#sucks a bit when they can all aim super good. like its fine if you kill me sometimes like a challenge is good

[toytulini]

sodies are fun, but i miss ink armor. i preferred it

[raisin-writes]

one piece men hcs: period sex

featuring the blorbos of my choice- law, bartolomeo, bellamy, corazon, and doflamingo

warnings: blood (obviously), narsty boys (looking directly at barto), smut, period eating

nsfw under the cut, minors dni 🫵👁️👁️💢

Law:

• im sorry babe, he may be a doctor and he may not be squeamish about touching peoples organs and blood, but he will not go down on you on your period 😔 (coward).

• hes kinda weird about period sex, he'll do it if you ask him super sweetly and look at him with those big pathetic puppy eyes, and he'll sigh dramatically and agree to it, but he really doesnt like doing it on the bed, he prefers the bathroom where its easiest to clean.

• usually he's kind enough to finger fuck you when you ask for it, but hes quick to pull his hand out of your pants and run to the sink to wash his hands off before shooing you to bed with a peck on the forehead. hes a busy man, hes got work to do.

• when he does have time, though, he'll make sure to take proper care of you afterwards.

• he'll offer to bring you water, a snack, pain meds, a towel, a hot pack, hell he'll even carry you to the shower if your legs are too shaky to stand on and clean you off with a gentleness so rarely seen from a man like him.

Bartolomeo:

• NASTY BOY ALERT 🚨🚨🚨

• you dont even need to ask, he'll be able to smell a hint of blood from across the room and hunt you down like a shark.

• begs you to let him eat you out while on his knees, massaging and pawing at your thighs.

• "c'mon sweetheart, i just wanna help ya~"

• VERY enthusiastic eater, if he could stick his tongue up any further into you he would.

• likes when you sit on his face so he can feel the blood and cum dribble down the sides of his face.

• as he's fingering you, he'll suddenly pull his bloody hand up to his lips and suck the liquid off each digit before shoving them back inside you to do it again with a big cocky grin.

• hes fucking ravenous.

• fucks you like an animal and likes watching you coat his cock in red multiple times.

• truthfully, there might not be much blood left to leak out of you by the time hes done with you.

• dont worry, he'll make sure theres plenty of cum to leak out instead.

• hes super super sweet afterwards.

• "im so sorry, i didnt think i'd get so carried away there," he'll scratch the back of his head sheepishly.

• acts like a mother hen while he cleans you up so youre all nice and pretty again- hes usually pretty good about cleaning up after himself when it involves you.

• gets sad and confused when you vehemently refuse to give him a big wet kiss afterwards.

Bellamy:

• another nasty boy, but its more of a theatrical thing.

• hes fine with licking other peoples blood off his face, this isnt much different to him.

• he does play it up for you a bit (and the invisible audience in his head, he has to look cool for them always).

• makes a big show of lapping it up while locking eyes with you.

• the wide, wolfish grin on his face while his tongue swipes over the stray blood dripping off his lower lip makes you whine.

• he'll finger you whenever you ask even when you arent menstruating, it makes no difference to him, he just likes seeing you come undone on his hand.

• will let you dry hump his towel-covered thigh if hes too busy with something like a log or a paint manual (hes a study-at-the-last-possible-minute kinda guy).

• he'll fuck you however you need him to.

• want him to put you in a mating press and make you squirt all over his stomach?

• no problem.

• need something slow and tender like sitting in his lap while he gently rocks into you?

• he can do that too.

• hes a man that aims to please, and will almost never turn down the opportunity to stuff you full of himself.

• surprisingly decent at aftercare.

• he'll make sure youre mostly clean and get some water for you both before he stuffs you under his arm like a teddy bear to cuddle.

Corazon:

• hes surprised when you first ask to have sex with him on your period.

• he didnt think he would be very into it at first but the seemingly deeper intimacy of it...

• and the way youre so much more weak and pliant for him when youre like this... it does something to him.

• something clicks in him that hes gotta take care of you.

• only you.

• he's reluctant to eat you out, but he'll do it while looking up at you to make sure youre enjoying it.

• hes careful with foreplay and even more careful with the main event.

• the tenderness of the moment will probably make him cry, he feels so connected to you like this.

• doesnt even let himself savor his own release (if he even cums at all, your pleasure is so much more important in this moment) before he trips over himself to get you snacks and water and pain meds and anything he could possibly think to make you more comfortable.

• make sure to cuddle him tight and give him a big thank you kiss for all his hard work.

• he might cry again, hes just so full of love right now.

Doflamingo:

• on one hand, he thinks its kinda dirty and filthy.

• but on the other hand... hes kinda into the dirty and filthy aspect.

• he doesnt eat you out, but if you really beg him, he'll make his string clone do it while he holds you.

• even if its not the real doffy, his tongue alone makes you melt into a puddle on the mattress.

• as soon as you've cum enough for his liking, he'll shove the clone out of the way and get to work on stretching you open for himself.

• hes not very comforting, but he'll make sure youre more than satisfied so long as he gets satisfaction too.

• is decent enough to let you adjust to him but his patience does have a limit, so hurry up and relax for him already, hes got other things he needs to get done today.

• hes not as gentle as you want him to be, but he'll get you to the finish line even if you cant keep his pace.

• having you so sensitive and compliant for him like this makes him all the more cocky (unfortunately).

• heavy on the teasing dirty talk.

• "so weak and helpless for me, pet... what would you even do without me here to take care of you?"

• always makes you cum hard on his cock; if you squirt, all the better for his ego.

• he has to admit, something stirs in his gut when he sees your blood dripping out alongside his cum.

• not very hands-on with the aftercare portion; it truthfully wigs him out being that vulnerable, even if its you.

• he'll send a maid in to help you clean up with anything that you might need or ask for.

• what really surprises you is the pretty bouquet that comes in along with the other aftercare items.

• ...

• it doesnt happen very often, but he'll stay to cuddle with you for a little bit before the maid comes if you manage to grab him before he leaves- you dont even have to say anything for him to know what you want.

• he supposes he can indulge you sometimes.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 318: On Your Left

Previously on BnHA: The Hawksquad+Lurkers were all “well this sucks” and sat around a bit talking about how maybe they should actually come up with a new plan that is actually good, but then in the end they were like “nah.” Deku was all, “THERE’S SOMETHING INSIDE ME THAT PULLS BENEATH THE SURFACE!! CONSUMING, CONFUSING!! THIS LACK OF SELF CONTROL I FEAR IS NEVERENDING. IT’S HAUNTING HOW I CANT SEEM TO FIND MYSELF AGAIN. MY WALLS ARE CLOSING IN.” Just, literally that whole entire song. All Might was all “Deku you should take care of yourself, try eating a thing,” and Deku was all “BYE, ALL MIGHT,” and just LEFT. He left!!! What the fuck!!!

Today on BnHA: Endeavor is all, “maybe if Deku didn’t listen to All Might he’ll listen to me instead.” Deku is all, “[doesn’t listen to Endeavor]” because, well, yeah. The Vestiges are all, “surprisingly, even we are a little concerned -- maybe you should get some rest, kid.” Deku is all, “((Ò ‸ Ó)).” The Vestiges are all, “holy shit.” Deku is all, “[wanders the ruined city streets terrifying the populace on account of him looking like Shelob had a baby with one of the Nazgul].” Some shriveled-up puppeteer villain asshole is all, “HORIKOSHI SAID IT’S MY TURN TO ATTACK DEKU TODAY SO I AM GOING TO SUMMON MY FRIGHTENED HELPLESS ATTACK MOB!!” Kacchan is all “WHADDYA MEAN THEY FOUND THE NERD!!! -- oh wait, that’s me, I found him. I found the nerd, you guys.” And just in time, too. I was about to owe a whole lot of people a whole lot of dollars.

so I have been super good about spoilers this week as always, but let me tell you guys, for the past 36 hours my dash filters have basically been nonstop “manga spoilers” this and “bnha 318” that, and so I’m coming in with a fair amount of hype here. your move, Horikoshi

oh, good! they got Endeavor to call Deku to try to talk him out of it. what a great and wonderful plan

“listen up kid, you haven’t slept since March and you are basically a walking biohazard right now, I’m just telling it like it is. didn’t you get shot like three times?? and there was a whole thing about how you urgently needed medical attention?? and supposedly we gave it to you, but I mean you haven’t even changed your clothes and don’t seem to have any fresh bandages or anything, so did we?? did we, really?? and also we all got blown up yesterday, so yeah.” hmm he’s making some reasonable points here you guys, but you sure do go on and on, Endeavor

oh he says foreign aid is finally on its way! I’m sure they’ll be very helpful. I mean in fairness they can hardly be worse than the home-grown heroes at this point

hey Enji, could you maybe try appealing to Deku the sixteen-year-old human boy, as opposed to Deku The World’s Last Hope? he does have value beyond his quirk. I know that’s always been an incredibly difficult concept for you to grasp, but could you maybe TRY, jesus

and also we’re worried about you as a person?? you’re just a kid and you’re pushing yourself way too hard?? you were going to say that part next, right. why the hell didn’t Hawks make this call instead

“don’t worry about me... I’m completely fine” Deku you do understand that saying it over and over again doesn’t actually make it true

and again with the rush!! all the rush rush rush!! we’re running out of time, we can’t let AFO and Tomura keep getting stronger, I have to end this now, there’s no time to rest, etc. etc. etc. just the constant pressure of this whole big countdown on top of everything else

holy shit, you KNOW it’s bad when even the Vestiges are telling him to chill

these guys are basically the walking talking embodiments of self-sacrifice; if even they’re telling him he needs to take five, then he must seriously be like half a step away from death’s door

OH SHIT LMAO

DIDN’T EVEN LET HIM FINISH HIS SENTENCE BEFORE HE SENT HIM INTO THE FUCKING SHADOW REALM WITH THAT FUCKING LOOK. HOLY FUCK. DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT WAS POSSIBLE TO DIE TWICE. SHIT

(ETA: so I’m pretty sure this was just Danger Sense activating and so he cut them off to go do more hero stuff, but I’m gonna go ahead and stick to my original interpretation anyway lol.)

anyway so how’s everybody doing. we all good? En, you good? Banjou? Shino? I’m imagining you guys all curled up in a little ball on the floor right now lol. can’t say I blame you though, no shame

lmaoooooooooooo

“SHEESH.” sheesh indeed, lmao. “what in the FUCK was that”

see, this is why y’all need Kacchan. you need someone who’s not going to back down from him no matter what. if it’s a matter of out-stubborning Midoriya fucking Izuku, then there’s only one other person on the planet capable of that, and we all know it. don’t pretend like you don’t. I am not going to shut up about this! we’ve had our hurt so now what about SOME COMFORT, DAMMIT

“I’m afraid that he’s becoming influenced by my conscience” nah are you kidding Nana this is all 100% made-in-Japan pure original Deku right here

see, Banjou gets it. “that kid, he’s totally going on his own.” exactly. this was so inevitable it was basically scientific law

“well I for one don’t see the problem with Deku being so obsessed with saving everyone else that he pushes himself until his body and soul literally fall apart” okay, whose speech bubbles are these?? we’re about to have words

lol of course

well you always did prefer the direct route didn’t you. but even you can’t possibly think this is okay lol

dark AU!Kacchan please tell us more about your badass doomed timeline in which everything went to shit and you apparently had the same character arc that Deku is having right now except it somehow made you sexier instead of turning you into a rabid t-rex. I have so many questions

oh so now you want to help??? well -- good, actually. sorry if that sounded offended just now lol

(ETA: so at first when I got to the end of this chapter I was wondering if Katsuki B. had somehow summoned his alternate-universe counterpart through trippy OFA space telepathy lol. but in the original Japanese there’s no reference to “we”, so this appears to be a mistranslation. this line should probably read more like “if there’s something/someone out there that would be able to complement/complete the current Midoriya Izuku [it would be]…” which, oh hello, is that Horikoshi once again reaffirming that Deku and Bakugou complete each other lol. “guess what guys, the Vestiges ship it too" heck yeah. they know what’s up!)

look how admiring his boyfriends are. HORIKOSHI GIVE US THE REST OF THIS BACKSTORY ALREADY GODDAMMIT

“meanwhile somewhere in the depths of the ruined city, Deku was having a dance-off with the villains”

I like how the villains all have this “AHH WHAT THE FUCK” kind of body language to them lol. I mean if it were me, and an eldritch horror suddenly clawed its way from the shadows with its writhing glowy tentacles and pants-shitting nuclear death stare, I would probably just die on the spot. no need to stick around. only pain awaits

lol for a minute I thought this was Can’t Ya See-kun and I was like “WHAT A FASCINATING CROSSING OF PATHS” but it’s just some random girl

he seems genuinely confused lol

Deku it’s because you look like something that crawled out of a sewer drain, sweetheart

lol they just took his word for it?

so trusting. even though they’re immediately hauling ass anyway just to be safe lmao

“my appearance is frightening to others” no shit Deku it’s because you look like a fucking alien exorcism. you look like a Lich that got caught up in an oil spill my dude

NO NOT THE CHOSEN ONE ANGST AGAIN

I RAN OUT OF ESSAY JUICE FOR THIS ALREADY HORIKOSHI!! I’VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT IT FOR MONTHS NOW WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG!! BUT ANYWAYS, GOOD!! I MEAN, BAD, THOUGH, OBVIOUSLY. BUT YES

“ENJOY THIS MONTAGE OF DEKU BATTLING A RANDOM KAIJU AND WANDERING THE WOODS LIKE A DERANGED GREEN BABA YAGA” okay yes but sir, exactly how much longer is this going to go on. if it’s a matter of you wanting to make sure we get it, let me assure you that aside from a few stray chuunis who think that Deku embracing the Darkness is the coolest thing he’s ever done, all of us here in fandom fully comprehend that this is Not Good

-- OH SO IT’S LIKE THAT

really. with the flashbacks to his loved ones’ smiling faces and everything. not even gonna try to aim above the belt, huh

AND NO KACCHAN??! NO CLASSMATES?!?! IS HE PURPOSELY NOT THINKING OF THEM??? OR ARE THEY BEING SAVED FOR THE NEXT PAGE??? SO HELP ME, IF THE NEXT PART OF THIS SENTENCE IS “CAN PROTECT THEM”, OR EVEN WORSE, “CAN SEE THEIR SMILING FACES AGAIN”, I...

WHAT DID I JUST SAY

(ETA: my man did Sero and Kaminari fucking dirty lmao. I miss their smiling faces too omg.)

the sheer, unparalleled irony of him saying this while he stands there looking like the gargoyle demon from Fantasia got crossed with an umbrella that got struck by lightning. Deku :(

oi who the fuck is this clown

is he controlling this mob with his evil hair. “what if I made an exhausted, running-on-fumes Deku battle a brainwashed mob at Ground Zero.” Horikoshi do you just have like a checklist of horrible things you want to do to your protagonist

easy there Sasori

well joke’s on you buddy because he’s apparently “completely fine”, so

“here’s to hoping that you know more about AFO’s location than the others” jesus christ Deku you really have hung your mercy out to dry huh

now he’s forcing his mob of terrified prisoners to attack Deku ahhhh. sucks to be them. at least they’re not being controlled by bees

so Deku is saying that Sasori’s control can be broken with “physical trauma.” similar to Shinsou’s quirk I guess. but so does that mean he’s gonna have to hurt them? ( •﹏•)

NO NOT MORE SAD EYES

“DEATH BY EMPATHY!!!” HORIKOSHI NO

fuck. he looks like he’s on the verge of passing out

this is what happens when you nerf a character’s self-preservation stats in favor of spamming their bone-breaking stats instead. NOW ACCEPTING BRAIN CELL DONATIONS FOR A BOY IN NEED!! with your loving generosity we can hopefully help him live to the ripe old age of seventeen

OMGFGGG

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[grabs your hands] ლ(*꒪ヮ꒪*)ლ [swings you in a circle] へ(ﾟ◇ﾟへ)

THASSSSSSSS WHATSSSSSSS UPPPPPPPPPP

HORIKOSHI REALLY SAID FUCK THAT MASK (ノ°ο°)ノ YOU FINALLY LEARNED!! IT’S CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!!!

JUST FOR YOU KACCHAN, HORIKOSHI LEFT THIS ONE BAD GUY WHO’S STILL WEAK TO FIRE. GOD BLESS

IT’S YOUR COUNTERPART, KATSUKI B!!!! HOW WE DOIN OVER THERE IN THE TRIPPY COSMIC OFA SPACE REALM LOL. DO WE BELIEVE YET, FANDOM???

LIGHTS!!!!

INSTANT RESULTS!!! IT’S SUPER EFFECTIVE!!!

(ETA: imagine what this must look like to Deku though. he’s been caught up in this dark cloud of despair and exhaustion that’s been building up over... I’m gonna go ahead and say “weeks”, because yeah. and now he finds himself here, in the place where All Might’s legacy ended and the torch was passed to him. and the world is in ruins, and he’s surrounded by frightened people who are all trying to hurt him -- because who isn’t trying to hurt him, these days -- and he’s scrambling to figure this all out, but meanwhile the weariness is finally starting to catch up to him, and so he’s basically just standing there in a fog of complete and utter misery.

and then all of a sudden through that haze, he hears the one voice that’s more familiar than any other that he knows. like, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he thought he was just imagining it at first. Kacchan showing up to save him right when he’s at his most desperate and feeling the most alone. Kacchan, showing up to save him.

this is the person he always looked up to as a child (to be fair he was quite a strange child lmao). the person who was even closer to him than All Might. the person he always thought was amazing. and bam, here he is now. appearing in the sky out of nowhere to one-shot the bad guy with a single blast (which, btw, that was his armor-piercing attack too lmao dslkjlk take it easy there kiddo). like, that must have felt absolutely surreal to him, especially coming at a time when he’s already half-delirious and barely hanging on to reality. he must have really thought that he was losing it there for a second.

but he’s really there. it really is him. and for this brief moment -- before the rest of the situation catches up to him, and he remembers about all of the fucked-up AFO stuff, and remembers why he was so afraid and why he was pushing everyone away -- for just this one brief moment, he’s too exhausted and stunned to do anything except to just react. just stands there, looking up at him in awe.

and you know, it almost reminds me of...

just. you guys. the character development. the freaking character development. someone who brings reassurance. someone who shows up and makes you think, “oh, it’s all going to be okay now, because [person] is here.” the role reversals. the growth. the payoff!! because who is the one person who always had faith that Kacchan would one day grow up to become an amazing hero like that. WHO IS IT. YOU ALREADY KNOW.

omg. anyways, bless you Horikoshi, my feels which have been on backorder since fucking September have finally arrived lmao. yes, good, thank you. worth the wait. it is always, always worth the wait. fuck yeah.)

“LOWFRIES” SO YOU’RE TELLING ME THE WHOLE GANG IS HERE, AHHHHHHHH (º̩̩́⌣º̩̩̀ )

BEAUTIFUL. WONDERFUL. SENSATIONAL. I DON’T EVEN CARE THAT JUMP IS ON BREAK NEXT WEEK. THIS RIGHT HERE WILL SUSTAIN ME

[there-must-be-a-lock]

For Us Sinners

Soulless Sam x Reader

Word Count: ~4130

Warnings: This is 100% pure smutty religion-themed filth. Sam is dressed as a priest. There’s sex in a confessional, severe perversion of the Hail Mary prayer, and a lot of blasphemy happening. Like. A lot. Orgasm denial. Squirting. Non-explicit mentions of Winchester threesomes, gun play, and knife play. 

A/N: For @stusbunker​‘s “Jam Basket” fic exchange! This is for the lovely @rockhoochie​. I managed to squeeze a decent amount of her jams in here. Sarah, my dear, I hope this makes you even a little bit as happy as your friendship makes me. 

Thanks to @cracksinthewalls​ @fangirlxwritesx67​ and @fookinghelljensensthighs​ for lore, encouragement, and inspiration! 

You’re frowning at the trunk arsenal, wondering if it’s possible to sharpen a machete too much, when movement catches your eye. Sam rounds the corner of the old warehouse, and you grab a knife and a whetstone just to have something to focus on that’s not him and his stupid smirky face or the way his shoulders look in that suit. 

The whole priest thing is a really good look on him. 

“Dean’s not back yet?” he asks, without preamble, sitting on the edge of the trunk next to you. You focus very intently on your knife. 

“Nice to see you too, Sam,” you snark, to cover the way you’re blushing. “Why yes, I did have a super fun afternoon of doing fucking nothing! Waiting around for you two is exactly how I wanted to spend the last three hours, thanks for asking.” 

He laughs. “Weren’t you just telling me that I should stop pretending to be normal polite Sam?” 

“Whatever,” you mutter. 

“Lemme see that,” he says abruptly, and plucks the knife from your grip before you can protest. He takes one look at it and laughs at you, twirling the blade in his fingers. “Working out some frustration, huh?” 

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

“What’s really going on? You’re only like this when you’re hungry or horny.” 

“Bullshit,” you snap, but he’s totally fucking right. He’s way too perceptive these days. 

You’ve been refusing to play poker with him ever since this whole soulless deal came to light. He’s like a walking polygraph test… a very attractive, muscled polygraph who’s really good in the sack. 

