#alternate titles for each comic:

[ncteez]

The perks of being that guy (l.jh.)

Taking note of the strangers you see day to day isn’t something you’d normally do. The only reason today is different is because the guy who made small talk as he rang you up for your intimate items was the same guy who showed up catering for your family reunion. 

or the one where jihoon is a dildo salesman, a caterer, a self-titled mechanic, and also your ride home. he is not an expert in any of his jobs, but he sure is an expert in wit and, well, other things. 

ao3 | m.list | reblog to give woozi a lil kiss 

minors dni!! 

WORDCOUNT― 14k

PAIRING― jihoon x afab reader 

CONTENT― strangers to lovers like immediately, long fluffy hair jihoon!!!!,  you buy a monster sized dildo, blatant talking of masturbation and toys, smut, cliche blooming an attachment to someone after (1) fuckening. 

NOTE― a present for u all because i hit a milestone of 5000 followers!! this was only supposed to be like 5k words but i guess i was in love with him this whole time. anyway, this is not proof read bc i think u guys know by now that im not about that life, so if you find a typo– don’t tell me i will delete everything out of embarrassment. 

smut tags under cut:: 

smut tags― it’s kind of fluffy im so sorry i just have feelings for him, average cock size jihoon!!!! he is very much a service top, making out, hand holding, caressing, grinding, finger fucking, titty worship,  unprotected sex (just wrap it guys, im too lazy to write a condom scene), sweet talking as a form of dirty talk, missionary bc i refuse to not write smut where he wants to look directly at you, back scratches (sexual) ~

~

Never have you been put in the position to make small talk about the sex toys you place on a counter to purchase. Then again, you guess it’s part of the job description that most people ignore or aren’t privy to actually doing. 

Never have you been informed of the wide variety of lubricants, additional toy-cleaners, or the bigger and smaller alternatives to your chosen toy. You don’t show discomfort though, because it’s not uncomfortable. Sex is normal, masturbation is more normal, and the man in front of you appears to be normal too.

“There’s twelve different color variants if you prefer something less fleshy.” The man says, standing at the counter with some sort of a permanent pout on his lips. 

“I’m fine with my choice, if you could just ring me up now I can get out of your hair.” You respond, glancing at the time on your phone and wondering how you got stuck with the only employee who actually does his job here.

“Are you sure you don’t want any lubricant…?” The man adds, gazing at the size of your toy and then looking you up and down as if you clearly wouldn’t be able to handle it without said lube purchase. 

The man with no name tag appears to be blissfully unaware of his invasiveness with that question as you tilt your head with a raised brow. Shocked at the very question, it’s actually quite laughable that he’s so monotone with the offensive comment. You imagine he’s done this for so long, he must be a manager trying to get the day over with, going through the steps in a bored mood with little to no regard as to how he must sound to strangers buying their first or twentieth dildo. 

With your assumption that he doesn’t exactly care about the level of wet your vagina is when you use this toy, you respond.

“I think I know what I can take and I already have lube, but thanks.”

He nods, not even sparing you much of a glance before giving you a total and bagging your item.

Now, despite Jihoon’s lack of interest toward the purchase of toys he finds it comical that he’s grown numb to the very fact that he knows everyone in this town’s kinks after they step out of the shop’s door. Someone’s gotta do this job and keep those secrets and he likes to think he fits the bill perfectly. 

Lively as he may be outside of this shop, each job comes with a personality and this one calls for one of disinterest in your product but interest in the sale. He’s not one to lie to himself though, many times a pretty girl has marched in and bought toys far bigger than any man and he does tend to let his mind wander about it from time to time. When he first started this job, bright eyed and bushy-tailed, he found it hard to navigate a single sale without a flush of rosy tints crossing his cheeks and ears. Now, he’s become a veteran at keeping his dick locked in place if he were to feel some type of way about a purchase and the one purchasing. 

Shy as he was when he started, it’s all lost now as he handles dicks and dongs, pocket pussies and anal plugs, even whips and chains. 

Shy. That’s definitely a word and surprisingly one that can describe him when he’s not on schedule within these walls of alien dicks and lime flavored lube to match the grotesque green color. At his other job, because he works two, he takes the praise of being the charming yet, timid man who shows up with pans of food for events. 

The guests seem to love him, and many times during weddings and company parties he has been offered phone numbers or asked for one simply because he appears to be that of a friendly face with a kind sense of being. 

It’s a stark contrast of jobs, and somehow he’s managed to dodge knowing many of the people coming into his night job to shop for ways to fuck themselves. The rare time it had happened, he was thankful to have another person in the shop to ring them up. Keeping up with two jobs is hard, and keeping up with two personalities is even harder.

~

You hadn't thought of that guy from the sex shop even once until he showed his face at your family reunion. 

He noticed you before you managed to realize it was him though. Stealing looks in your direction as you chat with little cousins and elder aunts and uncles, mostly to double check in his brain if you’re really the girl who showed up and nonchalantly bought the newest dildo in stock. The fleshy colored one with rotating beads and a g-spot stimulator button. Upon your eyes meeting his though, he could tell it was you simply by your furrowed brow as you recognized him. 

Jihoon couldn’t help but smirk. He knew that eventually someone at an event would recognize him as their local sex-shop manager, he’s actually shocked it doesn’t happen more often. At least it’s you though, a woman who looks near his age and clearly has a very healthy relationship with her sexuality. So much so that you weren’t shy or nervous in buying the toy from him, because it’s very true that many people feel too vulnerable when buying those kinds of items. 

His smirk doesn’t go unnoticed by you before you look away from him and focus your attention back to your family. And by the time he’s prepared the food and is standing aside to help explain  or describe what ingredients the dishes have, you’re walking up with your empty plate and an awkward glance. 

He follows you down the line, seemingly more interested in you than anyone else. You could argue it’s just an attempt to make you feel embarrassed though.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” You ask, a knowing look telling him that you’re already very aware of that ‘somewhere’ you know him from. 

His pursed lips and snide hidden laugh at you is one thing, but the way he whispers to you over a pan of potato casserole is another. 

“I think you know who I am.” He says, crossing his arms as he leans back again with a flicker of a grin. 

You leave it at that, looking him in the eye curiously and for some reason, smiling back at the strange second encounter with a man who appears to have a name tag now.

“Thanks, Jihoon. See you around.” 

You’re heading away from the table of food and now toward your saved spot at the table of family that you missed the most. Your same-age cousins, the ones you grew up with and made mud pies for your parents with during summer evenings. 

“What was that about?” One of them leans over to ask, glancing to the man who is still overseeing the table of food and maintaining perfect temperatures. 

“Huh? He was just telling me what was in the potatoes.” 

She takes your answer as truth without issue, and the conversation falls away and into something else. College life, job life, family life. 

~

Okay so you’re trying to hear yourself out here. Are you somehow curious and interested in speaking with Jihoon? Yeah. Do you know why? Also yes. For one, he just sold you a fucking interesting sex toy last weekend in the most uncomfortable way possible, and now he’s here at your family reunion to remind you of what you do in your apartment when you’re alone. 

His personality seemed different this time too. He wasn’t monotone, he was snide with you about knowing who you are. He probably thinks it’s funny that he ended up at your family reunion over any other event.

So yeah, maybe you find yourself going up to the table for seconds even though you’re no longer hungry. Maybe you definitely wait until no one else is at the table and he appears to be tidying up the space and wiping up spills. 

“How many jobs do you have?” You ask in a sarcastic tone when you reach him, the table between the two of you creating a comfortable distance to poke and prod.

He jumps only slightly at your presence because he didn’t notice you walking up. Then he’s smiling again, looking at you up and down. 

“Plenty. How much lube do you have left?” He answers before shooting back his own question and getting right to the point. 

You freeze in shock at his question, reminding yourself that his monotone voice from the late dildo purchase is no more and he now comes across as vibrant and charming to you. You check him out for a moment, taking mental notes of what may not be to like about him. Unfortunately, you’re not finding much to take note of. 

“I can’t imagine you have much left, that thing was a fucking monster.” He pauses to cover his mouth, forgetting that he’s supposed to be timid and gentle during his day job. He’s not supposed to be himself.

You find yourself laughing at his panic though, leaning over the table and holding out your empty plate. Mostly just to get in closer to him. 

“Why are you so interested in my ‘fucking monster”’ dildos anyway?” You narrow your eyes. 

He pauses, his panic easing after taking note of your easy personality and banter towards him. 

“I think anyone would be interested, with all things considered.” He checks you out again. “Correction, they should be worried.” 

“You’re different from before,” you comment, both of you now blatantly staring down each other. “I like this version of you more.” 

Something inside of him feels giddy at that. Not to be cliche but he wonders if this is what it’s like to instantly have a crush on someone. Again, he’s not one to lie to himself. You’re pretty and you appear to be confident. Confident enough to discuss this at your own family reunion at least.

“Maybe I’ll see you again sometime then.” He puts a hand forward, inviting you to shake it but you simply stare down at it. 

“Yeah, maybe you will.” You smile, slapping his hand as if you’re low fiving him. 

Honestly, he might actually see you within the next day or two because he was kind of right to ask about how much lube you have left, but it’s not like you’d answer that truthfully if at all. You might be running out after just two uses. He was right again about it being a fucking monster, because well, yeah. Maybe you’ll pop in and shop for bulk lube instead of rejecting his up-sale. 

~

Unfortunately for you, upon the reunion coming to an end, you get into your car and of course it doesn’t start. Your head slamming into the steering wheel with a sigh that’s probably loud enough for the entire town to hear.

The last thing you need is your father driving you home, because he will lecture you about your car and how it’s got to be some fault of your own for it to not start. And you know, yeah maybe it was your fault. Why were your lights turned on during a sunny sunday afternoon? Fuck if you know. Why were they left on for the entire nine hours you spent at your parent’s house? You refuse to ask yourself questions.

Just as you prepare to head back inside, taking the walk of shame ten minutes after saying your goodbyes, a savior appears.

That savior is none other than Jihoon walking up with his stiff button down shirt partially unbuttoned, hair now disheveled as he must have ruffled it up after the day of work. He watched you from his catering van for just a few minutes before finally getting out to offer his expertise. 

“The battery is dead.” He smiles, slapping both palms on your hood and leaning to look at you through the windshield. 

“Smart man, can you un-dead my battery before my dad comes out?”

Jihoon shakes his head apologetically. 

“I already checked the van for the cables, could be a write up on my part for not checking before leaving. We are supposed to have all sorts of shit to prevent breakdowns on a job. Not today though, apparently.” He scratches the back of his neck as he walks to your opened car door. 

“If you can hang tight for like ten minutes I can swing by after dropping the van off.”

Your eyes plead with him. You’d prefer this, yes. If he’s willing to help, you’re willing to accept.

“You sure I’m too out of the way for you to do that?”

He shakes his head nonchalantly, waving you off as he leans into your car to pull your keys out of the ignition. He smells like food, obviously he does, but there’s a scent of something else on him that’s far more attractive. The dull scent of cologne that matches him all too well. 

“Don’t try to turn it on anymore if you don’t want your dad coming out.” He laughs. “I’m sure he would help you but if you’d rather I help you, I am more than happy to do it.”

He’s teasing. His little crush pushes him to want to help you, but he’s gonna play it off as casually as possible. 

“I’ll hang out here. My dad would lecture the fuck out of me.”

Jihoon nods, backing away and heading back to his van to fulfill his offer.

On another note, you’re shocked that your father didn’t hear the commotion, and even more shocked that he didn’t step outside once since the reunion ended. He must have been tired, and you know him, he sleeps like a rock even if he hits the sack at 7pm without even cleaning up the yard. 

~

“Oh, it’s dead dead.” Jihoon looks at you apologetically, peeking his head out from the side of your hood and through your window. 

“Define dead dead.” You comment, taking your keys out of the ignition with a huff. 

“Like, you need a new battery. This one is done for.”

You sigh loudly, knowing that now you’ll have to go ask your parents for a ride home. Know that your dad is going to add more to his lectures with each day your car is sitting in their driveway. This is so fucking annoying. At least you work from home though, so it’s not like you’re gonna lose your job over this or anything. 

Jihoon unhooks the cables and turns off his car, then stands there and watches you for a moment. You look frustrated and annoyed, and it’s very much like him to offer more help. Of course it is. 

“Would it be too forward to ask if you need a ride home?” 

You look at him confused, tilting your head and studying his body language much like before. You’re not one to decline someone making your life a little bit easier, and he is interesting to talk to. You nod slowly, then pause.

“You’ve worked all day, don’t waste your off-time helping me out.”

“I’m already wasting my off time on you though, might as well let me drive you home too?”

You stare at him. 

“Okay.”

The awkward silence sets in shortly after you seat yourself in his car. You fill that silence with small sarcastic comments about his car though, and soon it becomes easy to be in the space with him.

“Where did this sticker come from?” You ask, poking your finger into a sticker with its edges rolled from the summer heat, probably.

“Ex girlfriend, i couldn’t get it off without it leaving a residue so I’m just letting the sun do its job and melt it off.”

“Oh, harsh.” You laugh, wanting to prod further. “Why’d you break up?”

Jihoon pauses, you can tell by the way his foot lets up from the gas momentarily that he wasn’t expecting you to ask that. Then again, he’s said some weird shit to you too, so you figure it’s not an end-all question. 

“Was that too forward to ask?” 

“Not at all, just wasn’t expecting it,” He shakes his head with a small smile, nearly reaching his hand from the wheel to pat your leg in reassurance. He holds back, wondering why the fuck that urge felt so normal for him to do. “It’s been like a year, so I’m over it and stuff. She just thought I worked too much and didn’t spend enough time with her.”

“Ouch, even harsher.” You smile in reassurance to him, also feeling it normal to want to do that for some reason. “Her loss, I mean, discounted dildos and food? Huge loss.”

He laughs at your comments, briefly looking over at you once he stops at a red light. Your eyes are shining with life, with interest even. At that moment, he feels something between the two of you. Which is quite strange considering this is your first time officially meeting him outside of his working hours. He can’t help the way his face softens though, it happens against his will, honestly, it does. 

“You’re kind of cute,” You blurt, breaking eye contact with him and shifting in your seat. “and fun to hang out with.” 

“Hang out?” He laughs at you, eyes now adjusting back to the road and lowering his speed just to have a bit more time with you. “This is hardly a hang-out, but if you’re interested, I’m more than willing to check my schedule to see when I’m free next.”

You feel confidence raise up in your chest, bubbling to be free in the form of a question likely too bold to actually consider.

“You’re free right now…” You comment quietly, glancing at him. 

“Hm?” He asks, tightening his grip on the steering wheel and feeling your eyes on him. He heard you, but he wouldn’t mind hearing you repeat it.

“I said, you’re free right now.” You repeat, this time with more confidence. “Would it be too forward to ask if –”

“Nothing is too forward to ask, I literally sold you a dildo.” 

You pause in shock, all thoughts leaving your head.

“Damn, alright,” You laugh, feeling kind of warm inside at how his forwardness matches your own. “If you’re free right now, we could hang out right now.” 

How lucky for both of you. He’s actually not catering tomorrow and only has to be at work at the good ol’ sex shop in the evening. 

“Alright,” He nods, glancing over to you. “Kind of fucked up we are hanging out after I met your entire family and still haven’t gotten a name from you yet though, wouldn’t you think?” 

Oh fuck, he’s right. 

“I’m sure you heard the kids yelling it all day. Don’t be dramatic.”

He laughs, already in love with the idea of spending more time with you. 

“Where to then, y/n?” 

~

If your parents were to ask why you’re walking through your apartment building with the caterer following behind you, you’d have no excuse. Then again, as an adult, you don’t think you need one. It’s strange despite how open and casual you are with making friends though, because you never just invite strangers to your place for friendship. Not at least without hanging out a few times. 

You guess it’s not super awkward because it’s true that he already knows things about you that your family doesn’t. Such as, the things you penetrate yourself with when you’re alone. It’s a major ice breaker, and something that makes the friendship with him come easy even after barely talking to the guy.

The few words you have shared have been easy and fun, so it’s only natural that if your instinct is to want to be around him a little longer, you’d invite him in right? You weren’t really expecting him to accept your answer to his question. 

“Where to then?” 

You thought for a moment when he asked that. You don’t go to clubs or bars anymore, most places would have been closing within the hour, and it’s not like you didn’t eat to peak fullness during the family reunion so having a late dinner with him was out of the question too. You answered him so easily, and he accepted in a way that seemed just as natural to him. 

“We could just hang out at my place, I’ve got plenty of streaming services, a gaming system, and wine.”

“Sounds good.” 

It was so easy to become friends with him, and now with him following you up to your apartment, the typical awkwardness that should come with this type of thing isn’t swarming your mind at all. He’s even making small talk about the building itself after parking in your parking spot. 

“This building is way nicer than mine, you got a door code and everything just to get in.”

“Wasn’t always like this. Being a single woman in a city like this calls for safety measures though.”

A little box in his head checks out. He didn’t even have to ask if you’re single, because he already assumed you were with the way you so easily invited him over. 

By the time you get to your door with him, he’s polite when he walks in and takes off his shoes. Polite in the way he looks around and studies your space, even polite in the way he walks into the living room and invites himself onto your couch and grabs your remote. 

“I was going to say make yourself comfortable but–”

“Well, would you prefer I sit on your floor?” He shoots back with a sarcastic tone in his voice. “Would you prefer I start digging through your cabinets for snacks? Would you prefer–”

“You’re so much more talkative when I’m not trying to buy something from you.” You comment with a laugh, dipping into the kitchen for two glasses and that cheap bottle of wine. 

