#this needs tweaking to be what i wanted it to be

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on two specific areas of the writing in Sonic X Shadow Generations

The best new 3D Sonic game in over a decade (or even two, depending on who you ask) dropped late last year. And I didn't write anything about it! Sometimes life happens. Well, I've finally sat down to finish Shadow Generations, and by now everyone has already been singing its praises for three months. This is the rare instance where the entire Sonic fandom, and even mainstream reviewers, are in agreement on something. The level design is the best it's been in a long, long time and the cool factor is off the charts, embracing Sonic's peak cringe era in an incredibly confident way. It's great. If you're even reading this post, you probably don't need me to tell you that. So I won't!

No, what I'm really interested in here is the writing. Because this is me we're talking about. But I actually don't want to talk about the main narrative of Shadow Generations, which is really solid little story about Black Doom trying to mold Shadow into his perfect soldier. No, I'd like to zero in on two other aspects of the writing here: the revisions made to Sonic Generations, and Gerald Robotnik's unlockable journal.

The updated Sonic Generations script

The new package mostly presents Sonic Generations how you remember it. There are some tweaks, but it's not a major overhaul. Graphically, I don't think the game has been touched much, if at all. I certainly can't notice any difference without a side-by-side comparison, despite playing it on a PS5. The most notable update is that the game's script has been rewritten by Ian Flynn.

Naturally, this caught my attention. Generations always had a nothingburger story, so with Ian rewriting Pontac and Graff's lame dialogue there was nowhere to go but up. (I don't like to pin the blame for those games' stories entirely on them, as a ton of it was dictated to them by Sonic Team, but, well, I don't think they're very good dialogue writers.) But it's less a complete rewrite and more like Ian was brought on as a script doctor for some minor touch ups here and there. Many lines of dialogue are completely identical to how they were originally written in 2011, and many others only have slight wording changes. Ian was clearly not allowed to request additional scenes or extend the ones that already existed. He has to match the original beat for beat so that they can reuse 99% of the cutscene animations. Don't expect it to be a whole new experience compared to the original.

Still, I think the new script is an improvement, albeit a minor one. Various things have been tweaked to maintain characterization consistency. Cream calls Sonic "Mr. Sonic" instead of just "Sonic." Instead of calling Sonic "buddy," Rouge uses the pet name "Blue," like she tends to do in things like the IDW comics. Espio doesn't have to remind you in the dialogue that he's a ninja, and he no longer has a line making it sound like he has some kind of soul reading power. I also like that Modern Sonic now actually has responses to what his friends say when he rescues them, rather than being silent like Classic Sonic. They won't blow you away, but they make Sonic feel a little more engaged with everything.

In general, the altered dialogue just seems tighter to me, and some of the more childish or trite wording of Pontac and Graff's script has been altered. Here, let's actually make a direct comparison, just because this stuff is interesting to me as a writer. Here's a couple lines from after the Egg Dragoon fight late in the game, in the original script:

Modern Eggman: Ooooh... I can't believe this! I was supposed to beat you this time. Modern Sonic: Aw, I'm sorry! I didn't get that memo. I beat you every time! [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat this guy every time. It's like it's our job or something!

This is a simple exchange. Eggman is mad that he lost. Sonic is unflappably confident because he always beats Eggman, and he explains this to his younger self. But the wording here isn't particularly good. Eggman's simple and direct wording makes him come off like a little kid who's mad because his older brother beat him at Mario Kart, rather than a mad scientist who just had his plans foiled. It's making light of the situation.

And I've never liked Sonic saying "It's like it's our job or something!" That doesn't feel like a thing Sonic would say, it feels like a thing an outside observer would say about Sonic. This is a frequent problem with so-called "MCU dialogue," where quips meant to echo the commentary of a casual, somewhat disinterested audience are inserted into the story itself so that the writers can be like "See? We get it. We're genre-savvy, too!" It also just reminds me of bad Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric lines like "Rings! It's like they're made for me!"

And then here's Ian's rewrite:

Modern Eggman: I recalibrated everything! This was supposed to be my time! Modern Sonic: Oh, please, keep dreamin', Egg-head. I beat you every time. [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat him every time. Our score card's flawless.

Eggman's still mad about his defeat, but the line "I recalibrated everything!" makes it more specific. He put all this work into the engineering side of his latest scheme and got tunnel vision, thinking if he got his creations just right there'd be no way he could lose. "This was supposed to be my time!" also turns it into a time travel pun, which is a bonus. He's still pitching a fit over losing, but it feels more like Eggman pitching a fit, rather than sounding childish.

And then instead of saying that beating Eggman is "like his job or something," Sonic says he's got a flawless score card against Eggman. He doesn't take Eggman seriously as a threat—at least, not to his face. He acts like it's all a game. But he conveys this in a way that feels truer to the character, rather than feeling like the words of a real world observer poking fun at the tropes of the Sonic series.

Is this amazing, A+ dialogue that blows me away? No. Again, it's not a completely different scene from the one we already had. Ian had to fit the beats of what was already there. He couldn't go all out and write an all new story confirming his longstanding headcanon that the Time Eater is a remnant of Solaris or whatever. But the wording here makes the existing story land a little better and feel truer to the characters in subtle ways.

But to me, the main change is that the Sonics and Tailses seem to have a more solid understanding of what's going on with the timeline and the Time Eater, compared to how idiotic they sometimes seemed in the original game. Which is good! No more standing outside Green Hill and wondering why it seems so familiar. Thank god. As part of this, yes, there are a few more references to past games in the dialogue, like Sonic briefly being confused about the fact that they're time traveling without the Time Stones, or South Island and Westside Island being acknowledged as the normal locations of Green Hill and Chemical Plant. Yes, ha ha, insert joke about how Ian loves references here. Look, it's Sonic fucking Generations. It's a game built entirely out of nostalgic references. Just own it! And, again, in this instance Sonic and Tails come off as less stupid when they make it clear that they do, in fact, remember their adventures from presumably less than a year ago in-universe.

Eggman, too, seems to have a better understanding of the powers he's toying with. Where in the original vesion his focus was simply on going back in time to undo his previous defeats and he seemed kind of oblivious to how much the Time Eater was actually fucking up the universe, here Eggman says he wants to use the Time Eater to give himself complete control over the entire timeline. Eggman also makes way fewer references to his own failures and shortcomings. Of course he won't admit that Sonic has defeated him time and time again. To him, he's never truly lost—Sonic just keeps delaying the inevitable total victory for the Eggman Empire.

So, yes. The new Sonic Generations script is better. It won't blow anyone away, but it's better than it was. It's been elevated from "kinda lame" to "fine." No, if you really wanna see Ian flex his ability to breathe new life into old Sonic stories, look no further than...

Gerald Robotnik's Journal

Hoo boy.

The story of what happened aboard the ARK has always been... a bit confusing, to say the least. Fans with encyclopedic knowledge of the script for every route of Shadow '05 may disagree, but it's the truth. We've had all the pieces to understand the story for a long time now, but that info was given to us out of order by a pair of unreliable narrators—Gerald, who became a vengeful lunatic shortly before his death, and Shadow, who was subjected to multiple rounds of amnesia and altered memories. Some of the ambiguity left by Sonic Adventure 2 was cleared up in Shadow '05, but that game also retconned in a bunch of new elements to Shadow's backstory (aliens!) that lead to further confusion. Not to mention the fact that that game had multiple routes and only revealed the truth about Shadow if you sat on the ultimate final boss battle for WAY longer than the fight would normally last. Or the fact that Sonic X made its own tweaks in its telling of the story. Or the fact that none of these things ever had the best English translations. I can't blame anyone who hasn't played those games in two decades for not remembering the truth about these characters and getting some details mixed up.

What we needed was something to piece together all of the info we have into one coherent backstory, told in chronological order. And thanks to Shadow Generations, we have that, in the form of an official journal tying together what we knew from Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow '05, and Sonic Battle into the tragic tale of Gerald's rise and fall.

Ian Flynn was the perfect man for the job here as the guy who started his career by tidying up the mess that was the first 159 issues if Archie Sonic. This is what he excels at: taking disparate bits of weird Sonic lore from multiple different sources, boiling them down to their most interesting elements, and connecting it together in a way that will make the audience see the dramatic potential he's always known was there. Rather than feeling like a cynical exercise in franchise building, going back and explaining things that never needed explaining so that people can add more bullet points to the wiki, he puts a new spin on things that retroactively enriches those past stories. The story here means something to the characters involved and gives us a better understanding of them as people, rather than as plot devices to motivate Shadow.

(And, of course, Ian didn't do this journal alone. He wrote the story, but I also have to give a huge shout out to Evan Stanley, who made the final product. All of her handwritten journal entries, sketches, and "photos" included throughout. The physical damage done to the journal over the course of 50 tumultuous years, passing from Gerald to Eggman to a certain special someone at GUN. The way Gerald's handwriting gets less and less legible as his mental state declines. So much love was put into what could have been a mere text dump in a menu, and it really elevates it to the next level. Congrats on officially getting hired by Sega, Evan, you've sure as hell earned it!)

The main idea the journal conveys is that Gerald was under a lot of pressure from a lot of different parties—GUN, the President, his colleagues aboard the ARK, Black Doom, even his own family—and boy did it get to him. The known incidents aboard the ARK mentioned in previous games are put together here to form a story where everything slowly spirals out of control as Gerald keeps compromising his morals to further his research, thinking he'll eventually find some way out of all this because he's a genius. I won't recap that whole story here (if you haven't already played the game and read the journal entries, I would highly recommend at least reading it on the Sonic wiki), but I'd like to highlight my favorite elements of the story, as Ian tells it here.

1) The Eclipse Cannon

Here's something that never quite made sense in Sonic Adventure 2: why does the ARK have a laser that can blow up the Earth built into it? It was supposed to be a peaceful research colony. Sure, Gerald went crazy and swore revenge on the Earth, but, like... when did he have an opportunity to go back up to the ARK and modify it? Did he have someone else do it? How? The ARK was raided by GUN and shut down! And then they arrested him, held him in prison for an unclear period of time, and executed him by firing squad when he was no longer useful! It doesn't add up. Shadow 'the Hedgehog '05 would give its own answer by introducing the Black Arms and saying that the Eclipse Cannon was always supposed to be a secret trump card against the Black Comet. But, like... we know that's kind of a bullshit answer, right? You don't need enough power to blow up a whole planet just to destroy a comet.