He’s analyzing your expression with his head cocked. “The knife thing?” 

“I don’t know what you’re — that’s not—”

He holds the tip of the blade to your throat, and you stop stammering immediately. You close your eyes and swallow hard. 

“That’s not new, though,” he says thoughtfully. 

When you open your eyes, ready to protest, he’s tucking the knife back in its sheath and twisting to set it in the trunk. 

“How’d you know about that?” you ask reluctantly. 

He just smirks, that godawful not-Sam not-smile, with his dimples popping and his eyes glittering. 

“One of these days you’re going to realize that I’ll never judge you,” he says, low and sly. “C’mon. Tell me.” He puts on a prim, sanctimonious face, pointing at the collar, and says, “Confess your sins and all will be forgiven.” 

He ruins the pious effect by licking his lips and aggressively eye-fucking you. 

You try to laugh, but it comes out all squeaky. You’ve never been good at poker, and if Sam’s smirk is anything to go by, he can see exactly what’s written all over your face. 

“Shut up,” you say preemptively. “Asshole.” 

“This is totally doing it for you, isn’t it?” Sam asks. 

“Shut up.” 

His smile is gleeful. “Oh my god, it is!” 

“That’s not — I’m not—” 

You grit your teeth and stand up abruptly, and it’s not like you can go anywhere but you need to move; it’s impossible to think straight when he’s right there and he smells so good. 

He gets up so quickly you barely have time to blink before he’s in your space. He backs you against the warm metal of the door, caging you in with one big hand planted on either side of your head, and you have to tilt your chin up to meet his wickedly sparkling eyes. 

“Don’t lie to me,” he says, soft and heated, lips curling up in a familiar dangerous smile. “Lying is a sin.” 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” you huff, but you can’t stop staring at his mouth. 

“Besides, I can always tell. Admit it.” 

“You are so fucking—”

Without warning, he’s tugging at your zipper, yanking the button open, and shoving a hand roughly down the front of your jeans as he murmurs, “You are so fucking into this.” 

Before you can protest (not that you’d really want to) he’s got two fingers sliding into you, curling sweet and easy where you’re ridiculously, undeniably, outrageously into this. 

“Maybe a little bit,” you sigh. 

He’s just smiling, watching you squirm, playing with you like a cat might play with a mouse, and as much as you’d like to be angry about it, he knows exactly how to use those clever fingers. Then — 

“Dean’s back,” he says calmly, and before you can even process that, he’s sucking his fingers clean and walking around the car to greet his brother. 

You have about three seconds to button your pants, thank your lucky stars that you were on this side of the car, and generally get your shit together before it’s back to business. 

“It’s a goddamn garden statue,” Dean is saying. “Some crazy old bat donated it to the church and then just up and left town. First person disappeared the next day.” 

“So we wait til dark, take it down, break the curse.” Sam shrugs. “Easy enough.” 

“Like a chant ‘n’ smash,” you offer. Both the boys give you blank looks, and you try to pretend like your brain isn’t totally scrambled. “You know. Like a salt and burn. A good old-fashioned chant and smash… no? Okay, whatever.” 

Sam is barely containing his laughter. Asshole. 

“I could use a nap before we do that, I’m wiped,” Dean grumbles, taking off his clerical collar as he slides into the driver’s seat. Sam keeps his on. 

As you’re all getting buckled, he says, “Why don’t you just let us handle this one, Dean? You should take the night off.” 

“If you guys want some privacy to bone, you can just say so,” Dean grouches. “But get another motel room, don’t bring Baby into it.” 

“Yeah, we know. We will,” Sam reassures him. 

Dean does not seem reassured. He looks at Sam suspiciously. “So, what, you’re just being nice?”  

“Oh, absolutely not,” Sam says bluntly. “You look like shit and I don’t want you hunting with me when you’re this sleep-deprived.” 

Dean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay, that I buy. Man, this whole soul-free honesty shit is gonna take some getting used to.” 

“You and me both,” you sigh, and Sam gives you a wink in the rearview mirror. 

 * * *

“That is the creepiest-looking angel I’ve ever seen,” Sam comments, striking a match. “And l’m including Zachariah in that. Okay, here we go.” 

He lights up the little bowl of herbs he’s concocted and says a few things in Latin, and then the smoke coming up from the bowl turns eerie green and seems to sink into the worn concrete. 

“Is that it?” you ask dubiously. “How do we smash it?” 

“That’s the fun part,” Sam says. He attaches a silencer and loads his gun, quick and practiced, and when you’re both out of shrapnel range he aims almost lazily while you try not to stare at his fingers. Bad enough that he’s still wearing the priest getup. Watching him shatter an angel with a few perfect shots shouldn’t be a turn-on, but…  

“Shouldn’t” is one of those words that lost most of its meaning when you and Sam started fucking. In the last two weeks, he’s managed to discover kinks you’ve never even admitted to yourself. 

Speaking of — 

“C’mon,” he says, and when the gun is deposited safely back in the arsenal, he grabs your hand without waiting for an answer, leading you around to a side door. The door isn’t even locked. Sam’s smile is gleeful in the moonlight. 

“What are we doing?” you ask, as he leads you inside. 

It’s almost completely dark, just a faint glow from the emergency exit signs to light the sanctum, until Sam takes out his matches and lights a few of the tall pillar candles that are arranged in nooks around the altar. The golden glow flickers and dances on the walls. 

Sam grabs you by the wrist, and you halfheartedly attempt to tug your hand away. He’s got that glint in his eye that can only mean trouble. 

“We really shouldn’t be here,” you hiss, as he pulls you over to the confessional. 

“What are they gonna do, condemn my soul to hell?” he says flatly, and you stifle a giggle. “We established a while ago that my immortal soul is fucked.” 

“Mine isn’t,” you mutter. 

He looks at you with another of those smirks and says, “That’s why you’re the one who needs to confess.” 

“Oh, you gotta be kidding me,” you sigh, but instead of answering, he crowds in close, pressing you up against the smooth dark wood of the confessional, and kisses you, all teeth and tongue and liquefying heat, until your lips feel bruised and your entire body is tingling. 

“Confess,” he whispers, and with one last grin, he points you toward one curtain and slips behind the other. 

If you’ve learned anything about Sam over the years, soul or no, it’s that there’s no point arguing when he’s made up his mind about something. 

Sam seems to have made up his mind. 

You pull the curtain closed behind you and sit on the little bench, and you have to breathe through some long-buried memories before the words come to your lips. 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” you whisper.  “It has been… a long time since my last confession.” 

The flickering candlelight cuts through small gaps around the curtain, casting dancing shadows through the cramped space. Your cheeks are burning. 

“Sam?” you ask tentatively. “This feels stupid.” 

He lets out a low, cocky chuckle, and his voice is all sorts of promising when he replies, “Trust me, I’ll make it worth your while. Play along for me.” 

Fine. 

“Where do I start?” you mumble. “I drink, frequently. I have been dishonest. I gamble, and I do not dress modestly, and — I don’t know. What else?” 

“Do you have impure thoughts?” You can hear the smile in Sam’s voice. 

“Yes.”

“About what?” 

You swallow hard, closing your eyes, thinking about the way he looks right now. No preacher has ever looked so good in that black suit. “About… about you.” 

“Go on.” 

“About the way you feel inside me. About the way you fuck me.” 

“What did you think about last time you touched yourself?” 

Your breath hitches. “I thought… I imagined that you —” 

“Lying is a sin.” 

Fuck. 

That’s the thing about Sam; he won’t let you get away with politeness, or with half-truths, or with telling him what most guys would want to hear. 

Fuck him and his creepy polygraph spidey senses. 

“I imagined that it was Dean,” you whisper, cheeks burning. 

“And how did that go, in your fantasy?” There’s no trace of surprise or hesitation in his voice. 

“I was — he bent me over the hood of the car.” 

“That’s not the first time you’ve thought about him, is it?” 

“Sam, I don’t — this is weird,” you say, squirming slightly. 

“Why?” he says, and you keep waiting for the jealousy or the disgust to color his words, but all you can hear is curiosity. “Do you think about him while I’m fucking you?” 

You let out a long, measured exhale. “Yes.” 

“Have you thought about him walking in? Listening to us?”

“Yes. Sam, I don’t—” 

“Were you thinking about him a couple days ago, in the middle of the night? When you couldn’t seem to keep quiet?”

You shudder, pressing your thighs together. “Yes.” 

“Tell me.” When you hesitate, he continues, “I wondered… felt the way you were squeezing around my cock every time it got too loud. You wanted him to hear.” 

“I wanted him to — to imagine. I hoped he was awake, and that he was turned on, and—” 

“You wanted him to join in,” Sam supplies, when you falter. His voice sounds husky, now. “You were imagining both of us, huh? What else?” 

“Sitting in your lap, in the backseat, while he watches in the rearview,” you mumble, and now that you’ve started talking, it’s hard to stop: “I think about getting on my knees for both of you. Letting him have my mouth while you fuck me, or… one of you holding me down.” 

“Have you imagined us handcuffing you? Taking turns with you?” he asks calmly. 

“Well now I’m imagining it,” you huff, and your nervous giggle breaks the tension for a moment. 

“I know you’re holding out on me,” Sam purrs, when the silence starts to stretch. “Leave my brother out of it, if you’re getting all hung up on that. What else?” 

“I don’t know,” you mumble. 

“Trust me. God isn’t judging you and neither am I. Tell me what you want me to do to you.” 

You can’t bring yourself to spit it out, even like this. “That’s it.” 

“Don’t lie to me.” His voice is silk and steel now. “Why don’t I take a guess?” 

“Fine.”  

“Knives,” he says bluntly, and your inhale is too sharp to be innocent. “You like the way a knife looks in my hands, the way it’d be dangerous if I didn’t know what I was doing.” 

“Yes.” 

“You want to know what it’d be like: cold metal on your skin. A knife at your throat, or... a gun to your temple.” 

You’re shaking. 

“How’d you know?” you whisper. 

“I pay attention,” he says simply, voice ragged, and then there’s a long pause before he asks, “Is that the end of your confession?” 

You’d almost forgotten where you are. You’re grateful the screen is still between you and Sam. 

“Yes,” you say, and because old habits die hard, you add, “I am sorry for these and all the sins of my past lives.” 

“As for penance…” You can hear the teasing note in it, and some of your self-consciousness dissipates. “You can begin by taking off your clothes.” 

“Here?” you laugh. “Sam…” 

“Here. Now.” 

You let out a tiny, nervous whine of protest, but you’re too turned on to care, not when you’ve already crossed so many lines tonight. 

Then you strip, taking off your clothes with shaking hands and setting them in a neat-ish pile in one corner of the tiny booth. It’s chilly, and you wrap your arms around yourself, feeling goosebumps run down your bare skin. 

“Okay,” you say softly. 

“Now... you can say ten Hail Marys,” Sam says, with that smirk in his voice again. 

“I — really?” you ask. 

Just as you’re thinking that’s all?, Sam is ducking through the curtain of the confessional, crowding you in and pushing on your shoulder until you sit back down on the narrow bench. Even in the barely-there flickers of light you can see the wicked smile on his face as he drops to his knees in front of you.  

“And you may not come until you’re finished,” he orders coolly. 

Then he’s hooking his arms under your knees, grabbing you by the hips and pulling you forward so that he can get that filthy smirking mouth on you. He licks a hot slick stripe up your center, swirling his tongue over your throbbing clit, and —

“Holy fucking shit,” you gasp, letting your head fall back against the wood with an echoing thunk, because whatever Sam’s doing with his lips is sending sweet fluttering waves of heat through your belly. “Oh my God, Sam, that’s—” 

“If you keep taking the Lord’s name in vain,” he growls, nipping at your inner thigh, “I’ll double it.” 

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” you start, and it’s been a while; Sam’s not the only reason you have to pause. “Fuck. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the — the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now—” Your voice breaks as you whimper, and you finish in one long rushed breath: “— and at the hour of our death, amen.”

“There you go,” Sam says, practically moaning the words against slick skin. You’re already having trouble thinking straight. 

You start all over again, trying to rush through it as quickly as possible, but you stutter as Sam fucks you shallowly with his tongue.  

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Sam says, curling two long fingers into you.

Except it’s bad. In the short time you’ve been doing this, Sam has learned your sweet spots like nobody’s ever learned them before, and he’s not touching them now. This is barely a tease, compared to what you know he can do to you. It’s bad, and it’s going to get so much worse. 

You start to stammer through the third prayer. You’re so wet — from the thrill of the setting, as much as what he’s doing with his tongue — you can hear the slick thrust of his fingers inside you, dirty and distracting. 

When you pause for breath between “Mary” and “mother of God,” Sam hums low against your cunt, and you know he enjoys this, you know he gets off on it, but he lets out these noises that never fail to make you feel feverish, and now is no exception. It doesn’t feel chilly any more. By “amen,” you’re burning up. 

“Three down,” Sam murmurs. 

On the fourth “grace,” he closes his lips around your clit and sucks gently, and you make a high, squeaky, mortifyingly desperate sound. Your voice keeps breaking as you stumble through the next lines, until you end on a long, relieved groan. 

“Good girl,” he croons. “Six more.” 

“I can’t,” you hiss. 

“You can. And you will.” 

On “full,” Sam twists his knuckles, and you gasp, arching your back, squirming. He fucks you in the same rhythm as your words, dragging friction across your g-spot with every syllable, and when you try to speed up, rushing through it, you can’t even get to “sinners” without breaking off in a moan. He stops completely as you pant for breath, and as you mumble through the last lines, painfully slow, you’re rolling your hips, trying to fuck yourself on his fingers, desperate for more. 

“That’s five,” Sam says. “I’ll give you a second to catch your breath.” 

With his free hand, he grabs one of your wrists, guiding your hand to the back of his head. His eyes flick up to you, watching hungrily, until you slide your fingers through the silky strands and tug lightly. 

You sigh. “You’re gonna kill me.” 

“Hope not,” he says, smirking against the crease of your thigh. “I’m into some weird shit, but I like ‘em warm and breathing.” 

“Ha fucking ha, Sam, that’s — fuck,” you choke, as he fits his mouth to your clit again, and this time he sucks lightly in time with the slow thrusts of his fingers.  You forget what you’re saying, somewhere around “God,” and stumble to the end in bits and incoherent pieces. 

“Six.” You realize you’ve got a death grip on his hair, all your muscles tensed-up and rigid with electricity that’s got nowhere else to go, but when you ease up, he pumps his fingers in deep and growls, “Harder.” 

He adds a third finger, and it’s so fucking good, so fucking much, filling you with fizzing pressure, and it takes most of your willpower to stop yourself from going under. 

You grit out, “HailMaryfullofgrace.” Lightning lances up your belly, and you squirm— “TheLordiswiththee.” — twist your fingers in Sam’s hair— “Blessedartthouamongwomen.” — muscles quaking, cunt clenching around perfectly curled fingers— “Blessedisthe. Fuck. Fruitofthywomb. Fuck — Jesus!” — tension surging and swelling  — “Holy Mary, mother of God, prayforussinnersnow, fuck, Sam!” — you’re almost there, almost, and he stops, refusing to give you what you want as you gasp out, “And —at the— the hour of our death, amen.” 

“Seven,” he says harshly, and you can feel him breathing hard, damp hot air teasing your slick swollen skin, and his mouth is so close to where you want it. He gives you a second and then: “Keep going.” 

You babble out a few words at a time, and your voice is ragged and broken, but it must sound close enough to what he wants; he’s winding you up again, fingers crooking expertly against that sweet spot. The heel of his other hand digs into your lower belly, right over that point of white heat, and it’s so intense, suddenly, that everything goes sparkly and distant.  

“Pray for us,” you groan, and he sucks, fast and hard. “Pray for us — us sinners —” 

There’s this pressure, right there, right where his fingers are stoking a fire, and it’s blazing, and —

“Sam, I can’t. I can’t, I’m gonna—” 

He’s not holding back, and you can’t either. You buck helplessly against the incredible suction of his mouth, holding him with both hands fisted in his hair as you bow up and cry out. All that pressure peaks, crashing down in wave after wave of relief, pulling you under like a rip tide as you come dripping-wet and messy. 

It blinds you, for a moment. You’re out of your body for who knows how long, lit-up and paralyzed by the high-voltage shock of it. 

When you come back to yourself, Sam is scooping you up and swapping places with you in one smooth movement, manhandling you so that you’re straddling him; he’s got his pants open just enough, can’t seem to wait any longer, and the breathless urgency is so unusual for him that your head spins. 

You’re still clenching through the lingering quakes of your orgasm, trembling, boneless like a rag doll, and it’s not you sinking down on his cock so much as him pulling you, filling you up inch by inch as you squeeze and quiver around the thick length of him. 

When he’s as deep as he can be, his arms wrapped around you and practically crushing you to his chest, you both pause and take a ragged gulp of air. 

“What even was that?” you slur, bracing yourself with a hand against the wall and trying to adjust. He lets out a rough groan through gritted teeth. 

“That is what I’ll be seeing every time I look at a confessional now,” he pants, starting to rock up into you. “Never gonna be able to walk into a church without getting hard.” 

He wraps an arm around your ribs, and the heat of his splayed hand on your shoulder feels like it spans half your back. Your naked skin seems even more obscene as it brushes the stiff cloth of his suit, and you can feel your own wetness soaking the fabric in places. You shiver, roll your hips, and you can feel the way he reacts, shuddering under you. 

“Seems like I’m not the only one who likes this a little too much,” you say, breathless. 

“Who said anything about too much? No such thing.” He barks out a laugh, bucking up in a way that makes you moan. “I’ve been to heaven, and trust me when I say, this right here—” He twists his hips viciously to emphasize the word. “— this is so much better.”

“God, this is so —” you whimper. He fists a hand in your hair and bites your neck, and you jerk helplessly against him. 

“God doesn’t care,” he growls. “God wasn’t listening to you just now.” 

“That’s not —” You’re pretty sure he’s missing the point, but with the way your cunt is throbbing at every perfect thrust, you can’t remember what that point is; you can’t remember anything. 

“God’s not going to answer those prayers,” he says hoarsely. “I’m the one who’s going to handcuff you and bend you over the hood of the car and fuck you until your legs give out.” 

“Holy shit, Sam.” Your brain is shorting out. 

“I’m going to make sure Dean sees you when you’re all strung-out and begging for it,” he promises. He jerks up with a vicious twist of his hips, and you grind down to meet him, every inch of your skin singing. “I’m going to hold a gun to your head while you ride me. I’m going to give you anything you want.” 

“Please.” Your moan sounds more like a sob, and you can’t see straight anymore; it’s all going distant, until the only thing that feels real is the aching, pulsing heat of him inside you. 

Sam claws at your back, dragging his open mouth up the side of your neck until he can snarl against your ear: “God doesn’t answer prayers, but I do.” 

He surges up to meet you one last time. Your vision flashes bright white as you come, one exquisite pulse after another rolling through you, and it feels like a purer sort of ecstasy than any religious experience you’ve had in a church.

This is worth a little hellfire. 

.

.

.

There is now a follow-up drabble here!

[rreyie]

𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙙 𝙚𝙮𝙚𝙨- 𝙖𝙤𝙩 𝙨𝙢𝙪𝙩

𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: after three years of not seeing eren due to his buisness in marley, you reunite with him only to find he isn’t the same person anymore, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is his desire for you.

𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: smut! hair pulling, spanking, hate (?) sex, eren being an asshole, MAJOR season four/manga spoilers, vaginal, orgasm denial, overstimulation, fingering, oral (male receiving), f! anatomy reader, dom! eren, sub! reader

𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙧𝙚: smut/ nsfw

𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨: eren yeager, reader insert

𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙚: i really struggled with what to name this, but i still think it turned out fine. this may be the dirtiest thing i’ve written so far but anyways, eren stans come get y’all juice

——————————————————————————

it had been three whole years since you had last seen eren. as much as you missed those emerald green eyes giving you a playful glare from across the room, you certainly did not miss his careless demeanor.

it had happened after the girl shot sasha, your best friend. as you laid there sobbing on the floor, all eren did was laugh. no comfort. no “i’m sorry.” just a half hearted chuckle from that asshole of a man.

as you put her body in a different room, you walked out of the dimly lit airship to see eren sitting on some sort of box. through that mane of chocolate brown hair, you saw those emerald eyes again, only this time, they weren’t as youthful as they once were. they were tired. drained. dull. you didn’t know how else to describe that look.

“whatcha starin at?” he asked. his voice was barely audible.

your cheeks still red and eyes puffy from crying, you sniffle and manage to speak some words. “i’m looking at the jackass who was laughing at my best friend dead on the floor.”

eren chuckles. “i see nothings changed over the last three years, huh?”

you look away from him. you couldn’t bare to look eyes with him, especially now. he touches your arm. “come on now, look at me. i missed you.”

you swat his arm away. “shut the fuck up. why did you laugh? in a time that i needed you most you just sat there and laughed?”

eren laughs again. “haven’t you forgot, dear? i can see everything. i knew sasha was going to die before it happened.” you couldn’t stand his shit anymore. you jerk your body to face him, and raise your arm, looking directly into his eyes. you throw a punch at him, aiming directly for his skull, but his calloused hand stops you, making you look weak.

