#what’s also frustrating is that i know most of the fans will age a bit in the next few years and realize all the flaws

[velvetbunniie-archive]

“they don’t want people to know that their daughter is a monster” 1) look who’s talking, and 2) literally what did she DOOOO that was so unforgivable, except be a teenage girl that was kinda insane over her comphet crush and have access to spells. i jst think, in this fantasy world, aurora rlly didn’t even… do… that much…. like, out of all the actions she did, she mostly jst kinda handed ppl tools and then it was out of her hands. jacks fucking traded his heart to her willingly (for a protection cuff that didn’t seem to do that much for the end of the story, anyway). i’m an aurora defender, because you guys see one (1) female character that’s not perfectly feminine and submissive and you start screaming

[mv1simp]

Haunted ♥️ Part 1 of 2

Alpha!Max Verstappen x Reader (Omegaverse AU)

READ PART TWO HERE

it’s where we go, it’s what you see (I know if i’m onto you, you must be onto me)

As Mercedes’ rookie female driver, you garner a lot of media attention, even more when you reveal you haven’t presented. You don’t care about true mates or presenting - all you wanted was the championship. You’d be a lot closer to it, if it wasn’t for the dominating Alpha Max Verstappen. But after your late presentation, you two realize there’s a lot more to your bond than competition.

Content includes: 18+ MDNI, smut, size kink, primal themes, dom!Max, Sub!Reader, enemies to lovers. WC: 5.4k

Triumphantly holding the trophy up in your hands, you beam at the sea of black and white fans who scream their approval. Winning your second race after having fought your way throughout the season as the new Mercedes driver was an unforgettable feeling - sealing in that it was your talent, not luck that got you the first. And no one had given you a harder time and held up your long overdue win than the reigning world champion - Max Verstappen. Turning to your right, you reward him with a smirk as your national anthem finally plays instead of the Dutch one.

He doesn’t hide his frustrated glare at you from his P2 podium that instinctively makes you want to sprint away and hide in your safe garage behind Toto. You’re a bit annoyed he’s still taller than you, even though you’re on the highest step. One of the downsides of being 5 foot compared to Max’s tall 6 foot frame - but that hasn’t stopped you from finally taking the win from him and proving how deserving of your seat you are, you remind yourself.

As the first female driver in decades, you’d sent shock waves through the paddock when Mercedes had pulled you out of the F4 pool and straight into their seat after the loss of their golden boy, Lewis Hamilton, to Ferrari. What had been even more shocking was the fact that you were an Unpresented female in a sport that was almost exclusively dominated by Alpha males.

Like the majority of premier athletes, most of the drivers had presented from a very young age as Alphas. Unsurprising - given the traits of ruthless competitiveness, aggression and passion that came naturally to Alphas. And out of all this group of already highly dominating drivers, Max Verstappen was the alpha, well known for his perfect instincts, the ultimate apex predator. His early career was famous because of how, at 17, his intimidating aura had been enough to make grown men racing on the same track give way to the younger alpha. This automatic submission Max was able to elicit from others was one of the many, many benefits that came with being an Alpha in society - especially for one such a powerful as Max.

So when you - who was not an Alpha, or even a Beta, but rather an Unpresented - showed up to the paddock for your first ever race and then ended up somehow going wheel to wheel with the reigning world champion by Lap 20, jaws dropped and headlines were rapidly printed. Presenting as an Alpha was rare, an Omega even rarer - with the majority of the population being Beta. However a small population also remained Unpresented, spending their whole lives without any sign they belonged to any gender. Essentially, you were like a scentless Beta - but just several rungs below on the social ladder as Alpha commands had minimal effect on you. It could be worse, you had mused when started racing - you could have been born an Omega.

Omegas were a rare breed and highly sought after. With their attributes of being sweetly nurturing and natural carers - they made the perfect match for protective Alphas. Of course, as the world had historically always been ruled by Alphas, in turn Omegas had been stereotyped as the soft, submissive, delicate ones who needed to be closely guarded in society’s eyes.

So it had been suprising to you that there were not one, but two Omega drivers on the paddock this year. Yuki Tsunoda made sense, you supposed, with his slight frame and pretty features giving him away. But he certainly swore so aggressively up and down the track he’d have the commentators asking if maybe he had been assigned the wrong group. Alex Albon had been much more surprising with his very Alpha-like build - but given his quietly confident aura and gentle nature compared to the other drivers who were always aggressively arguing, it made sense looking back. And it had been even more surprising when he announced he’d found his true mate and Alpha, his girlfriend Lily.

Really, you were grateful you didn’t have the drama that came with being assigned a presentation. Even if it meant you would never have a true mate, you could live with it if you could have a shot at being world champion. But goddamn Max Verstappen, with his intense gaze and powerful aura that even you would feel tickling the back of your neck, across the paddock, would keep getting in your way. Your first P1 though, 2 months ago in Japan, you hadn’t let him win and successfully defended him off. It was the only advantage of being Unpresented - unlike the other Alphas and Omegas on the track, you were the least affected by his suffocating presence and used that to your advantage when pulling dangerous manoeuvres that vexed the Dutch driver to no end.

And he’d certainly let you know it after your first win - after a neutral indifference to you when you approached him on your first day to greet him, unlike the majority of the drivers who’d curiously flocked to the first female one. But after you took P1 from him, he claimed angrily, with dirty fucking moves, what was that overtake on the 2nd corner- you’d formed an instant dislike of him. Just because you didn’t bend to his will like everyone else?! Just because you’d won using the same move - you pointed out to him furiously - that he’d used to overtake you on the last race?

The pair of you had become quick rivals, butting heads more and more as each race went on and providing lots of great content for the media which ate it up. Sometimes Max would confuse you into thinking you were friends - occasionally murmuring helpful advice as you watched the post race highlights in the cooldown room, or shutting down sexist questions you’re repeatedly asked in the driver interviews. You’d think this was the warm, caring Max that you’d heard existed off the grid. But then you two would have some racing incident or the other and he’d be back to the fire breathing lion he usually was.

That first P1 in Japan had been bittersweet to you - because after your argument with Max, when you’d gone back to your hotel to admire your new trophy, you’d started to becoming increasingly unwell for a few days and had high fevers. You hadn’t even realised what was going on until your Beta coach banged on the door demanding to be let in, before saying you were finally presenting, 5 years late, as an Omega.

You’d been shocked and upset, of course, leading to a very traumatic first heat in a foreign country where although the desire and lust hadn’t been intense, the longing for an Alpha to comfort and protect you as you cried and whined has been so overwhelming. You had never wanted to feel anything like that again, so disempowered - so you had sworn your manager to secrecy and after a very private meeting with you, your teammate George Russell, your managers and a very concerned Toto Wolff - you’d tearfully told them what had happened. You’d expected to be dropped from the team, but they had taken one look at your distress and instantly calmed you down. Mercedes will most certainly not be dropping their very promising rookie, who had just taken P1 at her 4th ever F1 race, Toto had reassured you firmly, exuding calm confidence as he handed you a tissue. George’s large hand rubbed warm circles on your back and within a few minutes you’re laughing at jokes the two tall Alphas made to cheer you up, unable to resist the urge to protect the small Omega in front of them and using their scents to soothe you.

Regardless of how understanding your team principal had been, the fact was it would be terrible PR for you to publically present as an Omega female and risk the loss of sponsors. Given that the first heat after the presentation was notorious for being especially painful in an effort to attract a fated mate from the very start, Toto had guided you to a discreet specialist doctor to ensure the world continued to believe you were Unpresented. You’re relieved, hating the idea of being stereotyped as something delicate and pretty to be protected when you were anything but. You literally drove like a suicidal madwoman at 300km/hr for a career! So you’d promptly been started on high strength suppressors to avoid any issues with a first heat happening in the middle of a race weekend, and a couple sprays of sweet perfume later no one would be any the wiser if they picked up on any residual Omega scent that the suppressors couldn’t block.

So here you were now, celebrating your second win in Barcelona with a few of the drivers and friends at a 3 story club downtown. Although you’d been enjoying drinking and laughing with your friends, you’d been unable to stop the shivers that ran down your bare spine from your rival’s intense gaze, still simmering with anger, across the dancefloor where he was talking to Lando. You hated the way that you still felt so affected by him, by his scent that always seemed to drift over to you, always smelling more and more heady each time you saw him. And the urge to submit to him was just stupid and desperate, you thought, rolling your eyes and taking another shot. It turns out your “slutty inner omega whore” as you had not-so-fondly dubbed her, seemed more interested in having a strong Alpha’s dick inside her, instead of hating said Alpha for trying to run her off the track. Multiple times.

And tonight, the suppressants were clearly not doing their job because you couldn’t control the way you squeezed your thighs together, panties suddenly damp with the thought of an alpha like Max keeping his eyes on you - instead of the girls who had been throwing themselves at him the second he’s entered the club. You tell your inner slut who delighted in this attention to get it together, because the attention was likely murderous rage from the competitive Dutch champion at losing a race. Forcing yourself to ignore the prickles down your spine, you take another shot instead and head back to the dance floor.

Many, many drunk dances with your girlfriends later, you found yourself safely dropped off at the hotel. Pressing the button, you waited patiently for it to come down, fanning your face because you felt strangely hot in the night chill despite having left the club. And then you feel it - that heady, dominating aura that makes you want to fall to your knees. Spinning around, you see Max standing there, dressed in a rare outfit of a fitted white tee and tight pants, accentuating his broad shoulders and thick thighs. Fuck, you had forgotten Redbull was staying in the same hotel as your team this weekend.

He smirks at you, asking if you’d had a good night celebrating, because it’ll be the last win he’ll let you have this year, Princess. You despised the nickname he’s given you over the Redbull radio one race, and how it had stuck in the media too - the pretty little Mercedes princess. You give him an unimpressed glare and tell him to fuck off, Verstappen as you get in the elevator, staying right by the front with your back purposely to him. As the doors close, you can’t help but notice through the reflective wall how Max’s dark gaze unabashedly wanders down your body, enjoying the sight of your curvy, petite form dressed in a backless halter satin minidress and stiletto heels that accentuated your thick ass. Forbidden delight curls in your abdomen from the thought of an alpha as strong as Max finding you desirable. A deeper part of you - one that you would never admit to anyone - can’t deny that you desperately wanted Max to want you, having always idolised him before you joined F1. That when you’d picked out this dress you wondered if Max was going to be out tonight, if he’d see you in this outfit…and find you pretty.

And you’d never, ever admit that recently you woke up with damp thighs and lingers of a dream of being underneath a dominating blonde Alpha, his voice deep and accented as he whispered for you to take it all for me, prinses…

Again, you promptly tell your inner slut to close her mental legs - just in time as the elevator opens before both your floors to let in a large group heading to the upstairs bar.

They’re a drunk, rowdy bunch of businessmen and you’re in no mood to be felt up - and you find yourself moving beside the protective aura of Max. You scowl at how you couldn’t seem to control yourself around the taller man then find yourself surprised when he moves to cover you from their curious gazes. His wide shoulders block out their view of how enticing you look as he crowds you into one corner, his back to them. You nervously make sure you don’t stare anywhere else but straight ahead at his toned chest, your heart beating at 200bpm as the desire that’s pulsing through you being this close to him. Especially when he’s decided to look so fucking hot tonight, that intoxicating deep scent making you light headed, like luxurious velvet running down your skin, like burnt amber, smoky and woody from the embers of a winter's night fire. That wicked inner omega of yours can’t stop purring at how your scandalous choice of dress gives Max a generous view down your cleavage.

The elevator comes to a stop with a sharp jolt on the businessmen’s floor, startling you out of your thoughts and you find you’ve placed a manicured hand on Max’s toned abs to steady yourself. And as soon as you touch him - the first time you’ve ever laid hands on him, you realise later - electricity crackles in between you both. His scent becomes all the much headier to you - as if all the same flavours had suddenly become 10 times amplified. It makes you whimper and again, your body betrays you with the fresh wetness that suddenly drenches your panties.

The change in the air is instant, tension clearly palpable as you nervously peek under Max’s arm and realise the group of businessmen aren’t leaving the lift - and instead all their eyes are turned in your direction with lustful gazes. You shiver but don’t hesitate to glare at them as you tell them to get out. They don’t move, looking entranced at you, when a low, threatening rumble from Max’s chest makes it very clear that you are not to be messed with - unless they wanted to go against the strongest Alpha in a 100 mile radius. Slightly tilting his head to look back at the group, Max’s narrowed eyes and threatening aura makes them run off with their figurative tail between their legs.

The elevator closed with neat ding, moving back up, and suddenly you realised you were in a very compromising position with your rival - who had definitely noticed the very Omega-like addictive, sweet smell you were giving off as a supposed “Unpresented” female.

Verstappen- you say anxiously, frantically thinking of what to say to convince him to keep your secret. But all thoughts are cut off when Max unexpectedly leans down and buries his face into your neck, making you gasp. Your hands grab his shoulders to push him away, to ask what the fuck he thought he was doing. But the words don’t even make it out of your mouth because your head is spinning from his lips now pressing kisses against your delicate collarbones. Somehow, you’re finding yourself winding your fingers in his blonde locks, which were just as soft as they looked.

By the time the elevator reaches your floor, you’re almost falling to the ground from the sensation but Max easily supports your weight against him. He’s guiding you out of the lift and trapping you against the nearest wall - and following immediately with his hard body pressed right up against your soft one. You’re whining that he needs to stop, what is he doing, you’re in a hallway for anyone to see, but he cuts you off again with his husky voice as he breathes out that this scent, your scent, princess…fuck, I’d thought it was perfume or something but it’s all you, isn’t it? I can’t get enough of how intoxicating you are.

Tilting your head back with his strong hands, he bends down to the opposite side now and shuts up your half hearted protests by licking a line straight up the column of your throat. Oh my god, your inner omega was having the time of her life right now. Max, you murmur weakly, and he sharply inhales as your gazes meet. The dark hunger in his eyes is clear when he tells you to say that again.

And when you sweetly call his name again, he’s kissing you, still leaning against the wall in the dimly lit hallway, and you automatically moan into the passionate kiss because it feels so good, so right as his lips moved against yours with a gentleness you hadn’t expected.

But when the lift dings, signalling another arrival to your floor, Max turns to look with narrowed eyes at the potential threat and you’re reminded of how wrong wrong wrong this is and how you’d lose all your sponsors if the media found out about this scandal. So you use his second of distraction to use your small frame and slip under his arms, hastily swiping your card and slamming the door behind you when you enter.

Heart beating, you lean back against the door as your replay what just happened over and over, your hands running over your tingling lips where Max’s - your rival - has just been a second ago. Across the other side, Max leans against your door just the same. He’d let you escape his hold - for now - but he wouldn’t next time, because he knew what it meant to smell a scent so divine it made him want to destroy anything that so much as glanced in your direction. That made him lose all inhibition and pin you against a wall as he desperately resisted the urge to bury his fangs in you right there. You were his fated mate, he thinks with relief, pure joy and warmth spreading across him with the idea of having you as his mate. The one who he’d not thought he’d find at age 26 after meeting countless women. And yet here you’d been the whole time, right in front of him, the only driver who drove him so wild on the track. He'd never thought about why the pretty little Unpresented driver was able to generate such strong responses from his Alpha unusually quickly. With a backwards glance to your room where you safely hid, Max wandered away, contemplating how he was going to claim his Omega who hated him.

Meanwhile, the kiss has sent you into an absolute flurry of panic, trying to come up with ways of convincing your rival to keep your secret, having no idea why he suddenly found your scent irresistible. Your half baked plans came to an end when Max texted you the next day to meet him in the hotel lobby to talk. No fucking way, you texted back furiously, so you can get me alone and kiss me again without my permission?

You’d flown back to Monaco an hour later, ignoring Max’s replies. Clearly, he seemed as troubled by this…situation as you were, and judging by the fact you hadn’t woken up to headlines about you secretly being an Omega, it seems Max was keeping your secret - for now, at least. And you were terribly confused by how good his kiss had made you feel, even though you were furious with how he’d done it without asking, as if you belonged to him.

So you decide to ignore Max for the whole week, but when he shows up at your apartment door unexpectedly, you couldn’t hold him off. We need to talk, he’d said tersely, and that’s how you found yourself on the apartment rooftop - surprised that Max hadn’t barged his way into your apartment. In fact, he stood well away from you, leaning against the railing and looking out towards the setting Monaco sun over the pristine Mediterranean waters as you watched his back uncertainly. Just when you were going to ask him what he wanted, he began telling you the story of how his Alpha father, Jos, had claimed his Omega mother, Sophie before she had been ready. You tilted your head, confused. You were very familiar with that particular media scandal - where Jos had deliberately performed the claiming, the ancient ritualistic tradition of an Alpha marking an Omega as theirs - in the peak of Sophie’s career, and had illegally used their mating bond to manipulate her into early retirement and focus on the family instead. It left a bitter taste in your mouth, of how no court or laws could protect an Omega fully from the abuse of a controlling Alpha.

I- I know about your parent’s story, it was quite…anyways, why are you bringing it up now? Max didn’t answer your question, turning around instead to face you. You felt that same fluttering beating of your heart as his intense blue gaze locked in on your doe eyed brown one. After she was able to get the divorce, he continued, she finally found her true mate. And she told me about the difference she’d felt, in how my father and her mate had treated her, how one had made her into the wife he wanted and the other had protected her as she chose to life she wanted for herself.

You’re truly confused now about why he’s still on this topic, and tell him that you’d even spoken with his mother when you began racing about her advice as a female on the track, and you’d expressed your sympathies for how hard it must have been to have her career tarnished so early by an abusive Alpha. Being her son was one of the few things you actually respected about him. Thinking he was foreshadowing what he was going to ask of you, your scent became sour with anger. So, out with it, Verstappen, you demanded, what’s your blackmail plan, I know you know about me being an Omega, are you going to make me promise not to try for P1 because you can forget it-

Max cut you off then, stepping forward and making you tilt your head back to look up at him. You wanted to step back so desperately, knowing what happened last time he was so close - but that inner omega vixen of yours was far too satisfied with the reassuring, soft spicy scent Max was now gently emitting. You hadn’t even known he was capable of anything other than the intense scent he used to dominate on the track.

No, schat, Max says softly. I’m not going to tell anyone anything you don’t want shared. Or use it against you. I wanted to tell you my parents story…to show you my father is the kind of Alpha I don’t want to become. I don’t want anyone to go through what my mother did. You can literally feel your body relaxing from his reassuring words, with the way he had called you darling in Dutch for the first time, from his soft look and scent. And it pisses you off to no end, that he can use his biology to make you feel like this - you’d had no idea the effect from an Alpha could be this strong on you. You realize you’ve involuntarily said that out loud when he tells you it isn’t normal for you to react this intensely to an Alpha, but it’s because it’s him that you’re reacting to. At your perplexed look, he’s reminded that your parents are both Betas and you had very limited knowledge of presentations, compared to his own family which were exclusively Alpha-Omega mates for generations.

Because…because we’re rivals? You ask, those sweet doe eyes of yours blinking up at him and making the urge to protect you bloom deep in his chest. Unfortunately for his inner alpha, he was about to cause you a lot of distress with his next words.

Because - Max swallowed, because, schat, we’re true mates. I’m your Alpha, if you’ll have me.

The distress that comes off you is instant and makes Max want to jump off the balcony railing, if it means ending your despair. You’re stammering out your shock, confusion, and then just straight denial at his claim, insisting it can’t be true - but he watches you with an apologetic expression, only speaking after a long time once you’ve let out all your conflicting emotions. He softly explains why it was true, that you might not know because your own parents weren’t a true match but what happened in the elevator, the reaction to each other’s scents - it was the first step to prime you two for the claiming.

He can see the colour drain from your face, flushed caramel skin now going pale as your distress turns to pure rage, steeped with fear - of him, Max realises. So that's why you're pretending to be so nice, isn't it? you question hotly, so that I say yes to your claiming just for you to use it order me to leave racing? And you'll act like its so different to your parents-

Max can't bear this foreign pain in his chest any longer, each furious word from you twisting a knife into his heart. His inner alpha is screaming at him to comfort and console you, so he does just that by stepping forward again and taking your small form into his large arms, forming a secure hold around you. Your annoyed shriek is muffled against his toned chest, but after a few seconds you calm down once he says, sounding so unusually desperate, he will never do the claiming until you ask him too, even if that's well after your racing career finishes. You pause, hearing the genuine sincerity in his words, and somehow deep within you a sense tells you that Max is telling the truth. As his warm, large hands soothingly rub circles on your back, you find yourself closing your eyes and lean into him, your french manicured hands pressing against his firm muscles and hearing his strong heartbeat through his chest.

You stay like that for a long time, slowly processing everything he's told you, until the sunset disappears over the Monaco horizon and the bright city lights emerge. At some point his arms have wrapped around your soft waist, one hand firmly on your hip and the other cradling your head against him, softly stroking your dark curls. If anyone had told you a month ago that you'd find yourself in this position with goddamn Max Verstappen you'd have laughed them off the track. But here you are, your inner omega purring with satisfaction at the secure embrace of your strong Alpha. You find yourself returning his comforting embrace by tentatively moving your small palms up over his pecs and across his ridiculously broad shoulders, looping around his wide neck. You hear Max's breathing hitch as he feels your shy touch, and then he’s hit with your delicious scent as your new position exposes your neck. It's the same as in the lift - so sweet, like exotic Indian jasmine on a hot summer night, like burnt sticky vanilla in the stroopwafels he adored as a kid, on the rare days he was allowed to go to the park instead of karting. But this time, your scent is even more inviting as your desire for him is stronger, and he doesn't fight his instincts and buries his face into your delicate neck again. He inhales deeply and leaves you gasping when he starts leaving lazy, soft kisses in the hollow of your throat. This time, you can't bring yourself to pull away, your fingers gently threading into his hair as you tentatively call out V-Verstappen, this is-

That's not my name, prinses he rumbles lowly, Dutch accent slipping through as he continues moving up your neck, leaving hickeys with flicks of his tongue and gentle, teasing nips of his sharp fangs - teasing, but not puncturing your tantalising caramel skin. And when you sweetly moan Max for him, looking up at him with those wide brown doe eyes, heady with desire, and a pretty red flush across your full cheeks, he meets your plush lips with his own. There's no hesitation this time, your fingers tangling into his messy blonde locks as you kiss deeply. His large hands running across your body make you feel like you're on fire. And when he grabs a hold of your thick ass, squeezing it like he owned it and and pulling you even closer to him, you're gasping and moaning sweetly into his mouth. He doesn't hesitate to slide inside your parted lips, completely dominating the kiss as he easily takes control over your tongue despite your efforts to battle against his.

