#or probably some other name. I do not know what to call this

[papaya-twinks]

a kids’ fairytale - l.n - p.2

Warnings: single!father, single!mother, swearing, mentions of pregnancy, mentions of sex, anxiety, picking nails/skin

Pairing: Lando Norris x fem!reader

Summary: Having a child so young hadn’t exactly been Lando’s idea of a fairytale, but what happened next, well, more suited to his kind of story ✨

other parts

Why? 

Why, why, why had Lando given you the wrong name? 

He could have just told you who he was, dealt with the “oh my god, you’re Lando Norris?!” for a bit, and then maybe had a friendship. 

But no, he’d lied. And now here he was, staring at your message, dread lining his sculpted features. 

“Heyy! You can bring Honey round ours today, we should make it a weekend thing! As soon as your renovations are finished, we’ll switch it up x”

God, what was he supposed to do on race weekends? 

And even more so, the occasional times when the camera would pan to his daughter, how could he possibly even fathom trying to explain that. 

What if you hated him and made Alec stop being friends with Honey - the amount she’d gone on about him clearly showed she’d be distraught if that would happen. 

Was he overthinking this? Probably. Was he panicking? Absolutely. 

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“Daddy,” Honey said, sitting on the bed beside Lando as he braided her hair, carefully intertwining her brunette curls. 

She had insisted on matching with Lando, both of them in black joggers and a black hoodie, along with some white trainers. 

“Honey,” Lando said, pushing his stresses to the back of his mind.

“I’m gonna take some of my toys,” she said, as Lando nodded absentmindedly. He wasn’t really listening, nor paying attention as she stuffed toys into her bag - one of them being her little McLaren car.

“C’mon, Y/N said 11, we have to leave now,” Lando said, tying her laces and leading her out the door. 

“Who’s Y/N?” Honey said, letting Lando take her rucksack. 

“Alec’s mum,” Lando said, shoving his phone into the back of his pocket and walking beside his daughter. 

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You had a humble home. Not big, nor small, not fancy, nor plain. Comfy and cozy. 

Yet, still a big contrast to his place, big and fancy and typical of a multi-millionaire. Sometimes, he definitely regretted choosing this life style. 

“Hi,” you smiled, opening the door and giving Honey a wave. 

“Hey,” Lando said, clearing his throat and trying to act cool as he took in your outfit, a pretty black dress and some heels. Cute. 

“Come on in,” you said brightly, leading Lando into the living room as Alec and Honey went to speak and play. 

Your house was cozy - with candles, and plants, and some of Alec’s toys on the sofa.

“Sorry about that,” you said, moving the toys out of his way as he sat down, accepting the cup of tea from your hand.

Well, at least now he felt like a proper parent, sitting with another and drinking tea. 

“…Oscar?!” you snapped your fingers in front of Lando’s face. 

You’d clearly called that name multiple times, to no avail. Shit, Lando needed to get used to that name now.

“Uh, sorry, zoned out,” he lied, sipping on his tea as you nodded, that pretty smile still on your face. 

“So, uh, Alec and Honey get on well,” you said, “but tell me about yourself, then, what d’you do?”.

Ah shit. “I’m an…engineer, fix cars and stuff,” Lando said, lying through his damn teeth, but you bought it. He almost felt bad. 

“Nice,” you smiled, “I’m boring,” you laughed, “still in Uni,”. 

“Uni? What are you studying?” he asked, leaning forwards, clearly more happy to know about you then he was to talk about himself. 

“Art History,” you said, “boring old Renaissance,”. 

“No, it’s cool,” Lando said honestly, “it’s unique but in a good way,”.

“That’s what my mum said when I got accepted for that subject,” you said as Lando snorted. 

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Surprisingly, Lando wasn’t hit with a ton more questions, and you two got on quite well. 

The tension had broken and it seemed like it was now Lando’s life mission to see how many times he could pull out that damn gorgeous laugh.

Just when he was about to crack another joke, he felt Alec tapping on his leg. 

“This is cool,” he held up a McLaren model car, Lando’s face paling. Fuck.

Honey was beside him, blissfully unaware of her father’s nervousness as she nodded.

“Look mama,” Alec handed you the car. 

Double fuck. 

“This is cool,” you said, admiring the little orange car, and looking closer. 

“Where’d you get it?” you smiled, looking down to Honey as she looked proudly at the car. “My daddy bought it for me,” she said triumphantly. 

“Mama, can I get one too? Then me and Honey can match!” Alec smiled. 

“Maybe, maybe, I’ll look into it,” you said as Honey grinned. “Did you know, it’s actually dad’s-?” she started. 

“Yeah, it’s my friends,” Lando lied, slowly nudging Honey to go back to play with Alec. 

She frowned but said nothing, as Lando shoved the car back into her bag. 

You were awfully confused the whole time - it was just a car, yet Lando seemed so…defensive. Weird. 

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“C’mon Honey, time to go,” Lando said, beckoning his daughter down the stairs as Alec peeked shyly from behind your leg. 

Your son always did seem to go rather shy when he was around Lando.

“Me and Alec baked these,” you held out a little box of cookies as Lando gave you a smile. 

Shit, this meant he’d definitely have to come back. 

“See you Monday,” you said as Lando waved to Alec, giving you a one-armed hug as he led his daughter from the house. 

“Daddy, Alec really liked my car,” Honey said proudly, “can we bring your helmet or your Miami trophy next time to show them? You show everyone!”. 

That made Lando freeze. 

“Darling, we can’t…we can’t just show her,” Lando tried to explain, “she doesn’t know who we are, and we can’t go around showing normal people these things,”.

Honey frowned, digesting the words. 

“So…So I’m not normal?” she asked, her eyes glazing over as Lando froze. 

“What? No, darling, you are normal, of course you are, I didn’t mean it like that…” he groaned silently as he watched her eyes fill with tears.

Great. 

He’d upset his daughter, dug his hole of lies 10x deeper and almost fucked up a decent friendship with another parent. 

And all in one day too, surely must have been a record for him.

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And so, Monday begrudgingly rolled on by, the little ‘being normal’ debate long forgotten as Honey excitedly rushed down the stairs. 

If she’d been excited the first day for school, she was definitely something else today. 

“C’mon daddy! I wanna tell Alec all about the racing!”. 

Lando groaned. “Sweetie, look,” he said, kneeling down in front of her, “we can’t tell people about my racing,”. 

“What? Why, you literally have it filmed on TV-,” she started. 

Why the hell did she inherit his attitude? God.

“Listen,” he said, putting on his stern voice. He really did hate using his ‘stern’ voice, but desperate times called for desperate measures. 

“You are not to tell Alec about the racing, because we don’t want people to go all over us and start harassing us, okay?”.

“Fine,” she mumbled, crossing her arms. 

He hated this. He hated being angry at his daughter for his own mistakes, and telling her off. 

But he had no choice

He hated to admit it, he hated that it had been, what, barely a week? And he already liked you. 

A lot more than he, as another parent should, but he couldn’t help it. 

You were so pretty and nice and kind and you’d clearly raised your son well. 

Whether he could say the same, he didn’t know. Honey wasn’t spoilt or unkind or anything Alec wasn’t, but sometimes he felt may he could’ve done things differently. 

Or, should have done things differently, that is.

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“Hey,” Lando smiled, wearing one of his hoodie and joggers sets again, the hood pulled over his head. 

“Hi,” you smiled, watching as your son and his daughter went to talk together, or, well, Honey talking and Alec listening. 

Just as Lando opened his mouth to speak, he was interrupted by a rather excited woman standing behind him. 

“Hi, uh, can I get your signature please?” she held out a little notebook as Lando swallowed the lump in hid throat, catching the confused look om your pretty face.

“Sure,” Lando said monotonously, signing it before turning back to you with a forced laugh.

“Sorry. One of those faces,” he said. 

The same excuse he’d given last time. For goodness sake, this wasn’t going to plan. 

You didn’t question it, just moving on your conversation.

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“Hello?” Lando asked, answering the phone, an unknown phone number on the screen. 

“Hello, Mr Norris? I’m calling from your daughter’s school,” the voice said. 

What the fuck? What had she done? 

Sweat was starting to form on the back of his neck as he cleared his throat, nodding his head and waiting for the voice to continue. 

“We’ve taken her to the office, she’d been holding and showing other students a sort of…trophy?” the woman stuttered. 

Trophy…? Trophy. 

Shit. How had he not noticed the damn trophy missing from the cabinet?!

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“This goddamn girl,” Lando grumbled to himself as he rushed into the office, seeing a very grumpy Honey standing with her bag and the damn Miami trophy beside her. 

“Darling!” Lando hissed, “what are you doing?”. 

He didn’t have time to hear her answer as the teacher tapped him on the shoulder, a concerned look on her face. 

“Sir, she’s not allowed to bring items such as…this to school,” the woman said, looking entirely bemused as to the trophy and its importance. 

“I’m aware, I’m aware,” Lando said, “I didn’t know she’d bring it, honestly,”.

“We highly recommend you check your daughter’s bag before she leaves,” the woman said. 

And Lando hated that. Hated how he she looked at him like he didn’t know what he was doing. 

And in all honesty, he didn’t!

He had no clue, but he didn’t like people hinting that he didn’t.

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“Daddy! Are you mad?” Honey whined as he held his hand, his grip tight round her small hand.

“Yes!” Lando said through gritted teeth. 

How she’d managed to stuff the trophy into her bag, he didn’t know. That, and the fact half of it was sticking out her bag too.

“Daddy, I just wanted to show Alec and I might have showed a little more-,” Honey started. 

“Honey,” Lando snapped, “just..don’t, okay?”.

And to make matters worse, he’d heard your voice behind him, calling out his name. Or rather, ‘Oscar’s’ name.

“Just keep walking,” Lando told himself, his free hand balled. 

But you’d caught up. “Hey,” Lando said, putting a fake smile onto his face.

“What happened? Alec mentioned Honey and some trophy- is that it?” you looked at the metal trophy dangling from his hand. 

“Uh yeah,” Lando said, swallowing the lump in his throat again. 

“Can we…speak?” you asked, letting go of Alec’s hand. Shit, Lando was fucked.

“Cool trophy,” you nodded, stepping away from the kids, “so, um, is there…anything I need to know?”.

“About?” Lando said, his voice unnaturally high. 

“Anything,” you said, sighing, “maybe, you know…where the hell you got that trophy from?”.

“I used to do football as a kid,” Lando said, turning the trophy in his hand so you couldn’t see the ‘1��� embezzled on the front. 

“Oh, right,” you nodded, seemingly buying his lies. And he felt so fucking horrible.

“Well, text me when the renovations are done, and we can come round,”.

[ablobwhowrites]

Detective!y/n : you know Damian, you can get anything you want easier if you just ask nicely.

Damian : ....

Damian : would you be my stepfather if I ask nicely then, (last name)?

Detective!y/n : what.

Random ahh conversation that came to me today.

Also a little thing, detective y/n never tells anyone his last name and hearing Damian say his last name has yet y/n wondering ‘how do you know my last name?’

*At a Mitski concert*

Detective y/n: "you sure we should have come to this concert without checking out her music?"

Co detective: "come on, it'll be fine! I've heard a lot of good things about her, I've heard a lot of people talk about her."

*2 hours later*

*detective y/n outside holding a lit cigarette and somehow having mascara running down his cheeks as his co detective sits with y/n with their head in their hands* (detective y/n barley survived pink in the night and did not survive Francis forever)

Detective y/n when Francis forever comes on (I don't think ex villain y/n would even survive Abbey)

Superman with his super hearing could hear y/n just sobbing at the concert as well as Bruce with that hidden microphone he put in y/n's coat.

Detective y/n calling Dick and sobbing in the call about the concert when he gets home. (He will probably never recover from this)

Also what would rank some of the y/n's that would be most likely to survive a mitski concert and who is the the y/n who will not survive a mitski concert?

(anyways I'm done yapping, hope you guys like this and if you want more or have any ideas for other things please don't be shy and request. But for now please stay safe and drink water!)

[fictionalmenxyn]

𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐞? 𝐍𝐨 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞

Pairing: tutor!rafe x student!reader

Replying to this ask

(Reader is 18 and Rafe is 23. Consensual. Also if your name is Lilly think of a different name for the ‘goody two shoes’ sos 😭)

Warnings: language, light degradation.

꥟꥟꥟

Once again, the clock strikes two pm. Meaning you have your final two hour class of the day. 2 till 4, simple yet challenging. It was math. Although you were a great student with great grades. Your math grades had somewhat dropped recently. Due to the lack of focus and the annoying boys or the good two shoes in your class. Along with the fact you have started to be more laid back and your humour getting to you and your friends.

So here you were. Sat towards the middle back, up by the windows. You sat on the inside part of your desk, resting your back against the wall. Your friends sat around you as the class started to slightly fill. There were about fifteen people in this class. Due to the misbehaved teens who’d skip this class knowing Rafe wasn’t one to mess with.

He sat at his desk, typing away at some emails as he waited for the class to everyone to arrive and for everyone to settle down.

You chatted and laughed with your friends. Then soon enough, Rafe had kicked the door wedge away from the door and closed it. He clasped his hands together “right everyone, focusing now!” Everyone had grown quiet. You turn a little in your seat facing the front a little more.

Rafe started to go through the basic steps of how to do probability. Easy and simple to finish off the day.

He had gotten Lilly to hand the books out. Everyone knowing, including Rafe, that she was the teachers pet. Always correcting people’s answers or calling out on bad behaviour. As he go to hand yours and your friends books she faced the front. “Mr. Cameron?? Y/n and the girls have drawn all over their books…” you and the girls shoot daggers at Lilly. It was the smallest of doodles at the bottom on the cover. Which Rafe had actually said to do if your pen had ran out or broke. Hence the continuous circles at the bottom.

Rafe waved it off “it’s fine, Lilly, just hand them their books…” he sat at his desk and leaned back a little. His polo doing justice for his lean muscular shoulders and his nicely round biceps. He was one of the few male teachers who’d work out. He was also the youngest teacher at your school. He definitely caught your eyes. And probably more girls in the school too.

You watched as his eyes would flicker over to the ‘popular’ girls in the class. For no reason at all, you felt almost, jealous?… could you even say that about your own teacher?… guess so, right?…

You had noticed how those girls, who were also in many of your other classes, would catch people’s attention. So that’s another reason you’ve become the way you have been for the past two weeks.

You did a few questions, knowing you wouldn’t be in detention for the lack of work you would’ve had. So as you do about ten questions. You turn to your friends, chatting away and quietly messing around.

Rafe would glance over the class every so often. Checking if anyone had their hands up or needed help. He then looked over to you and your friends. He saw the way you weren’t writing away as you usually would. He also noticed your lack of concentration and focus this past couple of weeks. He cleared his throat “Y/n, girls… focusing please.” He said in a soft but firm voice.

You and the girls went quiet, chuckling and giggling to yourself as you all do a few more questions then go back to what you were doing with each other. Lilly, however, must’ve had a thing against you today. She wasn’t happy. She raised her hand. Rafe looked up and nodded his head up “yeah, Lilly?” Lilly lowered her hand and replied “sir, Y/n is distracting me! I can’t focus…”

You scoffed and threw your arms up and let them drop down. Your friends rolling their eyes at Lilly. But also shocked as how she just called you out too. Even though they knew they were chatting just as much as you.

Rafe looked over to you “Y/n, I told you to focus on your work… c’mon, back to it.” You and the girls go back to working.

After three more times Lilly has specifically picked out you to complain about.

Rafe got up from his desk. Walking over to you and the girls. He had told two of your friends to split up and sit else where. The three of you being separated. Lilly had a smug yet stupid grin on her face. You glared at her and spoke “I’ll smack that stupid smile-” Rafe cut you off “don’t even finish that sentence, young lady… now..” he leaned back in the empty desk opposite you. Crossing his muscular arms. He continued “listen, you’re gonna finish your work and I’m gonna stay right here so I know you’re not causing any trouble. Get, to, it.”

You felt his eyes bore into you. You could feel his gaze. You were struggling. And not academically… he noticed that quickly. So he grinned slightly to himself. He grabbed a spear chair and sat in front of you at your desk. “Need help, sweetheart?” You looked to his eyes. Locking eyes as you nod a little. Your palms feeling slightly sweaty at the hottest teacher in your school.

He leaned closer, his legs spread under the desk due to his long legs. He reached into your pencil case and grabbed a pen. Even if he had his own pen in his pocket. He couldn’t lie when he said he’d been eyeing your pens. They looked nice to write with. A strange thing to say but it was true.

He started to talking you through it, how to probability. He’d lean closer to you as he would turn the paper so you could both see what he’d write. He’d use your stationary.

Soon enough he’d let you be, both of you slightly disappointed at the loss of closeness. But another teen in class needed his help. So he left you to it to finish in your own.

Soon enough, the bell rang. He called out “right everyone! Pack away, have a good day all…” he watched you closely as you put your pencil case into your bag and tug your backpack onto your shoulder. As you walk over to your friends. He called out “everyone’s dismissed, but Y/n! Stay behind, please” You whipped your head around “what?!”

He nodded “yes, you, stay behind..” he clicked his fingers and pointed to the desk right in front of his. You huffed and wave your friends bye as you sit on the desk.

Once everyone had left. He turned to look at you. He crossed his arms and leg one on front of the other. As he leaned his hip against his desk, he spoke “now, you and I know why I asked you to stay back.” He added “so why’re you being like this, hm?”

You crossed your leg over the other “like what?” He looked to your legs for a brief moment. Wondering what his hand would be like on them. Or his what his head would look like bet- Rafe, no, don’t start.

