#(just different monsters because two different people used the exact card) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

luna-writes-stuff · 1 year

Text

The types my favourite Supernatural characters would fall for:

Includes Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury, Castiel, Gabriel, Lucifer, Jack Kline, Crowley, and Rowena Macleod

————————————————————————

Sam Winchester:

Surprisingly, I don’t think Sam would go for a nerd, or a bamf. No, I think he loves the gentle people most. Those who - regardless of whether or not they know about monsters - see the good in everything. Those who share a positive mindset and manage to smile through every situation. Sam has been through hell and back, and he needs that place of solitude more than he cares to admit. Someone he can run to who he knows will make him feel better. Comforting arms, gentle words, reassuring kisses: he craves those things more than anything. And he will damn well do anything he can to keep you safe from all those things he fights against. God forbid you are the one to be faced with those evils. His face always seems to light up upon seeing you. He has this habit of walking to you and wrapping his arms around you, lifting you off the ground slightly. But when he is exhausted, or something goes wrong, he will saunter, place an arm around your waist and pull you in for a side hug, his face buried in your hair, simply grateful to be back home. With you. He needs those things and we all know it.

——

Dean Winchester:

Now, Dean is the exact person to fall head over heels for nerds. People who can kick ass? Sure. But someone who knows a lot of things about a lot of different subjects? Very attractive. We all know Dean is somewhat of a nerd himself - we’ve seen it on multiple occasions - but he buries it deep down. But once you start rambling about a book series you love, or a game you’re really into, 90% chance he’ll give it a go behind your back. When you find out, he always plays the “so I can talk along” card, but let’s be honest: he’s genuinely curious. It sounds so stupid and nerdy, he wants to know what it is all about. Opposite of him, you love books. Unfortunately, he used to take advantage of this. He’d let you do all the reading while he sits in the chair beside you. Doing nothing. But he’s learned to love research with you. Somehow, it is very calming to him. He tends to let go of his emotions easier when it’s the two of you nose deep in books. And that’s something so delicate to you, because you know how Dean can be during these times. It is a sign he trusts you a lot.

——

Charlie Bradbury:

Golden retriever girlfriend golden retriever girlfriend golden retriever girlfriend golden retr-. She has a lot of nerdy hobbies, if you will. But if you are willing to participate in them, she’ll do a double take. In her eyes, you had always been attractive, but she is awkward, so she pushed those feelings down. But now you are actually interested in playing a game of DnD with her? Maybe she is over analysing things, and you are just being polite. But one event turns into two, which turns into three, which turns into four. And when she announced your fifth shared event with Dean, he’s had enough. He is the one to actually encourage Charlie to ask you out. In his words “grow a pair and get it over with”. Very inspiring. So, that day, she starts stumbling over her words. Anxiety overload. And that’s when you interrupt her and ask her out for dinner. A dinner as in a dinner date. And after that, everything just happens on its own. You don’t care what Charlie comes up with, as long as she doesn’t have to do it alone. And for her to have someone to share her interests with, is all she could really ask for. It makes her so happy, it becomes difficult to contain. All in a good manner, of course.

——

Castiel:

You guys know Folklore/Evermore (you should)? Cas would definitely be attracted to someone with those vibes. Someone calm and gentle, very laid back, bookwise, and imaginative. Perhaps an author, or a musical s/o. Someone who outs expressions and emotions through art. The look of focus and dedication on your face is simply so entrancing. Oftentimes, he’ll simply sit beside you and stare at you while you work. At first, it was very distracting and made you grow all flustered, but you got used to the feeling. Now, instead of intruding, it is soothing. He’d met you through Sam and Dean, who you knew in your youth. They kept in touch. And then one day he shows up in the middle of your bedroom, claiming he would bring you somewhere safe. And just like that, you had found yourself in the bunker. The boys had been hunting a pack of werewolves with a grudge against the Winchesters. And they had found out about you. As the pair was out, you and Cas got to know each other fairly well, and things just took off from there. He claims your works are some of the best his father ever created, and that he can spend hours looking at them, or listening to them. And he will. He actually keeps an entire journal with ideas he finds throughout his life and offers it to you, hoping to help you somehow. It’s endearing.

——

Gabriel:

Gabriel has seen some stuff, okay. He has heard and seen stories happen throughout many lifetimes. And he’s always been a sucker for a good story. If you are an author or bookworm, he’d grow enthusiastic at the thought. Sure, he loves looks, but he has a soft spot in his heart to those who love stories as much as he does. That entire Casanova attitude drops when he’s around you. He’s gentle, careful, almost as if you are the most precious cargo in the world. You have to share your works with him, would you have them. He wants to know everything he can, and everything you are willing to share with him. Read any good books? Tell him all about it. In detail. Rant about it, he doesn’t care. Late nights are spent on either the couch or on the bed. His head is in your lap as you drown yourself in a good book, reading aloud to him as he hums occasionally, letting you know he is still reading. And in exchange, he’ll tell you the things he has seen (though, only the good things). His entire personality seems to change around you, and is something he is so grateful for.

——

Lucifer:

Lucifer isn’t usually the type to fall in love quickly. But it’s all about playful banter with him. You dare argue back to him? You’re lucky you’re cute. Your initial meeting was after the whole Amara debacle, and - suffice to say - you were pissed when you saw him. You full-out shouted in his face, pointing accusing fingers and yelling words you probably shouldn’t. And he just smiled. He’d probably say something along the lines of “you’re adorable when you yell”. Now, that pisses you off even more. It takes some before you finally have a good conversation with him. And that’s when you realise, he might not even be that bad of a guy. If anything, you are the one who argues back and forth with him because you know he loves it. It’s that playful and loving mocking, you know? He lives for it and you know it. That satisfied smirk? Those joyful eyes? That’s all admiration, darling. He is taken with you from your first shouting match at him. “Asshole” “Minx” “Mister ‘I like to make others feel bad because it makes me feel good’” “Who am I? ‘I like to pile up all my emotions and stuff them down somewhere until I explode’” “You insufferable prick” “Your insufferable prick ;)”

——

Jack Kline:

Jack loves a person who lives more in the present. He worries a lot. Like, an unnecessary amount. There’s a lot of things swirling in his mind constantly. He needs a significant other who will take him on walks in nature. Someone to take him shopping just for the fun of it. Spontaneous dinner dates, taking the car to a random destination, changing the rooms just because they can. Someone who is spontaneous enough to drag him with them constantly. He needs the distractions, whether he likes to admit it or not. But he goes with you willingly. Regardless of what you say or offer; his answer always seems to be ‘yes’. He has fallen for you the moment he set eyes on you. He didn’t even know what that feeling was at first. It led to a very uncomfortable conversation with Dean. He said things he probably shouldn’t have said to Jack. He feels inexplicably happy around you, as if all worries and care simply disintegrate in your presence. It’s so relaxing to him, he doesn’t find himself wanting to part with you anytime soon. He is smitten with you and everyone can see it.

——

Crowley:

Crowley appreciates honesty more than he lets on. Does he lie? Yes. Does he do it on a daily basis? Yes. Would he lie to you? Only if he had to to protect you from something. But he needs a break from that constant nagging from demons, or the calling of the Winchesters. He needs a place to rant and sigh. Someone who he could explain all his irritations towards. But he wants that person to actually form a conversation with that person. Not just be heard, but also receive caring words. Honest words for when he needs it most. But, besides those moments, he needs someone with somewhat of an intimidating atmosphere around them. This already comes naturally when seeing Crowley, but you need that neutral face, set in stone, safe for when it’s just the two of you. Someone who can help him with difficult decisions or orders. But also someone compassionate enough to slow him down at times. Ironically, the Winchesters really like you. Crowley hates it.

——

Rowena Macleod:

Rowena is a lady and she loves to be reminded of it: take her out on dates, buy her flowers, engulf her in affection and offer her compliments on the daily. She returns the gestures twice as much. I mean, she puts spells on you just to make sure you are okay. That spell she uses for herself so she cannot die easily? She will 10/10 do that on you too. Once she finds someone to settle for, someone she truly loves, she’ll do anything for that person. Your opinion and well-being comes first, always. It’s almost as poetic as swans; she can and will dedicate her life to you. The Winchesters didn’t even know about you until Lucifer got out to look for his son. Rowena hid at your place after she was burned. You were her one safe place and she did not hesitate to run to you. She is the person to put her life on the line if it meant getting you to safety. Hell, even Crowley was in it for as long as he could. And he did a great job, because - when he was still alive - the Winchesters never found out about you. Rowena is the type to be all domestic with someone: A home, a cat, cooking in kitchens - though she does love fancy restaurants. At first you wouldn’t really believe it, but she would love to get settled down somewhere. As long as it means she gets to keep her craft there as well.

2K notes · View notes

schismusic · 3 months

Text

Tom Waits and the art of believing

Somewhere in Simon Critchley's book on David Bowie he has an anecdote about Bowie redoing a vocal part a billion times because it's not authentic enough and — hold up, let me get the book:

"If Bowie’s art is inauthentic, if it is F for Fake, as Orson Welles might have put it, then is it also F for Falsehood? I remember reading an interview many years ago with Robert Fripp where he talked about watching Bowie in the studio in the late 1970s. Bowie was listening to a track or a tape loop and was very carefully, repeatedly, quite deliberately, and for the longest time, trying to generate the right emotion in his voice. What could be more contrived and fake than that? Shouldn’t true music come straight out of the heart, up through the vocal cords, and into our waiting, shell-like ears? Yet, as others have observed, Bowie’s genius lies in the meticulous matching of mood with music through the medium of the voice." (Bowie, Simon Critchley, p. 37)

— so yeah, if you've ever listened to so much as a smidge of Tom Waits this should be a pretty obvious connection to make.

youtube

It gets even better when you realize that Waits's inauthenticity is actually kind of the point. It's really hard to pinpoint where Thomas Alan Waits ends and Tom Waits begins, or more accurately the other way around - which makes what Tom Waits says immensely compelling, in that you never know for sure whether it's the cookie-monster-demon-thing talking or the man behind the legend poking his nose into the words. So this necessarily makes for a number of different possible listening experiences. This one time I was playing D&D with my old party and as we were playing my DM needed to introduce the Skaven — it was a Warhammer 40K type thing, I have never played any Warhammer 40K, whatever, that's besides the point — and he was like "all of a sudden, from the underground, you hear that song from Robots" and everybody was like "ooh yeah I know that!" and I was like "holy shit you mean Tom Waits?".

youtube

This kind of threw many of the people around the table for a loop and the night ended with me lending my Bone Machine CD to the home owner. He promptly returned it a while later and I suspect he didn't get to the end of it. More Tom Waits for me I suppose. When I first got that exact copy of Bone Machine (spoken like someone who has more than one copy of Bone Machine, whereas this is very much not the case, it's still the same one, bought used in January 2020: I was dating a girl and it lasted for like thirty seconds flat but luckily our relations are still very much positive, we got to base one and then dipped, then we lost track and exchanged like holiday wishes or birthday wishes if we got lucky, then all of a sudden I meet her again downtown last November — what happened is she apparently takes dance classes in town and has to spend like two hours on the train everyday just to train, pun not necessarily unintended but also definitely not intended entirely — and we have this wonderful little chat and then we're both like "actually let's stay in touch I'd love to get coffee at one point" and then sometimes we have short conversations and honestly I might just actually ask her for this coffee thing, have a more relaxed conversation and all, she's a nice person you know, she has her own way of dealing with the cards she gets dealt, a slanted skewered sense of irony about herself and everyone else that's very Southern-Italy-expat-into-the-North most likely mutuated from her parents and perhaps even derived from a sense of inadequacy of sorts, there's a lot to unpack I think, meanwhile I at the time — January 2020, that is — was still trying to process the previous relationship, which I might or might not have mentioned in the Godflesh piece, which actually might have become the veritable centerpiece of most of the stuff I write on here, and damn this sentence is really long, you guys are enjoying the ride I hope, I mean you must, after all this is the name of the game on here, don't I usually just run around in circles until all of a sudden you look the other way or roll your eyes in immense frustration and/or inveterate anger and while you're not looking I get to the point and the story ends?), it was January 2020 and I was on lunch break from studying. I was getting ready for a Linear Algebra exam. Linear Algebra is pretty cool but it doesn't leave much room for emotion, necessarily — it has its reasons of which the heart knows nothing. So here I was, this girl I was dating on her first relationship, me with one relationship too many, as young as I was. And at one point it entered my mind that maybe, just maybe, to stop being a crybaby I probably just needed to get into different music. Potentially music that had mystified me in the past. And nothing had mystified me like this one 128kbps CD dump of Tom Waits's Rain Dogs had, uploaded on a USB drive for me by a friend's father. So obviously I picked up Bone Machine. And I pop it in the stereo that night and this shit hits me right on the temple.

youtube

Imagine my shock when I realize that all of a sudden you don't need to be Godspeed You! Black Emperor to sound like the end of the world. Even crazier to me that the apocalypse could sound so flawlessly and tastefully arranged and yet so tangible and even brutal, and that there was basically no divide between the two. Which obviously prompted me to ask "how does this even work?" and to keep listening. So maybe all I needed to do was approach this with a musician's mentality, which is what I still do and it genuinely helps me a lot when talking Tom Waits. At the same time I wouldn't argue Tom Waits is a musician's musician, so to speak. He's also a writer's musician, crucially. Bones Howe defined his work on Nighthawks at the Diner as "Allen Ginsberg with a really, really good band" (I'm linking it here in full so you can check it out on your own time, which I highly recommend you do), and while I feel like Waits's work on average is a bit more humorous, which is kind of why even among the Island era works Bone Machine is the only one that actually does that homicidal maniac thing where everything, and I mean everything spectacularly ties into that general sense of apocalyptic abandon. The more personal numbers relate excellently to that, better than they ever have — and this is from that same guy who wrote, I don't know, Time. This one time, right before the pandemic hit, I was invited to a birthday party and as many things did back at the time it spiralled into a lot of heavy feelings being spilled onto absolute strangers. I had this CD in the car and I felt like I had to put this track on, I just knew it, don't ask me why. So I did:

youtube

And then a while later I found myself toying around a lot with this other track, called I Don't Wanna Grow Up (music video courtesy of Jim Jarmusch, by the way). Obviously 2020 wasn't the best time for many people. I was trapped with five other people — two of which had COVID — in a house meant for four, I seemed unable to hold one person down for long enough to actually become friends and my academic career, if there even was one, was very clearly dead in the water. And let's be clear here: would you wanna grow up in that context? God knows I didn't. And I guess it makes it even funnier when it's a guy who has very much grown up already telling you that he doesn't wanna grow up — and that you find yourself believing him. Because ultimately Tom Waits, as opposed to Thomas Alan Waits, does not in fact grow up. He is born fully formed and trudges through life in eternal decay, he faces memories of his past haunting him and turning ever less beatnik and ever more hallucinatory and modernist and distorted. His blues become his decomposing greys/greens, they become toxic miasmas that end up deforming and corroding the songs. And even icons of religious salvation turn into broken contract killers — the sole ones capable of providing a truly beautiful death. "Some say he killed a man with a guitar string… some say under his coat there are wings." Fitting that the music should turn a slow country instrumental into a metaphysical number, chilling and perfectly inexplicable precisely in direct proportion to how close it is to the reach of sheer intuition.

youtube

But what originally got me into the record was Waits's balladry, as funny as it may seem. You don't usually listen to Tom Waits for the ballads, mostly because lately (that is, from 1983 onwards, at least) that's very much not what he's remembered for. And yet not many people can just as easily write Goin' Out West — a track that goes so hard it's been covered, basically unaltered, by Queens of the Stone Age — as he does Whistle Down the Wind — a track that's so touching it's been covered, with very different instrumentation and vocal interpretation, by Joan Baez — on the same record, no less. The one that got me at first was A Little Rain, a murder ballad so brutally honest it doesn't even have to say it out loud: a sixteen-year-old leaves her small hometown to see the world. "I love you mom, and a little rain never hurt no one" are the words she leaves her mother with. To the cost of sounding redundant, it probably wasn't the rain that hurt her. You are left with a profound sense of evil that, unsurprisingly, pops up in a track like Springsteen's Nebraska — "well, I guess there's just a meanness to this world".

youtube

But the one that speaks to me, fellow imposter syndrome having asshole, the most is Who Are You, more eloquently (perhaps a bit too eloquently) titled Who Are You This Time on some live albums of Waits's. It's very easy to construe yourself as a suicidal buttfuck-insane maudit rat bastard, but most other people see right through it when you're twenty. My obsession at the time was to be taken seriously, to be taken as a ticking time bomb, to be taken as a menace even. I don't think it was necessarily a form of posturing; it could more appropriately be interpreted as me trying to get people to notice how fucked I felt this shit to be. Unfortunately it gets old fast. I guess Tom Waits, or likely Thomas Alan Waits, kind of saw it too. It's reasonable to interpret this track as a song against itself, or rather a song against whoever is singing it, or rather a song about whoever is singing it pretends to be in front of an audience, which necessarily entails some interesting reflections on identity and artistic integrity and the understanding that who says the thing is just as important as the thing being said. I am making no sense because it's almost 2am. I don't give a fuck. Here's a song that makes me cry:

youtube

#schismusic #music #writing #long form #tom waits #bone machine #Youtube

4 notes · View notes

fantasyfantasygames · 6 months

Text

Seven Hundred Signs

The Seven Hundred Signs of the Unseen, Alice White, 2013

Alice White is quite the multi-talented individual. She's a solid game designer, and writes clearly, but her main skill is as an artist. Seven Hundred Signs puts her creative talents front and center.

The game's core conceit is that there is a hidden world layered beneath our own, "the Unseen", with magical conspiracies, invisible portals, impossible buildings, astral technologies, etc. People disappear from our world and end up trapped in an in-between state, from which they eventually escape. The way in which they escape - ripping, bargaining, squeezing, etc. - sets their character type. That's Session 0. After that the game revolves around various major factions and their quests for worldly power, often by acquiring magical power.

You've heard this setting's story before, but that doesn't make it bad. It just means that you can take bits and pieces from Unknown Armies, Delta Green, Over the Edge, Mage: The Awakening, Underground, Living Prism, Kingdom of Nothing, JAGS Wonderland, Night's Black Agents, ConX, Nahual, and more and they'll all fit in your game without too much extra work.

The mechanics are taken from Exacting Calibration, a 4000-word game in the same lineage as Snow & Silence. It uses a deck of playing cards that you write on and alter as the game goes on, a little like "legacy"-style board games. Your character might want there to be more 3s in the deck, for instance, because one of their powers triggers when a 3 comes up, so they might quest for the ability to add an extra diamond to the 2 of diamonds. Or you can place special sigils on cards, which lets you reduce ill effects or trigger critical successes and unseen power surges. It's a fairly slow progression, but by the end of the game the deck is pretty literally stacked in your favor. Balance is not necessarily great. The number of people playing also has a major effect on the odds of a particular card coming up. We'll eventually see those kinks get ironed out in Break of Night (2021), but for now it's still a bit wonky.

The game really shines in its layout and artwork. Full-color two-page spreads are common. Text is placed where it reads clearly, without trying to get too clever about it. On pages that are mostly text, there's still always at least one piece of art - things like a character walking past a streetlight in a bottom corner, or a monster creeping out of the seam in the center of the book.

Two intertwined stories run through the book's art: one of redemption, one of corruption. Different factions have their own subtle color themes. That makes for a really cool moment when the color of someone's wallet makes you realize that they've switched sides. The Unseen is painted in a hyperreal fashion that contrasts with the more typical painting style of the Common World (our world) in a way that makes it feel more real and more important.

There's a little bit of weirdness in the specific conspiracies - some of them are connected to real-world antisemitism and pseudoscience - but it seems like Alice was genuinely unaware of that at the time she wrote the game. Ten years ago I would not have possibly guessed that lizard people theories, of all things, are connected to antisemitism... but it turns out that if you dig deep enough in almost any conspiracy theory, someone starts spouting off about "Elders of Zion" and it alllll rolls downhill. Anyway, like I said, it doesn't seem to be intentional here, and the setting is modular enough that you can remove the problematic elements.

Seven Hundred Signs was expensive when it was first published, and it's only become more so since then. Your best bet may actually be the art book section of a used bookstore. Alice left the RPG scene for computer game visual design back in '15.

#rpg #ttrpg #imaginary #indie ttrpg #unreality #Weird how these signs always come in suspiciously round numbers #Like I wouldn't be surprised to see 333 signs #But having i dunno 419 signs? Who even does that?

1 note · View note

aspenmissing · 10 months

Text

𝙵𝚊𝚒𝚝𝚑 (𝙿𝚝 𝟸)

Upon entering the motel room, Y/N throws Dean's keys on the bed and begins to take off her jacket. Sam and Dean are at the laptop.

"What'd you two find out?" Y/N asks.

"I'm sorry," Sam mutters. Y/N throws her jacket on the bed and approaches the two.

"Sorry about what?"

"Marshall Hall died at 4:17," Dean says, causing Y/N to look at him stunned.

"The exact time I was healed."

"Yeah. So, we put together a list of everyone Roy's healed, six people over the past year, and I cross-checked them with the local obits. Every time someone was healed, someone else died. And each time, the victim died of the same symptom LeGrange was healing at the time," Sam says.

"Someone's healed of cancer; someone else died of cancer?" Y/N asks.

"Somehow. LeGrange... he's trading a life for another."

"Wait, wait, wait. So, Marshall Hall died to save me." Sam and Dean look upset.

"Y/N, the guy probably would've died anyway. And someone else would've been healed," Dean says.

"You never should've brought me here," Y/N says.

"Y/N, I was just trying to save your life," Sam says.

"But, Sam, some guy is dead now because of me."

"I didn't know." The three are silent, then Dean speaks up.

"The thing I don't understand is how Roy is doing it. How's he trading a life for a life?" He asks.

"Oh, he's not doing it," Y/N replies. "Something else is doing it for him."

"What do you mean?" Sam asks.

"The old man I saw on stage. I didn't want to believe it, but deep down I knew."

"You knew what? What are you talking about?" Dean asks.

"There's only one thing that can give and take life like that," Sam looks at her, confused, but Dean realises what she means. "We're dealing with a reaper."

Sam, Dean, and Y/N are sitting at the table.

"You really think it's The Grim Reaper? Like, angel of death, collect your soul, the whole deal." Sam asks.

"No, no, no, not The Reaper, A Reaper. There's reaper law in pretty much every culture on earth; it goes by 100 different names; it's possible that there's more than one of them," Y/N says.

"But you said you saw a dude in a suit."

"What, you think he should've been working on the whole black robe thing? You said it yourself that the clock stopped, right? Reapers stop time. And you can only see 'em when they're coming at you, which is why I could see it and you two couldn't."

"Maybe."

"There's nothing else it could be, Sam. The question is, How is Roy controlling the damn thing?"

"That cross."

"What?" Dean asks.

"There was this cross; I noticed it in the church, and I knew I had seen it before," Sam looks through some papers and snorts. He holds up a card for Y/N. She leans in to take the card.