“heh, let’s not get too hasty here, dear-“

“quit calling me that damned nickname!” you shout at him. “i can’t talk to you right now. i’m going to bed.” his arm releases it’s grip on yours, and you angrily storm off into your resting place in the airship.

another few days passed, and you were coming back from the memorial service held for sasha. as you took off your army great coat, darker spots staining it from the rain pattering outside, a figure towers over you.

you look up and make contact with the entity, now figuring out that it was no other than yours truly, eren.

“well, want to talk now?” he asks. his voice was monotone, like nothing happened at all. you throw your coat onto a nearby chair, and storm upstairs to your room.

you eneter the room, which was pitch black, your tear-ridden eyes not processing anything you see. only a blurry mess of shadows and highlights. you throw yourself onto your bed and curl into a fetal position.

you wanted to throw up. first your best friend dies, and then your relationship was going down the drain... on top of that a world war was happening right before your very eyes.

a cold hand is pressed onto your back. you jolt at the contact, and see erens face looking down at you. you hadn’t taken the time to notice that he had cleaned up nicely, hair in a bun and cleanly shaved.

as your head tilts upwards, he presses his lips to yours, the unfamiliar sensation making your lips tingle. you let out a small moan and feel erens mouth curl upwards.

“well, i can tell even if you didn’t miss me, you sure missed my cock.” eren says. this statement caught you off guard, and your cheeks flushed red. eren snickered, and continued to kiss you. eren inserted his slick tongue into your mouth, pushing and pulling your tongue in all different directions, mixing your saliva with his.

erens hand moved south, his finger just grazing upon your clothed womanhood. though your area was covered, you could still feel the friction of his finger and the fabric. he began to slide his hand inside the flimsy waistband of your pants and cupped your delicate womanhood.

letting out a soft moan at the contact, he began to grope and squeeze you in all the right places, and ran his index finger along your wet folds, already soaked with your slick.

“wet for me already, ain’t’cha princess?” he growls into your ear, warm breath sliding upon the exposed flesh of your neck. he moves his lips to your neck, and begins to gently suck, eager to mark you, similar to how an animal marked its territory. the gentle suction made you like putty in his arms, and you leaned into his chest. his heartbeat was beating right into your ear, giving you a sense of security.

unexpectedly, a finger slips into your walls. an “a-ah~” elicits through your lips. you shifted your hips to desperately try and feel full, even though only one narrow finger was inside you.

“only good girls get two fingers”, eren says. “are you gonna be a good girl for me? hm?” eren pushes his finger inside you more, hitting the plush sweet spot that was nestled inside you. you let out a pathetic little whimper as eren stretched you a little further.

“y-yes...” you stammer. eren began to pump his two fingers into your tight hole, as he felt his own arousal course through his veins, the fiery sensation talking over him and pulsating though him, going straight to his dick.

your thighs began to tremble as you were about to feel your orgasm, but then, right when you were on the cusp of reaching bliss, he carefully but slowly took his fingers out, his coated in your juices. he sneered at you, as your let out another whimper.

“h-hey...” you say, barely able to make words after your spoiled orgasm. “what w-was that for?”

“because you’ve been fucking around with me all week”, he responds, starting to unbuckle his leather belt. “all i’ve wanted this whole week was for your pretty little pussy to bounce on my cock, but you’ve been so stubborn that you wouldn’t even look my way. this is my payback. i’m going to absolutely fuck your brains out tonight.”

your spine shivered at the thought of you being here all night being used as erens own personal pocket pussy. you didn’t want to know how many rounds you were in for tonight, since eren never stops until he’s tired.

before you knew it, erens belt was off, and you were sitting on the bed watching him did himself of his shirt. his perfectly toned abs were semi-visible in the moonlight, the ripples of skin or bones creating a masterpiece. his hair was nearly free of the bun at this point, but you wouldn’t dare notify him of this.

eren folds the belt and gives it a little whack upon the bed, giving a crack.

“strip”, he commands. “now.”

you obey his words, and pull of your shirt without hesitation, followed by your cargo pants, leaving you in your bra and panties only.

erens gaze turns predatory as if he was a lion and you were the antelope. he flips you over almost effortlessly, and grabs your ass.

“dear god, i missed this...” he groans. “your ass is gonna be all red after i’m done with you.”

you clench your eyes, bracing for impact. you knew exactly how this was going to go down. eren cracks the belt down onto your left ass cheek, and you yelped at the impact. he did it again, the pain soon quickly melting into pleasure with each snap.

sure, eren could be a bit rough in the bedroom sometimes- no, scratch that. he could be super rough. but he always knew where the line was to be drawn. or at least he used to know. you only knew that this man had been deprived of sex for the time he was in marley, so he was likely craving some sort of intimacy. and now that he had you, he wasn’t going soft this time.

as soon as the last crack of the belt had ceased, he threw the belt down and kneeled over you.

“suck me off”, he demanded.

you flipped yourself over this time, and got level with erens member. erens black boxers had a throbbing bulge in the center. as you pulled his boxers down, his cock immediately sprang up, and slapped against his stomach.

boy, eren always had a nice dick. it was pale, but a vein ran through the side, and connected to the red tip of it. he hasn’t shaved down there in a while, so the seemingly primal hair that laid at his base was expected.

you grasped his cock that was eagerly waiting for attention, and moved your tongue along the shaft, placing kitty licks on the tip. you felt eren twitching under your touch. you wanted to tease him to compensate for your lost orgasm, to feel him writhe and beg to cum.

eren grew impatient with the kitty licks and tongue work that he grabbed a fistful of your hair and jammed your mouth onto him. you gagged at the sudden movement, the tip touching the back of your throat. he moved your head back and forth, using your spit to guide you along.

you took in his whole length. it was painful, but totally worth it to see his expression on his face. cupping his balls, you played with them, moving around the sensitive skin with your hands.

“i-m gonna c-cum...” eren warns you. you try and pull off so he wouldn’t make you choke. eren resists, only pulling you closer. his cock spasms, and releases a load of cum into your mouth. you were nearly choking on cock, the salty taste reaching every corner in your mouth.

you swallow it all. eren pulls out his cock, still hard even though he just came. he takes hold of your shoulders and pins you down on your bed.

“don’t worry princess, i’ll compensate for that lost orgasm this time.” he said, an evil smirk on his face. yup. you were in for it.

he quickly takes your bra and panties off before starting, and takes note of the giant spot of arousal in the bottom of your panties before he slides them off. he unclasps your bra and gives your breasts a quick little squeeze before pumping his cock a few times and lining it up at your entrance.

“p-please, be gentle...” you whisper.

eren laughs. “not a chance.”

he thrusts into you, his whole length unexpectedly filling you to the brim. letting out a groan, he thrusts into you again. it felt like the wind had been knocked out of you. you grip the sheets beside you.

“i missed the feeling of your little pussy...” eren growls. he continues to thrust, smashing his hips into yours as he fucked you with no mercy at all.

lewd sounds of skin slapping a guttural wet sounds filled the room as you squirmed beneath him, moving your hips so he could get a good angle. his dick begins to touch on your sweet spot, hitting it repeatedly. the pressure on your spongy seeet spot was enough to make a loud moan escape from your mouth.

“m-more!” you yelp. eren heeds your command as you felt his balls slapping against your ass ruthlessly. “oh god, please, eren! please!” erens pace quickens a little bit more as you feel the burning sensation of your orgasm about to take over. you cum right on his dick, the creamy liquid spilling out of you and coating him so he could glide into you with ease. eren still has a bit to go, and while making an effort to cum, he only thrusts harder, causing you to cum yet again, eyes rolling into the back of your head.

“ngh- oh fuck...” eren stammers, as he bottoms out into you, shooting thick ropes of cum into your hole.

you lay there panting, eyes almost shutting. but eren isn’t anywhere near done yet. his dick gardens yet again, and he continues to thrust.

“e-eren... please no more...” you gasp, trying to contain yourself as eren slammed into you again and again.

“no”, he says raspily. “you’ve been teasing me all fuckin’ week. you need to be punished for this.” his tip kisses your cervix, causing you to grimace. “turn over.”

you tried to move, but your legs were like jelly, unable to move after all the previous sensations you were feeling.

“dumb slut. let me help you.” eren places you on your tummy and re-aligns himself at your entrance, and jams his throbbing dick into you. your ribbed walls were clenching around him tightly, which only made him encouraged and want to go harder, deeper, if that was even possible.

your vision turned foggy upon your third orgasm, toes curling and all.

“ngh- aah!~” you whimper, feeling numb and helpless. something about eren using you as his own personal fuck toy made you seem to cum a little bit quicker than the last times you’ve had sex. maybe it was the control he had over you, the domination.

“oh, did my little whore cum for me again?” eren groans. “louder. i want this entire hallway to know exactly what we are doing in here. let them know how good i’m fucking you.”

eren gives a tug at your hair, making your head turn around and look him directly in the eye. he had a wicked sneer painted across his face. he purposely hits your sweet spot again, making a string of high pitched moans and whimpers fill the room, maybe even the whole hallway as eren instructed you to do.

your noises were the final straw that eren had. he quickly pulled out and flipped you over before jacking himself a few more times, and letting his cum splatter across your face and chest. your vision was so foggy at this point that everything was just a big cloud of white. as you regain your vision, you see eren laying over you, his brown hair messy and eyes filled with love.

“you’re not gonna just leave me like the others, right?” he questions you as he kisses your naked collarbone. you’re completely out of breath at this point, and all you can do is nod.

“good.” he grabs a towel that was sitting on your nightstand. “i hope you never leave me, to be honest.” he cleans up his release combined with sweat that was puddled on your body.

“n-never.” you stammer.

[pinkjiminssi]

So.. About That Hickey..

I think I’m still processing all of this and reminding myself I’m not dreaming 🤣 I seriously only got 3 hours of sleep last night and when I woke up the first thing I did was check twitter to be sure this “drunk bridal-style spinning hickey neck biting proudly showing off” moment actually happened!! 

.. I hate the way my brain works though. I was so happy that it took me forever to fall asleep, spent all day on cloud 9 despite being tired, .. and then my old nemesis, anxiety, stepped in. Well kind of. TBH if all of the MOTS ON:E Jikook moments we got happened with Jimin/anyone else or Jungkook/anyone else.. I would seriously be sitting here saying “well fuck.. I believe they WERE a couple, but looking at all of this it seems they are no longer together.” So really, this just confirmed what I already knew about Jimin and Jungkook: they’re a couple. My anxiety is over.. why? Why show us this? If they can cover all of JK’s tattoos, a hickey/bite mark/whatever we’re calling it should be super easy to hide. Sure it was just rehearsal.. but it was rehearsal with cameras rolling with every intention of releasing what was being filmed as future content. It could have (and some might argue should have) been covered.

Guys... I’m confused. And concerned. ❗❗❗ TW for drama, hate, homophobia, the usual anti issues

That “official” explanation.. again.. why? I’m assuming Jimin and Jungkook were asked and allowed to explain because of the chance of it being spotted and armys freaking out, so BH (or possibly even Jikook) thought to get ahead of the speculation by just being up front about it all.. but THAT explanation? I suppose it works for covering up the army panic of “Jungkook has a girlfriend?! *insert fangirl sobbing*” .. but that’s literally all it does (and only barely if you go looking at some of the anti’s reactions to it all). Really, all it did was draw even more attention and speculation. I mean.. this is, essentially, what we were told: Jimin and Jungkook were together the night before drinking, apparently without the other members as they didn’t seem to know all of this already (and they would have if they had been there), somehow hanging out and having drinks turns into Jungkook picking Jimin up bridal style (random but some of the k-army reactions on twitter were translating through google into “princess style” and I just think that’s so cute 🥰), spinning ensues, Jimin gets dizzy and wants Jungkook to put him down, ... and so he proceeds to do the only logical thing that any of us would have done in that situation... biting Jungkook’s neck? And hard enough to leave a mark the next day?? And instead of being peeved about it (like most of us would have been if our friend bit the crap out of us), Jungkook looks happy?? proud even??? 

And they arrived together the next day and continue to be cute and playful? 

I just.. I mean.. come on. First of all.. that’s a hickey. A bite leaves teeth marks. And one would assume a wild, drunken “let me down” chomp would be something that happens suddenly and ends very quickly. I know I for sure would drop someone on their ass if they decided to take a bite out of my neck (assuming I was even picking up and spinning around with one of my friends like that to begin with.. but let’s not even get into why that was going on at this point) .. but the way this bruised? Yeah. There were no teeth involved (at least not hard enough to leave indentations) and this took more than a couple of seconds of mouth-to-neck contact to still be that visible the next day. So.. in short. Jungkook arrives with a hickey, JK decides to not cover it up (or he would have shown up with it hidden and we see him get out of the car that morning with it clearly visible), BH staff sees it and also decides to not have it covered up and actually have it explained... and the explanation is “oh yeah Jimin just bit him, you know.. no big deal hehehe isn’t that funny?” 🤯 WHAT?! Yeah.. that’s totally normal, platonic behavior between adults...

I’m not saying Jimin and Jungkook are lying btw. I have no doubt it played out more or less exactly as they said with the exception of what they’re calling the end result. Jimin and Jungkook are fine.. I mean, what were they supposed to say? They’re not going to show up saying Jimin was sucking on Jungkook’s neck the night before. We’ll probably never know why Jungkook decided to not cover it up before arriving, but it’s his body and he gets to decide. It’s BH that has me so puzzled. Other than antis and people who refuse to see what’s literally right in front of their faces when it comes to Jikook.. who were BH expecting to believe the bite thing? Just among staff and the other members, it’s a laughable but safe “oh of course *wink wink*” explanation that allows everyone to carry on like normal. But to the public who don’t know them personally, don’t know their usual behavior and patterns, and who don’t have something like a non-disclosure agreement or professional courtesy preventing them from openly speculating.. it doesn’t fly. Pretty much everyone teen and up knows what a hickey looks like (either from having gotten/given one or at least seeing one on someone else in person or online). It’s immediately obvious what it is. And even if there was some uncertainty.. that it’s on his neck (instead of other easily accessible and less sensitive/stimulating locations) and just so happens to be right near his mole as it Jimin were aiming for it? Just another “too many coincidences” thing when it comes to Jikook.

Even antis on twitter couldn’t deny what it was and, so, had to resort to the “well I do that with my sibling and my uncle’s pet raccoon all the time it’s just family things” excuse and/or the “yeah well someone ELSE in the group (or a girlfriend) gave him that and they’re just covering by saying it was Jimin.” Oh. And the same old “it’s just fan service” excuse (as if Jungkook would let someone bruise his neck for the purposes of fanservice which, again, BTS has never done or needed to do. Forever pissed off that so many in this fandom act like Jungkook is a puppet doing whatever the “evil company” tells him to do regardless of his personal feelings or boundaries. The man has tattoos covering nearly every inch of his arm despite that being looked down on in Korea. At this point he can do whatever the fuck he wants). So.. why?? Seriously, why? This all could have easily been avoided with simple makeup.

When they’re doing official content they’re all literally followed around by a flurry of staff fixing hair, dabbing sweat, touching up makeup, etc. Even though it was rehearsal, staff were everywhere in the footage that’s made its way online. If they were worried that it would be seen in the background and “taken the wrong way,” just have the staff occasionally touch up the makeup. “Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” But instead of doing the obvious, BH decides to: not cover it, draw attention to it by asking about it and letting them continue to talk about it, go out of their way to get a camera on it, and then include it in the final cut of the content they sent out?

BTS is literally the most popular group in the world right now and BH has become a behemoth of a company that runs like a well-oiled machine. They’re not stupid; this was not a mistake. For some reason they wanted us to see this and, one would assume based on the lack of a more believable explanation, they wanted us to come to the conclusion that we all have: Jimin gave Jungkook a hickey. You know they have teams dedicated to monitoring reactions to content on social media. You know they know the dialog surrounding Rosebowl, Black Swan MMA, the Memories 2020 “almost kiss,” etc. etc. All of this got��“jikook,” “hickey” and variations of their names trending for HOURS (in multiple countries and worldwide). 

Out of curiosity, I decided to check the trends at the time of writing this. As of 3 AM CST (about 24 hours AFTER the clips started showing up online), there was still a hashtag trending related to all of this: #FREEJUNGKOOK.. and the tweets being directed toward BH are.. disturbing to say the least:

While I agree that the boys should trend more often based on their talents and music.. what’s going on right now is a homophobic 💩 show accusing BH of “scripting” interactions (rather than.. you know.. Jungkook interacting with whoever he wants however he wants.. the usual “mindless puppet JK” narrative), trying to coordinate the mass sending of angry emails, trying to get people to stop buying paid content, accusing BH of taking advantage of the members.. I mean it goes on and on. And BH know what’s going on right now. They’re seeing the reactions... the good and the extremely negative. And still they let this out. And this is all not even CONSIDERING the mountain of other moments that made the cut on MOTS ON:E. 

(side note, the above pic just oozes happiness and it’s so cute I love it!! 😭)

So.. even though I’ve said it dozens of times already... WHY? W H Y? I’m an anxious person by nature and not very trusting. I believe Jimin and Jungkook and I don’t think they’ve been lying and pretending for “fanservice” all of these years. I respect them both too much as individuals and artists to believe that they would stoop to such tactics just to generate a little more “interest” and revenue. I’m suspicious of BH. BTS doesn’t need fanservice to get attention; literally all of 2020 and 2021 so far has proven that beyond a doubt. Even if they suddenly made the decision to do fs.. why not go with the most popular ship (taekook) or at least one that isn’t so hotly debated on social media (remove Jimin, Jungkook and Tae from the equation and you still have four members to “play” with who have much less potential to have fs devolve into a toxic crap show all over the internet). Showing us this will do nothing to help BTS as a group or Jimin and Jungkook at this point. In fact.. all it can do is hurt. Hurt BH, hurt the group, and hurt the individual members, heck.. even potentially hurt other BH/HYBE groups. I’ve already seen people on twitter saying they’re “done” spending money on anything BH or BTS puts out because they’re “sick of jikook in their faces and just two of the seven hogging all of the screen time.” Whether or not that “spending freeze” actually materializes into anything noticeable remains to be seen of course.. but the threat is there and always has been. What is the motive? And why now? As much as my “hopeless romantic” heart would like to believe they’re preparing us for Jikook to be “out” .. I seriously don’t think that is ever going to happen. Certainly not now at the height of the group’s fame, with them being given Presidential honors and ambassador status, and with military service still looming over them all. And let’s not forget... Korea is NOT a safe place for a queer couple. Letting us see and know what they did through what was released has the potential to put Jimin and Jungkook (and the other members by proxy) in danger. Sure.. BTS has never been hardline rule followers and have been breaking molds and shattering norms from the start, so “officially” having an openly gay couple in the group wouldn’t be impossible.. just... highly highly improbable. Especially right now... and I’m concerned. I don’t want to sound like the creeps I posted a screenshot of above throwing blame at the company. The boys chose to renew their contracts with the for a reason so we have to trust their judgement as a group... but still, I’m worried and I’m questioning what the purpose was here. 

[appledotcodotuk]

why the hive fckin suck at its job: a rant

spoilers for tgwdlm ahead!

first of all, it's important to consider what exactly the hive's job is. my answer is... who the fuck knows. literally. what is the hive's aim. what do you want Paul? more like, what do you want hive? let's find out!

it kinda evolves, as the play progresses. the intial aim of the hive, and one that does actually remain consistent is the constant burning need to grow and devour and gain more and more (insert capitalism metaphor here).

however, this is distorted by the people it possess who influence that aim, as we'll see later.

also the fact it crashes into a theatre displaying Mamma Mia gives the hive the motive it need to fit the world around it to the structure of the musical. having no originality of its own, the hive instead just picks up what is given to it. kinda like an evil baby.

it wants uniformity, that is indeed its ultimate goal and desire, no duh. it thinks it can achieve that through musical theatre, shame that the hive is dead wrong. cause the hive fucking sucks at its own job / aim / ultimate purpose / one concrete goal that motivates all its actions.

can't maintain control over its subjects

okay, so, the hive wants uniformity. it wants everyone to be dancing to the beat of its own tune. right? yeah. shame it literally can't keep its own possessed subjects in line at all. at the risk of sounding like the 10th doctor waxing lyrical abt humanity for the 50th time, humans are really difficult to control cause we're not really motivated by an altruistic allegiance to one primary good. we've got icky emotions that often move us to do stupid unpredictable stuff way more. it makes me wonder if the reason the hive wanted to use musical theatre to try and persuade ppl was cause it seems to think that is how theyll get emotive humans; through emotive songs. anyways. let's look at some examples shall weeeee?

Mr Davidson:

so, Mr Davidson. funnily enough, he's the guy whose in part acting as the hive trying to figure out what it wants through his interactions w/ Paul. every person it possess gives it just a bit more humanity and curiosity abt the world it is currently taking over. at least I think so. hence why as the musical develops u get character's like possessed!Alice wondering 'why does it hurt to love?' - the change in music and mood to something much more introspective really suggests to me that the hive is beginning to question the thoughts and emotions of its human hosts.

