#ALSO ALSO i've been reading the tags on the two previous things i posted and OMG THEY ARE SO NICE

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Mlekragg

Unsurprisingly, multiple people read the entry and immediately clocked what this was. (Thank you for not actually making a guess in text, so that people who don't recognize it are able to work without that preconception.) I didn't want to leave it out, because the mythological ones are fun, but unlike some of the others, the modern conception of this beast is pretty much exactly what the bestiary says.

Anyway, as always, if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can find an explanation for this whole thing at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting. If you want to join in, the new entry for each week is tagged with "maniculum bestiaryposting" so it should be findable. This week's entry can be reviewed here:

Below the cut you will find the drawings responding to it, in roughly chronological order:

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) decided to branch out in an unusual direction with this one, in order to avoid drawing the creature they'd identified from the entry and also have some fun with it. I just think this is some quality creature design. Love the mask-thing, love the springy tail, and that's a really good rendering of a cuttlefish face IMHO. There's a really interesting explanation for all of these features, what inspired them and how it all works together, in the linked post, which you should go read.

@moonygryffin (link to post here) took a more direct approach, with the twist that the creature here is modeled on American fauna rather than ones the medieval Europeans would have been aware of. The body is a mountain lion, and the man-like head is a golden-headed lion tamarin, which of course comes with its own mane. I enjoy the choice to not use a lion lion, but rather two animals with "lion" in their name; also I've always thought lion tamarins were very cool-looking. For more details -- and an example of an attempt by MoonyGryffin to draw the same creature several years ago -- see the linked post. (Also thank you for providing alt text.)

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) has made an attempt to take the entry literally without drawing the creature she has recognized, which is a challenge considering how specific the description is. I think the decision to give it flea legs to help with that exceptional jumping is clever. SweetlyFez describes the result as an "awful creature" and... honestly I can't argue, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near one of these. In fact I think I'm going to wrap up this commentary and scroll down so I don't keep making eye contact with it.

@pomrania has also decided to go the route of "let's get weird with it", and avoided the literal interpretation by re-analyzing the word "has". This is similar to that style of joke one hears now and then -- you know, "he has the heart of a poet... he keeps it in a jar at home." (Incidentally, props to Mary Shelley for being perhaps the only person who could make that claim and not be kidding.) So this creature has the face of a man and the body of a lion, not in the sense that it was born with them, but in the sense that it keeps them as possessions. Very clever, and the underlying creature design is also fantastically creepy in my opinion.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) mentions that she didn't recognize the description, and has given us this really cool-looking, rather menacing creature in their excellent medieval style. (This is why I insist on not naming the beasts even when it seems clear what it is -- this amazing piece of art might have looked entirely different if someone posted a spoiler.) I'm really struck by how it simultaneously looks like a patchwork sort of creature (different front & back legs, etc.) but all flows together into a cohesive whole. Just really well done, I think. (Also, thank you for including alt text.)

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has drawn the creature mid-leap, showing off its jumping prowess by shooting straight up into the air. I think this drawing does a very good job at combining human and lion anatomy to make something unsettling -- and the inclusion of the skull diagram up in the top left points to the amount of thought that went into this. As always, please check out the linked post for a detailed discussion of the design. (Also, thank you for including alt text.)

@strixcattus (link to post here) has drawn one that's oddly cute, and looks a bit worried. However, according to the description they've written in the linked post, this reaction on my part is probably going to get me killed, because apparently they're still quite vicious. I like it, though -- and, as always, I urge you to go read the linked post for this one.

On to the Aberdeen Bestiary... oh, we can't, actually. This is another missing page. So here's the illustration from the Ashmole Bestiary instead:

So, first of all, this is indeed the manticore, and I'm sure most if not all of the people who said they had guessed it got that correct.

Second, we can also note that all the artists who said something along the lines of "well we know about the issues of drawing medieval scorpions, so the scorpion-tail description doesn't need to be literal" were also correct there. Apparently this time a scorpion tail is just spiky all over, which I have to admit does look kinda cool.

Now let's address the elephant in the room. WHAT is that thing on its HEAD? My best guess is that it's meant to be a crown -- medieval art often sticks hats on nonhuman creatures with human faces, almost as if the artist wants to make sure you know it looks like a human head on purpose. I don't see crowns that often, though; usually it's just a cloth hat. (The one in Bodley MS 764, where I got the text for this entry, is clearly wearing a Phrygian cap.) I find myself unable to see it as anything but a daring hairstyle that is absolutely not working for it, though.

Anyway. The manticore is an odd one in its continuity here -- a lot of the mythical creatures in the bestiary have been changed, reinterpreted, or forgotten in the intervening centuries. I think maybe the manticore happens to have hit that sweet spot where it's popular enough that people remember it, but not so popular that it gets excessively telephoned through widespread transmission. I think a couple people noted that the Standard Fantasy manticore is more or less spot on to this description, and indeed, I can only think of one change:

(Art from the Magic: the Gathering card "Crimson Manticore", artist Daniel Gelon)

At some point, those bastards got wings. It's not universal at this time, but if you do an image search for "manticore", the majority of the modern ones are winged. I'm not really sure where that came from.

(Side note: I tested this by doing a Google image search, and one of the top results was a particularly odd-looking image, so I clicked on it out of curiosity. It was at the top of an... article? on a webpage I'd never heard of, and the opening of said article included the sentence, "In medieval bestiaries and art, the manticore was depicted with unique features such as paws, teeth, and fur." You don't say there, bud.)

Interestingly, the D&D manticore is slightly different from the description in an additional way.

Instead of a scorpion tail, it has a tail covered in spines. This has apparently been part of the D&D manticore since the beginning -- the above image is from 2e, but the 1e version had the same tail. (I just didn't use it because it's not as clear in the picture.)

Now, scroll back up to that Ashmole Bestiary image. The one where the tail doesn't really look anything like a scorpion's. Looks... similar to this in broad concept.

I doubt that Gygax or Arneson or whoever designed that aspect of their manticore after one bestiary image, so I popped over to bestiary.ca to see what else was out there. Out of the 38 medieval manticore images collected on that website, there are only two with a tail covered in spikes: the Ashmole manticore and one other that's clearly just a less-skilled artist working from the same image (it also has the same hat). Looking at the text sources, though:

"...it has a tail like a land scorpion, in which there is a sting; it darts forth the spines with which it is covered instead of hair..." -- Aristotle, De animalibus

"To the end of its tail is attached the sting of a scorpion, and this might be over a cubit in length; and the tail has stings at intervals on either side." -- Aelianus, On the Characteristics of Animals

Okay, that's the D&D version, mystery solved. New question: is it a coincidence that the Ashmole illustration fits Aelianus's description? Remember, the page is missing from the Aberdeen bestiary and the Ashmole bestiary isn't translated. The text comes from Bodley MS 764, which does not have a spiky-tailed manticore. My Latin is terrible and I'm untrained in palaeography, so I can't tell whether the entry there preserves the spiky description.

If any palaeographers out there want to solve this one for me, it's Bodleian MS Ashmole 1511, f.22v-23r, available digitally here. (I'll put some screenshots below, but I expect it's easier to zoom properly on the library's digitized manuscript.)

Okay, that's all I've got. Enjoy your week everyone.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #mlekragg

[agender-witchery]

On Project Moon

Hey, this is gonna be long, I'm putting most of it under the cut. This post is about the recent firing of VellMori from Project Moon, I know that it warrants some tags for triggers, but I have no idea what's commonly used, so if I miss something, please tell me.

Additionally, I have written this up in a way that if it escapes the target audience of Project Moon fans, it can still be understood, so with that in mind, there will be Library of Ruina spoilers.

The tl;dr for those who don't wanna read the full thing is that Project Moon was put in a very bad position with some violent extremists targeting them and that I'm not happy about any of what happened.

So, for those unaware, Project Moon has fired VellMori, the CG artist for Limbus Company. Now, a not inaccurate statement that can be made from this is "Project Moon fired a woman for being a feminist" but this is... somewhat reductive. Let's immediately get out of the way that VellMori did absolutely nothing wrong. Some people have said she is a TERF. I've seen no evidence of this. Some people have said she wished death on all men. I've seen no evidence of this.

What I HAVE seen is that VellMori thinks sexual abuse is bad. Now, why would this lead to a firing? The short answer is that a bunch of violent incels, one of which was literally dressed as a clown, came knocking at their office doors.

See, Limbus Company has a "beach" event coming up. In this event, we are getting a water themed outfit for two of the characters, one male and one female. For Sinclair, the guy, he has been given an EXTREMELY slutty mechanic's outfit. For Ishmael, the woman, she has been given a very skintight wet suit outfit. Now, I wanna take care to note that VellMori is the CG artist - she had no hand in these designs, a man made them. I would also like to mention that both outfit designs are amazing, and I will be including them at the end of this post for reference.

Now, upon revealing the wet suit design for Ishmael, a bunch of whiny incels on what is basically Korean 4chan got upset that Ishmael, instead of being in a bikini as is usual for gacha games, was wearing a wet suit. Nevermind that the designs in Limbus Company have always been conservative and that the Sinclair design is the most skin we've ever seen and it's just an open shirt. Again, the wet suit is still super revealing, it's skin tight and this is literally the first design of her that doesn't make her look flat chested. They're not rioting over the lack of sex appeal, they're specifically mad that it's not a bikini.

The incels come to the conclusion that the lack of any skin being shown on Ishmael's outfit is a result of evil feminism. No, I'm not exaggerating. They initially begin harassing the artist who is actually responsible for drawing the outfits, but upon learning that he is a man, set their sights on VellMori because she's a woman, and being an artist is good enough I guess. What they do from here is they start digging and digging and digging on VellMori's twitter, making use of archived pages because many of the "offensive" tweets had been deleted.

I'd like to take a moment to point out that VellMori never actually tweeted anything out here - it was all retweets from a 4-6 year old archive, and retweets that have been long deleted. These retweets contain such transgressive statements as "I'm sick of misogyny" and "If being against patriarchy makes me antisocial, then so be it" and just... mirroring back to men what those men were saying to women. Some people would like to have you think she was calling for death to all men. She wasn't. She ALSO retweeted all this stuff while she was a teenager and well before she worked for Project Moon.

Nonetheless, the incels had decided that feminism was the reason Ishmael had a wet suit and not a bikini and they had found a feminist working for Project Moon. It is at this point that we must take a brief detour and talk about Library of Ruina, Project Moon's previous game.

See, in Library of Ruina, one of the protagonists, Angela, has this whole arc about escaping her abuser and becoming a human. Yes, she is literally a robot, but Project Moon isn't exactly a stranger to symbolism in their stories and a feminist reading of Angela is ridiculously easy. The main antagonist in Library of Ruina is Argalia, the Blue Reverberation, and his crew is called the Reverberation Ensemble. Every member of the Reverberation Ensemble is a violent lunatic who each want to reinforce the status quo in their own unique shitty way. In addition to this, typically in order to reach the titular Library, you would need to be invited. The Reverb Ensemble are the "uninvited guests", the ones who managed to reach the Library and knock down the door without an invite.

Why am I talking about this? Well, the incels decided to start calling themselves the Reverb Ensemble, and referring to each other using names of the Reverb Ensemble members such as Pluto, Elena, and Oswald. Having taken on the moniker of the uninvited guests, they then showed up to Project Moon's office to protest. Over the lack of a bikini. Now, remember how I mentioned someone was dressed up as a clown? One of the Reverb Ensemble members, Oswald, is a clown with an extremely tenuous grip on reality. So much so, that his ideal world is one in which there is no meaning whatsoever. That is the character they chose to dress up as. This is either a case of extreme self awareness or extreme self unawareness.

Eventually, the incels were let into the office possibly as a form of damage mitigation to prevent the crowd of protestors from getting any bigger. This was a questionable decision, but they had a group of violent incels at their doorstep either way, and I don't exactly have full details on this. Regardless, Project Moon had on their hands a group of violent protesting incels, who they felt compelled to let into the building, and who had demands including the firing of their feminist employee. (7/28 update: a translation of the transcript posted to DCInside has surfaced. Please check the reblogs for it. Project Moon was verifiably threatened.)

So while "Project Moon fired a woman for being a feminist" isn't inaccurate it also isn't the full picture. More appropriately, it'd be "Project Moon fired a woman because a group of violent incels who weren't satisfied with a form fitting wet suit instead of a bikini showed up to their office demanding that an artist who did not make the wet suit design be fired because she retweeted some feminist stuff 5 years ago while she was a teenager".

I'm not happy with this. None of this is good. People are allowed to be feminists, and Project Moon stories have always presented progressive ideas to anyone with half a brain to do some basic literary analysis. I can understand why they would cave to the demands of people who were threatening them and showed up to their actual place of work, but at the same time, that's someone's livelihood gone and proof that in the future, the same sorts of people can use the same sorts of tactics to bully Project Moon into doing whatever they want. All of this sucks.

For those who would like to see the retweets in question alongside translations: https://twitter.com/danghwangs/status/1683884236888223744

And for people who would like reference as to what the artworks these incels were up in arms about, Ishmael in the wet suit and Sinclair in the mechanic's outfit.

#my nonsense #limbus company #project moon #VellMori #misogyny #library of ruina

[bigassmoonchild]

The Hearing

Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

Word Count: 2.3k

The first four parts give context, but may not be required for this read.

Summary: Being stuck in hearing sucked. Especially when Price revealed things about yourself you hadn't even known, and now Ghost was unsure of the choices he'd been making.

Content Tags: Separation, Mentions of Violence, Mild Storybuilding, Scenting, Mentions of Possible Pregnancy, Ghost Walking Out, Ghost being Unsure, No Use of Y/N, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha! Ghost

A/N: This took me half of The Wolverine, 16 minutes of Hamilton and 12 episodes of Bluey to get through. No sex yet, but if y'all don't want the pregnancy ark do let me know. This series may be coming to an end soon, but that doesn't mean Doc is going away forever. As always, content under the cut and requests are open <3

P.S: I was going to adjust part of this, but I've figured out a way to extend this story a little further, so I'm removing it from being privately posted. My apologies!

Part 1 | Previous, Next | Headcannons, Masterlist

This keeps fucking happening. It took four months before you and Ghost got in trouble again. Instead of having each other, now you were stuck without the other. The rest of the 141 was busy smuggling items between yourself and Ghost, it finally having gotten out that the two of you were mated.

That you were an Omega.

