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chibishortdeath · 5 months

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Fuck it, Simon Belmont, because why not you basically themed your blog after him

You don’t have any specific numbers, so I’m just answering every question >:3c mwahahaha—

1. “Why do you like this character”:

A lot of reasons!!! First off, most of his games are super fun and some of my favorite platformers just in general. I replay CV1, Simon’s Quest, and SCV4 most often cause they’re a real joy to play! I also absolutely LOVE Simon’s story, I’ve considered making comics about it if I could ever get out of recent art block whoops, even though I’ve seen many people say he doesn’t have one (´TωT｀). His designs are really cool, he’s got great music in his games, there’s just a lot to love and I’ll explain more in detail in other questions.

2. “Favorite canon thing?”

I really like the concept that he looks up to Christopher as this legendary hero and then ends up considered the same kind of legendary hero by Juste and others after him. It’s pretty ironic, kinda bittersweet, especially after being hated for so long. Castlevania loves its cycles like that. Also just Simon’s Quest in general, I love that game.

3. “Least favorite canon thing?”

Ooo that’s very hard. There’s kinda a lot of things about him that aren’t explained or confirmed, especially personality wise, but I kinda like that in a way cause it leaves room for interpretation and whatnot. Idk hmmm. I’m gonna go with Grimoire of Souls in general. I had some hopes for it, but it ended up being kinda lame. A lot of the characterization was weird and don’t even start me on things like the Cursed Whip theory being in there 💀. So I just choose to ignore it and not consider it canon.

4. “If you could put this character in another media, what would it be?”

I have thought about drawing him as if he was a character in other series for ages lol. I’ve already drawn him as a Pokémon trainer, I’ve thought about drawing Castlevania and Soul Eater crossovers before, and I tried drawing him in the style of Resident Evil 1 but could not get the art style down. Idk put him in Fortnite or something that’d be funny we already got Solid Snake so Konami has been in talks with them I guess X,,,,,,,,,,D

5. “What’s the first song that comes to mind when you think of them?”

Probably either Simon’s Theme (of course lol) or Bloody Tears, but I do wanna mention that I have a YouTube playlist of songs I wanna make Simon animations with eventually (alas animation is HARD).

6. “What’s something you have in common with the character?”

Mostly negative things unfortunately d(;w; ). Like self comparison, doubt in my own abilities, trouble making and keeping friends, etc etc. Although a lot of these are based on assumptions and interpretations, as a lot of him usually is. Simon does have a really similar hair color to me on the NES box art tho so that’s cool.

7. “What’s something the fandom does with this character that you like?”

There’s a lot of really nice art of him!!! Usually portraits, but sometimes there’s other doodles and whatnot too :3. Cool fan redesigns too! I also have seen a lot of neat headcanons, a lot of which I’ve adopted. I also appreciate the Captain N reunion stuff for the most part, it’s pretty wholesome.

8. “What’s something the fandom does with this character that you don’t like?”

I’ve seen a lot of comics, especially around when Smash Bros Ultimate came out, that were really… weird. I think all of them could kinda be boiled down to “old = bad” in the way that the artists probably just found out he was from the 1600s and then decided to make him the Boomer to Richter’s Gen Z for whatever reason (ya know despite Richter being from the 1700s but anyway). Simon would either be the jerk in the situation and/or the butt of the joke. I don’t think that Simon would have any issue with any of the female characters’ outfits let alone start harassing them for it. I saw some comics that made fun of him for not speaking very much in some genuinely disgusting ways too. Like making him not able to read or practically just the generic caveman stereotype. Especially in cases where the artist would depict other silent NES protagonists really nicely after making Simon out to be a complete idiot and asshole. There was also the trend of making him generally be all “oh no witchcraft!!!!!!!!!! What sin!!!!!!! The horror!!!!!!!!” about like anything and everything. I guess a lot of this comes from Smash Bros fans not usually being fans of Castlevania, but I’ve seen it in the Castlevania fandom too just less frequently. There’s also the “Simon has no story” thing oof. I’ve seen people tell people to skip his games or play fan games instead before :(

9. “Could you be roommates with this character?”

