#like these are characters who originate from the same place but turn out different anyway

[ghostdrinkssoup]

one of my biggest pet peeves is when people slap a sibling label onto characters as a way to shutdown romantic interpretations like just say you think they’re friends! siblings have a very specific dynamic in fiction! not every close relationship is sibling-coded!

[onlycosmere]

*In response to a meme about a tv show adaptation of a book being written by a writer who had not read the book*

Brandon Sanderson: I have a fun story here. Early in my career, someone optioned the rights to make one of my stories (the Emperor's Soul) into a film. I was ecstatic, as it's not a story that at the time had gotten a lot of attention from Hollywood.

I met with the writer, who had a good pedigree, and who seemed extremely excited about the project; turned out, he'd been the one to persuade the production company to go for the option. All seemed really promising.

A year or so later, I read his script and it was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. The character names were, largely, the same, though nothing that happened to them was remotely similar to the story. Emperor's Soul is a small-scale character drama that takes place largely in one room, with discussions of the nature of art between two characters who approach the idea differently.

The screenplay detailed an expansive fantasy epic with a new love interest for the main character (a pirate captain.) They globe-trotted, they fought monsters, they explored a world largely unrelated to mine, save for a few words here and there. It was then that I realized what was going on.

Hollywood doesn't buy spec scripts (original ideas) from screenwriters very often, and they NEVER buy spec scripts that are epic fantasy. Those are too big, too expensive, and too daunting: they are the sorts of stories where the producers and executives need the proof of an established book series to justify the production.

So this writer never had a chance to tell his own epic fantasy story, though he wanted to. Instead, he found a popularish story that nobody had snatched up, and used it as a means to tell the story he'd always wanted to tell, because he'd never otherwise have a chance of getting it made.

I'm convinced this is part of the issue with some of these adaptations; screenwriters and directors are creative, and want to tell their own stories, but it's almost impossible to get those made in things like the fantasy genre unless you're a huge established name like Cameron. I'm not saying they all do this deliberately, as that screenwriter did for my work, but I think it's an unconscious influence. They want to tell their stories, and this is the allowed method, so when given the chance at freedom they go off the rails, and the execs don't know the genre or property well enough to understand why this can lead to disaster.

Anyway, sorry for the novel length post in a meme thread. I just find the entire situation to be fascinating.

[deathbxnny]

Loved your writing of arcane characters saying things they regret during an argument. Would you be willing to do a version with Jayce, Viktor and Silco? I apologize if you don't prefer to write about these characters, you can ignore this

Arcane men saying things they'll regret during an argument. | Viktor, Jayce, Silco x Gn!Reader

Oh, I absolutely am willing to do that, Anon!! These are going to be pretty irredeemable, though, so there is not going to be a part two to this... anyways, enjoy!!<3

Content: Season 2 spoilers!!, heavy angst, hurt/no comfort, break ups, swearing, gaslighting, toxic behavior, sfw

Reader has no mentioned pronouns.

((Not proofread))

》VIKTOR

"This... isn't you anymore, Viktor. A-And I refuse to keep lying to myself like this either!" You hissed out one night, unable to keep it in any longer. You were losing your mind in this compound of his, unable to understand how seemingly no one was able to recognize how wrong everything was. People who were "healed" by him weren't the same after. They turned into robotic and uncanny husks of their old selves.

A terrifying sight that unnerved you deeply. And only you here.

The nail in the coffin was perhaps the skeptical appearance of Councilor Salo. Never in your life had you ever seen him give a damn about anyone but himself. He lived a life of riches and materialism, far from the selfless and minimalistic lifestyle found here. But after your boyfriend healed him of his inability to walk, he suddenly preached the same ideals that everyone else did.

Peace, love, and community.

Those were the important pillars of this idyllic place Viktor had created, and yet you couldn't see past the clear red flags that weaved themselves in their white attire. You were never much of a genius like he was, but it didn't take much brainpower to understand that this was not a great place to be in. No matter how hard he attempted to convince you of that.

"... I'm sorry you feel that way. But I'm afraid I can not follow your reasoning for this claim. I am myself... just someone greater. More meaningful. Isn't that beautiful?" His voice was so gentle and patient in comparison to yours. Something that wasn't unusual to him. But the way he used that tone now made you sick. "Terrifying is a better word, actually... Why can't you see that this is just wrong? You're not healing anyone-" "-But I am. Look around you. Is that not enough for you to finally believe me, my love? I want to create a better world... one in which we can live freely together." Your mind spun, his words ringing in your head dangerously. And you hated every second of it.

This isn't the man you loved anymore. He must have died that fateful day when the sky fell from above, and he covered you with his body to save you. His last act of kindness as your boyfriend and lover before he perished and left behind whoever he was. And you'd be damned if the last good memory got tainted too.

"No. I will not let you play with my mind anymore. I've had enough." You pushed past him, wanting to finally escape this borderline cult. Originally, you had only followed after him because you couldn't bear being without him. Jayce was right, though. He really was different now.

"Hm... it seems like I was right about you after all." You stopped in your tracks yet didn't dare face him. "You truly are not worth saving... you can't grasp the beauty of what I have made. I suppose everyone's claims for your low intelligence were, unfortunately, right. What a shame." How could a devil have such a soothing, loving voice? Why did the monster that now lurked in your shadow have to have your lovers face? The cruelty was too much to bear.

Who would have thought that you'd finally leave him for good after all the years you've taken care of him? This moment felt so surreal and yet ironically freeing as well. The end was near. "Did you... ever even love me?" You asked aimlessly, but didn't wait to hear his answer.

Perhaps if you had, however, you would've seen that sudden spark of surprise in his eyes, as you slipped out of his fingers for good at last.

》JAYCE

You had looked everywhere for him. And after also asking everyone under the sun if they had seen your boyfriend, you had eventually determined that he must've somehow gone missing. Worried sick, it pained you knowing that there wasn't much you could do either, considering that everyone was too busy getting ready for a borderline war and Caitlyn became unreachable as a result. Yet just as you began to lose hope, your dear lover finally returned... but he wasn't the same.

He didn't look the same, nor did he act the same, in fact. He looked so different that it even visibly startled you when you found him rummaging through his once shared laboratory. You had just returned from another wrap around the building in hopes of finding it, and whilst you'd consider yourself lucky this time around, all you now felt was genuine dread.

"Jayce...? What happened to you? I looked for you everywhere and-" You stilled at the intense look he gave you, his face flinching for a moment, as though his mind couldn't comprehend your image. Glancing over at his peculiar weapon of choice, you felt unnerved at how even that looked uncanny. The entire situation was unnerving you deeply, to say the least. "You... You shouldn't be here." He finally muttered, his voice deeper and colder than it ever was. Jayce always had such a fun and warm voice. If you didn't know any better, you would've questioned who he was a while ago.

"Hey... tell me where you were, okay?" You said, trying a more gentle approach as you neared him, eyes focused on his clearly injured leg. Had he been kidnapped? You doubted it. So what made him end up like this? Nothing you could come with explained his appearance. His hair and beard were way longer than they should have gotten in the short span of time he was gone, too.

Reaching down carefully, you tried to inspect his leg, but he seemed less receptive to the idea. Or so you assumed, after he shoved you away roughly and held the hammer to your face at impressive speed. His eyes were glossy, as though he wasn't entirely all there. He was reliving a terrifying moment in his mind, unaware of the horror you were going through. Never could you have ever thought of ending up in this position with him. "Jayce! What the hell are you doing-?" "-Get away! I know what you are... you've been sent by him too, weren't you?" You let out a shriek when he swung the hammer at you, only giving you a fraction of a second to jump out of the way.

Falling onto your behind, you quickly crawled backward and away from him, tears welling up in your eyes. Your scream seemed to at least wake him up, though, as he finally lowered his weapon and blinked at you in surprise. "Fucks sake! What is wrong with you?" You yelled out, yet as fast as his face softened, it hardened again. "... Sorry... I need to leave." Quickly making his way past you, he only barely escaped your presence before you grabbed onto the fabric of his pants. "Why? Where are you going? Why can't you tell me anything?"

The look in his eyes made you shrink away. This wasn't your Jayce anymore. "... The future of everyone in Piltover hinges on me being there on time. Now, make yourself useful for once and get out of my way." Shaking you off harshly, he left you crying on the cold floor of the once lively laboratory, not once looking back.

》SILCO

When you first met Silco, you were both still leading simple lives in the last drop with his brother and all of your other friends in Zaun. The lanes were harsh and, at times, cruel, yet you fought through the agony of it all together. Years down the line later, you find yourself still reminiscing on those heavenly days, particularly those of your lover who had turned for the worst in the time being. And the question of why you didn't listen to Vander's warnings came to mind again then. Perhaps you were just too used to excusing everything his brother did, especially after he had attempted to drown him so horrifically, which left him permanently injured.

But even so... why didn't you just listen? Why did it take so many years for you to finally throw the towel and leave for good? Finally realise that the man you loved was a monster? A disgusting and evil monster who was willing to use the plight of others for his own gain. And for what? Money? Fame? Power? It was all an ego trip you had far more than enough of. Zaun was his playground, and an escape was impossible. You'd be, however damned if you didn't at least try to anyways. Even if just in Vander's honor as a long-awaited apology.

Pushing past the crowd in the stuffy, full Last drop, you finally reached his office upstairs. Not caring about formalities anymore, you knocked and opened the door without awaiting a reply. If death met you behind it, then so be it. "Ah, darling, in a hurry today, aren't you?" "We need to talk. Alone." Short and straight to the point. Raising a brow, he shared a look with Jinx, who was just done giving him his daily "medicine". Oh, how you hated your lover's dearest creation. Shimmer. The exact thing that had ruined your lives for good. But you pushed away your disdain for the task at hand.

Giving Jinx a dismissive wave of his hand, you waited for her to be gone for good before taking a breath to speak. But Silco beat you to it. Always so painfully perceptive. "The answer is no, if you're here asking to leave. I refuse to let you go, dear. You have no one else but me after all. You wouldn't survive on your own." He always underestimated you, so this wasn't an all to surprising response. And if you were just a couple of months younger, you would have maybe agreed and backed off. But you were sick of his games.

"I didn't come here to ask for permission, Silco. I'm here to say goodbye." The slightest, softest crack at the last word gave you away horribly. You certainly didn't expect your feelings for the man to betray you, but even that won't stop you now. Said man just hummed in response as he stood up to face the window. His hands calmly lit a cigar, very much unbothered. But you knew that your sentence had gotten to him anyway with how his hand shook ever so slightly. Out of anger, most likely.

"So you think you can do whatever you want? Leave after you've spent so many years at my side? Your hands aren't as clean as you think they are, darling. Even yours are a bright violet." A reference to the shimmer vials on his desk. He knew how much you hated it, so this felt like a jab. A jab at the deep guilt you felt every day for enabling the death of all of your friends indirectly. If only you had stopped him from the start... then maybe you wouldn't have to feel the dread that ruined you from the inside anymore.

"I've accepted my flaws and sins a long time ago. I may not be better than you... but sometimes, in order to end the cycle, you have to walk away and leave some things behind." You suddenly felt so content, his cold and terrible words not reaching you anymore. You were so close to leaving. So close to leaving Zaun and Piltover like you've always dreamed. But Silco just scoffed in disbelief.

"Hah, don't give me that self-righteous shit... I've been there for you for so many years, dear. I've taken care of you, fed you, and loved you to my best ability for so long. The least you could do is be grateful for my kindness." "So you think I'm a burden?" The silence was deafening, but it was enough to confirm your long-standing suspicions. He had lost his love for you a long time ago. Perhaps the side that loved you so purely drowned in the river with him.

"... Goodbye. I hope one day you can walk away too." You turned and began walking out then, suddenly realising that it's finally over. Shoving your hands into the pocket of your coat, you felt the ticket for the skyship you had to take. "Don't you dare leave. Don't you dare it-" All bark and no bite as usual. There was no stopping you now, and he knew it. He was letting you go after all. You could just hope that one day he'd listen to your words and end the cycle, too.

What a shame that you won't be there at his side to see it, however... maybe in another life then.

[jackoshadows]

Brandon Sanderson on why TV adaptations of fantasy works end up being so different to the source material:

I have a fun story here. Early in my career, someone optioned the rights to make one of my stories (the Emperor's Soul) into a film. I was ecstatic, as it's not a story that at the time had gotten a lot of attention from Hollywood. I met with the writer, who had a good pedigree, and who seemed extremely excited about the project; turned out, he'd been the one to persuade the production company to go for the option. All seemed really promising. A year or so later, I read his script and it was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. The character names were, largely, the same, though nothing that happened to them was remotely similar to the story. Emperor's Soul is a small-scale character drama that takes place largely in one room, with discussions of the nature of art between two characters who approach the idea differently. The screenplay detailed an expansive fantasy epic with a new love interest for the main character (a pirate captain.) They globe-trotted, they fought monsters, they explored a world largely unrelated to mine, save for a few words here and there. It was then that I realized what was going on. Hollywood doesn't buy spec scripts (original ideas) from screenwriters very often, and they NEVER buy spec scripts that are epic fantasy. Those are too big, too expensive, and too daunting: they are the sorts of stories where the producers and executives need the proof of an established book series to justify the production. So this writer never had a chance to tell his own epic fantasy story, though he wanted to. Instead, he found a popularish story that nobody had snatched up, and used it as a means to tell the story he'd always wanted to tell, because he'd never otherwise have a chance of getting it made. I'm convinced this is part of the issue with some of these adaptations; screenwriters and directors are creative, and want to tell their own stories, but it's almost impossible to get those made in things like the fantasy genre unless you're a huge established name like Cameron. I'm not saying they all do this deliberately, as that screenwriter did for my work, but I think it's an unconscious influence. They want to tell their stories, and this is the allowed method, so when given the chance at freedom they go off the rails, and the execs don't know the genre or property well enough to understand why this can lead to disaster. Anyway, sorry for the novel length post in a meme thread. I just find the entire situation to be fascinating.

[gilverrwrites]

Skinny Dipping

Pairing: Dean WInchester/F!Reader

Authors note: This has the been the hardest, and biggest of my re-mastered fics so far. I’m pretty sure the original was an amalgamation of imagines from supernaturalimagine and dirtysupernaturalimagines but I couldn’t even guess at which imagines exactly. This is like, my 4th public/semi-public fic in like 3 months, I’m starting to feel like this is a kink I didn’t know I had.  Also, Metallica have not cancelled anything, don’t worry. (and I don’t know jack about cars, people that do, please don’t come for me, I really did try, k, thanks, bye.) 💖

Plot: Reader is a mechanic who Dean's been checking in on, and checking out for a while now. Dean has the perfect excuse to see her after baby breaks down nearby.

Rating: M/18+

Words: 2936

Content: Swearing, consumption of alcohol, reckless drunken/tipsy behaviour, being submerged underwater, skinny dipping, teasing, brief retraining, size-difference, dry-humping, (or I guess wet-humping), semi-public sex, unprotected sex, p in v, water sex, mild angst.

Please remember: If you never try, you’ll never know.

You switch off the radio, listening to the purr of your car's ignition as you pull up behind a familiar black impala. It was a beauty, but it was nothing compared to your ‘70 boss. You watched as its owner climbed out of the front seat and headed towards you.

Its owner being your old friend Dean Winchester. He and his brother had saved you from a coven of witches a few years back, and ever since he’s been popping back into your life every few months. ‘Working on a case nearby’, ‘just passing through’, ‘baby needs a new compressor’. Every visit he laid the flirting on thicker. You weren’t sure if he was just joking around with you, or if he was serious, or if he saw you as a challenge. Either way you’d been making him work for it. Today it just so happened that his car had broken down a few miles out from your shop, the perfect excuse to see you on a Friday night.

You were pulled from your train of thought by a light tapping on your window. You snapped your head to the side to see Dean hovering over your door. His familiar smile set your heart racing. Okay, so maybe his seduction tactics were working, he was hot, who could blame you?

“Is there a problem, officer?” You joked, rolling down your window.

Dean rested an arm on the hood and leaned in. “No, no, just a routine check.” You knew he impersonated officers and agents all the time, but you hadn’t seen it firsthand. It was impressive how easily he slid into character.

“I am, however, gonna have to ask you to step out of the vehicle for a full strip search.”

Act ruined.

“At least buy me drink first.” You quipped.

“If you can help me, I’ll buy you a whole dinner.” He winked and opened the car door from the outside. You raised your brows at him but climbed out anyway before making a b-line for the impala’s engine.

“What’s wrong?” You directed your question to the car in the same tone you would address a small child or animal, gently rubbing a hand across its roof as you walked beside it. "Has someone been neglecting you?”

“Hey!” Dean barked, clearly offended. “I take better care of this baby than I do myself.”

At that you looked back over at him. He’d forgone his usual flannel today, leaving him in a pair of jeans that hugged him in all the right places and a grey t-shirt that clung tight and accentuated his broad chest. By the time your eyes reached his face, Dean was sporting a wicked grin, clearly ecstatic to have caught you checking him out. You avoid his smug gaze by popping the hood of his car to take a look at the engine.

“You weren’t kidding.” You whistled; Dean really was taking care of the thing.  The motor was almost gleaming. You felt his warm hand suddenly press against your lower back and turn to look up at him. The expression on his face could only be described as that of a proud father.

“Yeah.” He agreed before pointing to the main battery with his free hand: “This is the problem. It’s busted.”

“Ah, you’re gonna need a new one. I’m surprised you don’t keep a spare.” 

“Yeah.” To his credit, he looked pretty sheepish. “I normally do, but guess I forgot when the last one went out.”

“I don’t have one.” You said, pursing your lips to express your sympathies.

Dean didn’t respond, biting his lip while he waited for you to continue.

“But I could give you a jump start if you gotta head out soon.” You bring the hood back down and start heading to the boot of your car.

“No good,” Dean calls after you. “I’m not in a rush, but I don’t have enough gas to get me where I’m going.”

“Well… I’ve got a guy. He’s a few towns over. He’s closed at this time.” You inform as you open your boot and pull out your tow rope, flashing it to Dean with a smile. I can tow you into town for tonight, then drive you there and back in the morning.”

“I knew I could count on you!”

An hour later, you’d slowly but surely managed to drag Dean and his baby back into town, argued with him about him staying at a motel or on your couch (you’d won), and successfully swindled him into buying you that dinner he’d promised. Dinner being take-put pizza and over-priced ice-cream. Now, the two of you were sitting in your backyard, sharing the aforementioned ice-cream and an old bottle of Jack Daniels you’d pulled from the back of your cupboards. 

“So,” Dean began, his speech slurred by the spoon hanging from his mouth. How’s the garage doin’?”

You take a sip of the JD and proceed to suck on your teeth as you consider how to respond.

“Honestly, bad. Ever since that shitty corporate place set up shop down the road, we’ve been going downhill.” You punctuate your statement with another sip from the bottle before offering it to Dean. “I’m keeping it up and running by tooth and claw, but truthfully, it’s probably only got a few months left in it.” 

He gives you a sombre smile as he exchanges the tub of ice cream for the bottle. It's a touchy subject, but you can’t help admiring the way his neck moves as he tilts his head back to drink. You avert your eyes by scooping up the last bit of cold, sugary goodness and placing the empty container on the grass beside you.

“That sucks.” He places a hand on your shoulder, attempting to offer comfort. “That really sucks. Do you have a back-up plan?”

You grab the bottle back from Dean and take another sip before answering.

“I dunno. Sometimes I think about doing what you do. Kinda.” You begin. You don’t miss the way his entire body stiffens before you clarify. “Without the monsters. Just hit the road, get drunk at every bar in the country, visit Disney, become Metallica groupie, an-”

“You know they cancelled that tour, right?” Dean butts in.

“WHAT?” You shake his hand off and stare up at him in disbelief.

“Yeah.” He shrugs. The smile on his face is anything but sympathetic.

“Bastards.” You cross your arms and pout dramatically. Maybe it’s the alcohol, but the laugh that escapes Dean's lips is magical, and you can’t help but join in. When he returns his hand to your shoulder, this time reaching for the furthest from him, thus wrapping himself around you, your skin tingles, and you let yourself fall into him.

As the two of you slowly seize your giggling, Dean checks his watch. He quirks an evocative brow at you when he speaks, “It’s getting late. Maybe we should head inside?”

You mull it over, dramatically swaying your head from side to side before you voice your decision. “Actually, I have a better idea.”

You stand up, offering your hand to Dean, who eyes you sceptically. Nevertheless, he takes the bait, placing his hand in yours and allowing you to lead him toward the footpath just outside your garden.

“Where are you taking me?” he asks, and you can sense the caution in his voice. You assume it’s the hunter in him being paranoid, and you know for a fact that his free hand is hovering over the knife he keeps tucked into the back of his jeans at all times.

“I’m taking you here,” you answer as you pull him through the last set of trees and onto the shore of the local lake. You scan the surrounding area as you kick off your shoes. Satisfied that nobody is nearby, you start pulling off your trousers.

As you bend down to pull your socks off, you look up at Dean. He’s staring back at you intensely, mouth open, cheeks pink.

When you start pulling your top over your head you feel his fingers lightly brush against your hips. He’d stepped closer, and you’re tempted to touch him back or to reach up and kiss him. But you don’t. Instead, you throw your top over his head and sprint for the water.

“RACE YOU!” You challenge, discarding your bra and panties before you reach the water and forward dive in. Dean follows you moments later with a cannonball that splashes your face just as you’re resurfacing from your own dive.

“Fuck! That’s colder than I expected.” You yell to him.

“I’ll warm you up.” Dean replies as he swims close to you. You let his hands return to your hips, not expecting it when he dunks you back under the water.