Well, the new journal retains what we already knew, but it paints a much more complete picture.

See, long before Gerald ever made a Faustian bargain with Black Doom, he had already made one with an even greater evil: the military. GUN gave Gerald much of the funding for the ARK, Gerald's personal utopian research station in space, but it didn't take long for GUN to start pressuring him to design them weapons. Gerald tried to get GUN off his back by personally contacting the President of the United Federation, and the President gave him an alternative: how about, instead, you just use your genius brain to figure out the secret to immortality for us, so our soldiers can be immortal? Gerald was initially sickened by the notion and found it completely absurd, like chasing a shadow... but given no other option, the sarcastically named Project Shadow soon began in earnest. (Maria would later put a more positive spin on the name after Shadow's awakening, pointing out that a Shadow can show us the direction of the light, like she says in the game itself.)

Of course, this search for the ultimate life form didn't go very well, and without any results on that front GUN kept hounding him for weapons. Gerald would throw them a bone here and there to get them off his back. His research on Chaos resulted in the Artifical Chaos prototypes, which he worried would be used for warfare but could at least theoretically be used for search and rescue missions in floods, in his mind. But that wasn't enough. So he gave them Chaos Drives to power their mechs. And that still wasn't enough. He's got Emerl. He'll give them Emerl. They're not impressed by Emerl. They'll shut the whole ARK down if Gerald doesn't give them something big.

Fine! GUN wants something big? Gerald builds a huge fucking laser cannon into the ARK. However, as a middle finger to GUN, Gerald makes it so powerful that it would destroy the Earth if it was ever fired at any target on its surface. In other words, GUN now has their ultimate weapon of mass destruction, fulfilling his contract, but they can never actually use it. Oh, the delicious irony. (And also Shadow will blow up the Black Comet with it in 50 years yada yada yada.) Is this perhaps extremely shortsighted and naive of Gerald, to believe that such a weapon would never actually be used just because of the risk? Of course. But hey, that's Gerald for you. And I love this as an answer.

(Also, this, uh, kinda echoes something from real life! Remember the bit in Oppenheimer where he says all nuclear war will become unthinkable, and Edward Teller responds "until somebody builds a bigger bomb"? Yeah, Teller went on to conceptualize a superweapon codenamed Project Sundial that would have been able to kill all life on the planet, as the ultimate deterrent for war. This was never made for obvious reasons, but hey, there's a basis for this sort of thinking outside of heightened sci-fi! There's a whole Kurzgesagt video about this if you're interested.)

2) The Biolizard

The Biolizard is, of course, brought up as the initial failed prototype of the ultimate life form, from before Gerald met Black Doom. We don't really learn all that much about it that we didn't already know, but I just love the way it's framed in the story.

As you can see above, we actually get to see a picture of Maria holding up the cute little salamander that would end up mutating into the Biolizard through Gerald's experiments. (Researchers want to figure out how to replicate salamanders' regenerative abilities for humans in real life, too, so this was a natural starting point for the project.) And then, after it grows to a monstrous size and goes out of control, Gerald has to lock it away in an unused sector of the ARK. He needs to keep the poor thing alive for his research into harnessing Chaos Energy, building life support systems directly into it, but he doesn't have the heart to tell Maria what happened. So it just becomes this first dark secret weighing on his conscience. The Biolizard becomes Gerald's Tell-Tale Heart beating beneath the floorboards of the ARK. I love that.

3) Lost Impact was the breaking point for the ARK

Remember the level Lost Impact in Shadow '05? The flashback level on the hero path where Shadow is running around fighting Artificial Chaos enemies on the ARK 50 years ago? Yeah, that wasn't just a random incident. That was important, as we now know due to its placement on the timeline.

See, Emerl's rampage aboard the ARK that was chronicled in Sonic Battle and Dark Beginnings set off a domino effect. Emerl riled up the Artificial Chaos, causing Gerald to lose control of them. They became violent, and so Shadow had to stop them, as depicted in Lost Impact. The thing is, that incident sent an SOS signal to GUN telling them that shit was going down on the ARK. Gerald didsn't fully understand the trouble he was in and assumed that he'd simply be reprimanded by the higher ups, or maybe face legal action. But, well... the next time he heard from GUN, armed troopers were raiding the ARK.

So Lost Impact was the straw that broke the camel's back. I just really like that detail.

4) Maria

And, of course, there's Maria herself. Maria has often been more of a symbol than a character, this perfect embodiment of everything that's good and pure in this world who gets killed to motivate Shadow and Gerald's revenge plots. But I really like the wrinkles this journal adds to her and Gerald's story, and their relationship. This is the most fleshed out they've ever felt.

For one, the journal leans into the idea of Maria's intellectual potential. The rest of the Robotnik family is all geniuses, after all, and she was proving to be a really bright kid. She excelled in her studies on the ARK, and she even helped design Shadow's jet skates and inhibitor rings. When Maria died, the world didn't just lose a symbolic personification of purity. She genuinely could have been a hugely influential scientist who did so much good for the world. That's what Gerald wanted for her. But we'll never know, because GUN killed her.

Speaking of her family, their presence isn't just mentioned for the sake of fleshing out the Robotnik family tree. It's mentioned that as Gerald struggled to find a cure for Maria's illness through his genetic research, he faced mounting pressure from his family. They didn't want Maria to be up on the ARK forever. They wanted Gerald to hurry up and find a damn cure, or otherwise just send her back home to Earth so she could be with her family again. She'd been up on the ARK for so long that Gerald's coworkers started thinking that she had been born up there. Eventually she gains a baby sister on Earth who she's never met. A rift forms between Gerald's two sons, and he's unable to really deal with it because he's so consumed by his work. There's this sense that the family is falling apart, and that everyone is dreading the possibility that Gerald will never find a cure and that Maria will just spend her final years up in space and die far away from her family, because Gerald just couldn't let go. If that happens, it'll break the whole family. But he can't stop now. So he just keeps working. Curing Maria is the only way to win his family back, in his eyes. It can't all be for nothing.

But my favorite detail regarding Maria is this one paragraph:

Maria is growing into a lovely young woman. It breaks my heart that someone as bright and energetic as her is diminished by disease. There are no visible effects, and I've caught my fellow researchers muttering to each other, doubting her illness. It is infuriating. I find all my reason and restraint vanishes when she's slighted.

This is SUCH a great addition to the story! It's always been true that Maria doesn't really seem all that ill, just looking at her in cutscenes. With this one little comment, Ian flips that issue on its head and turns it into a story about invisible disability. She doesn't act like she's in chronic pain, so she must not be, everyone thinks. And this really, really gets to Gerald, as does the pressure from his family. He's dedicating his whole LIFE to saving her, and they think she's faking it?! It's such a small addition, never referenced elsewhere in the journal, but it adds so much flavor to the story, as does the implied family drama. It grounds Gerald and Maria and makes them feel more like real human beings, rather than being pure archetypes. It's just enough info to let my imagination run wild filling in the blanks.

You also get the feeling that Maria being such a walking ray of sunshine was the only real source of joy Gerald had left in his life before Shadow was awakened, and the only thing keeping him from snapping under pressure sooner. All this stuff just keeps piling on, everything's spiraling out of control, but at least Maria is keeping her chin up, right? It makes so much sense that losing her would make him go off the deep end when it's framed like this.

It's just... man, I never thought I'd care so much about Gerald and Maria. But that's the Ian Flynn touch. After years of less than stellar Sonic writing that seemed to be embarrassed of itself, I'm so happy to have new games coming out that fully embrace the history of the series like this, making its world feel so rich and real instead of just serving as an excuse for a string of platforming levels. I don't even like Shadow '05, but I'll be damned if Ian and the rest of Sonic Team didn't make something amazing by "yes, and"-ing Shadow's cringe past here. Sonic has truly reached levels of "we're so back" never thought possible.

[ateezscupid]

ATEEZ MASTERLIST / REQUEST

your adorable nerd boyfriend yunho ♡

"Yunho!" You walk into the studio holding a bag of carry-out food. "You still here?"

Yunho's head peeks out from behind the soundproof door, his eyes bloodshot and weary. "Couldn't get the harmony right," he murmurs, his voice barely audible over the faint strums of an unplugged guitar. "Think I'm gonna need to tweak the bridge a bit."

"Aw, baby," You walk over, sitting the carry-out on a chair nearby and kicking the door behind you closed. "You're burning the midnight oil again. What's up?"

"I just-" he sighs. "Hongjoong asked if I wanted to help on the album and I said yes but it's just not coming out right. I'm no good at this."

Your face curls up as you giggle. "Yunho, are you kidding? You're, like, super fucking talented when it comes to making music! You literally wrote a song for me every valentines day and every birthday I had since we first started dating. Why are you so…down? What's with the sudden self-doubt?"

"I've just--been real stressed." He sighs. "I had a shit ton of promotions and a shit ton of practice and work to do and then having to work on the album I-"

"Then tell Hongjoong you won't be able to? You know he won't be mad. You guys have been friends for ages." You rub his shoulders gently, feeling the tension knotting his muscles. You smile warmly and push his glasses up his nose. "You're doing too much."

He rolls his eyes. "Sure. But I want to keep working on it. I wanna participate. I wanna help Hongjoong. Everything has just been stressing me out and we haven't done anything with each other in ages-"

"What do you mean? I hangout in the studio with you literally every time you come in here." You furrow your eyebrows and then pause realizing what he means. "Oh..~"

Yunho nods his head. "Yeah, but it's not the same. I've been so busy, I feel like I've lost touch with everyone, especially with you." He turns to face you, placing the guitar aside. "And I don't wanna disappoint him. I know he's counting on me."

"Well do you want me to help…?" You tilt your head and place your hand on his thigh. "Help with the tension?" You say with a cheeky smile.

Yunho laughs, the first genuine one in hours. "I'd love that," he says, leaning back into the chair and closing his eyes. "But I actually meant with the music."

"So you don't want head?"

He pauses. "Well, both, actually." He opens one eye and peers at you with a half-smile. "I mean, I'm not opposed to it."

You smile and get on your knees, scooting closer and grabbing the hem of his sweatpants. "Just work on the music. I'll do what I need to do." You start to massage his legs, feeling the tightness in his muscles slowly release under your skilled touch. Yunho sighs deeply, leaning his head back.

