#over 70 drawings?? more or less

[skeletoninthemelonland]

ok back to posting fnaf art

[roobylavender]

im really sorry if this question ends up being repetitive: but, if not for bruce’s over reliance on dick to regulate his thoughts and emotions, why would dick grow up into feeling like he needs to repress his emotions so much and his eagerness to act as people’s support? i know youve spoken about wolfman and his altering of their relationship but if ntt is generally an accurate portrayal of an adult dick, to me this nevertheless sounds like the consequences a parent-child relationship where the responsibilities are titled too much towards the child

i suppose this could also segue into asking for recs that would help me better understand your interpretation of their relationship 👀

not repetitive at all! to me the irony of wolfman's depiction of dick lies in that it is simultaneously something you can logically ascertain from prior canon but not for the reasons actually presented by wolfman. if that makes sense. he does extra work that isn't actually necessary to help explain why dick would act the way that he does because there's plenty of reasons for it without rewriting his history with bruce to have always been suppressed and edgy and dark. to me it makes far more sense to capitalize on the inevitable disconnect between bruce and dick as an adult and a child. batman: full circle is a good example of that dichotomy (and although it was published in the early 90s it built on mike w. barr's prior understanding of the relationship between dick and bruce that he wrote into the early 80s). bruce's primary concern for the people he works with is never standards or finesse but safety. he worries constantly about others coming to harm under his watch and with a child in particular those worries were exacerbated. he ran a tight ship not because he believed dick had anything to prove but because the only way dick could keep being robin was if he went about it safely. that was obv easy for an adult to understand. but not so much for a child

to bruce these worries were practical and par for the course (as well as an expression of his love and protectiveness) but for dick their consequences formed the crux of his entire world. as a child he idolized everything about bruce. his heroism. his work ethic. his skill. his resolve. his preparedness. if dick couldn't live up to the standard he set for himself in idolizing bruce then what could he ever hope to amount to? that was the thought constantly going through his head. and it's why the bulk of his childhood and primary tenure as bruce's partner was so precariously protected by the fact that nothing bad ever really happened during it (and admittedly this framing is convenient because even chronologically speaking nothing very significant happened in their history with each other until dick left for university in 1969) (i know dixon opted to write that whole shtick with dent in his version of events but personally i never found it necessary to do so). there is enough there in the idea of dick working hard for the course of a decade to embody who he believed bruce to be that lends itself to it eventually being difficult for him to healthily express himself once the rift between them actually began to emerge

because what about bruce was there to actually see that was broken and dark before dick became an adult? i know a lot of dick fans hate batman #408 because they don't like that it enforced "retirement" upon dick (which i personally believe is a conclusion they come to because of the way batman #416 re-framed the same scene) but to me that's an inaccurate reading of the text. batman #408 was about bruce (admittedly far too belatedly) recognizing that he could not in good conscience continue to ask dick to go out and be a vigilante on what he considered to be his own "orders". he viewed dick's close call with death at the hands of the joker as something directly of his own making. although their tenure with each other had been wonderful if dick wanted to continue to be a vigilante it had to be on his own terms and of his own volition. obv that was logical to bruce and it was something dick managed to accept in the moment. but it's still hard to go from always having a purpose alongside someone you idolized to finally being entrusted entirely to forge your own

in general i like the idea of dick the adult becoming privy to all of the personal problems and conflicts that come with being a vigilante. he was conveniently shielded from a lot of those problems as a child because all he had to do was be bruce's partner and hope to live up to the title. bruce had no reason to trauma dump on him or talk about his worries and concerns at length with him because it was never supposed to be dick's job to field those worries and concerns in the first place. he was a child. the only thing bruce wanted to do was to help channel his emotions through an outlet and provide him with a home to grow up in. but when you become an adult often that dynamic shifts. you're still not responsible for fielding those worries and concerns but you can perhaps be trusted with them. that's why i like the framing in batman #408 of dick now being a man. it's a subtle way to frame the double-edged sword of adulthood. the world is in your hands now but so will be the horrors that come with it. coming to terms with the real world that bruce lives in should be hard for dick. coming to terms with who bruce is when he's not perfect should be hard. coming to terms with how quietly bruce kept his grief because he did not see fit to overwhelm a child with it should be hard. that dichotomy of dick both wanting to be bruce's brother and his son should form the crux of their conflict with each other because you can't hope to be someone's equal and someone's protected at the same time in that kind of relationship. for dick to transition into the position of equal he has to expose himself to the fact that bruce is not in fact an idol but someone irrevocably human. and that should interfere significantly with his head and his own standards for himself

[honestlyvan]

Something that I struggle with that I also keep running into in fic is that Taion...  really just has a kind of a flat affect! He just is kinda stone-faced, having far more in common with the various kuuderes and emotionless girls than any particular defrosting ice king tsundere genius character from other media. I’ve joked about how Taion being a bitch is just affect, not personality, but he’s really not even that rude or blunt, it’s more just that strong expressions of emotion don’t seem to come to him naturally so he has to be agitated into them.

Which is generally not a problem, when writing Taion POV, the way he performs his feelings for other people is quite clear cut, but when not writing Taion POV, people around him gotta prod deeper, to understand how he’s feeling. It’s not easy for anyone except maybe Eunie to gauge his emotional state, and the degree to which that bothers the others varies from Mio being largely used to it to Lanz who would find it constantly grating, not getting sufficient feedback on how they’re “doing”, basically. He’s kind of exhausting to deal with for people who are very emotionally oriented.

Also, I don’t think Eunie is the exception just for the soulmate reasons, but also because she’d cue pretty easily in on the “oh, if something is actually wrong, he’ll just tell me, it’s fine then” and focus on listening to his words, not his tone. I think a lot of their bickering is... if not performative, then at least the two of them agreeing, on some level, to die by the bit. It’s a lot more fun in mundane AUs where they don’t have magic soulmate mind-reading abilities and kinda just keep doing the thing in public because otherwise they would have to have the Conversation about whether they like each other or are just doing this in the absence of other options.

[parfaitfever]

gsusygsuuys at schol i made this lil comic thingy but not rly comic jist art with etxt bubbles and its yuna just overthinkig about her bday so after the "celebrated it" wifh a cuppa tea outside at a cafe she came back to the uhhhh brinzesaints home getig surpise!!!! :3 its simple but super sdorbs if u think about it and i literally drew the whole maincas with party hats during class im so pro ahhahaah

and i also did a lil redesign yuna but i literally just gave her ribbons and glasses cuz im definitely not projectign myself hahahahahahahaha

[hellotailor]

armand’s costumes are such an interesting data point re: his nebulous sense of identity.

when analyzing any costume, there are always many factors to consider: the setting, the character’s personal taste and economic constraints, storytelling concerns like tone and genre, etc. with armand, we also need to remember that he’s 500 years old and violently disconnected from his human origins. everything he wears has an element of disguise, selected to blend into a new environment.

armand was enslaved as a child in 16th century delhi, and barely remembers his mortal life. unlike louis - who can return to new orleans after 80 years and reconnect with his past - armand has no home to return to. his whole backstory, even his name, is rife with traumatic subtext, leaving him with an obsessive need for structure and control. this adds an extra layer of meaning to costuming choices that initially seem like straightforward menswear. 

armand’s 1940s wardrobe is very put-together - primarily three-piece suits and coats that make him look wealthier and more formal than louis, who is purposefully dressing down. most of these outfits are tailored to bulk up armand's frame, leaning into the "maitre" persona. and like his business-casual dubai wardrobe, he always leaves his collar open. when i interviewed costume designer carol cutshall, she described this as a symbolic power move, signalling that he's an apex predator who doesn't need to protect his throat.

my personal interpretation is that while armand clearly likes to look good, he has a complicated relationship with attractiveness. he doesn't always want to draw attention. his color palette is shadowy (black, grey, brown, olive green), and he’s much less flashy than the other Théâtre vamps. however when he’s feeling confident and flirty, he becomes more of a power-dresser - for instance his hunting outfit with the big coat and sunglasses, or his habit of wearing kohl.

interestingly, most of armand's 1940s costumes set him apart from the coven. the Théâtre vampires dress like cabaret performers, embracing a lot of period-specific styles. by contrast armand is more timeless and neutral. in fact, due to the relatively minor changes in men's suits over the past 100 years, there's a lot of overlap between his wardrobe in the 1940s, '70s and 2020s:

the rest of the Théâtre squad share an unofficial uniform of boldly clashing monochrome patterns with pops of bright color. meanwhile armand has a very plain wardrobe, emphasizing the image of him as a businesslike authority figure surrounded by zany artistes. he only wears subtle stripes on a few occasions in the '40s, reflecting the recurring prison motif we see in lestat's trial suit and (most famously) the dubai penthouse bedroom:

if we ask the question, "what does this person like to wear?" there are easy answers for lestat, louis and claudia. we understand their tastes, and the motives behind them. but armand is more enigmatic. we can recognize through-lines in his wardrobe, but his "taste" is dominated by whatever role he's currently decided to embody, whether that's a parisian theater director or a real estate mogul in dubai.

the times when he appears to have the most fun with clothing are when he steals a pair of sunglasses from his human dinner (!) and when he's pretending to be rashid. in other words, when he's explicitly performing for an audience. "real armand" is still a mystery.

(i may write more about armand's dubai wardrobe later, but for now, you can find all of my iwtv costumes posts on this tag!)

[ohimsummer]

IT'S TOO COLD ft. BULLY! SUGURU

— minors dni, anal, closet sex, bully! suguru x fem! reader, dubcon, fingering (anal), creampie, fem! reader, begging, pet names (puppy, darling), ending is a little rushed :'DD

An icy breeze creeps through the cracks of your clothes, any inch of fabric careless enough not to shield you from cool winds. Your body lay way more unprotected than you were comfortable with, considering you were dressed for a brisk 70 degrees and not 15 degrees colder.