Max, this is so wrong you say breathlessly, eyes fluttering closed in pleasure as his large thigh parts yours, your skirt sliding up as thick muscles come into contact with your aching core. You're certain he's going to be able to feel the wetness rapidly pooling between your own legs. Then why does it feel so right, prinses? He cockily responds, squeezing your ass greedily again and moaning himself when you start grinding against his leg, your wetness dripping past your soaked panties and ruining his pants. Fuck, he was never going to take these off, so he would always have the intoxicating scent of how sweet you smelled when you were so desperate for him, hmm?

The harsh ringing of your phone you'd set on a nearby table startles you. Max ignores it, flexing his thighs up against you to tempt your self control again as your inner Omega begs you to let the Alpha - your Alpha - claim you right here, right now, for all the world to see. But through the haze you see your boss's face flash on the screen and suddenly you're reminded of what's at stake. Snapping to your senses, you stumble away from Max's strong hold, making him growl in annoyance as he reluctantly releases you from his arms. This is why I didn't want to talk, you hiss at him, but he can tell from your scent you’re more conflicted than angry. Because you- you cutely flush, -we can't control ourselves for more than 5 minutes without something like this happening. You gesture to the space between you two as he watches you inquisitively, taking in every small movement with a tilt of his head like he was a lion stalking a deer. Stay away from me from now on, Verstappen you say with a scowl on your pretty face, pointing right at him, his sharp blue eyes not missing the slight tremor that gives away how affected you feel by him. I need to focus on winning this championship and not your…slutty Alpha seduction techniques.

He lets you go, smirking as you practically sprint away down the stairs to avoid any further temptation, enjoying the view of your generous ass from behind. Using his thumb to brush the dampness you left on his pants, he licks it away, chest lowly rumbling in approval as he confirms you’ll taste just as sweet as you looked, as you smelled. Next time, he promises his disgruntled inner Alpha.

After all, it was only a matter of time before he claimed you - it was a question of when, not if. The dark, controlling parts of him wanted to lay his claim on you right now, knowing that you desired him and would be unable to resist if he wanted to have his way with you. But you’d be so much sweeter, more pliable, more eager for him if he waited until you came begging.

He’d have his fun in the meantime.

READ PART TWO HERE

[hdmsbsna]

Hiii, me again 🙄

I thought of a Paul x wife, who already have a family, bone a daughter older than 4 years, and a 2-year-old son and a newborn baby🫶🏻

And if you also dare, to do something of smut, also of x actress reader, if you can, I'll leave that free, as you want 🫶🏻

REQUESTED: i wrote this up last night instead of doing my finals. it was also like 3:00 A.M so if this is shit bare with me😭 this is a really short one though soooo...

pairing: paul mescal x reader (fluff)

warnings: none unless you don't like happiness.

description: reader is managing life with three kids while her husband is gone away for shooting, one more week until he comes back...or so they thought.

word count: 1,499

title: beautiful creations.

paul was gone away at work again, he’s been working on this project for about six months now. it’s been about a month since he was last home, you were used to his crazy schedule having to deal with it for so long but…the kids? they were far from used to it.

you and paul had decided to get married about three years ago. it was quite a small wedding, only family and friends, your eldest daughter, kiara, was about two when the ceremony happened. everyone discouraged you to let kiara come to the wedding considering her age but you guys made sure she was there to share the special moment, she was a part of it after all. 

after a year of being married, you and paul welcomed your second child to the world…a boy. paul named him kieran, and although you weren’t a huge fan of the name at first, you admit it has grown on you. he is now two years old, and he’s such a funny little human. he is a perfect image of how his father is, when him and paul are together it’s pure chaos.

the last time paul was home was actually for the birth of your newest addition, another perfect baby girl. she was born the second week of paul’s stay back. labor with her was extremely difficult, it was unlike any of your other births. thankfully you were able to have paul by your side the whole time and about twelve hours into labor, amelia, your second daughter was born. no complications whatsoever, or at least not for her. 

in my honest opinion, i think being a father was paul’s destiny. those kids are his pride and joy and he is truly an amazing father to the kids, he knows just how to talk to them and care for them. it’s truly incredible and now with three kids you have found that it’s his most attractive quality. when he’s not around, it’s not the same. which is exactly why you’re having to deal with tears from your children at 6:37 in the morning.

“BUT MOMMY I WANT TO SEE DADDY!!” yelled kieran, he may only be two but that has never stopped him from expressing his big feelings.

“you stupid, dad’s working.” your eldest replies, understanding the situation a bit better.

“hey now, kiara. we don’t call people stupid.” you sternly say.

“then why do you call daddy stupid?” she quickly retaliates.

just as you were about to respond, you hear your newborn crying through your baby monitor. you quickly walk upstairs to go get her, you figured she would be hungry so you grab her bottle on your way there. she stops crying and starts fussing once she senses your presence, you pick her up and immediately put the bottle to her mouth. you then walk back out to the kitchen where the kids are still arguing over the absence of your husband. you immediately step in once you hear your daughter call your son a “little bitch”.

“okay okay, that is enough from the both of you!” you raise your voice. “kieran, honey, your dad is going to be back very soon. just one more week, only seven days. go bring me two pieces of paper while i talk to your sister.” kieran leaves with his little frustrated stomps, you then turn your attention to kiara. 

“now kiara, you know we don’t call people names especially not your little brother. what do i tell always say about working as a team?”

“sorry mommy..” kiara says with a small pout. “i just miss daddy so much” you aren’t going to  lie and say that didn’t break your heart a little. all of this arguing and anger because they miss their father, usually it’s never this hard on them. 

“here mommy.” kieran says as he hands you the pieces of paper.

“thank you, sweetie..” you grab the pieces of paper and you hand one out to kiara and kieran. “i want you each to write five things that you love about daddy, understood?”

“yes mommy” kiara responds.

“can i write more than five things?” kieran excitedly asks. 

“you can write as many as you want, as long as there’s five things on that list.” you respond.

“YAY!” kieran yelled. both of them start writing, kieran can’t write very well but he’s still trying. he’s even drawing pictures for the words he can’t write. you look down, almost forgetting your baby girl was still in your arms, her bottle is laying on her chest and she’s just staring at you. you flip her vertically and put a towel on your shoulder as you start to burp her. you roam around the house and up upstairs just walking down the hallway burping her. it’s been about five minutes and she’s completely out, you go into her nursery and lay her in her crib, you set up the baby monitor and decide to just sit there for a little. 

that was until you heard kieran and kiara laughing, you were interested in what they had gotten themselves into so you make your way downstairs. youre at the top of the stairs when you see paul tossing kieran up in the air, he catches your gaze and smiles. he sets kieran down back on the floor.

“hey baby girl, im home.” he says smiling. you start walking down the stairs and give him a hug, you slightly pull away to give him a peck.

“EWWWW!” your children yell in unison.

“what? am i not allowed to love your beautiful mom?” the kids just giggle and you pull away from the hug. you’re on the side of him with his arm wrapped around your waist.

“DADDY! LOOK!” kieran yells as he starts doing cartwheels around the kitchen and eventually going into the living room. “wow bud, that’s amazing!” paul says. kiara comes stands next to us. “i taught him how to do them daddy.” kiara looks up at her daddy, expecting some praise.

“well you did an amazing job sweetie” he says as he reaches down to pick her up, one arm still wrapped around you and the other holding kiara. 

eventually kieran’s cartwheels come to a halt and he’s found himself extremely dizzy, tumbling and falling as he heads towards us. you walk away from paul’s arms and go to pick him up, “mommy my head..” kieran says clearly not feeling well. “yep buddy that’s what happens when you do too many cartwheels” paul says as he goes to sit on the couch with kiara. you go ahead and sit on the couch as well right next to him, you sit kieran next to paul and he climbs onto his lap right where kiara is. both children is his lap, you admire them for a bit. 

all of a sudden, you hear a static cry coming from the baby monito that you set on the counter. “oop, look at that. she senses you’re here.” you say as you walk upstairs to go retrieve the last of the bunch. you walk into her nursery and pick her up from her crib, her crying immediately stopping. you walk downstairs with her and sit on the couch right next to paul, holding your baby in your arms. kiara moves off his lap and sits on the other side next to him. “here bud, im going to carry your little sister for a tad okay?” paul says, moving kieran to stand on the floor. he reaches over for his baby and you happily hand her to him. you outreach your arms to kieran so he can sit on your lap, he opens his arms and you grab him as he nuzzles his head into your chest. he’s clearly tired from all those cartwheels he had just done not but five minutes ago.

paul speaks “gosh we really did make some beautiful children, didn’t we?”

“the most beautiful.” you respond turning your head up to him, he looks down a perks his lip and you kiss him. you look over at kiara and she passed out on paul’s arms, all three of your babie now fast asleep. 

“you’re such an asshole, you know that right?” you tell him with a playful smile on your face.

“i wanted it to be a surprise.” he says nonchalantly.

“the kids were having such a rough time without you.” you inform him.

“god, if only they knew how i was doing. i’ve missed you guys so much, especially you my gorgeous.” he says.

“i’ve missed you too, baby” you say resting your head on his shoulder, he reaches his lips down and gives you a kiss on the top of your head.

“i’m taking you guys everywhere with me from now on.” he whispers.

“that’s the best idea you've ever had, i love you so much.” you whisper back, letting a yawn out.

“i love you so much, baby girl.”

hope you guys enjoyed this, decided to keep it short and sweet. requests and dms are opened, feel free to get in touch. love you all!

[cillianhead]

Strawberry Syrup || Cillian Murphy

summary: A hot day by the pool with your desperate boyfriend <3

Warnings: SMUT!! Dubcon Themes, Unprotected P in V, oral (f receiving), fingering, sex in the pool, public sex, Daddy kink, Food Play (LISTEN.... DON'T ACTUALLY DO THIS STUFF BC ITS UNSANITARY!! (it could give you a UTI or a yeast infection or anything like that D: ), sorta switch!Cillian, squirting, Adult content!! (some sorta self insert bits that are a bit toooooo personal but it's just like a mention of reader having tattoos and stuff hehe) (Age Gap mentions, Cillian is older, Reader is in her mid 20s and he's in his mid 30s) (Cillian is a horndog in this basically)

Short fic since I haven't uploaded anything in a while.

((also stuff in italics... is sort of like memories or something (so stuff in italics isn't necessarily related to the plot... but it's gonna be mixed throughout the whole fic so just a reminder the stuff that is ITALICISED is all stuff that's either "thoughts" or "memories of the past"))

(also currency is talked about and I used the words "dollars" and "cents" because that's just what I'm used to saying? But I know there's like pounds and all the other currencies there are KDSKDSKD)

18+ MINORS DNI

Cillian had been incredibly needy lately, following you everywhere you went like a lost puppy. He just wanted your attention even though he got plenty of it. Well... maybe not this past week. Cillian and you went at it like rabbits, like at least three times a day everyday kind of thing. But you wondered how long it would take for him to get on his knees and beg after getting denied over and over and over again for you to give him (and specifically his raging boner) any sort of attention. You were surprised you had made it even to the seven-day mark. But here you were.

Cillian had turned into a total cranky mess. And you were loving it. Of course, he could get himself off... that's what made it so good, every morning you'd pretend you're asleep while you listened to the sound of him whimpering and whining like a bitch in heat and fisting his cock as he got off to the sight of you 'sleeping'.

And fuck the sweltering summer air didn't help. The aircon was broken and you'd gone through a dozen fans, trying to blow away the hot air. But the heat was making Cillian feel stir-crazy. He had to have you. No matter how hot it was, no matter how sweaty or dehydrated, he had to have you right fucking now.

He had done about a thousand fucking laps of his substantially large swimming pool, trying to work his pent-up frustration and energy out but it only did so well. He had swam until his legs were cramped up, and his eyes stung from the chlorine, leading them to be bloodshot and somehow miraculously making his eyes even bluer (bluer than the aquamarine pool). And there you lie. In that bikini you know is too tight. And he thinks to himself 'Why do you even bother to be in your bikini when it's just the two of us and I can fucking see your entire pussy through that thing anyway?'. You're reading some romance novel, and you're wet but not from the pool. Cillian is rock hard in his soaking and tight swimming shorts, the head of his cock is barely concealed from peaking out. He's dripping wet and he's angry.

"Why de fuck have you been denying me of sex for the past.... 7 days and 15 hours or however de fuck long it's been, girl?" He huffed, sitting down and carelessly grabbing your book (which was fucking printed and published in the 70s... IT CAN'T HANDLE THE WATER) and tossing it to the side, onto the wet ground. You gasp and reach out to grab your book that's been smashed in like a yam and wet and torn apart but Cillian grabs you by your forearms, brushing your new fresh tattoo (the reason you weren't swimming) and making you hiss.

"Ow... why would you do that, Cillian?" You scolded, wriggling in his hold. But you knew what was happening... he was finally taking charge. The thing you loved most about Cillian was how he was so giving and so desperate to please you at all times, like an obedient dog. He was madly in love with you and submissive to your demands, anything you wanted, you'd get. And you'd boss him around in the bedroom but that was fine because Cillian was in love with your pussy too, and whatever it took to get it, he'd do it... even if he had to dress up as a clown to do so. But he was also controlling when he got it most of the time. Though he was nearing 35, he was still like a teenager when it came to you. Dick was hard at just the sight of you and he immediately would need your hand or your mouth (if he was lucky) or even your tight pussy that always wrapped around him so perfectly. It didn't matter where you were... if he was driving, he'd get it... if you were in a public park on a Sunday night, he'd get it... if you were in a grocery store on a Black Friday sale (he'd get it), waiting in line as he ground himself into your ass until he came in his pants... It looked like he was just hugging you from behind. But you had to stand there in horror as he did so because you couldn't make a scene.

"Answer me question... babe..." He whispered as he pressed you down into the softly cushioned sunbathing chair. You were both being cooked in the sun but you were both lathered in sunscreen so it was fine. Oh, the horror on Cillian's face as he watched slather the white creamy liquid over your tits and rubbed the lotion in so incredibly sexually. You didn't even let him touch your tits for this whole week, he was suffering. But Cillian didn't care that his back was already beginning to sunburn, he fucking needed you now and honestly he was so pussy-hungry that he didn't care what it takes to get his dick inside of you. In his eyes you were the lamb and he was the depraved wolf, drooling at the sight of your trembling body beneath him. Ready to be covered in your blood.

"I just..." You shook your head and smiled to yourself, laughing out air as you bit your lip. "I just thought maybe I was letting you have it too much... you were becoming too spoiled..."

"What does that even mean?" He huffed and leaned in, resting his full body weight on top of you so you couldn't move and his hips were aligned with yours so his hard cock could press upright against your nice and warm core. Though still through his swimmers and your thin little bikini thong.

"F-Fuck..." You whimpered, honestly, you had been suffering too... even your vibrator couldn't do it for you, and just the mere pressure of his thick cock up against you... you felt like you could cum. You arched your back involuntarily. "I just... fuck... thought maybe we needed a tolerance break?"

"A fuckin' tolerance break... I'm not a drug darlin' and neither are you, baby you're just depriving yourself of what you need..." He growled right into the shell of your ear, teeth nipping at your neck. "Let me in..." He was a bit drunk and horribly depraved and his voice was like gravel.

"Beg for it," You whispered out and Cillian groaned, this time fully collapsing in on you and laying his head in the crook of your neck, rocking his hips back and forth on yours. He humped you lazily and you allowed it, enjoying the whines he was making and the pleasure that was pulsing within you.

"Please... fucking hell... please..." He moaned with a cry. "I need you so bad... my hand won't do... it just won't do... please Y/N... please baby... let me fuck you... please... let me at least get a taste of ya once again..."

"Show me how good you can go down on me baby and I'll see if you're good enough to put your dick in me..." You hummed and he sighed as he began kissing you sloppily. "You can leave one mark... Cillian... ONE..."

"Thank you... thank you, sweet girl..." Cillian whined, hands beginning to cup your body cautiously. He was so afraid he was going to do something wrong and suddenly you'd deny him even the pleasure of having your clit in his mouth. But as he kissed down your chest his fingers trembled hesitantly over your bikini top, tits begging to be released. "Can I? Please?"

"Go ahead, Cill..." You hummed with a smug smile on your face. His hands instantly moved at your words of approval, tugging the fabric from off of your nipples and popping it into his mouth with a moan. Cillian's eyes closed as he sighed from his nose, finally satisfied for now. His thumb twiddled with your other nipple, causing you to let out breathy whimpers. "F-Fuck... Cillian..."

"Mmmm..." He groans, slobber dripping from his lips as he continues to rut himself into your hips. Cillian's hair was all messy from when he'd been in the pool, ends curling and falling over his face. He looked so pretty with your tit in his mouth.

"You're all mine..." You whispered, running your thumb along his razor-sharp cheekbone, skin softer than silk. "You're my property aren't you, Cillian?" You grabbed him by the nape of his neck, tugging on the roots of the longer hair that grew there. You pulled his head off of your nipple, his mouth agape and he whines like a brat.

"I'm yours, Y/N..." He huffs, leaning back down to keep sucking but you pulled harder on his neck as if he were a misbehaving kitten. "F-Fuck... I'm your property... darling... all yours... please... I just... I just want to please you..." "I know, honey..." You cooed with a smirk as you reached over to the table beside you and picked a strawberry from the batch and popped it in your mouth, sucking on it suggestively. "That's why you're gonna eat me out like your life depends on it..." You're amused as you watch him scramble to lie flat on his stomach between your legs and he watches as you take off your bikini bottoms and spread your legs open wide. His pupils dilated immediately at the sight.

"I've missed this so much," He whines, his voice breaking as he leans in and kisses your pussy. His eyes flutter close at the little taste of you, his mouth hovering ever so slightly above your cunt, not quite touching. His lips touch you again and as he licks up your pussy he moans and fully presses himself in there, snout buried into your clit as his tongue flickered in and out of your gushing hole.

"O-Oh... that's it..." You arch your back as you push his head further into your warmth. He was completely breathing you in now as your thighs squeezed your head but eventually, you felt two hands grab ahold of your shaky thighs and pin them down side by side until you were spread out. It was concerning how easily he was able to bend and shape you into different positions, molding you like clay. It helped that he was impossibly strong as he manhandled you down into this position, eating you out for his own pleasure, not yours.

You were a writhing mess and you felt embarrassed to admit that you were about to cum. "Fuck you need to slow down... need to slow down a bit for me... Cill..." You whimpered, moaning loud enough for the neighbors to hear but you didn't care. But he only sped up, devouring you completely.

He was truly eating your pussy like his life depended on it because it did. Nothing else mattered to him but drinking down the sweet juice that your fruit of a pussy gave him. You may not be a drug but he was addicted to your cunt like it was one. Cillian had an obsession with you and he had an obsession with your perfect so-called 'heavenly' pussy. He wrote songs about you, he wrote poems about the euphoria of having your tight walls wrapped around him at all times, even during. Wet ink on wet skin, black ink smeared across your stomach as he wrote words that were coming into his mind, words you had inked on your skin with a tattoo machine later on.

"Cillian..." You whined loudly, your moan was pornographic, and with the way he could feel your heartbeat pounding against his tongue as he swirled it around your clit. His mouth was masterful and precise as you came on his face. He knew how to make you cum in a way no other did. You truly were soulmates. At least that's what he said. The sound of your whiny voice and how incredibly wet your pussy was, he just knew. So he slipped a finger into you and you seized up and cried as your body spasmed with pleasure. Only one finger made it feel like you were being stretched right open, you were always so tight and wet, and yet you could take so much. You knew he knew he had earned it... he had that look in those steel blue eyes, that cheeky look, full of mischief and lust that he knew it was okay for him to slip a finger in without asking because he was preparing you for what was to come.

"Fuck... Fuck... oh my god..." You had such a dirty mouth but you couldn't help the pathetic and inappropriate words or sounds you were making right now. Your consciousness and being were elsewhere as Cillian pushed you over the edge once more into an impending and mind-shattering orgasm. He slipped in a second finger and you mewled as you felt your cunt uncontrollably spasm as it squirted out onto Cillian's face and soaking his face oncemore. It was as if he had dived right into that 2 meters of water, soaking his entire face and chest, some of it even getting in his hair.

"Give it to me, baby girl... that's it..." He mumbled into your quivering pussy, your clit growing numb. One of his hands moved from its other position on keeping your hips in place to your nipples. He knew you so well and he knew all the buttons to push to make it that much better. It was overwhelming.

"O-Okay... Okay... that's enough... please... Cillian... please..." You cry tapping the top of his head impatiently and hesitantly he slipped his fingers from your sticky cunt and sat back up, pulling your legs over his so his crotch was perfectly aligned with your overstimulated pelvis. "Cillian... baby... I just need a moment..."

"Yeah? That's alright, my love," He whispered and he leaned in and kissed you, smearing your lips and face with your own cum. But at this point you were too drunk on your own pleasure to care, his lips to pretty... too irresistable to deny a kiss. That's one thing you hadn't denied him of... your lips. To kiss of course... nothing else. You made out like horny teenagers but you never did anything... barely touching him over his clothes. Just to get him really hot and bothered.

"I love you..." You whispered into his mouth that's dripping with drool and squirt.

"I love you more," He huffed and laid on you, lying his head on one of your tits and sighing happily. He looked over at all the fruit lying on the table that looked almost as delicious as you. "God that looks like good fruit..."

"Yeah..." You ran your fingers along his freckled back, muscles sculpted perfectly over his pointy shoulder blades. "Got them at the store yesterday... erm... they were on sale for like... two dollars and ninety cents or something..." You shrugged heavily as you began running your fingers through his hair.

