finish my contact cleanly. in return i was told that it was unfair to say that as i agreed to everything- i accepted their cheap rate and denied further payment so that was all settled, and it was ok to change my credit without my consent bc i "said they could do whatever with the release". i called bullshit, ended the convo as kindly as i could, and cried lol. they agreed to ditch the pseudonym and just give no credit. that night was the last i heard from anyone on that team

and the real kicker?

august came and went. then september, october... and they never released the music video

and i don't know why, because i was never contacted about it. i've been removed from the picture entirely i guess. 4 months and boatloads of stress. just. up in smoke. i don't know what i expected honestly

it's hard to not take everything that happened personally and as done in bad faith. i really do, honestly. i've had plenty of shitty deals in my almost 10 year art career, but it hits different from people you saw as friends. but to the point of "why not keep it private", i have never felt so disrespected as a professional as i did this past year. i can toy with money and credits and other formalities all i want, but my work- my ideas, my labor, my effort- is still so important to me. i felt like the biggest idiot for doing so much work, pouring so much of myself into a piece for someone's use, for what has amounted to nothing

but more importantly i hated myself for undervaluing my work, even if initially i thought this person was a trusted friend. money is not really an issue for me- drawfee is my main job and i am fine and comfortable. it's so important to pay artists appropriately but i often undersell my own work bc i value the collaboration and passion between creatives more than the reward. i think a lot of artists tend to feel the same, and it often makes us easy to take advantage of. it's so difficult to find the balance between passion and making a fair living, and i think there's some shame within ourselves when artists choose to prioritize that passion

i wanted to finally get all this off my chest bc i was ashamed of every choice i made. things like this happen all the time i'm sure and hiding these mistakes only make it easier for it to happen to other people

tldr always value your work and protect your passion from people who just see it as a product. and don't give cheeky pseudonyms i guess lol

(and again pls don't bother anyone involved about this. a lot of chaos has left my life as i moved past all this, and this is me closing a door without opening new ones hopefully lol)

this shit was truly

so ass.

but i'm moving past it now

but on a nicer note. outside of all of this nonsense, i made lots of good memories this year. i'm truly so grateful to the many wonderful people in my life who keep me going even when i fuck up big time!

and thank you to all of you strangers who, despite everything, give me the time of day. especially if you read this whole thing. you're a real one :')

happy new year!

[peachesofteal]

The wallflower.

Johnny clocks it immediately, your shoulders practically pinned against the pale-yellow wall, pint glass slick with condensation cradled between your fingers. Your eyes dart around and then away, finding something to study in the carpet, or the stairs, on the coffee table.

You’re not comfortable here, that much is clear.

He elbows Simon. “Poor girl looks nervous.” Simon gives you a furtive glance over the rim of his glasses, and nods.

“Probably only knows one person. Or got dragged here.” It’s Kyle’s wife’s birthday party. She has a lot of friends it seems, well liked in all facets of her life, work and otherwise. He clucks his tongue. “Sweet thing.” Someone bumps into you, and then pivots, reaching out to grab your arm in apology. You don’t tell him off or pull away. You just glance at his hand, meek smile stretching your lips sour. It turns Johnny’s stomach.

“She needs rescuing.”

“Johnny.” There’s a warning in Simon’s tone, a reproachful sentiment that he knows well. No strays. No projects. No more shelter pets.

“Ach c’mon. Look at her.” That one muscle in Simon’s cheek feathers, the one that says everything without Simon saying anything at all. Broken resolve.

He sighs. Johnny grins.

“Ye alright?” The man who’s taken up a residence at your shoulder is now speaking to you. Worse, he’s asking you if you’re alright.  

“I… I’m good. Yeah. Fine.” You grip your glass tighter, ignoring the flip of your stomach. You snuck at glance at him when he first came over, and that was enough. He’s very handsome.

And you’re, well-

You’re… you.

“Someone ditch ye?” Oh god.

“Uh, no. My friend is over there.” You point to Anna’s back. She’s in the kitchen, laughing so loud you can hear her from across the living room.

“Ah. She did ditch ye.”

“No!” You glare at him, “No.”

“But she didnae offer to introduce you to anyone?” You wince, and his eyes flicker with sympathy. “Ah, she did.”