It’s appalling how the forecast could possibly be this inaccurate, but you’ve braved the weather so far, having no time to stop by your room for a jacket. Sure, the wind sent your little sundress fluttering and raised goosebumps on any bare patch of skin, but at least you weren’t late for any classes?

“You’re gonna catch a cold like that.”

At the sound of his voice, your feet fix themselves to the ground. You hadn’t even spotted him, too caught up in rushing to your final lecture and the comforting thought of a nice, warm nap after a day of classes.

You turn to watch Geto approach, clad in a dark sweater beneath a darker hooded coat, one he unzips as he draws nearer. He holds the garment out for you to take, amused at the doubt clouded over your expression.

“Come on, darling, you want my arm to get tired?,” he rushes you.

You cross arms over your chest, partially for warmth, partially in defiance, and unintentionally smushing your breasts up perfectly for Geto to get an eyeful, mumbling. “I don’t need your jacket.”

He raises a brow, eyes lingering on your shivering legs for less than innocent reasons, before flashing you his signature, calming grin. “Sure you don’t. Put it on, anyway.”

The subsequent pout of your bottom lip reminds him of Gojo. “But I d-“

“Now.” And you recognize the menacing look in his eyes, a forewarning to obey or else.

Without a word, you snatch the oversized jacket from him, slotting your arms through the spacious sleeves, and zipping it up to your chin. The length of it brushes your knees, and admittedly, you’re grateful for the extra coverage.

“There.,” as the collar of the jacket engulfs the lower half of your face. “Happy now?”

Geto pads even closer, chilly hands grazing your cheeks and ears to send a shiver up your spine, and pulls the hood over your head. He tugs at the strings to tighten it a little, brushing off complaints about your hair to make sure it fits snug.

“Perfect.,” he hums and pats the top of your head. “Though…”

A curious look plasters itself on your face as Geto tilts his head, gaze traveling from your head to toe, stopping again on the rest of your barren legs, and settling on your eyes. ‘C’mon’ he mutters with a hand around your wrist, essentially dragging you in the opposite direction.

“G-Geto!,” you quiet your protests to avoid judgmental stares. “I was g-, let go of me, I was going to class!”

He doesn’t break his gait, pulling you behind him to who-knows-where, your objections flowing straight over his head with the accompanying frigid gusts. Sounds of feet scuffing the ground as you fight against Geto’s steady strides, though to no avail as he slips you both into the campus’s art building. The halls are vacant, slightly less cold than outside, no noise except the loudening sound of drums and instruments as he guides you down a hall destined for trumpet players and the like.

You two arrive at an ordinary, brown door, a storage closet. Geto manhandles the knob, heaving it open with his shoulder against the wood, and gestures you inside. Glancing left and right and seeing no witnesses, you tiptoe inside, nerves worsening as Geto shuts the door behind you.

You mutter, “It’s dark in here.” And as if on cue, a dim, yellowish light fills the small room. Geto’s hand wraps around a dingy string tailing from a single lightbulb, before he walks forward to corner you against a tiny sink stuffed in the room.

“Wh-what are you–?,” croaks out, interrupted by him spinning you around to bend over the porcelain fixture.

“ ‘M warming you up.,” he replies, hands ducking beneath the jacket and your dress to glide up and down your thighs. “You felt pretty cold earlier, can’t let you walk around like that. I’ll help you out before sending you on your way.”

You crane your neck to look at him. Geto looks so much bigger cramped in this tiny janitor’s closet amidst forgotten cleaning supplies and gloomy concrete walls.

“Geto–“

“Suguru.,” he corrects.

You huff, brows furrowing at him, though his eyes are locked on the sight of your exposed panties from where he’s bundled both the jacket and your dress around your waist. “Suguru, I got a lecture to get to, and I’m running late–“

“Mhm.”

You clench at the sensation of something hard against your ass, rambling, “A–nd it’s important, we’re doing group–, group assignments–“

A loud ripping sound and your panties are gone, then the sound of spitting followed by a warm something dripping down the seam of your ass. “Tell me all about it, darling.”

Something prods at your puckered hole, and your lungs shrivel inside your ribcage. You choke out, “Su-Suguru, I really, really–,” a whine as his slick finger breaches your hole, “need to be in cla–ss!” He sinks knuckle-deep into the tight orifice, wriggling around before pumping a few shallow thrusts. Wetness builds between your legs, that knowing ache forming in your core as Geto stills the writhing of your hips with his other hand.

“Geto-!,” a corrective ‘smack’ that leaves a hot sting on your ass, yelping ‘oh!’ before you continue pleading. “Suguru, cut it out, I really can’t fail this class!”

“Of course you can’t.,” Geto says automatically, clearly not listening, too busy stuffing another finger in to prep your hole. His dick twitches as another glob of spit drops from his lips, soaking between his fingers as they stretch your little opening. He scissors them apart, earning a gasp from you, before retrieving them as Geto’s now decided you’re ready.

“Look at that, you feel warmer already.”, he laughs softly, hands tracing the expanse of your skin, trailing up your lower back to feel the new heat radiating off you.

Of course Geto’s right, his playtime with your hole has blossomed a scorching heat over your body, coated in a sheen of sweat, a blazing throb between your thighs. The mass of his chest weighs on your back, Geto’s hand moving over one of yours to lace your fingers together on the edge of the sink; wet sounds of him thrusting into his hand fill the room, and your asshole clenches when you feel something much larger breaching your inside.

“S-Suguru!,” you whine, clutching the smooth porcelain as his tip forces it’s way into your entrance. “O-oh fuck, wait!”

Geto ignores your pleas, already halfway in. Your neck tingles under the vibration of his groan, hot breath on your neck, and Geto makes himself at home amongst the tightness of your walls, you squeezing around his dick as he buries himself deeper. “Fuck. So tight, loosen up, darling.”

His leaking tip drags along your walls, and you both synchronize an unbroken moan when he finally bottoms out in you, flush against your ass. The fullness of it feels funny, but you don’t have time to dwell on it as Geto draws out, before slamming back inside and sending you careening forward. Choked whines echo amidst the small room, mingling with Geto’s low, animalistic grunts, and the occasional curse entwined with rasps of ‘feels so fucking good ’ and ‘god, you’re gonna snap my dick off’. He nibbles on your neck, sucks a dark bruise on the skin, a hand trailing down to balance your leg on the edge of the sink. You embed teeth into your fist, suddenly fearful of passerby overhearing your activities, though it in turn prompts Geto to force a deeper arch in your back, your ass rippling as he ruts into your behind.

Your needy pussy clenches around nothing, clit aching for some kind of stimulation but both of your hands are busy. “Suguru–! O-oh god, please!”

Geto tightens his grip, further entangling your fingers, leaning to press you down some more. “Please what? You want me to touch you?”

You nod with a whine, earning a hard thrust before mewling out, “Yes, yes!”

Geto hums in thought, lips brushing behind your shoulder, and pants ,” Well?” and when he notices the knit of your brows. “Start begging then.”

“But–“

“Ah, ah, I’m waiting.” And he presses a rough kiss to your cheek. The hand on your hip creeps ever closer to your core, tracing over the crease of your thighs but not daring to go any further. A babble of pleas fall off your tongue, tears threatening to slip down your cheeks as your pussy yearns for some kind of stimulation.

“I’m being such a good g-girl for you, Sugu, your good pup–py.”

Aw, aren’t you cute, pulling out the little nickname you’d angrily sworn at them to never use. ‘Why would I ever use that, I don’t even like you.’ Suguru licks up your jawline, smothering your neck in another layer of sloppy kisses. You pull your drool-soaked fist from your mouth, lips quivering. Geto looks through lustful eyes to meet your needy, wide-eyed gaze, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips at your subtle pout.

"Pretty please, Suguru, I really want it...", you whine.

You're such a sight for sore eyes, Geto thinks, tongue darting over his lips as he finally dips a finger between your folds. He's immediately met with your cry, watching your head fall as he massages the swollen nub under his middle finger, basking in the desperate mewls of his name that leave you.

"I wanna cum with you, Sugu, please, please, feels so, s-so good..”

Geto's smile widens. "Yeah?” You nod eagerly. “Ask politely, like a good puppy, and I’ll let you."

His fingers plunge deep into your spasming hole, leaking juices down to his wrist, the rough thrusts of his cock leaving words to catch in your throat. Your release is just around the corner, and it's a struggle to hold back the way Geto is pounding into you, with his thumb still pressing circles into your clit.

"May I please cum with you, Sugu, please, please, please?", you whimper into the back of your hand.

A short silence follows. Geto's way of toying with you further. The way you squeeze around his fingers and dick make it evident you're close, but he just wants to see. Is his puppy really gonna go ahead and cum without his say so?

"Please–!" It's taking all your strength, and you don't know how much longer you can hold out. "Suguru, fuck, I-I might–“

And his answer feels like a blessing in your ears. "Go ahead, darling. Cum with me."

You let out a broken, choked moan, trembling in Geto's hands as your orgasm sends you over the edge. He thinks you just might actually cut off his dick the way you contract around him, groaning against your neck as he releases thick strings of cum into your entrance. Geto spreads your ass cheeks wide as he pulls out. Globs of his cum dribble out your tight hole, trailing down to mix with the cum leaking from your cunt. If not for Suguru holding you up, surely you would have collapsed on the floor, legs weak and useless in keeping you upright. Geto gives your ass a little smack, before readjusting your dress and his jacket to make you look a little more decent.

"There, all done.," he says. "Want me to walk you to class, now?"

You roll your eyes, shivering and gulping in air. Of course he’s wants to be funny with his cum running down your legs. Between shaky breaths, you rasp, "It's too–, far too late for that."

tagz: @anthoosies today i offer u bully suguru, tomorrow….who knowz

[mrs-stans]

Sebastian Stan Tells All: Becoming Donald Trump, Gaining 15 Pounds and Starring in 2024’s Most Controversial Movie

By Daniel D'Addario

Sebastian Stan Variety Cover Story

It started with the most famous voice on the planet, the one that just won’t shut up.