“Speaking of, do you actually use that thing and like it? I mean, I see some weird purchases but that specific one is super popular with the fetish groups.”

For the first time, you feel heat rise to your cheeks. You should have known that the sex toy would be a point of conversation, considering the first time you ever met was buying it. 

“Yes, I use it. I’m surprised you find it shocking considering it’s literally your job to know what people like in terms of getting off.”

He smiles at that, because you’re damn right he knows. Most of the time he would prefer not to know, but he always did wonder if, on the off chance, he ended up hooking up with a customer he’d have some prior knowledge of how they like it based on toys alone. 

“You know, no one buys toys on a Monday at nine in the morning.” 

“I buy toys at nine in the morning on a Monday,” You chuckle, carrying the two glasses and wine into the living room and plopping down next to him. “Why does that matter? I’m sure you make your quotas even on the slow days considering how hard you were trying to up-sell me.”

He shrugs as he watches you pour him a glass. 

“It’s easy to up-sell when you know people’s kinks after a few purchases. I do that to everyone just to gauge what they need so if they come back I can make more offers.”

“A true salesman.” You laugh with a pitied voice. “What would you say my kink is?”

He studies you, looking you up and down without shame and thinking hard about your single purchase. 

“Well, considering that specific item is, again, usually looked at by a specific type of person or couple, I’d say–”

“Wrong.” You interrupt before he even tries to make a guess. “I don’t have a kink, I just have a sex drive.”

You take a sip at his silence of being beaten to the punch, and then he takes his own thoughtful sip. 

“Okay then, What do you think my kink is?” He asks slyly, cup still against his lips as he sips again. 

“Wha–” You narrow your eyes. “Hell if I know, you probably don’t even have sex after being in a hyper-sexualized space like that for hours on end.”

“Wrong.” He pokes his tongue into his cheek and looks away from you with another casual chuckle.

“Are you telling me you have a pocket pussy or like, a buttplug or something?”

“Three pocket pussies, actually.”

You don’t know why you’re shocked. For some reason his sex toys becoming the focus makes you feel more shy than your own being the focus. 

“I bet you named them.”

“Pocket 1, Butthole 1, and Jessica.”

“Jessca?!” 

He nods in a matter-of-fact tone with a proud smile. 

You feel comfortable around him, never having a friend who openly talks to you about these things without any type of awkwardness. It’s the fact that he’s a man too. Usually they think with their dicks and he seems to have no qualms in admitting that it’s something he may do from time to time too. 

You imagine he needs this type of personality to work such a job though, being casual about sex can be so difficult for your average joe because for some reason, it is embarrassing. It’s hard to talk about even to sex-shop employees. You like to think he’s probably someone who makes others feel comfortable about their sexual habits though, because you feel comfortable. 

“I’m lying by the way.” He cuts through your thoughts, “I only have two.” 

You nod energetically. 

“Jesse and James.” 

“Oh my god, how did you know that?” 

You narrow your eyes again. He’s gotta be a fucking nerd to get the reference, even if everyone knows what pokemon is. 

“So the pussy is Jesse, and the asshole is James.” 

He nods slowly, acting surprised before smirking yet again. 

“Actually, I only have one but I’ve experimented with other things that come through the door. Might as well, right?”

“And yet, you’re shocked about my single dildo purchase without knowing of my other items of interest? I could have just been trying something new too, y’know.”

Another sip of wine, and another glance away from him.

“No one buys that as a first time experience.” He shoots back.

“Okay, enough about my dildo, I actually have a question about something you might have in stock but I’ve kind of been too embarrassed to ask until now.”

He nods, his personality shifting only slightly into that as the manager of the sex-shop.

“Shoot.”

“Do you guys have like,” you pause, unsure of why you’re even trying to ask. Again, it’s not like masturbation is embarrassing, nor is the purchasing of toys. Asking for a specific item is a bit too intimate to you though, so you usually just buy those things online. “Okay hear me out.”

“Tentacles? Furry buttplugs with tails attached? Bondage rope? Paddles?”

“No…” You pause at his spewing of different types of toys. “I know you have all of that.”

He pauses, unsure of what could be so embarrassing. 

“Do you guys have sex dolls for women? You know, like, just a dude torso with a normal length and girth?”

Jihoon fucking snorts. How mundane. Unfortunately for you though, Nope. 

“Nah, the owner tries to cater more towards men and fetish stuff. We’ve got women sex dolls but he’s never really even mentioned just like…a dildo attached to some sort of form that is shaped like a person.”

You shrug. 

“Guess sticking it to the wall is all I can do for now then. But like,” You pause, realizing that you’re actually going into detail at this point, which might be a little uncomfortable for him? Maybe? “It’s really annoying to have it sticking to the floor, and you’re like, riding it and it just pops off and stabs your thigh slipping out mid-orgasm.”

He snorts again, this time unable to stop laughing at the image of whatever orgasm instilled the frustration in you to even mention that happening. He tries to stifle his laughter with the last sip of his wine before choking it down and pushing his glass at you for more. 

“Noted,” He snorts, nodding his head and almost hiding his face from you. “I’ll tell the boss we need male sex dolls so the women don’t get thigh fucked mid-orgasm.”

You glare. 

“Dude, no, because it actually hurt.”

“Maybe you should slow down next time so the full force of your…” he pauses, realizing how sexual the image in his head is of you right now. 

“Okay, wait. I’m sorry, is this conversation too much right now?” You ask, looking him up and down and giving him a new glass of wine. “You’re blushing.”

He tries to play it off. 

“As if you could make me blush.” He laughs at you, downing half of his glass in one go. “To make up for our lack of product though, and if you don’t tell anyone, I’ll give you a discount on your next purchase just for embarrassing yourself like that just now.”

“Oh, I was supposed to be embarrassed?” You counter, laughing along with him as you actually start to look at him.

You noticed that he was handsome before. Normally employees of shops like those are nonchalant normal people, or strange old men who try to impose their kinks onto you. Jihoon though. Jihoon. Hmm, how to explain him?

With his messy hair that covers his eyes every time he whips his head toward you in a laugh, with his wide smile and pretty eyes. He may not be the tallest man you’ve ever looked at like this but damn is he thick. Like his thighs. Damn, the thighs. Even him now  compared to him when he was catering for your family, he’s so much more handsome.

His shoulders are broad, and he’s just… You don’t even know how to explain to yourself the attraction you have toward him at this moment. Handsome is one thing, and you would have continued calling him that if it weren’t for the fact that he’s laughing with you on your couch about a ruined orgasm. 

“You know, Jihoon,” You start, looking into your glass and swirling the liquid inside, then you look up again and make eye contact. “I’m really not usually this forward but like,”

His brain stops for a moment at the serious tone in your voice, his expression softens and you can tell he’s listening. 

“I know masturbation and stuff is normal, and like, you see and talk about these things all the time but I never really talk about it to other people, they always get weird about it.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. I can’t say this is the most normal hang out I've ever had. Usually we talk about our favorite movies or books or something.”

You wave him off. 

“Yeah, that’s a good point. We could talk about our favorite movies but I find myself, um–” You stop for a second. 

“Is talking about it making you realize that it’s uncomfortable?” 

“No, the opposite actually.” You laugh, now actually feeling embarrassed. “I keep thinking about you mentioning the other things you’ve bought and experimented with.”

“Oh? You’re curious?” He laughs, now feeling a bit shy himself because he’s pretty sure that’s you asking him to put images in your head. “I mean I could go into detail but it actually might be too-telling right now.”

You nod, unsure of why you even suggested.

“Maybe next time?” You change the subject with a smile, one that does seem slightly disappointed. 

“There’s a next time?” He smiles, setting his glass down on your table and shifting toward you.

“I don’t see why not? I’m having fun, plus you offered me a discount.”

He nods, looking around the room and checking the time. 

“I should probably head out then? We’ve both had a long day.” 

You nod back to him, feeling a bit sad. 

“When are you free next?” You ask, grabbing your phone in a way that seems a bit too excited. “Can you give me your number?”

He obliges, exchanging phone numbers and promising to contact you with his next free day or night to hang out. 

Just as he goes to leave though, for some reason both of you feel as though the satisfaction of this hang out wasn’t reaching full potential. 

“Hey, um,” He stops before he puts his shoes back on. “Would it be too forward to say I’m not tired and wouldn’t mind–”

“Staying for a bit longer?” You finish his sentence for him, patting the couch as if that was also on your mind.

He doesn’t even respond, and instead makes his way back onto the couch where the cushion is still warm, unable to help that fluttering feeling in his chest.

~

It's almost midnight by the time he offers to leave again, and yet, he stays at your clear disappointment of the offer. Another hour later, the two of you are sitting contently and pretending to watch some shitty tv show in comfortable silence.

“We should say something.” He blurts, mid episode.

“What do you mean?”

He turns toward you. 

“We should talk about this.” He motions at the space between the two of you. 

You’re silent while you try to build up the confidence to meet him half-way again. 

“You can correct me if you’re not interested but I actually really would like it if you kissed me or something.” He adds as you continue to process what he seems to be getting at.

You’re taken aback by his forwardness, and instantly you knew he didn’t communicate this earlier for your own sake. Thankfully, you’ve tried to make it easy for him to read you and he ate it up like his favorite book. The content feeling between the two of you was buzzing up to this point. Very loudly in your brain where you were thinking of how to kiss him before the night is up. Even as just a “thank you” if he were to turn away from it. 

“Oh yeah?” You ask, tilting your head and seeing him scoot closer. “Kiss you, or something?”

He nods his head, looking at you without much issue and searching for a reaction. 

“Are you interested in me like that, in any way?” He asks, looking for confirmation.

“Oh, most definitely.”

The smile that spreads across his face is one that you can argue will be unforgettable. It’s an expression you hope to bring to every person in your life, one that seems to express nothing but relief, excitement, and maybe even a hint of bashfulness.

“You thought I'd invite you inside without being interested?” You smile at him, feeling a little bit fuzzy in the head at the admittance. 

“I thought you were just being nice, or like, just interested in friendship,” He rambles on, stopping himself short to give more context to that statement. “I mean, it would be fine if this was all for friendship and I'm happy with that too but I can admit to coming into your apartment with maybe, uh, a small crush.” 

“I can admit to inviting you in with a small crush, maybe.” 

“Maybe.”

“Are we being too forward?” You ask, emphasizing the repetitive way that word seems to appear. “Even though you’re in my apartment at one in the morning and both of us are giving any and every excuse to keep you here?”

He smiles this time in a way that appears to be self-soothing, and you can imagine you are too. It’s always nerve-wracking to walk on eggshells with another person, the threat of wondering if you'll fall alone or fall with them into a new version of partnership. 

You don’t think about the lack of knowing him past a purchase, a quick conversation at a family reunion, or the past several hours he’s huddled up with you on this couch. You simply don’t think it’s strange at this point. After all, you’ve met people online and invited them over without much more than a name, age, and quick conversation about what they want sexually. How is this worse? How is this strange? 

“You’re right. Maybe we should stop being so polite when the reality of it is that I’ve been imagining what you’ve done with that toy since the day you bought it.” 

Okay, maybe that was too forward but all is lost now as your image of him changes drastically within the mere seconds it took him to say that, not in a bad way either. Again, of course he’s comfortable admitting it, the dude stares at dicks and holes all day. But now he’s staring at you, and talking directly to you.

Your silence makes him shift a bit, shaking his head apologetically. 

“Found the boundary, got it.” He shames himself with a timid voice, looking away from you and back to the tv with a hint of embarrassment. “I’m not lying though.” He adds after a few more minutes of your silence.

“Not much of a boundary if I admit that I was blatantly asking you earlier what you’ve done to experiment with your toys.”

“Aha! So I was right in thinking you were straight up asking for mind-porn of me?!” He feels instantly comfortable again, turning his entire body toward you as he folds up one of his legs to sit on with a little bounce. 

“Maybe, but what do you mean you’ve been imagining since I bought it? You barely made eye contact with me that day.”

“Oh, I was checking you out the whole time you shopped. Imagine my face when I knew exactly what toy you were reaching for.”

You shove him by the shoulder with a laugh, realizing that this is the first bodily contact you’ve ever had with him, but he actually leans into your shove rather than out of it. Meaning, he barely budges. 

“If I looked you in the eye at the register, you would have thought I was some pervert.” 

“You are a pervert. You said it had, what? Twelve other colors?” 

He shrugs with a pained smile at how cringe he must have sounded to you. 

“You seemed more like a sparkly pink girl rather than a normal flesh tone girl. Then again, this was before I knew you were looking for a literal male sex doll for probably super normal pretend-sex.”

You shove him again, your laugh coming out more forced now at the way he jokes with you. Once again, he doesn’t budge. In fact, he’s leaning in closer. 

“Now hold on, you didn’t mention anything about one having glitter in it.” You joke, wiggling your brows. 

“You trying to fuck a man or a magic unicorn?” He laughs yet again, all of it coming out more forced as the two of you drag out information just to hear the dirty words in a voice you’re only just realizing you like far too much. 

“A man.” You respond, this time not laughing, looking him dead in the eye and trying to pretend you don’t notice how close the two of you have gotten. “Why else would I go for more human skin tones?”

“Fuck if I know, I haven’t met a single man who has vibration settings or rolling beads though.” 

You snort. 

“Shame…but also, why do you think I’m on the hunt for the most mundane sex toy a woman can buy now? The rolling beads almost had me passing out.” 

“Was it too much?” He asks seriously, hoping to god it was. 

“A little bit, yeah.”

“I can imagine you want something to feel real after that.”

For some reason, his words hit you straight in the gut. Your stomach drops as your attraction heightens, and suddenly you’re just staring at him as you respond. 

“I can imagine so, yeah.” 

He stares back, almost no space between the two of you as the banter only brought you both mentally and physically as close as possible without becoming twisted together. 

“When was the last time you felt something real?” He asks against his better judgment, wondering if you’re on the same page with him. Wondering if all this banter was leading to somewhere or nowhere. Because he could have sworn admitting to wanting you to kiss him, and you’ve yet to do so. 

“A month and a half.” You respond dryly, suddenly needing something to drink. 

He glances down at your neck when you swallow around your words, then stares at your lips before breathing in a sigh. One that was supposed to relieve the tension in this moment, but only building it more because he knows you see him do it. He knows you see him wet his bottom lip too.

“Are you going to kiss me, or are you planning to wait another month and a half to get what you want?” He continues on his streak of boldness as if to distract you from noticing the sexual tension, feeling his heart skip beats at the intensity of the moment. 

“It’s not like we have anything better to do.” You start, leaning in and still looking straight into his eyes.

“Are you suggesting that I’m boring?” He narrows his eyes as he feels your breath against his lips, still sweet from the wine that did close to nothing in terms of altering the brain. The two of you are totally planted into reality, if anything, a little drunk on the other. 

“Not at all.” You adjust your words from earlier, there, just hovering over his lips. “I’m just saying that nothing is more interesting than kissing you right now.”

Oh, the fluttering in his belly is so fucking intense right now. No eighteen inch alien tentacle dildo on a shelf could scare him as much as you do at this moment. Intimidatingly outspoken and aware of your wants and needs. His eyelashes flutter just like his stomach does, closing them slowly until he can feel your lips on his. 

Your stomach, on the other hand, has been doing flips since the first instance he admitted to wanting to stay. All of the tension, all of the comfortable silence, all of the glances, the smiles, the laughing, all of it was leading up to this. The moment your lips hit his, they feel much like you imagined they would. 

Soft, plush, warm. The thin lipped grins he’s given you all fucking day now laying flat against your own lips, no longer grinning, now just wanting. And he’s gentle, so fucking gentle with it. Never has a man asked you to kiss him. Usually they close the gap to try and swoon you. It appears you’re both being swooned by each other at the moment though, and his soft kiss only pulls back momentarily before he leans forward, closer.

The third touch, save for you shoving him, his lips on yours, and now…his hand on your cheek. Caressing so gently as he deepens the kiss with ease. The heat rises up and through your skin at the simple touch. You think he must feel it with the way he chuckles into the kiss and starts peppering them against your lips over and over again. A split second between each lay of his lips, and then another solid kiss. One where you finally start moving yours too.

It’s slow and languid in the way he kisses you like this, barely even darting his tongue out but focusing more on your cheek against his palm. He can feel your jaw move as you kiss and can’t help but love what’s happening, and when you’re the one to lick against his lower lip, he falls in so easily. 

That little movement from you, that little feeling of your tongue experimentally prodding his lips open releases the last bit of tension holding him back. He pulls back to look at you and you’re not backing down even slightly. 

“Does this feel more real for you?” He asks in a snide way, swiping your bottom lip with his thumb of the glistening saliva before tilting his head with a smile. 

You very nearly roll your eyes at him for that. And by very nearly, you do roll your eyes at him and can’t help but smile yet again. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” He says, palm still against your cheek, tips of his fingers toying with the baby hairs on your hair-line. “because I can imagine that the toy couldn’t ki-”

You shoot forward to kiss him again, only just realizing how awkward the positioning is considering neither of you were probably expecting more than a first kiss. 

He laughs into it, knowing you were silencing him of something that could arguably be the most cringe-worthy thing he can say after kissing you. His laughs start to stifle though, as you press forward and somehow manage to have his back against the seat of the couch and you planting yourself on top of him. 