You bite your lip, pushing his sweatpants down and running your fingers over the bulge showing in his boxers. "Let's get these off," you murmur, your voice low and teasing. He lifts his hips slightly to help you, his breath catching in his throat. You never got over his size, and the way his body responds to your touch still sends shivers down your spine. As you pull his boxers down, his erection springs free, and you wrap your hand around it, giving it a gentle squeeze. Yunho groans, his eyes fluttering open to meet yours, full of heat and need.

With a wink, you lean in, placing soft kisses along his inner thigh, making him squirm. The studio's dim lighting casts a warm glow on his skin, highlighting the goosebumps that rise from your touch. The faint smell of sweat and the lingering scent of guitar strings mingle with his unique scent, creating a heady cocktail of desire. You trace the veins on his cock with your tongue, feeling him twitch in your grip. You look up at him, his eyes now wide with anticipation, and you take him fully in your mouth, sucking and teasing with the perfect amount of pressure. His hips buck, but he quickly stifles the sound, not wanting to disturb the quiet of the night.

"So pretty…" he mumbles, watching as you work your magic. The words are barely a whisper, but the intensity behind them sends a thrill through you. You've always loved this power, the ability to make him feel this way, to make him forget about the stresses of the world outside these walls.

You move your mouth up and down, finding the rhythm that makes his toes curl and his hands tighten in your hair. His eyes are glued to the sight of you, kneeling before him, your lips wrapped around him. The taste of him is familiar, but it never gets old, never fails to make your stomach flip with excitement.

He grabs your hair, guiding your movements, and you feel a shiver run through him. The quietness of the studio is only broken by the occasional sound of someone passing by outside, the distant sound of cars on the street, and the muffled thump of music coming from the other side of the building. It's a stark contrast to the symphony of your heart beating in your ears and the wet sounds of your mouth on his skin.

"You're so pretty, baby," Yunho whispers, his voice strained with pleasure as he watches you, his eyes hooded with lust. You look up, meeting his gaze, and the connection between you is palpable, a silent promise that no matter what happens, you'll always be there to take the edge off.

You moan around his cock, the vibration sending shivers down his spine. He's getting closer, you can feel it in the way his thighs tense and his breathing quickens. You pick up the pace, eager to give him the release he so desperately needs. The tip of your nose nuzzles against his pelvis as you deep-throat him, your throat tightening around his length.

"F-Fuck-!" he chuckles and leans forward, his hand gripping the chair's armrest tightly as he watches you in rapt attention. "Just like that, baby… just like that…" His voice is a hoarse whisper, his eyes glazed with lust as you continue your relentless ministrations. The way you take him in, the passion in your eyes as you suck him off, it's like nothing he's ever felt before.

You flutter your eyelashes as you look up at him, your eyes watering slightly from the effort, but the look of pure ecstasy on Yunho's face spurs you on. You feel the heat building in your own core, the friction of your own arousal against your thighs as you continue to suck and lick, bringing him closer to the edge. His grip on your hair tightens, and you know he's about to come.

His eyes are tightly shut, his head thrown back, and his breaths come in sharp gasps. You feel the muscles in his thighs tighten even further, and you know that he's on the brink. With one final, deep suck, you feel him pulse in your mouth, and he lets out a strangled moan as he releases. You swallow eagerly, savoring the taste of him, feeling his body relax as the tension drains from his muscles.

You only slow for a moment, now wrapping your other hand around his cock and stroking it as you swallow the last of his cum. You sit back on your heels, smiling up at him, your mouth glistening. Yunho's chest heaves as he looks down at you, his eyes still clouded with pleasure. "Thank you," he murmurs, his voice raw and needy.

You smile, leaning back down and kitten licking his tip once again, gently sucking on his tip. He literally jolts at the sensation, his body still reeling from the intense orgasm. "Holy fuck, I just came-"

You chuckle in response, pushing his cock further in your mouth, enjoying the way he squirms. "You can always come more," you murmur, your voice muffled by his flesh. You love teasing him, pushing his limits, making him feel good. It's a power dynamic you both thrive on, one that has grown over the years of your relationship. You swirl your tongue around his sensitive tip before popping it out again. "Can I get one more?"

"I…" he sighs, his body still trembling slightly. "I'm not sure I can handle another one right now." He opens his eyes and looks at you, his smile lazy and content. "But, if you want…"

"You've handled it before." You purr, stroking him gently, watching the pleasure play out on his face as you bring him back to full hardness. The challenge in your tone is clear, and it ignites a competitive spark in Yunho's eyes. He nods, a silent agreement to let you continue your sweet torment.

With renewed enthusiasm, you swirl your tongue around his shaft, feeling his cock twitch in response. Each touch, each lick is met with a soft gasp or moan, his hands tangling in your hair as he guides your movements. The studio's ambiance adds a layer of intimacy to the moment, the muffled sounds of the world outside seemingly fading away as you focus solely on bringing him pleasure.

The overstimulation of his senses is almost too much for Yunho to handle. He watches you, mesmerized by the way your eyes light up with mischief and desire, your mouth a perfect "O" around his cock, your tongue flicking and teasing with the finesse of a pro. The way you manipulate him is like an art form, a symphony of pleasure that he's all too willing to succumb to. He leans back into the chair, his legs spreading wider to give you more access, his body arching off the seat slightly as you deep-throat him again.

He opens his mouth as if he was going to say something, but no words come out. Instead, he releases a low groan as you continue to suck him off, your movements deliberate and practiced. The sound echoes faintly in the studio, sending a thrill through you. You've always loved making him feel this good, reducing him to a puddle of need and desire.

His groans even started turning into whimpers and it was the sweetest sound in the world to your ears. You could feel your own arousal building, your pussy throbbing and wet, begging for attention. But you knew you had to focus on him right now. You sucked harder, your cheeks hollowing as you took him deep, feeling the warmth of his cock in your mouth, the pulse of his blood beating against your tongue. You could tell he was close again, his body tensing and his breaths coming in short gasps.

"Fuck-" he whines, gripping the arm rests so tightly his knuckles turn white. "Oh my fucking god,"

You laugh around his cock, feeling the vibrations from his voice resonate through your mouth and into him. The sound spurs you on, your movements becoming more urgent. You can feel your own orgasm building as you watch him lose control. You've always had this effect on each other, pushing each other's boundaries, finding new ways to make the other feel alive.

"Fuckfuckfuck," his glasses even started to fall off his face. You giggle, reaching up with one hand to gently push them back up, not breaking the rhythm of your mouth. His eyes are now fully open, watching you with a mix of amazement and lust. "You're gonna make me come again," he whispers, his voice strained and desperate.

You nod, your eyes sparkling with mischief. You're enjoying this, the power you hold over him, the way he's at your mercy. You increase the pace, your hand moving in tandem with your mouth, stroking and sucking with a fervor that leaves him trembling. The studio's air feels thick with desire, the scent of sex and sweat mingling with the faint aroma of music equipment.

"Fuck, Y/N," he gasps. "Fuckfuckfuck, I-I'm-" He can't even form the words as his hips thrust upward, meeting your mouth's eager suction. His orgasm crashes over him, and you feel the warmth of his cum fill your mouth once again. You swallow with a satisfied smile, feeling the muscles in your jaw relax as you release him with a final kiss to the tip.

You stand up, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, watching as Yunho slumps back into the chair, his body boneless with pleasure. He opens his eyes to look at you, a lazy smile spreading across his face. "Thank you," he murmurs again, his voice thick with satisfaction. "Now, how about you?"

[blushsturns]

fort ★ bf!chris x gf!reader

description: you and chris make a fort together and well, things get steamy.

warnings: this work contains explicit content, portrays rough sex, but it is all consensual! neck kissing, touching, pet names (ma, baby, etc), fingering, f!receiving, pure filth.

w/c: 2477

building a fort with the love of your life was something you always wanted to do. it reminded you of your childhood; being young, carefree, and full of life. chris was all for it and was just as excited as you were. it didn’t take both of you very long to get it set up and once you both finished setting it up, you laid down in the midst of blankets and pillows and stared up at the pretty dangling string lights above.

“thank you for doing this with me.” you spoke softly, adoration filling your tone. “you’re my favorite person, you know that?”

chris grins widely, his body moving closer to yours and immediately wraps his arms around your waist to pull you close to him. your hand moves up to cradle his face, the pad of your thumb caressing the stubble against his jawline. “and you’re mine.” he pressed a kiss against your temple, leaning into your touch, your eyes locking together in a loving gaze.

you relaxed against his embrace, your hand moving away from his cheek to his tousled brunette locks and running your fingers through it which caused a soft moan to leave his lips. you furrow your eyebrows together in a confused manner as you move your head down to stare at him, a soft giggle leaving your lips. “you really like that, huh?”

he nods his head at your words, a soft chuckle leaving his own lips. “absolutely, but you know what else i like? besides you, of course.”

your face began to feel warm, a pink tint forming against your cheeks at his words, your eyes staying solely focused on chris as your smile only widens the more you stare at him. “hm, what?”

chris moves his hand up underneath your shirt, running his fingertips across your stomach, causing a soft shudder to run down your spine. he moves his lips over to your ear, ghosting his lips against it as he whispers, “i like touching you and making you feel good.”

you felt his fingers move teasingly underneath your the curve of your breast, his eyes staying locked onto yours the entire time. your breath felt like it was caught in your throat from the feeling of his hands against your skin and his words that sent shivers down your spine. “sometimes, i can’t take my hands off you.” he whispered against your ear, his hot and heavy breath lingering against your ear before pressing soft kisses behind it. his lips traveled down to your jawline and peppering soft kisses against it before reaching the crook of your neck.

“chris..” you mumbled softly, your fingers still running through his hair.