Sebastian Stan, in real life, sounds very little like Donald Trump, whom he’s playing in the new film “The Apprentice.” Sure, they share a tristate accent — Stan has lived in the city for years and attended Rutgers University before launching his career — but he speaks with none of Trump’s emphasis on his own greatness. Trump dwells, Stan skitters. Trump attempts to draw topics together over lengthy stem-winders (what he recently called “the weave”), while Stan has a certain unwillingness to be pinned down, a desire to keep moving. It takes some coaxing to bring Stan, a man with the upright bearing and square jaw of a matinee idol, to speak about his own process — how hard he worked to conjure a sense Trump, and how he sought to bring out new insights about America’s most scrutinized politician.

“I think he’s a lot smarter than people want to say about him,” Stan says, “because he repeats things consistently, and he’s given you a brand.” Stan would know: He watched videos of Trump on a loop while preparing for “The Apprentice.” In the film, out on Oct. 11, Stan plays Trump as he moves from insecure, aspiring real estate developer to still insecure but established member of the New York celebrity firmament.

We’re sitting over coffee in Manhattan. Stan is dressed down in a black chore coat and black tee, yet he’s anything but a casual conversation partner. He rarely breaks eye contact, doing so only on the occasions when he has something he wants to show me on his iPhone (cracked screen, no case). In this instance, it’s folders of photos and videos labeled “DT” and “DT PHYSICALITY.”

“I had 130 videos on his physicality on my phone,” Stan says. “And 562 videos that I had pulled with pictures from different time periods — from the ’70s all the way to today — so I could pull out his speech patterns and try to improvise like him.” Stan, deep in character, would ad-lib entire scenes at director Ali Abbasi’s urging, drawing on the details he’d learned from watching Trump and reading interviews to understand precisely how to react in each moment.

“Ali could come in on the second take and say, ‘Why don’t you talk a little bit about the taxes and how you don’t want to pay?’ So I had to know what charities they were going to in 1983. Every night I would go home and try not only to prepare for the day that was coming, but also to prepare for where Ali was going to take this.”

Looking at Stan’s phone, among the endless pictures of Trump, I glimpse thumbnails of Stan’s own face perched in a Trumpian pout and videos of the actor’s preparation just aching to be clicked — or to be stored in the Trump Presidential Library when this is all over in a few months, or in 2029, or beyond.

“I started to realize that I needed to start speaking with my lips in a different way,” Stan says. “A lot of that came from the consonants. If I’m talking, I’m moving forward.” On film, Stan shapes his mouth like he can’t wait to get the plosives out, puckering without quite tipping into parody. “The consonants naturally forced your lips forward.”

“If he did 10% more of what he did, it would become ‘Saturday Night Live,’” Abbasi says. “If he did 10% less, then he’s not conjuring that person. But here’s the thing about Sebastian: He’s very inspired by reality, by research. And that’s also the way I work; if you want to go to strange places, you need to get your baseline reality covered very well.”

A little later, Stan passes me the phone again to show me a selfie of him posing shirtless and revealing two sagging pecs and a bit of a gut. He’s pouting into a mirror. If his expression looks exaggerated, consider that he was in Marvel-movie shape before stepping into the role of the former president; the body transformation happened rapidly and jarringly. Trump’s size is a part of the film’s plot — as Trump’s sense of self inflates, so does he. In a rush to meet the shooting deadline for “The Apprentice,” Abbasi asked Stan, “How much weight can you gain?”

“You’d be surprised,” Stan tells me. “You can gain a lot of weight in two months.” (Fifteen pounds, to be exact.)

Now he’s back in fighting form, but the character has stayed with him. After years of playing second-fiddle agents of chaos — goofball husbands to Margot Robbie’s and Lily James’ characters in “I, Tonya” and Hulu’s “Pam & Tommy,” surly frenemy to Chris Evans’ Captain America in the Marvel franchise — Stan plunged into the id of the man whose appetites have reshaped our world. He had to have a polished enough sense of Trump that he could improvise in character, and enough respect for him to play him as a human being, not a monster.

It’s one of two transformations this year for Stan — and one that might give a talented actor that most elusive thing: a brand of his own. He’s long been adjacent enough to star power that he could feel its glow, but he hasn’t been the marquee performer. While his co-stars have found themselves defined by the projects he’s been in — from “Captain America” and “I, Tonya” back to his start on “Gossip Girl” — he’s spent more than a decade in the public eye while evading being defined at all.

This fall promises to be the season that changes all that: Stan is pulling double duty with “The Apprentice” and “A Different Man” (in theaters Sept. 20), in which he plays a man afflicted with a disfiguring tumor disorder who — even when presented with a fantastical treatment that makes him look like, well, Sebastian Stan — can’t be cured of ailments of the soul. For “A Different Man,” Stan won the top acting prize at the Berlin Film Festival; for “The Apprentice,” the sky’s the limit, if it can manage to get seen. (More on that later.)

One reason Stan has largely evaded being defined is that he’s never the same twice, often willing to get loopy or go dark in pursuit of his characters’ truths. That’s all the more true this year: In “The Apprentice,” he’s under the carapace of Trumpiness; in “A Different Man,” his face is hidden behind extensive prosthetics.

“In my book, if you’re the good-looking, sensitive guy 20 movies in a row, that’s not a star for me,” says Abbasi, who compares Stan to Marlon Brando — an actor eager to play against his looks. “You’re just one of the many in the factory of the Ken dolls.”

This fall represents Stan’s chance to break out of the toy store once and for all. His Winter Soldier brought a jolt of evil into Captain America’s world, and his Jeff Gillooly was the devil sitting on Tonya Harding’s shoulder. Now Stan is at the center of the frame, playing one of the most divisive characters imaginable. So he’s showing us where he can go. The spotlight is his, and so is the risk that comes with it.

Why take such a risk?

The script for “The Apprentice,” which Stan first received in 2019, but which took years to come together, made him consider the American dream, the one that Trump achieved and is redefining.

Stan emigrated with his mother, a pianist, from communist Romania as a child. “I was raised always aware of the American dream: America being the land of opportunity, where dreams come true, where you can make something of yourself.” He pushes the wings of his hair back to frame his face, a gold signet ring glinting in the late-summer sunlight, and, briefly, I can hear a hint of Trump’s directness of approach. “You can become whoever you want, if you just have a good idea.” Stan’s good idea has been to play the lead in movies while dodging the formulaic identity of a leading man, and this year will prove just how far he can take it.

“The Apprentice” seemed like it would never come together before suddenly it did. This time last year, Stan was sure it was dead in the water, and he was OK with that. “If this movie is not happening, it’s because it’s not meant to happen,” he recalls thinking. “It will not be because I’m too scared and walk away.”

Called in on short notice and filming from November 2023 to January of this year (ahead of a May premiere in Cannes), Stan lent heft and attitude to a character arc that takes Trump from local real estate developer in the 1970s to national celebrity in the 1980s. He learns the rough-and-tumble game of power from the ruthless and hedonistic political fixer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), eventually cutting the closeted Cohn loose as he dies of AIDS and alienating his wife Ivana (Maria Bakalova) in the process. (In a shocking scene, Donald sexually assaults Ivana in their Trump Tower apartment.) For all its edginess, the film is about Trump’s personality — and the way it calcified into a persona — rather than his present-day politics. (Despite its title, it’s set well before the 2004 launch of the reality show that finally made Trump the superstar he longed to be.)

And despite the fact that Trump has kept America rapt since he announced his run for president in 2015, Hollywood has been terrified of “The Apprentice.” The film didn’t sell for months after Cannes, an unusual result for a major English-language competition film, partly because Trump’s legal team sent a cease-and-desist letter attempting to block the film’s release in the U.S. while the fest was still ongoing. When it finally sold, it was to Briarcliff Entertainment, a distributor so small that the production has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money so that it will be able to stay in theaters.

Yes, Hollywood may vote blue, but it’s not the same town that released “Fahrenheit 9/11” or even “W.,” let alone a film that depicts the once (and possibly future) president raping his wife. (The filmmakers stand behind that story. “The script is 100% backed by my own interviews and historical research,” says Gabriel Sherman, the screenwriter and a journalist who covers Trump and the American conservative movement. “And it’s important to note that it is not a documentary. It’s a work of fiction that’s inspired by history.”) Entertainment corporations from Netflix to Disney would be severely inconvenienced if the next president came into office with a grudge against them.

“I am quite shocked, to be honest,” Abbasi says. “This is not a political piece. It’s not a hit piece; it’s not a hatchet job; it’s not propaganda. The fact that it’s been so challenging is shocking.” Abbasi, born in Iran, was condemned by his government over his last film, “Holy Spider,” and cannot safely return. He sees a parallel in the response to “The Apprentice.” “OK, that’s Iran — that is unfortunately expected. But I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Everything with this film has been one day at a time,” Stan says. The actor chalks up the film’s divisiveness to a siloed online environment. “There are a lot of people who love reading the [film’s] Wikipedia page and throwing out their opinions,” he says, an edge entering his voice. “But they don’t actually know what they’re talking about. That’s a popular sport now online, apparently.”

Unprompted, Stan brings up the idea that Trump is so widely known that some might think a biographical film about him serves no purpose. “When someone says, ‘Why do we need this movie? We know all this,’ I’ll say, ‘Maybe you do, but you haven’t experienced it. The experience of those two hours is visceral. It’s something you can hopefully feel — if you still have feelings.’”

After graduating from Rutgers in 2005, Stan found his first substantial role on “Gossip Girl,” playing troubled rich kid Carter Baizen. Like teen soaps since time immemorial, “Gossip Girl” was a star-making machine. “It was the first time I was in serious love with somebody,” he says. (He dated the series’ star, Leighton Meester, from 2008 to 2010.) He feels nostalgic for that moment: “Walking around the city, seeing these same buildings and streets — life seemed simpler.”

Stan followed his “Gossip Girl” gig with roles on the 2009 NBC drama “Kings,” playing a devious gay prince in an alternate-reality modern world governed by a monarchy, and the 2012 USA miniseries “Political Animals,” playing a black-sheep prince (and once again a gay man) of a different sort — the son of a philandering former president and an ambitious former first lady.