"Wow... is that all? That's amazing..." He chirped and he raised his head up to look at your pretty face. "Well... did I prove myself to you, my darling girl?" "Y-Yeah... fuck... you really wanna do it right now?" You mumbled as you looked up into his eyes with a gaze full of love. You were still so sensitive from what had just happened, you hadn't cum like that for A WHOLE WEEK. You felt like you just took a dose of ecstasy. "Can we just cuddle for a bit?"

"Hmm...." He sighed, sitting up on the chair now and gazing down at how sticky your pussy looked and then at the strawberries that looked just as ripe and appetizing. He nodded. "Alright... baby... I'll give ya a little break..." He reached over and grabbed a strawberry from the bunch. It was red like the bruise he left on your neck. And as he bit into the juicy strawberry, he thought of you.

"Is it good?" You asked as you sat up a bit on the chair more and reaching out for one yourself.

"So good," He moaned with a mouthful of strawberry syrup and pulp. "Tastes like you."

"What?" You laughed and blushed as you ate your own strawberry. "You're so stupid..." You snickered as you ate.

"It's just the truth," He shrugged, the tops of his shoulders were flushed from the hot sun but the both of you were enjoying the warmth. "I love you... I am so in love with you... I am the luckiest man alive..."

"God shut up..." You rolled your eyes and smiled bashfully at his praising. But he loved it when you played it coy with him, he thought you were so cute. And he thought you could never look more beautiful, sunkissed and warm in the sun with him. Your hair is a mess and your tits are out and still wet from his spit. The straps of your bikini still help to accentuate your features and make you look like a treat he needs to unwrap.

"God I can't wait to put my cock in you..." He whispered as he pressed the tip of a strawberry to your sternum. The cold perked you up a bit as you watched him drag the strawberry down your stomach and onto your recovering pussy. He pressed the ruby red fruit onto your sticky clit and ran it down even further.

"Cillian... what are you doing... don't-" But you were interrupted by the feeling of an intrusion. He pressed the tip of the rather large and bulbous strawberry into your cunt, soaking it in your ambrosia-like cum. "Oh... Oh my god..." He pressed it in slightly deeper until he was only clutching at the stem and then he pulled it out intact and popped the tip of it into his mouth.

"Mmmm...." He bit into it and pulled it away, the strawberry juice dripping from his lips as he spoke. "Perfect.... so... fucking.... divine..."

You laid back and huffed out. "I can't believe you just did that... oh my god..."

"Did it feel like a cock?" Cillian asked bluntly and with a stupid-cocky grin on his face. "Tell me, Y/N... when you let me put a strawberry in that little cunt of yers... did it feel as good as when I have my dick in ya?" He leaned in and whispered right into your ear as he pressed the open strawberry to your clit and you let out a gasp.

"N-No..." You shook your head and closed your eyes shut. "It didn't... you shouldn't have done that..."

"Tell me how badly you want me inside you..." Cillian was using that voice he knew got to you. That deep and raspy bedroom voice... if he spoke like that to you always... you would commit heinous crimes for him if he told you so. "C'mon... like you said earlier... beg for it... like yer life depends on it..."

You were flustered at the switch in control. You found yourself suddenly helpless to the pleasure that was accumulating within you, a strawberry rubbing your sticky clit in the most perfect rhythm. Cillian was a dirty-minded man when it came to you... and he smirked as he watched you give in to it... you let him get you off with a literal strawberry.

The strawberry juice leaked down your already sopping pussy, making it the perfect treat for Cillian to lean down and make out with your sex and suck up the juice left behind from the fruit. He still feverishly rubbed the half-bitten fruit against your throbbing clit while he licked circles around your hole... where you really needed him.

"Pl-Please... Cillian..." You moaned pathetically, you hated when he made you beg. You let out a bratty huff and rolled your eyes. "Please... I need you..."

"Need me to what?" He smirked as he bit into the strawberry now, one finger inside of you, fingering your g-spot. He was finished with the fruit, mind now fully focused on you as he made you cum all over his fingers, readying you for the stretch of his cock.

"Cillian..." You whined.

"Be a good girl now..."

"Fuck... please... I need you to fuck me... need you to cum in me..." You added that last part with a smirk. You didn't let Cillian cum inside of you always, just to mix it up a little because you knew there was no other feeling out there for him that was like cumming inside of you, it was euphoric for him. You liked playing hard to get. "Please... daddy... put your babies in me?" You reached your hand up and tugged on the chain you had got him for his birthday. And you looked up at him with doe-like eyes that you knew would get him to give in to you and your pleading.

He kissed you instantly and undid his shorts to pull his suffering cock out. It was sensitive and painfully hard and he couldn't wait to bust a load into you. Especially if you were calling him daddy.

"Such a good girl..." He praised as he lined the thick head of his cock up with your pussy. He smeared you with the leaking precum and as he pressed into you, he sighed with pleasure. "I missed being inside you... so much..." Cillian whispered, eyes squeezed shut.

"Please... oh my god..." You arched your back as he stretched you open with his veiny cock. "Daddy...." You cried. "Please... kiss me..."

"Aw... how sweet..." He cooed condescendingly to you as he leaned in and connected your lips but as you opened your mouth he spat right onto your tongue and grabbed ahold of your jaw. "Swallow..." He growled and you did just that and swallowed his spit obediently. "That's right... baby... you belong to me..."

His hips moved and you were deemed speechless as he began fucking you. Your fence only went so high, if someone next door went on their top balcony or even opened their curtains they would see Cillian fucking you like you were in some sort of porno film. You were seeing stars as he rocked his hips in and out of you. It was graceful in the way he moved, like a ballet dancer, every move perfectly choreographed and precise. The tip of his cock was abusing your g-spot repeatedly, to the point you were barely coherent enough to speak. Body limp and mind blank as you were used for all you were good for.

His hands gripped at your hips tightly, rocking you back and forth as he moaned like the slut he was. Cillian was loving every second of this as he thrusted his hips back and forth perfectly spearing you on his cock. You clutched the chair with your left hand and the other left scratch makrs down his poor sunburnt back. But the pain was worth it, the feeling of your warm sticky walls wrapped around him... well... it felt like home. And his eyes rolled into the back of his head as you squeezed around him, he fucked you like an animal, gripping one of your tits in his palm, squeezing it and groaning once more as you clenched around him.

"Daddy.... I'm gonna..." You whined in a high pitch voice, eyebrows knitted together and your tongue hanging heavy on your jaw. "I'm gonna cum... oh my god..." "Cum for me baby, make a mess all over me... please...." He groaned with a sigh as he leaned down and attached his mouth to your other tit, the one he hadn't before. He flexed his hips every time he pressed his cock into you, pressing it deeper in you as he leaked out cum. "I'm gonna cum too..." He huffed, face flushed and sweaty, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

"Please cum inside me..." You moaned as you threw your head back, your orgasm engulfing you. He did just that, biting your neck as he fucked you full of his seed, balls sticky with a mixture of your arousal and his. "Ooh... feels so good..." "Yeah, baby..." He whimpered and pressed his hot lips to the side of your face, leaving sloppy traces of spit along your cheeks until your lips tangled with his. He made out with you as you rode out your high, your entire body was overflowing with love and the white-hot blinding pleasure. You still felt so full and stretched out on him but then he slowly eased his movements and pulled out, biting his lip. "God..." Cillian gasped, sitting up and looking down at your pussy that now seeped out his cum. "So pretty..."

"Please... hold me..." You pouted, reaching out your heavy arms to have him lie on top of you again. "Need to feel you... daddy..."

Cillian obliged happily, scooping you up in his arms and shifting so you were lying in his lap with your head on his shoulder. He held you and kissed your head. "I love you so much, you know that right?" He whispered into your scalp that he smelled with a smile on his lips.

"I love you more..." You grinned bashfully, running your nose along his collarbone and neck. You just loved the way he smelled. It wasn't his cologne or anything... it was just the way he smelled. You were addicted to it. "That was so good... can't believe we went a whole week without it..."

Cillian snickered and nodded. "Yeah... if you give me a couple of minutes ill be able to go at it again..." He smirked, cheeks rosy as he looked at you fondly.

"God shut up... you sillyhead..." You ruffled his wet hair and kissed the tip of his nose as you two laid there. Eventually you would go inside and he'd sneak himself into your shower where you'd fuck him against the wall while still covered in your strawberry-syrup body wash.

-----

It's summer here and I am dying from the heat and the idea of physically touching anyone right now is so ugh... EW... but Cillian is the only exception of course.

Hope you enjoyed this little fic... I know it's short but I wanted to give you guys something... the third part to Red Eyes and A Pair of New Glasses will be out soon I promise :)...

[fireboltcrystal]

The Mishandling of Varric Tethras

How Dragon Age: The Veilguard utilized a fan favorite, only for the worst....

Just a little bit more salt. I wasn’t initially going to post anything else, but I kept thinking about all the things that have frustrated me about vg. & the one that just keeps driving me insane, is how Bioware treated and used Varric in The Veilguard. I just wanted to expand/rant a little more about my disappointment and disgust. Both in what was done to Varric and how it shows off the cracks in vg’s understanding (lack) of characterization.

WARING, SALT, BASIC CRITIQUE, WITH BIOWARE/VG BASHING + IT’S LONGER THAN I INTENDED, SORRY)

~

For consideration; first I admit fully I did not play The Veilguard, I watched a friend who is also a fan, play the game from beginning to end, alongside watching others live-stream the game. Re-watching clips and reading story summaries for clarification.

I’m not a lore expert by any means, I will occasionally investigate other parts of the series for fun. But I mostly know about the series from playing the games. Extend universe is fun but should not be necessary. Plus, I should not have to pay potentially $100+ for a game and its extended universe of comics and novels, just to talk about my opinion on disappointing story aspects.

Second, I’m not a professional or semi-professional writer. So, pardon for any mistakes.

Third, Varric Tethras is my favorite character of the Dragon Age series. My bias will be on full display.

Does this all mater, no but I want to be honest just in case other fans find this and think I am trying to ‘stir the pot’ and make people who were somehow able to enjoy vg sad.

Truthfully, I do not care if anyone reads this. I just needed to compartmentalize my feelings beyond trying to only ignore and move on. Also, if you do not like Varric, fine but please don’t waste your time commenting on how you hate him. It is annoying and pointless. I do not care, have a nice day, anyways.

Character Background:

(feel free to skip to the next part, if you don’t want a refresher)

From the song 'Companions',

Varric charms with clever words

Vender of exotic goods

Writer of salacious books

A rogue, a dwarf with ragged looks

Varric Tethras is the rouge, dwarven companion of da2 and dai. Second son and first of his family to be born on the surface. Scion of House Tethras, which once held prominence in the underground kingdom of Orzammar. Which now resides in the Free Marches, city state of Kirkwall after scandal had the family banished. Though Varric does not come off as really interested in the traditions of his family’s homeland or following heavily in the faith of ‘The Stone’.

He is ironically a deeply ‘human’ character; as cunning as he is compassionate. A merchant prince with a decent ‘spy network’ (though has a difficult time not being worried about his agents). Known for wielding his signature crossbow, named Bianca; he clashes with his elder brother Bartrand and the Dwarven Merchants guild and holds a substantial tab at the “The Hanged Man” tavern. He also to extent is Andrastian, though not as pious that is traditionally acceptable. He frames it more so as enjoying an ‘great story’. But he does speak on the life of prophet, Andraste with far more understanding than even some of the most faithful characters can. Could it just be storytellers’ intuition or maybe more…

Segway into the fact that he is also a serial novelist, who writes everything from crime dramas, epics, to romances novels. He is a deeply ‘romantic’ person, loyal to friends and those he loves, at a times to a fault. Varric is a self-described liar but it never feels deeply malicious. Only as way of obfuscating when dealing with painful memories, hiding info to protect his friends from and to optimally fuck with the Chantry. His friendship with Hawke, is so close to point that he was willing to lie to the Chantry guard, and put his life and freedom on the line to protect them.

Another major example would be in his tempestuous relationship, with Bianca Davri; a dwarven engineer of tremendous skill. Though we do not get all the details as it is part of the Bianca, the crossbows naming, ‘the one story he will never tell’.

What we do get is a very complicated affair. Were the two honestly should and in some parts have already moved on from each other. It is mature, messy, and shows a flaw in his character; that though he lives in the present, he can be weighed down by his past mistakes.

-

Game-wise, in da2 he is the unreliable narrator for the story of Hawke and a rouge companion. As his background as a storyteller, he spins a yarn to Seeker Casandra Pentaghast, about the Champion of Kirkwall. Along with has a part in the main quest that ties into his relationship and ultimate the fate of his brother, Bartand. He can potentially become either a best friend or a rival to Hawke.

In dai he is again a rouge companion, initially ‘arrested’ by the Chantry, he joins the Inquisition to help save Thedas. He has a substantial role in the story; he acts as a re-introduction to Hawke (and can affected by their potential fate later in the story) and the main antagonist, Corypheus (featured in da2 dlc). Along with he is a first-hand witness to the dangers and damage red lyrium can cause. This also includes a connecting quest to destroy lyruim deposits, to which we can even finally meet the mysterious Bianca herself. He can become another friend with high approval or he can become disillusioned with the Inquisitor if low.

In Trespasser/post-game, we learn that he has been chosen to become the Viscount of Kirkwall and though the job drives him nuts; he shows a genuine zeal for the position. In the both the power he utilizes to make genuine changes for the city that he loves and to abuse it, as an excuse to give his friends ‘free shit’. Including bestowing the Inquisitor a title, estate, and key to the city (or mechanism to control the giant-ass chains lol).

~

Quick moment of positivity before vg proper, I will say I think Varric’s new design works for an older interpretation of the marksman. He has his fundamental details, the leather coat, ring necklace, obvious flash of chest hair and of course crossbow Bianca. But the new additions like the Inquisition belt buckle and the three, crossed facial scars are nice touches to his look. Minor criticism, a little confused at hair color change, but hair can turn darker as one ages, and the gray does look great on him. A little less okay with is the beard, in part since Varric known to be indifferent to the traditions of Orzammar, like having a longer beard. Prior games his face is shaven or with very faint scruff. But I can also see it as him leaving it to the way side during the hunt for Solas. Also, he is missing his three earrings, Bioware what did you do with the man’s jewelry!

VG Prologue:

Varric’s introduction in the game starts at the beginning of new protagonists Rook. In a nameless bar in Minathous. Rook can choose to react with wordplay or violence. After which Varric, chilling out in corner (which he should, let that old dwarven man rest!) comments on how Rook handled themselves in the standoff/scuffle and how they are his second in command (woof sheesh, tough break Harding). Without any time to spare they are off to find their contact.

Fist off: The bond that Rook and Varric have; is that there's kinda isn't. Normally a player is introduced to character and we naturally grow interest with them, through game play and conversation.

But in vg there is no built up, it’s all a preset relationship. “I know your can do this, you’re the best, Kid,” blah blah. Other than a few half-baked dialogue choices that pretty amount to nothing. There is no moment to talk with him, ask him questions beyond getting the main story into motion (all go, go, go find this person, here, that, there & etc.).

Something separate I bring up, not only to Varric and Rooks ‘relationship’. But an issue that I could have actually help (a little bit) of vg’s starting issues.

Why the fuck are the devs. so terrified of the original Origins.

Because this is the game that probably needed those kinds of intros back, more than ever. Be it for players returning (or first introductions) to the world of Thedas. & no, the half-baked, faction summaries are not enough when most of them barely factor into how you build and detail out your background. Some factions like the Shadow Dragons get just a few scraps to role-play or as everyone I have seen and spoken to has said that the Lord of Fortunes might as well have been cut completely, there is so little.

It feels so hollow to have hardly any dialogue choices to help flesh out Rook as a different character. Instead, they are a carbon copy personality dumpster fire, bland in a way a single-cell hero could be. Quippy and Inhuman.

Now back to Varric; how in the world do they know each other, why did they join in with the Inquisition or what remained of it, how did Varric end up deciding on a chess themed nickname, all these question & more could have been answered with a character Origin! *hooray* (Wow, look at that!)

In this have Varric play the role of recruiter like Duncan. He will meet the players, intro into combat, have quick convos on what the hell is going on, speak to the people and to show off a part of the world.

But in this case to create the foundational bond between the new player character and now mentor, Varric. So that if there are any dramas moments, the player will actually feel, if or when an npc is in peril…

But instead, the dev. team opted to just simply have Varric already know Rook, no build up required. Just a pre-established association with no real input from the player. Which creates a disconnect, new players are not going to automatically know who the hell Varric is. Most will just roll with it, so to finally get to the game proper, but it will not add up down the line…

For returning players, the writers did something kind of nasty on reflection; they used our nostalgia to do the heavy lifting of character development. We do not get to know Varric as a new person, just as extended cameo (which happens to other characters in vg). That one we are only able to understand because of playing the previous games, who though had their own development woes, still had developers with their priorities straight when creating them, its world, and its characters.

So if you are not a fan or feel neutral about Varric. Rook has a casual-esq working relationship with him. Clean, bland, sanitized (like the rest of the game).

But if you are a fan of him, it ends up feeling like an old friend you have lost contact with and now you have become different person (literally) but with the nostalgia strangling you. Varric feels slightly the same, but older, exhausted and one who’s writers should have let gently retire years ago…

It feels sad and lackluster in comparison to how full and interesting his prior introductions were.

Da2 had two Varric intros; first with his arrest and interrogation, he becomes the narrator of the game, though under distress. It creates mystery, why is this guy being dragged around though a dungeon, what has he done, does he know something, or maybe someone…

But in-game proper, after Hawke’s failed meeting with Bartrand. Varric stops a pickpocket from running off with Hawke’s stolen coin purse, he lands a bolt into the thief, taking back the money, punching them out for the trouble and returning the coins with a flourish. They talk about his brother and their plans to venture into the Deep Roads for fame, glory but money for profit.

You get a little taste of both points, Varric brought low and also at the top of his game.

In dai slightly similar but without the framing device, Varric is fighting alongside Solas (oh we will get to you). & after sealing the tear, Varric introduces himself, there is even a dialogue choice where he compares himself to us as we are both technically prisoners to the Chantry, though his arrest by Cassandra is kind of null after the explosion. It helps build a link between him and the prisoner, later Inquisitor. For new players, you get to see peak Varric charm. But also perfect for old players ready to bond with him again, after so long and to a forge a connection with a brand-new protag.

With this we not only see that Varric still has his wicked charm, but that others also react to it, Solas chuckles (heh) with a snide remark, when we say we are pleased to meet him and Cassandra’s frustration at his arrogant charisma is so endearing, for both characters. (Cassandra and Varric, have genuinely some of the best character interactions of the entire series, I will fight anyone on that).

~

Moving ahead since more of the dialogue after meeting Harding and Neve, is mainly, taking about state of Minrathous and needing to stop Solas. We reach the ritual site in the Arlathan forest... Before confronting the Dreadwolf, can either choose to support or convince against Varric talking Solas down. Regardless of choice, he still goes on head.

Varric is a man whose friends have become his family. He feels that he must try at the very least talk with Solas. Though it does go against his reactions to Solas being an agent of Fen'Harel; back in Trespasser (but I think the team kind of forgot most of the character motivations they established…).

Regardless Varric confronts Solas while the team try to stop the ritual and hold off the demons. Though I hate the result, I kind of liked the scene at first, Varric’s cheeky grin calling Solas, ‘Chuckles’ was a great touch. Especially since the two did have slight back and forth friendship in dai.

& the reaction Solas has when he sees Varric is excellent, first annoyance at who would dare distract him, then shock with a little bit of sadness when it sees who it is, but then returns into haughty determination.

But I think this is indicative how better the characters of the prior games and the weight of established relationships are from this scene. Like if Veilguard is your first game in the series, this entire scene means practically nothing other than, a super intense moment between ex-friends (where the world is at stake).

But gravitas of these two characters, the performances of their actors and the tiny shred of decent writing. Probably tricks a lot of newcomers into thinking this will be a far deeper story than it actually is…

So, after a back-and-forth, Solas will not see reason and Varric aims Bianca and Solas destroys the crossbow (I’m still devastated at the loss of such an iconic weapon). During which the ritual is disrupted, Varric attempts to stop it further by attempting to grab the ritual dagger from Solas’s, in turn Solas stabs Varric. He falls, and we are uncertain of his fate. Ancient elves Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan escape the fade and Rook loses consciousness.

The Rest of the Game:

After the ritual Rook awakens in the Lighthouse, to see a bandaged-up Varric. He looks awful and is noticeably in pain. But something is bizarre, something doesn’t seem right, his tone is off, it’s unnatural.

Other companions, seem to speak or react to him. I kept thinking why doesn't any look at him. No scenes of characters visiting him, to see how he's feeling. Nothing.

Let me tell you before I learned the truth, I was so fucking relieved to see he was alive. After all the dodgy trailers, on which Bianca being destroyed. I was just so happy to see him alive, that I didn’t see the signs. I thought maybe we would check in on him over time and watch him heal. Maybe there would be point before the end where we see him hang up his leather duster and return to Kirkwall as Viscount accepting that his adventuring days are at end. & in turn pass on the mantle of leadership to this current party. For Rook to step out and up as the new protagonist… But we will get to the full truth later.

So from now till the end Varric has two functions in vg: narrator again, but without the same wit or gravitas of da2.

& sort of back seat hype man, he is mainly resting in a dark corner of the new base, the Lighthouse. His conversations are essentially recaps of main quests, occasional references to the prior games, what the dev. team must have thought were oh so clever hints to Varric’s death (as clever as a cinder block) and then pseudo-HR training about how “Rook is the leader, and you are a part of team, and you got to work together,” yada yada…

Ultimately meaningless moments, awkward and stilled, hamstrung by vg’s blunt force repetitive dialogue.

Now to his final part in this story, close to end game Rook is trapped in a fade prison by Solas (who fell for the dumbest trick, who also can be tricked in return, wtf) they are confronted by companion(s) that were killed during a prior quest.

And here is the big revel, that Varric had died after being stabbed by Solas at the beginning of the game.

The real Varric died at the ritual site…

So, anytime that Rook spoke to him, it was not actually Varric the man, the dwarf, the living person.

Honestly, I do not know entirely what was talking to Rook.