You cough and splurge as he brings you back up. You flail your arms around until you find the top of his head, and you cling to him for dear life, but Deans is stronger, taller, and he’s found solid ground to plant his feet onto below the water. He escapes your grip and throws you under again.

“STOP. MERCY!” You yell when you come back up. This time, you use your legs for safety, wrapping them around his hips. You'd be safe if you could just get a grip on his arms. You’d been too distracted to notice his erection until you feel it poking at you. You’re about to make a comment about it, but Dean speaks first.

“You’re cute when you’re scared.” He laughs, you silence him with a swift but playful punch to the chest. In defence he grabs at your wrists, able to trap both in just one of his hands. His other hand slides up your arms, over your shoulder, your neck, until he reaches your cheek. He leisurely rubs his thumb against your wet skin.

You stay like that for a while, watching each other, before you finally ask, “Are you gonna kiss me or what?”

Without any further hesitation Dean lunges forward, forcing his lips against yours. His kiss is hard and animalistic; he skips straight past the pecking and teasing to roaming your mouth with his tongue. His fingers leave your cheek and weave into your hair, holding you against him, his stubble scratches against your skin.

In a play for dominance, you dart your own tongue out, grazing his chapped lips, but he denies you. Instead, he pulls away from your lips, refocusing his attention on nipping and kissing at your jaw, neck, and collarbone.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been imagining this.” He utters onto your skin.

“What, this exact scenario?” You joke.

“Not exactly.” He lets out a breathy chuckle, and the gust of air against your skin makes you tremble.

“Then what?” You challenge. Your inability to touch him is frustrating you. In an attempt to stimulate him back, you grip your legs around him tighter, using him as leverage to grind against him. The tip of his cock doesn’t quite reach your clit, but its added pressure helps it spread your lips. “Tell me.”

He drops his hand from your head, and cups it under your asscheek. Firmly guiding you up and down, assisting you in rutting against his cock. Shakey breaths become grunts, and after a few seconds he releases your wrists so that he can grip you with both hands. Free to move, you shimmy down his body until you can feel his dick brush against your clit with each grind.

“Come on, tell me.” You plead, reaching up to card your fingers through his hair, your grip tightening every time he hits your sweet spot. You know he's not shy, that he’s just getting lost in the feeling, and it pains you to say it, but eventually, you taunt. “I’m not gonna fuck you if you don’t tell me.”

He whimpers at your empty threat but finally confesses. “Just you. Your body, under me. Every night, I think about how you’d look, how you’d feel squirming, moaning my name.”

“Fuck. That’s hot.” You reply and he smiles as you plant your lips against his once again.

“Can I fuck you now?” He asks, speech slurred as he tries to speak between kisses.

“Yes.” You respond instantly, pulling back to look him in the eye. “Please fuck me, Dean.”

He doesn’t hesitate. His grip on your ass is like a vice as he lifts you up slightly. You both work in sync to position yourselves just right until he lowers you onto his cock, slowly pressing into you. There’s some resistance as he stretches your walls, but the sound of his whispered praises helps you relax until he finally bottoms out, stretching you in all the right places.

“Fuck, that feels so good. You took me so well.” He affirms, and even though he’s already balls deep, you can’t help the heat that spreads across your face.

He begins lifting you again before you can respond, sliding you up and down his cock in slow, steady movements. You grip tight to his shoulders and hips with your hands and knees, using them as leverage points to help move your body up and down. Each thrush is slow and shallow, but Dean seems to be loving it; his head rolls back, and he releases breathy moans with every rock.

“Shit.” You shout, holding tighter still when Dean unexpectedly shifts below you, repositioning his legs to a sturdier position. You watch through hazy eyes as he reaches up and grips your hand, before guiding it down the tight space between your bodies. You get the message quickly, and begin rubbing your clit in lazy circles, keeping in time with the pace of Dean's cock.

The added stimulation had your toes curling in no time. When your pussy starts clenching around Dean’s cock, you see the sudden concentration in his face. His brow furrows, and he bites his lip as he focuses on riding you through your orgasm. The sight was the final push you need to take you over the edge.

“Fuck, Dean. Fuck fuck fuck, that feels good.” You cry out as you hit your climax.

“Keep saying my name, baby.” Dean begs as he continues rolling your hips together. You feel his body shake as he starts to struggle with your combined weights as he chases his own release.

You try to assist, desperately pumping yourself up and down despite the newfound sensitivity as you chant his name.

“Fuck, yes baby.” You feel the twitch of his cock inside you. He buries his head in the crook of your neck as he hits his orgasm, rutting his cock as deep as he can as he cums inside you. “oohhh yeah.”

You stay in position for a long time following, holding on tight to each other, listening to each other's breathing as you come back down, until Dean guides your body backwards so that you’re face to face again. “How you feelin’?”

“Good.” You reply with a smile.

“Good.” He grins at you mischievously before plunging backwards into the water, taking you with him.

“So, was that everything you imagined it to be?”

He purses his lips in thought before teasingly responding. “Eh, it wasn’t bad.”

You both laugh as you lay your head down on Dean's bare chest; his arms envelop your body as you both blankly look up at the stars. You play with the hem of the shirt you’d stolen from him when you emerged from the water and re-dressed.

“You should do it.” Dean says when you're both fully settled down.

“Do what?” You query, popping your head up to look at him, unsure what he’s talking about.

“Hit the road.” He clarifies, revisiting your earlier conversation. “I mean, life on the road isn’t easy or sustainable, trust me, I know.”

“But…” You prompt, knowing fully that he wasn’t going to stop there.

“But it could be fun for a while. If it’s what you wanna do. Hell, I’d totally be a roadie if… you know.”

“I know,” You reply. You’re smiling at him, but it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. The reminder of your failing business stung, but you didn’t want it to spoil your night. You lean forward, caressing his cheek; his stubble feels rough against your fingers. You gently pull his face forward and plant a chaste kiss on his lips. “I might. I probably will. If it comes to it.”

“I can’t come with you.” He says when you lean away. You hadn’t expected him to want to come with you. Hoped, maybe? But you knew it wasn’t a possibility.

“I know.” You repeat.

He carefully reaches up to run his hand across your damp hair as he pulls you in for another kiss. This one is longer, softer than any you’d shared all night. When you’re done, he lets his head fall back against the ground, and you perch yourself against his chest once more. 

“You’ll still call me though, right?”

“Always.” He replies instantly. “You’re my best girl. Well, second-best girl.”

“The car?” You ask deadpan. Of course, the car is his number one.

“Who else?” He replies shamelessly.

You’re not sure how long you stayed like that, entwined in each other’s arms, spent and damp under the stars, until eventually, you feel your lids growing heavy. You fight it for a while, willing yourself to remain awake, until eventually your tiredness wins out. You cuddle closer into the warmth of Dean's chest as you fall asleep.

[moonshynecybin]

Hey! Just wanted to say I’m in awe of how your writing it’s just so GOOD and FUN and TORUROUS. It’s rly hard to nail the voices and dialogue of characters (especially when writing them speaking in english!) but you always make it so believable. Ur Vale especially is sooo charismatic which like hats off bc a more mercurial man has not been made. 

Re ur charged-airport-conversation fic, I’m intrigued to find out how Marc will handle his sexuality crisis. Will he be in denial? does he very seriously study gay culture like telemetry data? is he getting Grindr? is he seeing it as something to incorporate into his PT routine & somehow translate this to a competitive edge? how did he feel about the pope saying frociaggine????

Also I loved the goofy brother shenanigans, Alex strongest most patient and silliest man alive truly. Extremely funny to think of Alex “please get a girlfriend you’re 30 and annoying me” Marquez having to cope with Marc coming back like “I found one! :3” holding hands with Cervera’s enemy #1 undisputed champ 2015-2024

Anyways, would love to hear any thoughts u had but no pressure! I just wanted to thank u for ur brilliant mind & forget about whatever fresh hell that sprint was 

this one. is one that i plan to maybe actually and fr write out so i shant answer in full because i hope that you'll find out eventually. um. i CAN give you chapter two! of THIS fic where Marc and Vale get stuck in an airport and have a somewhat fraught little bonding session. i have not proofread this OR reread the original so if there's inconsistencies just chill out. theres also a lot of liberties taken with the amount of privacy these guys have on a given race weekend again just chill out. please. they live in different countries and are bitter rivals its hard to get them alone into fictional scenarios. its about 1.4k.

(Part ONE !)

The next time he sees Vale is in the paddock.

It's not unusual to see him— the paddock is small and Vale is always a presence, felt even when he’s gone, indelible—but it’s on the television more often than not these days. Maybe a glimpse of him zooming around on his scooter, ignoring the swing of the camera phones tracking him in his wake. But it’s not like this, never this close up. Vale maintains distance, and Marc has adapted to take his cues from that same distance. He’s not going to be the first to engage, not anymore. 

All that being said, Marc is trying to grab some alone time in between sessions, communing with his lunch and contemplating ways to improve his breaking into Turn 11. He’s tucked into a shady place out of the way, generally out of the range of any stray cameras, when Vale catches him, sliding next to him on the table and leaning forwards on his elbows.

He starts picking at Marc’s food.

Marc reacts reflexively, not even processing that it's Vale who’s at his elbow who is reaching over to snag a bit of his chicken. He lifts his bowl out of reach like he would with Alex. “Hey— that's mine,”

Vale’s game, apparently, shooting him one of those dangerous grins, eyes crinkling at the sides towards Marc like he hasn’t seen in years. He’s brimming with the confidence of someone used to getting away with breaking rules. Marc puts down his food. Lifts a hand, adjusts the cap at the top of his head, and tucks his hair behind his ear. 

This means something. He doesn’t know what.

“Allora, you were not eating it.”

And Marc has always been easy for it—the simple skill he has in spinning a situation into the brightest version of itself, mood turning on a dime. Even when he was destroying Marc, he would do it with a smile. 

It’s that same silverbright thread that makes Marc laugh, disbelieving, a shock of delight. He shoves at the edge of Vale’s arm, jockeying with his elbow. He bites his lip, shakes his head. Would you look at that?

“Presumptuous,” Marc scolds, and tucks back into his lunch, forking another bite into his mouth. Vale grins and leans closer, conspiratorial. That same hot, embarrassed feeling from the airport rears its head, giddy. Marc glances around. There’s no one here. He feels like there is. LIke there’s eyes on them, even though he’d chosen a place where there shouldn't be.

It feels like crossing a line, teetering on the edge of some cliff, one toe over the edge. Hot and anticipatory in the pit of his stomach. There’s a breeze going, and he shivers. Vale leans closer.

He likes it. 

He also knows that he shouldn't like it. He’s gone through this song and dance before. This feeling, this hero worship that he has with Vale never leads him down any good road. He thought– six premier class titles and nearly ten years of vitriol had been an effective cure. Not so, he’s finding out.

Vale corrects, “I see what I see. This I cannot help.”

“Oh yeah? You’ve been watching me?

Vale shrugs, steals another bite. “You do manage to put on a good, ah, show.” He finds the words in Spanish. Marc can’t remember the last time they spoke in Spanish.

Marc takes a breath in. Settles himself. He doesn’t know what the end goal is here. Curiosity wins out— it’s better than wondering why Vale’s here in the first place. What game he’s trying to play. What he thinks he’ll get out of being nice to Marc, aside from that shivery feeling clawing its way up the base of his spine. He should really at least find out if he’s doing this because he plans on not being nice to Marc. 

“How did you find me?” Is what he goes with. Neutral enough. 

“You are not hard to find.” The answer is vague, but frank. Vale loves to speak around things.

Marc raises an eyebrow, decides to just keep looking at him. They both know he’s bullshitting. Vale breaks, and makes a face, shrugging.

“I have been racing here longer than you. I know the hiding spots.”

Marc gives him a minute roll of the eyes. It's still not an answer. “You know, they remodeled not too long ago. The entire layout changed.” Vale would’ve had to work to find him. 

“Not too much!” Vale spreads his palms cheerfully, seizing on a diversion. “The bones are still the same. The stands are over there,” he juts a thumb, “The pits are here. The bathrooms change, but bah. It’s a facelift.”

Marc wrangles down a smile. Vale’s not being serious— he’s being fun. Maybe he’s trying to get him comfortable for some reason. “A lot changes, I think.” He says frankly, and he means it. 

Vale’s eyes flash. He sees Marc’s conviction, catches the double meaning. Another one of their conversations centering around two different issues on the surface, but coming back to their history all the same. The elephant in the room butting into other topics. History, division, and rivalry, all sneaking its way into the cracks in their words. 

Vale keeps going, the lead in their little play.

“Maybe. But it’s not— like, aerodynamics, new regulations, new tires— all that changes. Small stuff.  Opinions, riders. But it is still a paddock. I’ve been in paddocks my entire life. You can’t change much.”

Things change a lot, in Marc’s experience. People. Teams. Bodies. 

Friendships.

And Marc is brave usually, has made a career out of it, so he feels like he has to ask. No use avoiding it and feeling half out of his skin for the rest of the day. Vale’s knee bumps into his own and he closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them Vale is already looking at him

“Why are you here?” He levels.

Vale throws him a soft smile. It comforts exactly no part of Marc.

“Maybe I was looking for a hiding place.”

Marc hesitates, choosing his words carefully. It’s always a spar with Valentino; even when they were friendly, they were still competing.

“Am I the hiding place?”

“Well, I am still more famous than you, is true. Less photographers on you than me. It’s peaceful.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Now there’s a good question.” Vale says, stealing something else off of Marc’s plate. “Today? I was hungry. I thought I’d stop by and eat with an old friend.” The words jolt through Marc like a highside. He’s in the air— lost, flying, falling. 

Vale stands, towering. He claps Marc on the shoulder. It burns white hot. Marc keeps his eyes on him, trying to catch a hint, a clue as to how this all happened. 

An old friend.

“Is that what we are?” He asks, more earnest than he should be. Vale can be such a bastard.

“Well, what would you call it?” He responds, turning the question on Marc, voice quiet. Serious, like he knows whatever hangs between them is as thin as a spiderweb. Marc swallows.

“I don’t know,” Marc answers. still too honest, even now. Something flickers on Vale’s face, too quick and complex for him to read. 

“Think about it.” Vale prompts, and walks away.

Marc finds out that they weren’t alone, in that section of the paddock the next day. The pictures hit the news after the race, headlines rolling in thankfully after Marc has left for home. Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez sharing lunch, alone on a race weekend ten years after their falling out. What could it mean? 

But Marc’s eyes look at the photo and just catch on Vale’s shoulders, leaning towards Marc, the palm of his hand, arcing through the air as he gestures, frozen on the screen of his phone, and himself, eyes crinkled at the corners. He was wrong. He didn’t manage to reign in that smile after all. 

FRIENDS AGAIN?, the headline asks, and Marc wonders.

[thecurioustale]

My Thoughts on Jenny Nicholson and the Star Wars Hotel

I watched Jenny Nicholson's four-hour "The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel" video essay that YouTube showed me recently but which till now I couldn't bring myself to construct a day around. She's in great form here, and I'm pleased to say I go back as a fan of her work all the way to her Friendship Is Witchcraft days. (Blows my mind that she voiced all Mane Six characters, and others, so well.)

Anyway, long story short, Disney built a Star Wars hotel at Disneyworld in 2022 that was themed as a voyage on a spaceship, then proceeded to charge thousands of dollars per person per night, the most expensive publicly-available Disney theme park hotel experience by miles and miles, and then closed the hotel in 2023 after having spent hundreds of millions of dollars. Jenny went into the experience as a member of the core target demographic and spent four hours talking about all the ways it was an underwhelming or outright disappointing experience.

Her video reminded me of Hasbro's own misadventures in corporate greed with Magic: The Gathering, which has suffered in recent years from price increases, disengagement from the fan community, and a huge proliferation of product spam—i.e. more products overall, more ways to buy a given product (e.g., the proliferation of different boxes, which eventually killed the original draft booster box that had powered Magic for 30 years), and more variants of individual cards within and between products.

Hasbro and Disney are very similar in the economic space they operate in, and also utilize similar business strategies. Disney is essentially the S-tier megacorporation to Hasbro's B-tier, and we have seen many of the same corporate trends play out in both companies.

When it comes to Disney theme parks, they have massively increased ticket prices over the years, well beyond the rate of inflation, and have also implemented advance-scheduling systems for faster access to rides that has made the process of exploring a Disney theme park much less spontaneous and a lot more regimented and stressful.

Disney realized, years ago, that their limited number of theme parks—they only really have two, not counting the various sub-parks: Disneyland on the West Coast and Disneyworld on the East Coast—together with Disney's entrenched status as a cultural icon with lots of goodwill and brand recognition among the public, are vastly underserving public demand, allowing them to inflate the price of a single trip almost arbitrarily, well into the four digits—or even the five-digits if you're taking the family and spending several days.

The Star Wars hotel was Disney's "Magic 30": a product so ludicrously expensive as to incur immediate and universal condemnation by their own fans. It's clear to me what Disney was doing: They'd happily turned the conventional price knob up and up and up for years. Now they wanted to experiment with a fundamentally more expensive product class, basically five to ten times more expensive. They wanted to see if the market could support it. Because the growing disparity of wealth in America, together with America's obscene wealth as a nation relative to the rest of the world, means that it's definitely possible: There are definitely millions of people out there who could book a stay at the Star Wars hotel if they wanted to. And Disney was like "Let's see if they will."

And you know what? I think it could have succeeded. Because there really is an obscene excess of wealth in this country, even though most of us don't have any access to it. And we are a culture whose zeitgeist is ever ravenous for the next big, flashy experience.

But instead the venture failed spectacularly. Why? Because such reckless corporate greed is, itself, usually a sign of deep organizational rot and incompetency among the board and executive leadership. In other words, their hotel failed for the same reason they tried building it in the first place: Disney has grown stupid.

The way it failed, going by Jenny's video, is down to two independent reasons:

An outrageous degree of "penny-wise, pound foolish" thinking;

A fundamental failure to anticipate the comfort and pleasure of the guest.

The former is the more obvious of the two, and what really stood out to me as emblematic of it in this whole boondoggle were two simple thing: 1) The hotel rooms didn't have complimentary Disney+; and 2) the free loaner umbrellas for hotel guests visiting the Star Wars Land in Disneyworld were either so worn-out or so shoddy to begin with that, unless it was a big coincidence, both Jenny's and Jenny's sister's umbrella failed while in use. This was in the context of Disneyworld's most expensive customer experience ever, by a lot, and Disney was nickel-and-diming them. Jenny's video goes into a great depth of detail on the dozens if not hundreds of corners they cut; it was basically everything but the food. The result was an antagonistic relationship between Disney and their hotel guests where almost everything interesting cost more money (usually a lot more money) while almost everything included in the main ticket price was of cheap quality or stingy in its allotment. Every aspect of the whole process, from the scammy vibes of booking a room in the first place, to the pathetic after-care for customers who reported a problem after their stay, was likely to leave a sour taste in the customer's mouth.

When you're paying the most expensive prices in the history of a product category, you really just need to be given an up-front price that includes all or nearly all of it. You'll know what you're in for, and you can make an informed decision, and then it's really just down to the host to provide an experience and level of service that matches those high dollar outlays. But instead, as Jenny pointed out, it's like you're dealing with Spirit Airlines, where you're gonna pay a fee for literally everything beyond sitting your body quietly on the airplane.

Mind-boggling hubris. Disney needs to be broken up for the monopoly that it is, and this is just one more example of how convinced of their own inevitability and supremacy Disney has become.

The other main failure on Disney's part is the subtler one.

Jenny focused on how the Star Wars themed choose-your-own-adventure game, which was at the heart of the hotels' central conceit of "live your own personal Star Wars story," was irreparably dysfunctional. Not only was the app, through which most of the "experience" was conveyed, horribly designed; and not only were the tasks delivered through this app mostly busywork to anyone other than young children, consisting of little more than walking around and scanning inanimate objects; but the storyline's entry points and decision points were completely impenetrable through reasonable means, to the point of seeming arbitrary. Jenny proactively tried and failed to get into her preferred storyline; then tried and failed to get into any storyline; then was automatically sorted into one the next morning; and ultimately ended up having only one (dubiously) interactive story experience over the whole weekend.

She talked about how the tightly-regimented and incredibly full schedule was so mentally and physically draining that on the final night she fled her dinner table fearing she would vomit and had to stand in her hotel room staring at herself in the mirror for a while, to understand her illness (which turned out to be stress-induced exhaustion) and center herself.

She talked about how she didn't get to see a much-coveted music show during dinner on her first night because she was seated behind a giant column.

Really, these things are manifestations of the larger and more fundamental failure on Disney's part to anticipate the comfort and pleasure of the guest, as I put it.

As I was watching her video, two thoughts came to me in this vein:

First was that this whole experience really needed to be "playtested," as we might say in Magic. I mean, I'm sure there nominally was, but whatever playtesting they did was completely ineffective. Good playtesting would have brought most of these issues to light.

Second was that the Disney of today has completely lost touch with the namesake of their industry: hospitality. This would never have happened at a new luxury resort by an established world-class hotelier a century ago. Because they understood the basics. Little things, like hot towels.

I could tell just from Jenny's video that this whole hotel was decided from the top-down by soulless, disconnected corporate suits who blatantly disregarded whatever good suggestions I'm sure the Imagineers® came up with. For the failures to be as expansive and ubiquitous as Jenny's video documented, no doubt the institutional rot extends down at least as far as the project manager level, if not down to individual Imagineers® and beyond, but there have to be at least some good ones, and clearly they were overruled early and often. Whenever Disney's leadership was faced with a decision between anticipating the comfort and pleasure of the guest, and saving a couple bucks on a guest who was literally laying out several thousands of dollars to be there, leadership chose the latter.