When I ask him what lane he envisioned himself in as a young actor, he shrugs off the question. “I grew up with a single mom, and I didn’t have a lot of male role models. I was always trying to figure out what I wanted to be. And at some point, I was like, I could just be a bunch of things.”

Which might seem challenging when one is booked to play the same character, Bucky Barnes, in Marvel movie after Marvel movie. Bucky’s adventures have been wide-ranging — he’s been brainwashed and turned evil and then brought back to the home team again, all since his debut in 2011’s “Captain America: The First Avenger.” Next year, he’ll anchor the summer movie “Thunderbolts,” as the leader of a squad of quirky heroes played by, among others, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Florence Pugh. It’s easy to wonder if this has come to feel like a cage of sorts.

Not so, says Stan. His new Marvel film “was kind of like ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ — a guy coming into this group that was chaotic and degenerate, and somehow finding a way to unite them.”

Lately, knives have been out for Marvel movies as some have disappointed at the box office, and “Thunderbolts,” which endured strike delays and last-minute cast changes, has been under scrutiny.

“It’s become really convenient to pick on [Marvel films],” Stan says. “And that’s fine. Everyone’s got an opinion. But they’re a big part of what contributes to this business and allows us to have smaller movies as well. This is an artery traveling through the system of this entire machinery that’s Hollywood. It feeds in so many more ways than people acknowledge.” He adds, “Sometimes I get protective of it because the intention is really fucking good. It’s just fucking hard to make a good movie over and over again.”

Which may account for an eagerness to try something new. “In the last couple of years,” he says, “I’ve gotten much more aggressive about pursuing things that I want, and I’m constantly looking for different ways of challenging myself.”

The challenge continued throughout the shoot of “The Apprentice,” as Stan pushed the material. “One of the most creatively rewarding parts of the process was how open Sebastian was to giving notes on the script but also wanting to go beyond the script,” says Sherman, the screenwriter. “If he was interested in a certain aspect of a scene, he was like, Can you find me a quote?” he recalls.

Building a dynamic through improvised scenes, Stan and Strong stayed in character throughout the “Apprentice” shoot. “I was doing an Ibsen play on Broadway,” says Strong, who won a Tony in June for his performance in “An Enemy of the People,” “and he came backstage afterwards. And it was like — I’d never really met Sebastian, and I don’t think he’d ever met me. So it was nice to meet him.”

Before the pair began acting together, they didn’t rehearse much — “I’m not a fan of rehearsals,” Strong says. “I think actors are best left in their cocoon, doing their work, and then trusted to walk on set and be ready.” The two didn’t touch the script together until cameras went up — though they spent a preproduction day, Strong says, playing games in character as Donald and Roy.

After filming, both have kept memories of the hold their characters had on them. They shared a flight back from Telluride — a famously bumpy trip out of the mountains. “He’s a nervous flyer, and I’m a nervous flyer,” Stan says. Both marveled at the fact that they’d contained their nerves on the first day of shooting “The Apprentice,” when their characters traveled together via helicopter. “We both go, ‘Yeah — but there was a camera.’”

Stan’s aggressive approach to research came in handy on “A Different Man,” which shot before “The Apprentice.” His character’s disorder, neurofibromatosis, is caused by a genetic mutation and presents as benign tumors growing in the nervous system. After being healed, he feels a growing envy for a fellow sufferer who seems unbothered by his disability.

Stan’s co-star, Adam Pearson, was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis in early childhood. Stan found the experience challenging to render faithfully. “I said many times, I can do all the research in the world, but am I ever going to come close to this?” Stan says. “How am I going to ever do this justice?”

Plus, he had precious little time to prepare: “He was fully on board, and the film was being made weeks later,” director Aaron Schimberg says. “Zero to 60 in a matter of weeks.”

The actor grappled for something to hold on to, and Pearson sug gested he refer to his own experience of fame. “Adam said to me, ‘You know what it’s like to be public property,’” Stan says.

Pearson recalls describing the experience to Stan this way: “While you don’t understand the invasiveness and the staring and the pointing that I’ve grown up with, you do know what it’s like to have the world think you owe them something.”

That sense of alienation becomes universal through the film’s storytelling: “A Different Man” takes its premise as the jumping-off point for a deep and often mordant investigation of who we all are underneath the skin.

The film was shot in 22 days in a New York City heat wave, and there was, Schimberg says, “no room for error. I would get four or five takes, however many I could squeeze out, but there’s no coverage.”

Through it all, Stan’s performance is utterly poised — Schimberg and Stan discussed Buster Keaton as a reference for his ability to be “completely stone-faced” amid chaos, the director says. And the days were particularly long because Oscar-nominated prosthetics artist Michael Marino was only able to apply Stan’s makeup in the early morning, before going to his job on the set of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”

“Even though I wasn’t shooting until 11 a.m., I would go at like 5 in the morning to his studio, or his apartment,” Stan recalls. The hidden advantage was that Stan had hours to kill while made up like his character, the kind of person the world looks past. “I wanted to walk around the city and see what happened,” Stan says. “On Broadway, one of the busiest streets in New York, no one’s looking at me. It’s as if I’m not even there.” The other reaction was worse: “Somebody would immediately stop and very blatantly hit their friend, point, take a picture.”

It was a study in empathy that flowed into the character. Stan had spoken to Pearson’s mother, who watched her son develop neurofibromatosis before growing into a disability advocate and, eventually, an actor. “She said to me, ‘All I ever wanted was for someone to walk in his shoes for a day,’” Stan recalls. “And I guess that was the closest I had ever come.”

“The Apprentice” forced Stan, and forces the viewer, to do the same with a figure that some 50% of the electorate would sooner forget entirely. And that lends the film its controversy. Those on the right, presupposing that the movie is an anti-Trump document, have railed against it. In a statement provided to Variety, a Trump campaign spokesman said, “This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should never see the light of day and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire.” The campaign threatened a lawsuit, though none has materialized.

Asked about the assault scene, Stan notes that Ivana had made the claim in a deposition, but later walked it back. “Is it closer to the truth, what she had said directly in the deposition or something that she retracted?” he asks. “They went with the first part.”

The movie depicts, too, Ivana’s carrying on with her marriage after the violation, which may be still more devastating. “How do you overcome something like this?” asks Bakalova. “Do you have to put on a mask that everything is fine? In the next scene, she’s going to play the game and pretend that we’re the glamorous, perfect couple.” The Trumps, in “The Apprentice,” live in a world of paper-thin images, one that grows so encompassing that Donald no longer feels anything for the people to whom he was once loyal. They’re props in his stage show.

“The Apprentice” will drop in the midst of the most chaotic presidential election of our lifetime. “The way it lands in this extremely polarized situation, for me as an artist, is exciting. I won’t lie to you,” says Abbasi.

When asked if he was concerned about blowback from a Trump 47 presidency, Stan says, “You can’t do this movie and not be thinking about all those things, but I really have no idea. I’m still in shock from going from an assassination attempt to the next weekend having a president step down [from a reelection bid].”

Stan’s job, as he sees it, was to synthesize everything he’d absorbed — all those videos on his phone — into a person who made sense. This Trump had to be part of a coherent story, not just the flurry of news updates to which we’ve become accustomed.

“You can take a Bach or a Beethoven, and everyone’s going to play that differently on the piano, right?” Stan says. (His pianist mother named him for Johann Sebastian Bach.) “So this is my take on what I’ve learned. I have to strip myself of expectations of being applauded for this, if people are going to like it or people are going to hate it. People are going to say whatever they want. Hopefully they should think at least before they say it.”

It’s a reality that Stan is now used to — the work is the work, and the way people interpret him is none of his business. Perhaps that’s why he has run away from ever being the same thing twice. “I could sit with you today and tell you passionately what my truth is, but it doesn’t matter,” he says. “Because people are more interested in a version of you that they want to see, rather than who you are.”

“The Apprentice” has been the subject of extreme difference of opinion by many who have yet to see it. It’s been read — and will continue to be after its release — as anti-Trump agitprop. The truth is chewier and more complicated, and, perhaps, unsuited for these times.

“Are we going to live in a world where anyone knows what the truth is anymore? Or is it just a world that everyone wants to create for themselves?” Stan asks.

His voice — the one that shares a slight accent with Trump but that is, finally, Stan’s own — is calm and clear. “People create their own truth right now,” he says. “That’s the only thing that I’ve made peace with; I don’t need to twist your arm if that’s what you want to believe. But the way to deal with something is to actually confront it.”

[mauesartetc]

A while back I got a comment that demonstrated a misconception as to what the character design process actually entails, and I thought it had real "teachable moment" potential. So let me make this perfectly clear:

Drawing a character is NOT the same as designing one.

Let's say I wanted to draw a guy. No backstory, no defined personality traits or preferences, no details about his current life, just doodling some random, generic guy who popped into my head.

That's just a drawing.

But what if I decided to flesh him out more? What if I wanted his appearance to reflect his lifestyle and inner life as well? Here's where the note-taking comes in.

And now for the visual research:

I thought the bodybuilding angle would provide a fun contrast with this guy's profession. The mental image of a huge, burly dude working on a clock or watch with tiny, precise movements just makes me smile. Perhaps I could give him small, nimble hands that would suit his line of work.

Now that I have a better idea of how Mikhail's face and body will look, it's time to establish a pose.

Of course, I never expected to employ all the personality traits I started out with inside this single pose; those were just a jumping-off point. No one drawing will ever be able to encapsulate every single facet of a character, unless they're extraordinarily flat and generic (see also: random guy I doodled at the start of this post). If I wanted to write a story with this guy, I'd have to figure out how all the traits play off each other and how they'd cause him to react to different situations. There would be a lot more note-taking and development involved, but for the sake of keeping this post (somewhat) brief, let's just focus on visuals for now.

On to color!