At first, I thought he was illusion created by Solas to fuck with Rook. Maybe a shade made from a spirit (like dai where a spirit &/or Divine Justinia helps the Inquisitor). Or more likely a figment created by Rook from their repressed grief after Varric was murdered. (Honestly this is all embarrassing, like who ever wrote this, along with anyone else who let it go to print should be ashamed of themselves and then fire their therapist...)

They have an awkward come to Jesus’ moment about accepting grief (um, ok) and a stilted, rushed good bye.

(Oh and there is one moment right before the end credits where Varric appears in the clouds like he’s Mufasa or something idk; just a final slap in face before game ushers you out the door.)

~

Final Feelings and Frustrations:

So most of his inclusion of the game was not even but a hallucination, a mere idealistic interpretation of him, always supportive, always accepting, and empty.

A fandoms interpretation, a wasteful dev. teams idea.

Used as ‘character development’ for a mediocre protagonist.

Rook is as heroic as wet rag and as interesting as a rubber dumbbell.

What a tragic waste of one of the series most iconic characters…

-

Varric being killed off and used a lesson in accepting grief, was one of the most meaningless acts of literal character assassination and emotional manipulation I have ever seen a team of writers pull in some fucking time.

I would not be surprised if that was Bioware's excuse for not wanting to write anything more complicated or interesting. That they only did it for a cheap cameo and had Varric be a sacrificial lamb to create ‘tension’ between Rook and Solas.

Which can I just say for a dev. team as notoriously ‘chronically online’, the fact that they couldn’t see how a loud subset of the fandom, who are willing to forgive literally any if not all of Solas’s actions, including being involved in the death Varric, another fan favorite, is cosmically laughable.

Solas’s could turn an entire box of puppies to stone and he would be forgiven at large; esp. if it was framed as him doing it for the sake of the Elvhenan. Like please be real Bioware, you made a sympathetic villain. Fucking own up to it, you guys could not have been this delusional (though your interviews do say otherwise).

It is sooo bizarre, like does this current team even like these characters (the series even), supposedly in the development in the prior games, Varric was constantly being talked about like his time was up (like why, you made him a charming fella, what are players supposed to do, not want to friends with the guy!). They even had very early ideas for a dlc where you could romance him (I will morn this loss forever), but that he would potentially die at the end… (fml)

Hell, even Solas in this game; that was once titled as ‘Dreadwolf’. has this constant feeling from the writing that the team both adores him but also fucking hates him. Like, “Please keep talking bald elf man you have so many fans willing to pay full retail price; but also shut the hell up and begone to the shadow dimension!”

I mean, I am not a huge fan of Solas personally, but I am genuinely surprised at how many of his actual fans could be okay with Bioware’s meager crumbs. (idk toxic positivity, maybe sunk cost fallacy)

Like at one point this guy was THE main antagonist and beyond! Elven spies, manipulating nations, sowing discord to the create the perfect environment to tear down the Veil! But nope, just nothing really. Stuck in the Fade, being a big sad boy.

Strikingly bland here, esp. in comparison to the real intensity brought forth at the end of Trespasser.

[Bonus: After her threat in dai, I would not be surprised if Bianca found a way of going into the fade just so she could beat the ever-loving shit out of Solas (and all Inquisitors) for getting Varric killed.]

~

An Idea for a Thematic Polarity:

Of clinging to the nostalgic past, how to accept a conflicted present & to move forward into an uncertain future.

Solas is a person fixated on the ideal of a post-Elvenuris past. A past that never actually came to be and desires to bring it to fruition, even if means potentially destroying world. He even dissociates from the people of the ‘Dragon Age’ because, he cannot visualize them a fully fledge people. This can change, but he still goes for it. He knows there will untold death and destruction, but refuses to let go of the world before. In a better written story, he could’ve still becoming one with the Veil. After further being confronted by the reality that you cannot return the past, not like it once was. But let go for the sake of protecting those who live here and now, to go on, learn the past and make a better world for everyone.

Varric also clings to the past; even his place as a storyteller is him dramatizing, sensationalizing events, real or otherwise. He glosses over painful memories, adjusts for the audience (but mostly himself). But he is also a man who has not abandoned the present or even the future. He lives still gathering info. for his next bestseller. He is deeply conserved for the living; friends, citizens of Kirkwall and beyond. And if there is nothing to be done, we might as well take a break for now and play a round of Wicked Grace.

The team could have done things much different in the finale to Varric. They could have Varric be (actually) injured during the ritual. After which he decides to retire, he is not getting any younger and returns to Kirkwall as Viscount. Passing the torch to the next generation of heroes and storytellers.

He has sort of given up on Solas, not his friend, (he will always care about his friends) but in the hunting of the Dreadwolf, the two Elven ‘gods’ and their double-Bight. He could continue working to make Kirkwall into a bastion of the Free Marches, improving the lives of the citizens and the city he takes so much pride in.

(well ignoring the destruction of Southern Thedas, god so pointless and vindictive on the part of the devs…)

He could have still been the narrator but from a tangible distance. Only retelling it from second hand accounts, etc.

Or maybe just a lore drop, a supportive letter that finds it's way to Rook with some words of encouragement.

But all that is for head-cannons, fanfictions and fan art.

~

So with that, moving forward I think I am going to be a little of both, I will go into the future, beyond the disappointments of Bioware and The Veilguard. To different studios and new series.

But I will still continue to always love and enjoy, Varric Tethras and the Dragon Age Trilogy.

Thank you very much, either to the void or to any one for taking the time to read this mess.

[ar-cadez]

Count Duckula Fan Rewrite!!

Recently I’ve been working on a Count Duckula rewrite that aims to give it a slightly more serious tone and semi-serialized story like many modern cartoons! It took some time, but I made redesigns of the main cast. I had fun making this project and I REALLY hope you do too! Because I’m extremely nervous that the small fan base Count Duckula does have will hate this

I haven’t actually finished the show btw so if there’s an antagonist or smth that shows up later I should’ve redesigned.. lmk! I’m open to suggestions I really like this show..

—————————————————

Basic Concept

Practically the same as the original show! There is a long line of reincarnations of a wicked vampire duck named Count Duckula, the most recent reincarnation went wrong and now the current Count is a vegetarian and much more interested in becoming famous than being evil.

Some major differences include the tone and story structure, being semi-serialized and having more serious arcs mixed in with the antics, along with a lot of changes in characterization. A big story change is also that Nanny was not hired until AFTER Duckula was reincarnated so Igor was the one who screwed up the ritual.

Tone wise I’d also like to slightly age up the target audience so it could get away with a bit more dark humour. My favourite part of the original show was moments that were just so morbid and completely brushed past. 13+ would be fine methinks.

Basic plot of the average episode would be about the count’s hyperfixation of the week and trying to get famous or profit from it. Not every episode would follow this structure though.

The grander themes of the series would be all about expectations from family and strangers and how those expectations can be completely false.

—————————————————

Characters

^^ Final lineup! ^^

Sketches (less interesting poses but shows off some things better)

Count Duckula!

What I wanted to change

I feel like Duckula from the original spin-off was already a really strong character! There is a lot to him and really all I would want from a more emotional reboot is to dive into what’s already there. I did kinda project on him a bit in this rewrite though… gotta write what’cha know!

I also changed his design quite a bit. I never thought the suit fit his personality and I wanted to go with something a little more bright. If I go back again I might saturate his shirt a bit more. I also wanted all the residents of castle Duckula to have purple in their designs and for duckula and Towser to share similar colour’s inversed

Character Traits

Hatred of his legacy

Duckula is the first member of his lineage to not be an evil vampire and he hates that role that is expected of him. This is partially what drives him to be the nicest duck he can be, in hopes of shaking off his legacy. This also causes him to reject anything that's “spooky” or has to do with vampires. He physically can't eat meat or blood due to his botched resurrection, but even the sight of either distresses him.

Attention Drive

Due to his infamy, all Duckula wants is to be liked by the general public. Everyone in his town is automatically scared of him and he tries really hard to change their opinions on him whether that be through attempting to bea good samaritan or by performing in town. (Both tend to end poorly for him)

ADHD and Theatre Kid Behaviour

Duckula is constantly picking up and putting down new forms of art and performance. This can be anything from oil painting to American football. He does tend to get frustrated or distracted and abandon projects or crafts entirely. His favourite artform is acting and music so as you can imagine he's very into musicals. His musical talents are decent but his acting is awful. He’s also known to loud and overly excited over his interests

Ego and Cowardice

Being given a position of power the day you came into existence does have the tendency to make you… immature to say the least. When in danger, if he even realises there is any, Duckula’s first move is to use his title as leverage. If that doesn't work, his second is to beg, grovel, and lie his way out of the situation. That, or hide behind his much more intimidating companions.

Rich Kid Syndrome

Having the majority of people you know be your house staff really messes with your sense of responsibility. Duckula can hardly do many basic life skills on his own because of this. It's not like he is completely lazy but he does have executive dysfunction and has yet to realise that fact, causing him to procrastinate on many things and completely forget or just get someone else to do it.

Not Naturally kind

Being his father’s reincarnation, it only makes sense that Duckula would inherit many traits from his past lives. Many of the other Counts were ego-driven cowards with desires for fame. They just went about it differently. Duckula actively tries to be kind and polite but a lot of passive aggression and snark slips through the cracks of that veneer. He would never want to admit that he has ANYTHING in common with his ancestors and he hates that being nice doesn't just come naturally to him. Being an immortal, Duckula also has a skewed sense of mortality and often doesn't understand the severity of certain injuries and situations.

This Duckula has ADHD and Autism in this rewrite and he struggles most with executive dysfunction, restricted interests, memory issues, atypical empathy (not specifically low or high), sensory issues (mostly with eating and some sound), and social cues. He also stims.

Towser!

What I Wanted to Change

Towser isn’t even really a character in the original. Just a running gag without a face. I wanted to balance out the main cast by adding another female character since I have feelings on Nanny as a character and i didn’t know if i would even be able to salvage that.

I really like what I came up with! She’s fun to me and I’ll probably flesh her out more later.

Character Traits

Family drive

Towser has little interest in birds that aren't close to her and it usually takes awhile for her to get used to new people. However, she’ll protect those that she does care about with her life. She is the castle’s guard dog and will do whatever’s necessary to protect it. This often comes at the cost of her sleep, because she feels like she always needs to be awake to protect them.

Tag Along

Following Duckula around like a puppy is what Towser does best! She might not fully understand his enthusiasm on certain subjects, but she's always up to backing him up on his newest fame seeking endeavours (though she herself prefers physical activity over creative works). She never expects anything to come of it, but hey, at least it's something to do. She also likes to hear Duckula rant to her about his interests.

Big Sister

Towser is of a much more stable mental state than Duckula, and as his only friend around his age, he trusts her more to be someone to talk to about his identity issues and issues in general. The two are a lot warmer towards each other than they are anyone else, and can also get away with messing with the other a lot more.

Big ol Lap dog

When in werewolf form, Towser tends to forget her size and often crushes them with her size. This usually wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that she's always a lot more cuddly and energetic in wolf form than bird form. This is because, as a werewolf, she's only in wolf form at night and being a fully nocturnal bird that should only be awake at night, this messes with her sleep rhythm a lot.

Igor!

What I wanted to Change

Personality wise Igor is already really strong and I didn’t change much of that. You’ll probably notice from the sketches that Igor has a skeleton hand, that’s because I made him undead in this version just to give a reason to how he’s been able to live this long since the original doesn’t really have one (which is fine)

Character Traits

Devotion to the role

Igor has been the Count’s butler since the first incarnation. He was assigned to keep the Duckula legacy alive by reincarnating his master every time he meets his fate and helping him readjust every time. Helping each new reincarnation bring misery and fear to the town they reside by with a smile… Until the most recent incarnation of course. He’ll stick it out though, because he still has hope for him.

Taste for the macabre

Whether it be killing innocents behind the back of his new master, decorating the castle with cobwebs and bones, or using his undead nature to scare and torture those around him, Igor certainly has an interesting idea of fun. Igor gets a sick enjoyment out of causing others distress and despises all things kind and cute, something which definitely frustrates Duckula, who's desperately trying to fix his own image.

Bitter Traditionalist

Having lived through the centuries in castle Duckula, Igor has gained an appreciation for the history of the place and the vampire ducks that have resided there over the years. He’s rather invested in the lives of his previous masters and is extremely cross with the newest incarnation for not only not caring about that past, but also completely disowning it. Igor tries desperately to get Duckula to be a normal vampire, truly believing it could work with enough effort. Less he spend the next few centuries with a vegetarian for a master… Igor would not have a problem with Duckula pursuing fame if it weren't for the fact that he thinks it's distracting him from true vampirism.

Tired old man

Igor has lived for many centuries and he does not feel as if he should have to babysit for an immature man child like Duckula. He would rather ignore or snark the young count rather than actually talk to him. When the two argue its a constant back and forth of passive aggression and personal jobs that they almost always forget what they're actually arguing over. Duckula is physically and mentally very young (17-early 20s) compared to Igor’s other masters due to the botched revival and he doesn't know how to, or want to, deal with it.

Nanny!

What I Wanted to Change

I’m sorry to any hardcore Nanny fans out there but this is practically a whole new character. I find Nanny to be frustrating and annoying in the original and who I personally feel is a very sexist and mean spirited character. There’s absolutely nothing I would want to write with a character who’s just “big stupid fat woman inconveniences everyone around her” it’s just uncomfortable after a certain point.

My idea for a new take was just an extremely kind older woman who’s a little airheaded but is a lot smarter than people give her credit for. This sets her up as a foil to Igor. She’s also the only non-monster resident of the castle in this version which I personally think is really interesting.

Character Traits

Only good influence

While Igor actively sets out to make Duckula a bad person and Towser couldn't care less about how Duckula acts, Nanny is the only direct influence in Duckula’s life who pushes him to do better. Nanny believes Duckula is a good person at heart and pushes him to take more responsibility in his life. She wants him to learn a good work ethic and is fully supportive of him trying to better himself.

Good Christian Woman

Nanny is, in fact, a christian. She is fully aware of the demonic nature of her companions but believes that everyone can better themselves no matter their circumstances and attempts to better those around her. Igor hates her for it but she’s totally ignorant to that fact.

Assertive Mother Figure

Though Nanny is a very kind woman, she is also not a pushover. She will assert authority over Duckula and anyone else if necessary, and most are compliant once she puts her foot down, if they aren't, however, Nanny does pack a punch and won't hesitate to use her strength to protect her family.

Smarter than she seems

Nanny is an airheaded optimist with a big heart and those traits make her come off a lot more clueless than she actually is. She may seem like she has no idea what’s going on but she’s actually very observant and is fantastic at assessing a situation and finding the best course of action.

Dr. Von Goosewing

What I Wanted to Change

I really liked the idea of the antagonist to Duckula was in a liniage of vampire slayers and that their ancestors have been fighting for generations. It gave me the perfect set up for a ✨SHADOW ANTAGONIST✨ I wanted to make this rewrite have the two reflect each other a lot more. To do that I wanted Goosewing to still be a really cooky guy but I didn’t want the public to know that.

Also I have no idea why he’s dressed like Sherlock Holmes in the original if he’s a Van Helsing parody and also an inventor. You could’ve leaned into either of those ideas but for some reason he’s dressed like a detective? so I tried giving him a more fitting outfit but keeping his colours for recognisablity.

Character Traits

Playing Village hero

Goosewing is considered a big deal in town because of his family of vampire hunters. He’s prepared his whole life to kill Count Duckula the moment he comes back and to protect the common folk from the paranormal. Despite this, Goosewing isn't actually particularly skilled at his job and usually ends up failing his assassinations due to his own incompetence. He feels like he has to play the role as a hero to continue his family’s legacy despite not particularly enjoying it or being good at it.

Overestimating the enemy

With how cunning and malevolent the past Duckula incarnations were, Goosewing expects the same from this one. Goosewing believes that Duckula is a dangerous and clever foe completely focused on causing others pain. In reality, Duckula is the most incompetent bird in all of Transylvania, aside fromGoosewing himself, of course. Goosewing also comes to believe that Duckula is only acting nice to later betray the public, a belief he is not quiet about and that keeps the public from trusting Duckula.

Mad Scientist

Goosewing definitely falls into the eccentric scientist trope with his innovative but scatterbrained nature. He would much rather be working on an invention than actually doing his job. The public sees him as a hero but while hunting vampires or when hes alone he comes off as more of a mad scientist than the hero character he plays. His intentions are ultimately good but are completely based on the assumption that he’s the wholly good protector of the people and that Duckula is a cunning villain who's out to get him and everyone else.

Shadow

Goosewing and Duckula reflect each other in a lot of ways. They both have a legacy they are expected to uphold despite not wanting to or even being able to, they both care deeply about the public’s opinion on them while the public has an incredibly incorrect view of the both of them, and they both have creative interests outside of the roles expected of them that they'd rather be persuing. Duckula fully rejects anything to do with his ancestry, while Goosewing is actively trying to fulfil despite not enjoying it.

The Murder Brothers!

What I Wanted to Change

Haha I called them the murder brothers bc they’re crows and criminals Im actually so funny… anyway. I don’t know if I should’ve even done these guys but I really like them as antagonists so!!

I gave the younger two names and a personality. The wiki said they didn’t have names but if they do lmk and I’ll just fix that. Other than that I didn’t change much except try to give ‘em a bit more depth and changing their physical designs a ton for fun.

Character Traits

The Murder Brothers, as a whole, are a tight knit family of con men crows who pull any grift they can to get their hands on some cash. Though they may act like their only loyalty in life is to money, they do genuinely care about each other's well being

Ruffles

Ruffles is the short tempered and eldest leader of the group. He’s constantly frustrated with his brothers’ incompetence and isn't quiet about it. He believes that if it weren't for them he'd probably be a lot further in life by now (which isn't true) and he’ll say he doesn't care about them, but he actually does.

Burt

If he didn't insist on helping his brothers, Burt would be the most likely to be living an honest life. As the second oldest sibling, Burt holds a position as right hand man. He’s a naturally kind and enthusiastic bird who, while a bit dumb, does openly express his love for his brothers. He takes on a lot of the abuse from his older brother and is often used by the group to talk to others, because he's so naturally trustworthy.

Reggie

Reggie is the second youngest of the brothers and the most relaxed out of all of them. He has an impeccable sleight of hand and is the go to for lockpicking and such. He’s a decent smooth talker and is often the one to break up fights, though he's not above getting angry at the others himself.

Leroy

Leroy is the youngest of the brothers and by far the least skilled. His speech is incomprehensible from under his mask (although he can see through it for the most part) and he’s often left with the worst jobs during their cons because of that. He’s the most timid out of all of them but I’m sure if you took that mask off of him he’d be really talkative.

—————————————————

Ending Words

Well that’s all I got! I spent way too long on this project that maybe two people will care about and one of them is me 💔 Anyway if I make anything else for this rewrite/au I’ll tag it with #wbcd . I wouldn’t count on it because I mighttt get burn out from this but im just so glad I finished it! I’ve thought about writing a pilot script just for fun but idk. I’d like to do more long format au stuff, I was going to make a YouTube video about this but I almost cried trying to record myself so I gave up 💔

[kuromochimi]

omg okay i saw ur requests are open so… how would bl boys react if their spouse got pregnant? can u make it angsty if you can plz😝 i like hurting myself

• MINORS DNI • MINORS DNI ��� MINORS DNI •

oh this plot fits our career driven boys soooo much (reo’s is his gf since I didn’t notice the spouse part from the request while I was writing his part)

Content warnings: angst, talks of pregnancy and abortion, a bit ooc bc these boys are toxic here, characters are aged up! Not proof read

Mikage Reo

Standing in front of reo had never felt as anxiety inducing as it did right now. He was your safe space, someone you’d run to whenever you felt uneasy and for the most part, he never failed to give you the comfort you needed. He was gentle, patient, and reassuring. That was… until you handed him a positive pregnancy test. As shaken as you were, reo’s world was also spiraling as he stared at the two pink lines shown on the test. Positive. He got you pregnant and right as he was at his prime as a new football player.

“No” was all he mamaged to say. “No? Reo you- you can’t just say no” you were sobbing, thinking of how you’d have to stop your studies and how you were going to have tell your parents. “I just… yn I can’t handle a baby right now. And my parents. Fuck, my parents are-“ his hands in his hair, tugging lightly in frustration. You wanted to get mad at him and scream and push him but all you could manage to do was look at him in shock. How is he the same person who cuddled you every night and bought your flowers just because. The same person who had you in his future plans and promised to marry you as soon as you both had stable careers. Amidst reo’s sweet reputation in your heart and mind, you often forgot that he was also as career driven as he was in love. Reo had already disappointed his parents once when he chose to play sports instead of working at their family’s company. Now he’s made it to a place where they can at least commend him for his choice. He can’t risk another disappointment. His parents didn’t even know he had a girlfriend.

Finding out you were pregnant, your initial response was fear which later changed to calmness because you were so sure of reo. You were so sure that he wouldn’t leave you hanging. Maybe you shouldn’t have been so hopeful after all.

Itoshi Rin

Your relationship with rin isn’t what people think it is. Sure you were married. Sure lots of his fans adored you as well. But behind the scenes, the marriage was arranged by his parents. That said, rin was never hostile. The relationship was civil, it was peaceful even. He did his thing and you did yours.

Later on in the marriage, you both decided that since you guys were married anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to add a couple more benefits along with having each other’s (quiet and to some extent, comfortable) company. Sleeping together became a regular occurrence and without meaning to, that led to you getting pregnant, something which rin had never planned on and something he definitely won’t be happy about. You weren’t happy about it either. Not when you didn’t exactly have a healthy family to give the baby to be. Acting fast, you scrambled to your laptop to schedule yourself for an appointment to get a check up and most probably to get rid of the pregnancy. Unfortunately, in panic, you left your pregnancy test on the bathroom counter. Something that rin was welcomed with once he got home. It didn’t help that you left your laptop in the bedroom for him to see your scheduled appointments as well.