"A Tarot?"

"It makes sense. A tarot dates back to the early Christian era, right, when some priests were still using magic? And a few of them veered into the dark stuff? Necromancy and how to push death away, how to cause it?"

"So, Roy's using black magic to bind the reaper?" Dean says.

"If he is, he's riding the whirlwind. It's like putting a dog leash on a great white."

"Okay, then we stop Roy," Y/N says, rising to put her cup in the sink, then leaning against it.

"How?" Sam asks.

"You know how," Dean says.

"Wait, what the hell are you talking about, Dean? We can't kill Roy."

"Sam, the guy's playing God; he's deciding who lives and who dies. That's a monster in my book," Y/N says.

"No. We're not going to kill a human being, guys. If we do that, we're no better than he is."

"Okay, we can't kill Roy, we can't kill death. Any bright ideas, college boy?" Dean asks.

"Okay, uh... If Roy's using some kind of black spell on the reaper, we've gotta... figure out what it is. And how to break it."

The Impala bounces down the badly gravelled and potholed road again, passing a sign that says Service Today. They park and exit the Impala.

"If Roy's using a spell, there might be a spell book."

"See if you two can find it." Y/N looks at her watch and says, "Hurry up too, the service starts in fifteen minutes; I'll try to stall Roy." A man is holding out a leaflet to Dean.

"Roy LeGrange is a fraud. He's not a healer," Dean says, taking the leaflet. "Amen Brother."

"You keep up the good work," Sam says, and Y/N nods.

"Thank you."

Roy comes down the stairs, assisted by Sue Ann on one arm, a dark-haired man on the other. Sam and Dean watch them leave from the corner of the porch. Sam climbs in a window, followed by Dean, and starts searching the house. Sam looks at the bookshelves and pulls out the only book that doesn't have dust on the shelf in front of it: the Encyclopaedia of British History. He flips through it, finding nothing. Dean walks over, spotting another, smaller book hidden behind the larger one on the shelf. Inside is a picture of a skeleton reaper, and on another page, the wooden cross. They also find newspaper articles about the people who died. A third clipping close by is about the man handing out leaflets in front of the tent.

Theo is walking slowly up the side aisle before her phone rings. She looks to see it's Sam, and she answers.

"What have you got?" She asks.

"Roy's choosing victims he sees as immoral. And I think I know who's next on his list. Remember that protestor?"

"What, the guy in the parking lot?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we'll find him. But you can't let Roy heal anyone, alright?" Y/N hangs up and moves further towards the front of the tent.

"Layla. Layla Rourke. Come up here, child." The crowd burst into applause. Layla, stunned, looks around, then rises to hug her mother.

"Mum. Thank you."

"I love you, child." Y/N watches them hug.

"Oh man." As Layla passes her, Y/N grasps her arm. "Layla, listen to me. You can't go up there."

"Why not? We've waited for months!"

"You can't let Roy heal you."

"I don't understand. Roy healed you, didn't he? Why can't you let me try?" Layla asks.

"Because if you do, something bad is going to happen. I can't explain. I just need you to believe me." Y/N and Layla stare at each other. Sue Ann stands waiting, her hand held out.

"Layla."

"Please," Y/N says. Layla stares at the hand Sue Ann is offering, then turns back and stares at her mother, who is standing and ringing her hands. Her mother nods at her. Layla looks at Y/N and shakes her head.

"I'm sorry."

"Layla. Layla!" Y/N says as Layla leaves her. Sue Ann is smiling and putting her arm around Layla to take her to the stage.

"Dear child!" The crowd continues to clap happily. "You deserve this," Sue Ann says softly as they reach the stage. Roy takes Layla's hand.

"I knew the Lord was planning. I knew it was just a matter of time." Y/N, frustrated, moves back to stand near Mrs. Rourke, who's crying and covering her face with her hands.

Sam and Dean continue to search for the man.

"Help!" They both turn, searching for where the voice came from.

"Pray with me, friends," Roy says, He then looks to Layla and says, "I hope you're ready."

"I am"

"Help! Help me, please!" They soon find the man; Dean goes to him while Sam looks around.

"Where is he?" Sam asks, and the man grabs Dean's shoulder and points.

"Right there!"

"Fire, come on," Dean says, grabbing the man and pulling him away.

Roy is about to lay his hands on Layla, who looks enraptured.

"FIRE! Hurry, the tent's on fire!" Layla opens her eyes and looks towards the crowd. Everyone starts to rise and evacuate. Mrs. Rourke moves towards the stage.

"NO! No, please. Please don't stop. Reverend, please, please! Please don't stop, please!" Y/N watches helplessly.

"Friends, if you'd all just leave the tent in an orderly fashion...and we'll, uh, and we'll figure out what's going on out there and we'll come back." Y/N pulls out her phone.

"I did it, I stopped Roy," Y/N says into the phone. Sam is holding his phone to his ear.

"David, I think it's okay." David looks around at Sam, nodding, then turns back. The reaper is in front of him.

"No!"

"Y/N, it didn't work. The reaper's still coming! I'm telling you; I'm telling you it didn't work. Roy must not be the one controlling this thing."

"Then who the hell is?" Y/N asks. She looks around and spies Sue Ann beside the stage, facing into the corner and reciting "Sue Ann." Y/N runs to her and spins her around. She gasps and stops reciting, reaching down to hold a cross on a chain around her neck. It's the same as the wooden cross on the stage. Sue Ann stares at Y/N, tucking the cross inside her blouse.

"Help! Help me!" Y/N backs away, nodding and staring at Sue Ann as two cops grab her roughly and pull her away.

The reaper stares at the man lying on the ground, gasping for breath, then turns away and vanishes.

"I got you. I got you," Y/N says, moving to help him up.

"Thank God."

Two cops drag Y/N through the entry. She shakes them off as soon as they are outside, while Sue Ann follows close behind.

"I just don't understand. After everything we've done for you, After Roy healed you, I'm just very disappointed, Y/N," Sue Ann says, her disappointment evident in her voice. Y/N glares at her, saying nothing. "You can let her go. I'm not going to press charges. The Lord will deal with her as he seems fit." Sue Ann leaves, and the cops turn to Y/N.

"We catch you around her again, Lady, we'll put the fear of God in you, understand?"

"Yes, sir, fear of God. I got it," Y/N replies. The cops give her one last push. She turns to find Layla waiting for her.

"Layla?" she asks.

"Why would you do that, Y/N? And it could have been my only chance."

"He's not a healer."

"He healed you," Layla says.

"I know it doesn't seem fair, and I wish I could explain. But Roy is not the answer; I'm sorry."

"Goodbye, Y/N," Layla says, shaking her head sadly. She walks away, and Y/N raises her eyes to the sky, then turns to watch her. She turns back. "I wish you luck. I really do."

"Same to you," Y/N says, her voice cracking. Layla turns to walk away again. "You deserve it a lot more than me," she says under her breath. Layla walks past, where her mother is talking to Roy and Sue Ann.

"Private session tonight, no interruptions. I give you my word, I'll heal your daughter," Layla's mother says.

"So, Roy really believes," Sam says, sitting on the bed.

"I don't think he has any idea what his wife's doing."

"Well, me and Sam found this," Dean hands the little book to Y/N, "hidden in their library. It's ancient. Written by a priest who went dark. There's a binding spell in here for trapping a reaper," Dean says.

"It must be a hell of a spell."

"Yeah. You gotta build a black alter with seriously dark stuff. Bones, human blood. To cross a line like that, a preacher's wife. Black magic. Murder. Evil."

"Desperate. Her husband was dying, and she didn't have anything to save him. She was using the binding spell to keep the reaper away from Roy," Y/N says.

"Cheating death, literally."

"Yeah, but Roy's alive, so why is she still using the spell?"

"Right. To force the reaper to kill people she thinks are immoral," Dean says.

"May God save us from half the people who think they're doing God's work," Y/N says.

"We gotta break that binding spell, Y/N," she says as she looks at the picture of the cross in the book.

"You know Sue Ann had a Coptic cross. When she dropped it, the reaper backed off."

"So, you think we have to find the cross or destroy the altar?"

"Maybe both. Whatever we do, we better do it soon, or he's healing Layla tonight."

"That's Layla's car. She's already here," Sam says.

"Yeah," Y/N says, nodding sadly.

"Y/N..." Dean says.

"You know, if Roy had picked Layla instead of me, she'd be here right now. And if she's not healed tonight, she's going to die in a couple of months."

"What's happening to her is horrible. But what are you gonna do? Let somebody else die to save her. You said it yourself, Y/N, you can't play God." Y/N sits without speaking, then gets out of the car. Dean follows, then Sam. They approach the tent and peek inside. Roy is speaking to a small group of the faithful, including Layla and her mother.

"Gather round, please everyone. Gather round. Come in closer, come on up."

"Where's Sue Ann?" Y/N asks.

"House," the three move to the house.

"You two go find Sue Ann, I'll catch up."

"What are you gonna...?" Sam asks as Y/N pushes the two towards the house. Y/N spots the two cops from earlier.

"Hey!" The cops looked over. "Areryou going toa put that fear of God in me?" The cops drop their coffee and run at Y/N, who takes off. As soon as they'regone,e Sam and Dean run up the stairs and check around the house. It is inthe darkness. They turn back, confused, then spot light emerging from the cracks of the outside basement entrance. Sam and Dean move towards the basement entranc., Dean opens thedoor,r and the two slip inside.

Y/N slowly rises next to the passenger window of the camper van, looking behind her. A large dog jumps at the window, barking wildly, and she leaps back. On the other side of the van, the cops shine their lights underneath, then in at the dog, who is still barking.

"Psycho mutt," they move on, and Y/N sticks her head over. She looks around tensely, then sags against the roof.

Sam and Dean move quietly through the basement to a candlelit altar littered with parts of dead animals, blood, horns, and more. There is a photo in the middle of Y/N, her face has been crossed out with what looked like blood.

"I gave your sister life, and I can take it away," Dean says, furious. He tips over the table the altar is on, then the two run at Sue Ann, but she is already up the stairs. She closes the hatch and secures it with a beam. Sam and Dean stretch to push against them and keep trying. "Sam, Dean, can't you see? The Lord chose me to reward the just and punish the wicked. And your sister is wicked, and she deserves to die just as Layla deserves to live. It is God's will," Sam and Dean turn to survey the room. "Goodbye, Sam, Dean." Dean pulls a block of wood from the wall and smashes out a small boarded-up window.

Y/N is heading towards the tent when some lights go out. She stops, looking behind her, and watches the line of lights lighting the path go out one by one. She turns back to see the reaper walking towards her. The reaper places his hands on the side of Y/N's head. Y/N convulses once again, slowly coming to her knees, her eyes glazing over. Sue Ann is reciting, holding up the cross. Sam and Dean appear. Dean grabs it and throws it aside, breaking a glass bottle of blood. The reaper stops what he is doing and looks up. Y/N falls to the ground, gasping, as Sue Ann falls to her knees beside the blood.

"My God, what have you done?"

"He's not your God," Sam says. Sue Ann looks up and sees the reaper. He smiles at her. Terrified, she rises and turns to run. The reaper is there. He places his hands on her head, her eyes glaze over, and she falls to her knees. After a moment, still smiling, he allows her to slip to the ground, where she convulses before dying. The reaper watches, looking satisfied. Leaving her lying there, Sam and Dean turn and go to look for Y/N, who has made it back to the Impala just as Sam and Dean approach.

"You okay?" Sam asks, hugging Y/N.

"Hell of a week," Y/N replies, shaking her head.

"Yeah.... All right, come on. We should get going," Dean says. They enter the car.

Y/N sits on the bed, staring at nothing. Sam and Dean come up to her, looking down at her with sympathy.

"What is it?" Sam asks, staring at her.

"Nothing," Sam and Dean wait a few seconds.

"What is it?" Dean asks softly, sitting beside Y/N and putting his arm around her shoulders and her head on his shoulder. Sam comes over and sits opposite Y/N, taking her hands into his.

"We did the right thing here, didn't we?" Y/N questions.

"Of course, we did," Sam replies, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles.

"It doesn't feel like it." A knock at the door stops them.

"I got it," Sam says. He opens the door as Y/N turns to look, showing it's Layla.

"Hey, Layla. Come on in."

"Hey," she enters, and Y/N quickly rises to greet the woman.

"How did you know we were here?"

"Sam and Dean... called. They said, you... wanted to say goodbye?" Y/N glances at Sam and Dean, who are at the door. They're smiling softly, and they nod at her.

"I'm gonna... grab a soda. Dean, come on, I'll buy you a pie." The two leave, closing the door behind them.

"So, uh. Where are you going?"

"I don't know yet. Our work kind of takes us all over." Layla watches Y/N as they sit in silence for a moment.

"You know... I went back to see Roy." Y/N nods.

"What happened?" Layla sits on one of the beds.

"Nothing. He laid his hand on my forehead, but nothing happened," Y/N sits behind her.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry it didn't work," Y/N says.

"And Sue Ann. She's dead, you know? Stroke."

"Yeah, I heard. You know Roy's a good man. He doesn't deserve what's happening," Y/N looks at Layla. "Must be rough. To believe in something so much, and have it disappoint you."

"You want to hear something weird?" Y/N turns to look at her. "I'm okay. Really. I guess if you're going to have faith... you can't just have it when miracles happen. You have to have it when they don't."

"So, what now?" Y/N asks.

"God works in mysterious ways," Layla says, smiling softly. Layla hugs Y/N, who is barely keeping it together. "Goodbye, Y/N." Layla rises and moves towards the door. Y/N closes her eyes for a second, remaining still. She then rises and turns to face Layla.

"Well...." She clears her throat as Layla turns back to face her. "I'm not much of the praying type... but... I'm going to pray for you."

"Well... there's a miracle right there," Layla says, her eyes shining with unshed tears. Layla turns and leaves the room. Y/N stands staring at the door, her eyes tearing, knowing it's going to be the last time she'll ever see Layla again.

#Supernatural #older sister winchester #Supernatural Fanfiction #Supernatural Fandom #reader insert

1 note · View note

swanimagines · 2 years

Text

CRIMSON AND BLACK | KAZ BREKKER

FREDDY EVENT, send in requests for any of Freddy Carter's characters (NOT the man himself (= no Freddy Carter (the real person) x readers), only his characters)!! The event will be on for an indefinite time, if you're unsure, see if the event post is pinned. If it is, then it's still on. (Other requests are open too, but they go to my normal to-do list which I'm not able to start doing anytime soon)

Summary: Y/N has suffered a lot since her childhood, making her to be someone children were scared to see in Ketterdam. Then she meets someone who she can finally relate to, and that feeling wants to grow into something more. requested by anon

Pairing: Kaz Brekker x fem!reader

Characters: Y/N (female), Kaz Brekker, mentions about the Crows + mentions about Jordie, Pekka Rollins and reader's parents.

Warnings: trauma, mentions of violence, death, blood, descriptions of torture, I also used some exact dialogue from the book at one part because of a Marvelous Plot Twist™. Also they are in their 20's at the end of the fic because of the show.

Word count: 1.6k

Ever since you were born, your parents had been gathering money to move away from Ketterdam. Move somewhere safer to raise you. Your mother had become pregnant accidentally, they weren't meaning to have kids - not in that age, they were barely 19 when they had you. But they kept you, falling in love with you the moment they saw you. You were poor, but a happy family anyway.

Finally, when you were nine years old, your parents found a solution. A kind merchant had offered to help you move to Ravka, have land, enough food for the rest of your lives and the most important of all, you'd be safe from all those filthy criminals that tormented Ketterdam. You'd get a happy childhood, the one your parents had always dreamed of you to have.

Hope had gotten the best of them, and the man turned out to be a very skillful conman, and soon you found yourselves at the street, penniless and hungry. The greed of Ketterdam had swallowed your happiness and later, after the Plague taking them, you had swore for revenge against the man who had tricked you.

Robbert van Delden, the name would sit as tight in your head that it could as well be tattooed in your brain for as long as it needed. Until you'd get him killed by your own gun - no, blade. You wanted to make him suffer for as long as possible. You wanted his life to end in agony, his blood coating the walls as you'd beat him and slash him, hearing his screams, begs of mercy, finally him begging you to just kill him. But you wouldn't, you'd torture him until he wouldn't have the strength to scream anymore, and then leave him there to bleed out, or to die from thirst or hunger. You would have gotten your revenge.

And then maybe you wouldn't feel so empty inside anymore. Maybe you could even move on after that. It was the only thing that kept you going anymore. To take down that monster called Robbert van Delden once and for all.

You met a boy your age not long after who had gone through a lot too. You told him about van Delden, and he, in return, told you about Hertzoon. You figured that Ketterdam had a lot of twisted merchants, maybe van Delden and Hertzoon had even worked together, due to so similar and calculated pattern.

You learned the boy was named Kaz, and you introduced yourself as well, and so you began working together. You tricked people, Kaz had found out that he was really skilled with cards and lockpicking, and taught you too. You stole food together, two minds thinking better than just one. The only difference with your personality and wit was that he didn't stand touch, where you had no problem with it. You bought a pair of leather gloves for him just so he'd stand it just a little bit better, and soon you two were known for being so young, but with your skills being extraordinary. People had tried to offer you a place in their gangs, but you had always said no, you planned to kill those two merchants that had ruined your lives, help each other hunt them down, and then leave Ketterdam. Maybe you'd stay together, maybe you'd separate after that, but the main focus was to kill van Delden and Hertzoon.

Despite all your will to have revenge, neither of you didn't think to actually meet the merchants ever again - until one day, years after living in streets with Kaz, you saw him. Van Delden stood there at the shop, and Kaz seemed to freeze too when he saw him. Without even thinking, you both pushed through the crowd, but were stopped by a giant bruiser.

"Shop's closed." he grunted at you, looking at Kaz and you, probably noticing the identical storms in your eyes.

"I can see it's open." Kaz growled at the big guy.

"You'll have to wait."

Kaz was starting to lose the last of his patience, as he growled, "I need to see Jakob Hertzoon."

The brute raised his eyebrows. "Who?"

Kaz looked at him with eyes that would have scared you if he looked at you like that. He looked like he could have stabbed the brute right there as his hand shot out to point at the window, and you noticed he was pointing at van Delden - and you understood. "Jakob fucking Hertzoon. I want to talk to him."

The bruiser looked at you two like you were out of your minds. "Get your head straight, lad. That ain't no Hertzoon. That's Pekka Rollins. Want to get anywhere at the Barrel, you'd best learn his name. Now get out of here, both of you."

Kaz pursed his lips, clearly wanting to keep arguing. But instead, he took a few breaths and then turned around, disappearing into the crowd again. You followed, trying to keep up with Kaz. You had seen him angry before, but now he looked more furious than ever before.

You had walked through the streets for a while, not talking, Kaz trying to let his steaming anger out the best he could. When he finally stopped by your squat, legs basically quivering from all the walking, you had gone inside and sat down with him, offering him a drink which he accepted.

"They were both Pekka Rollins," you mumbled after a few minutes of you sitting there quietly. "They're all the same person."

Kaz turned to look at you slowly, frowning slightly. "What?"

"Van Delden. Hertzoon. Rollins. They're the same person."

Suddenly, it dawned to him too. That's why it had been so similar pattern, how in sync they had acted. Rollins knew how to charm fools - children, parents, every poor person. Milk all the money he could possibly get off of people, and use their trust to trick them. It didn't matter who got hurt.

You both laid awake that night on your makeshift beds that were closer than most at the squat, but not too close. You could have used each other's warmth, but you always respected Kaz's boundaries with everything. So you were just staring at the roof quietly, planning what to do next. Eventually, you came into a conclusion that it would be the best to join a gang - Dregs, to be exact. Become equals to Rollins, feared, ruthless, respected. The kinds children would be scared with so they would not run off too far. So that day, you went straight to the Slat, asked to see Per Haskell and joined the Dregs. You'd be rising in ranks in no time - your hate and will for revenge would take care of it.

---

It had been ten years from that moment, and everything had gone like you planned. You both were Per Haskell's right hands, running the business for him. Most respected you more than they respected Haskell - only newbies didn't, because they hadn't seen you in action.

You were always buried in work together, planning for heists. Inej came by every once in a while, providing you information about your new target for a heist before slipping away again. Over the years, you had gathered a group of the most trusted people and called yourselves the Crows. You were closely working together, often pulling heists only by the seven of you.

But at some point of your partnership, after working so closely with Kaz - you had noticed you had developed new feelings for him, past partnership, past your friendship. They had been brewing for years, ever since you were teenagers, but it took a lot more time to catch what was it.

Feelings.

For someone like Kaz Brekker.

Other Crows had of course noticed it. Maybe you had too, but you had ignored it for ages. They also claimed that Kaz clearly loves you too, but one of you had to come forward in order to find happiness. But at least that couldn't be true, even if your feelings were true, there was no way Kaz's would be.

And even if they were, you didn't believe you'd be ready to anything romantic. Loving someone didn't fit into your life situation, in your plans. Happiness was overrated, you didn't need happiness, you needed revenge. Just like Kaz needed that too.

So you kept ignoring those feelings, pretending you weren't feeling something deeper than friendship towards him.

And unbeknownst to you, but Kaz did the exactly same thing. He ignored his feelings, his deep affection towards you. He believed you wouldn't like him back anyway, and even if you did, some silly romance would only distract you. It was better to have a professional relationship - maybe somewhat friendly, even. Kaz didn't want friends, nor did he need them, but he still thought of you as a friend. You had stood by him since he was just a boy, just like he had stood by you. You understood each other more than anyone else, and when you worked together, things were done efficiently.

That's why he never said anything, and neither did you. Maybe in the future, when things had gotten better, or then not. But whatever would happen, you'd always have a special place for each other, just a little bit of warmth in your cold hearts.

---

If you enjoyed this oneshot, PLEASE INTERACT BEYOND JUST LIKES!! The ratio between likes to comments and reblogs is really discouraging for writers and a lot of us have already left the community because of it...

Kaz taglist for the Freddy event: @scandalous-chaos @brekkers-desigirl @bb-skyrunner // send in an ask to be added, and specify which of Freddy's characters do you want to be tagged on! (This taglist is for Freddy event only, I won't take character taglists for anyone else than Freddy's characters)

#kaz brekker #kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker imagine #kaz brekker x y/n #kaz brekker x you #shadow and bone #shadow and bone imagine #shadow and bone x reader #sab #sab imagine #sab x reader #my works #imagine #imagines #reader insert #female reader #kaz brekker oneshot #oneshot #freddy event

175 notes · View notes

filterjeons · 3 years

Text

baby baby | kth

✦ pairing: kim taehyung x reader

✦ summary: you’re practically taehyung’s favorite girl. even though you are just his sugar baby, he loves you more than any one of his before. unfortunately, you started to turn into the complete opposite of the girl you were before but luckily for him, he knows how to put you back in your place

✦ rating: M, not suitable for minors

✦ genre: smut

✦ word count: 5.7k

✦ warnings: dom!taehyung, sub!reader, sugar daddy/dilf!taehyung, degradation, dumbification, anal play, oral (f receiving), fingering, rough and unprotected sex, overstimulation, creampie, aftercare

Taehyung sighed to himself as he “patiently” waited for you to finish looking through the abundance of clothes that are hung on the racks of the clothing store you two were in. What’s worse is that you probably already have those exact dresses, blouses or skirts but they’re just in a different color. Yet, your irresistible puppy eyes convinced him to drive you to the mall and spend a good amount on you.