He reminded the setting of the moment. He spoke “like you had today, what’s with all the chatting and the lack of work getting done? Where’s that high scoring gone, hm? I’ve noticed the slight drop in your grades, sweetheart. Y’know if you keep this up I’m gonna have to call home..” you shake your head “don’t, please, it’s fine… it’s not even that bad.” He shook his head “darlin’… you went from a B to a D… and I know you do well in all of your classes so there must be something going on..”

After going back and forth, Rafe was slowly loosing his patience. God how could a pretty girl like you make him want to shout at you?… you’re to gorgeous for him to do that.

He spoke “Y/n, Y/n, darlin’… listen.. I’m not here for your bullshit excuses… I’m here to support and teach you…” you snapped back “I pay attention! I do the work! It’s fucking-” “language, sweetheart.” You huffed “I bet this is all cause of the teachers pet, Lilly..” you cross your arms. Rolling your eyes.

He had enough, you needed to be taught a lesson. And not in math either. Rafe didn’t teach naughty girls. Not at all.

He yanked your arms to uncross themselves and grabbed your jaw. He stepped closer and gently yanked your face closer to his. He spoke lowly “you listen here… I don’t give a shit about Lilly… yeah she may be a teachers pet, but that isn’t the discussion I’m trying to have here. You’re being naughty… and you know I don’t teach naughty kids. So tell me, what’s up with you?!”

You gasp softly as he had gently yanked your face closer to his. His eyes darting between your eyes and lips. His lips parted ever so slightly. Looking as hot as ever. God you didn’t expect this to turn you on so much. You feel your knees going weak and your lower stomach fluttering.

You remarked.

“I’m trying my best! Doesn’t that matter?!” He replied “Yea! I see that! But you’ve done so much more, Y/n… I know you can do more than that… I’ve seen the way you interact with people, how well you do in other lessons, the way other teachers talk highly of you… c’mon, what’s the issue? Why’re you falling back in just my lessons, eh? You were a smart girl, sweetheart… where did that go?” You mumbled “I- I thought you’d be into popular girl more…” you looked to the floor as Rafe continued to stare into your eyes. His breathing hitched ever so slightly.His eyes on you as he clicked his tongue…

꥟꥟꥟

[yuikomorii]

AYAYUI IDOL AU: Chapter 2

// It’s time for the second chapter! This one focuses more on the conversations with other characters than on Ayayui interactions, but I’m really curious to see if anyone can guess who the second Diaboy to meet Yui will be. 👀

This story isn’t meant to be a harem or anything like that though, but all the Diaboys will meet Yui at some point. I hope you enjoy this chapter until the next one! 💖

Chapter 1

Place: Dorms

Ayato: Good night.

Laito: Nighty night~!

— Ayato enters his room —

Laito: ( Hmm… he seems unusually quiet. He hasn’t said a single word the entire way, which is so unlike him. )

( It’s as if something’s weighing on his mind, that he’s deliberately keeping to himself. )

( Something must have surely happened to him when he went outside, but why won’t he say anything? That’s weird… )

— stretches and yawns —

Anyway, there’s no point in overthinking it. As long as it doesn’t damage his and our reputation, it’s not worth worrying about.

Place: Ayato’s room

Ayato: ( Phew, I managed to slip into my bed without waking Shu up. )

( The last thing I needed was a lecture about sneaking off to the club as an idol and nearly getting caught. )

( Haa… what a mess. I really made a fool of myself today, didn’t I? )

( If it weren’t for that girl, I’d probably be in the hospital right now, all over the news for alcohol poisoning. )

( Man, that would’ve totally wrecked my career… )

???: Heh, where have you been?

Ayato: …!

( Was that—)

O-Oi, you’re not sleeping!?

Shu: I was until a certain someone tripped over the WI-FI cable and woke me up.

Ayato: ( Fuck! )

Shu: But whatever, I answered your question, so now it’s your turn to answer mine.

— opens one eye and looks at him —

Ayato: ( Wait… I could just make something up and play it off as the truth! )

( Heh, exactly! There’s no way he’d be able to tell it’s a lie! )

Just practicing. I want to be the best version of myself for the next concert, y’know?

Shu: Hmm… I see.

And now, what’s the real answer?

Ayato: …!?

( How did he— )

Hah? W-What do you mean? I’m telling the truth!

— Shu opens both eyes and looks at him —

Shu: You went there, didn’t you?

Ayato: …!

( This guy… he can see through me! )

How the hell did you know that I went to the night club!?

Shu: Heh~? So I was right after all. You really did go there, huh?

Ayato: ( You… You fucking tricked me! )

Look, I know I’m not the best at keeping things together, but don’t tell Reiji! I beg you!

If the leader finds out, the staff will know, and once the CEO hears, I’m done! He’ll fire me in a heartbeat, no questions asked!

Shu: You’re overreacting. No idol is gonna get fired for just going to a night club.

Ayato: Man, you just don’t get it! It’s not just about going there— it’s what went down while I was there!

Shu: Oh? Now you’ve got me curious. What exactly happened?

— starts piping —

Ayato: ( Why do I keep getting myself in this!? )

( Haa… but I guess there’s no point in running away from my issues anymore. )

Basically, I was very tired and thought of over drinking to get my mind think of something else, but the alcohol and exhaustion made a really bad combination, so my chest started aching.

I went outside to get some air, but the pain just kept getting worse until this random chick found me and gave me her water bottle.

Shu: Wait… so you got caught?

Ayato: Luckily, no! As crazy as this sounds, she didn’t recognize me.

Heck, she even asked for my name after I called her a cab! But of course, I’m not that dumb. I knew it would have been way too risky to tell her my name.

( Honestly, I don’t even know why I was so anxious about it. In the end, everything worked out just fine, and I bet that girl will forget all about it in a few hours anyway. )

Shu: Hmm… you do realize that might have merely been an act, don’t you?

Ayato: Huh? What do you mean…?

Shu: Women are sly as foxes.

They’ll play all innocent and clueless, behaving like they have no idea what’s going on, but in reality, they’re just getting exactly what they want without anyone even realizing it.

Heh, it’s almost impressive how they pull it off.

Ayato: Wait… so you mean that girl knew who I was and only pretended not to so as to stalk me? But if that’s the case, then——

Shu: Haa… no need to scream, it’s almost 3 in the morning.

I’m not saying she’s a stalker, but you should probably be more cautious.

You know how fangirls are. If they see you talking to any girl that’s not them, they’ll lose it. Better to just watch out and avoid any unnecessary trouble.

— closes eyes again —

Not just for you, but for everyone else around too.

Ayato’s monologue

Shu’s right. I need to step up my game and start taking this job more seriously.

Being an idol isn’t just a paycheck; it’s a responsibility that goes far beyond me.

Every choice I make carries weight, and not just for my future, but for the company’s and everyone I work with.

Yeah… Exactly. If I let my career fall apart, it’s not only me who’ll feel it— the whole team, every project, and all the hard work we’ve put into this place will take a hit as well.

That’s why, from now on, I’m done making stupid decisions that could mess everything up. My focus is on my idol activities and nothing else.

I should have realized from the moment I signed the contract that living like a normal teenager just isn’t part of the deal anymore.

*Timeskip*

Place: Hotel kitchen

Yui: ( Working here is surprisingly relaxing. Not only that, but the co-workers I met seem very nice too! )

( I’m really excited to put my cooking skills to good use. From what I remember, this hotel has a great reputation, therefore it’s truly amazing to learn from such experienced professionals. )

???: Noooo!!!

Yui: …!?

( It’s coming from the storeroom! )

— quickly opens it —

???: ….!

Yui: Hana-san!

I-I heard you scream, are you alright?

Hana: Wa—… Was I really that loud? This is so embarrassing… I’m so sorry!

— covers face with hands —

Yui: Ah, there’s no need to worry about that, it’s fine.

More importantly, what happened? Did something scare you?

Hana: No, I’m not scared, more like… disappointed.

In case you haven’t heard already, the SAKAMAKIS are filming a special episode for their YouTube channel at three different locations, and guess what? My two favorite members are coming to this hotel in 4 days, but the issue is... it’s happening right when I’m not on shift…!

— starts crying —

On top of that, I promised my sister I’d visit her in Fukuoka, since we'll both be off work at the same time, which means that there’s absolutely no way I can meet them now!

This is such terrible timing…!

Yui: ( SAKAMAKIS… Based on Hana-san’s intense reaction, they must be some sort of important public figures, no? )

Oww… it does sound unfortunate, but you shouldn’t give up hope completely. After all, you live in Japan, so I’m sure there’s always a chance you’ll get to meet them!

Hana: It’s not as easy as you say…

They will return to Korea soon, and who knows when they’ll promote in Japan again? This was my only opportunity to see them outside of the concerts… and I couldn’t even manage to get any decent seats there.

— pouts —

Yui: ( Wait, did she say ‘concerts’? )

Ohh, I see. So they’re idols!

Hana: Eh? You… You actually don’t know the SAKAMAKIS—!?

Yui: W-Well… I’m sorry, the name doesn't really ring a bell, and to be honest, I can’t say I’m familiar with the idol world in general.

Hana: But come on, you must have at least seen their faces before, right?

— shows her a picture of them —

Yui: ( Will she be let down again if I say ‘no’? )

( Hmm… But truth be told, these boys are undeniably good-looking, and it’s clear that they must be hardworking as well, considering how they manage to juggle such hectic schedules. )

( I can easily see why they’ve captured the hearts of such passionate fans. )

— eyes suddenly widen —

( The red-haired one——! )

— blushes —

Hana: So, who did steal Yui-san’s heart~?

Yui: Ah, n-nobody…!

— gets embarrassed —

It’s just that the boy in middle… he got an incredibly well-featured face. I don’t know how to put it into words, but he simply appears unreal.

( To think that a human could look like this… it makes me a bit envious. His eyes and face shape are especially pretty. )

— Hana starts laughing —

Yui: ( Eh? Did I say something wrong? )

Hana: Get in line, that’s Ayato-san!

Hmph… just the thought of not being able to see his tiny, perfect face up close makes my heart ache.

Yui: ( Hana-san… she really seems to love this group a lot. )

( I can't help but think that if I were in her shoes, I'd feel hurt too not being able to see someone I admire so much… )

Hey, Hana-san… I know it’s not exactly the same as having it personally from him, but if it’s possible, I’d be more than willing to ask Ayato-san for an autograph on your behalf!

Hana: Eh—? Would you really do that for me!?

Yui-san, you are the best!

— hugs her —

Yui: I-It’s nothing, really.

Hana: Wait a little—! Now that I think about it, you could also totally grab a photo with them! Isn’t that wonderful?

( I can’t believe it! This way I’ll be just one person away from Ayato-san! )

Yui: Uuh… I’m sure it’d be a nice memory to look back on, but wouldn’t it bother you if I did? After all, you’ve been their loyal fan all this time, not me.

Besides, there’s no guarantee that they would agree to take a picture with an ordinary person such as myself.

Hana: That doesn’t matter, silly! They’re super chill with their fans, and everyone says they never turn down a picture request— unless they’re busy, of course. There’s no way they’d refuse you, especially not in a setting like this.

You also mentioned being captivated by Ayato-san’s visuals, so fan or not, I think anyone would jump at the chance to take a picture with such a fine man~!

Yui’s monologue

Hana-san and I continued to talk about it for a while, and during our conversation, she suggested a few of their songs for me to listen to on my way back to the Airbnb.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but as I played each one, I was pleasantly surprised.

While I’m still not very knowledgeable about this group, the melodies, the lyrics, and even the energy in their performances were captivating in a way I hadn’t expected.

That Ayato boy… he seems like someone who was born to be on stage. Such charisma and beauty… It really makes me wonder how he acts off-cameras.

Hana-san has clearly supported the SAKAMAKIS for such a long time, and to finally get the chance to meet them, only to have it slip through her fingers, must be heartbreaking.

A part of me can’t shake the feeling of guilt, even though I know very well that it wasn’t my or anyone’s fault.

It might not be a fair comparison, I know, but it reminded me of the boy I met yesterday.

He has probably forgotten about me already, but just like Hana-san dreams of meeting her idols, I find myself wishing to meet him again.

Author’s note:

* In case you're wondering why Ayato is sharing a room with Shu and not Laito, many companies assign roommates to idols randomly. The idea is that idols are supposed to get along with everyone, so the arrangement is made to promote harmony and teamwork, regardless of personal preferences.

[gloomyluvr]

TANS AND WHORES (just one and his name's rafe)

in which rafe plans a last minute beach day

fem!reader x rafe cameron

fluff

warnings!: playful whore and slut shaming (between reader and rafe), not a warning but reader is kinda suggested to have darker skin than rafe

a/n: may the ancestors forgive me for writing about a white man who'd probably call me a beaner if he was real 😓🙏. it's so hard to write any petnames in english cuz it's not what the language i use for petnames typically. but i have to compromise and have reader call rafe something silly or simply just rafe ���� pls lmk of any spelling errors tysm!

beach days with the pogues were definitely one of your favorite past times. no doubt about it. there was just something so intimate about spending the whole day together by the ocean without a single care in the world other than partying, surfing and being inebriated. 

but you loved beach days with rafe cameron just a bit more. especially when rafe was the one who planned them.

it was only 10am when the buzzing of your phone from under your pillow had awoken you. you groaned, annoyed that someone had disrupted your beauty sleep. without even looking at the contact , you answered the call. 

“what.” you made no effort to hide your annoyance. 

“hey baby, you just waking up?” 

quickly, you sat up. your sour mood instantly turns sweet at the sound of your boyfriend's voice. “hey sexy, yeah sorry i slept real late last night. what’s up?”

rafe chuckled at the switch up, “the uv’s at 9 and supposed to reach 11 so, i thought we should go to the beach. it’d be perfect for you to try that oil.”

“aww you remembered! you’re such a cutie patootie, awww!” you teased.

“yeah yeah, whatever. anyways, i have our bag packed. i want you ready by 10:30. i’m about to leave tannyhill.”

you pulled your phone away to check the time and gasped. “rafe it’s already 10:16! that’s not enough time to get ready!” 

“yes it is, you don’t needa put on makeup or do your hair. just throw on a fucking bikini,” he demanded, “i already packed some extra clothes in the bag just in case we go somewhere after.”

you groaned into the phone dramatically, letting your frustration be known. but rafe stayed unbothered, already used to your bratty attitude.

“10:30.” he restated before hanging up.

at the beach, rafe set up your spot with your towels, umbrella, and chairs all while you stood next to him serving looks. once everything was set, you kneeled on your towel while digging into the bag rafe had messily packed, desperately searching for your tanning oil as rafe sat on the towels behind you, putting on sunscreen as you had advised him the u.v. rays were far too intense for his sensitive pale skin to handle.

“baby can you get my back please.” 

you looked back at rafe only to find his bare back facing you, “put on a shirt whore!” 

“you’re literally wearing the skimpiest bikini ever, slut!” rafe called back, used to your usual antics. 

you gasped, “i’m gonna let you burn until your skin flakes off.” you threatened, smacking the blonde’s back causing him to grunt.

“do it then.” he challenged, knowing you would never let him suffer such pain. responding in a sigh you stayed quiet as you gave in and covered his freckled back with spf. “how come you can practically be naked while i can’t even take my shirt off.” 

“because,” you massaged the sunscreen into rafe’s tense muscles, “i’m super hot and sexy and i have an even hotter and sexier, jacked, six foot something boyfriend who can fight. unfortunately for him, my manicures matter to me too much to wanna ruin them. that and i can't fight for shit. okayyy my turnnn!”

you quickly handed rafe the expensive ass tanning oil you begged him for. according to you, it worked wayyy quicker than the typical drugstore oils that had barely even tinted your naturally tan skin plus it even had skin benefits or some bullshit.

 rafe only hummed, before switching places with you. he poured the greasy oil into his hands, rubbing them together. he scoffed, not believing he had spent nearly 100 dollars on the oil. not that it had hurt his wallet or anything, he just didn’t understand what the big deal was. regardless he bought it for you just to see the smile he loved so dearly.

large hands began messily roaming your back. rafe made sure to get every nook and cranny of your back, partly because he wanted to protect you from the sun, but mostly because he would take whatever chance he could to touch you. 

“want me to help you with your front too?” rafe asked ever so kindly, but you looked back at him to see him with the biggest smirk on his face that immediately let you know this generous offer was nowhere as innocent as it seems. he raised his eyebrows, eager for a response.

“fine, but don’t be nasty.” you turned back around, patiently waiting for rafe as you watched the waves crash.

“yea yea, whatever you want.” rafe muttered. you didn’t have to see your boyfriend to know that he had the biggest smile on his face, with no intention of staying true to his word.

bonus a/n: originally, this was supposed to be a bit longer, i was gonna write them in the water just bullying each other but then it became really suggestive and like i scrapped it.

i write to have a lil rafe cameron fluff in the sea of smuts and angst 😓 and yet here i was, close to unintentionally writing smut !!! beyondddd ashamed of myself. but no hate to smut writers, i love u freaks 🙂‍↕️

[its-weeping]

⤷ 𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖. | gojo satoru .ᐟ

content. ⋆. 𐙚 ̊ fluff, mentions of the itadori trio, soft!gojo, fem!reader, pet names, established relationship

✶ there's a faint chant of whispers all around you, and despite all the stares too, you're scoffing and rolling your eyes. satoru turns to you, face tilted in a tone of question. you pretend not to notice and continue walking, hand gripping his tighter.

he hums with furrowed brows, but the next moment he's scanning the mass of people around you and clicking his tongue at the sight.

"what do you think they're whispering about?"

your boyfriend's voice makes you jump a little, causing you to stagger over a phantom bump on the ground. you spare him a glance—even in your irked mood.

"you probably."

satoru offers a whistle at your response, "i'm flattered you assume that, pretty."

judging by the way he tugs your entwined hands closer to his side, he knows your peeved by all the eyes on him. not to mention the constant whispering as you pass.

