#spite has always been a great motivation in life

[redrose10]

Trope- exes. Who didnt end badly, still has residual feelings for each other & met again at a mutual friend’s birthday dinner/hangout (?) with prompts 36 & 46 ? 🤎

I went with Yoongi for this one since he’s like 99% of the requests I get. I hope that’s okay!

< I Will Always Love You >

Yoongi x Female Reader

Warnings: A few swear words

#36 “Are you finished, so you’ll listen to me?”

#46 “And I’m here to save you.”

*******************************************************

Twelve months…two weeks…four days…five hours. That is how long it’s been since you last saw him. Since you last saw Yoongi. That night your world came crashing down. The two of you had been arguing all week. Little things here and there.

He left a dirty coffee cup on the counter and an argument ensued.

You forgot to pick up his medicine at the pharmacy on your way home and he took it personally.

He did a load of laundry and accidentally shrunk your favorite sweater. He offered to buy you a new one that night but you felt like he did it out of spite.

You accidentally knocked over a glass of wine all over his laptop causing it to short circuit. He could easily afford a new one but it was the principal of it all that upset him.

The final straw was when he skipped date night. He left you sitting at home alone for hours watching the meal you had worked hard on go cold. When he finally walked through the door he said you guys needed to talk and you agreed. After almost two hours of you both pouring out your hearts you both agreed that your three year relationship had run its course and it was best to go your separate ways.

So you found yourself a cute little apartment several blocks away. Yoongi made sure to stay out of the way as you and your best friends Jungkook and Jin helped you pack up and move all of your things. As you were leaving Yoongi told you to take care of yourself and that he would always be there if you ever needed anything. You told him to the same even though you both knew deep down you would never contact each other again. You gave him a hug and walked out. That was the last time you saw him.

Because even though you shared many of the same friends it was surprisingly easy to avoid him. It also helped that it seemed like he was doing the same. One of you was always conveniently busy or sick so it worked out.

Except tonight. Tonight was the one night you couldn’t avoid. One of your good friends Jimin was getting married. He made you promise not to skip out on the wedding and of course you agreed even though you really wanted to, especially after getting confirmation that Yoongi would be there.

Things had gotten easier as time went on over the last year or so. You stopped crying over him every day. Then you stopped thinking about him every single day. You heard that he had started dating some woman a few months after your breakup. It hurt deeply but it also motivated you to try and move on too. You went on a few dates here and there. You had a small thing with some guy named Namjoon but even though he was really sweet and nice and handsome that fizzled out after a couple of months leaving you single again.

You somehow managed to get a last minute date for the wedding though. Your neighbor. He was cute but you quickly found out he was arrogant and rude. The first thing he said to you was how he thought your dress would be shorter and you had to watch him check out practically every woman at the wedding while you were sitting right next to him. Even though you were miserable and feeling more alone than ever as you watched Jimin saying ‘I do’ to the love of his life you still did your best to fake happiness.

Jimin and his new bride walked down the aisle and as you turned to see them off you saw him. Yoongi looked as beautiful as ever, his hair was longer and his suit was somehow casual yet still wedding appropriate and looked great on him. He was smiling at Jimin and his bride before looking back and smiling at a woman. She was gorgeous with a smile almost as beautiful as his. He looked happy and content and even though you felt a small burning sensation in your chest you were happy for him.

Cocktail hour flew by and then it was time for the reception. You did your best to avoid Yoongi as much as you could through the evening. You caught little glimpses but thankfully it didn’t seem like he saw you at all, or at least he was pretending like he didn’t which you appreciated.

Dinner was served and then you sat through several speeches. Jimins best man Hoseok recounted several funny stories, a few of which you personally remembered, and it felt really good to laugh like that again.

Then the dance floor was opened up. Your date surprisingly asked you to dance. You accepted and headed to the floor. Even though he was dancing with you, his eyes were scanning over every other woman within the vicinity. At one point he even creepily licked his lips earning an eye roll from you.

“Hey uh you ready to go? I think we should find a room so we can finally be alone.”, he mumbled in your ear.

“No thanks.”

“Come on Y/N, don’t be such a prude.”

“She said she’s not interested. So I suggest you fuck off. Maybe try one of the other women you’ve been staring at all night.”, a very deep and very familiar voice said from behind you.

Yoongi and your date were having a stare down before your date scoffed mumbling something about you not being worth the trouble and walking away.

“Want to dance?”, he asked stepping in front of you.

Speechless you nodded. As he placed his hands on your hips it felt like your body was on fire and you wanted to lean into him to savor the feeling.

“Yoongi I…I thought you were here with a date.”, you questioned.

He smiled, “I was…I was dancing over there with her and then I saw how uncomfortable you were and now I’m here to save you.”

You quickly backed out of his grasp, “What?! Yoongi I’m not going to be the reason you two break up. You’re disgusting for doing that to her.”

You stormed out to the balcony area needing some fresh air. Yoongi followed closely behind.

You had tears already forming from all of the emotions you were struggling to sort through, “Leave me alone Yoongi. Please just go back to your date. I’m not going to be the reason something happens between the two of you. I don’t want her to get upset with me or think I’m trying to get you back or something.”, you pinched the bridge of your nose trying to stop the tears from falling, “I just want you to be happy and you looked so happy earlier and that makes me so happy and I just…”

You were in a panic thanks to feeling guilty because what if she saw you two and feeling angry that he would do that to her and feeling hurt at the reminder that he wasn’t yours and finally feeling a sense of relief at having him so close once again. The comforting mix of his cologne and shampoo taking you back to a simpler time but making it all worse.

He lightly chuckled before wrapping you in his arms allowing you to cry into his chest, “Y/N, are you finished, so you’ll listen to me?”

You nodded, though refusing to look at him.

“She’s not my date like that.”, he said causing you to finally look up at him in confusion. He used his thumb to wipe away the tears on your cheek.

“She’s just a friend.”, he said making you roll your eyes. He laughed but continued, “She’s just a friend who has a huge huge HUGE crush on Hobi but was too nervous to ask him out. She asked if I would be her date tonight until she had a couple drinks and worked up the courage to tell him.”, he turned and smirked, “And it looks like it worked.”

You looked over and saw Hobi and that woman slow dancing while smiling lovingly at each other.

Yoongi continued, “And if you must know I was so happy earlier because I got to see you Y/N. I miss you. I was hoping you’d be here but then I saw you had a date. Jimin said he was no one but I didn’t want to overstep any boundaries.”

“Yeah he was a mistake more than anything.”, you grumbled getting a smile out of Yoongi.

He wrapped his arms around you again and you allowed your body melt into his, “I missed you Yoongi.”, you mumbled into his skin.

“I missed you to Y/N. Fuck, I was so stupid for ever letting you go.”

“I should’ve fought harder too. I was just so tired of the arguing and feeling like everything was falling apart.”, you sniffled feeling tears begin to form again.

“Hey hey don’t cry any more. Y/N I hate seeing you cry. I’m here now. And maybe…maybe if you want to…we can start over.”

You looked up taking in his soft features and he gave you a small smile.

You nodded and gave his cheek a kiss which he happily received.

At some point someone had cracked open the door to allow the chill air to fill into the reception room which also let the soft hum of the music stream out onto the patio.

“They’re playing our song.”, you smiled as the familiar tune of I Will Always Love You rang through the air. Yoongi had sung the song to you one night after your first big fight. You were convinced that he was going to leave you. He wasn’t great at speaking his mind so instead he pulled you down on his lap and sang the song trying to do his best Whitney Houston impression. He did it to cheer you up but also let you know that no matter what happened between you two he was always going to love you. After that night it became your song.

Yoongi smirked, “Yeah I think our friends might’ve had something to do with that.”

He was was pointing inside and you saw a group of your friends staring at you both while giggling and giving you a thumbs up.

“Well if they want a show then we’ll give them a show.”, he said before taking your hand, “Y/N will you dance with me?”

Your heart felt like it was going to burst but you agreed before he quickly twirled you around and back into his comforting arms once again.

[anto-pops]

Sudsy Confessions - Sebastian Sallow x Female!Reader

Summary: As the end of the school year continues to creep up on all of the seventh-year students, Sebastian has thought about what’s to come after graduation shamefully little. He’s equal parts annoyed and worried that he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life, and he’s even more frustrated that he’s running out of time to tell you how he really feels about you. When a chance opportunity finally presents itself, Sebastian seizes the moment, even if the setting is a little… unorthodox.  

Alternatively summarized as Sebastian confessing his long-harbored love for you while you’re naked in a bathtub. 

Word Count: 6.8k

Warnings: 18+, aged up characters, explicit sexual content, love confessions, bathtub sex

Full fic can also be found here on Ao3 with more diverse tags :))

It was rare for Sebastian to get so bent out of shape over Quidditch. Especially since it had been an unofficial scrimmage between him and a handful of friends– which he had still won, mind— but it was the topic of discussion that had transpired after the actual event in The Three Broomsticks that had gotten him all hot and bothered, and there was no way around the truth of the matter. 

Garreth had brought up graduation. 

It was a topic that Sebastian had done his best to steer clear of since he had yet to formulate a plan for himself after Hogwarts. Apparently Weasley would be starting an apprenticeship with J. Pippins at his shop in Hogsmeade, which had warranted a few hesitant congratulations from the rest of his motley group. It was obvious that Leander and Imelda assumed the same thing Sebastian did; that Garreth would probably blow up the shop soon after starting. 

Then there was Imelda. Headstrong, resilient, and determined to prove herself. She fully intended on trying out for the Holyhead Harpies Quidditch team after graduation and refused to believe she would do anything but succeed. There was no reason to doubt her at all– she’d always been masterful on her broom and had set new records left and right since Professor Black had reinstated Quidditch again. Sebastian only hoped that he was well out of sight in the event things didn’t go the way Imelda wanted them to. 

Leander had taken a bit of a sharp turn somewhere between the start of school and the present moment and apparently wanted to apply to work at the Ministry. Specifically, he’d been talking about joining the Council of Magical Law– evidently finding the power that would come with such a position all too appealing. Sebastian couldn’t help but think it was rather on brand for the Gryffindor to think as much, but his encouragement had been lukewarm all the same. 

Though he hadn’t joined them at The Three Broomsticks, it was already known that Ominis was also thinking about working for the Ministry, but with a different motive. He wanted to get more closely involved with the Muggle Liaison Office for reasons that continued to escape Sebastian. Whether it was to learn more about their differences to wizard-kind or to spite his family further, Sebastian didn’t know, but he was frankly inclined to believe the latter. 

Then there was you. The enigma, the mystery– the great unknown that had turned his entire world upside down from the moment you’d walked through the Great Hall doors two years ago. He had no clue what your plans were after graduation, and not knowing was slowly eating him alive. It had less to do with being kept out of the loop and more to do with his unspoken feelings for you– feelings that he had been keeping to himself for years now in a bid to keep his friendship with you unmarred. After your tumultuous fifth-year, it had understandably taken some time for the two of you to get back to any semblance of normalcy, and now that graduation was approaching, he couldn’t help but feel like time was slipping through his fingers. 

Sebastian’s previously upbeat demeanor had darkened considerably after that conversation, leading him to bail entirely on drinks at the pub in favor of returning to Hogwarts to wallow in self-pity. 

He’d moved in absolute silence following his return, a metaphorical rain cloud looming over his head as he’d gone to his dorm to grab his toiletries and a change of clothes before setting off for the Prefect’s bathroom. Friday nights were notoriously quiet now that everyone’s N.E.W.T’s had been completed, and Sebastian relished in the solitude that he always found in the spacious washroom. Sneaking in and using it was well worth the risk if it spared him from more idle conversations with his fellow classmates. 

It wasn’t unusual for the door to be locked– due in large part to the fact that it always was– so he undid the latch with his wand and shouldered the door open, barreling into the humid space with the grace of a hurricane. He tossed his items down on the countertop beside the sink and ripped his toothbrush out of his bag, shoving it in-between his lips as he turned the faucet on and rifled around for his bath soaps. Disappointment clouded his mind as his thoughts wandered back to you and the unknown future. It wouldn’t take much more than courage and a slim chance for Sebastian to get his feelings for you off his chest, but his fear of rejection kept him rooted in place. He was certain that at this point, it always would. 

“Keep running the water like that and you’ll drain the entire lake,” a familiar voice said from somewhere behind him. Sebastian damn near choked himself with his toothbrush as he whirled around to face the culprit, and then he found himself on the verge of fainting when he realized it was you. 

You were lounging in the massive tub with a smile on your face, not at all bothered by Sebastian’s sudden intrusion. Your hair was pinned up off of your bare shoulders in a messy heap, and the brunet stood no chance at concealing his blatant double take when he caught sight of your wet skin. The bulk of your naked body was covered by the scant spread of bubbles, but the tantalizing view of your collarbones had a flush rapidly spreading across his cheeks. 

“I– shit– I’m so sorry, I didn’t think anyone was in here,” Sebastian frantically mumbled around his mouthful of toothbrush. Dammit, he sounded like a fool. He ripped the thin stick from his mouth and spun back around to shut off the faucet and hastily gather his belongings from the counter. 

“You didn’t really knock to find out, but it’s fine. Don’t rush off on my account.” 

Your nonchalant tone made him pause, and he hesitantly lifted his head to stare at your reflection in the mirror. True to your words, you seemed wholly unbothered by his presence, simply continuing to bask in the warmth of the water as the steam wafted up into your face.

There wasn’t a chance in hell he could have anticipated something like this happening. 

Almost reluctantly, Sebastian dropped his towel back onto the countertop, instead picking up the paste for his toothbrush before setting to work brushing his teeth. He watched through the mirror as you raked your wet fingers through the free strands of hair that had fallen in front of your face, and the sound of the disturbed water dripping down your arms echoed through the space. “Did you win your scrimmage?” Your eyes never wavered from his in the reflection, and he nodded. “Go out for drinks afterwards?” Another nod, switching to brush the other side of his mouth. “Ominis and Garreth?” Sebastian shook his head. “What, Garreth and Leander?”

He mumbled around a mouthful of foam, “An’ Imelda.”

Your expression pinched into one of confusion as you mused, “I thought you didn’t like drinking with Leander.” Sebastian only shrugged in vague response before bending forward to spit and rinse, trying incredibly hard to not think about how very naked and wet you were presently. He was unsuccessful. 

 For a brief moment, Sebastian debated on changing into his pajamas and leaving despite having come to bathe, but something possessed him to turn around and contemplate you after he turned off the faucet. The easy smile on your face and your half hooded eyes almost knocked him out, and he swallowed thickly. 

What was it he had thought to himself just moments earlier? Courage and a slim chance? Was this not exactly that? 

“Hey,” he muttered softly, his voice almost a whisper. “What are your plans after graduation?” 

You tilted your head to the side in visible confusion, a strand of hair falling in front of your eyes seductively from the movement. He tried not to stare too hard. “Plans?” 

“What will you do once it’s time to leave? You haven’t said anything to me about it– or Ominis,” he added quickly. “We were talking about it in Hogsmeade earlier, so I was just wondering.” 

You seemed to ponder his question for a minute, your wandering hands coming to a sudden halt in the mass of bubbles. Truthfully, you hadn’t brought it up to either of the Slytherin men because you hadn’t come to a final decision yet, but it made sense that with the completion of your N.E.W.T’s, people would begin planning their post-Hogwarts lives. The thought made you equal parts sad and nervous. 

