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#If these look familiar it's because I've posted them before on my blog
burakku-jakku · 7 months
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Osamu Tezuka Black Jack playing cards (2003)
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love🥺🫶🏻I click at my notification so fast when I saw your posting again adfkgk you have no idea how much I like your writing! also I'm new to your blog but if anyone trying to hurt you I'm......going to give them a really bad time... 😤💪//hj
Anyway 🥺🫶🏻🫶🏻can I request a reaction of wrio and neuvillette with a darling who has a habit of looking at the price on menus...like why worry your silly little head? when you're with them those silly little numbers mean nothing. it's one of your habit that's hard to let go but he find them really cute so it's okay!
Awwww thank you so much, dear!!!! You'll be happy to know that I've got nothing but love on here which I'm so so grateful for ♡ but I appreciate you so much for your protection ♡
And what a lovely idea!! This is so something I struggle with so it was interesting to write about and imagine what our favorite boys would say!! I hope you like it ♡
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✧˖° you're worth all the mora in the world⋆.˚✧
Wriothesley & Neuvillette x gn!reader (separate) II fluff!
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"You're not allowed to order water."
"Wriothesley..."
He slides the drink menu over to you with a stern, "Pick one."
"...but I don't need—"
"It's not about needing. I took you out to spoil and indulge you, don't deny me that pleasure."
You've been dating Wriothesley long enough for him to find your cautiousness when it comes to his funds an issue.
On the first few dates you two shared, though he'd rather have pampered you with lavish meals and treats, he decided to look the other way when it came to how you'd always miraculously choose the most inexpensive dishes on the menu.
"I guess that's only polite...", he reasoned with himself, weighing whether or not he should mention to you that money was not a problem for him; but eventually, he thought it better to just give you time.
"Once we get more comfortable, it'll change."
And once you two did get comfortable, and he found that your behavior, in fact, did not change, his patience wore thin.
Why were you still so uncomfortable with him? It was almost an insult that you thought so little of him to assume he'd find paying for you a burden.
So, he takes to ordering for you. He knows what you like, and he knows if he lets you choose for yourself, the price will play a factor into what you order—even subconsciously.
Until you start choosing the most expensive meals on the menu, you're not allowed to make objections or requests without grounds like allergies or dislikes; which you won't have, because he knows you too well by now.
If you try to lie and tell him you don't like something he's picked for you, you will fail. Miserably, so.
"I don't like crab.", you argue—peeking over your menu at him in an attempt to hide your tells that he's become much too familiar with. He could read you like a book, and you have no idea how he's gained so much expertise in the field of you.
"Uh huh, sure, doll.", he doesn't even look at you, his attention on the waiter as he orders. "That one—", he says, flicking his finger to point at you, "is going to have golden crab.".
"And the crab will be market-priced. Will that be all right with you, sir?", the waiter feels the need to confirm, as market-priced foods are often quite expensive.
You jump in, "How mu—"
"That's fine.", Wriothesley interjects, giving you a stern look as he plucks the menu from your hands, revealing your red cheeks (a symptom of your fibbing), and passes it to the waiter before handing him his own. He doesn't need to hear the price, it's just a number, and you're worth more than all the mora in his bank account. No matter how ardently you can try to protest, he's committed to giving you what he knows you want—even if you hesitate to ask for it.
And watching from across the table how your eyes glimmer and beautiful cheeks turn rosy pink as the opulent flavors hit your tongue is more than enough compensation for him to recieve in return.
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Neuvillette finds your financial prudence to be a quality of yours he actually quite admires. Too often, he sees thoughtless individuals land themselves in his court with grave, unsettled debts due to gambling or overspending, so your conscientiousness is to be commended!
However, when he is the one footing the bill, he sees no logical need for you to apply this virtue. He knows what he can afford, so you need not worry about it; and to see that telltale crease between your eyebrows as you worry yourself over what to choose on a menu with nothing priced less than ˙✧12500 mora, simply crushes him.
He can never sit right with himself when you have that anxious look on your face, it makes him feel like he’s failing as your partner. And over something so small as a handful of mora! He finds it necessary to talk you through the logic of the situation rather than your—for lack of better word—illogical fixation on a metaphysical number.
“Sweetheart,”, he calls in that soothing, deep vibration of his voice that feels like resting in the coolest, calmest waters of Fontaine, “I am the Chief Justice of Fontaine; as such, I’ve been entrusted to oversee both criminal and civil trials due to my ability to apply sound judgement to otherwise complex situations, unrivaled by anyone else in the nation.”
“…”, you sit quietly with your hands in your lap and blink at him, tongue-tied as his explanation begins to make perfect sense.
“…don’t you think I would have the discernment to manage my own finances?”, he concludes, hammering his claim into you with one last strike.
You have no rebuttal. He’s pinned you so effortlessly, it’s embarrassing. Sometimes, it’s a challenge to date a man with such vast practice in rhetorical argument.
Your worries being soothed with such tact actually makes you quite flustered, your cheeks and nose turning a soft shade of red as you pout in defeat.
The way your expression graduated from nervous to sheepish with just a few sentences of reasoning makes him chuckle, reaching out to lift your chin with the knuckle of his index finger with a cheery, but reserved smile on his face.
“Darling, I’ve brought you out tonight to spoil you. Do me the honor of having some fun while we’re here? There’s nothing more I want right now than to see your beautiful smile.”
You find it’s impossible to hold back the simper that blooms on your face from that remark, to which he smirks with pride.
This was the most fulfilling trial he’s held in a century.
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ladykailitha · 9 months
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Sun-kissed and Moon-glow
My fics have been fighting me this last week, so have some softness I've been thinking about the last couple of days. This came from that post that has been going around about x overhearing y say good things about them.
*
Eddie didn't mean to eavesdrop, his interview finished before Steve finished his. Eddie loved his model boyfriend. He was gorgeous and looked amazing on his own or on Eddie's arm.
He moved to sneak up on Steve to hug him from behind, but he stopped when he realized his interview wasn't over with.
"Are you familiar with the trope 'the grumpy one is in love with the sunshine one'?" the interviewer asked. She was a pretty thing with long bleach blonde hair, tan skin, and a slinky pink satin dress.
"Oh yeah, it's one of my favorite tropes," Steve agreed. "Morpheus and Hob, Mulder and Scully, Nico and Will, Watson and Holmes."
She smiled at him. "Would you say that it also describes you and your boyfriend Eddie Munson?"
Steve laughed. "I'm assuming you think he's the grumpy one and I'm the sunshine one?"
"Exactly!" she said with a laugh.
"The trope works," Steve agreed. "But not in the way you think. If it was purely aesthetic, I would be the sunshine one and Eddie would be grumpy one, no doubt. But based on our actual personalities? He is so the sunshine one."
"Aww..." she cooed. But it was clear even to Eddie that she was only saying that to placate Steve.
"No I mean it," Steve said, catching her tone. "I'm only glitter and glow. I take my light from other people. The clothes I wear, the way I style my hair, my modeling. I'm definitely the moon and the stars. But I look warm and my skin is tan because his love for me shines every day. I glow because he is my sun."
The interviewer's jaw dropped. "Wow."
"He is so good and so bright and so happy all the time," Steve continued. "He lights up whatever room he walks into. That's what makes him a good performer. He shines on stage. He looks like a creature of the night, because he's moon kissed. Because I love him, I'm the moon to his sun."
"Does that make you sun-kissed then?" the interviewer asked.
Steve laughed. "Yeah, I guess it does."
There was a tap on Steve's shoulder and he was being told to move on. He said goodbye to the interviewer and turned around, spotting Eddie.
"There you are, sunshine," he greeted warmly.
Eddie reached out his hand to Steve who took it with a fond smile. And as they walked down the red carpet, Eddie thought. Before tonight he would have agreed with the interviewer. He was the moon to Steve's sun. But hearing Steve's explanation, it made more sense.
It also gave him an idea for the band's next album. A double album called Sun-kissed and Moon-glow. Steve on the cover of Sun-kissed, bathed in the light of Eddie's love, his skin starting to glow yellow from the kiss Eddie is pressing to his shoulder.
Moon-glow would be the reverse. Eddie golden but bathed in Steve's moonlight, skin turning alabaster from Steve's kiss.
He looked over at Steve one more time. The boys were going to love the idea. Almost as much as he loved this man at his side.
*
Tagging this because it's long enough I think.
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Date Night Surprises
Pairing: Eddie Brock x Reader x Venom
Word Count: 2.6k
Warnings: uhhh okay where to begin lmao PWP, tentacle fucking(?), semi-public, voyeurism, exhibitionism, degradation, praise, they're both so foul, dubcon maybe I hope I got them all but this was so self indulgent lmao
Genre: SMUT some fluff too but mostly just smut lmao
Summary: Venom wants to surprise you during date night
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A/N: So for those of you keeping up with my fic rec blog you might have noticed I've fallen into a Venom hole lately. Did I plan on going down this path? No but then I saw a post about one of Venom's kinks would be touching you in public if you were his host and I simply had to see that concept actualized so here we ARE
***
You swipe gloss over your lipstick as you look at your outfit. You're wearing a tight black ruched dress with a plunging v-neckline. Your black heels make you a few inches taller but not taller than your date. You grab your purse and head to your living room where your boyfriend is waiting on the couch.
"Hey! You ready to go sweetness?" Eddie stands, slipping his phone into his pocket.
"Yeah just about!" You smile giving him a kiss on the cheek.
"You look fucking gorgeous." His eyes trail down your body appreciatively.
"Thank you! You look good too, as always." You tell him. He's wearing a button-up shirt and dress pants, it's a smart look.
"Knock it off!" Eddie snaps over his shoulder.
"Woah!" You chuckle.
"Sorry princess, that wasn't directed at you." Eddie sighs.
"No, I know. Lover's quarrel?" You smile. Eddie places his hands on your hips and shakes his head.
"He drives me nuts just a bit."
"Yeah?" You place a hand on his cheek, trying to be empathetic without making Venom think you're siding with Eddie. Eddie huffs and throws his hands up in the air.
"Alright, can I run something by you?" He tucks his hands under his arms, a nervous tick of his that usually he only does when it's something serious.
"Of course you can honey, is it work related? Because we can talk about it at dinner if it is. I don't wanna be late." You tell him.
"It's not work related and we actually need to discuss it before we leave."
"Okay, what's going on Eddie? Is everything alright?"
"Venom has an- idea that he's demanding I talk to you about." Eddie looks like he's forcing the words out of his mouth.
"Okay well, what is it? You guys are so dramatic." You muse.
"He wants to- change hosts for date night."
"What like he wants to skip it? Is V getting tired of my company?" You joke though you are confused by Eddie's explanation.
"Actually quite the opposite. He wants you to be his host  tonight and I told him there was absolutely no way we could ask you to do that but he won't let it go so I'm asking you before he does something rash." Eddie sighs. Venom has been part of your relationship for most of the two years since your first date with Eddie but this is something you've never explored.
"Me?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"I have no idea. He won't tell me. Look, this- whole thing is weird, I mean, having one inside you, it's weird. You don't have to do this okay?"
"I know I don't have to." You tell him. "Hey Venom? Can you come out here so we can chat real quick?" You ask and you just barely catch Eddie's tight-lipped expression before he's surrounded by the black goo you've become pretty familiar with. You have to step back to accommodate the dramatic difference in size between Eddie and Venom.
"HELLO LITTLE CHOCOLATE DROP!"
"Hello Venom." You place your hand on his cheek gently. "What exactly are you planning sweetie?"
"IT'S A SURPRISE."
"For me or for Eddie?" You quirk an eyebrow at him curiously.
"BOTH!"
"And this surprise requires you to be in my body?"
"YES!"
"V," you sigh.
"DO YOU NOT TRUST ME LITTLE ONE?!"
"Of course I do! Eddie's not fond of surprises though you know that."
"I KNOW BUT HE WILL LIKE THIS ONE!"
"Fine, we can do it, but only for dinner. When we get home you'll go back to Eddie. Understood?"
"PERFECT!"  Venom wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you towards him. He practically lifts you in the air as he kisses you and you feel a strange indescribable feeling as Venom transfers from Eddie to you. You let out an involuntary groan as you feel Venom bind himself to you.
"God y/n are you okay?" Eddie holds your arms, worry clear on his face as he takes in your look of discomfort.
"Fine- I'm fine. That was just weird." You shake your head as you start to get familiar with the feeling.
"I told you it was weird." Eddie chuckles.
I LIKE IT HERE! I'M USED TO BEING IN YOUR BODY FROM OUTSIDE OF IT. Venom's voice rings loudly in your head and you can't stop the shocked look on your face at his words.
"What's with that look?" Eddie muses.
"Venom said something crude. Nothing new. We should go, or we're gonna be late E." You tell him grabbing your keys and heading to the door.
"I can't believe you let Venom make you his host. How did he even know you'd be able to handle it?" Eddie asks as you head downstairs to your car. Eddie rides his bikes most of the time but when you're not dressed for it you guys will take your car, which he usually insists on driving.
SOMETIMES YOU JUST KNOW THESE THINGS!
"He says sometimes you just know." You shrug.
LITTLE ONE?
Yes, Venom?
EDDIE LIKES TO IGNORE ME WHEN I TALK. YOU WON'T IGNORE ME LIKE HIM WILL YOU?
You chuckle at Venom's request.
"What's so funny?" Eddie asks.
"Venom is complaining because you ignore him." You tell Eddie.
"Oh is he now? Well, he can complain all he wants, since he's not in my head anymore I don't want to hear what he has to say the rest of the night."
HE'S GOING TO WANT TO WHEN HE HAS TO THANK ME LATER. TELL HIM I SAID THAT.
"Venom says you're going to want to when you thank him later."
"What did I just say?" Eddie scoffs.
"I mean, first of all you're going to get him back later tonight so you can only ignore him for so long. Secondly, I figured you should hear that one because the host switch was because of some surprise he's got planned for the both of us." You shrug.
"I don't think I even wanna know what he's planning." Eddie scoffs.
"Aw come on now, I'm sure whatever Venom's got planned is gonna be great."
"Have you met Venom? There's no way it's a good idea." Eddie shakes his head.
HEY!
"Eddie don't be mean." You scold playfully. Eddie rolls his eyes. At this point you've arrived at the restaurant and whatever Eddie might have said to defend his point he drops when the host asks him for the reservation.
TELL EDDIE WE WANT TO SIT IN ONE OF THE BOOTHS
Does it matter V?
YES
You sigh and grab Eddie's shirt lightly before he can address the host.
"Venom would like us to sit  at one of the half circle booths if possible." You whisper to him.
"What? Why?" Eddie frowns.
"I don't know but he insists it matters." You shrug. Eddie sighs and speaks to the host, who has no problem sitting you in a booth as requested. You order your food quickly and as soon as you're alone again Eddie leans closer to you.
"How are you feeling? With the whole Venom thing."
"I'm fine E, it's not like Venom would ever hurt me. It takes a little getting used to but it's fine." You shrug.
"If anything starts to feel- you know wrong at any point let me know, and we'll switch back immediately."
