#LET THIS MAN HAVE ONE HOUR TO PLAY VIDEO GAME WITHOUT BEING GIVEN A TASK

[humm1ngj]

On today’s episode of Cellbit had one. ONE. thing he wanted to do for himself today.

He has been derailed by BBH wanting to interrogate Forever and it swiftly turned into setting up a romantic date with Cellbit working as the chef.

#qsmp #cellbit #qsmp cellbit #qsmp badboyhalo #HE JUST WANTED TO FISH AND DECORATE #LET THIS MAN HAVE ONE HOUR TO PLAY VIDEO GAME WITHOUT BEING GIVEN A TASK #It’s so funny it happens every time

[babyybitchhh]

Ogun x Reader 18+

Rating: Explicit/R-18+

Words: 8,375

Warnings: established relationship, cunnilingus, brief mention of breeding/pregnancy implication, piv sex, creampie

A/N: I really did not think I'd finish this and yet, months later, here we are. I said I wanted to do Ogun's hair for him so that is exactly what I did. 😤 A LOT of research went into the first half of this fic, I can't even tell you how many braiding videos I watched or how many haircare blurbs I read through, so if my ignorance shows I really do apologize. I can barely do my own hair let alone someone else's and I put in a lot leg work for about 5 paragraphs of relevant information. lol Best boy deserves it though, so please enjoy!

♥♥♥♥

The quiet drone of the TV against the far wall was the only source of noise in the small apartment and neither of you were paying any attention to it. Hadn’t been for the last few hours, but that was how most wash days went. The background chatter was superfluous at best when you had all of your attention zeroed in on your boyfriend's hair and Ogun was pleasantly dozing at your feet, lost in his own little world of pampered bliss.

It did, however, serve its purpose in helping you better keep track of the time. If left to your own thoughts, you would have all too easily slipped into the same comfortable lull as him and forgotten about everything else you had to do. Like think about food, for example.

Briefly glancing up at the sound of cheesy sitcom music, you mentally check off another half hour. It was starting to get late which meant he’d probably be starving by the time you were done and that wouldn’t exactly come as a surprise given you’d been at this for the better part of the day. All that hard earned muscle mass of his certainly wasn’t going to maintain itself.

And, now that you were thinking about it, you were starting to notice the creeping pang of hunger in the back of your mind, buzzing faintly like an incessant afterthought.

Drawing a breath, you start to ask if he’s in the mood for anything in particular but Ogun manages to beat you to it.

“What should we do for dinner?”

You smile to yourself, fingers deftly moving through his hair with practiced ease -- under, scoop, under, repeat -- while you give that question some thought. Surely there was something you could whip up with what you had on hand in the kitchen. The real question, however, was what.

Doing a quick mental checklist of your cupboards, you rapidly narrow down your options. A fast and easy pasta dish was out of the question without the sauce or any ingredients to make it with. No meat for hamburgers. There was still some salad mix in the fridge but he needed something far more substantial than that. Damn. You should probably go shopping soon.

“Hmm,” Gently tilting Ogun’s head forward, you pick back up on the half finished braid you were working on. He was almost done, with only two rows left to go. The argan oil and shea products you’d put in his hair left your fingertips feeling buttery smooth and soft, their lingering smell as warm as it was soothing. It permeated the air in the living room, enclosing you both in your own little bubble for two and making for an altogether pleasantly relaxing Sunday afternoon.

“Let’s see …” You murmur at length. “I could probably make a stir fry with some vegetables and shrimp. How’s that sound?”

“As much as I love your cooking,” He shifts on the floor and glances over his shoulder, forcing you to pause what your fingers are doing. “I was thinking we could order in tonight. My treat.”

Your smile grows even when you try to ignore the unmistakable flutter in your chest. “Oh? And what’s the occasion?”

“There isn’t one.” His mouth curls up, mirroring yours. “But if you need an excuse, consider it thanks for doing my hair.”

“That’s sweet of you, but I’m not finished yet.” Placing a hand atop his head, you pointedly turn him around straight again and Ogun laughs, very softly, when you release him so you can get back to work.

You enjoyed getting to do this for him and the fact you liked playing with his hair was no secret either. It was wild and thick, very close to being untamable, but it was also incredibly healthy -- something you would have all too happily taken credit for if it hadn’t been in the same enviable condition as when you’d first met him. That he trusted you enough to let you do this was, perhaps, more intimate than anything else you’d ever done together, and with a few more twists you put the finishing touches on the braid.

Letting it hang next to the others, you direct him to lean back so that you can easily reach the front of his hairline again. He acquiesces without a fuss and sinks into the couch, letting the back of his head settle comfortably in your lap. Ogun’s shoulders brush your knees when you hunch closer with a pink rat tail comb in hand and you’re acutely aware of him watching you as you begin sectioning out the next row. You start to smile again, even though you try not to.

“What?”

“I’m still waiting on an answer.”

You shoot him a quick look.

Golden eyes gleam back at you, reflecting endearment and humor alike, and you quickly focus in on his blown out, fluffy hair again before he can successfully distract you. “I don’t know. You pick.”

“Nope.” He hums goodnaturedly. “That’s not how this works. You can’t just push it back on me when I asked you for a reason. Tell me what you want.”

“I really don’t know - hey!” You squawk when he gives the back of your calf a sharp pinch in retaliation for being so uncooperative and you squirm, giggling. “Don’t do that! I’m honestly not sure what I’m in the mood for.”

“Then think about it.”

“I am.” You intone, gently pushing Ogun’s head forward just enough to get at the crown of his head. Relative silence claims the room once more while you consider an almost endless list of potential choices and finish up the second to last braid. Thankfully without any more pinching attacks on his end. He was going to look so nice when you were done.

“What about a pizza?” You suggest at last.

“I’m game.” He murmurs, slouching to the side so he can rest his temple against the plush cushion of your leg. It gives you the perfect angle to attack the final strip from and you get to work weaving coarse strands into his preferred fashion, your fingers moving quickly but efficiently. You’d practiced tirelessly just to ensure he wouldn’t have to go to someone else for this without skimping on the finished product's quality and it certainly showed.

A few moments later, the task is complete.

Grabbing an elastic band, you gather Ogun’s styled hair into a neat little ponytail and tie it off at the back of his head. You finish up by running your fingertips across one shaved side of his scalp, affectionately feeling out the new growth before deciding he can go another week or two until you have to bring out the clippers again.

“Alright. You’re all done.”

Lifting a hand to feel over his hair, he twists around and peers up at you with an expectant grin. “How do I look?”

“Like the most handsome man in the world.”

Ogun positively beams. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Leaning close, you press a brief kiss to his smiling mouth. “What sort of pizza do you --”

He cuts you off when he suddenly pushes up on his knees and catches your lips again.

Your eyes go big when broad hands find the meat of your thighs and gently squeeze them while he kisses you much more impassionedly than you’d kissed him. A sound of surprise rises in the back of your throat but he quickly swallows it, making your heart race.

Heaving a quiet sigh through your nose, you lean into the gesture and meet him halfway, eagerly kissing him back.

Grinning knowingly, Ogun tilts his head and slots his mouth more securely over yours to deepen the exchange. You find yourself slowly melting against him and you bring your hands up to grab onto his shoulders. God, he was unfairly good at this. Not that you were complaining, but a polite segue from one topic to the next would have been appreciated. You’d been thinking about dinner, what sort of toppings you wanted on your pizza, and now you were thinking about …

You groan, very softly, when his palms drag up along your sides, bunching the cotton of your t-shirt in the process. It allows for the briefest skin on skin contact and an eruption of goosebumps spreads across your body, as anticipatory as they were impatient.

Lips parting, you grant him access and Ogun jumps at the chance, eagerly sweeping his tongue into your mouth to lav yours with warm, wet attention. The smooth, flickering strokes he graces your palette with inspires a flood of molten heat in your gut that leaves you wanting more. Always more. It was never enough where he was concerned - and you slide one of your hands higher still to tenderly cradle the curve of his skull.

Much to your whining disappointment, however, he pulls back a moment later to give you some space and you whimper at the loss.

“Ogun …”

“Shh. I’m right here, baby.” He whispers, leaning back in to press a quick peck to your lips before doing the same to the corner of your mouth.

It’s not enough to pacify you though and you loop both arms around his neck, trying to pull him back in again. He obliges with an affectionate nuzzle, pressing close to settle against your lap and pin you to the back of the couch under his sturdy weight.

“What's wrong, sweetheart?”

You pull your mouth in an imploring pout. “I’d like for you to finish what you started.”

He laughs, sweet and boyish as he pulls back to fix you with a big grin. “Oh? And have I ever left you wanting?”

“No, but I’d hate for you to start now.” You sound a little whiny. Needy.

Another quiet laugh and Ogun comes in to kiss you again, much more sedately this time. His soft lips mold seamlessly to yours, working against your mouth at just the right speed, with the right amount of pressure to steal the air from your lungs.

You let loose a soft moan as you arch underneath him and push your chests together, basking in the fleeting contact despite how unsatisfying it is. What you really want is to have his body working over yours without the impediment of bothersome clothes in the way. To feel the chorded steel muscle he’d worked so hard to build flexing and driving into you.

A shudder ripples through you when the thrumming desire that wells inside slithers out from between your legs to ignite the rest of your body in heated flame. An all powerful compulsion which you wouldn’t have fought even if you could.

His mouth still working in tandem with yours, Ogun gives your waist a possessive squeeze and it sends a fresh wave of sharp arousal racing down your spine. You whimper, pushing up into him a little harder, more fervently, as you clutch at his shoulders. The need to have him laid out on top of you has taken over your higher functioning mind, all thoughts of pizza long gone out the window as the velvety push and pull of his mouth draws you further under his spell.

Willingly, you surrender to the exigent summons and curl your legs up around his narrow hips to tug him even closer, urging him into action.

A hot puff of air fans across your face when he abruptly disengages from the kiss, moving to press his lips against the apple of your cheek, your jaw. There’s a noticeable haste in his actions now and you turn your head to give him better access, exposing the vulnerable line of your throat to his seeking mouth.

Ogun wastes no time and immediately swoops in, pecking his way down the column of your neck with an occasional love bite here or there for good measure. Each one seemed to make your toes curl that much tighter to the point where you could hardly stand it anymore.

“You play dirty …” You mumble, lightly running your nails across his nape.

“Mm, how so?” He sounds distracted and preoccupied, too busy mouthing at your pulse to pay it any mind.

“You told me to decide on dinner …” You trail off when he latches onto the juncture of your neck and shoulder, immediately succumbing to the tantalizing suction Ogun applies with his lips. You let out a soft, faltering groan, brows furrowing in pleasure when it makes the simmering heat in your gut double and then triple as teeth sink into delicate skin.

Shuddering, you deliberately wrack your brain in an attempt to finish your train of thought but that proves much more of a struggle than you’d been prepared for.

“But … nngh, but now all I want is you …”

He comes up at your somewhat dreamy admittance, a mischievous look camping out on his face even as big hands push at the hem of your shirt. “Oh yeah? Anything you want in particular, sweetheart?”

Lifting your gaze, you peer up at Ogun from just a scant few inches away. The shallow rise and fall of your chest has no doubt clued him in that he’s got you all worked up now but you aren’t exactly trying to hide it. He already knew just how weak you were for him, knew precisely how well your body always responded to his advances, so there really wasn’t any point in pretending otherwise.

You were powerless against his undeniable charm and he seemed to get just as much enjoyment out of that as you did. And looking at him now you think, not for the first time, that you just might be the luckiest girl in the world.

“Let’s start with that talented mouth.” You murmur, reaching out to take his smooth jaw in hand and pull him, grinning, into another kiss.

Noising quietly against your mouth, he leans further into you until it feels like you’re being pleasantly crushed under the hard, muscular weight of his frame. It only serves to get you even more riled up, now well and truly desperate to feel his bare skin flush against yours as you roll your hips forward and drag your clenching pussy across the front of his pants.

Lips parting on a heady groan, he returns the favor by slowly thrusting his pelvis forward so you can feel the stiff outline of his cock caressing your clothed slit. You keen at the sensation and cant your hips into the pressure, the two of you gradually picking up a steady, unhurried rhythm together that damn near drives you wild.

Hands staying busy while he sedately humps you, Ogun patiently works your shirt up higher and higher until it’s bunched under your armpits. Reaching around for the clasp of your bra, he gives it one good tug and the satiny soft material loosens around your shoulders with a near silent slither. Bringing his hands to the front again, he shoves the cups up out of the way before letting them descend on soft, pliant breasts that seem to fit just right in the curve of his worn palms. Giving them both a gentle squeeze, he kneads your chest until you groan and tip your head back, breaking apart from the kiss in favor of sighing up at the ceiling.

He takes that opportunity to dip his face close and press an open mouthed kiss to the center of your sternum while he carefully squeezes your tits in a pinching grip. It makes you shudder, wishing you could clench your thighs and ease the growing ache there, but that’s impossible when he’s slotted between them like this. You have no choice but to endure the thrumming tension and you squirm underneath him, needily bucking up to meet the next thrust of his hips with a frustrated little groan.

“Ogun,” You gasp, letting your fingers scrabble to grab hold of his black t-shirt and tug on it. “I need you. Now.”

Bringing his head up, Ogun allows himself a moment to drink in the wanton expression on your face while he cups his hands around your breasts almost reverently. “How do you need me, baby?” He mumbles, letting his thumbs brush over your stiff nipples in a feather light caress. “What do you need?”

“Your mouth …” You whine, practically choking on it.

“Where do you need my mouth, huh? Tell me.”

“On my pussy.” It’s more a plea than a statement and you shake for him even as the words leave your mouth.

Ogun shifts against you and bends down, mouth opening wide over the pebbled peak of your breast. You watch on, mesmerized, when the pink of his tongue darts out to lap at the fleshy bud before sealing his lips around it and suckling. Your eyes slip shut as you arch, pushing your chest up to meet him while your fingers cling to the cotton of his shirt. Ogun doesn’t linger long though and he soon comes up off the first with a dull pop before catching your other nipple between his lips.

Briefly worrying it, he slides his hand forward to tweak the spit lathered bud between thumb and forefinger, making you outright seethe. You give up on getting his top off with an impatient little huff and bring your hands down to grasp at his arms instead. The firm, wiry muscle under his skin offers little give no matter how hard you squeeze or dig your nails in, and he remains ever unperturbed, casually sucking the tip of your breast to stiff, throbbing attention.

“Please, Ogun …”

With a faint hum, he comes up off your chest and presses a quick peck to the puckered nipple. “I know, baby. I know.” Moving back to the first nipple, he kisses that one too. “Just be patient, alright? You know you don’t have to beg me to go down on you …”

You groan at the velvety suggestion and tuck your chin down to pin him with an imploring look. Ogun offers you a lopsided grin in return, pinching both your nipples between his fingers and carefully tweaking the sensitive flesh until you outright gasp. You feel like you’re running on autopilot now as you reach up to sandwich his face between your palms and pull him into yet another kiss, lips crashing together with an intensity that makes your pussy flutter.

His mouth parts against yours, opening wide as if to swallow you whole, and all the while he keeps plucking at your tits until they’re aching almost as much as your neglected cunt. You couldn’t take it anymore ...

Tightening your legs around Ogun’s waist, you dig your heels into the small of his back and draw him right up against you so you can feel the hard weight of his cock digging into the spot where you need him most. A frazzled, high strung wail claws its way up the back of your throat as you jut your pelvis up and rub yourself against that thick, pulsing heat in search of some relief but very little is forthcoming like this.

He pulls back at the sudden friction thoufg and issues a faltering groan that seems to echo off the walls for as quiet as it is. “Shit … you really want it that bad, baby?”

“It’s your fault …”

“I know, I know.” Bending close, Ogun presses a hard peck to the center of your chest. “And I’ll take responsibility for that, don’t you worry.”

Lower he trails, slowly kissing his way down your fluttering stomach as his hands come around to unbutton your shorts. The zipper quickly follows suit and then he’s tugging them down your thighs while you eagerly twist to help get you undressed just that much quicker.

Thoughtlessly tossing them aside, Ogun reaches for your panties next but he’s much more subdued in removing these. One torturous fraction at a time, he carefully pries the thin cotton away until they’re low enough to expose your puffy slit to the air. He lets out an appreciative noise of approval when he sees the sticky mess you’ve made along the seam and your heart pounds in your ears as you draw your legs up so he can slip the dainty cotton the rest of the way off.

He discards them somewhere on the floor, probably right alongside your shorts, before palming your bent knees. Gently, Ogun eases them apart so he can peer down at your sticky cunt with an unconcealed expression of hunger.

“Look at you, baby. Just look at this pretty pussy, already so wet for me.”

Smoothing big hands up along your bare thighs, he bends close and presses his mouth to the apex of your mound in a surprisingly chaste but hungry kiss. Digging your fingers into the couch cushions, you enticingly wiggle your hips at him and gold eyes flash at you from between your legs, amusement and something much more dark shining within them.

You feel his lips eagerly curl against you then, and he shuffles closer to the couch so that he’s hunched directly over your prone body. Hooking long fingers under one of your legs, he hauls it up and over his shoulder before repeating the process on the other side. Grabbing big, grasping handfuls of your hips, he uses his hold on you to drag your lower body just to the edge of the seat, making you squeak at suddenly finding yourself completely vulnerable and laid bare. Your pussy clenches tight in anticipation though and you tremble, drawing a steadying breath when he pecks at the soft swell of your inner thigh, warm breath puffing against your skin.

There was no denying that he had you completely at his mercy like this and you would have been lying through your teeth if you said that didn’t excite you.

“Comfortable?”

At your nod, Ogun leans forward just enough to bend your legs towards your chest and fold you against the top of the couch. He settles on his knees and dips his head down, mouth parting so his tongue can take a quick swipe from the bottom of your gushing cunt up to the top. The sight of it has you groaning for him, your vision swimming as you force yourself to keep watching.

That proves exceedingly difficult when he presses in close, making the meat of your pussy lips squish and mold against his face. Slowly kissing at you to work them open with his mouth, he flicks his attention up to regard your face and you practically vibrate on the cushions. Another swipe of his tongue hits its mark, wetly knocking your clit, and you let loose a seething mewl.

“O - ohh! Yeah …”

Ogun’s fingers dig into your twitching hips to keep them spread while he takes his time slowly swirling around that sensitive pleasure button. He starts at a wide breadth and then gradually works his tongue in tighter and tighter circles until he’s finally grinding it into oblivion. The soft, gooey friction of his mouth is enough to have you wheezing in pleasure as sweat beads, unnoticed, along your lower back and you arch, making your tits jiggle with the motion.

“Right there … don’t stop!”

Issuing a low sound of agreement, Ogun opens his jaw wider and drags his tongue straight up through your slick, juicy folds. You can feel every little thing - every nerve ending and every meaty bit of flesh that tries to cling to the textured muscle and your legs jerk at the sensation.

Tossing your head back against the couch, you blindly reach down to grasp his knuckles in a death grip. “Ah, haah … feels good ...”

In lieu of a proper response, he tilts his head and attacks your thrumming clit from a different angle. He’s relentless, mercilessly battering that delicate little pearl back and forth with such fervor that it leaves you quaking under his attention, struggling just to breathe. You’re not sure how much more of this you can stand, the threat of tipping over the edge before you can even fully enjoy it looking like a very real possibility now, but then Ogun seals his mouth around the fleshy nub and sucks.

Hard.

“Oh!” You choke on a haggard, stuttering gasp of pleasure, lurching underneath him.

Confidently humming, he comes up off you with a dull pop and a sticky breath of air. “Looks like you’re already getting close.” Ogun murmurs, sounding really quite smug about that.

Never one to leave you hanging though, he crowds one of his hands between your legs and presses blunt fingers into your slit. Finding your throbbing clit again, Ogun starts to rub it in fast strokes made smooth by the viscous mix of saliva and arousal that absolutely coats your pussy and this time you practically shriek.

“Yes! Yes, I’m getting close! … nngghh … please, please, pleeease! Ogun, please!”

But he refuses to let up on your poor little cunt just yet. “Please what, baby?”

You twist, thighs flexing and going ramrod stiff around his head. Your vision was starting to blur around the edges, reflexive tears pricking at your eyes. It’s hard just to think straight let alone form a semi coherent sentence when he’s relentlessly rubbing your clit with roughly calloused fingertips like that, the friction almost too much to bear and quickly riding the line of overstimulation. You couldn’t handle much more of it.

“Pl - please put your dick in me! Please! I wanna’ come on your cock, Ogun! I’m buh - aaah - ah! - begging!”

A low, rumbling groan rises up in his chest but, still, he doesn’t stop. “I thought you wanted to come on my mouth?”

“I - I changed my mind!”

He grunts, deep and primal in his acknowledgement, and the sound races straight to your throbbing cunt.

You respond with a broken groan, only to nearly come right up off the couch when he withdraws his fingers and replaces them with his mouth. Supple lips part and work you open again so he can worm his tongue into the crease of your body. He delivers a series of taunting flicks to the straining bud hidden within, making you sensitively twitch, before dragging the flat of his tongue across it in broad, sweeping strokes. You could feel yourself tipping ever closer to the edge and, with a wheezing gasp, you reach down with both hands to cradle either side of his head.

You’re not sure if you want to push him away or draw him closer - as if that were even possible at this point.

“Oh - Ogun, wha - wait! Nngh … if you keep going - -“

Smacking his lips, he comes up just enough for you to hear him say “You’ll cum? Good.” Before diving back in.

The way he immediately opens his mouth wide and plunges his tongue into the satiny soft folds and creases of your cunt, teasing at your entrance, has you jolting as if you’ve been electrocuted. Gritting your teeth, you clutch him all the tighter while the building pressure inside you steadily inches towards blissful discomfort. Your heaving body was truly hanging in the balance now, entirely at his mercy (of which there seemed to be none) and your legs uselessly flex in the air when you squeeze them around his head. You could almost taste it in the back of your throat.

“Fuck! Right there …” you whine as you rock your pelvis against his mouth, the motion stiff and halting. “Right there, baby … I’m s - so - ooooh - close!”

Ogun grunts in approval and drags his tongue up to the top of your slit again, burying his face somehow even deeper into the cushiony give of your pussy. He glances at you, very briefly, from under the fall of dark lashes and the heady, masculine glint in those burnt gold irises sends a powerful shudder rippling down your spine. Your mouth drops open as if to scream but nothing comes out. For a worryingly long moment, it feels like you forgot how to breathe.

All you can do is watch on in thrumming suspense when he drops his gaze and gives his head a shake to jostle all the nerve endings in your cunt. The braids you’d worked on all day give a little bounce in their ponytail before settling again, and your eyes start to roll back when he flattens his tongue to your clit so he can grind down on it again. Static shoots through your system as you arch against him, so fitfully your back starts to ache in protest, but it was much too late. Nothing could stop it now, not even if you wanted to.

You suck in a haggard breath and the coil snaps, just like that. With an almost violent jerk, you devolve into a fit of convulsions that has you wailing up at the ceiling in total disregard for the upstairs neighbors. They probably heard you every time you and your boyfriend had sex but it’s not as if you could very well help it. Ogun was a talented individual by nature and that certainly transferred over into bedroom activities too.

Helpless, all you can do is cling to him through the full bodied tremors that shake you straight down to your core while he leisurely laps at your throbbing clit to ease you through it. He always seemed intent on milking your orgasms for all they were worth, and that certainly didn’t help your case with your neighbors either. It always felt like something of an out of body experience when he was the one going down on you and you couldn’t exactly say you disliked him for that.

The exact opposite, actually.

“Oh, god …”

With a stuttering groan, you slowly go limp as you come down from your high one piece of you at a time. It was hard to tell which jagged edges fit where, but you’re still acutely aware of the mess he’s made of your cunt when Ogun finally straightens and you feel a rush of fresh air hit your drenched slit. You shiver at the sensation and crack your eyes open to peer down at him, whimpering.

“You didn’t listen …”

Snorting a quiet laugh, he shifts against you and brings a hand up to swipe the glistening moisture from his mouth. “I only did what you initially asked for, sweetheart. That doesn’t mean I can’t give you the second request, too.”

Your lips curl in a warbling smile at that, and he grins right back.

Letting your head loll against the couch cushions, you contentedly watch as he brings your legs down off his shoulders so he can move to stand. Leaving you spread out and feeling like silly putty, he yanks his shirt over his head with one quick, fluid motion that makes his abdominals tantalizingly ripple before reaching for his pants next. He makes quick work of the button and then the fly, anticipation evident in his body language when he shoves them along with his underwear down to his feet.

Ogun’s thick cock bounces eagerly when he steps out of his discarded clothes, and the sight alone is enough to make your pussy clench tight. You still felt sensitive and over wrought, so fresh off the tail end of your orgasm, but that doesn’t stop you from moaning faintly at the sight of him.

You’d never known a more attractive man in all your life.

“Ogun …” You murmur, eyes slipping shut when your desire flares back at full force dizzyingly fast.

Your eyes immediately pop back open, however, when he slides his arms under your knees and leans forward to brace against the couch, folding you up like a pretzel. Your toes flex as you squirm underneath him, glancing down at your defenless little cunt with an excited squeak. Puffy lips can’t help but spread in this position and you easily catch sight of your swollen clit straining towards him in obvious need, not yet satisfied.

Hovering just a scant breath away, his straining cock - all silky smooth and heavy - twitches in anticipation, eager to sink into you. It doesn’t look like it's going to fit. It never does but, somehow or another, he always manages to squeeze every girthy inch of himself inside you and the thought alone has you throbbing in sharp, sporadic pulses.

It was almost embarrassing how fast you were bouncing back from the first round, but you can’t quite complain when you watch his hanging ballsack sway with the motion of getting himself situated and your pussy responds in kind with an intense pulse. He had the body of a breeder and you were sure he would’ve already had you heavy and round by now if only you weren’t on birth control. Maybe someday, though …

“Ogun …” You were starting to feel well and truly delirious now, and you reach up to dig your nails into his forearms for leverage to ground yourself with.

He doesn’t seem to mind it though, and he merely issues a soft grunt of acknowledgement as he rocks forward a bit to angle your defenseless pussy up at him more. You can feel yourself squeeze down and you groan, dazedly watching your own thighs flex in their bent up position but there was simply no way out of his hold now. The thought alone is enough to have you breathing out a stuttering puff of air, which you promptly choke on when he starts to lower his pelvis towards yours.

“Yes, yes, yes, please give it to me, I need it, I need it, please --”

You’re whining. You realize that on some level, but you’re much too consumed by this desperate hunger to have him rearranging your guts to care about that right now. It wouldn’t take Ogun long at all to have you creaming around him at this rate.

Unperturbed, he casually adjusts his position over top of you before swooping down to catch your babbling mouth in another heated kiss to silence you. The passionate force behind the gesture pushes your head back against the cushions and you relent, groaning into his lips as your hands fly up to offer his sides an encouraging squeeze.

Luxuriating under the strength of his body, you drag your palms up across his chest and higher still to grasp his shoulders. With a weak, halfhearted jut of your pelvis, you make a sad little attempt at angling your hips up enough to feel his leaking cockhead against your sticky cunt but it’s no use. He has you thoroughly pinned and at his mercy like this. His for the taking whenever he saw fit to skewer you on his sizable length and not a moment sooner.

It was too much.

You suddenly break from the kiss in favor of keening in soft desperation. He pulls back, stopping just long enough to regard you with that infuriatingly attractive, heavy lidded look before pointedly glancing between your bodies.