They were so arrogant that they believed, without noticing or questioning it (unless Disney's leadership is in fact cartoon evil), that they would tell the customer what constitutes a good experience, and the customer would pay top dollar for it. And so you get a guest experience where customers who are actively trying to pick a given storyline can't get any storyline and are later seated for the dinner show behind a giant fucking column.

It's sad, and we should all be glad that their hotel failed. Not that Disney is likely to learn the right lessons from their failure, but the long-term solution here is for leisure dollars to be directed toward other companies. For the several thousand bucks that Jenny paid, she could have had a true luxury vacation in most parts of the world—and for longer than two nights.

One thing that I noticed during the four hours of her video was that Disney, or at least the people in charge of developing this hotel, didn't seem to understand what constitutes an enjoyable story experience. I am forgiving of the low level of complexity in the various puzzles, since the public is famously stupid plus a lot of these guests are going to be children. But there was so little imagination in the actual plot beats: Chewie sneaks in, gets arrested, and busts out. You get to help some Resistance fighters smuggle their luggage. Like, it's insipid. I mean, ultimately, most pop storytelling is insipid, but what I mean is that the dressings were insipid too. Dressing a story up is what makes stories great, at least at the mainstream level. There was no pomp and flourish; no clever interweaving; no electric events that put people on the edge of their seats. Just walking around on your phone for two days scanning crates and occasionally being in the same room while somebody busts Chewie out of the clink—assuming you even make it to the story events in time, since they often fired early.

The whole thing smacks of rule by committee, too many cooks, and suits suits suits all the way down.

I think it's a sign of the times that this is happening. We are once again in Robber-Baron territory in this land. The big corporations and the oligarchs who run them have become so obscenely rich and so utterly disconnected from ordinary life, and their corporate cultures have become so masturbatory and so officious, that they are increasingly creating products for idealized, phantom audiences. They increasingly don't understand real people or real life.

And we can and should bring the weight of the government down on them, more to break up monopolies and allow new and established competitors to seriously challenge them than to actively punish these companies for making money, but even more so we just need to spend our dollars elsewhere. I mean, I'm speaking hypothetically here; I am poor so none of this even applies to me in the first place.

Hence why, even after inflation, this is still just my two cents.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching reading. Today's choice: 死亡万花筒 / Kaleidoscope of Death.

Kaleidoscope of Death is a 2018 Chinese webnovel about two young men who fall in love while basically playing a whole bunch of horror-themed escape rooms that can for-real kill you.

This novel was gripping. I could not put it down. It started out fun and ended up ripping out my heart several times. It does a good job getting the ball rolling with a series of adventures in weird worlds, then turns into a meditation about grief and loss and what it means to have something to lose in the first place.

This is the first time I've ever done a book rec! I'm doing it in conjunction with a rec post for the Spirealm, and originally I was just going to do this as a bonus section for that post. However, I felt they both deserve whole different posts, because they both have very different things to recommend them. I also think Kaleidoscope of Death a 100% necessary read if you've seen the show, because it provides some context that the show simply cannot include -- but it's not a necessary read before you see the show.

Therefore, I'm going to give you five reasons I think you should sit down with this one, and not a single one of these reasons is going to assume you've watched the Spirealm! The book is great and deserves to be read on its own merits, and then if you then start watching the drama afterwards, so much the better.

1. All the Cross-Dressing

(Yeah, I'm going to punctuate this one with screencaps from the Spirealm, because otherwise it's just a wall of text.)

I'm not going to tell you why the male characters frequently dress and pass as women, since the book explains the practicality of it better than I could. You just need to know that they often do, and it's never not kinda hot when it happens.

When you first meet Ruan Nanzhu, it is as Ruan Baijie, a stunningly beautiful and noticeably tall woman. Lin Qiushi, our POV character who is extremely confused for a number of reasons, spends the first whole arc talking and thinking about Baijie like she's a girl. In fact, one of the cutest things about sweet, earnest Qiushi is that he clocks Baijie several times, and every time he's just like, oh, she's so flat-chested, how unusual for a girl, anyway...

And this isn't even just dressing up! Stepping into the door worlds changes you physically based on your clothing and cosmetics. Nobody inside looks the same as they do outside, and nobody looks the same inside as they did last time they were inside. The rules that govern these transformations aren't even clear to the characters themselves! So, you know, have fun with that.

I'm going to say it's not an out-and-out trans thing, in that we're not dealing with an AMAB egg who will crack someday. Ruan Nanzhu is a very male-identified, penis-having man! He's just also pretty entertainingly comfortable with performing whatever gender makes him the most fuckable person in any given room. Lin Qiushi is not so inherently genderfluid, however, which means that when his gremlin sort-of-boyfriend makes him pretend to be a girl, it's a completely different kink.

Therefore: If you like it in any way when boys dress up like girls, you owe it to yourself to pick up this one. And if you like a fandom that likes it when boys dress up like girls, baby, welcome to the world inside the doors.

2. Those boys GAY

This is a textual romance. Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu are in love. This is a danmei novel about how they fall in love. There is kissing and there are fade-to-black scenes that explicitly acknowledge that the two of them have sex with one another. We even know that Ruan Nanzhu (usually) tops. This s not just me pointing at them and saying gaaaaaaaaaay. This is actual gay.

And it is gay that takes its fucking time. They do not actually hook up until well over halfway through the book, but they are physically affectionate from almost the get-go. Ruan Nanzhu is such a trickster and a liar that Lin Quishi finds it hard to believe that anything he does is sincere, which leads to nearly lesbian levels of wondering if it means anything when a guy demands you kiss him on the mouth when he's pretending to be your girlfriend. Meanwhile, Ruan Nanzhu is over here being the Kate Beaton comic about sitting here consumed with lust all evening.

Even once they both acknowledge what they're feeling for one another, they don't get together right away. After all, they're playing a game of life and death where they lose friends left and right. Every time someone goes inside the door, there's a real chance they won't come out again. Is giving your heart to someone worth how much it will destroy your entire life when you lose them?

(Yes, says the book. Yes, it is worth it.)

The slow burn of their relationship is delicious, in part because the physical (though not sexual) aspects of it predate the romantic ones. It also has the fun hot-and-cold aspect where Ruan Nanzhu is incredibly affectionate inside the doors, then icy outside of them. Poor completely inexperienced, never-been-kissed Lin Qiushi does not know what to make of any of this. He can barely manage parenting a cat. He does not know how to handle a boyfriend who is also a girlfriend who is also (spiritually) a cat.

I also find it charming how much the gay part of it both is and isn't an issue. It's not that Lin Qiushi has a problem being in love with a man; however, the fact that Ruan Nanzhu is a man does mean the heteronormally indoctrinated and relationship-inexperienced Lin Qiushi takes much longer to realize what exactly those feelings he's having are. The book's world is one where heterosexuality is the assumed default, while queerness is unexpected but everybody's still pretty cool with it. Besides, no one's going to judge Lin Qiushi's gay yearnings, because who doesn't want to fuck Ruan Nanzhu?

3. HAKO ONNA HAKO ONNA HAKO ONNA

So as I was reading through @zintranslations' earlier chapters, I kept seeing translators' notes down at the bottom about being so excited to finally get to the Hako Onna arc. Okay, I thought, this is a lot of hype; I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Friends, it does not. This is the arc I was reading while screaming into a pillow. It's thirteen chapters long, tied for the longest arc in the book with the first door. It is a fucking nail-biter. It does the clever thing of taking all the things you've learned about what can happen inside the doors and combining them for a worst-case scenario.

The setup is pretty simple: There's a bunch of boxes. One has the exit. Most are empty. Some have things that help you. Some have things that hurt you. The more things you find that hurt you, the more things there are to hurt you. And you have to open the boxes.

All the door arcs are pretty well-written, so that you can more or less play along with their various adventures. Hako Onna, however, is exceptional. It's so complicated, but you can actually follow it. And you need to be able to follow it, because the multiple emotional gut-punches that happen in this arc all depend on understanding how the rules of the game have just been leveraged to fuck someone over.

Now I really want to play the board game -- which I was pleased to discover is a real board game! And speaking of board games...

sidebar: Betrayal at House on the Hill

I know this isn't technically related to the novel at all, but if you like board games, horror, and being incredibly dramatic, you owe it to yourself to try out Betrayal at House on the Hill.

It goes like this: You and several other horror-movie archetypes wander through a mansion, "building" it as you explore it, so the game layout is different every time. At some point (and it's based on so many random factors that you never know when it'll be) someone triggers a condition, and the haunting begins. All the players then get the rules of haunting explained to them -- except for one player, the one picked to do the titular betrayal, who gets a different set of instructions and becomes the antagonist. From that point on, the game is about either surviving or completing the haunting, depending on which side you're on.

I have played this game before with normal board game people, and they were like, eh, this is fine. I have also played this game before with theatre kids who RP and LARP, and we all had a fucking blast. So I'm going to warn you that you have to choose your crowd carefully. This is a game for people who do improv and voices.

4. The art of losing isn't hard to master

The book has a high body count -- higher than the show's, in fact, though that's related to how the book also has more characters than the show does. When you meet someone who can go into the doors, be careful how much money you'd lay on their survival.

Death after the doors comes so quickly, too. There's barely any time to say goodbye, if there's even any time at all. Often there's just a phone call telling our main characters that one of their friends or allies or enemies is gone.

Everyone who gets the chance to go through the door worlds is only able to do so because they're dying already. The more doors they pass, the more they get to kick that death further down the road -- but the more doors they enter, the more chances they take that they might die inside one. So really, none of the players can be that resentful of being forced to play a game that can kill them, since they're already playing it on borrowed time.

I will say, somewhat cryptically, that the book has a positive ending that leaves open the possibility for other positive things. The path to that positive ending, though, leads through some pretty wrenching takes on living through grief. It's not even all rah-rah and it-gets-better, either -- the text acknowledges many times over what it means to have someone that life isn't worth living without.

And that's maybe not what you expected from a BL horror adventure webnovel, but it's what you're gonna get! Ha ha!

5. What He Is

Which is the title of the first extra chapter, which is not extra at all, but is in fact a necessary explanatory piece that whacks you upside the head like a two-by-four and recontextualizes the entire story.

...Yeah, that's all you're going to get from me about that. You'll understand when you get there.

Have you put it on your reading list yet?

The way you have to read it is a little convoluted: @zintranslations has chapters 1-17 and 63-end + extras. Taida Translations has chapters 1-62. So no matter where you start reading, you're going to have to switch sites at least once.

There are also apparently Portuguese, Indonesian, Russian, and Spanish translations too? And the original Chinese webnovel, of course. And some audio dramas and subs linked to from this Carrd, which helpfully has other information, like content warnings for specific chapters, in case the horror aspect of the story gives you pause.

Anyway, once you're done reading it -- or even before you're done! -- you should absolutely go watch the Spirealm. I think it's clear from both rec posts that I definitely like the book better, but I appreciate having the drama to bring so many scenes to life, and I think the casting is great. Also, I don't think reading the book makes you like the drama less! Rather, I think reading the book gives you insight into the awkward and sometimes terrible choices the drama had to make to survive -- which in turn gives you the ability to see through those choices, on to what the show always wanted in its heart to be.

I do find it funny how "Kaleidoscope of Death" and "Death's Kaleidoscope" technically mean the same thing, but they sure read different, don't they?

[hoseokslefteyebrow]

The Anomaly || JJK

Chapter 2: The Origin of Blind Obedience

summary : In which you're isekai'd from your (own) parallel Jujutsu Kaisen universe to the canon universe.

wordcount : 2.8k

Pairing: Jujutsu Kaisen X Reader, eventually Character x Reader (idk who yet tho)

Masterlist | Next

[ My dumbass only now figured out that Ryomen isn't Sukuna's name- it's his title 💀. Anyway we will be referring to Y/N's Sukuna as Sukuna from now on lol. ]

" Woah, you can bake! "

You blink as you turn, grinning once you spot Yuuji. 

" Yeah. I like baking. Especially when I'm stressed. " 

He sits down at the table in the dormitory's kitchen as you speak. Your chocolate buns are in the oven, the smell starting to waft through the building. They're nearly done, with only a few minutes left. 

" I've heard about people who do that. Is our world stressing you out? "

You shake your head, continuing to dry the dishes you've been using. It's been a few days since you've been here, and things are going relatively fine. You're following the classes like usual. However, you miss your friends, and the people you're familiar with. You miss your room as well. 

" Not necessarily. I just miss home. It's weird being in the same place when it's so different.- Ah, also, do you maybe have a charger I can borrow? My phone is dead, and I don't exactly have any money at the moment. My card doesn't work here. "

You put your phone down on the table as you ask. It's still dead, the screen blank. However, it's the only object you have from your own world. You make sure to keep it on you at all times, even though it's dead. 

Just like promised, Gojo has been making sure you have everything you need. You've gotten an extra uniform, your old one fixed as well, which had a rip in the back. He even made sure your personal touches were added to it too. The only thing left was your funding, but that was coming along slowly as well. Currently, he was on a trip abroad, leaving for whatever. 

Yuuji picks up your phone, studying it. 

" I think Fushiguro has the same brand. You could ask him once he's awake. " 

You hum, smiling at him. 

" Thanks, I will. " 

Soon enough, the oven dings, and you take out your buns, placing them on the stove top. Yuuji approaches curiously, beaming as he notices the nearly perfectly baked buns. 

" Ohhh, they look great Kamo! " 

You smile at his compliment. 

" Thank you. And feel free to call me Y/N. I'm not particularly fond of my clan's name. " 

Yuuji hums, focused on the bread. 

" Can I try one? " 

You hum. 

" Sure, but be careful-"

It seems your warning was relatively useless, as Yuuji gasps, bouncing a bun before finally putting it on a plate he had previously taken out of one of the cupboards. 

" -They're hot. "

You smile, shaking your head. This Yuuji wasn't all too far off from the guy you're fond of back at home. 

" What's that smell? "

You turn, noticing Nobara popping her head in the kitchen/dining area as well. 

" I made chocolate buns. They're fresh out of the oven, so they're still hot. Feel free to try one. "

Nobara too, beams at your offer, coming closer to study them. 

" Woah, they're pretty Kamo! Your universe is lucky to have you. " 

You chuckle at her words. 

" Thanks. "

" What are you doing? "

Finally, Megumi joins the scene. He looks as unbothered as always, but you recognize that curious twinkle in his eyes from knowing him for years. 

You beam at him. 

" Megumi! I've made chocolate buns. I know they're not your favorite considering your taste palette, but still. "

You shrug as you speak, turned to set away the dishes you've used. 

Everyone blinks at you behind your back. Still, Megumi comes closer and joins the scene. 

" Were you and Fushiguro close? " 

Nobara asks, before taking her first bite. She melts at the sweet taste, savoring it. 

You shrug. 

" Sort of. More like familiar with one another. We already knew each other before Jujutsu Tech. I already knew Sukuna and Yuuji before Jujutsu Tech as well. I was absolutely blessed by your presence though. "

Nobara beams at your words, her head held high as she grins confidently. 

" How did you know Sukuna and I? " Yuuji asks. 

" You two lived in the village close to the Kamo clan grounds. As a child I was closer to you, but somehow I ended up becoming closer with Sukuna instead. "

Yuuji's brows raise in surprise before he beams. 

" We were close? I'm not too surprised if I'm honest- you're a fun person, Y/N."

You smile at him. 

" Thank you. "

" The idea of Sukuna being my twin is so weird though. "

Meanwhile, Megumi watches you as you move about the kitchen, chatting away with Yuuji. There's something about you. He doesn't know exactly what. It just catches your attention. Your presence is pleasant. You feel familiar, at least to him. Probably because he does know you, in your universe. 

He glances down at the dead device on the table, The phone catching his attention, he's not entirely sure whose it is. Judging by the phone case, it's not Yuuji's or Nobara's. So it had to be yours. It's see through, with stickers on it. There's so many of them, you can barely see the small hidden piece of paper behind it. And a photo card. 

" Is this your phone, Y/N? " 

He's asking before he realizes. His classmates freeze.

" Fushiguro! You've only met Y/N yesterday and you're already calling her by her first name, but not me? "

Yuuji is pouting as he speaks, perhaps a little sad his friend doesn't. 

Megumi sends him an annoyed glance, though his cheekbones dust pink. 

You approach him, humming. 

" Yeah it is. Yuuji mentioned you might have the same brand. Do you maybe have a charger I can borrow? I haven't got any money to buy one yet. " 

You pick up your phone, turning the device in your hands. 

Megumi nods. 

" I've got a spare one you can borrow for as long as you need it. " 

And then he's gone, leaving to retrieve his spare charger for you. 

Yuuji's mouth is open in surprise. 

" Woah, he doesn't even share anything with us. "

" Hey Y/N, does your universe's Megumi have a crush on you? " 

Nobara is grinning at you while she's asking. 

You raise a brow, shaking your head. 

" No, why? "

She grins again, shrugging. 

" No reason, just asking. "

" Hey Y/N, can I have another one? "

" Sure, make sure to leave one or two for Nanami though. "

-

Currently, the four of you are in Nitta Akari's car. You're seated in the passenger's seat up front, while the others are in the back. 

You're trying to follow her explanation about the case you're send to. Something about automatic doors being open, and someone dying soon after. 

Nothing was really clear about it. Only that all the victims had gone to the same middle school. You recognize the name of the school, your eyes flitting to Megumi. He doesn't seem to notice, or if he does, he doesn't care. 

Your first stop is at a classmate who knew all three victims. However, as you arrive, you find out he's dead. His funeral currently ongoing. 

Left aimless, Nitta decides that you will stop by the school. The three of you arrive soon enough, and Nobara grins as she notices two punks, who seems to be ending their smoke. 

" We got some punks over here. Let's beat em' up and set em' straight! " 

She's grinning, twirling around a pole to face you as she juts her thumb to them. 

Both punks don't seem too interested in your group, until Yuuji moves, revealing Megumi. 

They both freeze up straight, and bow formally. 

" I-it's good to see you! -"

Nobara and Yuuji lose themselves in the moment, and an embarrassed smile makes it's way onto your face. 

" Heh, look at that. You actually get it. "

Nobara is all up in her headspace again, and Yuuji is quick to tag along. 

" The aura just pours out, even when you try to hide it. "

" Fushiguro! "

They both look like a field of flowers had just wilted in front of them, now turning to their classmate. 

" I... Went here.. For middle school. " 

Megumi is looking away as he admits it, and you just casually watch the scene unfold. He brought this upon himself, so he can fix it himself too. 

" That's surprising all right, but that's not the point! Look at me! "

" What did you do?! What did you do to them in middle school?! "

Both Yuuji and Nobara are trying to force him to get him to look at him. 

" Nah, we should just ask them!"

" Hey, idiot A, idiot B, what did this guy do to you?! "

They finally look up from their formal bow. 

" To us? Nah, every punk, every gang member in the area was beat up by Fushiguro. "

Both Yuuji and Nobara pause. You blink too. You didn't know that. You didn't expect that either. All three turn to him in question. He glances away, avoiding everyone's eyes. 

" I... Beat... Them. "

Nobara and Yuuji return right back to trying to get him to look at them. They continue on like that for a moment, and you contemplate on helping your friend out, however, an old man approach, obviously a staff member. 

" Hey, students of other schools aren't allowed here! "

" And who're you?! "

" He's obviously a staff member, Kugisaki. "

" We're here to investigate. "

Nitta shows her card, and things finally seem to settle a bit. In fact, Nitta feels secure enough to leave it in Megumi's hands. 

Megumi starts asking the staff member questions, and few things are picked up. Apparently, there's a bridge nearby where odd, paranormal things happen often. That, along with something about bungee jumping from said bridge with a bungee jump court

After some more information being shared with your group by the staff member and school students, the five of you return to Nitta's car, trying to figure out if things would connect. ( And the school's staff member passes by- asking how Tsumiki is doing. Apparently they didn't know he had a sister. What was he being so secretive for?) 

Eventually, you settle on that it makes sense, the bridge is said to be haunted after all. It'd be easy for a curse to take place there. 

Later that night, Nitta drops the four of you off at the bridge. 

" Are you sure that that's a good idea? " 

You're worried, eyeing the plastic cord Nobara was wrapping around Yuuji. 

Yuuji grins, giving you a thumbs up. " Don't worry, I'll be fine. "

You don't exactly believe him. Megumi glances at you, subconsciously appreciating your size difference. You look sweet, all worried over Yuuji like this. 

" Don't worry. Itadori's strong. He'll be fine. "

Yuuji pouts. 

" Still on a last name basis with me. "

You pat his back, before unclasping one of your water skins, just to make sure. 

" Should I maybe wait below the bridge? That way I can heal you immediately if you were to... Drop. "

You cringe at the idea, strongly disliking it. 

Megumi raises a brow at you. 

" You can perform reverse cursed energy? " 

You nod. 

" Yeah, I'm better at that than fighting if I'm honest. Don't let the higher ups know though- I don't want them to use me for my healing ability, or stupid stuff like that. "

Megumi nods. 

" Don't worry Y/N, I'm strong! "

If this is Yuuji's try at convincing you, you're not convinced. 

Thankfully, he's uninjured as he's bounced off the bridge by Nobara (who seems to be having way too much fun with it) and bounces back up. The rest of the night is uneventful. There seems to be nothing there. Not a sliver of cursed energy, no residue, nothing. 

By morning, Nitta has come to pick everyone up again, and you're pretty much back to square one. When suddenly, one of the school punks from earlier comes by, having brought his sister. 