“shh, ma.” he replied immediately, his blue eyes turning a darkened shade of blue as he looked up at you, need and desire filling his gaze. “let me make you feel good, baby.”

you let out a soft whimper, nodding your head to give him approval as you wrap one of your legs around his waist to pull him closer. chris found your breast immediately, cupping it in his hand and running his thumb along your now perked nipple causing a soft gasp to emit from your lips at the sudden contact. he massaged your breast in his hand repeatedly, his fingers kneading your flesh as you let out a soft whine at the feeling of his hands on you.

you fucking loved when chris touched you. no matter where he touched you, it was the effect he had on you that drove you crazy. he brought his hand over to your other breast, giving it the same attention, his index finger and thumb tweaking your nipple in a teasing motion causing you to let out a needy cry. “c-chris..” you cried out, pushing your hips up into him. you felt your core grow hot, your folds beginning to glisten with wetness of your own arousal through the fabric of your shorts and panties. chris liked to take his time with you to make you feel good, but sometimes it drove you crazy when you were really needy and just wanted him to hurry up and touch you.

he didn’t reply to your pleas, his tongue beginning to trace along your neck before parting his lips and sucking onto your neck harshly, causing a louder cry to emit from your lips. you pressed your hips forward into his, immediately feeling his hardened bulge press up against your thigh. he ran his tongue along the now pretty bruise, smirking proudly against your skin at the artwork he created. he peppered kisses up from your neck, to your chin, and finally met your lips. his lips lingered along yours for a moment, his breath ghosting against yours. “you’re so damn beautiful.” he murmured against your lips, his hand still caressing your breast in his hand, rolling the hardened bud around with his finger.

his own cock was twitching with anticipation and need in the fabric of his sweatpants as it pressed up against your thigh, your leg still wrapped securely around his waist. he moved his hand away from your breast and down your stomach to the hem of your underwear inside of your shorts. before you began to beg, he already slid his hand inside and immediately found your glistening wet folds causing you to let out a soft, surprised gasp from how wet you actually were.

“fuck, mama.” he whispered out huskily, the pad of his thumb pressing against your wet clit in slow circles. “you’re fuckin’ soaked f’me.”

your cheeks were burnt red at this point. it wasn’t like this was your first time, but it always amazed you how easily turned on you got from chris. it didn’t take much at all to get you all worked up. his index finger dipped into your folds as he lazily ran his finger along your glistening wet folds causing your hips to needily press forward into his finger. you let out a soft moan, biting gently onto your bottom lip as your head tilted over to the side.

he shook his head as he realized you had bit your lip to try and contain your moans, his motions stopping abruptly as he spoke, “don’t try and hold your sounds in, baby girl. wanna hear you. don’t be shy.”

a disappointed whine left your lips with the loss of contact on your dripping pussy, but you knew it was only temporary. you nodded your head at his words, although this wasn’t the first time he has said these things. he loved when you were vocal when you guys were intimate. in all honesty, you loved hearing him too. he wasn’t afraid to be loud and let you know how good he felt and it was such a turn on for you. “i won’t hold them in. i promise.”

he smirked at you, flashing you a wink. “that’s my girl.” before immediately changing the position and pushing you over to get you on your back with him hovering over you on his knees, causing a soft surprised gasp to emit from your lips. you looked up at the stringed lights hanging above you before back down at chris as he hovered over you, a smirk still plastered on his face. “can’t get enough of you.”

chris scanned you up and down, licking over his lips in a hungry motion. he immediately tugged your shorts and underwear off you in one swift movement, throwing them in the midst of blankets around you. a shudder ran down your spine from your bottom half being exposed. all that you had left on was chris’ t-shirt, but chris kept it on for now. he fucking loved seeing you in his clothes. he spread your legs open, your glistening wet pussy on full display for him to see.

he let out a soft groan as he stared at you, his mouth practically watering at the sight. “fuck, ma. look at that sweet pussy. all f’me?” he looked up at you with hunger filling his gaze, his middle finger running up and down your folds before dipping into your tight heat causing a soft gasp to emit from your lips.

you nod your head at his words, throwing your head back onto the pile of pillows behind you. “all f-for you.” you stuttered out, a soft cry falling from your lips shortly after. you let out another gasp as his finger was now buried deep inside of your tight heat and clenched around you perfectly.

he brought his ring finger inside of you as well as he tilted his wrist to slide both fingers inside of you even deeper, causing you to moan out loudly in ecstasy. his fingers began to coat immediately with your arousal as he stared down at his own fingers pumping inside of you, groaning at the sight. squelching sounds of your arousal and your moans echoed inside fort you were in, your heart rate was rapidly increasing by the second.

his fingers felt so fucking good inside of your tight heat as you continued to clench around them. he slid both of his fingers out of you before thrusting back into you at a harder pace causing you to moan even louder, sweat glistening across your forehead as you rock your hips back against his fingers. “fuck, ma. you’re so fuckin’ tight aren’t you?” he spoke out huskily, licking over his own lips as he continued the same pace of his fingers.

suddenly, he leaned down and covered his mouth over your swollen nub causing you to let out a whiny scream. “f-fuck!” you yelped out, immediately moving your hand over to grip onto chris’ head and grabbed a fistful of his hair. “fuck, just like that!”

he moaned against your clit, which sent shockwaves against your body, causing you to shiver from head to toe. fire coursed throughout your veins, breathy moans leaving your lips. his tongue began to run over your clit quickly, rolling his tongue along and immediately tasting your arousal as you coat his tongue. he continued to moan against you as you rock your hips back against his face, throwing your head back against the pillows behind you. “taste so good.” his words were muffled against you, his tongue moving up and down your wet slick and moaning against you from how good you tasted. his own cock was throbbing immensely in the fabric of his sweatpants, but his sole focus was on you right now.

chris was really fucking good at this. he knew exactly what he was doing and he always left you breathless and unable to move or walk for hours, even days. you loved every single second of it and you weren’t complaining. your arousal mixed with his salvia coated his tongue as he continued to suck onto your clit, lapping his tongue along the swollen nub as his fingers pumped in and out of your tight heat repeatedly. your g-spot was being hit dead on which caused you to practically scream his name, your back aching off the blankets below you.

he looked up at you while his head was between your thighs, his tongue still repeatedly tracing against your soaking wet folds as he moaned against your center. you gripped his head with more force, your fingers were tied in his hair as you pushed back on his fingers and tongue. he pulled away just for a moment, licking over his lips with your arousal coating them as he spoke, “you gonna cum f’me, ma? come on. wanna feel you ‘round my fingers and taste you on my tongue. be a good girl and cum f’me.”

you nodded your head at his words, your eyes locking together as he immediately went back to your pussy and used his lips to suck onto your clit, his tongue repeatedly darting out against it, his fingers pumping in and out and curling inside of you against your sweet spot just right causing you to let out a string of breathy moans and pants.

the combination of both his tongue and fingers and his words is what sent you over the edge. “i’m..g-gonna..f-fuck!” you cried out, throwing your head back onto the pillows behind you. fire coursed throughout your veins, your stomach tightening and your pussy clenching around his fingers as you thrust your hips up into his face and fingers as your orgasm floods through you. your tight walls clench around his fingers as you cum around them and on his tongue, moaning throughout the high with heavy pants falling from your lips.

your arousal coats his tongue as he laps it up with a moan leaving his lips, his tongue flicking the swollen bud and making your legs shake from being overly sensitive due to the intense orgasm that just rippled through you. you try to push his head away from how sensitive you are, a soft groan leaving your lips as you open up your eyes to stare down at him through half lidded eyes. “too much.” you complained, pushing his head back from your center.

he let out a soft chuckle, allowing you to push him away from your sensitive clit, your arousal glistening against his lips and mouth. he used his free hand to wipe his mouth, his lips curving up into a slight smirk as he stared down at you. “fuckin’ delicious, ma.” he then slowly pulls his fingers out of your tight heat, your pussy immediately clenching onto emptiness from the loss of his fingers. his fingers were covered with your slick arousal and he moaned at the sight. “want a taste?” he furrowed his eyebrow up at you as he brought his hand over to you.

you happily obliged and grabbed his wrist and immediately took his two fingers into your mouth, sucking off your own arousal and moaning against them at your own taste. chris watched you the entire time, a slight hiss leaving his lips as he moved his free hand down to his own hardened bulge through the material of his sweatpants. he was twitching immensely with need and want from you just by tasting you and watching you come undone for him and now watching you taste yourself? he was in fucking heaven. “mm.” you moaned against his fingers as your lips continued to latch onto his fingers, sucking onto them nice and slow with a slight movement of your head, your tongue coming up to the top to get every last drop of your own arousal.

you felt your center twitching and your legs shaking from the intense orgasm you just received, but you knew the night was far from over now.

who would’ve thought building a fort together would lead to this? you weren’t complaining though. not at all.

taglist:

@sturnshood @strangelife122 @jessie-essie @giveheavensomehell @rina3476 @chrissturnioloslvt @sturnslutz @sturns-mermaid @matthewsturnsgf @christmastreecake @rinahasspots @222wall876 @chris-hallelujah @izzylovesmatt @strniloslvts @oopsiedaisydeer @sophand4n4 @xclusivedesires @mattsplaything @katiebug3851 @fetusjikook @poppingmypussy4chris @mattsbunnyxx @pair-of-pantaloons @chrissweetheart @slutformatt17 @sturnl0ve @pasteldreams @h3arts4harry @marrykisskilled @wh0remikasas @sturnzslut @camzeecorner @alesturniolos @emely9274 @2muchofaslvt @y3sterdaysproblem @sturnslux3 @bowsandsturniolos @moustacherryismyhusband @rafesapprentice @ivysturnss @headzgonewest @strawberryghost3 @il0vey0um0st

if you have any requests for me, send them to my inbox!

love you guys!

-nessa ღ

[shirakow]

❝ 𝓗.OME SWEET HOME ! ”

caleb x fem!reader / love and deepspace .

warning(s) include: SPOILER WARNING, nsfw content, hair pulling, porn with no plot, refers to readers vagina as ‘her’, and kinda sad? idk i randomly put sad parts bc i remembered his painful signal card

note: it’s been so long since I posted and I gotta say i rlly love caleb so ofc i had to post abt him. originally i played the game bc i wanted to make my mc cute but then i saw caleb and i kinda forgot abt my mc. she looks bomb tho

“It’s like she’s welcoming me home…” Caleb grunted into your ear, his hand pressing down on the light protrusion on the pit of your tummy—evidence of how deep he is in your heat. Snug and tight around his fat cock, just the way he loved it.

Tears brimmed the corner of your eyes as your tiny hands clawed at his back, your nails often bumping against the metal plates of his bionic arm.

“C-Caleb…”

A groan from him, “Yes, pip-squeak? That you or your pussy talking to me?” He grinned from ear to ear.

You’ve never once heard him talk such vulgarities towards you, especially not to your core of all things. Though you would be lying if you said you didn’t find it the least bit attractive.

The moment you��well, he adjusted to being inside you, he ground his pelvis against the curve of your ass. Each roll of his hips causing his eyes to flutter shut as he tried his best not to cum prematurely.