You were removed from training your squad for the time being, currently being investigating for the incident that had happened. Too many times you had seen the same people for hearings. Too many times you were stuck sitting in the same room and looking among the same people.

"Can you explain to us how no one knew that Michael wasn't taking his suppressants?" Was the question posed to you.

You adjusted in your seat, smoothing down the pair of nice pants you'd thrown on and smelling the thick perfume you'd put on to block the distressed scent you'd been throwing off. "No one in the compound is capable of scenting other people, those abilities are blocked with the military grade suppressants we are given. Scents are also dulled with the suppressants, so no one would've been able to tell," you explained. Short and simple, not nearly as scientific as it should've been.

"And you couldn't tell? Being mated means off of suppressants, which means you should've been able to scent him."

"It takes a minimum of two days off suppressants for a scent to begin coming back and another week before the androstenone in an Alphas body to increase dangerously high. I was on leave for three weeks prior to the incident, so I had to have returned back to base at nearly the two week mark," you wanted to see Simon.

You each had a babysitter, swapping out in shifts so neither of you were unattended for more than five minutes. You'd began self-soothing, rubbing the gland on your wrist aggressively against your neck gland, the clothes you were receiving weekly from Price wasn't doing enough.

No matter what, you were still stuck in this god damn hearing. Until you could smell Simon. You spun in your seat, searching the general room for him, watching as he was led forward, taking a seat across the aisle from you.

"Now, Mr. Riley, what caused you to attack Michael?" You were still watching him, only his balaclava to protect his face from those around you. You could just barely see his side-profile, his hardly blinking eyes as he stared down the person questioning him.

He glanced briefly at you. "My Omega was being attacked, I could smell her distress from a few halls down so I was going to find out what was happening. I heard him screaming at her and threatening her life, so I did what I had to to protect her," he answered, no hesitation. They hummed and nodded, glancing at you before looking back to Simon.

God, he smelled so much better than his clothes.

"Doctor, please try and pay attention," you looked down into your lap, giving a small sorry before the hearing proceeded. "What caused Michael to attack you?" At this you had to pause. It all happened so fast and you'd shoved the memory to the back of your head.

"He wanted to get out of the squad, he didn't want a Doctor ordering him around. I assume Mr. Riley said something to him, as he was causing problems with the soldiers covering my squad while I was on leave. He tried to press for information regarding my relationship with the Lieutenant, but I wasn't going to allow him insight he didn't need to know," they were writing everything down, clacking of keyboards and scraping of pens and pencils against paper.

"Do tell us what happened next,"

Looking away, you had to take a deep breath. You could feel the panic setting back in. "I told him that he wouldn't be able to remain in the military or find a new branch if he left. He had too many infractions and I pulled his file to show him, and he lunged for it. Michael was trying to take his file from me, and he could smell I was an Omega. That's when I realized he was going feral," you picked at your fingers, not looking at the group of people as you tried to remember what happened.

They glanced back at their notes, speaking with each other for a moment. "How would you know he was going feral?"

"I have medical documents of my squad. I know when their last heat or rut was, and I decide when they go on leave to ensure they aren't on suppressants for too long that it becomes dangerous, such as what occurred between myself and my Alpha. The androstenone inside an Alpha increases, albeit being dormant, the longer suppressants are taken without a natural rut occurring," you explained. This was the easy part, the things you knew exactly the ins and outs of.

They nodded along with you, fingers still clacking on keyboards as you explained.

"Once someone stops taking suppressants, the androstenone becomes active again. The longer they go without the rut, the more that become active. If they don't rid themselves of the androstenone, it'll force them into ferality to keep the increasing hormones from severely hurting them," they interrupted you for a moment.

"What does ferality do for the Alpha?"

"It ensures that they mate with the nearest Omega in or out of heat to naturally expel the androstenone. If they don't, their rut gets worse and they begin to have different areas of the brain shut down until they are no more than an animal, looking for the next thing to breed," you explained. "Most cases are euthanized, to ensure they don't suffer for long," you added, ensuring they would understand why it was so dangerous.

You had zoned out once they began talking with Simon again. His scent was washing over you every now and again as the AC unit blew cooler air into the room. This room had no windows and was in the middle of the building so they installed AC's for the stifling summer, which meant scents were wafting around with each other and mixing.

But Simons? It was amazing, being able to get it damn near straight from the source. You were waiting for all of this to be over so you could crawl into your nest with Simon. Your heat had been due a week ago, but with the proceedings dragging on you had been far to stressed for your body to allow it to happen.

And you could feel it building within you. You were exhausted all the time, eating more and building a larger nest, moving things in your room around. Now that you had your Alpha near you, you could feel your mind slowly slipping away from you.

You had to think harder, trying to remember how long ago your heat was and when you had to expect it. To be honest, you didn't really want to think that hard right now. You were still exhausted, you didn't get much sleep, considering you'd been without your Alpha for weeks now.

"That should wrap today up, we'll reconvene tomorrow. Same time and location, we'll review what we have learned from you two and Michael and give you our final decision in one week. For now, you two will stay separated and we'll have people watching to ensure you don't meet up," you wanted to argue. So badly, you wanted to tell them that he was your Alpha and he was supposed to be with you.

Even then, you knew that they wouldn't rescind their decision. You watched as Simon was led out, giving you one more look before leaving.

"Listen, kid, I'm really sorry," Price leaned in next to you, whispering as you waited for Simon to get far enough away that you could leave as well without possibly getting in trouble. "I know another week is going to be hard on you," he looked away.

You sighed, leaning back. "It's no harder than the first few weeks mated to him. The only problem is my heat isn't coming and I'm past due," he gave you a weird look before nodding with you.

Standing up, he gestured for you to follow him. You stood and followed him out, allowing him to lead you back to your room. It stayed quiet between the two of you, you figured he was deep in thought and you were just thinking about the nap you were gonna take in your nest.

Quite the exciting life you held now, being stuck back in hearings. You could only do paperwork and most of the work for the week you'd finish right away. It was so boring, the task force only being able to come by every now and again.

When you walked in, he handed you a bag. You looked down and back up at him, brows furrowed. Price gave you a smile and walked back out, the door shutting behind him. You sat on your bed, running your hands down your face and sighing deeply.

You reached into the bag, pulling out another of Simons hoodies. The amount you had at this point made you wonder if he had any left, just about the entirety of your nest was made out of his shirts and hoodies. The scents on some of them were fading, but you didn't remove them just yet.

Without him to be in the nest with you, the scents were fading quicker and quicker. You hated it. You had grown accustomed to having him scenting you at night and before he had to leave in the morning, him remarking your gland every now and again when you were able to.

Moving to throw the bag in the bag of bags, you felt something move inside it with your movements. Setting it back down, you opened it to look inside.

A pregnancy test.

"Price!" You shouted, his office door slamming open. You were heaving, having run straight to his office after finding his last little gift. "What the hell?"

He looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. "I was talking to my own Omega and they mentioned giving you one. A lot of the symptoms you'd been mentioning had lined up with their own pregnancy. You don't have to use it, obviously, I just figured you'd want it," you stopped to think.

How had you been exhibiting all the signs of a pregnant Omega and yet you'd been unable to recognize it? You were a bloody biologist, so you'd already known exactly what the signs were. Intense nesting urges, increased eating, increased amounts of sleep.

Jesus, were you pregnant? Maybe you should take the test, just to be sure. Price opened his mouth to say something before shaking his head and going back to his paperwork. You were going to pester him about what he was going to say, but you didn't.

"You could get this hearing pushed off if you're pregnant. They'll consider it an Alpha protecting his pup. You didn't hear this from me,"

The next day Simon was back where he'd been sitting, in the back of the hearing room waiting for them to call him forward. He could see you, some rows ahead of him. Your scent had become more delectable to him over the last few weeks, even if he hadn't been able to smell you directly.

The rest of the task force was playing a dangerous game, smuggling items between the two of you. He knew that, if caught, they could be put on a probationary leave and investigated to figure out if it was more than just items.

Simon watched as you stood from your seat, hands folded in front of you. He could smell you better than when you'd been sitting, the scent sweetening to something he couldn't explain.

All he wanted to do was scent mark you and hold you in your nest, maybe find you some food and feed you. What the hell was up with him? He'd been stalking as close to your room as he could get, snarling at every Alpha who walked near.

"I haven't made you aware yet, but I have been in for a pregnancy test," everyone went silent and Simons eyes widened. "The results should be coming in another day or two, depending on who will be finalizing them. I'd like to request that the current predicament be pushed back so my mate and I can speak about possibilities," he watched as the group leading the hearing leaned together to speak and his eyes never left you.

He could smell your distress from where he was, and he could feel his heart hammering in his chest. Pregnant? He thought you'd been on birth control, even if it you'd still gone through your heats.

To be honest, Simon was terrified. A father? Him? All he could do was walk out, even if he heard his name come from you and your scent changing sharply. Winding through the halls, he found himself walking outside with a cigarette lit, the slight burn as he inhaled the smoke.

Neither of you had talked about this. You'd been mated for a few months, not even hitting a year yet and prior to that you'd only spoken professionally. He knew you, but you hadn't even shared a room yet.

Was he wrong? For biting you, when neither of you had agreed upon being mated. For getting the two of you in that situation in the first place, he should've been the one who had gone and swept the building to make sure everyone was safe.

Simon knew exactly where his life would be had the two of you not been stuck in that situation. He'd never imagined his life moving this way and it terrified him. He was almost... regretting the choices he'd made.

Regretting mating with you.

Next

#simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon ghost riley #ghost x reader #small bit of angst #mentions of violence #ghost mw2 #cod mw2 #modern warfare ii #no use of y/n #task force 141 #call of duty #simon riley #call of duty x reader #alpha/beta/omega dynamics #alpha/beta/omega verse #Maple Syrup #mentions of pregnancy

[deadpoolsoci3ty]

so you're the a (alastor x reader) ch 1

(a/n: so i've been posting this on ao3 for about a week and just decided to post on here too now. also i do not have a posting schedule im busy lol sorry)

summary: finding the radio at that thrift store may have completely changed the course of my life, but really i'm not complaining at all.

word count: 1,789

warnings: none i think (let me know if should add some!)

ao3 link

masterlist

Chapter One: thing of beauty

The cold wind of Chicgo bit at my face as I walked the short walk from my apartment to the thrift store. I’m not totally sure what I was going there to look for, but I just needed to get out of my apartment. The walk was pleasant because I’m a college student home at one o’clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday, so the sidewalks are barren. The store finally comes into view, and then I’m walking in. I greet the woman at the register, and immediately book it towards the trinkets in the back. I look through their selection of shot glasses and mugs, not seeing anything that I just had to have. I pace around the back of the store until I see this gorgeous antique radio. A radio would be great for background noise when I’m reading, and plus this was a thing of beauty. I may not have a lot of money, but I knew in my heart whatever price this radio was, it was coming home with me. I rushed over to pick it up so I could find the price, but before my eyes could land on the price tag they first saw a small ‘A’ carved into wood in the corner. Maybe it was like an Andy Toy Story situation, a cute little memory from a previous owner. Then I found the price, a solid $60 which I am truly willing to part with for this beautiful radio.

With an extra pep in my step, I made my way to the register to pay for my lovely new friend. I greeted the employee at the register once again, and she looked somewhat excited that I put the radio on the conveyor belt. “Has this been here long?” I asked because I was confused how someone would pass up this piece of art.

“Longer than me, pretty sure,” she shrugged, “all the employees here have made up our little stories about the history behind it.” She rang me up and the screen prompted me to put my card in, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get a sweet treat for a week or two but the radio was worth it. “It has been bought before though,” I furrowed my brow because what was wrong with this damn clock? But, to be honest I didn’t care if the radio even worked or not (I was hoping it did though) it was just beautiful. “The people always come back in basically begging us to buy it back, don’t even care for how much. One guy sold it to us for fifty cents one time.”

Now, normally I would not be caught dead with an object that people had been begging to return, and with the way the employee had been describing the situation the radio was definitely scaring the shit out of everybody that purchased it. But, for some reason I needed this radio. A little about me, I’m a textbook snobby english major. I love all things vintage, I think the classics are the greatest works in English literature, and hold a deep detestment for many aspects of modern culture. Yes, I am annoying.

“Mmm, something tells me I’ll be keeping it for the long haul.” I don’t know what possessed me to say something like this, but I’m just gonna go with it. I thank the employee and make my way out of the shop.

The walk home was much less brisk now that I was carrying this heavy radio, but I didn’t think about it much. I was just so excited. My roommate was out filming for some school project so I could fiddle with it when I got home.

After what feels like forever, I see the fence in front of my apartment. I whip out my keys, and put them in the lock of the first door and lock it behind me, while putting the key into the next door which leads to my apartment. I take off my shoes and lock the door. I walk over to the dining room table and put my purse down along with the radio so I can take my coat off. Once coatless, I grab the radio and set it down on the coffee table in front of the couch. I mess with the knobs and dials until I hear a crackle. “Yes!” I yelled, as I began switching through the stations, most of the stations I knew from the radio in my car were entirely static. After a couple of minutes I heard someone speaking, the voice was filtered through what sounded like a microphone from the early days of audio.

“Hello dearie!~” the strange voice spoke, I assumed it was a prerecorded file a station was playing. Like a radio version of the history channel. So, of course I didn’t speak back to the radio. Then, the voice came back, “I said…” a loud static started to emanate from the speaker, “Hello!”

My first thought was ‘fuck me, if this is a demon in here, I’m definitely going to fall for one of his traps’ I had just though about this a couple days ago, I want things! Sue me! And I’m not fucking with you two days ago I had been thinking about this shit and now here I am. Welp, I’m fucked, but still I carry on. And now I was sure I had completely lost my mind, so since that had already happened and I was obviously in the middle of an episode of psychosis, I decided to reply, “Oh! Umm I didn’t think you were speaking to me. My apologies!” Whoever this person who was speaking was, I definitely did NOT want him to be upset with me.

“Oh dear, oh dear! Far in the past now! You’ve got my radio!” I could tell whoever was speaking was smiling, I could hear in their voice.

“This is yours? It’s gorgeous, I can assume you’re the ‘A’ on the bottom of it.” I could have asked so many questions, but I went with this one. I’m not totally sure why, but I really want to know more about the strange voice.

“Alastor! That’s my name, sweetheart!” He seemed excited to introduce himself, and honestly I was just as excited as him.