I decided to give Mikhail a carnation in his pocket (for its round shape), specifically a red one, which represents deep love and an aching heart. Thus, the flower needed to maintain its red color for the symbolism to come through.

For some reason I initially pictured this guy wearing a pink shirt (perhaps as an offshoot of the "romantic" angle), but I wanted to try some different colors inspired by the 70s catalog pages I found. I ended up really liking the contrast of the cool blue shirt with the warm red pants, and that option made it into my top three as a result. I lined them up next to each other to compare them, and in the end, blue won out over pink. I think it also reflects the "colder", more cerebral, less-emotional parts of his personality well (namely "systematic", "stern", and "callous"- one from each column!). Just goes to show that you shouldn't get too attached to your first draft, as better ideas are just around the corner.

I then lightened the blue of the shirt so it wouldn't compete so much with the rest of the outfit, and wouldn't be quite as loud and "in your face". Mikhail strikes me as a bit of an introvert, so the calmer, quieter blue is a better fit. I added a darker belt and watchband and de-saturated the flower just a bit to make the values feel more balanced, and I think we've got it!

Let's see the final result!

Y'all, I was not expecting this process to make me emotional, but there's something special about fully realizing a little guy you've spent hours working on. All of a sudden you look at him and go, "Oh my god, there he is. That's him." This man wasn't even a twinkle in my eye a couple weeks ago and now I'd protect him with my life.

And the thing is, the only reason I'm calling this design "done" for now is that I basically just brought it into existence to make a point. But if this dude were attached to a larger story, he'd be nowhere near finished. I'd have to make a ton more iterations and go a lot more in depth with my research than I did (especially with the Armenian cultural stuff). Overall, though, I hope this quick project properly highlighted the difference between a single drawing and a more fleshed-out character.

Later!

[void-inked-pen]

Personal opinion on webtoons and vertical scroll format:

It sucks.

Not just from a personal preference standpoint but also from a creative standpoint.

I’ve seen many creators who work on webtoons originals comment on how they miss doing regular comic page formatting and I honestly think the vertical scroll CAN be used creatively… artists just don’t have the time to do it.

They expect 70+ panels every update (which is ridiculous btw, at most 1 standard page comic would have 10 panels at most to give you an idea, so basically webtoons is asking for 7+ pages per update which is insane) which can be stressful but they also expect you to somehow do that many panels in a week!

When I see people complain about the background art in some of these comics I IMMEDIATELY come to their defense because would YOU honestly be able to draw over 70+ backgrounds in that time? The story is more important at that point! So I really don’t care.

Not to mention that workload is KILLER on an artists drive, motivation, and overall health (mental and physical) I don’t see how any of that is okay.

Regular comic artists who don’t use the webtoons format have expressed their own problems with all these issues and they make a single page a week!

Unfortunately, the draw back from doing a regular page a week means less exposure to an audience so there is a draw back but this consumer mentality when it comes to comics is disheartening.

Idk what or where I will be posting my comics in the future (maybe tapas? They allow regular page formats I think) but I don’t intend to bend to the webtoons gods will on this matter either if it means I can finish a story reasonably with my squirrel brain.

So ye… rant over I guess

[beetheyapper]

MUSIC I THINK THE POETS WOULD ENJOY

this is not time period accurate but i do not care. i at least tried to keep it pre-2000s. also i’m 100% projecting my music taste onto them. deal with it? spotify playlists, each of which has around 30 songs, are linked below each description ! i spent forever on this 😭

Charlie Dalton

i’m not sure that i could pinpoint very many artists he’d particularly like, but this is a classic rock boy right here. he’d be into ac/dc, motley crue, led zeppelin, etc. perhaps a bit of duran duran (this is where i’m projecting the most.) songs about s3x and women, and songs that make him feel like the rebel he is. (this playlist has been gale hansen approved on twitter btw)

Neil Perry

oh i just know this kid would be into some funk and pop, especially 80s and perhaps even new wave (i’m again projecting). now THIS is a duran duran fan (specifically their early stuff), which is unsurprising since the lead singer has a drama degree. he’d also probably like fleetwood mac, and would be well-versed in the band’s drama. duran duran, wham!, fleetwood mac, abba, maybe even some hall & oates. songs with complex lyrics and also songs that make him wanna dance. lots of upbeat stuff because though he has things that bother him, he’d rather do anything but dwell on them.

Todd Anderson

honestly, considering they’re roommates, i feel like neil would’ve had a bit of an impact on todd’s music taste, so there’s some band influence there—but regardless, i think todd would be into more mellow and emotional songs. jeff buckley comes to mind, along with the eagles, the beatles and maybe a splash of the smiths also pls pretend now and then didn’t come out last year. he would also be letting it linger i fear

Knox Overstreet

knox would be similar to Charlie, as they probably bond over shared music taste just as much as everything else. very heavy on the classic rock, but a lean more towards songs about needing someone and love songs as he pines for Chris. Tom Petty, Robert Palmer, The Cars, and a bunch of songs introduced to him by Charlie. He sticks more to genre/theme than to a specific artist methinks

Richard Cameron

contrary to what some may think, i think Cameron would absolutely groove to some rock n roll. HOWEVER. he is a 60s-70s rock n roll elitist. he thinks Billy Idol’s cover of Mony Mony is a disgrace. he wholeheartedly believes the Beatles are the best band to have ever graced the planet. The Beatles, The Beach Boys. The Rolling Stones, etc. Maybe even some Simon & Garfunkel. Him and Charlie argue a lot about which decades were the best years of rock music

Gerard Pitts

free my boy. he just wants to dance he ain’t do nothing wrong. his music taste has definitely been influenced by some of the other poets, in the sense that if he hears a song with a funky beat that makes him want to dance, it’s added to his mixtape IMMEDIATELY. for this reason, i’m thinking lots of funk and groove. play that funky music white boy! Bee Gees, ABBA, Talking Heads, Pet Shop Boys, etc. as long as he can dance to it he could care less who it’s by

Steven Meeks

another old rock, but more on the calm side with some hints of folk and fun. Donovan, The Beatles (paul is his fav for sure), The Beach Boys, and he definitely loves every white person anthem, including Sweet Caroline. he likes to groove with Pitts but also like soothing music to study to !!! i had to consult my friend on this one i fear i was drawing a blank

AND THAT is my opinion on each of the poets’ music taste. did i squeeze Duran Duran into almost all of them? perhaps. they’re my fav band let me live… feel free to listen to the playlists (please listen to them. pls i don’t want to have made them in vain.) and maybe even become spotify moots with me :D

[one-squash-one-end]

I wrote a giant Raven Cycle analysis

Hi! Over the last year or so I've been working on a sort of essay about various themes in the raven cycle series, and I finally finished it a few weeks ago.

It is titled: "Why I love The Raven Cycle - An excessive analysis of the themes of friendship, queerness and growing up".

And since tumblr loves its meta (and bc I love peer validation) I've decided to start uploading it bit by bit here, making this the masterpost (if I can figure out the logistics of the linking lmao, bear with me)

(beware of spoilers up to greywaren starting at like 3b!)

Introduction

What even is the Raven Cycle?

Trust me, the characters are queer as fuck and I can prove it a) Blue Sargent b) Gansey c) Adam Parrish d) Ronan Lynch e) Noah f) Henry Cheng g) Honorary mentions

The Gangsey is a polycule

Analyzing the reoccurring themes a) Friendship b) Being a teen/growing up c) (Found) Family d) Magic (as a metaphor) e) Further themes I appreciate

Drawing a conclusion

Click here to start with the introductory parts!

1. Introduction

So here’s the thing: I love fiction almost as much as I love my friends. There’s something deeply comforting about the escapism, even if the book actually makes me want to scream and throw it on the floor (only one book has been thrown so far, I promise!).  Fiction is a healthy thing to occupy my thoughts with: headcanons! Quotes being on loop in my brain! Just fandoms!

And for me, if I am hooked on a book (series), it does not even need a good plot where a lot of things happen. In fact, I would say that my enjoyment of a book is made up of 30% plot and about 70% characters and vibes. If the characters are bland, if they do not make me feel much emotion, it likely won’t be more than 4 stars (additional info: I am way too nice rating books!). I really, really need to love the characters, to be able to relate to some aspects of them, or it just won’t become an obsession.

Since I have already started explaining that a bit, let’s look at this question: What is important to make a book special to me? 1. I need to cry reading it. 2. I have to think about it often, even weeks to months after having read it. 3. Obviously, I need to love the characters. 4. I need to be in the fandom! This can be hard with some books, but the internet is a whimsical space allowing you to find at least a small number of people who are obsessed with a work of fiction to a similar extent as you are.

Now, why am I elaborating on this so much? It’s because The Raven Cycle did all that for me. It is my favorite comfort book series at the moment, for all those aspects mentioned, but of course I cannot just leave it at that. No, I wrote a whole-ass analysis on headcanons and some of its themes. You’re welcome.

2. What even is The Raven Cycle?

The Raven Cycle is all I adore and live for (next to my friends). So, naturally, it’s a book series, specifically a four book young adult contemporary fantasy series by American author Maggie Stiefvater. The books in question are: The Raven Boys (2012), The Dream Thieves (2013), Blue Lily, Lily Blue (2014) and The Raven King (2016), and yes I will admit that the publishing dates are a bit of a red flag. There is also the very relevant follow-up series called The Dreamer Trilogy (Call Down The Hawk, Mister Impossible, Greywaren), but it’s a lot less easy to get into that here as I do not know these entire books by heart, so I’ll stick to the original tetralogy here.

To stick to red flags, the books are set in the fictional Henrietta, a rural town in non-fictional Virginia, US, in the 2010s. However, that doesn’t really say *that* much about the plot, so let me summarize that really quick, because I can do better than the official synopsis! (Or let’s pretend I can.)

Blue Sargent comes from a family of psychics, yet she does not have any powers of her own. Even worse, she is a bit of an amplifier for the others, meaning she is always somehow but never directly involved in the business. As if that isn’t enough for an identity crisis, every psychic she has ever met has told her that her kiss would kill her true love. Yikes.