Thinking you could get by without letting rin know, you decided to act normal upon seeing him enter the kitchen. You were preparing dinner when he walked in. After smiling at him and greeting him to acknowledge his presence, you went back to dinner prep. This confused rin. Were you not going to tell him? Was the test maybe not yours? Were you fucking with him? “Really yn? Don’t you have anything to say?” “hm? what do you mean, rin? Did you want something else for dinner?” He annoyingly nodded “you’re pregnant?” This made you freeze, dropping the knife on the floor, barely missing your foot. For a second, a flash of concern hit rin’s eyes but that might as well have been your imagination. “It’s a yes then” you gave a barely there nod. “Rin I was going to tell you. I also just found out I’m sorry” he nodded again “You were going to tell me? Sure. Not like you already had an appointment with the clinic, no?” Your face lost all its color. You weren’t even sure why he was acting so annoyed. Every time your parents or his parents nudged you two to give them grandchildren, rin would always act annoyed and irritable the moment you get home. He also repeatedly expressed his refusal to have children, especially not when his career was booming. Having a wife was one thing but a child? Entirely different. He didn’t have to invest so much when it came to you. He just has to be respectful, be someone to satisfy your needs sometimes, maybe even go on a few dates here and there. Easy. But he wasn’t a monster so having a child would take up so much of his time, something he couldn’t afford to give. Was what he always said. So why was he so mad at your for just taking one step ahead? “I thought you didn’t want to have a baby, why are you mad?” You semi-shouted. “Maybe I didn’t but you can’t just decide to get rid of it on your own. That’s messed up” “okay but stop raising your voice rin, you’re scaring me. You always tell me you don’t want a baby with me so I just assumed” “Know what? Considering you seem to want to get rid of it so quick, then yeah sure, I don’t want that baby. You have my card, use it for the hospital bill or call me if you need me to be there. You probably won’t though, right?”

a/n: I suck at writing angst but here’s an attempt o(TヘTo)

[silviakundera]

Melody of Golden Age ep 1-2 watch comments

"Even a ghost claiming lives has personal desires."

Empress Dowager ruling behind the curtain

Head of the Imperial Guards!ML is slightly unusual, that's more commonly the role we see in second male leads/supporting character who backs up the ML.

But because they've made him the ML, he's of course Super Respected & Very Serious Business Guy

I appreciate how OTT melodramatic the ML is. His intro is The Double-esque.

I also appreciate that we can actually tell that armor is supposed to be heavy.

Decent costuming & sets - not historically accurate but the story isn't trying to be. It looks decent (not just cheap fabric & props), creates a sense of time & place. You can tell the clothes have a sense of weight, like they should. tbh my expectations were low, so I didn't expect it to look so good.

So the guy over the Inspectorate is a dick. Noted.

ML has the backing of the Empress Dowager. So tons of political players resent him. A bit precarious.

FL is non-descript but that's not necessarily a bad thing. She just acts like a normal person. After just trying 2 dramas where the actress does this thing where she opens her mouth & eyes wide as she talks and constantly looks unsure/startled and almost sounding-out her words, it's refreshing to see an actress just... talking

Assassination attempt! FL is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Inspectorate dude most definitely a dick.

LMAO the slo-mo on the ML and the not-at-all-scary dogs 😂😭

ML was the son of a convicted official, huh? Who rose to captain of the guard? not bad, my dude, but who was his benefactor and will they turn out to be SECRETLY EVIL???

FL knows ML from somewhere but is he pretending not to remember, because he just that dramatic

Young orphan boy wants to become FL's disciple. He's cute and hopefully not Secretly Evil (look, SOMEONE is gonna be secretly evil, let's just face facts)

FL is gonna be sister in law to ML but is that truly all she "remembers" about him? ugh her sister has that cutesy way of speaking that grinds my gears. Please!! don't purse your lips and talk wide-mouthed like a child 😭

FL family are not fans of marrying their fav daughter to the dramatic guard leader. FL's concubine mom: "It's quite good to be ignorant and uneducated!"

so there's a reason ML doesn't want this marriage bestowed: the prime minister can threaten their family, pressuring the married in daughter to spy on ML and share info

but engaged sister has fled with a scholar! 😱 how predictible! Except our ML and FL already met, so she will need ML's participation in the subterfuge

LMAOOOOOOOOO ML cannot move a finger without slow mo and an orchestra. can't even trot his horse down the street 😭 buddy is just going for an evening ride stoppppppp

ML is being so omnious and unnecessarily threatening, he knows that girl fled right?

The way they have ML and FL face off so far isn't bad, compared to other low-grade idol dramas - he is above her in status and the way he speaks to her very much reflects that but it never feels to me like he is treating her like a child, simply a lowly constable (he's just That Bitch). She asserts herself with frustration & anger, but she doesn't throw temper tantrums, stamp her feet and pout.

Bad guys are in masks. 🕵

Oh yeah, I knew it - ML is betting on the bride's family to cancel. He knows that 3rd sister won't show.

FL just like, "I'll be the bride" - girl I know ya'll don't want to die for defying the monarch but he literally knows who u are. Like you've had 3 conversations and he knows your name. What's the plan??

lmao he shows up just to be intimidating and point a sword in her face. I would try to sell him on fake-spying.

Huh. He actually doesn't need any convincing! Doesn't press about deceiving the monarch and lets it go. There's been multiple indications that he's a drama queen who had created this image but he has a soft side underneath. He's given her a way out twice now when it would have been easy & convenient to let her die.

ML is right that this marriage isn't much of a threatening conspiracy when everyone knows what's up. He's ridiculous but also sensible.

I hate her sister-friend, do not stay PLEASE go home. you are on my last nerve.

oh naturally ML and FL met as children and there's a token. there's always a childhood token.

ML can't even walk into a room without dramatics asdgghjkl

tbh I feel like he is actually a lot nicer about things than he could have been. other than some threatening, he's just gonna let her live there as long as she doesn't spy on him.

[dootznbootz]

I do agree that a lot of people in that OdyDio space do tend to character assassinate them both to have their mlm ship often at the expense of Penelope entirely. It's extremely frustrating to see it happen on such a widespread level and it starting to take root as a pretty popular alternate ship for Odysseus. I feel like there could be a way to do it that simply doesn't water them down into half of what they should be as characters but not many fics that I've read in the past make that effort. Idk where I was going with this really but I appreciate your viewpoint about this ship and other similar points on it very much.

*sighs* Thank you for appreciating my rants :') I don't like doing them and I've done it quite a few times enough already but I need to let it out lol. <3 It's very frustrating as a Penelope lover. I'm happy that I'm not so alone in this feeling tbh.

And literally everything you've said ;~; Especially the first statement of "a lot of people in that OdyDio space do tend to character assassinate them both to have their mlm ship often at the expense of Penelope entirely."

People act like it's canon when it's simply not and never was. Period. And that's okay. Ship and let ship but don't act like it "definitely happened". It's an AU. And Diomedes is definitely not on the same level as Penelope in Odysseus' heart. I love Poly ships but for Odysseus to have clawed his way back into the arms he never wanted to leave in the first place, to be told he can only give one hand for his wife, the one he shares his mind and heart with, SO OFTEN is just... ough.

Like the Odyssey is the Ithacan Royal Family's story...And yet people think the "Real Odysseus" is in the Iliad and/or basically putting aside everything in the Odyssey for fanon version of the Iliad.

Like, my "Water Wife" being a weird cryptid water woman is technically an AU as well. I know this. I very much hope others know this as well. And that's okay.

As like, I wouldn't hate it so much if this weren't the case and if it wasn't shoved down my throat as often as it is ;~; It's literally everywhere. I already can't ramble about Penelope without someone making it about Odysseus. At least that's a bit understandable as that's the love of her life. But the fact that if I ramble about Penelope, people will bring up Diomedes?! Because of a non-canon crackship? (Also, Epic only mentions Diomedes once. Why are Epic fans, who've never even read the Iliad/Odyssey, (sorry to gatekeep but also not. I'm being mean right now) shipping it??? at this point it's just that you like the fan creations. WHICH IS FINE, BUT ADMIT THAT.)

I'm not against crackshipping and/or just shipping because it's hot. My guilty pleasure is MenOdy, a non-canon crackship. I know it's not canon. They definitely care deeply for each other but there is such a thing as deeply platonic friendships. As it even goes against their character to get together, as that would be cheating on their wives if they did have a relationship during the war. (Don't bring up Megapenthes as of right now. that's a separate and more complex topic altogether in the terms of "Cheating" in my opinion) Despite enjoying this ship, I never proclaim that it's canon. Especially not in the Odyssey and the Iliad.

And like, MenOdy comes from them being alike in how they ARE both loving husbands and fathers similar in age. That's the intrigue for me. As in character to a degree! Most OdyDio almost like, takes away Odysseus' love for Penelope in order to make it about Diomedes, which is SO wild and so wrong to canon. That's an AU.

I always try to like, start out headcanon talks with mostly "In my stuff", "In my Writing", etc. as like, to make it apparent that it's technically not canon and so that like, others know that it's just in my stuff and that they don't have to agree. Fanfics aren't essays, despite a lot of my interpretations being incorporated into my stuff.

Honestly like, it's almost hard to write sometimes because I almost feel so much...Pressure??? To make sure my Penelope fics are PERFECT. I want her to have creations and ideas and fanfics for her. I refuse to halfass her. I want her to have love and thought that's just more than just OdyDio's third and/or just a wife or mother. She deserves so much more.

[n1ghteeea]

pl e ase dynamic thoughts on the classic peter/egon and ray/winston!! I'm so invested in your blog OUUGH!!

Okay so this one actually depends on the context quite a bit. I love both ectotrain and mechcare a LOT, however, personally I’m not a huge fan of when ppl brake the gang into two couples. They are a team! A family!! Frequently bought together! Don’t separate!!

When it comes to just the dynamics HUGE FAN I mean I’m a huge fan of all of them, but yeah. Ectotrain is great because these two are complete polar opposites of each other in terms of how they see the world and approach life and its challenges (and pretty much everything else, frankly). But!! They STILL get along so well and complement each other on the busts and in daily life, and it’s super fun to watch. Instead of being annoyed at each other’s differences, they are just simply fond all the time and I love it. Yes, there are some disagreements and mild frustration sometimes, but it’s never serious or long-term and it once again shows just how well they know and how much they love each other, with all the idiosyncrasies.

And I SEE THE APPEAL, I get why this is (probably, from what I saw) the most popular ship from any ghostbusters piece of media, but also ugh, okay, not going into that.

MECHCARE these two are just so sweet. ECTO-1’s co-parents, if you wish. Again, very different but also very similar in many ways. They have a lot of points of connection: love for mechanics (and, as mentioned above, ECTO-1, and though I don’t see Winston as the car guy at all, but he does tinker with her more than Egon OR Peter, so I give him a proud co-parent name). Cooking, reading, old cartoons. They always interact in a very caring way, and while this is not limited to them, you can SEE that they care about each other so much in every interaction.

Idk, huge fan of them, especially in later years. I feel like EGB mechcare has so much potential as these middle-aged men in love. Maybe it’s Frozen Empire’s fault even though it’s in the movie timeline and not RGB buuut they remind me of RGB Winston and Ray SO MUCH with the lever of care and protectiveness of each other. THAT’S what they should look like!! THAT’S ghostbusters, not just 4 random dudes who are barely friends- okay, sensitive subject, moving on!!

Overall: dynamics: peak!! If used separately - ehhhh, not a huge fan. But if ppl actually love them and don’t just segregate them by the rule of “okay so two skinny white men together.. and ig these two can be together too” then I got no problem with it 🙏

[hotchocolatefanfics]

Kung Fu Panda 4 Movie Thoughts (I finally watched it)

Firstly, why the HECK are the Furious Five not in this movie?? There are TONS of situations and moments that could have been prevented, minimized or made better if they were here. Tigeress ALONE would have made this movie better by just BEING THERE. 

But the absence of the Furious Five is only the first problem with this movie. It may be the most glaring but trust me, it gets way worse from there. 

Zen Zahn?! She sounds the same no matter what emotion she’s supposed to portray. Sad? Sarcastic and board. Scared? Sarcastic. Betrayed? Hurt? Happy? Sarcastic. Uggh! 

Ok, theres a lot here so let me break it down here: 

The Plot:

What the heck is going on here?! It really feels like a fever dream near the end. In fact, here’s my alternative plot for you! Po has to travel to the underworld in order to free all his enemies and defeat a monstrous demon who wants to take over the living world. Would it have made any sense? I don’t know, but it would have given us more time with Tai Lung and the other villains (which was my favorite part-Tai Lung not knowing who to cheer for was just priceless! Why didn’t we get Lord Shen or Kai talking?!).

“See you on the other side, Dragon Warrior.” Damn. Maybe it’s just my cold talking but I’m mad we didn’t get this plot instead now.

It’s also sad because fans of this franchise (me included) have wanted to see Tai Lung return and maybe get a redemption storyline for him (maybe even joining Po and the Furious Five) and that (to me anyway) seem to spark interest for the movie if it meant we might actually get that. I guess the only redemption for Tai Lung here is that he accepts Po as the Dragon Warrior and is at peace with that.

Zhen:

I didn’t think it was possible but here we are. Zhen is forgettable and boring. 

Honesty it’s sad because she (like Po) was an orphan and adopted (also like Po) but this aspect was never utilized and she and the Chameleon clearly didn’t have that kind of relationship but there WAS something like that between them (the Chameleon telling her to not slouch for instance). Also, why is the Chameleon just ‘the chameleon’? Does she not have a real name??

Basically, Zhen could have been the exact opposite of Po; literally coming from nothing, fighting for validation but ultimately wanting to be loved and wanted more than anything else. If we were to see it as Po having everything that Zhen ever dreamed of having for herself, then we get a better idea of her as a character than what we actually got.

Po:

I just don’t get it. Po doesn’t look like he aged much since the last movie so WHY is he looking for his successor already?! How about we show him age a bit first? Aren’t we supposed to wait for Shifu to pass away first?! Not that I want him to die but it would show the passage of time in this universe! 

Po, you’re doing just fine. This movie is flawed, not you!

The only good thing in this movie? Li and Ping. They may not be romantically involved but they embrace each other as Po’s dads and they work together to make sure that he gets home safely. 

Most annoying thing about this movie? The Chameleon being ‘too small for kung fu’…Mantis! Fricken Mantis! is the SMALLEST of the Furious Five! If HE can do kung fu, so can YOU CHAMELEON!!

Honestly, this just doesn’t work! Maybe it would have if it was all internalized discrimination (possibly made worse by relatives who didn’t think she could do it) and severe self-hatred but on it’s own it makes absolutely no sense.

Final thoughts:

Kung Fu Panda 4 is a fever dream that makes even less sense than whatever heck I dreamt about last night.Seriously, I cannot think of any movie (sequel or not) that has left me more confused, frustrated, and out of it than this movie did. It wasn’t ‘boring’ since there were interesting moments in the movie but those moments were under utilized and it feels like there should have been more than what we got. 

Tldr: You’ll find better Kung Fu Panda stories on AO3 than you will with this movie.

[applebutter-and-cinnamon]

Picture of Mine

Pairing: Joe Rantz x OC (Sadie)

Warnings: Jealousy

A/N: This was originally going to be something else but I ended up scrapping the idea. That being said, I thought it was cute and wanted to share it anyway. I hope y'all enjoy!

The Boys in the Boat Masterlist

This is not meant to be a reflection of the real person that was portrayed in the Boys in the Boat. It is a work of fiction.

Sadie wasn't ignorant. Shy, yes. More reserved than some of the other girls her age, also yes. But she was most definitely not ignorant and as a result of having a set of working eyes, she knew that her boyfriend was incredibly good looking.

Joe was the sort of man that turned heads when he walked across campus, not just for his height, but also because of his ocean blue eyes and golden curls, gracing those around him as a modern day Achilles.

Joe seemed to be completely oblivious to the attention he received, which Sadie had mixed feelings about. On the one hand, it was a really good feeling and a confidence boost to know that her boyfriend only had eyes for her, to the point where they never wandered from her own. On the other, it meant that Sadie had to put up with handfuls of girls her age ogling her boyfriend, not even caring that she was the one on his arm and holding his attention.

"Are you trying to burn a hole through that girls brain?" Lily asked her, sipping on a glass of water beside her.

Sadie rolled her eyes, loosing sight of the girl that was making eyes at Joe while he was being interviewed by, who Sadie was guessing was the girl's father. The boathouse was crowded with a handful of reporters eager to speak with the boys ahead of their race in Poughkeepsie. A few of the reporters who were fans of the sport themselves, brought along some of their family members to meet with the boys.

Normally, this wouldn't be something that bother Sadie. She understood that due to Joe's position in the boat that sometimes he would have other responsibilities that took priority to giving her his undivided attention. What bothered her this time in particular was the young group of girls that had sneaked their way inside with the reporters and were doing all that they could to flirt with the boys.

She turned her head, scanning the room as she did. It seemed she wasn't the only girlfriend that was getting frustrated with the situation in front of them, though none of them wanted to put their boy in a bad position with their coach either. Beside her, Caroline tensed as a tall, blonde girl placed her hand on Don Hume's arm. Her jaw clenched so hard that Sadie worried that she might crack a tooth.

"This can't last too much longer, can it?" She asked the girls around her.

The girls around her shrugged and mumbled under their breath, daring the girls surrounding the boys to take it just one step further so they could step in.

Sadie took a deep breath to calm her anger. She wished that Joe would just take a step back and be a bit more rude than he naturally was. Alas, she knew the man she was in a relationship with and knew that he would never do anything to embarrass a young girl especially in front of a reporter.

Sadie knew that Joe wouldn't see it as the girl going after him, no, he would see it as a young girl trying to find her way into the papers. Joe would be leaving with her, they both knew it, Sadie just wanted the girl beside him to know it too.

Coach Ulbrickson's head turned in their direction for a moment as he spoke with a photographer before his hand lifted and pointed at them. Beside him, his wife, Mrs. Ulbrickson, his a smile behind her hand.

"Those girls over there," he said loudly. As one, all the boys turned to pay attention to them for the first time in about two hours, "Are the better halves to my boys. They keep an eye on 'em when I can't."

Joe lost the tightness in his shoulders as he locked eyes with her and he smiled at her, the one he saved just for her. Sadie fought the blush coloring her cheeks at the devotion in his gaze. She drew up her courage and blew a kiss in Joe's direction.

Joe's smile turned cocky and shot a wink back at her.

Sadie couldn't find it in herself to feel bad for the girl beside her who's mouth fell open on witnessing their interaction. The girl looked between the two of them before hurrying away from Joe.

"How about a picture?" Coach Ulbrickson suggested to the photographer, after his wife whispered something to him, urging the man forward to where the girls were sitting.

"Oh no-"

"That's really not necess-"

"No one would want a picture of all of -"

The girls spoke over one another as they tried to convince the photographer not to take their picture. Sadie knew she had to be bright red by now, she wasn't ready to have her picture taken and even if she was, who would want to see it?

The boys interest was growing now and they began stepping away from the reporters and moving closer to the girls.

Sadie could see the bright smile that was taking over Joe's face as he whispered something to Shorty, who laughed and nodded enthusiastically to whatever he had said.

"Well, I think it's a fantastic idea," Mrs. Ulbrickson interrupted the girls protests. Turning to her husbands crew, she asked, "Don't you boys think that a picture of the girls would be a nice addition to the article?"

A chorus of "Yes Ma'am!" erupted around the boathouse.

That was all it took for Sadie to find herself in the middle of the girls, being positioned by the photographer for a picture that would end up in the Seattle newspaper. She tempered her discomfort by glaring at Joe who seemed absolutely elated by the fact that the attention was on her and not him. He, and all of the other boys now, were completely ignoring the reporters around them, focusing entirely on the group of girls that they had brought with them into the boathouse that afternoon.

Sadie bit her lip at the sudden influx of attention and locked eyes with Joe again. Even with the distance between them, she could see his eyes soften as they met hers. He looked around him to make sure nobody was watching and then pulled the silliest face she had ever seen him make.

A surprised giggle forced it's way out of her throat just as the camera flashed in front of her.

She blinked and the photographer gave them the all clear to disperse. Sadie was in front of Joe and gripping his hand before another word could be spoken.

"Hey there," he whispered, bending down to deliver a swift kiss to her forehead. "I'm stealing a copy of that picture you know?"

Sadie groaned and turned to bury her face in his chest.

[gaddaboutgriffon]

Omega Spider

Yep. It is actually about Peter Parker Spider-Man. He was mutated by a a spider bite one thing I noticed about every version of the spider I have seen is that it always depicted with really round abdomen and no pedipalps. In other words a female spider.

So imagine Peter from a world that is not omegaverse and the spider bite mutation turns him into an omega. He has no idea he is an omega until he is sent to another universe where the dynamics are commonplace.

So for the omegaverse instincts and things. I don’t like the ones where they loose all sense of self control in heat and it wouldn’t work for Peter anyway. I think it really shouldn’t be worse then a period with a bit of a low fever. Though with him being part spider he has a slight urge to eat a mate but is able to brush it off as an intrusive thought.

As for his age when thrown into this other universe he is Still a teen. My favorite version of him is from the 2003 cartoon series Spectacular Spider-Man. That series ended while he was still 15. Basically have him young enough to be adoption bait. The portal is a one way trip and just to be more dramatic he will be devastated that he finds out he can't return.

Teen teams don’t get enough attention. So we will have him end up with the team titans. I riled some dice and here is what dynamic each titan got. Robin is an alpha. Starfire is an alien whose species doesn’t have dynamics and will be as confused as Peter. Cyborgs was an alpha but sort of lost his dynamic when most of his body was turned mechanical. Raven is a beta, and I swear the dice were rigged cause somehow Beast Boy is an alpha too. (Funny thing to add in. Beast boy absolutely would know how female and in Peter’s case omega spiders eat their mates. We can have him make a point to never turn into a spider around Peter.) as for dynamic social aspects I think we have it so that omegas are a bit more coddled but not outright oppressed in society. That way we have an internal conflict for Peter to get frustration with cause he would arguably be the heaviest or second heaviest hitter on the team. Something the team takes a few episodes/chapters/parts to work out and move past. Then later they have all gotten used to Spidey being tough and independent but the public criticizes the team for when someone finds out and blabs on TV.

Now then for team relationships. I still am a Robin Starfire shipper, and Raven x Beast boy I don’t get but am ok with. Terra is a dumpster fire that can be addressed way later. Cyborg I think is fine just being the reliable friend but a tumblr friend liked him shipped with Jinx. Though I think he has science nerd out fun with Peter. Though cyborg is more computer and machines nerd and Peter is more chemistry and biology nerd.