“I thought about getting a job at first… to make a name for myself and save money, you know? But honestly, I think I might travel. I’ve explored virtually all of the Highlands for ancient magic sites and I think I’ve hit a dead end. I want to learn more about Isidora’s magic– the power from the Repository is still as much of an unknown now as it was two years ago. It’s just collecting dust inside of me at this point.” 

Sebastian gave you a nonplussed blink and did his damndest not to sound paranoid when he responded. “Travel? Where exactly were you thinking?” 

You shrugged and averted your gaze to the bubbles in front of you. Of course Sebastian would be displeased to discover that yet another person from his life would be departing it so soon. It was part of the reason you’d been keeping your intentions to yourself for so long. Nonetheless, you answered softly, “Maybe to Poland. Isidora’s notes mentioned that she originally hailed from there–”

“Poland?” Sebastian’s frantic voice cut you off, and he found his legs carrying him to the edge of the bathtub to kneel there and bore holes in the top of your head from across the water. “You would go that far to chase after a maybe? You don’t know for certain if looking out there will even bring you any new information– it sounds incredibly reckless.”

You fixed him with a hard, telling look. “That’s rich, coming from you. Who was it that refused to let up in his search for a cure for all of fifth-year?”

His brows slammed down atop his narrowed eyes, “That was different.” 

“How is it any different?” You sounded exasperated, and he sighed indignantly. “You wanted answers, and you never stopped looking for them. You had nothing to go off of, much like myself presently, and you were willing to do anything if it meant saving Anne. I want to use this power for something good, Sebastian. I can’t do that if I don’t know how it works. Leaving is the only plausible outcome for me.”

“It would be that easy for you, then? To leave and disappear for who knows how long searching for who knows what? Would you have even told me if I hadn’t asked just now?” 

It would be that easy for you to leave me, is what he really wasn’t saying. 

You shook your head at him, completely bewildered that he was so affected by your revelation. “Eventually, yes, I would have. I don’t understand– why do you care so much? You of all people should know I would keep in touch; I’ll send owls every week, keep you updated on where I am and what happens. Going our separate ways was practically always in the cards, Sebastian.” 

Some tiny, annoying part of him had always known that. Living at Hogwarts was a blissful reprieve from the real world, offering himself and other students a sanctuary from the concerns and problems of adult life. Hearing you voice your thoughts was a completely different thing, however, and Sebastian was woefully unprepared for the dawning realization that he wouldn’t be able to see you anymore.

He silently cursed himself for having taken this fucking long to accept how empty he would feel without you beside him. 

“Sebastian,” you whispered from across the tub, and his eyes slid shut at the sound of your gentle voice. It hurt too much to fathom not getting to hear it again, or not being able to see you and crack stupid jokes with you in the middle of Potion’s class. He wouldn’t get to duel other students with you in Crossed Wands, or go to Hogsmeade to drink Butterbeers and stop by the lake on your walks back to skip rocks. All of it would end, and he would be alone. 

Again.

“Sebastian,” you said again, and the closer proximity of your voice had him cracking his eyes open. You were directly in front of him now, evidently having left your spot on the other side of the bath to siddle directly up to the ledge in front of him. Your wide eyes gazed imploringly up at him, and your grip on the edge of the tub was white-knuckled. “Why do you care so much?” 

“How could I not care?” He forced the words out while he still had the courage, seemingly gazing into the depths of your very soul as he stared down at you. His words had your eyes widening further as a flush crept up your neck onto your cheeks, and before you got the chance to say anything, Sebastian was leaning down to capture your lips in a desperate kiss. 

A surprised squeak weaseled its way from your throat as he lifted his hands to cradle your head cautiously, and you weakly curled your fingers around his wrists as he dipped lower to accommodate for the awkward angle. Sebastian kissed you hungrily and passionately– in the way he had dreamed of doing for years. He licked along your lower lip and bit gently at it, pulling a gasp from your parted lips before one of your hands came to rest on his bent knee, leaving a wet handprint behind in its wake. 

After a few heated moments, Sebastian broke away to look at you through his lashes, more surprised than anything to discover that your face was an open book; a mixture of shock and hesitance was etched into your features while something much hotter burned in your eyes, making his head fucking spin. 

“Sebastian, I– ah…” 

He let you go and sat back on his heels then, crossing his arms over his knees and resting his chin on his forearms as he peered at you nervously. There were a thousand different things Sebastian wanted to blurt out, but he settled for staying quiet as he waited for you to say something– anything.

You gaped up at him for a moment, blinking slowly as the flush across your cheeks darkened considerably. “How long?” 

He shrugged timidly before he said, “Ages. Since fifth-year, if I’m being honest.” 

“You didn’t… say anything?” His curly brown locs brushed across his forehead as he shook his head. “Why?” 

“After everything that happened in the Catacombs, I was terrified of fucking things up again. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship– I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. So I just… kept my feelings to myself. But now you’re telling me you would leave– that it was always inevitable things would end this way– and I can’t accept that. I refuse to.” 

You didn’t know what to say. Your mind was reeling from Sebastian’s revelation, and your heart was hammering away in your chest so loudly that you were certain he could hear it. Of course you felt the exact same way, but much like Sebastian you’d been worried about ruining things or complicating your already tentative relationship– especially after the events of your fifth-year. But now here he was– on his damn knees confessing to you– and your thoughts of the future vanished completely from your mind. 

Biting your lip, you stared up at Sebastian for a moment with wide eyes. One of your hands rose off the edge of the tub to trail your wet fingers across his cheek, and as Sebastian’s freckled face moved away from his arm to swim clearly into view, you stood straight out of the water invitingly and let him wrap his strong arms around your bare waist. As the water beading over your skin soaked through Sebastian’s shirt, his eyes flickered between yours, searching for the hesitance he’d seen there before. 

It was nowhere to be found.

When your lips met with his again, the softness had left them, and the two of you kissed one another hard and needily. Sebastian straightened and nipped at your lips, smiling against your mouth as you melted into him, and your breath caught somewhere in your throat when his tongue slipped into your open mouth to tangle with your own. Holding you tighter, Sebastian trailed his hands over your slick skin– traversing up your spine and into your unruly hair to tangle his fingers in the strands at the nape of your neck. He kissed you desperately, moaning softly into your mouth when he felt your hands sweep across his shoulders to fumble with the buttons at the front of his shirt. 

You’d made it about halfway down the row of clasps before Sebastian grew impatient, freeing one of his hands to deftly undo the buttons with a practiced finesse that made your mouth water eagerly. He panted along the curve of your jaw as he undressed, biting and sucking at the skin of your throat until he was pulling away to shrug the damp material off of his shoulders. His tie was still snug around his neck, clamping the collar of his button-up in place, and he growled as he loosened the thin bit of fabric before yanking it over his head and diving back into the kiss like he’d been starved of your very essence. 

Until now the bizarre angle had proved to be a non-issue– but then the pressing matter of his trousers came to light, and you felt as Sebastian blindly palmed at his belt buckle in a bid to undo it. “Need help?” Your coy offer whispered against his lips sent shivers up his spine, but he was too frantic and greedy to give you the chance to assist.

Those toned, capable arms released you so he could stand fully, his lust-dark eyes never wavering from yours as he finally succeeded in unlooping his belt from around his waist. “Just don’t move and keep watching like that– it’s helping me plenty.” 

You flashed him a mocking pout but did as he asked, settling back into the water and scanning his body longingly as he stripped down to his briefs. He teasingly ran his thumbs under the waistband of his undergarments and shot you a smug look, all too pleased with the way you licked your lips when he eventually began slipping the attire down the delectable ‘V’ of his hips. The sight of Sebastian biting his lip as his cock sprung free and arched proudly against his toned stomach had you halting your movements, though, and you audibly whimpered before the brunet threw his briefs over his shoulder and descended into the soapy water with you. 

In a flash he had you back within reach, his hands coming to cup your rear as he silently prompted you to jump into his arms so he could carry you through the water towards the rim of the massive tub. Your back bumped against the tiles there, and Sebastian took full advantage by pressing himself into you more firmly. The hard, stiff length of him rubbed tantalizingly against your folds, and you sighed contentedly before his mouth was on yours once more. 

The two of you languidly kissed for what seemed like forever, and you were more than willing to continue for as long as Sebastian saw fit. When one of the hands he had against your rear began to slip lower into uncharted territory, you smiled against his lips and huffed out an airy laugh. “Eager, are you?” 

“Shut up,” Sebastian murmured against your mouth, holding fast to your bottom harder and with greater fervor. “You have no idea how long I’ve been dreaming of this.” 

You arched your hips against Sebastian’s and drew in a shaky breath at the sensation of his shaft grazing over a particularly sensitive spot. “Then show me,” you implored. 

Growling again, Sebastian wrangled you around until you were kneeling on the ledge with your back to him and your hands braced on the rim of the bathtub. His hands were seemingly everywhere; sliding down your shoulder blades, scratching at the curve of your waist, then ghosting down the backs of your thighs as he nudged your legs apart further. You felt as he leaned forward to press a chaste kiss against the outline of your spine, and there wasn’t a chance in hell you could smother the shudder of delight that coursed through you. Sebastian moved on swiftly, though, and began pressing messy, open-mouthed kisses against your lower back, curling his hands around your hips before you felt him descend closer to your nether region. In your current position, it was just barely peeking above the thin layer of bubbles within the tub, and you heard the water slosh around Sebastian as he dropped to his knees and came face to face with your most intimate parts. 

The broad slick of Sebastian’s tongue sliding through your folds pulled a startled gasp from your lips, and your forehead fell against the tile with a soft, stuttered moan. The feeling of him tasting you– achingly and deliberately slow– had you shaking in earnest as you bit your knuckle for a semblance of control. You were struggling against the urge to rock back into his ministrations, eventually settling for reaching between your spread legs with your free hand to rub at your clit for some added reprieve, but then Sebastian slid his palms from your hips to your inner thighs to nudge your hand away. 

“Let me take care of you,” he whispered to you, and you mewled softly before tucking your hand against your chest and nodding. “Don’t hold back, either. I want to hear you.”

You were on the verge of responding, but the way Sebastian slid his tongue over you again drove whatever words you’d formulated straight out of your head. His hands ghosted along your skin as he lowered himself further, the tops of his shoulders completely submerging beneath the soapy water, and he took care to trail his fingers slowly down the sensitive skin of your inner thighs as he made himself comfortable behind you. 

Sebastian laved his tongue over you gently and encouragingly, then experimentally stiffened the muscle before poking it inside of you, leaving you whining and gasping his name. The brunet pushed his tongue in deeper then, moaning in response to the hitch in your voice as he pressed his lips against your folds and fucked the muscle into you slowly. 

“Gods, S-Sebastian–”

The man in question sighed and picked up his pace, flicking his tongue into you and dropping messy kisses against you. One of his hands slid up to your clit, brushing two of his fingers over the bundle of nerves with a moan, and when he leaned in hard to fuck his tongue as deep as possible into you, your high, airy whimpers made Sebastian’s head spin. 

With one last pump of his tongue, Sebastian pulled away, grinning at the way you twitched in response to his efforts. You heard the water stir and felt the warm, wet weight of the Slytherin drape over your back as he leaned forward to kiss across your shoulder, his hands running soothingly up the sides of your waist. 

“Fuck,” Sebastian breathed out, prompting you to turn and look at him over your shoulder. Your half-hooded eyes and parted lips sparked something in him then, and when you reached back to tangle your fingers in his hair, the brunet leaned in to meet you gladly. You moaned into the kiss, drawing a like-minded sound from Sebastian when you ground your hips back against his throbbing member. His thick hands gripped at your waist tightly as he gasped against your mouth, a desire unlike any he’d ever experienced overtaking him in a matter of seconds. The urge to feel you encasing him was overwhelming– enough so that for one brief moment, Sebastian allowed himself to press so hard against you that it stole your breath and smothered your senses. 

“Sebastian,” you groaned from beneath him. Your gaze sought him out, but his own eyes were pinched shut as he relished in the ecstasy that fell over him from merely grinding against you. It wasn’t simply the act itself that was doing it for him. It was knowing that he was doing it with you. Everything he had craved for two whole years was finally coming to fruition, and despite wanting to relish in every second of it with you, Sebastian was losing himself to his impulses. You called to him again, “Sebastian, please.” 

His chocolate brown eyes cracked open at the sound of your voice coupled with your incessant tugging on his hair, and his shaky sigh told you everything you needed to know; he was incredibly eager. 

“S-Sorry,” he stammered out, swallowing thickly in a way that drew your attention to his bobbing adam’s apple. You merely shook your head in silent dismissal, then rocked back against him to spur him into motion. If it was guidance he needed, you were more than happy to provide it. “I don’t know how much longer I can draw this out,” he admitted with a low voice, and as though to punctuate the statement, you felt his fingers dig into the skin of your hips to prevent you from moving against him any further. 

“Then don’t,” you insisted needily, yanking lightly on his hair once more to goad him into moving. “I’m ready if you are.”

“If it’s all the same to you,” Sebastian murmured, his voice gravelly and directly against the shell of your ear. “I’ll be the judge of that.” 

You shivered in anticipation when you felt one of his hands trail down the swell of your rear to probe at your slick entrance with one of his fingers. His other hand traced soothing circles against lower back, relaxing you further until you had melted against the rim of the tub with your neck craned to the side to watch Sebastian as he worked. 

When he sank one of his fingers into you slowly, you let loose a shaky exhale and felt a flush creep up your neck and onto your cheeks, leaving Sebastian biting his lip at the wanton image you made as he pressed the digit knuckle deep. Thrusting slowly, he eventually managed to work a second finger into you, trying not to think too hard about the way you looked spread around him, or the way you moved back against him, or how fucking wet you were. 

“Sebastian,” you groaned. His eyes flicked back up to yours, entirely certain that he looked just as fucking needy as you did– especially given the way you shivered and rode back against his hand a little harder. “C-Curl your fingers down a little–” he did so, and was instantly rewarded with a telling jolt from you. “Oh fuck– there–” 

The sound of Sebastian moaning to himself was almost lost in the way you were gasping and keening, and he moved his hand from your back to your hip to hold you in place as he followed the same path you’d instructed him to with his fingers. He thrusted a little harder, curling his digits against your sweet spot, and the way you arched your back and spread your thighs as far as you could without slipping while you gasped for Sebastian was fucking intoxicating. 

It was too much. 

Sebastian pulled his fingers free and reached towards you without a second thought, coiling his arm around your waist as he leaned in to kiss you again. You couldn’t help but whine at the way his cock rubbed against you, and you were near boneless in the brunet’s arms as his lips molded to yours and his tongue delved into your mouth. His strong arm held you fast to him as the other braced against the rim of the tub, holding him steady above you as he kissed you senseless. When he finally broke away to catch his breath, you practically sagged into the water beneath him. 

“Merlin, Sebastian…” 

“Are you okay?” The Slytherin’s voice was rough when he asked, low and raspy with arousal, and once you gave your enthusiastic approval, Sebastian reached between the two of you to line himself up before pressing into you. 

Sebastian’s eyes squeezed shut at how you felt around him; tight, hot, and utterly incredible. He just barely managed to keep his composure as he slowly filled you, and your scarcely stifled gasps and keening whimpers were decidedly not helping him keep his wits about him. Every fiber of Sebastian’s being urged him to ram his cock into you– to fuck your brains out and hear his name spill from your lips in breathless screams. When he finally did sheathe himself all the way inside of you, he melted against your back, holding you tightly and whispering your name against your ear over and over again. 