Realistically, no, my room is too small for another person :(. If that wasn’t an issue, then yeah probably :).

10. “Could you be best friends with this character?”

I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO—

11. “Would you date this character?”

No, he’s probably married, generally feels more like a bestie, and I’m aroace lol

12. “What headcanon do you have for this character?”

Too many oh my god. I think he probably makes things. That’s a very vague sentence lol, but think like armor, knives, general woodworking, all his necklaces and headbands and stuff, etc. He generally seems like he keeps to himself and lives mostly alone, so I can see him doing all that by himself. He keeps some bones and teeth of things he hunts most of the time. A lot of people have him as the most super Christian of the family, but I see him as like Christian but really not organized or strict about it, if that makes sense? I’ve seen someone else describe the Belmonts as like “Christopagan” before and yeah I think that fits. Idk why but I have consistently drawn him with his cross necklace in his mouth sometimes. I headcanon him as semiverbal (I think that’s the correct term for it, basically like inbetween speaking and nonspeaking). I like to think he’s like really average height for the 1600s cause he’s about as tall as other townspeople and skeletons and stuff. Which is funny cause that’d make him like 5’5-5’7 ish and that’s kinda short in modern day lol. And I guess that makes his 8bit sprite being used all the time make more sense XD. I have way more, I didn’t even get into Simon’s Quest related ones, but I don’t wanna make this too long aaaaaaaaaaaa

13. “What’s an emoticon that reminds you of the character or you think they’d use a lot?”

Ok this is funny cause I actually do have one for this and it’s got context. It’s the “:3”. So I was watching a bunch of people’s playthroughs one night cause I was bored and ran into a channel with a toooooon of speedruns of maps from Harmony of Despair. Whenever they’d get to a boss battle they’d use the typing feature just to go “hi” with a different cutesy emoticon every time, but when they got to Dracula they specifically went for the “hi :3” and then went “oh no :(“ when Dracula started attacking and now that’s the way I think he’d text I guess.

14. “Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character”

How does one properly explain how much this guy slays in one aesthetic term—

15. “What’s your favorite ship for this character?”

Oooooo, in canon probably like his wife (Selena) and/or the Mysterious Woman (who could be the same character depending on what theories you go by), but outside of that Simon Belmont x Getsu Fuma and I can’t even explain exactly why, but it’s pretty cute.

16. “What’s your least favorite ship for this character?”

Any BelmontXBelmont shipping ugh, it’s unfortunately really common on some places… also the whole Lucas or Pit or whatever other child character thing the smash bros fandom had ugh. I guess I also just don’t see the appeal of shipping any of the Belmonts with Dracula.

17. “What’s a ship you don’t hate but it’s not your favorite?”

I’ve also seen people ship him with Solid Snake, Palutena, or Bayonetta before. Ummm he doesn’t really have a lot of other characters he’s shipped with tbh. Idk I saw someone ship him with one of the priests from Simon’s Quest once.

18. “Relationship in canon you admire?”

Unfortunately he doesn’t really talk to people enough in game to form canon relationships 😔

19. “Relationship in canon you don’t like?”

I don’t even know if I can answer this one for the same reasons as the above 💀💀💀. I guess the townspeople hating the hell out of him, but I don’t hate that cause it’s kinda integral to the plot???? Yeah idk lol

20. “What character is the ideal best friend for this character?”

Simon and Shanoa would get along a lot I think. Sara too. Hmmmm… I think he and Alucard would probably also be good friends. Christopher too for many reasons. Simon just really needs friends my poor dude is out here in Dracula’s Castle and the Romanian countryside after being cursed alone like this poor guy :’(

21. “If you’re a fic writer, what’s your favorite thing to do when writing this character? What’s something you don’t like?”