Apparently, she's went to the bridge too, and the automatic doors have been having issues around her too. However, that's not the worst part of it. She wasn't alone when she went to the bridge. She went with a group, one which Tsumiki was in as well. She too, had went to the bridge. 

Your blood runs cold at the revelation. You've never been particularly close with her, but you have spoken before. You knew her well enough to care for her. 

Nobara, Yuuji, and Megumi especially, are worried as well. Yuuji is quick to act, telling Megumi to check up on her. He steps away, thankfully doing so. 

Silently, you wonder if the same things are happening in your universe as well. Was she okay? If you were back at home, you'd text her, check up on her. You're starting to feel a little useless, a feeling you hate. 

Thankfully, she's okay, for now at least. 

Moments later, Megumi is shoving Yuuji, Nobara and you in the car, mumbling nonsense about how he wants to ask questions to the staff member, that the danger level of the mission has gone up, and that it's best if you don't go. 

You don't buy it, and thankfully, neither do Yuuji and Nobara. 

" I don't buy it. He's up to something. "

Nobara is the first to point it out, Yuuji humming in response as you nod. 

" Hey Nitta, stop the car please. " 

Nitta glances at you through the car's rearview mirror, but does as you ask, pulling over barely a block away. 

You nudge Yuuji, as you're sandwiched between him and Nobara. 

" C'mon. Let's follow him. "

Yuuji's eyes spark as he gets out of the car, Nobara and you following. Nitta calls out something along the lines of 'be careful', but no one listens, instead, Yuuji yells back that he'd call her once you were done. 

It's surprisingly easy to follow him, concerningly so. In no training you've ever had with him was it ever this easy to sneak up at him. 

" You must seriously be at your wits end if you didn't notice us until now. "

Nobara states. 

You eye him, a worried pout on your lips. 

" You don't have to tell us everything, but at least rely on us. We're friends, after all. "

" You don't need to do this alone, Megumi. " 

Yuuji and you are gentle as you remind him so. 

" Tsumiki... Is still bedridden. "

Megumi's words cause your eyes to widen. 

Your heart stutters as you realize the missing detail. You. You've been the one to heal Tsumiki, your healing ability exceeding standards by far. There was no you in this universe. There wasn't anyone who could've healed her like you did. You didn't know how she had gained the curse, you never really bothered to know. So this was how... 

Megumi doesn't need to explain much more, Yuuji, Nobara and you were quick to catch up. You smile weakly as you follow the other two, pushing your thoughts away for now. Perhaps, you can ask him later if you could see her, perhaps you could heal her too, like you have back in your own world. 

The order of approaching the curse was important in actually finding it. 

You go at night, from underneath. At the bottom of the valley, there should be a river. Crossing the river would act as passing a border, like crossing from life to death. 

Exactly as Nitta predicted, you enter the curse's unfinished domain. The first thing that catches your eyes is some kind of singing, gloopy looking thing. The second thing that catches your attention, is the other curse that joins the scene. It's mangled body blue, and unsettling to see. 

" What's this? "

" Fushiguro, this one doesn't belong here, right? "

Yuuji charges up his fists with cursed energy, ready to go at it. 

" Yeah. "

" You two handle the domain. Y/N and I will handle this one. "

You ready your stance. The gushes of red catches your attention, it's familiar molecule structure teasing your cursed energy. 

Was that blood?

Taglist

@luxylucylou @kalulakunundrum @strxbxrrylover

[alexiswritingstuff]

The habit.

Pairing: Logan Howlett x male reader.

Request: was wondering if you'd write a little something with wolverine and a male reader who has a really huge nail biting problem (me fr). possibly also the reader is always hiding his hands from logan due to insecurity.

Warnings: mentions of dermatillomania, nail biting, descriptions of blood and scabs.

A/n: I myself do not bite my nails, so the portrayal of it in this may be completely off, and if done horribly please let me know.

I do go through my writing for spelling mistakes but I may miss some, so please keep that in mind. As well as the fact that I am still new-ish at writing for Logan, so he may be out of character.

Enjoy!!

Logan masterlist.

It was supposed to be just another generic day at the school.

A day that would start and end like any other; filled with the same old schedule.

Every week had been identical, the way it usually was in a term, though a new one was approaching. 

As of now, it had been about a good twenty minutes since the meeting had first started. Xavier had called all the teachers to his office with his mind trick, that always seemed to make you jump out of your skin. 

Initially, it was the usual chatter, a chance for all of you to catch up during the busy day. Until the news was finally dropped.

The schedules were changing.

In Xavier's words, some of the classes were going to be swapped around due to an apparent decrease in students' productivity in the original arrangements… or something along those lines.

It made sense. It was something that you had even noticed in your own classes, though you had just thought that it was because summer was pretty much on the horizon. You thought you had more time left to prepare, maybe even a week or so.

But the new schedule was set to be tested and finalised after this weekend rolled by.

It was unclear when the zoning out had originally begun. At this point, you had completely tuned out of the conversation, the surrounding voices grown into this distant sound. Almost as if they were from miles away.

Your body was stiff. Close to being completely rigid if it wasn't for the ripple effect created by your leg that was bouncing like mad.

You could still feel them, the way your fingers were twitching beneath the thighs you had trapped them under. It was to conceal them, hold them in place so they couldn't go to their wanted destination, but that just made them pick at each other instead.

All of your general awareness had gone out the window. You couldn’t remember what time it was, when this meeting had even started, or how long you had been sitting there.

Though, it wasn't like you were trying to. Each time a different thought appeared anyway, it would get lost just as it created a new fiery panic within your chest. 

Your mutation had nothing to do with minds, but it felt like you could see right into your own. And it wasn’t pretty. 

“Y/n.”

You blinked, finally relieving your dried out eyes.

It took a moment, but the voices around you were starting to become coherent again. You could identify who they had come from, and that particular one, however, hadn’t come from someone's mouth. 

By the time your gaze had properly refocused, your head had turned just a little to the right. Your eyes met instantly. That look was on his face, prominent though probably invisible to any other person. 

Xavier. 

You had told him not to use that trick on you alone. It sort of gave you the creeps most of the time, especially because he could simply see inside your head whenever he wanted, even if he insisted that it was only used when necessary. 

A breath sucked slowly into your lungs as your spine started to straighten, soon adopting the kind of posture that everyone else in the room seemed to have. One filled with a sense of ease.

You held that gaze of his for a few more seconds, managing to press a sort of short smile onto your lips. And then you bailed, trying to find something else to focus on that wasn’t just another wall.

Eventually, and thankfully, the meeting came to a close. Everyone had started getting up one by one, having received their own refurbished schedules for the upcoming week of change. 

Charles indeed tried to get your attention at one point. He did a subtle gesture, trying to get you to come over, but you had shaken your head.

Even miming some nonsense about having stuff to take care of, regardless of the fact that you knew he could see right through it. 

You made sure to be one of the first people out the door, joining in when the light small talk had erupted until everyone went their separate ways.

Truthfully, you had nowhere to be. There were only a few more classes left for today, and yours had been done and dusted, which meant that your time was now free. 

And usually, in moments like these, you would end up going to your batcave. Maybe even slouch in the day room for a bit while some of the kids did homework or watched one of their shows on TV. 

But now, you were just sort of… wandering. 

There was no set destination, or a general direction, regardless of how many hallways you had turned into at this point. None of it really mattered anyway. Your attention wasn’t exactly focused on your surroundings.

In fact, your eyes had been glued to that stupid paper this entire time, reading the same lines over and over again. Especially the different set of times that sat right next to your name. 

And if that wasn’t enough, there was added information that the original room for your class was going to be renovated. Which meant that you were going to have to use a completely different one. 

It may only be for one lesson, as that kind of thing wouldn't take long considering certain people’s skills and mutations. But the thought of it still had this huff of air pushing through your lips. 

Your eyebrows were furrowed, gaze becoming even more distasteful, as the grip held on the paper was slowly making it start to crumple. 

Only one day. 

“Y’all set?”

The sudden sound had your feet halting within seconds, allowing a release from the pages that once held you captive. Your head turned, trying to locate the source, though there was another movement within that. 

It was one that would’ve gone completely unnoticed if it wasn’t for the speed in which your arm had slammed into your side, or how fast your lips had pressed together seconds after. 

You had been biting your nail. 

“Shit, Logan,” you breathed out, attempting to subtly move that hand behind your back as he took a step forward. “I didn’t even see you there.” 

The man himself had been standing in a doorway to your right, leant against the frame with his arms crossed. Like he had been expecting you.

He huffed a laugh through his nose. “Honestly, I didn’t think you would.” Logan joked, wearing that smug smile of his. 

Though, when he actually took a look at you, that amusement slowly dwindled. 

See, your eyes were held in this kind of wide way. It was an attempt to make it seem like you were focused, that you were paying attention, that everything was just normal… which didn’t appear to have worked considering Logan’s eyebrows were now furrowed.

“Yeah, sorry, I was… reading.” you tried to explain, raising the paper up for him to see. But he never looked at it. His gaze was fixated on yours, almost becoming narrowed as time went on.

He hummed a response about five seconds later, a weak attempt at acknowledging the explanation he definitely wasn’t buying. 

And thus, this layer of silence was created. At least between the two of you. There was still some distant chatter from each end of the hall, joined by muffled footsteps as kids were beginning to go to their next classes. 

But no words had fallen from either pair of lips.

The look on Logan’s face was almost expectant, like you were supposed to give him a further explanation. Or maybe it was a signal to start talking in the first place. I mean, you usually did after a meeting, as the sudden seriousness they held always created a sense of whiplash.

“So–”

“Are you–”

The two of you paused, blinking at each other for a few seconds until Logan’s mouth opened again. But you beat him to it, “Sorry, look– I’d… I’d like to stay and chat, but, I, uh– I’ve got some stuff to do, you know? I’ve got to prepare for my next class, and… stuff.”

“Oh.” Logan cleared his throat, pursing his lips as he gave a short stiff nod, “Alright,” he accepted through a breath, but that narrowed gaze of his was still very much there. 