“Fuck, you’re…” you trailed off, subtly shaking against Sebastian’s damp skin. “You’re b-big.”

“Gods, darling,” Sebastian breathed, exhaling roughly into the nape of your neck. “Can I move?” 

You gave a stuttered assent, but you were still insanely tight around his cock, so for both your sakes when Sebastian pulled back a little and rolled his hips back in, he did so slowly in a bid to test the waters. 

No pun intended.

Your choked moan was more than enough of an answer for him, so he worked to set a slow, deep rhythm, buying himself time to get used to the heat wrapped around his cock. The gentle sigh that emanated from you coupled with the way your back bowed ever so slightly told Sebastian that his restraint was appreciated. But then you were glancing back at him from over your shoulder, and the rosy flush that colored your cheeks combined with your glazed over eyes nullified the majority of his self-control. 

Sebastian blindly trusted you to keep steady on your knees as he gripped your hips to thrust into you harder, moving faster and giving gasping moans as you tensed and groaned, squeezing him in the most perfect way. He pulled you back onto his cock, adjusting his hips so he could fuck into your sweet spot, and the way you arched under him and cried out was fucking amazing. 

“Oh f-fuck, Sebastian,” you moaned, reaching back to tangle your hand in his damp, brown curls, and Sebastian let you tug him closer so he could mouth along your shoulder, tasting the sweet-smelling bathsoaps as he went. The water splashed around you both, and you swore softly as a small wave of sudsy water sloshed up the side of the tub and sprayed you in your face. 

Taking note of your predicament, Sebastian slowed his movements and angled his head so he could murmur directly in your ear, “Do you want to move?” 

“We could, but– damn, Sebastian–”

Sebastian didn’t want to fucking move. He did want to see your face, though. He pulled out swiftly, and before you could move to climb out of the water, he grabbed and maneuvered you around so your back was pressed against the side of the tub with your legs bent over his elbows. When he reached back further to grip the rim of the tub on either side of you, he sank back into you with a low moan. Water wasn’t the most spectacular of lubricants as it turned out, but you were naturally slick enough that it was essentially a nonissue.

The expression that spread over your flushed face drove Sebastian a little crazy. He moved hot and slow, pulling back far with every aching thrust before filling you up and making you whimper. It’s exactly what Sebastian had wanted, but the way your eyes rolled shut just made him want to fuck you harder, water splashing in your face be damned. 

He leaned in close and nipped at your swollen lips, still rolling his hips maddeningly slow. “I want to fuck you so hard,” he managed, voice shaking. “I want to hear you scream my name. I want to see you fall over the edge so hard that you pass out in my arms.” He snapped his hips, just enough to make you cry out. “I’ll fuck you just like that. I’ll make the Prefects come running from how loud you are. I hope you don’t have plans this weekend, because you’re mine until the bell tolls on Monday.”

You whimpered and shivered under Sebastian, sucking in sharp breaths with every slow thrust, and when you rode your hips back into the brunet, he couldn’t help but let his head hang between his shoulders, his dark eyes sliding shut. The way you were sucking him in deeper was mind-blowing, the water flowing in waves around the two of you, until a burning, tightening sensation took root in your gut and made you grit your teeth together in anticipation. 

“S-Sebastian, fuck,” he thrust harder in response, grinding his hips into you and causing your back to arch with a gasping cry. “Sebastian, I’m– I’m going to–”

“Do it,” he gasped, leaning in to kiss you quickly and messily. “Let me see how you come for me.” 

Your nails dug into his shoulder before you pulled one hand away to begin frantically rubbing circles over your swollen clit. You rocked your hips back into his and worked yourself closer to your finish with a low moan, keeping your movements in time with his thrusts. The way you licked your lips and the way you watched Sebastian with a dark, fucked-out gaze made him whimper. You were so intense– your lips parting on gasping moans of Sebastian’s name– and it took a surprising amount of self-control for him to not just fucking blow it right then. Instead, he bent you back just a little further, just enough to see that needy expression fall back over your face as he fucked you just that little bit harder. 

Your moans grew higher, louder, breathier, until you were crying out and shaking in Sebastian’s arms. “S-Seb– fuck– I’m coming, I’m coming–” 

Your spine rounded and your eyes squeezed shut as you clamped down tight on Sebastian’s cock, a guttural whine ripping from your heaving chest as your climax washed over you. The dexterous movements from your fingers took you higher than you thought possible, and the way you barely managed to choke out Sebastian’s name was enough to send the Slytherin over the edge. 

He pressed himself against you and buried his cock deep, fucking you through your finish with short, fast thrusts while he moaned your name against your throat, his hands moving to grip your sides tight with trembling fingers. “Fuck, darling, fuck–”

Blearily, you moved your arm and wrapped it around Sebastian’s neck as he came, who was shaking and babbling far too loud for it to be muffled against your slick skin. You buried your face into his tangled hair, jolting slightly from every miniscule movement of his twitching member inside of you. When the bulk of his post-coital high had subsided, he began wetly mouthing up your neck and along your jaw before sweetly peppering kisses over your cheek. The demonstration brought a breathless grin to your face, and your hands found their way to the hair at the back of his neck before you wound your fingers through the strands. 

“Merlin’s bloody balls,” Sebastian gritted out, sliding his arms out from under your knees to hold them fast to his waist. You followed his lead easily and wrapped your legs around his hips, sitting up to kiss him contentedly as your palms skimmed along his freckled back. He smiled against your lips and murmured, “We should probably get out. I can feel how pruney your fingers are.” 

“Mm,” you hummed softly, pulling back from the kiss to hold one of your hands up to see how wrinkled your skin had become in the throes of passion. “You’re not wrong. But it would be counterproductive to not wash off all the sweat, wouldn’t it?” 

Sebastian gave you a nonplussed blink before smiling brightly at you in agreement. Almost reluctantly, he slid free from your welcoming heat and deposited you on the shallow stone ledge, then hoisted himself out of the bath to pad over to his toiletry bag. After grabbing all the necessities and jumping back into the steaming water, the two of you took your time cleansing one another, lingering touches and thoughtful kisses being exchanged throughout the process. Eventually Sebatian found himself sitting with his back to the rim of the tub, your smaller figure situated comfortably between his legs as he scooped water into his hands and let it run over your shoulders. If your slouched posture was anything to go by, you were incredibly relaxed, and Sebastian realized dimly that he was too. To be with you in this way was everything he could ever want and more, and he didn’t want it to end. Not by a longshot. 

“Let me come with you after graduation,” he said suddenly, his voice a mere whisper from behind you. 

Your eyes fluttered open as you processed his request, the bathroom utterly silent except for the distant dripping of water from the faucet, and before long you were turning around to face him with your hands braced on his legs. “What?” 

“Let me come with you,” he said again, conviction burning in his dark eyes. “To Poland. I want to do whatever I can to help you. Please don’t leave me behind.” 

All you could do was blink for a moment before opening and closing your mouth in surprise. Sebastian’s unwavering gaze only prolonged the formation of words, until eventually you furrowed your brow and uncertainty took root. It wasn’t that you didn’t want him with you– far from it, in fact. The events that had transpired just minutes earlier had only proven that your close relationship was something to treasure for as long as possible, and you were more than ready to do exactly that. You just didn’t want him to throw his own ambitions to the side simply because you planned to travel. “What about what you want to do? Don’t you have your own plans? I thought Professor Weasley talked to you about–” 

“I never made a decision,” he stated firmly and with a shake of his head. “The Professor had her own ideas about what I would excel at, but I never agreed or wanted to pursue any of her suggestions. I honestly felt like I was in limbo until now. My point is, what I want is to stay with you. I want to help you the same way you helped me with Anne, and I really, really don’t want to end up sitting alone in some office in London waiting for your owls to reach me. There’s always something missing when you’re not with me.”

To say you were an emotional mess would be a monumental understatement. Sebastian’s words struck something deep within you, something sentimental and desperate to come to the surface. He evidently saw your tears before you felt them, because he was instantly sitting forward to cup your cheeks in his wet hands before wiping them away with his thumbs. The concern on his face was apparent, but you were already smiling reassuringly at him before he could verbally ask if you were alright. “You really know how to confess to a girl, huh?” 

He let loose an airy, relieved laugh that drifted over your nose and chilled your damp cheeks, and you wrapped your fingers around his wrists as he smiled anxiously at you. “I had a long time to practice. Is that a yes, then?” 

“Yes, you can come with me. I would love it if you did,” you said, and the giddy excitement that radiated from the man was the most palpable thing in the room at that moment. “Two heads might be better than one, after all.”

Sebastian was on you in an instant. He coiled around you like a baby mooncalf and smiled so brightly that it easily rivaled the intensity of the sun. Water splashed everywhere as he spun you effortlessly within the bath, your capricious laughter reverberating off the walls of the spacious room as elation flooded your system. Being encased in his warm embrace was all the confirmation you needed that you had made the right choice. In turn, knowing that his future was all the clearer brought a sense of peace and belonging to Sebastian that he would hold on to for as long as he was able. 

It just so happened that presently, he was holding on to you. 

[calliesmemes]

YET ANOTHER ROUNDUP OF ASOLUTELY UNHINGED COMEDIC RELIEF

ASSORTED SENTENCE STARTERS FROM AROUND THE INTERNET, including quotes from Tumblr, Pinterest, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter), for when a muse wants to be a bit silly <333

CHANGE gendered words and in-universe phrases as needed.

SPECIFY muse for multimuses.

❛ I am not merely a clown; I’m the entire damn circus! ❜

❛ I will bite you if you continue this behavior. ❜

❛ Being a dramatic ass bitch isn’t a personality trait; it’s a lifestyle! ❜

❛ Trauma? Oh … you mean, my lore? ❜

❛ why must I cite sources? is it not enough to just say ‘trust me, bro’? ❜

❛ sorry for being a perfect sweetie and a genius it will likely happen again. ❜

❛ forget about touching grass; I need to touch WATER I NEED TO GO INTO THE OCEAN I NEED TO DIVE INTO THE SEA!!! ❜

❛ I’m attracted to men with muppet energy and no i will not be explaining. ❜

❛ you want me to make friends with people? the thing that killed julius caesar? ❜

❛ what’s your birthstone? mine is rock bottom. ❜

❛ I absolutely hate that I’m not bioluminescent. Pathetic. ❜

❛ ohhhhh my god i have got to stop mourning the past or whatever. ❜

❛ you expect me to act like a normal human being? I’m wearing a turtleneck! ❜

❛ i don’t struggle with same sex attraction I’m actually very good at it. ❜

❛ unfortunately i often find out without even getting the chance to fuck around. ❜

❛ I’m bisexual which means that I’m attracted to anybody who can defeat me in physical combat. ❜

❛ all anyone needs to know about me is that i’m a dumbass and i love women. ❜

❛ sorry but philosophers aren’t impressive i came up with stuff like that when i was 12. ❜

❛ I pay my own bills; I can cuss all I want! ❜

❛ I don’t have rizz; I have sad eyes and a weird presence. ❜

❛ my demons are chasing me and they’re doing the Naruto run. ❜

❛ honey we are ALL doomed by the narrative. it's not that serious. have some fun with it. ❜

❛ dating me is like interviewing a psych ward patient. ❜

❛ being a girl with very large brown eyes comes with great responsibility. ❜

❛ i’m autistic in ways that you can’t even begin to imagine. ❜

❛ being a loser may be a phase to you but its a lifestyle for me. ❜

❛ entering a magical portal in the woods would fix me. ❜

❛ I’m lonely but not in a hot mysterious way; more like in a pathetic way. ❜

❛ life is so unserious just say womp womp and move on! ❜

❛ you’re vibing? In this economy? ❜

❛ just because I’m small doesn’t mean I can’t kick your ass. ❜

❛ my primary motivators are fear, spite, and aesthetic longing. ❜

❛ sorry about the chaos; I needed attention. ❜

❛ WHAT IS UP GIRL you look foreboding and malicious! ❜

❛ baby i can be your problematic bi wife. ❜

❛ i don’t think any of you understand how important i am to the plot. ❜

❛ what if we are both red flags? what then? ❜

❛ any dream can be a prophetic dream if you’re willing to do some really weird shit. ❜

❛ my hobbies include being right, being gay, and being a hater. ❜

❛ i have a phd in Loving The Color Pink And Also Glitter. ❜

❛ being a menace to society is a full time job and I am dedicated. ❜

❛ my life has been a bouquet of oopsie daisies. ❜

❛ i survive on spite, anxiety, and blasphemy. ❜

❛ if you’re not obsessed with me, why would I wanna be with you? ❜

❛ the hottest thing a man can be is a little afraid of me. ❜

❛ my love language is being a hater. ❜

❛ i don’t get enough credit for acting far less insane than i actually am. ❜

❛ the A in my name stands for always right. ❜

❛ Jesus is my homeboy but God has a lot to answer for and I will continue to be rebellious until he does so. ❜

❛ I’ll see a man with long hair and then remember that I’m not above temptations of the flesh. ❜

❛ i’m going to be honest with you I’m not going to be honest with you. ❜

❛ stop asking me if I’m ok I’ll literally make out with you. ❜

❛ part of my masculine charm is that I’m literally insane. ❜

❛ are you sure those are demons bro? or are they consequences from the choices you made? ❜

❛ i do not identify as a boy or a girl. i identify as a nuisance, an irritant, a fool, and a problem. ❜

❛ praying on someone’s downfall isn’t enough i need to participate in it. ❜

❛ we all need to chill. i won’t do it first but it’s something i noticed. ❜

❛ not to sound like a Victorian woman suffering from hysteria but going to the sea would fix me. ❜

❛ the silly goose convention called; they asked if you could be their keynote speaker. ❜

❛ i deserve unrestricted access to old castles and old churches i want to know all the secrets. ❜

❛ doesn’t matter if you’re cringe or based we’re all just here to suffer. ❜

❛ I’m no longer comedic relief I’m now serious panic. ❜

❛ this is getting difficult to romanticize. ❜

❛ done healing my inner child. next up is my inner teen. her highness needs a sword. ❜

❛ i am God’s silliest experiment. ❜

❛ i’m very vulnerable right now if anyone wants to take advantage of me. ❜

❛ sorry i overshared do you still think im hot? ❜

❛ I can yap for days and still maintain my air of mystery. ❜

❛ good luck sending me mixed signals; I don’t even understand normal ones. ❜

❛ not all of your life decisions have to be smart. some can be purely for cinematic value. ❜

[neetily]

↳ EVENT 44. Sam & Kent (Jealousy Sex & Incest)

— ✧ warnings: Jealousy Issues, jealousy sex, Incest, Competition, Established Relationship, father/son bickering, Double Penetration, Anal, Cheating — ✧ word count: 2,780

— ✧ A/N: reposting from my old account since i was asked to! formatting might be off, but it's still readable.

Sam has always been competitive, ever since he was a kid. Sometimes, to an unnaturally high degree— in other words, a problem. Taking challenges on a personal level, almost. As if his very existence hinges on the thrill of competition itself. It's exhilarating, don't you think? To be on the cusp of something great, something unrivalled in emotion; to be the best at something.