Slowly, you follow his lead only to swallow hard when his thighs flex forward and the underside of his cock skirts along your parted pussy lips. The crude way it bumps against your clit has you jolting at the sensation and clutching him all the more fervently. Your whole body positively shakes as Ogun shuffles his feet a little further apart and tries again, the bulbous glans slipping and sliding through petal soft folds once, twice - until it abruptly finds its mark on the third stroke.

Catching at your entrance, he pauses for a moment and then slowly starts to sink in. Your breath hitches, mouth opening on a silent scream as you watch the ruddy pink head slowly disappear into your body. The stretch is immediately felt, and it’s more than enough to make your greedy pussy flutter around the intrusion even as it gushes more sticky slick to ease the way.

But the more of him that slides into the gummy sleeve of your insides, the less good it does. He’s just too big - wider than he is long, yet still large enough to push your heaving body right to its limits. You hold your breath, head spinning, when he pushes further in and forces your squeezing passage to make room for him. More and more, until he’s about half of the way inside where he finally pauses to let you adjust.

You twitch, weakly writhing like a small animal caught in the merciless maw a steel trap. You were utterly powerless underneath him.

“Oh - Ogun! Fuck … fuck me - dear Sol, please just fuck me!”

He draws a slow, calming breath. “You’re still so tight, baby … I don’t want to hurt you.”

Whimpering, you reach between your legs and wrap trembling fingers around the base of him. Ogun moans after a few awkward pumps of your hand and tilts his face up at the ceiling, basking in the sensation of you jerking him while he’s half wedged inside your body.

It must feel good because it takes him a prolonged moment to get his bearings again and when he does, he carefully eases himself back just enough to give a tiny thrust forward. You can feel the moment he slips in a little deeper than before and you guide him into it, one sedate thrust at a time. When you stroke up, he pulls back and when you stroke down, he pushes into you. It’s a maddeningly cohesive rhythm that has you panting like a bitch in heat long before he finally slides home and you outright choke when the fronts of his thighs settle against the backs of yours a small eternity later.

“Shit,” He hisses, brows knitting as he peers down to admire the sight of his pelvis flush against yours. “That’s a tight fit … how’re you doing, sweetheart? It’s not too much, is it?”

You give your head a numb shake and roll your eyes up at him, teasing your fingertips through the mess of curls at the base of his groin while you do it. Words couldn’t even come close to describing how stuffed full you felt, but you loved it.

“N - no … it’s perfect … feels - ngh - good …”

Smiling, Ogun dips his face close to press his mouth to your forehead in a chastely sweet kiss. He stays like that as he carefully angles back until just the tip remains and then, so slowly you can feel it in your bones, he pushes back in. The drag is exquisite and it feels like you’re practically suffocating on the intense pleasure of every solid inch, each throbbing vein. You could feel it all.

A wordless cry of pleasure bursts out of you when he slides back out and in again at that same staggered pace. He’s so big you can feel the pressure on your cervix and when he wiggles his hips, grinding into you, oh god, it feels like he’s pushing the glans right on that raised ring of puckered flesh. Your mouth drops open but nothing comes out. It was hard just to keep your eyes focused anymore.

Haltingly, he starts up a gradual but steady pace as your body adjusts around the intrusion and makes room for him, your pulpy walls clinging to the length of him on each drawn out stroke. It comes as a great relief, particularly when the building pressure swells into high strung arousal and replaces the initial discomfort of being stretched right to the breaking point.

In a matter of moments, the sticky wet clicking that noises each time your pussy sucks him in deep on the downward thrust comes to dominate the living room. The sound of it only seems highlighted by your sensitive bleating and the husky groans slipping out of him, the drone of the tv so much an afterthought now that you forgot it was even on. Even when he picks up enough speed to drive the fronts of his thighs against your upturned ass, creating a sharp, fleshy slap, it’s nothing compared to the hungry slurping of your cunt.

You probably would’ve been embarrassed by the whole thing if only it didn’t feel like he was spearing you straight down the middle. It made your eyes cross, mouth hanging open in doped out bliss while you cling and clutch at him for dear life. There wasn’t a single inch of you that he didn’t touch like this and it lit up every nerve ending along the way like a goddamn firework.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost think he was going to break you in half.

“Such a pretty baby. Look how well you’re taking my cock ....”

You gasp. “Hnng, s’so big …!”

“And you’re taking all of it,” he murmurs, just this side of breathless. “Like a champ. Do you have any idea how good you look right now? Huh?”

You warble out an incomprehensible response, far too overwhelmed and riveted by the way Ogun’s cock glistens obscenely every time it makes another appearance between your thighs. Your fingers dig into his forearms, leaving crescent shaped marks in his skin and try not to scream in ecstasy while he carves out a space within you.

You loved watching him fuck you like this for a multitude of reasons, the most pressing at the moment being that it drove you absolutely wild.

“If you keep squeezing me like that … ngh, I won’t last much longer.” He warns, his tone far too strained to hold even a hint of real reprimand.

“I want it,” you blubber wetly. “I want it, Ogun, please …”

“You want me to cum in you?”

A jerky nod accompanied by a mewling whimper.

He lets out a shaky breath as the speed of his thrusts quicken and you jerk underneath him, bleating like something wounded. The muscles in his arms flex and twitch around you when he smoothly adjusts the positioning of his hands, hunching further over you without so much as missing a beat.

“God, you drive me crazy …”

You’d like to tell him the feeling is mutual but you don’t get the chance. A particularly sharp snap of his hips knocks something loose inside you and you uncontrollably shake, legs kicking up uselessly at the air with a wordless noise of soaring pleasure. Cumming again doesn’t seem like such a far off possibility and a frazzled whine claws at the back of your throat when he presses his sweat slick forehead against yours, prompting you to glance up.

Ogun’s eyes were always beautiful to look at but especially so when you were staring into them from just a hair's breadth away and they were clouded dark with primal need as well something much more weighty.

“Tell me you want it, sweetheart. Tell me.”

“I - ngh - aaaahh, I want your cum, Ogun! I need you to fill me uh - up, please, I want it so baaad!”

A shudder races through him and he groans, eyes slipping shut for a brief moment as if to get his bearings before cracking open again. Keeping his forehead against yours, he tilts his head down to look between the two of you and, once again, you follow suit.

The sinfully rich color of his cock, just a shade or two darker than the rest of him, looks all the more tantalizing coated in your slick. You’ve all but drenched him at this point, the tight curls that frame his length visibly damp and matted together now. You suck in a frazzled breath at the sight, your head spinning alarmingly fast when the building pressure in your gut becomes almost too much to withstand. How was it that one single man could make you feel so primal with need but tenderly cared for at the same time?

“I - -“ You all but choke on it, wheezing at the next stroke. “I’m gonna’ - ahh, cum again … don’t stop!”

“I’m about to cum too, sweetheart.” With a soft groan, he lifts his attention to pin you with a heady look of challenge. “Think we can cum together?”

You frantically nod. “Uh huh!”

The corner of Ogun’s mouth twitches at that, settling into a lazy smirk as he shifts back and slows the motion of his hips. You can’t help groaning in disappointment but you realize what he’s doing quickly enough when he lets up his hold on your legs so he can lower himself down to lay out on top of you. Working his arms under your overheated back, he practically crushes you to the front of him and you bring your own up to wrap them around his neck.

This new position increases the pressure in your guts by a noticeable margin and the air rushes out of you with a stuttering sigh when he crawls up onto the edge of the couch to pin your thighs under his weight. Your legs are just as useless as before, twitching impotently in the air when he eases his hips back as far as he can. He doesn’t make it far, just enough to feel the drag and the subsequent plunge, but it makes you cry out all the same.

Face shoved into your hair, Ogun lets loose a series of heavy grunts when he picks up his earlier pace and the same sticky clicking rises in the air again. It’s much less deafening this time, softer by virtue of his shorter strokes, and you gratefully clutch him against you, glad to hold onto him.

“You feel so good …” he groans, making you shudder at the puff of hot air against your neck.

You can’t quite find your voice though, and you respond with a faltering moan that has him twitching inside you. The thick bands of musculature across his shoulders dance under your fingers each time he moves, emphasizing the raw strength in his lithe body. And yet he was still being careful with you, the plunge of his cock as carefully measured as before so as not to slam against your cervix but still tease it.

It wasn’t even that he was unreasonably large but, rather, he just so happened to fit you like a glove and that was perhaps the most arousing part of all.

“Ogun,” you finally manage to whimper. “Mm’ gonna’ cum …”

“Me too …”

The quietly stricken groan that comes out of him next makes your toes curl. You clench around him in a palpitating flutter, so close to the edge it brought the sting of tears to your eyes. His hips stutter at the squeeze and he trembles against you, struggling to keep up the subdued thrusting he’d settled into.

It quickly proves futile when his body tenses up with a low, faltering moan that rattles so deep you feel it in your cunt. The air catches in your throat and you squeeze him with your arms across his back and your legs around his narrow waist, clutching him to you as he lurches. Blunt fingers dig into your skin and he gives a little jerk, issuing a sucker punched wheeze seconds before you feel the rush of hot seed flooding your cunt.

You tremble wildly, nails clawing into his back when the sensation of Ogun shooting thick ropes against your gummy walls makes your muscles clamp around him hard enough to send you over the edge. Writhing in bliss, you stutter out a groan that he matches with one of his own while the two of you quake through your orgasms as one.

It was transcendental in a way you never would have thought possible.

Dropping his face to the couch cushions when you finally start to grow still underneath him some moments later, he issues a rumbling sound of satisfaction. The ragged quality of your panting quickly rushes in to replace the sticky wet squelching of your cunt, and you go boneless while you try to catch your breath. That was a lot easier said than done though and he, predictably, recovers much quicker than you.

“I’m surprised we really managed to pull that off.” He hums in contentment and turns his face to kiss at your ear, teasingly soft. “That’s a first.”

“And hopefully not the last.” You wheeze, making him chuckle.

“You liked it then, I take it?”

Dislodging your cramping fingers from his back with a certain amount of effort, you bring your hand up to push the hair from your face. “It was amazing … intense. I didn’t think we could do it either.”

Ogun lifts his head to press his mouth to your check, your nose, the spot between your eyes, all with a big smile on his face. “I’m glad we did. I promise I’ll try my best to make it happen again but no promises, okay?”

You can’t quite stop from giggling. “Don’t worry. I have faith in you.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Pausing long enough to give your ribs an affectionate pinch, he carefully pushes up from the couch and leans back. His softened cock slips out of you in the process, and you internally wince at the dribble of hot cum that oozes from you without him there to stopper it.

You draw your legs up to keep the mess to a minimum when he stands, gleaming eyes taking in the sight of you curled up on your couch with his semen leaking down the crease of your pussy for a prolonged beat. And then, he grins.

“Wanna’ get cleaned up and I’ll order that pizza?”

“How am I supposed to think about food after all that?” You pout at him.

Sending a sly look down at the spot between your thighs, Ogun starts to turn towards the bathroom. “I’ll get you a rag. I’m sure you’ll realize just how hungry you are once the adrenaline wears off. Besides, you should probably refuel before I try to give you an encore.”

Smiling at that, you appreciatively glance down at his tight ass before he disappears through the doorway. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind he’d be able to pull it off.

#ogun montgomery #ogun x reader #fire force #self insert bullshit #enen no shouboutai #my writing

[drrrsankai-blog]

Reality TV Show Writing Meme!

Rules:

- Choose 6 OC's canon characters.

- Put your OC's names in list of numbers and answer the questions with your OC's names instead of the number, write at least 100 words to answer.

- Once an OC is evicted, you must choose the next consecutive number to fill in the question. E.g. If [1] is evicted, choose [2]. If [6] is evicted, go back round to [1]. (I fucked this part up but idc)

Cast:

1. Aoba

2. Shizuo

3. Namie

4. Ran

5. Shingen

6. Erika

Warning:

OOC (gets worse as it goes along honestly), c r a c k, dark humor, insanity, and Namie being Namie (and Erika being Erika...).

1. Welcome to the House! Introduce the OC's and what their luxury item would be.

[1] Aoba: Luxury item? A pool.

[2] Shizuo: Another pack of cigarettes. *doesn't know what it is*

[3] Namie: Well, there's not much of anything that comes to mind... except a fine night out with my darling Seiji~

[4] Ran: Fucking ew.

[5] Shingen: Hmm...hm, hm, hm. I need to think about this one...

[6] Erika: All the doujinshis on my wishlist!

2. There are 3 bedrooms, 1 with 2 double beds, 1 with 2 single beds and 1 with only 2 matresses on the floor. Who pairs up with whom, is there an argument over who should get the better room, and how is this resolved?

No one's happy, except Erika who comments that it feels like a sleepover (and Ran who yells out that 'we're literally living together for this'). However, Namie has already grabbed Erika's arm to lead her into the room with two single beds, because 'the only man she'll sleep in a room with is Seiji'. Erika doesn't get time to object before the door slams behind them. Leaving only the other four...

Shingen rubs his chin, trying to decide which remaining options were better. If he chose the room with the double bed, he surmised he might get lonely since there'd be no other weight in it, so the mattresses on the floor sounded like a better option.

Shizuo heads into the room with the double beds. No one follows him in.

Aoba and Ran look at each other, mutually scowling the thought of having to share a room with the blonde, then scowl at each other. Ultimately, they decide on taking the room with the mattresses on the floor.

By the time Shingen makes his decision, he finds everyone gone and the room he had decided on occupied. With a droop of his shoulder and a small, disappointed sigh, he heads into the double-bedded room with Heiwajima.

Then...

"Wait a minute, this is my house! Why the hell don't I get to call the shots?!"

Namie, laying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, hearing Shingen's voice: What an idiot.

3. Now they've decided where they're sleeping, they make their way to the living room but find that it is empty expect for a few large and heavy boxes which hold the furniture which [1] and [4] have been told to put together within a time limit, how well do they do?

Aoba: Do I look like someone with a body who can handle all this hard labor?

Ran: Thanks a fucking lot, pipsqueak.

Aoba: Seriously. Why can't we make Heiwajima do it?

Ran: Because he'll crush our fucking skulls?

Aoba: Oh.

Aoba: Well, if I told him you asked, then I'll both live and not have to do it.

Ran: *throws an empty box at him*

4. The furniture's together, now for dinner and a rest! [2] and [5] are designated for cooking first. What do they cook? Do they work well together? Does their cooking go down well?

Shingen: *wearing an apron, flattening dough with a rolling pin* I'm baking a cake~! Teehee~

Sheenwuh: *walks through the door, notices Shingen, and then walks back out it*

Shizuo: Um.

Shizuo just sits on the couch eating potato chips instead.

5. A few days pass and a relationship is growing between [3] and [6], is it a good one or is it a bad one? What measures are made to make their relationship blossom, or stop them from attacking each other on sight?

Erika: *talking nonstop about BL, cosplay, and anime*

Namie's internal dialogue: [shut up shut up SHUT THE FUCK UP]

Namie ends up leaving, throwing Shingen out and angrily informing Heiwajima he has a new roommate.

Shizuo is actually taken aback and does not argue.

6. A week has passed and it's time for an eviction! Someone hasn't put in their penny's worth and needs to be gotten rid of. Choose one OC, and have them say their weepy, or exuberant, goodbyes.

Ran: Good fucking riddance.

Namie: *bored voice, dull tone* I'm so sad.

Erika: Aw, maybe next time. :(

Shizuo: Do I know you?

Shingen: Do I know you either?

Aoba: I'm a student. I don't have a job. I can't pay rent. What do you expect?

7. There's a siren in the middle of the night! [1] has tried to escape with [3] as accomplice, however they are both caught, who blames whom, and what is their punishment? Do the other house-mates suffer for it?

Aoba: I'm still here?

Ran: You're still here? Great.

Namie: Why did I agree to this...?

Shingen: For money?

Everyone looked at the floor where there were several pieces of glass from the window having been broken.

Shingen: Well, if you win, you can use it to pay me back~!

Namie: Can't wait...

8. The next task appointed for them arrives in the form of a letter and a pack of bendy wires. They pick up the letter and read that housemates [2] and [4] must make a cube using the fewest number of wires possible within 30 minutes of time. Do they manage it?

Ran: What the fuck? Why?

Shizuo: Uh, nah.

9. That evening, they find alcohol in the refridgerator and a karaoke machine in the living room. However, it is incredibly hard to set up and it's instructions are in Japanese. [5] and [6] are bullied into geting it sorted. How do they get on?

Erika: *staring hard at the instructions* Well, I recognize the characters... It's just...

Shingen: Those bastards! This isn't the version I ordered!

Erika: ...this is in Chinese, not Japanese.

10. Eviction time! Eviction this time is based upon house-mates behaviour and performance in the last week, and sadly, [1] and [3]'s escape attempt has not impressed the higher hand. [1] or [3] must go, choose, and have them say goodbye.

Aoba: I thought I left 6 questions ago...?

Namie: *leaves without a second thought*

Shingen: What about my window???

Shingen looked at Aoba who merely shrugged his shoulders. Then it occrured to him...

"You two were really going to climb down from a 30 story building...?"

"The danger makes it exciting."

Namie, thinking to herself: I was thinking of just going down the fire escape, but okay.

11. Confessions Time! Having been together for two weeks, how do the house-mates feel about the others? How do they feel about the evictions? Let's listen to them now.

Erika: Kishitani-san is okay for a roommate. He's kind of odd, though...

Ran: You want to talk about being weird?

Shingen: You're okay yourself, Karisawa. A bit hard to follow, but okay.

Ran: My little rat-think of a brother is finally gone. Couldn't be better.

*phone rings*

Shingen: Hold on a moment.

Shingen: Hello?

Sheenwuh: Dad, when can I come home?

Shingen: Anytime, son.

Sheenwuh: No, I mean, when is whatever's going on over?

Shingen: Can't hear you either, son, roger. *hangs up*

Shizuo: ...

Shizuo: Do I have to be here or can I leave too?

12. [1] and [4] have become very close, and [6] is jealous and decides to confront [4] about it, what happens?

Erika: Wow, so you miss your brother after all~!

Ran: What??

Aoba: *peeks through hole in the wall* Peekaboo!

Ran: *screams*

Erika: Ah, brotherly love... I think that'll be the next BL manga theme I read about...!

Shizuo:

Shizuo: I've decided that I'm killing myself instead.

13. Their next task is to simply tidy the house, however, they have to do it blindfold, [5] cheats and [2] does nothing, such disobedience so late in the game earns them a time-out and their luxury item is taken away, how do they cope?

Shingen: Ooh~! Kinky.

Shizuo: I'm going to be next to jump out this fucking window I swear to god--

Erika: (But nobody actually jumped out the window...);

14. Due to the cheating in the previous task, the electricity in the building is cut, and the living room is locked off from them. [4] suggests a game of hide-and-seek, does anyone get injured in the dark? Does anyone take this moment to be naughty with another housemate?

Ran: Anyone wanna play Hide-and-Get-Hammered?

Shingen: Is that a drinking game, I see?

Ran: Heh.

Erika: I'm pretty that's not how it's played... or what Izumii-kun means... *she inclines her head, trying to see if Ran's holding something behind him*

15. The living room is open to them again and inside is a television, an XBOX and four Guitar Hero guitars, a not stuck on the television let's them know that it is a play-off between [3] and [6].

Who wins, and did they realise the loser would be evicted?!

Neither of the two are particularly interested in video games, but it gets pretty heated between them (Ran and Erika). Ran calls her a "fujo bitch" throughout, and Erika wins by sticking her bare foot in his lap and freaking him out, causing him to fall onto the floor (and into the loser's seat).

Ran: Yeah, whatever. Fuck this.

Erika: Well, Kishitani-san, it looks like it's just you and me.

Shingen: That it seems.

Shizuo: Uh, guys... I'm still here...

16. With only three house-mates left, tension starts to rise, [1] becomes super-competitive and starts taking over any tasks given to them. [1] accepts a task before even hearing it, and it's challenging them to sit in a bath of maggots for half an hour.

How does [1] react and do they complete the task?

Shizuo: That's fucking disgusting.

Erika: But you said you'd do anything...

Shizuo: *stares at her, eyebrow twitching*

Erika: ...OK.

17. Another Confession. Poor [2] is starting to suffer from cabin fever and is sure the others are out to get them. Let's listen to their ranting.

Shizuo: You know what? Fuck these nutjobs. *leaves*

18. The house-mates realise they are quite quickly running out of food, and find three unlabelled tins in a cupboard, with blindfolds next to them and a letter explaining that two tins are sliced peaches, one is dog-food, they must each choose a tin with their blindfolds on.

Who gets the dog-food, and evicted?

Erika: *walking in the direction of Kadota's place, smiling* Aw, I hope Dotachin's dog will like this brand...

19. The final task denotes the winner of the entire game, the final two house-mates are given an envelope, inside is the instrutions of their last task, they simply are.

"Choose."

Does this shock them? Do they choose themselves as the winner or the other? Do they give their own victory up, or are they selfish?

"Dad, I fucking live here."

"Hmm. I guess that makes both of us the victors, then?"

"Dad, why is there no food in the house?" the brunette asks, looking through the fridge. Then he looks towards the balcony and nearly screams.

"WHY IS THE WINDOW BROKEN???"

20. Now it's (quite abruptly) over, tag someone!

I will not but you can steal it. xD

#Aoba #Shingen #Erika #Namie #Ran #writing memes #I am tired goodnight

[unlocktxt]

hi 😄 i saw your reblog and i want to ask the same thing: what was your first impression of your moots?

First i want to say that I may of gotten a littleeeee carried away. I wanted to include as many people as possible, but some I don’t have enough to say. Despite this I might add more. I’ve met so many various people on this app and I’ve loved interacting with them all or just seeing them around. So much so that I can’t list everybody. I really love all my moots and there are so many of them that I’ll forever be grateful for. (yes i added a keep reading because this was so long and please excuse my gramtical errors)

@hoes4hoseok - our first impression was playing among us WHICH WAS SO FUN. I don’t remember much about talking to her in the game BUT I do remember that she was the first one to ever make the group chat filled with those who played with us. honestly I’m so grateful that she did that because I wouldn’t have been able to become friends with her and many others. I remember thinking that she was beyond kind and that she was good with trying to include everyone. After that I just remember hearing her voice and then DYING because she has a wonderful voice. I felt as though I related to you just a bit. Now I’ve gotten to see different aspects of her and really value her as a person and friend. She keeps things real and is so helpful. Sometimes I wish I could see what goes on inside her head because sometimes I think she reserves herself or overthinks and I’d like to give her a big hug.

@binniebutter - amie... oh amie 🙄 just kidding 😂 amie well... I also met her while playing among us in that same group. we played a lot with each other and I find that nice BECAUSE I CANT REMEMBER WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT DURING THE FIRST TIME WE PLAYED. I think I do remember laughing about her and gen tho. In our first gc I remember thinking that she had a bright personality and could keep the conversation going. I also find out we live about an hour away so I was able to connect with her about that (I also was so excited just because IVE NEVER MET AN ONLINE FRIEND IN THE SAME STATE) After that we played among us a lot together and I just remember thinking amie was EVIL. She was funny though and I felt comfortable around her. Now... I honestly think I’m pretty close to amie emotionally. It’s very rare that I put down my guard and talk to someone about certain things (I don’t really think I’ve talked to her about certain things tho) I still feel as though I can talk to her or that I can cry or rant to her without feeling judged. I don’t know how much she’s come to me about, but anytime I try to comfort her i feel like I get to know her better. I usually don’t start joking with my friends and being “rude” to them unless I know that they know I love them, which is why I’m starting to show amie sarcasm at times ☺️ I may of written too much 😅

@hyukaite I ACTUALLY REMEMBER MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF KAT. oml we’d send asks every now and then and I remember thinking she was a crack head. From the videos I’d see her post to that one drawing. Man if only I could go all the way back to it, but it was monthssss ago. I also remember relating to her about having to help our sisters with math 💀. I wanted to be her friend after seeing her interact with some of my other moots, but I was too shy to actually message her so I stuck with sending in asks every now and then 😂 then we started playing among us together. I remember thinking “NOOOO SHE STOLE YELLOW” which led to me falling in love with the dark green among us color JFKAJFLW. After that I remember getting betrayed by her in the game SO MANY TIMES. she killed me during the Simon says task... to tell you what grudge I hold... I still remember it. ITS SUCH A HARD TASK AND SHE DIDNT LET ME FINISH IT. She also killed me in electrical when I thought she was INNOCENT. Now... kat I don’t even know how to describe her. She has many aspects to her that I love. She also is able to help me think straight whenever I let my anger get to me.

@yawnjunie - I thought she was shy at first because when I first met her she didn’t talk much, so I felt bad because I thought she didn’t feel all that welcomed by us (no specific reason we were just introduced to blu so abruptly 😂) After that I think I was intimidated by her at first JFJAKFJERI. We also compared our schools and our grade mindset which I think really opened my eyes a little bit more. I still believe she’s really smart Zknfaltn. She makes me laugh though and she also started the network moacabinet. She’s really sweet with so many ideas, but I feel bad because sometimes I think she gets stressed easily. She’s not on much, but everytime she’s online I’m blessed with her presence.

@kkuming - gigiiiii! my first impression of gigi was fairly simple. We met on the au group chat and she seemed really sweet. I wanted to try and give gigi a warm welcome and make sure she felt comfortable. I wish I remembered more about our first meeting. I DO HOWEVER remember thinking she was v v innocent. I sat back and watched gigi get thrown into the group and laughed my ass off at how she interacted with kat. I was worried that because the others were already so comfortable with her and joking around about things that she may actually think that the “divorce” or whatever it was that kat and her had would make her upset, so I wanted to remind her that I appreciated her Zofnakfjeof. She also was taking a lot of stressful classes so I could only hope this girl didn’t die underneath all that stress. Now I- she’s crazy guys. Just kidding 😂 she’s still really sweet and jokes around with all of us. I’m glad she’s online a lot more now. she’s also really funny.

@lipbeom - I’m like 99.9% sure rynn was the first person I ever really talked to on tumblr. I thought she was a really good writer and saw that she was a senior as well, so I was glad that I wasn’t the only one on tumblr that was going to suffer through the last year of school. I was so glad when she messaged me first like Y’ALL HAVE NO IDEA. When I first met her I remember thinking she was really sweet AND BEYOND SMART. I’m really grateful for rynn and I actually miss her a lot because I feel like I don’t interact with her as much as I should. She was very supportive and still is. It’s only been a few months since I first talked with her but I’m reminiscing 😂 She also got me hooked on selling sunset WHICH WAS AMAZING but I was talking like the girls on the show for WEEKSSSSSSS.

@bbhyeoliskooks - I don’t really remember how I came across her, but I realized she was a new moa writer and wanted to check her out. My first impression... hmmm I guess you could say that I believed she was very grateful even when she didn’t have to be. Sometimes she makes me feel old 💀 but she’s reminds me a little bit of my sister... just way sweeter. She’s very loyal and anytime you tell her you’ve posted something oml she’s wonderful. She’s the type of person who is really supportive and I appreciate that, but sometimes I feel like I don’t give her enough of ittttt. I really need to go stalk her blog now as for some reason I don’t see her notifs half the time. I’m really proud of her and think she’s one of the sweetest people on tumblr NOT TO MENTION SHE SINGS BEAUTIFULLY.

@txthearteu - oml cj 😂 she is also one of the first people I talked to on tumblr. I don’t really remember our first impression tho :/. I DO REMEMBER I READ ONE OF HER STORIES THO and i sent an ask about it because she deserved the recognition for it. Hmmm at first I believe I was intimidated because she is older than me 😂 however she was so extremely sweet and I loved talking to her. I tried talking about various different things with her because I wanted our conversation to continue hehe. She stays feeding me 😌 and even if I can’t physically eat del taco I get full off of the love and support cj gives me. My eyes light up when I see her in my notifs. I think she deserves the world and I always want to be there for her. I don’t think I can ever repay her for the love she’s given me.