“Can you shut up about the toy now? I thought we got past that,” You argue as you pull back, your cheek already missing the feeling of his palm against it. “You can’t just act like this and then say some dumb shit like that.”

You’re joking, he knows it. If anything, you’re complimenting him right now and he eats it the fuck up as he stares up at you. 

“Was I wrong though? Can it do this for you?” 

You take a moment to look at him, realizing that this is the man who you just kissed. With his hair a mess and fanned out onto the cushions, strands falling in front of his eyes, but mostly swept back and exposing the entirety of his forehead to you. 

You reach forward and brush a strand from his eyes. 

“Actually, say what you want.” You correct yourself and manage to ignore his question.

“Why the sudden change of heart?” He half-chuckles as he brings his hands up to set against your waist, hoping you don’t pull out of the intimate position the two of you are in. 

“I don’t know, I was just looking at you and thought it was stupid for me to try to argue with you right now.”

“Why’s that?” He prods for more compliments, feeling himself twitch at the way you look hovering over him. 

“Are you trying to argue right now?” You tilt your head, adjusting yourself now to sit directly on his thighs and lay forward, both hands cushioning your chin on his chest as you straddle him. 

“Would it be so wrong to admit that you’re fun when you argue with me?” 

You can feel him breathe under you, nearly rocking you further and further into whatever headspace Jihoon seems to put you in. It’s too comfortable, and it almost feels as though you’ve been with him for years now. You barely know him, yet you’re lying on him as if you got married two years ago. Insane how this works. How the heart works, or the brain, or whatever drives the arousal you’re feeling right now. 

“Will you argue if I ask to show you my room?” You start, lifting back up and away from his chest, now scooting forward a bit. You don’t dare sit on it yet, but you very much would like to if he were to suggest not moving at all from this couch. “My bed.”

He stutters and quickly quiets his excited words, replacing his voice with a nod and a sharp inhale.

“Hah! Telling me to argue and instantly buckling the second I mention my bed.” You laugh, pulling yourself up and sauntering out of his view.

He stares at the ceiling for a moment, in a daze over just how much he likes you. He wonders, would you be shocked to know he hasn’t had sex in much longer compared to you? One and a half months for you? That’s nothing to him. He’s been besties with his right hand for at least six months by now. Trust him when he says that it truly was difficult to not turn into a hormonal idiot when he saw you in the shop that day. 

Finally, he shakes himself out of the spaced out horny brain staring at your ceiling and stands to his feet. He’s quick to adjust the bulge in his jeans, uncomfortably shaking his leg before looking toward where you walked off to.

“Um.” He stops realizing you were watching him, looking directly at the spot he just adjusted. “I mean,” He tries to start again, adjusting again as he feels it slowly move out from its tucked place. “Listen,”

“No, I get it.” You say, snickering at his embarrassment as if he somehow doesn’t know you were suggesting at least some foreplay by moving to your room.

“Of course you do,” He drops his head, now blatantly shoving his hands down his pants to adjust before looking back up and taking a step forward. “You’re the one who sat on me like that.”

“Please, I didn’t even sit on it.” 

“Didn’t need to.” He shrugs, now coming up to you and waiting for you to guide him through your space and into your room. 

Once the two of you get there, him not even attempting to hide that he is very aroused at this moment, you’re very quick to turn to face him once he comes inside. 

“We are on the same page, right?” You ask, looking at his lips and the way they still look so kissable. 

“As far as I know, with all things considered.” He responds, looking down at himself and how pathetic he must seem in getting so aroused by nothing more than a kiss and a position change. 

You smile, reaching for his hand and watching him tumble forward to you. Now standing mere inches in front of you. 

“Do you want to see it?” You ask, a cheeky smirk on your face as you turn away from him and run to your bedside table. 

He had no idea what the fuck you were referring to until he saw it. There, in all of its non-human glory. Jihoon tics his tongue, curiously straining his neck out to peek at what else is in your drawer as he walks closer. 

You make no attempt to close the drawer and instead pull out another one, and another one, another one.

“If you keep pulling out toys I’ll start to think you were lying in saying you wanted to feel something more, um–”

“Real?” You say, turning from your presented line-up of toys to look at him. 

He nods, gazing over the toys, four dildos all far bigger than he is. 

“I can admit that men can’t vibrate, nor do they have those little rotating beats but,” You chuckle at the conversation, scooping the toys up quicker than you laid them out and tossing them back into the drawer. “They’re not warm, or attached to someone that can kiss me. They’re also not witty.”

You study his expression.

“They don’t make me laugh before getting me off.” You continue, wondering if you may actually be too forward about this now. 

He’s rendered a bit speechless, which is rare for him in any given situation. He always has a quick response, not at this moment though as he looks at you. He wonders if you pity that obvious act of self-doubt upon seeing your toys. 

“They’re not attached to you.” You add, this time stifling your chuckle, because it’s a pretty funny conversation if you look at it from the outside but you can imagine he must be feeling some type of way to be so quiet.

He thinks hard about it, knowing damn well where this was leading and pushing for it himself. Hearing you now though, so confidently say these things, all doubt erases from his mind. 

“Before we do anything,” he starts, his shaky voice coming out more confident as he continues. “Is this just a hook-up to you or are you feeling the way I’m feeling right now?”

You look at him with a question in your eyes. He was kind of shocked that you didn’t finish for him this time, actually. 

“Like, you know if we do this, I’m going to be calling to take you out to dinner at some point unless you say you don’t want me to, right?”

You hadn’t thought of anything past him since you’ve gotten here. You didn’t think about anything more than hanging out with him, and now, kissing him, and maybe you know, feeling him. For some reason though, despite the lack of sex you’ve had lately, him saying that only arouses you more. It’s been so long since you’ve intended to sleep with someone and have them want to stick around after. Some of the people you’ve been with didn’t even ask for your number. Is this what adult relationships are actually like? 

“As in, you’d want to see where this goes in the–”

“Future, yes. I’m not just going to fuck you and pretend I didn’t when I see you again.”

Shockingly, that’s a first for you and you like the feeling it gives you. Plus, him implying that he’s about to, or very willing to, fuck you sends a wave of fondness through you.

“Alright. Let’s not call it a hook up then.” You say, the playful arousal from before stifling out at the idea of being intimate with someone who is making you aware that you’ll see him again, now being replaced with…feelings? Arousal with feelings?

“What should we call it?” 

“A date?” You say back immediately, sitting on your bed and finally closing your bedside drawer. 

“Oh, you fuck on the first date?” 

You laugh at how quickly his wit comes back, especially with the way he crowds up and stands in front of you. 

“With you? I guess I do.” You smile wide for him, feeling the tension bleed away and replace itself again with the arousal of him standing and looking down at you. 

“How did we not meet earlier?” He asks, leaning down a bit as if to kiss you.

“Fuck if I know, I bought all of those toys at your shop.”

“Ah, right. Nine in the morning on a Monday. I don’t usually work mornings.”

“Guess I got lucky last time then.”

“I guess you did.” He adds like a period to a sentence, finally kissing you again and making no effort to hide the fact that he’s attempting to lay you down much like you did to him before. 

You let him, falling back on your bed and feeling him nudge your legs to spread. Again, you let him, feeling your heart begin to race with excitement in the way he kisses you now versus how he did it earlier. 

There is clear intent behind it this time, as he positions himself between your legs. Your heart only races faster when one of his hands slides down your shoulder and he tangles his fingers with yours. It’s all very intimate to be coming from a man you officially met today, but you really do feel lucky. 

Lucky that he works two jobs, lucky that your family throws lame ass reunions every five years, lucky that you had your lights on during a sunny sunday afternoon, lucky that your battery died. 

It’s so normal already to smile into the kiss and feel giddy inside. Never have you smiled into a kiss save for laughing when a leg cramp happens mid-fuck. You can’t believe how much you’ve smiled and laughed today, and you can’t believe he’s making you react this way just by holding your fucking hand and kissing you this way. 

He laughs when you react though, probably feeling at ease on your bed with you under him, squeezing his fingers tightly each time he licks against your tongue. And when he pulls back to breathe, you just look at him and the way his fringe hangs. He looks so pretty at this angle, even when he’s moving slowly, even when his other hand remains planted beside your head to hold his weight from falling onto you. 

It’s not been since highschool that you’ve laid with someone simply making out, fully clothed, giggling. You’re unsure of how he’s pulled this out of you, because usually when a man is on top of you, you’re already trying to get his clothes off. But this? This is something that you want to last. You want it to be slower than a usual fuck, because you like when he’s here with you. Whether on top of you or not, there was a reason he’s stayed this late already and you already know it wasn’t solely to fuck you.

“Did you expect to be on top of me someday?” You ask between kisses, and he takes that as an invitation to laugh against your neck and tickle your cheek with his messy hair. 

“Expect it? No,” He starts, leaving a kiss just under your ear before lowering his lips to the collar of your shirt and kissing there too. “Hoped I could, though.” 

Your heart swells up at that. You realized he must have meant it when he admitted to having a small crush on you. Only now do you realize that curiosity that brought you back up to the food-table during the reunion may have been the start of a crush on your end too. 

You don’t say anything more after that and instead fall into the feeling of his lips kissing alone your collar. For some reason the sensation of his lips pushing the fabric out of the way so he can kiss new exposed skin makes you feel incredibly wanted. Maybe it’s the pace, or maybe it’s just because you really really like him, and want him to want you. 

“Do you want to take it off?” You ask after a few more of his kisses, wanting to control yourself but also very much wanting to feel his lips everywhere else too. 

You can feel him nod in the form of his hair tickling your cheek more. But he doesn’t move from that spot at first, continuing to kiss you the same way and in the same places. You let him, up until he finally sighs and pulls back. 

Looking at him now, even compared to a few moments ago, he looks so fucking pretty. His eyes are now soft, you can almost see the lines from where he’s smiled for you all day at the creases of them. His lips, looking more kissable than they did the past two times you thought they looked as kissable as they ever could. His eyebrows, showing no signs of tension.

You’re staring and you’re not intending to hide it. Even as he lifts your shirt from your waist and starts to pull it up. You barely budge as you stare, and stare, until you can’t because he’s trying to pull your shirt over you head.

“If you’d stop staring for two seconds maybe I could get this off of you, yeah?” He laughs, finally pulling it off when you arch your back and then prop yourself up slightly with your hands. “There.”

He sighs when he says it, going silent and almost frozen at the image of your nearly-naked torso. You watch him stare now, a smirk forming all too quickly.

“Now look who’s staring.” You chuckle, noting that his eyes still don’t leave the newly exposed skin or the fabric of your bra.

“Yeah, I am.” He admits, wetting his lower lip again and then flicking his eyes to you. “Am I not supposed to?”

Suddenly, that eye contact makes you feel shy. You’re more naked than he is, despite mostly being dressed still.

“You know,” you start, avoiding his intense eye contact just to get the words out. “If we just take all of our clothes off now, it would probably be easier.”

He lets out a breathy chuckle at you but nods, already lifting his shirt off and going for his zipper and button.

“There’s no rush, but if you’d prefer we do,” He scoots back and away from you, standing to his feet to shove his jeans down his legs. “I don’t mind.”

You watch him undress and lose all ability to act on your own for a solid thirty seconds before you finally start panic-shimming the rest of your clothing off. Save for bra and panties, and he, now standing there clad in only a pair of form-fitting briefs. 

You’re glad he isn’t as shy as you at this moment though, or rather, he appears to be entirely infatuated with your body and doesn’t look away from it for even a moment to feel embarrassed himself at standing on the side of your bed nearly nude. 

“No rush?” You ask, when he finally trails his eyes up to you and takes his position between your legs from earlier. Except now, you can see his biceps and the way they flex, now, you can feel the immense amount of warmth radiating from him. Now, his hair is even more of a mess.

“I can try,” He says quietly, balancing on on hand and lowering his lips to yours once more, trying to ignore how dangerously close his length is to bumping against your pussy. “No promises now, though.”

You laugh, wondering where he lost his self control within that short span of time where you got undressed. He cuts your laugh off mid-way though, now kissing you again and moving his hand up and down your waist. It tickles and causes goosebumps to form all over you, to the point that you can’t help but sigh into his kiss. 

He continues, still holding his hips back from grinding against you, kissing you as good as he can until trailing back to your neck again. 

It’s not until you run your fingers through his hair that he sighs himself. That relief and heavenly feeling of your fingers scraping the back of his neck— Such a simple touch can literally send him straight to hell at this point and he wouldn’t care a single bit as long as it’s from you and your hands. 

He lowers himself more, just to prevent his hips from intruding into this moment only to lock his lips onto the mound of your breast, other hand lowering so he can lay down and push your bra to the side a bit. 

The cold air that hits your nipple is short-lived when you feel him immediately suck it into his mouth with a deep breath. You continue to scratch through his hair, now using your other hand to nearly hug his head in place as you feel the sensations shoot straight between your legs. Each flick of his tongue sends signals to your brain to go! go! go! But much like him, you hold back, even though your legs still manage to squeeze his body between yours in an attempt to find the friction he isn’t yet offering. 

He continues this for a few minutes, and then works his fingers under the bra on the other side of your chest before switching his lips to that one. Perking them up so perfectly that he can graze his teeth against either nipple and feel your legs react to it. All of it is turning him on beyond belief, it’s dangerously attractive to him now too, to know that you have several toys that could have already gotten you off by now, but you choose this. You choose his lips playing with your tits, and your legs doing an amazing job of showing him your lack of control. 

His lips continue their work, up until he’s trailing further and further down, making your sighs hitch higher and higher in pitch. He kisses your ribs, just above your belly button, then just below your belly button before leaning back.

There, he looks directly at the seat of your panties and smiles at the wet spot there. He plants a kiss right there before climbing back up and caressing your cheek again. 

“You’re wet.” He comments in a huskier voice than he normally uses toward you, balancing yet again on his other arm.

Before you can actually respond, his hand on your cheek disappears and is instantly cupping your entire pussy.

You hitch out a sigh and look at him with a smile.

“Obviously.” You say back, rolling your eyes playfully before unintentionally bucking your hips into the pressure his palm offers against your clit. 

“Cute too.” He adds, lifting his palm to run his fingers up the wet spot on your panties before pressing in slightly. 

You can feel them stick to you uncomfortably, but it still feels so fucking good. Any amount of touching from him feels good though. 

“And you’re teasing me.” You argue, looking away from his playful smirk as he plays with the wet fabric against his fingers. 

“Just ask. I’m not teasing you if you're not telling me what you want.” 

You shoot your eyes back to him, a mixture of curiosity and shock in your eyes. It’s true though, you are a little shocked. Most men really just do what they want, and so do you. Never have you been asked what you want. 

Your eyes trail down as far as they can, what his hand is doing is mostly hidden between your legs but you focus entirely on the way his arms flex as his fingers travel up and down your panties. 

“You want me to ask?” You question, hips bucking up again unintentionally. 

“Not so much ask, but like, tell me what you want.”

He nods to himself as he says it, licking his bottom lip and pressing the fabric of your panties in yet again. 

It’s not that he doesn’t want to do what he wants right now though, definitely not. He just figures you know your body far better than he does, and he’d rather not make assumptions and embarrass himself when you could just ask him or better, guide him. Who is he to assume you want his fingers right now anyway?

“I’ve never…” You start, swallowing your words as your brain goes back to focusing on his fingers momentarily. “I haven’t–”

He knows what you’re trying to say, so he attempts to make it a bit easier for you. 

“Do you want me to pull your panties to the side?” 

You sigh with a nod, looking at him and allowing him to guide you through telling him what you want.

“Do you want me to touch you?” 

You nod again, pushing your head back against the mattress out of frustration that you, for some reason, can’t find the confidence to just tell him. 

He listens to your body though, more than your weak nods and frustrated sighs. The way your legs shake when he asks, the way you react to the air hitting your folds when he does push your panties to the side. He can’t bare to look down yet though, because he knows for a fact that if he were to pull back and look at you in full, he’d no longer be asking you what you want. He’d be embarrassing for sure. 

You can feel his fingers now sliding through your folds though, bare pussy out and on display but not yet being looked at, only being felt. And arguably, all you can do right now is feel too, as he leans forward to kiss you in this silent moment. 

His fingers continue to explore as he kisses you, collecting all of your arousal and swirling it around your clit before sliding back down and prodding at your entrance. You make a sound at that, kissing his a little harder than before when he lets out a hum.

“Hm?” He hums against your lips, and you nod to him. 

There, he dips a finger in only slightly. Your arms reach around his neck at the feeling and pull him closer to you. To the point that you can feel him struggle to angle his hands right to slide in deeper, but you pay no mind to it. At least not until you kiss the fucking daylights out of him.

That, you do. Kissing him with full-force and making a show of how turned on you are for him. He feels it though, with or without your kiss bruising him. The wetness on the tip of his finger only becomes wetter, and when you release your grip around his neck, he still doesn’t leave the kiss.

He goes back to gently kissing you, focusing more on your fingers than what his tongue is doing. He slides that same finger in all the way now, feeling your walls clench almost instantly and beg for more. Chuckling at the feeling, he fucks his finger into you experimentally before pulling them out and adjusting two fingers at your entrance. 

“Hm?” He hums again, and you nod again.

So, two fingers slide in and you’re releasing a soft moan against his lips. Already out of breath from focusing so hard on how he feels when he touches you. Your lips fall slack just to catch that lost breath, and he doesn’t argue, going right back to that spot on your neck to kiss as he picks up rhythm with his fingers. Effectively fucking you open with them. 