When he decided to become your sugar daddy, he should’ve expected to create such a monster because every month he spends at least $5,000 on different sorts of clothes, shoes, makeup, or miscellaneous items. It wasn’t like it was a financial problem for him but because you were his absolute favorite, he was prone to giving you anything that you ever wanted. Now that he thinks about it, you were the most spoiled out of all of his previous sugar babies. You recently asked him to order a bunch of packages and now here you are, going to spend even more money on more clothes that are only going to go in your closet.

Despite all of that, he really loved you and wanted to make sure you were happy. The first time you two met was in a convenience store on a rainy day where you used to work part time. Back then, you were tired all of the time because not only were you working as soon as school ended but you also had to study like crazy once your shift was over. Even after you took on his offer of being his sugar baby, you still worked hard to maintain your scholarship and pay for your best friend Lisa’s rent. Plus, you always spent time with him whenever you had a free day which wasn’t required but it made him happy.

None of his past sugar babies were that caring, they just only wanted him for the money and genuinely didn’t care about him. He didn’t require them to keep him company or be in a relationship, hell he even was aware of the relationships they had with other people. He didn’t expect you to date him either because of the age gap between the two of you shared. He was 29 and you were only 19, in your second year of college. But you decided to be his girlfriend because you really liked him regardless of the money and because of that, he always had a special place in his heart for you.

What’s the point of buying all these clothes when he’s just going to rip them off of you?, he thought as he watched you shift through the neat piles of skirts. Another reason why he has a favoritism towards you was that you were just the best with him in bed. Some days you’ll be obedient and he’ll be caring with you but on other days, you’ll put on a bratty front and he’ll simply fuck it out of you with extra care at the end. He assumes that today will be the latter because of your spoiled attitude right now.

“Y/N honey, I don’t think you’re going to buy anything here so let’s go home now-” Taehyung said, walking over towards you but you brushed him off.

“Just wait for 5 minutes. I wanna see if this’ll look good on me,” you protested.

“It’ll always look good on you. Besides, don’t you have that same dress but in pink?” “I want the black one now, it’s for a party I’m going later on.”

“A party? How come you didn’t let me know before?” You were absolutely perfect in Taehyung’s eyes but a thing that he wasn’t really fond of was him knowing of your plans last-minute. Most of the time it was an accident because you tend to forget things easily but for some reason, it sounded like you didn’t want to tell him earlier.

“Because it’s none of your business. Ugh, there’s nothing good here so I guess I’m going to get this one. Daddy, can I have your credit card?” you grumbled, putting back the pile of clothes that were laying on your arm while the other was texting your friend Lisa.

“Your business is mine because I also have to keep you safe from anything bad that could happen to you. Where is the party?” “At the club of course! Come on Taehyung, who wouldn’t have a party at a club?” “It’s with Lisa, right?” “Why do you care so much, you’ve met her before! She’s literally my best friend and of course I have to go. Just give me your credit card al-”

“Put the dress down. I’m not buying you anything today because of the attitude you just showed me,” he said darkly, trying to get you to listen to him.

“Why not? What did I do wrong?”

“I think I already spent too much on you because now you’re acting like a spoiled little girl,” he growled softly above your ear, his aura overtaking you and making your heart race.

“But...but, I want this one!” you whined, giving him your best pout and stomping your feet like a little toddler. Taehyung laughed at your childish behavior but his decision still remained firm.

“Please Daddy? Please, please, please!”

“No means no. There’s nothing you can do to change my mind.”

“It’s not even that expensive!”

“Y/N, the money isn’t the problem for me. It’s the way you’re speaking to me.”

“Daddy, you said that you’ll buy me anything right? You love me right? Do you not love me anymore? Am I not your favorite?” you pulled the last-attempt lines that typically got Taehyung to do whatever you want. You knew in your heart that he’ll only love you and he blatantly shows his favoritism for you but those words always got him to give in and buy the item.

Taehyung’s expression shifted from softening his stance and debating to giving in before deciding to not settle down to you. It was so close before he surrendered and spent even more money on you. He already loved you since you were his only sugar baby right now and he’s sure you know it too but this time, he’s not going to lose to your charms.

“I’ve already bought you so much stuff, is that not enough for my bratty little baby?” he asked coldly, pulling a card that you’ve never heard before. He’s never called you a brat outright but the degrading name made your stomach turn and a whimper come out of your mouth. “Does she want more?”

“I-I-” “Are you a little brat who likes to be spoiled with Daddy’s money?”

You felt cool sweat dripping down your forehead as you tried to think of a comeback that could match him but most of your previous ones won’t work on him. All you could think of is…

“Yes I am, Daddy.” That nearly sent Taehyung to the edge as he made you put back the dress, grabbed your hand, and walked you out of the mall and into his limo which still amazes you to this day. The chauffeur didn’t even need to interact with you two as he pulled up the golden partition, giving you alone time with him.

“You used to be such a good little girl but now your behavior has gotten worse. It’s such a shame that I have to punish you on the night before your best friend’s party. I would’ve let you go if you told me before but I don’t think that’s an option, especially for what I’m about to do to you when we get home. Besides, we haven’t had sex together in a while now; wouldn’t you have much more fun playing with me than going to a normal party?” he whispered darkly, his hand slowly creeping up your thigh as your face started to blush.

Sometimes, it’s hard to believe that you were the same girl a couple of months ago when he first met you. He remembered the first time he took you to a high-end clothing store, the look on your face when you read the price tag and the way you puffed up in anger when he swiped his credit card on an expensive dress that’ll absolutely look stunning on you.

Now after getting used to buying more items, you took a full 180 on your personality which led you to be the girl you were now. But even though you showed a bratty and whiny facade, he still knew you kept your hard-working and kind heart because it was a part of you that never went away. Alongside your submission to him.

“Daddy, I’m sorry,” you whimpered, his fingers lightly grazing the front of your pussy and feeling the embarrassing wet patch on your panties from your arousal.

“Are you enjoying this? Did you want this all along? Are you acting up like a bad girl because you want me to dom you?” he chuckled, his warm mouth leaving hickeys along the side of your neck and pushing his fingers past your underwear and into your core.

“I...I…” you were breathless, already squirming from his touch and worrying that the chauffeur could hear you. Although there were times when the both of you had no shame in his car, for some reason it was humiliating for him to hear you wrecked like this.

“Huh, are you worried that he might hear you? Do you want him to hear you fucked out against my fingers like a little slut?”

“Oh, uh…” you let out a quiet whimper as you try to cover your noises with your sweater sleeve. Taehyung smirked at how weak you looked as he started to pump his digits in and out of you, the action making squelching noises and the palm of his hand rubbing against your clit. You were absolutely dripping onto his fingers and your panties as muffled sounds were slipping out of your lips.

“Naughty girl,” he tsked as the limo came to a halt in presumably the front of his mansion and he pulled his hand out of your core, licking the excess liquids. You whined at the dirty action and the loss of contact as the chauffeur turned off the engine and exited the driver’s seat to open your door.

“Thank you so much Michael,” Taehyung smiled as the door opened for the both of you to get out. He was acting like he didn’t make you hot and bothered earlier ago while you already looked flustered and out of breath. You knew that he’s absolutely going to snap once the two of you are behind closed doors but you weren’t worried at all. Rather, you were proud of yourself for bringing him to that point because you really enjoyed getting punished by him.

“Strip off your clothes baby girl. Don’t make me repeat myself,” Taehyung says darkly once you get inside his master bedroom. You gaped at him, suddenly feeling shy about yourself.

“Wh-what?” “You should’ve got it the first time. Take off your clothes, missy.”

Even though you were in trouble with him, you still didn’t want to back down to him completely yet so you decided to give him an eye roll and a dramatic groan.

“It’s no use being a brat to me now, rather it’ll just make your punishment worse. I’m saying this for the final time Y/N, strip. Now,” he snarled, his darkened eyes burning daggers into you as he eyed you expectantly.

At this point, there was no use in arguing with him so you huffed and gave in to his demand. You pulled off your sweater and bra, leaving you in just your skirt, thigh-highs, and panties.

“Take off your panties, I just want to see you in your skirt and stockings,” Taehyung demanded, waiting for you to finish. You were surprised he didn’t want you to take off all your clothes but he always loved seeing you in a skirt due to your tendency to wear them often. You slipped off your undies and tossed them in the side, leaving you in the thigh-highs and the skirt that barely left any room to hide yourself.

“Fuck,” he hissed, his bulging hard dick sticking out against his jeans as he manhandled you onto the edge of his bed, the curve of your ass sticking out. You could feel him grind onto you roughly, making you crave more of him. “You’re such a bad little girl, I’m not going to go easy on you.” “Well, bring it on,” you jeered, facing him and trying to rile him up even more. Your statement lit a fire in him because he pushed you down on the bed and immediately attached his lip onto yours in a hungry kiss. You tried to kiss back but his pace was too rough and fast as he slipped his tongue inside yours to assert his dominance.

He broke off from the kiss and went down to your chest, kissing and sucking on your hardened nipple, even nibbling on them. The other one was taken care of by his long fingers, tugging on them and sending sparks of pain whenever he tugged them sharply. You let out a high-pitched moan as he typically never paid that much attention to your boobs.

Being the little shit he was, he decided to become more aggressive once he switched treatments on both nipples. In one, he was biting and sucking on it harshly with his teeth while the other was being flicked and pinched with his fingers. After hearing your mewls and whines, he decided to tug it upwards which created an electrifying shock towards you.

“Ahh! What-oh-oh my god!” you cried as your body tried to calm itself down from the pain while Taehyung watched your boob snap back into place with an evil smirk plastered on his face.

“Aww, does the little baby not like that? Does it hurt?” he mocked and you nodded, tears threatening to fall out of your eyes. “Too bad, little whore. It’s what you deserve after you acted like a dumb little bitch who’s only good for taking in dick.”

You gasped to yourself at the degrading terms, surprised at yourself for hearing him calling you that for the first time and how much you like that. Taehyung could tell as well because of the way your slick is coming down rapidly from your thighs.

“Does the stupid little girl like that? Do you like getting treated as just a dirty little cockwhore for me to use?” he asked, pulling up your skirt and making kitten licks on top of your pussy to tease you.

You bucked your hips up higher for him to keep going: both the degradation and him eating you out. Taehyung’s tongue always felt so good on you and the way he was staring at you could nearly make you cum right now.

“Yeah, you enjoy it so much huh? Being treated like a dumb baby who’s only good at making Daddy feel good? Do you want me to make you feel good? Does your little hole want to be filled up with my cock?”

“Yes,” you whined, thrashing against his face as the ache’s gotten worse for you. At this point, you wanted anything from him just so the burning sensation could feel better.

“Such a little slut. Always desperate for Daddy’s cock,” he shook his head as he licked a stripe of your core before turning you on your hands and knees, your ass in full display.

“Wh-what are you going to do?” you whispered, thinking of the times he’s gotten you in this position when you were in trouble with him. Most likely it’s going to be a spanking so you internally braced yourself for the impact.

“I’m going to do something different,” he replied, pulling up your skirt so your puckered hole was on display. He rubs a finger to prod your entrance, collecting the slick that was forming there. “We haven’t done anal before, have we?”

You shook your head, your heart racing on what he’s going to do with you. For some reason, it made you nervous as it was something that you’ve never done before and you’ve heard so much stuff about it from your friends and the magazines.

“Shh, don’t be nervous, it’ll be okay. You’ll be my good girl and take it, right?” Taehyung comforts you, kissing the back of your neck to calm you down and massaging your butt. You nodded, swallowing the lump down your throat to prepare yourself.

“I-I can do it,” you tried to say confidently, taking deep breaths.

“I know you can, you’re such an obedient little baby...some of the time,” he cooed, prodding your asshole with his thumb to try to get you used to the feeling and using your wetness as lube.

“Hey, what do you mean some of the time?” you barked, turning your head back to face him as a shit-eating grin was plastered on his face and his eyes darkened in lust. Apparently, his statement was supposed to distract you as he started to insert the first half of his thumb into your hole. “Daddy, what the fuck-” “Shh, relax baby,” he said in a soothing tone, feeling your walls clench around his digit tightly.

“Oh, okay,” you nodded and tried to calm yourself down as you took a deep breath and felt Taehyung’s thumb slowly starting to enter deeper inside of you, your walls trying to accommodate the stretch.

“You’re doing so good, taking Daddy’s thumb like such a good girl,” he praised softly, the compliment sending butterflies in your chest and making your face heating up even more. “It’s only a little bit left, you can do it baby.”

By now, you were a moaning and whining mess as you tried to stuff yourself into the pillows due to the embarrassing sounds you were making. You feel so full already and Taehyung wasn’t helping as he’s bringing his hand to the front of your pussy, flicking your clit.

“Such a sweet girl, you took all of my thumb,” he said with admirement, feeling the way your walls flutter around his finger tightly. The thought of you like this, all whiny and helpless under him while he takes you from behind, entered his mind and he let out a growl from the chance that he can make that thought into a reality.

All of a sudden, he pulled his thumb out of your hole, making you groan with disappointment as you were getting used to it inside you, before plunging his long pointer finger inside. You started to let out even more whines as you started to feel overwhelmed with the pleasure, both from the front and behind.

Taehyung added his middle finger and thrusted them in and out, quickening the pace while deciding to stick another one in, making you feel even more full than before. Your body started to tremble as you tried to keep up with him and steady yourself due to the rate he was going at.

“Jesus, have you gotten tighter than before?” he muttered, spreading your walls apart and making scissoring motions in an attempt to go deeper and stretching you out as much as possible so that you’re ready to take his dick later. Speaking of which, he felt himself grow harder with every little movement and sound you make, your cute noises boosting up his ego and turning him on.

You looked absolutely wrecked, the side of your face sprawled onto the pillows as your eyes were closed shut, mouth was open into a moan with drool slowly dripping down the corner of your lips, and your pretty ass sticking out for him as you started to grind on his hand, wanting to feel more.

“You’re enjoying this too much aren’t you, you bad little girl,” he tsked, fingering your hole harder and shoving his pinky inside. With practically all of his long digits inside, it hits every corner of your walls and gives you shocks of pleasure with every thrust which is leading you to your orgasmt. “Do you want my dick inside you, huh?” Your high-pitched squeals of need and you grinding your ass back to feel his hardened dick and chasing your high gave him the answer he needed. “You just want your little holes to be filled up, isn’t that right? Too bad.” All of a sudden, he immediately removed his hands and turned you back on your front, your legs sprawled out for him and your face contorting into a whine from the lack of contact.

“Why-why did you stop?” you panted, sweat dripping down your forehead as he was hitting every single part of you but ended it without any warning and leaving you dry.

“Because my little princess is still a bad little slut. Don’t worry though, maybe if you feed Daddy with your cute pussy, I’ll forgive you,” he replied as he licked a stripe up your cunt and made your body tremble from his dirty words. As he started to eat you out, you made eye contact with him and compared to his softer gaze, his naturally brown eyes are absolutely dark from lust which made him look intimidating. To tease you even more, he gave you a seductive wink and you felt yourself turn into putty as you let him do whatever he wants with you.

“D-daddy..” You were at a loss for words due to the bliss you were in. Taehyung was eating you out completely, kissing your clit, and humming occasionally to send vibrations throughout your sensitive core. His tongue was deep inside your entrance and his fingers were added as well to try to find your g-spot.

At this moment it was like you were in another world with your mind becoming absolutely blank and only focusing on him and your eyes nearly seeing stars. The noises inside the bedroom were extremely lewd, the squelching of your pussy as Taehyung eats you out and the whimpers and moans that are coming out of your mouth.

“Filthy little fuckslut,” he sighed, lapping at your clit and swirling it around between his tongue. When he lightly grazed on it with his teeth, the volume of your whines were even louder than before and you were ten seconds away from releasing.

“Does my angel want to come now? Is she going to release her sweet juices on my tongue?” he asked, staring at your fucked out face from below while thrusting his tongue muscle in and out.

“Mmh-” you whined, the familiar feeling that arises when you feel like releasing slowly taking over you as the rest of your body keeps writhing and twitching from the ministrations that Taehyung was doing to you.

“Pretty little baby,” he cooed, watching you starting to tremble as your orgasm was near. That sets off a reaction in your stomach because all of a sudden, you see your vision going blank and full of stars as you release all of your liquids on him.

It was like you had just dropped down from a roller coaster as you were still trying to come down from your high but it seems like it hasn’t stopped since more liquids were dripping down and soaking the bed sheets.

Taehyung looked at you in awe as some of it were splattered onto his face and surprisingly, your orgasm seemed more intense than before and you were squirting intensely onto his bed. He licked off some of your juices that were onto him before giving a final kiss on top of your cunt as he watches you slowly regain consciousness.

“Huh, what- oh shit, I’m so sorry,” you babbled, realizing what just happened and feeling completely embarrassed. Taehyung had no shame regarding what you two do in bed but it was still humiliating that you absolutely drenched his bed due to how good he was. “No no, it’s okay, besides it was really hot,” he smiled, trying to assure you that everything was fine. You rolled his eyes at his lewd remark as you slightly punched his shoulder, his comment definitely not helping.

“Are you still mad at me?” you asked quietly.

“Of course not, you know I can never get mad at you. But that doesn’t mean I’m not done with you because I still haven’t fucked you yet,” he replied as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt, giving you a mini strip-show.

Taehyung was a very attractive man and today it was evident as he kept staring straight at your face while taking off every piece of clothing on him. His honey skin was reflected against the late afternoon sun, causing it to glow like he was some god that came out of the sky. Although he wasn’t the most muscular, you were more than fine with how he looked because a man like him could have any girl in the world and he chose you.

“Why are you taking so long?” you whined as he slowly unbuckled his black jeans. You could see his hardened dick begging to be set free and knowing how good it looked and felt made you absolutely on your nerves as you impatiently kicked your feet immaturely.

“Patience, little girl,” he chided softly as he was now stripped down to his grey Calvin Kleins, palming his big bulge on top of his boxers. “Do you wanna take it off for me?” You nodded rapidly, crawling over to him and pulling down the restricting material. As soon as they were gone, his long and thick cock stood up instantly. Your mouth immediately watered at the sight of it with precum oozing out of the angry head. Honestly, his dick intimidated you due to how big it was and if it’s ever going to fit you despite sleeping together with him multiple times.

“Daddy…” you whispered as he pumped his length to let the precum slick it well. His hands were normally really big but for some reason, they looked small when they’re wrapped around his dick.

“What’s wrong, are you scared?” he teased lightly, a playful grin stuck on his face as he hovers above you to insert it in.

“N-no, I’m ready,” you said confidently as he aligns himself above your entrance, the tip of his dick slightly grazing your folds.

“That’s my good girl,” he praised, immediately pushing himself in inch by inch, hitting all of your nerves and filling you up to the brim. You dig your nails behind his back to try to steady yourself as he seems to be going deeper than before, feeling him hit your g-spot and other nerves that weren’t explored before.

“A-ah, shit it feels so fucking good. Your cunt is so warm and tight for me, holy fucking hell, you like that baby? Like my big fucking cock inside your tiny little pussy?” he grunts, rolling his eyes back as soon as his whole dick was inside you. You mewled pathetically, not being able to find words of how you’re feeling.

Taehyung took your noises as a sign for him to keep going harder and faster. Although you were just getting used to his veiny and lengthy dick burning your cunt, it wasn’t for long as he started to take his dick out so only the tip was above you and slamming it back in. You squealed at the sudden fast pace, his dick pounding into you deeper and harder.

He snapped his hips harder and started to thrust even faster, making you feel delirious and out of breath. The pleasure was overwhelming due to how well and often he was hitting that spot that always made you weak and his deep moans and grunts were turning you on. Your eyes were glossy due to the tears that were slipping out from the euphoria you were in and the way your cute eyes stared at him from below only turned him on even more, fucking you as hard and fast as he can.

“Aww, is my little fucktoy crying? Is it too much for you, huh? Is it too overwhelming for my little baby?” he mocked once he saw your face, thrusting at an inhumane pace. You whimpered at the degradation with glossy eyes, which only set Taehyung off even more.

“Fucking shit, the things you do to me little girl. Daddy’s hitting it so hard and fast, right? You could feel Daddy’s dick deep in your stomach?” With that being said, he palmed the bottom of your stomach and sure enough you could feel the presence of his bulge in there.

“I-I- oh fuck, y-yeah, faster,” you stammered, embarrassed at yourself for not being able to form coherent sentences but at the pace Taehyung was going at, it was pretty useless to.

“Stupid little baby, only good for letting me use her tight and tiny little pussy, my stupid little doll,” he cooed while kissing your cheek affectionately, the soft action mixed with the degradation making your pussy flutter around his cock tightly.

At this point, you were ten seconds near your orgasm due to how well he was making you feel. The familiar knot that signals if you’re about to cum is near and the volume of your noises has risen, filling the rooms with your high-pitched squeals and whimpers.

“Is my baby going to cum soon now? Do you wanna be a good girl and cum for Daddy?” Taehyung asked in his raspy voice above your ear, fucking you against your g-spot.

His words sent off a reaction in you that leads you to your high. You screamed out his name and released every single one of your juices on his dick, your body trembling due to the impact. Taehyung gasps as he couldn’t move due to how tight you were squeezing his dick due to your orgasm.

“Fucking shit, that’s a good girl,” he sighed, watching you slowly try to come down from your climax. For some reason, that just made him ten times harder and wanting to cum as soon as possible.

You were in a state of euphoria, your vision being blackened out and your senses not thinking straight. As soon as you slowly started to regain consciousness, you found yourself in Taehyung’s close embrace as he started to speed up.

“Shh, shh, baby, it’s okay, Daddy’s here,” he said softly, kissing you with love as you started to whine from the overstimulation as Taehyung was continuing to fuck inside you to reach his own high. “Can you hold on for Daddy, please?” You nodded slowly, feeling a bit bad about cumming before him. Although it slightly burned since you were sensitive from your own orgasm, you decided to keep it to yourself just to let him climax.

“You’re such a sweet little girl, my good baby,” he grunts as he started to slow down and his thrusts became sloppier since he was getting close to his orgasm. You let out a cute whine and that’s what it took for Taehyung to release.

With a low guttural groan, you felt his dick inflate inside of you and shoot out loads of his cum. He slowly started to pull himself out of you while he was still releasing, making his seed spill out of you while the rest was stuffed inside of your cunt. He stroked his now sensitive dick to make each last drop land onto your cunt before flopping down next to you out of breath.