“Alright.” you repeated, giving a sharp smile and a nod of your own, before turning to continue your previous movements down the hall. 

~~~

The world outside had grown dark by now, the moon beginning to take its rightful place in the sky just as you had done with your bed. 

Faint music danced quietly throughout the room. The words of which were familiar, as was the tune being carried through the speaker, but it almost sounded like a completely different language. 

You sat with your back leant against the coolness of the wooden headboard, knees raised up yet not close enough that they could hug at your chest. 

In hand was a book surrounding your subject. An attempt to ease your mind; allow yourself to get lost in the different passages, while preparing for your next classes at the same time. Though, now, the pages were aimed at the ceiling. 

Your eyes were no longer cast upon them.

Again. It had taken you out of nowhere. It had crept; slowly sliding itself into your ability to focus until you couldn’t even follow a singular line. And by that point, it was too late. 

Originally, it was the lack of light that had caught your attention. There was only one source that could illuminate the area, a lamp on your bedside table, which meant that this darkness had seeped into the corners of the room. 

It almost resembled an abyss. It was pitch black, almost deep looking as if a portal had opened up, awaiting your presence. And instead of leading you to some cool dimension, all it did was offer a one way ticket back into your mind. 

The main source of botherment was the difference in classroom. It was such a minor thing, a change that only really meant that it would take longer to get to certain places, and affect the routes you usually took. An inconvenience at best.

Just a small adjustment that every other person in that room had simply nodded to; accepted.

But now, confined by the walls of this lonely room, you were stuck. It felt larger somehow. As if your whole routine had been ruined from a simple set of words, and a damn piece of paper.

You hadn’t realised the edge of your nail was between your teeth until a pattern of knocks echoed from somewhere. “Y/n?” More so because it made your body jolt, jabbing a tooth right under it. Air sucked sharply into your lungs. 

“Who is it?” you called after clearing your throat, attempting to stifle a wince as you looked down at your hand. There was nothing there apart from the indent, but who knows how long that was going to last. 

“It’s Logan.”

When the door inevitably opened, you were faced with the same issue again; a set of perceptive eyes. It would’ve been too obvious if you hid it behind your back for a second time. Thus, your thumb was tucked under the rest of the fingers, careful to avoid the tip.

You adjusted the grip on the book, making sure that the pages were back in a believable direction, right as a head popped round the corner. His eyes scanned over the contents of the room until they landed on you. “Hey.” 

Logan took about a step forward so that the rest of his body was in line with the doorframe, and then he leant against it, maintaining his hold on the doorknob. “Can I come in?”

His voice made your eyebrows twitch a little, mostly the sound of it. It was quieter than usual. An uncertain meaning, considering the fact that he could’ve just done it because he wanted to. But you swore it sounded almost…cautious.

“Sure.”

Logan moved instantly, closing the door behind him. You pulled at different parts of the duvet that had been bunched up from your presence, and let one of your legs ease down to the mattress just as he had appeared beside it. 

He lowered himself down, a grunt rumbling in his throat until it eased into a sigh once he had officially sat. He really was an old man. You watched as he got himself comfortable, subtly moving the book to cover your hand. 

“So,” Logan started after clearing his throat, turning a little so that most of his body was aimed in your direction, “... How’s it going?”

There was something off about him. He was almost awkward. His posture fell sort of rigid, and a certain look held onto his features. But it was mostly within his eyes. Again, a sense of expectancy. Though, this time, overshadowed by what looked like concern. 

“... Good?” you answered slowly, unsure of what the true response should be, and tipped the book so that the cover was shown to Logan. Even if it was upside down, “I’m just reading.”

“Still?” Logan questioned, gaze narrowing, to which you initially only nodded at until you got his meaning. You huffed a slight laugh, “It’s an actual book this time. Just some new material for my class.” you explained, returning the hardback to its original position. 

“Good.” This time he had actually looked at it. “That’s great.” he said, nodding his head a few times to convey sincerity to the point that it just looked forced. It had you humming in response, not entirely satisfied by his performance.

 Is this how he felt earlier?

“What is it?”

Logan’s eyebrows sort of raised at that. Your voice was direct, deeper. The tone of which was almost knowing, as if he had been sussed out the second he stepped into the room. It was close to being relieving, if it wasn’t for what was going to follow. 

He took a moment, a quiet breath sucking into his lungs as the words formed in his mind. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

It sounded like a confession from how it exhaled out of him, phrased unlike a question. You swallowed, “About what?”

“Well, for starters, I haven’t exactly seen you in a while,” he pointed out, even gesturing a little with his hand as if it was the most obvious thing. “I didn’t think you were one to skip out on dinner.”

Whatever defence that readied itself at the tip of your tongue had been halted. Your lips remained parted for a good few seconds, your mouth starting to feel dry. “... What? No… no, I didn’t.” You spoke slowly, the confusion lacing every word. Logan nodded his head. “Uh, yeah… Yeah, you did.”

You took a glance at the window, looking at the world outside as if it could prove him wrong, but it was already dark out there. That was recent… wasn’t it?

By the next time Logan had blinked, your wrist was almost right in front of your face. You were scowling down at the watch clipped onto it, the expression only deepening when your eyes had focused on the placement of the hands. 

10:36

“What?” you practically whispered at this point, bringing it even closer like your vision was the problem. There was just no way. 

Were the clocks set back? Did you put it at the wrong time? Oh my god, could you time travel?

Your eyes snapped back to Logan, an endless river of questions about to spill their way out from your lips. And then a hand grasped onto your wrist. Your mouth didn’t even get a chance to open. 

In about a second, your arm had been pulled towards him. He had even shuffled closer, making sure that the rest of your body wasn’t yanked with the movement. “Logan, what are you…” Every muscle tensed. But your expression had completely dropped. 

He was looking at your nails.

See, when you had checked your watch, your fingers had curled instinctively into a fist. It put them right on display. 

He almost didn’t see it at first. They were shadowed, blocked from the light in a way that made him think it was just the colour of your skin. And then he noticed a darker spec, a tiny little spot from his distance. 

Then there was another, and another, until he realised that there were multiple on each finger. 

The initial grab was to bring the hand into light, to check it out and maybe even wipe whatever that stuff was. I mean, you hadn’t noticed it yourself. Yet now, he was staring. 

They were scabs. Most of them anyway.

“What the hell?”

It took a few tries, and a good few twists, before you managed to pull your arm free. It smacked right onto your chest, your wide eyes stuck on the man in front of you. 

All of the nails were short to the point that the white parts were almost completely gone. The edges were mostly jagged, uneven, and enough so at particular points that the bed beneath was almost on display. It was bright red. Recently damaged. 

The skin surrounding them seemed more like they had been picked at, considering the difference in scabbing. But the main source of Logan’s concern was the thumb. Fresh blood had collected under what was left of the nail, and was continuing to do so. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” you insisted a little too quickly, still trying to find a way to hide the hand even if it was meaningless. “You’re bleeding.” Logan stated blatantly, and you shook your head, committing to the act of feigning innocence, “I said, it’s nothing, Logan.”

All it did was make the cogs turn in his head. 

At first, he had assumed the reluctance was due to shame: you didn’t want it to be seen, or were embarrassed by how you got them. How it looked. And though, that may play a part, that wasn’t the answer.

Logan’s eyes remained on the hidden hand, his mouth parted and faltering, until his eyebrows furrowed. “Did you…” He looked to you, “Did you do that?”

You knew this was going to happen. Someone was going to find out, one way or another, and have that look of pity as if they couldn’t understand why a person would do something like that. You couldn’t stand that look.

“Will you just drop it already?” You were tired, the day of stress finally catching up to you. “As I said, it’s nothing… okay? It.. It’s just a little habit that I picked up– Nothing drastic.” you insisted. 

“I think that’s more than a little habit, bub.” Logan started, his expression unchanging, though his voice was a lot lighter. “They didn’t look like that this morning.” 

“And how would you know?” you inevitably snapped, the rampant nerves running back through your system as you finally met his gaze. He looked unfazed.  

“It was something in the meeting, wasn’t it?” 

You shook your head with a sigh of exasperation. There was no way of getting out of this one. Logan was just so… persistent. Maybe a little too much. Exactly why he wasn’t supposed to know.

“Come on, bub.”

This time his voice had shifted, sounding almost like a plea. Desperate. He wanted to move closer. Wanted to make it so that you could only look at him, but one wrong move would have had you out that door within seconds. He would lose his chance. “Just talk to me.”

The next time you managed a look at the man, his eyebrows had eased. His eyes were calmer, though still stuck with that fleck of concern. He was trying. 

You took in a deep breath, letting your back sink further into the headboard. And then you exhaled. “I don’t…  I don’t know how to explain it.” you began before pausing, actively trying to find the words in your head until your lips had parted again, “Nothing really happened, but after we got the new schedules, I just… I just freaked myself out.”

Logan’s head slightly tilted to the side, “Why?”

You could only shrug, “Because… it was out of nowhere, because it means that I have to do things differently, because things keep changing, because– because… I can’t control any of it.”

He took in a breath of his own, nodding his head a few times as he clenched his jaw. “Okay,” he acknowledged, his eyes then trailing down to your hand. Again, “but why… that.”

“I don’t know.” you practically huffed out. “Half the time, I do it before I even realise.”

“So…” Logan started, dragging the sound out as he thought for a moment, “most of the time, it’s on purpose? To feel like you’re in control?” An attempt at piecing the puzzle together.

You shook your head, “No, a habit like this isn’t controlled– it’s about… regulation, or something. A lot of people can just do it because they’re bored and have nothing else to do.”

“And what about you?”

“There’s not a specific reason.” you confessed, your gaze falling to your hand as you moved it onto your lap, staring at the very nails themselves. “If it was that simple, there would also be a simple solution.”

Without giving it much thought, Logan suddenly huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, that would be not biting them in the first place.” He paused seconds after, his mouth snapping shut as he sort of tensed. The relief was immediate when you had only rolled your eyes, “Gee, why didn’t I think of that?”

By now your thumb had stopped bleeding, the remnants beginning to dry into your skin. 

Logan took the looking at your finger as an attempt to fight the urge. So, he cleared his throat, “We can find something.” he suddenly insisted, snatching your attention. Though, more from intrigue the sincerity in his voice had created. 

“Why don’t you… try picking at me?”

And then it was gone. 

You blinked once, and then twice, and then one more time. Your head tilted, “... Like a monkey?” Logan’s head did the same, “No, not like a— I mean, when it happens, when you want to do it, try doing it to me instead… just maybe not the biting part.”

You scoffed, “I don’t want to hurt you, Logan.” you pointed out, certainty filling your voice as if it was the most obvious thing ever. But he just sort of looked at you for a moment, his bottom lip tucking under his upper teeth until he spoke again.

“Then why are you so quick to hurt yourself?”

His gaze may have been narrowed in a way that would have almost been seen as scrutiny to any other person. But there was this gentleness to it; a look of genuine curiosity. 

You sucked in a deep breath at that, your nerves thankfully easing this time. When your eyes left his, it wasn’t to evade them. You thought for a moment, tilting your head back as if it would shuffle the responses inside of it.

“I’m used to it.” you admitted eventually, your voice notably quieter than before. 

This was the first time those words had been said out loud. All of this had been a first. Truthfully, you hadn't ever really acknowledged the habit yourself, apart from when it got too bad to avoid.

Logan's expression had mostly stayed the same, except now his eyebrows were on the brink of furrowing yet again. He understood that feeling. I mean, that's practically what he did all the time. He willingly felt and allowed pain almost every week.

The difference was, however, that he could heal right after.

“Tell you what,” he started up, his voice slightly straining halfway through as he pulled himself further along the edge of bed. He stopped just to the side of you, meeting your eyes as he reached for your hand. 

And once he gaged that the movement was allowed, he continued. His fingers lightly grasped onto your own just below the knuckles, making sure that his pointer finger and thumb were the only ones adding any pressure as to avoid the injuries. 

It was so gentle, the most he had ever been with you. 

Logan began pulling it towards him. “I’m going to find a pack of plasters,” He lowered his head, meeting the other movement, and pressed his lips onto the back of your hand. His stubble poked at your skin, especially when he backed off after, “and you’re going to stay here like a good boy.”

“Logan–” you attempted to butt in, but the man just shook his head, guiding your hand to settle in your lap. He then pushed himself off of the mattress with yet another groan that brought that inner old man out again. 

“Look, you’re right… we may not find a simple solution.” Logan turned to you, a sigh huffing through his nose. “But there’s gotta be at least something that helps.”

The expression he held was the lightest you had seen it in a while. His eyebrows were loosely raised, the lines on his face were less prominent, and there was even a slight smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “We should just try… okay?”

It was the kind of look that easily rubbed off on any recipient, and especially you in this case as you had to bite at your own lip to stop it from curling upward.

Your shoulder deflated. “Okay.” you reluctantly agreed, and Logan grinned within seconds. “Atta boy,” he settled breathily, reaching out all over again, though this time it was to lightly swipe at your cheek affectionately. 

And then he started stepping backwards, maintaining the shared gaze so that he could send a final wink.

“I’ll be back in a minute, bub.”

[siflshonen]

The Greatest Robot on Earth: Astro Boy and Pluto Part II

Part I is here. This side-by-side continues in part III here, or you can read the whole thing on Ao3.

Side-by-Side Comparisons

“The Greatest Robot on Earth” and Pluto

The best place to start in comparing these series is their summaries. This summary for “The Greatest Robot on Earth” comes from the 2002 Dark Horse release: 

“In the novel-length "The Greatest Robot on Earth," a wealthy sultan creates a giant robot to become the ruler of all other robots on Earth. But in order for that to happen, he must defeat the seven most powerful robots in the world, including Astro Boy, who must have his horsepower raised from 100,000 to 1,000,000 to face the challenge! And his sister, Uran, also flies in to lend a helping hand!”

Well, besides the fact that Uran doesn’t actually fly, I suppose that’s true enough. Gotta love marketing copy.

And here is Viz’s summary for Pluto: Urasawa X Tezuka, vol. 1: 

“In an ideal world where man and robots coexist, someone or something has destroyed the powerful Swiss robot Mont Blanc. Elsewhere a key figure in a robot rights group is murdered. The two incidents appear to be unrelated...except for one very conspicuous clue - the bodies of both victims have been fashioned into some sort of bizarre collage complete with makeshift horns placed by the victims' heads. Interpol assigns robot detective Gesicht to this most strange and complex case - and he eventually discovers that he too, as one of the seven great robots of the world, is one of the targets.”

An ideal world, eh? Well, I’m all about subverting surface appearances, so I like it. Anyway, right off the bat, we can tell that these two series aren’t the same genre, aren’t using the same principal characters, and aren’t concerned with the same stakes. They seem to only have one thing in common: the word “robot”.

The following pages for “The Greatest Robot on Earth” are from the Dark Horse Omnibus. In most cases, I have used pages from Viz’s Pluto: UrasawaXTezuka, but there are a few pages from the fan scans. Why? Because I own the physical manga, didn’t want to pay for all the volumes again in a digital version, and realized that the images in the fan scans were cleaner and bigger than most of the ones I could get from cracking the spine of my books and mooshing them on the scanner.

Pluto at Its Most Faithful

Mont Blanc died first in “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, and in Pluto he fares no differently. Of course, in true dramatic Urasawa fashion, Pluto chooses to begin with the fiery discovery of Mont Blanc’s head tucked within his killer’s calling card to establish the mystery and suspense of this work rather than start with a quaint lumberjacking-scene-turned-robot-fight like the original.

Urasawa and Nagasaki’s choice to include human victims in Pluto also immediately raises the stakes in a way that “The Greatest Robot on Earth” never did or would. It also immediately changes the type of exploration within the world that the series would do, given that the robots of the extended Astro Boy universe are believed to follow Asimov’s Laws.

Greece’s Hercules, spelled Heracles in Pluto’s English translation, is a straightforward warrior-type in “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, and he sasses the crap out of Epsilon when he shows up to speak with him just as he does in Pluto. He then gets trounced by Pluto after a drawn-out fight. 

In Pluto, Hercules still fits the original warrior archetype, but with the addition of his very own character arc! His rivalry and friendship with Brando is new and refreshing, and his blooming respect for Epsilon pairs nicely with his own discovery of his humanity and personal beliefs as it relates to combat, war, and victory.

They called him the god of victory, after all, not necessarily bloodshed. He may have lost his fight with Pluto, but he went down believing he won and with a newfound appreciation for life and the bravery it requires to not fight. His manager Al Haft(a) is an easter egg character.

In real life, Greece participated in the Gulf War, but disagreed with the 2003 Iraq War and did not participate. Meanwhile, Australia participated with the goal of growing closer to the USA. In Pluto, these stances were swapped in their representative robots.

Personally, I think Epsilon (sometimes called Photar in the Astro Boy anime adaptation dubs) is the most surprising figure in these page comparisons if only because he didn’t actually change that much between works. Instead, it is Wassily who exploded onto the Pluto scene with his very own expanded story and Bora trauma. Yes, the disembodied hands scene is in both.

Pluto’s Epsilon looks just like Monster’s Johan, which is funny—Urasawa seems to use Tezuka’s Star System method across his works. In English, Johan and Epsilon are voiced by the same guy, too.

Speaking of, Bora is native to “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, and he is still a bomb. In “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, his creator takes the time to tell the sultan that he created him just to beat Pluto and, by extension, the sultan. In Pluto, Bora’s existence and purpose is to exact vengeance on a broader scale.

Uran’s changes between series are actually really straightforward. In the postscript of the physical Pluto manga’s volume 6, essayist and critic Gorot Yamada laments the fact that Urasawa avoided the “ero-kawaii” of Uran confronting Pluto in nothing but Atom’s briefs and calls it a “minor weakness” since it is representative of Urasawa’s relatively gentler hand in showing “cruelty or eroticism” when compared to Tezuka.

I can’t begin to tell you how funny I think this criticism is, although I do believe that Urasawa does have, overall, gentler sensibilities than Tezuka. But still. I don’t think we’re missing much by keeping Uran in her clothes. She’s still a snot, she’s still a braggart, she’s still good-hearted, and she still makes her big brother look like a square and a stick-in-the-mud. Writing precocious little girls and sweet stories of unlikely bonding moments are a few of Urasawa’s specialties, so I don’t find it surprising that he took the Uran by the hair-horns and maximized her existing character traits.

Spiritually, she feels consistent to me, though her basic actions are decidedly different: Pluto’s Uran doesn’t fight or try to fight Pluto, doesn’t want Atom to fight Pluto at any point, doesn’t ever hate Pluto, and has empathy-based powers (separate from that, she may just be smarter and more emotionally intelligent than the original Uran). 

However, the sequences in the park and the underpasses where she befriends Pluto strongly resemble Uran’s near-naked adventures in the streets of “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, and that’s fun.

Abullah is where things get spicy, and that’s mostly because the only real change to his character was the addition of his human backstory and discovery of hatred. In Pluto, he is Tenma and Abullah’s science project who believes he is a human scientist (which he isn’t), but he’s actually also got a split personality! That’s a lot. There’s just so much going on with that. But still, where Pluto’s twist falls on the scale of wild twist bullshittery lessens considerably once you know how this character is portrayed in the original, I feel.

In “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, Abullah is a robot butler disguised as a scientist disguised as another scientist. Not to pooh-pooh the original’s Scooby-Doo antics, but, by comparison, Pluto’s reveal is actually quite nice, logical, and thematically consistent. It also gives Tenma a chance to look cool and not just pathetic.

Professor Ochanomizu is the best character. Don’t argue with me. In Astro Boy, he has a big heart and a big temper to match, and he gets knocked around more than Wile E. Coyote in a Looney Tunes segment. He spends most of “The Greatest Robot on Earth” being kidnapped and hanging out with the sultan, but Pluto spreads the wealth by letting the other roboticists be the damsel in distress throughout the plot.

In Pluto, he’s mostly characterized by doing kindly old man shit (do you recognize that robot dog and how it definitely influenced Ochanomizu’s design for Bobby?), but it is absolutely the kind of stuff the original Hiroshi Ochanomizu would do. He gets treated with more on-screen respect in Pluto than in Astro Boy, but only because he isn’t as cartoony. The animation team made damn sure to have the physics of his stomach work not like those of an innocent-at-heart anime girl’s titties when he’s enthusiastically running to the next big important thing, and that’s exactly the right spirit for a creator to have towards this character. A+ job, M2.

Also, in the manga only, Ochanomizu is the facilitator for the single most entertaining referential gag in all of Urasawa’s works: the police dog car diagram. This was cut in the anime.

In the postscript of Pluto: UrasawaXTezuka volume 5, manga critic and lecturer Tomohiko Murakami observes that “Urasawa’s depictions of Professor Tenma and Professor Ochanomizu almost appear to be [his] perspective on two different aspects of Osamu Tezuka’s character.” I don’t necessarily disagree, especially given the commentary Tezuka gave regarding Atom’s status as a “monster”, but I think that Ochanomizu and Tenma also more generally represent the “dark” and “light” side of progress and science. This is likely what Tezuka intended for them, too, back when he was writing the series.

But Tenma is just a hot mess. For the duration of “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, he was more or less emotionally stable up until the “death” of Atom (and guess what? He totally enabled Atom’s increase in strength to 1,000,000, despite Ochanomizu constantly advising Atom not to do), though his general moodiness and instability is a defining character trait for much of the series. He gets better over time, but make no mistake: he is an eccentric, reclusive, and vain disaster man.

In Pluto, Urasawa lets Tenma’s disaster qualities shine alongside his signature ego, moodiness, cynicism, and destructive tendencies. This man self-sabotages like it’s his job. He also flings his creations around willy-nilly and never thinks about the consequences, and that’s why he has a hand in a significant number of the most harmful and destructive events in the extended Astro Boy universe somehow, including in Pluto.

Tenma’s rejection of Atom at the dinner table in Pluto is way classier than his breakdowns in the original Astro Boy manga, but I liked the gravitas of the scene and the over-the-top vibe of the fancy dinner in the sunset. Tenma’s portrayals throughout different series run the gamut from “frenetic cartoon maniac” to “vanilla un-stellar dad” to “Phantom of the Opera”, and this is a nice lean towards the latter end of the scale.

His constant contest over ownership of Atom/influence over Atom with the Ministry of Science (and specifically one Hiroshi Ochanomizu) extends beyond “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, though, and I think elements of their more direct conflicts are very present throughout Pluto. I love an old man fight, and it seems Urasawa does, too.

But goddamn is it satisfying to see Ochanomizu tell Tenma to shove it where the sun don’t shine.

Apparently, their dynamic is so popular that it inspired a completely new series set in the alternate universe where they not only go to college together, but are best friends. If you want something fluffier than Pluto where the old men aren’t old, go read Atom: The Beginning, I guess.

And, like, sure. This is all great. But sans the extended old man drama, many of these side-by-sides have been pretty faithful to “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, and that is NOT what Makoto Tezka asked for.

Pluto as a Remix of Astro Boy

North No. 2, called Monar in “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, is generally the same robot as in his original portrayal, but instead of just going to fight Pluto, he stars alongside new character Paul Duncan in a brand new story about pianos and music and being blind and growing past trauma to accept others into the heart. Tezuka’s Kuroo Hazama (Black Jack) was even there in Paul Duncan’s memories. It had everything: crying old people and kids, medical drama, orphan trauma, mama trauma, prostitution implications, castles, the emptiness of fame and fortune, singing, an android dreaming of more than just electric sheep, long monologues, and an emotional goodbye where one character stares longingly (even if he can’t actually see anything) at the other knowing they shall never return.

I’ll just say it: Turkey’s Brando is a total red shirt in “The Greatest Robot on Earth”. Meanwhile, Urasawa gave him a family, a love of Turkish drinking culture, a friendship and rivalry with Hercules, and a penchant to dabble in illogical forces like luck, and a classic tearjerker death. Urasawa gave him the world. 

In the anime, Brando is among my favorites. Y’all can swoon over your twink Epsilon or whatever, but it’s Brando over randos for me!

Chochi Chochi Ababa transformed into Saddam Hussein—er, Pluto’s King Darius XIV. One is a cartoon villain who provides an opportunity to learn a basic moral lesson, and the other is a motherfucking war criminal. I think that's a sufficiently mature new twist on an old concept.

Of all the characters present in Pluto, Atom himself is likely the one that gave Urasawa and Nagasaki the most grief, if only because he is the one and only Astro Boy, hero of justice, and if his portrayal wasn’t popular, they’d probably be sent to manga hell forever.