You hate to say you didn’t pay much attention to his hands until now. Having not noticed how deep just those two digits reach inside of you, and good fucking lord does he know how to use them too. Curling them up at just the right moment to have you legs shaking. 

Never have your legs fucking shook for a man. This only happens with the g-spot stimulating toys. God, you open your eyes to look at the ceiling in thought, and it has you wondering if he even knows he’s doing it. 

“Keep doing that–” you urge him, and he hums at you finally at least trying to tell him what you want. 

He finally lifts from your neck to look at you, now placing his weight back on that one free arm that had been toying with the ends of your hair this entire time, and he’s fucking floored. Even if he pictured you before with those toys, none of those images came close to this. And it’s just his fingers? No where near the size of your toys, no where near as expensive, or warm…or alive.

Oh. You want to feel someone who wants you. 

“I’ll do anything you want.” He says, doing exactly as you asked except a little faster now, still hitting that spot inside of you so perfectly that you’re moaning out now. 

He tunes in entirely to the sounds you’re making, the faces you’re making, and the way your pussy clenches around just those two fingers. He is aching at this point, pulling back from hovering over you to sit now between your legs, fingers still keeping pace, and sliding his other hand down his briefs. 

You don’t notice at first, too enthralled by the feeling of his curling fingers inside of you, but when you do–

“God,” You moan, rolling your eyes at the image of him out of breath, both hands working to pleasure both of you. “Come here.”

He listens, already pulling his hand away from himself but keeping his fingers in you, in a daze as he takes his original position of hovering over you.

“No, I mean, come here.” You say, looking at him as you reach between your bodies and pull his fingers out of you, then reach to grab between his legs. 

He immediately moans at the feeling, his hips pressing harshly into your grip with a whine as he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes just to feel it. 

“Take it out?” You continue, slowly becoming more and more comfortable telling him what you want. 

Just watching him do what you ask is insanely hot. The way he pulls his cock out seems so natural to him, you suddenly imagine what he must look like all alone while getting himself off. Thankfully though, he’s not all alone right now, he’s with you, and you intend to be getting him off. 

You look at him, between his legs, and then back at him once more before grabbing it again and practically pulling his hips to you by the cock. He groans all the same at it though, and only holds his breath when he feels your legs spread further and essentially press his cock between your folds and hold it there from the head. 

“Grind.” You say, still holding your hand in place to keep the pressure against him, which also puts pressure against your clit when he does grind up.

You both shiver at it, and he still looks down at you, fucking smiling through his sighs of relief regarding the new sensations you’re offering. 

“You’re actually fucking perfect.” He compliments, fucking his hips up and coating his cock with the dripping of your core. 

Out of everything he’s ever said to you up to this point, out of everything he’s fucking done to you, that’s the one thing that has you spiralling into a world of fucking fire. It makes you feel so warm, especially with the head of his cock bumping your clit. He has barely gotten any friction and he is still calling you perfect? Sign you the fuck up, forever, actually. 

“Don’t be stupid,” You start, waving him off between moans and gripping his shoulders.

He grinds up harder at your words though, now propping himself up on his elbows and grabbing your face on both sides. 

“You, don’t be stupid.” He says clearly, pointing his thrusts directly at your clit and moaning only slightly as he looks at you.

You swear, at that moment he could see your entire life. Everything about you. Everything you love and hate. The way he doesn’t look through you but at you? 

“You’re actually insane.” You laugh, crumbling to his pointed gaze and thrusts, your legs automatically shooting up to wrap around his waist. 

He seems proud of being called insane right now. Mostly because he can come up with at least fifty reasons as to why this is anything but insanity, but he remains quiet at the feeling of your legs squeezing around him. 

Such a girl was looking for mundane sex toys to have normal sex with? Lucky you, this is his fucking favorite. Plain ‘ol missionary? Check. Legs squeezing around him, almost pulling him in? Check. Looking directly at the face of the person he wants to make feel good? Check. 

You barely notice his lack of control by this point, the closeness alone feels like you’re already having sex but you realize you’re entirely empty still. This is fine though, until it’s not.

When does it not become fine? When his confident moans turn to soft sighs, and you notice his arms shaking a bit to hold his weight above you, and when his eyes go dead staring at you. You can tell he’s focused entirely on the feeling between the two of you, doing nothing more than aggressive yet…weak grinds? 

“Jihoon,” You say, slightly out of breath. 

“Hm?” He responds half-heartedly, releasing his weight from one elbow and dropping his head between your neck and shoulder.

“Fuck me.”

It’s like you can feel the switch in his head go from losing sanity to gaining it back in an instant at those words. He felt like he was pleasuring himself against you for so long, with so much friction between your hand and his abdomen consistently pressing into it. He could have come from this, if you wanted him to anyway. It would have been an intense orgasm after working up for so long, but now? 

He doesn’t even say anything, he doesn’t even move his head from between your neck and shoulder. Instead, you feel him expertly adjust his hips and press in without much trouble. He finds exactly where he belongs so fucking fast that is has you spinning and clenching immediately. 

“Fuck,” He drones out with a long sigh, slowly sinking his cock into you. “You’re throbbing.” 

You chuckle, because yeah. You definitely are, but so is he. You can feel his thick length spreading you open inch by inch, until he’s fully planted into and twitching. Then he doesn’t move again.

“This alone could do me in,” He chuckles against your neck, breathing in a deep sigh and attaching his teeth to your lower ear lobe. “Honestly, I can't believe I didn’t already come just from having my fingers in you.”

You’re both flattered and shocked by this comment, before you can even think to respond he’s talking again.

“You’re so tight, so wet.” He soothes himself through the feeling of your walls clenching around him, not yet wanting to move and just wanting to feel what your body does to him on its own. “It’s so hard not to move right now.

“Please,” You manage to get out, struggling to focus on just one thing with the way he’s talking and the way he sits so perfectly inside of you. “Please, move.”

And he does, instantly. Pulling out and sliding back in so easily that the slapping sound is muted entirely by the matching moan you both release. You can feel his voice vibrating against your neck, and you can imagine he might be able to feel yours through your literal pussy, because it feels like every sound, touch, and sensation is sent straight there for him to enjoy. 

It doesn’t stop either. Both of you shamelessly moaning at the feeling of him snapping his hips into you at perfect speed, with a perfect voice, and a perfect hand moving up to grip your chest. 

He’s practically blanketing you with his body, your legs holding him in this spot, his hair still finding a way to tickle your cheek with each thrust in. It’s so fucking much. It’s so good, and so…comfortable.

You’re comfortable. So comfortable you don’t even feel the need to rub your clit, you don’t want to chase the orgasm, you just want to feel him. And apparently, so does he. 

When he lifts his head, kissing the bottom of your chin and then your lower lip, still the two of you are groaning at each deep thrust in, but he manages to talk through it, somehow.

“Don’t stop,” he says, despite you barely doing anything. “Keep doing that.” He continues as his thrusts pick up pace. 

Only now do you realize that you were doing something. Without noticing, your hands were nearly tearing his back apart. Not literally, but your nails may have dug in a few times. Normally, once you notice doing that, you would stop because normally men don’t want the trace of another woman on him. Jihoon though, he’s in love with seeing remnants of you tomorrow.

Obsessed with the sting of it, loving the idea of going to his night-job tomorrow and staring at all of the toys that don’t offer you a back to hold onto like this. 

You do as he asks much like he does for you, gripping him so tightly that your nails have no choice but to leave half-moon shapes on his skin. Each thrust drags your fingers up, down, up down, and with each thrust it somehow feels deeper, harder, hotter.

When he releases your chest from his other hand and puts it back to your cheek, caressing much like he has each time he’s focused on kissing you, you think you’re a fucking goner. 

As expected, he kisses you at that moment and thrusts once, hard, before holding himself there.

“I’m really close,” He whispers apologetically between kisses, “tell me how to get you there with me.”

You smile when he kisses you again instead of letting you answer, but you fall into it much like he does and you opt to grab that hand on your cheek and guide it to your clit. 

Instantly, he’s rubbing harsh and sloppy circles around it, and you reward him for the perfect work of his fingers yet again with your fingernails digging into his back. He softly moans at that, and you swallow it up all too easily. 

Tensing your muscles, his fingers on your clit work you up so quickly that you go barely warn him of your oncoming orgasm, even as his cock sits leaking and heavy inside of you. You don’t even know how to tell him, all you can do is frantically moan out shortly.

“I’m–” 

Instantly his hips are back at work, barely even thrusting but instead remaining buried into you for the most part. He pulls out an inch and slams back in, wanting your orgasm to get him off more than his own movements. And fuck, it does.

The way you clench when you reach your high, slack lips against his own, he releases at what he could argue is the best possible time. Your tenses muscles work him up perfectly, gently massaging his cock as he releases in full without too much overstimulation. 

And you. You have never gotten off with a man staying mostly still inside of you. Actually, you’ve only gotten off that way with toys because nothing beats getting off while completely filly. Jihoon really is something, or, someone. 

The two of you released together, and his lips fell slack just like yours did. The kissing turned to that of desperate, orgasm-fogged moans into the other’s mouth. For some reason, it was incredibly hot to you that you both reacted that way. So insanely drunk on the other that nothing felt embarrassing.

Even the way his fingers moved on your clit through your orgasm, he somehow knew when to go and when to stop. 

Even now, as your orgasm tapers off, you are so blissfully aware that you want to immediately fall asleep even with him inside of you. Jihoon is polite though, and gently pulls out with a small apology of the mess. 

When he looks at you, looking so sleepy under him, maybe it translates to him too and he instantly yawns but tries to be strong for both of you.

“We should clean up.”

~

There wasn’t even a question in your head when he slept over that night. He didn’t even hint at leaving. Nor did he hint the morning after as you groggily opened your computer for your daily work. 

He did hint that he would miss you when he eventually had to go to his own house and get ready for a day at the sex-shop. 

He also hinted a few times at feeling like, when he looked at you, you weren’t a brand new person in his life. Part of you wonders if that’s because maybe you want to be permanent in his life from now on.

Later that night, he came back. Bright eyes and a stinging back.

For some reason, you feel it’s safe to say that neither of you can stand being apart for too long. So yeah, maybe this is what a normal relationship is like. If, you know, you were in a relationship with him.

Ironically enough, only a few days later that relationship is established in the form of a new car battery and a bottle of lube that he bought for you. 

Not that you need it. (The lube.)

#woozi smut #svt smut #seventeen smut #jihoon smut #lee jihoon smut #lee woozi smut

[anthurak]

Something I absolutely love about the alternate-timeline aspect of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is that it really feels like a logical extrapolation and ‘next-step’ to the genre/trope-subversion and exploration of the original comic.

Remember how the whole idea of Scott Pilgrim the comic is taking a very basic, generic and ‘tropey’ premise; ‘Boy likes girl, boy must defeat girl’s seven evil exes in order to date her’, and uses it as the backdrop and framework to explore, deconstruct and develop its characters.

Like how the biggest conflict at any given point of the comic is never the actual battles with any of the Seven Evil Exes, but rather Scott being forced to confront some major problem with himself or his relationship with Ramona (usually the former). How the true ultimate ‘antagonist’ for both Scott and Ramona isn’t any of the Evil Exes, but rather themselves. Their own long-festering hang-ups and insecurities that they’ve been refusing to confront or acknowledge that have in turn led to them being pretty shitty people over the course of their lives. For as bad as Gideon is, he’s still only a mirror showing all the bad that SCOTT could become.

So with that in mind, it really feels like the anime simply took this idea a step further: What if we took the basic, generic and tropey premise that nonetheless served as the framework for the story and held it together… and broke it.

When the narrative guide and scaffolding that held the original story on a certain course is shattered when the story is just getting started, where does the story go?

It’s actually one of the ways I think Scott Pilgrim Takes Off can be appreciated even if you haven’t read the comic or watched the movie. Even if you aren’t familiar with the story, the first episode makes it pretty easy to guess how this story should play out: Scott meets Ramona, they have their first date, they really hit it off and seem set to become a couple. We’re introduced to what clearly seems to be our ‘Big Bad’ in Gideon and our ‘Starter Villain’ in Matthew. Again, even if you don’t know one thing about Scott Pilgrim, by the time Matthew Patel crashes the party you probably have a pretty good idea how this whole story SHOULD go.

And then Matthew (seemingly) KILLS SCOTT in their first fight!

THEN the second episode ratchets things up even further when all signs point to Scott, our title character, being ACTUALLY DEAD for real. And then Matthew, again the guy who should be the starter villain, goes and beats Gideon Graves, the guy who clearly SHOULD have been the FINAL BOSS of this story!

And then the third episode sees Ramona, the girl previously set-up as the designated love-interest, firmly established as the new PROTAGONIST of the story. With Ramona given both an overarching goal in finding what really happened to Scott, and an ongoing character-arc of meeting and reconciling with each of her ‘evil exes’.

Basically, even if you aren’t familiar with the full specifics of the source material, I feel like Scott Pilgrim Takes Off can still be enjoyed as essentially a show that at first sets up what seems to be a fairly wrote and predictable story before flying COMPLETELY off the rails at the end of its first episode into something quite a bit more unique.

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim takes off #spto #scott pilgrim ramblings #ramona flowers #matthew patel #gideon graves #rambling about genre subversion

[mask131]

A guide for reading The Sandman: Part 1

People will discover the television series and want to read “The Sandman”, the original comic books.

Some people are already reading “The Sandman” and are getting a bit confused about where to go with oh-so-many titles, extensions and expansions.

And some people already think they read all of the Sandman until they discover a new issue they never heard of. 

Well this guide is here for you! A small guide to explain the reading order of The Sandman, what to expect and where to go!

Part 1 will be dedicated to the original Sandman series, aka the “main story”, the “main series”, the original numbered issues going from Sandman 1 to Sandman 75 ; the original series running from 1988 to 1996. 

This series is divided into “volumes” (of course, those didn’t exist originally as the series was published issue after issue, the volumes were collected afterward - but each volume corresponds to an “arc”, a “step”, an “episode” in the wider story). The volumes in The Sandman actually alternate between volumes that contain a full story (basically “arc volumes”), a neat and clear story with a beginning and an end that together form the main story of Sandman ; and volumes that I would be tempted to call “expansion” volumes or “illustration” volumes - volumes that do not contain one overall story but rather a series of small stories, scenes, vignettes, “anthology” volumes whose role is to expand the world of the Sandman, and make the reader learn more about aspects or backgrounds of several characters, elements or details of the “arc stories”. 

Volume 1: Preludes and Nocturnes (arc-volume)

Contains issues 1 to 8. Preludes and Nocturnes is the start of The Sandman series, and what corresponds to the first half of the first season of the TV show. It is the story of how Dream of the Endless was imprisoned by a human wizard, the damage this imprisonment caused, and Dream’s quest to find back his items of power: his pouch of sand, his helmet and his ruby. Preludes and Nocturnes is quite noticeable, in comparison with the rest of The Sandman, as being HEAVILY relient on the DC Comics universe, with a lot of references to the DC Universe, its super-heroes and super-villains (something the television series massively avoided in order to be easier to access to newcomers). 

Volume 2: The Doll’s House (arc-volume)

Contains issues 9 to 16. Corresponds to the second half of the first season of the TV show. Another “arc volume”, this story is the one of Rose Walker, the discovery of her past and her quest to find back her missing little brother ; but it is also the story of Dream hunting down missing dreams and nightmares that left his realm to dwell into the world of humans ; and it is also the story of the mysterious “dream vortex” and of the disasters it can cause - three stories that in truth are mingled together in one mystery. 

Volume 3: Dream Country (anthology-volume)

Contains issues 17 to 20. The first “anthology volume” contains four separate and different stories. Three of them are related to Dream: they each explore a different facet of him (Dream the lover, Dream the deal-maker, Dream the world-changer), and they each talk of the different powers of dreaming in itself (inspiration as a blessing and culture, Dream’s influence on culture and reality...), plus expand the world of The Sandman to other “levels of existence” (such as animals and fairies). The fourth story is  around Death, and is basically exploring an obscure DC heroine (well, she had become obscure at the time of the publishing. It was something Neil Gaiman did a lot with “The Sandman”, and it was what made the comic book famous: he kept searching and hunting for the coolest, and yet most obscure and forgotten characters, heroes and villains of the DC Universe and “resurrected” them here to give them decent role and proper storylines). 

Volume 4: Season of Mists (arc-volume)

Contains issues 21 to 28. The story of how Dream of the Endless, after a meeting with the rest of his family, decides to save Nada his former lover from Hell ; but a story which also leads to (SPOILERS AHEAD SPOILERS AHEAD) Lucifer retiring from his position as ruler of Hell, and giving the Key of Hell to Dream. The story then covers the chaos, manipulations and conflicts that ensue.

Volume 5: A Game of You (arc-volume)

Contains issues 32-37. This story is centered around Barbie (a character that appeared in “The Doll’s House”). As Barbie discovers the fantasy world she dreamed and played in as a child is real, and ends up back into it, friends of Barbie are caught in supernatural conflict between a mysterious “cuckoo” that can send body-stealing birds in the human world, and a grumpy neighbor who turns out to be an immortal (and bloody) witch from Ancient Greece... This is one pretty weird story, I have to admit I always was very confused by this story and never fully got it - but it introduces key characters of The Sandman, and had some of the most iconic moments of the whole series.