“You did so well baby, I love you so much,” he whispered cutely, showing his adorable box smile which made your heart swell while stuffing the remaining cum that was slowly starting to drip out inside of your battered cunt.

“I love you too,” you croacked back, trying to calm yourself down from the two intense orgasms you had and the overstimulation.

“I’m sorry, I must’ve gone too hard on you,” he started to apologize but you immediately stopped him.

“N-no, I’m completely fine. You did really well too,” you smile, hugging him tightly.

“You’re always so sweet but first let me take care of you, okay?” he grinned back, stepping out of the bed and into the bathroom to put on some clothes and clean you up. As soon as he came back, he handed you an oversized shirt and had a washcloth in his hand to clean up your thighs and core.

“Do you mind if I put you down for a bit? I’m going to clean the sheets,” he asked, carrying you onto a nearby chair and changing the sheets. Soon, the bed was back to normal and you two decided to sleep in.

“I’m sorry for acting like a brat,” you said amongst his broad chest as you were snuggled up against him.

“No, it’s okay. You’re still a good girl no matter what,” he reassured you, kissing the top of your head and looking out into the window. The sky has turned into a pitch-black with stars scattered in different areas like a painting. “I’m sorry that you’ll have to miss Lisa’s party. I guess it must be starting soon.’’ “Taehyung, don’t apologize for that. Besides, I’d rather hang out with you than go to a party. It’s okay, she’ll understand,” you said, brushing off his apologies. Of course you would like to hang out with your friend but being with him made you feel like the happiest girl in the world.

“You’re so cute, like a tiny little baby,” he cooed, squishing your cheeks which made you immediately brush his hands off. Due to your age gap, he always found you cute because you were younger than him and treated you like a baby sometimes. It was endearing but sometimes it can be plain annoying.

“Oh my god, you’re so annoying,” you grumbled, turning away from him and placing a pillow on your head to prevent him from bothering you any further.

Taehyung laughed at your antics before slowly hugging you from behind and sleeping alongside you in that position.

With the previous sugar babies he had, he wouldn’t be sleeping with them in this position or have so much love and care but you were different. You absolutely stole his heart and even though you have your bratty moments, you will always be his number one.

a/n: damn this was filthy...but i hope the anons who requested this and y’all like it <3

taglist: @taesluttt, @laurynne5, @bonnyskies, @aretha170, @arthurflecc, @mytaetaey, @bts-txt-ateez, @maijinki, @pimentelssmile, @kookies-princess, @seventeenis-thedream, @impartoftoomanyfandoms

#btsbookclub #kpopuniversenet #btswriterscollective #btswritingcafe #kafenetwork #magicshopnet #bts #bts smut #taehyung #kim taehyung #taehyung smut #taehyung fanfictions #dom taehyung #bts fanfictions #taehyung imagines #dom bts #dilf taehyung

1K notes · View notes

clarawatson · 3 years

Text

It Only Takes A Taste (2)

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x [Fem]!Reader (GN pronouns, fem coded) Summary: it’s your second time meeting Aaron. He’s still flustered and precious but he (might) manage to give you his number. W/C: 2113 Warnings: none yet! A/N: i haven’t got chapter names yet, just accept they’re all called ‘it only takes a taste’ haha. AO3 tags: @willowrose99 @genevievedarcygranger @maryosprinkle @kleff03 (if you want to get added, lmk!!) Where am I in this series? 01 | 02 | 03 | 04

The next time you meet him, it’s 2am. Rita’s three weeks off her due date. She’s been staying at Joe’s place, with his wife, because the heating’s gone out in her apartment and her super is a foul man. If you were inclined to murder, he’d be first on your list. Right now she’s out the back, trying to wipe chocolate sauce off her uniform. The baby’s been kicking for hours and knocks things around the counter sometimes. At least it isn’t throwing her ribs out this time.

There’s a couple of teens drinking milkshakes in the window, they’ve snuck out after bedtime and they’re giggling to each other about how bad they are. You’ve seen their parents drive by twice (they’re regulars after school) but no one’s come in yet.

The agent drives by, and then does a u-turn and comes back. It was literally a double take, no matter how you look at it. You clearly saw him slow down and try to look in the window as he tried (desperately tried) to stay on the main road. And then he’d turned around and come back.

He’s even prettier dry than he was wet. (Your mind spirals to where that could have gone, which is not something you expected from a 2am shift). He’s loosened his tie and his hair is falling free of the gel. He looks less tired, and yet more tired. A different kind of tired. This one would be fixed by a good night’s sleep.

“Hi,” he says with a little quirk in his lip that could be him fighting off a smile.

“Hi,” you return with a full smile. He sits in front of you and steeples his fingers under his chin.

“I’m Aaron.”

A fortnight you’ve been wondering his name and he just swans in and hands it to you on a silver platter. Bless him and his beautiful brown eyes.

“Y/n,” you introduce. “And what can I get for you tonight, Aaron?”

“Maybe not a coffee.” He doesn’t break eye contact with you. He has such a cheeky smile you almost want to reach over and wipe it off his lips. “A hot chocolate would do. I’ve got to sleep enough to take my kid to school.”

“Have here?” Your hands hover over the in-cups and the out-cups. He taps his finger against his chin.

“In.” He folds his hands and you notice he’s not wearing a wedding ring. Kid, no wedding ring, weird hours. Could be a score, could be a serial killer. Could be both! No. Not both. There will be no fraternising with serial killers. Not if you respect your life.

Would it be weird to ask him where he works? If he works for one of the alphabet soups, will it get you in trouble? Maybe. People don’t like you poking around when sensitive information could be involved. You still ask anyway while the coffee machine has it’s little dummy spit at having to work at two in the morning.

“Quantico,” he says. He probably saw you trying to figure out how to ask. And that’s really all he can say. Maybe. He waggles his eyebrows just a little and you think he’s maybe a little too cheeky for this early in the morning. If Rita was working she’d be swooning all over him.

“That’s very prestigious, but, sir, I don’t think you have the security clearance to be in this diner if you only work at Quantico. We deal with Area 51.”

“Long commute,” he teases.

You raise an eyebrow. “That’s what the uneducated think. I can break a few rules as long as you don’t start asking questions. No asking about where they keep the aliens, okay?”

“Never.” He wraps his hands around the mug as you push it to him, absorbing it’s warmth.

“Did your son like the cookie?” you ask. Is it weird to remember he has a son after one interaction? Or the cookie? But he smiles. It’s okay.

“He’s actually in love with it. He’s not stopped talking about it. I think my sister-in-law might kill me.”

“Joe’s magic in the kitchen. I’ll save a couple of cookies if you know when you’ll be in next?”

Is that too forward? Maybe. He pulls out a little day book and places it before him.

“Is Thursday too soon?”

“No,” you say, shaking your head. You make a note to tell Joe you’re working on Thursday. “Sounds like a good day to collect a cookie.”

“If someone could cut this monster out of me, that would be GREAT!” Rita yells in the kitchen. Her voice is still far too loud out here. Aaron finally drops his gaze from yours, grinning into his hot chocolate.

“Shit, babes, I’m serious. I’ll got for a pocket knife at this point. I’m hot, and it’s not hot, I have to piss every four minutes, I can’t even sit in a car properly and taking the MET is stupid because I still have to pee!” She stops up short, seeing Aaron, and blinks as if she could erase her last comment. “Hi, sorry, you’re rain boy.”

“I prefer Raymond.”

There’s a beat where you try to figure out what the fuck he’s talking about. The cheeky demeanor falls from his face.

“Rain Man! Tom Cruise! Smile." Aaron has no option but to smile at Rita. Too late you realise she's checking the alignment of his teeth to actually equate him to Tom Cruise. "Raymond, for sure. Shit, that’s funny,” Rita laughs, groans, and turns on her heel out the back. She needed to pee again. Aaron smiles just a little.

“Want some pie?” you offer. There’s still a bit left. Joe won’t be in for another hour or so, but there’s some in the oven to take out just before three. Aaron nods.

“Yeah, please.” He puts too much money in the tip jar again. Hands you the exact money for the pie. Had he looked at the menu online? Maybe he had. You take a slice out for him, then a slice for yourself. No harm in that. The whipped cream goes on his like a mountain. You put a bit beside your own pie slice, but Aaron’s grinning.

He looks like he may do something childish. He doesn't, though, as you join him in pie eating. The teenagers start giggling about something they're watching on their phone.

Rita comes back looking more tired than usual. Her whole body looks tired as she gets her purse and rubs her belly.

"Say bye to Rita," she says without much playful effort.

"Bye Rita," you return and kiss her cheek as she lifts it to you.

"And to Baby."

"Bye Baby, be good for Mom."

Rita snorts. Joe gives you a list of things to do while he's taking Rita home. Apparently Lola's coming in to replace Rita, but that's only going to be proven by Lola actually turning up. Aaron raises his hand around his fork and waves. Rita waves back and waddles out the back.

"Is she okay?" you ask Joe, and he nods. He waves goodbye to Aaron, even though he hasn't introduced himself yet. Aaron waves too.

"That's a lot to worry about," Aaron says. You shrug and reach over the counter to Aaron's plate, taking some of his cream. He laughs and puts his arm around it to protect it.

"They're family. Less worrying, more caring."

He nods as if he understands. "Might use that sometime."

"You're welcome to."

He gives you a smile that only uses half his face. Gosh, he's cute. But it’s nothing more than fleeting night time visits, right? Okay, maybe not, he clearly turned his car around because he saw you working. You catch him staring at your left hand, studying it intently. No one wore rings at the diner, just because everything got stuck underneath them and there was nothing worse than having a maple syrup adorned wedding ring.

“There’s no one,” you tell him, which flusters him entirely. He smiles and looks down at his pie, blush creeping over his face. “Weird hours in a place like this? Hardly a brilliant base to build a relationship on.”

“Yeah.” He might want to say more, but he’s smiling at you again. “Weird hours, strange place, know that story.”

“Sucks, hey?”

“Oh yeah.”

The teens from the window go home when they’ve finished their milkshake. You tell them to get home safe and pray their parents don’t come in asking where they went. Aaron scraps his plate, scooping up the cream and pie soupy mess.

“I have to go,” Aaron sighs. He runs his hand through his hair and his fingers get stuck in the left-over-gelly-mess. You smother a giggle as he rolls his eyes and pulls his hand out with tiny little crack-crack-crack’s. It sounds painful.

“I’m going to shower and get this shit out of my hair.”

“It’ll look nice without it in.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.”

He blushes, returning to the man you’d met coming out of the rain.

“Well I’ll remember that for next time.”

Your heart jumps. Next time! There’ll be a next! Time!

“Listen, hey, um,” Aaron says as he stuffs a couple of bills into the tip jar. “Here--” he stops again, then shakes his head like he’s giving himself a vote of confidence. “This is…” he stops again and licks his lips, then pulls out a business card from his suit pocket. He scratches his number onto the blank back, and then Aaron at the top. “My number,” he managed to finish.

“Thanks,” you respond before wanting to smack your head onto the counter. Thanks?!?! There are a hundred better things to say. “W-when do you want me?” When do you want me??? “To be here, on Thursday, for the cookies.”

Aaron’s gone red. Your face is hot. This is a disaster. There’s no fixing this disaster. There’s no fixing it at all. But Aaron smiles all the same.

“U-uh. I’ll text you?” he looks so flustered.

“You haven’t got my number,” you giggle, because he hasn’t. You’ve got his. He looks like a tomato as he blushes even more. “How about I text you my number, and you tell me when you’re free, and I’ll make sure there’s three cookies set aside for you that no one else buys.”

“Three?”

“You, your son, your sister-in-law.”

“I could really use you at work,” he laughs and… sits back down. Four seconds ago he was in such a rush to leave, and now he’s looking at you like you’re his whole world. He’s so precious, you wish you could just put him in a jar and protect all that goodness from the evils of the world. Surely he couldn’t have met too many of them just yet? He’s still got a smile that could brighten up the night sky, people who’ve seen all the hurt and pain in the world can’t smile like that.

“I don’t think I’m clever enough to get into Quantico. Unless they like people serving them coffees,” you smile gently and he tilts his head while looking at you. A curious puppy. You want to lean over and squish his cheeks for thinking you could be anything more than a server at a roadside diner.

“You’d brighten the place up.”

“You brighten my place up.” Corny, highschool grade flirting. He smiles all the same. Can he smile any more than that? Probably not, he might combust and become a star. “You know you don’t have to keep putting money into the tip jar, right? Not the amount you do. Most people just put in their change.”

He looks at the tip jar. “It’s for Rita’s hospital bills, right? It’s why she won’t look at it, because she’s embarrassed, but also why you and Joe count every bill that goes in it.”

“Alright, Sherlock Holmes.”

“It says on the jar,” he jokes, and points to the permanent marker that’s bled through the otherside of the tip jar. You laugh. Aaron laughs.

“I do have to go.”

“Go,” you laugh. “I’ll text you when I’m off my shift.”

He nods, looking a little sad to go, but also a little excited. He must really love his son.

“I’ll see you on Thursday, Y/n.”

“I’ll see you on Thursday, Aaron,” you return and watch him leave. Shit, he’s even cuter leaving. He even waves from his car before he drives off. You’re close to squealing when the bikie gang pull up, flooding the carpark, then all come in ready for their coffee. At least Aaron’s hot chocolate warmed up the machine for them.

#It Only Takes a Taste #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotchner x reader #diner!au

107 notes · View notes

cactusnymph · 3 years

Text

matters of the heart

“Sir Caroline, I must ask your advice in an important matter.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘Sir’ anymore, Angelo. We’ve been over this.”

“Excuse me, Caroline. Now, this important matter—“

“Is this about Ale? Because, and I cannot stress this enough, I do not want to hear anything about your love life, Angelo.”

Angelo has to admit that this is not the way he had hoped the conversation to go. He feels himself deflate a little as he looks at Caroline’s disapproving face.

“But S—Caroline, I wouldn’t know who else to ask! Usually my best friend and former rival would be my first choice, but he’s not available at the moment.”

Caroline looks at him for a moment then sighs, lowering her head into her hands for a heartbeat before looking up at him again.

“Fine. Just this once. Next time you can just write Damien a letter.”

“Yes, Sir—I mean. Yes, Caroline.”

Caroline starts massaging her temple.

“So. Spit it out. What is it?”

“I almost can’t believe that I am saying this—truly, I think it is the first time I understand my friend Damien. I must speak my heart—“

“Oh, for the love of—“

“You are married to Miss Quanyii, are you not, Caroline?”

“Yes, I am. What does that have to do with anything?”

“So you must be well-versed in matters of the heart! How did you court your wife? I admit, I have never attempted this before and I have no idea how to go about courting a man—“

“And why should it be different than courting a woman, Angelo?”

Angelo pauses for a second. It was brought to his attention many times now that the distinctions between men and women he has learned about all his life might not actually be as accurate as many people make them out to be. Truly, Caroline is the best example. And now he has met Ale and Miss Quanyii, who is sometimes not Miss Quanyii but Mr Quanyii.

Angelo considers Caroline’s words.

“So you’re saying I should court Ale in the exact same way I would court a woman”, he says.

Caroline rolls her eyes.

“I do not see how gender has anything to do with this, Angelo. The way you court a person depends on the person. Not all women care for flowers and candles and love letters. I have no idea what Ale would prefer as courting; maybe he doesn’t want to be courted at all.”

“Like Sir Talfryn, yes. I have learned about this. You are correct, Caroline and I am glad to have asked you. I shall speak to Ale about this to make sure that I am not overstepping any boundaries! I thank you for your wisdom! Hophophophophophop.”

Angelo is not afraid of anything.

He’s not afraid of pain or fighting or dying or even things as complicated as numbers even though he is not very good at them. But when he finds Ale sitting next to Olala, showing her how to start a campfire with her little hands, something tightens in Angelo’s chest and all he can do is stare.

Ale is beautiful. Dark skin, long hair, big eyes and long lashes, a soft smile as he tells little Olala that she’s doing well.

Angelo feels his stomach drop; a sensation that is very similar to falling and his heart beats so rapidly in his chest that he has trouble breathing for a moment.

Maybe he should have rehearsed this. Maybe it would be better if little Olala was not there with Ale. Maybe he was hasty when he concluded that speaking directly to Ale would be the best course of action. A warrior’s approach. Head on. The same way he always approaches difficulties.

Ale looks up when he notices Angelo and he flashes him a grin that makes Angelo’s insides squirm around like very lively snakes. Saints, if he starts using more metaphors for how Ale makes him feel he might turn into Damien before he knows it.

“Hey schoolboy, what can we do for you?”

Angelo isn’t sure why it makes him feel warm and tingly when Ale calls him ‘schoolboy’, but it absolutely does.

He clears his throat.

“I was about to—hm. Well.”

Angelo wishes Damien were here so he could tell him how to find the right words for this. Damien has such a knack for language and beautiful words, while Angelo—well. Angelo has never in his life understood one poem that Damien showed to him.

“We’re making fire, Sir Angelo! I made a small flame, all without magic! Look!”, Olala proclaims excitedly and waves at the little wisp of smoke her efforts have conjured.

“Very good, Olala. I—uh. I must take my leave.”

And for the first time in his life, Sir Angelo The Strong turns around and flees.

“Aw, Angelo, what is it?”

Angelo looks up as Quanyii appears out of nowhere right beside him.

“I am afraid that I have become a coward, Miss Quanyii”, he says as he looks down at his big hands.

“I highly doubt that, sweetie. Is this about our beautiful vigilante boy?”, Quanyii wants to know as she scoots closer to Angelo, her colorful hair surrounding her head like a cloud.

“Yes. I have spoken to Si—to Caroline about this and she gave me important insight on the matter of courting rituals.”

“She did?”, Quanyii asks, sounding surprised.

“Yes. She explained that courting is not a matter of gender but of the individual’s personality. She also pointed out that Ale might have no interest in romantic relationships which I had not considered before.”

Quanyii puts her index finger to her lips and taps them thoughtfully.

“Yes, yes, such wisdom. But have you considered asking me about this? Romance is a magical thing after all and sweetheart, I’m a witch! Caroline doesn’t know one itsy-bitsy thing about romance, let me tell you that”, Quanyii says and pouts a little.

Angelo raises his head.

“So you would help me in this quest to court Ale?”, he asks. The grin that spreads on Quanyii’s face makes Angelo pause. This might not be a good idea.

“Oh, sweetie, don’t you worry your silly little head. I will give you one tip for free because we have become such good friends during those past few weeks! I know a little secret and that is that Ale does like romance!”

Angelo feels his face light up with a smile as relief courses through his entire body. He feels like he could do a hundred push-ups right here and now. Maybe even lift Porthos. Or the whole, fallen tree he’s sitting on.

“Why thank you, Miss Quanyii, that is most helpful!”

He grabs both of her hands and shakes them as Quanyii giggles.

“You are so very welcome, Angelo. For every other piece of help I’m going to require a little bit of payment. A witch has to make do, you know.”

Angelo doesn’t really understand but he nods anyway and gets up from the fallen tree trunk.

“I do not believe that I will need further assistance, now that the issue of romantic attraction has been resolved! Sir Angelo The Strong is back on his feet! Ha ha! Hophophophophophop.”

“Good luck, brave knight!”, Quanyii calls after him as Angelo runs back towards the camp.

Now that Angelo knows that Ale is not generally opposed to romance the path seems clear. That is, at least until Angelo arrives back at the place where Ale and Olala made their little fire before.

The two of them are still there, but both of them are asleep. Ale is sitting with his back against a tree, his legs spread, and Olala has curled up between his legs, her tail gently snoring. Caroline sits by the fire and sharpens her blade.

She looks up as Angelo enters the clearing.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Angelo”, she says as Angelo stares at Ale’s sleeping form. His long lashes are feathered out on his cheeks and for a second Angelo imagines to brush his fingers over Ale’s cheek and give him a kiss.

The thought immediately sends his heart into another gallop that would make Porthos proud and Angelo swallows heavily.

“I cannot report any ghost sightings at this point, Sir—I mean. Caroline.”

Angelo notices how Caroline’s eyes narrow as she looks him up and down and since Caroline has stated that she has no interest to know anything about Angelo’s love life he tries very hard to respect her wishes and to not look at Ale as if he’s the most beautiful thing that Angelo has ever seen.

Which he very definitely is.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, sit down, you oaf”, Caroline snaps and Angelo, still as an automatic response to her authoritative voice, walks over to the fire and sits down next to her.

“Did you talk to Quanyii?”, she wants to know.

“Yes. She cleared up a question I had and I thought it would make things easier, but as it turns out, it did not.”

“I wouldn’t make any deals with her, witches are fickle and cunning creatures.”

“Babe, you’re being so mean!”

“Oh, shut it. You know it’s true.”

“Yes, but when you say it like that it’s mean, mean, mean!”

Angelo watches them bicker for a while before his eyes drift back over to Ale and Olala. Ale’s hand is resting on Olala’s back and Angelo looks at it for a while. Ale’s hand is much smaller than his and Angelo wonders what it would feel like to hold it. It must be rough from all the sword-fighting, much like Angelo’s hand.

Maybe Ale doesn’t have any interest in holding Angelo’s hand. Maybe Ale doesn’t like men.

“What is it now, Angelo”, Caroline asks with an expression on her face that says she might regret asking.

“I forgot to consider another important thing regarding this whole courting business”, Angelo says and looks at Caroline. Quanyii seems to have vanished into thin air—something Angelo has seen happening multiple times during those last few weeks.

“Which is?”

“You made me aware of the possibility of Ale being averse to romantic relationships, but I forgot to consider whether or not Ale would be opposed to romantic relationships to men. I only ever knew one man who liked another man. Lizard. Does it count as a man if it is a lizard? I certainly don’t know. My point stands, though.”

Caroline sighs deeply and cards through her short her.

“It seems highly unlike you to ask all these questions instead of simply acting, Angelo”, she says and looks at him with a stern gaze.

Angelo sighs.

“Yes, I know. I am afraid I have found my most lethal opponent yet! Matters of the heart! No monster could ever best me in combat, but my own heart is betraying me.”

Caroline puts her blade to the side and leans forward, her elbows resting on her knees as she looks at Angelo with her piercing eyes.

“Just talk to him. It’s that easy. No one can ever truly know another person’s heart or thoughts unless they speak them out loud.”

“Unless you’re a witch”, comes a disembodied sing-song from somewhere above them.

“Unless you’re a witch in which case you should stay out of people’s heads”, Caroline barks up the tree and looks back at Angelo.

“I cannot believe that I should turn into a coward for something as simple as talking. It seems highly ridiculous.”

Caroline shrugs.

“Emotions are hard. And I... understand your hesitance. But you should not let your feelings rule over your rational thoughts.”

“That is a very Caroline thing to say, Sir Caroline.”

“Stop calling me ‘Sir’ already!”

“Certainly, Sir Caroline.”

“Ugh.”

“Ale, can I ask you a personal question?”

“You can ask anything you want, schoolboy. I can decide whether or not I want to answer.”