@sung4oon - SAM I SWEAR IF YOU CHANGE UR URL BEFORE I HAVE A CHANCE TO POST THIS! I met her when her url was... 👁👄👁 lixxie sumtin. I think it was lixieebear. I truly don’t remember her first impression 💀 the only thing I remember was thinking that she was also a crack head. She was really funny and sweet and DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE WHOLE BRAINCELL THING. I should’ve given her my brain cells for christmas. I still think she’s really fun to talk to and I literally try to remind myself as much as possible that I need to go stop by and send an ask every now and then. Even so she still says hi to me ☺️

@beomiebear5 - R A I N A. hehehehehehe I actually love this first impression for me. At the time I saw her anon asks to rynn. I saw that she was going to start posting stuff on her blog soon and she gave a hint about how to find her. Ofc I let rynn do that herself BUT I went searching KFJSIFIWFKW I couldn’t help it I saw it as a challenge. My first impression was rlly just that she was sweet. Then after a while KFJAOFJWOF I really love interacting with her and seeing her rants. Gosh she’s so funny and ✨inspires✨ me. I’m always down to talk to her because she’s amazing and sweet.

@magicisland9-34 - lillie ☺️ I honestly don’t remember our first impression? I do however remember when she first sent an ask! I would always get so excited when I got an ask from her 😂 I loved talking to her and she let me ramble on and on. Whether that be about gymnastics or ballet. Once again even lillie is sweet, but she’s betrayed me for siding with amie about Christmas 😤. She’s also one of the people that I try to remind myself to go and visit their blog and see what they’ve posted.

@spookybias - if I remember correctly gen was the first one who reblogged my about me post, which ended up allowing others on this app to see that I was a new writing blog. She was also one of the first people I followed and one of the first who followed me, so I was really grateful and thought she was beyond helpful and nice. I also really believe she’s a great writer and i admired how she would tell things how they are. She’s always been sweet to me even if she’s threatened to shoot me a while back 😤. OH YEAH we also played among us together in that group as well and I always suspected her at one point. IT WAS BECAUSE THE ONE TIME I TRUSTED HER SHE KILLED ME.

@bffsoobin - My first impression of Sara was pretty simple like I found her blog and fell in love. she writes so well and I’ve loved everything I’ve read from her. I thought she was really pretty and pretty funny too. When she’d talk about some of her stories revolving school it honestly made my day as well. I admire her especially because she’s such a good writer and LET ME TELL YOU when she followed me back I think I did a little cheer. I was reading her fics before I even started writing on tumblr.

@soobcxre - I saw Sara around because we had a lot of moots in common and when I saw them interact I would just think about how I wanted to befriend her 😂. When she texted me I got so excited, but I WAS SO CAUGHT UP IN SCHOOL TOO. She’s also really sweet ajfjwkfjw and I’m glad to have met her.

@lovesickchoi - MADDIE 🤩 I.... I don’t remember my first impression of her 🥲. It may of revolved around asks? I think I ended up trying to get to know her more at the time I was trying to get to know yoonie. I say this because I remember always seeming to get their urls mixed up... I think it’s because the h at the beginning. I LITERALLY DONT REMEMBER HOW WE STARTED INTERACTING. She’s also an amazing writer tho! Now I still think she’s sweet and we’ve talked about yeonbin together 😂.

@sunoo-luvs - 🥺 zaara JFJAJRKSKF literally my first impression was “cute.” That still stands btw. She’s absolutely the sweetest and is really considerate of others IM SCARED BECAUSE SHE MAY APOLOGIZE FOR THINGS THERES NO NEED TO APOLOGIZE FOR. Even so she can easily add happiness to people’s day with just a hi and a hug.

@i2gyu - I- first impression: scary. IM KIDDING wait... actually even though that was a joke because she used to stop by and say “boo” I MAY OF ACTUALLY FELT INTIMIDATED BY HER AT FIRST. I think one of the first times we interacted was about a network and at the time I was ready to join a network SO I FELT SO BAD FOR SAYING NO. Afterwards tho I realized how nice she was and I always end up getting a little energetic once I see she’s sent in an ask. One day I’m scared I won’t see her change her url or blog, but that’s if she does again.

@fairycore-gyu - I haven’t interacted with anyone new recently and when I saw kira that obviously changed 😂. I related to her with music taste and stuff. LET ME TELL YOU when someone seems to have the same music taste I JUST my eyes light up. She was really welcoming and I instantly felt like I could message her anytime. I also just realized she’s a pisces 🥺.

@yoonjunie - I just remember thinking ooooo new moa writer! I think anyone who comes across her can say she’s very welcoming and sweet + she deserves everything she has. I really just wanted to support her 😂 I need to interact with her more and read more from her blog.

@hyeyoonwrites - yoonie 🥺 AHHHH okay 😂 first impression: LITERALLY THE SWEETEST. I know I’ve said that so many people here are sweet but yoonie is a different kind of sweet. I don’t know every single time I’ve interacted with her has felt like a soft hug. She’s supported me a lot and I really need to check up on her more frequently I feel guilty about it aifoshf.

@txtextme - gon I- even though we haven’t talked much she’s extremely funny and relatable. she just has this vibe that I love about her. I know I don’t have much to say, but I had to add her because she’s left an impact.

@yeonbins - VIVI HAS WONDERFUL GIFS. Every now and then I’ll see her post some stuff just talking and akfjskf. I mainly remember (I think) Starbucks getting her name wrong. Her names so pretty tho. I DIDNT EVEN REALIZE HOW MUCH OLDER SHE WAS THAN ME. I also played among us with her for a lil... I was scared she was gonna murder me 😂.

#asks 💌 #wonderful anon ✨ #first impressions #not me forgetting to tag people

[morganaspendragonss]

The Broken Soul of TK Strand 3/?

there's a little bit more torture in this chapter, but a lot less than in last 😊

ao3 | 3.4k

“TK, babe, wake up.”

It took him a few moments to open his eyes; he was so tired that he just wanted to sleep.

“Come on, it’s time to wake up, there are a lot of things to do today.”

Carlos’s voice was soothing, almost like a siren’s song, but not the kind that smashed ships against rocks, sending sailors to their deaths. This song was pleasant and warm and exactly what TK needed to feel better.

At last, he was able to open his eyes, though he wasn’t sure if he was still dreaming or if he was awake. A figure moved next to him; TK turned, though the simple movement of his head provoked a tidal wave of sensations, all terrible and painful, and he closed his eyes again.

“Yeah, you have a bad concussion and if you don’t deal with it, it’s going to get worse. It could be irreversible.”

“Thanks, babe. I already knew that, you don’t need to remind me that I’m in a horrible mess.”

“I’m only telling you because with every day, every hour that passes, you get weaker and your brain is only going to want to sleep and rest. You can’t let that happen.”

TK opened his eyes again. Carlos looked at him, smiled, and TK saw him kneel down next to him. He could feel the touch on his cheek, though he knew that Carlos wasn’t here; he knew that it was part of his dream or the concussion. Still, it made him feel better all the same—it made him feel protected and that everything was going to be okay.

A loud ringing inside his head made TK clench his teeth so hard it hurt, but not even that got rid of the pain caused by the noise, which pierced his head clean through. He tried to curl his body into a ball, as if that would solve the problem.

TK didn’t know when the pain passed—or, rather, when he began to lose consciousness again without realising. Once awake, he tried to get to his feet, but it was an almost impossible task in his weakened state. Now, he was almost sure that the guy intended to leave him here to die.

He still didn’t understand the story about the ritual, probably because nothing about this dark lord made sense. Much less so now that TK was practically seeing double and could barely distinguish between what was real and what was in his head.

Whatever the case, since the previous day’s nightmare with the heart he had to eat and the wine he’d been forced to drink, not to mention whatever had been done to his shoulder blade, the guy hadn’t come back to pay him a visit, and TK feared that he had abandoned him to die.

(TK would give anything for a mirror to see what was on his back—it hurt horrible, it burned, but maybe that too was because of the concussion)

He tried to remember what he knew about concussion and how much time a person could suffer one before it became truly dangerous. Something told him that he had already passed that limit, but he had to keep fighting, because if there was one thing he knew for certain, it was that Carlos and his father were doing everything they could to find him and save him.

So TK had to use all his strength to fight against everything inside of him that told him to just give up.

“Yes, yes, my lord. His blood is perfect, I did that test that you asked and it is exactly what we were searching for… what you were searching for, forgive me, what you were searching for.”

TK got closer to the door, dragging himself along the floor so he could listen to the man’s voice.

“Tonight we will get his tears and the blood we need for the ritual and tomorrow… Oh, my lord, tomorrow you will rule this world.”

TK only heard his voice—he must be talking to himself, or worse, he thought he was talking to someone else. He was crazy enough to hear voices in his head, after all.

He lay back down on the floor and gazed up at the ceiling. It was interesting how the smell of blood and all the other things around him didn’t bother him anymore; how easily humans get used to horrible things like that.

“He’s going to kill me here and leave me to bleed out.”

“And you’re going to let him?”

Carlos sat by TK’s side and took his hand, stroking and kissing it. TK could feel the actions clearly, which was definitely a bad sign; he was getting worse, as everything that wasn’t here seemed all too real.

He smiled—it felt like the times when he had taken pills and then lay on the sofa, calm and happy from the substances running through his veins. It was like being drugged again and, just like then, as if he had gotten too carried away that he could end up dead.

“I’m so scared, babe.”

“I know; that’s why I’m here. You created me.” Carlos stretched out his hand and, when TK took it, pulled him close and hugged him. It felt so real, and TK would have given anything for it to last forever. “I know you think that you aren’t strong enough to fight and beat this by yourself, but there are few people as strong and brave as you, TK. You can do it, you can hold on until your father and I find you.”

“I don’t know, babe, I’m so tired.”

“Do it for me.”

Carlos’s figure began to fade as TK’s brain took control again. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold out before he short-circuited again.

TK decided not to lie back down—if he forced himself to stay sitting up, then maybe his body would fight for longer to stay awake, thus giving Carlos more time to find him, just as his boyfriend’s image had said.

*

“Carlos,” Nancy called, upon seeing him leaving. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

The cop turned around—he’d spent half of his time in the station, and the other half in the precinct, as the idea of going home hurt too much. Knowing that TK wasn’t there and wasn’t going to return at the end of his shift… Carlos couldn’t do it.

“Of course, I was just going to the precinct to see if they had anything new. Is everything okay?” He huffed a bitter laugh after saying that—of course nothing was okay. “Sorry, it’s a habit.”

“It’s okay. I actually wanted to see how you were.” Nancy offered him a cup of coffee. “The truth is that I didn’t know who to talk to. I don’t know Captain Strand very well so it would feel weird talking to him, and the others… They’re all busy all the time; if it’s not work, it’s trying to find TK. I think they’re trying to do anything so they don’t think about it, but I can’t. I don’t know how, I just feel paralysed.”

“I understand.”

“I’m so sorry, Carlos. You’re going through something so awful and here I am, going on about my stupid problems.”

“They’re not at all stupid.” They moved to sit in the now-empty kitchen, and Carlos smiled. “Really, I’m happy to talk about how other people are doing; everyone is treating me as if I’m made of glass so they don’t tell me anything and only talk to me if it’s to ask if I need anything. The only thing I need right now is to have TK here, with me; everything else is irrelevant.”

Nancy sighed. “Do you know, the last time I spoke to TK before...before all this happened, it was to argue with him?” She took a sip of her coffee, not looking at Carlos. “I’d put the bandages in an order in the ambulance drawers and he was changing it. I told him that my way was easier, he told me his way was the rule, and I said that we would end up losing time when we couldn’t afford to.

“Then he said that we should ask Cap and I got angry, telling him that I was the one who’d been in the team for longer and I didn’t need anyone to tell me how to put away the bandages. I’d had a bad day, my roommate left and only told me that morning. I took it out on TK and I never got the chance to tell him how sorry I was. It was really stupid, and it was the last thing I said to him before…”

Carlos reached out and placed his hand on top of Nancy’s. “Me too. I didn’t argue with him but I know that I made him feel bad the last time we talked.” He scoffed. “How little an anniversary matters when you don’t know if your boyfriend is going to come home again.”

Nancy nodded. She didn’t know that feeling exactly, but she did have an idea of what Carlos was going through. “We’re going to find him, right, Carlos?”

“I won’t stop until we do.”

Carlos stared down into his half-empty coffee cup for a moment, as if he could read the grounds and have them tell him where TK was.

“You’re still here?”

Carlos turned again, seeing Owen with a look typical of a father whose son didn’t pay attention to him and continued playing video games instead of getting reading for school.

“I’m sorry, Owen, I just…” Carlos sighed heavily and slumped his shoulders. “I can’t go home, I can’t even open the door without… I’ve always had anxiety attacks, but it’s been so long that I’d almost forgotten what they were like. Now, everytime I go home, I try to open the door, but knowing that TK isn’t there, that he isn’t coming back—that he might never come back… I can’t do it, Owen.”

The captain approached the table. Nancy prepared to leave, but he gestured for her to stay. “I understand. I haven’t been able to go home either without thinking that...that TK has escaped and come home. I know he hasn’t, so I can’t go in. I’ve been sleeping here—what little sleep I’ve managed, anyway. Go up and lie down for a while. You need to sleep.”

Carlos nodded because he needed to sleep, because he wanted to stay here, and because Owen felt exactly the same as he did, though they hadn’t been able to talk about it until now.

He accepted the offer and said goodbye to Nancy, thanking her for the talk. He headed to the bunkroom above and lay down in the first bed he found, knowing that it didn’t belong to TK.

He must have fallen asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow; he didn’t even have time to take off his shoes. He was so tired, and he had spent so long fighting it that once he decided to sleep, he fell completely into dreams.

Carlos felt himself fall, like Alice down the rabbit hold, ending up seated on the floor. He heard a sob that he recognised immediately and got to his feet, spinning around to find him. But he didn’t see anything; it was so dark that Carlos could only hear the sobbing voice as it came closer and closer.

“TK! Babe, I’m here, can you hear me?”

The cries became more intense, followed by a shout that had Carlos’s hair standing on end. There was no doubt that it was TK’s voice—someone was hurting him. Carlos spun around again, searching for something, anything, in between the total darkness.

“No, please… Don’t hurt me.” TK sounded like he was behind Carlos, but when he turned, TK wasn’t there.

He walked everywhere, but he still saw nothing. The only thing that caught his attention was the floor he was walking on—it seemed like old wood, and at the same time like the forest floor. He was in a cabin that had been abandoned years ago.

Carlos was at the point of screaming when he noticed hands wrapping around his waist from behind—just like he would recognise TK’s voice anywhere, he also knew the feel of his hands and his mouth which now kissed his neck.

Carlos turned, and there he was. But it wasn’t the same TK he remembered from two days ago. Although he was smiling, this TK was emaciated and tired-looking, he had many cuts and wounds, he was pale, and it seemed like he had lost the flow that always surrounded him.

He caressed his cheek and TK pressed his face against Carlos’s hand, like a dog seeking comfort from their person.

“What have they done to you?”

“That doesn’t matter. I’m waiting for you… I’m tired and I know that he wants to kill me but I’m waiting for you because I know you’ll find me and save me.”

“Of course I will, babe. We’re all doing everything we can to get to you; Grace is pulling double shifts in case she gets a call that could help and the others…”

“Only you can save him, Carlos.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I’m tired, that man...he’s crazy. We should have realised that first day when we saw him at the fire. I recognise him now. I saw him when he took me, he’d covered his face with a hood, but I saw him and I know it’s him. Remember?” TK came closer, legs shaking; if it weren’t for Carlos holding him, he would have fallen.

Carlos sat down and held TK in his arms. If he could take him away from here through the dream, he would do it; instead, he squeezed him tight and kissed his head. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, Ty.”

“The man from the fire. I pointed him out to you, remember? I told you that he was weird and he seemed too interested in what we were doing.”

Carlos shook his head; he had too many things on his mind to remember a conversation from three days ago.

“It’s the same guy who took me. He covered himself so he wouldn’t be seen, but when he hit me, I saw his face. You can see him too, my love. You can see him...you can see him...you can…”

TK’s body vanished. Carlos shouted and called out, but TK didn’t return. He shouted and screamed until his throat was sore, until he was awake in the station, surrounded by Owen, Tommy, and all his friends. They were looking at him as if they were seeing a ghost.

“This is exactly why I didn’t want to sleep,” Carlos said, smiling as if nothing had happened, but his breathing was still shaky and faltering.

Marjan handed him a glass of water which Carlos almost drank in one.

Then he realised.

The vision, the dream—it had been his own mind working. He had been so worried, hoping that someone would give him any clue as to TK’s whereabouts that he hadn’t realised that he himself had seen the kidnappers face. He had seen him twice, as the TK in his dream had said, and he had the image in his head, but it was also in the video.

“We know who the kidnapper is, we have his face.”

Carlos leapt up and raced down the stairs, asking Owen if he wanted to accompany him to the station, though there was no need for a reply as the two climbed into the car. They only had to watch the video of the kidnapping and find the videos from the fire—that man would be in both.

*

When the guy finished the next part of the ritual that night, TK wasn’t aware of his exit. He’d taken even more blood, too much to remain awake and alert. TK had begged him not to kill him, to let him live, but nothing had worked. The guy’s mind was high on the idea that some creature from Hell needed TK’s blood to come to Earth.

There had been nothing TK could say or do to make him change his mind.

The final part of the ritual was terrible for TK. If he thought that drinking wine and eating a raw heart had been the worst that could happen, he was sorely mistaken—the worst was yet to come.

After listening to him talk, TK had wondered what he meant by getting his tears, but the answer was so simple that he didn’t even think of it.

The guy, covered by a hood, entered. He didn’t say anything this time, like he was in a rush, but TK didn’t have the strength nor the will to ask. He had a box in his hand which he left on the floor next to him. TK tried to sit up—putting a few centimetres wasn’t going to make much difference, but he needed to fight until the end.

Little good it did him. The man kept watching him, and TK realised that his eyes had changed. Last time he had seen him, the man seemed to love him like a sacred idol, but now he had the look of an animal, like someone prepared to do anything without remorse.

He grabbed him by the neck and pushed him against the wall; TK was so weak that the guy barely needed to make any effort to move him. He took out the same knife from last time and pressed it against his neck.

“Give me your tears.”

“What? You want me to cry?”

“You have to cry,” the man demanded, pressing the knife a little harder against his neck. “I can hurt you until I get them as long as you’re still alive for me to extract the blood I need.”

“Please…”

The blade dug into TK’s skin, causing a small cut.

“I have you under my control. I know who your boyfriend is and, if this ritual goes wrong, if after everything I’ve done, my lord can’t come to this world, I assure you that what I will do to your boyfriend will be much worse than anything I’m doing to you. I suggest that you give me your tears; your blood I can take when and however I want.”

As is emphasising his words, the man delivered a blow to TK’s abdomen, making him bend double.

“You’re beautiful, kid, the best possible offering to our lord, so I hate to hurt you. But if you give me no other choice, I will have to take longer to finish the ritual.”

“Please...stop.” The pain in his head was killing him and his vision was blurred, little white lights dancing everywhere, and he felt like he was going to throw up.

Whether it was for fear that something could happen to Carlos, fear for himself, the pain, or the exhaustion, TK began to cry, and the man placed a small flask to his cheek to collect the tears.

He left him lying on the floor for a moment. He hadn’t collected more than a few tears, but he seemed happy, until, without warning, he made a deep cut on TK’s arm and held it over a tub.

“This won’t take long.”

“What are you doing? Let me go, please.”

TK didn’t know when he lost consciousness again, but he thought that it would be the last time, that he wouldn’t wake up. He could tell; he was too weak to stand another session of this torture.

Either way, he was sure that the stranger was going to let him die, or would finish the job soon enough. That closed the window of probability that his father and Carlos could rescue him.

However, if he had been conscious, TK would have heard the sound of vehicles in the distance and the two helicopters that were beginning to close in on the area. He also would have noticed that his kidnapper was rushing desperately around the house; he would have heard the sound of his feet hitting the floor, and he would have seen the agony he felt over being discovered before he could finish his ritual.

But TK was fighting for his life with a concussion that clouded his thoughts and blood loss that could kill him while he slept. Time had run out, and it was better to sleep and dream of Carlos than it was to bear even more pain.

#911 lone star #911 lone star fic #tarlos #tarlos fic #tk strand #carlos reyes #nancy gillian #owen strand #lone star #911ls #fanfiction #my fanfiction #writing #my writing

[fy-enhypen]

“I don’t want to define music in one word” - Heeseung

HEESEUNG was comfortable with handling a basketball. Most of the time the ball went in, just as it was supposed to. Once, when he missed and the ball bounced off the rim, HEESEUNG kept shooting over and over until it went in. At last, two points. Shooting over and over and hitting the wall until he succeeds? Well, HEESEUNG’s attitude toward the stage is the same. On I-LAND, your older brother said that he’s proud of you now, thinking back to how you used to be this average cute but a little immature kid who liked playing games with friends and didn’t like to study.

HEESEUNG: That time he was talking about, that was when I was really immature. I’m not exaggerating when I say that everything’s changed. This might be a bit off-topic, but I have this one good old friend who I would hang out with and goof around with all the time. It was all really childish, but I’m way more mature now. (laughs) But I do think I should keep growing up more than I am now.

I saw that, when you were doing the group photoshoot, the staff asked you to move to NI-KI’s side, and you asked him first if that was okay before moving.

HEESEUNG: Yes, I did say that. It happened so quickly, I’m surprised you caught it. (laughs)

You didn’t hesitate to help other contestants with their dancing on I-LAND even though you were competing against one another. SUNOO said you’re an “angel.” (laughs)

HEESEUNG: I could try and take all the credit for that, but that’s not really how it was. (laughs) I think that was possible because I-LAND had more challenges emphasizing teamwork than other survival shows. But that aside, I still wanted to help them. When I first became a Big Hit trainee, I practiced really hard for six months and became one of the better performers among the new recruits. I guess it’s probably because I had a lot of opportunities to be the leader from that time on.

Did you have much experience singing or dancing before you became a trainee?

HEESEUNG: I’m still not that good at dancing, but I was absolutely hopeless at the beginning. (laughs) I was really, really bad. It was so bad that my friends would make fun of me for not being able to do even basic moves. They’d say, “Seriously, how did you ever get casted?” But Big Hit’s training regimen is really good. (laughs and stretches arms out diagonally) This is called “arm stretching.” It’s a basic move. This is all I did for a year. And then more than a year of following the rhythm. I focused on basic, repetitive moves like that, then I took baby steps with a dance foundations class, and then with endless practice I finally got a lot better.

You can give hope to hopeless dancers. (laughs) I know that you were always very interested in singing.

HEESEUNG: I dreamed of becoming a singer since I was six, but I totally lacked confidence. Singers need to be able to sing in front of people without feeling nervous, but the most I could do until high school was sing with two or three really close friends at a karaoke. And then my dad suggested I take the entrance exam for an art high school, but I was too nervous during the test to sing anything. I was about to head home thinking I’d better study or choose a different career path when suddenly a casting agent spotted me. I was really lucky.

HEESEUNG: I was heavily influenced by YEONJUN from TOMORROW X TOGETHER when I came to Big Hit. Up until then, I had a sense of pride. I thought, well, I’m pretty good at singing, right? But after I saw YEONJUN, I realized I was totally fooling myself. (laughs) I felt like YEONJUN is the kid who gets perfect in every subject and I’m the one who gets, about 80 in one class and goes around bragging about it. So I thought there’s no room for feeling “not confident or some other nonsense like that” (laughs) I need to really up my game if I want to be a singer. From then on, I tried to really show off everything I’ve got on stage, which is different from how I used to be.

In the “October 2020 by ENHYPEN” video, you set a goal to practice vocals for one and a half to two hours every day. Even with your busy schedule, you’ve been close to 70~80% successful with that goal.

HEESEUNG: (laughs) It’s easy to achieve your goals when it’s something you like to do. I usually put my all into things I like, but I don’t have much motivation to do things I’m not into. I think that’s a strength and also a weakness. To use studying as an example: I lost interest in studying when I was in middle school, so I didn’t put much effort into most subjects, but I liked English because I liked to listen to pop songs. There was a foreign language high school near me that accepted students only based on their English grades and mine were good enough to get in.

All your practice really shows on your debut album, BORDER: DAY ONE. I was impressed by how you expressed each song differently.

HEESEUNG: The lead single, “Given-Taken,” is about facing a new world, and ENHYPEN just debuted as a team, so I wanted to convey a passionate start of a race. You could say it’s mellow since it opens with a harp, but I used all my energy to emphasize the tone. In “Let Me In (20 CUBE),” there’s the lyrics: “Can you open your window / Been looking everywhere for my Nemo.” It would sound kind of weird if I sang, “Open up!” forcefully like that.(laughs) So I recorded my vocals in a way that best conveys the meaning and doesn’t break the mood.

It looks like you have specific ideas about the performances and your music. On I-LAND you recorded the “-note” video diary, and you reflected on various aspects of your performance. It was very impressive the way you could go back and analyze it like that.

HEESEUNG: If you debut, you become a professional. I don’t look like a pro in my performances yet, but I think you become more professional by making deliberate efforts. I think I need to be able to express myself inside and out, so I’m trying to do all different kinds of training.

You mentioned several times that you want to write your own songs this year. Have you written any?

HEESEUNG: When I was in sixth grade, I took a music composition class using a sequencer program my dad recommended, called Cakewalk. I started to write songs again after I became a trainee. There’s a song I worked on until I got into I-LAND, and also some songs I wrote and recorded the lyrics over some existing beats. But we’ve been so busy preparing for the debut. I really regret that I haven’t been able to show off my work. Anyway, I’m going to keep trying to write songs for ENGENE whenever I get time. I just hope they’ll be patient with me.

You said “Merry and the Witch’s Flower” by Yerin Baek is your favorite song. What kind of songs do you usually listen to?

HEESEUNG: As far as genre goes, I’m really into alternative R&B. I also like songs that are dreamy and chill. I listened to a lot of songs by Yerin Baek, Anderson Paak and Eric Bellinger lately. I usually listen to the newest releases to see what people like these days, but I also listen to old hits by 2Pac and the Notorious B.I.G.

In BE:LIFT LAB’s “Training Camp,” you said your personal motivation is the high goals you set for yourself.

HEESEUNG: If I were to say that I want to be at 100, I’m currently at a 30 or 40. I’m absolutely serious. I think I need to try a lot harder if I’m going to reach my full potential. I want to be more than just a set of skills, or an amazing person; I want to make sure I don’t lose myself. The more time you spend on your work, the less time there is to invest in yourself. And if your work takes over your identity, I think you might even find it easy to lose your own sense of self. I want to be the kind of person who can grow while staying devoted to my work.

It reminds me of your performance of “Chamber 5.” Even though I-LAND is a survival program and you could have chosen a song that would have been more advantageous to you, you took on a new challenge solely for self-improvement.

HEESEUNG: (laughs) I was in way over my head. I seriously never tried even a single playful song like “Chamber 5” before in my life. But, obviously, you can’t go back to the past. Anyway, that was my choice. I was preparing for a job where you have to be ready to handle all different kinds of concepts. I took that as a fact and just practiced. And also, I had the magnificent teacher, Mr. SUNOO, right there with me. (laughs) So it was good in the end.

Maybe it’s thanks to that experience that the way you turn around and wink in the “Let Me In (20 CUBE)” performance suits you so well.