The bizarre case of Volume 6: Fables and Reflections (anthology volume)

You might notice I skipped a few issues above. Well it is because when the sixth volume was created, Fables and Reflections, it was a compilation of several stories taken from across the series. As a result it kinds of break the chronology of the series, as it contains issues 29 to 31, issues 38 to 40, issue 50 and two “special” story. In fact, when I read The Sandman series, I never had this volume because I read the series in order (and the French “volumes” and compilations are quite different).

Originally there were two “sub-volumes” or “small volumes”. The first one is “Distant Mirrors”, containing issues 29 to 31 plus issue 50 (which was conceived as a continuation of the original trio) : this anthology of four stories is linked by the theme of “rulers and their relationship to their realm”, and the stories are recognizable due to being named after “times” (Thermidor ; August ; Three Septembers and a January ; Ramadan). The second “volume” was “Convergence”, the compilation of issues 38 to 40, three issues united together by the fact that they are “stories-within-a-story”, and fit the theme of “meeting and encounters”. 

But when the big volumes were created, it was decided to unite “Distant Mirrors” and “Convergence” as one big volume, alongside a third block made of “special” stories not included in the numbered series : one taken from the “Vertigo Previews” comics, and one story that was originally published on its own as “The Sandman Special”. The result of this union was “Fables and Reflections.”

Volume 7: Brief Lives (arc-volume)

Contains issues 41 to 49. This volume tells the story of the quest Delirium and Dream end up undergoing (at Delirium’s request) to find back their missing brother, the “Prodigal” Endless. 

Volume 8: Worlds’ End (anthology-volume)

Contains issues 51 to 56. Several travellers from different parts of the multiverse are trapped at the “Inn at the end of the world” due to a gigantic “reality storm”. Across the issues, each of the travellers tell their own story, each wildly different as they come from very different universes. While being an “anthology volume”, its ending is actually an introduction/a mystery set-up for the next volume.

Volume 9: The Kindly Ones (arc-volume)

Issues 57-69. All the plots and elements laid out in the previous arcs converge. The biggest threat the Dreaming ever faced arrives, and Dream has to fight it.

Volume 10: The Wake (arc-volume)

Issues 70 to 75. The consequences of “The Kindly Ones” and the ending of The Sandman. 

This is the full list of Sandman “volumes” when it comes to the main, numbered series. This is the full story as originally conceived by Neil Gaiman. From beginning to end.

Or... almost everything. Because I haven’t covered the... “specials” yet. But that will be for part 2.

#sandman #the sandman #comic book #reading order #neil gaiman #dream of the endless #dream #guide #comics

[echo-bleu]

Disability pride request? Two characters of your choice hanging out, maybe one using two forearm crutches and one using two canes. They can be friends or partners - I just generally love seeing disabled characters interactng with one another!

How about three disabled characters?

Once upon a time @camille-lachenille sent me a prompt about Míriel having Ehler-Danlos Syndrome. I had already sketched a disabled Celegorm with EDS in mind and, thinking about how it's genetic, had an epiphany about Celebrimbor (and the meaning of his name) and I drew him as well. So I wrote a fic about all three of them dealing with chronic pain, but I still hadn't drawn Míriel. That oversight is now fixed!

They have more in common than just chronic illness xD.

This is still titled "The EDS gang" in my files, I'm going to stick to it. Set sometime in Fourth Age Valinor, when most things are good again...

Disabled Tolkien characters series

(Feel free to send me more disability prompts! I love drawing them.)

More ramblings about disability aids that devolved into bullet-point headcanons under the cut. ID and transcription at the end, but they're also in alt text.

[CW: this is all fairly light but discussion of death and trauma and you know, everything that comes with these three.]

I do not know how to make comics. I'm sure that's very obvious but, you know, learning new things and all that. One thing I learned was that my usual style of rendering does not work with it as well so I rendered them entirely twice.

It was meant to be day 21 and 22 of my October challenge, because surely I can draw and colour a full page in a day (spoilers: no). In the end it was a combined 15 hours of work over 3 and a half days because I made it as complicated as I possibly could 😭 Still, I had fun and learned a lot.

Note: Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a connective tissue disorder, affecting basically how your cells are glued together. There are a lot of different symptoms (and different types of EDS) but a frequent one is joint pain and hypermobility, and it's at least partly inherited.

Míriel:

Red was Míriel's colour first. She's not into gaudy things and rarely wears vivid colours, but almost always something red. She barely wears any jewellery since reembodiment, mostly for sensory reason (She is very autistic. That's something she gave Fëanor, Curufin, Caranthir, Ambarussa and Celebrimbor, at least.)

She died of post-partum (and general) depression and energy depletion from childbirth or something, but the chronic illness that was taking all of her energy and keeping her from her craft certainly didn't help.

Also pregnancy was horribly rough on her, partly because EDS can be affected by hormonal changes.

She's actually been better since reembodiment, because she has better accommodations (Finwë did his best but he was very lost) and also a Vala on hand who makes her very good painkilling tea.

She wears knitted compression gloves that she designed to help with hand pains.

Her wheelchair is of Noldor make, but I'm sure Celebrimbor will have suggestions for improving it.

The tapestry that she is weaving is actually this painting of Finrod that I did a while ago. I figure that she's representing calmer, nicer things now that she doesn't have to weave her grandchildren's downfall and deaths.

Celegorm:

He was in a relationship with Oromë before the Exile. After his reembodiment, it took them a while by they talked it out and forgave each other. Oromë doesn't quite get elves, but he's really supportive.

He has a pair of wolf-head canes carved by Nerdanel. He alternatively uses both, just one and sometimes none depending on activity/pain level.

He wears bandages as compression garments because this is a world without elastane. His leggings have reinforced knees for support.

He's always heard about Míriel having the same thing as he does from Finwë, and he knew that when he started showing symptoms, Fëanor was terrified that he'd fade too. So for a long time, Míriel's story was kind of hanging above his head.

That's why it takes him a while to go seek her out after he's reembodied. Celebrimbor understands why it's important to him and he pushed him to it a little bit, so Celegorm dragged him along.

They're going to get along great. Míriel is both the quintessential grandmother and also she has a twisted sense of humour that Celegorm will just love.

Celebrimbor:

Celegorm was always his favourite uncle, and they became very close when Celebrimbor started having symptoms in the early years in Exile, and Celegorm stayed with Curufin in Himlad for him.

It took Celebrimbor a while to forgive him after Returning (not as long as Curufin but still) but they've gone back to being really close.

He was really unlucky with reembodiment: while he wasn't reborn with the physical aspect of his torture, the memory of pain and the trauma made his chronic pain a lot worse than it was before, and he can no longer walk unaided.

He designed the silver ring and wrist splints back in Eregion with Narvi's help, and ended up literally living up to his name (which means "silver fist/grasping hand").

Paradoxically these were a great motivation for him to work through his trauma and go back to the forge, because he couldn't find a silversmith in Valinor who could make good enough ones for him, even with all of his sketches and specifications.

A lot of his work since reembodiment has been designing and making disability aids for people.

He uses platform crutches to spare his hands as much as possible. He invented and designed them, of course, as well as the KAFO brace that he wears here. He's also a part-time wheelchair user.

He is still wearing dwarven beads in his hair. He obviously didn't bring anything back from Middle-Earth but he asked Gimli to make them for him in remembrance of Narvi. His tunic is also dwarven-inspired.

He is pretty chill about Sauron here. I don't know if there was a redemption (I have feelings about @chthonion's The Harrowing and @mynameisjessejk's Otter Mayhem) or if he's just been through enough elf-therapy to be able to joke about it. Celegorm's sense of humour is just Like That.

Celegorm and Celebrimbor are about to try Vairë's special painkilling tea for the first time 👀

Between all of them they should really open a disability aids shop or something. They just might! Míriel doesn't really ever leave Vairë's house but I think Celegorm and Celebrimbor will keep visiting her a lot, and eventually all of the grandkids will as well.

Image description and transcriptions:

Two digital comic book pages.

Image 1: The first case takes the whole width, showing two pairs of feet with each two canes/crutches on a tiled floor, with a speech bubble saying "Do you think she'll want to see us?"

The second line has two cases in 2/3 and 1/3 format. The first shows two hands in red fingerless gloves working on a tapestry on a loom. The second shows part of a light-skinned face in profile, with curly white hair. Three speech bubbles say "My love?" "Um?" "There are people here asking for you."

The bottom part has one case off-center showing the same hand undoing the brake of a wheelchair, with a speech bubble saying "Your grandson and your great-grandson." above and one saying "I'll be right here." below. Then a full-length off-case portrait of Miríel, a light-skinned elf with shoulder-length curly white sitting in a wheelchair and pushing herself. She's wearing a pale pink embroidered dress with red accents, red fingerless gloves and elbow pad and brown boots and smiling.

Image 2: A single large case shows two elves standing in a room with a tiled floor, with a large door and two tables behind them. There are thread spools on one table and a tea set on the other. One elf, Celebrimbor, is brown-skinned and slightly chubby, with long black hair in a braided bun, wearing a red tunic and dark green pants. He is leaning on two decorated platform combo crutches made of wood and metal, with a KAFO brace on his leg. He wears finger and hand silver splints. The other elf, Celegorm, is pale and has long white hair in a high ponytail with small braids, he has tattoos on his neck and arms and he wears bandages on his shoulders, elbows and wrist. He wears a green tunic, leggings and wrap-around gaiters. He is leaning on a cane and holding up another cane, pointing at the first elf. Both canes have handles carved in the shape of wolf heads.

The speech bubbles are arranged around and below them, giving this dialogue, with the speakers distinguished by the shape of the bubble (the parts in parentheses are smaller text in the bubbles):

Celegorm: "My lady, my name is Tyelkormo, and this is my nephew Tyelpë." Miríel: "I know who you are, my wonderful children. Come sit." Celebrimbor: "That would be nice, thank you." Miríel: "Vairë, my love, would you make us some tea?" Celebrimbor: "My lady!" Celegorm: "A Vala who can make tea! (I could never get Oromë to do it.)" Miríel: "It was a long domestication process." Vairë (off screen): "Hey!" Celebrimbor: "Instant hot water! That’s nice. (I wonder if I could replicate that.)" Miríel: "She makes wonderful hot water bottles." Celegorm: "Oromë just uses his hands as hot pads." Celebrimbor: "Ew, I didn’t need to know that." Celegorm: "What? Just because your Maia burns everything he touches–" Celebrimbor: "Shut up." Miríel: "You must both tell me everything about yourself. And your partners!"

#miriel #celegorm #celebrimbor #tyelkormo #tyelpe #valinor #house of finwe #silmarillion #tolkien #silm #silm art #tolkien fanart #eds #ehlers danlos syndrome #disabled tolkien characters #disabled characters #beautiful art #echo's drawings #digital art #lotr #this took me soooo long please give it love #echo's october 2023

[nova-dracomon]

Modern Draconity: A Draconic Zine || Info Doc

Summary

Draconity isn’t solely from ages past, but something that still burns bright in the modern age. This zine will be a collection of pieces created by nonhumans and alterhumans about what it means to be draconic in the present day (or even future). Also, this zine imposes no set definition on what is or isn’t ��dragon enough.” If you feel like the label applies, we want to hear from you! 

What Can I Submit?

Both fiction and nonfiction pieces are accepted. As long as what you have in mind fits the theme, it’ll probably be a-ok. 

Off the top of our head, we’re thinking of:

Essays of your personal experiences

Short stories 

Poetry 

Mock advice columns

Alternative covers

Fictional advertisements

Comics 

Recipes

We welcome you to think outside the box and dig into what it really means to be draconic in the modern era!

How to Participate

Please email your completed submission to ruffledgryphgon(@)gmail(.)com and title the email “Modern Draconity Submission.” Also make sure to include the following information in your email:

A name you would like the piece attributed to 

Title of your submission

Any content warnings that you feel are necessary for the piece

Any social media handle or personal website you'd like linked in the contributor section

A logo or icon for the contributor section

**If you would like to stay anonymous let us know

Members of systems are welcome to submit individually or collectively. Please let us know your preference when it comes to attribution.

Once the deadline has passed, these submissions will be put into the zine and it will be posted on itch.io as a free PDF. 

Submissions are due by October 31th, 2023.

Submission Guidelines

Each individual may submit up to 3 works to be featured in Modern Draconity. Comics and multi-image works count as one piece. Individuals within a system may each submit up to 3 works. All work must be your own! Anyone caught plagiarizing or submitting AI-generated work will be barred from entering Modern Draconity and any future zines from us.

Written submissions should not exceed 30 pages and multi-part art entries should not exceed 10 pages. Please keep in mind the zine’s pages will be 8.5x11 and entries will be scaled accordingly to fit that size. We request all art submissions to be sent in either .jpg or .png file formats. 

For stories that use multiple different fonts, we will do our best to preserve the general "feel" of your piece but cannot guarantee we will be able to use the exact fonts or sizes due to restrictions in what fonts we have access to, readability and overarching zine style.

Submissions must fit the thematic criteria of

About draconity / being draconic

Involve the modern era or the future 

As stated in the summary, we will not be policing what is or is not considered “dragon.” If you self-identify as draconic you count! 

FAQ

Q: Where will the zine be hosted? What will it cost? A: The zine will be hosted digitally on our itch.io and will be free to download. 

Q: Is there a cap on submissions? A: There is none, as long as the file doesn’t start getting too big for our computer we’ll do our best! If there are an unprecedented amount of submissions, we may have to delay the release. In the event that happens, we would communicate that through updates on our tumblr.

Q: Can I update my application after it’s been submitted? A: Yes you may, as long as that is communicated to us before the submission deadline.

Q: Can I rescind my submission? A: Yes you may, as long as that is communicated to us before the submission deadline. This is because once we begin work on the zine, having to remove content mid-way through would throw off the formatting of everything else after. Please take this into account before submitting. 

Q: Will this zine allow NSFW entries? A: No, nothing 18+ will be accepted.

Q: What is your timeline for the project? A: Our submission deadline is October 31, 2023. We are then planning to spend the next month or so compiling all of the entries. Our goal is to have the zine live by the end of the year. If something unforeseen happens and we are unable to make that deadline, we will post an update about it on our tumblr.

Q: I have another question! A: Feel free to reach out to us at our email ruffledgryphgon(@)gmail(.)com with any other questions you have about the zine.

#dragonkin #draconic #therian #otherkin #alterhuman #nonhuman #fictionkin #Modern Draconity Zine #nova squawks

[longwuzhere]

Some cool Easter eggs I caught watching My Adventures with Superman that I want to show to people so they can be in on it with comic book readers

My episode 1 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My episode 2 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My episode 3 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My episode 4 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My episode 5 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Episode 6 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My second half of Episode 7 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Episode 8 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Episode 9 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Episode 10 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

(SPOILERS if you haven't seen the show yet):

We start things off with the title of the episode, "Kiss Kiss Fall in Portal" a fun nod to the lyrics of Ouran High School Host club's OP, Sakura Kiss by Chieko Kawabe. Very apt since Clark wanted to show the cherry blossoms to Lois on their date.

Next Jimmy razzing Clark for his extremely scheduled date plans for Lois and razzing Lois for her gift to Clark. Each of them reference what happened in previous episodes. With the first thing Clark and Lois I talked about it here and the second thing Clark mentioned I talked about it here.

After we cut back from Lois and Jimmy picking up Lois's dry cleaning, we meet the villain of the episode, Mr. Mxyztplk. In the comics, Mxy makes his first appearance in Superman #30 (1944) by Joe Shuster, Jerry Seigel, and Ira Yarbrough as you can see in the page above this text. Mxy is a 5th dimension imp who plays jokes and pranks on Superman and can only be rid of if Mxy says his name backwards. Yeah Mxy is a MAJORLY annoying thorn at Clarks side. MAwS Mxy, as you can tell has a DRASTIC overhaul in design kinda shares color and design choices with Whis from the Dragon Ball Super anime. Also in the show Mxy is a chaos god compared to the annoying imp in the comics.

Classic way to describe Clark Kent. That's a given in any Superman media.

Next we see Mxy mess with Clark by snapping him into his various Superman animation incarnations from the Max Fleischer cartoons, the Superfriends cartoons, and the cartoon that introduced Superman to me, Superman the Animated Series. Shout out to the MAwS team for remembering to give StAS Superman the darker trunks. People often forget that. Same with the red belt on the Fleisher Superman and the cape circling behind the neck of Superfriends Superman when usually the cape exposes the next a lot more too. Very good attention to detail.

With Lois and Jimmy they meet alternate versions of themselves. We meet two different Loises and one Louis Lane. There actually is a Louis Lane in the comics who has connections to Mxyzptlk.

In Superman #349 (1980) (W: Martin Pasko, P: Curt Swan, I: Frank Chiaramonte, C: Adrienne Roy, L: Ben Oda), Clark is forced into a genderbent world thanks to Mxyzptlk where he meets, as you can see on the page, gender flipped versions of his Daily Planet colleagues. Clark is eventually able to escape the world and defeat Mxy where he actually meet Louis Lane, Lois Lane's legit cousin. Bonus fun fact Osric Chau who voices Louis Lane, was the Atom/Ryan Choi on the CW DC shows

The League of Loises have a ship that's kinda similar to one of the ships designed by Rian Hughes and Grant Morrison on the Multiverse Map. I talked more about that map and the multiverse here

Lois Prime here shares similar designs to Fleischer Studios' Lois Lane. Very good homage to the look.