“Hello Alastor! My name is Y/N! It’s nice to meet you! Where do you live, Alastor? I found the radio in Chicago!” Why was I telling this strange voice over a creepy radio where I live.

“Oh when I was alive, my home was New Orleans. Absolutely fantastic! It made it all the way to the Windy City!” My heart froze after his fifth word, hair standing up, goose pimples all over my skin, and a shock through my spine. When he was alive??? What the fuck does that mean? He’s definitely a demon, yep fuck me.

“Just to clarify, you did just say ‘when you were alive’ right? That wasn’t me hearing things, right?” I was hyperventilating out of my damn mind. I absolutely understood now why people had returned this freaky fucking radio

“Oh yes, of course, dear! I’m coming to you straight from Hell.” The way he said it like it was the most casual thing ever, had me feeling like I was overreacting to what he was saying.

“And you’re not messing with me?” After it came out of my mouth I heard him clench his teeth.

“Oh, now what is your impression of me that says I would do that to you?” He seems frustrated with my question, and that did not sit right with me. I was quick to appease him.

“No, no, no, I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant by that, I promise!” I try to stop myself from spilling my guts to this man who I believe might be a demon, because the voice in my head was telling me giving personal information to a demon was probably not the best decision I could make, but I just couldn’t stop myself. “It’s just I never believed in an afterlife or a religion, so it’s just that you have just told me that hell is real and that is absolutely insane to me because now I’m terrified hell is horrible. Is it horrible? I mean I guess that’s the point?” I took a deep breath before I continued my word vomiting, but before I got the chance, Alastor began speaking again.

“Sweet girl~ please stop with the yammering…” His voice seemed like nectar to me, I could listen to him speak all day, “before we continue with our little back and forth, I am going to need to know what I’m getting out of this?” I immediately started thinking about the things I could offer him, not my soul. Wasn’t there just yet.

“What could you possibly want from me?” This was the most genuine question I had asked in a long time, I had absolutely nothing to offer him. I had money for groceries, rent, and utilities. Most of my possessions were books, he was in hell what use could he have for anything I could give him.

“I just adore your voice, little deer!” He was back to being his chirpy self, and it rubbed off on me making me feel a little calmer. “I’m sure you would love to continue our little chats, and in return I’d just like for you to read to me, from a book of your choosing of course.” I was trying not to let off how excited I was, I wanted him to feel like he was getting more out of this than he was. “I’m trusting you have immaculate taste, but give a couple of your favorites just so I can tell.”

After a few quick beats I respond with, “My favorite book of all time is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, I’m a big fan of the classics, nineteenth century literature.”

“Oh how swell!” he seemed like he was buzzing with glee, “A beautiful voice with even better taste!” He seemed to chuckle to himself and as his laugh faded out his voice came back, “Well, dearest, I’m afraid I must be going for now! I’ll excuse your payment for today, but be ready for next time, my dear,” I took a deep breath at the thought of a next time, “When you want to contact me again, just tune back into this station, I’ll be able to tell. I won’t always be able to talk, but when I can I’ll be there in a jiffy!”

Before I could respond to him the static that accompanied his voice faded and it eventually became silent in my apartment once again. I released the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, and leaned back into my couch.

(a/n: i've written five chapters so far i'll be posting the other four asap)

#alastor #alastor the radio demon #hazbin hotel #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor x reader #alastor x you #alastor imagine #hazbin imagine #hazbin x reader #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel imagine #alastor fic #hazbin fic #hazbin hotel fic

[gattnk]

Raf and Sulfus, Sulfus and Raf.

I finally finished my AF main cast redesigns for my rewrite project! I've had these two for a while, but I didn't want to post them until the rest of the gang was also ready for some reason. Anyways, here's my design notes for the main duo:

I wanted to treat this entire project the way I would if I'd been actually hired to reboot the IP as a professional. With this in mind, I kept the designs simple enough for serialized production while also doing my best to make them "fashionable" like the original material.

The comic's motifs for both characters made me decide on the moon and star as their core design elements early on. I simplified these shapes even further to their most basic form: angels will be represented by/associated with circles, and devils with triangles.

I designed Raf with a crescent moon in mind: she's very curvy but there's still some pointiness to her shapes. Sulfus was modelled after a 5-point star instead: all points, sharp angles and straight lines.

Since both the comics and series had Raf characterized as a go-getter (she's the leader and main character), I dressed her in some casual but sporty clothes to reflect this; I envisioned her as the "speedster" of the group, someone who's quick to jump into action once a goal or "finish line" is set. This Raf likes running and jogging as much as flying, so she sports (ha!) a nice tan as well.

Sulfus is the quintessential bad boy: he listens to heavy music, rides a motorbike, his snake mascot's resting mode looks like a tattoo, he surfs lava just for fun... I took his hobbies into account more than his previous emo/scene or classic rockstar looks from the series/comic, and came up with a healthy mix of functional speed biker fashion with melodic/power metal band influences.

Raf's main colors are blue, gold and white, a high contrast to the red, grey and black colors of Sulfus. Since Raf has a bright red spot in her design, it was only fair to give Sulfus gold eyes and blueish black and grey tones in turn.

Since Raf is more romantic and very sincere, her red ladybug (symbol of luck, new beginnings and love) is very bright and eye-catching, contrasted by Sulfus' soft, cool hues. His ring-necked snake (which is much more subtle than his original green rattlesnake/coral snake) represents Sulfus' more secretive side.

I'd go into more depth about their updated personalities and backstories, but this post is long as it is :V If any of you is interested in seeing more of this pair in action, here's my AFapril comic challenge thing. If you want to read them in action though? Here's my rewrite fic! If anything happens to AO3 I'll make sure to update this or any future posts linking to it, don't worry. I'll be using the tag IFWY (I'll Fly With You) for anything related to it.

#my art tag #angel's friends #angels friends #IFWY #character redesign #raf #sulfus #raf/sulfus

[nerdyvocals]

9 People to Know Better (except I'm not tagging 9 people)

I don't normally do tag games, but I got tagged in this twice (by @jealous-kippen and @remmixx, my beloveds <3) so here I am! (also as I'm writing this out I am realizing that while both posts were titled the same way, it looks like they had different question prompts??? So I'm just gonna combine the two)

Favorite Color: Purple! Any shade will have my heart but I am partial to more red-toned purples. (PV, if that means anything to anyone who sees this other than me, you know who you are)

Currently Reading: Three things! In terms of actual books, I've been slowly making my way through the Riordanverse since my university did The Lightning Thief in my second year (first school in my state to do it once the rights were released!) since I somehow never got into Percy Jackson as a kid, and I'm currently on Son of Neptune. I'm also one like my third or fourth re-read of Eurydice by Sara Ruhl, since that's the play I'm designing the costumes for for my senior project. And in terms of fanfic, I woke up to a notification about this yesterday and Actually Screeched.

Last Song: Dial Drunk by Noah Kahan (ft. Post Malone), which was a bit of an accident. I use siri to request music while I'm driving and I asked for Dial Drunk and was singing along until I got jumpscared by the slight difference before Post Malone's verse. Although if you look at my spotify, the ROTPL album has been on repeat for weeks.

Currently Watching (Series): I've been hyperfixated on ROTPL and have watched it over a dozen times at this point, which is probably not healthy, so I put on NCIS last night for background noise while I ate dinner and accidentally watched like six episodes.

Currently Watching (Movie): Saw the Barbie movie the night before the actual opening with my coworkers (We don't cross picket lines people! I was not asked nor invited by any company, and I paid full price for my ticket. There's a one-screen theatre in the town where I'm doing summer stock, this relic from the 50's, and they were able to get access to the film a day early and did a special first come first serve premiere.) and we all sobbed the entire way through.

Current Obsession: Rise of the Pink Ladies. Full stop. I'd seen clips of it when it first aired in April but I was iffy on it in spite of how good it looked. Like most, I'm a little tired of reboots and remakes, and while I did clock Cynthia as being queer within two seconds, (I believe my exact words were "That's either a very butch lesbian or the eggiest egg to ever egg.") I was Convinced it was a queerbait situation. Plus I was nearing finals and didn't have time to get into a new show. But then Crushing Me was trending on tiktok and I realized this was not queerbait, so I put it on to have something playing while I packed for summer stock and it's been the only thing I can think about since mid May. It got me writing fanfic again for the first time in years, if that tells you anything. Speaking of,

Currently Working On: A follow-up to my previous fic, Steady, Steady! I wanted to have it up this week, but it is a behemoth. I'm a little over halfway through my plot outline and I'm at 10,441 words. Fun fact, this will be my longest single-chapter fic so far. Not just in the fandom, not just on AO3, but ever (so far!)

No-Pressure Tagging: @merely-a-player, @penguin-writes-books, @el-fandom-birb, @marley-barnes112, @isweartheyregayyourhonor, and @look-at-those-niceass-rocks (since I've already dragged you back to tumblr kicking and screaming)

#tag game #this was fun #and also longer than I expected

[happilyfeatherafter]

Happilyfeatherafter’s ficrec Fridays

It's February!! Welcome back to another week of ficrecs. A mix of post-confession therapy, poetry, and glorious AU this week. (I thought I'd not read much because this week has been, quite frankly, a bastard, but apparently this was a lie!)

If you missed last week’s you can find my previous rec lists here for more!

2 February 2024

maybe i like pleasure pain by tothewillofthepeople (@kvothes). After the perfect darkness of the Empty, Cas finds the world a little…overwhelming. Dean tries to help. Post 15x18, Cas is both touch starved and touch sensitive, and the sensory overload of the world can be a bit too much. He craves Dean's touch, but resists asking for it. A really beautifully written, metaphor laden examination of chronic pain, disability, trauma and the physicality of the body and nebulous presence of mind. All wrapped up in an abundance of love and devotion. Absolutely gorgeous.

Prayer to a False God by K_A_Mindin (@katerinaalianovamindin, art by @gaytedlasso for @spnbangbang) It’s been two years stuck in the Empty, where the Shadow showed him his worst mistakes over and over again. Then he's brought back, to Jack and to Dean, and silence continues to rein, the unspoken acknowledgement of the confession lingering in the air...until Cas decides he needs to stop letting silence rule. Alongside the emotional pull of this thread, the D/S dynamics which grant Dean the permission to speak his truths, through prayer, and through physical release, are a joy to behold.

i like your shoelaces (thanks! i stole them from the president) by @you-cant-spell-subtext-without is a brilliantly funny take on Misha's "Dean is a custodian in a fast food restaurant. Castiel is the President of the United States" fic prompt from a convention, told through the narrative hook of a Cinderella story. Delightfully tongue in cheek, and laugh out loud, this is currently a wip but a must read to bring joy to your inbox each update.

FROTUS by kathscradle takes the very same prompt but approaches it in a very well executed slowburn that says ok but seriously what if? My favourite thing about this fic is the importance of family, Cas being the widowed single parent of Jack and Claire, and Dean stepping up in his new role as step-Dad. Add in the slowburn relationship unfolding through long distance hyper-monitored correspondence, and all the national security matters at hand, this longfic gave my The West Wing/Scandal/Destiel brain a great big hug.

birthday candles by rhinestoneangels (almondrose/@pinknatural) is a super cute, ever so charming Dean's birthday ficlet in which Castiel's sister Anna drags him to a birthday party for a friend of hers who he has never met. He googles what to bring to a birthday party and settles on baking cookies...one fire later and fortunately, the firefighter who shows up to save Castiel from himself is very dreamy, and what a coincidence! It's his birthday, too….

I've also fallen down a rabbit warren of destiel and spn poetry, and I really really love this one by @whatladybird and this one by @eyelinerdean, @donestiel's incredible poetry gif edit series and I'm very excited to keep reading more on the @spnpoetryrenaissance blog. Has anyone seen a 2024 prompt list? Asking for reasons.

PS if you'd like to be added to a tag list for my ficrecs going forward please let me know!

#happilyfeatherafter ficrec friday #destiel ficrecs

[nodirectionhome-ao3]

WIP Tag

Thanks for the tag @kay-elle-cee, @alittlebitofeverything23, and @isahorcrux !!! This is such a fun one. :)

List the titles your top five priorities for WIP updates (link your fics for new readers!)

An upcoming scene, event, or detail in each fic that you're looking forward to writing

Bonus: make a poll for your followers to vote on which top 5 WIP they are most excited to see an update on!

Then tag 10 writer friends

Titles

Kindly Stopped for Me: Chapter 33. Lily lives AU, where Lily falls into a coma on Halloween 1981 and wakes up at the end of GoF. Lots of angst and family feels.

The Joker and The Queen: Chapter 3. A Jily fake-dating fic. Shenanigans abound. An "Idiots in Love" kind of story.

James Lives AU (Title TBA): Outline & Chapter 1. Basically a James version of Kindly Stopped for Me. James survives Halloween 1981 in a way that I will not spoil for you, and wakes up later on when Harry is a teenager.

Forever is the Sweetest Con: Short multi-chapter. Jily as con artists who fall in love while trying to con each other.

Fragile Little Flame: A post-war Hinny fic! Most likely a one-shot, but we'll see what happens.

(I’m not including the KSFM Missing Moments that I’m working on in this, since I don’t post them on AO3, but just know that I haven’t forgotten them!!!)

Upcoming Scenes, Events, Details

I've been making some minor changes to my outline for KSFM, so the exact numbers may change, but looking at it from a birds-eye view—Chapters 35 and 39 are two of the angstiest chapters in the entire fic😅 So...in preparation for that...I'm giving you all a slight break from the heaviness of this fic with chapters 33 and 34. I'm hoping it won't feel like a crazy tone switch after the previous two chapters, but I'm excited! Chapter 33 is a bit of a transition chapter (setting up some important things!) so maybe won't be the most exciting thing to read. But it will include Lily watching Harry in a Gryffindor Quidditch match for the first time and the gang celebrating Sirius’s 36th birthday!🎂🎂🎂 So hopefully you all will enjoy that!! And then Chapter 34 will be a Harry POV and will feature some good old-fashioned teenage romance drama😅

Chapter 3 of The Joker and The Queen has taken soooo long to write because it's something I sort of have to be in the right mindset for. (I still don't have a full outline for it because I posted the first chapter impulsively before I really thought about the plot very much lol) But I'm hoping it will be worth the wait!! The chapter will feature Lily meeting Fleamont and Euphemia (and possibly some Potter extended family members too) for the first time. I've never written James's parents before, so I'm excited!