He was a man, through and through, and he wasn’t just gonna let his woman go high and dry. The last thing he wanted was to disappoint you and your pretty cunt.

One, two, three teasing thrusts came from him, the next ones more subtle and shallower than the last.

It was absolute torture, he was so deep inside you yet he barely even moved an inch? Shouldn’t he be more lenient? Nicer? Has the Fleet completely changed his generosity? These questions swirled around your head like cartoon birds, eating away your brain and turning it into mush.

Even your pussy cried out for more—leaking excess juices down his cock to taint his balls. The wetness was enough to resemble the tears that flowed freely from your eyes, and it almost broke Caleb’s walls down.

Almost, but not quite.

Caleb smiled, one of mischievous intent as he cupped your cheek and cooed at your pitiful expression. “You know I hate it when you cry…” Another shallow thrust.

“What does my girl want?” He was teasing you now. He pressed his forehead against yours, merely a breaths away from your quivering lips that which he thumbed and toyed with.

“Just say the word,” he whispered under his breath, the old Caleb you knew slipping past the Colonel front he put up ever since he joined the Fleet and it brought a sense of reprieve in you even for a moment. “Fast? Hard? Slow?” With each word he uttered, he gave a brief example before stopping completely.

You arched your back, pressing your chest against his as the need inside you began to grow like the plague, begging to be cured.

Caleb gave a sharp thrust before stilling his movements once more and kept his pelvis flushed against your rear, patiently waiting for your words of encouragement.

“Come on, pip-squeak…” Caleb pressed feather light kisses on your neck, “Talk to me.” A whimper escaped your lips at his words. “I…” You started while he hummed in response, non verbally telling you to go on as his bionic arm trailed down your sweaty body to cup your breasts.

Tweaking and flicking your pert nipple in between his cold, metallic fingers while closely watching your expressions, hyperaware of every detail on your face. Your pores, your lashes, your glossy eyes, your flushed cheeks—Christ, he wanted to move, now.

If you don’t beg soon enough, he’s gonna take matters into his own hands and make love—no, fuck you just the way he wanted.

“Please, move… I can’t—I can’t take anymore—“ a squeal erupted from your throat the moment he pulled his hips back and thrust back inside harshly immediately after those pleas left your mouth. The wet squelch of your pussy were music to his ears as he finally took what he and most especially you wanted.

His movements never faltered, it grew more fervent if anything, as if wanting to imprint his length along your gummy walls—to get you addicted to it. Caleb doesn’t know how long he’s fantasized of being inside you, claiming your cunny and fucking it into the shape of his cock so that it would fit him and only him.

Years of fisting his own hand, imagining it was you finally coming true. He could almost cry because of it. Caleb used his free hand to wrap your legs around his hips to pull him in deeper, closer to you. He felt like he was gonna die if he doesn’t merge with you; he needed to occupy the space between the both of you. He needed to feel you.

“Hold onto me,” he rasped, sweat dripping from his forehead and onto your face: your fucked out face that he loves so much. “Don’t you dare let go until I tell you to.” His words left no room for argument, and so you did. You held onto him like it was your life’s mission.

Your hands clawed at his toned back, leaving faint crescent marks and thin red lines on his scarred skin. “Caleb, Caleb—“ you sobbed uncontrollably, the tip of his length hitting every sensitive spot in your pussy.

As if he was born to be inside of you, born to be your partner, born to be your soulmate. The thought left a bitter taste on your tongue. Soulmate.

Sensing your sudden shift in mood, Caleb furrowed his brows and buried his face into the crook of your neck, breathing in your scent and cradled your head, his hips never faltering in its speed even if he sensed the doubt in your eyes.

“Whatever you’re thinking about, stop it.” He grunted, moving faster and harder—the head of his cock finally hitting that spongy spot deep inside of you. Your eyes flew open and instinctively scratched him harder, his name falling from your lips like a desperate prayer. “That’s it, focus on me, only me, Caleb.” He wanted to relieve you of this internal pain so only the thought of his cock was left in your pretty little head. Thoughts of how much he can make you feel good, not the latter.

He closed his eyes shut the moment your gummy walls squeezed around his shaft, as if to say he should never leave your heat, and he will gladly oblige if you told him not to.

A bubble formed at the pit of your stomach, one that was just about ready to pop. Moans reverberated around the room, paired with the sounds of your coupling and the headboard hitting the wall with every violent thrust Caleb gave you—knocking the wind out of your lungs.

Your nails continued to dig into his skin almost desperately, causing a groan to sound from Caleb. “Harder, scratch me harder…” He urged as his bionic arm left your thigh to rub at your erect pearl in fast and tight circles.

The cold metal hit your clit and you immediately choked on your moans, the feel of it sending shivers and electricity down your spine. Complying, you did as he asked of you, and scratched his skin harder. Caleb groaned and accidentally fisted your hair which he still cradled.

It was the only way he could feel you—the pain you gave him, emotionally and physically. A side effect that came with the experiments at the Fleet, and he wishes he could turn back time to the moment where everything went wrong and give you all the love you deserved. Even if it hurt, he’ll go through hell and back just to feel you on his skin once more.

“Cum for me, pip-squeak…” He huffed into your ear, “Show me just how much you missed me.” With a few more thrusts, you eventually came—squirt dripping and spraying all over your sweaty bodies.

It didn’t take long from Caleb to follow, giving a particularly harsh grind of his hips and he came deep inside of your womb, effectively filling up the void of your tummy as he collapsed on top of you. The two of you heaved for breath but you seemed the most out of it.

Caleb panted and began to pepper kisses along the skin of your neck and rubbed the back of your head as a way to apologize for pulling on your hair. “Are you okay? Did I go too hard?” He asked breathlessly and used his arms to push himself up so he wasn’t crushing you with his weight.

Caleb rested his body on his elbows as he cupped your flushed cheeks to check up on you. You gave him a faint nod and smiled, “Mhm…” You nuzzled into his palm and turned your head to gently kiss it. “I’m okay…”

He sighed in relief and nuzzled his nose against yours, “That’s good… I didn’t want to hurt you.” His lips found yours, moving it in tandem with the beating of your hearts as he remained snug in your tight heat. “That’s the last thing I wanted…” He eventually separated from the kiss and stared at you, love and affection lay bare in his eyes.

He never wanted to pull out. Was he even talking about your core anymore? Probably not. Either way, it didn’t matter. Caleb laid on his side and pulled you in close gently, not wanting to put more pressure on your sensitive pussy. His arms caged you in his embrace as he inhaled the scent of your shampoo and let his eyes flutter shut.

“I won’t ever leave you again…” He whispered, “I promise.”

[dinogoofymutated]

Okay, since requests are open, I wanted to ask for something, especially after seeing that you are comfortable with most male characters.

I present:

Scott Summers x fem!reader who's just a little too rebelious and annoying for his taste but he still can't help but love her? Like, enemies to lovers kind of style?

If you want to do a oneshot or headcanons is up to you, I'm just starving for Scott content.

Don't know, if you wanna do is, especially since he's not everyone's cup of tea, but I thought "hey, give it a try, maybe she wants to try someting different" so here I go

Anyway, love your work, you#re amazing <3

Cyclops/GN!Reader I've had this prompt saved in my drafts for SO LONG. Basically since the moment it came in!! I was so happy you sent this in bc i had been thinking about writing for Scott, but then I couldn't think of a good enough way to carry this out so I waited on it for a good bit until I had it down to a science!! Hope you enjoy!! Man, I started writing this and then realised I had to make a banner for him too 😭 I did this to myself tho Most of the characters I write for are written as combinations from different x-men media, but I'm still figuring out how I want to characterise Scott since he's a new character for me. Just wanted to put this out there in case I change how I write for him in future fics. (also, let me know how you feel about him in this one! Tell me if yall think I should tweak his attitude a bit :) ) Edit from the future: I started this draft so long ago and damn did it turn out long. TWs: Idk at the moment, will add if I think of any! Reader has a specific power that is kinda vague at first. I've written them out at the very bottom BUT if u read u will spoil the surprise of the fic so fair warning

Scott does not like you. At least, not anymore.

You've known each other for a long time, both coming to Xavier's school within weeks of each other. You used to be friends- or at least friendly. But as you both grew and learned more about yourselves and your powers, a gap began to form, and then continued to grow once both of you became members of the x-men.

It's not like he didn't notice your tendency for rebellious behavior before, but on the field? the two of you clashed more than ever. He's doing his best out here, and the last thing he needs as a leader is both you and Logan going out of your way to put yourselves in dangerous situations because you think you know better.

And the moment you get back to the mansion? You clash all over again- and over the dumbest things. You practically avoid him all of the time, refuse to spar with him unless you're forced, will scoot away from him if he has to sit next to you on game nights. It's like the very thought of brushing against him is enough to get under your skin.

The moment the blackbird lands, you should have known what to expect. But you're in such a good mood, with the mission having gone well despite all odds. Sure, you didn't exactly follow Cyclops' foolproof plan, but when did you ever?

Scott is standing at the end of the ramp when the doors open, watching with a rather sour look on his face as you laugh with Jubilee, the others trailing shortly behind. He crosses his arms, and you barely stop short of him, acting like you had never seen him in the first place as you sigh, nodding at the others to go ahead before finally turning to him and crossing your own arms.

"Go ahead. Say your piece." You say. It only stokes the irritation in him, and he scowls.

"You can't go one, single mission and actually listen to what I say, can you?" He snaps. You roll your eyes, knowing that if he had it his way, you'd never have gone on the mission at all. Still, you stand defiantly, unwilling to back down.

"Look, you weren't even there, you can't expect me to-"

"It would be different if I was there, but I wasn't." Scott interrupts you, and the aggravation it lights in you is practically all-consuming. You can't hold back your scowl. "You were the only senior member of the team on that plane, do you understand how detrimental it could have been if you had gotten hurt, or worse?!" Oh, what a load of horseshit. It's alway the boy scout schtick with him- I'm the leader, do what I say, If I was there none of this would have happened- what an asshole! Hell, in the second half you might have actually thought he was concerned for you and the team, but you knew better.