HEESEUNG: (laughs) That kind of stuff just comes to me naturally now—basically showing people how charming I am. Was it a bit awkward? (laughs) Songs like “10 Months” are in-your-face cutesy. It was hard at first, but after thinking about my own style the answer came to me. I look mature compared to the other members, so I figured that was the solution to the problem of how to express my charm. Now I am Lee HEESEUNG, a man of endless allure. (laughs)

Before a leader was selected for ENHYPEN, your name kept coming up in the polls under headings like, “the first person you’ll turn to when you’re having a hard time,” or, “the person who won’t hesitate to take difficult tasks for others.”

HEESEUNG: I’m good at listening to other people’s problems. That sounded like bragging. (laughs) If I see someone struggling with something I can fix or help them with, it’s hard for me to just stand by and watch. I don’t go around thinking I always need to help with everything, but I unconsciously act that way.

You’re the oldest member of the group. I can tell the other members trust you, and rely on you. As their oldest teammate, how do you want to be there for them?

HEESEUNG: I hope they don’t think of me as being more important than them just because I’m the oldest. In middle school, high school, clubs, and places like that, I realized that opening up to someone your senior isn’t always easy. So when we became a team, I thought I should be a cute, approachable guy (laughs) and create an atmosphere where they can speak openly with me. Everybody feels comfortable talking to that kind of person.

It seems like you already are. You all looked really close when the others were touching your head without hesitation on V LIVE and saying it looks like the full moon. (laughs)

HEESEUNG: (laughs) Yes, I’m … not thrilled that happened. (laughs) Everyone in the group has their own strong, unique personality, but still, we all try to trust and respect one another, and we set clear boundaries. And as we spend more time together, we share more personal stories, which helps us grow closer.

In “-note,” you thank the people around you and judge your own practice progress objectively while finding the positive aspects. I was impressed.

HEESEUNG: Even though they didn’t show it on the show much, I felt tremendous pressure being in a leadership position. There was so much to deal with. A lot of that was hard, of course, but I believe that people become the things they say they are, so I chose to be thankful and stay positive. If I say it like I believe it, my thinking will change and then I can overcome any difficulty. For artists, fans are important, skills are important, and talent is important, if you want to draw people in. Everything is important, really. I think it’s most important to have a healthy mind if you want to really nail all those things.

What does music mean to you?

HEESEUNG: That’s the hardest question. (laughs) I don’t want to define music in one word. I don’t think there should be just one correct answer to what music is. Because there’s no answer, all kinds of different music gets made, and many different people can be on stage. As soon as there is an answer, music will lose its charm.

#201227 #enhypen #heeseung #t: weverse #t: interview

[presumenothing]

FMAB: Daughter of the Dusk – Chapter 8: A Gunshot Through Hope

(A little late, but here’s my non-fic contribution to the fandom in honour of FMA day! The game is quite long overall, so this covers just the first part, which I figured people might be curious about since it ties up the cliffhanger from Prince of the Dawn. Not sure if I’ll do the rest of the game yet, but in the meantime – enjoy this chapter!)

-

Daughter of the Dusk is the sequel to Prince of the Dawn, which covers Chapters 1-7 of the story, and has a English-subbed playthrough by EnvyPlays (which you should watch first before reading on, obviously). I don’t have either game, so this summary is based on this playthrough by チキンオレ, starting from video 9 in the playlist.

The game is set before the Briggs arc, and picks up directly from where the previous one ended: at the Amestris-Aerugo peace treaty signing ceremony in Central City, with Bradley and Prince Claudio shaking hands onstage. Ed spots Scar in the audience, but he vanishes before Ed can give pursuit. 

Meanwhile, up on the radio tower, Hawkeye prepares to snipe Claudio (on Bradley’s orders) with Black Hayate by her side. She takes out her pocketbook to check the ceremony map, and a photo of the team falls out, leading to this moment as she looks at the photo…

HAWKEYE: [silently] I pull this trigger of my own will. [aloud, at Hayate’s worried expression] It’s alright. [aims the rifle at Claudio as he begins his speech] The Hawk’s Eye does not miss. Goodbye, Colonel.

[sound of gunshot, cut to black]

[flashback to before the signing ceremony]

CHAPTER 8: A GUNSHOT THROUGH HOPE

NARRATOR: Central City gladly welcomed “Envoy of Peace” Prince Claudio, whose arrival marked the end of a long war. But the gunshot that rang out at the climax of the festivities – the peace treaty signing ceremony – abruptly turned the celebratory cheers to screams. The beginning can be traced back to several hours before the fated time……

FUHRER’S OFFICE: Envy leaves to bring Hawkeye to the sniper spot. Greed arrives. Bradley assigns him to bring Hawkeye’s rifle from the armoury (G: “How could a sniper forget her rifle?” B: “She couldn’t carry it and get past security.”), and gives him an ID for a weapons dealer so he can get in.

[player character: Greed]

CENTRAL COMMAND - RECEPTION: Greed bluffs his way past (G: Lying is against my creed, but I did promise to do this…), mainly because it turns out Bradley informed them beforehand of his arrival.

CENTRAL COMMAND - ARMOURY 2: Greed notices something odd about a large box, but dismisses it as his imagination, and takes the rifle. Bradley appears, having “coincidentally” passed by. Greed realises this was a test. (B: “This is a tactic that will shake the nation. Who knew if ‘the prince’ would make a racket.”) Bradley then reveals Greed’s next task – blowing up the sniper spot after the deed is done, to erase the evidence and silence Hawkeye.

[PC: Mustang, who is implied to have been hiding in the box Greed noticed]

Mustang thinks about what he overheard – the assassination and silencing of Hawkeye afterwards. (M: “My instinct was spot on, to have picked this as the meeting place! [beat] Time is running out. ……I’ll have to cancel my date. Hang in there.”) He heads out to search for the sniper spot.

CENTRAL COMMAND - LOBBY: A soldier tells Mustang that Hawkeye has gone out, and someone at the entrance might know where she was headed.

At the entrance, best boy™️ Black Hayate barks and proceeds to tug Mustang’s uniform. (M: “What’re you doing! I don’t have time to play with you now…" BH: [growls] M: “Ow ow ow! Let go! [beat] Fine, I’ll follow you! Lead me to where your master is……")

Mustang spots Envy in the city, and deduces that Hawkeye is somewhere nearby. He arrives at the train depot, followed swiftly by Ed looking for Hayate (this scene was seen from Ed’s POV in the previous game, at 13:20 of Part 18). Mustang decides to return Hayate and make Ed leave so they won’t get caught up in this. He reflects on how Hawkeye has been given nothing but tasks opposite to him ever since Claudio arrived, likely because the higher-ups wanted to separate them so he wouldn’t find out about the assassination plan… which didn’t work out, clearly. Hawkeye then arrives (their confrontation was also previously seen from Hawkeye’s POV, at 7:08 of Part 19).

[PC: Fuery]

Fuery wrings his hands over having lost sight of Mustang, Ed, and Hayate. He decides to track down Mustang since something about him had looked off, by asking around if anyone’s seen him.

ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT: Fuery runs into Vanessa, who is Peak Angry at Mustang for passing by without noticing her at all. She says that he’d headed towards the abandoned factory.

[PC: Mustang]

ABANDONED FACTORY: Fuery finally finds Mustang, who asks what he’s doing here. (F: “Please stop saying such stand-offish things. Something happened, right, Colonel?” M: “You’re no longer under my command. Whatever I do has nothing to do with you.” F: “It does! I’m worried of my own accord!” M: “One after another… I really did get some strong-willed subordinates, huh.”) Scar then appears out of… seemingly nowhere, causing Mustang to dimiss Fuery over his protests, telling him to contact Breda and Falman. Scar and Mustang both declare they don’t have time for this. Scar activates his disintegration alchemy, but Mustang makes a smokescreen with flame alchemy and runs off.

[Time left until the fated moment – 00:59:59]

Having explained the situation to Falman, Breda, and Fuery, Mustang tells them it’s not too late to return to their posts, but of course they reject this offhand. Mustang then says that he’s going to meet Claudio and try to stop the signing ceremony somehow.

[Time left until the fated moment – 00:51:28]

Mustang asks Claudio to not appear at the ceremony, as he is being targeted. Claudio says he was prepared for the danger all along, and a mini-game follows where you have to choose dialogue that will convince him. Mustang says that it’s a plot by rebels within the military (another option says it’s by mysterious aliens, lol) with a sniper known to be a crack shot, though he claims their identity is still under investigation. Claudio then asks the real reason why he’s so determined to stop this, since it might even endanger his standing in the military, and Mustang answers that it’s out of his personal wish of peace. In the end, Claudio declares that he still won’t stop the ceremony just to protect his own life, but he will bear Mustang’s words in mind. Mustang acknowledges this determination, and says that he will do everything he can to foil the plot.

[Time left until the fated moment – 00:32:23]

[PC: Fuery]

Fuery sneaks into the communication room to eavesdrop on transmissions from Bradley’s allies to Hawkeye. After some false alarms (including a report of a woman being detained for carrying a rifle-shaped object and blunt weapon, who turns out to be Winry with automail case and spanner), he catches an exchange between Envy and Hawkeye, and finds out the sniper spot is outside the ceremony area and informs the rest. An emergency report then comes in about an intruder at the back door – it’s Scar.

[PC: Scar]

Scar barges in and destroys things while… monologuing darkly about various things, including his comrades and “that man”. (I’ll be honest, I do not like this Ishvalan terrorist subplot at all so I paid about zero attention to it.) He leaves. Falman and Breda arrive under the pretext of providing backup.

[Time left until the fated moment – 00:24:45]

[PC: Falman]

Falman and Breda head towards the watchtower to look for Hawkeye’s sniper spot. Just to be on the safe side, Falman memorises a guard assignment map of the ceremony area, which turns out useful when a suspicious soldier gives them a literal pop quiz to prove they’re really here as backup. Falman aces it, and Breda sneaks off while he proceeds to distract the soldier… with a long, long, long monologue on the founding of Amestris. Which continues even as the screen fades to black. Who ever said history wasn’t useful?

[Time left until the fated moment – 00:15:22]

[PC: Breda]

Breda sneaks up to the watchtower, and spots Hawkeye through a telescope, at her sniper spot atop the radio tower. He’s then discovered, but manages to send word to Mustang before he’s knocked out.

[Time left until the fated moment – 00:04:48]

[PC: Mustang]

Mustang hears Breda’s message but can’t get any further response from him, and rushes off. Fuery also radios in to warn that Bradley has ordered Mustang’s arrest, saying not to reply before he’s seemingly arrested too. Mustang is then surrounded, but spots a certain gremlin.

[Time left until the fated moment – 00:03:11]

[PC: Ed]

Unsurprisingly, Ed is furious, and proceeds to furiously kick ass via alchemy. Mustang warns him about the plot before leaving. (M: “The Hawk’s Eye is aiming for the stage. She’s being used by them. I don’t want to ask anything of you, but–” E: “Leave it to me.” M: “You’re not surprised? ……so you already noticed.” E: “No. I didn’t know until now.” M: [shrugs with excessive sass])

Other soldiers try to stop Ed, on account of him being Mustang’s ally, leading to an entertaining obstacle course as he dashes towards the stage. (E: “Hah, as if they could keep up with me! [beat] …wait, this isn’t the time for that!”)

We’re now back to the start, at the moment where Claudio begins his speech. From offstage, Ed spots a flash from the radio tower. He rushes forward to tackle Claudio down and gets shot……… on his automail, so it’s all fine!

It gets much less fine a moment later, when the radio tower blows up. Hawkeye pulls Hayate into a hug, trying to shield him as the tower falls onto them, but the entire thing goes up in flames just in time, metal and all. Stunned, Hawkeye turns around amidst the drifting ashes to see none other than…

MUSTANG: Sorry I kept you waiting. You ended up bearing all this alone. HAWKEYE: I chose this myself. MUSTANG: You were trying to protect us, weren’t you? Leave the rest to me. [Hawkeye inhales sharply] Protection is my job. HAWKEYE: Understood.

Meanwhile, back at the ceremony:

AL: Brother! ELENA: Brother! WINRY: Ed! AL: [silently] “Brother”!? Elena definitely said that just now……!

ED: That was close. CLAUDIO: …time to change plans. We’ll retreat for now. [leaves] ED: What was that about……?

There’s a bit more aftermath: Scar talks with another Ishvalan, Envy chews Greed out for letting Hawkeye escape (until Father bitches them out for sibling quarrels), and Bradley says he’ll release Mustang’s team.

We cut to Mustang and Breda right outside the ceremony area:

ED: Is everyone okay!? BREDA: Everyone was let off without censure. Sergeant Fuery, Officer Falman, and Lieutenant Hawkeye are fine too. MUSTANG: “In recognition of heroic actions to save the prince’s life”, apparently. ED: And what about the ceasefire treaty? MUSTANG: It’s taking everything we have just to handle the fallout. About the treaty, or the prince… none of it has been decided. ED: That prince……

AL: [narrating] The prince’s life was saved with Brother’s involvement. It seems that the Fuhrer and his allies had planned from the start to worsen the war by killing the prince. Unaware of all this, Prince Claudio remains in this country, and is said to be hoping to start over on the treaty. But there’s something I’m far more bothered by–

[flashback to Elena shouting “Brother!”]

AL: The word Elena shouted while looking at Prince Claudio… and yet, I wasn’t able to ask her anything. Because it felt like Elena would vanish somewhere, if I did ask……

To be continued.

-

And last but not least… the trailer for the next chapter!

WINRY: Oh no, it’s terrible! There’s been a case! A locked-room murder! The name of the case is “The Murder of Colonel Roy Mustang”! ED: So you died without achieving your goal… go to your sleep in peace, Colonel. ROY: Hold it right there! I’m still alive! WINRY: I’ll solve this case for sure! I definitely will! Next time, on FMAB: Daughter of the Dusk, Chapter 9 – Automail Mechanic Winry Rockbell’s Splendid Casebook! ROY: Like I said, stop progressing the story however you like! [gets elbowed(??) by Winry] WINRY: Well then, who’s the culprit!?

#fullmetal alchemist #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood #fma #fmab #fma wii #prince of the dawn #daughter of the dusk #fma daughter of dusk #what the heck IS the tag for the game #mine #fma translation #long post #i hope this is a somewhat readable format at least #it was the best i could do within limits of tumblr formatting without making it ridiculously long #ANYWAY YEAH these games do get quite ridiculous at times but i enjoyed watching em more than i expected #especially this part because mustang team shenanigans are always yes #(and also the last part of prince of dawn because riza) #also it's telling that the one line i got seriously stuck on was ed's in the next chap trailer #unsubbed audio will be the actual death of me basically

[nekomassetters]

Nineteen

After hearing your coach's voice boom across the gym, the girls' volleyball team members simultaneously whip their bodies across to face their mentor.

"Alright girls I'm ending practice here. You all should try to relax before we leave on Monday and remember we're leaving right in the morning!"

Your friends begin to sigh in relief from finally getting a break. Nakamura especially voices her excitement, forgetting that her coach is nearby.

"And don't go too crazy with partying either," your coach says skeptically, "I'm looking at you 'Mura!"

Nakamura's face immediately goes pale and apologizes for her behavior. After the rest of the lecture, you walk over to Nakamura to soothe her gloomy state.

"She always calls me out," Nakamura pouts as you guide her to the other girls packing their belongings.

"That's so not true," Ritsuko voices, "I constantly get told to check my damn language because I'm the captain! So dumb. It's not like any of you don't say that stuff!"

"Yeah but it's because you're the captain," Mito chuckles.

"No fair," you hear Ritsuko mumble in response.

As you begin to walk away you hear Mito call out to you.

"Hey Y/N you want to get something to eat?"

Behind Mito, you hear Ritsuko mumble to herself.

"Y/N. The one person coach never yells at."

Either you were the only person who heard her or the rest of your friends decided to ignore her complaint.

"Sorry but I'm going to practice with the guys," you tell them.

"Again?!" exclaims Nakamura.

"Well yeah," you say as you observe your friends who all have worried looks on their faces, "but I promise I won't go too crazy like coach said!"

You wave goodbye to your friends and exit the gym, heading to the other one nearby containing the boys' team.

Once you put your bag down, you walk up to Kenma who stands with Kuroo, Yaku, and Lev.

"You really don't want to come?" Kuroo begs his roommate, "It's just going to be me, 'Kaashi, and Bokuto."

Kenma shakes his head, telling his friend that he doesn't plan on going to Fukurodani University with him right now. This immediately strikes an idea in your brain as you turn to Kenma and give him an innocent smile.

"Wanna hang out with me then?"

The group looks at you as if you have three heads before proceeding to look at Kenma in anticipation of his answer.

"Sure," he replies calmly as he shrugs.

"What the hell?!"

You can see the shock on the boys' faces as Kenma's response registers in their ears.

"You won't go with Kuroo but you'll hang out with Y/N-chan? That's a little suspicious, Kenma," Yaku teases.

"Yeah seriously," Kuroo whines, "how is there nothing going on between you two."

Before either you or Kenma could retaliate, Lev comes to your rescue.

"Because they're both friends and have common interests. Besides Kenma probably doesn't want to go all the way to Fukurodani when he could just stay here," he shrugs.

Someone remind me that I totally owe Lev one.

"Huh?" Yaku's voice squeaks, "you really believe that's all that's-"

"Come on Kenma," you say as you interrupt Yaku as begin walking away from the group.

📷

That evening after practice, you and Kenma hang out in his room for awhile. The two of you spend a little over an hour playing video games together until you realize the time.

"Oh shit," you exclaim as you look down at your phone, "I've gotta work on something for my class, is it okay if I finish it super quick?"

"Sure," Kenma says as he nods his head, "do you mind if I call Kuroo?"

Kenma holds up his headset, indicating to you that he was going to join a game with Kuroo and Bokuto.

"Sure you don't have to ask me," you grin.

"Well I just didn't want to disturb you while you're doing your work," he quietly expresses with a bit of concern in his tone.

"Nah don't worry about it," you tell him.

You give Kenma a quick kiss on the cheek before standing up and pulling out your notebook.

Stupid. I shouldn't have done that.

After grabbing the tools you need to complete your work, you lay everything out on Kenma's bed, just above where he is leaning against it.

As you continue to work, you find yourself getting distracted by the game Kenma's playing, not that you really cared about the work anyway.

Once completing most of the work, you finally allow yourself to become fully attentive to the game he's winning. Without real thought, you find your hand playing with Kenma's hair. The only thing making you realize that you had started petting him was after he sat up a bit from tensing to the unexpected behavior.

For a moment, you could swear you saw Kenma's ears light up, and you decided that you could take this to your advantage yet again.

After closing your notebook and packing your things up a bit, you slide down beside Kenma to sit next to him.

"You guys are so damn slow," Kenma's bored voice strikes as he does his best to ignore you staring at him.

As you look over at him, you observe how his cheeks refuse to stop turning bright red.

God he's so cute when he's flustered.

While turning your gaze back to the screen of his game, you place your hand against his shorts. Immediately you're greeted with a hard bulge at contact.

Aaaand, that's why.

Briefly, Kenma makes eye contact with you. You immediately acknowledge the almost pleading look in his eyes as if to tell you to stop although he clearly wanted you to continue.

"May I?" you whisper to him.

After Kenma nods, you position yourself a bit better to face his bottom half and remove his shorts along with his boxers underneath. When you look up at him, the pleading look on his face intensifies.

Swiftly, you position your mouth over him and begin to take in his length. As your mouth swirls around him, you feel him squirm a bit underneath you.

A hand suddenly attaches to your hair. By now you knew that this meant he wanted you to take in more of him. Willing to submit to his nonverbal instruction, you do as he wishes.

"Fuck..."

Small grunts find their way escaping from his mouth as you continue to pump your mouth around him.

"Shut up," you hear him groan.

Remembering that he's still on the call with his friends, you find a smirk crawl across your face.

"Because I hate having to play with you guys," he continues talking as best he can manage, "you've got no skills, Kuroo."

Knowing he was about to finish, Kenma places a hand back on your head, but this time just to feel you as you push deeper on your own.

"Yo Kenma why the hell did you stop moving?!" you hear an unfamiliar, yet loud voice call out.

Kenma doesn't respond to his friend. As he tunes out the others, he focuses on the hot ropes of liquid he's once again shooting down your throat.

"Fuck," Kenma groans, not caring who heard him, "it's Y/N's turn."

You instantly pick your head up in shock as you hear Kenma's words. You begin shaking your head frantically as you know what he's trying to do.

Kenma stuffs the headset on you and quickly tells his friends through the speaker that you wanted control so he's letting you have it.

You feel your face heat up at his statement. His eyes slice into yours as he deviously smiles and backs away from you. After pushing the controller into your hands, you feel your own shorts getting removed.

"Hey Hey Hey!" you hear the same voice from before boom through the speaker.

"Hi," you awkwardly respond as you try to keep your eyes fixated on the game.

"Concentrate on the game Y/N," Kenma whispers to you as he spreads apart your legs.

You shake your head no and do your best to silently protest, but Kenma doesn't listen.

As the game starts for you, it starts for Kenma as well. His warm breath hitting you first as you try your best to stay focused on the task he's given you. You feel your panties being slid down to your ankles before Kenma pulls them off entirely

"Listen Y/N," Kenma says to you after getting tired of your squirming and constant distraction, "don't make a noise."

You shake your head stiffly in response. You then shift your gaze back to the game screen as Kenma dips his head back down between your thighs and beginning to glide his tongue against your folds.

As Kenma plunges his fingers into you, he attaches his mouth to you as well. The sensation of immediate pleasure driving you insane as you do your best to stay on task.

An eventual squeal reaches your lips as Kenma's fingers curl and reach deep into you just the right way.

"That's what you deserve," he mumbles before continuing his own job.

"What's going on?" you hear Kuroo's skeptical voice through Kenma's headset.

"Sorry," you breathe, "I guess I'm just not very good at this game."

You let out a weak laugh as you once more get distracted by looking down at Kenma.

"Hey once this game is over, you and Kenma should come over so I can meet you!" the man who you were recently introduced to as Bokuto randomly exclaims.

"Uhm..." you try to let out as Kenma keeps his hand attached to the inside of your pussy.

"Don't bother Kenma when his girlfriend is with him," you the other voice you were just introduced as well announces.

Once again your face heats up. This time you look down at Kenma who continues his job as if nothing happened, since he can't hear what the others are saying.

"O-Oh no we-"

"Sorry, Y/N," Bokuto sadly interrupts your rebuttal.

Just then you feel your walls continue to contract as Kenma reaches you to your climax.

"Mmm, it's o..." you try to say to Bokuto.

However, the pleasure you're feeling takes over and you instantly turn off the mic. Freeing Kenma's name from your lips, you feel yourself release onto him.

After pulling his fingers out of your sopping pussy, he looks up at you puzzled.

"I muted it," you say as you try to catch your breath, "don't worry."

"No you didn't," he calmly replies.

You turn your attention to your headset, immediately taking it off of your head and staring at it in horror.

"I'm just kidding," he says as he scoots closer to you, "you did."

"Kenma!" you exclaim, shocked that he made a joke, "don't-"

"Don't what, Y/N?" he asks as he gets dangerously close to your mouth, "you look like you enjoyed that so I doubt you're in any position to complain right about now."

He was right. You had nothing to protest so instead of contradicting him, you were forced to settle with defeat this time.

#Wattpad #Kenma Kozume #kenma #kenma x y/n #ao3 #fanfic #haikyuu fanfiction #fanfiction #haikyuu!! #haikyuu x female reader #haikyuu reader insert #haikyu x reader

[copperbadge]

dignitywhatdignity replied to your post “Sorry I missed stream last night guys! I honestly lay down on the bed...”

Ugh, I'm pregnant with bad seasonal allergies I can't really treat, which has resulted in some secondary infections. Plus my husband has bad cabin fever and won't admit he has what I'm 98% sure is mild but chronic anxiety. So there's been a lot of me coughing horribly and him "just asking" if I'm *really sure* it's a sinus infection.

Man, that sounds awful. One of my colleagues is set to give birth in like a week, and she’s miserable enough without allergies. 

It may be helpful, given anxiety often isn’t rational but I’m sure it’s tiring to keep being asked, to discuss what you’d be doing differently if it WAS covid. Like, a sinus infection is basically treated in the same fashion because most of them are viral too, correct? And even if you are taking antibiotics, that’s not going to harm you if it is covid. So it may help to point out that even if it isn’t a sinus infection, you’re still treating “covid” when you treat the sinus infection. Between that and having or making a concrete plan for if it does end up being covid and you take a turn for the worse, that may settle him somewhat. My mother was very relieved when I told her I had an ER “go bag” packed in case I get very sick very suddenly; now she knows I’m prepared and there’s a plan in place.

musegaarid replied to your post “Sorry I missed stream last night guys! I honestly lay down on the bed...”

Actually, this is how the coronavirus manifested for my partner. He's just really lethargic and unable to taste or smell anything. He's also got a minor cough and runny nose, though those might be allergies. Anyway, he's a paramedic so he got tested and sure enough, he's got it. It's strange to say that I hope you have it, too, but if this is the worst it gets for you and then you get immunity, that seems like a pretty good deal. Feel better soon!

I did hear that losing a sense of smell/taste was a symptom, but fortunately it’s not quite that -- I can still taste food, like I had a chicken sandwich this morning and could taste the chicken and the avocado, it’s just I got no enjoyment from it, and was very unenthused about even making it. I keep thinking “Oh, I want something hot, I want something made for me” but then I run through the list of foods I could order in, which in Chicago is a lot of options, and I just can’t come up with anything. Even pizza, which I will almost never say no to and which is so close I could go pick up so I wouldn’t have to deal with delivery, I’m just like “Meh. The cheese will upset my stomach.”

col1999 replied to your post “Sorry I missed stream last night guys! I honestly lay down on the bed...”

God, you totally articulated my thoughts. Especially the nose running all winter - is this normal runny nose or Corvid 19 runny nose? I'm hot - do I have a fever or is it because the sun is shining on me at my desk right now? I have to keep calming myself down, or maybe if not 'calming' at least settling myself down. And the ENNUI is killing me. I feel like I'm having mild panic/anxiety attacks about work, but they are so flattened...I guess that's good, I guess. ��

When I was younger and reading the “Death” series of Discworld novels, I remember Albert (Death’s servant) was described as perpetually having a drip at the end of his nose, and I was like “Gross, how does that even work? I’ve never had a drip at the end of my nose, that must be like a joke” and this past winter I have had a perpetual, INFURIATING drip at the end of my nose. Getting older is terrible. 

I figure, I know the main symptoms, and I know which of them I tend to have anyway, so I discount those, and as long as I don’t have a fever it doesn’t matter anyway. So I’m just slowly wearing out the battery on my digital thermometer. 

tienriu replied to your post “Sorry I missed stream last night guys! I honestly lay down on the bed...”

I think you and I are in the same weird space (also got my masks and extra toilet paper ahead of the panic buying for completely different and long running reasons so lol). Hearing everybody else struggling I keep finding myself second guessing my own 'fine'. If everybody isn't fine, is my 'fine' somehow a manifestation of not being fine? I have finally decided to just stop asking myself if I'm truly fine and just letting the anxiety hit me when it decides to arrive.

Yeah, I ask myself if I’m in denial like 2-3 times a day, but I feel like if I were in denial I wouldn’t have been able to hold up against my onslaught of asking this long.  :D

eimearkuopio reblogged your post and added:

I needed this. I had a slightly elevated temperature and sore throat last week and so I’ve not gone out since just so I wouldn’t risk making other people sick, but I wasn’t sick enough to really “feel” sick, except that I’ve also been unable to concentrate and work even when I was trying and my boss said it was fine and to just not force myself to work instead of recovering, but today was meant to be my (self-imposed) “back to work” deadline and I stayed up until 2 playing video games and am now lying in bed paralysed with stress over WHAT TO DO. Do I go for a run? Do I fold the giant pile of clean laundry that has built up? Do I tidy my desk? Do I shower and get dressed, or should that wait until after the hypothetical run? Do I just force myself to turn on the computer, log in to the server, and open the appropriate code?