“Oh—yes. That is very reasonable. Thank you. Uh—“

“Sir knight, are you alright? Did you get sunburnt? Sir Caroline says it is important to not stay outside in the sun for too long!”

“I am not sunburnt, little Olala.”

“Ask your question, schoolboy. Is this about gender again?”

“Uh—no. Not—huh. I suppose it is! But not in the way you think!”

“Well then, shoot.”

“This is more about the genders of others, I suppose! A potential paramour, one might say! I have a friend who has a fiancée but who is also involved with a man. Lizard. Male lizard? I am not entirely certain about the lizard’s gender and I was told not to assume. Anyway. What I wanted to ask—“

“You want to know if I like lizards?”

“No, that’s not—“

“I was joking, schoolboy. Calm down. You want to know what kind of people I’m attracted to.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t much care about gender, but it doesn’t happen often that I’m attracted to people. Either romantically or sexually.”

“Oh.”

“I just don’t fall in love easily. And I don’t find many people hot.”

“Hm.”

“Any more questions?”

“Yes, but I am afraid they would be borderline offensive and highly invasive.”

“Well then. Let’s keep it at that, schoolboy.”

“Sir knight, are you feeling okay?”

“Yes, little Olala.”

“It’s just that you are usually very loud but you have been very quiet for a while. I recently learned about heatstrokes and it sounds awful and I hope you don’t have a heatstroke, Sir knight.”

“I don’t think I have anything of the kind, Olala.”

Olala sits down next to Angelo. He’s leaning against Porthos who’s lying down and nibbling on some grass. Ale and Caroline are investigating something and since Angelo is not the best at clues he offered to stay behind to guard their belongings and also Olala.

“Most adults do not like to tell children why they’re sad. But if you wanted to, I would certainly listen.”

“That’s very kind of you, Olala. Have you ever liked someone?”

“Of course! I like so many people!”

“Ah, yes. Hm. And were you ever scared to tell any of these people that you like them?”

“No, Sir knight. I grew up in the Garden of Graves and we tended to the dead and my sisters always taught me that it is important to speak your heart while the people you love are alive, for you never know when they might die and then you can’t tell them anymore.”

“That is... very wise, Olala.”

“Thank you, Sir knight! My sisters taught me a great many things and I am honored to pass their wisdom on to others.”

Angelo looks down at Olala’s small form and ruffles her hair.

“I will take it to heart!”, he promises.

“Hey, Angelo. Can I talk to you for a moment?”

They make camp by a river and Caroline takes Olala for a bath. Angelo turns around to look at Ale, who tied his long braids into a top knot. He’s wearing a white tunic that is a little too big for him and allows Angelo a view of Ale’s collarbone.

Angelo tries very hard not to stare because he refuses to be disrespectful any more than he already was when they first met.

“Of course, Ale.”

Ale looks at him. Angelo would never trust himself to read people’s behavior—that has never been his forté. But he could swear that Ale looks almost a bit nervous; something that Angelo hasn’t seen on him so far.

“So, remember that talk we had? About how I might like lizards or not?”, Ale begins and Angelo winces a little.

“It was poorly worded and I apologize—“

“It’s fine, Angelo. That’s not what this is about. But... you remember what I said. About not being attracted to people often?”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Why did you want to know that?”

Angelo takes a deep breath and scratches the back of his head.

“I—uh. Well”, he starts, then doesn’t know how to continue. He remembers the talks he had with Caroline and Olala and straightens his back. Sir Angelo the Strong will not back down from a challenge. Any challenge!

“I would like to court you, Ale.”

Ale blinks. Once, twice, three times.

He opens his mouth, then closes it again.

“You—what?”

“Courting. I would like to court you. Woo you. Win you over. In the romantic sense. But I was not sure if that was something that would make you uncomfortable, so I tried to figure out if you might be opposed against courtship. By men. Or anyone.”

Ale takes two steps towards him and Angelo has the great need to spread his arms and pull Ale close to him, but he doesn’t. He’s asking for permission and he will not ruin this by overstepping boundaries.

A slight chuckle pulls him back to reality and he sees Ale’s eyes twinkle, the corners of his lips turned upwards.

“Are you asking me on a date, schoolboy?”, Ale asks. His playful smile is doing things to Angelo he can’t describe because he is not Damien. But man, he almost feels the need to write a poem about that smile. That is how badly smitten he is with this wonderful, splendid man standing in front of him.

“I suppose so! Ale, will you allow me to take you on a date?”

Ale takes another step and raises his hand to softly flip one finger against Angelo’s forehead.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

#ale of milltown #tpp #the penumbra podcast #penumbra podcast #the second citadel #second citadel #sir angelo #sir angelo the strong #alengelo #mi writes #i'm still in the penumbra zone #and i love these two so much and also the whole weirdo brigade

119 notes · View notes

opalmaplehibiscus · 3 years

Text

Information as to Why Twisted Wonderland is NOT an Otome or Dating Sims Game

Hello Everyone! It’s been a while~ ヾ(•ω•`)o I finally found the courage to write Twisted Wonderland content after what happened a couple months ago, when I literally just came back, and while writing a couple of analysis I thought I would write this as an informative rather than an actual analysis of the game.

DISCLAIMER: This post is NOT by any means demeaning otome games or dating sims whatsoever. This was written to clear the misunderstanding people had on the genre of Twisted Wonderland and that anyone should be allowed to be play without feeling restricted or thinking it’s not something they want to try because of misunderstandings. Do NOT use this post as a source to offend people but please use it to inform others.

It’s no longer old news that Twisted Wonderland frequently gets called an “otome game” or dating sims by people who never played the game before. People on twitter, youtube, and even those that were trying to or supposed to advertise the game have often categorized it as such. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal had people recognize and acknowledge that the game isn’t after being explained to about it, but after hearing their arguments as to why they refuse to change how they think about it, the frustration pent up for nearly a year has finally bubbled over. Buckle your seats everyone cause today is the day this argument ends once and for all!

First off, let’s start off with what makes an otome/dating-sims an otome/dating sim. Both are very similar, where, according to Japan’s Wikipedia, Nico dictionary, Kotobanks, and many more Japanese dictionary sites, otome games (i.e. 乙女ゲーム) are games which includes a female MC who has the opportunity to attract the very attractive male characters in the game and enter a love route with each of them separately or harem-like. Dating sims are a bit different. Dating sims (i.e. 恋愛シミュレーションゲーム) falls into to two definitions with the first one being the exact reversal of otome: MC being male, the love interest characters being very attractive females. The second definition is the one many are familiar with – a romantic visual novel. Believe it or not the first definition is the original definition of what dating-sim games are, the second meaning derived from many attempts of using the term “dating-sim” incorrectly by the English speaking gamers to the point society now believes it’s the actual meaning.

However, this difference doesn’t change that both otome and dating sims are very close. Both genres include gender-specific MC(s) (there’s been games where a player can play either male or female), handsome/beautiful characters with their respective love routes, and a main plot to follow. In addition to this, when the game is in mobage format, there’s going to be showers of fan service in the form of events and gacha-cards, though, arguably, it doesn’t change the fact that the MCs would still be interacting with the characters romantically.

So, from the explanation written above, Twisted Wonderland falls into that category, right? Sorry not sorry, that’s wrong. Sure, Twisted Wonderland has many characters to swoon over since…I mean…they’re drawn and written by Yana Toboso and her staff and…there hasn’t been anyone so far who had the capability of saying no to characters she personally had drawn or created. But! It doesn’t mean that the game is a dating sim or otome.

One of the reasons Twisted Wonderland isn’t one of them is how the game is set up. There are no routes the MC can enter nor can the MC pick and choose which characters to focus on in general. Like FGO and Granblue Fantasy, the MC solely follows the main plot and has to interact with all the characters they’re introduced to whether they like it or not. The same logic is applied when playing events – the MC will be participating and talking to all the characters involved in the event. Not once does the game give the opportunity for the MC to choose who they can talk to and participate in the event with the person they chose. The only time it’ll be one-on-one is, most of the time, getting the desired character’s card through gacha or when the event sets the story where the MC has no choice but to talk to a character one-to-one. For the latter though, the MC isn’t going to be able to wish for the character they want to talk to – it’s completely random and up to the writers who they want the MC to interact with.

For otome and dating-sims alike, especially in mobage format, the MC has the opportunity to choose who they wish to focus on and interact solely with the characters they chose whether it’s the main story, event, and card story. It can even be arguably said that otome and dating sims focus solely on the MC and their love interest interaction more than anything else. As for Twisted Wonderland, again, that does not happen. Twisted Wonderland, in addition to progressing the main story and revealing more about the characters involved, focuses on everyone’s interaction with each other including the NPCs. The game shows the other characters that aren’t interacting with the MC talking to other characters and what role they were playing while the MC was busy with the group the writer had them interact with during that time. Even in the card stories, most of the card stories involve more character-to-character interaction rather than MC-to-character interaction.

Speaking of which, the MC in Twisted Wonderland, the game, is gender ambiguous. Not once did the game developers and story writers mentions the MC as a specific gender like the other romance games. Heck, most of the characters don’t even use a gender-specific pronoun such as 彼女 (“kanojo” = she) or 彼 (“kare” = he) when referring to the MC. They usually refer to the MC by their given position, 監督生 ( “kantokusei” = prefect). The only exception is when the game’s mascot and MC’s buddy, Grim (the blue-fire monster), who uses あいつ ( “aitsu”) which is a gender neutral pronoun that holds the vague meaning of “that one” or “that person”. There’s also the fact that the MC’s default name is ユウ (“Yuu”), which is name used by either genders in Japan and how the MC uses gender neutral pronouns when regarding themselves as 自分 (“jibun”) and others as 貴方/あなた (“anata”).

Even during the official advertisement, official summary, official game archive book ( i.e., Twisted Wonderland Magical Archives), and posts made by the staff on twitter, not once did they specify the gender of the MC. In fact, they never once even specified the gender of the audience they’re targeting the game towards nor say anything about there being romance or any hints of harem-esque situations that involves the MC in any shape or form. The most “direct” statement made by Twisted Wonderland’s staff was from an email a fellow Twisted Wonderland fan had sent to the staff after a magazine had advertised the game as “Disney’s first game for women”. The email from the staff mentions that they wanted the game to be enjoyed by everyone, REGARDLESS OF GENDER. (link to said post here)

If they had any intentions of making the game otome-like or dating sim-like, Aniplex, Disney, and Twisted Wonderland staff would’ve mentioned that the game has romance or the possibility for there being romance when releasing the story summary, game system set up, and their ads. Not only would they have done that to get the audience they wish to target but speaking of it legally, they are required to mention it since there’s liability on their part on informing their customers on anything they need to know in regard to the game they’re playing. Age restrictions, fees, game play, and the like – Twisted Wonderland also had to go through the same process like any other visual novel games to be developed and released.

In a way, Twisted Wonderland can be seen as another Touken Ranbu or KanColle, but with an actual main story plot to progress through. All three games’ MCs are gender ambiguous, great characters to throw-er-spend money on, and have fun game plays. Sure, unlike Touken Ranbu and KanColle, where their MCs continues to be gender ambiguous in their anime and manga adaptation, Twisted Wonderland’s MC in the manga adaptation ended up being male – however, a statement was released by Yana revealed that the MC in the game and the MC for the manga are not the same people. (Link here) Meaning, the “real” or “official” MC’s gender continues to be gender ambiguous for the sake of continuing to attract all genders to play the game.

All of this being said, Twisted Wonderland is a fun, visual novel game and supposed to be enjoyed by everyone – each to their own way and passion. No one shouldn’t be discouraged from playing it solely because of false advertisements or misconceptions made by others who haven't played the game yet.

I hope this clears things up and hopefully helps others persuade people into playing the game!

#twst #twisted wonderland #game info

115 notes · View notes

raydaug · 3 years

Note

I found Sayaka’s speech to Yumeko just b4 their gamble rlly funny bc she’s talking about how Yumeko is so terrible for driving ppl to desperation and having no other goal than her own entertainment when she’s obsessed with a woman who does the exact same for seemingly the no different reasons

I like this question a lot. There’s a lot to chew on here, so thank you.

You are right, Yumeko and Kirari are very much two sides of the same coin.But just as the metaphor implies, even though they share a common starting point (gambling), they face out in opposite directions.

Visually, Kirari and Yumeko seem to be playing on the Red and Blue Oni myth, with Yumeko’s primary color being red and her personality being very...passionate, and Kirari’s primary visual signifier being blue while also having and much cooler personality.

However, at this point, I think it’s just a visual reference or a simple coincidence. For those unaware, the myth of the Red and Blue Oni is, extremely loosely, that a Red Oni (Japanese Demon) wanted to befriend some humans, but he couldn’t because they saw him as a monster. His friend, the Blue Oni, decides to help him by pretending to attack the village so the Red Oni can fight him off. It works and the humans accept the Red Oni, but he can no longer see his old friend the Blue Oni now because the humans are scared of him.

While if you squint hard enough, you could potentially see some similarities in this tale between Kirari and Yumeko, and it’s not impossible that the story going forward shapes into something like the above, as things stand right now I don’t see too many similarities beyond the visual motifs of the characters. There is another famous dichotomy that Kirari and Yumeko mirror, and this one has much more textual support;

God and Satan.

Yumeko as Satan fits neatly into the most modern depictions of the Christian Devil. Yumeko is a seducer. She’s disarmingly attractive, sweet and polite, and uses these aspects of herself to tempt people into giving in to their base desires for her amusement. Hell, Kirari outright calls Yumeko a “snake in the garden.” (CORRECTION: only in the anime) This is a reference both to Yumeko’s name (Jabami means “snake eater”) as well as the Book of Genesis, when Eve is tempted Satan in the form of a snake into disobeying God’s edict and eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil (keep in mind that this is a specifically Chrstian reading of Genesis, as the Devil as a singular embodiment of evil is not an idea that’s really present in the Torah).

Kirari as God is much less obvious, but it’s still there if you are willing to dig a little.For starters, Japan, generally speaking, tends to view Christianity at best with curiosity and at worst with skepticism. There’s a tradition of portraying Chrstianity, or religions modeled after Christianity as the case may be, as evil or corrupt, primarily based on the rigid hierarchical structure of Christian Denominations (Catholicism in particular), which Shinto and Buddhism (the predominant religions of Japan, don’t really share. Kirari is at the head of Hyakkaou, her aquarium ,her Eden, with the student council as the enforcers of her will.

More specifically to Kirari though, Kirari seems to be riffing on the old theological and philosophical conundrum of the Problem of Evil. The Problem (or Question sometimes) of Evil is “if God is all good, all powerful, and all knowing, then why do bad things happen in the world?” The most common answer to this qandry is free will. God gave his creations free will and allows them to use it.

This is the biggest and most important separation between Yumeko and Kirari. Yumeko pushes people to do things against their will for her own amusement. You can see this in her gamble with Mary where she boxes Mary into a corner but upping the stakes to a ridiculous level, or when she forced Manyuda to gamble with or, or with her second gamble with Yumemi when Yumemi was simply content to share the stage with Sumika but that wasn’t good enough for Yumeko. Yumeko is happy to be a nice, charming girl when you play along with her, but when you deny her her fun, she’ll drag you kicking and screaming back to the card table.

In contrast, Kirari never makes people do things against their will and is a major advocate for people living according to their own desires. She sets up the games, explains the terms, but ultimately it’s the player’s choice if they choose to participate. We see this most clearly in the Tower of Doors arc. Kirari explains the terms of the gamble clearly and explicitly to Sayaka. She doesn’t ever withhold information, and she asks for Sayaka and Yumeko’s consent twice before starting the game, giving them both opportunities to back out if they didn’t want to continue. We see also in her conversation with Terano in Chapter 82 that she’s trying to push Terano to exercise her own free will instead of always prioritizing the needs of others over her own.

Kirari gives people tools and watches what they do with them, while Yumeko pics up those tools and starts hitting everything she can with them.

It is that distinction that I think Sayaka is calling out and how she can justify her attraction to and association with Kirari while viewing Yumeko with disdain. Kirari created something, a logical (if perverse) system that operates on cause and effect, input and output. Kirari doesn’t make people house pets. If you can pay your dues to the Student Council you never have to touch card or dice. And if you must gamble, Kirari isn’t forcing the student body to gamble more that they can afford and fall into debt.

Yumeko in contrast is a force of destruction in the school. She upended the logical and orderly function of Hyakkaou and made one person a house pet and consigned another to a life plan for no other reason than her amusement. And that is arguably more monstrous than anything Kirari has done.

Akso, let me be abundantly clear: I AM NOT SAYING KIRARI AND YUMEKO ARE LITERALLY GOD AND THE DEVIL. Just that there is metaphor and allegory at play here.

#anonymous ask #kakegurui #kakegurui xx #kirari momobami #momobami kirari #Yumeko Jabami #Jabami Yumeko #Igarashi Sayaka #sayaka igarashi

140 notes · View notes

mikkomacko · 4 years

Text

Bloodsucker I

She loves him.

Loves the way he laughs with all his chest, even if something isn't that funny. Loves the way his emerald green eyes seem to shine. Loves the way his nose twitches when he speaks. She loves everything about him, and she really can't imagine ever not loving him. Harry's just one of the people that linger, always in your heart or mind no matter what. She's certain he'll be someone that's around for eternity.

Eternity. She sighs softly, stroking her fingers through the tangle of curled baby hairs by his temple, imagining a life with Harry. They've been together for almost a year, their anniversary being tomorrow and while it hasn't been very long, y/n hates the thought of not having another year with him. And another after that, and after that, and after that. Morning after morning of seeing his face squished into the pillow, light snores escaping his parted lips.

She's caught up in dreaming up a life with him, one in which she moves into this big house of his and maybe they adopt a little kitty and Harry writes children's stories inspired by their own babies, a beautiful haze that prevents her from noticing the lack of snores coming out of her boyfriend. It's not until his eyes have fluttered open, brilliant in the morning glow, does she realize he's awake.

"S'early dove." Harry croaks, accent thick and voice scratchy. His hand moves out from under the pillow, digging a knuckle into his eye. "Sleep with me again, got all weekend to ourselves."

A smile stretches her mouth, fingers still carding through his hair and he practically purrs at the feeling as he nuzzles back into the pillow. It's true, Harry insisted they spend the whole weekend at his place, just the two of them loving on each other until their anniversary dinner tomorrow night. She didn't hesitate to agree, happily packing up a few necessities from her apartment to now occupy the side of the bed he always reserves for her.

"M'not tired H." Y/n mumbles back, willing away her droopy eyes. Her body feels tired, limbs warm and heavy under the multiple blankets on the bed, but her heart is wide awake and restless.

Scolding, Harry raises the one eyebrow that's not hidden by the pillow. "Know you're tired. Eyes are puffy and ya've got dark circles." Bones cracking like a glow stick, Harry pushes himself up with a slight wince and urges her onto her back so he can fit his large frame between her thighs. He leans down to press a chaste kiss to her forehead, so light her eyes close allowing him to kiss her eyelids with the touch of a butterfly wing. "Sleepy baby."

"Kissy, baby?"

Harry chuckles, breath fanning across the lower half of her face before he connects their mouths at her request, and his enjoyment. Lips still kissing, hers now parted to give him the opportunity to explore, Harry shuffles further up her body to press the bulge in his underwear against her crotch. The blankets fall down to the crooks of his knees, exposing them to the morning air but neither care as he breaks from her mouth to press kisses across her jawbone, up to her ear.

"S'have a morning shag baby," Harry pleads, as if they don't always have a morning shag, and his teeth teasingly nibble on her ear lobe. A bubbly giggle leaves her mouth, nails scratching at his bare shoulder blades. "What are ya laughing for?? M'serious."

Oh she knows he's serious. She can feel just how serious he is against her thigh. "You just told me to go back to sleep!"

Harry pulls back, lifting himself to his hands and frowning down at her. "Well yeah but I think you'd rest better after I've fucked ya good."

He looks like a petulant child, eyebrows pinched together and lips pursed in a grumpy pout. How he can go from being a 28 year old man to a 4 year old boy is unknown to her but she doesn't care because he's her man to love and her boy to baby when he needs it.

"You want to?"

Scoffing, Harry nods rapidly. "Really really want to." As if proving his point he ruts his hips forward just once, allowing her to feel his eagerness. Y/n seals their lips together again, hooking a leg around his hip and using her foot to push his briefs down.

"Go on then, tire me out H."

That's all he really needs before he's removing her pajama shirt, leaving her naked beneath him. His fingertips leave dots of electricity across her skin, gripping her hip in one hand and her thigh in the other. Their mouths part after a sloppy peck, Harry dragging his lips down the column of her throat and nudging the head of his prick between her folds. Like always, when he sinks all the way between her walls, y/n is mush of dazed moans and clingy hands. Harry's quick with his thrusts, fucking her somewhat sloppily but perfectly, and the haze that settles around them is otherworldly. Y/n thinks Harry must be some other being with the way he's always able to pull her apart without much effort. Little does she know, her thoughts aren't far off because after she's reached her peak, whimpering and clenching around his cock, and Harry's emptied inside her as well, he stays awake until she's fully asleep again, tired enough to not even stir when he sinks two sharp teeth into her jugular.

Harry thinks her blood is otherworldly.

<|>

The mid-day sun filters through the yellow and red leaves, scattering into beams of tinged light on the kitchen floor. A pan of tofu sizzles on the stove, the chicken seasoning on it overpowering the smell of pumpkin guts that had filled his kitchen an hour ago when they had carved the vegetable. Harry's wearing the apron he stole from her apartment a few months ago, a blue and white flannel pattern that makes his eyes appear baby blue as well.

They've always enjoyed cooking together, Harry doing more of the cooking and her more of the tasting because he's got magic senses in the kitchen. Everything he makes is delicious, always impressing her whether it's a brand-new recipe or a repeated favorite dish, and she once again longs for forever with him.

"A lifetime gone by,

more years than men need,

a gift of another was bestowed upon me,

and yet time with you will always be..."

The pause in the air is palpable, y/n waiting eagerly for him to continue while she drains their ramen noodles. When the moments passed and Harry is still hunched over the counter, peering down at his journal in deep thought, she speaks. "Always be what babe?"

The scrunch of his nose tightens, sighing in frustration and dropping his black pen to the counter. "Don't know. S'just too many words I could put there but I don't like the way they sound." Shutting the journal, he shoves it aside on the counter until it's resting next to his laptop and other plot lines. While Harry's written many books under a different name, he's starting his first ever poetry book and it's proven to be even more of a struggle than writing romance or horror novels (they're his two favorite).

Shuffling around the counter top, he moves to stir the tofu around in the pan with a disgruntled frown on his face. Placing the noodles back on the stove, y/n drapes herself against his back, arms wrapping tightly around his waist. "You'll get it H," she promises, "you're amazing with words and you've got such a beautiful mind. Wise beyond your years, you know that?"

She doesn't see his smile nor the nervous bob of his Adams apple. If only she knew just how many years he's had.

<|>

In the back corner of the restaurant, a candle flickering between the two of them, y/n watches with hearts in her eyes as he slices through his steak. Her own plate of pasta and sautéed veggies is half eaten in front of her, but there’s no room for any more food in her belly due to the amount of butterflies swirling in there.