He does well not to let it cause him to act out, accepting loss as it comes (and it comes). But it's something so innate to him, ingrained in his being from birth. It's why he continues to suck at pool every Friday night in an effort to become better, willing to put himself through bouts of cheeky laughter and playful jabs from his beloved friends so long as it means that he's improving, y'know? So long as he can feed that near insatiable need to improve himself, to exceed expectations eventually, then he'll strive towards it.

That's why he's with you too, right? Never once stopping in his pursuit to be your boyfriend, continuing down the path of trying to earn your attention and affection no matter how many times he may have 'lost'— and God did he try. More than anything he's ever tried for in his life, to be honest. He could never imagine faltering in his efforts to score you, to become a better man infinitely for you, because you deserve the best. And he's working on it, don't you worry, babe.

But it's funny, how despite how many steps he continuously takes forward, all it takes to get him going is an off-handed comment. A mere joke tonight, if he thinks about it. You know, your dad's pretty hot, Sam. If he wanted to, he could have even taken it as a compliment, misconstrued your pretty clear intentions as something innocent instead, avoiding the ticking time bomb buried in his chest upon your jesting confession. Especially given how often you say that he resembles his old man in spite of the grumbles it gets outta him. But something needier is triggered within him upon your spilled secret. That same age old itch he's felt since birth, nagging away at the back of his mind enough to prompt him into impulsive action.

He just wants to be the best for you, wants to be your number one, the same way that you're his in all aspects. He can't allow any competition to worm its way through his defences, tight squeeze or not.

Or, that's what he tells himself anyway. Burying the scathing burn of jealousy in his tummy when his dad thrusts so heavily into you that you end up falling froward against his chest, scowling over your shoulder as you're forced to rest your head against his, the fucking smirk Kent wears when staring back at him is downright infuriating, in part because he sees himself in that faux smile.

But that's exactly what he needs right now, right? Helping you steady yourself between two cocks, both him and his old man sat with their heels behind them, your legs wrapping ever so tightly around Sam's sturdy waist as your tits squish up against his chest so nicely, if not for the fact that it's his fathers doing. He needs some anxious energy right now; just enough to motivate him, he doesn't want to topple over before the shows fully started. And for that, he's thankful his dad is situated behind you right now, cock balls deep in your tight little ass that Sam's fucked plenty times before— absolutely no fucking way was Kent getting your cunt.

After all, who do you think Sam picked up his competitive tendencies from?

The best.

No chance was he giving you up on a silver platter like that; he knows his dad well enough to know that if given the opportunity, you'd be taken two loads down your cunt tonight. No, a simple stipulation. Wanna fuck her? Take her ass. "You good, babe?" Sam questions you, eyes never leaving his father as his brows furrow before him, a non verbal proposition. You're not gonna win, old man. Partially because he's at least checking in on you, making sure Kent hasn't completely ruined you from the rough treatment he's shown you thus far; seems his competitive streak isn't the only thing he's stolen from his father.

"Course she is, look at the way she's tremblin'." Kent huffs from behind you, still sporting that stupid smirk that irks Sam to no end. Like he knows something that he doesn't, the thought alone causing an uncomfortable weight to settle thick in his tummy.

"Yeah, okay, I think I know when t'check up on 'er, considerin' I'm, y'know. Dating her." Sam retorts, rubbing soothing circles against your lower back as you grow accustomed to the feeling of two fat cocks stretching you wide open; count that as another similarity, as annoying as it is to admit.

Kent only grunts in response, big rough hands reassuringly groping at the meat of your thighs despite his otherwise impatient attitude. The brief pause between familial bickering allows you space to speak, but all Sam hears instead is this meek little mewl directly down his ear. Like you can't bare the act of verbalising your feelings, let alone the thought. The feeling of your body shivering in his hold as he makes sure his cock is allll the way in for a second or tow has him grinding his teeth in frustration, tip all twitchy for your dulcet tones, leaking precum to stain your copiously lubed up cunt already. And he figures Kent must have felt the throbbing too, given the way his father chews on his bottom lip, avoids his gaze with a light dusting of pink on his cheeks.

A one up, so soon? Perhaps the situation is finally settling in for his dad, now that their cocks are practically touching inside of your warm, squishy little body. Perfect angel cunt stretched over his heavy cock, insides attempting to suck him off further as he makes you wait for it. It's for your own benefit, one of him is enough, let along a bigger, stronger version of him, he muses to himself. And surely, your cute little asshole is an even tighter fit right now, yeah? Though he's fucked it and stretched it many times before, he knows exactly what Kent must be going through too. The little squirms and sucks, as if your body was begging for more already. And they haven't even fully begun—

Fuck, you should only be giving him that sort of treatment, right? That's why you're in this position in the first place, so that you can ultimately choose him. Have you ever found him so difficult to take, huh?

Spurred on by the burning bile in his tummy, he tightens his jaw and takes a decisive grip of your waist. Eyeing his father up once more with a determined glint. It's easy to ignore the seed of inadequacy in his chest when Kent merely stares back, awaiting further instructions, because he can feel the way your lips press gently against his neck, sucking on the sensitive skin just a little to leave him breathlessly confident.

That's right. You might be squirming on Kent's cock right now, but it's him that you're seeking comfort from, right? Legs wrapped tight around his waist, arms even tighter around his neck, nails digging into his back to convey just how much they fill you up; so full, aren't you? To the fucking brim if the amount of slick that drips down to his balls are anything to go by. And God, the way your cunt just sucks him in, pulsing around his whole length as he shifts his weight around a little more, preparing for movement. Really, it doesn't really matter what your true answer is to his self serving thought, he takes it as a win regardless. Convinced from the get go that of course he's gonna win this stupid competition because he knows you so well, yeah? There's no way he'd fail in the sport of taking care of you! Cooing sweetly down your ear when you babble nonsense for his attention, he can't help but to grow giddy with excitement at the prospect of finally beating his dad.

"Gonna make y'feel all better. Me, okay? Promise—"

"C'mon," Kent interrupts him, annoyance present in his fathers tone, an intimate timbre from the childhood he spent with him. Even now, Sam simply brushes him off, idly pinching at your waist as if you were the only person in the room with him right now. And you might as well be, given how hard he's gonna fuck you, fuck, can't fucking wait to fuck you truly stupid in front of the man you called hot. "Cocks fuckin' achin' over here. Can we get a move on, or—"

Shit, shut up— is what he wants to say, but coaxed into sudden movement by the way your cunt sucks him off so perfectly, and the familiar craving to come out on top of his father, Sam drags his hips back to draw a high pitched whine from your lips, only to effectively shut you up in a silent gasp for more when he thrusts all the way back inside, not even clueing his father in before settling into a brutal pace, one full of persistence, perseverance, all of his hard work and effort to be the best version of himself for you culminating in precise fucks upward into your tight fucking cunt— god, fuck— sound so fucking pretty when you can't even breathe properly from his fast pace.

Though his father is not far behind, wising up to the situation with a chuckle, making sure to swing his hips in tandem to his sons thrusts. And Sam is honestly a little surprised at just how well Kent can keep up with him, tongue poking against the inside of his cheek in sheer sexual frustration of the fact, both impressed and irritated by the revelation. Sweet sounds of balls slapping against your underside; whose is whose? Can you even tell from the amount of broken moans and sobbed sighs you let out? Ah, he hopes you can tell which cock is making you feel the best, huffing harshly against your shoulder as his eyes squeeze shut with how tightly your cunt wraps around him, making sure to pull out all the stops as he angles his hips in such a way so as to hit your sweet spot— resulting in the prettiest sound he thinks he's ever heard you make. Take that, Kent.

But, it seems like his dad is a quick learner too. Leaning further into you, gripping at your ass cheeks to spread em wider; for your benefit? Or for his own perverted viewing pleasure? Sam sure knows which would be his reason, anyway.

"Fuck, kid—" Kent rasps from behind you, fucking his too fat cock in and out of your well prepared pretty asshole like it was a trained effort. Something second nature, rather than the first time experience Sam knows it to be. So fucking annoying. "So fuckin' tight, arent'cha? God, ain't fucked somethin' this tight in a while—"

"Babe—" Sam gasps for you, begging for your attention as he helps aid your bounce up and down on their cocks. It's much easier to ignore his dad when he's got you wailing against his neck, burying his face in the crook of your own so that you've got no chance but to hear how heavily he pants for you, how loud he sighs with every pass of his tip against your insides, and though he'd loath to admit it, every rub of Kent's cock thinly veiled against his own is stupid good, too. "Takin' it so well, please— keep squeezin' like that—"

This is where they differ though, and were Sam thinks he can gain the upper hand. His dad, rough around the edges, is all tongue and cheek. Smacking at your ass loud enough to be heard over the slap of their balls, even over the squish of your fucked full little angel cunt; but Sam? Only offers encouragement. Not only with his words, but with the way he carves his shape out of your insides, making you feel every single twitch and throb your pretty pussy sucks out of him, bullying his way to your cervix as a means to prove himself to you; look at how hard I'm trying for you, isn't that hot? Isn't that hotter than the cock in your ass right now? Hotter than my dad?

But you always were a little spoiled. Probably down to how much he does for you, yeah? All in an effort to be the best, allowing you to rely on him to make all the decisions for you. How hard to fuck, how fast to fuck, when to cum. Even now, you relying on him. Not his dad, not yourself, but on him to make you feel all better again as you subtly shift your hips to be pressed more against his pelvis just so that you can rub your puffy little clit against him, unable to communicate just how much you need him, and yet still he's able to pick up on your desperation. Even with Kent humping your ass so unfairly from behind, ending up fucking you forward a little, pressing you between two rock hard bodies so snugly that Sam feels as though even he's suffocating. Bearing the full weight of your meagre grinds and Kent's hefty cock, it's upsetting how every time he feels his dads dick brush up against his own through your holes, he shivers in response; because it feels so fucking good, he can only imagine how it must feel to take it.

And he does his best to ignore the yearn in his heart to feel it for himself, instead focusing on how your cute cunt clamps down on his fat cock, how he's so close to the finish line he can almost taste it. Even now, as he's about to cream your puffy pussy right in front of his father, he can't help but to yearn for the win. It's almost more important to him than anything else right now, if not for the way he catches sight of Kent's pained expression and he has to fight himself not to let out the most pathetic fucking whine of his life.

What's worse is when Kent continues to buck fervently into your tight asshole and decides to taunt Sam so nonchalantly with: "Already? C'mon Sammy, y'can give more than that, cant'cha? My son? Bowing out already?"

He wants to defend himself desperately, to whine like a child about how you feel too fucking good, ask his father why he isn't as close as he is right now, and with victory so close on the horizon too—

In the end, he should have known better than to challenge Kent. Spent a lifetime of losing to his father, the feeling of your gushy cunt squeezing around his cock so frantically, of course, inevitably does him in. Creaming your cunt as soon as you start to choke on his name, big fat load fucked right up to your cervix from how eagerly Kent starts to thrust against your backside at the first sign of incoherent babbling from you both, as if he was merely holding back until now. And the slick rub of his dads cock against his own only has him cumming harder, tip twitching as it drools seed against your walls, painting your insides white while Kent fucks it all back out of your stuffed hole.

And Sam hopes for a break. Resolved to accept the loss on the promise of a round two, though he's not sure how much of that resolution is selfish in nature, shivering into the feeling of your cum stained cunt dripping back out onto him every time Kent thrusts balls deep in you again and again. But his dad doesn't let up. Doesn't stop, nor does he slow down. Fucking both you and Sam into overstimulation territory as you hold onto him for dear life and he's left wincing up at Kent.

"Not done yet, son," He grunts, more focused than ever now that you're left all for himself, that same look of determination flashing over his fathers face for a second or two, long enough for Sam to recognise the predicament he's truly found himself in tonight. "That's it, fuck— you're mine."

Sam isn't sure if he means you, or him.

[more-than-tender-curiosity]

What Gatsby musical do you think is best?

The Great Gatsby : A New Musical

Gatsby : An American Myth

And depending on which you pick, why did you choose that one?

I have been outspoken in my criticism of The Great Gatsby: A New Musical to the point where it's kind of marked me as an asshole to fans of said musical, but I'm not backing down. Read my opinions boy

No, but seriously. Let me begin by saying that I came to this point already worn down by so many heartless, obnoxious, cash-grabby adaptations of prior works (Mean Girls, Beetlejuice, Heathers, etc) that bank almost entirely on nostalgia and spectacle and, in some cases, the unknowing of their YOUNG target audience, in order to blind said audience into just calling the music a bop and moving on.

And I'm tired of it. Yes, I'm aware musical theater has always run on adaptations—Chicago and Little Shop of Horrors are among some of my favorites! But I approach every single adaptation of ANYTHING with the same baseline question: is this adaptation justified?

You could take the very moderate opinion of "having more musicals to listen to is a good thing!" but I think that's naive, and falling right into the trap set by creators who are only here for Lin Manuel-level Tony's and that's it. There's no dedication to actually making something new with something already established. Nothing transformative. It's lazy.

That's what I mean by 'is this adaptation justified'. Does the adaptation in question engage with the source material in a way that refreshes it, dives deeper into it, and takes advantage of the new method of storytelling (in this case, from book to stage musical) to showcase how the new method of storytelling benefits the source material? Like in the case of Little Shop of Horrors, it uses satire to highlight deeper issues that are barely skated across in the source material while also pulling forth factors of the source material that were more relevant at the time when it was released.

I for one am exhausted by adaptations at this point. It's always been a backbone of musical theater but now, even outside of theater, we are awash in them. it's been said before that pretty much everything you see now is a remake or an adaptation or a sequel or a prequel or a cinematic universe or something derivative, and that tends to punch down on the smaller, more creative, original ideas that might've flourished if the market wasn't oversaturated with mass-produced corporatized shiny flashy garbage.

This is where the two Gatsby musicals come in.

If you're here, you know that I...dedicate a lot of time to this novel. I could have gone to college and got a degree with the time I have spent on this novel and its study. Unraveling every single sentence, every character motivation, every real life factor that plays in to Fitz's writing of the novel—every draft, every movie adaptation. The entire history of this novel and its creation is carved into the inside of my skull.

Now, one thing you should know about gatsby is that Fitz wrote it when he was just coming off the massive failure of his play The Vegetable. That's not the full title, but I'm not going to bother typing out the rest of it. Because it was bad. It was not good. No one liked it. So, naturally, Fitz wanted to improve on his playwriting skills. Up until then, he was good at short stories and he was good at long, descriptive novels, but he couldn't quite understand how to condense and reformat his novel-writing style into something more like a stageplay.

Gatsby was sort of his attempt. You'll note that Gatsby is only 47,043 or so words, which is less than half of most of his other novels. The action and dialogue are snappy. There is, shockingly enough, less purple prose than prior releases (in spite of Nick spending 23984798347928374 words, approximately, to describe his new neighbor's smile). Scott was trying desperately to pare down his writing and see if he could slowly shift his formatting toward something that could translate to the stage.

Many of you know that The Great Gatsby was a total major uber flop.

There went his dreams of making this a play. And there have been many attempts since, all with very limited success, because for the most part, there is a total lack of understanding concerning what makes this novel a novel instead of play material. All too many times, there has been a disconnect as to what would translate effectively onto the stage as it is written in the book, like the themes of being dazzled by a spectacle but not, as displayed in the novel, the downside of such a thing.

As I said. All too often, there is too little thought given to the advantages of adapting a written work to musical theater. This leads to much of the deeper shades of the story being left to the wayside in favor of shallow spectacle just to keep the masses entertained without actually translating the stunning symbolism and figurative work Fitz put on the page.