Aw, I’m sorry you’ve been sick! And it’s super hard to get back to work at the best of times. I’m lucky that I’m expected to be “at work” for very specific hours, and to set my away message when I’m afk, which gets me working on time, but it’s still rough. 

I’ve taken to keeping the Tasks app open on my phone and adding literally every task I need to do, from “buy headphones” (I need a corded set with a mic to participate in work conference calls) to “read the news” (for my job) to “scoop the litter” (which I don’t normally need to be reminded to do). Then every day I put them in order of how I’ll do them, with anything I think I probably won’t have the energy for at the bottom. I know that freaks some people out a LOT because that’s a LONG LIST TO GET THROUGH but for me it’s comforting that I won’t forget anything because it’s all in the list, and the decision about when to do them is made. :D 

#reply all #eimearkuopio #tienriu #col1999 #musegaarid #dignitywhatdignity

[maergheritas-moved]

S L A Y E R S, a novel by margarita p. g.

CHAPTER 00 - OLIVER

For being under Marco’s wing for a few weeks now, Oliver still hasn’t managed to master “the art of repair” even a little bit. He’s realized, instead, that he really isn’t good at this, that his nimble hands that once, in his younger years, served him for pickpocketing, for dumbkres with his mates, don’t work for handing tiny bot parts. It sucks, really… Marco thought Oliver would be of some use. And Oliver did, too. A part of him, a small part, maybe hoped that this stay would be permanent. 

But, like all things in his life, it soon proved to be nothing but momentary. He realized this on a burning hot summer morning, when the sun was high and the sulfur in the air even higher. He was only getting used to the life in Bajo then, trying to find a place amongst the renegades and runaways, and the many generations and cultural legacies found within the ancient walls of his new tiny town. The locals knew him as escurridizo, a nod to his late night appearances literally anywhere in town… he had the ability to slip out of where he was and be somewhere else in what looked like seconds. Lightning speed. Faster than a teleporter. Some people even thought he was one. He very much was not. That much he knew. 

Oliver woke up late that June morning, to the high-pitched whirring of centuries-old engines. He had hoped to get some rest after his rendezvous with Rory last night. But, as the heroes in video games would say, duty called. So, he got himself out of bed, put his sandals on, helped himself to burnt toast and already cold coffee, and headed to the taller. 

There lay Marco, working on his new project: the restoration of a humanoid bot found by some archeologists a couple of miles from here. It was clearly a very, very old model, and Marco had been promised a very large sum of money if he restored it back to working condition. Maybe the archeologists were planning to take it to a museum or a college or something like that, Oliver thought. 

It was very large, probably over three meters tall, and had a masculine shape. To Oliver, it looked like the military droids he saw on films. 

The military humanoid death machine thing lay with its stomach part open on the table, and by the smell of coltan in the air, Oliver knew Marco was dealing with the motherboard. It was definitely from the 22nd century, maybe early, when they still put moderboards on the torso and not the head. Marco had his microglasses on, and was very intently working on opening something really really small. There was soft jazz music playing somewhere, which, mixed with the birds chirping and the sound of schoolboys close, painted a picture in Oliver’s head that resembled a time when everyone was still together and life was easy. He let the memory wrap him under. 

An order from Marco pulls him back to reality. “Hey, nene,” he says, not even a hello beforehand, “can you check this wiring for me please?”

Without a word, Oliver walked over to the table, where the chemical smell is almost uncomfortable, and looked at the tangle of loose wires on the open motherboard. They were color coded, thank god. To Oliver, non-colored coded wires were the reason God left the Earth. Marcus and him always took hours to set them right. Almost instantly, he got a vague idea of how the circuits should go. They were like magnets, and he could feel where one ended and the other began, the many channels of energy running through the bot’s body, like blood rushing down veins. He had an instinct for this sort of things, a sixth sense, and it was hardly ever wrong. Oliver knew this wasn’t exactly normal, he knew it since he was a kid and could feel the many forces coming onto him way more than other people could, but he was not a might. Or at least, not a bolter (he’d already tried; sparks never came out of his palms). Whatever he was, he never gave it much thought. It would not do him good, especially not in this country.

Trusting his weird instinct, Oliver got to work, ordering Marco what went where, offering clear directions and vague explanations. Marco didn’t mind. To him, this boy was some sort of wizard, and not the “evil” kind. He did the work because he knew how to. If Oliver did it himself, he might as well cause a short circuit so strong it left the whole town with no power for a few hours. Oliver never understood why things like this seemed to happen, he guessed the wires just hated him. 

Thus, they fell into a steady rhythm of work, sorting circuits out, monotone actions, with problems coming up as they went along, which they solved together. Oliver and Marco were a good team in that sense, Marco’s vast knowledge mixing with Oliver’s knack for improvisation to come up with increasingly creative solutions. These came naturally to Oliver. No one had ever given him a book on how to life, so everything he’d learned, he learned it by doing. By figuring things out, just like they were at that moment. Maybe he could be of use there, he thought. The idea of having a place to stay, even if he didn’t realize it then, gave him comfort. 

Time passed quickly when you were at work, and soon it was time for lunch. Marco called a break, and Oliver lifted his head from the wiring of the bot’s eyes that he was attempting to figure out. 

“Hungry?” Marco asked. Oliver nodded. He was, indeed, starving, and had been for a while, but with the task in front of him, it had been a second thought in his mind. 

“Alright, then, uhhhh” Marco thought out loud. “Mara won’t be home until tonight, and there’s nothing from last night”. 

Bummer, Oliver thought. Would they have something to it until Mara came back? There were days like this, when Aymara, Marco’s wife, was out working twelve hours at the rest stop outside of town. They had to do with whatever leftover there was from breakfast. 

“So, we’re eating crackers, then?” Oliver asked, defeated. 

Marco’s eye brightened up, his torso straightening up a little. “Actually, I think there’s some money in my bedroom. Go get yourself a mixto or whatnot, kid.”

Oliver practically springed to his feet and rushed to Marco’s bedroom. Indeed, there was money in his dresser, enough to buy two mixtos and maybe a sugary. With that, Oliver rushed out of the house and into the secluded Clovel Street. 

The sun burned his skin, and he definitely should not have been out in this weather, but he was hungry and Lala’s tiny shop in the corner was open. There were a few neighbors having tartitas, who said hi to him. He went up to Arpy, the AI assistant, and ordered two mixtos, one for Marco and one for him. They would be ready in ten. 

Oliver sat on the counter, watching Arpy put the mixtos in the toaster, and looked out the door, where there was a small stray dog trying to catch a fly. That was when he saw him. 

His stare froze Oliver’s blood, made him paralyze all over. There was something about it…. something stomach-turning, revolting, repulsive, wrong. Like the man had crossed all of Oliver’s boundaries. It felt like a violation, but Oliver didn’t know of what. Or even how. 

He wanted to run away. As far as his legs allowed him. That’s what his mind told him to do, that the man was a predator just like the MIMIC or the police. But his body told him otherwise. His body told him to stay; he felt a pull to the man like those of his wires, he did not care what fate met him there, what the man might bring him, he just had to go. It was impertinent, urgent. Now. 

Yet, he stayed seated, watching his mixtos slowly get browner and cheesier, focusing on repelling that driving instinct within him, that… whatever he was doing to him. Sweat rolled down his brow and the people of the shop were completely unfazed or perhaps even unaware of whatever was going on between him and the man down the street, what strange energetic transaction was taking place Because it felt like that. It felt like electrons pushing down orbitals and moving, shifting, mixing, reacting, exploding. He felt like that: like a nuclear bomb that would go off if the man didn’t do anything about it first. He tried breathing. He tried focusing on anything else, on the smell of the food or the sound of cheese burning or the conversations taking place behind him. Nothing worked. 

When his mixtos were ready, he grabbed them and rushed outside, without even saying goodbye. Without thinking, he crossed the street, to the man. It felt eternal. And the man’s eyes…. they followed him. Wide and large and dark, open, focused… they felt, to Oliver, that they were feeding on his energy. 

Oliver let out a shaky breath when he got to him. He was at least a head taller than Oliver, could crash him in a split second, and very, very dark. His demeanor was unexpectedly calm. His eyes loosened for a bit, and Oliver was terrified for a half second. Then, his large hand wrapped over Oliver’s frail arm, and he hitched a breath in fear. He could not form words. The energy-sucking man started walking him down the street in double time. How is no one seeing this? Oliver thought. 

He wanted to ask so many things, who are you, where are you taking me, leave me alone, I have to get back home, but he couldn’t. If he did, what would this guy do to him? He was scary, villain-level scary. So, Oliver just went along. He got thrown into the back of a white transport. There was a brunette woman on the shotgun seat. Her eyes looked even more threatening than the man’s. 

They were kidnapping him. God, they were going to throw im on the sea or on a deep pit and let him die there. Immediately, Oliver started thinking up escape plans. He could still run. The didn’t bind his hands with anything. Dumbasses. 

The man got in the car. The woman was clutching her head, as if she had a migraine. They were discussing something, Oliver realized. But they were not talking. They were doing it through looks. Can she communicate with him in some sort of eye language? Or is it telepathy?

After a while, they both settled down and looked at him. Oliver was going to run. But he also couldn’t. Something kept him from running and this time it wasn’t any of their looks. 

“Sorry about that” the man said, “it’s pretty terrifying, i know, trust me” 

What the hell? Oliver thought. He was apologizing to him?

“I’m Drake, by the way” he said, with a smirk and friendly eyes. Oliver wanted to vomit. 

“And I’m Alyx” the woman said. Her eyes were warm and heavy-lidded, and Oliver had a feeling he should stay as far from her as she could. 

There was a beat of silence. “Who… Who are you and what… why…?” Oliver tried to speak, tried to form questions, but he didn’t know where to start. 

“Um, in short, kid,” Drake said, shifting in his seat. He opened his mouth, closed it again. “Okay, so: We are from the Cali Might Army. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Drake Emerson and she’s Officer Alyx Warren. That’s the important thing”.

Oliver gaped in awe at them. They were the Might Army. He had never met them, no one has, but he has certainly heard of them; in late night horror stories and headlines detailing tragedies. People spoke of them as violent, relentless insurgents who would abuse of their monstrous abilities to overtake the country. They almost seemed too powerful to be real. They couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be real. Is it a prank? 

Alyx looked at Drake. “He’s very confused, he’s saying… it’s a prank or something, um…”

Oliver panicked. Immediately he tried to open the door, tried to break the window, anything to get away from this… woman. She was reading his thoughts! Has she always been doing that? He didn’t even feel it, she just walked into his mind without even asking for permission. 

Drake reacted immediately, moving to pin him down, stop him. Oliver was on fire, his legs kicking to get away, powerless against Drake’s weight, screaming and panting and crying, he only now realized he was crying. 

“Oliver!” Alyx yelled. “Oliver. Please. Please calm down, I don’t want to calm you down, please don’t make me calm you down.” She was as panicked as he was. Oliver just failed to form curses at her and kept kicking. He was not going to calm down. He was going to get away, these people couldn’t mean well. He had to get back to Marco, to the work, have lunch. 

But he would never get there. 

With Drake Emerson pinning him down and Alyx  Warren in his mind, plus the thousand questions that grew by the second, he would never get there. Ever. 

After a while, Oliver sat in the car seat, unmoving and breathing heavily, powerless. Alyx and Drake were in their seats, panting. Alyx let out a curse. 

“Listen,” Drake said, softly, calm, “we won’t hurt you. Really.”

You already have, Oliver thought. “Then… why are you doing this? Why are you taking me?” he asked over shaky breaths.

“Because,” Alyx  started, voice trembling, “You have a very strange ability that no one has ever had before, and you might really, really, be of help for us.”

Oliver wasn’t sure he was breathing anymore. 

Alyx continued. “So, you’re coming with us, because, if you don’t, then someone else will take you, and you won’t be safe and neither will the world.”

TAGLIST (ask to be added/removed!): @andromdae @rapunzelles @herondalelucies @posideon @mayaeri @vicisse @pnstaudt @themillionthdraft @ditzysworld @vandorens @partheneos   

#mine #wip: slayers #hope yall didnt forget about her #idk if the read more worked... #violetvineyard #also sorry if u didnt wanna be on the taglist cdjnhfnvh #i made it months ago #slayers: chapter 00

[rayshippouuchiha]

I came out of Endgame with tears in my eyes and my heart filled up to the brim with absolute seething rage.

Even as I write this now my hands shake with some sick mixture of sadness, rage, and bitter disappointment.

So I preface this by saying that I am emotionally compromised and some of my views might shift with time and distance.

But, for better or for worse, this is my first rage flushed take:

I am so disappointed and so angry that after all of the tension, all of the build, all of the time and sweat and tears, all of the loyalty, we were rewarded with this.

Endgame had its high points, I’m not saying that it didn’t.  There were some genuinely funny moments and some heart rending ones as well.

Every single second Tony Stark was on screen was flawless as always.  Robert Downey Jr. once again proved why he and he alone was suited for the role of Tony Stark and the task of carrying the majority of the MCU for the past 10+ years.

That’s not to say that the rest of the cast wasn’t good.  All of the actors all obviously brought their A game and then some when they were allowed to by what I loosely call a script.

So yeah, there were some highs.

But when its comes to Endgame’s low points?

Its low points were subterranean.

They lowered the bar and then they dug underneath it.

Again I’m writing this basically fresh from the theater and with my emotions still high so do forgive me if this is a bit jumbled around or if I ramble a bit as I cover some of the real issues I had with the film.

So, first thing to address was the overall tone of the film.

For this to be the much glorified Endgame, the “battle of our lives”, there was, in my opinion, a distinct lack of true tension in this film.  Instead of a fraught, nail biting, tension filled ride, Endgame is more of a ... brisk jog through some vaguely sticky situations.

Instead of playing the story straight and giving the situation the gravity it deserved, the narrative went out of its way to put humor that served no other purpose than to ruin what tension had been previously built.  And, in my opinion, the tone of the film suffered for it.

The humor and jokes were humorous, I’m not saying they wasn’t.  I genuinely laughed out loud in the moment.  But I also feel that, with the majority of the comedy that was wedged into the narrative, the film suffered for it.

Now let’s move on a bit to the actual plot of the film.  Again, forgive me if I bounce a bit:

Jeremy Renner was breathtakingly heartbreaking as Clint Barton.  Renner was finally allowed to stretch his legs a bit in this film and he proved that, had he been given the chance, he would have given us a Clint Barton to take our breath away.

Watching with Clint as his family died helped to set what should have been the tone for the majority of the film from there on while reminding us of just what was lost and just what was at stake all at the same time.

Chris Evans brought heart to his portrayal of a Steve Rogers who seems both lighter and more weighted down in this film than ever before.

Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha finally showed more emotion than “head tilt”, “lip purse”, and “arched brow” and it was beautiful.

The brief flash of friendship and affection between Nebula and Tony was perfect and heartwarming as well.  Nebula was magnificent as the “feral space cat desperately in need of softness and a friendly hand” when placed side by side with a slowly withering Tony Stark who is, even at his lowest moments, still kind to this alien cyborg he doesn’t know but to who he owes his life.  They flowed together with an onscreen chemistry in their few moments side by side that felt organic and aching.

Together Tony and Nebula embodied a truly important life/plot point of “meet kindness with kindness and kindness will be your reward”.

Moving forward in time hearing Tony vent his anger and his pain and his distrust at Steve was cathartic in a lot of ways.

As was watching Tony rip the arc reactor from his chest and slap it into Steve’s hand.

In this moment Tony is handing Steve his metaphorical broken heart and leaving someone else to, for once, try and pick up the pieces.

But then, unfortunately, things go rather steeply down hill from there.

With Tony out for the count in a hospital bed the others hunt down and execute Thanos with basically a hand wave and all hope for the stones is lost.

Until deus ex rat-ina unleashes Scott Lang from the quantum realm and the logic of the film takes a sharp left turn.

Scott Lang was missing for 5 years.

To him it was 5 hours.

To which I say, why did Janet van Dyne, age during her stay in the quantum realm?  If, according to the MCU canon, every year in our world was roughly only an hour for Scott Lang, then why didn’t Janet come out of the quantum realm only 30 hours older instead of 30 years?

I feel like the answer is probably “because” but yeah maybe I’m just fuzzy on my Ant Man so if I’m wrong then just ignore that bit please.

Also, just a side note, I adore how it’s been 5 years, Wakanda is very much an ally and still up and running, and yet Rhodey still don’t have working legs.  But alas, racism.

Moving on. 

So with the main villain dead and Tony Stark having solved time travel in his living room, because I stan legends only, we’re now subjected, and that is the very word I’d use to describe what happens next, to what is called a Time Heist.

Cute.

Also Bruce Banner and Hulk have now merged Steven Universe style despite Hulk being scared green-less 5 years ago.  But that’s all good, Bruce smoked a ton of weed, they meditated, went on a cleanse or whatever.

Either way Bruce finally did that character development that everyone had been shouting at him since Avengers 2012 and accepted Hulk as part of him and they’re now Dr. Hulk which was … something that happened?

A thing that they chose to do.  The direction in which they set their narrative wheels and then powered full steam ahead and plowed us right over in the process.

But yeah, Time Heist!  That’s the way to go, the only way apparently.

Because going back in time to stop the Snappening isn’t an option due to reasons that are explained and still look and feel paper thin but probably just honestly boils down to “Russos”

Our intrepid heroes will now split up and surf through time Bill and Ted style to collect the Stones from different points in history.

Yay.

So the rest of the film is basically that, a big old jewel hunt through space and history where the Russos attempt to fool us into thinking their plot points are cohesive and cool by donkey punching us repeatedly in our nostalgia-sacks.

We’re treated to, in no particular order, such hits as:

“Ah 2012 and the invasion of New York only not as interesting but Tony Stark is very much an ass man, but then we been done known that.”

“The Ancient One and her still very distracting skull vein coming at you right now”

“LOKI YOU LITTLE SHIT”

“The one time I envied Scott Lang because, for a split second, he got to be inside Tony Stark”

“Let’s watch Tony Stark simultaneous take a Hulk to the face and have a small cardiac event all at the same time but from different angles”

And let us not forget

“Tee Hee Hee us white bois just had to find a way to make sure Captain America say “Hail HYDRA” but it was for “spy reasons” so weren’t we clever???????”

Yeah boys, great job.

So edgy.

(Although as a side note I do agree, Steve Roger’s ass really is America’s ass and I’d like to thank him for that. Personally.)

But then, of course, Endgame would not have been complete without:

“Steve Rogers stares longingly and creepily at Peggy Carter from behind a window, further backing up his one defining character trait in the MCU which is the inability to move on.  Also she doesn’t look up at all despite being a trained spy and all around badass who probably should have noticed the 6 foot slab of American Beef staring at her from less than a foot away, dark room or no dark room.”

And then my personal favorite:

“Tony Stark sees Howard Stark, the father he described as “calculating, cold, he never told me he was proud of me, never even told me he loved me” but it’s all good cause Tony’s a dad now so looking back all he sees are the good times with his emotionally neglectful and abusive father who says there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his unborn kid and now they awkwardly hug while I try not to scream “FOOTAGE NOT FUCKING FOUND HOWARD AND NO THAT ONE 3 MINUTE VIDEO DOESN’T COUNT YOU SHIT” at the screen and explode in pure rage.”

Joy.

Truly a scene that was necessary and fit the narrative of Howard Stark’s personality and was needed for Tony to uh get closure or grow as a man and a father or something …

It totally wasn’t yet another excuse to give a canonically abusive father screen time in a way that seems genial and sweet in an attempt to give them a bit of redemption that they neither earned nor deserve.

But yeah, whatever, moving on.

Also Rhodey remains an absolute gem and he and Nebula get shit done.

Only oops, not so fast.

Because apparently the only one who is going to run into the whole “two of you can’t exist in one place at one time without consequences” rule is Nebula who, despite her bitchin orange stripe/badge of character development, managed to like synch up with her past self?

Because she didn’t turn her bluetooth/quantum entanglement function off I guess.

Either way Orange Stripe Nebula, O’Snebula as I call her, has accidentally air dropped all her files into OG Nebula’s mental iPhone.

So yeah now big old Past Grimace knows what’s up.

Ooops??

So shit goes down and then Past Grimace is like “you need to Trogan horse this shit, least favorite daughter” so OG Nebula does because “daddy issues”.

Dr. Hulk puts on the gauntlet and Kentucky fires his arm bringing all the people lost in the Snappening back to life now, 5 years after they got dusted.

Which is … honestly a recipe for disaster in so many ways.  What about the people, like the guy in Steve’s support group, who have started to move on?

What about the people who have remarried, have built new lives?

All of that’s ruined now.

It’s fantastic all those people are alive again but jobs, housing, food, healthcare, government, all of it is back in massive disarray across the universe.

And bringing those people back does nothing to bring back the people who didn’t die in the Snappening but died from causality instead.  All the deaths caused by suicides, by car/bus/train/plane/ship/etc crashes, by a lack of first responders, by the civil/world/interplanetary wars that probably raged across the universe due to entire governments disappearing?

All of those people are still dead.

The Snappening killed half of all life in the universe.  Causality probably killed another good ¼ after that.

And Dr. Hulk’s Un-Snappening saves none of them.

This isn’t a true solution, it’s a shitty band-aid.

But yeah, Russos so….

Moving on.

Yadda Yadda Yadda, plot plot plot. OG Nebula goes undercover, Past Grimace ends up in the future, there’s some fighting (which was admittedly BAD ASS), shit happens, and Tony saves the day like we all knew he would.

YAY!

Despite the massive rambling up above I’m not gonna plot out the entire movie right here though a lot will probably get covered coming up because here’s where I get down and start talking about the various character arcs too.

Because what a wild fucking ride those were.

Okay to take it from the top Scott Lang’s arc was fine.  Beyond my questions about the quantum realm his was clear cut and fine although I do wonder at his luck at being, apparently, the only Scott Lang in San Fran to go missing.  Well either that or he was staring at some other Scott Lang’s name instead of his own and in that case “awkward”.

Bruce’s arc was … look I could have done without all of the cringy Dr. Hulk stuff that they played up for laughs.  If they were gonna brush Hulk being terrified under the rug they could have found a better way to do it besides just erasing the duality between Hulk and Banner with a hand wave.

But yeah, Russos.

Carol Danvers was beautiful and magnificent and completely brushed aside.  Yes she was out in the universe handling shit, yes I know they did that so they could focus on the core Avengers, etc etc etc.

But it’s a damn shame that Carol Danvers, and her glorious haircut, was reduced to being the sorely needed and totally badass cavalry and last minute ace in the hole when she should have, logically, been a part of the vanguard.  Honestly I have thoughts on why Carol’s entire character should have been saved completely for the next phase of the MCU instead of introduced so late in this one but I digress.

O’Snebula was a perfect shining bionic light and I love her.

Gamora is now alive in the future but at what cost?  Not that her life isn’t worth something on its own, it totally is and she deserved the loophole resurrection 10000%.

Shit’s gonna be awkward though cause she doesn’t love Quill, she doesn’t love the Guardians, doesn’t really know O’Snebula or the universe she’s been thrown into.  She doesn’t have the memories or the experiences or the character growth and even if she does go back to her family she’ll never be the same person.

Now her and Quill’s relationship, if they ever have one again, will be reduced down to Quill going “you fell in love with me once you could do it again despite us no longer having the shared experiences that bonded us together”.  Same can be said for the rest of the Guardians as well.

Guess we all know what the plot of GotG 3 is gonna be about.

And that brings us to the story lines that really and truly upset me.

Which is basically all the rest of them.

Natasha/Clint’s combined story-line, Thor’s everything, Steve’s … Steve, and then finally Tony.

Now the Natasha/Clint story-line started out promising.

Clint’s rage and pain was obvious, his heartbreak poignant.  His decision to use all of those to cut a bloody swathe through the criminal underworld was both Dramatic(™) and understandable.

Natasha’s love and grief for him, her desperate attempts to hold onto what she has left by throwing herself into her new job, was a perfect demonstration that Natasha Romanoff is very much not a robot.  She was exhausted, frayed at the edges, and she had tears in her eyes, over Clint.  And then she pulled herself together, slipped her mask back on, and pushed her way forward.  This was all excellent.

It was also a nice narrative callback/parallel to have Natasha be the one to go out and bring Clint in from the cold.

Natasha plays touch stone, plays stability, for Clint and for many of the others.  For the first time Natasha is truly portrayed as a person all the way down to the core instead of some witty quips in a catsuit.  Plus her eyebrows finally came back from the war and her hair looked good again.  So there was that.

Clint and Natasha’s arc comes to a climax on Vormir as they search for the Soul Stone and Red Skull, the Nazi cockroach that he is, gives them the same spiel he gave Thanos.

To get the Soul Stone you must give up the life of the one you love the most. A soul for a soul.

Narrative wise this is consistent, we all knew this would happen as soon as they started searching for the Stones again.  It was obvious.

It was also obvious that Clint was the perfect sacrifice.

He’s got nothing left, his family is dead, he’s already lost the people he loves the most, he’s spent five years being a borderline monster.

And he is also, without a doubt, the thing that Natasha loves the most.

Clint was ready and willing to go, ready to die for the blood on his hands, ready to sacrifice himself for the chance that his family would be saved.

Ready to lay down on the wire and let Natasha walk over him for the sake of everything.

Clint dying made sense, was narratively sound, and heartbreaking.

All of which are only a few of the reasons why Natasha’s death was such a goddamn betrayal.

Instead of following along with the narratively sound death of Clint Barton, an Avenger that’s been ignored for most of the films as is, the Russo brothers instead chose to fridge Natasha.

Clint dying would have been the perfect mirror to Gamora’s death.

Gamora was a daughter unwillingly sacrificed by her father to destroy half of all life in the universe.

Clint would have been a father willingly sacrificed by a friend to save half of all life in the universe, his own sons and daughter included.

But no, we didn’t get that, instead we got a gratuitous scene of Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, splayed angel like and bloody on the rocks below.

Instead they fridged the Black Widow, the only woman of the original Big Six, because they couldn’t bring themselves to fridge a man.

So Clint gets the Soul Stone.

Such a fitting end for the Black Widow right?  Dying in a man’s place, mourned on screen by a circle of men, but ultimately set aside rather quickly.

I understand why Natasha wanted to be the one to go, I understand that she didn’t want Clint’s family to lose their husband/father and that her true family was the Avengers. I get that.  It doesn’t mean I enjoy or agree with the decision they made any more.

It doesn’t make me any less tired of watching female characters die for the sake of men and their families.

Natasha Romanoff sacrificed herself for the universe and her family and that deserves respect even if I absolutely hate it as a narrative choice.

Oh and what about the absolute NERVE of the Russos to have that awesome Lady Power Battle Strut happen but only after they killed Natasha, one of the Big Six?

Bitter? Me? Nooo.

Now, moving on to Thor.

Thor.

Oh my actual God, Thor.

The levels of disrespect Thor, Chris Hemsworth, and the fans were shown with this character arc/story-line in Endgame is breathtaking.

The absolute, shameless disrespect.

They turned Thor into a cowardly, drunken slob who has spent the last 5 years ignoring his responsibilities to what’s left of his people and instead has spent his time drinking, sulking, and literally yelling at kids over PSN??