"Thank you Eddie." You smile at him. "So how's work? You and Venom eat any bad guys lately?"
"Well technically I don't eat them."
WE HAVEN'T EATEN ANYONE! HE'S SUCH A PUSSY.
You snicker at Venom's almost whiny voice in your head.
TELL HIM I THINK HE'S A PUSSY
"Venom thinks you're a pussy for not letting him eat people." You say through barely hidden laughter. A waiter comes by with your dinners and Eddie waits for him to disappear before he responds.
"We literally haven't done anything involving bad guys. Who was he supposed to eat? Mrs. Chen?" Eddie huffs.
"I honestly don't know how you manage to keep a straight face with Venom chatting in your head like this all the time. He's kind of hilarious." You shake your head.
"You can say that because he's so sweet on you he'd never argue over your every decision." Eddie rolls his eyes.
I WOULDN'T ARGUE IF HE MADE GOOD DECISIONS LIKE YOU LITTLE ONE
Thank you Venom you smile to yourself as you respond to him in your head. You remember to take bites of your food as you and Eddie continue to talk.
"So what have you been up to then? If you're not catching bad guys?" You ask, your attention so focused on Eddie that you don't notice the tendril coming out from you under the table. It's not until the tendril presses against your clit that you know it's there and you have to strangle a gasp at the feeling.
"Nothing terribly interesting just-" Eddie's words trail as he notices your body tense up. "Babe? You okay?" He frowns.
"I'm fine, keep talking." You tell him, struggling to keep your voice steady as Venom toys with the little bundle of nerves between your legs.
Venom what the hell are you doing
SHHH JUST LET ME MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD
I'm trying to talk to Eddie and you're distracting!
BUT YOU DON'T WANT ME TO STOP. I CAN TELL, YOUR BODY IS BEGGING FOR MORE.
"Y/n?" Eddie's voice ends your conversation with Venom.
"Yes? Sorry? Did you ask me something?" You blink at him.
"Princess, what's going on? Seriously."
TELL HIM. Venom's command is paired with increased speed against your sensitive nub.
"It's just- ah, Venom." You say dismissively.
TELL HIM WHAT I'M DOING LITTLE ONE! Another tendril begins prodding at your entrance.
"Do you need us to switch back? Are you hurt? What's he doing to you?" Eddie's voice is frantic as he looks at you.
"I'm fine E- I promise. It's just- Venom has decided to entertain himself a little bit." You grit out as Venom begins fucking you with one tendril while the other keeps playing with your clit.
"What do you-" Eddie stops when you finally let out a quiet whine. "Y/n, is Venom, touching you right now?" Eddie's voice is low as he asks.
"He's ah- he's actually fucking me." You whimper as Venom picks up the speed of his tendril moving between your walls. You lean forward slightly, gripping the edge of the table, the pulsing appendage inside you quickly becoming overwhelming. Eddie leans back, an amused smirk on his lips as he watches your reactions.
"Venom, is this why you wanted to switch hosts tonight?" Eddie asks.
SURPRISE!
"H-he said surpr- surprise." You knock your head back against the booth, your breathing unsteady as you speak.
SIT UP! LOOK AT EDDIE!
Venom please- Even your internal voice sounds needy as you try to reason with him, the feeling of him filling you is so distracting.
I SAID SIT UP! Tendrils make quick work of forcing you into the desired position.
"God you look gorgeous." Eddie says, resting his head in his hand to watch you closely. Venom's pace is unrelenting as he continues to growl sinful things in your head. "Venom you should see what you're doing to her." Eddie says.
I CAN FEEL EVERY OUNCE OF PLEASURE YOU FEEL. IT'S BETTER THAN SEEING IT! TELL HIM.
"H-he can feel m-my pleasure. B-better than ssseeing it." You stutter out to Eddie.
LOOK AT HOW HE'S LOOKING AT YOU. HE WANTS TO EAT YOU MORE THAN I DO!
You force your eyes open to take in the way Eddie is watching you over the table. His eyes are dark and full of desire and the look makes you clench around Venom.
"Eddie- it's too much." You whimper.
"Too much? I think you can take it. We do much worse at home." Eddie taunts you.
"We aren't at home!" You yelp, jolting forward slightly when Venom thickens the tentacle that's thrusting in and out of you.
"Well then you should try not to be too loud. Isn't that right princess?"
"Fucking hell." You sigh out, trying to temper the tightening coil in your core.
DON'T FIGHT ME LITTLE ONE.
"Venom- slow down. P-please." You moan shakily.
"She can take it V. In fact, I think she can take more." Eddie smirks.
"Eddie!" You look at him, gasping when Venom follows his suggestion and thrusts harder into you and increases the circles he's been drawing on your clit. "oh my god." You whisper, dropping your head.
"Look at me princess." Eddie coaxes, leaning across the table long enough to tilt your head up by the chin. "Such a pretty thing, all fucked out and desperate. Ready to fall apart for me, for us."
HE'S RIGHT. WATCHING YOU FALL APART IS OUR FAVORITE THING.
"Venom, don't totally wreck her. We'll finish her off at home." Eddie commands. "But, you are going to cum at this table princess."
"Eddie please-" You whimper, feeling your face heat at the suggestion that you're going to do something like that in public. You're sitting somewhat in a corner of the restaurant where no one can really see you but still, you worry you'll draw too much attention to yourself if this goes on much longer.
YOU LIKE THIS DON'T YOU? YOU BEG US TO SLOW DOWN BUT WE KNOW THE TRUTH. YOU LIKE BEING TOYED WITH THIS WAY, EVEN IN PUBLIC. ANYONE COULD SEE YOU AND STILL YOU WANT TO CUM. YOU ARE SUCH A SLUT FOR US.
You whine loudly at Venom's words, letting your head fall to the table for a moment before you manage to say anything.
"You're both so vile it's not fair." You pout.
"Aw is Venom teasing you too princess? What did he say baby?"
TELL HIM LITTLE ONE. TELL HIM I KNOW HOW BADLY YOU WANT TO CUM. TELL HIM YOU'RE A DESPERATE SLUT FOR US.
"H-he knows how b-badly I want to cum, e-even in public."
"And do you? Want to cum princess?" Eddie asks.
"Yes. So badly." You whimper.
BEG FOR IT SWEET ONE. BEG US TO LET YOU CUM.
"Ah! Pl-please. Eddie, Venom- please, please let me cum."
"You're begging now? You gonna make a mess all over that seat? God you are such a slut."
"Venom agrees." You mutter.
"Does he now? Good. It's true. You are a slut. Our slut. Isn't that right princess?" Eddie slides over in the booth so he's beside you rather than in front of you, but you hardly notice as Venom continues to fuck you under the table.
"Yes." You pant out to him.
"Yes what baby? Say it."
"I- I'm your slut." Venom responds with increased pressure on your clit that has you jolting forward with a moan.
"Good girl."
"Can I cum Eddie? Please?"
"Go ahead princess, show me how good you are. Cum for us like the good little whore we know you are for us." Eddie says, his voice is deceptively sweet as he gives the filthy command.
"V-Venom?" You whine out loud even though you don't need to.
"Be nice V. She's been good." Eddie coaxes.
GO AHEAD SWEETNESS CUM FOR US. LET EDDIE SEE HOW GOOD IT FEELS.
Venom pairs his words with harsher thrusts that force you ever the edge. A tendril covers your mouth as you convulse in your seat, preventing your moans from being heard by other patrons. You try to control your orgasm but they'd worked you up so much you can't help the sounds coming from your lips.
"That's it gorgeous. So good for us. And so beautiful." Eddie's words gently bring you back to reality as the aftershocks of your release finally quiet down.
YOU DID GREAT LITTLE ONE.
"You guys will surely be the death of me." You chuckle breathlessly.
NO. WE WON'T LET YOU DIE.
"Alright, I think we need to get you home sweetheart." Eddie says flagging down a server to request your check. He makes quick work of paying the bill and helping you to the car despite your unsteady legs.
"You both are terrible." You shake your head as Eddie starts the car, finally recovered enough to talk.
"Hey I didn't even know this was going to happen! It was a surprise for both of us remember? But I'm not going to miss a chance to watch you fall apart like that." Eddie kisses your temple quickly at a red light.
"Menaces. Absolute menaces. Take your buddy back. You're even worse when you're apart."
"I'm driving darling. I'll take him back when we get home. V leave her be for the drive back. If you're nice to her now you can take the reigns at home." Venom appears behind your shoulder to respond to Eddie directly.
"PROMISE?" Venom asks him.
"Yeah, I promise." Eddie chuckles.
"DEAL! I'M GOING TO RUIN YOU SWEET ONE!"
"We, Venom." Eddie corrects.
"WE- BUT MOSTLY ME."
You chuckle at the both of them, content with this reprieve you have now, knowing you're in for a very long night.
***
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fourswordsannotated · 6 months
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akira himekawa are unbelievably cool.
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soooo here's the thing. i was looking at akira himekawa's website on a whim and found a public blog, with posts that go all the way back to 2009. many hours of google translating later, and i've developed an even stronger admiration of these two women and their exceptional career as manga artists. they share so much in these posts about the creative process, their thoughts on social justice, their connections with nature, and their most major original story, gliding reki, which seems to have always been a passion project in the midst of commercial work.
from what i could gather, reki is unique in that they were determined to do it in full color. and they did it, because after reading about their career, it's clear to me that when these women set their mind to an idea, they make it happen. see also: they just recently produced and distributed their own art book, because no publishers were offering to do it in a way that pleased them.
their stated goals for reki were to make something more adult than their previous children's manga, taking place in a city, involving a lot of mechanical art, and featuring stronger romantic and self-described erotic subtext. good for them. before i get into the four swords-related stuff, i'm sharing what i could find on the internet about reki.
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more under the cut, because there's quite a bit to discuss :)
not much that i could find on the blog specifically references four swords, but they have many fascinating insights about nintendo, the zelda fandom, and the franchise as a whole. i can't know for certain because this information was surmised from translated text, but it seems as if their manga with chibi link made them feel a little stifled, which is why they took a long break before returning to do twilight princess. it's not lost on me that even a work like four swords, which they may regard as not their favorite or best, still has inspired and brought together so many passionate, creative, and diverse people. this is especially sweet because it seems as if they met each other, and formed their creative partnership, because of a shared fandom interest of their own.
honda and nagano have shared their thoughts and feelings on this blog for more than a decade, and they have a lot of thoughts and feelings. throughout their entire career they've made commentary on work-life balance, their experiences as women in a male-dominated field, and their desire to create original art while simultaneously enjoying some commercial work as well. they are passionate about social justice, particularly re: women and indigenous people, and offer insights on aspects of culture and history and the state of the world that really could resonate with anyone. and they really seem to appreciate fans of their work, and emphasize repeatedly the care and thought they put into their manga in the hopes it will inspire and bring catharsis to readers. they love animals (especially wolves), being outside in nature, being nerds about art they enjoy, a certain subgenre of romantic manga that appealed to and empowered female readers in the 90's and 2000's, and traveling around the world to partake in activities like horse riding and falconry.
the coolest part is, they're still updating the blog to this day :) in fact they seem to have recently returned to it, reflecting that twitter is not their preferred manner of sharing things online. they seem very familiar with and fond of older-school blogging culture.
there's a lot more i could say here about my findings, some of which do pertain to... certain ships 💜🖤 . but i don't want my genuine appreciation for these authors to be overshadowed by that kind of conversation. in addition to a link to the blog itself, i'm including a few translated posts of interests, which you can interpret and incorporate into your perception of the media however you please. at the end of the day, it's a really cool gift that these artists have chosen to share so much over such a long period of time. by making their personalities, beliefs, and insights more visible to fans of their work, i hope it brings new context to the stories we already love.
a modern-day insight:
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re: the zelda mangas. these are from several points throughout their career. please note that they have so many fond things to say about zelda as a franchise and their work on the mangas, especially regarding the way they've affected fans. i encourage you to look for yourself, on their blog and their other socials!
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re: gliding reki
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re: the creative process (and in the latter two, the fandom that seems to have inspired them!)
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re: their two goofyass adorable tiny dogs that they dress up in outfits while also loving wolves like a lot, they love wolves (both domesticated and wild), they really love wolves
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re: wolf day (every day is wolf day,)
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re: indigenous rights
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re: painting serious works on commission vs their manga. i can't know for sure exactly what it means, but it really does kinda hit
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re: a fan and manga artist in training bringing them art and a note
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and a moment from a twilight princess manga interview i found very sweet :)
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okay. you've made it to the end. i know you're wondering. here you go. please remember that this is and always has been a public blog, and these posts are actually from 2009 and 2010. also please remember that the point of this post is not to cause or fuel fandom discourse, but to appreciate these authors and the things that they choose to express.
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(also, this is the column they were referring to in image 1. it's FASCINATING. give it a read if you'd like!)
the dots are there. you're welcome to connect them.
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thank you for your beautiful work and insights, honda and nagano. please never change.
194 notes · View notes
alllgator-blood · 9 days
Note
MY BAD FOR LIKE SPAMMING I DIDNT CHECK YOUR BLOG IN LIKE A WEEK AND I ATE ALL OF YOUR RAMBLINGS AND ART
I HOPE YOU KNOW THAT YOU LITERALLY KILLED ME WITH THE ANGST THINGYS
FLIGHT GOT DELAYED, I HAVE CHOSEN THIS ASK TO BE THE FINAL ONE FOR NOW BEFORE I SHUT MY PC OFF. I just wanted to say there's absolutely no issue with spamming me because number go up = more dopamine so I'd be insane to complain. If anything I think it's neat when I see familiar names in my notifs/inbox, it's been forever since I've had an online presence so I love going "oh look who's online!" when I see someone liked a bunch of my posts sdfkjhsdfkjs
ABOUT THE ANGST STUFF. I AM SORRY I KILLED YOU WITH MY ANGST COMICS, BUT AM GLAD TO HEAR THEY ACTUALLY LIKE AFFECT PEOPLE?? I bum myself out when I do sad comics but in like a good way. I haven't been invested in anything in sooo long, so I like feeling every possible emotion towards this stupid game. I HAVE...MORE ANGST......SO MUCH MORE. I work on it when I'm sad about irl stuff cause being sad about fictional stuff is more fun.
I'm gonna put a sketch comic under the cut, it's the one where shamura is accidentally gaslit into having a freakout and killing one of their followers. AVERT THINE EYES IF THAT'S TOO HEAVY, THERE IS ALSO SLIGHT SKETCHY GORE WHERE I COULDN'T REALLY CROP IT OUT
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I cropped out the part where they explode their follower from the inside out. I was formerly a warrior cats kid so I like drawing edgy violent shit, but I understand not everyone wants to see that SDJFHSDFKJ- it'll be in the final comic if I ever come back to this one (tagged appropriately)
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I wonder if it's obvious that I'm projecting hardcore in this comic but also, I feel like if I HAVE to have the health issues I do, I might as well make lobotomy spider comics based on my personal frustration?? I have a few more like this but one of them is...idk if I'll ever post it cause it's more soul crushing the other ones I've posted.