Oh man, oh man. What can I say about the James lives au?? I'm currently drafting multiple vague outline ideas as I work through the timeline that I want it to take place in. But, despite what I've said previously, I'm finding myself starting to lean towards setting it in the OotP universe after all. (but no promises yet!) I'm staying kind of vague about the plot of this since it's still very much under consideration, but I'll just say that Peter's betrayal and its ramifications will be a major focus. The betrayal will happen slightly differently than it does in canon (as some of you have already guessed!), and I expect it to be devastating😈

Forever is the Sweetest Con is a fic that has been percolating in my brain for a WHILE now. I haven't officially outlined it yet, but I already made the banner so it's officially happening! It will be canon divergent, and I'm excited to explore the cat-and-mouse dynamic that I envision when I think about this one.

Fragile Little Flame is a fic inspired by Taylor Swift's "I Know Places" and is also one that I already have a banner and title for, but no outline. It'll be a post-war Hinny fic (I've been wanting to return to writing them!) and will take place in the 19 years between the end of DH and the epilogue. I haven't really thought about the plot in detail yet, but it probably won't be epilogue-compliant. Harry will (probably) be a Quidditch player rather than an Auror, and the fic will explore Harry and Ginny recovering from the war and rebuilding their relationship amongst the chaos of both grief and fame.

Apologies if you've already been tagged! But here's a no-pressure tag to: @suzyq31 @nena-96 @uncertainwallflower @turanga4 @takearisk-ao3 @annasghosts @practicecourts

#wip game #cam writes #wip tag #was tagged

[sunlit-haruka]

The "Teacher is Teruko's Brother" Theory

(Before we properly start, I think I should say that I am using @xmicrophonyx's names when talking about the Alt-DRDT characters. I probably didn't have to say that because Teacher's name makes it the most obvious who he is, but just thought I'd get it out of the way) (Also, everyone seems to be using the tag #AltDRDT for talk about this new cast, so that is what I will be using as a placeholder name for the fangan until we get the actual name. I hope this won't be too confusing !! - From the day the Alt-DRDT cast was released, people have been theorizing that certain members of the cast might be siblings to the main DRDT cast. The most prominent one I see is that Scale might be Charles' dead older brother Elliot, which I do think has a bit more weight to it (see my previous post on Alt-DRDT for that) but I am on the fence of believing. A few of my discord friends theorized that Min and XF could be siblings due to their similar eye color, which I don't believe at all due to what we know of Min's homelife and what led to her encountering XF-Ture-Tech in the first place (though those two undoubtably have beef and I am so excited to see it) However, there is one sibling theory that I think has a massive chance to actually be canon in the DRDTverse, one that I've seen around a couple of times... ...Why the fuck am I trying to build suspense, you read the title. I think that Teacher is the brother that Teruko mentions in CH1-4.

I think this has a lot more evidence surrounding it then the other sibling theories I've seen. So take a seat and let me explain why ! I mean duh that's what this post is about - In this post, I want to talk about their designs and how they contrast each other

graphic design is my passion /joke /ref So there are already three, count-em three! Things that I think are very important For one, Teruko and Teacher basically have the exact same skin color.

Teruko

Teacher Other than the very very tiny difference in hue that you could basically only see if you squint, I think it's safe to say they have the exact same skin color. > "But Haru, you incredibly pretty sun demon ! Skin color isn't enough to consider someone related !" Firstly, thank you for calling me pretty :D. And second of all, I am aware. But in conjunction with my next point I think you will see why I decided to mention this first. Which leads me to my next point, and one that I've seen talked about quite a lot already: In all of the art currently out of Teacher, his eyes are closed. There's obviously his full-body which I just showed, but even in unrelated art, his eyes are shut

Eyes completely sealed. Now, I don't think it's a stretch to say that DRDT-Dev really likes eyes, specifically hiding things related to a character in their eyes. And eyes in general have shown to be a very useful plot point on multiple occasions So the fact that Teacher's eyes are always closed definitely brings some attention, and part of me highly doubts it is just a design choice. There is a reason why Teacher's eyes have not been shown to us. Perhaps...sharing an eye color with someone? And with the first point acquired of Teacher and Teruko sharing skin colors, I don't think it's a stretch to say Teacher might be sharing Teruko's eye color as well. Now I will admit, that is mostly speculation. However there is undoubtably a reason as for why Teacher's eyes aren't shown, and with the added fact of the two sharing skin colors. It's definitely a likely possibility. - Now for my third point in relation to designs, which is the color schemes of both Teruko and Teacher

For starters, their color schemes are actually not that different from each other when you really look at them, both comprising mostly of neutrals (white, black, brown, and grey) with one particularly popping color. And it's that color in particular that I want to talk about Teruko's color is green, meanwhile Teacher's color is red. And I bring this up for two reasons Firstly, green and red are the most well-known complimentary colors, and considering Fire and Ice (two characters that are speculated and basically confirmed siblings) also have main colors across the color wheel from each other, I find that decision to be very interesting But I didn't just mention this to nerd out about color theory...okay I kinda did but that's not the only reason I mentioned color schemes. Because there is one more point I want to make, and it's one I'm honestly surprised no one has mentioned yet Teacher's color is red. Do you guys remember the QNA? Specifically, do you remember the favorite colors question and what Teruko's answer was?

Red. Reasoning: association. I think that in of itself is very revealing, but the extra information that red is Teruko's favorite color because of association is really the icing on the cake. > But Haru ! We haven't seen a design of Teacher from back then ! You can't be sure that that would be the reason for Teruko's favorite color ! True, but at the same time if we take this in consideration with the other two pieces of evidence, I highly doubt that this could be a coincidence. If Teacher really is Teruko's brother, then him being the association she has with the color red makes a lot of sense, especially considering red is literally the only non-neutral color in Teacher's design, and as such it sticks out like a sore thumb in combination with the rest of his design (in a good way). So yes, I do think this is intentional, and it works very well considering the other two pieces of evidence. And with all three combined, I think there's no denying that Teacher being Teruko's brother is a very, VERY likely possibility.

#haru chats about drdt #danganronpa despair time #drdt #altdrdt #teruko tawaki #drdt teruko #altdrdt teacher #I was gonna add more but it is 3 AM on a school night #So be on the look out for a part 2 ;)

[kozachenko]

Finished reading Forbidden Scrollery! As I mentioned in my little post about it before, I would make a full review on it once I finished it, so here we are now!

(Also, sorry I haven't been posting as much art recently, life's gotten busy for me and I haven't really had the time to work on anything big, but I hope to get back into drawing soon)

And honestly? Best Touhou manga I have read so far. Full review under the keep reading tag. Also, spoilers if you want to read it.

The writing first of all, was really good, the pacing is perfect (only helped by the actual paneling and layouts being top notch), the character writing was my favourite part of the manga, and the actual story was actually pretty smart.

So, something I love about this manga is that it all revolves around a core idea, that being, the relationship between Humans and Youkai. While each chapter is episodic in nature, it still feels like those little episodes actually have a purpose, it isn't just filler. There's not one major problem they have to resolve like in CDS, but at the same time the events aren't disjointed from one another like in Lotus Eaters. The way that we see Kosuzu slowly get more and more involved with the Youkai of the human village. I also really like how we learn more about the human village and how it operates, as well as learning more about how the Youkai play a part in it. In each chapter we see a different way that this core theme is expressed, like in chapters 20 and 21 where we see how outsiders like the residents of Eientei contribute to the human village, and in chapters 30 and 31 where we see how humans help Youkai out via their fear of the unknown. And of course, you have the infamous chapter 25, where the most memorable moment from there also happens to be the most flanderized (I'll get to that in my paragraph about Reimu, because her character writing in this manga is the best that I've seen in the Touhou mangas so far). The best chapters that demonstrate this theme are probably all in volumes 6 and 7, where things start to get more intense.

Now onto the writing, and boy while this may be whiplash from reading CDS, the writing in this manga was amazing. Each character has their own unique voice, which ends up making the events in chapter 38 even funnier. Since Mamizou has a very distinct way of speaking, it makes it even funnier watching her be disguised as Reimu and accidentally slipping into her own way of talking.

Of course, this scene is visually aided by Moe Harukawa giving "Reimu" the little cat mouth she gives Mamizou, and also the very obvious signifier of the leaf, but establishing Mamizou's way of speaking early on in the manga helps emphasize the comedy of this scene (that being, a sassy old woman trying to impersonate someone in their early 20s with a very different personality to them).

What's even funnier about this scene is that as soon as Mamizou gets what she wants, she just gives up on trying to speak like Reimu and dips (which is the punchline to the setup of Mamizou almost calling Kosuszu "Little Missy" and then correcting herself)

Also, credit to the English translators for finding words and phrases like, "The real Mccoy" and "Reckon," with how different the Japanese and English languages are (and how tricky it can be to translate between the two) they ended up hitting the nail on the head with the localization and translation.

The actual narrative itself is really well paced, with all the events actually feeling like they happen consecutively to one another, only helped by the little bits in the dialogue where the characters mention previous events in the story. For a manga in a series where upholding status quo is the norm, a lot of changes happen in this manga, like Akyuu starting to write novels under a penname, Kosuzu starting to attract the attention of more and more important people in Gensokyo, and Kosuzu eventually being added into Reimu's friend group. The manga also does an excellent job of tying the events of the games at the time into the story, like we're seeing the behind the scenes or aftermath of a particular incident, especially so with the Urban Legend Incident, where we see Reimu and Marisa get more and more concerned about rumors like "The Story of the Bull Head" and the end of the world speading too far before they can do actual damage. I also like the tone that this manga has, it's inviting at first with how cute and lighthearted it is, but it slowly gets more and more serious we begin to see the truth of the human village, and by proxy, Gensokyo as a whole. Also, the set up and payoff with the parade scroll was really well excecuted, with it acting as like a ticking time bomb in the background as the series goes on. I also really like how each chapter feels different from each other in terms of plot beats, it's not really formulaic like Lotus Eaters was, which helps make the manga a lot more exciting to read, despite it not having a grandiose overarching plot.

Now onto the character writing. As you can probably see, I am turning into a bit of a Mamizou fan. She's one of the most well written characters in the manga and perfectly strikes the balance of being hilarious, yet intimidating at the same time. She's a pretty smart character despite her goofiness, and she's always such a joy to watch (or.. well... read, but that doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely (well actually fingers since I'm typing this, but again, doesn't roll off the fingers as nicely (yipeeee I used a phrase correctly). Also, I really like seeing her relationship with Nue as that of a grandma and her grandaughter who's a chaotic scene kid, but despite these differences they get along perfectly. Aya is also one of my favourite characters to read about in the manga, and I was so excited to see her again. She's always such a delight to see, and also captures that sense of goofiness + coolness. In a way, it's kinda the embodiment of Youkai in Touhou itself. Fun and charming yet supernatural and menacing at the same time. In your usual manga/anime series, it's more likely that characters will lean one way or the other (and anytime they step out of their ascribed personality, it's for a gag and is considered an oddity, wheras with Touhou it's commonplace), so it's a really unique writing thing in Touhou that I don't really see other things, which is really cool. Marisa is also written really well in this, she's really funny and plays off of Reimu really well. Kosuzu herself is also fun to read about, as her childlike view of Gensokyo slowly begins to crack as more and more influential youkai begin to interact with her. I also like how the manga doesn't tell you in the beginning that she's a young, naive kid, instead, it shows you little details like her having a curfew, her parents calling her for dinner, her general outlook on life in general. All of that is contrasted with Akyuu, who, while bit pretentious, was also very fun to read. She plays off of Akyuu's naivete well with her wisdom from her past lives and her knowledge on Gensokyo. She acts like how you would expect a teenager with memories of their past lives to act, with maybe a slight dash of maturity in there.

And now for Reimu, who I think is at her best in this manga. There were times when I legit went, "HOLY SHIT REIMU'S SO FUCKING COOL OH MY GOD-" instead of just going, "Ha ha, Reimu's such a dork." Like, she actually knows her shit in this manga, and it explores the "shrine maiden" side of her character in far more detail than we have ever really seen it before (except in arguably Silent Sinner in Blue, which I still need to re-read, yes I will also be making a full review for that as well once I do get around to it). I use this panel from chapter 27 as my example because she genuinely looks so cool here.

Reimu very frequently uses her skills as a shrine maiden to get to find the answers she needs, and she's not afraid to get her job done. As seen in the now iconic panel of Chapter 25...

This is probably what the manga is most well known for, and when I mentioned how this moment is flanderized, I'm more so talking about how people tend to look at this moment in isolation, and to be honest, Reimu isn't helping herself by saying this a moment before she does this guy in.

Which is then sort of contradicted when Reimu says this after she does the guy in.

So if she has a legit reason for why she did this, why the heck did she call it needless then? I feel like the best way of answering this would be that yes, she didn't need to do it, but from her perspective she had to. It's her job to do so, as she says so herself. Another thing to mention that contradicts the initial reading of that earlier line is just how seriously she takes this whole ordeal. During the pages leading up to this moment, we see Reimu as being uncharacteristically serious about this,

And when she finally arrives at Suzunaan, we get this really good reaction shot of her eyes, and it really says a lot about her mental state at the moment,

and she also gets very serious during her initial confrontation with this fortune teller guy.

Another thing that contradicts the "needless killing" part is how she handeled that one rich guy becoming a Youkai in chapter 37

Reimu is just ruthless when she needs to get her job done in general. Sure, she didn't need to kill the rich guy, she could have just let him go and not do anything about it, but she it's not about what she needs, it's what Gensokyo needs.

In the same chapter where she kills the fortune teller, we get this bit of narration.

Honestly, I feel like this is a kind of "Reimu knows more about Gensokyo than she lets on" kind of situation, because we never really learn exactly how having a human become a Youkai would screw up Gensokyo, but I have heard theories where if a human-who-became-a-youkai were to still try to be human, then it would be cause for concern because then it's like putting a radioactive rock in the middle of a small elevator with a lot of people (ok I know that doesn't make any sense whatsoever but I can't think of another way to put it). .

Putting that can of worms aside, I really like this manga's version of Reimu. Sure she has her dorky moments, but that's not the entirety of who she is, and I really like that. I really like it when characters have vastly contradicting sides to their personality, it makes them more interesting and also more fun to think about. There is so much more that I can say about Reimu in this manga, but I'll just end off this segment by saying that Reimu is now one of my favourite Touhou characters now and she is in my top 5 list of favourite Touhou characters.