But because she is that amplifier, she comes to a church watch on St. Mark’s Eve, where psychics see the spirits of those to die within the following year. It’s important business, but to her it’s really just staring into the dark. Until she does actually see a spirit: That of Gansey. Of course this is not a coincidence. No, to add to this teen’s mount of problems, there are only two reasons why a non-seer would see someone’s spirit: They are their true love, or they killed them. Or, in Blue’s case, maybe both.

The aforementioned Gansey is Henrietta’s Golden Boy, the son of politicians (read: he’s fucking loaded). He does not run with the Republicans though, he runs with dead Welsh kings, meaning he has been searching for the probably dead, presumably sleeping Welsh king Glendower (*1350; †1416; yikes) for the past like seven years. Why the fuck would he do that? Well, legend says that he will grant a wish to whoever wakes him, and our favorite PTSD-ridden guy really wants that favor.

Aiding him are fellow Aglionby students Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch and Noah Czerny, plus Henry Cheng, though only a lot later in the series, but I really did not want to leave out that menace (affectionately) here. The paths of Blue and the boys cross because of Gansey’s search for Glendower, plus the fact that Blue works at a popular pizza place, but that’s a lot less whimsical. And, well, there’s the implication that Gansey might also be her true love, but perhaps she just kills him because of his bad fashion sense, it would be justified. Anyway, in true Famous Five fashion (Ronan is the dog; I won’t elaborate, the girls that get it, get it) they are of course not the only ones searching for the king, so it’s not completely a wholesome friend bonding activity all the way through.

Be prepared for: friendship and growing up, lots of treasure hunting, family mysteries, magical forests, illegal and slightly distasteful activities (our favorite of course), but most of all, heavily queer-coded (or even canonically queer) characters. Be Gay, Do Crime.

[barefoothighlander]

hiii hope your day is going well <3 could you pls do something where ghost and the reader are just starting to see each other? the reader is on the team and ghost finally asked them out on a date. i just wanna see your view on what he’d plan out for the first date. also the night could end with smut 👀 (only if you think it would ofc)

the very first night

YESS sorry this got me too excited, he'd be so nervous about the date, trying to make it romantic UGH idc what anyone says that man would be so awkward on dates, so cute

warnings: fluff, mdni (18+), unproteted pinv, riding, sex in a car;), two idiots in love tbh

You had been working with the 141 for a little over a year, growing close to them, but mostly Ghost. He avoided you at first, you thought he hated you but it turned out you made him nervous, he had admitted it a while back, saying that being around you gave him butterflies and he didn't understand what those were but he'd like to take you out on a date.

You were more than willing, mostly out of intrigue, most of your interactions were short, he didn't talk a lot and you could never read him behind that mask, you wondered if he wore it off base. You felt drawn to him, always glancing at him during meetings, you found yourself blushing when he'd address you by your real name rather than your call sign.

He had asked you to go on a date on Thursday, you thankfully had the week off to try and settle your anxiety, showering and prepping yourself for the date. He didn't tell you much of what he had planned, honestly you assumed he would take you to some small bar, none the less you got dressed, nervous that this would be the first time he saw you with your hair and makeup done, the bar for your appearance set rather low considering he'd only ever seen you in uniform.

You waited by the door, bouncing your leg in anticipation, around 7 you heard a knock, opening it to see him, he was dressed rather plainly, in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that let you see the full image of the tattoo on his forearm, to your dismay he still wore a mask, but at least the balaclava let you see a little more of him. You beam a smile at him, his arm extending to hold out a small bouquet of flowers.

"I wasn't sure what the protocol was so I asked Soap, he said I should bring flowers"

You soften our gaze, grabbing the flowers and giving them a small sniff,

"They're beautiful Simon, thank you"

You move to place them inside,

"You look great," He says nervously,

"You're not so bad yourself" You giggle, you close your door and he waits for you to walk down the stairs before opening your door to the car,

"Such a gentleman"

He huffs a nervous laugh, moving to settle in his own seat before driving off. You drive for a few minutes, the radio in the car set on some 70's rock station, you wondered if he actually listened to this music or if he just put it on to fill the silence. He parks the car on a dirt road,

"We have to walk from here"

You glance around eyeing the terrain, there's a small path bordered with trees,

"You're not gonna kill me are you?" You joke

"What? No."

You widen your eyes a little at his quick response, walking beside him down the path. You reach your hand to wrap around his bicep, feeling his muscle tense under your touch before he relaxes, your thumb drawing small patterns over the skin ad the two of you make your way to a clearing,

"Here, the ground's a little rough so, watch your step"

You move forward to walk and he grabs your hand, helping you keep balance, your hand fits in his perfectly, he moves with you, his hand moving to pull away but you squeeze it, keeping it to yours. He feels himself relax a little under your grip, directing you to a blanket he had set out. your eyes widen at the sight completely taken aback by the scene. He had laid a blanket for the two of you, a small lantern on top beside a little cooler.

"You did all this?" You say glancing up at him,

He chuckles shyly, "Yea I um, don't do great in restaurants so I figured this might be better"

You swear you feel your heart swell, you walk towards the blanket tugging him behind you as you sit down, you're facing toward a small pond, the sun just dipping below the horizon as it sets, painting the sky in hues of pink and orange.

"Is it alright?"

You look at him with a smile, a soft hand resting on his leg, "It's perfect"

He huffs a small laugh, opening the cooler and pulling out some sandwiches and drinks.

"I'm not a chef by any means but, they're good I swear"

He hands you a sandwich, truth be told he could give you burnt toast and you'd still look at him with hearts in your eyes. You bite into it, pleasantly surprised that it tasted rather good, you nod your head at his waiting face, a crinkle forming beside his eyes as pride fills his chest.

You watch him unwrap his sandwich, moving his hands to his mask apprehensively,

"Oh, I can just-" You say, turning your body to face away from him

"No, it's alright"

He takes a deep breath and removes his mask, your heart skips a beat, he's gorgeous, you'd only ever seen his eyes before and you found them mesmerizing, dark orbs that twinkled in the light, but the rest of him, his dusty blonde hair, his plush lips, a small scar that cut through his eyebrow ending just above his cheekbone. You wanted to stare at him forever but you felt him grow shy under your gaze, pulling your focus back to your food.

You sit in silence as you eat, the air filled with the sound of wind blowing through the tall grass as you watch the colours of the sky change, the cool air settling the heat that roamed under your skin.

"So, um, what do you do outside of work?" He asked,

"Oh, not a whole lot, I like to garden if the weather is right, sometimes I'll go see a movie if there's a good one playing, I caught this late showing of Dracula last week"

He's clinging on to your every word, "I love that movie"

You smile, "What about you, what does the Ghost do in his off-time?"

"The Ghost, I'm not sure, Simon reads a lot though"

"Oh, sorry"

"No it's alright, most people don't know me behind the mask so I get it"

"Well I like the you behind the mask"

His cheeks flush with heat as he smirks, leaning forward to turn the lantern on. You scoot yourself closer to him, leaning your head against his shoulder, he melts into your touch, his cheek resting against your head.

"So what music do you listen to," You ask

"Whatevers on the radio, mostly classic rock" So it was his radio choice You chat about hobbies, wanting to get to know each other better, you learn that he liked bourbon, tea with a lot of sugar, he always wanted a cat but could never justify getting one. Somewhere in the middle the two of you fell back, eyes staring at the stars in the sky, your hand on his chest, fingers skimming over the muscle. In a surge of confidence, you pull yourself up his form, placing a kiss to his lips, pulling back quickly,

"Sorry, I- I don't know what that was"

He stares at you for a moment before his hands move to hold your cheeks, moving in to kiss you, your lips melt into his, they're soft and plush, he pulls back and presses his forehead against yours.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that" He huffs and you giggle, moving to kiss him again.

"It's getting late," He says, you nod, "Should probably get home"

He grabs your hand pulling you up as he gathers up the picnic, guiding you back to the car. He throws everything in the trunk before getting into the driver's seat,

"I had a really nice time-" His sentence is cut short as you connect your lips again, this time it's deep, he pushes his tongue past your teeth, swirling it with yours as his hand moves to hold at the small of your back. Your body moves forward, climbing over the centre console to straddle him as you keep your lips to his.

"Are you sure you want to?" He asks breathlessly,

"So badly"

He holds you to him as you begin grinding down, his length hardening against your core.

"Because you know if you're having second thoughts"

You cut him off with another kiss, "Simon please"

And who is he to deny you, reaching to palm at your ass, pressing you down onto him as you moan, you feel the tent in his pants form below you, urging you on.

"I don't have any protection"

"I'm on the pill"

The prospect of being inside you raw excites him as he reaches down to unbutton his pants, your hands roaming over his form, his fingers moving to toy at your clit, your head falling forward against his shoulder as you moan breathlessly against his skin. He pulls your panties to the side as you lift up, allowing him to line himself up, you brace your hands on his shoulders before sinking down.

The stretch of him burns but it feels too good to stop, you inch your way down slowly as he plants kisses to your neck, buttoning out with a grunt from him, getting adjusted to his size before you begin moving up and down. He throws his head back as his hands settle on your hips, just holding you,

"Shit that feels amazing love"

You bounce up and down on him, the stimulation from his pubic hair grazing your clit, as you pull him in for another kiss, it's sloppy as you feel yourself unravel on top of him, his grip tightens on your hips, pulling you down on him harder, chasing his own high. You raise an arm to plant your hand on the roof and he holds your hips up, fucking into you, his hands pull at the top of your dress, letting your breasts fall free as he takes one into his mouth.

"Please, don't stop" You sigh

"I'm not gonna last, where do you want me" He manages through grunts.

"Shit, inside, please need to feel you"

Your words go straight to his cock as his balls tighten, the sensation of him pulsing just enough to bring you over the edge as you cum, head falling forward to rest against his as he spills into you with a string of curses. His arms snake around your back to hold you, placing a kiss to your swollen lips.