What a way to leave my blog for the next week. ENJOY THE ANGST, SEE Y'ALL WHEN I'M BACK FROM THE BEACH B)
66 notes · View notes
manicrouge · 3 months
Text
Champagne Problems
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[ᴊᴏʜɴ ᴍᴀᴄᴛᴀᴠɪꜱʜ x ꜰ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ]
[ᴅᴀᴛᴇ ᴘᴏꜱᴛᴇᴅ]: 07/02/24
[ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ]: Reminiscing about the past always leaves a bitter taste in Johnny's mouth. Especially when those memories include you.
[ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ]: 5,814
[ᴛᴡ]: hurt and absolutely ZERO COMFORT!!! Mentions/ implications of alcoholism, angst, implied family issues, suggestive content.
[ᴀ/ɴ]: Pain, suffering and agony. You are welcome.
THIS IS A REPOST !! I've had few issues with shadowbans and have moved accounts a few times (tumblr thought I was a bot). Also I would like to have all my work in one place rather than spread across other blogs to avoid confusion !!
ENJOY !!
Please do not post my work to any other platforms, thank you.
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He finds it difficult to stomach as he looks out of the window on a train. 
The return from deployment is always bittersweet. In particular, knowing he can return back to his hometown for a short while before having to eventually go back to the base.
But, all of that disappears as he’s sitting on the train, looking out the window as rain bats against it. His eyes can hardly make anything out, it’s far too dark for his eyes to make it much further than the outline of a mountain in the distance. His arms aching and he’s unsure how long he’s been looking out of it. He’s quite sure the sleeve of his jacket is completely soaked from the condensation dripping down the window, pooling on the window sill his elbow is resting on. Still, nothing changes his position, not even the shifts of the cart as it storms along the tracks. 
In his chest, he feels his heart murmur at the thought of getting closer to home.
It’s been a while. 
The silence on the train is unnerving as he turns his eyes away from the window for a moment. Across the aisle from him, there’s another traveller. His head is pressed firmly against the back of the chair as quiet snores escape his open mouth. As he focuses on him, he notes a glistening trail on his chin and grimaces, turning his eyes away from the man, directing his gaze back to the window.
Trains during the night-time are always strange, he was familiar with them when he first joined the army. Travelling to and from always seemed worse during the day, so, he'd opted to stay at the base for an extra day, leaving in the dead of night to catch the last train available home. There was no reason to leave during the day because at night, he knew he could sleep away all the worries, arriving home well rested. 
But then something changed.
After another op, he returned to his schedule of sitting on the train at night, looking down at the sketchbook resting against the table in front of him. Holding a pencil in his hand, he busied himself with a sketch of a familiar face. There were the remains of a mistake engraved into the paper, odd rolls of the rubber sitting on the bend of his notepad as he readied the eraser in his hand in preparation for another.
His tired eyes were heavy as he observed the features of the man on the page, a small grin forming on his face as he thought about the reaction from the man when he saw him again. He’d probably only nod his head at his attempts of drawing him, noting that the details of his mask were a little janky, but that wouldn’t matter; the eyes were perfect. But Johnny knew he would still lie to him because being sincere was not one of his lieutenants specialities. 
‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ 
Setting the pencil down, he raised his head to see you standing in front of him. You smiled at him with a small glass in your hand, holding the seat opposite to him to keep yourself steady. ‘It’s just cause there’s no one else here and my phone died,’ you explained, ‘I won’t make a peep, I promise,’ you added. 
With a short nod, he motions towards the chair opposite to him, moving the pencil tin above his notepad so you had some space to place down your belongings. ‘Aye,’ he says, ‘be my guest, bonnie.’ 
So, you took a seat, placing your backpack on the chair beside you, setting your glass down. He observed the colour of the liquid, the colours faint as the bubbles raise from the bottom of the small glass, dispersing at the top. He recalled how odd he thought it was when he had first seen the funny little drink on the table, only knowing the train-line to serve water and the occasional cup of tea.
‘Champagne,’ you answered, following his eyes to the glass, ‘thought I’d treat myself.' 
‘What’s the special occasion?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow, picking his pencil back up, resuming his portrait of the moody lieutenant. The train creaked at the cart turned slightly, and he caught your hand steading the drink. ‘Ye get a promotion?’ 
Looking at you again, he noted how you sunk your teeth into your bottom lip. Your eyes fell to the aisle and your chest rose as you took a deep breath. There was something about your apprehension that troubled him, the way your flushed cheeks paled left him wounded for a short while before he realised that he had no clue why he was thinking in such a manner.
It was her eyes, he reminisces while keeping his eyes trained on the window beyond the cart.
It's a bitter pill to swallow, the memories of you still wrapping around his mind as a kids train set does a families Christmas tree during the holidays. Looping round and round and round until it's put into a box. The season in his mind has lasted longer than the measly length of the month of December, spanning years (it seemed). It's torture, yet, despite it being so cruel, he dreads the arrival of the day where he finally has the courage to box you up and shove you to the back of his mind because that would be when he could begin to forget you.
Even after all the years that have passed, he finds his mouth moves as he recalls your response to his question when you had sat opposite to him on the train.
‘Moving out, actually.'
It was just as well everything happened for you on that day, you moved out the day he got the train home. Had anything been different, neither of you would have crossed paths and while agonising, he looks at the stars in the nights sky with an air of gratitude.
You admitted after a while, your eyes falling back onto him as you heaved a heavy sigh. ‘Been stuck in a shitty situation for a while, been sitting around waiting for a chance to get out of it and tonight just so happens to be the night that everything fell back into place.’
Your words haunted him during the night, appearing like a phantom in his dreams, calling out to him. The glint of gratitude in his eyes wavers.
Your words are soft as you spoke and he likened the look you gave him to one of the valleys he had witnessed when he had taken the day train home after his first deployment. A valley with a river right below it in the midst of shrubbery and trees. The water was blue, he could see it when he looked at her. The reflection of the sun reflecting off of the surface, mirroring the rocky trails of the mountains. The sight of such had left him breathless, just as you did when you took a deep breath, reaching out for her glass, bringing it to you mouth. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be telling a stranger my problems,’ you mumbled. 
‘It’s nae an issue, lass,’ he responded, ‘happy to hear y’ got outta whatever was making ye so miserable,’ he confessed, ‘and Scotland, eh? Pretty place if y’ ask me,’ he said with a short laugh. You laughed with him before taking another sip from your drink.
He watched as you did so, noting the glint in her eyes as you moved your eyes away from him to his notebook. Pulling the glass away from your mouth, you placed it down with a hum, swallowing the last of the drink in your mouth, wiping your lips with the back of your hand. It's a charming sight, clumsy and amusing.
‘You’re good at drawing,’ you noted, pointing at the drawing, ‘is he a character of yours?’ you asked, motioning to the drawing of the man with the skull face. A short chuckle passed his lips as he rubbed the stubble on his chin. 
‘Guess ye could call him that,’ he said, 'someone I know, actually ,' he confessed.
Your brows furrowed, wrinkles forming on your forehead as your eyes grew wide. Your hand ghosted the glass, wetting your fingers with the condensation dripping down the outside as you looked at him with glossy eyes. Fingerprints marked the glass as you forced your hand away.
'I'm so so sorry- I didn't mean it as an insult it's just-'
'Keep the heid, lass,' laughed the man.
You stared at him.
'Relax,' he said, noting the confusion on your face. Your tensed muscles softened as your picked up the glass off of the table, taking a big gulp, finishing the last of the contents in it. He frowns when he notices you shaking. You thought you had done so much wrong with a single observation. 'you weren't to know.'
'Does he really wear that mask?' you whispered as though Simon was right behind you, and had he been, Johnny could say with his heart that he wouldn't have been surprised; the damn man appeared out of nowhere all the time.
'Yeah,' he said.
'Is it part of his job?'
Your intrigue was adorable.
'No, he just prefers to hide his face,' he explained, 'suppose it makes work easier,' he said, nodding to himself. Despite his time knowing Simon, he never did know why he covered his face. Of course, it kept the human version of the man from the man who committed countless atrocities in the name of justice, yet, the point you brought up left him thinking for a short moment.
'You work together?' you asked, 'what do you do for work?'
'Part of the military,' he told you frankly, 'he's my lieutenant,' he added, although, he didn't care to tell you much more as he looked at the you with a furrowed brow, not wanting to leave you with enough time to respond to his confession, 'what about you, lass?'
'I write,' you said, 'I got a remote position at a publishing company, that's whats given me the money to move out.'
'I enjoy writin' from time to time,' he responded, 'not that good at it though, prefer drawing,' he uttered.
You were though, he didn't even bothers to think of your response because, truthfully, your humbleness in terms of your own talent was wounding to his own love for writing. As he would with advertisements, inwardly, he skips by all the small talk in his mind. It's cruel the way the mind works; memory was a burden to hold, yet as entertaining as a late night TV show which was to only be watched in secrecy.
'What's your name?' you asked, picking up another cup of champagne. He watched as you did so, lifting his own cup that you had gotten for him when you had excused yourself to the bathroom.
He kept his distaste of the beverage to himself, besides, it was free.
'Johnny,' he answered, ' and y'urself, bonnie?'
You answer accordingly, stating your name with a smile. Repeating your name, he finds it rolls off his tongue well and the longer he observes you, the more a conclusion dawned upon him.
'Suits ye well,' he complimented with a wink.
Rubbing his face with his hand, his breath fogs against the window of the train and he turns his head away, absentmindedly wiping down the window with the sleeve of his puffer jacket. In the meantime, he busies himself looking at the empty seat opposite to him.
In the blink of an eye, you're there, sitting across from him.
'When do you get off?' he asked.
'Last stop,' you answered, 'staying at a hotel for a few days before my place is ready... was eager to leave,' you said. As soon as the words passed your lips, he felt compelled to be a gentleman. That, alongside taking into account the trouble that could have occurred if you did walk to the hotel alone, besides, the least he could have done for you buying him a drink and keeping him company was help you find you way to your hotel.
'We can share a cab if ye want,' he offered, 'put my mind at ease, wanna make sure you get there safe, besides, far too cold for ye to be walkin', bonnie,' he said, biting the inside of his mouth as he awaited your refusal, only, you nodded your head and smiled.
'I'd appreciate that, Johnny.'
His memories blur for a while after that, and his cheeks flushed red as he recalls how you looked at him before you got out of the cab. Glancing at the same hand that paid the fare only far enough to go to your hotel he curses as he watches the memory of him getting out of the taxi to chase after you.
You waited for him at the entrance in hope he'd have a change of heart, and he recalls how delighted you were when he walked through the door and caught you standing there, waiting for him.
Truthfully, he knew he was in deep shit when he felt the way you wrapped around him, the way you called his name, and how pretty you looked underneath him. Even after years, it was difficult to escape the thought of your first night together. Perhaps it was the entire being strangers thing that made the sex much more enthralling than any other one night stand he had had, or maybe it was just you.
Shoulda never let her have me number, he thought to himself.
It was difficult to deny that there were only ever terrible times. Resentment bubbles and it turns the fondest of moments to the worse; there was something there for him to miss when he thinks fondly of you. Fondness makes forgetting a hell of a lot harder, at least it does for him, anyway.
He hardly even thinks about Graves anymore and he resents him.
He resents you too.
But whenever he thinks of you, he thinks of your laughter. And then the guilt seeps in and he curses himself for ever thinking so lowly of you in the first place. How fucking dare he do something so terrible. You deserve it, though, for all the shit you put him through: the bruised heart thats still bandaged up, the sleepless nights as he waited for you to come home, the drunken phone calls he would get while on an op.
All of it.
Then there was everything else: the moments you shared together, the sound of your laughter which would seemingly travel down the halls of your apartment and wake him whenever you spent the night together, the sight of you in his shirt while cooking breakfast in the morning and your excitement when you finally persuaded him to dance with you.
The last one was particularly difficult to forget. His fondness will never let him let it go, he's convinced.
In the depths of the night, you danced together. He acknowledged the look on your face as he held you in your arms, the laughter as he spun you around in a circle, pulling you away just for you to end right back in his arms. He'd never let you wonder too far, scared that if he lost grip of your hand, you would have disappeared forever.
It became a routine and he recalls all the times he had held you in his arms while dancing to a song by Sinatra or Aretha Franklin and all the times he saw you smile. All of those happy moments moulded into one, while only a few stuck out.
During that night in particular, he couldn't look away from your eyes.
Whenever he looked at you, he was started by the glint of colours in your eyes, reflective of the colourful lights you had decorated your Christmas tree with. Rather, instead of decorating the tree, the lights in your eyes worked well in decorating the brambles you called eyelashes as you looked up at him. Every time you blinked, he found the same glossy sheen he had seen that night on the train. Every blink seemed to edge you closer to tears, as though your eyelashes were antagonising your poor eyes constantly.
Then he smelt the liquor on you breath and was reminded of the underlining truth of everything.
You were always emotional whenever you had something to drink. It couldn't have been helped, it was simply who you were, and he was going to resent you for something you couldn't have helped.
'Yer oot yer face,' he mumbled, speaking softly to you as you swayed with one another to the low hum of music from your vinyl player. Neither of you noticed how the song skipped, far too busy with one another to notice such a flaw.
'English, MacTavish,' you answered, your tone gruff as you recalled the story he had told you about the man with the skull mask and the city soaked in blood. He chuckled, pulling you closer, resting his head against your shoulder, looking at you. You turned your head to the side to look at him too.
'You're drunk,' he said quietly.
'I only had a glass,' you answered abruptly. You tensed in his arms when you responded to him and he felt his head sink further down until it sat, burning in the acid of his stomach. 'I had it while I was making dinner; the sauce had some of it in,' you explained, turning in his arms so your chests were pressed against each others. placing your hand against his face. You looked worried in that moment, observing his features. 'You're not mad at me, are you?'
Placing his hand over yours, he sighed, 'nae, bonnie, just don't want ye to hurt y'urself,' he explained, pulling your hand from off of his face, planting a kiss atop of it, moving his other hand from the small of your back to hold your waist. 'Love you too much for ye to do that,' he said, letting go of your hand to place his fingers beneath your chin, forcing your head up so you were looking at him. 'Y'know that.'
'I do,' you weakly answered.
The only bastard 'I do' he ever got from your lips. It was laughable really as he looks back on that night, how the pair of you had been so close in your home, dancing together as though you were an elderly couple celebrating your 40th wedding anniversary together.
Think I'll live that long?
Probably not.
Had anyone from 141 been there to witness how he fell to pieces with you in his arms, they very well would have laughed until they were blue in the face. And the longer he looks out the window out on the Scottish countryside, he concludes he too would laugh at that man dancing with you for being such a smitten fool.
'Good,' he hummed, pressing a kiss against your lips. The were chapped, dry, but he didn't care. Instead, he deepened the kiss as the pair of you stumbled backwards, muffled laughter escaping you as you loosely wrapped your arms around his neck while he kept the pair of you from falling.