This is what happened to The Great Gatsby: A New Musical. They took the most barebones understanding that most viewers would have of the story (that it's a love story, just like Romeo and Juliet!—side-eye), and made everything as loud and as fast and as bright as they could to make up for any lack of exploration beyond what is very plainly written on the page.

This does not work with The Great Gatsby.

I've mourned the gooberfication of Nick Carraway before. I love the 2013 film, as I'm sure many do because it was many of our first experiences with any Gatsby adaptation, but you can see it with Tobey Maguire and you can see it here in The Great Gatsby: A New Musical. So many times I see people call him an unreliable narrator but it's very clear they don't understand exactly why he's unreliable.

This 'gooberfication' I speak of is Nick's attempt to convince us that he's the innocent one here, in every single situation, and everyone around him is a liar and he's always telling the truth so you can trust him. He's the only honest person he's ever known.

Red flag central.

So from that line alone, you have to understand that everything Nick says or does, leaves in or leaves out, is suspect. He's out of his element in New York but he is absolutely not some baby-cheeked little goober who is SO TOTALLY BLINDED by his infatuation with Gatsby that he's just willing to go along with everything and doesn't pass judgment. We joke "Nick says he doesn't judge anyone then proceeds to judge everyone in the novel!" Yeah, no shit. That's the thing. He is a hypocrite made only lesser by the way he plays up the evils of everyone around him, and that's how he gets by. That's how he sleeps at night.

You can cast that into whatever light you like, whether it's the hypocrisy of saying he's so poor when he's living in at LEAST a two bedroom cottage with a maid and modern appliances and his dad is paying for a full YEAR of his life after paying his way through an Ivy League school. Or you could say he does this to throw suspicion off himself and possibly his sexuality, which is a whole can of worms involving Fitzgerald's constant projection onto his characters that I cannot bear to crack open.

Point being, Nick isn't just the passive bystander in all of these situations. He makes it sound like he is, like he's just doing favors for people who are worse than him, and how he disapproves of even everything Gatsby does despite his evident fascination with the man, but at the end of the day, he's just passing the buck. Washing his hands clean. There are so many clues in the book to this sort of thing that should tip you off to the fact that Nick Carraway is not just some silly sweet guy who gets swept up into a life of chaos and crime just to come out cynical. He was already a judgemental, cynical individual who was forced to come all too close to the realization that he, too, is more 'one of them' than he can bear to admit—even in spite of how he attempts to obscure his own hypocrisy.

Nick is not innocent. No one in this book is (besides Pammy, though she's a ticking time bomb if we're meant to understand the wealth she will inherit). That's the whole point of the fucking book. There are a thousand hands each pushing a tiny bit to keep these impossible shades of class division moving, and condemning one person (like Nick does with Daisy or Tom) doesn't solve the problem. Jay still dies. The American dream is still a nightmare. Nick still has a father to fall back on.

Which is why it's so impossibly perplexing to me to display Nick as some sort of lapdog who just seems honored to spend time with these people. Why Jay is just some quirked up white boy who is, quite literally, just too quirky and obnoxious to bear. He and Daisy are so in love and they're so close to each other and isn't it just tooooo saddd to bearrrr?? So romantic????

There's nothing deeper to it. No asking why Fitz wrote any of these characters the way he did. No understanding of the deeper implications of what he was trying so desperately to convey, on both a social and personal level. Yes, it's a love story, but it's also a commentary on just how fucked everyone is by the cages of tradition.

And there is just no trace of that in the Broadway musical. Everything is simple and easily digestible. There is no deeper interaction with the source material, no drive to have produced it at all except, perhaps, to cash in on the new public domain. They got the biggest names they could with the biggest cult followings, knowing so many would just eat it right up and call each song a bop and it would trend on tiktok and they might get a tony and then they'd move on. No integrity. No passion. No justification.

Gatsby: An American Myth is much the opposite.

After hearing a Totally Legal version of the Broadway musical, I was terrified of what ART would do to this book. Now that I had seen just how fearfully easy it was to just slap some 'art deco' and glitter on the stage, write a painfully obvious love song, and move on, I was really concerned that this trend of bloodless, toothless adaptations would continue and I'd have to sigh and move on with my life.

Fortunately, everything I mentioned that bothered me about the Broadway musical is set right in Gatsby: An American Myth. I really should have expected nothing less from Florence Welch in terms of the music (which is, of course, one of the most show-stopping elements of the musical, as it should be) considering her prior works and how they relate to the Great Gatsby. This is someone who has been obsessed with the book longer than I have been and has woven it into so much of her body of work that I'm surprised this musical didn't drop the day it became public domain. I cannot think of a better contemporary musician to handle that facet of a Gatsby musical.

This adaptation itself does exactly what I would have hoped. I am, of course, someone who holds the book and all its drafts to a very high regard—if this is a religion, that's my bible. What's in there, goes, though it's open to interpretation. Typically I would be against adding things at all.

What they added, however, was brilliant. Nothing massive—just, again, ways to take advantage of the musical theater method of production, and ways to modernize and acknowledge more contemporary understandings of the source material. Where the Broadway musical carefully tiptoed around any indication that nick was anything other than straight and in love with Jordan Baker, Gatsby: An American Myth leaned right into the idea that he was made an outsider by his sexuality, and that was part of why he related to Jay so hard. Because otherwise, why would he? He's a middle-to-upper-middle class Midwesterner whose father is paying for a year of his life while he works a little for-fun job in the big city. What does he know about being an outsider?

Gatsby: An American Myth shows you that. Shows how everyone is an outsider to each other in this story, and how individualism destroys a community that would otherwise support you. You can take that on a society-wide level or personal: Jay being totally disconnected from even himself, or the wealthy pretending they don't live on the same planet as the poor.

Another miraculous addition was a sort of bridge between Myrtle and Wilson that just makes sense. I don't want to spoil it too much, but everything they added or rearranged or re-highlighted just goes to display the depth and breadth this story really reaches. They read between every line, proudly displayed the complexity of every single situation and character—how all of them are the victim and all of them are the perpetrator—while STILL making it sound fantastic in my opinion.

It's by no means a flawless work and I saw it early on its production. It's changed since then and obviously I haven't been able to hear it since I saw it live, but I have total faith in the creative team to have not completely thrown away their good intentions in favor of trending on tiktok.

To conclude I would just ask anyone reading to please inspect the media you consume. Inspect the motives of the person feeding it to you. There's not really any sort of Nobility to art, but at this point, with so many shallow attempts to cash in on our desperate search for community and contentment, quality and passion have been thrown out the window. Shoveling this hot shit at us day and night (remakes, sequels, prequels, adaptations) has become another tool of capitalism to keep us just satisfied to not ask for more.

Ask for more. Ask for better. You deserve it.

[princeescaluswords]

ur addition to ur post about scott being forced to treat derek terribly reminded me of the way ppl react to alina killing the darkling. like yeah her killing him was the only way to resolve the situation she'd been put in (by darkles himself). yet ppl keep doing rewrites where alina is meant to 'fix' him or joins his side like. Huh?????

(I must preface this with the reminder that I have only seen the Shadow and Bone television series. I know nothing of any differences that might be in the novels.)

There's nothing wrong with rewriting a story; that's what fanfiction is for, after all. But if someone wishes to write an ending where Alina Starkov chooses Aleksander Morozova, they have their work cut out for them. It requires them to alter the characters and histories of either the Sun Summoner or the Darkling (or both) so much that they literally become different characters. My concern (and I think you share in this) is that people believe that Alina, as portrayed, could easily have chose to be with Aleksander, as portrayed, and they could have a happily ever after.

I can't possibly see any scenario where this can be true. Let us propose, for example, that we vanish Mal Orestev. Poof! He never existed. Alina's early life would still have been dominated by oppression and prejudice, oppression and prejudice that exists in part because of Aleksander's choices, no matter how noble the motivations for those choices were at the beginning. While grisha have always faced oppression, Alina's youth was shaped by fear and disenfranchisement; her life was defined by either her race, her poverty (exacerbated by the Fold), or her potential as the Sun Summoner. This world, in turn, was shaped by Aleksander's actions. No matter how charming and passionate the Darkling is, Alina's history and her character would propel her to question her own feelings for him and his feelings for her. Alina would be betraying every part of herself if she chose the life promised by Aleksander, and I think the story, as portrayed, makes that very clear.

But let's say she did it anyway; with her strength of will, she decided that she would join with the Darkling and accept the injustice done to her (and everyone else) as insufficient to prevent her from being with him. There still can be no happy ending in sight. Nothing in the history or character of Aleksander Morozova indicates that he would be content or even able to treat Alina as an equal, as a real partner. He certainly didn't respect her when she defied him. Everything we see and know about him indicates a pattern of dominating everyone around him, from his loyal followers to his own mother. I don't feel that the fact that Alina is his equal in magical power would help their relationship in any way. Aleksander would see in the Sun Summoner a danger if he could not control her, and Alina would have to become submissive.

Again, fanfiction has great powers of transformation, but there is a limit to how far a writer can stretch plot, setting, and most importantly characterization before it must be questioned if there is still a meaningful connection to the original material. Once that point is breached, readers like you and me have to question if the writer is actually not a fan but only insincerely passing themselves off as one.

This is my problem with the many spiteful interpretations of Master Plan (2x12). For example, I often bring up that people rewriting that scene tend to ignore the immediate mortal danger Allison was in when Gerard demands Scott make Derek bite him. Their motivation is obvious. The know as well as I do that there is nothing in Scott's nature or history, as portrayed, would lead him to place place Derek's autonomy above saving Allison's life, especially when Scott knows that Derek's Bite will disable (if not kill) Gerard and thus save Derek, Allison, and Derek's pack as well? There is simply no alternative that makes sense.

Like Alina, Scott's decisions had been shaped by what he had endured for the previous twenty-four episodes. While, contrary to popular fandom interpretation, he didn't hate Derek, being honest with Derek would require him to ignore too much. Derek had concealed information from him (the alpha's very existence), manipulated him repeatedly ("It's not going to come for free"), disregarded his needs ("I can't let her live!"), and outright betrayed him three times (the locker room shower, the cure, Peter's resurrection). Derek had demonstrated that he would chose lethal violence repeatedly and -- what is arguably worse -- had been a spectacular failure every time he tried to do that. Gerard, on the other hand, had delivered on every single threat he had made. Peter himself made that point in Battlefield (2x11): "You weren't ready. Because of it, Gerard is winning." The wisest plan was the one Scott went with. The only possible counter argument -- Derek's terrible history with Kate -- was something that Scott did not know about. There's a reason Derek didn't hold Master Plan against Scott, and it wasn't bad writing.

I feel our dissatisfaction with particular fandom behaviors isn't about some insistence that canon is sacrosanct. To us, the transformation they are performing is incomplete and ill-wrought, like a badly Photoshopped picture where someone we appreciate ends up having three arms, because the writer/fandom isn't working with the whole subject but only the parts that they want to change, yet they try to pass it off as a real picture. For me, personally, this dissatisfaction also arises from the idea that there are not-so-hidden motivations for the transformation: racism, classism, decadence, and misogyny.

Fiction often portrays dark events as well as heroic events, and if it is quality fiction, all those events are clearly motivated and make sense according to the plot and within the setting. It's an organic whole. Alina would not choose the Darkling and be happy because it goes against everything we know about both of them; Scott created his Master Plan because it goes along with everything we've watched him experience. Different outcomes would require different stories.

[cafeleningrad]

Wakaba thoughts again. There're many things to say about the Black Rose Arc but one of them is not only how the gendered order is enforced with a lot of violence but also the social order. Those who have not been deemed special by Akio, non-duelists, are treated terribly as probs, as means to an end. And if they wish to change that they're faced with (emotional) repression.

Akio categorizes people either special by default (although he selects duelists by the degree he can use them for his own goals, and only ocassionally special if they appear unplanned on his radar. What a terrible worldview, as he says this in "Wakaba flourishes", because actually... Wakaba can be great at sports and schools. I mean alwaready way before Saionji's presence was a motivation in her life, on her way home, many friends asked her to hang out, she's well liked. Anthy and Utena both genuinely enjoy her cooking. Wakaba has not only one but three love intersts, in Tatsuya, Saionji (out of his necessity but curious that it was Wakaba of all people), and Utena, all genuinely close. For someone who would stereotypically occupy the role of genki girl side character that's way more than for even some popular duelists. In episode 12, she was the one capable of pulling out Utena of her depression because she understood and adored her so much. Wakaba always was well liked, has some genuinely good skills, her shining in sports, and school was due to her feeling special enough to dare step out of the role of the regular girl although she already had it in her. It's so insidious that the motivational push to bring out the most of herself depends so much on male attention. As the shadow girl play tells us, Ohtori is a place pushing the idea that people, specifically girls, need princes, specifically male attention, but actually, they don't why they need them in the first place or what they should actually do with them. (Girls like Juri or Nanami get a chance at beig special individuals on their own. in spite of being girls. That rug is pulled away from them when Ruka tries to converse Juri by force, and Nanami's exceptionalism entirely depends on her relationship to a boy, namely being Touga's little sister).

Wakaba was always great but all her potential gets locked away behind the social indoctrination of only male attentiondetrmining her worth, and not by the potential she obviously has in herself. However, Akio's social order that she isn't allowed to be anything than a side character although she, with three love interests, being quiet popular for "a normal girl", and the potentieal to be top of her class, could break down her box easily. Further on, she doesn't recognize that it all could be sourced from her won well.

[esuemmanuel]

No seré famoso, jamás lo seré, y no he querido ni he buscado serlo, ése tipo de ambición no me define. De hecho, un sueño que tuve desde pequeño fue publicar un libro y, bueno, ya lo cumplí. Me siento agradecido conmigo mismo por haber trabajado en ello y dejárselo al mundo. Igual a nadie le importa esto que estoy diciendo aquí, pero es algo que, de repente, me dieron ganas de expresar. Escribir ha sido un sueño para mí, una labor mágica y exquisita llena de hermosas satisfacciones y uno que otro dolor de cabeza y corazón, pues no siempre es fácil hacerlo (la hoja blanca es exigente y muy voluble). Sin embargo, y a pesar de algunas lamentables experiencias en las que no voy a ahondar, he amado tanto escribir que me ha dolido el alma en su más íntima raíz. He estado a nada de dejarlo cuando me he dejado abrumar por la voz de la ambición que no tengo, pero que veo en los demás escritores. Todos (o la gran mayoría) hacen lo imposible por lograr estar en un pedestal, trabajan por el éxito y por los números que anhelan que les lluevan en la cartera. Todo eso me causa un extraño malestar y me orilla a cuestionarme la verdadera razón que lleva a un ser humano a tomar la pluma y escribir… ¿Qué nos hace escribir? ¿Qué nos motiva? ¿Qué nos mueve? ¿La fama, la fortuna, el éxito o el simple amor al arte? Y si bien sé que la vida cuesta, que nada es gratis y que, si deseamos algo, debemos pagar por ello, también sé que el arte debe hacerse con el alma no buscando alardear o presumir por ser “bueno” o “letrado” o “intelectual”, y es que es tan fácil perderse en este camino que se puede caer en los extremos. En fin, estoy divagando… A veces es bueno divagar así. Me doy cuenta de lo que quiero y lo que no quiero… y no quiero ser un escritor que se llena de números y de una fama por demás ilusoria. Quiero mantener mi alma enfocada en la belleza y en la riqueza del arte, el cual es esperanzador por sí mismo.