Ok now it's time to finally talk about the artstyle and OH MY GOD THE ART FOR THIS MANGA IS GORGEOUS I WANNA EAT IT SHKGAGSLHSKGSAKJDGHKSLDJGHLAHDGLJH;SLGHKDJAH;GKGHDJK;HFGKADHG;J-

Seriously though, I really want to do a style study for this manga because I love it so much. It's expressive, the cross-hatching gives it this really nice and tactile feeling, and the designs the artist came up with for each character are really good. My only critique would be to maybe give Mamizou more wrinkles, or something more to communicate her age, (and I still like the way Mamizou is drawn in this manga). In my previous post on FS I brought up how good the layouts are, and that still holds up to when I finished this manga. Good manga paneling takes advantage of the fact that it's a manga, and uses that medium to it's fullest. I won't go into any more detail here as I have already talked about how good it's paneling is in a previous post, so go read that if you're interested. I feel like we all know what makes Moe Harukawa's art so good, so I'll just leave this segment at that.

Now, I would normally end this segment here, but really, there's one surprise I haven't talked about

One character who steals the show in this manga

A character so good, I had to write an entirely new segment on him

That's right, it's a dude, and it isn't Rinnosuke.

I'M TALKING ABOUT THE MAN,

THE MYTH,

AND MOST OF ALL, THE LEGEND.

ANXIOUS

MUSTACHED

VILLAGER!

THIS MAN, RIGHT HERE, THE GOAT OF ALL MANGA AND ANIME! BEST CHARACTER IN ALL OF EXISTENCE! ABSOLUTELY INSPIRING STORY THAT DROVE ME TO TEARS! BEST CHARACTER ARC IN THE ENTIRE MANGA! GET THIS MAN TO NUMBER ONE IN THE 2024 TOUHOU POPULARITY POLL LIKE HE DESERVES!

Ok in all seriousness, this manga is amazing, (I mean, it has anxious mustached villager in it) I see why people regard it so highly in relation to the other Touhou mangas. It was a blast to read, and it's my favourite Touhou manga now, and is also one of my new favourite mangas in general.

Ok I'm gonna end the post here now, bye byeeeeeee.

#touhou project #anxious mustached villager #reimu hakurei #I tag her mainly because I talk about her so much in this review #forbidden scrollery #forbidden scrollery spoilers #touhou spoilers

[bettsfic]

Hi Betts,

Thanks for continuously posting helpful advice.

I just wanted to know— how does someone go about getting to the point in their writing where they are not so precious with words in hopes of taking off the pressure when drafting?(in reference to a previous post)

i remember a few years ago, there was this very well known and popular fanartist whose name i won't give because they're no longer on tumblr or even going by their handle anymore. they received an ask much like this one in which they said something to the effect of, they could spend hundreds of hours on a piece of art and be willing to throw it away, because (and this is from memory because i can't find the original post) there will always be more art.

i remember being aghast about that. how could you spend so much time working on something and just...not do anything with it? scrap it and start over? maybe even delete the file?

and more importantly, i remember wondering how an artist could even reach that point.

maybe everyone gets there in a different way, but for me it was the emergence of a bigger picture, that i don't write to be read or seen or understood, but so i can explore things that can't otherwise be explored, and live experiences that can't be lived. for me, the value is in the process, not the product. and, to the artist's point, there will always be more words.

more concretely, it was also spending an entire year working on a novel, only to realize that what i wanted it to be was not what fit in the market, and that to make it marketable i would've had to have made revisions that would've changed the thing i wanted it to be. so i realized publication isn't endgame; it's happenstance. a few things i write may be marketable, but probably only a fraction of them, and only if what i write overlaps with what is being sold. a venn diagram of "stories that will be published" and "stories that i enjoy writing" are often two circles about a mile apart. whether or not a story is marketable doesn't affect my personal opinion of it.

the same is true for fanfic. if i finish a fic, i post it for the sake of archiving it. i don't pay much attention to traffic (but i do read comments), and it's been a long time since i've written consistently in a popular fandom. in fact the last fic i posted only had one other fic in the ship tag. the point of writing fic, for me, is to get it out of my brain and onto a page, and if someone eventually comes upon it and enjoys it, great.

i'm definitely not at the point where i can just straight-up delete work, but i can write something for a very long time and be satisfied even if no one ever looks at it. it does bum me out when i care about something so much and nobody else does or will, but that's the nature of writing, and art in general. nobody cares as much as you do, and even if you write something that's wildly successful, read and loved by millions, award-winning, adapted to screen--still, all those people will have their individual, private relationship with the thing you wrote, will perceive it in their own unique way, and even if it changes their life, the story can never give them what it gave you.

i don't mean for that to be depressing or deterring. what i hope you take from it is that your feelings toward your work are more important than anyone else's feelings toward it, and not everything has to be seen and admired in order to be worthy enough to exist. sometimes you have to take the risk of being unseen to create your best work.

#writing advice #process

[ghosty-schnibibit]

alright, so, now that i am not an incandescent ball of fury:

i was extremely disappointed with go2 and downright angry about the way it concluded. i've already read some excellent posts by other lovely people that articulate some of my grievances really well (which sadly i can't link here or the site will eat this post entirely) but i want to add my own to the pile. if you enjoyed the season then more power to you, but i very much did not.

after this post i won't be complaining about s2 again or really posting anything about it at all, positive or negative, and will probably just block the tag entirely. like i said in my much shorter vent post last night, i just want to get all of my negativity out in one go and then pretend it doesn't exist. with that out of the way:

the pacing was terrible. the plot went in circles around itself and the mystery was handled so poorly that it somehow managed to be too convoluted and too simple at the same time. we spent five entire episodes wondering what was going on only to have it resolved by an exposition dump of about five minutes. the mini-sodes ground multiple episodes to a halt and squandered the majority of the season's runtime on pointless fanservice that cheapened some of the previous season's most emotional moments, runtime that could have been better spent setting up the gabriel mystery or developing literally any of the new characters introduced. speaking of which,

the new characters were pointless. nina and maggie were given no characterization beyond being pale expies of az and crowley, and the fact that a substantial part of the b-plot revolved around them makes this even more apparent. i do not remember the name of the angel pretending to be a constable and i don't care enough about them to look it up, they had literally no plot significance whatsoever. same goes for the processing demon from the third episode. the flip with jax from being a somewhat neutral character to a big bad in a party city wig felt like a failed attempt to recapture some of what made hastur and ligur work in the previous series.

gabriel and beelzabub. their relationship was unbelievable and clashed so heavily with their previous characterizations. i called it from the first episode and dreaded its conclusion right up to the finale. they feel like an ill-thought parody of ineffable husbands pulled out of an enemies-to-lovers crackfic. every romantic moment in the last episode was insipid and cloying, and them getting a consequence free happy ending retroactively cheapened the stakes of the previous season. it honestly felt like the writers just wanted to mash their dolls together.

aziraphale's character was assassinated and crowley was basically just there to play the hits. both of them were flanderized to the moon and back, but poor aziraphale got the worst of it. all of his character development from the previous season was thrown out the window in order to give us the big angsty conclusion set-up for a third season. they were both utterly flattened and i feel so bad for michael and david, they were clearly doing the best with what they were given but what they were given was just plain bad.

most of the humor and warmth from the book and the previous season were just… gone. no narrator, only one or two comedic asides from the title cards, a total of maybe three minutes of queen music across the whole thing (and most of that a piano cover), and a whole lot of little stylistic touches that went by the wayside and left the world feeling a bit hollow. also the comedy in this season was much more reliant on a "hey, aren't the characters acting so silly right now? aren't they failing at looking/acting normal? isn't that funny?" style of humor than on the wit and subtle satire of the first.

it was nothing but set up for a third season. learning this after finishing the season did not make me feel better about any of it, but it does explain a bit why it felt like all set up and no pay off. i have zero confidence about the ship being righted in a potential s3 that we likely will not see for many years (if at all, i'm already hearing murmurs about the show getting axed).

so that's basically it. i'll reiterate that if you enjoyed this season then i have no beef with you; your opinions are your own and, while i have no desire to have a dialogue about them, i respect them. but the original good omens book was very personally meaningful to me, as was its adaptation in s1, and this poorly thought out continuation has disappointed and saddened me to the point that i feel like i don't want to engage with the fandom in its wake.

#go2 spoilers #good omens 2 critical #good omens 2 negative #i know the ship dealio is where i disagree with people the most #bc i'm seeing a lot of people who have a lot of the same critiques of the pacing and tone but like beez and gabriel together #to which i will simply say i'm sorry your otp is my notp and move along my merry way like the fandom veteran i am #and with that i shall disappear into the void again

[kirbybecomesastarwarrior]

What Kind of King is in my Blood?

Context: this piece was inspired by the song "In My Blood." sung by Joel Smallbone from Journey to Bethlehem (the movie). And contains the lyrics of the song.

Warning: content contains blood (mild) & implied physical abuse... the more graphic scenes to be underneath the keep reading section of the post... if you are uncomfortable with such things.

I've mentioned this before in a previous post & please check out the original video (have a listen: it's incredible). Or better yet, put it on while reading the comic. :D

I do suggest you read: Celestine is Merlin before this;

Young Arthur... was not a good person in the sightless and was very close to becoming a mini-Sir Uther. And I also would like to stress how evil Sir Uther is...(Uther is not Arthur's father, but the song just fits them so...)

Behind the arrogance and pride, his actions were a tie of wanting and seeking Uther's approval...

Other than that, please enjoy the content.

Background info: this takes place around the time Arthur starts to take a liking to Merlyn and even trust them (and before he found out Merlyn was Lady Celestine). Soon their game of cat & mouse blossomed into a friendship...

Celestine never put pressure on Arthur to change: in fact, she tried to save Nonsurat & Morgan, too... she'd put them in scenarios where she'd see them grow empathy. (Putting someone in another's shoes.)

She'd show them the damage the war was doing to the public... and the innocent.

Allowing them all the chance to do good but in the end...The only one who was receptive to it was Arthur. Which surprised her... she believed Arthur would be the last person who would be captivated by the lesson. (Since he was Uther's most loyal soldier... his right-hand man...)

When it was clear that the lessons were only effective for Arthur (and the only one who was willing to change), she started to tailor them for Arthur. Genuinely started by doing vigilante work with Merlyn and learning more about this "outside world he never knew about."

(Unbeknownst to these goobers these were pretty much the equivalent of dates.)

However, Arthur couldn't help but feel guilty that he was betraying his master (Uther). That all changed, however, after a certain mission...

Arthur & Company were tasked to clear a demon infestation of a cave. Which held serval rare artifacts that were stolen. Some of Nightmare's monsters had made it into a stronghold (a secret base), and Arthur was in charge of clearing it. Morgan tried to trap Arthur in the deeper, darkest part of the cave where the majority of the monsters were dwelling.

Thankfully, Celestine secretly tagged along with him!

It took them a week... to escape the cave ... everyone had started to assume that Arthur had died during the mission. He was about to report his return as soon as he arrived at the camp base until... he overheard a very upsetting conversation.

Sir Kay (Kit Cosmo): Sir Uther! Sir Arthur is still missing, we can't leave just yet...

Sir Uther: He's been missing for a week... we only have three days left on this planet, and we need to finish recovering the reset of the artifacts... our time & manpower is limited.

Kit Cosmo: It that's the case... I'd be more than willing to take a small team to recover him... heck, I'll even go there by myself if I have to...

Sir Uther: DID YOU NOT HEAR WHAT I SAID! I am not wasting manpower... are you questioning my judgment?

Kit Cosmo: NO SIR!* Nevourly but still firm* I just thought you'd press the issue more... he's our captain and, more importantly, your right-hand man-

Sir Uther: WHY do you think you have two other apprentices... he's replaceable...If he died out there then he's a failure that deserves to be left... DON'T NOT BOTHER LOOKING FOR HIM!

You're lucky I have more pressing issues to attend to or that right arm or yours would've been charred... This conversation is over! *leans into Kit menacingly* YOU'RE DISMISSED! *Kit lets out a big gulp and backs away out of the tent*

Little did they know Arthur & Celestine (Merlyn) were listening in on the conversation. With Celestine fuming... and with Arthur shaking...

Celestine (currently disguised as Merlyn): WHY THAT FAT HEADED TYRANT! Don't listen to him, you're- Arthur? *sees Arthurs gone* Arthur...

Arthur runs off to contemplate... his mind reeling from what he had just heard. He always knew that Uther saw him as nothing more than a tool. The title of the right hand was just merely a cover-up... a lie made by Sir Uther (that he was something to him). He always knew this, but he couldn't understand why this still hurt him so much.

Arthur, at his core... still just wanted to be praised and desperately wanted at least a shred of affection from Uther. Hearing this broke him instantly... and forced him to look inside himself. He may have always known it... but a part of him always wanted to believe in the lie... So he put this facade of pride and arrogance to ignore it.

Only realizing how much Uther took advantage of his desire for affection from him... allowing him (Uther) to mold him into what he wanted. The brilliant golden amor (that Uther gave him), was all part of the illusion... he was no hero... he was just a monster... just like his master... just like Uther...

This leads us to this scene...

-The key things I wanted to mention were those marks on Arthur's shoulders are burn marks...

-Those bubbles at the end represent Celestine's influence

-I featured a Kirby-sized baby Arthur with a little training armor... it's pretty much his inner child... Sweet little bean didn't deserve this

-I also updated Uther's shoes :3

At this point, Celestine already cares for Arthur so much, and he's already redeemed himself (in her eyes). But Arthur can't help but hate himself for his past actions now seeing the full picture...

He destroyed himself for a man... who would never care for him... Arthur couldn't help but feel ashamed. He felt so disgusted with himself... forgetting all the progress he'd made... Believing himself to be a worthless puppet...

And it broke her heart to see Arthur like this... that's why she reminds him of what she sees him as. And this is where Arthur finally breaks down his final wall and truly opens himself up. Celestine always saw Arthur as a more than worthy king and always saw the best in him... and that's why Arthur always saw her (in the future) as his queen...

"Did I put too much characterization to a background character we only saw for less than 5 minutes in the anime?" YES, I DID!

"Was it worth it?" YES IT WAS!

(In the KBASW) Sir Arthur is the one who approves and legitimizes the "Star Allies" because if someone like him could be changed for the better... why can't this rag-tag group. Sir Arthur (in a sense) is the first "redeemed villain"...