Next scene is EASTER EGGS GALORE and the section that took the longest for me to do. When Mxy and Clark break into the Science and Superhero Museum that Lois Prime created, we see a mace and an elaborately designed box of some sort. If you know your DC universe, these two things are a Thanagarian (alien hawk people) Nth Metal (strongest metal in the DC universe) Maces that is usually wielded by Hawkman and Hawkwoman/girl (as you can see both of them wielding their own respective maces on the comic covers here. The first one is from Justice League #15 (2019) done by Jim Cheung Tomey Moreu and the second cover is from Hawkman #1 (2018) done by Stjepan Šejić) and the box is a Mother Box from the New Gods. The Nth Metal mace makes its first debut in the Brave and the Bold #34 (1961) though it resembles more like flails and even then the Nth metal mace is a morningstar, but its alien technology maybe Thanagarians call these weapons maces where here we call it a morningstar.

Mother Boxes are basically supercomputers that the New Gods use. Created by Jack Kirby and debuted in the Forever People #1 (1971), Mother Boxes have a wide range of uses from energy and molecule manipulation, energy transferring, Boom Tube summoning to travel inter-dimensionally or inter-/intra- galactically, machine manipulation. The page from Who's Who-The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #16 (1986) explains what a Mother Box is in full detail.

The camera then shifts and we see a Green Lantern Power Battery, a T-Sphere, and a book on display. The farthest item is an obvious one, a Power Battery that Green Lantern uses to recharge the Power Ring. This version of the Power Battery and Green Lantern make their debut in Showcase 22 (1959). The final two panels from the comic (W: Jon Broome, P: Gil Kane, I: Joe Giella, L: Gaspar Saladino) shows Hal Jordan recharging the ring with the Power Battery.

T-Spheres are floating spheres used by Mr. Terrific aka Michael Holt. These spheres can form laser grids, act as sensor arrays, bombs, record video and audio, hack into computers, display holograms, and discharge electricity to shock things or people. They make their debut in JSA #11 (2000) as seen there in the middle two panels (W: Geoff Johns, David Goyer, P: Buzz, I: Michael Bair, C: John Kalisz, L: Ken Lopez).

The book is a little harder to pinpoint, but my guess is this is the Book of Souls/the Cosmic Log/The Book of Destiny. If Lois Prime is able to find all this stuff and is able to preserve it in a museum, I wouldn't be surprised if Destiny of the Endless gave her an inert copy of the book for the museum. The book makes its debut in Weird Mystery Tales #1 (1972) (Page art by Michael Kaluta). The book records everything that is, was, and will be. If you haven't read the comics, you might have seen it be used on the CW DC shows rewriting the histories of their characters.

Ok so at the moment I am near the end of my 30 images limit so I will be making another post to hopefully finish the rest, but in the meantime, now that you are down here, feel free to check out the other easter eggs and references posts -

My episode 1 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My episode 2 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My episode 3 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My episode 4 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My episode 5 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Episode 6 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My second half of Episode 7 easter egs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Episode 8 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Episode 9 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Episode 10 easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

#My Adventures with Superman #MAwS #Clark Kent #Superman #Lois Lane #Jimmy Olsen #Ouran High School Host Club #Mr. Mxyzptlk #Whis #Dragon Ball Super #Max Fleischer #Super Friends #Superman the Animated Series #Multiversity #Hawkman #Hawkwoman #Hawkgirl #Mother Box #New Gods #Green Lantern #Mr Terrific #JSA #Justice Society of America #Destiny of the Endless #DC #DC comics #Adult Swim #Cartoon #Watch My Adventures with Superman!

[chemzee]

How HPMA characters would do a 20 minutes PowerPoint presentation

aka silly idea 6734 please bear with me and remember it's just my own silly headcanons haha

Daniel: Probably most dull looking out of all of them, just a casual Times New Roman black on white with occasional pictures, no slide transitions. Has just enough info for a single slide, not too short, not too long, just a perfect amount, about maybe 10-12 slides, each idea properly separated. Probably memorized most of it but not all, does occasionally read from screen. So while not too visually interesting, it gets the point across well and to him it's probably more important than wasting time on making it pretty.

Ivy: she strikes me as someone who balances out the information and visual presentation, so I'd say Daniel's presentation but prettier and probably a little shorter, like 8 slides and probably has less info, but enough to explain the topic in question. Probably uses Arial or Calibri (wanted to use Dreaming Outloud but knows its not the best for such presentation) font and has the same transition on all slides. Probably picked a pretty design with pastel colors. Despite the fact she doesn't have a lot of text, she definitely does not remember it at all so she mostly reads it. I think she probably was planning on adding more pictures or transitions but forgot and only realized it the moment she has to make a presentation.

Lottie: definitely the most visually interesting one, she probably would spend A LOT of time on trying to make it look pretty. Uses different transitions but they all go well with the theme of the topic in question and they don't look obnoxious. The ideas are separated well, it has around 10 slides and each looks breathtaking, as she had customized almost everything herself,eather than leaving the design as it is. Uses different fonts for different categories of text, but main text is probably in Century Schoolbook. In terms of information, however, she'd either add too much or too little and she would often read the text on screen, but the prettiness of her presentation makes up for it.

Kevin: he strikes me as a kind of guy who would add TOO much info. He'd probably have to shrink it to font size 6-8 just so he could fit everything and has over 20 slides. Probably the kind of guy to have text on one slide and pictures on the other because he can't fit both on one. Unknown to God, memorized the entire text somehow but gets extremely nervous when presentating it, especially after seeing everyone's reactions to the unreadable wall of text.

Cassandra: she strikes me as a white on black person, probably uses fancy font styles as titles and Times New Roman or Baskerville as normal text. I'd say she's similar to Ivy in a way she balances out the information and the prettiness (I'd say hers is the second prettiest after Lottie's) but has more info than Ivy (around 10-12 slides) and she actually remembers her text almost by memory, so better and fancier Ivy.

Robyn: either did it in 5 minutes and has 7 slides max with minimum amount of info or she just staight up copy pasted a Wikipedia article, with links still attached. At least bothered with the way it looks and by that I mean she chose the random alternative style and random font that looked good enough and called it a day.

Frey Twins: Fisher most likely insisted on making it together with Colby, despite the latter wanting to do his own presentation. Surprisingly, they put in a lot of effort into it, they had put their heart and soul into every single slide. And by that I mean is that they created the worst monstrosity known to mankind, literally the worst looking presentation one would ever imagine. It's too bright, it has small comic sans orange text on red background, the images are squashed, oh and don't get me started on the effects. The transitions and animations take up about 90% of whole presentation, they used literally every known transition available and it's just one after the other. And worst part is? It's completely unoronic, they actually think it looks great.

#silleee ideazz #hpma daniel #hpma ivy #hpma kevin #hpma lottie #hpma cassandra #hpma robyn #hpma colby #hpma fischer #hpma headcanon #I was thinking of adding abby and canon mc but eh I dont feel like it rn

[upagainstthesunset]

Calling all escape artists, reporters, free spirits and celestials! It's time for...

[ID: "New Gods November" event title card. The text uses the font from the original New Gods comic, and is white against a black rectangle with white and gray dots. Behind the black rectangle is old four color comic art of flowing lines and dots. /END ID]

New Gods November

Introduction

In the early 1970's, comics legend Jack Kirby came back to DC with his most ambitious project to date. It was a grand story about a new generation of gods and their battle against a terrible evil, spanning across four separate titles: Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, Mister Miracle, Forever People and New Gods. This tetralogy would quickly become known as The Fourth World, and many of its key players known as the New Gods.

Now, over 50 years later, these stories and characters still resonate deeply with fans of all kinds. So to celebrate the Fourth World saga and all its space opera glory, we bring you New Gods November!

Details

This fan event runs from November 1st - November 28th, 2023. See below for the full schedule.

One of our goals is to make it comfortable to do as many or as few prompts as you please. The event is split into weeks, where each week has a bucket of five prompts to choose from. Participate by picking one per week, or get ambitious and pick several and do them daily! We only ask that when you post, you stick to the current or previous weeks and not jump ahead to a future week.

Another goal is to give people the freedom to create what they want. We've left the prompts fairly open to interpretation, and each week has enough variety to give a wide selection of characters to choose from. Just don't forget to mention somewhere in your post which prompt you picked!

Contributions of all kinds are welcome. From art and fics, to meta analyses and character playlists and beyond, anything is fair game since the format is entirely up to you! Just make sure to use the tag #newgodsnovember so others can find your creations. And if you post on AO3, you can add your work to the New Gods November collection.

And of course Fourth World must be the main focus of your work, but other DC characters are certainly allowed.

Last, I'd like to plug our New Gods discord. If you'd like an invite please message!

Ready for the full prompt list? Click "Keep Reading" to see it all!

Schedule and Prompt List

[ID: List of four weeks with dates, where each week has four prompts and a comic title's logo under it. The dates and prompts are described below. /END ID]

Week 1 - November 1 to November 7

Stranger in a Strange Land¹

Destiny

Celestials on Earth²

Characters who never met³

Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen*

Week 2 - November 8 to November 14

The Ties That Bind⁴

Trust

Character Foils⁵

Create A Character Backstory⁶

Mister Miracle*

Week 3 - November 15 to November 21

Then-- There Was New Light!⁷

Freedom

Late/Post Kirby Characters⁸

OC or Character Redesign

Forever People*

Week 4 - November 22 - November 28

The Hand or the Knife⁹

Scars

New Genesis vs Apokolips

Alternate Realities¹⁰

New Gods*

--

Footnotes

* = Characters, themes, settings or anything else from the pages of the comic title mentioned.

This prompt could include being somewhere foreign, not fitting in, or trying to find where you belong.

"Celestials" refers to the characters from New Genesis and Apokolips.

Create something for characters that haven't yet interacted in a published comic.

This prompt could include family and friends, things that keep people together, or blood relations for better or worse.

A foil is a character that contrasts with another character.

Show something that could in theory fit into a character's past.

This prompt could include progress, optimism, or looking to the future.

This means a Fourth World character that was created after Kirby's original run in the early 1970's.

This prompt could include nature vs nurture, the ability to choose, or the ability to change.

This means universes and timelines that aren't necessarily canon, but have been published by DC.

--

Special Thanks

I want to give a very huge shout out to two people who made this event possible...

@ant-ifascottlang not only created our awesome graphics, but was so great to brainstorm and discuss ideas with and really pick their brain about all aspects of this thing. The prompts, the logistics, everything.

@shadethechangingman generously and graciously shared his prompt list, which we used to inspire this event. What we ended up with is different, to be sure, but I'm not kidding when I say that things would not even be half as good without that contribution and all the work that went into it.

And you know what else? I want to thank all the other New Gods fans I've interacted with here on tumblr over the past year. There aren't a lot of us, but what we lack in numbers we definitely make up for in passion. Thank you for being so welcoming, and thank you for making this a fun place to be.

#newgodsnovember #new gods #fourth world #jack kirby #orion #lightray #scott free #mister miracle #big barda #jimmy olsen #newsboy legioin #forever people #highfather #darkseid #dc comics

[whatsaudreythinkingabout]

randomly assorted scott pilgrim headcanons!

(mostly involving roxy)

(some involving future scenarios)

envy & roxy have the same weak spot behind their knee. they are also girlfriends. this is the most important headcanon & i have a whole separate thing that goes more in-detail on this but this is all you need to know

kim is a huge tegan & sara fan (she’s from canada and definitely bi so it makes sense). she likes their earlier albums (since it takes place in the mid-2000s it would probably be around the time so jealous and/or the con were released), and when heartthrob and lytd came out she tried to pretend she hated the new pop sound but she secretly loves it.

lynette lost her arm while performing a show with tcad that brought the house down. literally. the frequency of the vibrations emitted from their performance was powerful enough to cause a minor earthquake, and while the band was trying to escape the venue, her arm was crushed by falling debris.

envy is bilingual, having grown up in montreal, and speaks both english and french.

roxy & matthew are best friends. however, when they first joined the league, they absolutely could not stand each other. each thought the other was totally obnoxious, and they would constantly bicker and fight with each other. they also definitely got into the pirates vs ninjas argument on more than one occasion. eventually, after a sparring match gone wrong, they bonded over the fact that ramona had used them in some form while they were dating her (matt for his powers, roxy for her sexuality), as well as their love of too much black eye makeup, and they’ve been inseperable ever since. they definitely have a partners-in-crime dynamic, and their friendship is 80% snark and 20% chaotic dumbass.

later on, lucas gets roped into their friendship as well, and they form an unstoppable friend trio. roxy sees him as a cool older brother type. matt has such a huge repressed crush on him you don’t even KNOW and roxy teases him about it literally all the time

after the events of the series, they form a 3-piece punk band called roxy & the hooligans (title derived from a book i read when i was a kid). roxy is the lead singer and bassist (she learned how to play out of pure spite just to flex on scott & todd), matt is lead guitarist & backup vocalist, and lucas is the drummer. matt is also their special effects/pyrotechnics guy.

they’re also housemates for a little while, then matt & lucas start dating and roxy moves in with envy when they start dating. of course, this does not affect their friendship, and they have double dates frequently.

after she starts dating envy, roxy also forms another best friend group with julie powers and lisa miller. at first envy is worried roxy and julie won’t get along bc she thinks julie will be jealous of roxy for “stealing” envy’s attention, but they end up bonding over their shared hatred of scott.

lisa and roxy are identical twins who were separated at birth. (this was bc they’re both portrayed by mae whitman but i might retcon this one, idk)

meanwhile, roxy & todd actually, genuinely HATE each other. todd was always kind of a bully to her when she was in the league & she hates how much he gets on her nerves. to make up for it she loves to rub in his face how much he fumbled the bag with envy

envy was genuinely hurt by lynette going behind her back with todd bc she thought they were friends. lynette is pretty indifferent about it.

after the events of the comic, ramona starts a support group for all the women affected by gideon.

envy is a natural redhead, but started dyeing it blonde once she had her big rockstar makeover, and often alternates between the two shades.

(tentative, still figuring out whether i wanna make this a full headcanon) roxy is a natural brunette, but dyed (and maybe also cut) her hair after ramona broke up with her, as the gays™ are known to do. she also used to wear her hair in space buns instead of pigtails (whaat nooo this totally wasn’t inspired by spinel what are you talking about)

roxy doesn’t really care about the spelling of her name; she spells it with a “y” and with an “ie.” (alternate idea: she spelled it with an ie before the breakup and with a y after the breakup?)

barbie movies exist in this canon, and envy recorded “hope has wings” for the magic of pegasus when she was a teen (back when she was still going by natalie) but she’s super embarrassed about it. she has literally done everything in her power to hide it, but as soon as her friends find out about it they refuse to let her live it down.

likewise, finally out of pe exists in this verse except now it’s just part of envy’s early discography, which she wrote before she formed TCAD.

technically the events of the story happened at the same time the early barbie movies & brie’s album came out but we can afford to move the timelines around a lil bit just for funsies

kim created the maid costume herself, & she’s a closet geek/cosplayer. later on she & envy end up bonding over their secret nerdy sides.

she’s also a closet theatre kid

roxy is the kind of person that tries to put on a tough front to avoid getting hurt & being seen as weak but if you give her even one (1) single tiny bit of affection she will instantly fall apart (especially if you happen to be a pretty girl)

when gideon was messing with everybody’s memories, he ended up causing a rift in the universe that caused the timeline to branch into two separate realities (the books and the movie, respectively). when he was defeated, they merged into one again, but the characters now have memories from both realities. it’s a little confusing

wallace ends up getting together with stephen later on (maybe? they seem like they’d have a fun dynamic), and they’re happy together, but once wallace finds out about matt & lucas dating he’s so fucking salty about it bc HE HAD A CHANCE WITH LUCAS LEE THIS WHOLE TIME

ramona eventually becomes the lead singer of shatterband. scott & kim decide the two-person lineup isn’t working out for them; they need a frontman, someone with charisma to tie them all together. then they hear a voice coming from the bedroom. they go to investigate and find ramona singing softly to herself. she’s a bit hesitant to join at first bc she’s not super confident about singing in front of others, but they manage to convince her by telling her how she could totally one-up envy.

matthew is a proud, unabashed theatre kid. roxy is the kind of person who acts like she absolutely despises theatre kids (even tho she’s really just as melodramatic as matt but won’t admit it) until karaoke night rolls around & she suddenly knows all the songs

roxy is a mixed media artist & is proficient in quite a few different techniques, but her specialty is graffiti. since being a ninja takes a lot of discipline & she often got criticized for letting her emotions get the better of her, it gives her an outlet to be more uninhibited.

the twins are pretty aloof & don’t really talk to anyone else besides themselves; they just kinda do their own thing while viewing everyone else with either mutual respect or smug superiority. gideon doesn’t really give a shit about the other league members, but the twins are his “favorites” (relatively speaking) just bc of how efficient & powerful they are

scott & ramona end up in sort of a semi-throuple with kim. no one really knows what their exact situation is; whether they’re an open relationship, friends with benefits, or just officially all dating each other, but wherever they are, kim is usually also there, & they don’t question it. (honestly the more i think about it the more i like the idea of polyamorous ramona just bc there’s so many characters i ship her with)

maybe wallace also gets involved. just for funsies

in the future, roxy ends up taking knives on as her ninja protégé. as a mentor, she’s pretty no-nonsense bc she wants her to be able to reach her full potential, but she also tries to keep her temper in check & not be overly harsh on her just bc of what she went through in her own training (at the ninja academy she was looked down upon for her half-ninja status & constantly belittled for being too soft, undisciplined, emotional, etc. which caused her to push herself to the brink of total physical and mental exhaustion to prove them wrong, & that led to her parents pulling her out bc they were worried she was gonna push herself so hard it would kill her, & that whole situation is the main source of most of her insecurities). at first she’s put off by how relentlessly upbeat knives is, but then she sees how eager she is to make her proud & roxy can’t help but see a bit of herself in her. over time she comes to see her as sort of a kid sister, especially when knives eventually comes out to her, though she refuses to admit how much of a soft spot she actually has for her. she knows knives can handle herself, but she’s also grown more than a little protective of her (and scott is terrified of her for this reason)

i have a LOT of other HCs regarding specific backstories/relationship dynamics/etc that i might post later if i get the motivation for it but these are just some of my shorter ones

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim vs the world #envy adams #roxie richter #roxy richter #ramona flowers #kim pine #knives chau #stephen stills #wallace wells #julie powers #lisa miller #matthew patel #lucas lee #todd ingram #lynette guycott #kyle katayanagi #ken katayanagi #gideon graves #headcanon

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (February 18-24, 2024)

Godzilla Rivals: Mothra vs. M.O.G.U.E.R.A. begins with a standout fight between Mothra and Ebirah. From there, however, the Queen of the Monsters spends most of the story on the sidelines, with a brawl involving Mechagodzilla, Garuda, Jet Jaguar, and M.O.G.U.E.R.A. over the fate of her egg taking center stage. A mech fight on that scale is unusual for a Godzilla comic, and despite the misleading title, it's a decent issue. Writer Johnny Parker II sat down for a lengthy interview with Kevin Derendorf and Raf Enshohma this week; I haven't had time to listen to the whole thing, but I do know he talks about his valiant efforts to put Medical Jet Jaguar from Godzilla Island in the comic.