I will never be famous, and I have never wanted or sought to be famous, that kind of ambition does not define me. In fact, a dream I had since I was a child was to publish a book and, well, I've fulfilled it. I feel grateful to myself for having worked on it and let the world know about it. Maybe nobody cares about what I'm saying here, but it's something that I suddenly felt like expressing. Writing has been a dream for me, a magical and exquisite work full of beautiful satisfactions and one or two headaches and heartaches, because it is not always easy to do it (the white page is demanding and very fickle). However, and in spite of some unfortunate experiences that I will not delve into, I have loved writing so much that it has hurt my soul in its most intimate roots. I have come close to quitting when I have let myself be overwhelmed by the voice of ambition that I do not have, but that I see in other writers. They all (or the vast majority) go to great lengths to be on a pedestal, they work for success and for the numbers they yearn to have raining down on their wallets. All this causes me a strange discomfort and makes me question the real reason that leads a human being to pick up the pen and write... What makes us write? What motivates us? What moves us? Fame, fortune, success or the simple love of art? And while I know that life costs, that nothing is free and that, if we want something, we must pay for it, I also know that art must be done with the soul, not seeking to boast or brag about being "good" or "literate" or "intellectual", and it is so easy to get lost on this path that one can fall into extremes. Anyway, I'm rambling... Sometimes it's good to ramble like this. I realize what I want and what I don't want... and I don't want to be a writer who is filled with numbers and an otherwise illusory fame. I want to keep my soul focused on the beauty and richness of art, which is hopeful in and of itself.

[justatalkingface]

The problem with Endeavour's redemption arc isn't actually Endeavour

It's literally everyone else. I'll be honest: I hated Endeavour since the first time he opened his ridiculously bearded mouth, but he's... actually trying to do the right thing, with his family. He's not doing it perfectly, of course, but I don't actually expect him to, and I'm not holding him to such an unrealistic standard. He's trying to talk to them, he's apologized, and so on and so forth. These actually are the right actions he should be making in a general sense.

The thing is both the narrative of the story, and every character not named Dabi has either barely given a shit about, or has seemingly skipped several steps in the process of forgiving Endeavour for, being a child abusing shit, and as cool and iconic as I find The Man Literally Too Angry To Die Or Become Charcoal, an unbiased narrator he's not.

'Now Face', I can already imagine one of the three people who will actually read this say, 'It's not actually a redemption arc! Endeavour isn't trying to redeem himself, and there's no guarantee he'll ever actually be forgiven by his family!'

Well, imaginary reader, I'm sorry to tell you that it is. His family is going to forgive him, to some extent, and they end up a loving family in some shape or form. It's been signaled that way for awhile now, ever since the big family meeting where only Natsuo seems to be actively angry anymore, or when Endeavour fought the High End and his entire family went "ENDEAVOUR NOOOOOO PLEASE DON'T DIE!!!!'. Personally, I've known it was always going to happen since Shoto started interning with him, way back when, which is actually where my problems with this character arc even started!

Now, let's all pause and reflect on Earlyroki. Earlyroki, while a complex character, had some very simple motivations, and his biggest one was his complete and utter hatred of his father. Everything he did was done with an eye to spite his father with that action if at all possible, and if someone had handed Earlyroki a magic Quirk saw that'd let him physically cut off the fire half of this body and live, he'd have done it in a heartbeat and happily lived the rest of his life spitefully hopping around on one leg, if he didn't make himself a ice leg or something to walk with. That's why Izuku's famous line was so big for him: it separated him, in his mind, from his father for perhaps the first time in his life, and nothing more than that. Not forgiveness, not even acceptance, but just... that he wasn't his dad.

It was a great start, but the problem is the next step on his growth process wasn't separating more from his father, wasn't finding out more who he was, it was.... interning under him to learn how to fight like him. On an objective level, as much as I hate to admit it the plan is actually pretty smart: Endeavour was the Number Two Hero, and the best fire user in existence. He is the quickest and easiest path to power for Shoto, and the option was something he could easily do. But the thing is, this is before the power levels ate a lot of the story line; everything wasn't about power back then, and Shoto's story wasn't about getting stronger as a fighter anyways, but as a person. More than that, I honestly got the vibe that the only reason he hadn't tried to actually kill his dad was, 1, a the realistic knowledge that Endeavour could take him, and 2, what morals he had left in him and the fear of the consequences, since he hadn't progressed to the point where murdering him was worth giving up his moral qualms and his life as a free man. And so, you'd think he'd want to continue distancing himself from his father, right, but just do it in a healthier way, right? But he didn't.

Because Endeavour was going to be important later on so Hori had to get the readers used to him, because people hated him too much, because Hori had made him too hateable, and he had to be in the story. And, as a sign of how mature Shoto was, he was going to put up with his dad anyways, and it was that which confirmed Endeavour's redemption for me: because it was 'good', in the story's narration, for him to do that. Not to grow apart from him, not to just never talk to him ever again, not to stop thinking about him or having his life revolve around him, but to interact with him more. To spend time with him, even if it was an actual burden to Shoto. And that tolerance, I knew instinctively from all the other shonen storylines I've read, was going to be the foundation to forgiving him, the same way that sending time with him being 'good' was the first step in Shoto growing to love him, (and I was right! After growing to slowly tolerate Endeavour's existence his general area, the High End fight suddenly reveals that actually, Shoto loved his dad all along, despite him never once acting like that before now, or showing him any emotions at all beyond something on the spectrum of rage or disdain) and it was that abrupt jump from burning hatred that ruined Shoto's arc in forgiving his father for me, which tainted his family's arc in forgiving him because it's built off that for the audience.

...Well, that and one other thing: Rei. Rei finally shows up in the manga and one of the first things she does is say, 'No, wait, he's not that bad anymore! He's improving!' You know, despite the fact she's still hospitalized, and from what I remember still so traumatized he couldn't even see her yet... but he got her a flower!

You know, there's a post I read somewhere (but I don't know where it is, sadly, it was great) that analyzed the flower scene and how messed up that is.

They compared Rei and her flower to Harley Quinn in Mad Love and her getting a flower. The thing is? Mad Love was about showing how damaged Harley was, and how fucked up the abusive relationship she lived in; she spends the entire story getting hurt and used by Joker, and the end of it she finally, finally realizes that, hey, he's a piece of shit and terrible to her until the Joker gets her a flower. And oh, suddenly she's back in love with him all over again!

In Mad Love, that flower was about proving how broken Harley was, it was a symbol about how toxic and one sided her relationship with the Joker was. In MHA? Well, that flower is Rei's entire basis for saying that everyone should forgive Endeavour: he remembered that she liked that flower (which is assuming he didn't just get it accidently, lol) and so that's a sign he's better now! Not because he's acting differently to her, not because she's even talked to him, but because of the flower, and narratively? That's a good thing! You're supposed to agree with her, supposed to take that single flower as a symbol of Endeavour's growth and how you should think better of him now! Never mind all the things he did to her, never mind she basiclly hasn't interacted with him in over a decade, never mind how terrified she was, how she was so traumatized that seeing him in Shoto lead to her throwing boiling water at him; ignore all those details because the flower exists! It turns her from a character in her own right, to a tool that only exists for the sake of Endeavour making up with his family, since if she forgives him, if Fuyumi is too beaten down to have ever really dissented and if Shoto has moved on several months and one random personality twist or so ago into spending time with him, then clearly Natsuo is just irrationally angry and should rethink his own opinions, instead of being angry for completely valid reasons and having no real need to even want to make up with his father in the first place.

But the family drama of Endeavour is only half of it: like I said at the beginning, the problem with his arc is literally everyone else, along with the narrative of the story as a whole. Thing is, until Dabi's Dance, no one knows better, so there's only one really good example to look at pre-Dabi: the second internship arc, with Izuku and Bakugou.

With Shoto telling Izuku about how his father is a massive tool, and Bakugou blatantly eavesdropping, both of them know Endeavour is a piece of shit. They both know... and yet they go anyways, and the fact they do that and don't have a major problem with him is a way the narrative is trying to push to the reader that Endeavour is better now, now, that we should all move on and not hate him anymore! But honestly, that's just set up for the Dance, and that's when things really get serious, because everyone knows now.

...And they know, and... no one seems to... care? Emotionally, the only ones who seem to be affected by the fact that the Number One Hero's son is one of the greatest villains/criminals in the history of Japan is the Todorokis. Everyone else barely even seem to blink.

And look, I get that there's a giant crisis, and everyone needs to step up (Obviously. The real reason that it happened then was so it would be like that, so the author could paper over that giant issue with a problem magnitudes worse), but the other heroes only talk about Dabi is a problem to be solved, not his origins. There's not one moment where any of them seem to doubt Endeavour's abilities as a hero, or the institution of heroism if it literally seemed to cause their greatest problems, or hell, even Endeavour's ability to deal with it.

Not one of them look at Endeavour and tell him, "You disgust me." None of them say they can't trust him anymore, or that they're willing to follow him but only because the country itself is literally in danger. Hawks, who had been built up as the dark, edgier hero this entire time, wavering on the edge of good and evil and what is right or wrong, whose entire foundation of heroism started with Endeavour indirectly saving him as a child, doesn't even seem to be disappointed in his idol.... though that's as much on how his character seemed to get assassinated as of the war as anything else, but still.

As far as we, the readers, can tell, there is not one hero, beyond Shoto (who supports his father anyways) who is even slightly upset that Endeavour decided to start a eugenics campaign in his own home, before emotionally abusing his own son so badly he almost kills himself, and came back from near death as a burnt corpse of a man who devoted the rest of his life to destroying Endeavour and everything he loves.

Needless to say, that is... deeply fucked up. And sure, there may be some people (somewhere) who feel otherwise, but that's the problem: we never see them. We never see anyone's thoughts that differ from the party line. The narrative doesn't want us to see 'the good guys' doing anything other than falling in line behind him. This is all capped off by the fact that we see Endeavour's fall into being a child abuser, but we see it from his perspective.

We see him just... 'meaning well', from his own memories, and however distorted they've gotten over the years as he's rationalized it. We see that it isn't as bad as we suspected, that he wasn't the one to burn Dabi like that (even though he acted early on like he'd do exactly that, so it was never something that out there) but even if he didn't, Endeavour clearly drove him to burn himself like that and ignored every possible warning sign in the process. We know he slapped at least Rei at least once, and at some point hit Shoto so hard he puked, but "oddly enough" that never comes up in his version of the story; why would it? It's not like he'd want to think about those times.

So let's sum it up: Endeavour is, at least trying, to be better. He's making real, realistic, moves to apologize to his family, to make amends, and to stop being such a colossal piece of shit, and while he definitely makes some poor choices in that process, the attempt itself is real. I don't like him, but I can admit that much, and admire it.

The problem is that Hori, through the narrative of the story, how it's being shown to us and through the characters in it, wants us to like Endeavour too much. He wants it so much that he's refusing to show just how bad Endeavour actually was, and it taints his story and his growth as a person. It changes it, lessens it, because it's being forced by the author, and shows that he's afraid that if he didn't protect Endeavour from the consequences of his own actions, the audience wouldn't like him anymore.

Really though, if he didn't want that he shouldn't have made Endeavour such a detestable person in the first place, or when he made his story as this singular asshole among the heroes he shouldn't have been afraid to let him just... be hated.

[riskyalt]

It's wild how q!Roier permanently rotates in my mind still. MY DOOMED CUBITO NOOOOO.

Love how q!Roier's motto since the very beginning has always been 'to live with fear is to not live at all'. It's so interesting to me, seeing this through the lense of a character that has suffered so much and been left by so many, that it still rings true.

q!Roier is unafraid, he's just simply lonely. That's the entire base of it to me. He was never afraid of q!Spreen after the betrayal, instead venomous and spiteful deep down, wanting to inflict the same pain he felt but tenfold back onto the guy. He wasn't afraid knowing that q!Spreen is the better fighter, he's just so distraught and lost by the sudden loneliness of having three consecutive people he considered family leave on what he knows is a lie, it just turns into anger. But it's never been about fear with him.

Then, Tilin and Juanna. Tilin was a literal child to him, there is no other way to put it. They were with him and Bobby more than they were with q! Quackity, and he took care of Juanna when q!Mariana couldn't, it was all him. But they died anyway. Both under q!Roier's care, they died anyway.

While raising Bobby, q!Roier always mentioned that fear isn't worth living by. He always encouraged his son to live life to the fullest, to experience everything as if it's his last time. There was never the baseline of fear there. Concern, yes, but never fear. So when Bobby dies, he feels alone again. Just like after the betrayal. On awful, miserable timing, q!Jaiden also leaves him after Bobby's death. They leave off on good terms, of course, she just needed her time and q!Roier understands that, it's just...he's alone. Again.

Then comes q!Cellbit, q!Roier's second love on the island. Of course, spiderbit helps q!Roier feel like he has a proper family again, people to take care of like he's always loved doing. It's great, he's thriving.

And then the kids are gone. Richas and Leo, which he has gotten particularly close to, just disappear. It's a sick cycle, a dauntingly familiar pattern that keeps happening to him. Everyone he loves always leaves. It's like a rule of nature at this point, it cannot be coincidence. But he still has q!Cellbit, and q!Vegetta and q!Foolish, and the rest of the islanders. Granted, they're not as close, but they're still proof that he's not alone. Not again.

And then q!Spreen canonically is announced dead. His first enemy, his betrayer, the one he swore to rain hell upon and torture to pay back the pain, is dead. Without q!Roier even able to see him. It's a strange pain to feel.

But then? Purgatory ends, and with that not only does q!Cellbit, but also q!Jaiden, q!Foolish, Richas, Leo, dont make it back at first. From q!Roier's perspective, everyone he has put so much time into loving, has left him. Again. Like always. Stuck in the same sickening cycle.

Yet despite that, there's never been any fear of loosing someone that we can observe in q!Roier's behaviour. I think he's always been motivated by that bone-deep fatigue of having to grieve over and over and over again. To live with fear is to not live at all, but to live with no one is hardly living anyway.

I think the core of everything has never been fear, it's always been about loneliness, and that's such an important thing to remember when thinking about q!Roier's actions

[megarywrites]

For the Writer (& Artist) Ask Game: 1, 10, and 26? ^.^

thanks! gonna put it under the cut because you know how i get lol

1 | Who was your first ever OC? Do you still "use" them? How have they evolved over time?

Zurri my love my angel my sweetheart. She's one of the 4 POV characters from the WIP I'll be returning to once I've completed both books in Seafoam, and she'll actually be the first one who will be introduced when the book starts. She has evolved.................just so much since her creation lol. She's been my best babygirl since 2012 when my sister and I were working on her story and what will be the Cycle of Dracrie (CoD) series. The story she is (technically, no I won't elaborate) introduced in will be called Visions from the Pool, and it's an extremely loose Snow White retelling, with little miss Zurri as our leading lady. At the original conception of this story, the world and magic system was so vastly different than what I'm doing now...I can't really figure out where to begin to describe her differences. What has stayed the same, though, is her feeling of being an outsider and a sense of not belonging to the place she was raised in. She feels lost in life and curious about the world beyond the borders of the encampment she grew up in. There will be a chance for her to escape and experience life for herself and find somewhere that she can truly call home, but it'll take some time.