“Was thinking of a new story today.” Harry says after swallowing the bite in his mouth and rinsing it down with a gulp of wine. “‘Nother romance one.”

“You’ve been writing a lot of romance lately,” she comments, “not in a horror mood right now?”

His lips quirk up bashfully, popping a bite of medium rare meat between in his teeth. Chest expanding with a deep inhale, he chews with suspense, fists resting on the dining table with his knife and fork in each palm. He looks handsome, powerful and regal with his hair curling down his shoulders perfectly and his button up shirt being more shirt than buttoned up. She wants to reach over the table and trace her fingers over his soft collarbones but she refrains. For now.

“S’fun to write romance when you’ve got a muse.”

The blood that rises to her cheeks is warm and beautiful, catching Harry's eye immediately. He hadn't intended to fluster her with the comment, but now that he's done it he can't help but drool. Which is why they spend the rest of dinner praising each other, Harry's mouth filling with venom every time he hears or smells her blood warm under his words.

And he enjoys her soft spoken words too. It's been a while since he's felt like more than just a monster, and hearing his girl tell him how much she loves and adores him, how she'll never get enough of him, is almost heartwarming.

He's starry eyed when they leave the restaurant, barely catching the keys that the valet hands him followed by the words "get home safe."

Gets home safe. It's ironic Harry thinks right now, with his hand stretched over the center console to hold hers. She looks exhausted, head slumped against the window but watching him with a fond smile. He can feel the thumping of her heart, the pure adoration radiating off of her being. It's the exact way he feels about her. It's the exact reason their blood runs through each other. It's the exact reason why he wants her with him forever. And, unfortunately, it's the exact reason her choice of life is taken from her.

"If you could, would you be mine forever?" He asks, stomach twisting nervously. She doesn't know the extent of the question but he still would like to know. His words cause her to perk up, eyes widening in happiness and a smile pulling at her lips.

Too caught up in her bright eyes, Harry fails to notice the deer crossing the street directly in front of them. Even with his heightened senses, she takes up all of him. It's at the last moment that he catches it out of the corner of his eye, slamming on the brakes and jerking out of the path of the animal. The tires skid and Harry loses all control of the car as it runs off the side of the road. Instinctively, his hands leave the wheel, one coming up to shield his face while the other reaches over for y/n. He's going to grab her, has to grab her. He has to keep her safe. Unfortunately he's not fast enough before the car slams into the tree, glass shattering around them. But over the sound of it all, Harry can only hear her heart take it's last beat.

<|>

Y/n is convinced that she's just waking up. Her day with Harry, their anniversary dinner, the car ride home, the deer....it was all a dream. She'd been up earlier than usual, maybe she fell into such a deep sleep it seemed real.

She's back at Harry's, that she's certain of because it's practically her room as well. The smell of him is stronger, stinging her nostrils and the back of her throat. This does nothing but make the pounding in her skull even worse, eyes squeezing shut to block out the dim room. The action is futile however, because nothing could possibly block out the pain in her body. Her insides feel cold and heavy, weighing down on her muscles and bones. It's then that she realizes the hollowness of her chest.

Her heart's not beating.

The organ that gave her life, fueled her body has gone still, turned to stone in her chest. She's dead. She's died and the afterlife has brought her to Harry's house, to her home.

She doesn't remember what happened, not really. Their anniversary dinner stands out in the fog of her memory, Harry sat under the warm lights in his baby blue button up and suit jacket, the swallows on his chest joining them for dinner. Holding his hand in the car, admiring the way their matching rings look when they're side-by-side. The last thing she can pick out of the night is Harry looking over at her, stoplight gleaming in his eyes as he softly and longingly whispered "if you could, would you be mine forever?"

If he'd been with her in the last place she remembers, perhaps he's here with her too. Pushing herself up from his bed and onto her elbows causes a sharp sting on the bend of her elbow, and when she opens her eyes to investigate, the sight makes her dizzy.

A tube has been stuck into her veins, thick red blood turning the plastic a deep maroon color. It's as if she's simply giving blood if it weren't for the fact that the blood bag attached to the tube is emptying, not filling. And resting on the floor next to the draining one is another empty bag. Her mind swirls with confusion and panic, wondering why she'd need blood in the afterlife and why so much of it. Dead people don't need blood.

"Y/n?"

His voice catches her off guard, snapping her attention away from the blood and turning it towards the doorway of his bedroom. Harry stands in the shadows, face dark with the hallway light illuminating his silhouette.

"Harry?" She whimpers, tears welling in her eyes in relief. He's here which means she'll be ok. He'll take care of her. He inches forward at the sound of her trembling voice but doesn't approach the bed much to her disliking. "Harry please-"

"Are you in pain?" He cuts her off, voice void of any of the usual warmth he carries when speaking to her. His gruffness makes her pause, tears stilling in her eyes. That's not her Harry, she's not safe with whoever is standing in the doorway right now. Cautious, she stays silent. "Does anything hurt y/n? You have to tell me if it does."

As if triggered by his words, a sharp pains seizes in her chest and she's unable to stop the wince that curls her shoulders forward. Harry moves at that, now perching himself on the end of the bed next to her. Before she can make any move away from him, he reaches out, pressing his palm over the throbbing area of her chest and urging her back into the pillows. His touch dulls the pain, leaving her pliant and teary as she watches his shadow.

"S'your organs hardening," Harry says solemnly, not offering another explanation. Y/n thinks she could throw up, her stomach churning and bubbling uncomfortably. Hardening?

"My heart's not beating."

Harry nods, just once. The band that's on her chest moves up to cup her cheek, thumb swiping over her cheek to remove the tear that had fallen. "I know dove, and s'all my fault." His voice cracks, a sniffle breaking through the dark and she wants to sit up and hug him, feel his comfortable arms around her. She refrains, not wanting that sharp pain to spread throughout her body again.

"What's your fault Harry? What's going on?"

Finally, he reaches over and flicks on the lamp on the bedside table. The bulb bathes the room in a soft light, illuminating Harry's sullen face. For the first time since she's met him, his eyes are red rimmed and glazed with tears of anguish. Inhaling shakily, Harry threads his fingers through her hair.

"It's my fault s'not beating darling. I'm your Maker."

"Maker?" She asks, confused.

"You're a vampire now y/n. I turned you."

#Bloodsucker #vampire!Harry #harry styles #fanfic #fanfiction #Harryween #Halloween special #spooky #harry styles au #Harry x reader

244 notes · View notes

kindofwriter · 3 years

Text

Pt. 1

Pt. 2 of ‘The Gang Meets Wilde’

Sorry for the long post, I have an illegal number of pictures, so it won’t let me format :|

Now that I’ve got all the Zoscar out of my system I’m going to do every Sasha scene ever bc she’s the love of my life.

Also, I don’t think Zolf had any healing magic left at this point, but even way back when I first listened I imagined him immediately trying (and only partially succeeding) to heal Wilde. I just wanted someone to take my soft poetry boy away from Bertie!

Transcript under the cut:

ZOLF places a hand gently on SASHA's upper arm. She looks down at him, then reluctantly backs up with the dagger. WILDE stands and smooths his waistcoat. SASHA is still stood uncomfortably close to him.

WILDE: I just thought you might-

HAMID: What is your job?

ZOLF: Actually, just before, that, Hamid?

WILDE (TRYING TO MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH ZOLF): What isn't?!

ZOLF: Ah, lo-, shut up- Hamid? A word, please?

BERTIE: I've got a thing or two in mind...

HAMID nods and starts to lead ZOLF into his bedroom. As they leave ZOLF tries to throw BERTIE a dirty look, but he's already back to making eyes at WILDE. ZOLF instead throws SASHA a sympathy glance, before the door shuts behind him and HAMID.

ZOLF: You realise that what we're actually doing is kind of a bit... secret, international, governmental level... So we probably just shouldn't be telling him about-

HAMID: Yes, of course, I won't tell him about that.

ZOLF: (WITH SOME DOUBT) Okay, just making sure.

CUT TO LIVING ROOM

SASHA has backed even further away from WILDE, though she is still pointing her dagger at him in a threatening manner. WILDE has sidled up to BERTIE and is running a finger along his breast plate.

WILDE: That's very fine armour, is that all yours? I mean, does it fit, is it exaggerating? I'm just curious.

BERTIE (NOT SO MUCH FLIRTING AS ENJOYING THE OPPORTUNITY TO BRAG): Oh, no, this is a very real representation of what lies beneath.

The bedroom door opens and HAMID then ZOLF reemerge, ZOLF looking slightly annoyed at himself for pulling HAMID aside for what was seemingly nothing.Taking in SASHA's perplexed expression, HAMID pushes his way between BERTIE and WILDE and begins to pour her a whiskey.

WILDE: See, isn't this nice? Everyone's getting together-

WILDE gazes at BERTIE over HAMID's head.

WILDE: Everyone's having a good time.

HAMID passes the drink to SASHA.

SASHA: You're all okay with the fact that this guy's been stalking us?

HAMID looks from SASHA to WILDE, who has once against closed the gap between himself and BERTIE and leaning seductively against the mantle.

HAMID: I don't think he's a threat. Let's- We'll talk to him, we'll find out-

WILDE: (TURNING DRAMATICALLY AWAY FROM BERTIE) Woah now! Threat, really?

Having lost WILDE's attention, BERTIE begins to examine his own armour. WILDE steps into the centre of the room. It's clearly not meant as a threatening gesture, but with BERTIE on the other side of the room WILDE easily towers over HAMID, ZOLF, and SASHA.

HAMID: Let's all just relax.

SASHA: Just 'cause someone's charming doesn't mean they're not a threat.

ZOLF: I mean, I was really hoping to have a debrief and actually do some work.

WILDE: (TURNING THE CHARM UP. HE REALLY WANTS TO IMPRESS ZOLF) Oh, don't mind me, honestly, I just thought, you know, it would be useful for you to have a single point of contact, you know? So many reporters hounding you. If people were to know not to come to you because you're already taken, as it were, think of all of the, think of all of the hassle dealt with. I mean, look at me! Of course I can spin this any way you want!

ZOLF: (NOT IMPRESSED) I don't know if breaking into our friend's apartment is supposed to be some kind of grand master play of showing how competent you are-

WILDE: I'm sorry, I just-

ZOLF (ANNOYED): But all it makes me is not trust you and not like you, so that was a misstep.

WILDE has that look on his face again; a desperate mix of wanting to win ZOLF over and wanting to choke him to death.Hearing the shift in tone, BERTIE finally turns his attention away from his armour and shouts from beside the liquor cabinet.

BERTIE: I will take it upon myself to investigate the good character of this young man through a thorough interview and extensive debriefing.

ZOLF forgotten, WILDE turns to BERTIE, twiddling a strand of hair between his fingers.

WILDE: Oh, please do.

BERTIE: I have a private-

HAMID (NOW VERY AWARE OF WHAT BERTIE IS DOING): Possibly over some wine?

BERTIE: I find that wine will often loosen the... tongue.

WILDE giggles slightly. ZOLF gives the back of his head the dirtiest look it is possible to give.

BERTIE: I volunteer for this task. I feel it is incumbent upon me to take this burden of responsibility, take, take one for the team, as it were. And indeed dispense one for the team. You know, I have a private interview suite at The Ritz that I feel might be a more appropriate venue for such a, an extended and languorous and vigorous... intercourse.

HAMID (AT THE SAME TIME AS BERTIE SAYS 'INTERCOURSE,' CLEARLY TRYING TO KEEP THINGS PG): Questioning.

ZOLF looks less than impressed, but this is nothing new for BERTIE. SASHA, looking quite lost, hugs her dagger to her chest.

ZOLF: Okay, can I just make one request?

WILDE whips back around to look eagerly at ZOLF.

WILDE: Oh?

BERTIE (SERIOUS): You can't watch.

ZOLF's face scrunches in a display of grey-ace disgust.

ZOLF (GENUINLY HORRIFIED): Why would I want to watch- (HE CORRECTS HIMSELF TO A MORE NEUTRAL TONE)You having a conversation with this nice man?

ZOLF gives WILDE a sickly sweet smile that is somehow more threatening than any of his openly malicious glares.

ZOLF: However, in the fits of your interview just please try and be discreet with our work.

BERTIE: All of the bellowing will be at an indoor volume, I promise you that, Mr Smith.

WILDE (LOOKING BACK TO BERTIE): I don't think you'll be in a state to bellow the way I interview. Ha!

BERTIE: Ha ha! Hmm.

WILDE (NERVOUS, OVERLAPPING): Well, I mean-

ZOLF (OVERLAPPING): Right, well-

WILDE: No one else care to take me up on the offer?

ZOLF: No, if you wanna take him into your hands then you're more than welcome.

BERTIE: Oh, yes!

WILDE: Well, shall we say, uh-

SASHA (INTERRUPTING, ANNOYED BUT ALSO WITH GENUINE QUESTIONING): So we're, we're all alright with this just, like, you come in, you break into someone's house, you know secrets about us, and then you flirt your way out of it?

ZOLF has the decency to look ashamed about his last innuendo. BERTIE does not in the slightest.

SASHA: That's just, just so I know, right, because, uh, seems like we can take down monsters, uh, and, you know, deal with the police, and, uh, fight our way out of burning buildings, but just so I know that that is the one thing that, like, you know, just... being aware.

HAMID: It's not a very difficult apartment to break into, in fairness.

SASHA nods at this; clearly she thought the exact same thing upon seeing it for the first time.

WILDE: What were the monsters?

WILDE reaches inside his coat for a second notebook, identical to the one ZOLF burned earlier.A moment of awkward, stuttered silence ensues.

BERTIE (TO THE RESCUE, FOR ONCE): We've all been fighting our own internal demons, aaaagh.

WILDE (DISAPPOINTED): Ah. Right.

WILDE slips the notebook back.

WILDE: But this was after the, the British Museum? Yes?

ZOLF (TEARSLY): Yes.

WILDE: Tell you what, shall we say nine o'clock, Bertie, yes?

BERTIE: Excellent.

ZOLF: Mr Wilde, let me make something very clear.

WILDE: Please do!

WILDE slips a hand into a different pocket in his jacket and hands a small card to BERTIE.

ZOLF: If anything untoward makes it into the public eye that we do not want into the public eye I will drown you in a bucket.

WILDE straightens from handing over the card and simply smirks down at ZOLF.

WILDE: Well that's seemingly unfair, Mr Smith. I mean, honestly-

ZOLF: And it's still going to happen. So don't try and barter-

WILDE: How would you know it's from me?

ZOLF: Just be very careful.

WILDE (PUTTING IT ON FOR ZOLF'S AMUSEMENT. ZOLF IS NOT AMUSED): So you're telling me that if a, a set of strapping bucks and, and uh, buxom, I want to say?

WILDE looks at SASHA.

WILDE: Ladies?

ZOLF: I could-

SASHA: What? Wait, what? No, nah, no, no wait, what?

WILDE: Under all of that you might be. Who knows?

SASHA: What?

WILDE (TRAILING OFF): All I'm saying is: you draw a lot of attention, I can't promise you'll never get attention.

ZOLF (STARTS SPEAKING OVER WILDE): I am very keen to cut to the quick and just drown you in a bucket now.

SASHA: Yeah.

BERTIE: Steady.

SASHA: Sounds good.

ZOLF: So stop it with your whole aloof, cleaverer than me kind of thing you've got going on here. If you reveal anything that I do not want to be revealed about this team and their-

ZOLF loses momentum a little as he looks over at BERTIE.

ZOLF: Deeds.

Pulling himself together again, ZOLF reaches up, grabs hold of WILDE's lapels, and yanks him down to ZOLF's height. Surprise, then annoyance, then what can only be described as a flustered blush pass across WILDE's face.

ZOLF (TENSE): I will drown you in a bucket!

BERTIE: Don't worry, Mr Smith, I promise to reveal precisely the right amount.

ZOLF: Good.

WILDE smirks, his moment of frozen, flustered panic over, and he reaches out a hand and lightly bops ZOLF's nose.

WILDE: I'll try not to enjoy it.

Without even a grimace to first indicate what he's about to do, ZOLF rears back and headbutts WILDE. There's an awful crunch as his skull collides with WILDE's nose, which immediately begins to start pouring blood, and WILDE topples backwards onto the floor.

There's a collective gasp as everyone, including ZOLF, realises what he's just done. ZOLF reaches out for WILDE's hand, immediately trying to rectify his mistake, but WILDE pulls back, cupping his hands to his face. Instead ZOLF places a hand on WILDE's cheek, rather aggressively, and mutters a few words. A soft glow emanates from ZOLF's hand and there's another click. Before ZOLF has even had the chance to move his hand away BERTIE's gauntlet smacks him across the cheek and he's knocked prone.

SASHA rushes to check on ZOLF and HAMID makes a futile attempt at pulling BERTIE back. WILDE cautiously removes his hands from his face. His nose is perfectly straight, but still gushing blood. He takes a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabs at it, shakily getting to his feet.

WILDE: Well, that was unpleasant, I'm so sorry to have let things escalate like that. I'll see you later, Bertie. Pleasure meeting all of you.

SASHA helps ZOLF to his feet, who immediately starts glaring at BERTIE across the room.

ZOLF (BITTERLY, NOT LOOKING AT WILDE): Pleasure.

WILDE: And I hope to see you around again soon. Yep... Okay...

WILDE steps gingerly between the stare-off and to the door. He gestures at it to HAMID.

WILDE: Would you like me to lock it on the way out?

HAMID's shoulders heave as he gives a massive sigh.

HAMID: No, that's fine.

WILDE: Oh, okay.

WILDE starts to leave.

HAMID: Please, Mr Wilde.

WILDE sticks his head back around the doorframe.

HAMID: I will happily talk to you another time, but please arrange an interview in a proper location, and do not come unexpectedly.

WILDE: I'll make sure to get a, uh, a contact time and place from Bertie. Okay?

HAMID (DISGRUNTLED): Very well.

WILDE: Have a good one.

WILDE heads into the corridor, closing the door behind him.

WILDE STOOD IN FRONT OF HAMID'S DOOR

WILDE sighs, and as he does so something about his appearance changes. His hair is less uniform, face paler, eyes more sunken, waist less defined. The colours on his clothes are slightly less garish than they previous seemed.WILDE wipes the rest of the blood from his nose, then stuffs the handkerchief back into his pocket.

He straightens, waves his hand, and suddenly he's immaculate again. He shuffles slightly, like he's about to take off, then pauses for a moment. WILDE lifts a hand to his cheek, where ZOLF cast his healing spell, and smiles; soft and genuine and private. Then, still smiling a little, he takes off down the corridor.

#rqg #the rusty quill gaming podcast #zolf smith #oscar wilde rqg #sasha rackett #hamid saleh haroun al tahan #bertie macguffingham #zoscar #rqg 25 #author's note #long post

39 notes · View notes

youbloodymadgenius · 4 years

Text

Free (Modern!Ivar x reader)

A/N: This is my contribution to @dreamwritesimagines 10k Challenge. Congrats again, love, you’re amazing and this huge milestone is well-deserved 🌺

Prompt in bold

@inforapound - thank you for beta reading this for me ❤️

Let me know if you want to be tagged 😊

Summary: After a long day, Ivar and you are finally home. He’s been moody all day and it looks like it’s not going to change anytime soon.

Warnings: angst I guess; a lot of swearing; NO happy ending (sorry about that); Ivar is an asshole (not sorry about that).

Words: 2139

Dumbfounded and mad as hell as it’s so fucking unthinkable, you look at Ivar with wide eyes. "You're fucking kidding me, right?"

So, that's what it was?

Ivar had been in a sour mood all day, more often than not taking it out on you. It wasn't pleasant, but you were used to such things. He always was uncomfortable during those huge gatherings – both familial and business – that Ragnar loved so much. Today hadn't been different. Sigurd's tauntings, pitiful looks and averted gazes, overbearing presence of Aslaug, everything always was a bitter reminder of his condition. Therefore, as usual you hadn't taken offense at his snarky remarks, thinking that everything would be alright at the end of the day when you two would be back in your shared apartment.

Obviously, you were wrong.

"Ivar, fuck, look at me!" You burst out, irritated by his silence, your hands on your hips.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he doesn't even flinch as he slowly and carefully takes off his leg braces. Usually, knowing how sore he can be after such a long day, you would help him, but today is anything but a normal day, his last allegation running through your head.

Eyes averted, he keeps ignoring you, which is infuriating. With growing anger coursing through you, you step forward, putting your hands on his shoulders. You squeeze them tight, your pulse speeding up.

"I'm talking to you, Ivar!!!"

As he slowly raises his head, quirking a brow, you can see the smirk that tugs at his lips. There's no gentleness in his eyes. He keeps quiet, waiting for you to carry on.

And that's what you do, unable to stop yourself. It's like you're possessed, like your rage has taken over.

"You can't be fucking serious, Ivar!!!" You shout, furious and astounded, your breathing short and loud. "How can you think I'm cheating on you? And with Olaf on top of that?!! Don't you realize how offensive it is? Fuck Ivar, you're crazy!"

"I'm just saying what I saw, Y/N." Ivar's calm demeanor is unsettling, his stare is cold as you gasp for breath, outraged and shocked.

"And what did you see exactly, uh?" You manage to say, your hands now twirling and pulling your hair. "Tell me, Ivar. What did you fucking see?"

"You were flirting shamelessly with him. That's what I saw. Sorry for just stating the obvious." There's so much disdain in his voice, you shiver.

"I– How? I wasn't–" You stammer and take a deep breath, gathering your thoughts. "You're a fucking asshole, Ivar, you know that? Oh, for fuck's sake, I wasn't flirting with Olaf. I was courteous to a very important business partner of your father's."

"Always the loyal employee, huh, Y/N?" Ivar spits, his lips curled into a spiteful grin, hard feelings and sarcasm obvious. You might throw up.

The truth is, he's right. And it's nothing to be ashamed of. Even if you're not working for Ragnar anymore – you quit as soon as your relationship with Ivar became somewhat serious – you still have Ragnar's best interests at heart. You were his personal assistant for three years, after all, working alongside him sometimes more than twelve hours a day.

"Yes Ivar, that's what I am, and you know that! You can't possibly hold it against me, your father's business is yours too." You retort angrily, but you can feel something else in your mind, in your heart. Helplessness, you think.

Two years. It has been two years and Ivar still doesn't trust you. Still suspects you, everywhere and all the time. You're so tired. Tired of that kind of relationship. Tired of him? As soon as the question pops out in your head, you know the answer. Yes. Of course, you are. You can't take it anymore. Even if it breaks your heart.

Unaware of your inner turmoil, Ivar doesn't stop. "You were touching him!" He hisses through clenched teeth, releasing his right leg from its titanium brace. "You were fucking touching him. Don't think I didn't see it! You didn't have to, but you did it anyway. What am I supposed to infer, Y/N?" Narrowing his eyes, he snorts, his fists gripping the edge of the bed, his knuckles white.