"So would you want to do this again sometime?" He huffs and you laugh, chest vibrating against his. The two of you gather yourselves, cleaning up before returning to your original seats, he rests his arm on the console, you grab it with a tender hand and place it on top of your thigh and he smiles to himself. The drive back was quiet, a newfound adoration for classic rock forming in you as you could almost make out him quietly singing along. You arrive back at your house, stepping out of car while Simon's arm finds your waist again, walking you to the door, you reach the top of the steps and he leans down to kiss you as your hands grab at the collar of his shirt.

"Did you want to come in?" You ask

He doesn't even think to answer, he simply snakes an arm under your legs and lifts you up, carrying you into the house as his foot closes the door, your giggles echoing throughout the building.

[floatingcatacombs]

Go Nagai was insane for this one

12 Days of Aniblogging 2023, Day 8

I like to always have manga of dubious quality on tap for when I’m having trouble sleeping. Ideally, reading a few chapters will distract me, but I won’t want to stay up late shotgunning volumes. Devilman Lady was the ideal manga for this, and this is maybe the last time anyone will ever describe Devilman Lady as "ideal".

An extremely brief introduction is in order. If Osamu Tezuka is the godfather of manga, then Go Nagai is manga’s weird horny uncle. He’s arguably just as influential, the two of them just moved in different circles, each reifying entire genres. Nagai is more or less responsible for magical girls, super robot, and ecchi, and also spent a lot of time in the sphere of supernatural and post-apocalyptic manga. These are fundamentally genres of extremity and ridiculousness, and Nagai dials every one of his works up to 11 by the end, one way or another. Devilman is probably his most famous work over here, and it’s a stone-cold classic for a reason. Nagai has kept revisiting it over the years, with side stories, alternate universes, manga cameos, and even entirely new series that function as stealth sequels such as Violence Jack. But his most notable attempt is Devilman Lady, which is far more than a simple gender-swap of the original.

Devilman Lady is about swimming deep in filth. It’s easily the most disgust-provoking manga I’ve read, with pretty much every content warning under the sun applicable. This is a truly rotten and conspiratorial world that Nagai is depicting. Societal decay manifests in countless forms, including rape, child abuse, homophobia, militarism, and hatred towards immigrants. Anything that could be potentially understood as fanservice is placed right next to or directly within the atrocities at hand, and it's genuinely unclear how much Nagai intended that as commentary. His intentions throughout this whole manga are a bit of an enigma, but what's clear that he is firing on all cylinders.

This is an extremely zeitgeisty 90’s work, with intelligent design debates, the mapping of the human genome, new age paranoia, religious zealotry, and anxiety over pollution all playing out on the pages. Where it breaks from many of its contemporaries is a decisive rejection of the end of history. This is the kind of thing you write when you’re still reeling from the subway sarin gas attacks and your country's role in the Gulf War and subsequent militarization. It’s the perfect manga for capturing a time period when ten to twenty percent of Japan’s population were estimated to have belonged to a new religious movement.

The punchline to all of this is that he doesn’t know how to draw women.

By the back half of Devilman Lady, Nagai’s depictions of hellscapes and grotesque monsters reach near-Berserk levels of detail and technical competency. And yet his female protagonists are still drawn in a drastically simpler 70's style, only now with giant spheres grafted to their chests. Either humans and the infernal are two completely different skillsets, or this was a deliberate artistic decision, and both are difficult to swallow. Either way, we just have to accept the juxtapositions.

one of my favorite pages to show people devoid of context

The finale is just nuts. Go Nagai makes textual the homoeroticism and gender deviance of the original Devilman manga, as the world burns in both nuclear warfare and demonic hellfire. The story starts accelerating at an unfathomable pace, the most inscrutable double mobius reacharound yaoiyuri occurs, and the universe resets once or twice. It makes the endings of Jojo Part 6 and 7 look tame by comparison. There is no way to parse this like a normal manga with a plot and narrative. It is raw id.

This has been a year where I’ve tried to deliberately broaden my comfort zone by engaging with more potentially upsetting works if I think they'll have something interesting to say. This was like jumping into the deep end. Devilman Lady may very well be Go Nagai’s magnum opus. It’s not nearly as tight as the original manga, but it’s a glorious mess, just as radical to its own time as Devilman must have been in the 70s. It made for spectacular insomnia reading. And there’s no way in hell I can ever recommend it.

At age 19, Nagai went through a bout of diarrhea so bad that he convinced himself it was colon cancer, and that he was at death's door. He vowed to leave something behind for the world to remember him by, and began laboring away on manga. And for the last 60 years of his career, he’s written and drawn with the fervor of a man who’s about to shit himself to death. Maybe that’s the real secret.

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

Have you seen the latest MHA S7 OP ? The visual are so pretty, bkg has such a soft look! These days hori is drawing Katsuki with such smiling expressions so i wonder if bkg is going to have a change in personality like not being angry 24/7 etc what do you think ? His relation with izuku is definitely going to change but will deku accept this new soft side of kacchan?

Listen, my friend, and hear the gospel: Katsuki has always been soft.

Katsuki is known for bolstering his tough guy, shit-talking side, yes, absolutely. But his tough side and his soft side do not contradict each other, they complement each other. He is not suddenly not the guy who explosively roars or tells people off just because he's more comfortable showing himself to be thoughtful, reliable, considerate, compassionate, loyal, and selfless. He is still ferocious, ambitious, self-confident, and smug--a sore winner if there ever was one.

Hell, you see this on clear display in his fight against AFO. He's mocking that guy. Just utterly shitting on him. And it's fantastic.

Katsuki hasn't been "angry 24/7" since before Deku vs. Kacchan 2. I could quibble about how we're reading his character even earlier, but this point inarguably marks a change for him. We're now on chapter 421; the series is not over, but just those 301 chapters since DvK2 represent over 70% of its length. Even cutting the 40some chapters he was down for the count still allots us at least 60% of the story featuring some softer, more introspective, less combative flavor of Kacchan than what we began with.

I'm not trying to criticize you, anon -- but I do want to point these things out, because I think people underestimate and misread this kid sometimes. Don't buy into his bluster wholesale!

We're seeing Katsuki at his most comfortable, right now. We're seeing his truest self. He is allowing people to see the softness he has always had inside him, and I love it.

But Katsuki has always been and will always be feisty, snarky, and a little contrarian. He's always gonna roast the people he cares about for being thick-headed or careless or making his life hard. And then he's gonna be there for them anyway, which is what he's done for Izuku all this time.

As for how Izuku is gonna receive him, I have no doubt whatsoever that Izuku will beam at him with joy, satisfaction, and the occasional awe. He has accepted Katsuki as he is ever since DvK2, happy to be by his side to watch him better himself and then chase after him. They have been getting more and more comfortable with each other, working together, planning together, talking casually together.

I don't think their relationship is going to change much, other than the ways they are going to let each other in more. And gosh, what a joy that would be to see, huh?

It's all gravy from here on out, man.

Also the opening fucking rocked, and I absolutely yelled when I saw explody boy doing his fourth-wall-breaking gentle gaze at the camera. Izuku is very lucky to be the one those eyes land on more often than not, and he's superfan enough to be grateful even if he's not particularly self-aware!!!

[shitpostingperidot]

How old is Carol Danvers???

(Inspired by a post by @blindluck which was in turn inspired by a post by me and @marvelsassbutts )

So I just found out the official Captain Marvel wiki places Carol Danvers’s birth date in 1965. At first I thought “that’s ridiculous” for reasons that will become clear through this long ass post. But then I saw they cited drawings by the assistant art director on Captain Marvel, found on her portfolio! That’s pretty official!

Wait what’s that at the bottom…

1984???? For Carol’s USAFA basic training???? This is impossible, the movie is wrong, and here’s why.

(Excerpt from my future video essay incoming)

There are no dates in Higher, Further, Faster; the marketing text on Amazon, Liza Palmer’s website, etc just says “80s.” So, we need to do some detective work.

We know that the 2019 film Captain Marvel takes place in 1995. Since it takes place in Southern California and Louisiana, the warm weather doesn’t tell us much about the time of year. Personally, I believe it takes place on March 8, 1995, because that’s the exact day I was born, and my birthday is the day the movie was released on to coincide with International Women’s Day. Regardless, Monica Rambeau is eleven years old in the film, putting her birth in 1983 or 1984. So, Maria’s pregnancy must have begun in 1982 or 1983.

Here’s a “fun” fact about US military academies: until less than one year ago (summer 2023, a full three years after Captain Marvel came out), cadets at USAFA who became pregnant were required to either drop out, have an abortion, or relinquish their parental rights to their child.

Dropping out also means reimbursing the government for your tuition for all classes you’ve taken up to this point, and giving up your ability to be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force upon graduation. Definitely not an option someone as driven as Maria wants to consider. In fact, we know this isn’t what happened, because this news article Carol hung up in her spaceship in The Marvels says that Maria Rambeau is a USAFA graduate.

We also know that Maria didn’t have an abortion, because, well, Monica Rambeau herself is tangible evidence. Theoretically, it is possible for Maria to have given up parental rights and adopted back her own child after graduation. Before the policy change in 2023 that allowed cadets to be parents, many found this to be their best option (see the article I screenshotted above). However, this process is really expensive and takes a lot of work with a lawyer over a period of months or years. From the little we know of Carol and Maria’s life pre-crash, (it was busy, they lived in an expensive area, and Maria only had Carol for support), I think we can assume that it’s less likely that Maria was forced to adopt her own daughter than that Maria graduated USAFA before becoming pregnant in 1982 or 83.

That still doesn’t answer the question of when this book takes place, though. The exact year is important, as the military had some major differences under the Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan administrations of the 70s and 80s, and one of the things I want to assess this book on is accuracy.

Oh wait, what’s that? Another discriminatory policy that helps us date this book? That’s right, USAFA didn’t enroll women as cadets until Public Law 94-106 went into effect in 1976.