"i'm annoyed you think it's an assumption." you mimic a laugh.

your boyfriend doesn't seem to appreciate the sourness in your voice and quickly takes a detour. you call out his name, asking where he was taking you.

"we're gonna be late, 'toru. itadori, nobara, and megumi are already there." satoru only hums—albeit distracted.

he stops just as you enter an alley and before you could get a word in he speaks.

"you don't have to be jealous, you know that right?"

now you're confused, a little flustered even.

"what are you talking about?" the words feel unsure as they leave your mouth. satoru stares you down through his blindfold and you shift under his gaze; you're nervous all of a sudden.

"i'm all yours, baby," your boyfriend affirms, "you don't have to worry your pretty little head over a few people staring." and you realize he's long dropped your hand, instead he's got a hand on your waist and the other cupping your cheek.

"it wasn't just a few people," you mumble out, "but– yeah, i know. it's just a little disheartening having so many people gawk and gossip about your boyfriend when your right there."

he laughs, "you've got a point." and he pouts, "i don't understand how people can overlook such a beautiful, amazingly gorgeous, and sexy woman like you."

you laugh and lightly smack satoru's arm, he only retaliates with a grin and a squeeze of your waist.

it's then that he's pulling you flush against him, "i love you, pretty girl. don't ever forget that." his words make you sag into him more, at this point very content in your boyfriend's hold.

when satoru taps your cheek, you take a peek at him, only to feel the weight of his lips on yours. the shock quickly fades, and soon you're kissing your boyfriend back. his grip on your waist tightens, pulling you so impossibly close that you could vaguely feel how fast his heart was beating as he kissed you.

yeah, you really don't have to worry about losing him.

and then he moves his hand from your cheek to the back of your head to tilt it up more so he could deepen the kiss. it's so full of passion—as if satoru is pouring all his love and affection for you into how his lips slid against yours, how he made sure his hold kept you safe and grounded, how he was so reluctant to withdraw.

you're both heaving as you pull away, eyes wide and lips just a little swollen. satoru smiles—a soft one this time, not the usual coy, flirty ones he flashes you.

"uhm, 'toru..." you start, "we should be going now. the kids are probably wondering where we are."

he shrugs, completely detaching from you in favor of intertwining your hands together once more as he guides you out of the alley, "i'm sure megumi is keeping things under control."

"right, but it's still part of our job to be there." you scold gently.

satoru nods along to your words, "guess you're right, pretty. but we should get some sweets while we're at it too!"

he picks up his pace, leading you to the many stalls and shops lined up ahead. you shake your head at his antics, scanning your surroundings on instinct; people are still staring, gaping at your boyfriend, but it's not a bother to you anymore.

[luvvyouforever]

omg loved the emily breeding, can you do a emily x pregnant reader and she’s like feral

the solution - emily prentiss x pregnant!reader

synopsis: your baby is being stubborn. emily knows just the trick. content: nsfw mdni 18+, smut, pregnancy sex, strap penetration, mentions of pregnancy labor, some insecurities, fingering + oral author's note: came up with this idea then thought of your request! enjoy <3

nine months ago, you were sure that you had never been happier than when your pregnancy test came up positive and you got to surprise emily with the news. you had been trying for a long time, the ivf process being fickle, but once it happened, the apartment was a flurry of crib building, name choosing, and baby proofing.

now, nine months later, you want nothing more than to be done with pregnancy. you were overdue by an entire week and it was miserable. you felt big, you waddled like a penguin, and everything hurt all the time. but nothing was working. you tried spicy food, walking up and down the curb, yoga, nothing.

emily knew you were struggling. you could see it in the way her face developed the smallest pout when you groaned getting off the couch or winced at another false contraction. she had took some research into her own hands, finding strategies that weren't so common. it even included a call to jj who had informed emily how she induced her own labor.

emily balked at the news, but her shock was quickly replaced with excitement as she thought this could really work. having been on parental leave for a few days now, she was able to spend late nights with you again. all she had to do was convince you, and you could never really say no to her.

your day had been another day full of unsuccessful labor inductions. you had dates delivered to the apartment and ate those with nothing. you made the teas that people online raved about with nothing. when another round of labor yoga videos on youtube didn't work, it became too much.

emily heard sniffles on the couch from where she was in the kitchen cooking dinner. it was then followed by a sob and she took the food off of the heat and ran over to where you were sitting.

"pretty girl," she cooed. her hands cupped your cheeks, thumbs wiping away the tears that had started to fall from your eyes. "what's going on?"

her voice did little to soothe you. if anything, her comforting presence only brought on more tears. you took a deep breath, trying to calm the sobs racking your body. "nothing is working," you said shakily. "i don't want to have to get them to induce my labor. i wanted to do it. it's my job."

emily tsked and sat next to you on the couch. gently, she tugged your body close to hers and ran her hands along the expanse of your back. she thought about her next words carefully, then tilted your chin up to meet her eyes. "i have another idea that we haven't tried yet, baby."

your ears perked up, but you worked hard not to get your hopes up. you sniffled and asked, "yeah?"

emily shuffled so her body faced yours completely. "we don't have to do it if you don't want to. but jj said it worked for her when henry was being stubborn." you nodded, encouraging her to continue. "sex is supposed to be on the best methods of labor induction."

her cheeks flared a little bit at her bluntness and yours did too. you had read about it, truthfully, but you didn't think emily would want to, or that it would even be comfortable in the first place. in fact, since your bump had gotten a little too big to get off the bed easily, you and emily hadn't done much of anything.

"i...are you sure? i haven't been able to shave in a while and i've got bad cellulite and i probably need another bath-"

emily hushed you immediately. "are you kidding, baby?" she asked, as if your words attacked her personally. she moved in closer to you, one hand resting on your bump, the other caging you in to the couch. "you have never looked more beautiful than you do right now, carrying my baby, all glowing and gorgeous."

your cheeks flared intensely and despite your previous statements, your thighs rubbed together. emily leant down more, placing a tender kiss on your lips. when she pulled away, you followed as best you could, seeking more affection.

"let's get you to the bedroom, yeah?" her voice was sultry, dropped down a few octaves. you nodded, biting your lip. her strong arms helped you off the couch to your feet and she led you through the apartment, passed the nursery, and into your bedroom. she eased you down onto the bed, then crawled on top of you, stripping her top as she did so.

your mouth watered at the sight before you. since she had been home all day, emily hadn't been wearing a bra underneath her top. your hands flew to her chest and your eyes met her intense gaze.

emily's knee spread your legs apart and took purchase between them. with the slightest push, you whined, having had no contact in a long time. her lips connected with yours again, this time messier and more passionate. her desire was leaking through every one of her touches.

when she pulled away, her pupils were blown wide, her chest heaving with deep breaths. "you are so beautiful," she said, her words accentuated with another push of her knee. "i didn't think i'd get that possessive seeing your belly full 'cause of me but i am." technically, it was true. she had provided the eggs for the pregnancy.

you moaned at her words, feeling hot and needy under gaze and touch. "'m all yours, emily," you whispered, hands still groping at her chest. she smiled and pulled you forward, whisking off your top.

her hands flew to your bump and breasts, rubbing and squeezing with nothing but adoration in her eyes. her lips met your jaw, then your neck, planting open mouthed kisses on your delicate skin. slowly, she moved down to your chest where her lips and teeth gently dragged along your hypersensitive body. you gasped when her lips met your bare bump where she took extra time kissing your stretch marks, something she knew you were insecure about.

then, her fingers hooked into the waistline of your pants and she looked up to your eyes with a silent question. when you nodded, she smiled and lifted your legs, pulling down your pants and underwear with them.

"emily!" you squeaked when your lips suddenly made contact with your sensitive clit. you could feel her smirk against your skin. in seconds, her tongue was diving between your folds, sending the most crude noises echoing around the bedroom. you moaned loudly, head falling back against the pillow.

your entire body felt alight, whether that was because of the pregnancy or because you hadn't had an orgasm in so long, you weren't sure. emily's ministrations felt heavenly, if a little overstimulating. you didn't want her to stop though. her tongue circled your clit in a way that had your hole clenching around nothing.

slowly, emily inserted one of her slender fingers inside of you, curling upwards to your sweet spot that had you whining. "please, em...more," you choked out between moans. her tongue continued its assault as a second finger met your insides, curling up again with the other. a knot that had been building in your tummy threatened to snap and with several long licks up your clit, it broke. "fuck!" you shouted. emily greedily cleaned up everything that seeped out of you, none of which was your water breaking.

you groaned, feeling good, but only slightly disappointed that quite a powerful orgasm didn't work. but emily wasn't ready to stop. before you could speak, she stood up from the bed, slipping off her pants, leaving her in only underwear. you had done this dance many times and once you saw her heading for the dresser, you knew what she was pulling out from the bottom drawer.

in a daze, you watched emily step into her familiar harness then saunter over to you, smirking the whole way. "you thought we were done, sweet girl?" she teased. she lined her body up between your thighs, the dildo teasing your entrance. "baby, everyone knows penetration works the best."

with her teasing words, she slid into you, not requiring lubrication from the way her earlier actions riled you up. her frame bent over yours the most she could, one of her hands holding your hip. the other gripping your hand.

"missed this so much," she whispered, and you knew she was being honest because you missed it too. "been wanting to fill you up again so bad."

she moved her hips forward and backward, the dildo pushing in to you in a way that had you moaning with every thrust. you wouldn't last long, you were sure of it. every drag against your g-spot felt heavenly. emily patiently increased the speed of her thrusts, not wishing to hurt you, but wanting to make you feel good. she was deliberate with every movement, eyeing the way your body responded to her.

"my pretty girl," she cooed at a particularly loud whimper. "been loving seeing you with your pretty bump. walking around with you, everyone knowing your mine." she dipped low, lips hovering above your ear. "so fucking sexy all bred f'me."

it was as if a switch was flipped and her words sent you reeling again. you looked into her eyes, a pleading look begging for more. who was she to deny your pleasure when you needed it most? her thrusts grew deeper and faster, hips snapping against your own. your moans bounced around the walls of the room, egging her on further.

everything came at once. first, it was your legs shaking furiously from the pleasure racking your body. then it was more of emily's filthy words entering your brain, sending you down further into pleasure, and then when her hand moved from your hip to circle your clit, you came with a garbled moan of her name.

a few seconds passed and emily felt more wet than usual. she slowly eased out of you and that was when you felt it. "holy shit," emily whispered, eyeing the mess. "your water broke."

you broke through your orgasmic daze and leaned your head up. "are you serious?" you asked. that was when you felt a strong contraction that caused you to groan. emily sprung into action, first dampening a warm cloth in the bathroom to clean you up. then, she found the clothes that had been laid out for a week and a half, bringing them over to you to help you change. she then put on her own clothes and looked at you with a wide smile.

"go time, sweet girl," she said, planting a sweet kiss on your forehead. she'd have to thank jj later for the recommendation.

[vidavalor]

Oh, wow, I hadn't realized anyone had done the details on the records to this extent-- this is amazing! You've uncovered song titles 😍 I love you fellow crazy people lol. I was actually really excited when I heard that they made up all the artist names and record info for the shop because I knew all of it would be wordplay 😂 but I didn't know we had tracklists, too!

I just had a quick look through all of the ones you have there in addition to the Oslo Revival one and they're all absolutely hidden language keys. It's another etymology puzzle/guide to the cant, like Demon's Guide. I'd have to do some digging on a couple of them but others I get from doing other word metas. It gives some words and topics to focus on and pairs them up in ways that help guide people towards understanding them. The track called: "I'm Lost and I Don't Speak the Language" 😂😂😂 I was wheezing... especially since the music in Maggie's shop is one of the guides full of Clues that can help teach it!

Couple of examples of what I mean:

"It's Raining in My Kitchen" (food as sex; the vavoom convo/rain/The Flood & an, erm, flood)... "A Dog in God's Hot Car" (backwards words/palindromes/flipping syllables; blasphemous innuendo; car/transportation-themed innuendo; animals as metaphorical people; sex-and-death, as that dog gonna eventually die if he's in his god's hot car too long... so, uh, probably a roundabout edging joke as well)... The entire album of 'Sea Songs' & that 'Great White Lies' album that is nothing but fish-themed innuendo 😂... "Have a Watery Nap" ties to Crowley using "have a nap" in Good Omens: Lockdown as euphemistic for having a wank, as the Brits says. If one is having "a watery nap", they're getting off in the shower/bath. Either with or without the aid of a rubber duck.

"Peggy Asked For Her Jumper Back", at first pass-- that's a combination of American/English language differences (sweater vs. jumper), which are in play elsewhere in the story ("packet of crisps"; "Arma-bloody-geddon") and a reference to the wordplay around the name Margaret that's all over the story. I went into some of it as part of the response to Melba over here.

Referencing a jumper and the Peggy of Peggy Sue-- American rock 'n roll-- also makes me think of the jumper that is given to the American Gabriel. It might be drawing some extra attention to that, too. The track's title seems like it's suggesting that we pay attention to Maggie and her sweaters/jumpers-- the daisies and snake birds, etc..-- as they're visual puns.

I agree that the Oslo Revival album is far less humorous and with on your take with it. I realized that you can read it a couple of different ways depending on which of the etymological tracks of the words you take and those ways all fit the story so I'll be back with that asap.

What do you think is happening in the scene when Crowley falls to the ground in pain in Tadfield?! I find your thoughts about Satan and Crowley really interesting and sorry if you've already mentioned it but I think I've gobbled up all your metas on the subject and didn't see it. Thank you 🤗

Hi there! 💕 Thanks for reading & asking. I have an assortment of Christmas cookies to share. *gets the plates* Sugar feels extra necessary for Satan-related Crowley meta...

Let's talk about that 1.06 scene you mentioned where Crowley is dragged to the ground by Satan in Tadfield, what it has to do with a motif throughout both seasons around a thing known as proskynesis, and how all of that is relevant to The Final 15 in S2.

TW: rape (mentions of the non-consensual possession-as-rape allegory).

Note: Themes of bodily autonomy and its relationship to freedom overlap between Good Omens and Terry Pratchett's Discworld and that's the main reason why some of us are still here, not giving up on this rare, A+++ survivor story, despite also wanting to hurl a certain, other person once involved with it into an active volcano. Considering the topic, I felt the need to just mention that at the start.

Sooo... let's talk about what the scene in your ask has to do with a bunch of other ones, including that scene in The Final 15...

Good Omens has a few scenes that are dealing with a thing known as proskynesis. If you're unfamiliar with this, it's a word describing rituals of reverence and worship in royal courts, as formed originally in various parts of the ancient world, like Persia, Greece, and Rome, as well as rituals involving religious worship across many different religions.

Aspects of proskynesis exist into the present in different ways in different cultures. For societies that are monarchies, proskynesis is at the root of rituals regarding how subjects in those societies address royalty. Everything from kissing the ring of high-ranking clergy in some churches to doing the same with some mafia leaders has historical ties to this. Things like bowing and curtsying customs in Victorian England can also be rooted back to proskynesis.

There are also elements of it in everyday manners and customs in societies that you wouldn't think would have any connection in the modern world to things like this. In many democracies, for instance, as in many other countries of the world, the custom of getting down on one knee to propose marriage is actually rooted in proskynesis, even if the partnership is (hopefully) more equal in today's societies.

The Japanese, who have an intricate system of bowing as part of the social expectations of their society, are a great example of how proskynesis elements have evolved to not necessarily be related to royalty or religious worship but also form the roots of manners between people throughout all classes of a society.

The rules of proskynesis in a society or a religious group varied in details a bit between cultures but has always had the same, general, wide gap between different types of actions.

As a general rule, there's a polite head bob of a bow on one end of the spectrum of proskynesis, with different bows then getting progressively lower and more intense, until we're closer to the other, more extreme end of the spectrum. That end involves kneeling at the feet of the king or in worship of a deity. The absolute, opposite end of that spectrum from that polite, head nod/bob of a bow is fully prostrating, which is lying fully on the ground, and what of this is tied to the scene in your ask, as we'll look at here.

The sketch below is a good, simple visual of what I mean:

[User: Arseni on Wikipedia]

What's interesting to note here is that when you look at the above sketch and see different movements in it that are associated with different religions, these things came to those religions by first being associated with the royal court of ancient Persia and then being adopted, in part, into Greece and Rome. What physical worshipping in a religious way looks like to this day was adopted into different religions from how humans were showing deference to other humans as royalty.

One, big debate in Christianity is actually what kind of proskynesis was given to Jesus. The word is found in The New Testament but Jesus is the perfect example of the blurred lines here between venerating a human being and treating one like a god.

There are different levels of proskynesis for religious figures, with saints and the like being ok to venerate but proskynesis involving full worship supposed to remain only for God. What kind of treatment Jesus received or should have received and what he thought about it is a matter of debate. Is he a carpenter or is he a king of kings, right? Is he human or is he supernatural... or is he both?

Crowley and Aziraphale struggle with this, too, but what they wind up doing is not technically proskynesis but it's arguably a lot better. They bear witness to Jesus' suffering and murder. They show him empathy and respect. The scene we see shows them talking about him a bit, as two people might do at any wake or funeral or the like for ages to come.

When it came to royalty, what kind of proskynesis you would perform would be dependent in different courts on your rank and your relationship to the king. You might be expected to grovel with some really low bows if you were of low rank or to have a more modest bow or to kiss the king, if you were of higher rank. The lower ranked people were expected to go lower in their bows and do more work with all of this, in order for even the chance of being recognized by the king or another high-ranked royal.

When Crowley mocks Beez, addressing them formally as Lord Beezlebub, he does a formal bow, complete with the proper foot positioning-- you can see him step into it from how his hips move. He bows almost to the waist, complete with flourishing hand gestures that are showing mock-fealty and deference to the Grand Duke of Hell by sarcastically treating them as if they were a king.