Endgame’s Thor has the bullshit reasoning that he needs to stop trying to be who he thinks he should be and instead be who he is.

Which flies completely in the face of literally all of his character development from Thor all the way to Thor 3 and then Infinity War.

The entirety of Thor 3 was Thor’s hero’s journey culminating in him finally being the king he was always meant to be.  Finally maturing and stepping forward to lead his people.

I am supposed to believe that Thor, depressed and guilty or not for not killing Thanos when he had the chance the first time, just abandoned his people like that?

I’m supposed to believe that Thor would piss all over everything the majority of his family and friends died for?

I’m supposed to believe that Heimdall, Loki, countless soldiers, and The Warrior’s Three and Lady Sif (I guess), all died to protect Asgard, died for the people and for Thor, and Thor just what? Turns his back on all of that to become a drunk?

No, Thor wouldn’t do that.  Thor should have been down there beside Valkyrie working those fishing vessels when Bruce and Rocket came calling.  If Thor had any hesitance to join them it should have been, “I can’t abandon my people, I am needed here.”  He should have been fiercely guarding the tiny fraction of Asgard that’s left.

Thor’s depression and guilt was valid. Don’t mistake me on that. But they played it for jokes.  They made him a caricature of depression, made him “gross” and incompetent and the butt of the jokes, and in the process diminished what should have been a painful and poignant arc for Thor.

Instead we got Big Lebowski Thor, bathrobe included, who does stand up and fight yes but, in the end, gives up his crown and just fucks off to space to have petty pissing competitions with Peter Quill so he can?? find himself?? despite finding himself in Ragnarok already???

Thor’s entire arc in Endgame was shallow, mishandled, and disrespectful to the character, to Chris Hemsworth, and to the fans.

You, we, he, all deserved better than this.

Now we get to Steve.

Steve Rogers, Captain America himself.

I’ve had a lot of salt about Steve’s character and actions in the MCU but, all of that aside, he deserved so much more than what the Russo’s did to him in Endgame.

Hell he’s deserved so much more than what’s been done to him since post-CA:TFA.

But this is about Endgame specifically soooo….

Steve’s shown leading a support group in the beginning of Endgame, is shown talking about moving on and moving forward and learning to let go. Which is wonderful.  It sounds like the exact character development we’ve all been waiting for for Steve.

Which is, of course, the exact moment when Steve goes “nah just kidding, we don’t ever move on”.

Which, given the circumstances, is pretty fair.  If Steve was only thinking/talking about Thanos and the events of Infinity War.

But of course he wasn’t.

CA:CW should have been the end of the Peggy Carter saga for Steve.  He mourned her, he was finally moving forward, he’d kissed Sharon, he threw everything away to save Bucky, he gave up his shield, etc etc.

But no.  Endgame finds him right back there, clutching that goddamn compass, and making moon eyes at a woman who we all thought went on and lived a life without him, got married, had kids, and generally existed outside of Steve Rogers.

But no.  The Russo’s had to take that away from us too.

And yes yes I know I know multiverse or whatever but still.

Steve steamrolls his way through Endgame with skill and determination.  He picks up Thor’s hammer, finally worthy, which how??? Why???  (perhaps because he’s no longer keeping secrets??? Or maybe that’s just my salt talking? Who knows? Not me?)

And then he fights Thanos head to head.

(Although him wielding the hammer brought up an entire separate set of issues cause I’m pretty sure Mjolnir doesn’t actually summon lightning. Ragnarok pretty much said that the lightning has always been within Thor.  Mjolnir was just a control accessory.  But, you know, Russos *jazzhands*)

And then, in the end, he insists on returning the Stones on his own.

Only he doesn’t come back like he was supposed to.

Instead we’re given old Steve Rogers.

Because Steve returned the Stones and then ….went and found Peggy Carter and got married and lived an entire life with her ignoring everything he would have known was going to happen to her and around the both of them or something???

Or maybe not if the multiverse thing holds up but then who knows any more???

But then how did Old Steve end up right there by that lake on that day at that right time if he’s technically from a different multiverse???

Either way Sam gets his shield and the mantle of Captain America, which was fantastic, and Bucky more than likely knew Steve’s plan all along but the best read I really got on him was basically “eh” so he might well have been happy for Steve too.

But still, instead of finally achieving peace and continuing to learn to live in the future with Bucky and Sam and the remnants of the Avengers, his family and the life he’s built there over the past years, instead of putting the shield down because he’s learned to let go in the now, Steve only puts the shield down because he chooses the past.

He chooses the past over all of that and all of the people left who love him. Sure the argument could be said that he knew they’d be alright but still.

There is a deep well of dissatisfaction inside of me as to how Steve’s entire ending arc was handled.  Why did peace only come to Steve after Tony and Natasha were both dead and then was only found in the past?

No disrespect to Peggy Carter, I adore her, but were the relationships he had in the future worth so little that the past was the only place he could find happiness?  A past with a woman that he knows loved him but still moved on and found happiness outside of him, lived a full and happy life without him?

Steve didn’t get a character arc so much as he got a character circle.  A character loop.  He went right back to where he started.

Endgame erases all of the character development Steve underwent post-Avengers.  Just brushes it all under the rug.

The Russo’s stole the character development Steve Rogers spent a decade undergoing to give him their version of a happy ending.

They robbed him and us both of every bit of growth and forward motion Steve has underwent and I will never forgive them for that.

And now we get to Tony Stark.

Anthony Edward Stark.

The Iron Man.

Tony’s arc is, was, the longest and best developed arc in the entirety of the MCU.

It’s spanned 10+ years and has been nurtured and hand fed by Robert Downey Jr.

If Endgame got one thing right, one thing at all, it’s how they handled the majority of Tony’s arc.

From him laying the smack down on Steve once he was home, finally venting his emotions and his anger, all the way to him solving time travel before tucking his kid into bed, and then building an Infinity Gauntlet on his own even though Thanos committed genocide to get the one he had.

Tony Stark’s arc was glorious and expected and sad.

I think that my one almost complaint is that Tony stopped for 5 years.  On one hand he deserved the rest, deserved the chance to find happiness.  He was hurt and tired and he’d faced his demons and been left bleeding out with the death of half the universe weighing on his shoulders.

He deserved to just stop for a while.

On the other hand stopping is not something Tony has ever been good at, just like Pepper said.  A part of me thought Tony would be working, frantically, to find something, anything, to turn back the hands of time.  To track Thanos down. To get the Stones and then to get everything else back.

To get Peter and all of the others back.

But that’s not the route they went and I’m … okay? I guess, with that.

Tony was validated and vindicated and everyone would have finally listened to him.  It only took the death of half of the universe to do it.  But he was too tired, too hurt and untrusting to keep pushing.  I can respect that.

But of course once an idea worms its way inside Tony can’t let it go.  So he solves time travel on the fly and sets out to save the world.

Again.

His one stipulation is that he will do anything, everything, he has to in order to keep what he has now.  His wife Pepper and Morgan, his sweet little daughter.

So of course he doesn’t get to do that either.

After all of the blood, sweat, suffering, and mental illnesses, Tony doesn’t get his happy ending.  Not really.

He gets to rest, yes, but he loses out on everything he wanted to do with his kid.  In the process of saving the universe he becomes the one thing he never wanted to be for Morgan, a distant father.

A face on a screen, stories, memories other people have.

No matter how many holograms or inventions or whatever Tony left to Morgan, it’ll never replace him.

Morgan got 5 years with her father.  She’ll spend the rest of her life hearing stories about him, about how much of a hero he was.  And hopefully, with Pepper and all the others behind her, Tony will remain a hero to her and will not, instead, become her version of Captain America.  An untouchable symbol that Morgan will never live up to.

So, in the end, Tony sacrifices once again.

Watches the future he wanted crumble to dust in his fingers, lightning scorching him from the inside out as infinity rips him apart.

And he dies there, surrounded by some of the people who love him best.

His best friend.

His wife.

The son he almost had.

And, despite all of that, it is very very fitting that his death was at his own hands.

Thanos could take out half the universe, he could traverse time and space, he could humble Thor, terrorize the Hulk, rip Steve Roger’s up, survive shield and hammer and so much more, but the one thing he couldn’t do?

He couldn’t kill Tony Stark.

The only thing that could kill Iron Man, could kill Tony Stark, was his own heart.

Tony Stark takes the Infinity Stones in hand knowing how this is going to end, knowing that Stephen Strange set him on this path years ago.

Because didn’t Strange warn him?  Didn’t Strange tell him outright “I’ll let the kid and you both die to protect the Time Stone”?

Tony just never expected it to take a few hours and then 5 more years for Strange’s promise to finally be fulfilled.

So Tony does it knowing that after everything he’s been through, all of the pain and the suffering and the battles, it was only enough to have earned 5 years of happiness, 5 years of his dream.

5 years of being the father he always swore he’d be.

Tony Stark takes the Infinity Stones and dies for the entire universe, for his family, for his daughter.  Dies knowing that he’ll be doing the one thing he didn’t want to do, swore he would never do.

Leaving them behind.

Tony Stark brings us full circle as he stands as both equal and mirror of Thanos once again.

Man to Titan.  Good Father to Bad Father.  Life to Death.

Tony Stark picks up the weight of the universe and then he dies making sure that it has a future free from the same fear that has haunted him for a decade.

A warm light for all mankind, sent to sleep, to rest, knowing that finally everything will be okay.

And all he had to do was die for it.

So, I’ll close this out saying this:

This was written in one solid push after my first viewing and Endgame was dissatisfying for me as you might have guessed.  I am disappointed and angry at so much they chose to do to end out this iconic decade of cinema and to close out these character’s arcs.

There were a lot of points and little details I didn’t get to cover in this and perhaps a lot of points you might not agree with me on.

That’s okay.

Because, no matter what, there is one thing I know for sure.

We, I, will always have Tony Stark and the lessons he taught me.  The pain he endured and shared with all of us.  The bravery and strength he inspired in so many of us as we watched him struggle with physical and mental illnesses on screen.  As we watched him obsess and stress and love and grow.

I have never loved a character more than I love Tony Stark.

I have never been impacted by a character as much as I have been by Tony Stark.

I’m not sure if I ever will again.

So, Tony Stark is Iron Man.

He always will be.

And he saved more than just some fictional universe.

He saved a lot of us along the way too.

And we’ll always love him for that.

#MCU wank #Avengers Endgame #avengers 4 #Avengers #Endgame #A:4

[octagoncalibrator]

Some thoughts of Heart of Deimos.

I made a reddit post but I thought I might repost it here and see if the response is any different. Mild spoilers for Heart of Deimos, the most recent Warframe update, under the cut.

First off, this is a bit of an effortpost, and it will be quite meandering and confused, sorry about that. We are now two days into Heart of Deimos and I had some thoughts I wanted to put on paper as it were. There's a TL;DR at the bottom.

The Bad:

In all honesty, taking into account the usual DE release-then-fix cycle and the quick patching they've already done to things like the Son token costs, there's very little about this update that I think is objectively bad. Deimos might be the single best open world release of the set, lack of a catchy musical number aside. It's not any buggier than any other release, which may say more about DE's QA than anything, but I have fallen through the map a few times, and host migrations have broken multiple vault runs.

The combined token system is a pretty big departure from the other open worlds, and I found it very confusing initially. Without the prior context of using Ticker for bonds in Fortuna, I think it would be really opaque, particularly for new players who aren't already up to speed on how the open world resource loops are expected to work. Alongside the complex token system, it's also understandable that people are frustrated with the expectation that they -must- participate in mining, fishing and conservation to get the tokens, since these don't really leverage the well developed aspects of gameplay.

The initial quest was lackluster from a storytelling perspective, with some really nonsensical events, a lack of development for each individual beat, and a frustrating lack of building on the already existing lore in favour of introducing new lore. It was pretty blatantly a tour of the zone mechanics, though maybe we'll see a more engaging plot when the equivalent of the Profit Taker and Exploiter bounties are introduced over the next year. The new warframe being dropped in by Mother as an afterthought, without a scrap of context, almost felt worse than the way previous quests have just given us the blueprint with no explanation at all. Protea's quest felt a lot clearer so it's disheartening to see them taking a step back there.

Finally, prior to finding the Albrecht lore I thought the playable content of the update was quite short and uninteresting.

The Good:

The Family voice acting is really, really good. Some of the writing is a bit iffy in the classic overwrought DE sense (which IMO is charmingly earnest anyway) but the delivery is fantastic, and while initially I was put off by the characters being shallow, I came around on it - I will go into more detail under 'The Ugly'.

With regards to the grind: even though the resources from the open world minigames are mandatory, participation isn't - so far I've run conservation exactly once, for about an hour, and I am clear for the third rank up with the Entrati. The world drops and bounty loot are more than enough to cover the vast majority of other costs, which is honestly fantastic. For all the complaining, DE has definitely learned from PoE and Fortuna with regards to letting people dictate their own playstyle without handicapping their progress. You can focus down specific requirements with specific minigames, no trouble, or you can just play bounties and run and gun your way to incidental loot. The combined token system was really confusing initially but combined with the incidental drops it makes progression quite organic without forcing you to spend your time on any particular task (looking at you, pre-Thumper PoE). There also seems to be a pretty solid spawn chance for tokens in the caves of the open world, and since the rank ups are now 1 of each kind of token instead of 10, this is possibly now a feasible way to skip the conservation grind entirely.

With regards to the lore: despite my earlier complaint about narrative quality and disconnection, DE does seem to be tying Parvos, the Entrati and the Glassmaker together, which is interesting. Prior to finding the Necraloid area and hearing the excellent Albrecht Vitruvian lore (seriously, mad props to the writers and the VA, the fourth log gives me powerful Darkest Dungeon narration vibes) I was ready to drop the game until a few patches and more content was added, but now I'm fully willing to grind for a couple weeks to hear the rest. I'm curious to see where they will go with the Heart and the Man in the Wall, particularly in regards to stuff like the reliquary drive and how it relates to the Necraloids and pre-warframe Orokin technology in general.

The Ugly:

The Family are the ugly, get it? This bit is mostly just because I want to talk about the new characters and the themes of Warframe as a narrative.

There's a kind of tension around the family that I initially found offputting - here we have a family of immortal alien gods who made their name ripping secrets from the flesh of reality, literally sprouting from the meat flowers of an infested moon... and they act like the cast of Arrested Development, switching between lofty poetic proclamations and petty squabbling that wouldn't be out of place on a sitcom. At first it seemed like it was just bad writing. Over time though, with exposure to the wider plot and the various deeper interactions, I started to warm to it. It's really interesting how DE has juxtaposed the deformed appearance of the Entrati, their perfect-marble-statue-like Orokin aesthetic, the pulsating infestation, and this very human, very relatable behavior. It really pulls back the skin on the Orokin as a people and uses a bit of clever metanarrative to show us that even the Tenno remember the Orokin as being more than human, when they were just as flawed as anyone else.

The individual characters felt very shallow at first, like cardboard cutouts of the typical family transplanted into a blob of writhing meat, but the pleasant surprise of the relationships mending between Entrati rank-ups and the subtle undercurrents you start to notice when interacting with them over a longer timeline really turned that on its head. There's some really excellent combinations of writing and delivery that add subtleties to each character, like the Daughter's undercurrent of thirst for either the Tenno or for butchering mutant fish, or the animalistic yearning of the Son and his bleeding heart hidden under the callous and cruel facade.

Family, parenthood and belonging are arguably the core themes of Warframe's narrative - the Tenno are orphan children clinging to a single parental figure who herself is a stolen child, while their allies like the Ostrons and the Solaris are people who cling to their human connections and their shared culture despite outside forces, and draw their strength from each other. The grand enemies of the setting are collectivist empires who have shredded their humanity in pursuit of strength and profit respectively. Then you have the Orokin, whose grand flaw is hubris in isolation, and a deliberate abandonment of shared humanity in pursuit of impossible perfection. The entire Parvos questline related to blood, with Nef wanting to abuse it for gain and Parvos denouncing him. Even the Sentients, arguably the only alien culture in the setting, love their families and oppose the Orokin and by extension the Tenno largely in defense of their people.

DE has leaned hard on quite creepy, quite -relatable- strangeness to give the Family depth, which helps reinforce that they're demigods of a dead empire, even if they are also quite friendly and personable. It lends some real weight to the way the Orokin have been depicted as cruel, hollow people, since we now have direct evidence of how their culture and the expectations of their various roles tear at those interpersonal connections. There's a lot of heart and clear work put into developing these themes, and I think that it's a bit sad that the quality of the writing is frequently overlooked in the broader Warframe community in favour of focusing on the flashy mechanics and cool new novel features. DE's writers are some of the best in mainstream video gaming currently, and even with my complaints about the main quest earlier, this consistent ongoing thematic cohesion and the variety of individually good beats more than make up for incoherent feature-driven storytelling.

TL;DR:

Despite some teething issues and bugs Heart of Deimos might be the best open world update so far, the way DE presents the Family and develops on the overarching themes of the story are pretty excellent, and I am excited to see where they go with it. Thanks for reading my incoherent and largely irrelevant thought-spew. Have a good one.

#warframe #heart of deimos #rambling diatribe #I have no qualifications just many opinions

[ibelieveinahappilyeverafter]

i’m not the villain i appear to be (but i’ll play one for you)

Ha, so, it’s 3 AM and I really don’t have an excuse for this piece beyond the fact I’ve been listening to this song the entire time I was writing the piece - and, for the record, I wrote, proofed, and am now posting this drabble all within the past couple of hours. It was also roughly inspired by the video linked and an AU me and my girlfriend @cheshire-kas did for some RPs, so, uh... Enjoy! I hope!

(In case the link doesn’t work above, here it is in full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRpiBvwKX6c) 

                                                            ⁂

Summary: Danny Fenton, twenty-four-year-old detective, hadn’t been expecting for art thieves to actually show up during the biggest and busiest night and event of the museum he was tasked to watched. He also hadn’t expected to end up flirting with one of the thieves, but, well... accidents happened. 

Fandom: Danny Phantom

Relationship: Danny Fenton | Danny Phantom/Ghost Writer | Andrew Riter 

Characters: Danny Fenton | Danny Phantom, Ghost Writer | Andrew Riter 

Rating: Teen Audiences

Word Count: 2,368

                Check out my writing commission information here!                      Pledge to my Patreon to get exclusive content!

                                                            ⁂

                 i’m not the villain i appear to be (but i’ll play one for you)

                                                             ⁂

Halfway through trying to smother a laugh into his drink without spilling anything onto his suit, Danny felt his amusement start to drain out of him when he saw Sam’s smile, a twisted little smirk, go from wry amusement to sour annoyance. She paired the twist in expression with a soft, “Heads up.” Danny, unfortunately, didn’t even get a chance to brace himself before he realized what Sam’s warning meant.

“Fenton!” The cheerful, and loud, cry of his last name was nothing, absolutely nothing, to the harsh slap to Danny’s back that was no doubt supposed to be a ‘friendly greeting.’ “Glad you could make it out here tonight!” 

“Of course, Mr. Basco,” Danny said through gritted teeth and the ‘media smile’ Sam had helped him master because if you’re going to be a detective, Danny, then you need to know how to tell the media to go fuck themselves with a smile. Danny could almost imagine the pride in Sam’s expression when he glanced at her to share a suffering look of commiseration. “I kind of have to ask, though… Do you really think they’ll try something tonight?” 

The smile he was given, something cold and sharp and devoid of all empathy for human life, had Danny struggling to keep his own smile as he felt the art director’s hand squeeze his shoulder tight enough to leave bruises, “Danny, my boy, let me give you some advice. You’re pretty new to this game, aren’t you?”

“I, uh, yes? Sir?” Danny stumbled over his words, wincing even before the grip tightened. “I think my record already speaks for itself, however.” 

“Oh, of course!” Basco’s grin widened and it was nothing good. “The youngest detective we’ve had in quite some time, if I’m not mistaken. So much prestige and you’re only twenty-four! No, no, my boy, your qualifications speak for themselves, but, well… How many cases like this have you dealt with?” 

Buying himself time by taking a sip of his drink, which was supposed to be some expensive champagne that actually tasted awful, Danny looked around the museum he had been tasked to guard for the night. The art museum was a smaller one in their city and focused on sculptures more than paintings, but it was well-known in its own right. 

The director, Martin Basco, was also well known. Danny didn’t have any specific cases or evidence against him, but it wasn’t exactly a secret that some of the museum’s pieces came to be there through less-than-legal means. That was a fight for another day, though, and the fight Danny was supposed to be focused on had him there for a different reason. 

“I can’t say I’ve dealt with art thieves before, sir, but I just can’t imagine that they would try to steal something during a gala this size.” Danny kept his smile in place, even as Sam, dressed to the nines in a black and silver sequined dress that attracted more attention than some of the exhibits, did nothing to hide a laugh of her own. Basco, on his end, did nothing to hide his scowl. 

“And here’s where the advice comes in… Those who steal art do it for many reasons, but the largest reason is, without a doubt, for the recognition.” Well… He hated to admit it, but Basco had a point there, at least. 

If someone became desperate or crazed enough for money and hit a low enough point then they robbed a bank, but turning into a master art thief? No… A person didn’t do that for money; at least, they didn’t only do it for money. Recognition was as good a reason as any to become an art thief. 

“Mark my words, Fenton, this gala is nothing more than a beacon and those art thieves will be here tonight and will do everything in their power to filch more of my money-” 

“Your art, you mean, don’t you?” Sam asked ‘politely’ with a smile colder than ice itself. Danny was all too happy to slip away as Basco fumbled with an answer, Sam smiling as if she was about to throw him a noose rather than a life raft. It at least bought Danny the time he wanted to check on everything. 

While his department wouldn’t usually send an entire squad of police officers and a couple of detectives, Martin Basco was a big man with a big name and even bigger pockets. In their time of budget cuts and losses, they couldn’t afford to anger one of their largest donors - although that didn’t mean Danny had to play nice all night. 

Besides, it was unlikely anything would actually happen. The gala that they were at was a yearly event that was one of the biggest events in town, and half of the town itself usually showed up to dress up for a night out while acting like they had more money than they actually did. It usually ended in a few drunken brawls and fights, but that was no doubt all Danny would be dealing with that night. 

Danny was halfway through contemplating an excuse that would let him leave early so he could get back to his apartment and do something useful, like catching up on his backed up shows, when someone clipped his shoulder with enough force to knock him straight into the back of someone else, glass slipping out of his hand just slow enough that all Danny could do was swear about it. 

Slamming his eyes shut instinctively and ready for the sound of shattering glass, Danny instead heard a soft laugh. Eyes snapping open, Danny stared at the man he had bumped into - a man with much better reflexes as he had Danny’s dropped glass in hand, perfectly intact without a crack in sight.

“Careful there,” the man laughed again, his voice deeper than Danny would have expected, but his smile softening it by leaps and bounds. “Although, maybe a pile of broken glass would be a better sight than some of the sculptures around here.” 

Danny couldn’t have stopped his laugh even if he had wanted to, sound tumbling out of him as he inspected the man from his pressed suit and crisp purple undershirt to his scruffy goatee that looked surprisingly good; Danny had a feeling the man’s smile had something to do with it. Well, that and the fact that, unlike Danny, the man in front of him looked good in his suit. 

“You know, most people at least pretend to like the art until they’re out of here,” Danny finally managed, delighted at the warm, amused smile he was given in return. 

“I always rather thought there was little point to art without some sort of controversy. I take it by your reaction that you’re not here simply to admire the art?” As he was asked, Danny’s glass of hideously awful champagne was pressed back into his hand, the man’s hand slow to withdraw as fingers lingered against his own for a moment too long. “Or do you have a personal stake in the opinion of tonight’s pieces?” 

Danny gathered himself together as best he could, resorting to his only trick of taking a drink to scramble for something coherent and semi-intelligent to say. “Would you believe me if I said the answer to both of those questions were yes?” 

“I’m not in the habit of believing strangers I just ran into, but I might make an exception for you,” the other teased, a smile half-hidden behind a raised hand. Danny glanced around as unsuspiciously as possible, trying to make sure Sam wasn’t anywhere nearby. She would never let him live it down, otherwise. 

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty good at being the exception to things,” Danny beamed when he was sure the coast was clear. “Detective Danny Fenton. It’s a pleasure to meet someone with quick enough reflexes to save me from making an idiot of myself.” 

“Andrew Riter,” the man - Andrew - introduced himself with a wider smile. “Detective, though… That’s not something I would have expected.” 

Danny gave him a mock grimace along with a long, dramatic sigh, “Let me guess. I look too young and act too clumsy?” 

“Well, while you do appear rather young for a Detective, that wasn’t quite what I was thinking,” Andrew said softly, Danny feeling something like a shiver crawl down his spine. “A detective at a place like this, though… Something interesting I should know about?” 

“I wish,” Danny snorted out a laugh that was probably a touch too loud. He tried to turn it into a cough halfway through, but judging by Andrew’s wide smile, it probably hadn’t worked too well. “I mean, well… The art director here, Martin Basco? He thinks that there’s a chance of one of the sculptures being stolen tonight.” 

“Really?” Andrew blinked, looking caught off guard as he looked around the bustling building. Dozens of people lined the halls in their fanciest of outfits and the lighting was bright and left very few shadows to skulk around in. “I would think a night like this would be the worst time to conduct art theft.” 

“See! That’s what I said!” Danny threw his arms up, wincing as some of his drink splashed over the rim of the glass to land on his wrist. Quickly lowering his arms, and attempting to shake off the spill, Danny prayed to whatever God was out there that he wasn’t red in the face when he cleared his throat. “But, yeah. He thinks two popular art thieves are going to hit this place tonight and so that’s why I’m stuck here.” 

Danny looked away as he shook his arm as if that would dry his sleeve, jumping when hands darker than his own caught his wrist before gently patting at the spot with what looked like a cloth napkin. It was a gesture that had Danny feeling like his heart was trying to flutter its way out of his chest while also diving straight down into his stomach. 

“Well,” Andrew said softly, looking up through the fringe of his hair, as dark and untamed as Danny’s own, to meet his gaze with a smile. “Let me guess… You’d rather be watching the next season of your favorite show?” 

It took Danny a couple of tries to speak past his dry throat, but he finally managed a weak, “Next episode, thanks. I’m not enough of a heathen to be behind by an entire season.” 

Andrew laughed, a response on the tip of his tongue before it died under the sudden screaming alarms that rang throughout the building, Danny swearing as he jerked his arm back and dropped his hand down to the gun hidden under his suit jacket. 

“Get behind me,” Danny tried to shout over the noise, head jerking towards the sudden sound of a woman’s dramatic shriek and was it really the time for dramatic screaming? 

“It’s been stolen!” The cry carried over the room and Danny groaned as he resisted the urge to look anywhere near where Basco had been. He already knew he was never going to live the night down no matter what was stolen – not that the lady had bothered to scream that out.

In the seconds that passed before the building descended into absolute chaos, Danny paused as he felt his wrist grabbed. A look back to Andrew showed the man biting his lip, looking nervous as he moved forward enough to be heard over the sound of alarms, “Running off to save the day, Detective?” 

“Always seems to happen at the worst moments,” Danny managed, letting himself get distracted just enough to take a step closer to Andrew himself. “Hey, it’s going to be okay, alright? My job is to keep people safe, after all, and, well… We have a conversation to finish, so I’ll definitely be back soon.” 

Andrew blinked at that, looking caught off guard before he was laughing which, alright. Laughing during all of the alarms and screaming was kind of weird, but Danny wasn’t much better himself considering he was practically flirting during the mess. Ready to pull away again, Danny paused as Andrew crossed the rest of the distance between them, hands on both of Danny’s wrists. It was overwhelmingly ridiculous how conscious Danny was of the bands of warmth around his wrists. 