I have not written much at all, however what small comics I have done I looooove to make sure to sprinkle in whatever symbols he has in the games into it. He has a lot of cool things ranging from like rose thorns to The Hanged Man card and a lot of them end up meaning things like martyrdom and whatnot idk I made a post about it a while ago :3. I also like specifically Simon’s Quest speculation stuff, like what if scenarios for the vague, left open spots of it. If it’s not something super angsty or lore heavy, it’s usually just wholesome character interactions or doodling him being comforted by Christopher or Trevor cause I was sad or something lol. As far as things I don’t like writing uh idk that’s hard, maybe just any kind of filler scenes cause I’m not very good at those oof. Dialogue is hard too 💀💀💀

22. “If you’re a fic reader, what’s something you like/don’t like to see in fics?”

I’ve mentioned a lot of things I don’t like seeing in uh question 8, but things I do like is when people really try to go full horror with him. I’ve seen some Simon’s Quest fics (sadly there’s very few :’3) that really try to get that same feeling of anxiousness and dread the game does and I love that honestly. It’s a really dark story in the series! I also saw one that went psychological horror with it with him kinda losing himself a little at night it’s just ough it’s cool :D! Simon is a horror protagonist! Make him afraid!!!

23. “Favorite picture of this character?”

Again, too many!!! X3

24. “What other character from another fandom reminds you of them?”

Not from fandoms I am in (yet, hopefully I’ll get into these), but Ragnvaldr from Fear and Hunger I’ve heard is just directly inspired by him and Alfred from Bloodborne also, to me, seems heavily inspired by him. The whole Vilebloods section seems very Castlevania inspired tbh. From other fandoms I’m in, that’s hard to say, there’s not really any I don’t think.

25. “What was your first impression of this character, is it the same as now?”

Well I got into Castlevania through Smash Bros and at first was completely indifferent about him, he was just kinda fun to play as. Then Richter got me to play SotN and actually get into the series more. I had no idea I had SotN on XBOX360 for a long time, but that made it pretty easy to start playing. And now I am absolutely hooked and Simon is my favorite character so uh yeah X3.

26. “Freebie!”

I guess I just say anything? Ok, I am currently half trying to cosplay Simon’s Simon’s Quest design rn! I have like everything but the armor, but I’ll have to wait a while to be able to get materials for it oof. But yeah :). Hopefully that works out.

Ok yeah that’s pretty dang long wow, but yeah, thanks for the ask!!!! I am happy to rant about Simon anytime :3

#castlevania #castlevania games #text post #simon belmont #asks #ask game #yay! Simon :3 #I feel like I could probably go on even longer with other questions but uh yeah #more reason to do more of these ask things they’re fun :)#incoherent rambling #idk if I should put a cut somewhere in this cause WOW that is LONG jesus #hmmmmmmmmmmmmm idk #I should post some of the Simon and Fuma art I have sometime when I’m not feeling weirdly self conscious about it—

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mildcicada · 2 years

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Michael moment

#the magnus archives #tma #michael distortion #sorry i have not posted art in forever. at first i was just doing it bc it was all art purely for me that i did not want to post #then i got really into the feeling of not having to draw for the sake of posting and the idea of posting stuff felt like too much effort #then when i DID want to post art again i felt like its been too long since i did and got all weirdly self conscious about it lol #hashtag real #now i still feel all weirdly self conscious about my art again but no way to get rid of that except just posting stuff #until it feels normal to me again #its just sooo like ....for some reason my tma art is so for me only.#so for me ......#NOW I feel weird ab posting stuff......feels too personal even when it literally isn't 🤔#my art #described in alt text

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aceghosts · 1 year

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Hunter Delaney (They/Them)

You don’t get to die and be reborn the same. You come back, but you come back wrong. This is the price you pay for resurrection. -Nathaniel Orion G. K.

Templates HERE and HERE.