"Don't act like you actually give a damn, Summers." You snap. "Everyone is fine, no one got hurt, I don't see your problem." You're done with this. You're tired, sweaty, exhausted, and the last thing you want to be doing right now is talking with him. You knock shoulders with him as you brush past, but he reaches out and grabs you by the arm. You feel a mix of strong emotions- anger, concern, frustration- and thoughts swim in your head, before snatching your arm away from him like you'd been burned. He pauses for a second as you whip around and look at him, a rage in your eyes. He still looks at you with that stupid, stubborn look on his face.

"I get that you think I'm just some stuck-up asshole, but there's a reason I get angry when you do something reckless." His voice has lost the smallest a bit of fire. You scoff at him immediately, before turning away to storm out.

"Eat shit."

So no. things weren't exactly cool between you two.

It's not like you weren't friends at some point though, back when you were kids. You didn't know what happened to cause this rift, but he only really thought of you as some reckless idiot as of late, and you didn't care to learn anything else about what was going on in his brain.

Unfortunately, that didn't mean you could avoid him forever. Not when the both of you are on a team.

You only realise how much pain you're in when the blackbird's autopilot clicks on. Your suit was scuffed and worn in some areas, starting to burn at the edges of your sleeves as the protective coating started to wear away. You noticed it in the midst of battle, trying to focus on manipulating debri to a colder temperature rather than a hot one, but sometimes you can't afford to be picky in fights. Your suit may have been temperature resistant, but you were temperature invulnerable. Besides, heat did the most damage anyway.

You frown a bit at the sight of your burnt sleeves. Normally, you'd be worried that Hank would be mad at having to make a new suit again, but if anything you were sure he'd be grateful for the challenge of improving it. Scott was really the only one who would scold you for it, always coming back to the same arguments of being too reckless, ect, ect... and speaking of Scott, he was being awfully quiet right now.

The cockpit is empty exempt for the two of you, being the only two assigned to the mission. Scott is sat in the pilot's chair, and you can't really see much of him besides the top of his head. He's silent, and it makes you worried.

When you stand and walk. over to him, his face looks pained. You're sure his eyes are closed under his signature visor, his head leaning back limply in the chair, hair tussled. You furrow your eyebrows. You knew he'd be tired, but he's not usually this burned out.

"Scott? You alright?" You ask. he only hums in response. It's then when you realise what's wrong.

"Migraine?" You ask, and he hums in the affirmative. You wince at the thought. You knew he got migraines often, especially when using his mutation more than usual, and having migraines yourself, you knew he was hurting. You take a look at where the emergency aid box usually is, knowing it had painkillers, but the space is empty, and you sigh to yourself when you remember you used it on a local- Scott agreeing with you for once when you wanted to leave it with them for any more emergencies. You look back at Scott, and think for a moment more.

Scott jumps when you place a cold hand on his forehead, having settled your weight on the back of the chair behind him. It sparks a feeling of surprise.

"What are you doing?" Scott asks, and instead of his usual accusatory tone, he just sounds tired.

"Don't be a baby." You respond, chilling both hands and combing through his hair gently. Scott is confused as all hell. Why were you doing this? You go out of your way to avoid him at any cost, and then... this? What even was this?

But... he'd be lying if it didn't feel nice. Scott begins to relax underneath you as you continue to comb through his scalp, pressing gentle touches to his forehead as you do so. It's... it feels good.

"My mom used to do this when I was little." You say softly, after a long moment of silence. "Whenever I had a migraine, she'd run her hands under cold water for a long time, lay my head in her lap, and run her hands through my hair. The cold usually helped." Scott's shoulder's are sagging now, and he sighs every once in a while. Although he doesn't say anything, you don't need to ask. There's a question beginning to brim, but you answer it before he can even speak- saving him the effort of talking in the midst of his pain.

"...And it just felt nice to feel her play with my hair, I guess. 'figured it might help you, too."

You try not to dwell on whatever thoughts begin to swirl after that.

It's hard to tell when things shift after that. Even harder for Scott to understand why.

Eventually you go from avoiding him at any given chance, stiff and petty with your actions, to casual. Not quite friendly, but almost.

"And... Right hand red!" Jubilee calls from the couch, having entirely too much fun for someone who isn't even playing this game. Everyone who's already lost has dispersed, either playing a different game or having good conversation. The game of twister had started with four? Maybe five of you? But at the moment, it was just down to you and Scott. -The two of you being way too competitive to let the other win. At the moment, both of you were in a bit of a strange position, with Scott managing to crawl over you at some point. Aside from that, the game had been going on for uncomfortably long- long enough for the pizza to get here.

The doorbell rings and it's pretty instantaneous when people start to flock to the kitchen for the feast, Jubilee included. There's a flicker of panic in both of you as she quickly leaves.

"Hey!-"

"Jubilee! Wait!"

"You'll be fine, you big babies!" She calls out, giggling in her pursuit of the cheesy goodness. That just leaves you and Scott on the matt, pressed together in some places and a but uncomfortable, but awkwardly? Still competeting.

"God, that pizza smells good." Scott groans from above you, the smell of food becoming more and more tempting. You think about it, for a half a second maybe, but that competitive little devil on your shoulder gets to you before your stomach can.

"You know what? why don't you go ahead and grab a piece!" You say, causing Scott to cock an eyebrow at you.

"What, and let you win? Not a chance." He huffs. You shrug best you can, it was worth a shot! Neither of you were going to budge any time soon, determined not to let the other win. But the longer you stayed pressed together...

It's not like you hadn't noticed how handsome Scott was. Hell, who wouldn't? Even Logan isn't immune to his good looks, but obviously you weren't going to be... wierd, about it. You're just playing a game, right? But the sight of him above you, slightly flushed, shifting every once in a while while keeping his balance? It was... tempting.

It doesn't take long for other thoughts to begin swimming around, worming their way into your mind. The two of you in various states of undress... gasping, gripping onto one another... marks on his neck, your lips swollen and stained by the lipstick your wearing tonight.

Each and every thought leaves you more flustered than before, slipping on the plastic mat and accidentally knocking into one of Scott's weight bearing arms and sending the two of you colliding into the floor. You hear Scott let out a noise of pain and you're not down there for long before you shove him off of you, face burning as you grumble about his win. You stalk off without much fanfare, leaving Scott a bit befuddled.

"What was that all about?"

But regardless of how aggravated you made eachother sometimes, everyone has their breaking point...

You're surprised when Scott kisses you in the hall some weeks later, less than a second after a heated spat started to take a bit of a turn, but to be honest? You were into it.

His lips are soft, if a little chapped, heated kisses full of force and urgency before they soften just a little. You kiss him back in a similar manner his hands falling to your waist as you grab him by the collar and pull him even closer. You're quick to start moving the two of you backwards fumbling for a closet door you could have sworn was right... there.

As soon as the door swings open, you pull him inside, pushing him against the wall once it closes again and cupping the back of his neck as you pull him into another kiss. An unfamiliar feeling of warmth shoots through you as you do, and you almost giggle as his thoughts start to flood with more and more tempting situations for the two of you to be in.

After each and every dirty thought he has, you start to wonder if he even remembered your touch telepathy after having known you for so long- but hell, even if he didn't, you weren't complaining.

If u made it this far, I wanna give u details about the Reader's powers some more!! Specifically, the powers are temperature manipulation/temperature invulnerability/touch telepathy! They get a bit complicated bc reader can't light shit on fire or make ice out of the air, but they can melt shit and freeze existing water though! As long as reader touches it in some way! Due to this they're invulnerable to heat/cold for obvious reasons. Touch telepathy was added bc i love mutations with unnecessary layers (Emma frost) and... u really think I was gonna let scott get away without banging another telepath? wrONG

[quibbs126]

So I was attempting to practice the Cyberverse style Optimus and Megatron, though as you can see, I got a bit distracted at the bottom left, and sort of just had to put something else to fill up space

I actually started practicing yesterday at work, drawing on my cardboard sheets, so it meant I was a bit more practiced when I started here. Though annoyingly, since I elected to not go over my pencil sketches with pen, I could barely make out details in the drawings, and I could barely tell what I was doing on Megatron

It was also going to be more than just their heads, but not only was Optimus’ body taking up most of the canvas already, I wasn’t really sure how to draw it at the time. The stuff at the bottom right may have been for filling up space, but I also did need to try and at least practice their bodies

*sigh* the real struggle is making them 3D things. It’d be so much easier to figure out the shapes if I didn’t have to. But oh well, comes with the territory I suppose

But back to it, I think I did alright with the head sketches? They aren’t bad, but they feel slightly off, like I haven’t quite got them looking right

I probably need more practice, and to actually draw them full body. Also probably wouldn’t hurt to look at more Cyberverse fanart for more exposure to the style

I probably also need to start actually drawing characters more consistently, instead of drawing sketches of characters once and then never doing it again. It means I never fully get the hang of it and I keep not really making much of substance

But yeah, I feel like drawing them again at a later date, possibly even with lineless. I just don’t know what to draw them doing

But anyways, on to the bottom left

So I had finished the sketches, and my brain was like “well since we’re here, and we have helm designs right there, we could try making up fankid designs?” and eventually I gave in and decided to start sketching. I knew it’d end up on the final product anyways, but I had to give in to my impulses

Sorry, I’m sure people are sick of me bringing up this sort of stuff

Then with my first attempt, I ended up with something I actually quite liked. So I was like, might as well fully line and color

I still like the original sketch, so I’m gonna put it here, and also since I feel like the vibes are slightly different from the final

But then a problem arose after lining and going to colors. Namely that I had designed this on a whim and I had no deep thought as to what colors to use

After some tries I ended up with what you see here, but I’m not sure if I want to keep these colors. I’m not sure it fits the vibe the original sketch had

The blue middle piece I’m especially not sure on. I think it looks off, but I don’t know what to color it

Oh also, his purple isn’t exclusive to his helm, it’s his main color for the rest of his body too. At least that’s how it is in my head right now

Also as you may notice between the sketch and final, the eye shadow came later, mostly because I thought he didn’t have enough Megatron in his face. But also because of that, I hadn’t made the eyes and eyebrows with that in mind. So if I draw him again, those’ll get tweaked

I still in general don’t know if he looks enough like Megatron. I suppose I should be wondering more if he should look more like Optimus, since general shape wise he takes far more from Megs, but I’m also aware plenty of his colors stray more towards Optimus anyways

Oh yeah also, he has blue eyes here, but I really don’t know about that. I wanted to give him something other than blue or red, purple being my initial choice, but I was struggling with the colors in general and so right now he has blue. It works but I wonder if it looks too much like a fusion of their eyes

He needs more work, just like Overdrive I think. But he is here

No clue his name. I wasn’t even sure about his gender until drawing made me think “oh yeah that’s a guy”. I do have a name in my brain for a megop kid, that being Starcutter (which the two probably didn’t pick), but I don’t know if that works for him

I do think I’m going with that idea I posed yesterday (well not yesterday, but yesterday I said “what if I put it in Cyberverse?”) of him being the secret megop love child that no one but Megs knows about

I don’t know anything about him other than he’s probably on the Autobot half of Cybertron but was never really involved in the war much. To involve him in any plot, he probably comes over to Iacon after the war to try and make some name for himself

Also another idea is that he and Megatron met again during his multiverse adventures, in some universe where he was actually raised by Megatron, possibly where the Autobots and Decepticons never split because Optimus was able to properly reason with Megatron. They didn’t take him on their multiverse adventures, probably because Megatron knows he exists in his own universe and doesn’t know how to handle two versions, but also possibly because he died, I don’t know. But it was these encounters that led to Megatron attempting to search him out when he returned to his own universe. This also means Dead End and maybe Astrotrain knows about the kid’s existence, but they’re under the assumption they only exist in these wildly different universes, not their own. Which may lead to shenanigans

But yeah I haven’t solidified anything else really I don’t think. Should work on a name

And I think that’s about it for now? Yeah I should draw more Cyberverse I guess

[bitesize-astrology]

Surrender or Stand?