“Detective Danny Fenton,” Andrew said softly, Danny somehow able to hear nothing but him as he leaned just a bit closer. “I have to say… I almost wish it wasn’t you on this case.” 

Danny blinked, staring at Andrew in confusion before sucking in a sharp breath at the same moment he felt his arms pushed around his back and cold, familiar steel snapping around his wrists in place of the warmth that had been there. “You-!” 

“Me,” Andrew damn near purred, innocence and sweetness gone from his gaze as placed a kiss on Danny’s cheek and this utter fucking bastard art thief-! “Au revoir, mon cher. Until next time, hm?” 

Danny didn’t even get a step forward before Andrew was off and disappearing into the crowd, laughing loudly and freely and blowing a kiss over his shoulder at him. 

“Danny!” Sam’s shout of his name was the only warning Danny had before she crashed into his back, Danny just barely keeping them from hitting the floor before he felt Sam’s hands around the handcuffs keeping him trapped. “Oh- Danny, what- What happened?” Danny looked back at her, confused and worried and with Basco quickly making his way over with a look that could only be called furious. “Are these your handcuffs?” 

“Not sure, but probably,” Danny managed, looking back to the direction Andrew had gone. “But I found one of our art thieves.” 

“Apparently,” Sam laughed, a half-wild sound that was as amused as it was concerned. “I take it something happened if you’re smiling like that, though?” 

“You could say that,” Danny said, laughing himself as he felt the smile Sam had pointed out growing. “I found our art thief, yeah, but… I also found a lead. 

Andrew Riter, huh? 

This was going to be fun.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #ghost writer #ghostwriter #iambic prose #my writing #original #@ google what do i do when i accidentally take the idea of an rp me and my gf did #and obsessivly write a drabble for it in one sitting??

[lightsburnbrite]

The Devil is in the Details: Part 8

Karina stood in the mirror, applying her make up when her eyes landed on the bruise decorating her forearm. It had only been two days since she started taking the iron supplement, but Karina had hoped that the bruising would have stopped by now.

Leon had slept in and was just now starting his process of getting ready. Walking up behind Karina with sleep still in his eyes, he rested his chin on her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Hello, Gorgeous.” Karina smiled at their reflection as she leaned into him.

Leon nuzzled her neck before standing up straighter and stretching, giving a little grunt of approval.

Turning around, she kissed him. “See you later, k? I love you.”

“Mmm.” Leon caught Karina by the waist and gave her a squeeze, almost unwilling to let her go. “You don’t even have a few minutes?”

As Leon pressed himself against Karina, she felt his erection against her hip. With a defeated sigh, she closed her eyes. “Only a few minutes, we need to be quick.”

“I can be quick.” Leon almost purred as he turned Karina around.

They both moved their hands to the button on Karina’s pants, Leon eventually letting Karina unfasten them as he waited to slide them down past her backside. He snaked his right hand down the front of her pants while she braced herself against the counter.

“God, you’re already wet.” Leon laughed.

Karina inhaled deeply as she felt him enter her. “Yeah, well you do have that effect on me.”

“Do you want me?” He teased, pulling himself out but keeping himself pressed against her.

“Yes,” Karina pleaded. “Please, just fuck me already.”

“Mmm.” He purred again as he gripped her hips and began to thrust. “Only because you asked nicely.”

Karina had learned long ago that she could make herself come faster if she held her breath and while she would have liked to continue their little romp for longer, she kept one eye on the clock.

“Harder,” She begged. “Now.”

Leon’s only response was a grunt of approval, his own climax edging closer, followed by a bite on that sweet spot where her neck met her shoulder.

With a whimper, Karina indicated her own climax as she needed to support herself on the counter.

“See?” Leon kissed her neck again. “You won’t even be late.”

She shook her head as she laughed. “I can feel your come running down my leg. There’s no way I can leave without cleaning myself up.”

Leon shrugged. “You could always call in sick.”

“Not a chance. I’ve got a meeting that I need to be at.” Karina made sure to punctuate it with a smile so Leon knew she was actually irritated with him.

“I’m sorry Maus.” Leon laughed despite himself. “I love you.”

Karina turned and kissed him as she pulled her pants back up. “I love you too. Now, would you please get me my grey work pants?”

The clacking of Karina’s stilettos against the floor announced her arrival, eliminating any chance she had of slipping into the meeting unnoticed. The board member giving the presentation stopped in mid-sentence which prompted everyone to turn and watch as Karina slunk to her seat next to the Nena, raising her hand slightly in apology.  

After a moment, Nena shot a glare at Karina.

Karina mouthed a quick sorry as she shrugged and opened her notebook.

After the meeting adjourned, Nena pulled Karina aside. “What happened?”

“I’m sorry,” Karina rubbed her temple before looking back at Nena. “I…I overslept.”

Raising an eyebrow, Nena looked her square in the eye before starting. “Should I be concerned?”

“Concerned about what, exactly?” Knitting her brows, Karina couldn’t help but be suspicious now

Nena frowned. “It’s just, I mean…I’ve seen the bruises.”

“No.” Karina instantly shook her head. “No, it’s not what you think. We’ve just figured out that I’m anemic so I’m exhausted all the time and I bruise if you look at me the wrong way.”

When Nena looked skeptical, Karina couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Do you honestly think Leon would be capable of something like that?”

“I don’t know, I don’t really know him.” Nena sighed. “I just know that you haven’t seemed like yourself lately.”

Karina wanted to bring up Daniel’s increasingly annoying behavior as a reason for her agitation but instead, she just smiled. “Would you like to see a doctor’s note? I really do appreciate your being worried and if something was wrong, I do feel like you would be someone that I could confide in but it’s really just me being ridiculously low on iron.”

“Ok,” She nodded as if she realized she was coming close to prying. “Ok. But please do know you can come to me if you need help.”

With a smile, Karina nodded. “Thank you.”

“Do you need some time off?” Nena kept her look of concern and took a step closer as coworkers began to file past.

Shaking her head, Karina closed her eyes for a pause just longer than a blink. “I think I’ll be fine but if I really start feeling drained, I’ll tap out, ok?”

“Ok,” Nena nodded and appeared to actually accept Karina’s answer. “Ok.”

Karina sat at her desk, resting her forehead against her hand, wondering if Leon and Nena had a point. It was becoming harder for her to focus on any given task and even worse, Karina just didn’t feel like being there at least half of the time. She heard Leon’s voice in the back of her mind reminding her that she didn’t need to work and if she wasn’t enjoying it then there wasn’t any point.

Shaking the thought from her mind, Karina decided some coffee might help her focus.

There were a few coffee makers in the staff room but both had been left with traces of old coffee and used grounds. Karina rolled her eyes as she pulled the dish soap out from under the sink but she also welcomed the distraction. After cleaning out the carafe, she added water and measure out enough for six cups. While she was waiting for it to brew, Karina sat at the small table and scrolled through Instagram.

“Karina?”

While she couldn’t quite pinpoint when it started, Karina had noticed that she now jumped whenever someone called her name. Looking up, she didn’t bother to fake a smile. “Daniel?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” He had lost that eagerness in his presence that initially irritated Karina but at this point, she doubted there was anything redeemable about him. “I just wanted to apologize. I can tell I’ve offended you.”

Karina wanted to scream no shit, you’ve offended me but knew better. “It’s fine. Just…it’s fine.”

Waiving him off, she began pulling her hair up into a ponytail when she heard Daniel gasp.

“Oh man,” Daniel stepped closer and squinted. “What happened to your arm?”

Bringing her arm down, Karina glanced at the dark greenish-yellow bruise just under her elbow but shrugged off his concern. “Knocked it on a doorknob.”

Daniel frowned but eventually continued with his thought. “Listen, I think we have a lot in common and would make good friends. I’d love it if you would give me a second chance.”

“No.” Karina was adamant this time. “I have no interest in being your friend.”

Looking stunned, Daniel stammered. “Well…why? I’ve been nothing but nice to you-”

“I don’t owe you an explanation. I gave you my answer and that is all you are going to get from me.” She attempted to have a somewhat sympathetic face as opposed to the smirk she wanted to wear.

Daniel narrowed his eyes. “I mean, if that’s the way you want to be about it, then…fine.”

“Have a great day.” Karina put on the biggest smile she could muster and looked in the direction of the door.

Once Daniel left, she positioned herself in front of the coffee maker and opened Instagram again, starting a video of her waiting in front of the slowly filling carafe. After adding Depeche Mode’s “Waiting for the Night” she closed the app again.

“Bro!”

Leon turned around to see Serge walking up to him.

“You gotta up your game, bro.” Serge pulled out his phone. “Your girl’s beating you.”

Cocking his head to the side, Leon scoffed. “What are you talking about?”

Serge opened up Karina’s Instagram stories, short little video clips that stayed on the app for about a day, and there were several of Karina standing in front of various paintings with the lyrics of popular songs coordinating with the artwork. The last one that made Leon audibly laugh was her standing next to Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes with the chorus of Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy playing in the background, the lyrics scrolling across the screen.

“Well, yeah.” Leon laughed again, eventually smiling proudly. “She’s always been clever.”

When Leon made it home, he found Karina with her headphones on, dancing along to something only she could hear and oblivious to his presence. Walking up behind her, he waited for her to take a step back and then caught her when she stumbled slightly over his foot. Karina jumped but soon laughed at herself when she realized what was happening.

Slipping her headphones off, Karina beamed as she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. “Hey, you.”

“Mausi.” Leon smiled back and gently grasped her chin, kissing her again before he let her go. “How was your day?”

“I think you might be on to something with the whole cutting back my hours argument.” Karina leaned against him, closing her eyes as she rested her head on his shoulder.

“Yeah?” Noticing that Karina had changed into leggings and an old hoodie of his that she had claimed as her own, he figured they wouldn’t be going out for dinner. “Why is that?”

Karina flopped down on the sofa and waited to see if Leon would join her. She wasn’t above begging for affection at this point, but it would be easier for her to initiate if he was closer. “Well, I’m starting to feel like not being there. I can’t tell if it’s because I’ve been so tired or if it’s because I can’t stand Daniel-”

“Is he the kid that tried to say you two were very close?” Leon smirked just thinking about it as he took her cue and sat next to Karina.

With a sigh, Karina crawled into his lap and snuggled against him. “The very same. Today he tried saying that he thought we’d make good friends and then couldn’t understand why I said I didn’t want anything to do with him. It’s just annoying.”

“So quit.” Leon slipped his hands under the hoodie and, upon figuring out that she was wearing a camisole underneath, gently tugged it over Karina’s head so that he could begin to rub her shoulders. “There’s nothing saying that you need to work.”

Closing her eyes, Karina felt as though she could melt into him right then. “I know, but I think I’d get bored not doing anything.”

That got a laugh out of Leon, knowing she was right. “Wanna come play football with me?”

“Um, you know I have exactly zero of your athleticism and skill so that would be a no.” As Leon gently trailed his hands down her arms, she felt him brush against her elbow and she winced.

Leaning over, Leon gave it a gentle kiss. “I’ll be happy when your body isn’t a map of your clumsiness.”

With a roll of her eyes, Karina snorted. “Girl, same.”

Leon laughed openly now as he pulled Karina back against him. “Oh my little Maus. What would I do without you?”

“You’d probably be with Mathea.” Karina spoke with a neutral tone and Leon could tell that she meant nothing by it, but it didn’t sit well with him.

“Yeah?” He sat up straighter now. “Would you still be with Strohmann?”

Even if Karina hadn’t said anything, her body language spoke volumes. She moved away slightly turning her shoulder. “Well, he’s dead now so I’m going to go ahead and say no.”

He gave her a minute before he spoke again. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought that up. Did you want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” She folded her arms across her chest. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

Leon felt like he was about to open an entirely different can of worms but it seemed like something that needed to be done. “You obviously cared about him and with everything going on, I don’t think you really gave yourself a chance to mourn him.”

Closing her eyes, Karina let her head slump onto Leon’s shoulder, sighing as she felt his place his arm around her. “It’s not something that I really want to talk about with you.”

“Look, I know about your history with him, you told me yourself. I don’t care that he kept you-”

Karina cleared her throat as she shook her head. “Please, just leave it alone, ok?”

“Ok.” Leon finally conceded. “My offer stands if you change your mind.”

Although she nodded, Karina stayed silent for a period of time. Finally, she spoke, her voice not much louder than a whisper. “I will…eventually. It’s just not something I want to discuss right now.”

Turning slightly, Leon kissed Karina on the top of her head. “Can I make you dinner?”

“You can make dinner whenever you want.” Closing her eyes again, Karina sighed. “I’ll never turn that down.”

Leon was in the middle of mixing some various greens together for a salad when there was a knock at the door. He glanced up briefly and Karina took his cue to answer the door. With Elsa at her side, Karina glanced at the monitor before recognizing the man and opening the door for him.

Without so much as a hello, Leon’s agent burst through and looked around for him.

“We’ve got a problem,” He started. “She needs to leave so we can talk.”

Leon put the wooden spoon and fork set down but made no effort to move otherwise. “What are you going on about, Jörg? Karina doesn’t need to go anywhere.”

He glanced between the two of them and then shrugged. “Fine. Are you beating her?”

“What the fuck kind of question is that?” Karina was visibly upset with Jörg but quickly turned to Leon. “Why are you asking him that?”

After clearing his throat, Jörg responded. “There’s been a complaint and the police are wanting to question you. They were nice enough to involve me first before just hauling your ass in the middle of your training session.”

Leon shook his head, still trying to wrap his mind around what was happening. “Just…calm down, Maus. We’ll get this worked out.”

#The Devil is in the Details #leon goretzka #apparently I've forgotten how to post

[prettywordsyouleft]

Our Christmas - Family

Genre: fluff / Christmas au

Pairing: Mark Tuan x reader

A/N: Our Christmas is a five part series that starts from first meeting someone to the magic of Christmas through the eyes of children!

**I purposely chose to change the names of Mark’s siblings because I didn’t feel comfortable writing them into this story as they’re not famous/idols themselves. I used a random name generator to name them as well, so they might not match well to their personalities, but I feel much better sharing this without using their real names.**

Our Christmas: Meeting // Together // Family // Newlyweds // Children

As the plane descended towards the tarmac, you took a deep breath. Not because you anticipated the landing of your flight, but rather, your trip to California had gone faster than you expected.

You weren’t prepared for what was waiting for you.

Mark took your hand out of your lap then, giving it a gentle squeeze. You glanced at the man next to you and sighed softly. He knew you too well, and you couldn’t hide your anxiety from him.

“I’m excited too,” you told him weakly as the plane hit the runway and Mark smiled at you.

“You’re allowed to be anxious, even though you know my family don’t bite. This is a big thing for us as a couple, right?”

You nodded.

The last two and a half years of falling in love with Mark had been the best. You hadn’t realised what you were missing in your world until he walked in and filled those spots effortlessly, the whirlwind of your love soon meeting all the important milestones – the first intimate moments, the I love you’s, moving in together and now it was time to spend Christmas together for the first time. Your first two Christmases were spent apart as you celebrated with family, spending New Years together instead. And whilst that was working as you grew accustomed to living in each other’s worlds, it made sense with how far into your relationship you now were to want to be together on the most magical day of the year.

It wasn’t that you didn’t want to be here with Mark this year either. Of course, you had frequently imagined waking up in Mark’s arms on Christmas morning, lazily greeting each other with words and kisses, before getting up to open presents together. Every year so far you had just video chatted instead, enjoying the festivities together through a small screen. You were excited to experience everything in real time at his side this year.

But it was a big thing to be halfway around the world and not with your family too. You had already celebrated a pre-Christmas get together before hopping on the plane to LA, and you had to admit, having Mark at your side as you caught up with your relatives was really satisfying. You knew they all adored him and had high hopes for your future together. You saw how seamlessly he fitted in with your family, playing with your niece and conversing with your brother and cousin for hours on end about gaming. You had dreamed of this for so long that it made your heart full knowing how easily you could imagine this continuing.

But Mark already knew most of your family before the get together. You often went and had dinner with your parents, and sometimes babysat your niece together when your brother and his partner were busy. Your family was all close to where you lived, making it accessible to slowly introduce Mark into their world.

It was different with Mark’s family.

You had met his parents when they came to visit throughout the years, and you got along with them well. They treated you as if you were family already, and it encouraged you to open up more to them with each visit. But he had a bigger family than you. Thus, there were a lot more people to meet. From the video calls you had each Christmas so far, his house was always busy. Christmas was a grand affair for the Tuan’s, with extended family and friends all coming over for dinner, and enjoying the activities well into the night. You were worried about showing your best side to those who didn’t know you yet.

It didn’t help that Mark had casually let it slip that you were going to be the first girl he had ever brought home for any special holiday outside of his close friends. This was a big deal, even if he didn’t seem to think so.

It was all you could focus on during the entire flight, and you were still thinking about it as you took your carry on luggage from Mark’s grasp. Your heart was racing when you walked at his side towards the arrival gates, smiling weakly at him whenever he squeezed your hand.

“Keep breathing, it’s alright,” he instructed softly into your ear before you stepped out to find his waiting family. You expected just his Mum and Dad, maybe a sibling or two.

You weren’t prepared.

You didn’t need to look around far to find them, a gathering of people off to the side with signs held up and cheering leaving their lips at sight of you both. You glanced up at Mark with a surprised gaze before you headed over to where the Tuan family stood, instantly being engulfed in the arms of various people.

“Oh my goodness you’re even prettier in real life!” Libby, his older sister, oozed as she hugged you warmly.

“It’s so nice to see you again, sweetie,” his Mum then greeted, not letting you even get one word out in response to his sister. It carried on in this fashion until you were certain you had been handed around to everyone who came to welcome your arrival. Finally, you were back in Mark’s care, his arm slung around you loosely as you walked with him to the exit in a stupor. There was too much noise and bustle for you to take in and you were overwhelmed.

In a good way.

You finally smiled, allowing yourself to enjoy the experience. It sure was different from back home, but you liked it.

You were immediately given an important task upon arriving at the Tuan household – to be their guest. You were asked by more than one member of the family if you needed anything, and then given a house tour by Mark’s Dad before being delivered to Mark’s bedroom, your boyfriend already in there with your luggage bags. He grinned at you before coming over to give his Dad another hug.

“Taking good care of my girl?” he asked and his Dad chuckled.

“Your? No son, it’s our now, our girl. Right, Y/N?”

You giggled as he shot you a wink and then told you to rest up for an hour before coming down for dinner.

And as much as you were getting used to being around a bunch of different people, you finally found yourself taking your first steady breath when he closed the door. Mark smirked at your reaction and pulled you into his arms. “Still overwhelmed?”

“A little,” you admitted and he chuckled. You smiled at how much he reminded you of his Dad then. You buried into his embrace further, inhaling his cologne which helped you relax further. It was like the scent represented being home. You loved nothing more than being in Mark’s arms.

“My family like you,” he mentioned, stroking at your hair. “A lot.”

“You already can tell?” you asked as you lifted your head up out of his chest and Mark took advantage of the action, leaning down to kiss you tenderly before he nodded. “Really? We haven’t been here long! I was so nervous trying to answer all of Jack’s questions in the car.”

“You did well to answer them all,” he assured, kissing the top of your head. “And Bella thinks you fit in the family well, which you do. Mum’s already lining up to get your help with baking Christmas cookies tomorrow.”

“Oh god, what if I accidentally poison you all?”

Mark shook his head as he laughed again. “Then I’ll die happy because you’re here with me this year.”

“Uh oh, sappy Mark has arrived,” you noted and Mark leaned in to nuzzle you with his nose affectionately.

“You love sappy Mark.”

“I love all of you,” you replied, feeling a sudden need to speak up how you felt. Mark’s smile faded as you stared up at him. “Even though this is all a lot, I’m happy I came with you. This is going to be our best Christmas yet, right?”

He nodded, kissing your lips briefly. “We’ll be welcoming in the new year in the best of moods, I’m sure of it.”

“Let’s get through Christmas first,” you suggested and then pulled away from him, finally looking around his bedroom. It was your first time seeing his personal things from his upbringing and you smiled as you shifted around the room. “So this is where you grew up.”

“I mean this wasn’t the only home I lived in, but it’s a pretty nostalgic room for me,” he replied, coming over to pick up one of his Math accomplishments. “Now you get to see how much of a nerd I was too.”

“Oh, I already knew that,” you answered with a smile, lightly brushing your hands over the books on his shelf. You then glanced at him. “I live with you, if I didn’t know what a dork you are-”

“Hey! A dork and nerd are two different things!”

You nodded in agreement, amused. “Is there anything I need to know about in this room? Any juvenile secrets to uncover?”

“How comfortable the bed is,” he quipped with a smirk and you rolled your eyes.

“I think we need to go down and help with dinner now, what do you think?”

“You won’t be helping, baby. You’re the guest of honour tonight; it’s going to be all about you.”

Great.

Just as you were starting to feel at ease in his home, Mark had to throw you another reminder of how overwhelming today was turning out to be.

You took a deep breath and pointed at the door. “Shall we?”

The two days leading up to Christmas were full of activity with the Tuan family. They had taken you to see snow up in the mountains just in case you were feeling out of place with their lack of a White Christmas. And there was the endless meal prep which you insisted on helping with, becoming quite the little unit with Mark’s Mum, Libby and Bella within the kitchen space. You were laughing more than you had ever done in your life, you were certain about it, and by the time you had rolled into bed on Christmas Eve, you felt as if you had lived here forever. Your anxiety had eased the longer you sat curled up on the sofa talking with Mark and his Dad, or learning all about your boyfriend and his childhood antics from the three main women in his world. As a family, you had all decorated the only bare tree in the house as per Christmas Eve tradition, and you had welled up when they handed you an ornament with your name on it. You knew that you would enjoy Christmas day now; you were truly a member of their family as soon as you hung it up on the tree near Mark’s. And much like Mark had been with your niece, you yourself were smitten with the children in his family, playing with the girls and Mark all over the house after decorating the tree.

You had earned your sleep that night.

And as Santa and his reindeer set out around the world to deliver presents and Christmas spirit to all, you dreamed of a life where trips like these would happen more frequently in the future, but with new additions to come. You woke up with a smile on your face as the lingering visions of little children that looked like you and Mark slowly left you. As your eyes adjusted to the morning light infiltrating the room, you gazed at the sleeping form of the man you loved. Mark had no idea just how much you wanted forever with him at that moment, and it was such a magical experience to stare at him knowing that you were imagining everything a future could hold with him.

These thoughts alone were enough for you this Christmas.

He soon stirred, perhaps he had felt your inner desires overwhelm the bedroom, Mark’s eyes slowly opening as a lazy grin grew upon his face.

“Merry Christmas, Mark,” you greeted and he nodded once, rubbing the sleep away from his warm brown eyes.

“Merry Christmas baby.”

“Are you ready for today?”

“Are you?” he shot back with a small smirk, brushing your bed hair away from your face. You turned to nuzzle into his hand, kissing his wrist lightly before nodding.

“I’m excited about everything today.”

“Me too. I’m so glad I get to do everything with you at my side this year.”

“What’s first on the schedule for the Tuan household?” you wondered, sitting up a bit. Mark did the same and helped you scoot in between his legs, his arms wrapping around you as he rested his head on your shoulder.

“Breakfast in pyjamas. It’s a family tradition.”

You nodded slowly. “And then?”

“Present time. Then we’ll get a couple of hours before it gets kind of hectic here.”

“Okay,” you said, feeling determined. “Let’s do this.”

Breakfast had been delicious and now everyone was seated around the family room opening presents. The kids had gone first and were now playing with their new toys merrily across the room as the adults all opened their own gifts, exclamations and thank you’s filling the room. You had opened a lot of presents already, some for you only, others for you and Mark as a couple. There was only one present missing from under the tree, and as you watched his parents open gifts from each other, or Bella and her wife doing the same, it had you peering at the now bare spot under the tree for where your present might have gotten misplaced. Mark had already opened his from you and put the watch on happily, marvelling at it every few moments and kissing you in gratitude on the side of your head.

You weren’t a petty person naturally but you were a little miffed when present time was over.

“Everything okay, Y/N?” Libby asked you as you glanced under the tree again, your gaze darting away immediately with her attention. She seemed to click on to your search and shot her brother an accusing look. “I haven’t seen a gift from you to Y/N!”

“Oh, it’s fine-”

“It’s not arrived yet,” Mark announced awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck. His eyes only connected with yours momentarily before he looked down at your hands in your lap instead. “I’m sure it’ll get here before the year is out.”

“I’ve been spoiled enough,” you stated, smiling at everyone and trying not to let your curiosity build.

Christmas had been eventful and had taken two full days to completely recover from. Life in the Tuan household seemed to settle down some with family returning to their respective homes, though they still visited most days. You had been so wrapped up in enjoying your final days in California with Mark’s family that you had almost forgotten about the elusive Christmas present that hadn’t arrived yet.

Almost.

As you woke up on New Year’s Eve in Mark’s arms, you stared at the wall in front of you. Everything had been so perfect; you couldn’t choose your favourite time out of any experience so far. But it was your last full day here in California and you had a small nagging feeling that it was the missing gift that had made Mark uncharacteristically anxious around you, and not the impending flight back home and away from his family.

You wanted to put him at ease, to let him know it was okay. Because it truly was. You had been gifted with so much this holiday, from him and his family. You felt a sense of belonging in your “second home” now, and you were already planning when you could come back for another visit.

You didn’t want Mark to feel distant with you on the last day of the year.

He evaded you for most of the day, helping his Dad and brother set up for the small gathering tonight to bring in the New Year together. And you had been equally busy assisting where you could as well before a surprise trip to a spa was sprung on you, going off to get your hair and makeup done for tonight. It was crazy how this family did things, but you were getting used to it. With the knowledge of being a part of their annual family photo this year, you forgot all about your worries, now focusing on looking good tonight instead.

The party was well underway before you got some alone time with Mark but it was short lived when a childhood friend of his dragged him away again. You felt cold, wondering why he would so easily shrug you off. It felt like a different Mark from the one who was glued to you regardless of who came up to you both on Christmas day, and his efforts to get you under the mistletoe all night long left you both in a playful mood that had extended well into the night within his bed too. Since that night though, he had been too distracted and it was beginning to hurt.

You wondered if you were reading into things too much and wandered out into the terrace by yourself for some fresh air, enjoying the brisk wind that caught at your dress and made it swirl around you.

“Oh Y/N, here you are,” Mark’s dad suddenly said and you turned to see the older man smiling brightly at you. “I’m glad to find you here. I wanted to make a toast with you. Hold on, stay right here and I’ll go get you a glass.”

You agreed to wait and stared around the area mindlessly, gasping when it suddenly lit up with thousands of fairy lights. You gasped at the beauty of it all, and then noticed someone was approaching you, but it wasn’t who you expected. Mark smiled at you warmly, rubbing a hand over your cheek before he licked at his lips.

“This is so pretty,” you breathed and he nodded. “I wonder who turned them on?”

“I did.”

You stared at Mark for a moment and then realised what he was up to. It was only more obvious when he dropped to one knee in front of you.

You wanted to say you heard all the words he was uttering to you. But your mind was shouting out the answer your heart was giving you endlessly, the positive affirmation near deafening you until you suddenly said it aloud, making Mark pause midway in his proposal. He stared at you for a moment before he grinned, getting up as he pulled a box out of his pocket.

“Always too hasty to let me finish,” he muttered, but he was too elated to truly be mad at you, sliding the ring onto your finger. You marvelled at how perfectly it fit and then up at your fiancé.

It was going to take some time to get used to that.