“I’m not good with… people.” The understatement of the year. You don’t do people. People are too unpredictable, too much of an unknown. A pattern of behavior will only take you so far, and it’s hard to forecast their actions, reactions, words, emotions… everything.

You prefer safer bets. Predictable things. Equations, mostly.

“Ye’re not good w’people, but ye’re at a party.”

“Yes, it’s quite a feat.” You snap your mouth shut, expecting him to give you a weird look, but he laughs.

“If ye’re uncomfortable, why stay?”

“Because, social interactions are good for me. And I promised myself a slice of cheese pizza if I made it an hour.” He should laugh. Most would. Most would think it’s fucking hilarious, how you’re bribing yourself, dangling a carrot in front of your face.

But this guy doesn’t. He doesn’t laugh. He cocks his head, and frowns. “So… ye’re torturing yourself so ye can earn a slice of pizza.” A nervous giggle bubbles up and out your throat.

“It sounds bad when you put it that way but-“

“It is bad.” A deep voice sounds from over your shoulder, and you jump.

“This is Simon.” Your new… friend, Johnny, motions to the hulking man at your side, and you manage a nod, spitting out your name. “He’s no’ scary, just looks it.” Johnny reaches for his hand, and the equation clicks to together with ease.

Oh.

“You here with a friend?”

“Uh. Yep.” You point to Anna, again, and they exchange a look.

“She ditch ya?” Same question, different accent, and you’re about to give the same answer, when Johnny intercedes.

“She’s here so she can have a slice of pizza.” Yeah. It sounds bad.

“Wot?”

“I… It’s good for me to be around people so I said if I could do it for an hour, I could have pizza.” They’re both wearing expressions you can’t translate, two faces you don’t understand, and it twists you up.

“Do you usually ransom yourself pizza?”

“N-no.”

“Is it… an eating thing?”

“Oh, no. It’s like… I’d rather be at home, but everyone says socializing is… important. So, for doing something I hate, I get pizza.” Simon sighs.

“Trying to fit a square into a circle.” The comment is puzzling, but as you’re trying to put it together, Johnny links his pinky with yours and tugs you closer. The room is quiet, the music, the laughing, the chatter, all of it goes silent. There are dozens and dozens of people in here, but right now, it’s just you and these two. Staring at one another. There’s a web thin string spinning from him, to you, to Simon, and it’s wrapping you up, cocooning you, holding you tight.

“This okay?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Ye wannae go get that slice with us?” Do it. Just do it. Do something. You take a deep breath.

“Sure.”  

They look comical, shoved into the pleather red booth across the table from you, Simon far too wide to comfortably accommodate Johnny, but they don’t seem to mind. “So, cheese then?” You nod, picking at the faded corner of a menu. This was a bad idea, this was stupid. What were you thinking? Why-

“Three slices of cheese please.” You hadn’t even noticed the server, and you panic when she starts to turn away.

“And a coke!” You blurt, immediately embarrassed. She stares at you for a second before nodding, forcing a smile, and walking off. Fuck. You press your palm down on the table, trying to focus on the texture, the feel of it.

“Hey,” Simon says softly, “you didn’t do anything wrong.” You bristle.

“I know that.” Of course you know… don’t you?

Clearly not.

They don’t try to force you into conversation, but they do talk to you. They don’t ask you pointed questions or try to dig into you, instead choosing to tell you about themselves, their dog, their jobs. They keep you involved without dragging you in unwillingly.

It’s nice.

You’re halfway through your slice when you realize they’re watching you.

 “What? Is there something on my face?” You frantically wipe at your chin, your cheeks. Simon’s mouth quirks.

“Nothing on your face, sweet girl.” Your brain scrambles. Words fail. You don’t think anyone has ever called you something like that before.

“Oh. Okay. Well. Good.” Stupid.

“Go on and finish up.” He instructs, pointing at the grease laden slice, and you bring it to your mouth obediently. “Want to come for a walk with us after this? Our favorite park is around the corner, and the moon is really bright tonight.” A walk. With them. A walk? What does that mean? Just like, a walk?

Do it. Just do it. Do something. Be brave.

You roll your shoulders, and take a bite of your pizza, chewing slowly and swallowing.

And then you nod.

“Yes.”