Mr Davidson is a family man through and through, he loves his wife Carol. she's his muse, his source of light. his feelings for her are not concrete or easy to explain and solve - hence why his sudden ahem demand of her is so hilarious and also jarring. it completely clashes with the 'I want song' which is simple, and often pushes forward a wider cause. not so with Mr Davidson, he just really loves his wife man. enough to break a frickin alien possession.

tbh I think its hilarious that (at least to me) the hive has to force him to forget and continue with the song, like, he straight up is just talking to his wife in that phone call, talking, not singing. so, no possession until he reverts back into song. ergo, the hive cannot maintain the uniformity it wants. even from the get go when theoretically its control should be stronger cause it has less ppl to co-ordinate. bad. at. its. job.

Paul:

this one hurts folks. yes, I know it's generally agreed, though somewhat debated that the state of Paul by the end of the tgwdlm is not purely possessed. I agree. once again, the hive is unable to truly enforce uniformity.

at this point, the motives of Paul and the hive are kinda just mixed, neither fully human nor fully alien. hence the constant shifts between pleeing for her to get away, to hide, to stay safe: 'what if the only choice is you have to sing to survive' and just full on old style hive nastiness 'let me puke in your mouth and just open your food bin girl' (so romantic 🥰 /j).

the hive has gone away from its original aim, and become something... different. no longer stuck to just one type of genre or style of song, it's really clever to show the developing complexity of the hive by showing how it is now juggling lots of different motifs with references to all the old songs from before recontextualised in a new way - its learning. evil baby... no longer uniform.

general miscommunication:

there are several instances of the hive not fully having uniform control over its subjects. for instance, right after not your seed with the three teens having to like... calibrate. they aren't just completely connected then?? also, this is a very small thing, but uhhhh at the end of inevitable when Paul is about to say the apotheosis is upon... the chorus interrupts him with USSSSSSS. interruptions??? not very in sync of u hive.

I think this inability to exert uniformity is also shown in the contrast between genre of musical theatre. my alien abomination cannot decide whether it wants to be the more modern edgy rock musical (join us (and die), not your seed ) or super happy go lucky old style musical theatre (lah dee dah dah day, and inevitable). it tries to do both, even while trying to encourage union, and sticking to one thing. hypocrite!!!!!

2. aims are guided by the people it possess

so, I mentioned this a bit already, but the hive isn't only mutating the humans, the humans are mutating the hive right back. this is more an interesting observation than any actual analysis but let's goooo.

greenpeace girl:

I think it's very likely that greenpeace girl is one of the first to be possessed. This is probably easily debunkable but whatever this analysis is flying by the seat or its pants anywayyyyy. why? cause where else would it pick up that whole 'this planet needs fixing' thing? it's interesting too, cause it morphs from expressing the desire to join hands and sing together, unity and peace with no actual action behind it. this then goes right to the other end, with the hive going 'fine I'll do it myself' and trying to save things by enforcing a dictatorship on the world. it develops and changes, and strays from its original means of accomplishing its aims! speaking oooooof...

3. inconsistent in means of accomplishing aims

okay, ur an evil hive mind. u think musicals are the way to win over these silly humans cause they're all weak and emotive and seem to respond to them. but, wait! schwoopsie! you haven't realised that for emotional depth and growth to mean anything, you need there to be established development and well... growth. otherwise the sentiments are as vague as the ones expressed in What Do You Want, Paul?

this show has genuine emotional moments, just not really during the musical numbers WITH EXCEPTIONS. any strife is smoothed over quickly, and so the development and change that would have to go into such growth is just gone. (see, You Tied Up My Heart) all so it can achieve its own desire to grow and grow and grow, maybe a metaphor for art being killed under late stage capitalism??

what actually matters is the impact the songs have afterwards, in causing a death - because we have a bond and care abt these characters. those short scenes between Paul and Emma are actually way more resonant than any song. except... inevitable, and also not your seed a bit. at this point the hive has learnt a thing or two, and can actually twist human emotion a little. but for it to do that, it has to reject the uniformity it prizes, and be adaptable. point towards being more human than it first thought? methinks so. and yet it's just not enough...

it's also why let it out, to me, feels really ingenuine. Paul has expressed himself in much better ways already. what they're doing is clearly paining him, and hurting the guy. he's terrified bless.

you can't force someone into being emotional vulnerable, man.

it's why all the deaths for the characters who are forced to express themselves are really violent, involving them being ripped open - literally forcing them to expose themselves from the 'inside out' as Alice reflects in Not Your Seed. you can't force genuine emotional connection, it has to be fostered, shown in the much more affecting relationship of Paul and Emma. the only reason the hive actually has power over our characters is because of these genuine emotional connections, which it tries and often fails to take advantage of, resulting in just resorting to brute violence. messy hive, very messy.

at the core, the musical's a kinda attack on that toxic positivity mindst: trying to force people to reach the sort of easy solutions by sharing feelings in a way that feels pretty invasive and deciding you are instantly fixed. the problems these characters face are jarringly not really what you'd expect a character in a musical to face, cheating, a lot of it, mid-life crisis. problems that are bland, or wayyyy too real. this is purposefully done, to reveal just how silly the hive's aim to use musical theatre to solve everyone's problem is. life is more complex than that smh.

4. a human can write a much more expressive, and genuine song than they ever could lol

u know which song I'm talking abt. what more is there to say. so much for making persuasive songs to tempt people over.

5. make me sad cause they took some perfectly nice ppl and funked them up 😭

this was a stupid point lol. basically I'm just bitter that this hive took a bunch of perfectly okay ppl and gave them hive brain. screw u hive. I swear I'm gonna watch Black Friday soon, cause I'm sure it's gonna completely destroy every thought I've had so far, but whateve,,, just take this as a look at tgwdlm like it's a stand-alone piece.

these guys are supposed to all be 'individuals' on one level, but also 'appendages of a much larger organism'. there's a little too much individualism and fracturing to be cohesive enough to do that I feel. the hive to me is not an infallible, unstoppable force, in fact, every human it takes over only brings it closer to understanding us. so that's maybe a slight positive note??? idk ?! I just have lots of thoughts and feelings abt this musical even if this doesn't make sense I'm proud i wrote it down hehe.

[joshslater]

Foreign Exchange

This is a re-release since the previous version got blocked for unknown reasons. I’m not going to bother to find yet another photo that doesn’t break the content rule, so you’ll have to imagine the lower part of a slim, white guy wearing red trunks with the outline of a massive penis. Or read the original story and more on my Patreon.

It all started in what was supposed to be a one week stay in Cape Town. I don't know what the airline had smoked, but a round trip from Europe sold for almost nothing during a few hours. Probably some clerical error in the pricing department. Whatever the reason, I shuffled some tasks around and manage to arrange myself a one week spring vacation. I had no idea of what to expect. Only thing I knew about South Africa was the Kruger Park, the worlds first heart transplant, excellent red wines, Apartheid and Mandela.

It started out amazing. I found a cheap place in Green Point, close to lots of the tourist places, and started to drink my way through South African wine bottles. It was on the third evening I made the wrong move. No, life altering move.

I was heading back to the hotel after some late evening sea side action. I had emptied a particularly good bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, rich with those mineral tones so prevalent in most South African wines. I was slightly sun burned, possibly lost and decidedly round footed when I walked up to two well dressed white men beating the shit out of black kid.

- Hey, stop that!

I said before my brain had fully reengaged. They did stop. One of the men stared right at me, eyes filled with disdain.

- What you say?

I didn't have time to answer him when something hard hit the back of my head with a thud and everything lost focus and disappeared.

When I came to everything was black and my head hurt like hell. I was lying awkwardly, hands bound behind my back, feet tied together, and some sort of bag tied around my head. The sound made me think I was in someones trunk, but I guess it could have been a van or a covered pick up flat bed just as well. In any event, the vehicle was running fast on what I assumed to be a highway. After a bit of struggle I concluded that I was not just bound up, but also tied down and couldn't move much at all. After a boring hour or so still drunk me slipped back into sleep.

Next time I woke up the vehicle was standing still. I was still as tied up as before, but I could hear someone speaking Afrikaan a few steps away. He came close, shuffled some things around, and then I felt a small prick on my arm. I barely had time to realize it was some sort of injection when I lost consciousness again.

Regaining consciousness was quite different third time around. I still couldn't see anything, but I could feel some swim style goggles around my head, probably blacked out. Now I was lying more properly on a firm bed or padded table. I tried to move, but like before I was tightly restrained. This time it felt more professional, like cuffs around arms and legs, and some kind of material pushing against the chest. And I was naked, I think. It was hard to determine, as the temperature was nice and I couldn't move, but I couldn't feel any clothes on my body. I tried to say "hello", but nothing came out.

This quickly became incredibly boring. I couldn't see or feel much. The smell was basically just some generic clean smell of faint detergent. With sounds there were a bit more variation. I could hear some HVAC rumbling once every 5 minutes, or so I guessed. In addition there was a constant low humming in the room. I could hear some faint sounds from outside the room. Perhaps infrequent cars coming and leaving outside the building.

By my estimate I was at least into the third wake hour when suddenly a door opened and I could hear a conversation between the two men who entered the room. They sounded quite far away, so the room was probably large.

"...so many in the database?"

"We use five key measurements combined into one value as sorting key. The circumference and length, both on flaccid and erect, are approximated into two cylinders. Balls are approximated as spheres. Then we just multiply the three volumes together to make the sorting key. First selection priority is of course bio-compatibility, but this size metric allows for fast selection within that set. It only brings candidates though. The final decision is more complex, of course."

"Complex how?"

"Well, let's ask the doctor himself. His coming here."

A third person entered the room.

"You talking about me?"

"Yes, we were just discussing the selection criteria"

"Ah. Well, since this is a demonstration we want to be bold, while being mindful of proportions and aesthetics. In addition to appearance we want to maximize as many of the secondary factors as possible from the paper. For this one we landed in using the Congo supply."

They were standing right next to me now. The "doctor" continued.

"So this is the subject. The first agent is being administered right now, as you can see. Any questions?"

I tried to say something. Anything. But only wheezing air came out.

"Is he trying to speak?", asked the first voice.

"No, he isn't. Come, let's look at the model", replied the doctor, and they left the room as quickly as they entered it.

6-8 HVAC cycles later I heard the door open again and several people walking into the room. I heard a women's voice close to me saying "Everything is green. Go ahead." and I again lost consciousness.

The room was barely furnished, completely white and bathed in light when I opened my eyes.

"Oh, how good. You are awake."

I heard a female voice in a strong South African accent. I turned my head and saw a fat, black South African lady smiling at me. I was super confused. I was in a hospital bed, but this didn't really look like a hospital, and she didn't look like a nurse.

"Wheh...", was as far as I managed on "Where am I" before my voice gave out.

"You need to drink a lot. Here, let me help", said the lady and gave me something that looked like a hospital version of a gym bottle. As I drank she continued.

"You had a traffic accident. Nothing serious. Just a concussion, so you were dismissed from the hospital to make room. This is a recovery home."

I was gulping water. Man, was I was thirsty. "Where are we?" I asked.

"Just outside the city, so still close to Johannesburg."

That's like at least 10 hours away from Cape Town. What the fuck had happened?

"What day is it?"

"It's Thursday today, dear. I'll go and get something for you to eat", the fat lady answered, and started to move towards the door.

Something just didn't feel right. It was Wednesday evening when I was kidnapped. "No, what date?"

"Thursday the 28th", she said from the door.

A whole fucking week.

I felt a sucking black hole in my gut. The lady seemed nice, but there was no way I would trust her right now. Perhaps she believed everything she had just told me, but clearly some things were not true. My head felt fine, as opposed to the last time I was conscious, but what about the rest? I didn't feel any restraints, just my body in a hospital gown, under some white sheets. In fact, nothing hurt anywhere. Just thirsty, still, hungry and a need to piss.

I could see a different door in another wall than the nurse had just left through. Presumably a private toilet for this small recovery room. A pair of slippers stood next to the bed, so I threw off the blankets began to sit up and swing out my legs. That's when I first felt it. It was weird feeling, familiar, but yet very different.

I quickly kicked my feet into the slippers and carefully, still a bit woozy, shuffled into the bath room. It was surprisingly roomy. Well, perhaps not surprisingly, given the number of people with casts, wheelchairs and whatnot passing through. But it had plenty of room around the toilet seat and sink, and a full length mirror next to the sink, presumably for wheel chair bound people.

I raised the gown from my knees to expose my front, and just stared for a several seconds to fully understand what I saw. My dick and balls were gone. In its place was the largest, most aggressively male genitalia I had ever seen, even in pictures. The massive dick went almost down to my knees, and thick as a can of red bull. And even though it was completely flaccid it was veiny as cabbage and the outlines of a massive head was clearly visible through the uncut foreskin.

Behind the dick were two softball sized testicles hanging low, but unevenly so. It was all topped off with a large bush of coarse hair. And all of it, the hair, the balls and the dong, where dark chocolate black.

I just stared in disbelief. Then tentatively I touched the penis. Yep, it was real and it was now apparently mine. Standing straight my hands couldn't even reach halfway down to the tip. My mind caught up with reality and was filling with questions. Who did this? Why did they do this? How did they do this? Isn't there organ rejection? Aren't you supposed to eat some sort of pills forever after receiving a transplant? Are there even any pants I can wear anymore? Did baller shorts just become underwear?

I went to the toilet and emptied my bladder. It worked fine. Better than fine even, as aiming just became a lot easier with such a hose, although using paper involved lifting. Lifting! I could feel that it was much more sensitive than what I was used to, and felt it starting to come alive. I quickly dropped it and went back to bed. Just as I did lunch arrived.

Once fed, and having checked with the care taker, Amahle, that she wouldn't be back for two hours, I decided to try out my new dong. Tissues were already on the side table. I sat up in bed, kicked off the sheet and had another look under the gown. I was again taken aback with the sight. It wan't just massive, but somehow everything, length, girth, balls, looked to be in proportion. I must admit that I haven't spent much time thinking about, looking at or describing cocks, but the first words that came to mind were aggressive, intimidating and virile. The black skin made it even more so, as the light from the window created contrasting highlights on the veins.

Carefully I looked at the border, where the black skin met my pasty, white body. Rather than a sharp line, as I had expected, there was a narrow gradient where one color blended over to the other. How on earth was this done? It looked like perhaps a decades old surgery where the scar had long since gone soft.

I resumed where we left off in the bathroom, slowly stroking it. It reacted right away, and apparently was a grower as well as a shower. Holy fuck was it massive. I just lied in bed and over perhaps 20 minutes had the best wank in my life. I have no idea whose dick I was giving a handjob, but this was clearly his loss and my gain. It was filled to the brim with nerve endings, making every stroke amazing. Or perhaps it was designed and grown in a lab somewhere? In that case, props to the cocksmith.

The head was leaking precum like crazy, sending small droplets of man lube for every noisy slosh of foreskin riding up and down the head. I was probably suffering from some sort of auto-erotic asphyxiation with so much blood displaced, but I managed to be amazed over how long I lasted, in the fog of pleasure.

When I finally couldn't keep it contained anymore, I erupted in rope after rope of cum going everywhere. On my chest, in my face, and some overshooting me all together. As I was catching my breath, sweaty and sticky, I was thinking about what to tell Amahle. Or if I should get up and do some attempts to clean up the mess first. I realized I had plenty of problems ahead of me. Cleaning up, getting home, ever wearing pants again, figuring out how to use toilets. But at least there and then I could not care less.

[demifiendrsa]

NEO: The World Ends with You details details Susukichi, Tsugumi, Fuya, Kanon, Motoi, Threads system, shops, more

■ The Reapers’ Game

The Reapers’ Game unfolds in the UG (Underground), a different dimension which bears a striking resemblance to the real world. The Players of the Game form teams and aim to complete missions set out by the Game Master, Shiba. The nature of these missions ranges from solving puzzles to defeating enemies known as Noise, and teams may even find themselves fighting their peers for control of the ‘Buya in citywide turf wars!

The Game lasts for seven days. It is said that the team who racks up the most points over the course of the week will have their wish granted—whatever it may be. The unlucky team who ends up in last, on the other hand, is forced to face erasure.

In the Reapers’ Game, it’s all for one and one for all. Will Rindo and the Wicked Twisters be able to band together and topple the other teams in this struggle for survival?

■ Team Battles

Turf Wars: Scramble Slams

One kind of mission assigned in the Reapers’ Game is the Scramble Slam, a citywide turf war that has teams vying for control of various areas around town. Erase all the orange Turf Noise or take down the rival team members in an area to claim that location as your own.

In Scramble Slams, the fun lies in not only gaining control of an area, but also in defeating swarms of enemies to earn even more Scramble Points and exchange them for even better rewards. Chain together battles with regular Noise to max out your point-earning potential!

■ Characters: Ruinbringers

Known as the “strongest team,” everything else about them is shrouded in mystery: The Ruinbringers!

Susukichi (voiced by Max Udell [ENG], Natsuki Hanae [JPN])

“You kids must be the newbies! Oooh, fresh outta the box, ain’t ya?”

A Player in the Reapers’ Game, and a member of the Ruinbringers. While his impressive physique gives off an intimidating air, Susukichi is actually a bit of a chatterbox, rambling in his surprisingly high voice. Like the discs in beloved Reversi, he views the world in black and white.

Tsugumi (voiced by Ciara Riley Wilson [ENG], Yuka Ozaki in [JPN])

“I can’t lose… I must fight.”

A Player in the Reapers’ Game. Although she is a member of the Ruinbringers, she barely interacts with others and does not talk to anyone. Contrary to her waify appearance, she possesses powerful psychic abilities and a perfect record against other Players. The stuffed animal she carries resembles the mascot of Gatto Nero, a new brand that’s all the rage in Shibuya—but her plush pal apparently predates the establishment of said brand.

■ Characters: Deep Rivers Society

A group of river enthusiasts whose game-plan is to survive by being cautious and steady-going: the Deep Rivers Society!

Fuya (voiced by Adam Gold [ENG], Yoshiki Nakajima [JPN])

“You can row, row, row all you want…but you won’t go gently down this stream!”

A Player in the Reapers’ Game who got sucked into the action while taking a stroll in search of Shibuya’s most exquisite culverts. Despite being the de facto leader of the Deep Rivers Society, he is quite cowardly and not one to normally take charge. However, his aversion to conflict is the reason he’s managed to avoid dropping out of the game so far, so his “flight-over-fight” approach has served him surprisingly well. He holds a store-bought map of the city in which he’s hand-marked his favorite culverts.

■ Characters: Variabeauties

The super-stylish team with a passion for fashion and a skilled negotiator at the helm: the Variabeauties!

Kanon (voiced by Xanthe Huynh [ENG], Sumire Uesaka [JPN])

“That may work on the other girls, but I’m a little sharper.”

A Player in the Reapers’ Game and the leader of the Variabeauties. Both kind and captivating, Kanon gives “Rindy” and his teammates a crash course in the rules of the Game. Her beauty also belies a cunning side that reveals itself when the situation warrants. What she lacks in impressive psychic powers, she more than makes up for in wisdom, which has helped her survive the Game thus far.

■ Characters: Purehearts

The social media-savvy team taking the game by storm and using their positive thinking as a weapon: the Purehearts!

Motoi (voiced by Nick Thurston [ENG], Wataru Komada [JPN])

“I’m prepared to help out, of course! The more people working together, the better the resultat.”

A Player in the Reapers’ Game and the leader of the Purehearts. His winning smile and poetic platitudes give off good vibes only, even though his superficiality and frequent use of “fancy” words can rub some people the wrong way. Nevertheless, his magnetic personality has proven quite attractive, amassing him a large number of followers.

■ System: Threads

Rindo and his teammates can increase their HP (Health Points), ATK (Attack) and DEF (Defence) by wearing threads. There are five categories of fashion items you can equip: headwear, tops, bottoms, footwear, and accessories.

In addition, threads have abilities that are useful in battle. If the character equipping an item has enough Style, its ability will be activated and its effect unleashed. Spruce up your fashion sense and unlock the true power of the threads!

—There are no restrictions when it comes to equipping threads, so you can make whichever character you like wear any fashion item. However, some abilities will only activate when the corresponding item is equipped by a specific character.

■ Shops

The city of Shibuya is dotted with a wide variety of shops. There are over 40 establishments to visit, with some selling threads and pins, some providing delicious food and drink, and some offering collectibles like CDs and books.

Each shop attendant is unique, and they reveal a little more of their personality with each visit. Stop by a shop often enough and you might even earn yourself some VIP perks!

—Look for SHOP icons to find places where you can shop and eat! You can also enjoy shopping at stores which exist in the real world such as Taiseido and Tower Records.

—Pay with the contactless payment system “ShibuPay.” Sell the pins you gain during battle to top up your balance.

■ Shops and Brands

The style of clothes and accessories in fashion shops changes with each brand. The number of products will increase as you progress through the story and meet various conditions, so be sure to pop into your favorite shops every now and then. A few of the game’s boutiques are featured below.

—There are over 270 types of fashion items. Assemble ensembles around your favorite brands!

Top o’ Topo

Cute and girly clothes that are popular with younger crowds. Has its main store in Harajuku and another branch in Shibuya.