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #5 also released this week. Afraid it didn't leave much of an impression on me; the book is juggling a lot of narrative threads now, and I don't see how it wraps them all up satisfactorily with just two issues left. I would've liked to see a more focused cast (and not just because it takes forever to list all the DC characters on Wikizilla each issue, haha). They also finally mention Monarch in this issue, which only makes the absence of the Monsterverse's human characters more conspicious.

Between Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, March was already going to be a great month at the movies for giant monster fans, but they'll now be joined by an anime classic: The End of Evangelion. GKIDS is bringing it to North American theaters on March 17 and 20 (a Sunday and a Wednesday, respectively). All showings will be in Japanese with English subtitles. This is not, as some reporting has suggested, the first time the film has ever played in the region—I found a Facebook event page for a 2019 screening in Omaha, for instance—but it is certainly the first major release. Be forewarned that if you haven't seen Neon Genesis Evangelion, you'll be confused out of your mind, as the film serves as an alternate ending for the final two episodes. But you've got time to get caught up.

Like many a Godzilla movie before it, Godzilla x Kong is leaking like a sieve, with a number of alleged screenshots of the Titans now making the rounds online. I normally wouldn't mention such things in this column, but they show a couple of characters who haven't been officially confirmed to be in the movie yet. So here's a warning to be on your guard if you're spoiler-shy.

#kaiju week in review #godzilla rivals #justice league vs. godzilla vs. kong #the end of evangelion #neon genesis evangelion #godzilla x kong the new empire #kaiju #godzilla

[popculturebuffet]

Batmarch: The Secret Origin of Batman's Trophys (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Batmarch, or celebrations of all things that go bump in the dark knight

Today we've got a special treat... and i'm not just talking the nice art Kev had comissioned! Looks really good and I really appcirated it. Thank you KEv and thank you Alan Patreon. It was a nice suprise gift.

As for what this is about, this was a fantastic idea Kev cooked up: the batcave is one of the coolest hero bases in all of fiction. The layout is never 100% consitant across media but your usually guaranteed a batmobile, a big ass computer at the center, water falls, and over time a display for various costumes from past sidekicks, alternate outfits etc.

What really spruces the place up are three distinct decorations that we almost always see in the comics and ocasionally in other media, if not live action since these bitches would be expensive to make: A giant dinosaur, a big ole penny, and a giant playing card of a joker. These three are staples of the bat cave, to the point when the original was caved in during the earthquakes that ravaged gotham in the build up to no man's land, Bruce made a point of fishing them out for the new cave he built after that traumatic year.

Yet most of us.... have no idea where he got these wonderful toys. Even I didn't. The Joker Card comes from an obvious grinning source, but what CASE did it come from? Where did he get that dinosaur? What was someone using that giant Penny for? It's a question i've asked once or twice but never looked into. Kevin did though, and while the through and lovely DC wiki helped him find each one, he went the extra mile, asking for a review. And I was entirely on board with this comission as I just.. never had those answers and I doubt i'm the only one whose wondered what the context for these things were. So today we're looking at three disntinct golden age batman stories, at a time when goofy nonsense reigned supreme, logic was optional, and weird shit like this was just another day in the batcave. IN other words, this is going to be a LOT of fun so join me under the cut as we look at gambling themed death traps, penny obessed gangsters and batman being hunted by the most dangerous game: mechanical dinosaurs.

The Giant Joker Playing Card:

(from Batman #44)

I love these old titles, such flair and cheese. It's incredible.

Anyways this one starts because Joker decides to hit an off the books casnio after his win. Luckily for them, he just wants to play which feels entirely like a joker move: instead of robbing an easy target that can't call the cops and that the mafia presumibly running it would be stupid to retaliate on, he decides "fuck it let's try this whole gambling thing men, sounds like a hoot and a half".

And sure enough.. it goes really well. He spends what's implied to be the whole night just winning and winning until he cleans house. This being the joker this gambling bug can only end one way

I just.. love everything about this. Joker just had fun at a casnio and turned it into a death trap. It's such a brilliant setup.. and one that while nicely goofy, is also well done: it fits the joker's unpredictablity to just go a gamblin and it fits him just as much to turn a new hobby into a death trap. I also love Lewis' reaction calling it SUPERGAMBLING., like he's some gambling expert and most dangerous game shit is a type of gambling.. which given we're in the dc universe, you probably DO need a name for this kind of thing in the crime world.

So he set shte perfect trap: he has a random balding middle aged man tell the two he has info on a recent raidum theft, raidum a hospital badly needs. To save the presumed orphans about to die without eating their radium, Batman and Robin go to a sketchy island with one house perched on a hill

The World's Greatest Detective.. sees NOTHING wrong with this and goes ahead and gets caught in the most devious trap imaginable.

Several head injuries later, our heroes wake and joker reveals the radium theives, who he captured for this scheme but have kept the radium's location to themselves. This is by deisgn: the joker wants the two and their "radium screts" as the ante here, along with Robin to make sure Batman does this. Batman repedately states "I don't gamble' as if logic suddenly works on the clown man who set up a gambling death trap, so Joker reveals if Batman won't play his three supergambling games, he'll just kill the hostages. Batman reluctantly agrees,

Game 1 is super pinball.

But when Batman proves to be an expert at the snes Joker goes with plan b.. his giant pinball table of death. Sorry his giant SUPER pinball table of death.

As you can see the same joker face from the card is here and you see it all over his lable. it seemed to be Joker's logo back the. I love this whole setup and mostly show it not only because it' sdope but because those pins must've been what bumpers were. I also had no idea PInball used to be a gambling thing. Makes sense, it's just fun to find out.

The game goes well mostly though one of the guys nearly slams into a pin. Thankfully Robin is an expert gymnist and batman smartly saved laucnhing robin till the last minute and Dick's able to save the goon.

Game two is super rolling some dice, which apparently used to land on numbers. This yugioh style death game involves our bait being tied to polls on three of the numbers. If Batman guesses wrong, someone dies. Or maybe not since the board is pretty damn big. Not every death trap can be super murder pinball. Batman spots some mud on the dice though and correctly guesses they'll pivot. This is the weakest of the death traps here, a bit convolunted, not really guranteed to be as deadly. I know the chance of nothing happening is part of it.. but with pinball there's really almost no chance you won't hit the bumpers. Here it feels like pure luck or simple cheating that both dice flew at the joker.

Next game and the one that introduces our prop, though the dice apparently are also in the cave sometimes which I love. The game is a game of cards.. batman has to correctly guess which face matches the door Robin and the hostage goons are in or they'll choke to death on the deadly gas released inside.. and naturally he figures out it's the Joker card. It's too joker not to work.

Turns out though, naturally the joker isn't playing fair both having a final one on one game ofr him and Batman and having his goon go to get robin behind the joker card door... and Robin dispatches him hilaroiusly and awesomely

With that the hostages are free and the final death game begins. A giant super roulette wheel with both batman and joker getting in a slot. looser gets crushed alive. It's an awesome finale, and it fits joker to put himself at risk: after all he risks his life all the time why wouldn't he for such a fun gag?

Batman's able to get the wheel to turn fairly and then escape it, leading to a chase. THe Radium Theives agree to give themselves and the radium up but there's still the matter of the joker and we get a short but neat final chase as Joker uses the dice against the heroes then jumps off a cliff, gambling his life one last time.. and rightfully batman isn't betting on the joker having died.

Gamble With Doom is an excellent story. While the trophy we get out of it is only in it briefly the story itself is pure fun. It has some fun dated elements like Bruce's opinon gambling is EVILLLL and the old fashioned designs on the traps, but it's pure fun. The traps are clever, the tension palpable and the climax great. The gambling motif's really fit the joker and it adds up to an all time great joker story with a suprise impact. The Trophy Itslef. is barely in it but Robin DID break a guy's face with it so i'll say it was still cave worthy.

(From World's Finest #30)

The Penny Plunderer is a name I had heard but had no real context for. I assumed he was some goofy silver age villian with pennies for eyes who drove around chucking pennies at everyone.

I am an artiste.

Instead it's just a guy in a suit. He has the backstory of any good golden or silver age villian to justify his gimmick

I love.. everything about this backstory. It reads like if a writer was given the thought exercise "Make the pettiest batman villian origin you can find.". I mean other villians gimmicks make sense: Poison Ivy was a botonist, Mr Freeze had a horrible accident, the penguin was born looking like a penguin with a lot of money, the Joker fell into a vat of chemicals and came out a clwon, the riddler liked puzzles.

Here Joe just... got screwed over by pennies a lot. Even funnier is that the last one has nothing to do with pennies. Like.. even if it'd had nickels he'd still be arrested.

So Joe vows since pennies runied his life, he'l lbecome the penny! Sadly this does not mean him dressing up like a giant penny with a cane and top hat.. nad now I can't show you it that last drawing put me too far behind and... oh fuck it.

Instead he just wears a suit but makes his gimmick pennies. Commit to the bit man. I do get it as some golden age villians were just guy in a suit, even Joker and Penguin technically counts but one is a clown and the other is a rich penguin man. They have mor ethan just "suit and a vendetta against pennies that somehowturns into stockholm syndrome.

So the penny plunderer begins his reign of terror, setting up a penny arcade as a front, and cashing in a roll of pennies in the most diabolical scheme ever devised by man.

A true criminal mastermind.

Batman picks up on this pattern because it's what he does and finds his next case, a coin and stamp exibiton with a rare one cent stamp. It's here we meet the reason we're here: the giant penny!

Yeah to my shock the penny had NOTHING to do with the penny plunderer other than being at the site of one of his robberies. He prefered just.. chucking pennies at people.. which is awesome and a truly great tactic only topped by Batman's use of said giant penny

I adore the fact that this iconic artifact is there not because it was seized from the villians or a police options.. but because, presumibly, Bruce thought this penny he found was kick ass and bought it off it's actual owner.

Most of the theives escape but they find one willing to squeal. Unfortunatley he dies for his hubris

Yup bet you weren't expecting the penny guy to kill someone and to see his corpse weren't you but here you are. Also batman is apparently a cop now. George Lopez tried to warn us...

But we didn't listen! We didn't listen!

A fight breaks out at the gambling parlour and we get two of the best moments in batman history that much like the blue beetle film, ar ehighly underated.

I just.. I get the sense that is how batman ALWAYS plays pinball. Just judo kicks it every time even as bruce wayne. Both bruce wayne and batman have been banned from so many arcades.. often the same ones. Perks of having a secret identity. We then get coyne once again THROWING pennies at someone and it working. I don't know why he hasn't been brought back with the telkeentic ability to contorl pennies. Give him a copper helmet and a proper costume and oh dammit..

Then Joe knocks batman out iwth his one weakness: a roll of pennies. He's trapped them in the parlor for your standard batman death trap, having removed their belts and ripped out the phone lines as usual. He then throws them a few pennies when then prove to be a mistake as it's time for SCIENCE WITH DR. BATMAN, who uses one old penny, copper, and one new penny, zinc to make a battery. Good thing jimmy didn't wish it away THIS week.

The cops arrive to free one of hteir own and batman finds a clue once the parlor is cleared of gas. Turns out Coyne was catering a penny slot party for a rich billinoare's houseboat, and naturally their filled with gas. I swear it's always gas with these golden age villians. Get another knockout device fellas.

With that our final chase enses as Batman and robin chase Coyne and while he nearly bests them with a good game of 1940's donkey kong

He's foiled by his own gimmick: he has only pennies but the pay telephone.. dosen't.. take 5 seperate pennies for some reason? the hell? I get payphones not taking pennies once they went up to a quarter but come the fuck on 1940's payed telephones. he's foiled.. and sentenced to death.

Yes folks that's the cannoical till some lucky fellow brings him back fate of the penny plunderer: PUT TO DEATH.

This story is as you can tell nonsense that's only gotten more hilarious with the passage of time and I loved every page on it and on getting the panels for this review, I only found MORE hilaroius nonsense to laugh at. We have a story where a guy with a penny gimmick smacks batman with a roll of pennies, trips robin with more, kills a man without pennies, is foiled by pennies yet somehow dosen't actually use the giant penny that's the only reason people know he exists. It's beautiful bollocks and worth your time.

(From Batman #35)

As I hope you are, this issue had me hooked from the first panel: Batman vs dinosaurs being forced to fashion a bow and arrow for some reason. Yes... fuck. Yes. Also nice of bruce to eat Ollie's lunch.

Okay so this story starts, as many real life stories do, with a billionare having a zany idea; Mr. Hart is a man who puts on shows: ice follies, aqua carnival, 40's razzle dazzle type stuff. For his latest idea though he's going above and beyond: a DINOSAUR ISLAND. With mechancail dinosaurs and cavemen who throw giant sponges at you. Thankfully spongebob wasn't born yet but his great great grandpappys quarepants did the honors. Honorable old fool.

To ramp up the insanity, Mr Hart is inviting a club of big game hunters to eat mammoth steak with batman.

If that weren't enough, and in any other golden age story it might be... our heroes get CHALLENGED at dinner by one of the rich assholes. Yeah turns out rich assholes who hunt innocent animals for sport and eat reheated mammoth aren't the most stable indviduals and Mr. Breech scoofs at the fact Mr. Hart says Man is the most dangerous game. He's hunted man, they went down like cowards. COWARDS. He feels Batman couldn't hut a dinosaur without his gadgets, and certainly not his bare hands... even though as this issue with prove and has already shown early man had tools.

To prove his point he challenges batman to a fucking challenge: survive on Dinosaur Island: no utility belt, no vehicles. If the dinosaurs touch him he looses. Mr Breech will man the controls. Honestly i'm convinced Breech knew hart well enough to know he'd both agree to this for the publiclity and why he'd invite batman and robin and just wants to play iwth giant mechanical dinosaurs and also batman. Which granted if I were invited to this sort of thing i'd also want to chase batman with mechanical dinosaurs for fun, who wouldn't, so I totally get it and respect the game.

Hart is on board, offering 5000 to the winner's charity and Batman is like "Why the bat-fuck not. Let's go".

Now you might suspect Breech's real motive is trying to kill batman. I mean you have a setup where batman will be without his weapons, the plausable deniablity of a machine malfunction and a secluded island with 24 hours to kill the batman. And you'd shockingly be wrong. Breech really just wants to prove dinosaurs are the most dangerous game so when that Jurassic Park he's working on opens no one will object to him hunting them for sport.

But his plans are foiled by Chase, anothe rich knob who wants to kill batman and robin to, as he says later form a "crime combine". So he wants a bunch of middle aged guys drinking beers to yell at him for not training the joker on tackling well enough. I see.. well played.

So the game is afoot and our heroes take a bit to catch up, first brushing off a real rock among the sponge rocks as a mistake. Theis ends when a Triceratops to trismash them into a tree. Batman calls for a war council on a nearbye island but naturally THAT'S NO ISLAND

Batman fought a mechanical fucking seamonster. That.. that's cannon. To almost every batman timeline. God bless you Golden Age, god, bless, youuuu. Also i'd be stupid if I didn't say that Tally Ho, Batman! is one of the greatest phrases in batman history up there with "I Am the night" , "I'm batman" and "Something something joker's boner".