For me personally, one of the most gratifying details regarding his portrayal is how quickly he will lie while maintaining the lie that robots can’t and don’t lie. This line of thinking, as well as the implication that Atom follows Asimov’s Laws more because he wants to, not because he has to follow his programming, is something that became more and more apparent the longer the original Astro Boy ran even if none of the other characters directly said anything about it. Speaking as a fan, I also think it’s nice that Urasawa makes the most of upholding Atom’s observed personality traits throughout adaptations. That he made Atom a deeply curative flavor of an insect kid is a grounded, but nice touch.

(It may also be worth noting that Osamu Tezuka had a known fascination with insects. The “Mushi” in Mushi Productions means “insect”. I don’t know how intentional that was, but it seems Pluto’s Atom may have been intended as a chip off the ol’ Tezuka block whether he was his “monster” or not.)

But as lovely and detailed as Urasawa’s embellishments on these characters is, this is still not what Makoto Tezka asked of him. So far, these characters are strikingly similar to the existing “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, and apparently, if Tezka’s interview in the postscript of Pluto: UrasawaXTezuka volume 2 is to be believed, he told Urasawa multiple times to keep revising until he made it his own! It seems Atom really became Urasawa’s monster, too!

[shiny-jr]

damnation (peek IV?)

Warning: Yes, this is a yandere thing. Gender-neutral reader.

Characters: Jamil Viper, Kalim Al-Asim.

Summary: When you commit a crime, you receive a punishment. This is especially true in your society. No matter the crime, your punishment is the same: banishment. But to where you will be sent in exile and how miserable will it be? No one knows, because no one has ever returned.

Note: Got busy, planned to post this a while ago but what can I say? Plans change. Definitely will not have nearly as much time to write as I did a few weeks ago, but I’ll still try whenever I have a bit of time and some energy to do so. Anyways, like I mentioned in a few posts, I was not happy with how I originally wrote Scarabia, so I rewrote almost all of what I had, which was thankfully only like about ten pages. I’m a little more happier with how this is now. But again, things can always change, so the final result may look the same, a little different, or even completely different. Oh, and like mentioned in the previous notes for sneak-peeks, check the points in first post (heartslabyul, labeled “I”) for a bit of context to the situation and story if this is the first sneak-peek you’re seeing.

I . . . II . . . III . . . IV . . . V . . . VI . . . VII

THE VIZIER 

Feathers. Colorful feathers tickled your nose. A woven shawl sat on your shoulders with vibrant colors and macaw feathers along the clip that held it in place above your collarbone. As your vision readjusted to the scenery, you could make out an old desert city stretching out as far as the eye could see, until it met over the horizon with the starry night sky. It was nothing like the court you were in moments ago. Instantly everything came flashing back to you, the trial, the judges, your punishment. This was your punishment. “Holy shit.”

“Is something wrong?”

You looked to the side, surprised to see a servant placing a tray of food beside you. You were on a balcony, a beautiful grand spacious terrace where the arches were decorated with ivy and walls of flowers while pillars of flames provided light and there was a large water fountain in the center. You were laying on the edge of that fountain, when you pushed yourself up and looked around. That’s when you noticed your clothes had changed too. Somehow your simple change of clothes from before had become easy-to-move-in loose trousers and a simple tunic, but with the colorful shawl over your shoulders that resembled wings. “What? What the hell?”

“Is there something wrong with the food?”

Food? You looked down at the tray the servant had brought, surprised to see plates of kofta and falafels with a chalice of water. The delicious smell wafted in the air, making your mouth water and stomach grumble. How long has it been since you ate? Probably well before you were arrested. If you got food, you were expecting cold slop, not this scrumptious meal that was cooked to perfection. Instantly you snatched it up, assuring the servant, “No, no, forget it! This is fine, uh, thanks…!”

“Very well.” They bowed their head to you, “Please, enjoy the meal, vassal.”

Vassal? You stopped mid-bite, about to ask them about it and where you were, but they had already taken off. Well, you weren’t complaining. You had thought you were going to die, or end up in some horrible hell. This place was actually quite nice. You could feel the breeze of the cool desert air and smell the flora growing on this terrace, you heard the city below with the crackling of fire from the pillars and the running water beside you, not to mention you were eating the best food you ever tasted! If this was hell, then being banished might be the best thing that’s ever happened to you!

“You! Jamil’s vassal!”

There it was again. What the hell did they mean by vassal? Falafels stuffed in your mouth, you slowly and awkwardly turned around to face whoever called you. Who was Jamil? You had no idea. A little annoyed that your dinner was interrupted, you eyed the approaching stranger up and down before swallowing your food and muttering, “What do you want?”

Appearing offended at your response, the young man stomped up to you, closer so you could see him better in the dim lighting. He looks a little young, if you had to guess, you’d say the guy was no younger than eighteen. Sharp blue eyes and long thick black hair styled into a single braid, not to mention he wasn’t smiling. This was no servant judging by the expensive looking blue garbs he wore and the gold on his bronze ears that complimented his handsome face. It had to be someone of high standing. When he was right in front of you, he frowned down at you and placed his hands on his hips, “Where is Jamil? And where is my cousin?”

You lowered your plate of food, squinting at this stranger. Who did he think he was? Jamil? Cousin? “Your cousin…? Jamil…? How should I know?”

“You should know. As the vizier’s only vassal, you should know where Jamil is. That is your job, to serve him. Or is he slithering about in places he shouldn’t be?” As his blue eyes bore down at you, he continued his tirade, “You haven’t bowed your head or greeted me as everyone does, by saying, good day, Prince Jaseer. And you’re here slacking off while everyone else in the palace is working.”

“I’m on a lunch break.” You mumbled in reply, tempted to snap. Wait… had he said prince…? A beautiful royal in blue wearing gold, with long black hair, who is spirited and no-nonsense, like a princess in a fantasy tale. A princess that lived in a palace just like this one, where there was a vizier and sultan–– oh fuck. How was that possible? This was like a stupid kid’s story you heard all the time! Before you could ponder on the topic, you were reminded of who was in front of you by him cleaning his throat. You immediately bowed your head sloppily, begrudgingly, as you recited the words he wanted to hear. “Good day, Prince Jaseer…”

At your less-than-satisfactory response, he crossed his arms over his chest and replied still with that frown, “If you can’t answer my question, then there’s no use talking to you. I’ll find someone that can tell me where my cousin and Jamil are. Let it be known, I have my eye on you and your master. My cousin may be fond of you both, but I am not.”

When you slowly lifted your head, you watched the prince storm away, likely to go find his cousin, whoever that was, and the vizier, this Jamil guy. As soon as he turned a corner, you scrunched your nose and scoffed, “Brat.”

Wait… that meant this was a story. It was all too similar to a story that began much like: it begins on a dark night, where a dark man waits with a dark purpose. If this was that story then what were you…? Apparently working for the vizier, wearing a shawl of rainbows, and feathers… oh my god, you were the fucking parrot. As you resumed your eating you busied your mind with processing these thoughts. “At least the tax collector can’t find me here.”

All you knew was that you were in the role of his parrot, his pet. What a stupid role to end up in! In this version you hoped you were at least some sort of glorified servant! At least you weren’t dead, this was much better than that. You knew the tale of Aladdin by heart, it was a very popular story growing up. You had even envied the protagonist, a thief, for ending up with a genie and winning the love of the princess. Turns out that princess, or prince in this case, was not all that. Well, they always say to never meet your heroes. But, there was one thing that was bound to be great, no matter how much this story would change. The magic lamp that held the genie. You wanted it. Maybe if you stuck around this vizier long enough, you could take it for yourself whenever the opportunity presented itself. You had the advantage, you knew exactly what was going to happen. That genie could grant any of your wishes! It could take you home if you wanted. You could make all those judges rue the day they banished you! You could rule this world and yours! You could bathe in an endless amount of gold and cash! The possibilities were endless!

As you finished your meal, another figure came into view. The figure of a guard, like the ones you’ve been watching patrol and march around, approached you nervously. Only when he noticed you glance at him and nod your head, did he begin speaking, “G-Good evening, vassal. The candidates, they’re ready for the vizier, he’ll be here any moment. You are the only one he trusts, everyone knows this, won’t you put in a kind word for me? I fear he’s in a foul mood, his venture to the cave in the desert didn’t end well again.”

Candidates? Vizier? Cave in the desert? After a few seconds of the guard waiting in anticipation, you were able to connect the dots. This must’ve been a specific rendition of the story where the vizier found the Cave of Wonders in the desert but instead of using a magic machine he created to find the diamond in the rough that could enter the cave, he used his power behind the scenes and in the dark to search through prisoners and criminals and send those he thought might be worthy to die trying to enter the mystic cave. This vizier, Jamil, would no doubt be growing frustrated since he’s likely been keeping at this for so long without finding a single person that can successfully enter the cave. Jumping off your seat on the fountain after finishing your last bite of food, you looked over to the guard and smiled, “Alright, let’s go. We can’t leave the master waiting, can we?”

“Of course! Allow me to lead the way.” So you followed the meek little guard, and as you trailed after him you thought about what would happen and what would you do. The guard had said that it was a fact that the vizier trusted only you, or rather, the person who you’ve replaced. The prince didn’t notice you were not the vassal, and neither did this guard or any of the other servants, so it was likely that no one would notice unless you slipped up, not even the Vizier Jamil. Hopefully.

You watched as the pristine halls of the palace became dark and dim the deeper you went. As the smooth walls became rugged stone lit only by lamps of fire, and the lush green plants and overpriced furniture and decorations became absent. There were also, noticeably, less people. It felt like you and guard were the only ones as you followed them deeper into what you guessed was a dungeon where you heard chains rattling and the echoing screams of those held captive. Before you could enter the room, the guard turned to you and pleaded,

“Please, stay here. I’m sure seeing you will give the vizier a bit of peace. He should be here any moment now. I will go ahead and be sure everything is in order.”

Before you could even protest, the guard scurried ahead to the end of the hall and not too long after, you detected footfall behind you. When you turned around, you saw what you presumed had to be the Vizier Jamil. The vizier looked sort of imposing as he appeared from the dimly lit halls, and with the flames on the wall you could just make out his appearance. A thin figure clothed in red and black robes decorated with gold, holding a golden staff that ended in the shape of a cobra’s head. Long thin hair as black as night coiled down his brown shoulders like snakes in multiple small braids and loose strands decorated with gold, and instantly his sharp gray eyes painted with eyeshadow darted over to you upon noticing your staring. He looked irked, but since you supposedly had a good relationship with him, maybe you could poke and prod without worrying about suffering any consequences. From what you recalled, the vizier’s parrot in the tales was a loud-mouthed creature with a bad temper.

“Welcome back, oh great vizier. So, how did it go?”

“Not a word.” The vizier hissed, sending you a glare. Yet it wasn’t threatening, it felt more… annoyed. Like when your friend was pestering you, except without the light-heartedness. At the least he didn’t snap, he did have the power to command you to be put to death. Yet all he did was give you a look before his frown instantly morphed into a stoic expression in the blink of an eye, so fast that it sent you reeling.

Jamil wasted no time in walking forward, not bothering with greetings as he entered the first room of the dungeon that was dingy and dirty. Inside was the guard from before, nervously standing off to the side just across from a line of prisoners in shackles with their heads hanging low, and more guards behind them. These prisoners reminded you of yourself, but less. Now you’re free of any shackles, you’re wearing fine clothes and eating food made by the best chefs while living in the luxurious palace. To avoid being at the center of attention, you stood off the side, leaning against a corner.

You watched intently, curiously, as Jamil approached the line of prisoners, scanning them all with those sharp eyes as he walked by them slowly. The men and women in rags and chains tensed when he stepped near, but kept their eyes glued to the ground. Whether it was out of respect or fear, you weren’t sure, but you watched as some of them squirmed in place or nervously glanced at him. After a minute of going down the line of a dozen or so prisoners, he stopped in his tracks and turned to face the guard who guided you. On his face was obvious disappointment.

“You bring me the rough, but never a diamond.” That cold stare of his remained on the anxious guard, never looking away even as he commanded the others, “Take them away.”

You pursed your lips and shook your head, watching as the other guards forcefully dragged the prisoners down another hall, to a fate unknown. Poor suckers. You could hear them pleading, begging the vizier for mercy from whatever end they knew awaited them. In one rendition of the story, when the princess snuck out of the palace and gave apples to poor children, apples she had no money on her to pay for, she nearly lost her hand as punishment. It was likely that these prisoners were about to lose much more than a single hand.

The meek guard sent you a pleading look as they whispered frantically, “You said you would put in a kind word for me…!”

Turning your attention to them, you scoffed, “I never said that. I said I would follow you.”

“You…!” At your shrug, he directed his sights towards the vizier who was walking away, his back toward him as he seemed to be prepared to follow the guards and prisoners going elsewhere within the dungeon. “Please, my vizier.” The vizier stopped, and the words were caught in the guard’s throat until he finally forced them out with wavering uncertainty, making it sound more like a question than a statement. “... Perhaps this diamond in the rough does not exist…?”

For a moment he paused but didn’t turn around, and quietly replied, “They’re out there.” A response with unwavering certainty.

“But we’ve searched for months!” It appears that the guard was showing signs of frustration as well. Who knows how many prisoners they’ve interrogated and how many criminals they’ve captured in these months, all in an attempt to satisfy the vizier’s wish of finding a diamond in the rough. “I do not understand what could possibly be in that cave that could help a… a man as great as you. You are already second only to the sultan!”

“Second? Uh-oh.” You exclaimed, bracing yourself for what was to come and ignoring the guard’s growing irritation towards you. In the tale, yes the vizier worked for the sultan, he was the sultan’s most trusted advisor. But, behind the vizier’s facade of charm and loyalty, there was only a burning hate for the sultan who believed in him. The vizier wished to be the most powerful man in the kingdom, second to no one. So to be told he was second, straight to his face, would be like a slap. You watched as Jamil turned to the guard with a deep frown, and you could only whistle, “Who’s in trouble now~?”

Jamil turned to face him fully, staring at the guard beneath him with such a piercing gaze before questioning firmly, “Do you believe second is enough?”

Without hesitation, they nodded, the answer to them was obvious. “Yes. You were not born to be sultan, you are not of royal lineage. His Majesty, Kalim Al-Asim, was born to be sultan.”

Kalim Al-Asim. So that was the sultan’s name. The mere sound of it was enough to tick off the vizier, he narrowed his eyes and began to speak in a quiet murmur, “Do you know that I’ve served him my entire life? From the day I was born, they dictated that I was a servant to him and they chained my entire existence so it depended on him.” Slowly he stepped forward, inching closer with every word he spat like venom. “You have no idea of the things I’ve been forced to do for him. The sacrifices I’ve made and blood that’s stained my hands, the bodies I’ve buried and times I’ve watched him be praised for his minimal efforts I can easily best.” The closer he got, the more frightened the guard appeared until he was right in front of them. “Everyone will one day learn that I am not worthy of a mere second place, I am supposed to be first. That’s why I need the lamp, and I no longer need you––!”

Right before your eyes, you watched as Jamil swiftly struck him with the bottom of his staff and he fell backwards into a well. A seemingly bottomless well, because you heard his scream growing distant until an unsettling silence lingered. You covered your mouth in shock, but Jamil paid you no mind. It’s as if he’s done a dozen times before, as if you had witnessed all of them before.

After a moment, he sighed and lowered his staff, regaining his composure to cover up for the anger that slipped through in that moment. Again, in a flash, he had a stoic expression as he turned to gaze at you in the corner, when he beckoned you closer with a motion of his finger. “Come here, my vassal. It’s time for a meeting with that irritating sultan.”

Now you were on your way to meet the sultan. Kalim. You hoped he wasn’t anything like Jamil. This vizier was to be feared, but at least he didn’t seem to mind you. So you probably won’t be pushed down a well anytime soon. As you followed him when he began walking, he questioned abruptly,

“What did you do while I was gone?”

This wasn’t good. You weren’t here for that long before he returned, and you got the feeling that Jamil was a particularly observant fellow judging by how he glanced at you from the corner of his eyes. “That royal brat confronted me while I was eating. They’re so annoying.”

“Ah, Prince Jaseer?” Slowly he nodded, as if agreeing with your words. Phew. You were doing alright, fitting the role just fine it seemed. “Annoying would be putting it lightly. He’s just another entitled royal born with a golden spoon in his mouth, an ignorant person who knows nothing of how the real world works.”

“You’re telling me. The guy made me bow and recite a greeting like I was nothing but a pleb beneath him! Then he had the gall to say I was lazy! I was eating! Can’t a person like me eat in peace once in a while? I was starving!”

By now you were in a better part of the palace, where you were once again surrounded by riches. Upon hearing your response, Jamil replied without hesitation, “You are lazy when I’m not around.” At his remark, you stared at him incredulously as he continued with zero reservations, “You are uncaring, murderous, deceitful, aggressive, cunning, and annoying.”

Unable to help it, you snapped back in reply, beginning to rant and list off your fingers. “ME? Look in the mirror bud, you just basically described yourself! You’re cruel, immoral, narcissistic, power-hungry, sadistic, and secretly deranged! You’re two-faced, snake!” When you looked over to him, he still had that stoic expression but he rolled his eyes. Your jaw dropped. There was no way he just fucking––

“You used that insult, two-faced snake, two weeks ago.” Before you could add anything more to the growing pile of insults, he lightly tapped your forehead with the cobra head of his golden staff, appearing unbothered. “Come up with something else or get on my level, then you can talk back. For now, be quiet. We’re nearing where Kalim wanted to meet us. I don’t need to remind you to be on your best behavior around the sultan.”

Rubbing your forehead, you glared at him and mumbled, “Oh, I’ll come up with something shocking, you sorry sack of––ACK!” You coughed, bending over in pain as he quickly jabbed the end of his staff against your stomach to shut you up just before a silk curtain separating the halls from a room opened up.

“Jamil! Oh, and your vassal too! I’m so happy to see you guys! You’re just the ones I wanted to see!”

[mockoncheese]

Mr. Ragdoll :ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤCharacter Background

A vague background of of Mr. Ragdoll explains that in chapter 1, and other few chapters, MC have encountered a few things which have shown his subtle appearances. The porcelain doll in the hallway somewhere in the starting of chapter 1 where MC has only started to find her way out alone and Mr. Crawling only intends to follow.

Exhibit A :

This time where she saw that porcelain doll was when she should have known that there was an another presence with them (only Mr. Crawling did). On the other hand, Mr. Ragdoll who has felt that there is someone new with them in the underworld has him interested. Sending one of his collections to see who it was (MC). Ending up his precious possession going to waste after being broken by her because of Mr. Crawling's advice to break it.

Exhibit B :

Mr. Ragdoll took the doll after them leaving the scene.

The following event where she and Mr. Crawling saw four teddy bears; one big, two with a same size, and one that has a torn leg, were also Mr. Ragdoll's possessions.

[insert from my scratches] * His relations with the other characters are pretty neutral except for Mr. Stitch and Hooded Child, they always try to get too careless around his things that one of his creations were destroyed. Hinting that one teddy bear with a torn leg in one of the routes. He didn't want to throw it so he just put in a place with the three other teddy bears, knowing he can go see them everytime he wants.

His appearances in the game isn't as relevant as the others which is similar to Mr. Wheelchair, but it's not deniable that Mr. Ragdoll has also taken his own interest towards the MC.

Little more details about him that I made.

Mr. Ragdoll 's face has stitches that includes his mouth, as this hinders his ability to communicate, the only way he can express himself by words is a pen and a paper. Since Mr. Ragdoll has his own place for making dolls, he probably has the materials. If other monsters can be understood by speaking their language, he speaks by writing poorly Nihongo characters that will look just as the same as the language characters you see in the game. The reason why he can't be out there and talk to anyone is because it will be hard for him to communicate in his condition he caused himself (which was stupid). He's also unable to communicate when there's danger so he will definitely take actions without a word.

Mr. Ragdoll eats human flesh the same as what other monsters eat, but he doesn't slaughter people for it. Instead, he eats human flesh from dead people (sometimes left overs from Mr. Silvair's/Silver's experiments). But if MC kills for him for food then he wouldn't mind, as if he can do anything about what she will do anyway.

One of the reasons for his quite blood stained appearance is because of Mr. Machete, after a few moments of him having turned into a monster. He came across Mr. Machete on the same path where MC found him. Mr. Machete challenged him by throwing the weapon he has and having Mr. Ragdoll severely injured on the shoulder, but he's not one to step back on a fight either so he went for a 1 on 1 with the bigger one. Ending up losing because he has no weapon and only injured on different parts of his body.

Mr. Ragdoll was originally a human who also has been trapped in the underworld. Unfortunately, being unable to get out that took him more than long enough has made him turn into one of the monsters and forget his sense of identity except for the fact that he was once a human. And he would admit about how much he wants to go back as a human, even though he is not the type to express himself a lot, not even to MC.

Mr. Ragdoll likes dolls even back in his human days, as he believed that things like dolls can possess life like normal humans, or for his metaphoric expression—that stuffed toys or dolls can give the same warmth like humans do. (He also used to be a doll maker back then.)

His form/appearance shows his fondness for dolls, but in the literal sense—it's quite displeasing. An unsettling side fact of him is that his obsession for dolls got worse when he knew that his body can regenerate or not kill him after morphing into a monster. That made him tear his left arm and sew the deep and severe wound as he would love to look like a doll himself. The stitches on his face are a part of that desire too, except for his mouth that he didn't like because of his attempt to give it a beautiful cut upwards, but it failed and only ending up stitching it close. It makes him unable to talk. The reason why the stitch on his lips are upside down is to prevent some flesh from dangling out. The stitches on his other body parts are also because of the doll getup he desires to achieve.

Mr. Ragdoll 's favorite doll is that porcelain doll MC broke, he tried fixing it again after taking it away when they left it. That's why the doll can still be seen somewhere.

ㅤ[inserts this scene]

A side fact, Mr. Ragdoll created a doll that looks like MC out of his interest, he's not shown that throughout the game however. As he preferred hiding himself from the attention. He is already contented with the doll he has.

CHARACTER DESIGN:

(inserted the doll from the game)

i think this ends here for now, i'll follow up his past life (human version) soon. thanks for reading throughout the whole thing! Raggy would give you a doll if he could. :3

[mynameisnotsoda]

NOW INTRODUCING.... THE CRITTERS !!!

Technically Corvid is still a part of an au, i really like everyone's designs so i guess its just like a weird little au that are also kinda ocs?? Idk. Im still tagging it as the animatronicfication au and using the other ccs names but im completely separating wilbur from Corvid.

The one that probably changed the most is simp LMAO i just went back to his old design that was inspired by Luna (@starrixle's transfem simpbur turned oc) and Spencer is such a fitting name in my mind i literally can not imagine him with a different name *bwomp*

Also I'm working on refs for the other characters associated with the respective critters! I wanna finish them all and dump them into one post and I'll link it here when I'm done.

ANYWAY INFODUMP TIME

Before we go into individual characters i want to say that this is absolutely Minecraft. Like. The world is built off of Minecraft lore yk !!!! The overworld will still be called the overworld but it's basically just earth, with more magic and humanoid species! Along with supernatural creatures and cryptids n stuff :D also with more advanced tech considering Corvid exists pFF

Spencer for the most part kinda was like he is in canon or whatever. She used to lean more towards incel ideology because she was REALLY insecure and uncomfortable with herself for the longest time. Despite that, Spencer and Adrianne (egirl) started dating when they were 17, his unhealthy obsession with her was only fueled by her unhealthy attachment to him. They needed each other and it wasn't good for either of them. Spencer had developed horrible separation anxiety which only made things worse. Over time Adrianne became suffocated by his constant neediness, overwhelming insecurity, short temper and lack of contribution to household chores. It pained her to leave, but things needed to change. It wasn't until the breakup that Spencer met Shepard, who was his first irl friend in a long time. They met when they were around 22/23, at first Spencer just used Shepard as a distraction from Adrianne, especially since he was surprised that they wanted to even be his friend in the first place. But after a while he genuinely started to enjoy their company, plus they offered him really good advice and helped him through a gender/sexuality crisis. Eventually they became partners! Maybe not romantically, as they're both aromantic, but life partners nonetheless.

OH and i did make Spencer white/Salvadoran. Her mom is the first generation from immigrant parents while her dad is British; And her dad's younger brother is Adam's dad! He's also an ex-christian, he left due to religious trauma and moved to America to escape his family hA

Spencer's also a no sabo kid LMAO (he knows some words/phrases but other than that he cant speak Spanish to save his life)

ALSO ALSO. Oh my god i could talk about Spence all day LMAO but i made him a werewolf !!!! Hes SOO jealous of Adam because she wanted the cat genes but instead got bitten and turned into a werewolf as a teenager. She's done a pretty good job at hiding it from her family so Shepard's the only one who knows.