10 | OC you most struggled to make?

in terms of Seafoam, I'd probably have to say Geros (the Diamo, aka who most will consider the main antagonist of the duology). I think creating villains is one of my writing weaknesses, and I hope I'm doing his charisma and gentle yet violent nature justice, but we'll see. for CoD...again, probably the main antagonist for the entire (15-book) series. I've been thinking about him a lot lately and trying to sort out his motivation (spite, mainly, but also a love of chaos) and the actual logistics of redacted plot things lol he's gonna be fascinating, hopefully tho...very puppet master-esque in terms of his role in the fate of Dracrie/Thiortha (i hope i can pull it off lol)

26 | What are your favorite books?

oh jesus uh....okay

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende - magnificent. if you've never read it, I cannot recommend it enough. It's a childhood favorite of mine and I was as wrapped up in the story as Bastian was when I first read it, and, in my opinion, it still holds up when reading it as an adult. Also, I've just always loved the use of color in the actual text, switching between green and burgundy when going between Fantasia and Bastian's real life

The Starless Sea but Erin Morgenstern - the aesthetics of this one...the non-linear story telling...the poetic prose...it's all chef's kiss. it was the first book I read in ages, because I had been going through a reading slump (depression lol) and it had been literal years since I picked anything up and I decided to give it a try and I loved it. Her prose is so beautiful and she's one of the authors I'm inspired by when it comes to learning from them with regards to my own writing.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien - I mean, obviously, right? He's the father of the high fantasy genre, my dog is named after Frodo, ofc I love his work lol I try to listen to the audiobooks whenever I go on hikes just to feel included, it's great. He's another one of my inspirations when it comes to writing, because I just adore how vast his world-building is, how he writes male characters, and the earnest and authentic message of hope and fighting for what's write that so beautifully alive in this story.

The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins - a stunning and evocative piece of literature that has captivated me since I originally read them way back when. She, again, is one of my writing inspirations because of her masterful use of first person pov, which is something that I generally dislike to read, and her impeccable story structure (which is something I'm leaning toward using with Seafoam)

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling - okay, hear me out. I know she is a controversial figure now, but no one can deny the grip that this series has had on the world since it was first released. The wizarding world was so rich and inviting that even I, who wasn't allowed to read/watch it at all when I was growing up (because of religion) wanted to be a part of it. That in and of itself is something I'd like to strive for with my world-building--creating something so tangible and fascinating that readers flock to it. Probably never to that degree of success, of course...gotta be realistic lol

and last but certainly not least

The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini - aka my first introduction to the fantasy genre. I used to reread it every summer and whenever a new book in the series was coming out. Life has unfortunately gotten in the way of me reading the most recent addition to the series (a spinoff starring one of the important side characters) but it's patiently waiting for me whenever I do have the time to dedicate to a proper reread and first-read of the new book

send me author/artist asks?

[sercphs]

Father's Day

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Featuring Cradle Verse || Honkai: Star Rail

⠀⠀⠀⠀Another year, as the residents of the universe called it. A standardized measurement perpetrated by the great IPC across the stars, as far as their reach let them - and even further beyond that. This is something she became accustomed to in the time since she had ventured into the universe at large.

⠀⠀⠀⠀Was it ironic then, that this "Father's Day" was the day she set out all that time ago, that it was an arbitrarily named day to celebrate paternity? Or perhaps that was merely the one she had come to see as the 'real' version of the day, for her own reasons. Perhaps it wasn't a standardized thing in this universe - she would never truly be able to tell. Even now after all these years, she doesn't truly understand these things that are so woefully human.

⠀⠀⠀⠀In spite of this she continues to learn, to sink her hands into the matter, to understand what makes these humans and their sibling species the way they are. The drive, the motivation, the justifications - all of it far beyond her understanding even now, yet every cycle she is one step closer to understanding. One step closer to knowing.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀But never any closer to loving.

⠀⠀⠀⠀It is something that exists so far beyond her understanding, beyond what she is capable of feeling. She sees it everywhere, this thing that is called 'love' that people share for each other. A thing that some have declared ever feeling toward her on some rare occasions, but she cannot even begin to fathom what it feels like.

⠀⠀⠀⠀Even further beyond her understanding is this love of Fathers. This day dedicated to them, this day she takes out of every cycle like a great many others, but for reasons so far from what she understands to be it's true reason. To celebrate your Fathers, to show appreciate them, to let them know they are 'loved' by their children...

"Mm... Is that something so very human, too?"

⠀⠀⠀⠀The thought escapes her mouth as she she sets foot on the moon, a desolate and barren place at the edge of infinity. A place so far from those she had become accustomed to, somewhere that one could live without ever knowing about the great Aeons deeper in the universe. A place where one could easily live their life without even so much as knowing about The Destruction, without having heard of The Propagation and it's consequences...

⠀⠀⠀⠀An edge of infinity where the only thing known is Despair.

"Perhaps. I wonder what they would say if they could see this place?"

⠀⠀⠀⠀Gentle footsteps guide her across the surface, through the ruins of a civilization long passed away. Step by step, the same footprints she left last cycle - and the cycle before that. How many cycles had she been leaving these footprints? Always on this same day, the same footprints, one galactic cycle after another. They felt so close together, yet so far apart - so telling of the timelessness of her body and mind.

⠀⠀⠀⠀Closer and closer, until she comes to a stop at a faded red cloth set upon the ground in a crater, a place she can turn her head to the sky and see the world this desolate place orbits. A world she is bound to never set foot upon, locked away from Despair in its entirety after the great tragedies that befell it. A bubble of time sealed away, locked by a poison that permeates all existence...

"Mm... As it has already been another cycle, once again..."

⠀⠀⠀⠀The Emanator kneels on the fabric, setting out a small incense burner in the heart of the piece of fabric. A pair of incense sticks are lit, and her hands pressed together - drawn apart to produce a single black rose. Placing the rose before the incense burner, she turns her gaze to the darkness surrounding the world she gazed upon, her crimson stare peering into the Darkness of Despair.

⠀⠀⠀⠀To her Father, she utters the same promise that she has made every year, every galactic cycle - a promise she will make forevermore, until the day it is fulfilled.

"In my infinite hatred, I give you this gift - Father. May your death come soon, so that I may put an end to suffering."

⠀⠀⠀⠀Father's Day...

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀...What a horrible day.

[wilderebellion]

Citrina Rocks - What Really Happened?

Pure speculation about Ravening War based on "Seeds of Conflict" (episode 1) and the entirety of A Crown of Candy. SPOILERS AHOY for A Crown of Candy

Calorum's history is rich and complex and the fact that we're getting The Ravening War is part of that. Lots of things were mentioned or alluded to in ACoC or the Adventuring Party episodes of that time. (Also possibly in Discord Q&As). I believe Jacques Tomaté being the catalyst for the Ravening War was once such thing mentioned on adjacent media (like AP or Discord).

But Citrina, like many of the Rocks sisters, died over the course of the Ravening War, and Calroy spills almost all the juicy details about the demises of Amethar's sisters. Calroy knows that Citrina didn't die merely by accident, that she was run down in the streets on the orders of Belizabeth Brassica - the broccoli woman's motivations, however, were a mystery even to Lord Cruller. Even though Citrina had always "been sweet" to him, he didn't object or didn't show any remorse for Citrina being eliminated.

Prior to the Ravening War, Belizabeth was "just a bishop". In the first episode of the new series, we see her assisting the aged Archbishop Camille Colliflower and speaking in her stead occasionally. Citrina longs to be associating more with the Bulbian faith. Does she bond with a young Belizabeth over religious interest? Does she become such a shining star of Bulbian excellence that overshadows Bishop Brassica? Camille seems to be an elder,

The part that has always been most curious to me is that Citrina was canonized as a Bulbian saint after her death. I can't decide if that happened in spite of Belizabeth's actions or BECAUSE of Belizabeth's actions, so I'm curious to see if this story will give us more clues.

Ordered to be run over in the street = accident, and nothing to link BB to the scene of the crime. Was death truly the intention or did an attempt at harm go too far? Was it supposed to be insulting or somehow a declaration of higher status on Belizabeth's part?

What was happening on the streets at that time? Was it an uproarious mob of people fleeing, or others of the faith that needed guidance? If she was trying to rescue or help others, it would contribute to the martyrdom aspect that maybe encouraged her canonization.

While there are obvious similarities, I don't want to ascribe a one-for-one ratio of transference between the requirements of canonization for Catholics and Bulbians. But if performing miracles is a part of it, I'm very curious to see Citrina's miracles.

This is the writer in me, but it would be pretty juicy if young Belizabeth, already fueled by jealousy, hears someone talk about how good and saintly Citrina is before she finally makes the order. "The thing about being a martyr means is you have to die."

Especially with rewatching ACoC recently, I want to know more about Citrina's understanding of the world. She was deeply devoted to the Bulb, but we don't actually know how she felt about The Church prior to her death. 5A: During the flashback about Catherine Ghee, Citrina makes a subtle distinction between the judgement of The Church and the judgement of The Bulb. She is concerned with the latter, which makes me wonder if she already saw how the institution was flawed. 5B: Presumably Citrina never had any direct AND public criticisms of the Church. Given that her magic relic is about honesty, I have doubts that she would be talented at covering her tracks like Sapphria.

The honesty power of her Book of Leaves - did that only start after she died, or is it an echo of an ability she had in life?

Did Belizabeth WANT Citrina canonized, or was it a great twist of dramatic irony after wanting her eliminated?

[glassmarcus]

Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil—Prestige Mascot Platforming

*Played in July 2022, Written in November 2022, Mild Spoilers immediately

Your goal is the peak of the floating ruins. It's the penultimate level. You're coming off of a bombastic set piece level where you overcame a gauntlet of trials to gain entry to the final area of the game. But the momentum stops. You are soothed by the atmosphere and pacified by the incoming music.

A somber, yet inspiring tune plays. It's a song that entices reflection. It feels nostalgic even though it's the first you've heard of it. You listen closely to the tune as you scale upwards towards the precipice. The melody is strong, but there's an attempt to snuff it out. The wind blows powerfully to disrupt the audio. The volume of the song is drowned out and muffled by the unceasing zephyrs of the fortress.

Reminiscent sound clips appear and try to take their claim as the main event of the piece. These clips aren't just from this game, but the first one as well. They are memories of your adventures. The ones you remember fondly and ones you'd rather not think about right now. These memories stay with you, but none the less, they are still just memories. They had their time. This is NOT their song.

What's past has passed. The melody returns to full volume. It progresses forward. YOU progress forward.

It doesn't matter how hard the wind blows and how invasive the whispers of the past get, the melody always returns. Because it's not done. Because YOU aren't done.

You ascend, tasked with trials that are more difficult than anything you've faced before. They seem daunting, but you are prepared for them. If you weren't, you wouldn't have made it here in the first place.

Every success. Every failure. Every lesson you remember. Every bad habit you forgot. They've all trained you to be the person you are today.

You've gain peace of mind through embracing tranquility. Nothing gets to you like it used to. Your rage has been tamed and it takes a lot more to knock you off balance.

You've turned your joy of life into a thriving passion. It's not just about the destination for you, but living in the moment and finding satisfaction in every aspect of the journey.

You've attained observation through discourse. Every enemy you've faced you've learned from and gained an understanding of how their aggression can work for you.

Your indecision has been forged into an armor of caution. No longer are you a victim of reckless instinct and every decision you end up making you know is the correct one.

You've felt great sorrow. Sorrow you may never recover from. But that sorrow has only strengthened your resolve. You know that it will get better and so you strive towards that place in time where it does.

So you attempt the challenges. You probably fail them the first time through. But that's more than okay. You try again.

You fall into endless chasms.

You are burnt by cerulean hot flames.

You are maimed by a myriad of foes.

You fail as many times as you need to. But you persevere. The winds may roar, but you keep your footing. You move forward. You aren't done yet.

But, Why? Why don't you give in? Why not just accept that this is how things are and this is as far as you can go? It's just a game, right? Well.

Maybe there's spite to drive you.

Maybe you're running from something and want to keep running.

Maybe you think this will make you stronger.

Maybe you're just bored.

Curiosity?

Pride?

Closure?

There could be any number of motivating factors behind why your are doing this, but they all converge to one common point: This reason, has led to you making a decision.

Klonoa is not a character with deep motivations. At least not in this game. There is no wholesome backstory connecting him to the land of Lunatea. He has no family or friends to protect. He has no complex ideals he desires to espouse. He’s just… some guy, who wants to finish his adventure. It’s just a dream. None of this matters in the grand scheme of things. Tomorrow he’ll visit some other dream and go on a different journey. He could mail it in and suffer no consequence. But he doesn’t. He wants to see things through. Real or fake, he wants to help the people he met in this world. He knows he’ll probably never come back to this place ever again, but he still fights for a happy ending. Just because this is something he decided to do. Resolve is resolve, no matter where it’s derived from.

And just like Klonoa, this hard as nails level is something you decided to surmount and you don't owe any explanation further than that. Not to anyone else. Maybe not even to yourself. So you're going to follow through. That resolve will not go to waste. You know you can do it. You know that even if it seems hopeless and not worth it at some points, you will overcome. You will reach that peak. Simply because you decided you would.

While we're on the topic of peaks, lemme tell you how fucking sick the rest of this game is.

Peerless level design. Beautiful visuals. Thrilling set pieces. Snowboarding. A story for a platformer that actually connected with me. Klonoa fashion glow up. Perfect platforming and puzzle balance. Raw as hell boss fights. Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil owns. It's a sequel to Door to Phantomile like how Empire of Dreams is a sequel to Moonlight Museum. But there are a few things Moonlight Museum did better than Empire of Dreams, while this is just a substantial vertical upgrade to a game that was already good. More levels, more ideas, more mechanics and still pretty lean. You can view having to revisit levels as some form of padding, but honestly they are remixed so well and shake up the formula enough to the point they feel like new challenges.

This game really made me appreciate how fucking brilliant Klonoa's move set is. It's extremely simple, but you can accomplish a wild amount of things with just the two buttons you’re given. And the complexity of what you can do depends on the enemy placement. You see games like Kirby and Mario Odyssey where your move set is dependent on the enemies you encounter. But what you have to do with that move set is never taken full advantage of. In Kirby's case because power ups are optional; In Mario's case because it having all its power ups being used as effectively as possible is unfeasible given the amount there are. In Klonoa 2, using your enemies’ abilities is vital and the mechanics are always pushed to the ceiling of skill and problem solving. You always have to be aware of which foes are around you and how you can use them, not just when you are prompted to do so. It's very mindful level design. Because each enemy is a problem solving tool it makes it so the enemy placement always has a purpose and is always fair.

When I found out that they halved your hit points from the first game, I thought this was either going to kick my ass or be piss easy. It ended up being just as hard, but more efficient than Door to Phantomile. In Klonoa 1 you were really only in danger if you got combo’d by a ton of hits or fell off. And even when you died you still had a surplus of lives that the game hands out to you like candy. Now look, I hate lives. I have not been shy about this in the past. But I do like items that you need to get through skill and problem solving. Klonoa 2 gives health and lives more value by making lives rarer and health easier to lose. While maybe not as valuable as gems and fragments, these survival collectibles are worth figuring out how to get and gives the level design more layers. And the game is really just trying to nudge you in the direction to try and collect lives. It’s not trying to be a dick. Klonoa 2 will literally just spawn a life after you die twice in a row. It even rewards you with 3 lives if you fuck up a section enough times and then get to the end of it with no lives left. It uses the illusion of an imminent game over in order to trick you into being a responsible gamer. I would still prefer another type of in-level item that aids you. But this is the most I've respected a life system on a console game.