Moments of happiness seemed so common in the beginning.
The night trains shifted to day trains again.
He'd hit the ground running after returning from an op, only showering because he didn't want you to smell the remnants of war which stained him and his skin. Nothing kept him from seeing you, not even his distaste for the day train.
All of it meant that he could get home sooner; he recalled the sinking feeling in his chest whenever the trains were delayed by a measly twenty minutes. Love made him a different man, he realised, a man who enjoyed the day train and the man who loathed the night train.
'I thought you weren't going to be home for another couple of days,' you said, opening the door to see Johnny standing there with a bag on his arm. Dropping it, he pulled you into a tight hug, resting his hand against the back of your head as he swayed you from side to side. 'Did you get the day train for me?' you asked.
Pulling away, he caught sight of the smile creeping onto you face as he nodded his head slowly, 'didn't wanna wait longer than I had to,' he answered, 'saw a photo of ye in me wallet an' knew I needed to be here with you sooner,' he added, pressing a kiss onto your lips as your cheeks flushed red.
'You have a picture of me in your wallet?' you quietly asked when he pulled away for you. He smiled.
'Of course I do, bonnie,' he responded as though such was an obvious fact, 'need to see that face of yours every day, ye like medicine to me.'
'Really?'
'Aye, lass.'
Everything moved so quickly and it wasn't long before you were well acquainted with his mam.
Meeting his mother was the confirmation he needed to say that he wanted to marry you. No one else in the world mattered when he saw how you and his sisters bonded, and while sitting alone on the train, he clenched a his fist at the emptiness of the palm of his hand while imagining the light weight of the ring his mother had placed in the palm of his hand while he stood in the kitchen helping her prepare the Christmas dinner. It had been over two years since the pair of you had started dating when she did so, working well to convince him that the timing meant that something else in the universe had willed it to happen.
'Mam?' he asked, looking down at the ring in his hand.
The band was quaint, golden as an green gem stared him in the eyes as he squinted, holding it up to the yellow light of the kitchen. The elderly woman in front of him chuckled, patting his shoulder as she walked past him to open the oven.
'Well, she's the one, ain't she?' she said, speaking into the heat of the oven as she grabbed the tray of duck-fat potatoes with a stained tea towel.
'Ye think?'
'Gonnae no’ dae that!' exclaimed his mother.
'Don't do what?' he scoffed.
'Act surprised,' she scolded, 'it's in ye eyes, son,' she chuckled. 'Yer nana told me to give ye the ring when I thought ye'd found the right one,' she confessed, 'and with your father gone, 'ave got no reason to wear it, but she has,' she uttered, looking from out of the kitchen into the living room.
His eyes followed hers and he watched as you sat with his youngest sister. The pair of you chatted away, though his stomach twisted at the sight of you holding a glass in your hand.
'She's a good girl, Johnny.'
'Aye, mam, I know.'
'So, marry her.'
With his mam's words echoing in his mind, the memories always came to the one that caused all the air in his lungs to escape.
Nothing wants to stay whenever he thinks of that, and he's sure if he was wounded, all his blood would leave him in a second in order to stay out of the cycle in his head that always brings him back to this one thought.
He supposes, in hindsight, it was terribly foolish what he had done. His ignorance to pressing issues was immature and irresponsible, only, they were easy to ignore when he had his mothers ring in his pocket. But he noticed, years down the line, how you had dropped his hand when the pair of you had been dancing, all to go and get another drink because the glass in your hand was running dry.
The party was one you both had planned, only, you had done so to celebrate a win himself and the boys had had during their time away, and he had invited everyone with the intent of proposing to the love of his life.
In the moment, he had been so crushed. He recalls how his mouth was dry, the dull ache in his cut knee as he awkwardly remained kneeled as you stood and stared. The speech he had prepared disappeared when you turned your back on him and rushed away, leaving his ego bleeding as everyone looked at him in horror.
'I just... I don't know why you would do it,' you mumbled when you heard him walk through the door into the kitchen away from the guests.
He was silent as he looked at you, traces of a storm in his eyes as he fought off the urge to cry. His chest hurt as he looked at you with a glass in your hand, and he couldn't do anything but stand there and watch as you drank from it. 'I told you, Johnny, I fucking warned you and-'
'I thought ye would've had a change of heart, love-'
'Well I haven't!' you angrily snapped, slamming your glass down onto the counter, glaring at him. 'What, did you think just because I'd have a ring on my finger all of our fuckin' issues are going to disappear? You're a smart man, Johnny, stop trying to play the role of the fool. It doesn't suit you and it never will.'
You were just as embarrassed as he was. He curses himself while sitting on the train, thinking back to your flushed cheeks and teary eyes. It wasn't only because of the booze that time, it was because of him too.
'I- I'm trying, John, can't you see that?' you croaked, 'I'm trying but I can't be everything you want. I don't wanna get married... at least not yet.'
'Ye don't love me,' he blurted.
You snapped your head up, furrowing your brows as you looked at him with wide eyes. 'Is that serious what you think?' you shakily asked, disbelief etched into your features. 'So what? You think all the fuckin' nights I've spent worried that you're not gonna come home when you're away working were for-'
'All the fuckin' nights you spent with a bottle in your hand too, eh?' he quickly cut you off, retorting in a manner that had left you breathless, draining all the colour out of your face. 'Don't pull that card on me, bonnie, don't you fuckin' dare do it 'cause I worry more about you and your drinkin' habit than I do my own life when I'm out on the field- tell me how you think that's fair!'
You stared at him, your eyes drifting to the empty glass abandoned on the counter. It was unfair for him to pull that card, he was aware enough in the moment to understand it, but he was so utterly devastated that he chose to stand his ground. An apology wouldn't have mean anything even if he had said it.
'If ye loved me... you'd stop goin' to the bottle every time ye have an issue,' he bleakly said, 'but am not even sure if you would pick me over the drink anymore, bonnie.'
'How would me saying yes to you fix any of that?'
He stayed silent.
Reflection allows him to find that he only ever proposed out of love. He was aware of your issues, noting it was never always smooth sailing from either of you, but he supposes he just wanted to have proof that at least once, you would pick him rather than the liquor.
But he was stupid for ever thinking you were more than your champagne problems.
'Getting married would only complicate things between us, John. You know that,' you said after a while of silence, 'and clearly, we don't listen to each other... I'm sorry I embarrassed you today, and I'm sorry I keep causing you to worry- I'm sorry for being such a burden to you but you don't make it easy for me,' you uttered, rubbing your face with your hands, wiping away the tears that fell down your scarlet cheeks.
There was nothing else for him to say to you, and he's ashamed at the very fact that, in the moment you needed him the most, he walked out of that room and left you there crying, alone.
As the train turns on the tracks again, he ponders what would have been different if he had stayed there with you, only, he finds his mind drifting to the words on a page which confirms exactly why he was thinking.
He was only prolonging the inevitable.
As he turns to the final page in his notebook, he finds it difficult to breath as he retrieves the piece of paper he had pushed to the back of it, unfolding it. Pressing his hand against it, he leaves it to sit on top of the page marked with splashes of the drink you had spilled, unable to find the strength as he stares down at the words scrawled on the page.
A crude reminder of what became of his engagement.
'Johnny,
In time, I hope you'll forget about all my problems and find someone who you deserve. I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused and I'm sorry for not being ready for you.
Give your mums ring to someone who deserves it and put the special ladies picture in your wallet instead of mine. For the sake of yourself and me.
I love you, Johnny, nearly too much, and while you will see my absence as cruel, know I see it as necessary and that's the issue; we never have seen eye to eye on a lot of things.
We're not ready for each other, I know you think it but you're too scared to say it, so I'll bite the bullet and say it for you. We're not ready for each other, Johnny.
Love shouldn't be a tug-of-war, and I grow tired for you watching as you always try and pull me to you. Besides, I heard your mother after you left the room, she said I was fucked in the head for not agreeing to your proposal and it leaves me wondering what type of person you've made your family believe I am.
I'm sorry I couldn't be everything you wanted, but know that everything I'm doing: leaving, writing this letter, not saying goodbye to you in person, is for you. You always said you hated goodbyes; they were the hardest part of your career, and I can't promise that I wouldn't run back into your arms the second you'd open your mouth and beg me not to go.
But I'm prolonging the inevitable by staying with you.
I'm making you miserable with my problems and that is not what I want you to do. You have a life, and you had a life before we met on that train.
All I ever did was make you worry and I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want you to worry about me, I just want you to move on and love and be loved. I'm going to work on myself and I'm going to get better because I know that that is what you want, and in truth, it's what I want too.
I love you and I fear I always will, but I can't have you, and I'm punishing you and myself by staying here.'
He turns his head away from the letter, looking back to the window at the small dots through the foggy water as he utters the last part of the letter under his breath. 'One day, we may meet again, perhaps the stars will align and you'll see me on a nighttime train back to your home town. And maybe then, I'll be ready.'
A breathy laugh escapes him, repeating 'And maybe then, I'll be ready.'
How appalling it would be when you realised that you leaving only resulted in the reversal of roles. At least, he likes to think he would have the strength to refuse you if he's to ever see you again.
When he turns away from the window, relieving himself of the pain of remembering all that has gone wrong in his life, he takes the letter from off of his notepad, folding it along the worn edges, pushing it back in a small slip at the back of the notepad.
Shrugging off his jacket, he put it on the seat beside him with a hard sigh, turning his attention back to the notepad in front of him. The nights long and his journey proceeds to drag his feet and he's unsure if he even wants to be back home or if he should have just stayed in the base until Price needed him next. But it's Christmas and he couldn't have left his family because of his own sorrow about something that happened years ago.
He just misses you more in the holidays, but he supposes that's okay as long as he doesn't let the phantom you left him with ruin everything. So, he picks up the pencil and pursues what he was doing the night you two met, only this time, there's a ghost sitting opposite to him, not the living thing that greeted him many moons ago.
His ignorance to the world around him keeps him from hearing the footsteps storming up the aisle after the train stops at a station. Even when the voice of a woman announcing the last stop enters his ears, he doesn't lift his head. All the noise culminates into a twisting storm, similar to how he imagines the billowing smoke exuding from a chimney on a winter night swirls in the wind. It's deplorable and he grunts as he attempts to chase the flurry of emotions away.
His efforts result in even more tension at the front of his mind as he looks into the eyes of the drawing he's sketching, realising just whose eyes he had depicted in the midst of his worry. Even after all the time has passed, he's impressed by the fact that he still remembers your features so well.
Always so difficult to forget, he supposes his contemplation proves such.
Then he hears it.
The very thing that works to break him free.
A quaint shaky breath.
A shadow covers his bulky frame, light peering from either side of the mass standing on the aisle holding onto the seat opposite him. Lifting his head, his lungs rattle in his chest as he realises the eyes he had been sketching in his notepad are right before him in human form, staring right back at him.
'Johnny?'
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cerastes · 9 months
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Arknights God, how do I use Reed the Flame Shadow? I got her and I've leveled her but I think I'm missing something, because it doesn't seem like I'm doing the damage she's supposed to be doing.
So step one is that we need to stop with the Arknights God thing because I'm flattered that you and others have a high opinion of my gameplay advice but it also makes me look like a narcissistic jackass. I appreciate the compliment and I'm happy my advice helps, but to everyone not familiar with the whole "I like to play a heel clown character on my blog for funsies with my friends" will think I'm actually addicted to the scent of my flatulence and the rhythm of my own words. It makes answering these a tad awkward.
Step two is understanding that Reed' skill selection, and which skill is the correct answer to any given issue, has a lot of factors going for it, more than the majority of Operators. If you use Cantabile, for example, you know that both of her skills are bangers, and while they have their respective jobs, they are not hard-slotted into these. Reed's S2 and S3 are similar in this regard. You'll be ignoring S1.
Before we get into that, though, here's some fundamentals about the Flame Shadow: You position them differently from other Medics and most other units. A good Reed tile is one where she has both enemies and allies in her range, so, if you placing her at a front, you'll want her to be a bit behind, but not fully behind, your line of engagement. She needs to be able to attack in order to heal, and her allies need to be in her range in order to get healed. This may sound obvious, but it needs to be taken into account. She's not a Marksman or a Medic, she's her own beast. Another thing that needs to be taken into account is that her healing comes specifically from dealing HP damage to enemies, not barriers. Greytails and the Rat King, for example, have shields that must be broken with Arts damage before exposing the succulent flesh within, right? Well, until the shield breaks, Reed is not giving anyone any succor and they might in fact just explode because while she's dealing damage to their shields, it doesn't count as valid damage for her healing. Keep this in mind so you don't run out of sustain while fighting shielded enemies, since shielded enemies tend to also have high attack. The Final Reed Essential regards her Cinders (AKA Firebrand), which she always has a chance to apply with her attacks and skills (with S3 guaranteeing it): The way it works is that, if an attack would apply Cinder, it applies it before the attack resolves, meaning, the Arts Fragility will be in effect and that attack will already be dealing 30%(32% with Potentials) extra damage off rip. Or, in other words, you don't have to apply Cinder and then start capitalizing on it on the next attack. Arts Fragility, by the way, stacks multiplicatively with Fragile, and they count as different debuffs, despite the similarity in name.
You made it past the tutorial, now let's tackle 1-1:
S2, or as Harvard scholars call it, the Spitroast, is a damn strong skill. For the purposes of this post, I'll be using the M3 versions of the skills. Spitroast grants two allies, with Melee tile priority, 3 fireballs that'll deal 240% of Reed's Attack as damage to enemies they touch every 1.5 seconds, with this 1.5 second timer applying only for each unique target. The fireballs do in fact have a hitbox, so if there's enemies on either side of the fireball unit, you'll trigger two fireballs at once, one for the enemy on one side, and another for the other. Each fireball then takes 1.5 seconds to refresh (they'll look darkened around the Operator) and once they are a vibrant orange again, it means they are ready to explode again. Each time these fireballs deal damage, they'll heal their Operators as per Reed's trait (so 120% of her Attack), and each fireball has a chance to inflict Cinder as per any of Reed's attacks. You can test this yourself by putting fireballs on Operators so they hit enemies outside her attack range, and you'll see that they do in fact also have a chance to inflict Cinder. Be mindful that the fireball's instance of damage counts as a Reed instance of damage! This means that for the purposes of Counter effects, it is Reed that's the source of the damage, so for Spike Chests, Reed WILL receive the reflected damage, and for The Last Knight, Reed WILL freeze if the fireballs hit him, etc etc. The lane-holding application of this skill is that you can grant your cornerstone immense Arts damage and healing independent of everything else they have going for themselves, including through Status effects like Freeze or Stun, as the fireballs are independent entities separate from the Operator. So if Mudrock gets stunned by Nervous Impairment and has sweet dreams of beautiful rocks that go on adventures with her, she's not completely helpless, as the fireballs will keep shredding enemies while she's in dreamland. This actually leads us to the next point: Fireballs cannot be placed on Summons, so if you had dreams of making the sickest Stainless turret surrounded by industrial flames or picturesque mindblasts about Ling's Great Thunderer's surrounded by godly plumes of cleansing conflagration, well, stop being silly and come back to reality, also rent and student debts are due. Fireballs can be placed on 'Enmity' Operators, such as Musha (ie. Akafuyu) and Juggernauts (ie. Mudrock), but they won't receive the healing from each of their hits, as the healing is mechanically counted as direct healing, thus, they may not benefit from it. Well, at least they can always take a whiff of Lena's wonderful fragrances instead. With all this in mind, we get to the Spitroast part of the Spitroast: If you jail an enemy (sandwiching them between two Operators) and use Reed's S2 to give them her mighty balls, now that enemy is getting assblasted by both sets of balls, so a whooping 480% of Reed's attack as damage, which in turn is very likely to diagnose them with Cinder due to how many times they'll be taking Reed damage, so that final damage is now also increased by another fat 30%, in addition to being inflicted with Cinder's ATK -20%, so your engager is safer as well, on top of being healed a lot. So, in practice, let's say your trusted Specter the Unchained is currently blocking Yamcha Jesselton, and as they are engaged in mortal combat, you then deploy Skadi S2 on top of Jesselton as well. But this is all within Reed's range, so you use her S2 and now the shark and the orca also have fireballs around them that further obliterate Jesselton, and he can't even damage Specter in a way that matters because 1) she leveled HP and 2) she's getting an absolutely unholy amount of healing from Reed's hot balls, so, in short, he'll never have another birthday. This MELTS bosses, but obviously, it's a rather expensive endeavor, necessitating 3 deployment slots dedicated to the bit. But no one said being funny was cheap, and end of the day, it's funny seeing bosses melting down to nothing under what's practically two fire buzzsaws.