I already dumped everything about Adam into that other post, so I don't really have much else to add. HOWEVER !! Him and Spence are cousins now :3 Adam doesn't get to meet Spencer in person until he moves to America with Charlie & co, but he does follow her socials with his secret accounts that his parents don't know about. The only reason they know they're cousins is because Spencer's dad told her so and she reached out! Much to the dismay of Adam's parents but they've secretly kept in touch online.

Keith's pretty much stayed the same apart from a slight design revamp. Although I've made him a little older since originally i made him look young. But then I decided hes a dad so i started drawing him older for the asks pFF he also has a hooked nose now! In case it's not obvious. Keith got married to Jean VERY young, they were maybe 17/18 in human years. It was an arranged marriage and their only goal was to have an heir to the throne. Well they did, they had two kids, the eldest being a boy named Lune and the youngest being a girl named Sunny, who's the would be heir. Until Jean took both the kids and left. It was completely unprompted and left everyone in the kingdom confused, especially Keith. Sure, they had a loveless marriage and maybe he was insufferable at times, but he wanted to make it work if not for the kids then for the kingdom! But its been almost a year since she left, he's lost hope in ever finding her. Keith desperately wants his kids back, not because Sunny is the rightful heir— though that is part of it—but he loves them both dearly. He misses them the most.

Wilfred has pretty much stayed the same as well! I did give him a grey tshirt and darker hair to further distance his design from wilbur though. Hes just as unhinged and immoral as he used to be !!!! Nothing has changed aside from appearance actually.

Tobi also pretty much stayed the same except for its now got an orange jumper and lighter brown hair pFF although i do now have a story for him! Tobi was found by Alejandro in a storage auction, he managed to sell a lot of pretty valuable things from there but Tobi stood out, obviously, so he kept it. Alejandro is a travel vlogger and lives in an RV with his friends: Tomas, Philip and Charles. His friends just call him Alex. Anyway, they go from town to town trying local food, visiting tourists traps and vlogging the journey! While doing that they also try to find out how to get Tobi's memories back and possibly turn him human again, if they even can. So far they haven't had much luck but maybe one day...

Corvid was created as the backup singer and lead guitarist of the first all animatronic band! Brought to you by Beloved Entertainment! The other members include lead singer Ranboo Beloved, keytarist Tommy Raccoon, and bassist James Tomcat. Located in Ranboo's Mega Pizzaplex, the only location in the world (so far). Corvid adopts a showman personality while on stage, hes charismatic and such a heartthrob, very popular with the ladies. Off stage he's very calm and soft spoken, he's rather shy but still manages to be a flirt and a tease. Lightly poking fun at his bandmates, coworkers and even guests at times. He's definitely a fan favorite for a reason!

This was so fun to write and i cant wait to share more !!!! Stay tuned !!!!!!

[milkywayes]

dreamt a cipher

a shepard/garrus post-destroy ending longfic.

[AO3 link]

I’ve debated a while about when to start posting this. Now it’s the new year, and I’ve been working on Cipher for over a year and a half, and I’ve waited long enough to start sharing it with you all. I’ve decided it’s finally time to start uploading while I work on the final chapters.

I started writing this before I ever drew a single piece of fanart for Mass Effect. It’s all the things that were bouncing around in my head after choosing the destroy ending with a mostly-paragon Shepard—consequence and responsibility and self-recrimination; her relationship with Garrus and with herself; their ties to each other and how much weight they can bear; their differing perspectives and how they slot together—all that fun stuff—compressed into a story, a place, a narrative. 

I believe in the power of love, and I promise a happy ending. They’ve just been taking the long way to get there. Feel free to yell at me in the meantime.

A huge thank you to @callista-curations for her meticulous and invaluable beta work, and to @that-wildwolf and @gammaraydeath for being the best hypemen I could ask for!

A more detailed list of warnings can be found on AO3.

I've posted the full cover art here.

────

Summary:

Pairing: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian Rating: M (subject to change) Important Tags: post-destroy ending - angst with a happy ending - slow burn (of sorts) - arguing - reconciliation - survivor guilt - minor original characters Her own personal Noverian peak. That’s what it was supposed to be. Nothing but the discovery: no distractions, no comfort, no windows looking out—no familiar faces. But it's starting to look like her winning streak might have ended in that pile of Citadel rubble, if it ever extended that far to begin with. ──── “How does the Earth idiom go? No use beating a dead—” A long-suffering sigh. “What was it again?” “A dead horse. And yet, you’re here. Beating it.” Pot, kettle. She wishes he’d just fucking say it.

-> AO3.

Read the start of Chapter 1: Constant Velocity under the cut!

────

The overhead lights flicker as they always do when the data screens are up and running. It’s not something one gets used to, even so. It stings at her ocular nerves—or something like that, anyway, somewhere along the delicate wires that extend from her eyeballs into her brain—but her focus on the data doesn’t waver.

“In that case,” says Shepard, squinting against the ache, “what we need is salvage from a relay outside the immediate burst zone. Four jumps away. Five, if possible. There’s no point to any of this if we can’t scrape together a control group.”

She glances back at Elsawy, who so far hasn’t made it more than a meter into the room. She nods without looking up from her omni-tool; orange shimmers off her shiny, black hair, giving her the uncomfortable air of a Cerberus operative. Not the worst comparison, except that Miranda would waste no time letting her know if her logic took a faulty turn somewhere. Elsawy’s just as likely to agree now and write a message detailing all her crap conclusions later.

Leaning her hip against the conference table, Shepard shifts her weight off her left leg, bites down on the sigh that almost manages to slip out. Once in the clear, she grouses, “Where the hell is Meyer? He’s the one that called this meeting.”

As it is, it’s three people in attendance and she’s the only one talking. She could’ve achieved the same results with a voice call from her quarters, where she could elevate her leg in peace and without witnesses. In the dark.

“Lab Two,” answers Elsawy, finally ripping her attention off the omni-screen and gracing Shepard with a second of eye contact. Maybe in another life she could appreciate the effort—Jesus, as if she hasn’t had her fill of lives already. “We’re close to a breakthrough on the initial output patterns. Sorry. He’s been feeding his data to me.”

“Right.” She blinks once, twice, in time with the flickering. It doesn’t help; it never does. “I’ll swing by later, then. Anything else he asked you to relay?” 

“Just that, Commander.” Elsawy is mumbling just enough that her voice has to compete with the drone of the air vents. The translator takes a second to filter out and amplify it. The result is less than perfect: “More salvage—” bzzrt—“bigger picture, you got it.” She narrows her eyes, and Shepard raises a brow. “Left leg or—” bzz!—“left hip?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Commander.”

“It’s nothing relevant,” she says pleasantly, forcing herself to stand up straight again. There’s a brief tremor shaking up her hamstrings; she waves a hand to distract from it. In the frenzy of the lights, the movement looks jerky, nervous. She soldiers on. “Old field injury. Unrelated. Anything can set it off.”

Funny, kind of, since it’s that very leg that ends in the most perfect, cooperative example of a foot she’s ever had the pleasure of treading on. It’s cloned; a replacement. Not the only one either. They should’ve just done away with the whole limb, but she hadn’t been consulted. Same with her trick shoulder. Not even Cerberus had managed to get that one back on the straight and narrow.

“I’d rather you bring it up with the doctor,” replies Elsawy. This is, apparently, what it takes for her to finally speak at a reasonable volume. “If we manage to fill even one of the data gaps…”

“I know,” she says. “I know, and I’m telling you, it’s unrelated.”

-> continue reading on AO3

[lalal-99]

Slumber Party {b.c.}

©April 2023 by lalal-99

Bang Chan x fem. original character x afab!reader | trope: threesome, start of a throuple relationship, best friends to lovers | word count: 9k

Synopsis: Chan, Ash, Y/N. The perfect trio. Spending so much time together, people usually mistook you for a throuple. Not that you were complaining. Your best friends were hot, your past sexual encounters with each of them the subject of most of your dreams. All it takes is one fateful night and a bunch of Tequila to finally make that dream a reality.

Warnings: explicit content | alcohol consumption | dni if your under 18

smut tags: threesome | m x f x f | friends to lovers | vaginal sex | oral sex (f. and m. receiving) | same-sex sexual content | porn with plot | porn with feelings | chan has a big dick | drunk sex | truth or dare leading to sex

Note: I had this story idea a while ago but didn't think I was ready to write it how I wanted it. But then I thought, if I don't write it, then who will? Anyway, enjoy, and leave lots of feedback please :) This was inspired by Slumber Party by Ashnikko.

Taglist: @shincode @skzho @bubblelixie @flakywig @itsallaboutkey @avyskai @mekuiikore @joonghands @changbiddies0325 @knowleeknow @sensitiveandhungry @svintsandghosts @keellzzzz

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Please don't flag as mature or repost this story - Thank You!

A bottle of Tequila.

A bad-bitch playlist in the background.

Truth or Dare.

What else could a girls’ night need?

Maybe some more girls to play with, but you were perfectly content with just your best friend. She was everyone you needed for a good time anyways. Had been for years. Your girl, your soulmate, in the most platonic sense.

You met at university on the third day of your third year. After placing identical coffee orders at the store next to the library, you thought meeting each other that way was a coincidence. And when you found out that both of you were going to the same concert later that night and lived mere minutes apart, coincidence turned into destiny.

She started dating your childhood best friend Chan after you had introduced them at some party, though that didn’t terminate your friendship; if anything, it deepened it even further. It wasn’t just you and her who grew closer afterwards. All three of you started hanging out more; similar interests and life paths seemingly connected you for years after graduating.

Chan, Ash, Y/N. The perfect trio. Spending so much time together, people usually mistook you for a throuple.

None of you cared about how people portrayed you. You didn’t listen to the rumours on campus depicting all three of you in sexual scenarios. Perhaps it would have been different had you ever been in serious relationships. Considering all you ever got caught up in were mindless flings or the occasional one-night stand, the strictly platonic relationship with your two best friends was the closest thing you had to a romantic bond.

“What happened to that guy from Friday? Yeonjun? You seemed to get along well enough.”

That was truly an understatement. The man in question had talked to you for no more than 5 minutes before you stuck your tongue down his throat. He was cute and kind enough. Though other than his name and the address of his apartment, where you went, once you decided a club bathroom was too shabby even for you, you knew nothing about him.

“The usual. We went to his apartment. Did it like 4 times,” you answered, rolling around on your best friend’s mattress and stuffing your mouth full of chips.

“So, I can put the best-maid outfit back on the hanger?”

You laughed at Ash’s joke, shaking your head. “Might as well burn it while you’re at it.”

“Oh, come on! You’re gonna find someone eventually.”

It wasn’t so much a question of finding someone. You had plenty of options. Although you weren’t sure if you ever wanted to have more than a few nights with anyone. It got boring too quickly for you to stick to anyone for longer than a few months. By now, you weren’t sure you’d ever find someone you could be with forever.

Monogamy? More like Nonogamy.

“Honestly, I don’t think I’m made for this one person for the rest of my life thing. If I did, I’d probably be married to San by now.”

You and San had dated for a year – needless to say, the longest relationship you ever had. A few months prior, you had decided that being tied down wouldn’t do it for either of you. You had even tried an open relationship, though he seemed to get jealous more than he saw the advantage of the whole thing. So, back to square one, it was.

“Your turn,” you announced, turning to face your friend. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

You thought for a second, taking another swig from the Tequila. You had shared about half of it, the alcohol finally taking over your mind. It made you more daring, the little amount of shyness you still felt around your best friend settling.

“You mentioned something spicy you purchased for your anniversary with Chan.” Ash nodded at your words, a smirk overtaking her face. “I dare you to show me!”

She bit her lip, embarrassed redness taking over her cheeks.

“You really want to see?”

“Come on now! I’m curious what he’s into.”

It took Ash longer than usual to get off the mattress before she stumbled to her dresser. She rummaged through the hangers, eventually pulling out a pastel pink bag. Holding it out, you took it, inspecting its content curiously.

The first item you pulled out was a white two-piece set of panties and bra, though neither of the parts was made of much fabric. The bra part was technically just two triangle-shaped cups with small cushions at the bottom, causing a push-up effect. A thick band connected the two pieces, reaching just above the belly button. Letting the panties run through your fingers, you noticed just how little material it was made of. And the lace was something else.

With wide eyes and a taunting look, you threw your best friend a smirk.

“Girl. He’s gonna go wild!”

“You think so?” Ash questioned as she pulled out the second set, turning towards her mirror and holding it to her body. It was almost an exact replica of the garments in your hands, though the colour was more of a rosé tone.

“I know so,” you assured her, watching her twirl before looking at you through the mirror.

Maybe you shouldn’t have, but with her big doe eyes staring at you, you couldn’t help imagining her wrapped in the item. Biting the inside of your cheek, you felt heat arise inside your body, soon reaching your collarbones and neck.

Before you could think again, you had already opened your mouth, “Wanna try them on?”

“Only if-” Ash turned to you, expression bright as if she had waited for you to suggest a fashion-show sorta thing, “Only if you try the other.”

You nodded with a smile, agreeing with her suggestion. “Sure, why not?”

Bottom lip wandering between her teeth, you tried ignoring the rush of blood running through your body as she pulled her shirt over her head, exposing her perfectly shaped breasts to you. It took everything in you to hide how quickly your mouth started watering. There was no doubt in your mind that her boobs would fit your hands perfectly.

Dang, that alcohol was a backstabbing bitch.

Taking off your shirt, you slid the bra over your chest, fixing it in the back with a skilled movement.

Next were the panties, both of you sliding into them simultaneously, all while watching each other out of the corner of your eyes. Knowing your best friend was as excited about it as you were, was soothing. Even if her reason was far less selfish than yours.

At least as far as you could tell.

“I think yours came with garters,” Ash suddenly remembered, scrambling through her drawer again before pulling out the two strings of fabric. She threw them at you with a chuckle, watching you as you swiftly slid them up your naked thighs. They sat slightly too tight, though you figured it was intentional, so they would stay up. “Fuck, you look amazing!”

“Ditto.”

You watched each other for a few seconds, your eyes wandering over her chest to her stomach and legs. The rosé colour of the panties and bra perfectly accentuated her skin tone and innocent face. She looked straight out of a Playboy. Or Playgirl, for that matter. Any gender would find her attractive; you were sure of it and felt it in your veins.

Ash noticed your fixed gaze, turning around with just a hint of pink on her cheeks. Your tongue clicked at that, tasting a hint of mutual arousal in the current situation. Perhaps that was more wishful thinking than reality, so you decided to test your theory.

As she watched herself in the mirror, hands wandering over her naked skin, you crawled across the mattress before taking a seat at the end of it.

“Do you remember Jisung-ie’s 21st birthday party?”

Her eyes found yours through the mirror, tongue running over her bottom lip as she nodded. “How could I forget?”

“Well, we weren’t exactly sober. Some might say we were too hammered to know what we were doing.”

“I wasn’t.” Agreeing with her, you let your gaze wander over her butt to her ponytail. She looked stunning, beautiful, and anything in between. Tasty. You quickly pushed that objectifying thought back, not letting it mess with your head too much. “Were you?”

“Not enough to not know what I was doing. Or want it, anyways.”

Silence fell upon you, covering you in a thick veil of mutual uncertainty. This wasn’t exactly how you had expected the night to progress, though you didn’t hate the excitement in your body. It was like playing with fire while surrounded by gasoline. A small move could have been enough to set the situation alight.

“Truth or dare,” Ash spoke up after a while, tip-toeing towards you as she sat onto her mattress. Mere centimetres separated you, your chest flushed by the proximity of naked skin.

“What?”

“It’s your turn. Truth or dare?”

You pondered for a second before answering, “Truth.”

The smile tucking at the corners of her mouth made your heart leave out several beats. She looked so innocent in the pink tone of her ‘clothing’, exciting you like you had barely been before.

“Who’s a better lover? Chan or me?”

Eyes widening at her question, you swallowed hard in realisation. She knew. Chan had told her, and now she knew. This revelation caused a handful of questions to arise. Like, how long had she known? Why wasn’t she jealous? And did the thought of you with her boyfriend excite her as much as it did you?

“He-” With a dry throat, you barely got a word out, your tone scratchy. You quickly grabbed the bottle, chugging down a burning mouthful as you pondered how to phrase your thoughts delicately. “He told you?”

“Nuh-uh,” she replied, leaning back against her arms. “My question first.”

You and Chan had happened years back. You were both 18, horny, and virgins long enough to finally want to get it over with. So, being best friends since kindergarten, it only made sense to do it together. Seeing as you trusted one another and had an open enough relationship to be able to talk about it. Express your thoughts and walk the other through what you liked.

It was a rather uncomfortable memory. Neither of you knew what you were doing. You had tried blowing Chan – though unsuccessfully so – as you accidentally bit him. And he had taken forever to finish you off. Not to say that you didn’t in the end. You had never regretted sleeping with him, though it had made your friendship somewhat awkward for some time.

Ash and you, that was a whole other thing. Both of you had experience, though never with another woman. It had happened at Jisung’s birthday party after everyone else had gone home. The two of you had shared a bed, or rather a couch, intoxication driving you to eventually confess to having fantasised about being with the same sex. All it took was the right person to come along to help you explore your sexuality.

Naturally, you had ended up exploring each other. And you had found so much pleasure in each other that it followed you wherever you went for months. You had been just as inexperienced as with Chan, though more realistic about your abilities.

Both memories you thought about occasionally, finding pleasure in either of them. Still, having been with no other woman since then, despite finding just as much arousal in that part of your sexuality, Ash had found her way into your inner eye many more times.

“I don’t-”

You were cut off by the beauty before you, “Yes, you do!”

“Fine,” you gave in, finger playing with the string around your thigh, “I guess being with you was somewhat more exciting. But that had nothing to do with either of you doing better. You both had convincing arguments.”

“Interesting.”

Before Ash could reply to your revelation, you spoke up again, “Your turn. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“How did Chan react? When you told him about us, I mean.”

You imagined your best guy friend to become somewhat jealous upon hearing about his best girl friend and his girlfriend having had any sexual experience with each other. Even though it had happened months before the two of them eventually got together, you imagined he would be somewhat uncomfortable with that thought. Especially since you had been very open about finding out about your bisexuality.

“He almost burst when I told him.” You nodded understandingly, seeing him having a whole tantrum. He wasn’t the easiest to anger, but this must have enraged him. “He also nutted super hard when we had sex later that day.”

Your eyes widened upon hearing those words, “He did?”

That Chan hadn’t been as mad as you had expected him to be filled you with more unanswered questions. Why didn’t he hate the thought of his girlfriend being with his best friend? Was he aroused by the two of you together? Or had his fantasy gone wild, thinking about you doing his girlfriend in front of him – possibly alongside him?

“You’re his best friend, you already had sex with him, and you’re beautiful. There’s no way he didn’t think about all of us together after I told him.” That only proved your suggestion.

“And that doesn’t make you uncomfortable?”

“Are you kidding me?” The disbelief on her face contradicted any hesitation she had felt before. As though what you had suggested was unbelievable. “I’m the first one to hop in on a potential threesome. You and Chan in one bed with me? Sounds like heaven, if you ask me.”

Your eyes met, your chest rising with every deep breath you took after her revelation.

It was pure respect for Chan stopping you from listening to your heart at that moment. And maybe some fear of what a possible night with your two best friends would do to your friendship.

You found both of them extremely hot. That wasn’t the problem. Nor was your willingness to spend a night with them. This constellation sounded like the one thing that could answer all your questions. Most importantly, your suspicion that monogamy might not be for you. The ticket out of the boredom you felt whenever you slept with someone more than a handful of times. But you also understood it could terminate your strong bond with Chan and Ash on the spot.

Your heart wanted this; it wanted the possibility of an epiphany. Disclosing if this sort of thing was endgame for you. But your brain didn’t budge, telling you it was a mistake. It told you it was wrong even when Ash leaned in, nose brushing against yours. It begged you not to connect your lips as your eyes were drawn to them.

“Say something, Y/N.”

When Ash had found the confidence to look at you this way, eyes eating you up, running down your body and back to your own, you couldn’t tell. She seemed much more reserved and nervous when you first put on that see-through set of lingerie.

Not much of that hesitation was left now.

“What about Chan?”

A smirk played on her lips as she widened the distance, grabbing her phone from behind her. You couldn’t control your gaze wandering down the length of her half-naked body, watching her spine arch as she sat back up, holding the item up.

“He’s only one call away. Probably gaming with Minho, two apartments down.”

It seemed like a blessing and a curse that Chan’s best friend lived right next door. And the thought of calling him was tempting, almost as much as the plumpness of Ash’s lips, curling up into a smirk before wandering between her teeth. Her eagerness was overwhelming, the curve of her ass begging you to grab it, that your brain malfunctioned for merely one second.

You eventually found yourself nodding at her question. Intentionally or not wasn’t a question that concerned you right now.

Her gaze left you, your eyes focused on her as she started typing before setting her phone onto the bedsheet between you. Raising her eyebrows, she nodded towards the screen as you followed her.

Ash had typed mere three words, check marks turning blue after a few seconds, confirming that Chan had read them.

Whatever his thoughts were, there was no turning back now. Either he approved, or he didn’t. And all that because of three words that sounded almost too easy.

10:23 PM: Eating out Y/N – Ash

So easy, but also easily explainable if Chan didn’t like the thought. Ash could tell him she had missed one word, and the text would be soon forgotten. Eating out with Y/N. Easy enough.

Nevertheless, the words excited you to the point you swore your heart almost gave out. Just the thought of Ash’s lips on you sent your heart into overdrive, your breathing shallow as you awaited an answer from Chan.

Your eyes fixed on the phone as though you’d miss his answer if you blinked. You didn’t want to miss the reply for anything, the sound coming from the front door only a minute after she had sent the text making both your heads snap towards the bedroom door.

Mere seconds later, the door was thrown open. An out of breath Chan searched the room and found the two of you sitting in the bed. The same bed they had shared many nights before.

When he scanned the two of you, the position you were in and the clothes you wore, it finally dawned on you that this scene was less simply explainable. You were wearing lingerie, almost naked, and you felt the tension; In the literal and the metaphorical sense.

Chan took a few more moments to speak up, throat dry from… anticipation. Maybe? Hopefully?

“You- Wow!”

Looking between the two of you, Chan became aware of how close you were seated to each other. His gaze lingered on your exposed chest for a few seconds before finally being dragged away and towards his girlfriend, swallowing.

“You texted me.” Finally calming down as he understood, nothing had happened yet, he searched her frame for an answer. For all he knew, Ash could have mistakenly written him. Though, from his expression, you knew he wished for something else. That she meant it. Wanted it.

“I did?” Ash played innocent, hand coming to your thigh, running over the skin and causing goosebumps as you shivered. “What about?”

“You were-” Cutting himself off, Chan looked at you. “I didn’t misread that, did I?”

He took his phone out of his pocket, checking the text she had sent him. A grin spread on her lips as she watched his confused face, searching hers for an answer.

“Oh, yes. I guess I did write you.” Fingers running further up your thighs in deep thought, you bit your tongue not to moan at the mere touch. It felt like your skin was on fire, burning your body and the moment into your brain. “Y/N and I were talking. Do you remember what happened at Jisung’s 21st birthday party? When Y/N and I slept on his pull-out?”

“I- I do,” Chan answered quicker than you had expected, revealing that he had thought of the same thing within the past few minutes.

“And remember when I told you about it? How you almost busted at the mere thought?” Swallowing hard, Chan looked at you for a second, debating whether to answer before doing so anyway. This moment was too tempting for him to deny the embarrassing effect your one night with Ash had on him. He was only a man, nodding once he figured that agreeing would give him more than it would take. “Do you want that fantasy to become reality?”

“I- I-” You had never seen Chan stutter so much in the almost 20 years you knew him. He must have really been anxious about this. Or for this to happen, maybe? “Y/N?”

“Oh, Y/N’s perfectly fine with it. Aren’t you, baby?”

Catching Ash’s sight, you nodded, taking a deep breath when she leaned in, eyes on your lips before she finally closed the space after what had felt like hours. You closed your eyes, enjoying the feeling of her lips against your own, her sweet taste mixed with the Tequila as intoxicating as can be.

As she moved against you, her hand came to your neck to keep you steady, your heart palpitating out of rhythm. She must have felt it at your neck, the vein pounding against her fingers, so she drew away, throwing you a questioning look. You understood she was asking you if you were still with her, so you became active and closed the gap again. Your own hand met her shoulder as you pulled her towards you.

The moan from Chan took you out of the moment, a stupid grin on both your faces as you looked over at him. It was unmistakable that he didn’t know what to do; what his role in this scene was. So you moved apart, patting the space between you.