This scene which, as we'll see, is related to the one in your ask, is only one example of a couple of Crowley sassing the fuck out of someone, specifically by using proskynesis. It also adds to the chilling nature of the scene in your ask by having occurred just a matter of moments prior.

Beez lets it pass entirely because they're really only Lord Beezlebub in an attempt to project power enough to try to survive Hell. Their title is more about self-protection than it is about an expectation of deference-- which is something that Crowley also knows and is at the heart of the mockery.

Like Aziraphale, with his respectful bowing to his friend in gratitude for the sushi in 1.01, Crowley has no issue with a polite, non-religious, non-royal version of proskynesis. If worshipping the humans is wrong, Crowley and Aziraphale don't wanna be right. They don't revere individual humans as kings or gods but they do revere humanity itself as a whole in that way. They show polite respect to those sharing that with them or educating them in it.

They also do that with one another. Crowley's soft, polite nod of a bow to Aziraphale when they meet in Eden is gentlemanly. It's respectful but not in a way that isn't just treating Aziraphale as an equal. Nina gets a similar treatment when they meet in S2.

Crowley still does something similar into the modern era with Aziraphale-- note the little nod/bow when Aziraphale accepts his lunch invitation in S1.

This is all very much on the egalitarian end of proskynesis; it's in where it basically formed parts of the foundation of gestures related to having good manners in different societies. It's respect and acknowledgement between people who view and treat one another as equals, as is the case with Crowley and Aziraphale.

Their relationship is one that is built around equality, free choice, and consent. Therefore, when Crowley apologizes in S2 in another scene that is related to the one in your ask by being an intentional, totally opposite contrast to it, Aziraphale can barely contain his laughter at Crowley's mock-submissive dance. The dance, in many ways, is really a satire of proskynesis.

Crowley is doing this "yes, my king" dance for Aziraphale with tongue firmly in cheek. The dance is poking fun at the difference between general submissiveness, which Crowley loathes and likes to mock, and voluntary sexual submission with one another, which different scenes have shown us that they both periodically enjoy as some light fun from time to time.

Aziraphale is desperately trying not to laugh long enough to reply with equal humor in his dry, self-aware, soft dom voice. He can't resist smiling a bit and mimes a kiss at Crowley-- seeing Crowley's droll mocking of proskynesis-- which is etymologically linked to words related to kissing and which can involve it in different stages-- and replying by bestowing upon Crowley a kiss.

Aziraphale is intentionally doing something that isn't really the result of proskynesis when in the royal circles that Crowley is referencing with The Apology Dance. The subject is meant to seek the king's favor and would be the one, if ranked high enough to warrant such a relationship with royalty, who would kiss the king-- not the other way around. By miming a kiss at Crowley, Aziraphale is meeting Crowley's mocking of inequitable aspects of proskynesis with some mocking of his own by being miming a kiss at Crowley, who is his equal and partner.

There's also a droll joke in there where the only royal subject of a king who could reasonably have expected a kiss from the king, if maybe not always in a public setting, was the king's queen. So, Crowley's whole mocking Apology Dance has a joking, "yes, my king" vibe to it and Aziraphale's response is to show equal humor towards and affection for the person who is-- in all senses of the word-- his queen.

The end of Crowley's dance is a combination curtsy and what's known as a bow-and-scrape-- the thing from which the phrase "to bow and scrape" comes. The scrape is the movement of the foot behind a person across the floor, done to be able to go lower to the floor on the bow.

To "bow and scrape" was to basically grovel in this really overly demonstrative way for favor with the king, in the hopes that he'd be impressed by your humiliating submission enough to bestow favor upon you. The phrase now refers to doing a large amount of work or groveling to someone in a position in authority, usually with the suggested reward likely not forthcoming.

The second word in the phrase-- scrape-- also contains the word for the thing Crowley has survived at the hands of that fucking monster, Satan, who lives for the demons to bow and scrape for his favor. That's intentional on Crowley's part-- the end of this apology dance is also a visual pun on the word scrape, which contains the word rape, and this while he's doing this mocking dance that is a perfect example of how completely different and very healthy his relationship with Aziraphale is by how he is free to be this hilarious, sassy shit with his partner versus the forced subjugation by his assailant.

You might think that wordplay-- visual or otherwise-- involving the word rape is a bit dark. I won't disagree with that but I just want to briefly show you other examples of it that I've noticed so you can see what they're showing as the rationale for it between Crowley and Aziraphale. It's actually more of an empowering thing when you see other examples of it that are in other scenes.

Crowley and Aziraphale's cant vocabulary-- their invented hidden language-- uses a lot of words-within-words, just like how rape lives within scrape. If you consider that, you might also notice a couple of foods that recur in Good Omens that also are related to this. In Crowley and Aziraphale's language and in their life together, food is food but food is also figurative language for sex. Their healthy relationship and all the food and sex that is part of their life together is their answer to the traumas they've both suffered.

It's sensual, mindful living that focuses on healthier, positive experiences that help them to provide one another with a quality of life that the pain of Heaven and Hell does not. As a result, some frequently mentioned food and drink is held up between them as examples of the loving, enjoyable, pleasurable relationship with one another that they have that stands in contrast to Heaven and, especially, Hell.

Crowley enjoys wine, right? Which is made from? Grapes, as Aziraphale orders in 1601...

The opposite of the rape-related issues that Aziraphale unintentionally triggered in Crowley in 1793, for example, is what he then offers him for lunch-- both figurative and euphemistic crepes.

Not coincidentally, that's also what Aziraphale suggested the day after Crowley was assaulted by Satan on the night Armageddon began-- the crepes of Paris, 1793-- and Crowley, as we could see, was all for it:

Another covert reference to this is Aziraphale's magic trick of changing a turnip into an inkwell. It's a metaphor on a couple of different levels but one of them is that the word rape overlaps with a type of plant that is also called that and is the category name for a group of plants and vegetables, the most famous of which is the turnip.

Turnips are also a pretty clever food metaphor for rape. They have been in existence for forever and are, horrifyingly, really common, but no one-- no one lol-- has ever really wanted to eat a turnip. They're not a terribly appealing food and I would wager that if you lined up every person on the planet and asked them to name a delicious food no one-- at all-- would say the turnip.

So, adding that into the etymology of the vegetable being tied to the word rape, then turning "the common turnip" into "an inkwell"-- when sea creatures, like octopi, are often sources of ink, and 'well' meaning both healthy and a flowing source of liquid? It's Aziraphale making a magic trick that is a metaphor for him helping Crowley heal from the rape-related inorgasmia referenced subtly in a few, other scenes, and which is the subject of the Fish meta, if you're interested in that.

Anyway, the healthy, humorous, proskynesis-mocking apology dance is one of the scenes that serves as a direct contrast to the scene in your ask where Crowley is forced to the ground by Satan in Tadfield. That scene involves the other, more extreme end of proskynesis, which is number 6 on the sketch near the start of the meta: prostration.

To be clear: how people want to worship in any way, if they do, is no one's business, so long as it's not harming anyone else. There's nothing inherently wrong with any of this if it's of someone's free will. The scene in your ask, though, doesn't involve free choice, it involves forced subjugation, which is from where the horror of it comes.

Prostration involves lying flat and face down on the ground with your arms outstretched. It involves kissing the feet of the king or the ground that you believe belongs to the deity you're worshipping.

Prostration is complete submission. It's basically a rejection of any sense of self in full deference to the king or the deity.

In Hell, all the demons are seen as belonging to Satan. Several of them, like Hastur and Shax, refer to Satan as "our Master." They are all seen as Satan's subjects and his property-- all known as a collective referred to by Hastur in S1 as The Fallen, as we also looked at in relation to Aziraphale being Mr. Fell in this meta.

In Heaven and Hell's view, The Fallen do not belong to themselves but to Satan. Crowley's sense of autonomy and his relationship with Aziraphale are secrets he keeps because of how they conflict with Hell, where he's not supposed to have any other desire but to live to serve his rapist, who believes that he owns him.

All of Crowley's mocking of anything more than a polite nod when it comes to proskynesis is more than just being generally anti-royalty and anti-authority. The root cause of all of it is Satan.

In the scene in Tadfield, Satan is forcing Crowley to first kneel and, then, to prostrate, before him.

When Crowley clutches one hand to his chest and uses his other hand under him to keep himself an inch or two above ground, he's doing so in an effort to resist fully prostrating.

He's trying to keep his hands from being pulled out in front of him and to keep up enough to keep his lips from kissing the ground in forced subjugation to Satan.

This is probably the darkest scene in the show-- even darker, maybe, than 1.01's scene of Satan attacking Crowley in The Bentley-- because this is a whole new level of horror here. Crowley is shaking with the pain of fighting for enough control over himself to keep from prostrating any more than he is being forced to. This is happening with other people present-- including Aziraphale and kids, including Satan's own kid-- with the obvious humiliation factor being part of the attack.

Unlike in 1.01, when Satan took complete control of Crowley to a point that he couldn't speak, he's left him that ability in this scene, getting off on hearing Crowley protest. This scene shocks because the 1.01 scene of Satan attacking Crowley, and subsequent scenes reinforcing the non-consensual possession-as-rape allegory throughout the story, lead the viewer to believe that this is how it will always be referred to in the story. It lulls us into a sense of complacency where we think we know what the show will do, which has the desired effect of making this scene, in which they shift that tone pretty dramatically, all the more impactful and terrifying.

Furthering the allegorical here is that Crowley is outmatched, power-wise, for the most part, but is putting up a fight. He's moved by an assailant against his will, quite violently. He's dragged to his knees and then pushed forward to the ground. He's in pain and distressed, he's lost control of his body, his legs end up splayed, he pulls in on himself as much as he can, and he's repeatedly saying the word no. I think it might be pretty much impossible to make a scene full of more direct correlations to rape than this scene. They're doing so to really underline this survivor story with Crowley that is running through so many of the other scenes.

Crowley grabs his right leg when he is forced down to the tarmac, presumably because that's the side that is being forced to move by Satan to drag Crowley to his knees. It's possible, though, that this might be also be an allusion to the aftermath of 1827.

When we saw Crowley in 1862 in the scene that functions as him still trying to deal with what happened in 1827, Crowley was carrying that cane that many think was more than a fashion statement. Something that could cause Crowley periodic pain, while also still allowing for other scenes in which he pretty clearly isn't in any pain, is the possibility that, in the 1827 aftermath, Satan broke one or both of Crowley's legs.

As any of us who have ever broken a part of our human corporations know, they can often be painful long after they heal and frequently subject to weather and stress. It's possible that Crowley had recurring pain for decades and might still into today. This is all speculative but why else might this idea also fit?

Possibly just because there are so many scenes in Good Omens that are nothing but Crowley just walking freely or hopping, owning his human body by sauntering around on the legs that are often symbolic of his life as a human of Earth, as he very notably doesn't have them in snake form... and his snake form is something that he associates negatively with his fall and Hell.

Crowley's walk at any given time is related to his sense of empowerment and, sweetly, there are also a bunch of scenes of Aziraphale just gazing at Crowley as he walks around. Including, darkly, the one that was happening when Crowley was dragged to Hell in 1827:

The scene related to this that I like best, though, is when Crowley and Aziraphale both get one over on Satan and The Metatron by successfully hiding Gabriel in S2. They grin at one another as Crowley hops down from the chair, fully in his body, landing gracefully and happily on the legs that, whether once broken or not, we have seen in 1.06 ripped out from under him by Satan before.

Hell also has some Godfather-referencing, mafia-like nods in different scenes in the series and breaking someone's legs is kind of classic mob stuff but, really, I think it's more tied to the whole forced subservience snake thing. Crowley, telling Aziraphale that he'd changed his name to one we learn in S2's Job minisode is associated for Crowley with freedom, autonomy, choice, and Aziraphale...

...from one that is "a bit too squirming-at-your-feet-ish" to Crowley. It's a comment made more horrifying when 1.06's scene in Tadfield makes it clear that this isn't just a metaphor here-- Crowley's unwillingness to be Crawly and his discomfort with being a snake makes even more sense once we have this scene in Tadfield that sees Satan knock his human legs out from under him and force him into literally squirming like a snake at his feet.

No wonder why Snake!Crowley has a tendency to prefer roaring like a lion when transforming into a snake-like monster, like he did in the paintball scene...

Crowley and Aziraphale working to reframe and claim The Serpent from Crowley's negative associations with being a snake is something I talked about in the other meta I posted recently, should you also be interested in that.

The other thing of note when it comes to this scene of Satan trying to force Crowley to fully prostrate is then the fact that, while we've looked at the horror that Crowley is experiencing here, there are some other scenes that are subtly referencing positive life experiences that can be associated with this same type of position, if the situation is consensual and of someone's free choice.

They're also the exact types of things that can be complicated by having been assaulted. Lying face down are obviously both common sexual and sleep positions, for instance...

In S1, one of the scenes that got cut was supposed to be Crowley waking up from a nap in his flat. The script book says it was supposed to be that Crowley was sleeping on the ceiling in his bedroom, which also looks to be how they were filming it from the picture of it that exists. DT filmed it standing up, presumably so that they could flip the shot around and make it look like Crowley was sleeping on the ceiling. In addition to the heat-seeking snake aspect of this, there's some interesting psychology that may be at work here.

Crowley's flat in S1 was not owned by Crowley-- Hell owned it, as we can see even more in S2-- and he was not technically safe in it. Hell isn't great with boundaries and, although Crowley had structured the flat to make it so that he might have some warning if someone were to come through the front door, there was no guarantee that they would do that. Crowley sleeping on the ceiling in the bedroom in his flat might suggest that he did so, at least in part, to try to have an advantage over someone who might show up in his flat.

It might suggest that Crowley likes to sleep on his stomach but he felt too vulnerable to do that in the bed in his flat so the only way he could make that happen there was to sleep on the ceiling, where his position would potentially be a bit more advantageous. Where Crowley likely does not have that issue is in the bookshop, as he's much safer there.

In another area of life? After 1.06 showing where the proskynesis theme was leading in that season, this scene below is then retroactively given another layer:

As looked at before, Aziraphale's hand gestures here are actually massage movements. His dialogue is also full of massage-related puns-- need/knead, back, practice. Probably also not coincidentally? In addition to just being fun and relaxing, massage is also often suggested by therapists working with couples where one or more partners has been assaulted, as it can be therapeutic on a variety of levels. The scene is suggestive of Crowley being comfortable with a variety of different kinds of pleasurable prostrate positions with Aziraphale, which stands in obvious direct contrast to the horrors of Satan.

So, here's where we're going to end this by talking about some mirroring to the scene in your ask with The Final 15, especially through using etymology. The word proskynesis comes from the Greek and is a combination of pros (meaning: towards, in this case) and kyneo (meaning: kiss). Some translations of it actually wind up being less "towards the kiss" more along the lines of "to kiss in the presence of."

Yeah... There's a word in the mix in this story that means "to kiss in the presence of" and that feels pretty relevant to the last few minutes of the most recent episode we've seen, no? 😂

In the S1 finale, the season's recurring moments of proskynesis lead towards the Tadfield scene, in which we watch Crowley wind up forcibly prostrated before Satan and resisting a kiss with everything he's got. While he'd do that anyway, what's the biggest reason as to why he was in that moment? Aziraphale, right?

It's because Aziraphale is right there and this is all already more than horrible enough. Crowley does everything in his power to retain enough control to resist this kiss because he is absolutely not kissing the Earth Satan claims is his, in forced deference to him, with Aziraphale watching.

Poor Aziraphale can't do anything about this in the moment that it's happening. He can't go to Crowley without giving away that he's Crowley's partner. They've been terrified for a long time that Satan would kill Crowley if he found out about them and, based on what we've seen of how violent and dangerous Satan is, it doesn't seem like that fear is at all unfounded.

By S2, Crowley and Aziraphale are becoming a bit less of a secret but the people who they are letting in are ones they feel are trustworthy. None of them have any affiliation with Hell or Satan. The one person around them each a bit that does have affiliation with him-- Shax-- is the one they're both still attempting to fool.

The S2 mirror of the proskynesis/"kiss in the presence of" moment from 1.06 of Satan attacking Crowley in Tadfield and Crowley resisting the kiss in front of Aziraphale involves these same three characters again... but some aspects of it are-- as they would be with a mirror-- shifted around a little.

In 2.06, it's Crowley with a kiss again-- but, this time, it's Aziraphale that he's kissing. Instead of being the person who is watching the kiss be resisted, Aziraphale is the recipient of a kiss that Crowley is actually willing to give.

Aziraphale, like Crowley in 1.06, is mostly resisting the kiss. While Crowley pushed to resist it entirely in S1 for obvious reasons, Aziraphale isn't put off by the idea of kissing Crowley in general but, in S2, is resisting it as much as he's able to do so.

Why?

Because Aziraphale knows with almost complete certainty that it's Satan watching them through the window.

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: sawfish

It's the first Wet Beast Wednesday of 2025 (yeah I missed last week, sue me) and I'm going to cover a fish I once saw. That's right, I saw a fish. A sawfish if you will. These besnouted beasts were once common worldwide, but now their range had shrunk considerably, leaving their future in question.

(Image: a largetooth sawfish, Pristis pristis, seen from above. It is a flattened, shark-shaped fish with light brown skin. From the front of the body extends a long, slat snout with teeth emerging from the sides. The snout is about a third the length of the body. The mouth and gills are not visible. End ID)

Sawfish are also called carpenter sharks, but they aren't sharks. Despite looking sharky enough, they're actually rays and are closely related to other not very ray-like rays like guitarfish and banjo rays. I don't know why they're so musical. Sawfish should also not be mistaken for the visually similar sawsharks of order Pristiophoriformes, which actually are sharks. There are five living species of sawfish in the family Pristidae: four species in the genus Pristis and one in the genus Anoxypristus. Sawfish look like sharks with flattened underbellies, but their mouths and gill slits being on the underside identified them as rays. The sawfish and their relatives may represent an ancestral form to most modern rays which are much flatter and more compact. What gives sawfish their names are the long, flat, and broad rostrums that extend from the front of their heads and are lined with teeth on either side, giving them a resemblance to carpentry saws. Sawfish are very large fish, with some being able to up to 7.5 meters (25 ft) long and 600 kg (1,323 lbs).