Ideal Operators for these strats involve your prim and proper engager, someone tough that can take a hit and also hit hard, like either Specter or Skadi S3, but you can also make this engager a dedicated tough slab of meat like Hoshiguma, and your drop-in assassin with huge damage, like Texas the Omertosa, Surtr S3 (two girls that will appreciate the Arts Fragility Reed can inflict!), Skadi S2, Nearl the Radiant Knight S2, et al. 'Enmity' Operators work as well but you'll not be received the healing, just keep that in mind, but they work splendid as well. Once again, Arts Fragility stacks multiplicatively with Fragile, so break out the ol' Suzuran S3 or, if the boss can be Frozen, Gnosis S3 for some more immensely violent peacekeeping.
That was a lot, but trust me, it becomes second nature once you see it in action once, it just clicks and now you know exactly how to roast that spit.
Woah, look at all the progress we made, it's time to start 8-12:
So, S3, the big flashy and fun explosions that scream "I'm a healer, but," in big red flaming text. This skill does a fair amount of things, actually! First of all, Reed will have multitarget attacks, two per attack, and her attacks during S3 will always 100% of the time inflict Cinder, so that +60% ATK buff she's getting is actually bigger than that, given that she'll always have her final damage increased by 30% Arts Fragility on top of that. What's more, Cinder's CANNOT expire for as long as the skill is active, and now have the additional effect of inflicting a Damage Over Time effect that deals 60% of Reed's Attack as Arts damage (so, again, amplified by Arts Fragility). And, of course, as we all know and love, if an enemy dies while having the Cinder's effect during the skill duration, they explode for 140% damage in a 1.7 tile radius, and enemies damaged by these explosions, you guessed it, also become inflicted with Cinder.
That's a lot going on, but it's also pretty self-explanatory once you lay it out like that. Ace detectives might have gleaned something from this river of letters: Cinder is a very strong effect. Cinder lets you deal more damage, take less damage, and receive more healing, since Reed's healing is based on damage dealt. S3 takes Cinder to the next level: Guaranteed proc, now with a DoT, and will never expire until the end of the skill. Not only that, but the multitarget makes it easier to inflict more and more enemies with Cinder, it's truly a fire gone out of control, for the enemy, anyways. S3 lends itself to mob control and killing large crowds of enemies with the power of friendship, but do not neglect its utility in engaging with troublesome elites and bosses! While S2 is her premiere boss-killing tool, it required set-up, deployment slots and tiles you might not necessarily have in high-end content, and in these situations where the boss isn't the only issue, but you also have to deal with an overall dangerous map that's threatening as a whole, S3 may just be the perfect tool to have a more balanced and yet still very potent approach.
This is what makes the Flame Shadow such a fun unit! Your skills are not really locked by circumstance, and they can be used with several different objectives and goals in mind, depending on what the rest of your team is and who your enemy or what the challenge of the map is. With her incredible adaptability and wide array of applications, Reed the Flame Shadow absolutely shines and can be a core part of any team.
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ravenlocksentwisted · 6 months
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I've noticed a behaviour that I've been blocking popular bloggers for.
We all have boundaries. Things that we won't accept. Lines where it becomes NOT OK for someone to talk to us anymore. It's incredibly important to enforce those boundaries - even moreso in the deluge of communication online that comes from people we don't know and don't share values/norms with.
I've noticed a particular thing that (sometimes) happens when a person dealing with the maelstrom of a popular social media account hits their "NO" line. It goes something like:
"How DARE you (a person who may never have interacted with me before) violate my boundary (which you should have known by paying careful attention to all of my posts and sharing the exact same sense of online norms as I do.) I am going to use forceful (or hurt/put-upon) language to tell you how terrible you are for doing this."
"If you question, explain, or even apologize, I am going to tell you you have done further harm, because you should know (by reading my blog/mind) that I consider it a boundary for YOU to not interact with me after I scold you. I am going to continue this conversation instead of blocking/disengaging, because for my boundaries to be enforced, I require you to back down."
It's not always quite this obvious, but as time goes on I both have less patience for this attitude and start to recognize the harm that internalizing the "rules" that are broadcast like this has done to my life.
I have a lot of sympathy for the people running these accounts I, too, work with the public. And when you're running a community of any kind, it can be really helpful to slowly teach people the most useful ways to interact with you. It also sucks that no matter what you do, some people are going to be jerks. Wherever possible—easier said than done—you do need to exclude some people from your community!
But the more it looks like someone is repeatedly engaging in these behaviors:
Beating people over the head with the concept of boundaries instead of personally enforcing them
Scolding people for not being personally familiar with them and their blog
Having a large number of sometimes-conflicting rules
Claiming that their cultural norms and expectations for behaviour are universal
Using emotionally-loaded language to ensure the offender is seen as having egregiously violated an agreement
The more I've started realizing, "Ah, this person is not safe for me to be around, and reading some of their posts might be harmful to me. Better block them."
And we're all happier for it.
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suzuran777 · 2 months
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Review: Lamento stageplay
I've been waiting for a Lamento stageplay since the DRAMAtical Murder stageplay in 2019, so I'm really happy that it's finally real and that I got to watch this one! Since I also wrote a blog post about the sweet pool stageplay, I wanted to write one about the Lamento one too. I really enjoyed it! As usual the pictures I used in this blog are pictures posted by the staff and the official Twitter account! Please check it out if you want to see more.
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First of all, this stageplay is pretty long! It's almost three hours long, an hour longer than Nitro+Chiral's previous stageplays. As usual, the first 45 minutes were a bit of a common route in which all the characters appeared. This was mostly the same in every route, but it did change a bit near the ending. After a short 10 minute break, it split into three different routes, so I had to watch three different shows to see all of the endings. It's technically a "musical drama (音楽劇)" which means it combines elements of a stageplay and a musical. I was kind of expecting only the Sanga to sing, but the main characters (Rai, Asato and Bardo) also sing together with Konoe sometimes! My favorite song was probably the opening song, when all of them sung a new version of Itou Kanako's "Lamento" with different lyrics! They also sang a slightly different version at the end of the stageplay. The common route also has two duet songs sung by Rai and Konoe, as Konoe learns about his power as a Sanga.
The new music was really nice, especially the background music. I love how they brought back the composers who made the game's OST to create new songs! I lowkey wish the devils had more songs because whenever they did sing during the opening and ending song of the stageplay, they sounded amazing together! I think it would also be great if they released studio recordings of the songs, as they are always a bit better than the live versions. So far they did already release an album of the instrumental songs which you can buy here, Ototoy shouldn't be region locked, so I think anyone can buy it!
The stage This time the venue was the same as the DRAMAtical Murder stageplay (Shinagawa Stellar Ball), which I've actually been to before, however it looked completely different this time! I liked how they turned the stage into one big forest. Whenever Leaks used his power on Konoe, they used this effect which made the stage look strange and trippy, it was really cool! I also really liked the green light effects they used whenever Konoe would use his Sanga abilities. The screenwriter Uchida Hiroki posted this picture on his Twitter account which kind of gives you an idea what it looked like!
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Plot I was curious how they would turn a rather long game into a stageplay, but I think it worked surprisingly well. They kind of skipped over some of the stuff that happens early in the game when Konoe is still in Karou, but they do explain the general story, like the problems caused by the Void and the Sickness. Shui's character also kind of functions as a narrator in the stageplay, similar to Kamiya in the sweet pool stageplay and Virus and Trip in the DRAMAtical Murder stageplay, which is always a nice addition. It's not unusual for fans of the actors to watch stageplays without knowing the original source material, so I think this makes it possible for everyone to enjoy the show, no matter if they're familiar with the game or not.
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Now for the different routes, I think all of them were great and the actors definitely put a lot of effort into their roles. Bardo's actor was really funny, especially in the scenes in which he teased Konoe (when he wanted a kiss lol), but I think he also did a great job during the serious scenes! I think Bardo's and Rai's actors had a lot of fun messing around with each other, like jokingly pushing each other, or fighting each other with their tails, which happened during one of the curtain calls people were allowed to record. Asato's actor definitely was a lot more calm compared to these two, but he did a great job at showing Asato's gentle personality! His actor mentioned listening to the drama CDs too including Lamento Love Love Gakuen, doing some extra research! (And for some reason he suddenly got into Togainu no Chi if I look at his Twitter account now...). They ended the stageplay performances on Sunday with Rai's route. Rai's actor, Katou Shou, did an incredible job as Rai during the more emotional scenes, like when Rai insists Konoe finds another Touga because he's afraid he will hurt Konoe. That scene in which Konoe realizes Karou (his hometown) had been completely consumed by the Void was also incredible.
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I should probably mention that they showed the good ends only, so no devil endings in this one sadly. Razel's actor agreed that Razel should have his own route because every devil gets quite some scenes depending on the route, but Razel is always kind of left out! Also, can I just say that I absolutely love Froud's stageplay actor, he did such a great job at making the character look intimidating (he's also very tall...) even his voice sounds similar to Froud in the game. I also really liked Leaks' actor, he has a nice deep voice, and Shui's actor liked teasing him sometimes!!
I'm just happy that Lamento has been getting new content again lately, first the webtoon and now the stageplay. You can find lots of pictures and recordings that were taken with permission if you look for the ラメステ hashtag on Twitter! I saw that both Froud's and Konoe's original voice actors (Sasanuma Akira and Hatano Kazutoshi) actually went to watch the stageplay in person. Slow Damage's artist Yamada Uiro, who's also in charge of lots of other official Nitro+Chiral illustrations, also watched the stageplay and drew some new art of it! Always happy to see new Lamento art in the year 2024, I've been enjoying all of the new fanart posted on Twitter as well.
I wonder what stageplay they're planning on doing next, only Slow Damage and Togainu no Chi remain (unless they're planning on bringing Itsuwari no Alkanet or World End's Nightmare back). Next year is Togainu no Chi's 20th anniversary, so I am curious if they are going to release anything new! The director of Nitroplus (Digitaro) also mentioned that N+C is currently working on a new project, though it's currently unknown if it's a new game, Slow Damage fandisc or something else. I guess I will be patient!
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ravenadottir · 10 months
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i started playing season 6, and i've got shit to say for the half of dozen people that are still following me in this cobweb infested blog (i apologize, i'll be explaining what's happening on a different post)
i'm only on day 2 of the season, right when it's announced that roberto is coming (which is so disappointing to me that he isn't brazilian but portuguese, like... WHEN ARE WE GETTING A GOOD BRAZILIAN CHARACTER????)
anyway, here are my thoughts:
WRITING:
i actually didn't see much of a problem with it so far. it feels on par with similar conversations we had in the past, except this time we're getting to know them a little deeper than, say, season 3.
knowing bella's family situation or roberto's is kind of refreshing because we barely learned bobby had a sister on a throwaway scene on s2, so... yeah, it's ok.
i like how they express themselves because as an litg player, i'm used to some eloquence, but as someone who sometimes watches the show i HAVE to suspend my disbelief since i know islanders from the show are just... NOT GOOD AT EXPRESSING THEMSELVES, to say the least.
i like the conversations we had so far, it felt fluid and fun, but then again i've only coupled up with jamal, because obviousoly i did, who would i go for, fucking ryan? WAKE UP.
the challenges piled up but because of how many dialogues we had in this little time i think it worked pretty well.
CHARACTERS:
grace - girl, it's been a day and ozzy is not even that hot. HAVE YOU SEEN YOURSELF? he's punching, not you. chill. (and i hate they're giving the intensity they gave hope here, feels bitterly familiar and they better fucking knock it off).
bella - FINALLY a girl i like who's available and slutty (affectionate) since the beginning. i absolutely think bella might be right there with talia when it comes to arc as an LI, but we'll see. if anyone dares stealing her or if fusebox even make the slight suggestion of a slowburn i'm burning their HQ idc
ivy - alright i see you bootleg marisol, but i don't give a shit, you're annoying, die in a hole.
amelia - i think she's putting a front and deflecting the negative attention to ivy but that's just me. also, the twist of the public choosing who she should couple up with before she could tell us is extremely dumb and unnecessary, but also a reason for her to say a different name later, maintaining her image of good sister. i don't trust her, i WILL step on her head to the finale, die in a pit you're also annoying.
jamal - i like the attention but everything with moderation gives me way more tingles than a crybaby that can't stop talking about how he wants to be with me again. we were coupled up for a few hours and only had one conversation, chill bitch. it's giving ted mosby and every himym fan knows how bad that is. i'm not sure if every guy that the public chooses to be with amelia on night 1 acts the same, but i'm slightly turned off. it's too much boy, calm down, i'm here to be a slut, calm down.
ryan - get a haircut or let it grow because looking twelve and the coolest lesbian at the same time is not the look for you. its giving hipster with a chemistry kit at the local café.. also, either you're the douchey musician or a bad poet, you can't be both, PICK A STRUGGLE.
lewie - the impersonation of being stuck in traffic. i don't care for you, die in the same hole as ivy and amelia.
ozzy - fucking pulling the noah, man. i've seen this before and i'm not interested. stop being such a coward and tell grace how you feel. i know for a fact you're gonna be drama and it's because you refuse to be honest. it's so embarrassing, bestie.
roberto - HOT. i only saw the preview but i'm excited.
PACING
it's great. i think it was kind of weird how fast and furious it was with some previous seasons (remember the last season i played was 3 and half of 4 {it was soooo tedious i gave up half way through}) but i think so far it's ok. it definitely has better cliffhangers than other times when they thought they tried their darnedest.