Thursday - January 23, 2025

In the late 80s I was a writer on a project where I was subject to an editor's knife. Her name was Mary and her edits used to infuriate me (tweak my ego is a more honest description). However after the project I realized she had made me a better writer, and I think of her often with gratitude. It also taught me how to yield to the guidance and teaching of another.

That was in my 20s. Now I'm in my 60s and things have come full circle. While I get the opportunity to "edit" others, I now see where others want to "edit" me. And I can see that their intentions toward my betterment aren't the same as Mary's were in the 80s.

There are times when ego needs to surrender to something better, something more life-affirming. But then there are times when the ego is already aligned with that "something better," and needs to stand in that space. Because maybe the "editing" of another has an agenda or benevolent ignorance that will do more to take you off your path than improve it.

That is the teaching today as Mars, Mercury and Uranus play with each other today at 23°, a degree that invites you to "know what you know," and to admit what you don't.

Today you decide to surrender or stand. Maybe your "Mary" is in your life, or someone who keeps telling you that who you are "isn't enough." I can speak from life experience, your heart will know the difference.

[impossiblepluto]

Jack strolls into the house, heading immediately for the kitchen, and continuing the animated conversation that occupied the entire drive over. That he was alone in the car and upon entrance has gained an audience doesn't break his stride-- pace or verbal deluge. Mac's a smart guy, he'll pick up the topic and register his opinions-

Within the depths of the fridge, Jack stops short, bumping the back of his head as he quickly backs up, straightening, and staring intently into the living room.

Sitting on the sofa, Mac stares back. 

Jack crosses his arms as the refrigerator door swings closed. "What's wrong?"

Mac's gaze darts around the room as though searching for whatever raised Jack's hackles, before returning to Jack. "What do you mean?"

"Something's wrong." Jack takes a step toward the living room. He too scans the room, though his stare is slower, piercing and precise before lingering on Mac. 

"Something's wrong?" Mac repeats with an air of skepticism.

"Yeah. Why are you repeating me?"

Mac scoffs. "I'm not repeating you." Before Jack can retort, Mac shakes his head and continues. "I'm trying to figure out how you can walk in here, distracted by an argument you were waging against yourself, yet still apparently losing, barely look around and declare that something is wrong.” 

"Oh ho,” Jack leans a shoulder against the wall. “You are good."

"I'm good? Wait. No. I'm still not repeating." Mac squeezes the bridge of his nose. "I am just sitting here."

"Yeah,” Jack’s brow furrows. He straightens, feeling the pieces of the puzzle beginning to come together like he’s that one French detective from the movies Bozer makes them watch, and steps into the living room. “You’re sitting. On the couch."

"That is why I brought it. It's not just for you to sleep on."

"Sitting on the couch like a normal person sits on the couch. Not sprawled across it like a teenager with limbs askew in all directions just begging for back pain and bad posture.” 

Mac snorts but it lacks amusement. He doesn’t rise to the usual ‘tease Jack about getting old’ bait like he normally would. 

“So, you want to tell me what’s up?” Jack sits on the old trunk which doubles as a coffee table. 

"I... " Mac sighs and splices together three or four words under his breath.

Jack squints, tipping one ear closer to Mac, trying to decipher the mangled phrase. “Say again?” 

Looking up, Mac enunciates, "I tweaked my knee."

Jack winces. "Trail running? I told you you need some better shoes if you're gonna be out there jumping over logs and scaling mountains."

"I wasn't trail running." Mac pauses between his words as though each one is painfully eking out.

Jack cants his head.

"I stood up wrong."

Jack's face twitches. He's a government agent, damn it. He's got a better poker face than this.

"Shut up," Mac glowers.

"I'm sorry." Jack swallows his emotions. It’s not amusement. He’s not sure what emotion he would call it, but it’s sure not amusement. He’d never find anything funny about Mac getting injured. If anything, this emotion is concern. “You stood up... wrong?"

“It’s not funny.”

“No. It’s not funny. I’ve been sitting here thinking it’s not funny,” Jack defends himself. 

“You’re smirking.”

“I’m not smirking. I wouldn’t smirk if I heard you got hurt.”

“Even if I hurt myself by standing up weird?” 

“No.” 

“Oh. Thought maybe you’d see this as some sort of payback.”

“You mean for the fifteen years I’ve spent sharing my wisdom with you and you ignore it because you’re young and your joints still work like they’re supposed to and you couldn’t imagine waking up one day and suddenly something as simple as standing up can leave you limping and hobbling around for the rest of the day?” 

“Yeah.”

“Nah.” 

“Oh okay. Thought maybe it would be something like that.” 

“And I could see how you might think that. A less sensitive, empathetic man might.” 

Mac hums. 

“You need an ice pack?” 

“I’ve been thinking about getting one.” Mac sighs, looking toward the kitchen. “Don’t want to try getting up yet though.”

“Do you need a doctor?”

“No.”

Jack eyes him carefully.

“I did think about it-” Mac hurries to continue as Jack stares harder. “I want to wait it out. If I’m wrong you can gloat.” 

“I wouldn’t gloat either.” 

“Right. No smirking. No gloating. Got it. I’ll remind you.” 

Jack stands, knees creaking. “No smirking from over there either.” 

“No smirking.” Mac winces in sympathy at the sound. 

Jack pats Mac’s shoulder as he passes. 

“You were like my age when we met.” 

“Huh, I guess so. About a year older.” Jack grabs an ice pack from the freezer and returns to the living room. 

“I remember thinking you were ancient.” Mac reaches out to accept the proffered ice pack.

“Hey!” Jack withdraws his hand before the exchange is made.  

“At twenty-one you seemed old. Listening to the way you groaned when you got out of the humvee, that seemed a whole lot older than I feel now. Or at least older than I felt this morning.”

Jack nods in concession as he settles on the couch next to Mac and passes over the ice pack. Mac claps it on his knee. With a groan he raises his leg and positions it on a pillow.

“One day you’re able to sit all curled up like a pretzel, and the next you sneeze and can’t turn your neck for three weeks.” 

“I am almost sorry I teased you all these years.”

“Almost?”

“Well, I mean, compared to me you’re still like ancient. I have a few good years of teasing before it comes back to bite me.”

Jack opens his mouth to protest, then purses his lip. “You know, I’d grab that ice pack and run but honestly, watching you try to move that leg makes me hesitant to try it.” 

“It wasn’t fun.”

“Didn’t look like it was. Last thing we need is to explain to Matty how the both of us got taken out getting up from the couch.” 

Mac flops back on the sofa, blond hair splaying against the cushions. He drops his arm across his eyes. “That’s going to be almost as much fun as moving my leg.”

“I don’t envy that.” Jack leans forward with a grunt and scoops up the remote control. “Die Hard?”

Mac shrugs, eyes still covered by his arm. “Might as well. Don’t think I’m moving for a bit.” 

“Yippee-ki-yay.”

[justsomeday-dreamer]

Olivia is a cutie i fear. What is her opinion on the jerks?

Oh she’s terrified of them😄

But for different reasons of course…

There have been people who warned her about the group but nobody knows just how fucked the group actually is, unfortunately Olivia had to fuck around and find out the hard way…

JB: “How does she do it…?” Olivia used to quietly envy and admire JBs natural charisma, warm upbringing and wit (still kind of does) not to mention everyone’s infatuation with JB , but of course when Olivia figures out that the jerks are actually batshit insane her jealousy and wonder quickly turns into concern for JB. Granted, JB may be good at handling the jerks, Olivia knows that it’s only a matter of time before her luck runs out. She still fears JB but occasionally tries to help from a distance when/if she’s capable and even then, that’s ONLY when she knows that the jerks won’t find out or get pissed. And ONLY when her conscience is bugging her. She doesn’t understand how JB is able to put up with being obsessed over by a bunch of psychos, let alone enjoy it…

Everette: “HELL NO-“ Don’t look at him and don’t talk to him. Everette has the shortest temper in the group and she’s witnessed it firsthand just how easy it is to set Everette off. Olivia finds it odd how one moment he’s talking to his mom or laughing with his friends and the next moment, he’s bashing somebody’s skull in just because somebody annoyed him. She thinks he’s a huge asshole and wants nothing to do with him, but she knows better than to say anything back when he insults her…

Nate: “I….Are you okay…?” Olivia used to see Nate the same way everybody else saw him, the bossy nagging know-it-all that’s uptight and occasionally biased despite his fixation with rules and order, but that was before she saw Nate kill for the first time. Not to mention tweaking out and crying or muttering to himself. She’s seen glimpses of him mumbling about his parents and knows better than to ask him or Everette about it, if Olivia knows anything, it’s shitty parents. Of course her speckle of sympathy doesn’t blind her from the fact that he’s INSANE and kills anybody he catches breaking the rules, or the fact that none of the faculty has ever tried to stop him…or do they even notice?