So now the games for their lives, Batman and Robin don't have to play fair and start fashioning bows, arrows and knives out of mechanical dinosaur bones. You know.. sometimes this job can be draining: 2-3 reviews a week, many a plan having to be delayed due to a review taking longer than expected.. but then you get a review where Batman and robin have to outrun a manical billinoare who hyjacked dinosaurs from a diffrnet billionare who was having a charity dinosaur hunt with batman and robin using a third billionare's dinosaur, while fashoining weapons from mechanical dinosaur corpses and fashion a kite from a mechanical ptreadon and remember why you love reviewing stuff so mucH: sharinng a good story with the world and finding a good one or two yourself while your at it. And thanks to Kev i've found three truly wonderful, truly bonkers batman stories, with this one being the easy winner. It's both a decent enough concept for the time and hilariously insane.

And I ddin't make up the kite thing: when, after a night of survivial, Robin brings up the batplane, Batman has an idea: since the flying dinosaurs are on a programmed pattren rather than directly controled, they can use them to make themselves a kite yor style.

So to win the day Batman has a plan: he uses himself as bait since Robin's the more agile of the two, and has robin CATAPULT HIMSELF into the air after chase, who is riding on t-rex back with an army of dinosaurs.. and how does he defeat chase' smighty dino army?

It's both genuinely clever and wonderfully bonkers: Robin defeats an evil billionare RIDING a mechanical t-rex.. with water balloons.

Also props to this story: in the previous two the trophy was impressive.. but it was taken from what felt like a minor point in the story: the card flip game was fun as was batman slammin ga door on a guy, but it's sandwitched between far more elaborate death traps, while the penny, again awesome, wasn't even something the penny plunderer used. Batman just bought it off some offscreen character to relive fond memoreies of crushign some crimianls alive with it. Here the main villian ROAD IN on the thing. Granted he still had to likely buy it off his actual owner, but this time at least a criminal actually used it as a murder weapon. I can see Batman wanting this thing for his cave.

Batman chases chase over the now still dinosaurs and punches the guy out. With this Batman's saved the day AND won the bet. 5000 for batmobiles for kids, donate your batmobile today!

As for chase...

With that our story and this trilogy comes to an end.. and as I said, it's great. check out all three of these issues their a lot of fun. Next time dc puts some up for sale I may have to get some 40's batman, this stuff is golden.

Thanks for reading

To conclude batman month: Wait'll you get a load of this

#batman #robin #bruce wayne #dick grayson #the joker #golden age #1940s #penny plunderer #dinosaur #dinosaurs #comics #dc comics

[39raccoons]

I NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT YOUR OCS

This is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me

OKAY SO here we go. These three are Vince, Sasha and Noah. They’re a zombie, a medium and a vampire working together in a detective agency (cause of course they are). Some fun facts about them is that Noah is the most responsible one of the group despite being the youngest (21 years) and Vince and Sasha knew each other when they were kids but they established their agency after meeting again as adults roughly 15 years later.

Then we have these two ladies. Their names are Maya and Louisa and their deal is basically that Maya is a witch so after Louisa died she used her powers to bring her back. So now that Louisa’s a zombie they’re figuring out how to make Maya immortal too so they could be together forever (and they also have to trick satan so fun times). The recent comic is an alternative version of events where revival process didn’t go as planned. They’re part of the same universe as the first three but for now all my attempts to make an actual comic with them failed miserably due to skill issue.

Then we have these three. They’re from the comic I’m actively working on, “The girl, the bunny and the backpack” and yes, I thought about the title for 2 seconds. It’s on webtoons btw so you can check it out and I’ll be very grateful 🥺 The girl’s name is Nina, she’s 12 years old and she’s traveling through the world destroyed by magic with her talking bunny and backpack (post apocalyptic dora the explorer as people say lol).

AND FINALLY we got these four and they’re literally just teenage girls. The names from left to right are Ksyusha, Alina, Mary and Varya, they’re 14-15 years old and they’re mostly vibing. I made a few comics with them a couple years back and now just kinda figuring out how to bring them back and which story and format would suit them better.

AND THERE IT IS FOLKS, thank you for your attention 😌

#replies #oh boy

[pixelatedraindrops]

So my RainCode fanfic, Home is Where the Heart Is officially has illustrations added to it! 💕✨

Courtesy of my friend @kazinsblog who illustrated my entire fic for me in comic form. Check it out here!

The image shared here was also drawn by her, it was an alternative title page but it was too cute to not share… >w< This scene is practically the summary of the story <3

So…allow me to ramble about my fic for a while.

Home is Where The Heart is (Or HIWTHI for short) was the first fanfic of Raincode I ever wrote. As someone who ONLY specializes in sickfics, I usually write one per fixation targeting my fave every single time. But the moment I saw how pathetic Yuma was throughout the game, I was practically ready to get to work the minute I finished the game in July 2023, I practically wrote down the summary on an hour plane flight I took.

Truth be told, I was actually super nervous to write this fic. I would be the third person in the fandom to write a sickfic of this series, two others sadly beating me x’D So I was super nervous since the fandom was still so new. I feared I wouldn’t write any of these characters well enough. So before I wrote it, I played the game a second time and tried to study everyone’s personalities, mannerisms, and tried seeing how they’d think and react to a mildly drastic situation.

When I started to write it for the first time I got writers block quite a lot… Especially with Fubuki. I mostly got my ideas for each of the master detectives individual mission chapters whenever I took outdoor walks. (mainly because writing anything not related to the sick whump itself is harder for me xD so Vivia’s chapter was the easiest to write lol)

But once I was finished I was very excited to post it. And I never thought it would do as well as it did! In a way, this fanfic is what truly established my place in the fandom. It defines me as well as what kind of content I enjoy doing. I’ve never had my writing get this much attention before. And it made me so happy… ;w;

And now it even has an illustrated comic based off it. To think my silly little idea I came up with last summer, would find such a place among the community… It practically defines my place among the RC fandom.

Thank you everyone 💜

This fic is officially my favorite one I’ve ever written. 🥹✨

#whumpcode #rain code #master detective archives: rain code #not my art #pixelfics #sickfic #sick comfort #fanfiction #mdarc #yuma kokohead #yakou furio #desuhiko thunderbolt #halara nightmare #fubuki clockford #vivia twilight #kurumi wendy #JUST RAMBLING #AND PLEASE GO GIVE MY UPDATED FIC A LOOK #IT LOOKS SO MUCH NICER NOW!! #almost like reading a light novel! #i can’t thank Kazin enough for bringing my story to life! #i love it so much more now <3 #ima be gone for a bit cause im celebrating my bday irl a day late

[emillyverse]

First experiences

Sooooo

I know that "Behind the Scenes" is usually released after the artistic products are released, but hey, why not do it before?

I like sharing processes and seeing works of art emerge, so I hope whoever is reading this (if anyone is actually reading this) will enjoy it too!

Well, let's go!

So far, it has been 3 days of hard work. I'm not ashamed to say that the KoW Project really got me excited and the fact that I had a period off from University (which is coming to an end, thank the stars as I really want to start studying) motivated me to do as much as my body could. and my mind could handle it without it feeling forced and toxic. Thanks to that, I managed to finish planning the first scene!

Lol, yes, all these papers with writings and drafts are the first scene!

I was surprised – I didn’t expect a scene to be so big! Literally my only reaction to this was "Wow-"

I talked to the comic book writer and she said that I was going through the same difficulty as her when writing this introductory scene: The difficulty of fitting a long and complex backstory into a short space of time in a clear and objective way.

In total, the narration scene that tells from the creation of Wish Magic to the (supposed) story of Florian, Magnus and Amaya is 17 pages long.

This is in Brazilian Portuguese, probably no one will understand, but basically it says the title of the work, chapter 1, "scene 1", the word pages ("página") and their corresponding numbers.

Here we come to an interesting point, if you read my post about the "Production stages of the Fan Comic of "The Wish Kingdom" !!!" you will see that I mentioned that I would do each step per chapter…

Well that has changed.

I discovered that working only on planning tires me, I get sick and exhausted, so I'll alternate between planning and drawing the scenes, little by little putting together the chapters in the best way possible for me and the readers.

It's my first time putting together a comic book, I'm discovering what should be done and how it should be done, as well as getting to know myself a little in the process.

The conclusions I draw from this first experience is that challenging yourself to do new things can make you understand more about yourself, surprise you and be fun and tiring at the same time!

(cliché I know, but I really wanted to close this post with this little reminder Lmao)

Anyway…

I hope you enjoyed what you read, I'll be back with more in a while!

Kisses full of light and stars!

Goodbye!!

~ Emilly

#wish reimagined #wish rewrite #artists on tumblr #kingdom of wishes #kingdom of wishes fic comic #behind the scenes #behind the papers? #kow fan comic #comic art #fan comic #disney comics #comic strip #comic books #comic process #art process #artwork #my process #wish 2023 #asha wish #disney wish #starboy #starsha #the kingdom of wishes au #the kingdom of wishes au comic

[be-compromised]

Mini Promptathon: 2012 Re-edition!

What is this? It’s like the big summer promptathon, only a shorter version - a fun, no-pressure event where you can post zero to as many prompts as you like, zero to as many fills as you like, and join in the squee or just quietly enjoy the fun.

It's taking place here on dreamwidth. You don't need a dreamwidth account (or to be part of our community) to play - just please include an online handle of some kind in anon comments so we know who you are and can credit you for your prompts and fills!

We’re a Clintasha (Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff) community that welcomes ALL THINGS MARVEL. We’d like Clint and/or Natasha to show up in prompt fills somewhere, but what that means is up to you - individually or as friends, lovers, spouses, partners, gen fic, ANYTHING. Yes, that means we also welcome other characters and pairings (and threesomes or moresomes.)

This year’s, by discord vote, the theme is 2012 Re-edition! To set the scene: the year is 2012. Avengers has recently been released, ending MCU Phase One (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger). Those of us who didn’t get the shawarma after credits scene in our countries are frantically searching for it online. We can quote the Clintasha scenes off by heart. Fandom is going mad for the Avengers living in the Tower together or going on road trips. And if you want more marvel characters? Well, that's what comics are for. Helped by Matt Fraction and David Aja, who have just started their Hawkeye comic (issues 1-6 were released in 2012). Outside of Marvel, fuel is added to the fandom with the release of The Bourne Legacy and a Jeremy Renner photoshoot for Empire involving ropes. (If you want a blast from the past or prompt ideas: original 2012 promptathon post with masterlist links and associated posts.)

TIMELINE:

NOW: the clock has been wound back to 2012, prompting has begun! 12 February: open for fills! (You can also keep prompthing.) MIDIGHT 12 March: promptathon ends, both fills and prompts, at midnight whatever your timezone. (A masterlist of fills will be posted after.)

If you too would like to party like it’s 2012, please read on for how to leave prompts and fills, and a few rules to make sure everyone has a fun time.

LEAVING PROMPTS

Please post each prompt in a separate comment on the dreamdwidth post.

Prompts can be anything – simple or elaborate, words or pictures, songs or poems, lyrics or phrases, anything that could inspire a fanwork. Use your imagination. Go wild! You can also re-use prompts from previous events, whether they were filled or not.  

You can leave as many prompts as you want. We’re serious. Keep coming back. We want as many prompts as we can possibly get.

In keeping with the theme, aim to prompt like it’s 2012. As in as if nothing MCU or Marvel etc that was created after 2012 exists. (No harm, no foul for any mistakes! Any prompts and fills that contain content post-2012 just means you’ve created an alternate timeline.)

SUBMITTING FILLS

Respond by commenting in a reply to the prompt that you are filling.

The subject line of your comment should be: FILL: title, rating.

The content of your comment should start with: > Title > Rating (ie film ratings or AO3 style ratings) > Any warnings OR you can say ‘choose not to warn’ (think about the AO3 warnings or take a look at our comm guidance if you’re stuck)

You can then post your entire fanwork in the comment if it’s short enough OR you can post your fanwork anywhere else on the internet and post a link to it in your comment.

Following these guidelines 1) makes it easier for people to find your fills during the event as a one-stop shop, and know what they’re clicking on and 2) makes it a LOT easier for your mods to create a masterlist at the end, without missing any of your fills. Thank you!

Consider including a teaser to catch people’s attention! If you’re posting on AO3, we have a ‘Community: be_compromised’ tag. If you’re posting on tumblr, let us know and we’ll reblog on the be_compromised tumblr. We want people to be able to find and appreciate your fills <3

There’s no length requirement on fanworks submitted. You can create drabbles or epics, vids, art, fanmixes, anything at all; it’s just all about getting creative! Fills do not have to be complete or completed during the promptathon. You can fill as many prompts as you want, and prompts can be filled multiple times by whoever wants to fill them. Zero pressure; all fun.

In keeping with the theme, aim to fill prompt like it’s 2012. As in as if nothing MCU or Marvel etc that was created after 2012 exists. (No harm, no foul for any mistakes! Any prompts and fills that contain content post-2012 just means you’ve created an alternate timeline.)

SQUEE

We have a generic thread for comments, questions, and chat as the first comment thread on the dreamwidth post. We welcome chatting and cheerleading in replies to prompts and fills. (This is where posting each prompt separately and labelling the subject line of fills helps to keep things organised.) We also have a be_compromised discord server for all kinds of discussion if you prefer a chatroom-style space. (Although as above, all prompts and fills will be in this post as a one-stop shop.)

Commenting, cheerleading, and enthusiasm is a huge part of fandom and you are very welcome to join in! Yes, even if you don’t post any prompts or fills.

GENERAL RULES

Our Community Rules apply to this event. To summarise: > No character or ship bashing. This is a positive fandom space. > No plagiarism or use of AI.  > Please no RPF (Real Person Fanfiction) or any gossip/speculation about actors’ off-screen non-work lives, as the primary focus of this community is fictional characters. > Please including a rating for fanworks and a warning OR choose not to warn. > Be kind and have fun!

If you have any questions about anything please feel free to ask! The easiest way is to use the ‘Questions / Comments / Squee’ thread, which is in the first comment to this post, or ask on the Discord server. Your mods are @inkvoices, @cloud--atlas aka franztastisch, and @quidnunc-life aka gsparkle.

Welcome back to 2012. We’re bringing the party to you!

#promptathon #party like it's 2012 #avengers #clintasha #clint barton #natasha romanoff #hawkeye #black widow #fanfic

[romanyeva]

Been seeing a bit about of the MAwS version of Deathstroke on my feed recently with not a little outrage at his twunkiness or not-dilfness or something and that he might be a little bit pathetic.

Well!

Comics Slade Wilson can be VERY MUCH a pathetic wet meow meow of a man. Here he is in the series end of his latest title, Deathstroke vol. 4 # 50 (2016-2020):

This takes place after his showdown with an alternate Slade Wilson from the Dark Multiverse. He's reconciling with his ex-wife - you know, the one who shot his eye out - and cooking Christmas Eve dinner for the family. Of which, William "Billy" Wintergreen is an honorary member. Just look at Slade's little purple house slippers!

More scans from this series end under the cut:

Rose and Joseph, Slade's kids, and Adeline also greet Wintergreen. So domestic! And look at Joey using wifi to speak through his mom's house speakers. Yes, Joseph Wilson aka Jericho - canonically bisexual - is very much alive in DC Rebirth (and his story is wild and dramatic, tragic and uplifting)! [If something awful happened to Jericho after this issue, let me know.]

Then Slade and Billy go down to the basement to have a little chat.

Looking at the basement, Slade is definitely settled in for the long haul. He has his 'man-cave', need I remind you, in the basement. He's definitely playing nice with the ex no matter how many knife fights they get into with each other. And here he explains to Wintergreen, that he was going to play dead because it would be best for everyone - meaning his family. He may be absolutely sure of his deadly abilities, but his personal ones? Not so much. He's a dangerous guy! It's bad for the kids!

But he's still retired, just not in hiding anymore. He's going to be a responsible partner and father, darn it!

Take a long look at his famous Deathstroke sword, placed in retired honor on the wall, because it will be important in a bit.

You heard the man, Billy, Deathstroke is done! And they still have Christmas dinner to take care of!

Aw, look at this picture of domestic bliss. Adeline and Wintergreen are talking shop; Rose and Joey are playing a video game and being very sibling. But, OH NO, look at Slade and his body language. He's sitting pressed against the corner of the sofa, still in his little purple house slippers, just absolutely slumped and not having a good time. SLADE! SLADE WILSON! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!

His family's chatter just becomes noise in the background as he replays - from earlier in the issue - darker Slade's words in his head. And darker Slade said these same words to him TWICE. Telling him that he - our Slade Wilson - ruined all the good things in his life, that he did it to himself.

So he goes to get the turkey out of the oven.

More domestic stuff, aww 🧡 But where's our man Slade? Billy goes to check.

Turkey abandoned. Back door open. And the infamous Deathstroke sword RIPPED OFF THE WALL AND OUT OF RETIREMENT.

And there he is folks, Deathstroke, back in the shadows. Slade Wilson abandoned his family AGAIN! Slade Wilson, you pathetic wet meow meow of a man! You just cannot - absolutely CANNOT - allow yourself to be happy.

I would say that he isn't doomed by the narrative, but that he dooms himself; but if we were talking CLASSIC TRAGEDY, he has this absolutely fatal flaw that dooms him to be alone. And in a metatextual sense, that's also true, because he's become one of DC's banner villains. They will not let him retire, become anything but a morally dark gray character, so they gave him this ironclad flaw:

What can you take from a man who has nothing? Give him something first.

And Slade Wilson would rather have nothing because he's already lost too much.

#slade wilson #deathstroke #he's a complicated guy #the most dangerous person #and also a pathetic wet meow meow of a man #william wintergreen #adeline kane #rose wilson #joseph wilson