(Image: a smalltooth sawfish, Pristis pectinata, seen from the side. It looks very similar to the largetooth sawfish, but with smaller teeth on the saw. The flatness of the belly is clearly visible form this angle. The underside is white.)

The saw is an extension of the skull and the teeth that line the sides are heavily modified dermal denticles, the teeth like scales that sharks, skates, and rays have. The saws and teeth grow longer through the animal's life and lost teeth are not replaced, but do leave a socket, allowing an accurate count to be made. The saws are not perfectly symmetrical and one side will usually have 1-3 more teeth than the other. The two genera of the sawfish can be differentiated by their rostral teeth. The Pristis species have saws that have rounded teeth going down the entire length while Anoxypristis cuspidata, the narrow sawfish, has flattened teeth and the 1/4th of the saw closest to the head is toothless. A sawfish's saw usually makes up 1/4 to 1/3rd of their total length. Each species has slight differences with the structure of their saws, allowing for identification. The saw and head are covered in electroreceptive organs called ampullae of Lorenzini that detect the electrical fields emitted by animals as they move. This grants the sawfish extensive ability to examine their environments through their saws, which is highly useful for hunting and threat detection, especially in water with low visibility.

(image: somebody holding a juvenile sawfish so the saw pokes out of the water. The saw is the focus of the picture, making its shape and the rostral teeth clearly visible. End ID)

Unlike your average ray, sawfish have multiple distinct fins much more like a shark, lacking only the anal fin. Again, the ancestral ray was probably something like a sawfish or guitarfish. Some of its descendants would have retained its body plan while other became typical rays. Like other elasmobranchs, sawfish (except for the narrow sawfish) have dermal denticles for scales and lack a swim bladder, instead using a very fatty liver for buoyancy control. Like most rays, they do not use their mouths for respiration, instead drawing water into the oral cavity through spiracles located near the base of the saw. These spiracles allow the animal to continue to pass water through the gills even when the mouth is flat to the ground. The nostrils, gill slits, and mouth are located on the underside as well. The mouth has proper teeth, which are blunted and set in multiple rows that have been described at looking like a cobblestone road. These blunt teeth aid in crushing the shells of hard prey. As with many other elasmobranchs, the small intestine has a corkscrew-shaped structure called the spiral valve that increases the surface area, allowing for increased nutrient absorption.

(Image: a sawfishs head seen from below. The mouth is wide and roughly rectangular in shape, with rows of pebble-like teeth visible. Above the mouth are a pair of nostrils. End ID)

Sawfish were historically found in shallow, coastal waters in subtropical and tropical water worldwide, but their native range has been radically reduced. While primarily marine, they can tolerate brackish and even fresh water. The largetooth sawfish, Pristis pristis, is especially attuned to fresh water. They live in rivers and lakes for the first several years of their lives and have been found thousands of kilometers inland. Despite sailor's tales of sawfish cutting open the bellies of whales to feed on their entrails, the fish actually feed on small fish and invertebrates. The saw is used for both finding and obtaining food. By using smell and the electroreceptors covering the saw, the sawfish can seek out animals on or buried in the sediment. It uses the saw to strike prey animals, stunning or killing them. They are also known to pin prey down with the saw, something they also do to maneuver food into a more swallowable position. Sawfish may also use their saws to dig buried prey out by sweeping away layers of sediment. They prefer to live in places with soft sediment, though will also inhabit coral reefs.

(Image: a narrow sawfish, Anoxypristis cuspidata, being beasured. It looks like the other species, but its dorsal and tail fins are a much darker brown than the rest of its skin. The saw only has teeth on the last 2/3rds and the teeth are flatter and more triangular. End ID)

Like other elasmobranchs, sawfish reproduce internally. Males are believed to use their electroreceptors to locate mature females. The male bites onto the female's pectoral fin and inserts one of two penis-like claspers into her cloaca. Sperm runs down a groove in the clasper. Females are often left with scars from the male's teeth and saw. The smalltooth sawfish, Pristis pectinata, is capable of parthenogenesis, producing offspring without a mate, and other species may also be capable of doing this. This allows females to reproduce even if they cannot access a male, but means all offspring will be female and genetically extremely similar to the mother. Sawfish are ovoviviparous, meaning they retain their eggs, which hatch internally, and give live birth. The fetal offspring are nourished with a yolk sac before being born. The saw is soft in fetu, hardening shortly before birth, and is covered with a coating to protect the mother which falls off after birth. Gestation takes months Juveniles are born in litters numbering between 1 and 20. Newborns can be up to a meter long. Females appear to mate between once a year and once every two years and mothers will sometimes return to their place of birth to give birth. Pupping grounds are always in shallow coastal or estuarine waters. Sawfish mature slowly. The narrow sawfish reaches sevual maturity after 4.5 years and the Pristis sawfish between 14 and 17 years. Their maximum lifespan is unknown, but Pristis individuals in captivity have lived for decades, leading to an estimated lifespan of 30 to 50 years. The narrow sawfish lives for around 9 years.

(Image: a photo from the first human-assisted birth of a wild sawfish. The mother is on her back and a juvenile sawfish is almost completely emerged from her cloaca, with only the tail fin still inside. The hand of a scientist is touching the baby, helping it emerge. End ID. Source)

(image: a newborn sawfish being held in a human hand underwater, from the same incident as the above photo. The newborn looks like a miniature adult and has a soft covering over its saw that makes the teeth harder to see. It is small enough to be partially clenched in a hand. End ID)

All species of sawfish are classified as critically endangered by the IUCN and they are considered some of the most threatened groups of fish. While sawfish were formerly found along the coasts of 90 countries, their nange has reduced considerably so the only strongholds where they are abundant and have a genetically viable population are now found in northern Australia and Florida. The main threats to sawfish are hunting and habitat loss. Sawfish are hunted for their fins, saws, and meat. Despite not being sharks, their fins are highly values for shark fin soup. Sawfish body parts are used in traditional medicine in multiple cultures, though the greatest demand comes from China. There is no evidence backing up the effectiveness of any of these traditional medicines. The saws have historically been used as weapons, combs, and for various symbolic purposes and poaching of sawfish for their saws is another major threat to their survival. The saws are easily tangled in nets, making sawfish easy to catch and difficult to release. Because a thrashing sawfish can seriously wound someone, many anglers will either kill the fish or cut off the saw if they accidentally catch one. Habitat loss is another large threat, as pollution and destruction of seagrass beds and mangroves for urban developments deprives them of the habitat they need to hunt and breed. Because sawfish mature so slowly, it takes a long time foe populations to recover. Legal measures (including making international trade of sawfish parts illegal) and public outreach via scientists and aquariums aim to help protect the remaining populations. Unfortunately, captive breeding has proven unreliable as it is only recently that sawfish have been successfully bred in aquariums.

(Image: a decorative sword made from a sawfish saw. The saw is dried and a deep brown. It is attached to a curving crossguard and a long hilt with fluffy decorations. It is being stored in a museum display. End ID)

[themayorautumn]

i have never written fanfiction in my entire life.

"work is the one redeeming thing that gives them purpose."

fuck me. here's something. i had to get it out of my system. i think about them. a lot.

“He was wearing a green coat, not blue.”

A dark haired man sits in a worn out office chair, face illuminated by a flickering desk lamp. His shirt is half unbuttoned, tie hanging loosely on his neck, begging to be taken off. He fidgets with the knot absent mindedly, as if it brings him some sort of comfort. Maybe he can't bear the thought of it being taken off, the last facade of performative professionalism.

His partner is pacing around the desk he’s sitting in front of, slicking his hair back constantly. It’s obvious that it’s a habit that has stuck around with him from his youth, back when his hair was fuller and eyes were brighter, and a small wink paired with a slight smile would be enough to end his night with a pretty chick in his bed. Tonight, there is no chick, and there is no bed. There is the sound of pen on paper as the man sitting by the desk crosses something off a list. Every single word on it is utterly illegible.

“Blue or green,” the man walking takes a break to light a cigarette. “It was a winter coat, puffy, expensive, you don't see that shit often around these parts. The color is a distraction, Vicquemare.”

“Yet she insisted it was sage green, didn't she? Who the fuck says that? She wouldn't have been so insistent if the color didn't matter, somehow.”

“She’s a wolf, that’s why. It’s a con. She knew what she was doing.”

“Alright,” the dark haired man, Vicquemare, gets up lazily and holds his hand out for the pack of cigarettes. His partner hands it to him. “You’re really speaking out of your ass now, Harry. What the fuck does that mean, ‘she’s a wolf’?”

“Extravagant eye makeup. Crimson red. You been to that bar called ‘Plume du Phénix’? I went there last month with that journalist guy, what's his name-”

“Pierre.”

“Right. Him, he told me it was the perfect place to get some connections. Meet people from the inside, if you catch my drift.”

“Fucking hell. You blew off work to go to a fucking strip club, did you?”

“Didn't blow off work. We went to that stakeout after, don't you remember Vic?”

“Oh yeah. You were complaining about your fucking headache the whole time.”

“Crimson makeup. They wear it there, it’s like their signature look. Blood of their former selves or whatever. Some new age bullshit. They’re dead fucking serious about it though. They don't let you in without it.”

“You wore makeup?”

“Easy now. Don't get too excited.”

Harry walks over to the desk to ash his cigarette, but doesn't get back to his pacing. He stands next to Vicquemare, staring at the ground, lost in thought.

“I did. Pierre made me wear it. They’re fucking wild in there, man. You wouldn't believe it.”

“Why didn't you invite me?”

“Are you jealous?”

“We’re partners. If you’re going somewhere to ‘get connections’, feel like I should be involved.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time. It really is a shame. You would look good in crimson.”

Vicquemare looks away from him for just a second, not enough to mean anything tangible, but enough for Harry to crack a slight smile. He puts a hand on his shoulder and keeps it there as he continues.

“They have this thing against authority of any kind. They preach ‘anarchy’ or their performative version of it, which is where they get together in back alley bars and drink until they don't remember what they're there for. Then they wake up and do it all over again. Fucking idiots, the lot of them.”

“And this is good for connections, how?”

“They're stupid but they're bonded together like a pack of wild wolves. They know everyone in the pack and protect each other like they're blood bound. Probably are too, the freaks.”

“So she was protecting the guy? Cause she knew the coat was actually blue, but saying sage green specifically would make it seem like it would be impossible for it to be any other color?”

“Look at my boy, learning so fast under my coaching. Exactly, Vic. She’s misleading us.”

Vicquemare tugs on the knot of his tie even more insistently, as if an internal fight is going on in his head about whether or not keeping that piece of cloth there is as important as he seems to think it is. Instead of coming to a conclusion, he lights another cigarette and looks back over to the list.

“Wish we talked with her sooner, then. This fucks over our entire theory now, doesn't it? We gotta start from fucking stratch. Find that blue-sage green coat guy. Whatever his name was.”

“We can find him. We can find him, tomorrow.”

Harry reaches for a drawer in the desk and takes out a dark red bottle. He grins and holds it out for Vicquemare to read the label.

“Aged merlot. Been saving it for a special occasion.”

“Oh yeah? What’s the occasion tonight?”

“You do not give me enough credit, Jean-y boy. You do not think I am a man of class, a superior officer who cares for his lieutenant.”

He takes out two glasses from the same drawer and pours two very generous servings.

“Happy birthday, Vicquemare. Here’s to us surviving another year in this fucking shithole.”

Jean looks at his glass wordlessly, his hand still on his tie. He’s stopped fidgeting with it now, as if he’s reached a conclusion but is too afraid, or too cautious to act on it. He smiles. It looks strange on his face, laborious, but genuine. It reaches his eyes and accentuates the wrinkles around them, too many for a man celebrating his thirtieth birthday.

“Thank you, shitkid.”

And it’s clear he means it.

They drink one glass, then one more, then Harry procures another bottle of whiskey this time, which they also finish, and as Vicquemare digs in his jacket pocket for that pack of Astra Reds he’s sure he bought earlier that day, Harry bursts out laughing.

“To think it would ever come to this, huh, Jean? Is this how you imagined entering your thirties?”

Jean finally finds the treasure he’s been looking for and takes a long drag of the cigarette. The ashtray is overflowing, which seems to bother neither of them as cigarette butts litter the desk and the floor. He stumbles over to Harry and smiles, a larger grin than the one before, but it doesn't reach his eyes. They look sad, desperate, and appropriately gray, as if any semblance of color on them would be a disservice to the way they look at the world. Harry sees himself in them, not sure if he’s imagining it or not, and not caring. It’s hard to care, when it’s the only time his reflection doesn't terrify him to death.

Jean takes Harry’s hand and puts it on his tie, curling his fingers around it and tugging on it gently. Harry knows what it means. He’s seen him do it time and time again, always in a different context, but always with the same intention. ‘You take the first step, Harry. You make me believe that you want me, you allow me to pretend.’. It’s his role, he knows it, and he unties the tie.

“I didn't imagine anything. I couldn't imagine anything. What is there to imagine? What is there to fucking want?”

It’s a question that doesn't have an answer. It doesn't have an answer that can be spoken out loud. It doesn't have an answer that can be given without empty bottles clanging around on the desk, without the assurance of their blurred memories, without their hands trembling as they reach for each other, something to hold onto as if nothing else in the world matters. They have to keep moving, they have to keep reassuring each other that they still have this one thing. That the taste of smoke on each other's lips, the crumpled case files surrounding them, and Harry’s rough fingers on Jean’s disheveled hair are enough to make them forget the emptiness that they both feel.

At the end of the day, they don't have anything else.

[brucebocchi]

Ranking 2024 anime, Pt. 5: #10-1

hey, this post is also available on my ko-fi, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i do this for free and am currently between jobs. you can find part 1 of the list here, part 2 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here. all of my seasonal reviews are on my ko-fi and under my anime reviews tag, mixed in with my occasional musings. thanks!

And we are in the home stretch! I didn't want to split up my top 10 like last year, so it took a couple days to get it all together. Thanks for your patience.

​As you may have noticed, some of these reviews are longer than others. I've reviewed most of these shows before, so I didn't want to be too redundant while talking about shows I've already reviewed. You can, of course, go back and read my initial reviews in my previous seasonal roundups.

Also, I just wanted to quickly shout out a few shows that I haven't watched much or any of, but would likely have placed well in these rankings, namely Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction, YATAGARASU, the Spice and Wolf remake, Orb: On the Movements of Earth, Sound! Euphonium's third season, and the late Akira Toriyama's SAND LAND and Dragon Ball DAIMA. I only have so much time in a day, week, month, and year, but those series have been on my radar and I do intend to pick them up sooner or later.

But for now, let's focus on what I did watch. Off we go:

10. Blue Box

This is a slightly biased placement on my end because I picked up the manga this year and quickly fell in love with it, and I’m just happy that it got a faithful, well-made anime adaptation. If you have an issue with that, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: This whole list is biased. It’s MY list, after all.

After an uneven summer output between My Dear Friend Nokotan and Suicide Squad Isekai, WIT Studio is in full form adapting Kouji Miura’s gorgeous high school sports romance. Rising first-year badminton player Taiki has a huge crush on his basketball star senpai Chinatsu, who practices in the same high school gym he does. He’s happy enough to keep a friendly distance as they improve at their respective sports, but that distance is closed significantly when her parents go abroad for work and she ends up moving in under the same roof as him. The spirit of competition is in the air, and is that a whiff of romance I smell as well?

The reason I felt the need to call out my own bias at the start is because Blue Box’s debut cour is, on balance, probably just “pretty good,” but I was just so overjoyed that this anime even exists that I was willing to overlook the early story’s growing pains. Taiki, of course, is the POV character for most of the first cour, and most of the romantic tension we see so far is entirely from his end as he swoons and huffs and goes into cardiac arrest over any and every gesture Chinatsu throws his way. You know, teenage boy stuff. There have been criticisms that Chinatsu doesn’t get much interiority for a bit and that she’s a bit of an enigma in terms of her role in the central “romance,” such that it is so far, which is a valid criticism of a lot of shonen romance stories. I’m generally of the mind that these things are more potent when the object of the protagonist’s affection is treated as more than a puzzle for him to solve, but I think Blue Box does a fine job of establishing what Chinatsu means to Taiki before we do indeed begin to get a feel for how she operates and what she might think of him. If you found that part a little maddening early on, trust me when I say it’s worth sticking it out.

Regardless, the character writing is what made Blue Box such a hit in Weekly Shonen Jump. Taiki is a flat-out good kid, if a little naive, and his boundless determination to achieve and exceed his goals in both badminton and romance makes him easy to root for. Chinatsu is fairly taciturn, as mentioned, but that’s by design; she’s a notoriously difficult person to read, as even her friends and teammates note that they can rarely decipher what she’s thinking. She’s still an effortlessly charming character, and it’s not hard to figure out why Taiki’s got it so bad for her. The real highlight of the series, though, is Taiki’s classmate and longtime friend, Hina, a rhythmic gymnast and an absolute troll. She is an absolute delight in every scene she’s in, whether she’s knocking Taiki’s knees out from under him, focusing on rehearsing her next routine, or prying into Taiki’s love life and realizing that, oops, she really cares about him too. Hina is wonderful and I just want the best for her.