Joli becot

A sexy yet stylish brand for women that also features some cool pieces for men. Sometimes called “JB” for short.

Tigre Punks

Long-standing punk fashion brand beloved throughout Shibuya. Their edgy designs are tough in many ways.

■ Restaurants

Another great thing about Shibuya is its wide selection of restaurants! Choose from a variety of dining options like guilty fast food pleasures, succulent meat dishes, healthy veggie soups, and parfaits packed with cream and fruit. Eating improves your basic stats and is essential for Rindo and his teammates’ growth. If you want to survive the Reapers’ Game, watch what you eat!

—There are over 90 types of food. Savor all the fine dishes Shibuya has to offer!

—Rindo and his teammates’ reactions during food scenes in the restaurants are also a treat. Their moods are different when they eat something they like versus when they eat something they don’t.

■ System: Remind

Fret’s unique psych: Remind!

Fret’s unique psych, Remind, jogs people’s memories and helps them to remember things they have forgotten.

A minigame will start when Remind is activated. Tilt the left and right sticks in the correct positions to reassemble the scattered memory. Put all the pieces in the right place to complete the reminder!

—Use Remind on a Reaper who has forgotten the mission he was supposed to give out.

■ Locations

Rindo and his teammates travel to all corners of the Shibuya area over the course of the Reapers’ Game. Revisit familiar spots from the previous game such as Tipsy Tose Hall, and discover new locations like Shibuya Stream and the iconic Takeshita Street.

■ Pins

Classical Cacophany

A pin that enables the use of “dart bombs,” which shoots arrows that explode after a short time. By shooting a certain number of arrows quickly, a large explosion will occur immediately.

ShoGun: Void

The “entanglement,” which generates a chain in a straight line that damages and restrains the enemies it touches, plays nice with other psychs.

The Great Volancic Escape

Set a timed explosive at your feet with the “Time Bomb” psych. Figure out when to detonate the bomb and follow up with an attack.

NEO: The World Ends with You will launch for PlayStation 4 and Switch on July 27, 2021 worldwide, followed by PC via the Epic Games Store in Summer 2021.

[crystalelemental]

Since @patchun brought up Hugh as a rival, here’s my personal take on each rival character in Pokemon, because I’m bored.

Blue - I actually do like the guy, and I think that overall he’s a solid rival.  Story-wise, he’s one of the few that is always one step ahead of you, and clears the entire league before you.  His team is solid, and he makes adjustments based on the starter Pokemon he picks.  I also think he’s just kinda fun.  He’ll make excuses about why he lost (”I picked the wrong Pokemon!”) and gives you shit as someone he considered less than him, but there’s still some level at which he’s like “Oh hey, you’re improving!”  He’s a solid rival character.

Silver - I kinda feel like Silver isn’t really your rival, he’s just someone that shows up a lot that you have to deal with.  Like it’s never entirely established that the two of you are competing, he just wants to kick your ass for funsies in all his earlier encounters, and only comes to respect you at all at the end of his entire quest.  Which is cool!  I actually like Silver a lot, I think he’s got a ton going on and is a pretty unique change from Blue.  Blue was super invested in the League and being the best, while Silver’s also about being the best, but seems to have little interest in the League itself.  His motives are outside of the League, and frankly outside of your own.  He grows into the role of rival to the player more as a result of Lance’s comments to him and his own soul-searching.  I think that’s great.

Brendan/May - And then there’s these two.  I’m not entirely sure what the plan was behind these two.  I’ve heard they shifted off of the antagonistic rivals because bullying was a problem, and that’s why every rival since has been your friend rather than an opponent, but these two aren’t even that really.  They barely exist.  As characters, they rarely show up and don’t really do a whole lot at any point, and as a rival trainer, they’re so bad they never fully evolve their starter.  Brendan and May are, to me at least, the worst rivals in the series.  If it was because they thought early rivals were too mean and toned it down, they did so without accounting for any alternative traits to make them interesting, but at least they started getting it right soon after.

Barry - I actually really like Barry.  Initially, he was a bit annoying with the whole “I’m fining you!” gimmick, and being supremely absent-minded half the time, but he grows on you a lot.  Kinda like Blue, Barry spends most of the game ahead of you, and is a pretty competent trainer.  But instead of being aggressive in his rivalry, he is your friend and acknowledges how good you are.  He never seems to even acknowledge his defeat to any extreme degree, he’s just having fun and doing his own journey while using you as a point of comparison, while still taking this really seriously, in part because his father is a renowned trainer that he wants to live up to.  Which is solid.  Also I gotta admit, the situation with the lake guardians was really cute, how Rowan recognizes him and gives him the tougher mission, how into it he gets, and then how hurt he is that he wasn’t able to protect Uxie.  Barry just a sweet kid and a solid rival.

Cheren - Cheren is much like Barry, in that his focus is on battling at its core.  Contrary to Barry though, Cheren is actively irritated that he can’t seem to beat you.  He keeps pace with you, but I don’t think actually gets ahead of you at any point in the story.  If anything, he’s interesting because he’s someone driven by the same journey to be a great trainer that you are, but is coming face to face with the realization that he’s not making the same gains, and may not be able to achieve that initial dream.  He has to adapt, and ultimately settles into the Gym Leader role, and is a bit of a mentor in BW2, which is really cool.  That’s really what makes the BW rivals so good, is that instead of just being another super good trainer who’s ahead of you all the time, they explore the idea of someone who wants to be the best but isn’t, and how he handles that.  I like it a lot.

Bianca - Best rival, fight me.  What makes Bianca interesting is that she’s kinda like Brendan and May, in that she’s not...really here to be a spectacular trainer.  She is but she isn’t.  She starts out on her journey to become a trainer, but isn’t super motivated by competition like Cheren.  In fact, Bianca doesn’t really know what she wants to do at all.  What makes her interesting is that change from being just another trainer to battle, to finding her own path in life that doesn’t involve the competition.  It’s not what she wants to do, and I always really liked that.  She eventually settles on being a professor’s assistant, and I think it’s great seeing her settle into a role that makes her happy.  The series has always posited this idea that people exist with Pokemon in different ways, but this is honestly the first time we really get a rival who comes to engage with Pokemon and battling in a different way from the usual.

Hugh - I don’t like Hugh.  I get the attempt with him, and appreciate it.  A lot of Gen 5 centers around Team Plasma, and in this case, Hugh is a character who was directly impacted by their actions when they stole his sister’s Purrloin.  He was a child and couldn’t do anything, so he’s grown up resentful of Team Plasma and determined to become strong enough to protect his sister and those he cares about.  He’s along on your journey to improve, but never once does he seem all that invested in the League itself.  He’s more invested in taking down Team Plasma and getting his sister’s Purrloin back, and all of that should come together into a really cool rival for this generation’s thematic narrative.  His problem is really just that he talks.  “You’re about to feel my rage!”  Hugh, please.  You’re embarrassing me in front of Zinzolin.  I can’t say I hate Hugh, but I feel like he’s a character who just missed the mark they were aiming for, largely by being more of an edgy nuisance than an interesting character study.

Serena/Calem - I am only talking about these two because fuck the XY friend group.  Honestly, they’re...pretty forgettable.  Like I honestly can’t remember any significant personality traits from them at all.  They’re like Brendan and May, only slightly better because they keep at it even if they’re constantly behind you.  I think by biggest problem is how they never feel like they amount to much thematically.  A big focus in XY is meant to be on scarcity.  Mega Bracelts are rare, and not everyone can own one or utilize mega evolution.  You battle them to get one, which by default means they don’t.  And that sets up some interesting ideas, right?  Like, how does that impact things?  When there’s legitimate scarcity and not everyone can make use of this, are you willing to crush the dream of your childhood friend to make your own come true?  Well actually it doesn’t matter because it’s never really brought up.  The great tragedy of XY was lost potential, and the rival’s a big source of that.

Hau - Hau is...a mixed bag for me.  On the one hand, SuMo.  On the other, USUM.  In SuMo, I like Hau a lot.  He feels a lot like Barry, if Barry didn’t give a shit about competition.  Hau is very laid back as a rival, and challenges you while attempting to keep pace, but ultimately exists to have fun and enjoy his journey.  This is the trait that makes him and Gladion such fun counterparts.  But then USUM rolls around, and makes up this whole subplot about how he’s not actually trying and that this is a betrayal of his Pokemon?  And then it leads to this whole crisis where suddenly he’s super invested in competition and being the best, and ends up as your Champion battle?  And it just doesn’t feel as interesting.  If anything it feels like USUM’s eternal Gen 1 dick sucking coming back to reference your rival as the champion, rather than actually focusing on the character’s development.

Gladion - Okay, I really like Gladion.  He’s a bit more like Silver than anything else, in that I don’t think he ever like...expresses wanting to be your rival?  He just shows up and challenges you because fuck you in particular.  But through interactions, and your eventual assistance with stopping his mother and breaking down those emotional walls, Gladion grows into someone who still wants to be a great trainer, but is no longer driven by the need to be the best to protect his sister and stop his mother.  Rather, he just learns to enjoy competition for its own sake.  And I really like that!  I feel like he’s Silver, but refined to be a more interesting character.

Hop - Okay stop me if you’ve heard this one.  Hop’s a rival who’s invested in the competition, and is largely driven by living up to a family member’s legacy.  He’s generally friendly, but expresses intense dissatisfaction with his performance because he can’t beat you or Bede.  He’s been competitive, but ultimately very laid back until a sudden realization that he needs to try harder and is suddenly super driven to become the best.  His post-game arc is entirely about finding out that maybe he doesn’t want to be a trainer all that much, and finding his own calling, which is a professor’s assistant.  That’s Barry, Cheren, Hau, and Bianca, in that order.  I do not love Hop.  I don’t hate him.  There are definitely worse rivals with less going on.  But Hop feels like an amalgamation of previous rivals rather than his own being.  He goes from laid-back but invested in your rivalry, to super serious and determined to be the best, and ending on maybe not even wanting to be a trainer that much.  It’s a weird shift in his journey that I don’t think meshes as well.  He takes the parts of these previous rivals that made them interesting, but it turns out slapping them all together makes a character that’s less than the sum of its parts.  However, I will give points for one thing I actually love about Hop: when he keeps losing, he completely changes up his team.  That’s something no rival has done.  Minor adjustments, like Blue dropping Raticate, have happened, but we’ve never seen a complete shuffle in who they lead with or what the team composition is.  So I do think there’s merit to Hop, even if he’s not my favorite.  It could be worse.  It could be...

Marnie - A literal nothing.  She does announce that you are her rival, so I guess I have to talk about her.  She’s nothing.  Like, I kinda have to give more points to her than Brandan/May solely because she does at least try, but she never really has anything going for her.  Her brother is more compelling than she is, being a gym leader in charge of an area that is really struggling, and trying to showcase that Dynamaxing isn’t required to be a good trainer.  Marnie...has none of that.  At all.  She just has the freedom to be a challenger for the Champion title, and the town is insistent on her winning to prove...something.  I honestly do not understand the plan.  It wouldn’t change that their territory has no ability to Dynamax, and unlike Piers, Marnie has no qualms about using Dynamax to win.  She has no real convictions, and if memory serves only battles you twice.  And she’s not exactly that good either time.  I never once felt like Marnie mattered.  People just liked her design and decided she was great, but she...she doesn’t do anything.

Bede - I’m hesitant to count Bede, but you battle him more often than you battle Marnie, and he does eventually consider you an obstacle to overcome so I’ll count him.  Honestly, don’t like him that much, but he’s better than nothing.  Bede’s interesting in that he’s kind of a rival that’s ahead of you?  At least implicitly.  I don’t think we get hard confirmation that he’s beaten any of the challenges before you, but a lot of his battles involve him being in a location before you got there.  I do kinda like his arc, in that he’s a bit of an inverted Cheren?  In the sense that his ultimate endpoint is as a Gym Leader, but not because he’s looking at things in terms of adjusting his goal due to always losing, but adjusting his goal because it turns out that’s just really what he wants to do.  At first he hates it, and his final challenge to you is a means of saying he’ll quit forever if he can’t win, but ultimately he settles into an appreciation for being a Gym Leader, and I really like that.  While I dislike him more on a personal level, I will say I think he’s a better rival than Hop.  Has more going on for himself, anyway.

[docholligay]

A Silent Voice--Koe no Kitachi

This movie has come up a couple times for Eight Days and various other things I’ve done, which was basically all I knew about it, until it was sponsored as a one-off by @iscahwynn. The first time I watched the movie, I felt a lot of ways about it at once. It was certainly one of the most interesting “anime movies” that had ever been recommended to me, and had a capacity and quality of humanity that I really didn’t expect going into it. 

As always, non-spoilery review leads, spoilers under the cut. 

A Silent Voice, (Which is called The Shape of Voice on my subs) if you read the blurb, is about a boy trying to make restitution for a deaf girl he bullied horrendously in elementary school. That’s a fair assessment, but I also don’t think it’s a complete one. The movie is really about the nature of alienation and friendship, and how a lot of lonely people have at least some culpability for that loneliness. I don’t know if I would go so far as to say I liked it. I had some issues with it that I’ll go into in the longer spoiler review, but being as its on Netflix right now, if you have any interest in seeing it, I don’t think it’s a waste of time at all. 

I”m not going to go through a play by play of the film itself, I figure if you’re reading this you’re familiar with the general narrative of the film and I’m not super interested in padding this out for the mere word count.  

Also, the main character’s names are really similar: Shoko and Shoyo, so I’m going to call Shoyo by his patronymic, Ishida, for clarity. 

You feel, or at least this viewer felt, nothing but sadness and frustration for poor Shoko, who did nothing but have the audacity to show up at school. One thing I think this movie does an excellent job with is showing how resentment creeps in over the most minor of accommodations. We see at first, the kids be taken in by the novelty of writing in Shoko’s notebook in order to accommodate her and talk to her. Then we see it turn annoying, when she wants to be brought into conversations on a regular basis, and they don’t want to do that. It turns to hatred and resentment, as it gets easier and easier to simply ignore her or make fun of her. When a teacher comes in to teach them some sign language at ten minutes a day, for all but one student, this is too much effort for them to make. 

It escalates with Ishida himself repeatedly yanking her hearing aids out of her ears and throwing them out of the window, into the trash, etc, at one point ripping them out with such force that her ear bleeds. His punishment for this cruelty is essentially that his mother has to pay back, or choose to pay back, all the money lost for the hearing aids to Shoko’s mother, but on a more personal level, his classmates, actually faced with consequences, turn on him and implicate him as the sole actor in all of the cruelty aimed toward Shoko. 

And I’m fine with him reaping the whirlwind, let’s not mistake that, but I do have one compelling question: 

There are 106 schools for the D/deaf in Japan, and you couldn’t put your child into one of them? I have no idea if Japan has any equivalent of the ADA whatsoever, and the internet seems to suggest that the rights and education of D/deaf people in Japan is pretty woeful, but this really annoyed the shit out of me. I mean, I’m supposed to feel for Shoko, so I suppose that didn’t detract from what the movie wanted to do in that right, but man did it make me irritated with every single adult involved. 

I think some of the most interesting things that come out of the movie are the ways in which it deals with depersonalization and isolation. 

After we see Ishida’s fall from grace, if you will, when in middle school, people are (rightly) told that he’s a bully. People don’t want to be around him, and while, again, I do not feel particularly sorry for him, there’s definitely something deeply human and deeply disturbing about the way they make him the pariah of it all, even though they were mostly all involved in treating Shoko cruelly, or at the very least, at a distance. It’s easier to believe that it was Ishida’s sin specifically, and that they bear no responsibility for their part in the cruelty toward her. 

When this happens, by the time we meet up with him, we see that he sees the world of people with the letter X across their faces, as a sign that he no longer thinks of them as people, more like objects or happenings that are best to be avoided. He goes so far as to say that he never looks anyone in the face anymore. Its a very visually powerful way of showing how Ishida, when he is hurt, walls himself off in the world, while, even when we see Shoko later, there’s no indication that she has done such (Though admittedly, the vast majority of the movie is through the eyes of Ishida) 

It isn’t until Ishida defends Nagatsuka, a fat kid with curly hair, from getting his bike stolen by giving his up as an option instead, that he begins to see people in any different way. And it isn’t even in the moment that he does something, but when Nagatsuka returns his bike, found in a rice field, that the x falls away from his face and he begins to see someone as a fully realized human. A cynical viewer, who might be me, would see this as an acknowledgement that Ishida’s problem is not seeing people outside of their relationship to and treatment of him. That it is only with returned kindness that he can see Nagatsuka as human, defending him only because he recalls the shame of having been so cruel to Shoko. 

Which I actually don’t have a problem with! I think it would go fairly far to show that he’s learned something from the Shoko situation, for him to expect no inkling of humanity but still be so desirous to remove that shame that he acts anyway. I just don’t know if that’s the intention of the narrative, even having seen it several times now. 

“Friendship lies somewhere beyond things like words and logic” is one of the best lines from the movie, and I think it does a fairly good job of doing that as it calls up a large group from the past. It’s complicated, because I actually thought the group aspect was very interesting, particularly the incident on the bridge where Ishida, every fairly, tells each of them how they failed, what their personal sin is, and he isn’t wrong! The first time I watched it, I found myself screaming at it, the reckoning of this responsibility finally shared. 

But the downside of all of these characters is that the focus on Shoko and Ishida, as well as any real development of feelings and forgiveness between them, feels very rushed. We get to the end of the story, with Ishida having saved Shoko’s life and hurting himself in the process. SO much emotional and character development gets laid down in a five minute scene, and while the scene itself does lend a lot of strength to the characters for that, I found myself more frustrated that we couldn’t have seen this sooner, and come out over time. Unfortunately the time with the ancillary characters feels a bit wasted, given what ends up being sacrificed for it. 

Some parts of the movie are tricky for me to fully allow myself to fall into, at best. It’s particularly difficult for me to see Ishida as a huge victim given the exceptional level of his cruelty to Shoko, and if he really only pays until he’s in high school, while that may play as “forever” to a younger audience, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for his plight. This isn’t following him to his damn job. Maybe I’m a jackass, and that’s why I can’t go with it in the way the film seems to want me to, or maybe it’s that I was also horrifically bullied to the point of tears as a child, and I do not feel any particular sadness for the ways in which some of my own bullies were socially punished in high school. I don’t want him to kill himself, I want him to be better, and honestly the movie could have really really worked for me if we just saw the developing of his friendship with Nagatsuka and his turning into a better, softer person. This kind of goes into what I was talking about earlier--in a two hour movie, there just isn’t the time for all the side characters as well as the full development of the mains. We would have been better off just having Ishida, Shoko, and Nagatsuka. I fell you could have told a quite complete story with that. I think if those three characters had been more carefully written, I could have ADORED this movie, instead of the middle place I end up with in it. 

But instead we come to the question of Shoko. I kinda suck my teeth at Shoko’s treatment in the film. Her open hearted kindness was heart-breaking as a child, the way she just wanted to be friends and she still had that belief that it could all work if she just did as adults told her and was NICE, and it’s extremely effective.  But when we get to the high school Shoko and we’re still meant to see her as being this very mild, very apologetic, very sad person with no friends...it stops being a tragedy of the character individually and starts being a way of writing a disabled character as someone for our protagonist to act upon. Shoko is never really given her own moment of anger for herself, her own rich life outside of Ishida and the friends he brings to her. We don’t see her thoughts except as they relate to Ishida. We’re meant to believe she has no one outside of her sister when Ishida decides to reconnect with her, a tragedy of convenience that allows Ishida’s “work” to be valuable to more than just him. Even her own sorrow and suicide attempt seem to have so much more to do with the further of Ishida’s character than the oppressive social forces that have conspired against Shoko. 

And we ALMOST get there. The end conversation between the two of them, where he says he understood her in ways that were convenient for him, and that because of that he failed to see her own pain and isolation, is amazing. Great, and I wish it would have come sooner and that we could have had some real payoff from that conversation that showed their relationship deepening in a way that served both Shoko and Ishida. But it comes at the tail end, and the “solution” we get all has to do with Ishida and his embracing of humanity, which I want, but not at the expense of Shoko’s character, who I liked very much and longed for a richer treatment of. 

The romantic element between them is frustrating. Not only because he was her very very overt bully, I might even go so far as to say abuser, but because it feels so tiresome when the movie clearly has bigger fish to fry, and in many ways, does fry them!  It doesn’t help that it is like quite a few things, painfully rushed, and when she falls for him, it’s left to the viewer to supply your own reasons that don’t quite make sense. It adds a layer to the story that I personally felt it did not need, even as cute as I find Shoko’s little flappy legs on the bed when she has her head buried in a pillow after trying to confess to Ishida, but he can’t understand what she’s saying. 

Basically, I think this movie watches better once. I know that sounds like a strange thing to say about anything, but the first time I saw this, I didn’t notice so keenly some of the things that niggled at me later. I think it’s pretty fucking enjoyable, in the one shot, to be honest! I think it’s an ambitious movie that is, at its best, trying to say something about the nature of bullying and that it not only harms the bullied but the bully themselves. And in some ways, I think it has absolutely brilliant moments with that, and reflections on the nature of friendship and what it takes.  But I think some of that ambition falls through, and feels a bit flat, when taken on the whole. 