#Hunter Delaney #Resident Evil OC #RE OC #Biohazard OC #Albert Wesker x OC #myedits #posting this for Hunter's birthday lol #I kind of retconned the date and year #I think November 2nd fits them better #feeling a little self-conscious and cringe about posting this one #but ya know what #this is my blog #you know what you signed up for #an incoherent mess #also to clarify Charles Arthur and Kevin are all OCs are from Hunter's long fic #Charles Griffin is the one who infected Hunter #Arthur was Hunter's second in command but ended up betraying him #and Kevin was Hunter's protege/the only person worth stanning from Hunter's old team

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grokebaby · 7 months

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I NEED TO. HAVE TO eradicate the shame that comes from making really tall long posts bc I like to say many words. I feel so self conscious when I make super long posts bc I just have a million words in my brain and I have to put them down

#My thoughts #I don't wanna feel self conscious about it!!!!#But I also know that long posts are unappealing to read WAHHH

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jokerownsmysoul · 2 years

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rising in love with you

Summary: early mornings with Joker are rare, since he’s forced to leave you each night before the sun rises to the new day. On these special moments, when they finally occur, you make the most of it. 🌇

Warnings: smut.

Lenght: 9200

Notes: endless ♾️ thanks to @forever-fleck for making this absolute stunning and touching edit for me. I cherish it so, so deeply. It's the perfect portrayal of this piece to its core, and captures the essence of this story so naturally. I sincerely owe you so much for this story. it wouldn't be here without you darling girl. 🧡

I started writing this story in October, and I'm so happy I finally fished it. It turned out longer than I intended but that’s ok, it reflects my unfiltered heart and I dearly treasure the experience of writing it, and I think that's what matters. ❤︎

You cherished the early morning hours when you were with him.

Every night there were things that dared to claim him, out into the night and away from you, more than you had the right to, and most of the time he was forced to leave you before dawn approached. It hurt being forced to be apart, you’d rather wanted him held safely in within your arms than in the claws of the merciless nocturnal city where anything could happen, but you knew that it was safer for Arthur to leave and go hide during the night rather than in the daylight.

To know that leaving you before dawn served only for his safety made everything much easier to bear, even in those days where you wanted to beg him to stay a while longer with all your might, to watch the sun rise together, to let you make him coffee.You'd seen how easily he managed to blend in the surrounding Gotham at night, when he stealthily camouflaged with the darkness all around in the smallest corners of the streets for no one to see him before the sun came up, as soon as he climbed down the fire escape and his feet hit the ground. You could manage to distinguish his multicolored features at last disappearing into the darkness only because you'd known that he’d been there from the beginning, though sometimes, his stealth to vanish so quietly but suddenly could even get you fooled, and you’d wonder if he was there at all. There was nothing in your story that could’ve been different, and trudging each time you would coax yourself out of your anguish.

For his safety it was okay. That's what you told yourself every time.

But there were those rare occasions when parting from each other burned and stung like an open wound, when the idea of having to break your embrace, split your arms from around each other and untie your intertwined limbs grew to be inconceivable; when your bare breasts where he’d been resting his weary head was too soft and warm, the air outside too cold. It made his unwillingness to let go the hold of you grow more potent, and hard to drag himself out of bed.

He simply yearned for a little bit more of warmth, for a little bit more of time with you. Occasions when you wanted your time to be longer, and for once filled with sunlight rather than with the nightlight of the last hours of the day.

Sometimes, if the chaos had sprawled out in the streets of Gotham overnight, when he finally made it home he would look much more tired and exhausted than he’d been before going out. More often than not he’d come dirtier than usual, his steps slow and heavy and his back hunched, his clothes wrinkled and bloody, smelling of gunpowder and copper. He’d tumble on the bed and then immediately in your arms, needing only some quiet rest, needing to find in your arms that familiar serenity Gotham threatened to take away from him every time these kind of bloody nights occurred. It was a kind of serenity he could find back again only in you and every time led him to ask you to make him forget what he’d seen.

You’d cradle his head in your chest, caress his hair, and hold him a little tighter as you thanked him for not being hurt once you were sure he’d dozed off, in the back of your mind ringing the quiet prayer that he would stay with you to regain his strength instead of going, again, out into the city before dawn, when you couldn’t protect him.