It just took one person to see the good in him... I really can't wait to explore their relationship (Celarthur) more... I have something special planned for them in February. And I do want to explore Kit Cosmo & Arthur's friendship: it's really fun~

(The Star Allies are going to be the equivalent of the Knights of the Round Table in KBASW, but I'll explore that later...)

Hope you all stick around to see how the story unfolds...

#kirby #kbasw #sir arthur kirby #sir arthur #sir uther #kirby oc #lady celestine #kirby anime #celarthur #kirby gsa #merlyn #journey to bethlehem #kirby right back at ya #krbay

[oneatlatime]

I’m curious as to how your blog works. In my mind it goes like this: you watch an episode, write down notes as you’re watching, go back to the episode to make screenshots, write down the episode summary/commentary, post it on tumblr, watch the next episode and repeat. But I wonder, do you actually only watch an episode once or do you go through multiple watches (full or partial)? And do you actually not watch the next episode until you’re completely done with the previous one? Regardless of your methods, it’s so much work and I really respect your self-control (I probably would have ended up binging the show.)

I watch, for the first time, with split screen between the show and where I type notes. With my hand hovering over the pause button like a coked out Jeopardy contestant, I pounce on places I want to make a comment, take a screenshot, and note down the time stamp and a vaguely point form, typo-riddled summary of what I want to say. Then it's back to watching. This doesn't quite work in particularly enthralling scenes, where I inevitably end up too involved in the show to remember to pause, in which case I rewind to my last timestamp and rewatch. Same applies if I can't catch a piece of dialogue. For example, in the scene in The Blind Bandit where Toph explains her earthbending, I watched that three or four times through before progressing on to the next scene because I was having difficulty understanding Toph's lines. Then after I've finished watching, I go through and translate my word vomit into something legible, clean up the screenshots if needed, throw in a 'keep reading' break and some tags, and then it's good to go. I watch, take notes, edit, and post all in one session, based on only one watch through (albeit with some scenes repeated if necessary).

This is what I've done for all episodes so far, except The Storm. I lost count of how many times during The Storm I forgot that I was supposed to be taking notes. I was far too sucked in. And then the post autosave function malfunctioned and I hit the wrong button and the whole thing disappeared. Luckily I had an archived version of the text on my hard drive, but I did have to go through and retake the screenshots, so I watched that episode twice through while blogging about it. I've also watched it once since, just for entertainment.

I figure the choppiness this approach inevitably introduces into the viewing experience mimics what it actually would have been like to view these episodes the first time they aired, since (to my knowledge) Nickelodeon had and still has commercial breaks.

And yes! I am resisting the urge to watch ahead. I watch one at a time, usually devoting my evening to it. Sometimes between posts I'll rewatch episodes I've already seen and blogged about. I've seen Bato of the Water Tribe an embarrassing number of times, and episode 1 at least 4 times. But I'm not watching ahead, and I'm doing the closest thing to liveblogging that the medium allows.

I used to do freelance transcription (and may go back), so I'm very used to making a direct line between the content on the screen and my keyboard. It's a useful skill!

It is a lot of work, and I'm sure there's a more efficient way to do it, but I enjoy it. I can spend two hours typing up a post and it will feel like 20 minutes.

#ask #atla #avatar: the last airbender #fastest fingers in the west #avatar the last airbender

[dystopicjumpsuit]

Stars Beyond Number - Chapter 25

Leaning Together

Rating: M - Minors DNI

Pairings: Echo x Riyo Chuchi; Gregor x OFC Cerra Kilian

Wordcount: 3.5k

Warnings and tags: some angst; SMUT; fingering; orgasm control; fluff.

Suggested Listening:

Summary: Rex and Cerra have a long-overdue conversation; some things come to an end, while others are only beginning.

A/N: This is the final chapter of Stars Beyond Number; however, this is not the end of their story! I have a sequel planned, but since I've now caught up to canon, I have to wait to start writing it until after The Bad Batch season 3 ends. In the interim, I will be publishing more fics in this shared continuity, including a one-shot prequel featuring Fives x Reader x Cerra, a multi-chapter Crosshair x OFC set between "The Solitary Clone" and "Truth and Consequences," and a multi-chapter post-Umbara Dogma x OFC fic.

This story shares continuity with Martyrs and Kings, "Double, Double Boil and Trouble" (part 2 here) and "Do It Again," but all the fics can be read as stand-alones.

Start here | Previous chapter | Masterlist | Sign up for my tag list | Read on AO3

 We are the hollow men…

Leaning together

—T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

Cerra had no idea how long she slept. It could have been a few hours or a few days, for all she knew. When she awoke, she was famished and parched. No telltale snores or rustles came from the other bunks, and as she sat up, she could just make out the empty beds in the darkness: she was alone in the barracks. She yawned and stretched, then went looking for her companions. Outside the barracks, the garage was dim and silent. She made her way quietly to the refresher, then wandered into the kitchenette. 

Rex sat on a crate at the far end of the kitchen, studying a datapad, one foot propped up next to him as the other swung idly by the side of the crate. For a moment, in the faint light, he looked so much like Fives that Cerra nearly stumbled over her own feet. He glanced up and smiled, and the spell was broken. 

“She lives.”

“For the moment,” she said with a tiny grin. “Anything good in the conservator?”

“Dex’s,” he replied. “Had to survive without Gregor somehow.”

Sounds like a nightmare, she reflected as she rummaged through the conservator until she found a few takeout boxes. Opening the first container, she wrinkled her nose. 

“Acid-beet salad? I’m gone for a couple weeks, and you all fall to the Dark Side.”

“I’m just surprised there’s something in the galaxy you won’t eat,” Rex replied.

She grunted with disgust and tossed the container back into the conservator. Luckily, the rest of the takeout containers contained actual food, instead of crimes against sentients, and she settled onto the raggedy old sofa and dug into a cold bowl of spicy Gargon gumbo. The garage appeared to be empty aside from the two of them, which was just as well, since she had a feeling he wouldn’t want anyone to overhear what she was about to tell him.

“Where is everyone?” she asked around a bite.

“Scouting mission,” he replied. “Trying to chase down a lead on Omega.”

“Gregor told me what happened,” she said soberly. “Do we have a plan?”

“Workin’ on it.”

“What can I do to help?”

He smiled. “Start by getting healed up. We’ll know more when the boys get back.”

She hated not knowing what to do. She itched to act. But Rex was right; there was no point wasting energy and potentially drawing attention they didn’t need unless they had reliable intel. So she took another bite and pondered the best way to phrase her next sentence. After Hart’s departure, Rex had debriefed her about her experience with the ISB, but with the rest of the team also present, she hadn’t wanted to reveal such sensitive and dangerous information.

She cleared her throat. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it?”

Inhaling deeply, she began. “When Yularen was questioning me, he asked me about Ahsoka Tano.”

Rex froze, eyes wide. He didn’t respond, so Cerra forged ahead.

“They think she’s still alive. He said she had been on Raada when I was there. They thought I was working with her.”

Instead of the relief or excitement she expected to see on his face, a look of horror descended on his expression.

“She—she could still be alive,” she said. “I know you were close.”

“Cerra…”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner, I just wanted to wait until I could talk to you alone.”

“Cerra—”

“We could find her. She could join us—we could protect her—”

“Cerra!” Rex cut her off emphatically. “Stop.”

She sat back, bewildered. “I thought you’d be happy to find out the kid was still alive.”

“I knew.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I knew Ahsoka survived,” Rex said in a deliberate tone that revealed he was weighing his choice of words with great care, “because I was with her.”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly, her brain utterly failing to process this new information.

“She’s the one who got my chip out,” he continued. “We escaped together. We were the only survivors of the Tribunal.”

Her mind whirled, and quite suddenly, she felt sick. A memory flashed in her mind: 

“Raada?”

“It’s an agricultural moon,” Fireball said.

“I’m familiar,” Rex replied.

“You knew she was on Raada,” she whispered.

His jaw firmed. “I knew.”

“And you sent me in anyway?” she asked incredulously. “Without full intel? Knowing that I could be walking into—”

“I was trying to protect you,” he interrupted.

“Me? Or the Jedi?” she asked sharply.

“Both of you. I had no reason to expect you to run into her. It’s a whole kriffing moon!”

“She is the reason the Empire came after me in the first place!” Cerra said furiously. “I’m nobody! Do you really think they would have given a shit about a missing supply officer and a clone trooper if there hadn’t been a Jedi involved?”

“She was never supposed to be involved!” Rex exclaimed. “It was just bad luck.”

“Why the kark didn’t you tell me she’d survived?” she demanded.

“The same reason you waited until now to tell me Yularen mentioned her,” he snapped. “It’s dangerous to know too much. I was trying to keep you safe—all of you.”

“It’s dangerous to know too little, gods damn it!” She sprang up from her seat and began to pace. “What if something happens to you? How are we supposed to defend ourselves from a threat that we don’t even know exists?”

“I did what I had to do to protect the soldiers under my command,” he said, gritting his teeth.

“We’re not in the GAR any more, Rex. There is no command! There’s just US!”

“Maybe so,” he replied, “but if you think we’re not at war, you’re lying to yourself.”

His voice was even, but she’d known him long enough to tell from his short, sharp breaths that he was keeping his temper in check through sheer force of will. She forced her clenched fists to relax and took a long, deep breath before she replied.

“I. Know.” She ground out the words. “You think I don’t know? I just spent two weeks in their hands. So don’t kriffing talk to me like I don’t understand the stakes, Captain.”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “How would you suggest I proceed, Lieutenant?”

“You could start by trusting your team,” she replied.

He reared back as though she’d slapped him. “You think I don’t trust you?”

“What else haven’t you told me?” she demanded.

He hesitated.

“What else?” she pressed. “I know there’s more. You might as well tell me now; seems unlikely anything could be as sensitive as the location of a known Jedi fugitive.”

He glowered at her for a moment, but at last, his shoulders slumped in defeat. “There is something else. Intel Echo got from the Bad Batch. It seems the Empire has cloned the creature that attacked Coruscant early in the war. We don’t know why. At least, not yet.”

Cerra felt a brief stab of betrayal that Echo had kept the intel from her as well, but she shrugged it off. She hadn’t been exactly open with him, either.

“Is that all?” she asked.

“That’s the only thing that was my decision to keep from you,” he hedged.

“So there is more,” she said.

“Nothing that affects this group,” he replied. “You know as well as I do, Cerra; some things will always have to be kept secret. Some information is just too sensitive to share.”

She sighed. “I know. But when it compromises the safety of everyone on this team? I can’t stay if you’re going to keep secrets that could get us captured or killed.”

“You’re right,” he admitted. “I can’t promise that I’ll be able to share every piece of intel I get, but… I’ll do my best to make sure something like Raada doesn’t happen again.”

She let out a long, slow exhale before she replied. “Thank you.”

It wasn’t perfect, but Cerra knew it was the best promise he could make. The worst part was, she understood exactly why he’d made the decisions he did. She didn’t envy him. Being a leader was never easy at the best of times, and in the growing darkness and danger of the galaxy, it seemed to become a nightmarish balancing act of having to choose between bad and worse options.

Thank kriff it isn’t me.

“Hungry?” she asked.

Rex smiled slightly, accepting her peace offering. “Maybe. What’s left?”

“Acid-beet salad.”

Something smelled good. Scratch that; something smelled amazing. A burst of laughter echoed through the garage, loud enough that Cerra heard it from beneath the navigation control panel in the cockpit of the freighter. She set aside her hydrospanner and wandered out of the ship, drawn inexorably by the savory aroma and the sounds of merriment. 

In the kitchenette, she spotted Gregor. He was working efficiently: chopping, stirring, cleaning—multitasking with ease, even as he bantered and giggled with Fireball and the other clones who hovered around his workspace like vultures. A large pot on the stove appeared to be the source of the intoxicating scent; she could hear the telltale sizzling, and every so often, Gregor would add some mysterious and unidentifiable ingredient to the mix.

He had his sleeves rolled up over his forearms, and Cerra took a moment to ogle him—er—appreciate the view before the others spotted her. Holy kriff, how had she not noticed the way he handled a knife before? Her mouth went dry as she watched his deft movements. He glanced up, and his mischievous smile told her he’d caught her in the act. His gaze flickered briefly down her body, and quite suddenly, the garage felt very warm.

Fireball called out a greeting and snapped her attention away from Gregor, and she plastered an innocent smile on her face as she approached the kitchenette.

“What’s cooking?” she asked, taking a position next to Fireball. “Smells great.”

“Joopa roast,” Gregor replied. “Been in the freezer since our last market trip.”

Ah, yes. The market trip when he—

“It has to cook for hours,” Fireball said mournfully. 

“It’ll be worth it,” Gregor replied. “Trust me.”

“It’s not nice to torture people,” Fireball complained. His eyes widened suddenly and darted toward Cerra as he realized what he’d said. “Uh—I mean…”

She snorted and nudged him with her shoulder. “Please. You’re not wrong, anyway. An hour of smelling Gregor’s cooking, and I would have folded like a cheap sabacc deck just to get a taste. Nobody tell the Empire. Might give them ideas.”

Gregor set the roast in the oven and began to tidy up the kitchenette. “How’s it goin’ in the freighter?”

“Coming along,” she replied. Suddenly seized with inspiration, she added, “Could use some help clearing the fresher tank if anyone is free.”

Identical expressions of revulsion descended on the faces of every clone assembled, and they all suddenly remembered urgent business elsewhere. As they drifted away from the kitchen, Cerra leaned closer to Gregor as he wiped down the countertops.

“I guess that just leaves you,” she murmured quietly. “Want to give me a hand in the freighter?”

He froze for an instant as his eyes met hers, and then he began scrubbing the countertop with renewed vigor.

“Sure,” he replied. “Give me a minute to wash up, and I’ll meet you inside.”

“It’s a date,” she said, causing him to glance around the garage to see if any of the others had overheard her. “Be sure to seal the entry hatch when you come in. Wouldn’t want the fresher tank smell to get out into the garage.”

Fifteen minutes later, she heard the sound of the freighter’s hatch sealing, and she turned around just in time for Gregor to pull her into a hungry kiss as he pressed her back against the durasteel bulkhead behind the cockpit. His mouth consumed her, warm and soft, as his tongue grazed between her lips and his hands roamed over her body, cupping her breast through her coveralls, pulling her tightly against him. He broke away from the kiss, only to drop his lips to her throat, setting her entire body alight with arousal.

“Please tell me that was a euphemism,” he whispered hotly in her ear as he tugged down the zipper of her coveralls.