Characters this likable will need the voices to match, and I am over the moon about this show’s casting. Shouya Chiba is tremendous as Taiki, in a far cry from his Epic Based Stoic Chad role as Ayanokoji in Classroom of the Elite. Every line read for Taiki sounds exactly as gung-ho about sports and devastatingly down bad for his crush as you’d expect of a hormonal 15 year old. Reina Ueda is terrific as the soft-spoken Chinatsu, but I’m looking forward to hearing the always-delightful Xanthe Huynh (Haru in Persona 5, Marianne in Fire Emblem Three Houses) take on the role in the dub just as much. Akari Kitou channels much of the same gremlin energy she did for KamiKatsu to portray Hina’s mischief, and I look forward to hearing her nail Hina’s excellent upcoming character moments. And although it’s a secondary role, the casting I was most excited to hear was Chiaki Kobayashi (Mash in Mashle, Stark in Frieren) as Taiki’s teammate Kyo. Kobayashi’s languid tsukkomi affect was exactly what I had in mind whenever Kyo would put Taiki’s lovelorn antics into stark relief in the manga. It’s like he was born for the part.

This show looks tremendous, perfectly adapting both the soft, doe-eyed character designs from the manga as well as the lower-detail gags. The pastel color palette and gorgeous lighting effects are exactly what I was hoping for while reading the manga.  If I have any complaint, though, it’s mostly that I want to see more of the sports action. The granular details of the badminton matches and basketball games are hardly the focus of the story, but the action panels are usually the best part of Miura’s art in the manga. Shot-for-shot, it certainly does hew close to the manga presentation, but it’s mostly a racquet swing or close-up jump shot followed by an onlooker’s reaction. I’d have liked a bit more follow through. The CGI used for background competitors can get a little distracting after a while, too, but it’s easy to forget about.

Blue Box is continuing into 2025, and I’m waiting for every new episode with bated breath. If you liked the first cour enough but still have doubts, trust me when I say it just keeps getting better. I look forward to coming back to the second half of this season in another year for my victory lap.

9. Girls Band Cry

This is one of the most inventive girls-band anime out there, certainly the most so since that one from 2022 that I swore I wouldn’t bring up by name. Gorgeous 3D-CG animation, stirring original music, and a compelling cast of characters combine to make Girls Band Cry even more than the sum of its parts.

More than anything, I think what makes Girls Band Cry a terrific showbiz series is that it depicts the uncomfortable reality that a lot of artists are just flat-out unpleasant people and often don’t mesh well with one another. Protagonist Nina is messy, stubborn, and angry at the world and her parents and will not hesitate to make it your problem. She butts heads with her friends and bandmates at any provocation, but stubbornness is a major driving factor in the plot: Each of the five members of Togenashi Togeari has something they’re trying to move on from with their music, and while they each have an opinion on how to get there, they do come to realize, after a lot of silly yelling matches, that they want to do so together.

As a vehicle to push Girls Band Cry and Togenashi Togeari as a real-world multimedia experience, this show is a success. It’s a terrific-looking show in ways we rarely see outside of Studio Orange productions (and allegedly Love Live! Sunshine!!, which director Kazuo Sakai also had a hand in); the 3D computer-generated character models and animations are terrifically expressive and lively, and creative visual effects add a compelling sense of synaesthesia to Nina's emotional highs and lows. The voice cast, all pseudonymous contest winners, are also the real-life band members, and they fully nail both elements of their roles. TogeToge’s music in the show is terrific, and as an already-existing Gorillaz-esque virtual band, I’m excited to dig into their back catalog.

Girls Band Cry finally got an official English translation, so there’s no longer any excuse to sleep on this one. It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, and above all else, it fucking rocks. Don’t let this one fade away just because you might’ve missed it when it aired.

8. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, second cour

When I ranked the first cour of Frieren as the best anime of 2023, I wrote:

The debut season of Frieren will continue into 2024, and if the quality remains a constant, it could very well be one of the best anime of next year too. It has remained as MyAnimeList’s top-rated anime ever for its entire run, warding off the legion of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood fans. Frieren deserves it.

A year later, it is still MAL’s top-rated anime, and by a healthy margin. Another 12 episodes aired to kick off 2024, and it was indeed one of the best anime of this year as well. I stand firm in my convictions that not only is it one of the best anime of the decade so far, it’s one of the best anime I’ve ever seen.

I really shot my wad by praising Frieren so profusely midway through its run, to the point where I still don’t really feel the need to add much more here. The second cour mostly focuses on the First Class Mage exam arc, allowing us to learn more about the present state of magic in the modern day and adding some much-needed depth to the cast. It continues to strike a lovely balance between the quieter moments and bonkers action sequences, as well as the more serious moments with laugh-out-loud goofiness. It may be a lesser arc in this story, but it would be a standout in so many others.

If I haven’t been clear enough, I remain over the moon about Frieren. The second cour looks and sounds just as incredible as the first, and this show’s success should serve as a reminder to the industry that investment in quality pays off. Madhouse knows they have a banger on their hands, and if the next season can maintain this level of production value for the major arc that is still to come, Frieren may very well earn GOAT status. Even if another season somehow never materializes, I’ll still be talking about this season in five years when it comes time to talk about the best of the decade. Watch this goddamn show.

7. A Sign of Affection

For all the romance anime and manga I consume, I’ve shamefully been lacking on the shoujo/josei front. I really gotta fix that. If reading more shoujo was what spurred Yukinobu Tatsu to make DanDaDan, then who knows what it might do for me? A Sign of Affection isn’t my first shoujo, strictly speaking, but it does feel like one of the first I’ve seen of the good old-fashioned flowery romance type.

What a gorgeous show. A Sign of Affection looks terrific, sounds terrific, and above all feels terrific. This is just a lovely, fluffy romance with low stakes and easy payoff; just two pretty people getting to know each other and learning to overcome their differences. It’s low on gimmicks and plot contrivances, and for as much as I like romcoms and romance stories with a unique bent, I love a good straightforward romance just as much sometimes. Everyone looks beautiful and likes each other and Jesus Christ look at the lips on these boys. There’s even a double-date to Costco, and what better depiction of marital bliss could there be?

I’m still pleasantly surprised at how this show handles the main character’s disability. Protagonist Yuki’s congenital deafness isn’t a single-note character quirk or a plot device to make her seem helpless; it simply is. It’s a part of her life that serves as the lens through which all of the people in her life see and treat her, and it leads to the only thing that resembles a major conflict in the show. Itsuomi, the main romantic interest, doesn’t baby her or walk all over her; he instead gently tests her boundaries while learning to accommodate her in a way to ensure her comfort. Her childhood friend Oushi, on the other hand, is very jealous of this development because he seems to feel entitled to her just because he did the bare minimum to accommodate her. The circumstances aren’t common, of course, but it’s a good lesson for a shoujo to have: Don’t settle.

My praise for A Sign of Affection mostly boils down to “it’s just really nice,” but it does “just really nice” so goddamn well. It’s fluffy, it’s comfy, it’s cozy, all of those adjectives that would set off my fight-or-flight response if I heard them from someone else, but I was enthralled by this show week in and week out. I can’t believe I neglected to start reading the manga, and I’m gonna have to get on that ASAP because I can’t wait for another season.

6. The Apothecary Diaries, second cour

I found myself more intrigued at The Apothecary Diaries at the end of 2023 than most other shows I’d watched that year. I grew more and more invested in the idiosyncratic Maomao as she investigated mysterious ailments and navigated imperial palace politics, all the while being a lovable little shit. 

Before I’d realized it, though, the 2024 half of its run knew it had its hooks in me and took me for a ride. What looked at first like a series of one-off puzzles quickly began entangling into a much larger mystery, rapidly gaining momentum until exploding into a massive emotional payoff. So many of the small details in what you assume are episodic mystery-of-the-week mini-stories become relevant in unexpected ways and draw you in ever further. I adore this kind of lowkey long-term storytelling, and for it to be part of such an appealing package is basically catnip for me.

For as gorgeous as The Apothecary Diaries can be visually, sonically, and sometimes even emotionally, it’s worth mentioning that this show is also hilarious a lot of the time. Maomao is on permanent goblin mode whenever she isn’t carrying out official business, and any time the palace officials have to rein her in is a delight. The push-and-pull between her and Jinshi is endlessly entertaining to the point where I can wait forever for that payoff if I have to.

I neglected to read the Apothecary Diaries manga after the first season went off the air (though I nearly bought all of it sight unseen), and with the second about to drop, I guess I’m holding off for another six months. Can’t say I mind, though. I’m along for the ride and I want this show to keep surprising me for as long as it can. This is easily one of the best anime of the 2020s so far and I’m gonna be there front row center for every new episode.

5. Bang Brave Bang Bravern

People say “peak fiction” too goddamn often these days. Not that it was a meaningful term to begin with, but it’s been memed to hell and back and is mostly just thrown out ironically to mock garbage writing. To be honest, I’m not above it myself, but I prefer to ascribe it, even jokingly, to stuff that can only truly come from a brilliant and/or deranged mind. Preferably both. Peak fiction, to me, is the intersection where talent meets insanity, no matter the degree of either.

Bang Brave Bang Bravern is peak fiction.

I gushed about this show after the winter season, and I almost don’t want to say anything further about it, mostly for two reasons: Firstly, because I don’t really want to give the game away any more than I already did back in April, and secondly, because I think it may have permanently burrowed into a specific part of my brain and then melted it. All I’m left with is “this show fucking rocks, dudes rock, you need to see it, it’s peak, don't ask questions, just watch it.”

Indeed, Bravern is the Dudes Rock anime of the year, and an essential piece of Dudes Rock media. It’s Top Gun with aliens and a giant talking robot. And the robot wants to fuck his pilot. This show is loud, horny, stupid, and self-aware, combined just so into a cocktail of legitimate brilliance that is, for better or worse, unlike anything I’ve seen before or since. Nearly every single episode had me clawing at my hair and shrieking “WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING,” and that is the highest praise I can give just about anything.

I might be overselling it just a touch, but Bravern is just as earnest as it is utterly wild. It’s an intentionally hilarious show, but it means everything it does and says. It’s a love letter to mecha anime and tokusatsu, and with its top staff sporting Gundam and Macross bona fides, that love oozes into every aspect. The mechs, both manmade and alien, all look tremendous, the music is a throwback to the goofy bombast you’d find in series like this as far back as the Showa era, and the ensemble cast outside of our silly leads are just as gung-ho and serious about Saving The World as you’d find in just about any other mech show. Anything that can be this goofy with a completely straight face is going to hook me in.

All in all, Bang Brave Bang Bravern is hypercompetent lunacy with heart. Call it weaponized genre awareness if you must, but it knows exactly what it’s about, grabs you by the collar, and takes you for a ride, all while doing badass tokusatsu poses and calling out special moves with silly names. This is legitimately what fiction is all about. 

Also, if you don’t like Lulu just because she screeches a lot, you’re a weakling. Gaga-pi, motherfucker.

4. The Dangers in My Heart, season 2

This was a series whose first season was conspicuously absent from my 2023 rankings, but I caught up shortly after finishing that list in order to catch up to the second season. I’d watched a glut of slice-of-life romances in 2023 and figured I could afford to miss this one. I’m overjoyed at how wrong I was.

To paraphrase the second season’s exceptional OP, The Dangers in My Heart is indescribably beautiful. As I said with A Sign of Affection, I love me a straightforward anime romance, and this middle school slice-of-life is just that: Underdeveloped edgelord boy ends up making unlikely friends with, and falling for, the cheery popular girl in his class. This is easy wish-fulfillment on paper, but that’s hiding the trick: Kyotaro isn’t gonna get anything he wants by keeping his quills out for anyone who comes near, and he has some growing up to do if he’s ever gonna get what he wants.

Season 2 picks up right where the first left off, with Kyotaro’s arm still broken from his family trip and Anna feeling guilty because she thinks her distraction was what led to the injury. Right out of the gate, we see the care these two have developed for one another: Anna wants to help while he can’t do his own schoolwork, while Kyo is quick to try to cheer her up when she no longer feels like she’s able to. Already we’re seeing Kyotaro’s character development coming to light: The Dangers in My Heart isn’t a story about a Nice Guy getting the girl just by being there; it’s a story of self-improvement, of trying to become the type of person whom your crush would want to fall in love with. For a story about and ostensibly marketed to early teenagers, that’s a good lesson to have, and I absolutely devour stories like that.

As can be the case with plenty of adolescents, most of the conflict here is internal. Kyotaro spent the early part of his middle school education keeping a safe distance from everyone in order to avoid getting hurt, and as you can imagine, that did a number on his self esteem. Though he’s mostly kicked the chuunibyo mindset, Kyo still prefers to keep his distance, less because he doesn’t want to get hurt, but now because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. Specifically Anna. So much of this story is about him learning to be okay with letting people in and not just falling in love, but making friends and becoming somebody whom people just want to be around. It’s a chuuni rehabilitation story. You love to see it.

With all due respect to mangaka Norio Sakurai, the biggest surprise that came from reading the manga was how much better the anime looks than its source material. The anime looks tremendous in its own right, but compared to Sakurai’s doodly, occasionally messy style, the love put into the show stands in stark relief. Characters, backgrounds, and lighting are all soft, squishy, and warm, almost like the entire thing was run through the filter through which only a 13-year-old in love can see, even as a little edgelord. Little flourishes in the environment and music highlight the minute but consequential motes of progression in Kyo and Anna’s relationship. The OP ended up shaking out as my favorite of the year, even with 2024 being bookended by Creepy Nuts bangers. It’s that special to me.

And just like that, The Dangers in My Heart went from “eh probably not for me” to “yeah this is one of the best anime of the decade so far.” It’s a simple slice-of-life romance on paper, almost literally so in the manga, but this is a transformative adaptation. There’s much more of the story to tell, and I wouldn’t complain about more, but as it stands after two seasons, The Dangers in My Heart is damn near perfect as it is.

3. Oshi no Ko, season 2

Another year, another season, another top-four finish for one of the best manga adaptations I’ve ever seen. 

The anime adaptation of Aka Akasaka and Mengo Yokoyari’s showbiz-revenge manga made shockwaves last year following its thunderous feature-length premiere, and its source material made even more waves due to some questionable plot developments that fortunately went nowhere. Doga Kobo was undeterred by any negative attention brought to the brand, though, and pressed forward into the next arc with a level of swagger you rarely see brought into an anime’s sequel season.

The 2.5D stage play arc in Oshi no Ko’s manga wasn’t my favorite, but it was one that you could tell just from reading it would translate well to the screen. Even then, I wasn’t prepared for just how hard Doga Kobo would go in adapting it. Character animation is sumptuously fluid, color used to amazing effect, and personal expression bursts forth into impressionistic abstraction to such a degree that it made manga artist Yokoyari cry. Everyone looks and sounds incredible beyond any way I could’ve imagined from reading the manga, which, at the risk of sounding defensive, is still very good as a whole.

This being a story largely about the music industry, the music remains as on-point as ever. It’s too soon to tell if the second season’s OP/ED pairing tops the instantly-iconic “Idol” and “Mephisto” from the first, but these are no slouches. This season’s OP, “Fatale,” is a whiplash-inducing banger by Tatsuya Kitani and idol Kento Nakajima, performing under the collaborative name of GEMN (itself a relevant name to the show; twins without the i/Ai, DO YOU GET IT???) with visuals that might actually top those of Idol. The new ED, “Burning,” is Hitsujibungaku at their fuzzy, 90s-style alt-rock best, and it takes on a brand new meaning by the end of the season. Of course, there’s also the story-relevant music; while the bulk of the season focuses on the stage play, the last few episodes give us a glimpse into the pop music process, with the season capping off with an in-universe music video that, while not sonically my exact cup of tea, features 90 seconds of some of the best-looking dance animation I’ve ever seen in my life. That’s a flex if I’ve ever seen one.

And just like the first season, the second capped off with an announcement that Oshi no Ko will indeed be returning for another season. At this rate, and with the anime’s success, they will adapt the entire work, which will raise some eyebrows. I’m not going to litigate the manga’s later controversial developments nor its widely-panned ending, but if Doga Koba was able to handle everything that came before those things with such aplomb, I have faith that it will at least be done well.

2. DanDaDan

I want to preface this by saying that I agonized over whether this or the final entry is my anime of the year. I’m comfortable with what I chose, but if I’m being realistic, DanDaDan is basically 1b. This is a masterpiece already.

Although the source material was a bit of a cult hit until this year, DanDaDan came with a considerable amount of hype. If you were even peripherally familiar, it wasn’t hard to see why: Yukinobu Tatsu’s art is absurdly detailed in almost every panel, character designs are easily recognizable (one of the leads dressing similarly to a Persona 3 character was fortuitous for the anime to drop in the same year as Reload), and so many bizarre things happen in the plot that relaying them to anybody who wasn’t already familiar would make their brain briefly touch the void. Above all, though, Science SARU was tabbed to animate it, and any project by them is immediately worth your attention.

Sure enough, DanDaDan made an instantaneous splash, its first episode adapting the manga’s bombastic, twisty 63-page opening chapter nearly beat for beat. I’m not gonna “don’t look it up, just go in blind” this one, but almost too much happens for me to properly detail it all without just writing a complete synopsis. It boils down to “lonely nerd boy believes in aliens, angry kogal believes in yokai, it turns out both are real and now they have to deal with it.” It’s silly, it’s wild, it’s action packed, and if you can stomach the sexually-compromising alien abduction of the girl, you’re along for the ride.

I’m not gonna harp too much on that last point. It does stink that the female lead, Momo, is stripped to her underwear for the sake of alien sexual “research,” but said aliens get their comeuppance before anything happens to her. It’s still not great, and it’s not the last time female characters are portrayed in their underwear, but I do promise it’s for story reasons, it takes a backseat to the onscreen action and is pretty clearly not done for the sake of fanservice. I know such things can be beyond the pale for some people, but if you think you can compartmentalize that, I recommend you watch the first episode with that caveat in mind and decide from there. You may be pleasantly surprised.