Bae: “What the hell…?” She’s still getting over the fact that Bae isn’t even human, but to her surprise he’s probably the safest option in this death trap. She actually likes him…to an extent. She finds his nicknames charming, despite knowing that he’s being patronizing and appreciates his kindness towards children and his somewhat caring nature. She’s just glad he’s not after her…doesn’t change the fact that he’s a demon of course. Who knows what he’s capable of?

Shiloh: “AAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!” Olivia fears Shiloh the MOST and for very good reason. She only knows a bit of what he’s willing to do for what he wants and that alone is enough to make her avoid this guy at all costs. He knows too much about everything and everybody and is practically omnipresent. One moment hes watching JB, then he’s keeping tabs on Nate or Pran. Shilohs eerie even when he’s “happy” with wide unblinking eyes barely masking his intentions. She almost fell for the facade, thinking she finally made a new friend at SSB, but that was before she saw what he did to Waldo…and Toni. Olivia doesn’t know when or why Shiloh could snap. Maybe he hates you, maybe he sees you as a potential asset. You won’t be safe either way…

Jeremy: “Well…” Olivia pities Jeremy…. He reminds her too much of herself before she came to SSB. Of course she was quickly shut down the moment she tried to talk to him, before she learned what the afterschool group was really like . However, she still has a painful understanding of some of his behaviors and mindset. Olivia knows that she’s not the one he needs help from, she sees how he looks at JB and she knows that he’s not safe to be around either…

Pran: “Uuuuuuhhhh…” He doesn’t really do or say anything, but he’s big enough to snap her in half. And Olivia knows that Pran would un-gladly do so if she somehow pissed him off. They both stay in their own lane but Olivia’s usually trying desperately not to offend or provoke the human rock…Guys a literal landmine

[bagog]

Japanese Brandenburg Concertos

Hiroto slumped against the wall, let his back slide all the way down the bricks till he sat with his knees to his chest on the floor. The music conservatory was frigid: out the massive windows, the world was a frozen white-out. Flakes were still coming down.

Hiroto cracked his knuckles and blew on them to warm them up. His first round performance had gone well—almost as well as he had hoped it would—and once the hundreds of other competing pianists had their turn, he would find out if he had qualified for the second round. Passing through the second round would earn him a master-class with C.K. Higgins. That was the kind of thing you put in your portfolio. Watching the flakes cling to the window, Hiroto shivered, then laid down on the floor. He pulled his jacket over his face like a blanket and tried not to think about how stiff the competition was going to be in the next round.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” a few voices were coming down the hallway. Hiroto almost peeked out to get a look, before hearing the same voice utter an exasperated slur. “You just know he’s going to get the master-class, the sneaky little robot.”

“You did great, what are you worried about?” Came another voice. The group was now at the lockers across from where Hiroto lay pretending to sleep, head covered.

“If only doing great were good enough! Unfortunately, I’m white, so doesn’t matter if I’m channeling Glenn fucking Gould. They’re still going to pick the Mitsubishi to win the master-class.”

The other voice laughed at the ‘Mitsubishi’ line. Hiroto barely revealed one eye to the hall to get a look at who was talking. Another university student, about Hiroto’s height. Dark, curly hair and a corduroy jacket over a band t-shirt. Hiroto recognized him from some of the competition rooms this morning. He’d been in the audience for Hiroto’s performance, and Hiroto had noticed the other student giving him strange looks when they passed in the halls.

“You kicked ass in there, Adam, you’re definitely going to get to the next round. He’s not worth your time, dude.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Adam rejoined. “You get all these foreign exchange students with their tiger moms and shit, pushing them to be perfect little musicians. But they’ve got no soul, it’s like a computer playing Bach. In fact, I would rather hear an AI perform than listen to another stale Japanese Brandenburg Concerto.” Adam closed the locker and leaned against it. He was fidgeting with a small American flag lapel pin on his jacket, trying to get it to sit right. Below it was a pink breast-cancer awareness ribbon.

“I mean, you’re not wrong!” His other companion chuckled.

“You think he even practices, or just downloads the sheet music directly to his CPU?” Adam responded, keeping his friend laughing. “It just pisses me off, is all. It’s not fair. Like… it was my ancestors wrote this music, it’s my inheritance, practically! Then in comes a Toyota or a Mitsubishi or whatever and plays it perfect, easy, but soulless. It’s not fair to me as a Western man, and it’s not fair to the music to let it be played with no soul.”

“Yeah, to me the problem is the judges are listening for accuracy, not soul.”

“You’re right about that. It still pisses me off.” Adam stretched his arms. He had the longest fingers Hiroto had ever seen, a natural pianist. He had that hunch in his back that said he’d spent more time practicing his scales than his posture. His eyes were a flashing blue, narrowed as they were, and his lip curled into a smile. “It’s like when you meet a trans and he’s hotter than you are, and it’s like ‘not fair, I’m supposed to look like a man.’”

Adam’s companion continued to laugh as the two walked away down the hall. Hiroto continued to lie there on the floor, face and ears heated. He sat up, leaned against the wall. He could still hear the two white students cackling on their way to watch someone else’s performance. Out the window, the snow fell exactly where it meant to fall, and frosted the whole world over.

[dykedvonte]

I think depictions of Anya being cruel to Curly or drawing out his suffering are artful and chilling but completely miss the point of the story and her character.

I'm not saying she doesn't deserve to have that "I told you so" moment with him but not in something callous or cold. Even if that is how it happened, she'd immediately feel guilty cause at that point she's not tormenting her tormenter or even the person truly at fault. She's doing something cathartic, similar to how Jimmy likely hits Curly to release rage he can't against the rest of the crew. She'd see herself as no different when she'd come back from the moment and see Curly cowering at her. She wants someone to take responsibility but how does being cruel to the defenseless help? Why would she want the power Jimmy has over her over Curly?

The idea of her extending someone else's pain is just so against the struggles she already faces and how she can't even bring herself to cause someone pain even to help them. Her very desire is to release herself from her own suffering and I doubt she'd even fine some sort of guilty release in being cruel to another.

[demigod-of-the-agni]

The pishacha are manifestations of evil itself, locked within a cursed amulet. The wearer of the amulet is at the mercy of the demon, known for possessing humans and feeding off their host's chakra energy. However, if symbiosis is achieved, the pishacha can grant its host a myriad of powerful abilities.

I just needed to draw something cool okay. I needed to draw some cool goop and some cool looks okay. okay. if I didn't post this I would have exploded okay

[skunkes]

reposting some old doodles i still enjoy a bit

[personallysunny]

[soft-pine]

woke up to these lovely DMs and while I'm of course not going to post this person's account, I am going to respond publicly. (cn discussion of SA)

okay so to preface this, you're somewhat correct. what we are doing - what we are all doing is an interpretive task. objectivity really doesn't exist - on my side or yours. and i'm not claiming it does. i have said and said again and said over again that i'm not trying to exclude or skew things. but sometimes i am simply not going to interpret a scene the way someone else does. and that's okay. please take your own notes! hell copy-paste mine and delete everything you don't like! add whatever you want!

that said, i made these notes with the intention for it to be useful to other people so if it seems like something is categorized wrong or not included, we can talk about it. i've said and said again and said over again that i am open to specific feedback. and where i have received specific feedback, i've made the small changes suggested!

but this is not specific. and honestly is virtually meaningless to me at this point. just because the notes don't sit right with your feelings about the show is not, in and of itself, proof i've missed anything. especially, especially because one of the reasons i made this document is because i saw frequent, unsubstantiated claims get circulated widely and i wanted more information to fall back on. so tell me what i've missed specifically or don't bother.

i'm sorry that you don't like that post. but honestly things can have some fucking layers. do both sam & dean make jokes to each other that make light of SA & demons, yes. are they both men who were raised in a misogynistic culture and have better and worse moments at treating each other and those around them with respect, yes. do i fucking hate meg and wish she would stop assaulting both of them, YES!

was i pointing out that there is a pattern of dean thinking about femininity and women and being embodied as a woman, yeah. it's not like i cannot engage with that comment in multiple ways. it's not like it's not in my notes.

but also like i don't go search up posts about sam's gender by people who are primarily interested in sam and say how their post is shitty to or diminishing of or not fully accounting for everything dean has experienced. that would be a waste of my time and theirs. i'm sorry i didn't talk enough about waffles in my post about pancakes but you're not in an ihop. you're in my kitchen right now. i make pancakes. we are eating pancakes.

but i take issue with again and again. point me to it. show me where dean does this again and again? like i am genuinely asking what am i missing. where is the repeated mocking? tell me what episode, what scene and i will add it to my notes and my understanding. heck! if you don't have that information, i'd take a gifset or a sam-centric meta post and put the puzzle pieces together myself.

i don't know what to tell you. these notes were compiled over the course of over a year and two full supernatural rewatches plus some. i am currently rewatching supernatural. i am never not watching supernatural. i am never not taking notes.

and i fully own my dean-centric POV. that's not gonna change. but that doesn't mean that as i was watching the show, side-by-side with the transcript page open, rewinding and double-checking and adding notes, that i was just leaving things out willy-nilly that didn't fit into my view. honestly, when i started these notes (primarily to record how sam & dean articulated their feelings about john), i didn't expect a lot of these categories to turn out this way. i don't need them to be like this to love dean and i was and am open to corrections that change these numbers. but you have to tell me what they are. and not just claim they simply must exist.

now on to this. honestly if you've been even an ounce as careful looking over my notes as i was making them, you'd find that a lot of the dialogue about possession being like SA comes from dean. that is not to say that i don't think that's how sam experienced it or that he can't feel it without saying it aloud or that fans can't interpret that that is how he is likely feeling.

but don't come here and tell me i need to consider this when i fucking marked down all the times in season 5 that dean compares the prospect of michael possessing him to rape. when i watched the scene in 14.03 when dean undresses the clothes michael dressed him in. when this is like one of the main themes of my main fic. like you don't know me. dont come on my blog and scroll down far enough to find a post you hate and then tell me you can somehow know all my thoughts on a topic that post wasn't even about.

i have never claimed that dean is being victimized by sam. if that's what you get from my notes that honestly says more about you than me.

and that's the real issue isn't it. i simply must be so biased but you all... all the people yelling at me that i've missed so much are, what... not engaged in an interpretive task with inherent imperfections and bias?

i am trying to be as honest, open, correctable, and sincere as i can about this but i don't have to skew my document until the numbers look right to you.

[embryoed]

The character assassination of Demetri Alexopoulos is my 9/11