"Certainly not that I fuck him behind your back!" You shout, throwing up your hands. Biting your bottom lip, you shake your head in disbelief. "You are ridiculous, Ivar." Your harsh tone startles the both of you, as you're usually the sweet and patient one. But not tonight. Not when he drives you up the wall one more time. Maybe one too many…

"Did you see the fucking dude, Ivar?" You carry on, still shouting, because you need to make your point. It's so fucking unfair. Ivar is so fucking unfair. "He's fat, and bald, and old. And I can't even look at him in the eye because all I can see is the monster zit in the middle of his forehead and… yikes! Fuck, I wasn't touching him, Ivar!" Breathless and frustrated, you briefly cover your face with your hands before speaking again, your tone calmer, almost defeated. "You saw us, right? So you know. I was just walking him to his seat, like your father asked me to. I wasn't flirting with him, I couldn't even fathom doing that, you know? How can you, Ivar? How fucking can you??? Stop this nonsense, please, you're smarter than that! You got eyes, fuck! Olaf is disgusting!"

Barely shrugging, Ivar looks you up and down with pursed lips. "He has two working legs, though."

You roll your eyes, utterly fed up. Before, Ivar saying something like that would have moved your heart, but not anymore. Every time you and he have a fight, he shamelessly pulls the disabled card on you, just to make you feel guilty. It doesn't work tonight, though. You're no fool. There's no sadness in his voice, only sourness and malice. He's stubbornly furious about something that doesn't exist, and therefore ready to push all the right buttons. And you, you're sick and tired of that kind of ploy.

"Fuck Ivar, we're past that point! You know I don't give a shit about your legs! You do, but it's not my fault and I won't let you make it about them! And you know what? This is not about me, this is about you! You wouldn't trust me even if you could run a hundred meters, fucking admit it!" Blinking back tears, you let out a huff of frustration.

Ivar quirks a brow, and the brooding look of anger on his face tells you that he's not going to let go, not yet. "You're not making any sense, Y/N! This has everything to do with you! You, the ungrateful daughter of a worker, who always wants more! More money, more shiny things, more fame, and a better man than the cripple!" He snaps at you with an air of defiance, gritting his teeth.

Your whole body starts to shake as you process his words. Ivar has never been out of line like this. "What the hell? You're a fucking bastard, Ivar!! You know that's not true! You're so fucking wrong!" You manage to say, seething at the insult.

You're not perfect, not by a long shot. But you sure are not a gold digger, never have been and never will be. Because of your simple background, you've always been afraid of being suspected of being interested in Lothbrok's money. That's exactly why you've never stopped working, despite your lover's protests.

So, Ivar making such accusations is absolutely revolting, infuriating and once again completely unfair.

Tilting his head, he looks at you with stormy eyes. "Am I, really?" He asks in a cold voice, eyebrows raised. "Wrong, I mean. Because, you see, I don't think so." He's suddenly incredibly calm, like he's just teaching something to a stupid child and not in the midst of a lovers' quarrel. A sly smirk on his face, he scoffs, folding his hands on his lap. "I'm just stating a fact, Y/N. After all I've done for you, that's how you thank me? By blatantly flirting with Olaf Haraldsson?"

That's the exact moment when you realize. When you know. Despite your best efforts, it will never get better. Ivar will always be difficult, you will always do everything you can to soothe him, make him happy and in the end, you will always be the one who feels hurt.

You thought your love would change him, but you were wrong. How naive you've been! People never change. And now, you're exhausted. For two years, you had to endure his bad faith, his tantrums, his wrath, his distrust, his jealous fits… You can't anymore.

Of course, there were good times as well. Sometimes – rarely – Ivar can be sweet and caring. But is it worth it? The thought has been playing on your mind these last few months. Suddenly, the answer is clear.

So, there's only one thing left to do. It may be painful, but there's no other choice.

Dropping to your knees, you pull a suitcase out from under the bed. Fresh tears are trickling down your cheeks and you stifle a sniffle. Ivar ducks his head and watches you, furrowing his brows.

"What the fuck are you doing, Y/N?" He snarls at you, his jaw clenched, barely restrained. Scooting closer surprizingly quickly, he grabs your wrist, squeezing it tight. You wince, locking eyes with him nevertheless.

"It's pretty obvious, isnt'it? I'm leaving tonight, Ivar." Fortunately, you sound more confident than you are and as Ivar releases you, utterly surprized, you take advantage of it and move away from him, dragging your suitcase with you.

"WHAT???" He roars, as one of his fists hits the mattress hard. There's so much fury in his eyes that you struggle to keep your head up.

Swallowing, you heave a sharp breath. "I'm. Leaving. Tonight." You immediately turn away, reaching into your closet and start throwing clothes into the suitcase on the floor.

You can easily imagine the look on his face. Ivar must be stunned. Flabbergasted. The long silence that follows your words confirms it.

Eventually, he clears his throat. "You can't do that. You're mine." His voice is cold as ice and you can feel his eyes on you. You shudder, closing your luggage. A small part of you is disappointed. You realize that you were maybe hoping for something different. Perhaps expressed feelings. You should have known better, though. It's Ivar, after all.

Slowly turning toward him, you bite your inner cheek, blinking back tears. As you tilt your head, you peer into his eyes. Hiding your shaky hands behind your back, you speak with a firm voice. "You're wrong. I'm a free woman, Ivar. You don't own me, you never did, in spite of all that you did. Because that is what you did, not for me, but to me, Ivar. You spied on me, threatened me, tried to control me. This isn't how a relationship works. I tried…" Your words catch in your throat, you have to stop for an instant. "I wanted to give you time, because I loved you. I probably still love you. But it's not enough. I can't do that. Jealousy isn't love, Ivar. Possessiveness isn't love. Love is about trust, and that's something you've never given me. So yes, Ivar, I'm leaving tonight, and there's nothing you can do to stop me." Closing your eyes briefly, you exhale, feeling the weight of your words settle over the two of you. Ivar doesn't move, as if petrified.

Grabbing the suitcase, you put your hand on the doorknob, your stomach churning unpleasantly. "Good bye, Ivar," you say softly, suddenly dispirited but no less convinced that you're doing the right thing.

You're almost out of the room when Ivar speaks, making you stop in your tracks. "Will you ever come back, Y/N?" His wavering voice sends shiver down your spine and you swallow a thick lump in your throat before looking at him. His eyes are wet, his bottom lip quivering. For the first time in… forever, you see the Ivar you fell in love with. The Ivar who allows himself to feel, to care. Maybe even to love.

But it's too late. You won't change your mind. You owe it to yourself.

Raising your head, you look at Ivar, still sitting on the bed."Will you ever change, Ivar?"

A series of emotions run across his face, but silence is his only answer. You slowly nod, blinking nervously. "That's what I thought."

There's nothing more to say and so you leave, closing the door behind you. Your heart is bleeding, your soul is crying but you did what you had to do, finally.

You are a free woman.

🛡⚔️🛡

@dreamwritesimagines @honestsycrets @lisinfleur @waiting4inspiration @saldelys @gearhead66 @readsalot73 @milkkygirls @xbellaxcarolinax @shannygoatgruff @zuxiezendler @a-mess-of-fandoms @liviatheempress @lonewolf471 @ivarthebloodyking @fuckindiva @tgrrose @didiintheblog

#dream's 10k challenge #ivar #ivars heathen army #ivar ragnarsson #ivar lothbrok #modern ivar #modern ivar x reader #modern!ivar #modern!ivar x reader #modern-ivar #ivar imagine #ivar the boneless #ivar fanfic #ivar fic #ivar fanfiction #ivar vikings #vikings ivar #vikings fic #vikings

179 notes · View notes

jamestrmtx · 3 years

Text

Fairytale Complex - [Undertale | Sans x Reader]

[Gender Neutral, Frisk's Parent Reader | Slow Burn]

Chapter Five | Snowy

[First] | [Previous] | [Next]

Here's an early update this week to make up for last week's missed update (due to finals).

As a result, expect the usual update on Saturday, as well!

Also, there’s now a Tag List at the bottom of this chapter -- Feel free to message me or comment if you'd like to be included on the list!

• • •

"...So, did you go to the doctor?"

"Yes, dear."

"And what did she say?"

"It's possible I have anemia or something because of malnutrition."

"What's anemia?"

"That just means I don't have enough blood to stay active and do things as I usually do."

"And why did that happen? You've always made us eat healthy!"

"Frisk, honey…" You sigh and place a hand over your forehead, massaging the ache away. "I get that you're worried, but I need a moment to concentrate. The food'll burn if I keep getting distracted."

"Let me help you, then!"

"Not today. You should do your homework now so I can check it later."

"Why? I can help you if you're busy. And Toriel can help me with that later anyway!"

Needing patience, you stop your work on the stew and let out another breath, longer yet quieter this time. Then, you take a sip of water and set the cup aside to wash for later. "You're not going to see any more of your monster friends until I can at least get to know some of them better." You turn off the stove and let the stew rest while you do the same. "Toriel's an exception, yes. But that doesn't mean I'll allow you to visit her place if people like Sans are going to be there, too."

"But he helps me with science!"

"I'll take care of that, then."

"But you're busy!"

"I can make time."

"But isn't it okay if Toriel's gonna be there with him?"

"If it was, I wouldn't be telling you about this in the first place."

Frisk huffs and pouts, arms crossing as they look away from you. "It's not like he's a ticking time bomb anyway. He… He's not gonna hurt me!"

"How can you be so sure? Your (dad/other dad) left us out of the blue."

"I don't care about him, and he's not my dad anymore! Y- You shouldn't call him that, and you should stop comparing other people with him!"

"Don't talk like that. You know that's not-"

"It's true!" Their words almost come off in a shriek and tears stain their face. "He- He doesn't care about me anymore, so I won't care about him, either. It's his fault why you had to go to the doctor in the first place!"

You stay quiet and watch as they blink through the tears, sniffling some of them back. Sensing they need a break from your gaze, you turn back to the stove and focus on continuing with the meal.

"I… I was okay with it the first week, but when I noticed how much better we've been doing just with Toriel alone, I- I got really, really mad at him! He doesn't care about us anymore, and he left us even before I ran away. If he wants to show he cares, then… Then he has to do something else besides sending you dumb What'sUp messages all the time."

You stop what you're doing again and catch the salt shaker just as it's about to fall into the pot, stew still resting and waiting for you to finish with flavouring it. Thankfully, the safety lock keeps it from making a mess, so you place it back where it was and thank the Heavens you don't have to salvage the food from being oversalted. When you recover, you stop looking at the pot to meet with Frisk's eyes, directing your widened ones at them.

"How do you know that?"

"It's obvious! Your face always gets all scrunched up and grumpy, and the ringtone's different to all the others."

"And what if it's someone else?'

"You don't text anyone else besides auntie and Sans sometimes!"

Their words hit you like a punch to the gut.

Having your social life summarized so quickly almost makes you wince, and you feel the urge to ground them simply for those words alone, rather than for their earlier conduct regarding how they talked about Jerry. "I'm afraid I'll have to take your own phone away if you keep doing this. I don't know how you even figured all that stuff out, but you know it's not good to sneak up on things like this. You should ask me if you're curious, dear. And... And not just take a look at those messages whenever I'm not around."

"I haven't snooped around! The messages would show they're read, but all the stuff Jerry's sent you's still unread."

You smile and choose not to mention on how they continue to corner themselves the longer they speak, though you do acknowledge their awareness over small details, taking advantage of that by asking, "So that means you've read auntie and Sans's texts?"

They nod, unhesitating. "I know auntie's been telling you to get in touch with friends again. And you have a tour date with Sans this weekend!"

"Tour date where?"

"The Underground!"

"And besides those two people, who's the last person I texted, and how long ago was it?"

Frisk stays quiet for a while this time, but it's made clear they're only seeking that information from their memory rather than realizing how far they've dug themselves into a hole. "Your coworker was last month, and one of your friends was two months ago." Their response is confident, although it doesn't take longer than a few seconds of silence between you for them to notice their mistakes. You don't say anything and stare at them with squinted eyes and an equally humoured grin, waiting. "Um…" They can only stare with wide eyes; their body stays still while their mind processes just what exact mistakes were made. "I…"

"Go shower and dress up, dear," you say, biting back your smile. "We'll eat first before we go, and we can talk on the way there."

"To Toriel's place?"

You nod. "It's about time I met her in person rather than calls. And frankly, it's been… really irresponsible of me to let you continue visiting her despite me not being aware of who she is in person. I only allowed it because Serif was there, but after learning about what he did, I really don't want you near him."

"But you guys are going on a date this weekend!"

"If you're smart enough to know opening a message shows you've read it, then I'm sure you know that's not what that word means in that context."

"...What's context?"

"I won't keep playing your game, dear."

"But what if I really don't know what it means?"

"Then you can find it in a dictionary, or you can ask your tutors about it."

"You're being mean!"

"And you're being nosy."

Frisk frowns and crosses their arms. They attempt an angered expression, though it results in a faltering grimace as they try not to let their sadness known. Their lips stay pressed close together and their body shakes, all signs of them wanting to cry their feelings out. Still, they push through and regain some calm through a sigh. "I…" Their tone is just as reluctant as their posture, so you don't pressure and stay quiet. "I'm sorry, (mom/dad)." They let their arms loosen and stare up at you with stern eyes. "I was just worried about you. I… I didn't mean to look through your stuff. And I… I didn't mean to make you angry. I-"

"I'm not angry." You place a hand over their head and smile, tickling the back of their ear and gaining a smile back from them. "But what you did really wasn't right." You pause and take a breath, already weak and dizzied despite it still being one in the afternoon. "And even though there're times where you have to go against the rules, this isn't one of them. You could've gotten into trouble if it was a stranger or someone else, or you could've learned something the wrong way. If you need to know something, you should ask me directly, not just play spy about it. I won't know what's bothering you if you keep hiding it from me and getting your answers like this. Alright?"

Frisk responds with a hug rather than words. Their hold is tight, and they nearly cling onto you, face pressing against your torso as they cry against it. "I'm sorry," they whisper through their sniffles and hiccups, holding on tighter. "I- I… Could you tell me what's making you sad next time, then?"

"Of course, honey." You place a hand against the back of their head and brush your fingers through their hair. "...I should've done that sooner, too." You smile when they let go and meet with their eyes, these red and watery from the recent cry. "Your hair's getting longer," you add, ruffling it up. "Do you wanna cut it, or do you like it this way?"

"I like it this way!" Their words are as bright as their smile, and another look at them reveals a weight's been lifted off their shoulders. "Should I go do my homework now? I wanna stay with you today."

"Sure," you reply, letting your smile grow. "Do what you already know. I'll be there in a few to help you out."

"Thanks, (mom/dad)!"

With that, they stand on their tiptoes and kiss your cheek. Then, they run off to their room, leaving you to finish with the stew.

• • •

Frisk's return equals to having a cramped calendar, where every single day's marked down with a sticker and a note to remind you over what you have to do.

Still, it doesn't erase the fact you need time for yourself, so you take up Frisk's concern over your health and happiness as advice for you to take better care of yourself. You start by stretching after an hour long nap, drinking some water, and opening up the envelope the two skeleton brothers had given you. Anticipation arrives with the reminder of what Papyrus hinted at about its contents. You tear it open, pull out the first thing you touch, and continue doing so until there's nothing left to take out and place on your nightstand. You then look at all the items laid out and notice that -- besides the business card Papyrus mentioned -- all other items are what he'd informed were from his brother.

Besides Alphys's contact information, there's...

What looks like a bunny-shaped notepad.

Two admission tickets.

A folded paper with some cards stuck to it.

And, as you feared, money.

If Papyrus mentioned only about Alphys's contact information being there, then it's a likelihood to assume the rest is from his older brother.

You take the notepad first and open it to see the first page has already been filled out, and it reads:

"so, uh… hey."

"i'm not too good at writin' letters, but i thought this notepad would be useful now that you're gonna keep a contact list of all the monsters frisk made friends with. i took the liberty of puttin' in the first ten i could think of. start with those first, and don't push yourself too hard."

The fourth and second to last item from the monster is what looks like an agreement letter and a pair of travel visas attached to it. You squint at the tiny lettering and adjust your glasses to begin with the reading.

"With the approval of former Royal Sentry and Judge, Comic Sans Serif, I hereby allow for (miss/mister) (Y/N) (L/N) to traverse the Underground with him by their side. It is important to note these tickets will expire in three days after their initial use, and that another permit would need to be requested if the user so requires to visit the Underground again. I would also like to let known that it was not in my decision to have all these restrictions made, but it has been requested by the government that we restrict access to the Underground until they determine it is safe for humankind to visit. These visas have been given for the sole sake of having both of Frisk's parents well-informed over their child's journey, and said adults' safety should be provided by mister Serif. Any danger they face at the Underground shall be blamed on him for his inability to keep up with the requirements of this agreement, which include providing (miss/mister) (L/N) specifically with both protection and knowledge alike. A second permit has been provided in case that Frisk's other parent decides to accept the offer, as well. – Asgore Dreemurr."

Below all that is a note written with a soft shade of pencil graphite, allowing you to erase it after reading.

"take care, pal."

Ignoring the smile on your face, you proceed to the third item: two admission tickets for what's titled as 'A Spectacular Drama by Mettaton'. Attached to one of them is a second sticky note along with a shorter memo written down on it. It makes sense as to why the agreement letter had a 'take care' on it, given it's the last item you'd pulled out besides the money. Had you checked them all in that order, that last memo would've been a closing of sorts.

"there's gonna be a big show in two months. dunno if you and your kid celebrate the holiday, but frisk seemed to like snowdin, so i figured they'd also like seeing a whole bunch of events related to that. it says 'drama' only, but that's just mettaton highlightin' what he finds the most important."

"tell me when the time comes if you're up for it. i can help you get to know the guy better before then."

The money's the only thing left and the only one that leaves questions behind. You take the batch and count in hopes of finding some answers, though the longer you do that, the stranger it gets.

20…

40…

60…

80…

100…

That pattern repeats for two more times, making it three-hundred in total.

Just as you wonder why you've been handed such a large amount, you have the urge to look at yourself in the coffee table's reflection to see you're not exactly looking any better than before.

Both him and his brother had noticed that. It's almost been two weeks, and yet you've still the same tired look to your face. Constant lost hours of sleep, excessive stress, and practicing a poor diet had left almost irreparable damage on your body and mind alike, enough for even non-human people to notice the change.

All things considered though, how were you supposed to hate an enemy when they acted like this?

[First] | [Previous] | [Next]

• • •

Happy Holidays!

I know times are tougher than ever, but stay strong and remember to practice social distancing if you're making small get-togethers with family/those in your same household, apartment, or campus.

Take care, and stay safe. :-)

(Holiday special incoming soon enough!!)

Tag List

@the-simp-express

(This is a temporary format until I learn more about Tag Lists! I'm a Tumblr noob, lol.)

#sans x reader #undertale x reader #lgbt #lgbt themes #gender neutral reader #male reader #female reader #mother reader #father reader #parent reader #chubby reader #long fic #romcom #adventure #mystery #platonic relationships #slow burn

63 notes · View notes

recentanimenews · 3 years

Text

INTERVIEW: The Creators of The Ancient Magus' Bride and The Girl From the Other Side

In coordination with the recent anime announcements of The Girl from the Other Side and The Ancient Magus' Bride, Comic Natalie recently held an interview with the manga authors of both series: Nagabe and Kore Yamazaki. Crunchyroll News was given the opportunity to officially translate the interview in English between the two, posted below. You can read the original Japanese interview here.

Tetsuko Kumase held and composed the interview.

The Girl from the Other Side by Nagabe and The Ancient Magus’ Bride by Kore Yamazaki are the two stories that develop around the theme of "Beast x Girl," and probably have many fans in common. To celebrate the release of The Girl from the Other Side as a full-length anime OAD (news article embedded) and the development of a new OAD series for The Ancient Magus’ Bride (news article embedded), Comic Natalie has set up an interview with Nagabe and Yamazaki. In addition to discussing their commitment to their work and the concept of "Beast x Girl", they also shared their thoughts about the new anime productions. At the end of the interview, they asked questions to each other to learn more about one’s perspectives towards creating stories.

Respect for each other and the appeal of "Beast x Girl"

── There have been several projects you collaborated on, such as a joint event for the two works (see: The Ancient Magus’ Bride and The Girl from the Other Side fair where visitors could get the “Beast x Girl” playing cards) and the book of The Ancient Magus’ Bride including a trivia manga booklet, The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Quiet Talk, written by Nagabe-san (see: The Ancient Magus’ Bride volume 10 includes an acrylic stand and a booklet written by Nagabe). I know that many readers are fans of both of your works, but could you tell us about your impressions of each other's creations and what you like about them?

Nagabe: The Ancient Magus’ Bride initially grabbed my attention because of the obi (belt) on the book that said "Beast x Girl." But when I started reading it, I found it to be a fantasy manga that’s really well thought out. Dragons, mythical creatures, folklore, and mythology are well integrated into the modern world, and each magical being is given its own meaning. The non-human characters also have their own meanings, backgrounds, and cultures, and interact with the protagonists. It's not just a fantasy, but the way the characters are connected to the world and make it feel so real is exquisite! Of course, the non-humans in the story are also wonderful. I love Elias.

Kore Yamazaki: Thank you very much. I'm often amazed at the range of stories and pictures you create. I sometimes even question if there are any non-human characters you can’t draw. I don't know if it's appropriate to say, but there's a hint of darkness or something in your work. I think it's a little sexy or maybe there’s secret eros? I love that I can feel a little bit of naughtiness in your work.

Nagabe: Thank you!

Yamazaki: The other thing is that I feel like I can almost smell the lines and shadows you draw if I trace them. Also, your story can be either very sweet or disturbing. I know you've been working very hard to achieve this, but honestly, I envy you. I wish I could create pictures and stories like you.

── I can really tell that you respect each other deeply. Now, please tell us what you like about particular scenes, episodes, or expressions in each of your works.

Nagabe: Personally, I think that The Ancient Magus’ Bride is a human drama in which you see Chise’s growth and changes as she confronts the environment around her. So, of course, there are impressive episodes that correspond to that. However, if I get to choose one based on my own preferences, I like the story of magic in Episode 2 and the Christmas story of Elias and Chise. The former shows magical instruments in a fantasy world, and the latter shows the integration of the real world customs in manga. I love portraits that showcase slice-of-life stories, so I thought those were great!

Yamazaki: I really like the gradual development of the relationship between Shiva and Sensei in The Girl from the Other Side. I love the scenes where they are about to touch but hesitate and also the scene that portraits the cute fight that heats up through the door. There’s also a scene where they touch each other by accident, but that triggers them to touch each other intentionally after, and that made me go "Wow!” The distance between them is so... delicate and exquisite. The softness of the flesh and the temperature of Shiva and the lack of physical temperature of Sensei next to her, all give me the feeling of winter, which is amazing. I think it just fits my sense of winter perfectly. The coldness that mercilessly takes away life, the feel of the felt, floor, and walls chilled by snow and water, and the warmth of having someone by your side in front of the stove… they all exist together in the story.