“It was a euphemism. I’d never subject you to—oh, kriff!” She gasped as his fingers slid down her body and unerringly found their way between her thighs.

“Shh,” he whispered, kissing her softly. “You did say you wanted a hand.”

She clung to his shoulders, whimpering quietly as he touched her with a gentle deftness that nearly made her knees buckle. With his free hand, he held her head, stroking his thumb across her jaw and his fingers down her neck. He kissed her everywhere: her lips, her face, her shoulders, her chest, lavishing her with pleasure as her body flooded with heat.

She slid her hand down his torso, reveling in the feeling of his warm, solid chest and abdomen as she reached for his cock. She could feel him straining against his trousers, warm and hard and perfect. He let out a tiny, hushed grunt as she took him in her hand, massaging him through the fabric. As she fumbled with his belt buckle, though, he shifted away from her, releasing her jaw and gripping her wrist in a gentle but inescapable hold. He pinned her wrist to the durasteel wall next to her head.

“Next time,” he murmured between kisses.

A fresh wave of arousal swamped her. Gregor’s breath caught as he felt it, and his fingers slipped into her effortlessly.

“Do you like it when I take control?” he asked quietly, gazing into her eyes.

She nodded, unable to form coherent speech, but letting out a hoarse moan of affirmation.

“Shh, love.” He pressed his lips to hers to muffle her sounds of pleasure. “I love to hear you, but the others are still outside.”

“I can’t help it,” she gasped. “I’m close—”

“I know,” he whispered. “Can you hold it back for me?”

She jerked her eyes to his, startled. “But—”

“Will you?” he asked, intensifying his caress to the point that she felt like she was losing her mind.

“Please, please—”

“You can trust me with your pleasure,” he murmured. “I promise. Will you wait until I tell you?”

She panted, her eyes wild and desperate. “I—yes—”

“Good girl.” He pressed his lips to her temple, then abruptly shifted to her mouth, stealing her breath and sending her head spinning.

She focused all her effort on holding back the tide of pleasure, but Gregor didn’t make it easy. He found and exploited her every weakness. His fingers, his lips, his teeth, his tongue: he used them all to work her into a frenzy of arousal until her body shook, her lungs heaved, and she could no longer contain her tiny moans of ecstasy, no matter how hard she tried.

He moved his fingers inside her, pressing deep and finding a place that wrenched a cry from her throat. Abruptly, he released her wrist and clamped his hand over her mouth, resting his forehead against hers as he gazed into her eyes. She pleaded with him silently, her body at the very limits of her control.

“Let go,” he whispered. “Let it happen.”

Her last coherent thought was an overwhelming sense of relief, and then her consciousness splintered into a million pieces as her body jerked and spasmed in his hand. He worked her through it, teasing every last drop of pleasure out of her body. He pulled his hand from her mouth to wrap around the back of her head as he claimed her lips in a kiss that stole her breath and drove everything from her mind except his taste, his scent, his touch.

His hand gentled and slowed as the tension in her body began to ebb, and then he carefully withdrew his fingers from her body and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as she melted against him. She rested her head against his shoulder, breathing hard. He smoothed his palm down her spine between her shoulders, again and again, the movement draining all the energy out of her muscles and making her body go limp in his embrace. He pressed his lips softly to the side of her neck, inhaling deeply.

As he exhaled, he whispered, “I never knew I could love anyone the way I love you.”

Her fists tightened reflexively, clutching his shirt in her hands as she buried her face against his neck to hide the tears that suddenly stung her eyes.

“You don’t have to say it back,” he said. “I know last time was a mistake—”

“I love you,” she interrupted. She kissed his neck and jaw frantically. “It was an accident, not a mistake. I love you.”

She kissed him again and again, desperately, her lips finding a way to communicate everything she wanted to say when words failed.

“Loving you could never be a mistake,” she whispered.

That sofa is laughably beyond capacity, Riyo reflected as she observed the scene before her. Cerra snuggled on Gregor’s lap as Fireball tucked her sleeve up around her elbow and began to doodle on her forearm. Riyo had no idea what was going on with that particular trio, but they seemed cozy. Next to Fireball, Nemec and one of Howzer’s men squeezed onto the sofa as the rest of the team sat on crates around the holotable. She made a mental note to earmark funds for more furniture for the garage. The team only continued to grow, and things were starting to feel crowded in the repair shop.

“Tell me again, what’s the point of this?” Howzer asked. “It seems a little… Odd.”

“Just trust us,” Fireball said. “It shouldn’t work, but it does.”

The opening jingle of the Great Galactic Bake-Off began to play, and Riyo tried to ignore the pang of sadness that Echo wasn’t there to watch the finale with them. In fact, she hadn’t heard from him in weeks—not since the day he’d commed to tell her that he would be staying with the Batch indefinitely. Riyo understood. Of course she did. There was an element of risk every time they exchanged comms, and his mission was dangerous. But understanding didn’t make it sting any less.

The truth was, her situation was a lonely one. She had more political allies than actual friends, and very few people whom she could trust. Echo had been all three, and now he was gone, and she didn’t know if or when she would see him again, or if things could ever be the same between them again. He hadn’t ended their relationship—at least not officially—but they seemed to be in a strange and apparently indefinite holding pattern. As a result, she’d been surprised when Cerra had commed her to invite her to the garage to join the watch party. 

“Echo mentioned you’re a fan,” Cerra had said, as though that explained everything.

In fact, it explained very little, but Riyo wasn’t about to question the invitation. It was the first time anyone aside from Echo had asked her to visit the garage for something other than plotting the Empire’s demise. She’d accepted immediately, and here she was with three of her bodyguards, eating some sort of pastry that Gregor had baked. He’d called it a Corellian ryshcate, and it was delicious. Riyo had to hold herself back from taking a second, though she couldn’t resist casting a longing glance at the platter.

“I still can’t believe Garr Tevv made it to the finale,” Gregor said in a disgusted tone.

“What’s wrong with Garr Tevv?” Riyo asked. “I was hoping he’d win.”

Gregor, Fireball, and Cerra gasped in dramatic horror, and Riyo felt a moment of brief panic that she’d made a faux pas. Then Cerra and Fireball burst into laughter while Gregor shot them both exasperated glares. Cerra wrapped her arms around Gregor’s neck and kissed his cheek. His face softened immediately into a smile.

“Team Runa,” he declared. “She deserves it after everything that happened this season.”

“Agreed,” Cerra said as she snagged another ryshcate—her third—and snuggled back against him. “Any other result would be a gross miscarriage of justice.”

She looked at Riyo with a hint of speculation in her eyes. “Just how much influence does a senator have? You know, if, hypothetically, the unthinkable happens and Garr Tevv wins. Could you have him arrested, or something?”

Riyo choked back a shocked laugh, but then she saw the teasing light in Cerra’s eyes and relaxed. “Oh, yes. I’d just have my guards detain him. That definitely wouldn’t cause an interplanetary scandal or end up getting me removed from office and tried for gross misconduct or abuse of power.”

“It’s settled then,” Cerra grinned as she dug into the bucket of ice next to the sofa and retrieved two bottles of ale.

She offered one to Riyo, who accepted, feeling a strange sense of warmth unfold in her chest as she settled in to watch the show.

“Who is Garr Tevv, and why don’t we want him to win?” Howzer demanded.

“Long story,” Fireball and Gregor said in unison.

“Jinx, you owe me a Coke,” Fireball said immediately as Cerra laughed. “Now everybody shut up. It’s starting.”

The End.

#echo tbb #captain gregor #captain rex #riyo chuchi #oc: cerra kilian #echo x riyo chuchi #gregor x oc #clone trooper nemec #clone trooper fireball #star wars #the bad batch #star wars fanfic #tbb fanfic #stars beyond number #dystopicjumpsuit writes

[kingofbodyrolls]

Sprout | knj | two

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Summary: You love your plants, you love your garden, you do not love your new neighbor. You hate him with all your might— he wrecks everything you hold dear so you do the only reasonable thing: retaliate. 

Pairing: Namjoon x female reader 

AUs: neighbors au, gardening au, non!idol au → strangers to enemies (mostly one sided) to friends to lovers 

Genres: slice of life, smut, humor

Rating: mature

Word count: 3.8K

Warnings: even more stupid and petty behavior from reader; cussing, name calling and all that. Sexual tension and frustration.

Disclaimer: I do not own BTS or know them personally and this work of fiction is purely fictional and for entertainment purposes only. The actions and personalities described in the story do not reflect those of BTS— it’s just fiction. Also, if you would kindly read the tags/warnings before reading, that would be lovely: and if you don’t like whatever is described in the tags, just hit return and find something else to read. Thank you 🌸

Author’s note(1): Jungkook has gotten enough 😏

Taglist: @svnbangtansworld

It’s been cross posted to AO3 if you prefer to read there 🙂

Jungkook insists you're being petty, taunting you daily with the idea that your actions stem from an overwhelming affection for your neighbor. Yet, the truth is far from it. It's the opposite. You despise him with every fiber of your being. His incessant disruptions and the havoc he wreaks on your belongings fuel the flames of your animosity. No, you do not love your new neighbor; you fucking hate him. 

Jungkook makes a passing remark about ‘pulling pigtails,’ but you shut out the rest. 

Almost every day, the cacophony of your neighbor entertaining a friend reverberates through the walls. The persistently loud ambiance raises questions. Why does he insist on keeping the window open? Is it deliberate, a perverse invitation for everyone to bear witness to the audible symphony of his intimate moments? 

Frustration simmers within you, and you roll your eyes in exasperation. Attempting to address his disruptive behavior has become a futile exercise; each conversation degenerates into a heated exchange, with curses hurled in his face as you storm off in a storm of indignation. 

He's shattered your plants and disrupted your sleep on countless occasions, pushing the boundaries of your endurance. The cumulative weight of these relentless intrusions threatens to break the last thread of your patience.

You've descended to the point of desperation, resorting to hurling eggs at his windows in the dead of night. Sleep eludes you, haunted by the persistent echoes of his nocturnal escapades. His moans have become an indelible soundtrack, an unwelcome intrusion into your restless nights. Who keeps their window open when they have sex?

You reluctantly acknowledge the summer heat, considering the possibility of their sweltering encounters. The intrusive thought catches you off guard, and a wave of irritation washes over you. Why on earth are you dwelling on the intimate details of his encounters with his girlfriend?

In a surge of frustration, you realize it's high time to teach him a lesson in manners. Fueled by determination, you smash a few more eggs against his windows, each impact echoing your resolve for retribution.

Upon reentering your house, you find Jungkook awaiting your return. His exasperated greeting speaks volumes: “What have you done now?” he sighs, rolling his eyes at your seemingly perpetual antics.

“Just gave him back some of his own medicine,” you declare, the matter-of-fact tone underscoring your unapologetic stance. 

“You know, this is getting real close to vandalism. If you're into him, why not just knock on his door and jump his dick?” Jungkook's nonchalant shrug accompanies the pointed words, the blatant suggestion striking a nerve and hitting uncomfortably close to home. 

“As I've reiterated countless times, I do not like him, and I certainly do not want to fuck him,” you groan in exasperation.

“Yeah, sure,” he retorts with another eye roll, his tone carrying a hint of dejection and weariness, as if he's utterly exhausted from dealing with your antics.

The eagerly awaited new glass for your greenhouse has finally arrived, and to your surprise, Jungkook has generously offered to install it for you. Despite the restoration of your sanctuary, the scars on your beloved plants remain irreparable. Now, as you stand in your greenhouse, determined to breathe life into the space once more, you find solace in sowing new seedlings for the upcoming winter. 

The ritual begins as you carefully select seed packages, opting for spinach, bok choy, and broccoli, each choice bearing the promise of a fresh start.

With purposeful steps, you retrieve trays for the seedlings, the promise of renewal in your hands. Each tray is tenderly filled with fresh soil, receiving a gentle spray of water before the tiny seeds find their new home. Another layer of earth, a careful drizzle of water, and finally, a protective hood is laid over the tray. This makeshift greenhouse environment promises a nurturing haven for the sprouting seedlings as they await their moment on the greenhouse shelf. 

The creak of the greenhouse door signals Jungkook's entrance, and as he steps in, a cascade of words spills forth, “I had a chat with Namjoon,” he starts, his eyes sweeping across the lush foliage that envelops you.

Your gaze locks onto him, eyebrows raised in a quizzical arc. “Who is this ‘Namjoon’?”

“Our neighbor,” he declares with a matter-of-fact tone, and your jaw drops, seemingly unhinging itself and plummeting all the way to the ground. 

“Why are you fraternizing with the enemy?” you exclaim, delivering a playful slap to his shoulders. Why would he do such a thing?

“He’s actually really nice. You should go talk to him. Apologize.”

Jungkook suggests, and you find yourself dumbfounded by the words escaping his lips. Apologize? You? The incredulity echoes in your thoughts as you grapple with the absurdity of the idea.

“I won’t do anything of the sorts,” you huff, arms crossed in frustration, embodying a defiant stance reminiscent of a thwarted child denied a coveted desire.

“Ah, he's under the impression you're a mean bitch anyway,” he taunts, a derisive laugh escaping his lips, and you feel the surge of anger igniting within you. No, not in your cherished sanctuary. With conscious effort, you unclench your hands, previously balled up in frustration, determined to maintain the sanctity of your safe space. 

“He’s a jerk anyway, a stupid single dad who screws anything with a pair of nice tits,” you state, infusing your words with a palpable venom.

“That was actually his nephew. No kids for him. But those girls he brings home? They do happen to have some impressive assets,” he says, a smirk playing on his lips. A flicker of realization crosses your mind—Jungkook might be deliberately riling you up for amusement, and, begrudgingly, you acknowledge that his tactic is working. 

“Maybe you should go over there and have a threesome with him, huh?” you fume, the words laced with a hint of bitter sarcasm. Simultaneously, you find yourself seething not just at him, but at your own lapse for even entertaining such a thought. 

He just chuckles. “Damn, you've got it bad. I almost feel sorry for you,” he says, the laughter persisting and your blood simmering with an undercurrent of venomous rage.

It's finally a Friday, and you and Jungkook are settling in for a movie night. You've crafted the ideal dinner and laid out an enticing spread of snacks for later. Everything promises to be perfect and relaxing, except for one disruptive factor: your neighbor, Namjoon, relentlessly booming loud music through his speakers.