OBSERVATIONS WITH SCREENSHOTS:
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there's no fucking way they thought these were worth diamonds. and 22 diamonds for that frufru purple shit??? it looks like something who doesn't sew would put together with a hot glue gun, stop.
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ivy i might kill you like they kill one of those vampires at the end of the twilight saga, by opening your mouth so wide it cracks off your skull. SHUT - UP.
and amelia... you're irrelevant, get out.
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BUDDY, YOU'RE THE MOUTHPIECE OF THE GROUP NOW, HOLY SHIT. grace has me on my knees, i can't.-
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bitch, we did! i kissed you in the challenge. EXCUSE YOUR BEAUTIFUL SELF! (also, for the breasts appreciators, i feel you, boobs are great, really! but like, those... two... lines... coming out of the bikini???? yeah, that is actually what gets me. you didn't need to know but i told you anyway, because i'm happy bella is hot and cool and i don't know how to shut up when i'm love, leave me alone!) whoever designed her knew EXACTLY what they were doing.
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I LOVE GRACE. I JUST DO.
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i'll give ryan some cool points because 1, he burned ivy in front of everyone, and 2, he admitted and owned up to it. good for you, bestie, good luck when you take a trip to the hair salon and get rid of that... hair. also, STOP SKIPPING LEG DAY BUDDY. from the waist up it's giving "abs, hot, i go to the gym", from the waist down is giving "i'm twelve and there's a reason i go to the beach in pants".
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bella and grace looking naked and glamorous but feeling threatened by this ugly ass dress is the funniest joke in the writing so far. truly. i've had mermaid costumes at 4 years of age less embarrassing than this atrocity. stop lying, bella and grace, YOU'RE BOTH NAKED AND PERFECT.
and that's what i have to say so far. i'll continue playing this season until they inevitably fuck up. i'm not being pessimistic, i'm just... well, i guess i am. but i have no reason to believe otherwise.
also, i keep forgetting ozzy is here even though it's been a day. idk why.
anyways, i'll come back with more litg brain rot in a bit.
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angelicglib · 4 months
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⋆ ˚。⋆୨୧˚ Champagne Problems ˚୨୧⋆。˚⋆
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[ᴊᴏʜɴ ᴍᴀᴄᴛᴀᴠɪꜱʜ x ꜰ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ]
[ᴅᴀᴛᴇ ᴘᴏꜱᴛᴇᴅ]: 27/12/23
[ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ]: Reminiscing about the past always leaves a bitter taste in Johnny's mouth. Especially when those memories include you.
[ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ]: 5,814
[ᴛᴡ]: hurt and absolutely ZERO COMFORT!!! Mentions/ implications of alcoholism, angst, implied family issues, suggestive content.
[ᴀ/ɴ]: Pain, suffering and agony. You are welcome.
THIS IS A REPOST !! I've had few issues with shadowbans and have moved accounts a few times (tumblr thought I was a bot) so, if you would like more stories from me, my new blog is @manicrouge !!
ENJOY !!
Please do not post my work to any other platforms, thank you.
────────── ⋆⋅🚂⋅⋆ ──────────
He finds it difficult to stomach as he looks out of the window on a train. 
The return from deployment is always bittersweet. In particular, knowing he can return back to his hometown for a short while before having to eventually go back to the base.
But, all of that disappears as he’s sitting on the train, looking out the window as rain bats against it. His eyes can hardly make anything out, it’s far too dark for his eyes to make it much further than the outline of a mountain in the distance. His arms aching and he’s unsure how long he’s been looking out of it. He’s quite sure the sleeve of his jacket is completely soaked from the condensation dripping down the window, pooling on the window sill his elbow is resting on. Still, nothing changes his position, not even the shifts of the cart as it storms along the tracks. 
In his chest, he feels his heart murmur at the thought of getting closer to home.
It’s been a while. 
The silence on the train is unnerving as he turns his eyes away from the window for a moment. Across the aisle from him, there’s another traveller. His head is pressed firmly against the back of the chair as quiet snores escape his open mouth. As he focuses on him, he notes a glistening trail on his chin and grimaces, turning his eyes away from the man, directing his gaze back to the window.
Trains during the night-time are always strange, he was familiar with them when he first joined the army. Travelling to and from always seemed worse during the day, so, he'd opted to stay at the base for an extra day, leaving in the dead of night to catch the last train available home. There was no reason to leave during the day because at night, he knew he could sleep away all the worries, arriving home well rested. 
But then something changed.
After another op, he returned to his schedule of sitting on the train at night, looking down at the sketchbook resting against the table in front of him. Holding a pencil in his hand, he busied himself with a sketch of a familiar face. There were the remains of a mistake engraved into the paper, odd rolls of the rubber sitting on the bend of his notepad as he readied the eraser in his hand in preparation for another.
His tired eyes were heavy as he observed the features of the man on the page, a small grin forming on his face as he thought about the reaction from the man when he saw him again. He’d probably only nod his head at his attempts of drawing him, noting that the details of his mask were a little janky, but that wouldn’t matter; the eyes were perfect. But Johnny knew he would still lie to him because being sincere was not one of his lieutenants specialities. 
‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ 
Setting the pencil down, he raised his head to see you standing in front of him. You smiled at him with a small glass in your hand, holding the seat opposite to him to keep yourself steady. ‘It’s just cause there’s no one else here and my phone died,’ you explained, ‘I won’t make a peep, I promise,’ you added. 
With a short nod, he motions towards the chair opposite to him, moving the pencil tin above his notepad so you had some space to place down your belongings. ‘Aye,’ he says, ‘be my guest, bonnie.’ 
So, you took a seat, placing your backpack on the chair beside you, setting your glass down. He observed the colour of the liquid, the colours faint as the bubbles raise from the bottom of the small glass, dispersing at the top. He recalled how odd he thought it was when he had first seen the funny little drink on the table, only knowing the train-line to serve water and the occasional cup of tea.
‘Champagne,’ you answered, following his eyes to the glass, ‘thought I’d treat myself.' 
‘What’s the special occasion?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow, picking his pencil back up, resuming his portrait of the moody lieutenant. The train creaked at the cart turned slightly, and he caught your hand steading the drink. ‘Ye get a promotion?’ 
Looking at you again, he noted how you sunk your teeth into your bottom lip. Your eyes fell to the aisle and your chest rose as you took a deep breath. There was something about your apprehension that troubled him, the way your flushed cheeks paled left him wounded for a short while before he realised that he had no clue why he was thinking in such a manner.
It was her eyes, he reminisces while keeping his eyes trained on the window beyond the cart.
It's a bitter pill to swallow, the memories of you still wrapping around his mind as a kids train set does a families Christmas tree during the holidays. Looping round and round and round until it's put into a box. The season in his mind has lasted longer than the measly length of the month of December, spanning years (it seemed). It's torture, yet, despite it being so cruel, he dreads the arrival of the day where he finally has the courage to box you up and shove you to the back of his mind because that would be when he could begin to forget you.
Even after all the years that have passed, he finds his mouth moves as he recalls your response to his question when you had sat opposite to him on the train.
‘Moving out, actually.'
It was just as well everything happened for you on that day, you moved out the day he got the train home. Had anything been different, neither of you would have crossed paths and while agonising, he looks at the stars in the nights sky with an air of gratitude.
You admitted after a while, your eyes falling back onto him as you heaved a heavy sigh. ‘Been stuck in a shitty situation for a while, been sitting around waiting for a chance to get out of it and tonight just so happens to be the night that everything fell back into place.’
Your words haunted him during the night, appearing like a phantom in his dreams, calling out to him. The glint of gratitude in his eyes wavers.
Your words are soft as you spoke and he likened the look you gave him to one of the valleys he had witnessed when he had taken the day train home after his first deployment. A valley with a river right below it in the midst of shrubbery and trees. The water was blue, he could see it when he looked at her. The reflection of the sun reflecting off of the surface, mirroring the rocky trails of the mountains. The sight of such had left him breathless, just as you did when you took a deep breath, reaching out for her glass, bringing it to you mouth. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be telling a stranger my problems,’ you mumbled. 
‘It’s nae an issue, lass,’ he responded, ‘happy to hear y’ got outta whatever was making ye so miserable,’ he confessed, ‘and Scotland, eh? Pretty place if y’ ask me,’ he said with a short laugh. You laughed with him before taking another sip from your drink.
He watched as you did so, noting the glint in her eyes as you moved your eyes away from him to his notebook. Pulling the glass away from your mouth, you placed it down with a hum, swallowing the last of the drink in your mouth, wiping your lips with the back of your hand. It's a charming sight, clumsy and amusing.
‘You’re good at drawing,’ you noted, pointing at the drawing, ‘is he a character of yours?’ you asked, motioning to the drawing of the man with the skull face. A short chuckle passed his lips as he rubbed the stubble on his chin. 
‘Guess ye could call him that,’ he said, 'someone I know, actually ,' he confessed.
Your brows furrowed, wrinkles forming on your forehead as your eyes grew wide. Your hand ghosted the glass, wetting your fingers with the condensation dripping down the outside as you looked at him with glossy eyes. Fingerprints marked the glass as you forced your hand away.
'I'm so so sorry- I didn't mean it as an insult it's just-'
'Keep the heid, lass,' laughed the man.
You stared at him.
'Relax,' he said, noting the confusion on your face. Your tensed muscles softened as your picked up the glass off of the table, taking a big gulp, finishing the last of the contents in it. He frowns when he notices you shaking. You thought you had done so much wrong with a single observation. 'you weren't to know.'
'Does he really wear that mask?' you whispered as though Simon was right behind you, and had he been, Johnny could say with his heart that he wouldn't have been surprised; the damn man appeared out of nowhere all the time.
'Yeah,' he said.
'Is it part of his job?'
Your intrigue was adorable.
'No, he just prefers to hide his face,' he explained, 'suppose it makes work easier,' he said, nodding to himself. Despite his time knowing Simon, he never did know why he covered his face. Of course, it kept the human version of the man from the man who committed countless atrocities in the name of justice, yet, the point you brought up left him thinking for a short moment.
'You work together?' you asked, 'what do you do for work?'
'Part of the military,' he told you frankly, 'he's my lieutenant,' he added, although, he didn't care to tell you much more as he looked at the you with a furrowed brow, not wanting to leave you with enough time to respond to his confession, 'what about you, lass?'
'I write,' you said, 'I got a remote position at a publishing company, that's whats given me the money to move out.'
'I enjoy writin' from time to time,' he responded, 'not that good at it though, prefer drawing,' he uttered.
You were though, he didn't even bothers to think of your response because, truthfully, your humbleness in terms of your own talent was wounding to his own love for writing. As he would with advertisements, inwardly, he skips by all the small talk in his mind. It's cruel the way the mind works; memory was a burden to hold, yet as entertaining as a late night TV show which was to only be watched in secrecy.
'What's your name?' you asked, picking up another cup of champagne. He watched as you did so, lifting his own cup that you had gotten for him when you had excused yourself to the bathroom.
He kept his distaste of the beverage to himself, besides, it was free.
'Johnny,' he answered, ' and y'urself, bonnie?'
You answer accordingly, stating your name with a smile. Repeating your name, he finds it rolls off his tongue well and the longer he observes you, the more a conclusion dawned upon him.
'Suits ye well,' he complimented with a wink.
Rubbing his face with his hand, his breath fogs against the window of the train and he turns his head away, absentmindedly wiping down the window with the sleeve of his puffer jacket. In the meantime, he busies himself looking at the empty seat opposite to him.
In the blink of an eye, you're there, sitting across from him.
'When do you get off?' he asked.
'Last stop,' you answered, 'staying at a hotel for a few days before my place is ready... was eager to leave,' you said. As soon as the words passed your lips, he felt compelled to be a gentleman. That, alongside taking into account the trouble that could have occurred if you did walk to the hotel alone, besides, the least he could have done for you buying him a drink and keeping him company was help you find you way to your hotel.
'We can share a cab if ye want,' he offered, 'put my mind at ease, wanna make sure you get there safe, besides, far too cold for ye to be walkin', bonnie,' he said, biting the inside of his mouth as he awaited your refusal, only, you nodded your head and smiled.
'I'd appreciate that, Johnny.'
His memories blur for a while after that, and his cheeks flushed red as he recalls how you looked at him before you got out of the cab. Glancing at the same hand that paid the fare only far enough to go to your hotel he curses as he watches the memory of him getting out of the taxi to chase after you.
You waited for him at the entrance in hope he'd have a change of heart, and he recalls how delighted you were when he walked through the door and caught you standing there, waiting for him.
Truthfully, he knew he was in deep shit when he felt the way you wrapped around him, the way you called his name, and how pretty you looked underneath him. Even after years, it was difficult to escape the thought of your first night together. Perhaps it was the entire being strangers thing that made the sex much more enthralling than any other one night stand he had had, or maybe it was just you.
Shoulda never let her have me number, he thought to himself.
It was difficult to deny that there were only ever terrible times. Resentment bubbles and it turns the fondest of moments to the worse; there was something there for him to miss when he thinks fondly of you. Fondness makes forgetting a hell of a lot harder, at least it does for him, anyway.
He hardly even thinks about Graves anymore and he resents him.
He resents you too.
But whenever he thinks of you, he thinks of your laughter. And then the guilt seeps in and he curses himself for ever thinking so lowly of you in the first place. How fucking dare he do something so terrible. You deserve it, though, for all the shit you put him through: the bruised heart thats still bandaged up, the sleepless nights as he waited for you to come home, the drunken phone calls he would get while on an op.
All of it.
Then there was everything else: the moments you shared together, the sound of your laughter which would seemingly travel down the halls of your apartment and wake him whenever you spent the night together, the sight of you in his shirt while cooking breakfast in the morning and your excitement when you finally persuaded him to dance with you.
The last one was particularly difficult to forget. His fondness will never let him let it go, he's convinced.
In the depths of the night, you danced together. He acknowledged the look on your face as he held you in your arms, the laughter as he spun you around in a circle, pulling you away just for you to end right back in his arms. He'd never let you wonder too far, scared that if he lost grip of your hand, you would have disappeared forever.
It became a routine and he recalls all the times he had held you in his arms while dancing to a song by Sinatra or Aretha Franklin and all the times he saw you smile. All of those happy moments moulded into one, while only a few stuck out.
During that night in particular, he couldn't look away from your eyes.
Whenever he looked at you, he was started by the glint of colours in your eyes, reflective of the colourful lights you had decorated your Christmas tree with. Rather, instead of decorating the tree, the lights in your eyes worked well in decorating the brambles you called eyelashes as you looked up at him. Every time you blinked, he found the same glossy sheen he had seen that night on the train. Every blink seemed to edge you closer to tears, as though your eyelashes were antagonising your poor eyes constantly.
Then he smelt the liquor on you breath and was reminded of the underlining truth of everything.
You were always emotional whenever you had something to drink. It couldn't have been helped, it was simply who you were, and he was going to resent you for something you couldn't have helped.