What’s more, Carol and Maria cannot have been part of this first group of women cadets, because in the book, there is an upperclassman character who is a woman. Officer Cadet Chen is one of the leaders of Basic Training for Carol and Maria’s flight, a position cadets aren’t allowed to hold until their third or fourth year at the Academy.

So, Carol and Maria must enter USAFA no earlier than 1978 to be two or more years younger than Chen, and must graduate no later than 1983 for Monica to exist. To comply with the marketing blurb’s declaration that this book takes place “in the 80s”, let’s say that Carol and Maria’s first year is the 1979-1980 school year.

(End excerpt)

In conclusion, Maria and Carol were born in 1960 or 1961 (with pretty equal likelihood of which birthday makes them 18 at the start of the book, since USAFA basic happens the summer before the school year), not 1965. It would be impossible for them to have done basic training in 1984 as in the production drawing, because they would have to have already graduated and be well on their way to test pilot school which is a whole other policy can of worms before Monica’s birth in 1983 or 1984.

In conclusion conclusion, Carol is ~34 in Captain Marvel and ~64 in The Marvels, and the MCU should hire fans to fact check for them.

[firewalkzwit]

submission // hobie brown x reader (one-shot)

reader is a messy rockstars gf vibe groupie that goes to see hobie's band and catches a ride with them hihi :> also in this story hobie lives in a musty apartment instead of his boat just for the 70s punk appeal

warnings: 18+, everyone in this fic is gross, blood and violence, mentions of drugs, smut, hints of dom reader??

word count: 1.9k

AO3

Pushing and tackling your way into the front row was something you had learnt to do as an experienced band follower. Nothing gave you more rush than finally reaching the artists by inches, merely separed by the height of the stage. You were a sucker for the dopamine rush whenever they would crouch and offer their microphones so you could sing with them, or when they would gift you a smile or a wink.

It was one of those days, your friends had invited you to see an emergent band playing downtown, in a nasty cramped pub just like you liked it, as the best and noisiest bands always came from those.

Their performance was loud, chaotic and frenzic, the pogoing pushing you and your friends in and out of different circles and strategically taking advantage of the agitation, you pushed and jumped your way to the front row.

You'd watch perplexed as you yelled incomprehended words trying to follow their choruses, hyped holding your hand up in frantic gestures. Your eye makeup had smudged all around your face, and the sweat glistened on your forehead as the lights illuminated you.

Despite the mess in your face, you couldn't care less, your focus nailed on the piercing gaze of one of the members. Your eyes had paced around the band as if picking an objective, they were all pretty fit as your friends would describe them, motivated to make your way backstage or catch a ride from the crew.

His fingers swiftly pressed and slid on the guitar's chords syncing their movement in inconsistent coordination. His head would ocasionally tilt down to look at his instrument, and whenever he'd look up, his gaze would point over to you.

Neglecting his guitar and falling out of tune, he distracted himself gifting her a wink and sticking his tongue out at her. The band would often insult and provoke the audience, jumping and name-calling, exhacerbating the agitation in the crowd. The public was naturally growing violent, pogo was agitating further and people were tossing and breaking things. A particularly upset individual triggered by the guitarist's slowed pace aimed a smashed bottle at him, hitting hard against his face.

He snarled a muffled curse as he laughed erratically, wobbling in his place clearly under the influence. Blood gushed down his cut lip and nose, to which he'd spit and rub his face on his shoulder, smearing the gory scene on his face.

He'd play faster and would often fall out of tune, just to spite the growing anger in the audience. You on the other hand thought the show to be incredibly amusing. The agitation and adrenaline inducing rise in conflict and the music morphing into sheer noise as you observed from both perspectives in the front row enlivened you.

His blood dripped drawing a trail down his sharp chin and through his neck, drops splattering the stage and his limbs whenever he'd shake his head. Although bloody, sweaty and on drugs, to you he could not possibly look more attractive, and he had long noticed you staring, gifting you a smile with red teeth as the blood filtered into his mouth.

Once the show was done, you got dragged out by your friends before you could do anything to try making it backstage. The police were likely to soon show up given the disturbances and attacks, but as you walked away, a strange arm wrapped around your shoulder and pressed you tightly against an unknown torso.

To your surprise, one of the band members was holding you and one of your friends on each of his sides, looking back and forth between you and her with a grin.

"You ladies need a ride? Where are you from?"

Being honest, from around. Responding to your objectives, from out of town. You exchanged looks of conviction with your friend before lying.

"We're from out of town." Your friend responded with a grin.

"Ah I see, 'got a place to stay? We got plenty of room to accomodate you girls if you fancy a place yea?"

And before you could even catch a taxi back home, you and your friends were in the back of a black van carried between instruments and cramped against other band members. They would chat small talk lively with your friends, but you remained quiet, exchanging looks with the bleeding gutiarrist who grazed his hand over his bloody nose as it kept spurting down.

He smiled, and asked for your name in a deep voice with a cockney accent, before continuing to silently wipe his nose and resting his blood-stained hand on his thigh, legs spread occupying precious space as he leaned against the surface of the van.

Making a sudden stop, the band members hopped down from the vehicle agitating eachother to get down as the driver scolded them off. Your friends looked back at you and waved as they were guided across the street with the rest of the band, leaving you and the guitarist completely alone in a dark street.

He stared at you for a long second, seemingly zoned out before his bloody hand gripped your wrist, taking you into his apartment in silence. You walked behind him, dusty untied boots stomping as you struggled to clumsily follow his pace. His trembly hand erratically unlocked the door before letting her in to a messy scene.

He kicked cans and trash out of the way and crouched to clear up the mattress on the floor, apologizing for the mess you couldn't care less about. As he stood back up, he turned to find you shockinlgy close to him, your warm hands sliding underneath his tee and caressing his bare torso.

Goosebumps rushed up his arms without you noticing, indecisively wrapping them around your waist to pull you closer, hips colliding against his spinky belts and his groin. Your thumb traced down his cheekbone before pulling him in for a kiss, the iron smell and salty taste of his drying blood on your lips inviting you to clean him up with your damp kisses.

Your heated bodies followed eachother lumbering towards the mattress, as he fell on his butt with your thighs wrapping around his hips, sitting on his lap. He pulled out from his pocket a capsule with pills, popping one into his mouth.

As his hand offered you one, you looked around and at who was in front of you, realizing as anecdotic the situation would be for the future, you couldn't do this as sober as you were. He placed the pill on his tongue before pulling you in for another kiss, the pill wobbling in and out of eachother's mouths before you swallowed it.

You quickly noticed his inside lip also had a cut and often bled inside his mouth, mixing with your saliva as your tongue tangled with his in an uncoordinated make out session, his lip ring pressing against your lips everytime you kissed and sucked.

As you made out, you rocked your hips slightly on his lap, feeling him grow under you in excitement as you provoked him with your graze.

"Stand up." You whispered into his ear as your hand caressed his face, his kisses softly staining you with blood on your cheek and neck. He questioned nothing, getting up as he held your hips, looking at you up and down with temptation.

You bent down on your knees as you released his tight pants from his belts and gifting him a smirk as you unbuttoned and pulled down the zipper with a tempting slow pace. His hands fidgetted on their place and his gaze switched between you and his surroundings; he was nervous.

"You've ever done this before?" You interrogated with intrigue.

"Do what?"

"You know..." Your hands holding his hips traced down to his pelvic area, stroking his cock underneath the boxers. He gasped slightly as he twitched, you rapidly caught on to what you were handling.

"Oh my God.. You're a virign." You teased with a smirk, to which he chuckled lightly as a grin drew on the side of his face awkwardly. You were obviously more experienced than he was, contrary to what you would expect given the musicians you had slept with before were usually very gifted in the art of fucking.

Contrary from turning you off, it flattered you to be the first to him, knowing you'd signify an important stage of his life. Pulling his boxers down to reveal his hard cock pulsating in desire, you smiled in temptation. Although an inexperienced virgin, he was still hungry for you.

Your lips wrapped around his fat dick, the sheer contact of your warm mouth against his member making him sigh off a muffled moan. He tried to keep to himself the noises he wanted to make as he felt the pleasure of your damp mouth suck on him, gripping his hips.

His body twitched, and eventually he stopped trying to contain his moans, huffing in satisfaction. Suddenly and to his surprise, you stopped. Getting up, you begun to pull your shorts down and rid yourself from your boots, pulling him down to you and inviting his hands to free your chest from your tight top.

As he helped you naked, revealing your breasts, you wrapped your arm around his neck as you layed down with him on top, heated kissing as your other hand accomodated his salivated cock into your wet pussy.

The first feeling of your tightness tightly wrap around his dick sent him into a spiral, his hands gripping her hair instinctively in a rush of excitement. He felt so good, and the lewd noise that came out of your mouth when he entered you caused him a frenzy. He pulled in and out slowly and trying to get ahold of the rhythm, speeding up progressively as your cunt stretched to fit him.

"Fuck-" He murmured under his breath, feeling the warmth of your breath right under his ear. He ocasionally leaned to lower his head and kiss your neck, twitching as he felt he was about to come.

He moaned progressively louder, trying to ram you as best as he could to please you, your thighs wrapped around his waist. Before he could dump his load in you, your legs let go of him and you pulled away, his cock sliding out of you as he incorporated himself in confusion.

"Not in me." You sat up and pushed him up, himself kneeling up to receive your mouth again. This time was only faster than the first one, quickly re-setting the climax that allowed him to finally cum. His warm sticky load filling your mouth.

As you backed up and got up to spit, he rested on the bed naked as he watched your figure walk into the small bathroom. It was his very first time, and although guided completely by you, his experience had been orgasmic, pleasured by the range of balmy sensations experienced through the different parts of your body.

As he watched you approach and sit beside him, he leaned his head on your shoulder as his arm rested on your torso, feeling you grab his hand and rest it on your chest.

"You think you'll write a song about me? This being your first shag and all..." You teased as his hand massaged the fullness of your breast.

"I just might."

i’d like to believe hobie wrote a song like submission after his experience w y/n