Have you seen it? What did you think? 

[captainseaweedbrains]

Prompt: this bag said it would keep my food cold for 3 hours, it lied.

Thanks for the prompt, friend! I hope you like it. It was a lot of fun to write! :D 

Can be read on Ao3: x

Katniss and the No Good, Lousy Rotten Day

Katniss was having a no good, lousy rotten day and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed with three bottles of wine and pretend that she didn’t get chewed out in front of her whole department and had her budget threatened. That her car didn’t die in the left-hand turn lane on the busiest intersection in town. And that she most definitely didn’t catch her no good, lousy rotten boyfriend cheating on her in the supply closet with one of the interns. Nope. None of it happened. Today was fine.

“Rough day?” Peeta asked when she limped in through the door, her hair disheveled and her pants soaked because—oh yeah, she fell in a puddle when her heel broke stepping out of her Lyft, twisting her ankle in the process. Such a great day all around.

Grunting, Katniss hobbled over to the kitchen table, the closest piece of furniture near her, and collapsed into a chair. Her ankle throbbed. Her ass was sore and wet. But most hurt was her pride. It had taken a beating like no other today.

No good, lousy rotten day.

“Rough day?” Peeta asked again from the couch, watching TV. From the sounds of it, he was watching some cooking challenge show. She threw her broken shoe at him because he sounded way too smug for someone who clearly had eyes. To make her day even worse, she missed him by a lot and hit the sole lamp in their living room, causing it to fall off the side table and crack in half. “Waita go, Everdeen,” he chuckled, shaking his head. She groaned in darkness now, the only light now coming from their TV. She couldn’t even aim right today, her one natural gift gone. Destroyed by the day’s shittiness.

No good, lousy rotten day. 

Peeta patted the spot next to him on the couch, his smile welcoming under the TV’s light. She considered hobbling off to her bed and telling him not to disturb her, but she really needed her best friend’s comfort after this hellhole day. His arms were open and she hobbled right into them, resting her head on his shoulder, his hand rubbing circles up and down her arm, like he always did when holding her like this. Her eyes closed at the touch, his hand bringing on a familiar warmth only Peeta seemed to emulate. He didn’t ask why she was wet or why she threw a shoe at him. Years of friendship didn’t require instant explanation. He knew she’d spill once she had calmed down enough to explain without getting super worked up again. Sometimes that took minutes, other times hours, but she always told him everything eventually. 

She was so lucky to have him here.

They sat together in darkness, their bodies pressed together as they watched TV. Katniss was right. He was watching a cooking show. It wasn’t the type of thing she’d pick for herself to watch, but watching Peeta watch it was something else entirely. He always denied doing it, but he liked to list back the recipes the contestants spoke of, like saying them aloud will help him commit it to memory, and critique certain techniques he didn’t agree with. Peeta was an intense Food TV junkie and it amused her to no end how seriously he took it.

Tonight as he parroted back the recipes, she focused on the way his deep voice reverberated, the way his free hand would motion to the TV in exasperation because a contestant thought it wise to use the microwave instead of setting a low flame. Her arms tightened around him, content. Nothing was better than familiarity on a no good, lousy rotten day and next to her family, she knew Peeta best. He was a constant in her life and she was so grateful for it. At least some men could be depended on. 

The show switched to commercials and he looked down at her at last, his eyes asking if she’s ready to talk. 

She was.   

Katniss extracted herself from his embrace, a bit reluctantly because her damp clothes caused a chill and Peeta was her infinite amount of warmth. “Why waste money on a heater when I have a Peeta?” she used to tease in college when they were living together in the world’s shittiest apartment, barely scraping by. Everything used to break down and both their families were tight on money to just loan out a couple hundred for repairs. They had to make do with what they had and most times in the winter, it meant huddling together in the same sleeping bag for warmth.

“So today…” Peeta started for her, twirling a bit of her braid around his fingers.

“...was the shittiest of shitty days to have ever shitted,” she finished sourly, always one with her words. 

His eyebrows knit together in concern, a frown tugging at his lips. His silent concern was enough to break the dam and she went on to explain how both Snow and Coin chewed her out in front of the whole department, questioning if she was even qualified to lead a group of its size. Then when she tried defending her reasoning, they casually mentioned budget restraints and perhaps cuts would have to be made for next fiscal year in order for the company to stay afloat. 

“And then my car died at Six Corner on my way back from their office,” Katniss continued, feeling more lousy as she went on. “I know you kept telling me it was a death trap on wheels and that I should have gotten a new car years ago, but please don’t tell me ‘I told you so’ because I don’t think I can handle that right now.” At this point, Peeta had retrieved her emergency stash of Ben & Jerry from the freezer and she was stuffing her face into the double-chocolate brownie goodness with agusto. 

“It was the worst,” she continued, mouth full of ice cream. “All these cars were blaring at me and flipping me the bird, like I purposely let my car die in the left-hand turn lane! Don’t say anything!” she snapped, pressing a sticky finger to his lips. His eyes widened at the touch, but he remained the good listener he always was, letting her blow off steam and stuff her sorrows with ice cream. Lots and lots of ice cream.

“But that’s not even the worst of it,” she sighed, blowing at her bangs that desperately needed a trim. “Cato cheated on me.” It was hard looking at him for that. Peeta warned her from day one not to get involved with Cato, saying he wreaked of sleazebag and booze, but she just shrugged his concerns off, wanting something entirely different from her failed relationship with Gale, and she was far too into the crazy sex they had to pull the plug. Cato was the rebound mistake she let linger for too long. And now she got hurt because of her own stubborn stupidity. 

“Katniss, I’m so sorry.” Much to her relief, it sounded like he truly meant it. His deep voice didn’t seem to carry any contempt toward her and he reached over for a hug, pulling her close. Her arms instinctively wrapped around him, her face pressing into the crook of his neck. Peeta gave the best hugs. His warm, strong arms easily encased her, reminding her of being wrapped in a really soft blanket, and he always smelled faintly of foods—sweet sugars or savory spices, it didn’t matter. He always smelled of it and she loved that about him. A little taste of home. 

His large hand rubbed circles on her back now, not saying anything else as she sat there in his arms, the cold from the ice cream container numbing her still damp pants. They sat like that for a while, his TV show returning and ending. Another episode started up, but Peeta didn’t push her away. He never did. Even when she dug her own grave, Peeta was climbing in next to her, offering a hand of support.

“It’s stupid,” she mumbled dejectedly into his shoulder, his shirt soft against her cheek. “I knew he was a jerk, but I didn’t think I’d care this much, you know? Why do I care this much?” 

“I think we naturally expect the good from people,” he said quietly, still rubbing her back. “It sucks when we’re proven wrong about them.”

Maybe he was right. Maybe she subconsciously expected Cato to be a semi-decent guy and not cheat on her. Was the bar really that low for her now? She tucked her head back into his neck, needing another moment of this before facing the reality that yeah, her standards in the past few years have really gone down.

“Hey, Katniss?” he asked after sitting like this for a while.

“Hm?” 

“Can we move your ice cream? I’m all here for your sweet fix and hugs, but it’s getting a bit cold down there.” And in true Peeta Mellark fashion, he was able to get her to laugh on one of the worst days she’s seen since moving back after her bad breakup with Gale. Teasing if he wanted her heating pad to warm him back up, she moved the melting ice cream on the coffee table and smiled at him. 

She was so lucky having him in her life. He’d been such a constant in her life, always caring about what was going on, offering his advice where he could. She’d done a lot of shitty things in the past, some even toward him, but Peeta never held it against her. Even when she rightfully deserved his anger, he was still there. After all these years. Ready to lend a helping hand.

This was why she loved him.

Wait, what? Her eyes widened in surprise. The thought had come so quickly, but it felt natural to think. Like it’d been sitting there, deep in her head, for a while. Of course she loved him. He was her best friend! She’d told him “I love you” countless times over the years, most being when she had food coming her way, but this felt different, staring at his white bluish face. This felt like the other love. That love. The one she remembered feeling with Gale and before him, Thom. 

She chewed at her thumbnail, her eyes darting away. 

This was bad. Really bad. This was how her and Gale had started and that went south fast. They weren’t friends anymore, the breakup was so bad. If something like that happened to her and Peeta… She wouldn’t know what she’d do without him. Without his kind words and affectionate gestures. The idea was hard to swallow. 

“Feeling better?” he asked, smiling a little, unbeknownst to the world shaking revelation happening in her head. His hand squeezed hers in good spirit.

Katniss looked at how his hand rested over hers, her tiny fingers peeking out. Her pulse quickened. Like the dam he helped open earlier, it felt like something else had broken inside her, flooding her with emotions she didn’t even realize she’d been feeling. His hand felt so nice resting over hers like that, and a small part of her wished he’d take it and press his lips to it. Like the gentlemen did in those silly period dramas he was always having her watch when it was his turn to pick a movie out. Would he be weirded out if she did that to him? Just picked up his hand and kissed it? 

Stop it! her mind screamed, resisting any urges of kissing her chapped lips over his hands. Friends are off limits. These things never end well. 

“Katniss?” he asked, that concern back in his voice and—okay, yeah. He really needed to stop talking so she could process this flood of emotions.

“Hmmm?” She looked up at him, her eyes still wide.

“Are you feeling better? Do you want me to order a pizza? I’ll even order your nasty pineapple pizza, if that will cheer you up.” God, could he please stop? He never let her put pineapple on their shared pizza unless she really needed the pick-me-up. He really was too much. 

“Mhm,” she smiled a bit too brightly. “Sounds good. Love pizza. You know how pizza makes me horny—I mean happy! Pizza makes me happy!” Now he was looking at her like she’d grown another head. “Pineapple pizza is perfect, Peeta,” she breathed. “Thank you.” 

He still looked at her strangely, but shook his head in amusement at her weirdness and shoved at her playfully before getting up to go order the pizza.

“Mind if I talk about the betrayal I felt today?” he asked from the kitchen, the sounds of drawers opening as he looked for a pizza coupon. 

“Bold word to use on a girl who found her boyfriend in the supply closet with the barely legal intern,” she said, her voice sounding high-pitched. “Can it top that?” 

“Absolutely.” His head popped out from the small service window dividing the kitchen from the living room, his phone pressed to his ear. “This bag”—He held up a purple lunch bag she recognized from his many online purchases—“said it would keep my food cold for three hours. It lied. It wasn’t even two hours and my smoothie felt like it’d been baking in the car. You can bet I gave them a strongly worded review and—hi! Yes, I’m calling to place an order.” He smiled that charming smile he always wore whenever they went out to eat somewhere, despite being on the phone, and god. She knew he was handsome, but how had she not noticed the dimples in his round stupid face before?  

Katniss leaned forward on the couch, her hands pressed to her forehead, and groaned. She was totally screwed.    

Stupid, no good, lousy rotten day.

[second-chance-stray]

RP Log: Bertram helps Cravs with a bug problem. They meet each other, but fail to connect the dots... 

Cravendy Hound pants heavily as she BOOKS it, sprinting away from a swarm of bugs and microchus that nip at her heels. She hadn’t even been doing anything prior - just going on a walk by the stream. Just enjoying the crisp, cool air. But it would seem that the elementals had had enough of her target practice, and now the woods don’t seem as peaceful as they were in the past.

Bertram Windshadow had been attempting to do the very same with his own time on this particular day. There were always a myriad of things upon his mind these days. It did him good to simply step out and move without particular direction and unrestrained pace. Wherever to the wind lead him. That is, of course, until he spied a roegadyn woman being harried by the denizens of the Black Shroud. 1/2

Bertram Windshadow came to a stop within the canopy of a moderately sized tree before dropping down to the forest floor so that he could get a better assessment of the situation. He wasn't about to leave someone in trouble . .. in trouble. 2/2

Cravendy Hound stretches her arm back, aims her gun at her pursuers, and fires a couple of rounds. Some of the shots hit microchus, splitting them from the mob momentarily...though, with every one that was dispatched, two would spring from the bushes and take its place. Meanwhile, for the bugs, I simply present to you this question...have you ever fired a gun at a housefly? Would that work? The answer is no. No, it would not work.

Cravendy Hound: “Godsdamned, bleedin’ flyin’ pieces of shite! Overgrown spinach!” Cravs swats at the air as bugs relentlessly buzz around her. In an attempt to get them off her back, she jumps off the side of the cliff and into the river...however, she misjudges the depth of her target. It’s much too shallow to keep the bugs away from her. And now, she’s drenched AND annoyed.

Bertram Windshadow watches quietly for a moment as the stranger attempts to ward off the pests with her firearm. An attempt that causes the highlander to wince slightly just before she plunges herself into the drink . .. well, at least as much as she could manage in the relative shallowness. 1/3

Bertram Windshadow could only assume that the single-minded focus of these creatures could only come from one place. She'd done something to annoy the Elementals. Not enough to rouse them to outright *anger*, but . .. enough to peeve them. It was an easy mistake to make and Bertram figured they'd more than learned the lesson no need for further assault. 2/3

Bertram Windshadow reached into one of his pouches and pulled out a small orb. With a firm press, and a quiet click, it began belching out a stream of smoke or fog. The man then quickly rolled it in the direction of Cravendy in the hopes of helping disperse the swarm of bugs! 3/3

(Cravendy Hound) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnHmskwqCCQ )) (Bertram Windshadow) (( *dies* This was what was *exactly* what was playing in my heat. ))

Cravendy Hound is too busy swatting away the bugs and plant monsters to notice the source of the sudden smoke, so she thinks it’s the Elementals toying with her further. Her confusion serves to make her even angrier. “If yer gonna kill me, just do it an’ be done with it!” What follows is a long-winded, story of a swear that ends with a coughing fit.

Cravendy Hound - The smoke, meanwhile, does disperse the bugs. They now hover at the edges of where the cloud stops. You can’t see through it, though you can certainly hear all sorts of things happening beneath its foggy exterior.

Bertram Windshadow bobs his head to the side slightly and makes his way forward at a slightly accelerated pace, breaking his way into the opaque cloud and speaking so that he can make his presence known. "I don't think you're going to get killed today, stranger, but we should probably get you closer to Gridania ..." He calls out before attempting to reach out and touch Cravendy's arm to let her know where he is.

Cravendy Hound: “Who, in the name of Llymlaen’s left teat, are you?!” Upon being touched, she instinctively aims her gun right at Bertram, and then glances to the side. “Behind ye!”

Cravendy Hound - Her aim shifts ever so slightly, from being pointed at Bertram’s forehead to something else entirely. The shot rings out, wind brushing dangerously close to his ear, and then sinks directly into a microchu that had been sneaking up behind them. “Gods, ye...let’s get out of ‘ere.”

Bertram Windshadow winces visibly -- or invisibly given the current circumstances -- at the sound of the gunshot so close to his ear. The ear on that side of his head was nothing but ringing in the moment and he could barely make out the latter half of her speaking. My this woman was an aggressive one. Some dots were starting to connect regarding the Shrouds current state of upset. 1/2

Bertram Windshadow called out in a voice slightly louder than necessary, "Let's get out of here," he echoes her sentiment without realizing it. "They're just going to keep coming if you fight them like that." 2/2

Cravendy Hound nods. She had no desire to let the ‘friendly, forest friends’ have their way for any longer. “Gridania’s a tad far...But Hyrstmill’s just a rock skip away. Let’s find a ‘ovel to ‘ole in and be done with this.”

Bertram Windshadow has to strain to hear the suggestion, but he calls out with an affirmative sound before reaching in to the same pouch again to remove another sphere. With a 'click' the smoke begins to spew and he pivots on a heel to face the direction of the small outpost. As he does he throws his arm back and then swings it forward; throwing the smoke-spewing orb like a bowling ball. In its path it leaves a trail of smoke. "That'll hopefully then thin the herd and give us an opening!"

Cravendy Hound stares curiously at the orb, and then back to Bertram. It clicks in her mind. The smoke? Not the Elementals. This guy. This...stranger, who happens to have smoke-spewing orbs in his possession. Questions would have to wait until after they weren’t being hounded by angry flies and grass. She makes a break for Hrystmill, coughing all the while.

Bertram Windshadow set his pace to match Cravendy's as he kept himself in her wake. He felt compelled to keep an eye out for anything that might lunge at the woman while she was making a break for it. This wasn't exactly what he was expecting to do with his day but it certainly beat being stuck in his own head. "Just keep running they'll break off eventually!"

(Cravendy Hound) LOL I'm seeing an unintentional, but reoccuring theme...in an earlier rp, cravs sucked in a feather and had a coughing fit. After this, she's gonna be super hoarse xD )) (Bertram Windshadow) (( Hahaha! It helps in sounding grumpy!! )) (Cravendy Hound) let's move to hrystmill! :3 )) (Cravendy Hound) LOL 6-pack a day scratchy voice. "WATER..." ))

Cravendy Hound - As they run, they can hear, but not see, the monsters pursuing close behind. But eventually, as Hrystmill comes into view, the noise grows fainter and fainter. In reclaimed silence, the sound of hearts pounding and panting breaths come back to the forefront. Cravs lets out a long groan and falls to the ground in a kneel. She beats the dirt twice with her fist, gets back up, and faces Bertram. She has no idea what to say.

Cravendy Hound: “.................So. That ‘appened.”

Bertram Windshadow eases as the sound of pursuit fades a quiet breath draining from his lungs as he finally gives himself a moment to glance over his shoulder. It hadn't seemed like they were in *mortal* danger, but it was hard to say when an elemental would decide to be a little extra cranky at any given moment. He dusted his hands off on his legs as he shifted his attention back to Cravendy. "Sure did ..." he answered, allowing himself a quiet laugh before bobbing his head to the side.

Bertram Windshadow: "I hope they didn't get any nasty bites in ..."

Cravendy Hound: “Couple of bruises and scratches, but nothin’ major. Gods, first dodos, now bugs and bloodthirsty flowers.” She lets out a long sigh. The world was conspiring against her, which...well, was fair, as she had a lot to answer for. But she wondered, why now? Why not before, or later? One thing is for sure, though. She’s thankful that this stranger was here to help out.

Cravendy Hound sizes up Bertram. He looks kind of familiar, but she shelves that feeling off to the side. “Thanks for ‘elping out. I’m Cravs. And ye are?”

(Bertram Windshadow) (( Would Bertram know that nickname? I don't *think* he would, but I figured I'd check before having him be oblivious, hahaha (Cravendy Hound) hmm I mean, she refers to herself as such, but idk if others would to her?? haha )) (Cravendy Hound) up to you really :P )) (Bertram Windshadow) (( I think Lin has only said Cravendy to him! So I don't think he'd make the immediate connection! Not yet anyway! ))

Bertram Windshadow bobs his head to the side slightly, "I can't pretend to know *why* but I think you did something to upset the elementals," he offered quietly as he finished dusting himself off and glancing around Hyrstmill, ". .. they can be a bit sensitive about how you treat the forest." He pauses for a moment before dipping his head toward the woman. "It's nice to meet you Cravs. Most folk these days call me Windshadow."

Cravendy Hound brings a hand up to her face and covers it in thought. Upset the elementals...no. Her target practice? She had thought since it was an accident, it’d be fine, but perhaps not. Blast it all, now she’d have to get a conjurer to help her apologize to those, frankly, eldritch spirits.

Cravendy Hound: “Windshadow. Now that’s a title -and- a mouthful...any reason why people call ye that?” Her brows knit together and her eyes narrow. He clearly wasn’t your average adventurer, judging from his gear. “That yer secret, crime fightin’ identity or somethin’?”

Bertram Windshadow blinks in surprise, though not that one could tell from behind the visor, at her comment. He'd never really thought about it like *that* before. There's an awkward pause before Bertram's hand rises up to the back of his neck and he shook his head. "Oh, no. It's nothing like that," he responds with a laughing tone, "It's ... an epithet. A Gyr Abanian thing."

Bertram Windshadow: "I can be ... pretty fast when I need to be. Quiet too."

Cravendy Hound just realizes that she’s smiling. Everything that had happened in the past hour. The smoke, the running...and now, Windshadow standing here, as polite as could be. He was an amusing enigma to her. “No need to be bashful. If people call ye something like that, then I doubt ye only go ‘pretty’ fast. But can ye outrun a chocobo? I’d be willin’ to bet against ye.”

Cravendy Hound laughs - the challenge only half serious. “But seriously. Ye saved my ‘ide back there. What can I do for ye...’ow about round of drinks on me?”

Bertram Windshadow can only laugh a bit more fully at the prospective challenge, his head shaking slightly as a smile finds solid purchase upon his lips. "Depends on the terrain and distance, honestly. A 'bo's going to out last me in the long run on flat ground." He shakes his head gently, as though he was dismissing the thought as overly self-indulgent. He cleared his throat at the new offer. "I ... " he pauses, tilting his head to the side, "... I wouldn't turn down a drink or two, no."

Bertram Windshadow: "But I'm just glad to have been at the right place at the right time."