'Yer oot yer face,' he mumbled, speaking softly to you as you swayed with one another to the low hum of music from your vinyl player. Neither of you noticed how the song skipped, far too busy with one another to notice such a flaw.
'English, MacTavish,' you answered, your tone gruff as you recalled the story he had told you about the man with the skull mask and the city soaked in blood. He chuckled, pulling you closer, resting his head against your shoulder, looking at you. You turned your head to the side to look at him too.
'You're drunk,' he said quietly.
'I only had a glass,' you answered abruptly. You tensed in his arms when you responded to him and he felt his head sink further down until it sat, burning in the acid of his stomach. 'I had it while I was making dinner; the sauce had some of it in,' you explained, turning in his arms so your chests were pressed against each others. placing your hand against his face. You looked worried in that moment, observing his features. 'You're not mad at me, are you?'
Placing his hand over yours, he sighed, 'nae, bonnie, just don't want ye to hurt y'urself,' he explained, pulling your hand from off of his face, planting a kiss atop of it, moving his other hand from the small of your back to hold your waist. 'Love you too much for ye to do that,' he said, letting go of your hand to place his fingers beneath your chin, forcing your head up so you were looking at him. 'Y'know that.'
'I do,' you weakly answered.
The only bastard 'I do' he ever got from your lips. It was laughable really as he looks back on that night, how the pair of you had been so close in your home, dancing together as though you were an elderly couple celebrating your 40th wedding anniversary together.
Think I'll live that long?
Probably not.
Had anyone from 141 been there to witness how he fell to pieces with you in his arms, they very well would have laughed until they were blue in the face. And the longer he looks out the window out on the Scottish countryside, he concludes he too would laugh at that man dancing with you for being such a smitten fool.
'Good,' he hummed, pressing a kiss against your lips. The were chapped, dry, but he didn't care. Instead, he deepened the kiss as the pair of you stumbled backwards, muffled laughter escaping you as you loosely wrapped your arms around his neck while he kept the pair of you from falling.
Moments of happiness seemed so common in the beginning.
The night trains shifted to day trains again.
He'd hit the ground running after returning from an op, only showering because he didn't want you to smell the remnants of war which stained him and his skin. Nothing kept him from seeing you, not even his distaste for the day train.
All of it meant that he could get home sooner; he recalled the sinking feeling in his chest whenever the trains were delayed by a measly twenty minutes. Love made him a different man, he realised, a man who enjoyed the day train and the man who loathed the night train.
'I thought you weren't going to be home for another couple of days,' you said, opening the door to see Johnny standing there with a bag on his arm. Dropping it, he pulled you into a tight hug, resting his hand against the back of your head as he swayed you from side to side. 'Did you get the day train for me?' you asked.
Pulling away, he caught sight of the smile creeping onto you face as he nodded his head slowly, 'didn't wanna wait longer than I had to,' he answered, 'saw a photo of ye in me wallet an' knew I needed to be here with you sooner,' he added, pressing a kiss onto your lips as your cheeks flushed red.
'You have a picture of me in your wallet?' you quietly asked when he pulled away for you. He smiled.
'Of course I do, bonnie,' he responded as though such was an obvious fact, 'need to see that face of yours every day, ye like medicine to me.'
'Really?'
'Aye, lass.'
Everything moved so quickly and it wasn't long before you were well acquainted with his mam.
Meeting his mother was the confirmation he needed to say that he wanted to marry you. No one else in the world mattered when he saw how you and his sisters bonded, and while sitting alone on the train, he clenched a his fist at the emptiness of the palm of his hand while imagining the light weight of the ring his mother had placed in the palm of his hand while he stood in the kitchen helping her prepare the Christmas dinner. It had been over two years since the pair of you had started dating when she did so, working well to convince him that the timing meant that something else in the universe had willed it to happen.
'Mam?' he asked, looking down at the ring in his hand.
The band was quaint, golden as an green gem stared him in the eyes as he squinted, holding it up to the yellow light of the kitchen. The elderly woman in front of him chuckled, patting his shoulder as she walked past him to open the oven.
'Well, she's the one, ain't she?' she said, speaking into the heat of the oven as she grabbed the tray of duck-fat potatoes with a stained tea towel.
'Ye think?'
'Gonnae no’ dae that!' exclaimed his mother.
'Don't do what?' he scoffed.
'Act surprised,' she scolded, 'it's in ye eyes, son,' she chuckled. 'Yer nana told me to give ye the ring when I thought ye'd found the right one,' she confessed, 'and with your father gone, 'ave got no reason to wear it, but she has,' she uttered, looking from out of the kitchen into the living room.
His eyes followed hers and he watched as you sat with his youngest sister. The pair of you chatted away, though his stomach twisted at the sight of you holding a glass in your hand.
'She's a good girl, Johnny.'
'Aye, mam, I know.'
'So, marry her.'
With his mam's words echoing in his mind, the memories always came to the one that caused all the air in his lungs to escape.
Nothing wants to stay whenever he thinks of that, and he's sure if he was wounded, all his blood would leave him in a second in order to stay out of the cycle in his head that always brings him back to this one thought.
He supposes, in hindsight, it was terribly foolish what he had done. His ignorance to pressing issues was immature and irresponsible, only, they were easy to ignore when he had his mothers ring in his pocket. But he noticed, years down the line, how you had dropped his hand when the pair of you had been dancing, all to go and get another drink because the glass in your hand was running dry.
The party was one you both had planned, only, you had done so to celebrate a win himself and the boys had had during their time away, and he had invited everyone with the intent of proposing to the love of his life.
In the moment, he had been so crushed. He recalls how his mouth was dry, the dull ache in his cut knee as he awkwardly remained kneeled as you stood and stared. The speech he had prepared disappeared when you turned your back on him and rushed away, leaving his ego bleeding as everyone looked at him in horror.
'I just... I don't know why you would do it,' you mumbled when you heard him walk through the door into the kitchen away from the guests.
He was silent as he looked at you, traces of a storm in his eyes as he fought off the urge to cry. His chest hurt as he looked at you with a glass in your hand, and he couldn't do anything but stand there and watch as you drank from it. 'I told you, Johnny, I fucking warned you and-'
'I thought ye would've had a change of heart, love-'
'Well I haven't!' you angrily snapped, slamming your glass down onto the counter, glaring at him. 'What, did you think just because I'd have a ring on my finger all of our fuckin' issues are going to disappear? You're a smart man, Johnny, stop trying to play the role of the fool. It doesn't suit you and it never will.'
You were just as embarrassed as he was. He curses himself while sitting on the train, thinking back to your flushed cheeks and teary eyes. It wasn't only because of the booze that time, it was because of him too.
'I- I'm trying, John, can't you see that?' you croaked, 'I'm trying but I can't be everything you want. I don't wanna get married... at least not yet.'
'Ye don't love me,' he blurted.
You snapped your head up, furrowing your brows as you looked at him with wide eyes. 'Is that serious what you think?' you shakily asked, disbelief etched into your features. 'So what? You think all the fuckin' nights I've spent worried that you're not gonna come home when you're away working were for-'
'All the fuckin' nights you spent with a bottle in your hand too, eh?' he quickly cut you off, retorting in a manner that had left you breathless, draining all the colour out of your face. 'Don't pull that card on me, bonnie, don't you fuckin' dare do it 'cause I worry more about you and your drinkin' habit than I do my own life when I'm out on the field- tell me how you think that's fair!'
You stared at him, your eyes drifting to the empty glass abandoned on the counter. It was unfair for him to pull that card, he was aware enough in the moment to understand it, but he was so utterly devastated that he chose to stand his ground. An apology wouldn't have mean anything even if he had said it.
'If ye loved me... you'd stop goin' to the bottle every time ye have an issue,' he bleakly said, 'but am not even sure if you would pick me over the drink anymore, bonnie.'
'How would me saying yes to you fix any of that?'
He stayed silent.
Reflection allows him to find that he only ever proposed out of love. He was aware of your issues, noting it was never always smooth sailing from either of you, but he supposes he just wanted to have proof that at least once, you would pick him rather than the liquor.
But he was stupid for ever thinking you were more than your champagne problems.
'Getting married would only complicate things between us, John. You know that,' you said after a while of silence, 'and clearly, we don't listen to each other... I'm sorry I embarrassed you today, and I'm sorry I keep causing you to worry- I'm sorry for being such a burden to you but you don't make it easy for me,' you uttered, rubbing your face with your hands, wiping away the tears that fell down your scarlet cheeks.
There was nothing else for him to say to you, and he's ashamed at the very fact that, in the moment you needed him the most, he walked out of that room and left you there crying, alone.
As the train turns on the tracks again, he ponders what would have been different if he had stayed there with you, only, he finds his mind drifting to the words on a page which confirms exactly why he was thinking.
He was only prolonging the inevitable.
As he turns to the final page in his notebook, he finds it difficult to breath as he retrieves the piece of paper he had pushed to the back of it, unfolding it. Pressing his hand against it, he leaves it to sit on top of the page marked with splashes of the drink you had spilled, unable to find the strength as he stares down at the words scrawled on the page.
A crude reminder of what became of his engagement.
'Johnny,
In time, I hope you'll forget about all my problems and find someone who you deserve. I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused and I'm sorry for not being ready for you.
Give your mums ring to someone who deserves it and put the special ladies picture in your wallet instead of mine. For the sake of yourself and me.
I love you, Johnny, nearly too much, and while you will see my absence as cruel, know I see it as necessary and that's the issue; we never have seen eye to eye on a lot of things.
We're not ready for each other, I know you think it but you're too scared to say it, so I'll bite the bullet and say it for you. We're not ready for each other, Johnny.
Love shouldn't be a tug-of-war, and I grow tired for you watching as you always try and pull me to you. Besides, I heard your mother after you left the room, she said I was fucked in the head for not agreeing to your proposal and it leaves me wondering what type of person you've made your family believe I am.
I'm sorry I couldn't be everything you wanted, but know that everything I'm doing: leaving, writing this letter, not saying goodbye to you in person, is for you. You always said you hated goodbyes; they were the hardest part of your career, and I can't promise that I wouldn't run back into your arms the second you'd open your mouth and beg me not to go.
But I'm prolonging the inevitable by staying with you.
I'm making you miserable with my problems and that is not what I want you to do. You have a life, and you had a life before we met on that train.
All I ever did was make you worry and I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want you to worry about me, I just want you to move on and love and be loved. I'm going to work on myself and I'm going to get better because I know that that is what you want, and in truth, it's what I want too.
I love you and I fear I always will, but I can't have you, and I'm punishing you and myself by staying here.'
He turns his head away from the letter, looking back to the window at the small dots through the foggy water as he utters the last part of the letter under his breath. 'One day, we may meet again, perhaps the stars will align and you'll see me on a nighttime train back to your home town. And maybe then, I'll be ready.'
A breathy laugh escapes him, repeating 'And maybe then, I'll be ready.'
How appalling it would be when you realised that you leaving only resulted in the reversal of roles. At least, he likes to think he would have the strength to refuse you if he's to ever see you again.
When he turns away from the window, relieving himself of the pain of remembering all that has gone wrong in his life, he takes the letter from off of his notepad, folding it along the worn edges, pushing it back in a small slip at the back of the notepad.
Shrugging off his jacket, he put it on the seat beside him with a hard sigh, turning his attention back to the notepad in front of him. The nights long and his journey proceeds to drag his feet and he's unsure if he even wants to be back home or if he should have just stayed in the base until Price needed him next. But it's Christmas and he couldn't have left his family because of his own sorrow about something that happened years ago.
He just misses you more in the holidays, but he supposes that's okay as long as he doesn't let the phantom you left him with ruin everything. So, he picks up the pencil and pursues what he was doing the night you two met, only this time, there's a ghost sitting opposite to him, not the living thing that greeted him many moons ago.
His ignorance to the world around him keeps him from hearing the footsteps storming up the aisle after the train stops at a station. Even when the voice of a woman announcing the last stop enters his ears, he doesn't lift his head. All the noise culminates into a twisting storm, similar to how he imagines the billowing smoke exuding from a chimney on a winter night swirls in the wind. It's deplorable and he grunts as he attempts to chase the flurry of emotions away.
His efforts result in even more tension at the front of his mind as he looks into the eyes of the drawing he's sketching, realising just whose eyes he had depicted in the midst of his worry. Even after all the time has passed, he's impressed by the fact that he still remembers your features so well.
Always so difficult to forget, he supposes his contemplation proves such.
Then he hears it.
The very thing that works to break him free.
A quaint shaky breath.
A shadow covers his bulky frame, light peering from either side of the mass standing on the aisle holding onto the seat opposite him. Lifting his head, his lungs rattle in his chest as he realises the eyes he had been sketching in his notepad are right before him in human form, staring right back at him.
'Johnny?'
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lokvadnod · 4 months
Note
Hi there! I just found this blog and omg I've found my people lol. I just read your response to an ask requesting how one of our yautja boys would react to their human going down on them for the first time, which was incredibly hot and also hilarious, and I had to ask - do you envision the same sort of reaction from a female yautja? Because not to get too into it here in your asks unprompted - but if there's one way this gal wants to go out its with her head between Those Thighs TM
You and I are in the same boat, friend. (Says a creepy voice from the shadows as I rise from the grave with this post lol)
(My take on this with a male yautja can be found here.)
I kinda feel like a female Yautja would be a lot more calm, a lot more logical, and way more permissive from the jump. A Yautja female doesn't have to worry about an appendage being gnawed off, and she certainly doesn't have any perturbation about your oral structure, as dull and unthreatening as it looks. I don't think female-receiving oral is a big thing for Yautja, (though it's far more probable than its male counterpart) but maybe they engage in tongue action from time to time with their own species. I do, however, think that the idea of lips, blunt teeth, and a wider, much smoother tongue would interest a female yautja enough to make her want to try it from the minute the topic is raised...
Mature content below the cut
Terrifying could be a very fitting adjective for your situation for some. A less seasoned human in the fine art of romancing deadly extraterrestrials would probably have bowed out long before now, before a massive, clawed hand could find purchase on the back of your fragile, tiny head.
She's 8 and a half feet of nothing but thew and venom. More muscle than you've ever seen packed onto a curvy frame, with muscular pectorals and the nicest ass and hips you've ever seen. And it's all wrapped in a pretty package of dappled greens and browns, textured skin pulled over the planes of her body in such a right way that it isn't fair.
She's absolutely gorgeous... you know, in her own viscerally terrifying way.
Currently a grunting, growling mess, all teeth and fire-eyes as she writhes beneath you, she's even more alluring. Like a needy predator with deadly claws, she grinds just this side of too hard into your face with a rolling insistence that sparks at your need to provide and please her, wanton enough to inspire a succinct pride within you that you are the source of such a massive, intimidating galactic predator's pleasure.
"Right there." She grits through her teeth, somehow making it sound like a plea and a demand in one. Tree trunk thighs tighten around your head, careful not to pop it like a too-ripe watermelon, and she goes completely still.