There were claps now erupting around you both and you glanced to see everyone watching on, a blush crossing Mark’s face as he scratched at the back of his head with all the attention. Just like the first time you arrived in California, you spent the next hour being passed around, enjoying the jovial mood of the last night of the year and your proposal. It was honestly the best way to end the year and your trip with Mark. The countdown towards midnight was five minutes out, and you knew you had to ask the man holding you in his arms a question that had been floating around in your head all night long.

“This is my Christmas present that went missing, isn’t it?”

“We had to trick you somehow,” he mentioned slyly and you gasped, now realising how many were in on it. You guessed Libby’s comment was only to plant the seed of doubt within you on Christmas day.

“You have no idea what I was saying to you, do you?” he asked of you a minute later and you blushed, nodding weakly. “Maybe you don’t deserve to know.”

“I figured since I know how well you like to prepare for things, you’ll be able to tell me all about those words at a later date?”

“I will, every day from here out,” he agreed, kissing your head as he pulled you closer. “I can’t wait until you’re my wife.”

“I can’t wait until we have kids too.”

“Christmas will be magic with them here and back home with your family too.”

“Christmas will always be magic,” you mentioned, turning around in his arms so you could stare up at him. “Because I’ll always be with you.”

_________________

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[notajinn]

Top 10 Games I Played in 2019

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am finishing this at nearly 2 AM in the morning, so I did not proofread. Excuse any typos.

With 2019 closing out the decade, I want to make a "Top 10 Games of the Decade" list, but first I have to point out my favourites of the year. I actually played over 10 games this year (which is very unusual), so I chose my top 10. As usual, these are not all games that came out in 2019, but I played them for the first time this year. I'm not ranking carried over mobile games this time, although at this point the only mobile I play is Dragalia Lost.

Let's go.

10. Untitled Goose Game (Switch)

There's a lot to love about this game concept alone even though I ignored it for the longest time pre-release.

Pros

The entire goal of the game is just that you are a goose and also an asshole. I've talked many times about how I think being unique is overblown in place of being high-quality, but this is a unique take that really works.

With a vaguely open-world that you're thrown into with no real purpose, you really capture the feeling of just setting out that day to be a jerk. I appreciate that there is a progression system with a list of mischievous tasks you have to do to reach the next area, but it's still presented in a very free way. You'll do some of them accidentally just trying to be a jerk, and others you'll really have to think about. Eventually there will come a clear end goal, which I was pleasantly surprised by.

Controlling the goose is also perfect in how unwieldy and overconfident you feel. You don't exactly move quickly, and there's no attacking, but you still feel better than the humans around you.

The minimalist art design helps sell the really low-stakes nature of the goose's quest. Sound effects are also pronounced thanks to this, and sound is very important for the goose. I also like the slight stealth gameplay that's not at all punishing, as someone who enjoys but is bad at stealth.

Cons

Even for a budget game, it's quite short to reach the "end goal". It's very much a game you can continue to mess around in, and there's a "New Game+" set of tasks you receive, but as far my "have to reach the end" mindset...I was expecting it to take a little longer. I'd say it was maybe 3 hours max, including lots of goofing around.

I also found that I VERY much don't enjoy being a jerk to children (see screenshot), and very begrudgingly did the minimum mean things to get past the kid. Luckily there is only one kid.

Final Thoughts

Honestly the lower ranking is not so much because of negatives, but because I played so many good things this year combined with this being mostly a fun little novelty. I feel like people who are interested would have already played it (if they have the console). Really you can go with your gut instinct of whether or not being an asshole goose sounds fun for you.

 9. Kingdom Hearts III (PS4)

If you told me Kingdom Hearts III wouldn't even make my top 5 in the year it was released, I'd think you were crazy. But here we are with the long-awaited game.

Pros

So much of this game is fanservice for the series, and I had fortunately caught up on the spinoffs enough to enjoy it. Seeing the 358 crew and the BBS crew, all the Organization members...there's a lot of love here.

KH3 also has some of my favourite worlds in the series in Toy Story and Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates in particular managed to scratch that Wind Waker sailing itch just enough. Meanwhile Toy Story going for a unique plot really helped pull me in, and there's that now infamous Woody scene that I love. Even other worlds like Monsters Inc get some great scenes (like Vanitas and the doors). Tangled is also one of my favourite Disney movies, so while the world itself was pretty average, I was happy to be in it.

Combat-wise, I appreciate getting so many options like dodge roll and blocking right off the bat regardless of your initial choices; previously I always forced myself to take the Shield so I could start with the super-useful dodge roll.

The music is as stellar as ever, although they loop far too quickly given how much time you'll spend in a single area sometimes (looking at you, Toy Story).  I especially love Don't Think Twice, which had the bonus of being a complete surprise.

 Cons

KH1 was the first Aladdin. KH2 was Return of Jafar. So logically KH3 should have been King of Thieves. Instead we get no Aladdin at all!  Just the Genie as a summon I think?

For all the character fanservice, it still feels like only the main trio, Riku, and Mickey are really useful. I can't believe how poorly Aqua does as a Keyblade Master. I can't believe Kairi and Axel's training basically amounts to nothing. I know it's Sora's game, but it's still so frustrating.

And the final fight with everyone is very much so "good idea, bad execution". It just feels so messy. The entire climax is just not paced very well.

The Frozen world is one of my least favourites in the series. Nearly nothing interesting happens (outside of one good Larxene scene), you don't get Elsa as a boss or a party member, and the progression is just "got to get to Elsa's castle, oh no we fell" repeated three times. Also did they really need to put the full Let It Go song in there? I say this as someone who likes the song. This whole world is just a mess, and I think we'd be better off it was cut. And replaced with ALADDIN 3!

Where is the Wreck-It Ralph world? You know, the Disney movie about video games?

The combat somehow feels less smooth than KH2, possibly because of so many things constantly going off. The Park Attraction skills are fun at first, but later they take so long and often aren't worth bothering with. But I think HP of the enemies assumes you'll use it, because some enemies get really spongy later on.

There was also literally no reason not to end Sora's plot with this game; they had a very easy chance. But they also had an easy chance to end at KH2 and they didn't. I don't know why they're so afraid to use a different protagonist. Even if they don't want to make one, there's so many other potential-protagonists in the game already. Some of whom are also technically Sora!

Also the stupid Toy Story music loop is like 10 seconds long. Stop it.

I was actually originally going to put this at 8, but after typing out these Cons I moved the ranking back.

Final Thoughts

For as many pros and cons as I wrote out, the biggest thing about this game is that it's somehow incredibly forgettable. Kingdom Hearts 3, the game we waited over a decade for, is forgettable. And that really hurts.

The ReMind DLC has some real potential to help with this, but it also costs $40 CAD. If you're on the fence for KH3 as a whole, maybe wait and see what people say about the DLC fixing stuff.

  8. Cadence of Hyrule (Switch)

 It really hurts to put Cadence of Hyrule this low, because there's so much I love about it. And I want to see more third-parties work on Nintendo IPs.

Pros

You can finally play as Zelda in a proper Legend of Zelda game! Yes there's the rhythm mechanic and roguelike nature, but you're ultimately still going around a 2D LoZ overhead map in the same way you would a mainline game. But now you can have Zelda go around and play a little differently. For example, you have no regular shield but you have the Nayru's Love barrier which can work defensively in a different way. I appreciate that the characters all play differently when the developers could easily have easily given you three different sprites with one moveset.

The rhythm mechanic of moving on the beat works very well with the LoZ map style. Being able to see the bar speed at the bottom also helps a lot to learn in the first place. Most importantly, you have the option to completely turn it off to play this like a classic LoZ. Obviously the soundtrack itself is full of great LoZ remixes.

The difficulty is just right without being too rough or too easy with only occasional exceptions, and the game is fairly forgiving about respawing when you do die; it usually doesn't feel like a BIG deal. There's tons of LoZ equipment to use, which I really appreciate after how barebones Breath of the Wild was in that regard.

As with any roguelike, you also have a lot of replayability with the map changes and different characters and equipment to try out.

Incorporating classic bosses with musical instruments is also really fun.

Cons

It's as short as you would expect a budget game to be, but it's more expensive than your average budget game. I'm going to chalk that up to using a first-party Nintendo IP, but the price fools you into thinking the game will be longer.

I also personally don't really care for roguelikes, so the selling point of replayability isn't for me. It's a bit unfair to judge the game for something the genre is supposed to do, but I don't think it's a bad game for being like this. I just think it's a game I like less because of that emphasis.

There's also one boss in particular that was super frustrating, and I think it's because I didn't understand the "trick" to beating it.

Final Thoughts

I do honestly recommend this if you like classic LoZ, but just know what you're getting into; something that emphasizes multiple playthroughs and won't take too long on a single run, but which executes the LoZ formula itself really well.

 7. XCOM: Enemy Unknown (PC)

 I can't believe how long it took me to play XCOM: Enemy Unknown given that Fire Emblem is my favourite series. I also owned it for years on Steam, but it was just this year I finally booted up this strategy RPG.

Pros

You want a challenging SRPG? Here you goddam go. This game is punishing as hell, but as long as you don't play Iron Man mode it's still reasonable to deal with. I don't usually care for games that sell on difficulty, but I've played enough SRPGs that I don't mind more difficulty in the genre that's not cheap. XCOM very closely skirts the line of difficult and cheap, again if you are not playing Iron Man (which prevents you from restarting missions).

There's so much dumb RPG numbers to gloss over and spec, and I love it. Things to research, order to research, facilities to build, equipment to craft, skills per each character to learn. If you like pouring over resources like me but don't like the real time nature of an RTS, this is perfect.

I also like the idea that you start off so overwhelmed against an absurdly powerful alien force, and everything you're doing is basically just trying to survive while looking for a way to hold your ground. There's a real desperation in the gameplay that captures the feeling of war in a way that Fire Emblem struggles with.

 Cons

I haven't seen RNG that hates me this much since Fire Emblem: Sealed Sword. And it seems to be a universal experience that the RNG is more stacked against you than it leads you to believe.

I've also seen many people online suggest Iron Man for a person's first run, but that is AWFUL advice. It's why I almost quit the game twice, but ultimately just made a new file without Iron Man. It sounds fun for a second or later playthrough, but there's so many unknowns happening constantly in your first run that it just feels unfair to go Iron Man.

The aesthetic is sci-fi apocalypse; two designs I generally hate. Everything is so gloomy and blue and tech. It's all very forgettable to look at.

Healing options are so limited, at least in the relatively early sections I'm in (I did not beat this). Actually this is one of the very few games I started but did NOT beat before playing something else, which in itself means there's something that I really disliked. At this point I can't remember what that is.

Final Thoughts

If you like Fire Emblem gameplay but want it to be even more resource management based, and can deal with a drab aesthetic, absolutely grab this. Especially since it gets really cheap on Steam. Just do NOT start on Iron Man mode.

 6. Telltale's Batman: The Enemy Within (PC)

There was a Joker live-action movie this year; an entire movie dedicated to him. And yet Telltale managed a better Joker.

Pros

I am one of those weirdo people who considers Joker one of his favourite comic characters. I'm a sucker for a good villain, and it was probably Joker in Batman: The Animated Series that is responsible for that. So I love seeing a good fresh take on the character, and Telltale delivers. This is season two of Telltale Batman, and we briefly got to see "John Doe" in the first season as a proto-Joker who's definitely a violent jerk, but not necessarily a villain just yet. While there are many plot threads in Enemy Within, the main one is about how John grows among the mess that is Gotham. Depending on how you play, you can actually push him to become a vigilante and ally of Batman instead of the villain. This is itself not only a fun take on the character, but also the most uniquely any Telltale game has branched.

I remember explaining once that Telltale is not so much "choose how the story ends", but more "choose how your character's relationships with others changes". But there, you get a wildly different final chapter depending on whether John is a vigilante or villain. I really appreciate the effort it took, but it's also bittersweet since this was one of the last games the studio worked on before being closed.

Telltale gives us other character portrayals that range from standard to occasionally good. They have Harley play the big mob boss who has John wrapped around her finger this time, and they do a good job selling it.

You'll get some great dialogue options, and it seems almost impossible to please everyone. Being forced to make hard choices that will inevitably make someone mad at you is what this genre is about, and it's often not exactly clear cut what the consequences will be.

 Cons

Like other Telltale games, action sequences are done with QTEs. These are relics in this day and age, so I really didn't care for them. It's a good way to get around a probably costly combat engine, but it's ultimately filler to me to get back to the plot. Since this is a Batman game, it has more action sequences than the average Telltatle game.

Other sequences like searching for clues are less annoying, but still not really fun. I did not grow up on point-and-clicks, but it seems the developers did.

You also can't easily restart sequences if you selected an option by mistake; you have to restart that entire chapter. And a chapter is multiple hours. I get the implication of "you have to live with your choices", but when it's an actual mistake because I'm using a PS3 controller on my PC mapped to Xbox buttons...I get a little annoyed.

Final Thoughts

It's a little weird to start at Enemy Within if you didn't play the first season, and it will retroactively spoil things, but you honestly could. It is more fun than the original (which is also good). Easily the big selling point is being able to shape John the proto-Joker; if that doesn't appeal to you, this may not be for you.

 5. Super Metroid (SNES Classic)

Not only is 2019 the first time I played (and completed) Super Metroid; it's also the first time I completed a Metroid game at all! I had played a decent amount of Fusion and the first Prime before, but fell off both of them. This time, I absolutely saw Samus reach her goal.

Pros

How do you talk about such a beloved game? First of all, the SNES era is still visually my favourite in video games. This has a lot to do with nostalgia since I grew with the SNES, but also because it was the height of sprites before the industry turned to 3D models. And as amazing as N64 and PS1 graphics looked back then, they did not age well. The SNES, however, still holds up so well visually.

For a game with a sci-fi aesthetic that heavily takes place underground, I loved the variety and colours Super Metroid offered outside my expectations. This is definitely up there as one of the most beautiful games of the console.

Where I think the game excels the most is Samus' controls. The level of precision they built into her abilities is nuts. Obviously there are games where characters have larger movesets (such as fighters), but for a platformer I love how well you can maneuver Samus. For example, when you do a moving jump. If you hit the D-Pad and then jump, you do the Spin Jump. If you jump and then hit the D-Pad, you do a more standard jump. It may not seem like much now, but I feel like for the time it's very impressive.

There's so many fun abilities you get, and the majority of them can be used simultaneously for some really fun platforming.

You also learn very quickly even without text based on the way power-ups and obstacles are laid out. Even storytelling is done well simply through gameplay; no cinema scenes or text explanations needed.

The bosses feel stressful but almost never too cheap; you always feel like they're possible to deal with. Occasionally you may need more missiles or energy, but it's usually learning and countering patterns.

Music can effectively be atmospheric or lively depending on where you are, and I retroactively wish we had a few more Metroid tracks in Super Smash Brothers.

Also even though I'm not a 100% completion-ist type of person, I appreciate when I do find some secret missile tank by really examining the area.  

Cons

When you're not used to the controls early on, it can be tricky to handle Samus. Mostly those spin jumps. The wall jump also never really got easier.

Weapon switching is a weird situation. I appreciate you can do it on the fly with the Select button, but the fact it always goes in a certain order means it can often take a while to get to what you want.

Personally I also thought Ridley was a hell of a difficulty spike, and the game actually calmed back down in difficulty afterwards? Maybe I'm just bad at fighting such an aggressive and fast boss.

Phantoon was also a tough boss made tougher by the fact the closest working Save Point was a good 5+ minutes of platforming away for me. I like that the nearest Save Point doesn't work because the electricity is off, and it builds on the haunted ship atmosphere, but boy was that frustrating to jump all the way back nearly four times to fight that boss.

Final Thoughts

If like me you've somehow not played Super Metroid, you really should. It still holds up, and it's relatively short (my time was about 6 hours). It may be a little weird at the start with the limited abilities and getting used to the precise controls, but if you stick with it you're in for a good time.

The reason it's number 5 and not higher is not due to any particular negatives, but simply because the next few games left me with more positives.

 4. Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight (PS4)

The fact that this game exists is incredibly stupid, and I love it.

Pros

Persona 3 is not a happy game in a traditional sense. There are happy moments, but most are bittersweet. It's a game about dealing with and overcoming tragedy, and has a dark visual atmosphere to match.

So the fact we get to see that cast dancing around with bright colours is nuts. But not at all in a bad way. These characters go through so many difficulties; they absolutely deserve to have a fun dance party where they don't have to think about anything else. This isn't the happy kids deciding to dance; this is a bunch of stressed out people who need a break. And as someone who loves Persona 3, it makes me so happy to...well, see them happy.

The majority of the original voice actors were brought back (the main exception being Elizabeth), and they do just as good a job as in the old days.

We get mostly great remixes of the P3 songs, and the original versions of others. Each song has a particular character assigned to it so they can more effectively match their dancing style. The models look amazing.

There's also minor Social Link elements which are used in place of a story, and their personalities are mostly intact. There's certainly some Flanderization, but it's not as bad as Persona Q.

You also get a decent progression system of unlocking songs in batches, and needing to beat them to get the next songs. The Social Link requirements help make repeating the songs fun while giving you something to work towards.

The rhythm game itself is hard to judge since I play very few rhythm games. I found it fun once I got the hang of it on normal difficulty. There's tons of modification options to make it easier or harder depending on your preferences.

 Cons

As with every modern Persona game, the DLC is awful. Tons of Day One DLC, and they even locked Shinji to DLC! Does he not also deserve to have fun without paying extra? There's also a few songs I would have liked, but not at those prices. Otherwise DLC is mostly costumes and accessories which I both don't care about, and which are overpriced.

I also hate that we had an EASY chance to get the FeMC Minako in this fun low-stakes plot game, but didn't. It's not like Atlus forgot about her either; she was in Persona Q2 which came out a little later. If anything, SHE should have been DLC and Shinji should have been in the base game.

The jump in difficulty between Hard and All-Night is absurd. I can beat most songs on Hard with good ratings, but I can't beat the first song on All-Night at all.

Koromaru is not in the game, which inherently prevents it from being perfect. He could have jumped in during Fever Time at least!

Final Thoughts

This game is only for Persona 3 fans, but boy is it some great fanservice for us. If you're a Persona 3 fan that at least slightly enjoys rhythm games, this is for you.

 3. Indivisible (PS4)

 As of writing this, I have not actually beaten Indivisible. If I had to guess, I'm at the 2/3 mark? A big plot thing just happened, but it's clearly not the final plot thing.

Since this game is less known, it's a platformer/fighter/RPG hybrid with a heavy South Asian influence.

Pros

It's a platformer/fighter/RPG hybrid with a heavy South Asian influence.

Look at that sentence! These are all things I love!

I grew up on platformers and RPGs, and I have a lot of fun when I get into a fighter. And as someone who always desperately tries to find even one brown character in most video games, I'm all about a cast that is mostly South Asian!

The combat system is really fun. It utilizes something similar the classic Final Fantasy ATB style system, but at a very quick refresh rate and tons of fighting game elements thrown in. For example, a key is doing combos with your various party members. Each character has 3 standard moves, and knowing when to use what depending on the enemy's position is where the strategy comes in. There's also one party-wide meter that everyone dips into to use Supers. It's a very aggressive and offense-oriented battle system, but they manager to incorporate healers and support units comfortably. But yes, everyone is basically a fighting game character in an RPG battle system.

The platforming starts off very basic, but you get access to so many moves and can use them all fluidly together. There's some really fun platforming segments that really force you to use everything Ajna can do.

The character designs are top-notch, even removed from how ecstatic I am about the diversity. Again, they are designed as fighting game characters who have to be distinct and high-quality. Everyone also feels extremely unique in combat.

I wouldn't say the overall story and writing is amazing, but there's some good moments here and there.  It also follows a somewhat less traditional path for Ajna so far, even though I'm expecting a fairly traditional climax.

 Cons

Okay, so this is in some ways a fighting game. Which means you should have a move list you can look up. While you get a brief explanation of each character's gimmick when you recruit them, there's NO MOVE LIST!

That sucks, but you can go into Training and figure out the moves for yourself, right? Yes, except you don't unlock Training until almost 10 hours into the game! Which means for the early part of the game when you're still learning the mechanics of the system as a whole, you also have more trouble learning what each character can do. Combined with a very high rate of recruiting new characters early on, this can be overwhelming. If they didn't want to make a move list, they should at least have made Training available from the beginning.

Backtracking can be a bit of a pain; there's minimal fast travel points. Ajna doesn't cover as much space as Samus relatively to the game world, so it really takes some time to go around. Enough that it sometimes discourages exploration, which is not good in a platformer.

The sense of progression is also pretty slow once you get past the 1/3 mark. You don't get new characters quite as quickly, and it's not as though your characters learn new moves (they shouldn't, based on how the battle system works). You also only have levels for Ajna, which in my experience don't make a huge difference. And there's no equipment or items give you that sense of growth. What you have are the Ringels; collect enough of them and you can get a major defense upgrade, or add an additional attack slot per turn to every character. They're great upgrades, and fun to explore and find, but it's a long time between upgrades.

I also feel like healers and support are tough to use well in such an aggressive battle system, which is unfortunate because I traditionally love support-type characters.

Final Thoughts

Despite liking it more than most of the games on this list, it's a tough recommend. It's very specific to what it is, and there's nothing to really compare it to. However I really like it, and I especially love the South Asian influence.

 2. Celeste (Switch)

If you showed me a 10-second clip of Celeste gameplay, I'd dismiss it as some easier Super Meat Boy clone.

I'm so glad I didn't.

Pros:

In many ways, Celeste can be called a long series of platforming challenge rooms. Basically once you clear a distinct "screen" and die, you move forward. You die, you restart on the same screen in seconds. There's infinite lives and no timer. You take as long as you need, and you keep pushing forward. It's a compromise of making a classically difficult platformer that removes all elements that make the classics feel cheap. And it's also a great representation of the story Madeline is going through.

Having a young-life crisis, non-mountain-climber Madeline sets out to climb the famously difficult mountain Celeste. There's a few other characters to deal with, but the majority of the game is spent with Madeline and the reflection that represents another side of her. A side of her that's always bringing her down and trying to force her to turn backIt's a short and well-written story, and absolutely worth experiencing. I love the weaving of the "keep trying" gameplay and story, and the fact an Assist Mode to make the gameplay easier is available from the start is important.

The music also nails that Super Metroid feeling of atmospheric or lively depending on what's happening.

Controls are similarly precise but reasonable, and the incredibly low stakes of failure make even the cheaper platforming segments doable. Some of the platforming is legitimately annoying, but being able to try again in literal seconds makes it less frustrating than easier platformers.

Cons

I don't care for the character sprites. They are small and faceless. You understand what they're going for, and I know they have to be small in relation to the area of the game. But it's just not visually appealing.

...I can't really think of any other cons.

Final Thoughts

I feel like Celeste is an important game that will stay with me, far beyond just a good game I played in 2019. It's short, it doesn't cost much, and it's absolutely worth your time if you have any sort of anxiety or self-esteem issues.

 1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch)

 My favourite series finally returns to a home console after nearly a decade. And boy does it deliver.

Pros

There's two critical things I look for when judging a Fire Emblem game; the cast, and the core gameplay.

The cast in Three Houses is nearly fully presented to you from the start of the game. You have your three separate houses with their individual students, and you choose one to lead. Fortunately you can recruit most students from other houses with some work, so you don't have to worry too much about mutually exclusive units. You will see a few new faces over the course of the game join your team as well, so there's still some surprises. At first glance, many of the characters can be relegated to anime tropes. Claude is the charismatic schemer, Marianne is the quiet girl who likes animals, Hilda is the lazy high-confidence girl, etc. But as you progress through the story and the Support conversations, you'll find that nearly every character has a lot of writing effort put into them. I do not want to give any examples because it's better to get to them yourself throughout the game, but don't take the characters at face-value. Don't expect a full 180 personality shift, but do expect lots of depth to explain both currently personalities, and being able to see the growth of these characters. There's some very relatable issues some of the characters face.

Honestly, it's not a stretch to say Three Houses has some of my favourite characters in the series. It's a big plus that one of the main Lords is dark-skinned for the first time in series history.

Then we have the gameplay. Off the bat we're into some very non-traditional Fire Emblem stuff with the academy system; you use things like lectures to build the weapon levels of your students. Also Cavalry, Heavy Armor, and Flying have their own weapon levels now? Also you don't buy spells, you learn them with weapon levels? There is a LOT that's different.

But what remains the same is the core formula of the strategy-RPG battles. Your process to build your units may be different in many ways, but you're still using the tactics you would expect in an FE game. There's just a few other things to consider now.

Basically I feel that Three Houses' new systems are a good compliment to the classic system as opposed to being a full replacement. Which is why even as an old FE elitist, I absolutely loves playing out the fights. Also they brought back Fog of War!

I really love the incorporation of visible agro lines. Basically when you move your character within enemy range, you actually see direct lines from the enemies so you see who will attack you. Combined with ability to go back to a previous turn, this helps make bad RNG feel less frustrating.

The story is also hands-down the best of the modern Fire Emblem era (everything from Awakening and beyond). It may start off as anime high-school, but having a cast of characters from entirely different countries attend school together as teenagers and then skipping forward to when they are leading their respective countries to war against each other...it's a lot to take in. And you have four different ways to experience the game, all of which are fairly distinct.

New gameplay elements like the lectures and academy activities are actually pretty fun, and dip into a bit of that Persona itch. You also get a better feel for the cast as you see them going about more normal activities. And it's all done in voice acting. Even every generic NPC dialogue in all four routes. Honestly the level of voice acting is incredible for a first-party Nintendo game. Voices also help the game feel so much more alive.

As always, the music is wonderful. The main theme Edge of Dawn is up there with Kingdom Hearts songs among my favourite video game vocal tracks.

Seriously, listen to it:

The option to freely change class so long as you can pass certification is weird, but feels far less busted than Awakening and Fates due to skills taking longer to learn, and mostly being less overpowered. It's also great aesthetically. Being able to use any weapon with any class was also an interesting change.

Also we have gauntlets as a weapon in Fire Emblem now. Which means you can run up to a goddam Wyvern Rider and punch them in the face. This is amazing.

Another plus is that despite incorporating a time skip, there is no child system. Which means Support is not longer a means to getting a perfect gene child unit, but instead to see how characters grow together while also getting a slight stat boost.

 Cons

I kind of miss the Weapon Triangle. I know it's not even the most important thing in the old game, but I have nostalgia for it? You can sort of get the Weapon Triangle abilities once you raise your respective weapon levels enough.

As for more of a real problem...gender locked classes. It's very frustrating that there is only one class that focuses on Gauntlets, and it's locked to males. Like, have you seen Leonie? She's made to be a puncher! And I made her one, but I had to make her a Warrior.

Similarly, the only Master class that focuses on magic is locked to females. It didn't present a problem for me in the Golden Deer route, but I'm sure at one point during the other 3 routes I'll want to make a male magic user. Oh, the Dark Mage line is also locked to males, but doesn't have a Master class.

Master classes in general are a problem. Nearly all of them are Cavalry or Flying, and it's visually annoying. Also because most of my Advanced classes were infantry, so my characters didn't really learn Cavalry or Flying with certain exceptions.

I wish there were no gender-locked classes, and more infantry Master classes.

Also I know it doesn't make sense story-wise, but I wish I could recruit Claude to Blue Lions or Black Eagles because I really don't want to hurt him when I play those routes.

Final Thoughts

I mean, it's number one on my list. Obviously I love it. But it's important to note this is my favourite Fire Emblem game in a long time. I feel like I need more distance from it (and to play the other routes) to really compare it to my favourites, but for now it's at least my favourite game of 2019, and my favourite Switch game.

#games of the year #games of 2019