My only real issue with this game is depth perception at some points. It's not a big deal, but it elicits powerful retroactive bitterness. Why did this entire franchise skip the 3DS? It's built exactly for a system like that. It is perhaps the one sidescroller I would actually use 3D for. Kirby came close, but depth was only required at certain points. Klonoa just makes sense in stereoscopic 3D. I'm so pissed. After beating this game I couldn't help but imagine the scenario in which they kept making these games. Klonoa has such potential and deserves as much love as the other Scrimblo Bimblos. It certainly has a better track record than the rest.

Allow me to codify this real quick, because this is a nonsense term I’ve been using that requires context. A Scrimblo Bimblo is soft pejorative used to refer to the cartoon mascots that showed up in the 90’s and early 2000’s and any character who might carry that same type of energy. I’m talking about your Sonic the Hedgehogs, your Crash Bandicoots, your Aero the Acro-bats, your Ty the Tasmanian Tigers, your Jazz Jack Rabbits, your Izzy the Iguanas, your Glovers, your KAO the Kangaroos, your Bubsy the Bobcats. Characters you may have never even heard of, but you can picture them in your brain and be 60% accurate as to what they look like. It was an over saturated market for a time and few have survived to this day. Klonoa is a fun cartoon mascot platformer, but he ends up being more memorable than the others by having quality stand out games and not giving away the character design in the name. Seriously, I think he’s supposed to be a cat, but I’m still not convinced.

I'd rather play the first 5 years of Klonoa games than the first 5 years of any other platformer franchise. After playing Sonic Origins I can confidently say I wouldn’t be upset with a timeline where Sonic and Klonoa switched places and we got dozens of Klonoa games and no Sonic games after 1996. Klonoa is like...if Sonic was consistent. Not game play wise of course, but just being an incredibly appealing character design with a fun concept and a unique flavor of edge. There are only a handful of great Sonic and Klonoa games. But those handful of great Klonoa games are basically all of them. When it comes to it’s platforming titles, the kid don't miss. Even Dream Champ Tournament, which had some stupid shit in it, is better than most platformers on the GBA honestly. I love Rayman 3(GBA), but I won't sit here and act like every handheld Klonoa game doesn't dab on it super hard. But I know that there is no way Klonoa could become a huge franchise. It has too much... integrity.

Going by the two main games, the intent seems to have each one be it’s own individual journey. You can’t really build a franchise off that. You need cast members and settings to stick around so people can get attached. The only constant Klonoa has is Klonoa himself. Sure this leads to fresh ideas for main entries, but it also leads to less iconography being developed for the series. Familiarity is marketable. Look at Pokémon for instance. It’s THE franchise, and when it made a left turn and abandoned all it’s iconography in Gen 5, people were not receptive to it at all initially (Unlike me who wasn’t receptive to it for the correct reasons). Then immediately afterwards it started to lean back into that familiarity and sales went back up. Klonoa can’t really grow if it replants itself every game.

The side games (Moonlight Mansion, Empire of Dreams, Dream Champ Tournament) are a way around this where they seem to reuse characters all they want. But that also just makes the canon fairly murky and hard to follow. It’s not clear how much these games impact the console games, so there’s a lack of cohesion you might expect. Also, Klonoa regularly reuniting with his friends kind of defeats the conceit of the franchise. They can only pop up so many times before they become thematically inconsistent or contrived. I like Huepow, but every appearance he makes, dampens the ending of Door to Phantomile. And even worse than the spin off platformers is The Legendary Star Medal, which just feels like a dev team didn’t know anything about Klonoa and made a top down action game about him. These Spin-offs are something they could have theoretically kept doing, but they admittedly sully the main games a bit by existing. Each game contributing to the mythos while also being self contained is definitely ideal and the direction you’d expect it to go. But instead of doing that or making more side games, they just sort of stopped making them. And I wonder if it’s just because of a lack of interest. Maybe no one has any ideas to top Klonoa 2 so they just didn’t try. Or they just didn’t have funding after their rush to create a franchise didn’t yield immediate results. I’m just gonna assume it’s the latter.

Back when the Reverie collection was announced, I made a post on Twitter referring to Klonoa as “The one true Scrimblo”. I hastily drew Klonoa in the style of early 2000’s Yuji Uekawa and made that my profile picture for half a year. At this point I had only completed Klonoa 1 and didn’t even like it that much. It was a raw display of fraudulence and I had no clue what I was talking about. I just wanted to like Klonoa. I got swept up in the hype.

Yet. I ended up being correct about that. He really is the best one. Sonic will always be my favorite platforming mascot of course, but I’ve played enough horrid Sonic games to know that he may not be the most appealing representative of the sub genre’s quality. Though now Sonic is currently on an upswing. Every aspect of the franchise is doing relatively well. If there was a time for Scrimblos to reclaim some of their former power, it would be now. Things were looking pretty dire for a bit. Spyro and Crash are resting under the heel of Activision. Rayman has been devoured by the Rabbids. Sly Cooper is gripping the edge of that cliff. Everyone else from the 90’s is basically dead, aside from Bubsy, who we cannot allow to make another game under any circumstance. But now we have Sonic making decent games again, Kao the Kangaroo coming out of nowhere with a new installment, and the Ty games getting remastered for...some reason. And now Klonoa 2 is easily available for the first time 20 years. We’re looking at a potential new age of wacky mascot platforming, and I consider that a good thing. It feels like it’s important to keep franchises like these in circulation. Would I even be as big into gaming if didn’t latch on to Scrimblos as a kid? I’m not sure. But what I am sure of is that I would have loved Klonoa if he didn’t evaporate instantly before I ever heard of him. So I want to be there when an actually new Klonoa game comes out so I can shamelessly shill it with everything I got. I eagerly await the rightful king of silly animal flagships to return to the kingdom and claim his seat on the throne.

[aspiringsophrosyne]

Episode 11: The Belly of The Beast.

It's been a minute since we had ourselves a good old fashioned monster movie. New ideas are fun, but the classics are classics for a reason. Lights are going down!

The Good.

The Shorthalts.

For a split second, I thought they might've actually changed Kaylie's mom's name to Leia: just for the tiniest second. Kaylie's face and Scanlan's "Are you sure?" are just the cherry on top of that sequence. 

Aisling Franciosi gives an almost surprisingly heart breaking performance as Kaylie here. You can feel how broken up she is, how she's been wanting to tell Scanlan all this for a while....but you don't just feel her anger; you feel her hurt. A lesser performance could've made this scene a joke, but she pulls it off fantastically. 

Vax And The Matron.

During Vax's super creepy vision, we start to get more of an idea of what the Queen wants. Until this episode, if you didn't already know her deal, you might guess she was furious with Vax: seeking compensation for his taking her Champion's armor and Vex's life being spared. But when the dead call out to Vax, it's the first indication of her motivations. It also tells us that she's not a spiteful, vengeful creature. This flows into the encounter later in the episode and helps set the tone for said encounter nicely.

Also it's just good to be reminded of these characters. Makes their deaths seem like they matter. 

Vex is sneaky as hell, and Keyleth is still adorable. The talk the two have while Vax is communing is a nice cap-off to the tension between them in Season One. Vex has been kinder to Keyleth in general, but Vex effectively giving Vax and Keyleth's romance her blessing is a tangible example of her character development. 

The New Champion.

There is no end of good to say about Vax's communion with the Raven Queen: the temple and the goddess herself are jaw-droppingly gorgeous to look at, and the buildup wherein her priestesses lead Vax into the temple is suitably spooky without coming across as hostile. But I think what gets me the most is the tone is just right. This sequence could've easily read like she was trying to manipulate him: playing nice when they both know she's got him over a barrel. But just like in the stream, the Queen is gentle and soothing, as if she knows how terrifying she can come across, and is trying not to spook a man who already knows the terror of impending grief. The moment shared between them feels like a balm on a burn. Courtenay Taylor gives an indescribably splendid performance as the Matron; we're two for two in most excellent goddess portrayals. 

I love that they gave Vex a reaction to Vax coming out covered in blood. Even in this world of magic and monsters, some things are still weird. And it was a nice touch to have the area look gloomy as hell when Vax initially approached it, but the day is sunny and hopeful after Vax has made his peace with the Matron. 

Umbrasyl.

This bit with Percy and the Goliaths is a better version of what they tried to pull with him in the Fey Wild. 

The trap and the trigger. Percy and Vex: the clever ones. 

That acid breath is, as always, horrific. That disembodied mouth opening up in the air, dripping with neon green, the invisble belly scales coated with blood....Mm! That's a visual. 

All of this is nasty in the best ways, so I don't know why that acid on the back of Keyleth's ankle gets me so much. It's such a small thing. Maybe because it reminds me of every blister I've ever had. Whatever the case, it always makes me flinch when I see it. 

I almost couldn't believe they were actually going to perform dragon proctology to get Scanlan and Vax in there when I saw it in the trailer. I don't know why. But in hindsight...of course that's what they did. Of course. Why did I question that?

And we end on the same beautifully unresolved cliffhanger that the stream did. No notes.

The Bad. (Or at least, the not great.)

World Building

Again, I have to whine about world-building here. 

In DnD and the original Critical Role stream, all these characters had differing lifespans. Keyleth could live for thousands of years. The half-elves could live around 200 years. Percy could live a human lifespan. Grog's lifespan would be slightly shorter than Percy's. The Gnomes, however, could live up to 500 years, during most of which they would maintain their youth. 

In other words, Scanlan is more than likely beyond old enough to have a grown daughter, despite still looking somewhat young. However, because the show never makes this clear to people who didn't watch the stream or aren't familiar with DnD, Kaylie's whole storyline is more confused than it should be. 

Similarly, what's the deal with the Raven Queen's temple in Westruun? Is she special to this town in particular? Does every god of Exandria have a temple in this town? What's the deal?

In the stream, the town had a temple ward, which boasted multiple religious sites dedicated to various gods. This was where Vax originally went to commune with the Raven Queen, but because the show takes liberties with the stream events and it's never established in this episode, we don't know if that's the case here.  

I want to know!! 

Dr. Dranzel

Originally Scanlan had traveled with Dr. Dranzel's troupe after losing his only family. Here, they elected that the two had no connection to each other, and while I respect that change, I don't understand their reasoning.  

Sam said on the watch-along that they eschewed the original connection because it would've taken attention away from Kaylie when we first met her, as we meet both her and the troupe together. 

That explanation...feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, frankly. Again, I respect the choice, but it would've been easy to include that part of Scanlan's backstory and give Kaylie her moment. When she's leaving in this episode, have Scanlan take Dranzel aside, confirm their connection, and ask him to watch after Kaylie. This keeps their relationship, gives Kaylie her moment, gives Scanlan a little depth, and establishes the troupe is, while not malicious, definitely sketchy in some way if they try to keep the knowledge of who knows who on the down low.

Nitpicks

I'm unsure how I feel about Scanlan being trussed up during his confrontation with Kaylie. It adds cringe-inducing sleaze, for sure. On the other hand, it meant more when Scanlan refused to fight back in the original because he was free and capable of doing so. It doesn't mean much for him to not try to resist when he physically can't. Similarly, in the original, Kaylie was seeking a duel. Feels like it gives her more if she was giving him the chance to fight back. 

~*~

This is probably just a me thing, as I saw a few reactors get this right away, but I would've had the shot of the ruined temple be from over Vax's shoulder. That makes it clear what we see is the temple he just stepped out of. I thought it was a different shot of the outside at first. 

~*~

They could've set up the sword better. In the original, the item Scanlan and Vax used to try to hold down the dragon was called the "Immovable Rod"; it did...about what you'd expect. They couldn't use that name because of copywrite, but since the sword doesn't have a name that spells out what it does, it's hard to see why Scanlan thought it would be enough to hold down the dragon. A throwaway line from him about "Oh, I recognize this enchantment! It can hold down such-and-such pounds of weight!" would've clarified things for the audience. 

~*~

Having Vax yell "What the hell do you want from me!?" right after we very clearly hear the dead begging him to usher them into the great beyond makes for an unintentionally awkward juxtaposition.

~*~

I don't really get the small convo Vax and Scanlan have before they enter the dragon. Everybody's out there on the field fighting the dragon; why is it weird that Scanlan is too? Feels like a really contrived lead-in to the "you win" bit. Also, we could've had a little more variety in terms of Umbrasyl's lines. 

And that's it for the penultimate episode. Only one more to go this season.

[enahstudio]

Knowing Thyself:

A dreamer who lost its passion and how she found a spark of hope

an autobiography

----- For once, I called myself a dreamer. A visionary. An idealist. An imaginative woman. It starts with a change of perception towards the world we're living in today. As someone who is fond of reading books, watching cartoons appropriate for my age, and observing the people around me, I know it is something that will shape me into a different person rather than just being someone who yearns to finish education or enjoy simple things in life.

----- Growing up in the slums, contemplating the vulnerable people in our community has driven me with so much passion to become a doctor. Specifically, a pediatrician. Children always have a special place in my heart. During my childhood, I tended to get sick, incurable with just a smear of vaporubs or consuming medicines. There's this one time I broke my el-bone (Yes. I use to refer to it that way because I find it kind of witty). Visiting the hospital became a daily routine. Before I was admitted to my own room, I laid alongside whining children. It pains me to see them suffering various illnesses, despite it being normal to happen to children.

----- Aside from patients being my friends, I became great pals with the doctors who always keep me in check every time they pay me a visit. I always thought they're awesome professionals. I find it cool whenever they consult their patients and write them prescriptions.

----- I can somehow picture myself doing the same thing hereafter. Ever since then, I would make scenarios in my room. Using my stuffed toys as the patients and me as the doctor. If there's anything that I should be thankful for, that is for having such supportive parents. They even customized a white coat and a name template for me. Wearing it feels like I'm already living in my dream. That's how I see the vision of my future. That's how I call myself 'a visionary'.

----- But just like they always say, in order for a dream to be achieved, you might have to encounter some hurdles that'll hinder the strongest desires in your life. I've reached the point where I can't sense any motivation to pursue things. When it felt like everything is just an infatuation. At the age of eight, the death of my father had a huge impact on me. As if the colors have faded and I can no longer see the light down the path towards my dream. I struggled to stand on my own feet. Still not able to fathom the fact that losing someone would send waves of unsaid emotions. It affected my performance in school. My marks have dropped and my thoughts have gone disoriented, unabling me to make wise decisions for myself.

----- During the challenging times 2020 has given us, I have seen enough of what people have gone through. It aided me to perceive the truth about living your life. We go through certain hardships. There's these phases in life where we get to experience the things that are least jovial; loss, downfall, and false hope.

----- I admit we get to feel things like that. I may have failed to see the ones who continue to support me. The ones I turned a blind eye on. In spite of the series of distress, life goes on. The pain will eventually leave as long as you find a way to help yourself. And I did. I conquered every fear, and walked through every obstacle I encounter. From this moment, looking back from what I've been through, I know I have no other reason to give up. I guess I get to call myself a dreamer of yesterday, and still a dreamer today, tomorrow, and always.

@enahstudio 2023. All Rights Reserved.