With both of you still clad in that dang lingerie, the whole scene could have been straight out of a porno movie. One of the good ones, with years’ worth of plot.

Chan closed the door behind himself, muscle memory taking over as his brain couldn’t be trusted. He took the spot between you, hands unsteady as he looked from one side to the other.

“Babe?”

“Huh?” Ash chuckled at his intense reaction speed, hand coming to his cheek to get him to focus. Chan was on edge, tipping over any second if one of you were to make the wrong – or in this case, right – move. So much was clear.

“Relax, okay?” He nodded, though from his fingers anxiously fiddling in his lap, you knew he’d need more confirmation than that.

Ash seemed to get Chan just as well, leaning in and planting her lips onto his. You noticed Chan relaxing on impact, hands now stilling their erratic movement.

You watched them kiss for a few seconds, your hand coming to his thigh as Ash dragged it there. She wanted you to join the fun, guiding your fingers along the thick muscle. Her action was met with gratitude, as you otherwise wouldn’t have participated at all.

After a few moments of intimacy between the couple, Ash pulled Chan off her, tilting his head towards you by his chin. He took the hint, inching in closer, his eyes drawn to your lips before they finally tumbled upon meeting. You did, too, a breathy sigh leaving your mouth as though his kiss breathed energy back into you.

Ash’s grip on your hand didn’t falter as she interlaced your fingers with hers, running higher up his leg. Soon enough, your hands met the visible tent in his sweatpants, softly running over the length of it. Memories of his size came flooding back as you touched him, having caused you some discomfort the first time you had been with him. Been with anyone.

Years ago, when you had lost your virginity to the same man you were presently palming, he had been so careful not to hurt you. Today, you knew you could take him better. You had been with many men since then, your body learning to adjust to someone his size. Excitement filled you as you imagined showing him how much you had learned over the years.

You noticed Ash peppering Chan’s neck with kisses while guiding your hands around him, setting the pace and pressure. He seemed to like it, moaning and whimpering into your mouth whenever you stroked him a little harsher. It didn’t surprise you to learn that he liked it rough.

When he pulled away from you after what had felt like minutes, his cheeks were tinted an innocent pink, a smile spreading over his face to his eyes.

“Can you-” Sobbing at one particularly harsh stroke, he collected himself before looking back at his girlfriend, “Can you kiss again?”

Smiling at you, Ash’s second hand came to your chin, pulling you in. Your lips met right before his eyes, a whine escaping him at the combined stimulation from his view and your hands on him. You couldn’t help thinking this must have been even better than any of his fantasies. For you, it was anyways.

Ash nibbled at your bottom lip, pulling on it every few seconds to catch your gaze with a wink. She was so enticing – almost toxically so – you could barely take your eyes off her. If Chan hadn’t been here, capturing just as much of your attention, you would have been all over her already.

When she threw a side-eyed look at her boyfriend, your eyes finally left her, a smirk dancing over her features as your tangled hands ran up his body, pushing him to lay flat on the mattress.

“Y/N, baby, why don’t you give him a little show? Show him some of what you learned since the last time.”

Call it telepathy, but you instantly understood what she was referring to. Chan must have told her about the awkward experience when you had tried sucking him off all those years ago. Being best friends for years, she had also heard how well those particular skills had developed. Not that you had a reputation for giving good blowjobs, but you had certainly been given your fair share of compliments over the years. You didn’t know when, but you must have let that information slip to her at some point.

Dragging Chan’s shirt over his head, Ash exposed his chest to you, all your movements stopping in their tracks.

Now, he had been well-built back then. He had always had a swimmer’s body through and through. It startled you at 18 and did the same to you today.

Your eyes followed Ash’s fingers as she let them glide down his shoulders, between his pectoral muscles and down to his abs. That dang six-pack – or rather eight-pack – he barely let show under other circumstances. On the occasional pool day, sure. But you had always been around other people then. You couldn’t have possibly admired his body for what it was then.

Chan’s body was handcrafted by the Gods and hours at the gym. A dangerous combination you hadn’t seen elsewhere. Chan and Ash together were a true sight to see, eyes locking as her fingers raked over his naked skin. And you were the one at the receiving end of it. Whatever reason that was for.

It took you a moment to comprehend that – yes, this was really happening – for you to travel back to the present. Getting off the bed and settling between Chan’s thighs, your fingers experimentally circled his abs, memorising their respective shape and location for future reference. Chan gasped at the coldness of your fingers, eyes finding yours once they ran further down, teasing the hem of his sweatpants. Lust filled her every fibre as you didn’t mind Ash following your every move. If anything, it spurred you on further. You now had an audience other than Chan, who was at the receiving end of your attack.

“Fuck, you look so pretty like that, baby.”

Ash’s words made you smile, pride filling your motions. If you wanted to show them your abilities before, you were dying to have them watch you now.

Delicately, you dragged down his sweats with help from the man himself, taking your sweet time in undressing him.

Even through the fabric of his boxer briefs, Chan looked painfully hard. Keeping your eyes locked with his, you put your lips against his right thigh, agonisingly slowly dragging them further up. You left a wet trail of saliva on his skin, hands following your mouth until you reached his briefs.

“Fuck me,” Chan groaned, throwing his head back against his girlfriend when you licked a stripe up his length over the fabric. Ash pulled his head up, positioning it against her chest.

“Keep your eyes on her, babe. She’s doing you a favour here. Might as well honour her properly.”

You ignored her words meant for someone else, instead letting your fingers reach under the last piece of Chan’s clothing. Giving him an innocent smile with your lip wandering between your teeth, you finally rid him of the constraint, cock slapping against his stomach once freed.

It was right then that this moment finally reached your brain. You finally understood what was happening. You were having sex. Your two best friends and you. And if you weren’t doing it now, you were about to. So close, you could almost taste him. Taste her. Their combined atmosphere.

The air was thick, like a veil hanging over your mind. It was hot, too. So hot your bodies were coated in sweat despite having done almost nothing. Nothing but kiss them. Your best friends. The two people that should have been the most platonic of relationships you had.

Still, you were kissing them like you wanted them. Needed them. And you did.

This moment would go down in your personal history – the story of your life, if you will – as your sexual awakening.

The first taste of Chan made you moan. An overall saltiness covered his shaft, his pre-cum coating him and his boxer briefs. Chan groaned when you touched him, finally touched him, where he had needed you most. The first true relief he got from his overall arousal made him long for more of both of you.

Ash was right there with you, hands on him, mouth sucking on his neck while her eyes were focused on you. Her gaze burned into the top of your head as you licked all over him, from base to tip, coaxing him to tell you what he wanted. You needed to hear it from him, her, anyone, really. Ash seemed to understand your longing for approval.

“Tell her what you want her to do, babe.”

Honestly, in the one or two times your mind had wandered to this moment – imagining a dimension in which you were with them rather than by their side – you hadn’t imagined Ash to take over control as she did now.

She wasn’t the most open person, her upbringing of always having to behave prim and proper sending a tint to her cheeks every time someone even mentioned something slightly raunchy. The woman watching you sucking her boyfriend off, urging him to talk to you while you did, was someone else. She seemed like a different person, curiosity getting the best of her.

“Please, Y/N.” Chan was begging, digits coming to your cheeks as he ran his thumb across your jaw. “Make me feel good. Take me in. All of me.”

And all of him, you took.

After years of training, blowing almost every man you had been with, you knew just what to do to make him see stars. You moved slowly but purposefully, coaxing him to his release as though this was a competition. As though you wanted to break some record.

“Fuck-” Chan cursed, hands tangling in your hair as he guided you around his length. As much as you let him, that was.

You wouldn’t let him take over completely, some of the control staying on your side as you didn’t let it go. Didn’t want to let it go.

You wanted him to go crazy, and giving him control would stop you from providing one crucial part of the experience. The suspense. The not knowing where you’d go next. When you’d wrap lips around his head, sucking. Or when you’d deep throat him, hollowing your cheeks around him.

You did all that but tried surprising him with a rhythm. A pattern, driven by no more than your imagination. As much a surprise to you as to him. Whatever felt right at that moment, always overwatched by his girlfriend, providing hints on what to do, guiding you through some of it as she knew what he liked. How to make him feral.

You had no doubt that she knew what he liked and how he preferred it. Her words stirred you on – harder, kitten licks, take more, less – having you obey wherever she led you. Like she was in control over your mind even more than you were. And that, she was. She was in control and dominant, but not exclusively so. That became very clear, her mind slipping when Chan put his hand around her neck, squeezing some while running his lips over Ash’s neck.

This whole thing seemed crazy, straight out of a porno. You sucking off Chan while he peppered his girlfriend with sexual advances. Some might have become jealous of how she and not you were on the receiving end of his touches. She deserved to participate every bit as much as you. Maybe even more, for letting you, another woman, pleasure her boyfriend. Her best friend, but a woman, nonetheless.

Swallowing around Chan’s length, you felt his thighs tense below your digits. He was close, so much was evident. Though Ash seemed to have other plans than letting you finish him off.

She pulled you off him and towards herself, knees leaving the ground as your lips met in a heated kiss. This kiss, other than the ones before, was filled with less caution. She wanted you, wanted to feel you, cherish you, have as much of you as Chan had.

“Fuck, you’re so hot.” Whoever Chan was referring to, it didn’t matter. It was probably the two of you together, making out heatedly above him, giving him a sight for months.

Ash sucked on your lip, almost drawing blood from how needy she was for you.

“Let me taste you.” As though you had read her mind.

She guided you onto the bed, laying you beside her boyfriend, higher up towards the headboard. Chan was never far, following you like a lost puppy, hoping for a front-row seat to the show.

Smiling at you, Ash crawled over your body, towering above you as though she was so much bigger than you. Right now, she seemed to be anyways. She leaned in to peck your lips, slowly trailing her path down your neck. Kissing over the junction of neck and face, you rolled your head back against the mattress, eyes closed at her overpowering movements.

Your skin was on fire, burning to your flesh wherever she touched you. Her lips were on your chest, hands on your waist, and one of her legs between yours, so your whole body was going up in flames below her. When she slipped further down your frame, lips suddenly circling to your hipbones, you thought your soul evaded you.

Slowly dipping her hands below your garters, letting them snap against your skin in short, piercing stings, you noticed Chan watching the scene before him. You grabbed his hands, bringing them to your upper body, for the first time touching him without Ash’s supervision.

You felt Ash’s tongue over your navel as you guided Chan’s hands to cup your breasts. He seemed unsure, gaze searching for Ash to get her approval, though she was occupied otherwise. So, he merely laid himself beside you, on his side, for better access to you. With one hand still on your breast, fumbling with the straps, he connected his mouth with yours.

You hummed in his mouth as the combined touches quickly drove you crazy. When Ash pulled your – or rather her – panties to the side, licking a slow stripe up your folds, you stopped in your tracks.

Most of your previous partners had known how to go down on you well enough. They had understood the main anatomy of it all. Where to lick, what to prod. Still, none of them had ever understood it as well as Ash seemed to. The last, previously only time you had been together, you had gone down on her. Had you known just how skilled she was at it, you would have asked for retaliation then and there.

With Chan’s fingers circling your nipples and Ash’s mouth on your clit, sucking lightly before kitten-licking over it, you would not last long. So much was clear. It also didn’t help that they communicated with each other, driving you to insanity in unison. They synched their every movement, providing you with so much constant and unfaltering pleasure that all you could do was lay there and let them.

Your body was trembling already, kissing Chan becoming more of an inactive action. How could you have properly kissed him back when they were working wonders on you?

When Ash’s fingers came into play, knocking against your entrance, it became too much.

You threw your head against the mattress, a low growl escaping your lips as Chan moved in, kissing over your chest. His lips engulfed your nipples in a warm, wet hug as his girlfriend continued to lick you in a perfect rhythm, your heart palpitations adapting instantly.

“Fuck!” Seemingly, the only word that was left in your foggy brain.

Usually, you directed your partners, telling them what to do and how to better their performance. None of it was necessary, as both of them just knew. Knew what you liked. Knew how you liked it. Knew your body like their own. That’s what it felt like, at least. Like all of you were on the same page, written in the very same font.

Soon enough, Ash found your spot, rubbing her digits against it to the beat of your heart. It filled you with a need for release. You had been trying to hold back on moaning, unsure how much their walls could take before they’d get complaints. Though, with the amount of pleasure coursing through you, you couldn’t control your sounds anymore.

Groans tumbled over your lips, muffled only by Chan’s mouth on yours.

“You sound so good. Music to my ears.”

His confession somewhat went by you as too much else was on your mind to focus on and properly take it in.

“I think she’s close,” Chan warned his girlfriend, who gave your clit one last kiss before withdrawing. Your mind cleared of the fog, eyes hazily opening while looking down at your two partners. “Welcome back, baby.”

You smiled at Chan and the nickname they had chosen for you, running your hands over your face as you tried to regain composure.

“This is a good angle on you.” Ash grinned up at you, chin moist from your arousal, so she wiped it off.

“I would like to note that this is better than any of my dreams.” Another confession from Chan you didn’t know how to react to, though you didn’t need to act on it. Ash took over, pushing her boyfriend onto his back to lie flat against the mattress.

“Are you ready for the grand finale?”

Whatever she had in mind, her expression told you it would be good.

“Y/N, why don’t you take a seat?” Nodding towards Chan, you quickly understood her intention, cheeks reddening as you crawled over to him. Ash gave you a hand as you positioned yourself over Chan’s length, under constant supervision of the man himself, before guiding you onto him.

It took you a couple of seconds to fit all of him, carefully moving as you adapted to his size. It had been a while since you had anyone close to it, so they patiently waited for you to be comfortable.

Pressing a kiss to your lips, Ash pulled you off once you gave her the go, pushing Chan back into you until he bottomed out. He hit spots inside you no one had ever done before; it almost felt like he was right there, tip kissing your cervix. Without the comforting kisses from Ash, you probably would have given up already.

After about a minute of riding him, slow and steadily guided by Ash’s delicate fingers, you had gotten entirely used to Chan. Smiling warmly at you, Ash gave you one last kiss before letting go of you.

She tongued over Chan’s abs, licking her way up his beautiful body. You could tell from the way his Adam’s apple bobbed that he was overwhelmed by the joined stimulation from the two of you. Somehow, knowing he wasn’t doing any better than you made you feel better about yourself. It reminded you that all of you were in this together; them just as much virgins to this as you.

As you slowly bobbed on Chan, steadying yourself by his hips, Ash finally landed at his face, planting a heated kiss onto his lips, their tongues slipping into each other’s mouths. The sinfulness of it all urged you to move faster as you leaned forward to feel his pelvis rub against your clit.

You couldn’t believe there could be more stimulation for your arousal, though you figured you were wrong once Ash took a seat on Chan’s face. Her excited gaze met yours as she sank onto his waiting tongue, moaning when he moved it against her. Holding herself up on his torso, Ash was close enough to kiss you, moaning into your mouth when her boyfriend’s hands wrapped around her thighs, pulling her closer. How he wasn’t suffocating was a mystery.

You brought one hand to Ash’s breasts, pulling the cups of her bra down and playing with them as she was brought closer and closer to her release. She seemed to close in on her impending orgasm unbelievably fast, considering she hadn’t been as involved in your ministrations previously. Until now, she had taken a guiding role, comparable to the narrator of your favourite erotic novel. No doubt, the dominance slipped out of her grip as she was stimulated beyond belief by hands and tongues all over her body.

Wriggling her hand from underneath her, she let it wander up your arm towards your neck, pulling you closer to kiss you deeper.

The occasional moan escaped her plump lips as you tasted her strawberry lipgloss mixed with your juices. When Chan’s tongue hit a particular speed, lapping at his girlfriend like a man starved, Ash lost her cool, throwing her head back into her neck. You seized the opportunity to connect your mouth to her neck, sucking at the tender flesh.

“Fuck…”

Now it was her turn to be overwhelmed, her body spasming under the touch of your hands and lips. Chan didn’t let go yet, forcing her to remain on his greedy tongue as she was the first to tip over the edge. Overstimulation set in soon enough, her pleading eyes rolling back as you kissed her, swallowing her moans as best as you could.

Her eyes turned black as she nearly choked on the pain and pleasure, the view threatening to burn into your brain for eternity. Never had you seen someone so sinister, no porn actress or actor able to fake an orgasm so mesmerising. Your movements slowed down to take in hers, both your hands coming to her chest to twist at her nipples, bare breasts laying heavy in your hands. That Chan hadn’t stilled his ministrations yet told you that there was some understanding between them; overstimulation an usual part of their sex life.

You were more than willing to participate, leaning forward to take one of her nipples between your lips. You rolled it softly, tongue prodding at its stiffness before giving the other the same attention.

Ash, still trembling on top of Chan’s tongue, kept her hands at the back of your neck, drawing you in closer. It was then that you understood how Chan could handle such little airflow. Having a beauty just like Ash as the reason for your lack of oxygen seemed like the best way to go out; death was more than acceptable if it was to cause her pleasure. Her wanting and longing for constant pressure on all her vital body parts.

When a second orgasm hit her not soon after the first one, you weren’t surprised. It had been inevitable with how well you cared for her, touching her most delicate spots everywhere, all at once. A whine escaped her as the overstimulation eventually became too much, pulling you off her chest and herself off her boyfriend.

Looking down at Chan, you shared a smile of pride, patiently waiting for Ash to come down at her own speed.

“Fuck. Me.”

The words out of your best friend’s mouth made both you and Chan chuckle.

“You want to go again? Fine by me.”

“God, no.” Ash quickly answered, swatting Chan’s hands away when he tried pulling her back down. She rolled off him easily, taking another few seconds to catch her breath as her eyes met yours. “Let’s focus on you again.”

Ash noticed you had stopped moving, still seated on Chan’s lap and your hands running silently over his abs. Moving her boyfriend back a few centimetres, he finally reached the headboard, placing himself against it. When Ash positioned herself behind you, hands on your hips, she began guiding you on top of him.

In this new position, Chan reached even deeper parts of you, if that was even possible. The added pleasure from Ash’s second hand, grazing over your nipples, brought you right back to the orgasm that had previously been so reachable. Chan’s fingers met hers at your hip, sharing their task to move you over his length.

“Do you feel him? Reaching so deep you almost suffocate?”

Ash’s words were met with a wordless whimper, your head thrown against her shoulder. Her lips came to your neck, sucking at the flesh as all their attention was drawn to you. Chan himself appeared to close in on his release. Still, his eyes were focused on your body, his second hand coming to your clit and softly rubbing into it. It only pushed you closer to the edge, all this stimulation from the two most attractive people you had ever met.

When Chan started kissing the other side of your neck, his tongue lapping at your skin as his plump lips wrapped around your vein, your movements became sloppier.

“So close,” was all you could say before they sped up, together pushing you over the edge.

You spasmed on top of Chan, abs tightening and loosening as your thighs contracted beneath their hands. The crumbling of your walls sent Chan over the edge seconds later, his seed filling you. Deliciously and warm.

You had never been to heaven before, but this was damn close to what you expected it to be like. The level of satisfaction filling your body, reaching into the deepest parts of your bones, seemed unattainable; the mere concept of how it felt better than any dream, any fantasy you could have ever come up with.

A dazed “Fuck” left all of you collectively as your eyes searched the ceiling for leverage. Your mind was hazy, sight still blurry as you came down from your high. Chan and Ash weren’t doing any better spread out wordlessly beside you – Chan in between his girlfriend and you.

When your eyes finally slowed down, features forming faces again, your head turned to the couple beside you. Ash had her head on Chan’s chest as they took deep breaths, almost in unison. Watching them seemed so intimate. Almost too much so, both their eyes closed as they bathed in the afterglow. You wanted to give them a moment, so you sat up, missing how Chan was reaching out for you to pull you against him.

His release dribbled out of you and into your – or rather Ash’s – panties as you got up, mumbling something about getting some drinks before hurrying out of the room.

Once you reached the kitchen, you searched their fridge for cold water bottles. It was when you closed the fridge door that you finally caught a glimpse of yourself in the reflection of the digital screen.

Your makeup was smudged, your eyes heavy, and your stomach dropping at the settling reality the first moment your head cleared. That’s when your thoughts began racing a never-ending marathon, your pupils following an invisible line from left to right in your reflection.

You had just had sex with your best friends. You had just had the best sex ever with your best friends. You had just had the best sex ever with your best friends, and things would definitely be different now. And what if it wasn’t good different? What if your dynamic had just now changed so much that you’d lost them? What if they regretted it? What if they didn’t like you like that – the way you liked them?

Because you did. You liked them. And not how other people liked their best friends. You liked them as you had never liked anyone before. Some people would have probably called it love, though you had never truly felt love for anyone before. Or at least that’s how it felt right this moment. Because if you had loved all the people before them, then what was this? What stronger bond was there than love?

Chan and Ash made you feel like no San, no Yeonjun, and no Soyeon had ever made you feel. It had taken years and multiple sexual encounters – with Chan and Ash separately, other people in between, and both together just now – to recognise that. You had never liked anyone like that before. And you couldn’t imagine ever liking anyone like that in the future.

You shook your head to snap yourself out of this because, no. You couldn’t overthink this. Not when they were in the next room, still coming down from what had happened. It wasn’t as though you could take it back, anyways. It had happened, and the only thing you could do was move on. However you were supposed to do that, you hadn’t quite figured out yet.

“Here you go.”

Entering the bedroom after a minute, you sat on the mattress, handing one of the two bottles to Chan before taking a sip from your own. That sip was about half the bottle, the previous physical activity seemingly more exhausting than it had shown first.

“Thanks,” Ash thanked you when Chan handed her the bottle after gulping down his own half of it.

Silence took over the room as the three of you calmed your breathing to its usual rhythm.

Unsurprisingly, Ash was the first to cut the silence, having been the main instigator for everything that had happened within the past hour, “So… That happened.”

“Sure did,” Chan agreed, eyes meeting Ash’s as they fell into giggles. You didn’t know what to make of this, so you stayed silent, watching them in confusion and adoration. “Fuck, that actually happened. I can’t believe it.”

Looking at you, he reached out to pull you closer. This time, you let him.

“How are you feeling? You’re unusually quiet.”

“I’m-” you trailed off, hand on your hip causing goosebumps to rise all over your stomach. “Good. Still a little dizzy, to be honest.”

“Yeah, this was a lot.” Ash smiled at you, her fingers trailing over Chan’s abs absentmindedly. “So, Chan and I have been talking.”

Ash’s eyes met Chan’s as he nodded in encouragement.

“We – Chan and I – feel like something is missing between us. We’ve been feeling like this for a while, actually. But we never quite figured it out before just now.” Smirking while her gaze met you, Ash’s cheeks turned a shade of crimson. “We believe we’ve found it. In you.”

“You figured that out in the minute I was gone to get water?”

It was a half-joke, her words baffling you. The swarm of bees in your stomach only made you giddier, your body shivering as the impact of Ash’s words got to you. They wanted you, too.

“No, silly.” Ash chuckled, her hand coming to meet your waist. “We’ve been talking for a while. A few months, maybe. We joked about inviting a third party into our relationship before, but we didn’t really assume it would lead anywhere. As I said, we only just figured out that’s what we want.”

Chan’s head turned to you, heart palpitating against his chest under your palm.

“If that’s what you want, of course. You can totally think about it first if you like. Or you can say ‘no’ right away. Just-” A sigh left Chan’s lips as he let himself breathe through his nervousness. “We really, really like you.”

“You do?” you questioned in disbelief, all the worrying from before ejected from your mind, carried by the bees that went berserk at his words.

“Yes. I’ve sort of been in love with you since that night at Jisung’s.”

Ash’s confession knocked the air right out of your lungs.

“And I’ve loved you since we met in kindergarten. So, I guess that means I win?”

And just then, you considered yourself braindead.

Hearing how long they’ve felt this way about you made your heart swell, your arteries burst and rendered your body practically useless. They had loved you for years. Felt this way about you for years. And you, well, if you were being completely honest with yourself, had loved them like this for about the same time. You just hadn’t identified the feeling correctly until now.

But that hardly mattered. Because, as you sat on their bed after having had the best experience of your life, laughing at Chan’s words, your heart and mind numb from how much you wanted to be with them, nothing else mattered anymore. Because you had found your place, and you wouldn’t give up your seat at that table for as long as you still had power over yourself.

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