He's got friends over, and it seems like a full-blown BBQ is in swing. A row of cars lines the street beside his house, and the distant hum of lively chatter reaches even into the sanctity of your own home. The noise is unmistakable, almost intrusive, and you find yourself cursing silently. Yet, you're left with the bitter realization that complaining won't change a thing.

“We'll just crank up the TV volume even higher,” Jungkook nonchalantly suggests, a casual shrug of his shoulders betraying his indifference to the escalating noise outside.

You sulk, conceding to Jungkook's practicality. Yet, deep down, you ache for the serene days when Seokjin and his wife were your neighbors, their presence a stark contrast to the relentless clamor that now defines Namjoon's presence.

As you stir the contents of the sizzling wok, your culinary focus momentarily breaks. “I just hope he doesn't turn this into an all-night party,” you mutter with a tinge of irritation, your tone carrying a subtle edge of anger.

“You can't fault the guy for having friends over,” he asserts, retrieving glasses from the cabinets and setting the table, “Just because you don’t have any.”

You shoot him a disbelieving look, a frustrated huff escaping your lips. “I do have friends. They are just not that loud!”

He rolls his eyes at you, an amused chuckle escaping his lips like fleeting notes of laughter dancing in the air.

You scoff, shutting down the stove and placing the pan, still radiating warmth, on the table with a protective mat underneath.

“Do we have wine?” you inquire, and Jungkook nods, gesturing towards the fridge. Your appreciation swells for him, always ensuring there's a bottle of red wine chilling inside during summer. Somehow, it just adds a delightful touch to the flavor when it's served slightly chilled.

You return to the kitchen, swing open the fridge door, and snatch a bottle of wine. “Would you like some too, Gukkie?” you ask, extending the invitation to Jungkook.

“Yeah, sure. I can't let you go on a solo mission to finish the entire bottle. It's not good for you,” he playfully teases, a hint of truth in his words. You can't deny the tendency to turn a newly opened bottle into an empty one by the end of the night.

You snag a couple of wine glasses on your way back to the table, pouring a generous amount for both of you.

“Let’s eat,” you utter in a soft breath, gracefully pulling out your chair, the enticing aroma of your culinary creation making your mouth water.

“Yeah, I’m starving,” Jungkook declares, swiftly settling into his seat across from you, greedily reaching for the wok you've prepared, ready to dive into the feast.

“Aish, it’s so good,” he mumbles with delight, savoring each mouthful and punctuating his words between bites.

“Thank you. Living with a culinary genius has its perks, doesn't it?” you playfully muse back at him, a satisfied grin lighting up your face as you bask in the warmth of his compliment.

“You know I am,” he responds, taking a hearty gulp of his wine, and you follow suit. Despite the distant noise of your neighbor and his rowdy friends, you find solace in Jungkook's company, the laughter and friendship drowning out the chaotic soundtrack from across the fence.

Now that dinner is done, and you've migrated to the couch with your wine and an enticing spread of snacks, you ask, “What do you want to watch?” 

Jungkook chuckles eagerly, snatching the remote with a gleam in his eyes and declares, “Bring it on!” 

You playfully roll your eyes, teasing, “You just want to watch women in short skirts, you creep.”

You chuckle as Jungkook defends himself, insisting, “You know I watch it for the plot.” 

You shoot Jungkook a teasing look. “It better be the first one.”

“Of course. But the third one was also pretty good,” he says, triumphantly locating the first Bring it On movie.

Jungkook is inexplicably engrossed in Bring it On, and you can't quite decipher if it's for the skimpy outfits or the intricate choreographies, or perhaps a bit of both. 

Observing him playfully mimic the dance moves, even from the confines of the couch, makes you chuckle like a fool.

The echoes of your joy abruptly shatter, drowned out by a sudden, jarring noise from outside—a disconcerting symphony of splintering wood that startles you, leaving an unsettling air lingering in the room.

This can’t be good.

Dread tightens its grip as you hastily set down your wine glass, exchanging an apprehensive glance with Jungkook, who springs to his feet beside you. 

In tandem, you dash outside, propelled by a mixture of curiosity and concern, completely neglecting to grab your shoes in the urgency of the moment. The scorching heat beneath your bare feet goes unnoticed amidst the unfolding commotion though.

Your jaw plummets to the floor, a potent cocktail of shock and fury brewing within you as you absorb the unfolding spectacle before your eyes.

Namjoon, your neighbor, sprawled on his back—ON YOUR FENCE. It's a chaotic scene, with plants strewn about, the garden bed fractured, and soil spilling over, all within the wreckage of your once-pristine greens and veggies.

Your fists tighten as you stride toward Namjoon, his apologies echoing amid the laughter of his friends on his lawn, his clumsiness laid bare for all to witness.

Jungkook trails closely behind you, anticipating your next move. Yet, you remain silent, a brooding tension enveloping the air—a silence he recognizes as the precursor to something bad.

Fury courses through your veins, reaching its boiling point. Another act of destruction by your neighbor, and the question reverberates in your mind: Is this a deliberate vendetta against you? Jungkook tries to steady you, grabbing your arm, but you resist, pushing him away as your frustration simmers on the edge of eruption.

“You fucker!” 

Rage consumes you, and you unleash a guttural scream at your neighbor, still seated on the ground, taking stock of the havoc he's wreaked.

“I’m sor–” 

You halt his feeble attempt at an apology with a sharp interruption. “I've had enough of your apologies! Why is everything I own a target for your destruction?”

He meets your gaze with a hint of confusion, yet beneath the surface, a touch of melancholy lingers in his eyes.

Ignoring his apologies, your voice cuts through the air, demanding, “Enough with the apologies—just stop wrecking my things!”

Your voice reverberates with frustration, “Do you have some grudge against plants and nature? Is that it?” The rage within you intensifies as you survey the scene of dead plants and crops gone to waste. 

Jungkook's grip tightens on your arm, his voice soothing yet cautious, “Hey, take it easy. It was probably an accident.”

Namjoon's head bobs in agreement, “Yeah, it was. I'm truly sorry, and I'll repay you for what I’ve broken,” he starts, while a few of his friends extend a hand to help him up. However, the lingering laughter among some of his friends only adds fuel to your anger.

“That's the least you can do, you jerk!” you spit back at him. He meets your gaze with initially downcast eyes, his expression softening for a brief moment. However, it swiftly transforms into a hiss, and his eyes sharpen as he locks onto yours, a tension hanging in the air.

“Why can't you accept a simple apology?” he hisses at you. His voice remains calm, but beneath the surface, a tinge of anger adds a sharp edge to his words.

“Because I hate you! You're a fucking jerk!” you roar back at him, your voice filled with seething rage. Panting and huffing, your chest heaves with the intensity of your emotions.

“You're incredibly immature with all the name-calling. What have I ever done to you?” he retorts, his brows furrowed, eyes sharp as a blade. The tension between you becomes palpable, so thick it could be cut with a knife. Even his friends fall silent, and Jungkook takes a cautious step back.

You unclench your fists, pointing accusatorily at him. “You killed my plants!”

Fury consumes you, a torrent that drowns reason. It feels like an uncontrollable storm, not the result of too much wine, but a tempest of pure anger. Without thought, you lunge at Namjoon, an instinctual reaction to the destruction he's caused. Yet, Jungkook, swift and decisive, intercepts your wrath, restraining you. Your hisses of frustration echo against Jungkook's grip, a primal response to the injustice you're forced to endure.

Namjoon raises his hands in a defensive plea, “I'm so sorry, I’ll make it right. I’ll reimburse you for the damage,” he utters, cautiously retreating as if stepping on fragile ground.

As Jungkook pulls you away, you shoot a heated promise back at Namjoon, “I’ll find a way to make you pay for this!” Your words echo with resentment, leaving a lingering threat in the air, while Jungkook apologizes for the fiery display of your frustration.

Namjoon shoots you a puzzled and pained expression, clearly trying to decipher your veiled threat, while the whispers from his friends amplify around you, filled with phrases like ‘what a crazy bitch’ and ‘did she just threaten you?’

That’s it.

You've reached your breaking point. 

Namjoon has obliterated your plants, wrecked your greenhouse, trampled your garden beds, disrupted your sleep, and turned your once peaceful life into chaos. He's become a true menace, and it's time to impart a lesson he won't forget.

Fueled by anger, you snatch a screwdriver from Jungkook’s toolbox, its cold metal gripped tightly in your hand as you storm outside. The plan is simple: a flat tire for Namjoon, a lesson he won't soon forget. It's time to make him understand the consequences of messing with your life.

As chaos reigns within your mind, one crystal-clear resolution emerges from the tumult: Namjoon will pay for what he's done.

Jungkook’s voice echoes in your mind, a beacon of reason, yet you swiftly drown it out. Right now, you're not in the mood for rationality.

The stillness of the night embraces Namjoon's car, parked on his driveway. A rare moment of quiet settles around, a welcomed respite from the usual chaos. Maybe, just maybe, tonight you'll find solace in the arms of uninterrupted sleep.

Stealthily, you tiptoe up Namjoon's driveway, shrouded in the comforting cloak of darkness. Each careful step carries the weight of a clandestine mission, a secret endeavor hidden from prying eyes. This covert operation remains shrouded, a secret held close to your chest, shielded even from Jungkook, who would surely dissuade you from this path if he were privy to your foolish actions.

Despite a flicker of self-awareness that deems your actions petty and excessive, an unyielding surge of red-hot fury propels you forward. In this moment, reason takes a back seat, eclipsed by an insatiable desire for justice, consequences be damned.

As you crouch beside his sleek black SUV, a fleeting moment of uncertainty flits through your mind. The vehicle, undeniably stylish, momentarily gives you pause. Is this truly a sound decision? A twinge of guilt tickles your conscience — breaking his property, a dance on the edge of retribution. 

Yet, the echo of shattered greenhouse glass and ruined plants resounds, emboldening your resolve. In your mind, it's a retaliation justified by his transgressions against your cherished possessions.

The rage within you surges, and the screwdriver in your hand feels like an extension of your fury. Your knuckles whiten as you pull back your arm, poised to plunge the tool into the rubber of his car's tire. 

“What do you think you're doing?” 

Your hand freezes midway in the air, the screwdriver poised for revenge. As you turn your head, you're met with Namjoon's stern gaze, his silhouette emerging from the shadows of his porch.

Fuck. fuck. Fuck. You’ve been caught. 

Dread floods your senses. The fiery heat in your veins extinguishes, replaced by an icy chill, as if the harsh grip of winter has suddenly settled in your bones. In this moment, the realization hits hard – you've been caught, and the expletives echo in your mind like an ominous drumbeat.

He draws near, towering above you. His height, unnoticed until now, commands attention. Full eyelashes frame his gaze, and his dark hazel eyes pierce through you with the same sharp intensity as earlier tonight, sending an involuntary shiver down your spine.

“I asked you a question.” 

Your momentary lapse into obvious distraction snaps to an end. You retract your hand along with the screwdriver, rising slowly and deftly slipping it into your pocket.

“I was about to teach you a lesson,” you declare with unwavering confidence, standing before him. Your resolve remains unshaken, observing the visible frustration settling on his face.

“Teach me a lesson?” he counters, his calm demeanor barely concealing the underlying hint of anger etched across his features. Yet, his composure remains intact, a stark contrast to your own unbridled intensity.

“Yeah, you broke all my stuff. Now I’m breaking yours,” you retort, a nonchalant shrug accompanying your words as if it's a matter of common sense, downplaying the gravity of your retaliatory actions.

His laughter catches you off guard, leaving you momentarily uncertain about how to respond.

“Are you the mastermind behind the glued mailbox?” he chuckles, and though confusion paints your expression, you nod in acknowledgment.

“The eggs too?” he inquires, a forced smile gracing his face. Despite his attractive features, it's hard to overlook the fact that he's a complete jerk.

You nod, acutely aware of the significant height difference between you. His towering presence leaves you feeling uneasy, as if his stature alone holds a certain dominance over the situation.

He chuckles once more, and an unsettling chill races down your spine. “You really are a crazy bitch,” he remarks, his laughter carrying an undertone that sends shivers across your entire body.

You involuntarily recoil, the discomfort quickly replaced by a tidal surge of rage, sweeping through you like an unstoppable tsunami.

“What did you just call me?” you spit back at him, fists clenched at your sides. His calm demeanor and laughter only fuel your growing anger, leaving you frustrated and huffing with indignation.

“You heard me,” he clarifies, a reluctance to reiterate evident in his tone.

“What you're doing is also vandalism,” he begins, his calm tone belying a subtle threat, “and I could call the police for that.”

Your eyes widen as you grasp the weight of his words. The gravity of your actions finally hits you full force. You wouldn't want that, but you understand it's within his right to do so.

“You vandalized my stuff first,” you retort, the edges of your anger slowly dissipating. Crossing your arms under your breasts, you draw his attention, his gaze lingering for a moment before he takes a deep inhale, as if contemplating his next move.

“You navigate through life like a child. Did your parents forget to teach you some manners?” He shakes his head, exhaling, and a subtle relaxation sweeps across his features. Then, with an audible inhale, he seems to brace for your response.

“I didn't vandalize your stuff. It was an accident. What you're doing is no accident. It's with intent and purpose,” he clarifies for you, his tone calm, sending chills down your spine. It dawns on you. He's right. You did intentionally break and ruin his stuff, while all he did was perhaps be clumsy.

“See the difference?” he questions, taking in your form. Your shoulders sink down, and you exhale as if the weight of guilt has settled on them.

Realization hits you like a ton of bricks. You do see the difference. You've been so foolish, consumed by the desire for revenge. Now, as the gravity of your actions sets in, you fully understand if he decides to involve the police. Shit.

“I'm so sorry. The anger just consumed me. You destroyed my plants, and I…” Your voice trembles as tears threaten to spill over. You sniff, desperately trying to hold back the flood of emotions.

“I totally understand if you want to involve the police. No more petty shit from me,” a wave of regret and shame washes over you. Your body trembles, and the first tear betrays your composure. As you quiver, you bite your lower lip, tasting the metallic tang of remorse.

You step back from Namjoon, your voice filled with remorse, “I'm truly sorry, Namjoon.”

Before you pivot away, you observe him, the epitome of cool, calm and collected, yet beneath that veneer, a hint of sorrow tinges his expression – what could be the source of his melancholy?

Author’s note(2): Thank you so much for reading! 🌸 I appreciate every like, comment and reblog, and please don’t be afraid to let me know what you think;  your kind words makes me extremely happy 💜

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