DanDaDan is effectively two stories at once; on one side, we have Momo and the boy, Okarun (a nickname Momo devised for him to preserve her own sanity), gaining wacky supernatural powers in order to fight back these occult threats and regain what was stolen from Okarun from his first encounter with the unexpected (IYKYK). Because these threats can come out of nowhere, their daily high school lives can completely pop off without warning. On the other side, we have quieter slice-of-life tension as Momo and Okarun get to know (and frequently misunderstand) each other and realize they are completely and hopelessly head-over-heels for one another.

Surprise, motherfucker: DanDaDan is a romcom.

Yukinobu Tatsu, formerly an assistant on the first saga of Chainsaw Man, long struggled to get his own work serialized. At his editor’s urging, he read something like a hundred manga for inspiration, including several shoujo romance series. That research shows through in DanDaDan; although the bonkers action sequences and off-the-wall monster designs are what draw in readers and viewers alike, what’s kept this many people along for the ride is the beating heart just barely under the surface in the form of the romantic tension between Momo and Okarun. It’s easy to write this off as some “lonely nerd gets the cute gyaru just by being a Nice Guy” wish fulfillment, but that’s not really the case here; Okarun was a weird little twerp right from the jump. Similarly to Kyotaro in the aforementioned Dangers in My Heart, Okarun believes early on that he’s nowhere near Momo’s league, completely unaware that she quickly grows to actually like having him around, so he puts in the effort to become a more well-rounded person so that he can be confident enough to be seen next to her. He also just wants Momo to think he’s cool, and she thinks that’s adorable. And she’s right! These two are cute as fuck together.

So you come for the wild action and stay for the tremendous character dynamics. It should go without saying that Science SARU nailed all of the above, but I’m gonna say it anyway. Reading the Manga+ comments on each chapter as I read through the manga, readers were begging a top-flight battle shonen studio like MAPPA or WIT to pick up the series, and I think these fans got more than they bargained for. Masaaki Yuasa hasn’t been in charge of a series at the studio since Eizouken, or anything they’ve put out since Inu-Oh, but his influence is all over their recent works, including last year’s fellow top-three series, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. It’s beyond impressive how, much like Scott Pilgrim, this series manages to maintain the source material’s art style while still looking very much like a Science SARU anime. Everyone is bouncy and malleable as their moods dictate, line weights are wildly varied, and action animation is kinetic and unpredictable. Each fight with an alien or cryptid is awash in eye-searing color or eerie greyscale. The music is a boatload of fun as well; even putting aside the Creepy Nuts OP (banger after banger after banger from those dudes) and Zutomayo ED, regular proceedings are punctuated by a wildly varied score, from funk to folk to an insane chase scene set to an electronic mashup of the “William Tell Overture” and the can-can. Everything about DanDaDan keeps you guessing.

I was looking forward to DanDaDan enough that I went to the theatrical premiere of the first three episodes and was sufficiently blown away. If you’ve seen the show, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that it looks and sounds incredible in a cinema setting. I left the theater positively buzzing, telling anyone who’ll listen that they had no idea what was coming, but even knowing the entire story, I wasn’t prepared for more of what was to come. The literal next episode after what I’d already seen in the theater had one of the most bonkers action setpieces I’ve seen since Gurren Lagann, and just four episodes later an unbelievable emotional gut punch, prior knowledge of the manga be damned. Every single aspect of DanDaDan as an anime was given the same level of love and care that Tatsu put into his own work. It’s one thing for an anime adaptation to be faithful to its source material, and another entirely for it to elevate and transform it. DanDaDan is somehow both.

If there’s anything that held this back from being the anime of the year, it’s that this season kind of just… ends. With the 12-episode runtime that was given to the debut season, DanDaDan ends its first run right after the beginning of the manga’s next arc, which feels bizarre. There’s no resolution, but there’s no real cliffhanger here either. Which I kind of get, the story is driven by a constant forward momentum, but a little warning that the season was ending would’ve been nice. It’s only a six month break until the show comes back, but judged on its own, the way this season ended left me feeling a bit cold and the season itself feeling incomplete. Even shows that have year-long breaks between cours rather than seasons tend to put some kind of cap on each individual run, but DanDaDan just kinda left the toilet unflushed, and next to it a Post-It note promising to come back later. For something this lovingly crafted, that seems like a bizarre oversight.

That was hardly enough to temper my enjoyment though. Anything this well-made is deserving of the attention and success it’s attained, but to have this story, with these characters and this level of bonkers action made this well, is just an embarrassment of riches. And God help me, I’m shamelessly greedy. July can’t come fast enough. I need all of it.

1. Delicious in Dungeon

At the end of its run midway through the year, I declared Dungeon Meshi the best anime of the year up to that point and that I’d be impressed if anything would manage to overtake it. Though the other two entries in my top three made extremely strong cases, nothing else quite hit the spot and nourished the soul quite like Dungeon Meshi.

Barely a year removed from one of 2022’s best anime, Cyberpunk Edgerunners, Studio Trigger kicked off 2024 with another Netflix original, this time with its first proper manga adaptation since the studio split from Gainax a decade prior. It seemed an odd fit at first to have a studio known for wacky, hyperkinetic action productions like Kill la Kill and Promare to adapt this quirky fantasy dungeon manga, but hey, they also did Little Witch Academia. It turned out to be an odd fit, but in the best way: Dungeon Meshi is pretty offbeat as it is, so for it to get picked up by one of the more oddball prestige studios ended up making a tasty stew.

I struggled to elaborate on what makes this show so good after each of its cours, and six months later I remain a little lost for words. It’s an exceptional story adapted exceptionally well. Between the characters, the story, the setting, the emotional stakes, the comedy, the highs and lows, they nailed it all. Trigger just gets it. Even when characters go off-model for the sake of an intentional animation quirk, it still has that inimitable Trigger charm to it. It sounds just as good as it looks, too: The orchestral score highlights the quieter, sillier moments just as well as the tenser action setpieces, the foley work behind the dungeon’s bizarre and varied flora and fauna is immaculate, and the cast is perfect in both Japanese and English (I rarely ever say so but seriously, shout out to the dub).

I’m just as sick of saying “this show speaks for itself” when I have trouble finding the words as you probably are of reading it, but I have little else to add here. I’ve written plenty already. Just go watch it. This is already one of my favorite manga ever, and by the time the series wraps up at the end of its second season, it will easily end up as one of my favorite anime ever.

[things-arent-what-they-seem66]

((Umm...... Lucifer did grab their rings 😅))

He had to make heaven think he was serious and that he wasn't going to be coming for Adam so it wouldn't be obvious, how could Adam seriously think he didn't matter to him?

Lucifer risked everything for him, he beat the shit out of an archangel for him! He was a little more focused on making sure they got the fuck out and didn't die.

He ran his hands down his face, he's so tired and he just wants to hold his fucking husband but he can't even have that.

Lucifer growled and hit his fists on his thighs only to hit something in his pocket: Ow!! The fuck is in there?

Angrily he shoved his hand in his pocket and he touched something small and smooth. Two somethings. Pulling them out part of wanted to fucking cry and the other wanted to throw them in frustration.

Their wedding rings. He forgot he picked them up when he grabbed Michael's sword.

Would have been nice to remember that five fucking minutes ago.......

Lucifer slipped his on his finger and looked at it, he remembered when Adam gave it to him and how amazing it felt and how happy he had been. How could he think any random replacement ring would have been okay? It would look okay, but they would be the real rings the true symbols of their love.

Lucifer cried, he found a piece of paper placed Adams ring on it with his name on it and placed it somewhere he would see it.

If he even wanted it anymore. Or him.

Lucifer never should have taken his fucking ring off and he never would again, he'd super glue it to his fucking finger if that would make Adam happy.

He left for what was now his office, maybe he could find something about this extermination day. Though he was certain it was exactly as it sounded.

Opening the office door, Lucifer was grateful that Satan was well organized the place was in good order.

Lucifer sat down and got to reading, he supposed he should know these things as King now......

Oh who the fuck was he kidding, he was as much a King as that fucking pen was.

-

Charlie: That was amazing!

Adam: See? There's a lot you can do kid.

She felt so energized and it was nice to finally have some one on one time with Adam. They had been at it for hours and now she was a little pooped.

Charlie: Adam? Can I ask you something?

Adam: Yeah sure.

Charlie: Are you two okay?

Adam froze: Look, that's-

Charlie: Because we spent a week working out the perfect plan to save you and the first thing you do when you get home is fight......... I know you're hurt.... But he loves you.

They spent a week on a plan to help him?

Adam: Charlie -

Charlie: Look, maybe it's none of my business but he made a mistake. Haven't you made mistakes?

Adam has made plenty of mistakes especially in their relationship. His biggest one killed Lucifer.

Adam: ...... Let's just call it a night.

Charlie sighed but nodded and went to her room. Adam probably should find him and talk about..... Even a little.

Adam: Lu?

He wasn't in the throne room, but a piece of paper caught his eye...... With a ring on it.

With a shaky hand, Adam picked up the ring. His ring. He could tell from the wear and the engraving on the inside..

Adam: Fuck....

He slipped it onto his finger and it was a perfect fit. When did he get this?

He needs to find him.

Adam walked around until he found the office where Lucifer was sitting behind the desk. He tried not to laugh, Lucifer looked so small sitting behind that giant desk. Papers everywhere, he looked so tired and broken.

And he had his ring on.

Adam: Lu?

Lucifer jumped, he didn't hear him walk up. He felt his heart break, was Adam here to tell him it was over? For good? He really tried not to cry but he should have known he never deserved to be with Adam, who was a fucking God of all things.

Lucifer: Y-yeah?

He was going to cry this was too much.

Adam came closer and before he could say anything Lucifer just broke down crying and apologizing.

Lucifer, his voice thick with emotion: I-I-I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry! I just wanted to get you back, I wasn't thinking. You mean everything to me, I-I-I love you so much, please I'm so sorry.

He sobbed and he didn't care, if Adam wanted to take his axe and split him in half he'd let him, he didn't care.

Lucifer didn't want to live in a world where Adam didn't love him.

I miss our God!Adam Au

Sequel 👀

In Canada Eh! Lmao

CANADA FOREVER

Yes plsss! I miss our stupid, power-hungry boy 😫😫

[tamrielf]

as many of u have noticed, i've decided to change my name to Eevee (Evie)💜

Its not a legal change but its my preference to be called Eevee from now on instead of my previous name. I've wanted to change my name for the last few years but never found something that felt like it fit me. my old name has so much trauma and bad vibes associated with it. for ppl who don't get it, it may sound silly but its the truth. i am a recovering addict and abuse survivor. many people don't know that the biological father of one of my sons is a dangerous psychopath who has threatened me and my family many times and also has previous gun charges from threatening to shoot the other mother of his child. i know thats a personal thing to share but when i say i'm changing my name i want ppl to understand the gravity of what it means for me to do this without just assuming its some quirky nickname. i live in constant fear of him finding me or coming to harm me or my son. he hasn't been allowed near me or him since he was a newborn (thank god). i also still have people who used to sell me drugs in active addiction finding me and trying to offer them to me or ppl who have stalked/harassed me slandering my old name for years.

i would like to eventually change my name legally, to further solidify my safety and truly leave behind my old identity. If i do it would be Evie (still pronounced Eevee). For those wondering why i chose the name; Evie was actually one of the names my mom considered using as my middle name, so i already know she likes it lol and of course the pokémon eevee.

i've loved pokémon since i was in diapers. and recently i've rekindled my passion for it and i've been playing pokémon games on my switch for the first time in forever and rewatching all the original episodes with my kids. i fully plan to get back into collecting cards again too💜 i already have a pretty large collection as it is and my oldest son started getting into pokémon himself so its something we can both bond over together🥰 and as you've probably guessed by now, Eevee is my favorite pokémon.

sorry for the long paragraphs, but this has been on my mind for a very long time and i decided i'm finally going to do it. 🥰

so please don't refer to my old name because its dead to me now. i don't want to actually call it a deadname because i'm not trans and it doesn't feel right to use that term, but please respect my preference from now on. 💙 i may even make a new twitter since my old name is plastered all over that one and i don't want anyone getting confused.

xo, Eevee Jones✨

[prettyboykatsuki]

https://www.tumblr.com/prettyboykatsuki/772075315170344960/what-self-indulgent-idea-is-this-time-twin

Not self indulgent if I want to hear what you have to have to say so fucking bad… You’re indulging ME now bestie

linky link

its just so .. like LISTEN.

like. walk with me. but you're basically like. isagis childhood neighbor right. he's a few years older than you by then you too. like you're in elementary and he's in middle school. one of these days you're in a fight with other older kids (and they're kicking your ass) and isagi gets in the way and pulls his whole like tsk tsk what r u doing bullying a kid younger than u shtick and the kids then run away

and from that he tries to walk u home and u basically idolize him and he just. figures you're a little boy. like u have a gender neutral ish nickname and u dress in boardhosrts and big shirts and its hard to tell and plus you always rough house with isagi. you just have a Rough personality in general and u call him aniki which he finds funny.

and for the few years ur in the same neighborhood ur basically always with him and he never figures it out. ur in his room and he teaches u to play soccer (u prefer baseball at that point) and u spend all of ur time in his room even when he's in exams etc.

i think u move like,, just as he gets into highschool. far enough away that he doesnt see u again for years and years.

and then when he's in his mid twenties he comes back to his hometown and subsequently So Do You.

you've been moved in for a while and his mom had told him that before once in passing but isagis spent a long time playing in germany so he hadnt thought about it until he comes back and his mom is like. oh u should go visit them and say hi and isagi is fondly like aw yeah i wonder how that kid grew up.

and so . u know. he goes over. plans to say to your mom. is curious about how u grew up cause he hasnt kept in touch at all. yk.

and then. he goes over and a woman answers the door. and hes like ....?

but before he even gets to ask, you positively light up. like BEAMING. and you go "aniki? is that you?"

?!. isagi is in shock. he literally is like. What. Huh. but like. that voice. that face. like you look the same but the years have softened you out, made your features more... idk... he feels wrong saying girly but ? maybe thats it.

and the way you talk is EXACTLY the same. rife with slang, kind of rude, clearly picked up some gyaru slang while u were away but you're not exactly dressed that. u have boobs now and isagi is . short circuiting. and he says your name and FUCKKK your smile is exactly the same. like the same toothy almost silly vibe about you.

you invite him in like nothings changed and for u it probably hasnt. but he's literally malfunctioning trying to keep up. bc its YOU. like it is. you're the same kid he remembers messing with his soccer ball in his room and frowning at the stuff he studied for his highschool entrance exams. and those few years between u then felt like so much but youre both adults now.

its so disorienting. isagi really loved you even when you were kids. obviously it wasnt like That then. more like u were a fond, distant memory of his childhood that he can appreciate looking back. u have siblings but isagi didnt so it was less lonely with u around since he was an only child.

and he was looking forward to reconnecting, really!! he had all these plans about going to play soccer with you and asking if you had a girlfriend. but . But . what !!!!!!!!

he doesnt say anything i think. but you do insist he takes you down to the 7/11 to get snacks like when you were kid, and you make the same cheeky comment about making him pay since he's older and he's rich now and isagi gets the most doki-doki lovesick as feeling and almost passes away because no!!!!!!! why is he feeling that for you!!!!!!

internally he's yelling at himself but he does do it anyway bc he still likes making u happy. its familiar and warm and you end with your legs stretched out in a loose hoodie sharing chips and a drink and you're like,, smiling so familiar about old memories and the feeling just keeps Being there persistently. and he's like stop that rn!!!! he cannot!!!! for many reasons!!!!!!!

bc it feels weird since he rmbs u as kids but also bc it feels unfair to only be thinking of u this way now that he knows. and after he spends all evening with you he Resolves himself to not pursue anything while he stays with his parents.

(but how well does that resolve hold up when he begins to Notice your rather obvious feelings for him?)

[mysticeclipses]

Call Of Duty Modern Warfare Catverse

So, I've been sitting on this thought for a while. There's something about hardened military people with cats that just tickles me, and imagining the COD men and women having jobs that center around taking care of cats in one way or another has taken over my mind completely. And as such, why not have them own and work in cat cafes, rescues, pet hotels, the whole shebang? And yes, you'll notice that Kate, Valeria, Farah, and Alex are missing because I haven't narrowed down exactly what I think they'd be doing in this universe, so if you have any ideas don't be afraid to let me know! Same goes for names for their businesses, as I haven't been able to think of anything that fits. I'll probably expand more on this at a later date, but in the mean time, if you have questions, ask them! I'd love to ramble about this little idea of mine.

Jonathan Price: Owner of the first of the big three cat cafes in London, John’s cafe has become his second home, a place where he takes care of any cats that are found injured or are older than most. John provides the less fortunate felines a place to relax and become acclimated to humans, heavy war-torn hands developing a gentle touch for the felines. He retired from his position as Captain years ago, the stress of his military career and countless near-death experiences feeding into unhealthy coping habits that were heavily affecting him physically and mentally. Now, he feels at peace with himself and is happy with where he is at life, no longer wondering if he’d live to see tomorrow. His cafe has adoptable and non-adoptable cats, so they will often host special promotions for their adoptable cats, though he had to ban Nikolai from coming to those events. They already have 10 cats at home, they don’t need any more, but John always finds it funny seeing his husband disguise himself to sneak in to the events. Nikolai stands out like a sore thumb every time, and John always unmasks him, planting a kiss on his lips before sending his husband on his way.