Cravendy Hound scratches the back of her head, amused by how seriously Windshadow is taking the chocobo challenge. She can hardly imagine what it’d look like for a hyur to move that quickly. Would he send himself sailing forward like a rocket, or would he just move his limbs -that fast-?! Either way, she steps over and playfully bumps his shoulder with her fist. “I know a spot nearby that serves a solid Mun-Tuy Brew. Over ‘ere.”

Cravendy Hound would bring the two of them to an unassuming establishment. When she enters, she dips her head towards the Elezen barkeep, who returns the gesture. By the time Cravs takes a seat, the barkeep has already set out two cups and a bottle of brew on the table. The usual.

Bertram Windshadow laughed -- albeit a bit nervously -- as Cravendy bumped his shoulder gently while passing by while making her way further into the town. He certainly couldn't complain about a good drink of mun tuy so he followed behind her whilst glancing around the village with a thoughtful expression. He didn't say too much on the way but, as he settled in before the second cup of drink, he couldn't help but ask. "What had you out in this neck of the woods anyway?"

Cravendy Hound has already finished a cup and is halfway through pouring herself another glass. She places the bottle back to the center of the table with a satisfying, though loud, thump. “......Ye’d be surprised ‘ow far those critters chased me. That said, I come out ‘ere now and again. Nice trees, nice folk.” She clears her throat, and then says in a slightly lower voice: “The drinks not bad too.”

Bertram Windshadow might have -- perhaps -- been attempting to discern what the woman might have down to agitate the elementals, but ... he didn't seem like he was about to start prying where he wasn't invited. It didn't seem like he was Like That. Instead he bobbed his head forward and began a much more *measured* approach to his drinking. "I find it similarly calming. Spend time up in the boughs can really help clear the head when you're feeling a bit overwhelmed."

Cravendy Hound raises a brow. “So, ye run really fast, and ye have orbs that shoot out smoke. What are ye, some kind of courier? If ye feelin’ overwhelmed, then just tell the big man to stuff it. Don’t work so much.” She lifts her cup up with a grin. “Lifes too short not to indulge in the good stuff.”

(Cravendy Hound) lmao I can't get over how these two haven't connected the dots )) (Bertram Windshadow) (( It's *pretty* great! Hahaha. ))

Bertram Windshadow tilts his head to the side slightly as he listens to Cravendy's Words of Wisdom. He sips upon his drink thoughtfully for a moment before giving a concessionary bob of his head. He certainly found himself dwelling on the bad recently. Though it wasn't quite related to work as she might be assuming. Given his effective unemployment at the moment. "... I suppose that's true." He murmurs quietly, maybe more to himself than to Cravendy proper, "Is that what you were doing out there?"

Cravendy Hound leans back on her chair, feet propped up on the table. “Chin up. Ye seem the earnest type. Try at somethin’ long enough and it’ll change, eventually.” She takes another sip and listens to the sound of the waterwheel turning on the river. Windshadow’s second question gives her pause. “What? Was I...out ‘ere to indulge, ye mean?”

Bertram Windshadow quietly nods his head in response to her further words of assurance -- though it seemed difficult to determine how they were received behind the vidor -- before she asked her clarifying question. "Oh," he cleared his throat and shook his head, "Well, that or just ... enjoying the 'good stuff' as it were."

Cravendy Hound smirks, and gestures to the alcohol on the table, as if that was answer enough to his question. The two made an interesting drinking duo, and Cravs found herself drawn to her withdrawn, fast-running companion. When they eventually parted ways, she let him know that he was welcome to swing by for another round of drinks...or perhaps, she would find him, and make good on her bet that he could outrun a chocobo.

[iron--spider]

four photographs

In honor of Father’s Day. Tony Stark displaying very Dad-like tendencies when it comes to one Peter Parker. No Endgame spoilers

----

1.

“How many are you gonna eat?” Tony asks, standing in front of Peter. “How many? I’d like to know an exact number. I’d like to know your plans.”

Peter stares at him, and he feels like he’s been caught, despite the fact that Tony’s been across the lab since all of this started. This, being—creating the giant pile of plastic beside him.

He’s in the middle of Number Unknown ice pop, and this one is green. He’s had at least six other green ones. He thinks.

Peter continues staring at Tony. He doesn’t know what to say. His hands are numb and frozen, he’s got a brain freeze. His whole head is an ice pop. He’s still eating an ice pop. Ice pops. Ice pops everywhere.

Tony narrows his eyes. He’s in the patented Dad pose, hands on hips, head cocked, eyes narrowed, brows furrowed. His mouth is slightly agape, because he’s stuck between shock and deciding what he needs to say next. Peter can tell.

“When I bought those I thought you might be having one,” Tony says, eyes darting back and forth between Peter, his ice pop, and the pile of remains beside him. Some of the plastic strips still have juice clinging to them, the juice he couldn’t suck out no matter how hard he tried. A rainbow of juice drops left behind.

“Peter,” Tony says. He steps closer, leans down. “Earth to Peter Parker. Are you in an ice pop coma? Is someone forcing you to consume as many ice pops as possible? Blink twice for yes.”

Peter doesn’t blink. He just takes another, blistery cold bite. Green apple, down to the roots of his teeth.

Tony straightens back up. Shakes his head. “My God,” he says. “He’s not there anymore. He’s gone full ice pop.” He walks over, grabs one of the discarded plastics, twisting it between his fingers. “What the hell do they even call these things, really? They were just in some…red net bag when I bought them. Shit, was that a sign? Were they even supposed to be there? Maybe some villain planted the idea in your head, told you to tell me to get them. Now you’re broken.”

“Ice bag stick,” Peter says, taking another icy bite. “Ice stick bag.”

“No way you call them either of those things,” Tony says, letting the plastic flutter back down to join the rest.

“I used to eat these in elementary school,” Peter says.

“And May realized you ate seventy two of them in one sitting and stopped buying them for you. You had a burst of nostalgia recently and decided to get me in on it?” Tony asks.

“Maybe,” Peter says. “Kinda.”

Tony’s smiling a little bit now. “You asked me to upgrade the web shooters as a distraction. You totally could have done it on your own.”

“Oh, definitely.”

Tony hums to himself.

“How many would have been too many?” Peter asks, pushing the ice up to the top of the plastic. “You know, had I—not gone the distraction route?”

“Four?” Tony asks.

“Oh,” Peter says. “Good thing I went the distraction route.”

Tony stares at him like he’s trying to figure him out. And then he pulls his phone out of his pocket, aims it at Peter, and takes a picture.

“Oh, smile,” Tony says. “I bet your teeth—”

Peter grins.

“—yep, yep, I was right. Mud. Dirt. You look insane, Parker.” He snaps a couple more photos.

“I couldn’t stop,” Peter says, taking his last bite and then tilting the plastic up so he can get the juice out. “I still don’t know if I’m done,” he says, garbled through his current endeavor.

“I hope you left some behind for your ice pop dealer,” Tony says, marching off in the direction of the freezer. “I’m gonna try to count how many you had based on how many are missing.”

“Definitely more than twenty!” Peter calls.

“Yeah,” Tony calls back. “The pile speaks for itself.”

 2.

“Just slip and move, kid, c’mon. I know I’ve seen you fight before.”

 Peter tries to be light on his feet, but he feels big and weighed down by the padding. The boxing gloves. The stupid red foam helmet they’re both wearing.

 “Yeah, random dudes,” Peter says. “Not you. Not a—real person.”

 Tony reaches out and pops him one in the shoulder. He’s clearly pulling his punches, but Peter isn’t keyed in, so he’s still not catching them, not blocking. Tony laughs, and they circle around each other. Peter tries to copy him, stay light on his feet.

 “Oh, they weren’t real people?” Tony asks. “I’ll tell that to the guy that stayed webbed to a tree on 3rd for six hours.”

 “I didn’t box with him.”

 Tony reaches out and taps him again, this time in the middle of his forehead. Or, his foam forehead. He feels really dumb.

 “Didn’t you tell me you learned to fight from the movies?” Tony asks, hands up by his face but ready to move at any second. “Rocky is a good movie. Rocky is an excellent movie. That’s the kind of film I’d expect to see you referencing—running up sets of stairs, arms in the air, children racing after you in the streets—actually, I think I’ve seen that happen—”

 “Maybe I just don’t wanna hit you,” Peter says, fast, without even really thinking about it.

 Tony laughs, and keeps moving without missing a beat. “Pete, c’mon. C’mon, I trust you. We’re just sparring, it’s fine.”

 Peter sighs. They keep circling around each other, and Peter tries to stay on the balls of his feet. He reaches out and throws a punch, which Tony purposefully doesn’t block.

 “There we go,” Tony says. “Okay, c’mon. I know you’re a fighter, Spider-Man. Just gotta style you up a little better. I’m tired of all the broken noses. How many times have you broken your nose? At least a dozen times.”

 Peter rolls his eyes.

 “Okay, Mr. Sass, okay,” Tony says, and he lands another punch, with a little more force behind it, in the middle of Peter’s chest.

 “Okay, okay,” Peter says.

 They start sparring more intensely after that. Nothing serious, no hard hits, but Peter matches Tony’s movements, watches his footwork, blocks his hits and throws some of his own. This is the first time someone has genuinely—trained him, in combat. Or made an attempt, anyway.

 Maybe he gets a little too into it.

 “Perfect, kid,” Tony says, after Peter lands a punch in the middle of his forehead. “Good, good—”

 Peter grins, slips away, and then winds up. He’s aiming for Tony’s forehead again. He totally—he totally is. Aiming for his forehead.

 Except he hits him square in the nose. Hard.

 Peter gasps and Tony staggers back, both gloved hands clutching at his face.

 “Oh my God,” Peter breathes, rushing towards him in a panic.

“Maybe that was a little too good,” Tony says, chuckling wetly.

 “Oh no, oh no,” Peter says, his heart beating loud in his ears. He rips one of his gloves off with his teeth, quickly ridding himself of the other once he’s got his hand free.

 “It’s fine,” Tony says, still covering his face. “Totally fine.”

 “Lemme—oh fuck.”

 Tony pulls his hands back and glares at him. “Language, spider-baby.”

 “I broke your nose. I broke your nose.” Peter reaches up to grip his own hair in an instinctual move, but instead he grips the stupid foam helmet. He rips that off too, tossing it aside.

 “Hey,” Tony says, watching its trajectory. “Throwing shit now—who said we were done?”

 “I broke your nose.”

 “I know you have super strength, I was prepared for this,” Tony says, walking over to the chair where he stowed his phone. He grabs it, holds it up in front of his face, narrowing his eyes at himself and the new wound. “Actually, I just wanted to claim elder abuse.”

 “Stop,” Peter says. There’s a crack across the bridge of Tony’s nose, bright red blood streaming from his nostrils. “Oh shit, it looks bad.”

 “Only I’m allowed to use the ‘s’ word—”

 “I’m a teenager—”

 “Precisely.”

 Peter sighs.

 “Come over here,” Tony says, motioning with his head. “We need a selfie.”

 “A self—a selfie?”

 “Yeah, put at least one glove on, I wanna send it to May.”

 “Oh God. Really?”

 “Yeah.”

 Peter sighs. He shuffles over to where one of his abandoned gloves is, putting it back on. He goes over to stand beside Tony and pouts.

 “Just consider it payback for all the times I’ve annoyed the shit out of you,” Tony says. He throws an arm around Peter’s shoulder, and Peter holds one glove up like a reluctant winner. “Say ‘bloody nose!’”

 “You’re the worst,” Peter says, as Tony snaps the photo.

 “I’m the best,” Tony says. “Alright, let’s—let’s get to the med bay and bother somebody about this.”

 3.

 Tony sits at the edge of Peter’s bed, and feels like any minute, the world might explode.

 His world, anyway. The tiny portion of the larger world that he’s carved out for himself. To keep himself sane, to keep his family safe, to keep the things he loves intact. Yeah, that world—it’s got cracks in it now, and they’re all surrounding Peter.

 The news is on mute, the TV above Peter’s bed blaring in its silence, the kid’s image plastered there alongside the headline BREAKING—SPIDER-MAN REVEALED AS QUEENS RESIDENT PETER PARKER. They have an old school photo, which makes Peter look younger than he is, which in turn makes Tony furious. Not even he can stop the coverage, and he’s sure as hell tried. Peter’s phone keeps buzzing in Tony’s pocket, but he doesn’t look at it. He feels half catatonic, has been stuck in that state since the photo was delivered earlier today. The photo he’s still clutching, face down, in his left hand.

 They received it at the first guard gate, in a plain Manila envelope. It made its way to Tony’s office, where May was already with him, because Peter had been gone for more than ten hours without checking in, which is never a good sign. The envelope was addressed plainly, only said TONY STARK on the outside with nothing else, and he wondered how the fuck it got here. In his mind he had planned to order someone to check the cameras, talk to the gate guard, but he kept quiet, trembling hands peeling the thing open.

 The photo was black and white. Peter, in his suit, without his mask, chained to a chair. Blood around his mouth. A black eye. A cut along his neck. And a message, in red sharpie, that said WE HAVE YOUR SPIDER-MAN. A note taped on the back demanding six million dollars or they’d release his identity.

 Tony had started to get the money ready to go immediately, but then Peter himself showed up. Bloody, one chain still around his wrist. Promptly collapsing at their feet.

 His identity went live about an hour later, with all the evidence the public could need, and Tony hasn’t moved from this spot since. He swallows hard, watching the kid sleep, and he tries to kickstart his brain, tries to get into gear, tries to figure this thing out. He considers denying it, but they already have photos of the two of them hanging out in public together, as they tend to do. There’s been speculation about Peter’s identity for months, and this is the final puzzle piece pulling it all together. Of course he’s Spider-Man. Of course.

 Tony turns the photo over, and his heart aches at the sight of it. The defiance in Peter’s eyes, among all that pain. All the bruises. Tony feels like Peter had to have known what would happen if he escaped, but he’s stubborn—he wasn’t gonna let Tony give up anything for him.

 Tony wishes the kid knew by now that he’d give up anything to keep him safe.

 Tony startles a little bit when the door opens, and he turns the photo back over, putting it on top of the small shelf beside him. May walks back in, clicks her tongue when she sees the news is still rattling on about their latest story.

 Tony gets up to meet her, taking one of the pillows out of her hands. She’s got a couple, since Peter likes to sleep with about ten of them if he can, and she’s got a bag of his clothes.

 She meets Tony’s eyes. “So, uh—any more thoughts on what we should do about this?” she asks.

 His mind is a jumbled mess. This is a problem he’d never exactly planned for, because he’d fought so hard to keep it from happening. He clears his throat. “I guess we’ll deal with it,” he says.

 She nods at him, and her face changes. She looks resolute. “Yeah,” she says. “We will. He’s got us, right? We’ve got this?”

 Tony nods, because that is something he can agree with. “Yeah,” he says. “He’s got us.”

 “Alright,” May says, putting her things down. “Uh, help me arrange these without waking him up.”

 Both he and May walk over on either side of Peter’s bed, ignoring the news and the horror of their new situation. Tony gently slips one hand around the back of Peter’s head, avoiding the bandage at his temple, and lifts him up a little bit. May helps put the pillow down, and then Tony rests Peter’s head back down on top of it. He swipes a stray hair out of the kid’s eyes, and May leans down, kissing Peter on the forehead.

 “We’ll figure it out,” Tony says, his voice rough. “We will. I promise.”

 “I know,” May says. “We have to.”

4.

 Tony sits in the stands beside May and Happy and sinks a little lower into his seat. Flashes keep going off, but a lot of them are aimed in his direction, and that pisses him off something awful.

 “I should have worn a disguise,” Tony says, looking at May. “A fake mustache. Some bad eyebrows. Something.”

 “You’re fine,” May says, patting his knee. “They knew you’d be here anyway.”

 “If you were wearing a disguise, I would have had to wear one too,” Happy says. “And I feel like it would have made us stick out more.”

 Tony sighs. “Probably.” He watches the kids go across the stage in their black graduation robes, meeting their principal, shaking his hand, receiving their diplomas. “How many more?” he asks. “How many more til Pete? I’m suffering. I’m dying.”

 “You’re dramatic,” May says, but she’s suppressing a smile.

 “Context clues, Tony,” Happy says. “They just announced Amy Ourelis, so it’s gotta be soon.”

 It was fine when the kid was down in the chairs on the ground level—the three of them were making faces at him, signing messages back and forth, but he got up to get in line what feels like hours ago. And it’s been torture ever since, save for the brief moment when Ned went across the stage.

 “Too many kids go to this school,” Tony says. “Too many kids with last names starting with A-O.”

 “Your patience is unparalleled,” May says.

 “I know,” Tony says. “I’m very proud.”

 “Look look, there he is,” Happy says, leaning over and pointing. Both May and Tony follow his finger and see Peter standing at the side of the stage, at the base of the steps, and he turns, eyes darting around to find them. Both May and Tony’s arms shoot up into the air, waving around kinda manically.

 Peter waves back, grinning, and Tony smiles at him.

 “He looks so goofy in that cap,” May says.

 “We actually had to use your barrette,” Tony says.

 “Really?” May asks, raising her eyebrows at him.

 “Yeah,” Tony says. “Damn thing kept falling off.”

 “I told him.”

 “Julian Pao,” the announcer says, into the microphone.

 “Oh, I think he’s next,” Happy says, as they watch Julian go across the stage. “Should be—”

 “Peter Parker.”

 Tony jumps to his feet and May quickly follows, and they clap and hoot and holler like insane people. Like they’re at a concert.

 “Way to go, Pete!” Tony yells. “Hell yeah, Peter!”

 And then he realizes that everyone—everyone—is on their feet, too. The place has erupted in clapping and cheering, and it includes all the school board members across the stage. Tony hears some exclamations of “YAY SPIDER-MAN” and so, so many people are taking pictures.

 Peter gets his diploma, shakes his principal’s hand, and turns to wave in their direction. They wave back, probably too enthusiastically, and Tony’s heart swells with a kind of pride that he’s only ever felt for Peter Parker.

 ~

 They created a special exit for Peter, considering there’s a shit ton of paparazzi waiting for him out front, and May, Tony and Happy meet him there. It’s a long hallway at the back of the stadium, and even though they’re alone, Tony can still hear the reverberations of all the other students and their proud families passing through.

 Peter rushes up to them, beaming, and May catches him in a hug. His cap is crooked on his head now, and Tony straightens it out.

 Jesus, he’s so close to crying. He steps back, wiping at his eyes, and tries to cover it with a smile.

 “Did you hear that cheering?” Happy asks, smacking Peter on the shoulder once May pulls back. “They know they’ve got a damn hero in their midst.”

 “I think all that was for Julian Pao,” Peter says, laughing.

 “Honey, can I get a picture of you and Tony?” May asks. “Quick, before he breaks down.”

 “Mrs. Parker,” Tony hisses, narrowing his eyes at her. She smiles a little wickedly.

 “Yeah, yeah, I wanted one anyway,” Peter says.

 Tony clears his throat. “Alright, lemme just make sure the kid’s barrette isn’t visible,” he says, peering around the back of Peter’s head.

 “I think it’s buried in my hair pretty good,” Peter says.

 Tony nods, and wraps his arm around Peter’s shoulders, looking down at him. He’s hit with that fondness, ever present when he thinks about Peter. But it’s particularly strong and gripping in this moment.

 “You know, I’m really proud of you, Pete,” he says. He can hear May clicking away, taking photo after photo. He feels the tears coming on again, and he’s gotta stop ‘em. “I mean, I absolutely expected you to faceplant walking across that stage, but you—you made it. You made it all the way.”

 Peter snorts, the tassel on his cap swinging back and forth. “Well, I’ve gotta make my old man proud, right?”

 Tony is struck in the face of that statement. Frozen. He doesn’t know what to say, and he hears Happy snickering in the background.

 “Right, kid,” Tony croaks. “Right.”

 “Alright,” May says. “Look at me. Say ‘MIT!’”

 They both face her, and Tony tugs Peter close.

 “MIT!”

 ~

 Tony shreds the ransom photo. The ice pop photo becomes Peter’s contact picture in Tony’s phone. The boxing one becomes something Ned sends to Peter every time he doubts himself, which Tony totally condones. You broke Iron Man’s nose! You’re capable of anything!

 And the graduation photo is blown up, framed, and has a spot of honor in the living room.

 Peter’s made Tony into a damn sap. But when he looks at that picture, he feels like he’s been one all along. The kid just brought it out in him.

[demonfox38]

Completed - Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Oh, my language is going to be vulgar on this one.

So, I'm a crusty millennial who likes old garbage. Most of the media I like is old enough to drink and be a member of the US congress, but probably couldn't be due to the country that produced it. Now, I'd like to think that I've got good reasons to like older media, particularly when it comes to video games. It's a bit hard for my NES to bug me for microtransactions/DLC and emanate the screams of children and man-children alike. But, as much as I like my retro junk, there's one thing I'm very, very happy about regarding modern video games. The variety of game types now-a-days is a blessing. It's rare that someone is stellar at all game types, and I sure have my weaknesses.

It took me a long time to realize that I could be good at video games, and I wholly blame the glut of 1980s platforming games on that.