What about Peter taking the role of team medic? Since biology and chemistry are his strengths. Every team needs a healer (and I get to use the exasperated medic trope I love.) goodness because of the way he was raised and close to his aunt May Peter may end up being the designated “mom” friend. Since I can see him not letting things get too messy and he would miss the home cooked meals so much he would probably teach himself to cook. And he had the most stable childhood hood and probably the most sensible advice. Also he made his suit so it is cannon he can sew very well.

Would Peter have a ship? Cause there are a couple other teen heroes or villains. …. Wait! You know the theory that Dick was Red X the first time but that suit was stolen and it isn’t said who but a lot of fans think it was Jason…. What if we make Red X more of a recurring character, but in this AU Jason didn’t get adopted by Bruce and is more of a neutral rogue as Red X.

Anyway now that the world building basics are out of the way, Let’s start the story. We shall drop Spidey in right at the start of the titans cartoon when they all kind of meet because of Starfire’s escape pod landing on earth. And I mean literally drop him in. The portal opened up like 300 feet in the air above the city.

[sterngiirl]

Anywhere but home.

Rohan Kishibe x reader.

NSFW, foreplay at the end, a bit semi-public! Also a bit horrific? Enemies to lover dynamics. (;

Rohan is 25 years old in this fic, you are 21, minor age gap. 

Summary: You move into a new house in Morioh, hoping for a fresh start. But soon after you settle in, you begin to notice strange things happening. Objects move on their own, and you hear whispers in the middle of the night. You also start having vivid nightmares that seem to have a connection to the house.

Desperate for answers, you turn to Rohan Kishibe, who is known for his supernatural investigations.

A/N: I re-watched ‘Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan’ recently, and this show is so good. So here I am, trying to write a kind of ‘horrific’ inspired story. It’s my first time writing in this genre, but I enjoyed it very much! So, please enjoy. (;

Word count: 13k (turn out longer than I thought).

Morioh, Café Deux Magots, 9 am.

You sighed heavily, the fatigue and stress evident in your voice as you spoke. "They keep whispering: 'You belong in this house, you can't escape'. It wakes me up at night, I haven't slept for two weeks." You said, your voice shaking with exhaustion.

You glanced wearily at your coffee cup, the dark liquid providing the only source of energy to keep you going. "I wasn't a fan of coffee, but it's the only thing keeping me awake at this point," you added, feeling defeated and lost. 

You knew you weren't crazy, and that your house was haunted. After two months of unexplainable occurrences and eerie whispers, you had to face the truth.

You had sought out the most arrogant resident of Morioh, Rohan Kishibe, hoping for some kind of solution to your problem. However, his response was far from sympathetic. "Humpf. Considering the state of your face, it's not surprising, really," he retorted, his voice dripping with mock concern.

Your eyes were bloodshot and your hair was unkempt, evidence of the sleepless nights you had endured, there was nothing funny about your situation.

Despite his lack of empathy, you knew Rohan was your only hope, unfortunately. You leaned in, desperation creeping into your voice. "Please, Rohan. I don't know what to do anymore. I can't live like this."

Rohan leaned back in his chair, his piercing gaze focused on you as if trying to read your thoughts. You could feel his eyes on you, evaluating your situation and coming up with a solution. Finally, he broke the silence with a matter-of-fact statement.

"Moves out, changes house."

You felt a surge of frustration at the suggestion. If only it was that simple. 

You had invested everything you had into buying this house and moving to Morioh, and now you were trapped in it. The thought of leaving the town that had captured your heart was unbearable. You had your friends there, your job and study.

"Not everyone has your fortune," you retorted, trying to keep the irritation out of your voice. "I put everything into this house to be in Morioh. I have no solutions."

The sky above the city was a canvas of bright colors, with hues of orange, yellow, and pink blending seamlessly together. The sun was shining high, casting a warm glow over the town, even though it was still early in the morning. The café terrace was a pleasant spot to enjoy the beautiful day, with a gentle spring breeze blowing through the area, carrying with it the sweet scent of blooming flowers.

As you sat at the table, sipping your coffee, you couldn't help but feel grateful for the moment of peace amidst the chaos of your house. The warm sun on your skin and the soft breeze in your hair were soothing, and for a moment, you almost forgot about the whispers and shadows that haunted your every waking moment.

Looking around, you noticed the other patrons of the café, chatting and laughing with each other, completely unaware of the darkness that lurked in your home. It was a strange feeling, knowing that you were the only one experiencing this horror.

"Koichi told me I could ask for your help," you said, trying to keep your tone respectful.

"Koichi thinks I'm friends with everyone, I'm not," Rohan replied in a disinterested manner, not bothering to look up from his coffee cup. 

You couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment at Rohan's response. Feeling frustrated and a bit defeated, you took a deep breath and tried to assert yourself. "But you know me," you said, trying to reason with him. "You have a unique set of skills that might be useful in my situation."

Rohan's smirk widened as he leaned back in his chair. "And here I thought you were just another superstitious fool," he said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "But it seems like you're actually serious about this." As he makes his comment he looks up at you.

“Complimenting me? You really got there?” he continued, sarcastically, “You are really desperate.”

You felt a surge of anger rising within you, but you swallowed it back down. Rohan was your last hope. "Yes, I'm serious," you replied, trying to keep your voice calm. "I've been living in that house for two months now, and I know that it's haunted. I can't explain the things that have been happening."

Rohan raised an eyebrow, intrigued despite himself. "Like what?" he asked.

"Like the voices," you say, frustrated to repeat yourself, shuddering at the memory. "They whisper to me in the middle of the night. And then there are the shadows - they move like they have a life of their own. Also… It seems like the objects are moving and floating."

Rohan leaned forward, his eyes gleaming this time with small interest. "This sounds like something out of a horror movie," he said, still amused.

You gritted your teeth, trying to keep your cool. "And also, Rohan, just because I believe in ghosts doesn't mean I'm crazy. And just because I'm asking for your help doesn't mean I'm a fool." you retorted, almost matching his sassy energy.

Rohan raised an eyebrow, his smirk still in place. "I never said you were crazy or a fool," he said with a fake offended tone. "But you have to admit, a fortnight ago you were perfectly normal. That’s why I’m suspicious.”

You let out a sigh, feeling some of your tension dissipate a little. "I know it's a long shot," you said, "but I'm desperate. I'll do whatever it takes to get rid of these ghosts and reclaim my home."

Rohan reached for a sheet of paper and a pencil, ready to capture your expression. "I don't take this kind of story lightly," he said, "But you seem really, really, really hopeless.” The way he emphasized the word 'really' irked you. “Let me capture that."

You frowned, feeling irritated by his dismissive attitude. "I'm not a character for your manga," you protested weakly.

Rohan simply shrugged and began sketching, his pencil moving quickly over the paper. You watched him in silence, feeling a mix of frustration and exhaustion. Finally, he finished and held up the sketch for you to see.

You stared at the drawing, it was perfectly done, nothing surprising. But strangely, you were disappointed that the only time he drew you was because of your depressed and tired face. Plus, Rohan hadn't made a single effort to make you more charming. 

"I hate you, I really do," you said through gritted teeth.

As you sat across from Rohan, you couldn't help but feel a twinge of annoyance at his demeanor. It seemed like he was always looking for a way to put you down, always trying to one-up you with his snarky comments and sly remarks. 

Rohan merely chuckled and put the sketch away. "Don't be so dramatic," he said, "It's just a sketch."

As Rohan's hand closed around his coffee cup, his gaze remained locked on you. It was a piercing stare that made your skin tingle and your heart rate quicken. His green eyes seemed to scrutinize every detail of your face, as if searching for something deeper within you. You couldn't help but feel a sense of discomfort under his intense gaze, almost as if he was trying to read your mind.

You noticed a small smirk playing on his lips, as if he knew exactly what effect he was having on you. His posture was relaxed, but his eyes burned with a fierce intensity that made you feel like you were under a microscope. It was almost as if he was challenging you to make a move, to push back against his words.

Despite your annoyance at his nonchalant demeanor, you couldn't deny the magnetic pull he had on you. It was a strange mix of attraction and frustration that left you feeling both exhilarated and irritated. You found yourself wondering what it would be like to get closer to him, to understand the depths of his mind that seemed to be hidden beneath his sassy and arrogant personality.

You had known each other for two years, but it always felt like an uphill battle to get along with him. Your relationship had been strained from the beginning, with your shared constant bickering and snarky remarks. He hated the way you handled him with such a lack of interest.

When you first met, you were still a student and had to travel from S city to Morioh for your studies. But now, after settling down permanently a few months ago, you had to face him on a regular basis. It wasn't easy to deal with his (sometimes) cruel personality, but you tried your best to maintain a cordial relationship with him for the sake of Koichi.

And yet, there was always an underlying tension between the two of you.

You both shared a passion for art and culture as you were a journalist and photographer, which should have brought you closer together. But instead, it felt like another point of contention between you. However, deep down, you couldn't deny the fact that there was something intriguing about Rohan that drew you in. Maybe, just maybe, there was more to your relationship than meets the eye.

Breaking the tense silence that had built up dangerously, you spoke up, “So? Now that you believe me, and you're sure I'm not playing a sick joke on you, will you agree to help me?"

"Of course, I'll help you," he said. You couldn't help but notice his serious tone as he responded to your request. He seemed to be considering something, his words cryptic and mysterious. "But only if you're willing to help me in return." 

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, wondering what Rohan could possibly need help with from you.

But before you could ask, he continued, "I have a new idea for my manga, and I think you could help me with it." The great Rohan Kishibe, asking for your help? This was unexpected.

Was this a genuine gesture, or just another one of his games? You couldn't help but feel a twinge of hope concerning your situation.

Still, you were curious. "How can I help?" you asked.

"You'll find out soon enough," he replied enigmatically, "but for now, let's focus on your haunted house. Who knows, maybe this story will inspire me just as well." He shrugged, and brought his coffee cup to his lips.

The Rohan you knew so well, would have relished in your frustration, but this new side of him was different. It was almost... endearing.

Over time, you began to see that there was more to Rohan than just his prickly exterior. You saw tiny glimpses of vulnerability and passion, of someone who was deeply committed to his craft and unafraid to push boundaries. And despite all of his flaws, you found yourself drawn to him, unable to resist.

As you looked into his eyes, you saw a glimmer of something that you couldn't quite put your finger on. Was it attraction? Admiration? Or something else entirely?

But more important is that finally, someone was taking you seriously. "What do we do?" you asked.

Rohan grinned, his eyes glinting with excitement. "We investigate," he said. "We'll spend a night in your haunted house, and see what we can find."

You felt a wave of anxiety wash over you, the thought of facing whatever lurked inside filled you with dread, and it must have been evident on your face because Rohan chuckled at your reaction.

"Don't be afraid, Y/n," he said, his voice soothing and calm. "I'll be there with you. You don't have to face this alone, I’m familiar with the paranormal."

The reassurance in his words did little to quell the fear that had taken root in your heart, but the fact that he was willing to stand by your side gave you a glimmer of hope. As you looked into his eyes, you could see the determination and confidence there.

"One more night shouldn't scare you," he continued, a small smirk playing at the corner of his lips. "And who knows, we might even uncover something interesting."

Despite the unease that still lingered within you, you couldn't help but feel a spark of excitement at the prospect of uncovering the mystery of the haunted house with Rohan by your side. 

With a deep breath, you finally nodded in agreement.

.

.

.

Morioh, your house, 9pm.

As the sound of the doorbell echoed through the house, you felt your heart skip a beat. Anxiety and fear had consumed you so completely that you were now paralyzed, unable to even move from your spot. The thought of being alone in the house made you feel vulnerable and exposed.

Hours had passed since you had arrived, and you had spent most of the afternoon anxiously waiting for Rohan's arrival. Every creak and rustle had made you jump, your nerves frayed with the constant anticipation of danger.

You knew Rohan had a busy schedule with a manuscript to complete in the afternoon and an important dinner with his editor that evening. Despite all of this, he promised to come over and help you tonight. You couldn't help but feel grateful for his commitment and dedication, especially considering his busy schedule. And to your surprise, he kept his promise and arrived promptly, showing his reliability and respect for his word.

When you opened the door to welcome Rohan, you couldn't help but feel a sense of relief wash over you. However, he let out a laugh that echoed through the hallway. His silhouette was barely visible in the dim light, but you could tell he was smirking smugly. 

"You look even worse than this morning, Y/n. I almost feel sorry for you," he teased. "Nice pajamas by the way," he added, mockingly commenting on your current outfit.

“Thank you for your kind words Rohan, as always.” You scowled at him, and motioned for him to come in. 

He stepped inside, taking in the interior of your house with a critical eye. It was the first time he had ever been to your place, and it was clear that he was unimpressed.

Your house was simple and small, with a modern design and minimalist decor. There was nothing spooky or foreboding about it, which made you feel a bit embarrassed for calling him over. But the fear of spending another night alone in the house had been too much to bear.

Rohan dropped his bag by the door and walked around the entrance and the living room connected to it, studying the decorations and furniture. "It's not exactly what I was expecting," he remarked, his tone laced with disappointment.

You bristled at his comment. "What were you expecting? A haunted mansion?" you retorted, feeling defensive.

He turned to face you, his expression unreadable. "No, not a mansion. But I was hoping for something a bit more... interesting. I mean, where's the history? The character?" he asked, gesturing around the room.

You rolled your eyes, already regretting asking for his help. It was clear that Rohan wasn't easily impressed, and you had a feeling that this was going to be a long night.

You sighed and closed the door behind you, feeling a mixture of nervousness and reluctance as you prepared to spend another night in your haunted house. As you turned to face Rohan, you tried to change the subject for a moment, not particularly excited about investigating the spirits that haunted the place.

"How did your dinner go?" you asked, hoping to distract him and perhaps buy some time before confronting the eerie atmosphere that awaited you.

Rohan was already leaning over the bookcase in your living room, scanning the titles of your books. "That went well," he said, his voice a little weary. "Izumi drains all my energy every time..."

You raised an eyebrow, curious. "Izumi?"

"My editor, remember, you know her," Rohan explained, turning to face you. "But I think I managed to give her the impression that I wasn't uninterested or bored..."

Rohan picked up a book from the shelf and opened it without asking for permission, as if he owned everything. It was a book of documentary photography about Italy, and specifically, the Venice Carnival.

"Since when do you care about people's opinions?" you asked, a bit surprised trying not to show your annoyance. Rohan had always struck you as someone who didn't care much for others.

Rohan chuckled. "Izumi is different," he said, his tone serious. "She works for me, brings me the books I need, and if I disappoint her, they’ll give me another editor. And I don't have the patience for that."

You nodded, understanding his point. Rohan was a successful manga artist, and he relied on his editor to promote and distribute his work. Displeasing her would have dire consequences for his career.

“You aren’t jealous?” Rohan asked curiously, closing the book he had been perusing and tucking it under his arm, shamelessly.

As he asked the question, a frown creased your forehead, and you found yourself surprised by the suddenness of it. You had never thought of yourself as the type to feel jealous, especially not when it came to Rohan. He was your ‘dear’ enemy. But the more you thought about it, the more you realized that there was a small part of you that was bothered by his relationship with Izumi.

You couldn't help but feel a twinge of irritation at the thought of him putting up with her volatile temper, going to parties and dinners with her, and even talking about his passion. When he couldn't even hold a cordial conversation with you. 

It all seemed so intimate, so exclusive, and you couldn't help but wonder what it was that made her so special. Was it her looks? Her intelligence? Her influence in the publishing industry? You couldn't quite put your finger on it, but the fact remained that Rohan seemed to prioritize her over you, at least in some ways.

Despite these feelings, you knew that you couldn't show them to Rohan. He was too perceptive, too insightful, and would be able to pick up on any subtle cues or hints. So you forced a neutral expression and replied as casually as you could manage, "No, I don't care."

You hoped that your words would be convincing enough to put any doubts or suspicions out of Rohan's mind, but deep down you knew that the issue wasn't really resolved, especially facing his smirk.

"So, are we ready to investigate my house?" Your heart was pounding in your chest as you nervously asked Rohan. You never thought you would actually be saying those words out loud, but here you were, about to face whatever paranormal activity lurked within the walls of your home. 

The thought of facing Rohan's vicious questions was almost as terrifying as the idea of encountering a ghost, so it was time to change his mind once again.

To your surprise, Rohan chuckled at your question and responded with enthusiasm. "Let's do this," he said with a grin. It was clear that he was excited to explore and his eagerness helped to ease some of your anxiety.

Several hours had passed since Rohan's arrival, and the night was well underway, nearing midnight. Despite your expectations, nothing unusual had occurred. No floating objects, no strange whispers, not even a creaking sound. It was almost embarrassing for you, as you knew the paranormal activities that are normally occurring. But in the mangaka's presence, nothing. 

You felt the weight of exhaustion in your eyes, and the temptation to fall asleep was strong. The presence of Rohan, usually unsettling and intimidating, strangely gave you a sense of calm. However you knew that you couldn't let your guard down. So instead, you watched him work, silently impressed by his dedication and attention to detail.

Meanwhile, and to your luck Rohan remained serious and focused on his investigation. He was looking at the papers of the house alongside you in the living room, trying to understand its history, location, and plans. He was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Just when you were about to give up hope and go to bed, Rohan suddenly exclaimed, "Ah!" He raised a piece of paper before his eyes and exclaimed, "I was thinking too narrowly. The house was built on an old cemetery. That should explain some of it."

You were surprised and a bit creeped out by the revelation. “The agent took care to hide it from me…”, you said in a plaintive voice. “I wonder why.”

“Maybe they were having trouble selling it, and since you're not exactly from Morioh, they saw an opportunity,” Rohan suggested. He sighed, “It's a shame it happened to you, Y/n. But, it's just a cemetery, nothing that should justify what you described to me.”

As Rohan lifted his eyes from the papers to observe you, his gaze was intense and piercing, as if trying to read your thoughts and emotions. These past days, it was a habit of his, admiring you like a sort of unique masterpiece. 

You couldn't help but feel a bit vulnerable under his scrutiny, but at the same time, there was a sense of understanding and sympathy in his eyes. Which was surprising.

It was almost as if he could see through your tough exterior and was genuinely concerned about your well-being. His gaze was unwavering, yet comforting, and it made you feel like you could trust him in that instant.

“I doubt you've been sleep deprived for weeks to play a trick on me... So you might as well take advantage of the fact that it's quiet so you can get some rest.” He finally said. 

Despite the fact that Rohan's words were unexpectedly kind, you shook your head frantically, feeling the weight of fear pressing down on you. "No, I can't sleep," you replied, your voice trembling. "Sleeping in this house terrifies me, Rohan."

You weren't usually this vulnerable, especially in front of someone like him who could easily take advantage of your weaknesses to make fun of it. But the long hours of being awake, the weariness that crept up on you, and the realization that the house you thought was just an ordinary one had a dark and sinister past, all combined broke down your defenses.

Rohan kept his gaze on you, his hand on his chin as if he was contemplating deeply. You could see the understanding in his eyes, the empathy he felt for you despite his usually aloof and distant demeanor. It was a strangely comforting feeling.

"I didn't say I was leaving," he said after a moment, breaking the silence that had descended upon the room. "I took my clothes to change, if you wish, I will stay with you."

His words surprised you, and you looked up at him in confusion. "Why would you do that for me?"

Rohan shrugged, a small smile playing on his lips. "I need your help for my manga," he replied. "And besides, I wouldn't want you to be alone in here. Who knows what could happen."

You didn't know what to say, feeling a strange mix of gratitude and apprehension. You knew that Rohan was not the easiest person to be around, and that his presence could be just as unsettling as the house itself. But at the same time, you couldn't deny the fact that having him there made you feel safer somehow.

"Okay," you said finally, giving in to the exhaustion that had been weighing down on you. "Stay with me, please."

On this agreement, you stood up as best you could, feeling a mix of relief and apprehension. Ready to go to bed, you turned to Rohan and said, "I don't have a guest room though, I hope you don't mind sleeping in my room."

"I wasn't planning on sleeping in the guest room anyway," Rohan replied, his voice collected. "If something happens, I want both of us to witness it." He carefully put away the papers he had been consulting and neatly picked up his bag.

You watched him in silence, still feeling a bit uneasy about the situation but grateful for his company. You were usually a strong and independent person, but the events of the past few days had taken a toll on you, both physically and mentally.

At this point, you were far too tired to protest or make any of your famous remarks to provoke him. You accepted the situation easily, even though the thought of sharing your bed with Rohan made you feel a bit uneasy.

"Well, follow me," you said, motioning for him to follow you to your room, which was upstairs.

You led Rohan up the stairs towards your bedroom. As you walked, you couldn't help but feel a sense of relief that you wouldn't have to spend the night alone in this house. You had never been so grateful for someone's company.

Once you reached your bedroom, you hesitated for a moment before opening the door. You knew it was silly, but you couldn't help feeling embarrassed by the state of your room. It was cluttered with books, clothes, and various items, a reflection of your chaotic lifestyle.

"Sorry for the mess," you muttered as you stepped inside, feeling self-conscious.

Rohan didn't seem to mind, though. He simply placed his bag down and looked around the room, taking everything in. "Interesting," he murmured to himself, almost as if he was talking to the room itself.

You couldn't help but feel curious. "What's interesting?" you asked, your fatigue momentarily forgotten.

He turned to face you, his eyes gleaming with a strange intensity. "Your room. It's like a reflection of your mind. Chaotic, but with a clear sense of purpose. And yet, there's something more, something hidden beneath the surface."

You couldn't help but feel a shiver run down your spine at his words. It was as if he could see right through you. But before you could ask any more questions, he gestured to the bed.

"Come on, let's get some rest," he said, his tone gentle but firm.

You nodded, feeling grateful for his presence once again. As you crawled into bed, you couldn't help but wonder what he meant by his words. Was there really something hidden beneath the surface of your mind? Or was it just your imagination, fueled by the fear and fatigue of the past few weeks?

Rohan bend down to set his bag on the floor, his eyes scanning the room briefly once again. You watched as he took a few steps towards the door before turning to face you once again. "I'm going to change my clothes," he announced.