Convergent evolution - if such concepts can be applied interplanetarily- is a magnificent thing. Darwin, or what dust is left of him after those centuries past, should be doing backflips in his grave...
In two beats, she's gone, mewling to the stars on the other side of the tempered window in wild bursts of feral pleasure, praying to her brutal gods in a fraternal echo of any human ever to be in her position. Every muscle, previously taut enough that it felt like you could be doing unspeakable things to a boulder, whips along the complete axis of it's motion, spasming in wild bursts of pleasure. As she comes down, panting and growling, she goes limp, only exerting enough energy to haul you up along her frame so you can rest atop her.
On your lips, linger the alien taste of her release, like something not quite familiar enough for a name or a likeness. Gently, she caresses you, tapered claws trailing up and down your back as you rise and fall in time with her massive chest.
"You..." she pants, and you're struck anew with pride at how unraveled you can get her, gruff and unmovable as she usually is. "You are quite skilled with that mouth of yours."
Compliments as such are not unheard of from her but they do fall sparingly and so you soak this one up with a grin. Those shark-like eyes that you've grown to love wander over your face, mapping the topography as if trying to discern for herself what makes your facial structure so pleasurable.
"Consider my ego stroked," you joke, and those eyes swipe up to bore into yours.
"You would like something else stroked." It's not a question, it's a statement she knows to be true and she gives you no time to answer before she rolls and she's on top of you.
Already breathless, you chuckle and bloom beneath her, body spreading under her wandering claws that you know from experience she can use so skillfully...
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cbk1000 · 5 months
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Anyway, here is another preview of the infamous Train Fic. (There are three or so others I've posted previous to this; if you search the tag 'preview' on my blog, you can find all of them as well as some other bits and bobs.)
“So. Speaking of. Last night. And this morning. Are you--is this…some kind of experimentation? Because it’s fine. If it is,” Merlin said. “Obviously I wouldn’t say anything to anyone. If you just need to. I dunno. Burn off some frustrations.”
The shirt was open; and came down with Arthur's back still turned, with the voice coming to him from the room which simultaneously was too small and vast a thing between them. He imagined turning round, and saying openly into the open, that Merlin as usual was a gibbering cunt; was so obtuse, so worryingly, so curiously a devotee of that ancient art of mouth breathing that his brain, when last its feeble struggle was ended, ought to be given to science. It was not doing much good for him; but somewhere in a jar it might do good for human learning. But he would have to put himself, naked and trembling, into the world where Merlin would feel obligated to tenderness; and though he could have qualified the, ‘No, I love you’ with a blistering ‘you tit’ still he would have had to offer it hopelessly in the first place. And so he said, whilst he was folding up the shirt to go beside the tie and jacket, “Yeah, sure.”
“Yeah. Ok. That’s Fine.” There was a little rustling, and then: “I guess you’re not as much of a prude about your sexuality as I thought. I mean, I don’t know if you remember, it was like a decade ago, but you did snog me just to convince my ex we were together at that Halloween party. Remember, the one where you went as like a zombie footballer or something and I was a vampire and I had to take my teeth out?”
“Vaguely,” said Arthur, who would have gone home with him after those ten transcendent seconds of tongue, and given up heterosexuality and virginity at once. 
“Yeah, I was trying to make him jealous, remember, so you went as my fake boyfriend, and he was like, ‘That’s your hetero footie mate you hang out with all the time, you pathetic arsehole’ and you walked up and put your arm round my shoulders and tried to kiss me but the teeth were in the way so I took them out and we made out a bit and it was kind of awful but he was really pissed off, so I won.”
“It was kind of awful?” Arthur demanded, throwing the shirt down. “Nobody has ever complained before.”
“Yeah, look, it was pretty obvious you’d never kissed a guy before. Plus you drank that really manky thing Morgana made out of, what was it, red wine and Coke? Your mouth was the scene of a crime.”
“What crime, the drink, or my kissing?” Arthur snapped.
“Don’t get your knickers in a knot, you were a 20-year-old straight guy; none of those kiss very well. And if it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t the worst I ever had. Do you remember Anna? She was that girl I started dating shortly after we moved in together? The blonde? Doing Asian and Middle Eastern Studies?”
Arthur, who remembered everyone who had slept with Merlin, whilst he put a pillow over his ear, to crush out the sound of others’ enjoyment, said, “Sounds a bit familiar, I suppose.”
“Yeah, well she used to, I dunno, almost unhinge her jaw or something, every time we snogged I felt like she was going to swallow my whole head, and it was like, ok, the sex is actually pretty good, what the hell is going on with her kissing, it was so bad I had to start avoiding it, because I tried to, you know, direct her a bit, like, look, you don’t have to actually put your whole mouth over my whole mouth and shove your tongue down my throat as hard as you can, and she never seemed to get that, so good luck to whoever the next bloke was, I guess. Anyway, all you did was use a little too much tongue.”
He was running to babble the way he always did when he was nervous, or trying to sell one of those absurd lies which he always pulled out of orifices even more indiscriminate than his arse, which never would have told a copper he was in the library after hours because he had been chasing after a stray cat: undoubtedly the criminal who had not only smashed the window, but made off with the librarian’s Jaffa Cakes. He was still standing in the doorway to the bathroom with one shoulder casually leant on the frame, as if he did not see much excitement in this new line which they were about to cross in their friendship; but the mouth was going on, quite independent of his brain, which must have been observing the tragedy in defenceless horror. It had gone to Oxford; not only gone, but winnowed out one of those firsts which were achieved by so small a percentage of students. Somehow the brain had done that, and was also doing this.
“You know what the proper amount of tongue is, then,” Arthur said, to preclude hearing anything else which might turn his stomach, or penis; and turning now to raise an eyebrow at the figure in the doorway, which finally had done the nigh on miraculous, and shut up.
“You want me to demonstrate or something?” Merlin asked, and shifted in the doorway. One of his hands in his pockets noticeably flinched; and he crossed one foot over the other, then crossed the other foot over the one foot. He took out one of his hands, to itch under his chin and at the nape of his neck. 
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study-core-101 · 9 days
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Hii your blog is so inspiring and helpful ❤
I don't know if you already posted about this but I want advice :D
I'm studying the equivalent to High School in my country (two years only) and I'm trying to strive more. Lately I have realised that I never have free time. I spend the afternoons studying, then I have dinner with my parents, watch something on TV, go to sleep and at those hours I'm so tired that I don't have the energy to do anything else I enjoy. Meanwhile, I see my friends and others at my class going out, going to extracurriculars, getting things done faster...
I've always had the feeling that I only do the things I like during summer break.
I can't help but wonder how am I gonna do when I'm in collage (if I actually get there)!
I would like to ask you if you had any advice, or tips about managing time etc
Pd: sorry if this was too long, personal or if I made any gramatical mistakes lol
Hii, sorry it took me so long to answer! From what I heard, it sounds like so kind of burnout. I'm no expert on this topic, so I'm going to leave the links of the sources just in case! (x) (x)
One of main components it's exhaustation. Feeling tired all the time and having no energy. Not only it impacts the mental and physicial health, but the perfomance. This usually stems of being always "on", overwork culture/mentality, pressure (whether internal or external) and the dislike of the tasks. What I recommend is:
Actually rest. Do activities that make mentally rest or dont do any activity, just take some time for yourself. Listen to your favourite music, take a bath, do some breathing exercise. Relax. Here are some more mental rest activities.
Dont beat yourself for resting. A lot of times, we "rest" but it isnt actually rest, because instead of focusing on yourself you are worrying about not doing anything productive 24/7. That looks like rest, but it isnt, it is just more tiring. All the toxic productivity mentality has to go.
Schedule time to do nothing. Establish clear moments for resting.
Take breaks.
Prioritaze tasks. Yes, we all want to have everything done perfectly and complete, but sometimes that is just impossible. The best way to classify them in order is 1) urgent and important; 2) not urgent but important; 3) urgent but no important; and 4) not urgent not important.
Have a good sleep schedule.
Drink water and eat all your meals
Find a hobbie or something you are passionate or at least midly interested on. Something that fills you with joy and seek to. At the beggining it will feel like a waste of time, but once you find something, well, let's just say, try it.
Another thing is the mindset. Negative thinking is unmotivating and tiring. Switching to a more possitive mentality does wonders.There are a lot of ways to reframe negative thoughts, I'm not familiar with most of them so I cant really explain, but here is an article that explains on detail how to do it.
Even though exhaustation and mentality are key to feeling burn out, inefficiency also has an important role. There are millions of study methods, but not a single one works for every person. Maybe you use a "good" study technique, but it isnt the right one for you. I'd recommend trying new ways of studying you havent tried before, see if at least one works for you. I'm going to honest with you, I dont know a lot of methods, since i found the one that works with me I havent tried new ways, here is a list of study methods with explanations that I'm using to draft future posts. Here are the links for the posts are posted about blurting, feynman and pq4r, if any of those sound helpful.
SELF CARE!!!!! Self-care is so important. It's been a common theme in this post, but I will repeat it once more, take care of yourself.
If these are also helpful, I'll leave the links for previous posts about motivation to start, motivation in general, and a reward system for motivation. Not all the tips in those posts will work, actually, some of them may contradict with what I just said, but I posted them with a different situation in mind. Take the tips that will help you and ignore the ones you think will just make it worse.
Hope this helps and good luck!
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mashiraostail · 4 months
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Hi there, I was wondering if you would write some vlad, Kugo, and hound dog x fem reader with nipple piercings and how you think the guys would feel abt them, if they like them or not and if they play with their nipples more because of it I love your writing btw 🖤
I'm gonna start going through old asks but feel free to send new ones! I have mine done and they certainly slay. I did also spend the past two years getting crazy body mods and making myself unemployable hehehe idk what this phD is even for because I'm big time tatted up.
I wanted to start with my best boys (esp Kugo :3) and some headcanons. I've been rewatching the show which is what made me think abt and miss the blog a little. Idk if the demand for MHA content is still there so I'll probably make an updated post with other shows and media I enjoy (big Bauldr's gate rn!!! yall already KNOW who it is.) NSFW under the cut!
Vlad: *I think he would be the least surprised upon noticing them. He's maybe seen them on other partners, or just is familiar with the concept. *the first time he notices them through your shirt probably went something like this: You're fresh out of the shower, pajamas sticking to your still damp skin as you pop into the kitchen for a drink. The relationship is new, and he's still in awe of you. He's always eyeing you in an appreciative way, especially when you're freshly showered, his eyes climb up your exposed legs shimmering from your body lotion, to your stomach and waist, and of course to your chest. Usually they'll slide up to your shoulders and linger on your neck and the cut of your jaw, but today they stop. Your shirt was smaller than usual, and of course it complimented your chest but there was something else. "What?" You pull the bottle of water away from your lips, "do I have toothpaste on me?" "No." He shakes his head, "no you don't." You cap the bottle and shrug, starting to walk by him, "I'm gonna go watch the-" Before you can get by him he grabs you by your arm, "what is that?" He's looking at your chest again. "My boobs-" "No I know." He looks up at your face, "are those your-" "Oh yea. I guess you've never seen them like this before huh? You can see them through a tight shirt." He's blinking, he's taking it in. All you can do is laugh, "go ahead." "No I'm an adult. I don't need to squeeze-" "It's fine, go ahead." You bridge the short gap between your lips and kiss him, holding him by his jaw and pressing the full weight of your body against his. After the fact he might be slightly apologetic for getting worked up so easily. *H's probably the most delighted by them too. I feel like he's just a horny guy, he's easily worked up, his brain always goes right to the wrong place. *Wearing a baby tee with no bra underneath so he can see them prominently will drive him up a wall. *He might get used to it with time, but all you have to do to hook him in is lean over the table at him, get him to look a little too long and he'll be bent at your will. *He loves them, he loves when you change the jewelry, colorful rhinestones, short chains, or captive hoops are all equally enticing to him. Red is his favorite on you though. *He'll lavish them with attention in bed, especially when he's going down on you, one of his hands is always occupied. If you're especially sensitive you'll need to tell him. *He likes to use his mouth too, the metallic taste on his tongue paired with the taste of your skin is a huge turn on for him.
_________
Kugo: *Most perplexed. He's probably not encountered them before. Show him the ropes, let him know they help rather than hurt and he'll be good. The first time he sees them he's going to have a lot of questions: Honestly, getting into a car and going home with Gang Orca was not necessarily in your plans for the evening. If anyone asked Kugo, taking home a random reporter was also not like him at all, in fact he had never done it. Maybe it wasn't fair to call you random, he had your phone number, you'd met before, you even had a friendly and slightly flirtatious banter. Maybe you had been sending him signals all along, maybe he had failed to pick them up, until now. He doesn't even get the chance to ask you if you're sure about this, if you want to sleep with him, if you'd been hinting at that this whole time, because you're straight to business as soon as his front door closes, climbing him like a tree. He guesses you were sure. Your excitement was contagious, you were handsy and giggly tugging him further into his home. You end up ontop of him, stopping your assault of kisses to sit up around his waist, "hey are you sure you want to..." You trail off, hands at the hem of your shirt, "I won't be offended, I was probably coming on so strong this whole time." You laugh a little but Kugo shakes his head, "take off your shirt." Your sweater flys off, something about the fact you've been bare skinned under that sweater all night makes his stomach warm with arousal. His eyes catch two shiny, metallic adornments. He reaches up instinctively to touch them. One hand still holding your waist. Your gasp makes him pull back. "Sorry does it-" "No it doesn't hurt." You catch his hand before he can pull it away any more, "the opposite." He spends most of your first sexual encounter fixated on them, licking, brushing his fingers over them, squeezing and so on, but you don't mind. *That being said he'll grow to love them as well. *Especially enjoys seeing you touch them in bed. *If you're riding him he won't be able to keep his hands off though. *Doesn't have a preference for jewelry, but if you ask him to pick you out something he'd secretly be delighted, he'd probably pick a barbell with some small charms on the ends, maybe hearts. *Lowkey already a huge boob guy so they just draw more attention to what he likes!
______
Hound Dog: *Mostly indifferent, doesn't get the point. *Until you're fucking, then he gets the point, then he likes them. A lot. *He doesn't avoid them during sex but he doesn't give them special attention either until one specific night: You're in missionary below him, his hands are holding onto your waist as his pace increases from dizzying to bruising. He likes to watch your face, your furrowed brows and the way you draw your lips between your teeth drive him nuts, it's almost impossible to get his eyes off. He'll let his gazy flicker downwards though, he likes your body almost as much as he likes your face, seeing the bounce of your stomach or the way your thighs shake is also rewarding for him. Today he stops on your chest though, bouncing to his almost abusive pace the dim light in the room catches on the jewelry, it's tantalizing, begging to be touched. When he ducks his head down to roll his tongue over one the moan you let out and the way you say his name would have probably made him cream his pants honestly, and the cherry on top is the way you hold the back of his head, practically burying him in your chest. Safe to say he gets the appeal after. *Lowkey likes rings better than barbells, he'll start to gently tug them, enjoying the way it makes you buzz. *Likes to pick jewelry out for you, for all your piercings, wants them all to match!
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