Nagabe: I'm very happy to hear that.

Yamazaki: My favorite episode is episode 29 in volume 6. I really want them both to be happy! It made me feel the warm temperature of Shiva’s tears. The scene where they go see Mother gave me chills. The design of the children of darkness is also epic!

── Now, can you talk about what you both find to be attractive about the “Beast x Girl," which is a common concept in both of your works?

Nagabe: It’s not just about girls but more so about humans, but I think I’m into cross-culturalism. Different races have different cultures, languages, and maybe even different body structures. The two characters have great differences and that brings out interesting gaps and interactions which creates a good drama. It’s also nice when they see each other’s similarities and go “oh, that’s the part we have in common”. I especially like it when there are differences that are incompatible. For example, whether cannibalism is acceptable or not. The fact that taboos in the human world are practiced without hesitation in the non-human world creates clear divisions. Seeing how they deal with these negative differences is the best part and what makes this theme attractive to me.

Yamazaki: The concept of non-human exists because there are humans. I am personally attracted to things that are distant from humans in appearance and sensibility. I love non-humans who don’t speak human languages, but I also have to balance my work for consumer products. In The Ancient Magus’ Bride, I used fairytales from Britain and Ireland as references, so they all speak human languages fluently. Their sensibilities and appearance are quite human-like except for their rules. It’s probably because humans wouldn’t be able to understand them otherwise, and they can be very different from your ideas of non-humans. However, they are very rigid about certain rules they have, so I have to be careful drawing those concepts clearly. It’s quite difficult to decide how much of the original folktales and fairytales I include in my creation. If I put too much just because it’s interesting, the originality in my work will disappear. This is something I have to be careful not to overlook.

── You've taken special care to balance these concepts.

Yamazaki: The other topic to consider is the reason why a girl is matched with a beast. Personally, I think it’s because girls have the most flexibility and softness. For better or worse, children are soft, malleable, and flexible to their environment. But they also have their own answers to questions, toughness, weakness, rigidness, and acceptance to their worlds, questions, hesitation, tolerance, anger, joy… all sorts of ideas and emotions, which makes them very attractive and easy to draw. I understand that adult characters are interesting as well. Also, it’s just exciting to see humans and non-humans together like with animals, monsters, and so on. In reality, people often don’t understand each other, but in creation, we can hope differently. I guess I like seeing everyone getting along as a bystander. But from a business point of view, I can’t just leave it like that, so I give them lots of challenges!

Nagabe: In The Ancient Magus’ Bride, I think that emotions are portrayed as something specific to humans. The contrast between Chise, who is always changing based on her experiences, and Elias, who is certainly changing but lacking in some crucial way, is brilliant. It seems that this kind of dissonance is there because we see Elias’ emotions in the same way we see that of Chise’s or humans. In the story, Chise said to Elias “I can’t understand you”, and I think it’s great that you are taking this difference between the characters seriously and depicting it in your work.

Yamazaki: Thank you. I think The Girl from the Other Side provides the perfect sense in terms of closeness among characters. Other works of yours also showcase this as well. Sometimes characters are all over each other, and other times they are trying to figure out the right distance. There’s rejection, and there’s also adorable connection. I love it. I think the struggle between a being and another being is wonderful. Also, it’s simply cool to have two different concepts exist together like big and small.

── What kind of works have influenced the two of you in terms of drawing fantasy and the theme of "Beast x Girl"?

Yamazaki: It’s not that I’m only looking for the “Beast x Girl” theme, but it just triggers my sensors! Some of the books that caught my attention are the Darren Shan series, Rachel series, Koteki no Kanata, Dendera Ryu ga Detekitayo, Sukkuto Kitsune, and Hellsing. In terms of animation, I’d say the Monster Farm, PoPoLoCrois series, Brigadoon: Marin & Melan, and Blood: The Last Vampire series. Rather than finding the exact theme of “Beast x Girl," I find the subtle essence of that in these works. Also, I often use myths and folktales as references. I’d say the ones that influenced me the most are Ashiarai Yashiki no Juunintachi, J&J series, and Blood+.

Nagabe: I think Beauty and the Beast was influential for me! These are not about a beast and a girl, but Alice in Wonderland and Moomin also had a strong influence on my current manga creation. They are certainly fantasy, but not shiny and glamorous, and gives you a sense of antiquity,

── Are there any works that you would like to recommend to each other?

Nagabe: In my case, I am more interested in art books and picture books than novels, so my tastes are a little different. But I would like to recommend Arthur Rackham and Saint-Exupery! Arthur Rackham is famous for Alice in Wonderland, and Saint-Exupery for The Little Prince. I also recommend Jon Klassen's picture book series. I like the airy atmosphere and you can see his energetic watercolor touch. I hope you will read them if you have a chance.

Yamazaki: I'd like to check them out. It's hard to make recommendations to Nagabe-san, but I'd like you to read Ashiarai Yashiki no Juunintachi. The characters are more human-like in appearance, but there is also great diversity. There are lots of characters so I'm sure you'll be able to find one, three, or even ten that you like.

Nagabe: I see. I’ll check it out.

What they want to portray through their work

── Could you tell us about your own work? In a previous interview with Comic Natalie, Yamazaki-san, you said you wanted to create a story in The Ancient Magus’ Bride where "everyone is bad and everyone is good."

Yamazaki: Now that I think about it, “everyone is bad and everyone is good” is not exactly correct. If I could answer it again, I would say it’s about differences. It's like a sample of where various emotions and thoughts are. I hope that reading my manga will give the audience a chance to think about the differences in their lives. But they are free to dismiss it if they think it’s boring. I have my ideas of what I want to convey as a message in my work, but I try not to give clear answers so that people can think and feel what they want.

── Now, Nagabe-san, in a previous interview, you said that the most important theme for you was "gentleness."

Nagabe: After finishing The Girl from the Other Side, I felt once again that ‘gentleness’ is a difficult thing to express. I wondered to whom that ‘gentleness’ was meant for, what it meant, and what would happen if that feeling resulted in a bad situation. Is ‘gentleness’ shown in words, actions, or something else in the first place? Any of these can express ‘gentleness’ depending on the perspectives of each protagonist, so I was reminded of the ambiguity of emotions, the frustration that comes with interaction, and how difficult it is to depict those things. I’m glad I got to learn the difficulty of this theme, and I felt that I need to look at it from different aspects.

── I see. It's been a few years since any of the interviews I mentioned before, but has there been anything new you would like to emphasize in your works?

Nagabe: Since I’ve been thinking about the theme of emotions through "gentleness," I want to focus more on personality. In other words, I want to focus more on human dramas. In addition to that, I would like to depict a strange everyday life in a mysterious world. Of course, I want to include non-humans.

Yamazaki: I haven't really changed my main ideas. But if I had to say, I’d like to go back to the basics and draw non-humans again as I’ve been drawing only humans in stories lately.

The world of The Girl from the Other Side and

The Ancient Magus’ Bride in animation

── Both The Girl from the Other Side and The Ancient Magus’ Bride have been developed into anime projects in the past. How do you feel about your works being made into animation again?

Nagabe: My honest impression (after watching the animation) was "It's moving!” The artwork, visuals, and atmosphere of the manga are very important to me, so I was very impressed that the production team was able to recreate those of my manga with such care. In the previous short animation, the audience was able to enjoy the blank space created by the lack of words. It left room for interpretation. I was simply thrilled that they created such mature animation.

Yamazaki: In my case, I was looking at a hypothetical future where the project was in progress, but in the middle of the project, people would say, "It's not going to sell," and it would discontinue. I was thinking that I should at least be able to do enough work to feed myself, but it actually came true. Can you believe it? Now I can't quit so easily. Oops...

── Oh, no (laughs).

Yamazaki: I was just kidding and was actually very happy, and even though it was a lot of hard work, I had great fun working with many creators!

── What kind of messages and reactions did you receive from the readers of your manga who watched the anime?

Nagabe: The readers were also excited that The Girl from the Other Side was moving! That's how much they have enjoyed the world of The Girl from the Other Side in manga, and we’ve succeeded to meet their expectation in the anime.

Yamazaki: I've received a lot of feedback as well, but it's generally been positive and I’m relieved. I want to thank everyone for that!

── I believe that there are qualities that people are drawn to and ways of expression that are each unique to manga and anime, but when you saw your own work turned into animation, was there anything that you felt was unique to animation?

Nagabe: I think that the subtle movements of people and objects are best expressed through animation. For example, in the scene at the dinner table with Sensei and Shiva, you can see both a movement of Shiva where she tries to climb up on a chair and a smooth movement of Sensei at the same time. This contrast allowed the audience to feel a sense of life in our daily routines, and I thought that was great. One more thing is that the scenes like Shiva’s dreams and the star scene, in the end, achieved a better sense of realism because of the colors, and I think the black-and-white representation of manga won’t be able to quite do the same.

Yamazaki: I may have the same opinion. The manga is quite plain as I prefer low saturation, but I also knew that could be a hindrance for a consumer product. So I was impressed with the bright colors in the anime. Also, the animation complimented the lack of explanation in the manga and it made it more theatrical. I hope people will see both works!

Nagabe: That's right! I want people to see both, too.

── Both manga and anime have their own strong points, and I hope people will enjoy them both. And now, the development of a full-length anime of The Girl from the Other Side and a new OAD series for The Ancient Magus’ Bride has been announced. Please tell us your honest opinions about these developments.

Nagabe: YEEEESSS! I'm so happy. I personally gave the last short-length anime a perfect score, so I have…really...high expectations!

── I can feel your joy. (laugh)

Nagabe: This is all happening thanks to the hard work put in by WIT STUDIO, Yutaro Kubo (director), and Satomi Yoneya (director), and my expectations are very high and I have no worries at all! How about you, Yamazaki-san?

Yamazaki: I'm glad to be working with various creators again! I'm also going to be doing more work that I don't normally do, so in a way I'll be able to change up my routine. It's a lot of work, but also a lot of fun.

── What are you looking forward to and what are your expectations for the new animation?

Nagabe: I’m wondering how they will tell the story now that it’s longer. Of course, I’m interested in the visual expressions and the production of animation as I was for the previous short-length anime, but more than that, I’m looking forward to seeing how they will incorporate the world of The Girl from the Other Side into animation and how they will depict it. Also, Sensei and Shiva are going to talk… with voices. I’m pretty pumped about it and can't contain my excitement!

── As a fan, I'm really looking forward to it. What about you, Yamazaki-san?

Yamazaki: It's fun to have more opportunities to see the work of the animation staff. To tell the truth, I don't really have much expectation for my work. “New anime! Work is coming! I'll do my best!”, I don’t normally feel that way. It almost feels like a collaboration between the supervising team and the animation team, so I have to do my best for our audience to enjoy it.

── How do you feel about the fact that both of your works are loved overseas as well?

Nagabe: Is that so? I'm glad to hear that! Since The Girl from the Other Side is more like a poem or a picture book than a manga, I’ve been wondering how it would be perceived even in Japan. But I'm frankly happy that it's been accepted so favorably. I'm also happy that TThe Girl from the Other Side has “flown” to a foreign country (the Other Side). That gave me a smile. Thank you very much.

Yamazaki: I'm really grateful that there are people overseas who are interested in my work since I basically published it for Japanese people. As the story is set in England, I tried to avoid using gestures and phrases that are unique to Japanese culture, but I guess you could say that worked in my favor. I've been getting a lot of positive feedback and art from fans!

The influence of the pandemic

── I'd like to change the subject. In the past year, as I’ve had interactions with various manga artists, I've witnessed the impact of the pandemic in the writing process and the mental health of manga artists in general. Have there been any changes for you?

Nagabe: Due to the pandemic, of course, I thought about things like my daily life, how to go out, and how to enforce hygiene. But if I speak of The Girl from the Other Side, I feel that its world has gotten closer to our reality. In the story, there’s a curse, and one character would say “it’s safe to stay close to non-humans from the Outside as long as you take proper precautions” while another would say “we should eliminate the cause if nobody can take responsibility”, and they keep arguing. They are both right, and that is why there is friction. I think our feelings and societal reactions toward COVID-19 is very similar to that of The Girl from the Other Side.

Yamazaki: My assistant has been working from far away since before the pandemic, so our work itself hasn’t really been affected at all. But the fact that I can’t go out to gather information and materials for my work has put a damper on my mood. I can feel the significant influence on my work speed, physical condition, and mental health. I’ve always thought I was an indoor person, but in the situation where I am restricted to go out, it’s making me want to do so even more.

── I really understand. There are many people around me saying that they had thought they were indoor people but they got depressed when they couldn’t go outside for a long period of time. Along this topic, I have an impression that manga artists are more used to being at home than people with regular jobs, so you must have some useful tips on how to make it more enjoyable. Do you?

Nagabe: Leave it to me. After all, I am a professional at that.

── I’m counting on you (laughs).

Nagabe: In my case, I have three rooms: one is my workroom, one is my bedroom, and one is my living space, so I feel like I can make my home more comfortable just by not mixing up my personal and professional life. Also, it's exhausting to keep up 100% of my attention, so I think it's okay to cut corners where I can. I also wear pajamas except in my workspace. For me, it's important to keep my workspace clean and crisp and separate from my personal life. Otherwise, I think people should invest in hobbies. Yeah, I think so. Let's paint, everyone. Drawing is good. [To the reader] Why don't you draw pictures, too?

Yamazaki: Haha. I am an indoor person only when I have a lot of materials to read and work, so not being able to go out gives me a fair amount of stress. If I had to pick, I’d say looking at photo books, cooking, trying out musical instruments, or woodworking or something. Woodworking in particular is great because you can develop your concentration and you end up with a finished product in your hands. Just shaving the bark of a tree branch with a knife is fun, so I think it’s good to have a knife. It’s convenient.

Questions to each other from their commitments to creation to the favorite features of non-humans

─ Since we are here to talk altogether, I would like to ask you to interview each other. First, Nagabe-san, could you please ask questions to Yamazaki-san?

Nagabe: I’d like to know your process of thinking out and what you are particular about in creating your stories. When I read The Ancient Magus’ Bride, the first thing that struck me was that Yamazaki-sensei uses motifs from Western mythology, fairies, and folklore, and then creates a human drama about how those characters confront each other and express their feelings. So I am wondering how you incorporate the elements that exist in fantasy into your own stories and characters.

Yamazaki: A human drama…… Can I call it a human drama? I'd be happy if I can!

Nagabe: I'm sure you can!

Yamazaki: To be honest, there are many parts where I’m not really sure how I’ve applied the concept of fantasy to the characters. When I'm thinking about a story, my brain starts going "This is it," "This person is that," or "That can be incorporated into this development,” and it often puts different pieces together like a puzzle. On the other hand, when those things don't come out naturally, it's hard as hell to write a story (laughs). I usually read books on mythology and folklore, and I often have a stock of ideas that I can use in development. Perhaps it's because I don't think of fantasy as something that can't happen in reality, so I create a story where humans meet fantasy in an ordinary way. That's probably why I create the way I do. I feel that these things can happen right next to us, like the change of seasons.

Nagabe: Are there any techniques or theories that you consider in manga? For example, I'd like to know if there are any techniques that you use when drawing manga, such as creating a development every four pages or adjusting the number of frames.

Yamazaki: People have different opinions on this, but I try to include some funny parts here and there. I’ve had some people say they prefer for me to write seriously throughout weighty stories so that they won’t be distracted. But some say they enjoy those funny parts. Either way, I am enjoying drawing those scenes, so that’s the direction I’m going. Other than that, I only pay attention to the basics. Not too many frames, not too few, no more than three lines of dialogues because it’s hard to read, and wide horizontal lines for speech bubbles. When the bubbles are long in length, it's a problem when it’s translated into other languages.

Nagabe: Oh, I see. I'm just curious, but you create manga, illustrations, and novels, and is there any new field you would like to work on?

Yamazaki: I'm mostly satisfied because I was able to get my hands on all three of those (laughs). I originally wanted to be a writer, but I found it overwhelmingly unsuitable, so I got serious about manga. If I don't have to think about what I’m suited for, writing picture books or game and anime scripts sound interesting.

Nagabe: Now, I'm going to assume that you like non-humans, but what are your favorite things about them? I want you to talk about it as much as you can.

Yamazaki: I don’t know if I’m qualified to talk about non-humans just because I like non-human characters, but personally, I think it’s their differences that attract me. Compared to humans, they look different, think differently, speak different languages, live in different ways, and have different cultures. But when you think about it, this all applies to humans, doesn’t it? If you are from different countries or even areas, all of the things I mentioned can be the differences among humans. I think I enjoy non-human characters because those differences are easier to see. The further away they are from humans and the more difficult it is to communicate with them, the more excited I get. But that also doesn’t mean that I like all non-humans just because. They need to have attractive inner qualities as well. I do love non-human characters, but the basic premise is that characters have to be attractive and stories have to be interesting!

Nagabe: Yeah, I agree.

Yamazaki: Going back to the question, if I had to pick the best feature of non-humans, I would say that it's the fact that they seem to be able to understand humans, but can’t. Even when they are next to us and looking at the same things, what we see are different and we never understand each other’s point of view. I love the fact that we continue to be individuals who don’t intersect, don’t mix, and can’t be fixed into something. But even then, the human character and the non-human character stick around together! I love that concept!I love the fact that they seem to be attracted to each other but are not, and that they will forever remain different creatures. After all, the existence of humans is essential for non-humans because the premise of non-humans is that there are humans. Therefore, I don't get too excited when I don't know much about the non-human characters. If possible, I want to know their thoughts, tastes, words, and deeds of the being before liking them. Although, in some cases, I get really excited about characters based on their appearance only…. So, I guess it’s like an accident to find non-human characters I like.

Nagabe: Is that right? By the way, what do you think of cat ears? Do you like them or not? Is it a beast, a demi-human, or a non-human? Please tell me your opinion.

Yamazaki: There are many factors that I would personally consider, such as how the cat ears are attached, the facial structure, whether it has human ears in addition to cat ears, its lifestyle, and whether it seems to think like a beast rather than a human. Whether there are any features other than the cat ears that differ from humans is probably the main question. Personally, I don't think that a human with only cat ears can be considered a non-human, but in some cases, it can be, so it really depends on the character.

Nagabe: I see.

Yamazaki: For example, if the lifestyle is that of a feral cat or feline, it is a beast, if the lifestyle is culturally different from that of humans, it is a demi-human, and if the lifestyle is clearly different from that of humans, it is non-human. I think it’s important to keep in mind that people will judge cat ears, or rather animal ears, differently depending on who they are. I believe in freedom of what people think, each individual is wonderful, and you can step away from things you disagree with.

Nagabe: Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Lastly, I like non-humans so much that I draw them all the time, but I can’t find the appeal of human features. I don’t find it interesting to draw humans, so please help me.

Yamazaki: What? I'm not very good at drawing humans either! (laughs)

Nagabe: (laughs).

Yamazaki: To be honest, I feel that I’m not very good at drawing in general, but appeal… appeal…. I personally get motivated when I feel I’ve drawn something well, so I draw the features I like with my own fetishism in full swing. Eyes, hair, waistline, and facial expressions. That’s about it, I guess. So when I get into a slump, I am stuck there for a long time.

── Now it’s time for Yamazaki-san to ask Nagabe-san questions.

Yamazaki: I've heard that you draw very quickly, but do you have any weaknesses or strengths in terms of creating a storyboard, plotting, drafting, or line drawing?

Nagabe: I don’t like creating a storyboard and plotting. I get bored easily so I don’t like to spend too much time creating one thing. If I think too much, I don’t make any progress, and as a result, my focus shifts to other things. Creating a storyboard requires an awareness of the direction and progression of the story as well as its intentions. I’m not accustomed to these very well and I can’t supplement these with just my drawing ability.

Yamazaki: I also have a hard time with storyboards, so I understand. Are there any particular things that you can’t compromise in your work?

Nagabe: It's the composition of the picture. I like to deliberately draw blank spaces, and I think adding meaning to the empty spaces and adding emotion to the positions of the characters is an expression that is possible only in the framed world of manga, so I'm very particular about that.

Yamazaki: Thank you very much. Now, do you have any activities or something that you do when you just can't bring yourself to work?

Nagabe: At first, I would draw the easy parts. For example, I start with tasks that I think will be easy, such as drawing only one frame, drawing only persons, or drawing only speech bubbles. I don't know if it makes sense, but I think motivation comes after I begin the work, so I try to start with easy tasks to get the engine going.

Yamazaki: I see. This is the same question you asked me earlier, but I would also like to know what Nagabe-san’s favorite features about non-humans are.

Nagabe: Okay, you sure you have enough time to talk about it?

Yamazaki: (laughs).

Nagabe: First of all, I like the way they look. Sometimes they are human skeletons, sometimes they are four-legged, and they are just distorted and diverse. The visuals are beyond imagination, like a living creature or a sculpture, and I like the eeriness of it. Next is regarding common sense. For example, they may eat pet animals as food, and the pets just accept that they will be eaten. Is this similar to the Cambyses Lottery (Fujiko F. Fujio)? What is considered common sense in one country is considered heretical in another. I love the interaction created by these cultural differences.

Yamazaki: Yeah.

Nagabe: The other thing is their life expectancy. It doesn't matter if it's a long life or a short life. At the moment you are born, it’s decided that you will not live the same amount of time as others and I like the impermanence of it. I want to create a new feeling of discomfort that has never existed before through this concept. There's no end to what I want to say, but I think I put a lot of emphasis on appearance and external characteristics. It's like the characteristics of animal features, and I hope those shapes have meanings.

Yamazaki: I've always thought that you are so good at depicting the interaction between humans and non-humans who don't have control over human language.

Nagabe: Thank you!

Yamazaki: Regardless of whether you draw them or not, which do you prefer, the ones who can control human language or the ones who can't?

Nagabe: I think both are good. If they use words, they can at least communicate instantly, and if they don't, I can create drama through their trial and error process of interacting. But for a story, I think I like the ones that don't use words because it gives them a stronger sense of foreignness and makes it easier to depict the difference between humans and non-humans.

Yamazaki: So, do you have a favorite genre for a non-human with animal features?

Nagabe: All... of them?

Yamazaki: (laughs). Dogs, cats, birds, reptiles and amphibians, marine mammals, insects, etc. These are not animals, but robots and androids would be fine as well.

Nagabe: Anything is fine as long as it's not a human.

Yamazaki: (laughs).

── I can feel Nagabe-san’s love for non-humans (laughs). Lastly, please share a message to the readers who are supporting your work.

Nagabe: Thank you for reading. In my works, I try to eliminate or omit explanations and dialogues as much as possible, so there may be many places where you may wonder what's going on. I've tried to leave room for your imagination, so I hope you'll enjoy the intentional blanks!

Yamazaki: Thank you so much for your support. It's a story that has lots of twists, but there's always something beyond that. I hope you will enjoy it. Thank you for your continued support!

youtube

By: Guest Author

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

29 notes · View notes