You nodded in response, and explained to him where the bathroom was. As he left the room, you took a deep breath, trying to steady your nerves. The silence that enveloped the room was heavy and suffocating. And not to help, the empty seat next to you seemed to mock you, a constant reminder that in a few moments it would be occupied by Rohan.

You sighed in frustration, feeling the weight of the situation bearing down on you. On one hand, you couldn't stand Rohan and the way he always seemed to have an answer for everything. He had a way of getting under your skin like no one else could, and you resented him for it.

But on the other hand, you couldn't deny the fact that you were more than glad that out of everyone you knew in Morioh, it was him that was here with you in this moment. There was something about his presence that was comforting, despite the circumstances. It was a strange feeling, and you couldn't quite make sense of it.

As you sat there lost in thought, Rohan returned to the room dressed in a simple t-shirt and sweatpants. He looked relaxed but still very stylish. I was as if everything was normal and he had just finished a long day at work, ready to unwind.

"Very well," he said. "Let's get some rest. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

Despite his prickly personality, you had always felt a strange connection to Rohan. Maybe it was because you both shared a passion for art, or maybe it was because he had always been there for you when you needed him.

He looked at you and asked, "Feeling any better?" His voice was soft, as he took a seat next to you in the bed. You could feel the weight and the warmth of his presence just next to your body.

You shrugged in response, not quite sure how to answer. "I don't know, to be honest. This whole thing has me feeling pretty shaken up." As you settled in, pushing the cover up to your shoulder, ready to sleep, you felt Rohan's eyes on you. "Is everything alright?" you asked, feeling self-conscious.

Rohan hesitated for a moment before replying, “Nothing.” His answer seemed dismissive, but you could tell that he was holding something back.

You raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "Are you sure about that?" you asked, hoping that he would open up to you.

He sighed, clearly not happy to talk about it, but he opened up anyway. "I just wanted to make sure you're comfortable," he said. "You've been through a lot these past few days, and I want to make sure you're okay."

You smiled, feeling touched by his concern. "Thank you," you said. "I'm just glad to have someone here with me."

For a moment you thought your comment made him tense, but he just nodded and turned off the lamp on the bedside table. As the room fell into darkness, you felt a sense of calm wash over you. You were grateful for Rohan's presence, and you knew that you wouldn't have been able to get through this without him.

"You know, I don't usually like having anyone stay with me," you admitted. "But it's nice to have someone to talk to."

Rohan chuckled softly. "I know what you mean," he said. "Sometimes it's nice to have someone around, even if you don't want to admit it."

You laughed quietly, feeling a sense of ease between the two of you. "In fact, I'm just glad you are the one here," you admitted, feeling your eyes start to droop with fatigue.

Rohan leaned over, "I'm not going anywhere," he whispered in your ear. "I'll be here as long as you need me."

As you drifted off to sleep, you felt a sense of safety in Rohan's presence.

. . . 'You belong in this house, you can't escape'

The whisper left you with the sensation of a warm breath on the back of your neck, causing your skin to crawl with fear. You woke up with a start, your heart pounding in your chest. When you opened your eyes, you were greeted by the darkness that filled your room. It was impossible to know what time it was, if you had even slept for long. 

But in that darkness, you felt a presence, malevolent and dangerous, looming over you like a shadow.

The hairs on the back of your neck stood up, and a cold sweat broke out across your forehead as you lay there, paralyzed with fear. Your mind raced, trying to rationalize the situation, but nothing made sense. You couldn't shake the feeling that someone or something was watching you, waiting to strike.

You tried to reach out from under the blanket to turn on the light of your bedside lamp, but your arm refused to move. It felt as if something was holding you down, trapping you in place. 

The silence was deafening, and you could hear nothing but the sound of your own breathing and the pounding of your heart. The malevolent presence in the room had become more palpable, more tangible.

You squeezed your eyes shut, hoping that it was all just a bad dream. But when you opened them again, the darkness remained, and the presence was still there. You knew that you had to do something, but fear had rendered you immobile.

The seconds ticked by like hours, and you could feel your sanity slipping away. You were trapped in a nightmare, with no way out.

At that moment, a sinister voice whispered in your ear, causing every hair on your body to stand on end. ‘Let me feed myself,' you could feel the warm breath gushing over your face, and you knew that you were in grave danger.

You tried to scream, but fear had paralyzed you. You felt like your brain was boiling as you struggled to understand how you could have fallen asleep in the presence of such danger. You tried to think, to collect your thoughts, to remember what had happened, but your mind was in a haze.

You were frozen in fear, unable to move or even breathe. Every nerve in your body was screaming for you to get up, to run, to do something, but you were unable to move a muscle.

Then suddenly a spark of hope came to your mind, yes, Rohan. Desperately, you reached out for him, hoping to find some comfort in his presence. But your hand met nothing but cold, empty space. 

Terror flooded your body as the realization hit you that you were completely alone.

Unable to contain your fear any longer, you began to cry uncontrollably. Your sobs echoed through the empty room  in a plaintive, painful moan, a haunting sound that only added to the terror of the situation. The darkness seemed to press in on you, suffocating you with its weight.

You were convinced that this was the end. The last night of your life. The thought filled you with a sense of crushing despair, and you sobbed even harder, your body wracked with pain.

“Y/n!” someone yelled out your name. 

The door to your room creaked open, and you were momentarily blinded by the sudden flood of light. You blinked several times, trying to adjust your vision to the brightness. When your eyes finally focused, you saw Rohan standing in the doorway, his expression etched with concern.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

You could feel your heart pounding in your chest as you struggled to find the words to respond. You managed to stammer out, "Did you see it? It was just here a moment ago."

Rohan's eyes widened with alarm as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. "Who was here? What are you talking about?"

You could feel the fear rising up in your throat as you tried to explain what had just happened. Rohan listened to you, trying to understand your rambling words. He didn't seem very convinced. "T-The shadow," you said, your voice trembling. "It was here with me. I felt a breath on the back of my neck."

Rohan's expression softened as he realized how scared you were. He crossed the room to stand next to you, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. "It's okay," he said, his voice calm and reassuring. "I'm here now. You're safe."

You let out a shuddering breath, feeling the tension slowly begin to drain from your body. You looked around the room, but there was no sign of anyone else. It was just you and Rohan.

"I don't understand," you said, your voice still shaking. "I was so sure that there was someone else in here with me."

Rohan nodded, his expression thoughtful. "Sometimes our minds can play tricks on us," he said. "Especially when we're scared or anxious. It's possible that you just imagined it."

You knew that Rohan was trying to help, but his words didn't bring you any comfort. You were certain that there had been someone else in the room with you. But who? And why? The questions swirled around in your mind, leaving you feeling more confused and frightened than ever.

However, you barely had time to dry your tears when Rohan took you by the shoulders, shaking you a little in the process, you could feel your heart racing and your body tensing up. You knew exactly what he was about to do, and you were not ready for it. You had begged him before not to use his Stand, Heaven's Door, on you again, and you thought he had agreed not to. But here he was, with his hand raised and his Stand activated, ready to invade your mind once again.

Tears were still streaming down your face as you pleaded with him to stop. "No, Rohan, please! You promised me you wouldn't do this again!" Your voice was choked with emotion, but it didn't seem to deter him. He was determined to get the information he wanted, no matter the cost to your well-being.

You were acutely aware of the strange happenings in Morioh, with the bizarre powers possessed by many of its inhabitants. You hadn’t one, but Koichi and Okuyasu talked about their Stands and their abilities, and you knew that Rohan's Stand was even more dangerous than most. He could manipulate your memories and thoughts, altering them in any way he saw fit. The thought of him rooting around in your mind, exposing your most private thoughts and memories, filled you with a sense of dread.

You recalled the last time he had used his Stand on you, demonstrating its powers by using some of your deepest secrets to mock you. It had been a traumatic experience that left you feeling violated and helpless. After that, you had made him promise not to use it on you again, but now it seemed he had gone back on his word.

Rohan's arms wrapped around you tightly, pulling you into a close embrace. You could feel his strong chest pressing against yours, his body heat enveloping you in a warm embrace. Despite your anger towards him, you couldn't help but notice how muscular and toned he felt despite his slender figure, and a small part of you found the closeness exhilarating.

You struggled against his grip, pushing against his chest with all your might, but he held you even tighter, refusing to let you go. His hands slid down your back, holding you firmly against him, and you could feel his breath on your neck as he leaned in closer.

"Please calm down," he tried to soothe you. "I'm doing this for your own good."

You gritted your teeth, angry at him for violating your trust and breaking his promise. But even as you pushed against him, you couldn't help but feel a strange sense of longing deep within you, a desire for something more than just anger and frustration.

Despite your protests, Rohan didn't stop. "I'm sorry Y/n, but I have to get this straight. Heaven's Door!" he said, as his hand made contact with your forehead you felt a strange sensation, almost like he was peeling back the layers of your mind.

A bright light flashed before your eyes and you felt your body go limp. Your consciousness seemed to fade away as the pages of a book appeared all around you. You were suddenly aware that Rohan's stand had turned you into a book, and he was reading through the pages to learn everything about you. You wanted to scream, to protest against this invasion of your privacy, but you were unable to move or speak. 

You were completely at his mercy.

The next thing you knew, your world went black, and you lost consciousness.

As you regained consciousness, you realized that you were not alone in the room. You found yourself lying on Rohan's shoulder, and he was reading a book. "I hate you," you groaned and ran your hand over your face to make sure everything was back to normal.

You lifted your head from his shoulder slightly, trying to collect your thoughts. Rohan on the other hand chuckled softly, the sound of his voice almost taunting. "So I was right, you really are jealous of Izumi."

You felt a twinge of embarrassment as Rohan revealed his knowledge of your jealous feelings towards Izumi. You had been trying to hide those feelings from everyone, even yourself, because you knew they were unfounded and irrational. There was no concrete reason for your jealousy, only the fact that Rohan seemed to pay more attention to her than to you.

It was frustrating to feel this way, but you couldn't help it. You knew that Izumi was a talented editor, and it was natural for Rohan to want to work with her. But still, the way he praised her and seemed to be constantly in her presence made you feel somehow insecure.

You wince, feeling a pang of annoyance. "Why do you always have to do that?"

"I'm sorry, Y/n. I couldn't help it. You know how I am." Rohan closed the book he was holding and placed it on the coffee table, his tone light. Rohan tilted his head and smiled. "Jealousy can be a powerful emotion, but it doesn't have to control you. I don’t admit it often, but you're important to me too, you know that."

“Thank you.” You looked up at him, feeling a sense of relief wash over you. Maybe there was nothing to be jealous of after all. However, his teasing demeanor didn't amuse you. "Is that really the only information you found interesting? Nothing to do with my house?" you asked.

You sat up and looked around, trying to get your thoughts straight. As you took in your surroundings, you couldn't help but notice the strikingly luxurious decor of Rohan's living room. The room was well-lit with recessed lighting fixtures that cast a warm, welcoming glow. You noticed that there were several pieces of artwork adorning the walls, all of which seemed to be original pieces.

You recognized some of the furniture pieces from Rohan's manga, Pink Dark Boy. The couch you were sitting on was plush and comfortable, covered in soft velvet fabric. It was positioned facing a large flat-screen television mounted on the opposite wall, which was currently displaying a paused documentary.

To your left was a sleek black coffee table adorned with a stack of magazines and books, including some of Rohan's own publications. The bookshelves lining the walls were filled to the brim with novels, manga, and art books. You could see that Rohan had an extensive collection of literature and graphic novels, many of which you had also heard of before.

As you took in the details of the room, you couldn't help but feel a little out of place. The decor was far too extravagant and not to your taste. It was clear that Rohan had a penchant for luxury, and you couldn't help but wonder how much he had spent on the furnishings and artwork.

"Why are we at your house?" you asked, confused.

Rohan looked at you with a sly smirk, "Well, you passed out, so I brought you here to rest. And, of course, to get some more information about you."

You groaned, "I can't believe you did it again. I thought we had an agreement."

Rohan's smile faded slightly, "I'm sorry, Y/n. But I had to know. There's something strange going on, and I need to protect myself and those close to me." he paused, “Simply put, you.”

You let out a deep sigh of frustration. Rohan's behavior was so unpredictable, one moment he was teasing and mocking you, the next he claimed to be there to protect you. It was difficult for you to decipher what his true intentions were, especially in your current emotional state. You felt confused and conflicted, not knowing what or who to believe. It was as if Rohan was playing a constant game of tug-of-war with your emotions while you desperately wanted to trust him.

"I understand that, but you can't just go around invading people's privacy like that. It's not right." you finally say.

Rohan nodded, "I know, and I promise not to do it again. But, let's focus on the actual useful information I found. You were asking about the house, right?"

You nodded, "Yes, please tell me what you found."

Rohan's expression was grave, indicating that what he had to say was of great importance. "I cannot determine if the house is a stand or if it is genuinely haunted by the spirits of the cemetery. However, when I used Heaven's Door on you, I only found information from the evening, none of your past. These pages were blank," he explained.

He propped his hand on his chin, looking contemplative. "I couldn't sleep, so I decided to explore the house thoroughly to see if I could find any clues. But I came up empty-handed. However, I believe the house is feeding off of you. To test my theory, I brought you here, and indeed, your past came back on the pages," he continued, his eyes studying you closely.

You listened to him intently, a mixture of fear and curiosity gnawing at your insides. "What do you mean, the house is feeding off of me?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

Rohan let out a deep sigh. "I don't know. It's just a theory for now. But I believe that the house is somehow drawing on your memories, possibly to sustain itself or grow stronger. Maybe even digest you with time," he explained, his gaze never leaving you.

You couldn't believe what you were hearing. "What are we going to do?" you asked, feeling a shiver run down your spine.

Rohan's expression softened slightly as he reached out and placed a reassuring hand on your shoulder. "We'll figure it out together. I won't let anything happen to you," he promised, his eyes holding yours.

You couldn't help but feel a sense of confusion and surprise at the way Rohan was acting. The Rohan you had known for years was confident, charismatic, and always seemed to be in control. He could be sharp-tongued and cutting, and never hesitated to use his wit to put others in their place. But this Rohan, the one who was being gentle and supportive, was a side of him you had never seen before.

As you thought about it, you realized that you had never really seen him in private before. You had only ever seen him in public, where he was always performing for others. But now, in this private moment, he was showing you a side of himself that was vulnerable and caring.

You couldn't help but wonder what had brought about this change in him. Was it your current situation that had softened him? Or was he simply revealing a side of himself that he had kept hidden from others?

Either way, you found yourself grateful for his kindness and support. It made you feel less alone in this strange, unsettling situation.

"Tomorrow, Koichi and I will go and get your affairs. And while we sort it out, you'll live here. Unlike you, because I'm objectively wealthier, I have a guest room you can stay in," he explained, looking at you with a serious expression.

You couldn't believe it. Rohan, who had always treated you with disdain and ridicule, was now offering you a place to stay and helping you with your problems. You felt tears forming in your eyes, but this time they were tears of relief and gratitude.

"Thank you Rohan, thank you very much," you said, your voice cracking with emotion.

And under the emotion, you took him in your arms. As you hugged him, you felt the tension in your body slowly begin to dissipate. It was as if the weight of the situation was lifting off your shoulders, and you were grateful for Rohan's support. You held him tightly, trying to convey the depth of your gratitude.

At first, he didn't react much to your embrace, and you could feel his body tensing up under your touch. It was clear that Rohan was not used to physical affection, and you wondered how often he allowed himself to be vulnerable like this. However, after a few moments, he wrapped his arms around your waist, his hold initially awkward and unsure. But then, gradually, his embrace became firmer, and you could feel him drawing you closer.

He rested his chin on the top of your head, and you could feel his breath on your hair. For a few moments, you simply held each other, neither of you speaking. You felt a sense of comfort in his embrace, and it was almost as if the two of you were connected in a way that went beyond words.

Eventually, Rohan let out a small sigh, and you could feel him relaxing his hold on you slightly. It was as if he was still uncertain about showing this level of affection, but he didn't want to push you away rudely. So you did it for him, pulling yourself back slightly, looking up at him, and you could see a faint blush on his cheeks.

"I'm doing all this for my manga, don't get any ideas," he said, his tone teasing but also a little guarded.

You couldn't help but laugh, even though your voice was muffled by your sobs. "Of course," you said, smiling up at him. Despite his attempt to downplay the moment, you knew that Rohan was genuinely there for you, and you were grateful for his support.

.

.

.

Morioh, Rohan’s house, 5 pm.

As the days passed, you settled into Rohan's home, gradually becoming more comfortable with your living situation. You discovered that he was not the arrogant, unfeeling man he had initially portrayed himself as, but rather someone who was fiercely passionate about his work and those he cared about.

You both spent long hours talking about everything under the sun, sharing your hopes, fears, and dreams. You found yourself admiring him, his sharp wit and intelligence, his strong will and determination.

Despite knowing that your feelings for him were forbidden, you couldn't help but fall for him. You tried to push these feelings aside, but the more time you spent with him, the more difficult it became to ignore the pull you felt towards him. You found yourself anticipating his presence, longing to hear his voice and see his face.

Your heart would flutter whenever he touched you, even if it was just a brief brush of his hand, and you found yourself daydreaming about him more and more often. You knew that the consequences of acting on your feelings could be disastrous, but it was hard to resist the allure of this man who had become your friend, your enemy, and your protector all at once.

Despite your internal struggles, your time at Rohan's house was the happiest you had been in a while. You felt safe and protected, surrounded by his lavish lifestyle and the comforts of his home. He had even shown you around his private studio, where he spent countless hours creating his manga masterpieces. The walls were lined with sketches and drawings, each one a testament to his talent and creativity. 

As you spent more time at Rohan's house, you began to notice more of his quirks and idiosyncrasies. He was a man who held himself to a high standard, sometimes to the point of being overly critical of his own work. You admired his dedication and attention to detail, but it also meant that he could be a perfectionist at times.

Despite this, Rohan was also surprisingly sensitive and empathetic. You had caught him watching sad movies by himself late at night, and he would sometimes open up to you about his own personal struggles. Seeing this vulnerable side of him made your heart ache with compassion and understanding.

As your feelings for him grew, you couldn't help but wonder if he felt the same way. You caught him looking at you sometimes, his piercing gaze making your heart race. But then he would quickly look away, as if embarrassed.

The tension between you two was more palpable than ever, but neither of you dared to cross the line. You knew it was forbidden to feel this way, but you couldn't help it. Rohan had become such an important part of your life, and you couldn't imagine living without him.

However, your happiness was short-lived.

"Y/n?" Rohan called out from the doorway to find out where you were.

As you basked in the warmth of the sun, enjoying your soda and engrossed in your manga, Rohan's voice calling your name jolted you back to reality. You quickly set your manga down and turned your gaze towards the inside of the house, "I'm outside!" you replied, calling back from one of the outdoor patio chairs where you sat. 

As he walked towards you. His usually calm and collected demeanor was replaced with an air of agitation that made you uneasy. 

As he sat down beside you, you couldn't help but notice that he was empty-handed, a rare occurrence for him after a shopping trip. You knew Rohan was an avid collector of books and that he rarely returned from a trip without a few new additions to his already extensive library.

"Is something wrong?" you asked him, concern etched on your face.

"I have managed to crack the secret of your house. I lied to you, I didn't want to worry you. But it's all cleared up," Rohan said, his voice low.

The news hit you like a ton of bricks. You were stunned, unable to process the implications of what Rohan had just revealed. Your mind was racing with questions, wondering how he could have possibly uncovered the secret of your house.

"Wait, what do you mean?" you asked, your voice trembling slightly with fear and anxiety.

Rohan took a deep breath, his expression serious and grave. "There was a box hidden within the walls," he explained. "It was trapped, and it contained the souls of everyone who ever lived in the house. It was probably put there as revenge for desecrating a cemetery."

Your heart sank at the thought of the trapped souls, and you felt a chill run down your spine. It was a terrifying concept, and you couldn't believe that something like that could have been hidden in your house, how many people had disappeared because of it.

"I destroyed it after studying it," Rohan announced, pulling out a sheet of paper from his bag. He handed it to you, and as you looked closer, you saw that it was a series of intricate sketches of the box from various angles. The level of detail was impressive, and even as a drawing, the box looked ominous and unsettling.

You couldn't help but feel a shiver run down your spine as you gazed at the sketches, trying to imagine what it must have been like to come face to face with such a terrifying artifact. "This is what was trying to ingest your soul,” Rohan teased with a smirk, his eyes sparkling mischievously. The comment sent a chill through you, but you couldn't help but appreciate the humor in his tone.

Relief washed over you, and you couldn't help but let out a small sigh.  "Thank you, Rohan," you said, feeling a surge of gratitude towards him. "I don't know what I would have done without you."

Rohan let out a small huff, and a hint of a smile played at the corner of his lips. "You don't have to thank me," he replied in a casual tone, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

You couldn't help but laugh as you listened to Rohan's response. His usual detached and arrogant attitude had been stripped away, and you could sense a newfound sincerity in his words. Knowing the lengths he had gone to solve the mystery of your house, you found his remarks more endearing than annoying.

"Well, I still want to thank you. You saved me from a lot of trouble," you said, smiling at him.

Rohan's smirk grew a little wider at your words. "It was a minor inconvenience, really," he said, leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms above his head. "Besides, I'm always up for a good mystery to solve."

You chuckled, glad that he was taking it so well. "Well, I'm just glad it's over. I can finally go home." You tried to hide the reluctance in your voice.

Rohan's smirk turned mischievous as he leaned towards you. "But do you really want to leave? You could stay here with me, you know." He winked at you, causing you to roll your eyes and laugh.

"Nice try, Rohan. But I think it's time for me to go home and stop bothering you with my insufferable presence." You stood up from the chair. "Thank you again for taking care of everything."

Rohan stood up as well, "I think, Y/n, you have forgotten our deal." He put his hand on your shoulder to stop you.

It's been a while now, and with everything that's been going on lately, you've forgotten the original agreement. "I have to help you with your manga, right?"

“Yes,” Rohan spoke calmly as he leaned in towards you, his arms wrapping around your waist to hold you close to him. You felt the warmth of his body against yours, the heat of the summer sun adding to the sensation. You could smell his expensive cologne, a pleasant scent that mixed with the fresh air and the nearby flowers. 