Look, platforming is not a forgiving genre. Particularly, back in the day where you had characters dying in 1-3 hits before factoring in death pits. It existed then for the reason that fourteen million instakill indie horror games exist now. Instantly killing the player is a lot easier to code than, say, having to track a health bar or their new position as an enemy swats them into a different room. Sometimes, a coder's gotta do what they can to keep themselves sane.

But, from a player's perspective, this style sucks!

Getting good at a platforming game requires practicing the same levels over and over again, developing a sense of your character's inertia and limitations. Without a save state or a warp to narrow in on a particularly troublesome location, it's hard to get learning to stick. You could lose a lot of games and time trying to put it all together. And some poor little character is always suffering because of your ineptitude! Such failure feels like a fork in an electrical socket. Succeeding in these circumstances requires a great deal of emotional resilience and a contrary attitude. And you know what? That's just not something I had as a kid. In fact, one could say I had my aggression and competitive drive scolded out of me. I'm just now getting that back.

So, yeah. I had a little trouble with "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link."

"Zelda II" is part of a trifecta of NES games that get routinely shit on by retro reviewers. Like its peers "Super Mario Bros. 2" and "Castlevania II", this game is generally considered an inferior game due to an extreme change of gameplay and appearance from its predecessors. And you know what? That attitude sucks. I'd rather have a variety of different games with a cast I like than have them pigeon-holed into one genre. In "Zelda II"'s case, however? The game mechanic shift was so extreme that I can easily see the ire it raises. Hell, I felt it. I wouldn't go so far to say that it's the worst Zelda game ever, but man, does it have structural defects.

In "Zelda II", Link's goal is to save an ensorcelled Zelda from eternal slumber by picking up a Triforce chunk that was pitched into a fuck-off palace way at the edge of Hyrule. (No, not the Zelda from the first game. Another Zelda. Same Link, though.) To do that, he's got to slap six gemstones into various temples across the countryside. Naturally, that includes picking up his trusty sword, leaping into battle, and then maybe straight into a death pit.

That's right. This Zelda is actually a Mario.

Further complicating the matter is a sharp switch in battle style and item accruement. While the previous Zelda game was about room management and ranged combat (or at least, as much as that was allowed), this game is all about jamming Link's dinky sword into an enemy's face and running off as fast as he can. Now, Link can learn a few tricks to help with the slash and dash, like directional stab mechanics and spells. But, as far as getting new weapons to help you? Sorry, bud. No bombs or boomerangs here. Well, except for the assholes throwing boomerangs at you, anyway. You just can't steal them.

The game encourages polishing the player's skill with Link through a level system. After acquiring XP through good ol' fashioned monster murdering, Link can cash his points out, improving his life, magic, or attack power. As the player levels him up, stats become more costly to improve. If Link gets a total game over before you use your XP, it is wiped out. Alright, fine. Fair, I guess. But, I wouldn't recommend looking at Japanese footage of this game if you don't want to give yourself a migraine. It turns out that as a part of some rebalancing, the level-up system was stacked to try and keep players from dumping all of their points into a single stat early into the game. Particularly, attack. Considering how painful and annoying enemy logic gets in this game, it's such a drag to learn that Japanese players literally could cut their way right out of that struggle. Thanks for dicking with the game design again, American publishers.

I guess we got better looking sprites and sound effects out of the deal? Hooray for wiggly Barba.

Even with leveling mechanics and a handful of heart and magic containers, this Link feels much frailer than the original Zelda's Link. Like, it's hard to believe he's supposed to be the same guy. Even at max health and defense, you could get Link wiped out with 8-32 hits (as opposed to 16-64 hits from the first game.) Exacerbating that is a life system that can yoink those health bars at any pit's whim and Link's range/health restoration being tied to a limited pool of magic. It feels like you're playing with a ceramic replica of the original character. You can make it work in a fight, sure, but you'd rather have a sword than a shard of a broken teapot.

If you don't have a bushido-level acceptance of death, you're not going to make it very far in this game. I'm not being hyperbolic. You have to accept that you are going to kill Link. You're going to watch that little fairy boy fade to black as the world flashes around him, and you're going to see that a lot. You're going to toss his bitch ass into the river to get a game over and restock your lives because fuck if you're going to wipe out inside a dungeon and have to start your bitch ass back at Zelda's temple again. That little counter on the main menu isn't how many times you have wiped out. It's how many times you've clawed your way out of the abyss with a middle finger raised.

Oh. Minor epilepsy warning on boss and Link deaths, by the way.

Having gone full bleak there for a moment, there are a few pieces of knowledge that can help slow down the cycle of life and death:

There are towns with nice ladies in red dresses and orange robes that will heal your ass for free. You should talk with them a lot.

There are classes of enemies that will drop items after they have been killed six times. Most of the time, this is a magic bottle that restores MP. Sometimes, it's a bag of experience. No monster will drop anything to heal your HP.

Also, some enemies are literal rat bastards that steal your XP. Some also give you no XP on killing them. Yeah. I know. Annoying.

The Life spell is in Saria. The downward stab is in Mido. (I realize these are very strange sentences if you're more familiar with "Ocarina of Time.") Getting these can make a night and day difference in surviving the game. So, keep that in mind.

You do get a spell that will turn you into a fairy. You can use it to game pits and sneak past lock doors. Just don't abuse it too much. It's expensive.

The dungeons have this little statue in front of them that you can whack with your sword. In most locations, it'll drop either a magic bottle or an Iron Knuckle. Game entering and exiting a dungeon as much as possible to restore yourself to full vitality.

You can get into random fights on the overworld (represented either by a little black blob or a more threatening human-sized blob.) Staying on gold roads will mean these encounters produce no enemies.

Also, you can use those random battles to override forced platforming sections. Not that I would recommend cheating in such a fashion. 😉

The game will give you a level up after you plug a gemstone into a dungeon. If you're close to leveling up anyway, turn around and grind up to the top, cash in what you've got, and then go pitch that gem.

Link has a crouch, not a duck. You think pressing down on the D-pad will evade projectiles aimed at your face, but it does not. Crouching is only good for blocking floor-level garbage. It's best not to think of the down button as much as possible, really. Only use it to pick up crap off the ground and cheese the final boss. Otherwise, jump.

I know that I said earlier that "Zelda II" is mechanically like a Mario game, but you know what other perspective might help? Try and play Link as a Metroidvania Castlevania character. There's an attack style in games like "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" and "Aria of Sorrow" where you walk, jump, and attack in such a way that you never stop moving forward. That's what you've got to do. Walk, jump at an enemy, bonk on forehead. (Depending on how fast you press the attack button, you may need to delay swinging your sword just a teeny bit. At least, I had a bad habit of swinging too early.) With any luck, when you hit the ground, you will be able to keep on moving. You do not want to get stuck playing "poke-the-hole" with your enemies, particularly with how turtle-y some of them can get.

So, the game's a brutal bitch, but I don't want to spend the entire time shitting on it. Let's talk about improvements.

Honestly, I like the sprite style of the side-scrolling sections better than the previous game. Everyone/thing has more room to be rendered, so they look clearer. I can't say the monster or dungeon design here is my favorite, but hey. Easy to see. Yippie. Could have used a map though. Maybe some more tile textures in the dungeons?

NO. STOP. BE NICE.

There are more people around that want to help Link out. Like, whole towns filled with helpful healing ladies and dudes that will teach you magic and the occasional sword strike. Most of their conversation makes sense (although, there's a memetastic fault in translation regarding a character being named Error instead of what I'm assuming should have been Errol.) People good. Want to help people. People help me.

Except for towns where some of the people are monsters, and one of the times they overlapped a healing lady to get text box priority, and then they killed me. Boo.

I'M SORRY. I HAD A HARD TIME.

The music variety is pleasant. Only a few tracks have escaped the game to go into use elsewhere, but there's only one that I'm really iffy on. The NA release did a fine job transposing what they could using a different sound chip, and there are striking uses of the sample channel being used in ominous situations.

But…like…I struggle to see where fighting through this game is worth it. And maybe it comes down to the final boss. Like, the penultimate one? Absolutely cool. A bitch to fight, but I can't knock how massive and intricate its sprite is. But, the final boss? I suppose it comes down to personal tastes, but I find mirror matches/rivals to be exceedingly dull. Like, good for you. You know how I fight. I do too. Come back to me when you know the weaknesses of my style and use a fresh set of skills to throw at me.

Like, it's not the worst ending in the Zelda series. (My vote for that would go to "Link's Awakening.") You do get Zelda saved. But, given that the final boss is some kind of dark clone of yourself…it begs a lot of questions. Was there any concrete plan for the forces of darkness in Hyrule, or were various monster tribes just scuffling around, being dicks without any overarching plan? Were some monsters trying to keep you out of the Great Palace for a good reason? Would there have been any threat of Ganon reviving at all if Link just…sat on his ass behind a castle for the next century or managed his anxiety in a different way? Why does the manual bother to separate Zeldas and the game does not? Oh, wait. The Japanese intro correctly distinguishes this and the American one does not. Why am I not surprised? What's the difference if you don't see the Zelda you saved from the first game, anyway?

This game is a lot of work. I had to psych myself up to play it every time, and by the end, I was rattled enough by my nerves that I literally camped in my bathroom for a few minutes just to make sure I didn't get sick on the couch. Very stressful. And I'm not sure that stress was worth it, frankly. Life's hard enough as it is right now. I literally have a stress rash on my neck from the shit I'm going through in real life. No, you did not need to know about that. But maybe you need to know that I've been having a hard time lately, and this game did nothing to alleviate me from the stresses of reality. And what's the point in checking out from reality if a fantasy world is just going to make me miserable, too?

There are better games to play in this style. Hell, there are better games on the NES in this style. You know what you should go play? "Faxanadu." It's uglier than "Zelda II", sure. An absolute idiot when it comes to basic mathematics. But it's very chill about platforming and death. And maybe I just want to chill the fuck out for a while.

[lideria]

Sugar Rush Love. | Haechan

Request: Hi hi can I request a fluff for Haechan or Mark? Thank you. Sorry I’m not super specific but I don’t have any ideas right now lol

Author’s Note: This was super fun to write! I really hope everyone who reads it enjoys it quite as much as I did while writing. Plus, just a heads-up, it is pretty dialogue-heavy, so I’m sorry if that’s not your type of thing :)

Warnings: One or a couple of curse words, brief mention of body form, comments on eating/mentions of stress eating, brief mention of injury, mentions of non-Ramadan-friendly content, and I think that should be it! Plus, English is my second language so there might be errors. Please let me know if there is anything else!

Word Count: 2493

Genre: Fluff, Angst if you squint, college!au, baseball!au, crushtolover!au

I hope you all enjoy!

“Sorry for waking you up and all but would you wanna have a picnic? Like some snacks, I guess?”

It had been maybe 2 hours since you had fallen asleep when Donghyuck calls. His voice makes it clear that he is wide awake at who-knows-what on a weekday. It somewhat worries you, but at the same time, he is always like this. Energetic. At unnecessary times as well. However, it still did kind of annoy you how he fancied the idea of a picnic at— you check your phone— “At 4 in the morning?”

“Why not? I’m craving a lot of stuff and it’d be sad if I went out to get a bunch of snacks just to eat them by myself. You like what I eat, no?” That was true. You both had likings for similar foods in general. Though, he was not the type to have snacks around this time. Especially around this time of the year, if you recall right. Maybe something was wrong with his mood?

His voice sounds just fine, though. So it cannot be that.

You sigh to yourself, defeat settling in, and turn on the light beside your bed. “Fine. Where do we meet?” A hand goes up to rub at your eye, triggering a yawn almost immediately. He takes a while to answer, sounds of shuffling in the background. “The field.” There comes a creak from his side. Possibly a door as it is followed by a loud slam. “It’s open at this hour?”

He chuckles. “It’s always open. The amount of freaks that go out on a jog at 2:30 in the morning.. you wouldn’t believe it.”

You grin knowingly. “For you to say it… Don’t you have to be one of them to know?” Silence.

Then, a dramatic sigh of annoyance. “Shut up. Wear something thick.”

You end up wearing an oversized hoodie over your pajama shirt and some much more presentable sweatpants before washing your face, brushing your teeth and rushing out to not keep him waiting. It is chilly outside, almost cold as the breeze hits your newly washed face. Lights are off for the most part. Silence calming yet bizarre.

There is something about living in a heavily populated area and going out at weird hours. Because as you stroll your way down to the field through the campus, the city outside the campus still as well, it feels like walking through a deserted city. As if the whole city is for you and you only. You could do whatever you want to do.

Some part wants to scream and pierce through the silence, but it is too perfect to ruin. It would be a shame.

The campus is big, but definitely cramped. Very cluttered and populous to the point that it feels small. It is only at times like these and when you are down with some kind of sickness when you realize just how much distance there is between the on-campus apartment complex and the fields. But it feels nice— the clutter. Almost makes it feel homey.

When you are a little more than halfway done with your walking you feel your phone buzz in your pocket. You do not bother checking, because you know it must be Donghyuck texting you to hurry up or whatever. Then you look up.

And it dawns on you why he must have felt the need to go outside instead of hanging out in the dorm lobby.

The sky is incredibly clear— too good to be true in an area with high light pollution. A bunch of stars are visible, more stars than usual for sure. No clouds whatsoever. But also, no Milky Way. Yet it is still better than good enough, because the moon is full and is shining with all its glory and scars, and stars are twinkling in a rhythm what feels like a melody.

You continue to walk mostly with your eyes fixed on the sky, and if anyone asks you it is truly a miracle that you make it to the field without falling. Severely tripping, yes, but not falling.

It almost feels like he is not there when you push the doors and walk into the track circling the diamond because of how quiet it is. But there is a faint amount of light almost in the middle of the giant patch of grass with a body hunched over it, so you make your way over.

He does not get up to greet you. He does not have to. You sit on the grass that is definitely colder than the weather itself and throw your arm around his shoulders to give him a brief hug. He hugs you back, but you know. You know for a fact Donghyuck is annoyed. “Why don’t you look at your phone ever when I text you? I actually asked for something,” He laughs out a huff of annoyance and points a finger at the bag of snacks. “I forgot to get tissues. I’d send you back to go get some but I won’t because I’m a good friend.”

Friend. Funny. A friend who has a crush on you and does not bother to hide it, and a friend whom you have a crush on and do not quite bother to hide it from. Just a couple of crushing friends who will not take action. “It’s fine, we’ll just lick our fingers.” You say as he makes a move to pull out the snacks, interested in what he has brought.

There is a bunch of sweets, with definitely way too much sugar at this hour. Considering Donghyuck is already energetic and seemingly not sleepy, the oncoming sugar rush that awaits both of you is scary.

He breaks a chocolate bar in half. You cannot help the question that blurts itself out. “Isn’t season starting soon? Don’t you have to not be eating these?”

The half chocolate bar gets pushed onto your lips, as if to tell you to shut up, please. “Yeah. If coach doesn’t know it’s fine.”

You give him the look. He gives in under the pressure. “I’ve been eating lots of carbs and proteins for training season and oh my god, my diet is filled with bland foods. I want to taste something, and I’d much rather prefer it to be sweet.” He takes a bite which is almost all of the half he has in his hand. It makes sense he is frustrated. “I’ll just have to run harder tomorrow— today.” He places his arms on his knees that he has pulled to his chest, his arm clenching a bit. His words struck you harder than they should, and you frown. “One night won’t break your form.”

“I know. I just want to be at my best so I have a chance at getting picked up this season.” With that, he takes the other bite, and his half of the bar is gone. You lean back on your hand and look at him. What he said makes sense, but also does not. “There is no reason you wouldn���t get picked, you know? You’re so good at running, and your aim with the bat is sharp enough.”

Donghyuck leans forward to pull another snack— moon pies, and you laugh. “You sure you’re not stress eating?” He takes a look at you for a split second, hands you the pie even though you are not done eating the bar, and takes one out for himself. “If only you ate what I’ve been eating for the last several weeks, then you’d get me. Plus, my game is top notch when it comes to stress management.”

That brings a mixture of snorting and giggling out of you as you turn to look at his profile. “Sure. As if you weren’t screaming when Jungwoo told you—“

He turns to you in an instance, and the moon pie’s crumbs go everywhere when he speaks. “Not completing the track on time for like more than twenty times after you come back from an injury makes you panic. Rightfully so.” The crumbs stick to your face, even, and it is gross even if he is your crush. “Jesus, okay, ew. And also, of course it’d make you panic, but it was only a whole two seconds longer than your personal best. You did not need to scream that much.”

He shrugs and lets himself fall onto the field. It is then that you realize he is only in a t-shirt and a sad excuse of a cardigan. Which is very hypocritical of him if you do say so yourself. “It’s just… Baseball is what I do, you know? It keeps me on a scholarship, I’m actually somewhat good at it which is great because I for certain suck at my degree, and it’s what I want to do for the rest of my life. So it’s important for me to get picked up this season. Of course it’s okay if I don’t, because I’ll have the chance for another 2 years unlike Jungwoo, but the earlier the better.” The level of frustration grows with each sentence, and he keeps doing these hand gestures that cause his hands to flail around a little.

You also let yourself fall when he stops, but forwards on your stomach instead of backwards on your back. Your face is above Donghyuck’s as you lean your head on your propped up hands. “You wanna drop out once you get picked up?” It would make sense, really. He was not the one to keep good attention on his academics. Not because he does not want to, but because he just cannot do it.

He clicks his tongue and meets your eyes. When he speaks up, his voice is quieter. “Not really. If I get injured again it’s probably over for me, so,” The breath he exhales hits your face. “Gotta have a plan B.”

Both of you sit in the quiet breeze for a bit after that. Still snacking on a variety of his favorite snacks, you try to bicker with him. But instead, he asks you how school is going for you. You tell him the quizzes and the assignments and the group projects, and how nobody shows up for the group project meetings, and about your club life which is equally as exciting for you as baseball is for him, but the pace is definitely much more different.  

“Are you even aware of the sky tonight? Look at all the stars— the moon, too.” You do it to direct the conversation anywhere else, because frankly, you both knew you did not want to talk about school at 4-something AM. He does look up, and smiles. “I was here before you came, so of course I’ve seen it.” Deep breath. “Really pretty, like you.”

You cannot even try to contain the smile. The blood rushes to your cheeks and hands. “Stop. I’m dressed in presentable pajamas and I’m every shade of ugly tired.”

“I’m here for it, personally.” He elites up his voice and places his hand on his chest a little before proceeding with his speech. “In my humblest of opinions, the pajama look is far better than the looks of whoever’s dating my upperclassmen.” Then, he goes serious again as you start to laugh at what you suspect to be the beginning of his sugar rush. “No seriously, some of the people they’re dating are actually intimidating. More than coach, even.”

“Oh so I’m not intimidating?” You ask, hand posted at your chest. He laughs slightly, almost uncomfortably. “Uh, no, you’re scary when you get angry.” Lucky for him he understands he is only making matters worse, and you laugh out loud more when he starts rambling. “Of course that’s not to say it’s bad, yours is a cool kind of intimidating. But they are there to support them, and after the games end it’s like they will take them home and punish them even if they’ve done good.”

“Some people are into that kinda stuff though.”

Donghyuck looks at you, genuinely disgusted. “No.”

The sheer horror and disgust on his face finally makes you burst into the sleepy-sugar rush laughter you had been holding back, and he starts laughing his fairly dumb sounding laugh along with you. “I’m not shaming whoever likes it but damn, let them celebrate, I don’t know—“

“The thing is, that’s their way of celebrating.” You manage out, holding your stomach as you laugh still, and even though both your stomach and your lungs were begging you to stop the laughter kept coming on stronger as his face dropped further with confusion. “That’s not what I meant— So what, if people look pissed at their significant others, that might be PDA too? That makes everything so complicated though.”

You are crying. At the dumbness of the conversation, and the 5-year-old energy of what you both find to be funny. He laughs as well, especially when your hands under your head give out and you fall on top of somewhere between his chest and shoulder. It takes a while for both of you to stop and come to your senses, and when you do, he asks you something with a smile audible through the words. “Would you come to my games for good luck?”

Wiping at your eyes, you answer with a shrug. “Maybe. But you need to answer something first.”

“Hm?” Your finger points at the sky within an instant. “What do you prefer, the stars or the moon?” He must be dumbfounded, because he does not answer for some time. “The stars, I guess?”

Faking an overreaction, you also fake your voice to sound harsh. “Wrong! There was a line, and you crossed it. I’m not coming to the games, hope you have fun.” You giggle again, the sugar really hitting you now, and maybe the lack of sleep since the moon has started to shift down a little. Donghyuck looks at you and frowns. “Don’t use that tone with me, or I’ll kiss you.”

The laughter is still not over, and your eyes hurt with the continuous laughter. You did not even know if that was possible. “No you won’t— you never do!”

But then he does.

Chocolate infused into his lips, hovering on top of you, he kisses you on the field. His lips are soft, the kiss not so much, but he is kissing you and oh god it is going on. He actually means to kiss you.

So you place a hand on his neck to just enjoy the feeling and to feel in the moment. Put a bit more of yourself on your part into the kiss as well. He smiles. When he is not smiling, you smile— and you just do that. Take turns smiling, silently celebrating the kiss because finally.

This was a pretty nice way of sobering up.