Nikolai: Husband to Price and rescuer, Nikolai stops by at least once a week with new rescues to be integrated into the cafe, sometimes stopping by just to see his husband and his team. Often wandering the streets of London and even traveling to other cities when needed, Nikolai seems to draw the attention of cats wherever he goes, which thankfully makes his job of rescuing much easier. With John’s help, he turned the basement into a recovery space for cats that couldn’t immediately be taken to the cafe, having learned some basic veterinary work for cats with basic injuries and ailments, though he’s still a frequent visitor to the local veterinarian office. He was the one that managed to convince John to retire in the first place, as he couldn’t stand seeing his boyfriend at the time kill himself slowly, and actually proposed the idea of starting the cat cafe after they had gotten married. He is also the reason behind why they now have 10 cats, and whenever he finds out John is having another adoption event, he tries to sneak in. It always fails, but it brings a smile to John’s face every time.

Kyle “Gaz” Garrick: The solo barista and self-appointed DJ, Kyle was the first to join John’s cafe only a month after it had opened, falling into his role the quickest out of all the employees. Charismatic, sassy, charming, and stubborn as a mule at times, he picked up on the recipes and techniques for making coffees and teas like it was second nature. Kyle gets people in and out of line at a record pace, and has the best recommendations for drink and pastry combinations for newcomers. Kyle was medically discharged from his role as Sergeant after an accident in a church during an operation, where a helicopter shot the floor apart from under his feet, sending him tumbling several feet too many to the ground before a chunk of what remained fell on top of him. Three of his lumbar vertebrae were fractured, his left sciatic nerve was damaged, and his right femur was broken. It took months of physical therapy before Kyle was able to walk without assistance, and even now, he still deals with intermittent back and leg pain. There’s a chair behind the coffee bar for him to sit on and John keeps his spare back brace in his office, along with plenty of pain meds and heat pads. Kyle’s found comfort and brotherhood with his boss and fellow employees, and when he’s not busy making drinks, he can be found chatting with Soap or cuddling many of the cats.

Simon “Ghost” Riley: Quiet and reserved, Simon is the lead baker and pastry chef for the cafe, having joined the team around two months after Kyle did. Often clad in all black clothing and sporting a black mask that covers his face from nose to chin, Simon prefers to stay in the cafe kitchen, working quietly on new pastries and making sure the display case is always fully stocked until the end of the day. Cakes, cookies, croissants, donuts, tarts, macarons, eclairs, cinnamon rolls; you name it, Simon can bake it, and he finds it very therapeutic too. Simon was also medically discharged from his role as Lieutenant after an incident involving a man named Manuel Roba, having been tortured physically and mentally before he was tossed into a coffin and buried alive, and while he managed to get revenge on Manuel, it left him more broken than he wanted to admit. After many tough sessions with a therapist, Simon knew he needed to start trying to do something other than rot in his apartment alone, so he took up baking as a hobby. Baking taught Simon that he was capable of more than destruction, that he could make beautiful things despite the dirt and blood that stained his hands. And when he landed his job under John’s watchful eye, Simon was able to put the pieces of himself back together with the help of his newfound brothers and some loving felines.

Johnny “Soap” MacTavish: Loud, boisterous, confident, chatterbox, all words used to describe one of the later additions to the cafe Johnny, who joined the team seven months after the cafe opened, is in charge of taking care of the cats directly. Whether it be organizing a feeding schedule, clipping their nails, giving them baths, brushing their teeth, or grooming their fur, Johnny is always busy. He’s also the only employee that’s allowed to use John’s credit card, seeing as he often has to go out shopping for food and treats and toys and whatnot. On top of all that, Johnny has also taken over as the cafe’s handyman, quickly fixing any problems that may arise; whether it be behind the coffee bar, in the kitchen, in John’s office, he can fix almost anything on his own or with an extra pair of hands. Johnny chose to leave his Sergeant role after taking a near-fatal shot to the side of his left temple, though some profound hearing loss from all the explosions he created certainly didn’t do him any better during his recovery process. It took Johnny a while to get used to his new hearing aids, and for a while, he detested wearing them because they reminded him of what he lost. Only after getting hired at the cat cafe did Johnny start to become more comfortable with his hearing aids, letting his newfound brethren decorate them to better fit his outgoing personality, and fitting himself effortlessly into their dynamic without disrupting it too much.

Gary “Roach” Sanderson: The youngest and newest addition to the cafe, Gary is the resident nightguard and secondary handyman to Johnny, having joined about a year after the cafe had opened. Gary is the quietest of all the employees, often only communicating through BSL or writing on a notepad that he keeps in his back pocket, but he’s the most expressive of all the employees despite that. He wears a tan face gaiter that covers him from nose to chin, and can sometimes be seen with two homemade antennae secured to his hair with small clips, which the cats love to play with. More often than not, Gary is only seen at night when he comes in to watch the cafe, but if Johnny ever needs a spare set of hands, he’ll come in to help when Nikolai isn’t available, albeit rather sleepily. Gary also chose to leave his Sergeant role after being betrayed by his general, getting shot in the chest and nearly burning alive before someone in his squad managed to save him. He was left with many burn scars and damage to his vocal chords after so much smoke inhalation, making his voice gravelly and painful to use for long periods of time, so hearing him speak is considered a privilege, along with a sign of trust among his fellow brothers in arms. After so long of feeling undervalued, underappreciated, and unconfident, Gary has found a place that sees his importance and makes sure he knows it.

Alejandro Vargas: Co-owner of the second of the three big cat cafes in London, Alejandro’s cafe takes in cats that are rescued from abusive or neglectful homes, spending countless hours of his time gaining their trust in order to get them comfortable around other cats and humans. He also took the time to put higher perches and hiding spots into his cafe for the cats during their adjustment periods, so he always lets patrons know that some cats are more skittish than others and to let those cats come down on their own accord. Alejandro is not afraid to confront patrons who disregard the rules that are set in place and has banned several people from coming back, though it isn’t something he particularly enjoys doing. Alejandro is still Colonel of Los Vaqueros, and now that they’ve finally started cracking down on the Las Almas Cartel and getting closer to putting El Sin Nombre behind bars, he’s allowed himself to take a step back and explore what else he wanted to do with his life. Still, every few months, Alejandro will fly out to Mexico to be back on the field with his team and even offers them jobs at his cafe for when they finally clean up the streets of Las Almas. When he’s not busy with the cafe or working in Mexico, Alejandro often visits the other cafes with his boyfriend, Rodolfo, who gives Alejandro a reason to stay safe while he’s away.

Rodolfo Parra: Co-owner of the cafe alongside Alejandro, Rodolfo, or Rudy as he’s better known as, is an everywhere all at once presence in the cafe, often floating between areas to help wherever it’s needed. Whether it be behind the coffee bar, in the kitchen, at the register, with the cats, or in the office with Alejandro, you’ll rarely not see him working. He also seems to be a cat whisperer, at least that’s what the patrons believe, as he’s the only person certain cats feel comfortable enough with to come down from their perches. Rudy’s clothes are also constantly covered in cat fur since there’s always a cat following him around, and they even enjoy climbing onto his shoulders like he’s their own personal chauffeur. Like Alejandro, Rudy is still Sergeant Major of Los Vaqueros, he’s just on a more extended leave per Alejandro’s request, or rather demand. After a building fire nearly took his life while they were searching for Hassan, Alejandro basically made Rudy take a break from work and join him as his cafe, and Rudy honestly found it both adorable and annoying how much Alejandro fussed over him. He’s finally being allowed to join Alejandro and Los Vaqueros in their pursuit of El Sin Nombre, and as annoyed as he gets with being under Alejandro’s watchful eyes, he wouldn’t change a thing. Reminds Rudy that he has someone who cares right next to him.

Phillip Graves: Owner of the last of the big three cat cafes in London, Graves and his cafe takes in exclusively black cats, giving the most misunderstood felines a second chance to find a home. A cat person at heart, he started his business in remembrance of his childhood pet, Speck. Speck was a grey ocicat that had garnered the nickname ‘Shadow’ thanks to how it would follow Graves around like his shadow. Graves created his business a few months after leaving the MARSOC Raiders, unable to stomach seeing so many men lose their lives while the Generals and Commandants sat pretty in their offices. He hires fellow ex-military men and women, and after a week of working for him, they become one of his ‘Shadows’. He cares very deeply for his employees, pays them handsomely, makes himself a part of their support system, and often hosts parties or celebrations at his home for holidays and birthdays. Graves will and has dropped whatever he’s doing in order to be there for his employees when they need it. When Graves isn’t busy working, he can often be found at the other cat cafes, simply acting as an annoyance in the corner booths he likes to inhabit. He’s a bit of a pain in the ass, but with his suave charm and southern accent, it’s impossible to stay mad at him for very long. Especially not when he breaks out his cat eyes or magically pulls the cutest cat from his cafe out from his jacket as a bribery tool.

Vladimir Makarov: Located near the heart of London is an upscale yet affordable pet hotel, owned by the passionate Makarov, that takes in a high amount of cats compared to any other pet, so much so that it’s now considered a cat hotel instead of a pet hotel. Makarov wants to give any pet that comes in through the doors a relaxing and lavish experience while staying, so he makes sure the rooms are furnished to a tee, the food is of the highest quality, everything is clean, and there’s always someone around to play with the cats so they don’t get too antsy. He also has a bit of a love-hate relationship with John and Nikolai, as while they’re some of his best and well-paying customers, their 10 cats can be such a headache at times. Sure, they can be the sweetest angels when they want to, but there’s something about being at Makarov’s hotel that turns them into the biggest menaces he’s ever seen. And they can act so spoiled, so Makarov has required the two men to bring food and toys from home so their cats will behave more often. Makarov’s business was initially met with some hesitancy, as he could come off as cold and unattached from an outside glance, and he had no issues with taking cats or other pets from owners that were clearly neglectful despite their protests. He has a close relationship with the other cat cafes because of this, and while he wouldn’t consider them friends just yet, Makarov finds himself appreciating his collection of acquaintances and how closely their businesses support each other.

[harunade]

moots 2 . zhang hao

pairing: camboy!hao x camgirl!reader

synopsis: your camboy friend, Hao, comes over for the first time. The two of you make the promised collab but end up catching feelings

warnings: smut!! p in v sex, biting, alcohol mentions, idiots in love.. , recording while fucking, making out, basically drunk sex,, not proofread possible typos

wc: ~ 1.8k

a/n: part 2 guys!! Im so happy u liked the first one :’)) part 3 where they become official might come out soon methinks

Your streams became something ordinary for you. Once every two days, you would doll yourself up, wear the most revealing pieces of clothing and make yourself cum on camera. What was even better was that people loved it! In two weeks you made enough money to cover rest for the next half of the year, when you usually lived paycheck to paycheck.

As for your new friend, you and Zhang Hao kept in touch as promised. He was present on your streams and you were on his. He made himself known by sending at least $50 and asking you to moan his name, which you happily did. Returning the favour, your name was moaned as well on his live, except you didn’t always have so much money to spend, but still did it anyway.

Unbeknownst to you, whenever Hao came across your videos or lives, his cock got inevitably hard. Normally, he wouldn’t have problems with erections, since he jerked himself off on camera almost daily, but ever since he met you, it’s like you put a spell on him. Sure, he spoke with girl on that site before, but you were the only one he looked forward to see post and had notifications on for.

Whilst for you, Hao was like your dirty little secret. You watched all of his streams, but didn’t always make yourself known. You gained a community pretty quickly, reaching 20k followers in the first month, and your fans shipped you with Hao together. It was common for either of you to recieve donations with pleads to collab.

@/sheloveshao: haha yn someone just send me $100

@/lovelyyn: damn?? so now u got money to ask me out or what

@/sheloveshao: r u saying i was broke before..? well i actually wanted to ask u out but now i dont wanna

@/lovelyyn: hao.. we still have that collab to do :)

It was quite obvious both of you avoided this subject. The thought of meeting with Zhang Hao in real life and “collabing” made your stomach hurt. After talking daily, you gained a liking for him. But since he was a camboy, he probably played with hearts too, so you resorted to just being friends. You face palmed yourself mentally for even bringing it up. Hopefully he won’t think of you as a creep.

@/sheloveshao: you’re right.. what if we met this weekend? if i’m not wrong you live about 20 mins from me

Your heart sank. You wanted to meet him, but at the same time didn’t. You were just too nervous!! Your celebrity crush but also crush but also friend wanted to come over, and both of you knew it would end up with him getting in your pants. That’s what you two do, after all. You didn’t know he was actually as nervous as you.

@/lovelyyn: i’m not opposed.. bring some red wine too.. I’ll have the camera ready ;)

Whew.. you tried so hard to sound as if it barely affected you but your legs were shaking while typing. At least that was done with, and you had 3 days to mentally prepare yourself.

Zhang Hao on the other hand, couldn’t be happier. Maybe happy is too strong of a word… he was definitely excited, both ways. He didn’t only plan to fuck you, but he wanted to surprise you with some sushi first, since he’s a gentleman after all. It wasn’t very manly of him, but he called his friend while kicking his feet. “Guess what, Hyuck.. i’m meeting y/n next weekend!” he exclaimed as soon as his best friend picked up. “What.. are you for real? How did that even happen?” Hao couldn’t wait to give all the details, he was probably more excited than you were. “Well.. it was her who asked in the first place. I came up with the time and she told me to get some wine and that she’ll have her camera ready.. so you know what that means” he giggled towards the end. “Yeah yeah, bring a pack of condoms,too, you sex freak. But don’t get too attached, if she’s a camgirl who knows how many guys she’s done this with” the words spoken by his best friend created a dent in his heart. I mean, were you really meaning to play with his feelings? Did he have feelings for you in the first place? Hao failed to understand how you got so deep into his brain. Sure, he talked to camgirls before, but you had something different. He could actually talk to you without you just asking to collab for his fame.

—

The remaining days went by in a blink, and Hao was knocking on the door of your apartment. He looked lime a child visiting his relatives. He had grey sweatpants on, an oversized black hoodie and a backpack. He was carefully holding a paperbag with sushi inside. He gulped when he heard the door unlocking.

“Hi” you smiled at him and welcomed him in. You weren’t dressed too fancy yourself, just shorts and a tshirt.

The two of you sat down at your table and started chatting. The awkwardness quickly disappeared as soon as Hao pulled the red wine out of his backpack.

“You’re so much more fun than i expected you to be” you tell him before sipping the last drops of wine in your glass. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?” he laughs back.

Although he seemed to have fun, Zhang Hao was still thinking about what his friend said. You two hadn’t actuallt done anything yet, but he was still scared. He knew he had to charm you well enough for you to like him back.

—

Much too many glasses were now empty, and the bottle was thrown somewhere on the ground. Next to it was Hao accompanied by you, laughing hysterically at everything and anything. The second mistake of the night, other than drinking so much, was turning your head to face him. You were met with his beautiful brown eyes and saw his hair falling to his forehead. His lips were plump and rosier than usual, and he had a gone look in his eyes.

You didn’t know if you should kiss him or not, but you definitely wanted to. It seemed as if he had read your mind. “Kiss me, pretty?” you didn’t wait a moment before attaching your lips to his, cupping his face in the process. His larger hands went to your waist, carefully throwing you on top of him.

Stranding his hips, the kiss got heated. This new position allowed you to feel the boner in his pants and to rub down on it. You knew you were doing it right when you felt him whimper in your mouth. Normally, Hao gave off a dominant energy in his livestreams, but now he was putty in your hands.

—

“Hao..” you whimpered from below him. In the meantime you moved to your bed, where the brunette boy took of your shirt as well as his hoodie. So far the two of you didn’t do anything other than kissing and biting each other’s skin. You made sure to leave some marks on Hao’s neck. Maybe it was wrong to think this way, but you felt like Zhang Hao should be your property, and that was the best way to show everyone else. And in return, he gave you the same treatment. You neck, chest and belly were covered in kisses and bite marks from the boy in question. He loved the way you grabbed at his hair while he was doing it so much that he just couldn’t stop.

“Should we film?” you asked in a half ironic tone. Hao’s head rose from the crook of your neck and for a second you swore you could see sadness in his eyes.

“I think i have a better idea, just wait, beautiful” he said before diving back into your lips.

—

You grew needier with each moment and the boy above you made it his mission to tease you. “Please, Hao, just fuck me already..” your voice was like a drug to him, and he obeyed immediately. Both of your clothes were gone in no time and he slid a condom in his throbbing cock.

He grabbed it in his hand, and rubbed his tip up and down your drenching pussy, teasing you further and admiring you. Obviously, he had seen you naked before, but you looked even better in real life.

Right before pushing in, he looked you in the eyes, silently asking for permission. “Yes, please..” you murmured.

He bottomed out and let out a sigh. That was the moment the both of you had been wanting for so long. None of you could believe what was actually happening and how good it actually felt.

As Hao was thrusting in and out of you, he grabbed his phone, recording a quick 5sec video of his cock disappearing inside of you and reappearing. He would need that later.

—

Altough it was the first time you two met, it seemed like you had known each other for eternity. Zhang Hao figured out your body in an instant and knew exactly how to get you off, and you knew exactly when to clench your muscles to help him get off as well. Furthermore, you both came at the same time, which had to mean something, right?

Zhang Hao plopped next to you, resting for a bit before cleaning you up with a towel. He then got in bed next to you, welcoming you into his arms. This definitely wasn’t casual…

“What are you planning to do with that video?” you asked him. He almost forgot

Zhang Hao posted said video on his account.

the duo you guys knew you needed <3 @/lovelyyn

Not even two minuted had passed that both of his and your phones started buzzing. People were liking, reposting and commenting on your joint post. “I think they liked it” you laughed. “I did too..” the boy next to you was happy to hear that, as he enjoyed every second himself.

—

It didn’t take you long to tap out, leaving Hao with you in his arms and a lot on his mind. You were even more wonderful than expected. You were kind, beautiful and smelled amazing. He definitely knew he wanted you. It was only a matter of time before he figured out how to ask you to be his girlfriend.