As you stood there in Rohan's embrace, you couldn't help but notice the way his body felt against yours. The warmth of his bare skin, the firmness of his muscles, and the gentle rise and fall of his chest with each breath he took.

His hold was firm but not overpowering, allowing you to move slightly if you wanted to, but you knew he wouldn't let go unless he had to. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, allowing yourself to be enveloped in his warmth.

Since the night he brought you to his house, you hadn't been this close to him again. Sometimes you would sit on the sofa together, watching a film or a documentary, or chatting about random things. 

Sometimes you would cook together in the kitchen, trying out new recipes and enjoying each other's company. But nothing like this.

It was strange, you thought to yourself, how this moment could feel so intimate. If he too was aware of the way his body was pressed against yours, of the way your heartbeats seemed to sync up. But you didn't dare ask, afraid of what his answer might be.

"Since I solved the case of your house, technically, you can't refuse me anything." Rohan's voice interrupted your thoughts. His breath hitched in your neck, reminding you of the proximity. The warmth of his body pressed against you, making it difficult to focus on anything else. His grip tightened, holding you in place.

There was nothing romantic or sympathetic about his words. It was a reminder that there was an arrangement, almost professional in its nature. It was all calculated. Just when you were beginning to think he had a kind heart...

"You did all this... In order to use the agreement to get your way?" You asked, disappointed.

Rohan just chuckled, still holding you close. "You've already helped me a lot, you know. I needed to add a strong female character to my manga, and having you by my side lately has given me everything I needed."

As he spoke, his left hand roamed your back dangerously, exploring every single inch. Being in a tank top because of the heat, it didn't take him long to find your bare skin underneath. The sensation of his fingers tracing patterns on your skin sent shivers down your spine, and you couldn't help but lean into his touch.

"I could see your character, your habits, but I didn't get a chance to feel your body." He smiled, his thumb running over your lips with his free hand, “Or your lips, I wonder how they taste…”. You could feel your heart racing in your chest as he leaned in closer, his breath hot against your skin.

As much as you tried to resist, there was something undeniably attractive about him. The way he held you, the way he spoke, the way his touch sent electric currents through your body - it was all too much to ignore.

But you couldn't let him have his way. "That doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want," you said, trying to sound strong and assertive despite the butterflies in your stomach.

Rohan chuckled, the sound vibrating through his chest and into yours. "Of course not, my dear. But it does mean that you owe me a favor or two." He leaned in even closer, his lips almost touching yours. "And who knows what else I might need from you in the future."

You were acutely aware of the tension building between you and Rohan. His confident and arrogant demeanor had always been a turn-on for you, but you also knew that giving in to him would mean crossing a line you might not be able to come back from. It was a dangerous game you were playing, but one that you couldn't seem to resist.

"Rohan, this isn't what we agreed on," you said firmly, trying to ignore the way your body was begging for more. "I agreed to be a model of observation to satisfy your curiosity and help feed your manga. But this...this isn't part of the deal." It was not how you imagined things would develop.

Rohan just smirked, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "Who said anything about agreements?" he said, his hand still hovering close to your skin. His teasing was torture, and he knew it. "I'm just a man who knows what he wants, and right now, what I want is you."

You took a deep breath, trying to steady your nerves. "You can't just change the rules like that. It's not fair to me," you said, your voice firm. "Besides, I'm not just some character in your manga. I'm a real person with feelings and desires, and I won't be treated like an object."

Rohan's smile faded slightly, and for a moment, you thought he might back down. But then he leaned in closer, his breath hot on your lips. "I know you're more than just a character," he whispered. "And I promise to treat you with the respect you deserve. But right now, I can't resist you."

"Why do you always have to be so smug?" you retorted, trying to mask the wavering in your voice. "I don't want to complicate things between us."

Rohan held you closer, his hand reaching up to caress your cheek. "Complication is what makes life interesting," he said softly, looking directly at you.

You could feel his body pressing against yours, his hand now firmly on your waist. Despite your better judgment, a part of you couldn't deny the attraction you felt for him. "I can't do this, Rohan," you said, your voice barely above a whisper. "I can't let things go any further between us. It's not right." You tried to resist, in vain. 

You could feel his breath on your skin, warm and inviting. His eyes were fixed on yours, dark and intense, as if they were trying to read your deepest desires. You knew he could see right through your lies, and it was infuriating.

"Stop trying to fight it," he said, his voice low and husky. "You know you want this as much as I do."

You shook your head, trying to push him away. "This is wrong, we are enemies," you protested weakly, but your body betrayed you as it leaned into him.

He chuckled, his lips curving into a devilish grin. "Wrong? Who says what's wrong or right? I can feel the heat between us. Don't pretend like you can't."

His hands traced lazy circles on your back, sending shivers down your spine. You closed your eyes, trying to push away the dirty thoughts that were flooding your mind. This was a mistake. You had agreed to help him with his manga if he would with your house, but you never intended for things to go this far. Yet here you were, in his arms, giving in to his every touch and caress.

"Rohan, please," you whispered, but he didn't stop. Instead, he leaned in closer, his lips brushing this time against your ear.

"Please what?" he murmured, his voice sending chills down your spine. "Please stop? Please keep going?"

Under his touch, your resolve began to crumble as the heat from his body wrapped around you like a cocoon. The attraction between you two was palpable, almost suffocating, and you could feel your heart racing in your chest. You knew it was only a matter of time before you surrendered completely to him.

"Please, keep going..." You whispered, your voice barely above a breathy sigh.

You felt your heart racing as his lips met yours in a searing kiss, his hands traveling down your body, leaving a trail of heat in their wake. Your body was responding to his touch in ways you never thought possible, and the chemistry between you was undeniable.

As you melted into his embrace, you could feel all thoughts and worries of the past few days slipping away. The only thing that mattered was the passion and desire that coursed through your veins. You were completely consumed by the intensity of your feelings for him, and you knew that there was no turning back.

His kisses were extremely demanding, but you responded eagerly, your own desire building with each passing moment. The intensity of the connection that had been brewing for so long, was finally released.

As his hands explored your body, you couldn't help but arch into him, wanting more of his touch. You knew that this was dangerous territory, but you couldn't bring yourself to stop. The pull towards him was too strong, and you knew that you would do whatever it took to be with him.

You were lost in the moment, consumed by the intensity of your feelings for him. The world around you faded away as you gave in completely to the heat, reveling in the passion that you shared.

Rohan's toned arms wrapped around your thighs, lifting you up effortlessly and carrying you to the table. You gasped at the sudden movement, feeling a jolt of excitement shoot through you. You were taken aback by his sudden boldness, but couldn't deny the thrill it sent through your body.

Sitting on the table, you felt a rush of cool air hit your back as Rohan's warm body pressed up against yours once again. His lips captured yours again, his tongue slipping past your lips this time, teasing and caressing, exploring your mouth with a hunger that took your breath away.

Despite the rush of passion, a part of you couldn't help but feel self-conscious. You were still outside on the patio of his house, with the possibility of being seen by anyone who happened to walk by. But Rohan didn't seem to care, his hands wandering freely over your body, caressing every curve and dip.

His touch sends shivers down your spine, and you couldn't help but moan into his mouth. The sound only seemed to spur him on, his hands moving to the hem of your shirt, pulling it up and exposing your bare stomach and chest to the cool night air. Your hands found their way to his hair, tangling in the soft strands as you pulled him even closer.

Finally, when the need for air became too much, you both pulled back, gasping for breath. You looked into each other's eyes, the intensity of the moment still lingering between you. It was clear that neither of you wanted to stop there, but for now, you both settled for the electric touch of your bodies as you sat on the table, lost in each other's embrace.

"Perfect and delightful," he said, his eyes lighting up with satisfaction. Rohan's satisfied expression only added to the intensity of the moment, and you couldn't help but feel a sense of pride at having pleased him. As he wiped the drool from his mouth with his thumb, he added, "See, you can help me when you put your mind to it."

His gaze was different from his usual arrogant demeanor, and you could feel the affection and happiness radiating from him. It made your heart skip a beat, and you couldn't help but blush under his gaze. Despite his good looks and charm, you always tried to keep your distance, but in this moment, you couldn't help but admire him.

"If it really helps..." you trailed off, unsure of how to continue.

He chuckled at your shyness. "Of course it does. You have a really beautiful face, your voice is perfect, and your skin is soft." He paused for a moment, studying your face. "You know, you're not just helping me with my manga. You're also helping me become a better artist."

"I'm glad I can help," you said softly, a smile playing at the corners of your lips.

And then, his hands landed softly on your chest, their feather-light touch sending shivers down your spine. Despite the gentle caress, there was a hint of cruelty in his expertise, as if he was toying with your nipples just to see how far he could push you. The way he moved his hands with such precision and care made you feel like you were a rare and precious work of art, and your heart raced with the intensity of the moment.

You couldn't help but notice the way he studied you, his eyes taking in every inch of your body as if committing it to memory. It was as if he was learning every curve, every line, every inch of you. The attention he gave you was exhilarating.

As his fingers traced delicate patterns across your chest, you felt your breath catch in your throat. The sensation was overwhelming, and you couldn't help but let out a soft moan. He seemed to revel in your reaction, a small smirk playing at the corner of his lips as he continued his exploration.

It was as if he was in a trance, lost in the sensation of touching you, and you couldn't help but feel like you were under his spell. His touch was delicate yet powerful, pinching your nipples and caressing your skin, a perfect balance of tenderness and domination that left you craving.

Rohan's hand continued its relentless exploration, moving down your stomach, to the edge of your inner thigh. His fingers were soft and delicate against your skin. You tried to resist, but your body betrayed you, responding eagerly to his touch.

"Y/n, darling," he said huskily, leaning in to brush his lips against your ear. "And I love how much power I have over you."

His words sent a jolt of electricity through your body, and you couldn't help the moan that escaped your lips. You were helpless under his touch, completely at his mercy.

"Rohan, please," you gasped, but your protests were half-hearted at best, you were almost begging him at this point. Deep down, you didn't really want him to stop. You desperately wanted him to keep going, to take you to heights of pleasure that you had never experienced before.

And as his fingers slipped under the waistband of your shorts, you knew that there was no turning back. Rohan's fingers traced the edge of your panty, teasingly brushing against the wetness of it. The anticipation was almost too much to bear, and you found yourself arching towards him, silently begging for more.

"God, you're so beautiful," he murmured, his breath hot against your neck. "I could spend hours exploring every inch of you."

You moaned in response, your mind foggy with desire. His touch was sending shivers down your spine, and you felt like you were on the brink of something incredible.

"Please, Rohan," you whispered, unable to form a coherent sentence. "I need you."

You couldn't control the sounds that escaped your lips as Rohan's fingers slipped ast your panty, delving deeply inside you. The sensations were overwhelming, and you felt like you were on the brink of losing yourself completely to him. His expert touch was electric, and you couldn't help but writhe and moan beneath him.

He leaned in closer, pressing his lips to your ear, "You feel so good, baby. So tight and wet for me," he whispered, his breath hot against your skin. His words only served to heighten the intensity of the moment, sending you spiraling further into ecstasy.

You were soaking wet at this point, drenched for him. His finger stroked your insides, his thumb brushed against your sensitive bundle of nerves while his lips lingered on your breasts, placing numerous small kisses with a certain amount of hunger. 

As he added a second finger, your body responded eagerly, your legs tightening around him, trapping him against the table and your body. Your insides softened further, the stretching of his fingers was astounding. You were completely consumed by the pleasure he was giving you, and you wanted nothing more than to surrender yourself to him completely.

"You're doing so well, my good girl," Rohan hummed, his breath hot against your skin as he continued his relentless assault on your body. "Perfect for me."

And as he added a third finger, the stretching of your insides was almost overwhelming. His fingers shattered everything, all the common sense you had in you. You wanted him to ruin you with his love. In a manner as violent as the emotions you had for each other. 

With each additional finger, your insides were stretched beyond your wildest imagination. Rohan's dexterity was almost unbelievable as his fingers moved in and out of you teasing your most sensitive spots, his thumb brushing expertly against your sensitive bundle of nerves. He kissed his way up your neck, placing numerous small kisses, while you writhed beneath him, completely under his spell.

With each movement of his fingers, you felt yourself edging closer and closer to the brink of ecstasy. You were so close that it was almost painful, and you couldn't help but moan his name, begging him to take you over the edge.

As if sensing your imminent release, Rohan increased the pressure of his fingers and his thumb, sending you over the edge with a loud cry. You came hard, your body shaking with the force of your orgasm.

And as he finally pushed you over the edge, your body convulsed with pleasure. You were lost in the sensation, completely consumed by the intensity of your feelings for him. 

But even as your body was wracked with pleasure, you knew that you wanted more. You wanted Rohan to continue his ministries, to take you to even greater heights of pleasure. You were completely under his spell, lost in the ecstasy of his touch. Your eyes fluttered open, and you looked up at him, feeling completely vulnerable and exposed, yet strangely safe in his arms.

"You're amazing," you whispered, your voice barely audible. "I want more."

As your body slowly came down from the heights of pleasure, you couldn't help but feel a sense of submission to him. You knew that you would do anything for Rohan, no matter how frightening or dangerous it might be. You were completely his, consumed by the intensity of your feelings for him.

Rohan's eyes bore into yours as he slowly withdrew his fingers from inside you, leaving you feeling empty and wanting. This left you with a void that bothered you. But his smug smile told you that he was pleased to see you in such a messy and desperate state, begging for more of his touch.

But Rohan wasted no time in bringing his fingers to his mouth,, you couldn't help but feel a shiver run down your spine. The way he savored the taste of your essence, his tongue running between his fingers to clean them, was extremely erotic and perverse. His tongue ran between his fingers, cleaning them of your essence as he tasted you. It was an incredibly intimate act. You couldn't help but watch in fascination as he licked his fingers clean, his eyes never leaving yours.

The way he looked at you made you feel like the only person in the world, like he couldn't get enough of you. And as he slowly removed his fingers from his mouth, you knew that he was far from finished with you.

He leaned in so close that you could feel his breath on your lips, sending shivers down your spine. As his words flowed over you like warm honey, you felt a wave of desire wash over you. "You taste so delicious," he whispered, his lips brushing against yours. "I could do this all day."

Before you could respond, he closed the distance between you, his lips claiming yours in a deep, passionate kiss. You melted against him, your body responding to his touch like it always did.

But as quickly as the moment began, it was over. Rohan pulled away, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "However," he said, his voice low and husky. "I have to go and draw all this to make sure I'm not missing any details."

You looked at him in disbelief. "Are you going to leave me like this?" you protested.

He chuckled, a deep, rumbling sound that sent shivers through you. "We might be seen," he replied, his eyes scanning the area around you. "You're moaning quite loudly, darling."

You blushed, embarrassed by your own lack of self-control. He put your shirt and shorts back on, his touch gentle and comforting. "But I didn't say you were finished helping me," he said, his eyes locking onto yours. "Even if you don't live with me anymore, I hope you'll come often," he added, his tone turning playful. “You are always welcome,”

You wanted to protest, to tell him that you couldn't keep doing this, that it was too much for your heart to handle. But before you could say anything, Rohan kissed you again, his lips silencing your words. And then he was gone, disappearing inside the building to continue his work.

You were left standing there, feeling a mix of frustration, desire, and confusion. You pouted, the words "I hate you" escaping your lips in a soft whisper. But even as you said them, you knew that they weren't true. You didn't hate Rohan - quite the opposite.

[takerfoxx]

On the night of the election, I had an honest-to-God dream where I woke up and found out that Harris had shockingly come in from behind and won the election. I remember how relieved I was that the nightmare had been averted. That we did choose to not elect a senile fascist back into office. That most of my country weren't willing choosing evil over progress.

Then I woke up, literally and figuratively.

Obviously, this has been a heavy blow. Honestly, as someone who was raised as a conservative Christian, who was a huge fan of Linkin Park, Kanye West, JK Rowling, Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman, and the Undertaker for years, and who felt like I could trust my friends and family to have my back, it's been like these last few years have been a relentless train of disappointment and disillusionment in everything and everyone I once believed in and looked up to, and who I would go to for escape when things were bad. I know you should never meet your heroes, but damn, could they just have been like salty jerks who were caught being mean to the waiter instead of fascists, abusers, bigots, and so on? Could the entire world view that I had been raised in and fervently believed for over half my life not have turned out to be so awful? And yeah, I'm including the friends and family part in that as well.

Obviously, since the election, there's been a lot of finger pointing. Did Harris run a bad campaign? Did she abandon the working class? Was it the Gaza issue? Was it the fault of moral abstainers or third-party voters?

And honestly, I get it. Given the sheer horror of what we're facing, I get being frustrated with people who don't help and/or vote against their own interests only to go all Shocked Pikachu face when the worst possible scenario occurs. But I've been doing some thinking, and I personally believe that even if all those groups came out in support of Harris, whether it be because they do support her or even just as a way to block Trump, she still would have lost. This is the first time in a long time that a Democratic nominee lost the popular vote, after all. I think Biden would have lost too, and he only won in 2020 because of the very unique circumstances caused by the pandemic.

I think we need to face the facts. America's been sliding into fascism for decades.

Reagan. The extremism that erupted after 9/11. Birtherism. Gamergate. The Manosphere. The far right has been busy, whether it be stacking the deck politically or pinpointing the fears and insecurities of every generation and tuning their messaging to draw people in. They tell them what they want to hear, that it's not their fault that they aren't getting what the American dream promised them, and it's all the fault of (insert minority group here). It's been targeted. It's been methodical. And it's been working.

Trump won. He's going to get away with everything. The far right won. This sucks. I wish I had some inspiring words about never giving up the fight, but I'm not that guy. And honestly, I'm starting to feel that spiteful part of me come out, the one that sort of hopes that everything does get much worse so that every braindead moron who voted against their best interests gets exactly what they got coming to them.

But I also know how dangerous that line of thinking of. So please, Do NOT listen to me. There are plenty of people still rallying the troops, still encouraging people to fight, people who are in far more danger than I am. I'll be fine. I'm just a tired and disappointed middle-aged white guy living in a boring California suburb. I'm safe. But there's a lot of people that aren't. And those are the voice that you need to be listening to.

As for me, I'm not giving up, I'm going to keep voting, going to keep supporting the causes I believe in, and going to keep helping how I can. But I'm also going to go away for a while. Not long, probably just a few weeks or so. But I'm going to disengage from social media for a bit to keep from doomscrolling and just focus on writing, because that's all I really know how to do. And when I do come back, I'll have a lot more stuff for you guys.

In the meantime, please be good to yourselves. Be good to those who are scared and hurting. The world needs you in it, now more than ever.

[pliablehead]

Heyo, what do you consider the top 5 must-watch EE interviews???

I AM SORRY I TOOK SO LONG TO ANSWER THIS and I think it's because I really don't have a proper answer!! So much of my deep dive into EE was done in one long hyperfixation spiral back when I was first getting fangirl-level into them, a good 6 or 7 years ago, and so I'm running into the problem of most of the interview content I've consumed all sort of homogenizing into one sort of blur of Lore that I've internalized and I am not doing a great job at separating out into its individual components! So, that said, the following list is probably not in line with what I'd actually ultimately believe to be the best, most crucial ones--it's just the ones my brain can call to mind at the moment. lol. BUT HERE ARE SOME:

serious/insightful: • Jon and Alex for Tape Notes podcast. (so not a must-watch so much as a much-listen, but there are a few individual clips from this on youtube in video form as well I believe.) RDF is my favorite EE album and I thought this was a hugely interesting look into their writing process and also had a bunch of cool personal stuff in it! Plus, I think it's a very good look at who the band are, like, "now" -- there's a lot of great content around from MA up through GTH, but by the time they were on album 4 and all like, 30+, and especially once covid hit and sort of changed the trajectory of like.. bands, in general, I feel like it's just been a different animal re: regular interviews etc. • this 2013 3-parter with Jonathan. It's been ages since I watched it but I remembered it almost immediately, and for some reason I'm remembering it as an oddly vulnerable Jon moment. just talking about things. (more good band lore! etc.)

funny/meme-y: • Mike and Jez at Isle of Wight. Unlike many others, I could not possibly count how many times I have rewatched this, and it is funny every time. The interviewer is a buffoon asking totally clueless questions and Jez is having absolutely none of it, he's just chomping his chewing gum the entire time, Mike's doing his best, it destroys me. • Mike and Jez look at memes. Less interview-y and more just #content but whoever edited this video did a TOP NOTCH JOB and it's one I often show to not-in-this-fanbase friends that can still be a fun look at the band and a good laff. • This very sweet one with Alex and Mike being interviewed by a literal child. Contains the infamous "Jeremy, and yes," which is one of my most quoted EE-related sentences ever • this Man Alive track-by-track, also audio only.. the BITS that Jon and Alex are doing. truly incredible stuff

just lads having a nice time :) : • the CAPSLOCK ON talkback - lots of pleasant band and lyric insight, and a great Jez cheese moment at the end • this livestream dot com session is some performing but some Q&Aing, so not really an interview proper, but the energy in the room is delightful alskdghj

other noteworthy bodies of work: • anything with Andy Backhouse. I'll be the first to admit that Andy can grate my nerves sometimes, he often feels annoyingly a little too simp-y or something, but the other side of that coin is that as a huge fan of the band he actually does always ask them questions that are like, Real, he Gets them, so it's guaranteed to be a notch up from just random music journos who are engaging with them on a more surface industry level. Nothing is more frustrating than watching an EE interview where the interviewer just so blatantly doesn't "get" EE's whole deal and doesn't know how to interface. Andy never has that problem ! • any episode of Chips of Chorlton that features them (I think Jon's been on twice and Jeremy once). Dutch Uncles are their friends and hearing them all shoot the shit in an extremely comfortable environment is suuuuch a pleasant and wholly different experience than when the lads are being Professional Music Band guys, even when the latter still consists of them doing fairly goofy things

A VERY LONGWINDED AND NOT ESPECIALLY COMPREHENSIVE ANSWER ?? !!!!! Ultimately I think I was the wrong man for the job. @hellkitepriest has way more of an archivist's nature sort of just intrinsically than I do, he can probably do a better and less ridiculous job akjdshglak