Those were the moments when you would see Arthur laying still, not stepping out of bed to go away just yet. His breath, soft and slow, set at a steady rhythm made it more than clear to you that this time he had no intention of leaving you as he allowed himself to shrink into your arms and drifted in and out of sleep, in the one and only place where he was truly safe; you would smile under your breath in complete relief and thankfulness at the blessing of having him still with you, safe and sound, knowing nevertheless that he would notice your smile even with his eyes closed and that, each time, his faint red painted smile would mirror your own. Relief. Thankfulness.

Stay indoors was worth taking the risk, on those rare occasions; for one more embrace, for a prolonged caress, for keeping him warm. For holding onto each other as long as you could go.

That day as you woke up, even before you cracked your eyes open to the new day and saw him laying next to you bathed in sunlight, you smelled the pungent smell of paint lingering all around you, a smell that used to grow increasingly stronger whenever you would move closer to him for an awakening kiss. It was the puffs of this intense smell of paint, that surely could only belong to him, the first clue proving that his presence had lingered through the night, unquestionably elongated beyond the end of dawn as it scented your morning.

You didn't get to smell very often these unmistakable fragrances that his early morning body emanated during the first hours of the day; when the sun was still struggling to penetrate through the cracks of the window, and only one single faint apricot brushstroke of the first handful of sunbeams managed to slant its way inward through the curtains, only dimly lighting the room with a kind of light that was still weak. When the city was still fast asleep and for a while, just for a while, you could pretend that he had not to leave and that was your daily morning routine.

Though you knew he was undoubtedly there beside you, even if you were keeping your eyes still closed and you couldn't see him, you were so little used to his natural smell growing so intense when the sleep-daze had not left you yet, or to be greeted by the distinct hints of his makeup coating your bedroom in the early morning, that each time he chose to stay his odorous presence triggered all of your senses all over again and made you feel like the first time you'd made love, when you'd gotten to know what he smelled like in the early morning for the first time ever, on this same bed.

Now his smell had seeped into the sheets, you could smell it on your own skin, crawling up your nose as the first scent of the day. It was a smell that was made uniquely to be found in these first early golden hours, as though it came along with the rising sun only in this specific time of the day.

Despite his scent was unquestionably intoxicating to you in any time of day, being finally able to smell the unadulterated fragrances that his skin took on when there wasn’t the city to cover and pollute it with its whiffs of dust and gunpowder was electrifying.

His morning scent was different from the one you usually smelled on his clothes when he would come home in the middle of the night; a sweeter and cotony odor that belonged solely to his bare body. Sweet hints of his slumber enveloped his morning, light masculine odour, mixed with fresh softener, stray patches of greasepaint, and the drowsy, natural smell of his most tender skin.

You breathed in, this distinct smell that gave away his presence which no doubt was close to you, and even before you opened your eyes you were already smiling.

When you finally squinted your eyes open his image wrapped in the orange haze of the early hours promised you that it would be undoubtedly a nice day, wrapped in the same pregnant smell that had wrapped you through the night.

To no surprise he was already awake, his eyes fixed on you as he supported his head on his elbow. His look was tender, and like all the other times his smile instantly called for yours, soft and irresistible. You watched him as he brought his fingers on you and gently caressed the side of your face, with his smile that grew softer each moment the pads of his fingers brushed over your temple and down to your cheek.

"Good morning," he whispered. He spoke those words unhurriedly, reveling in every single syllable, a genuine thrill across his spine in telling you those same words that he couldn’t say to you so often, or as much as he longed to. His drowsy, raspy voice was even sweeter than you remembered from the last time he’d stayed over and spent the morning with you.

A soft, still-sleepy hum fell from your lips, eyelashes fluttering shut for a heartbeat as you allowed yourself to melt in the morning warmth of his calloused hand. The overwhelming joy you felt when you could look at him past dawn, again, enveloped by this new golden light that was so rare to see on his skin, seemed to root deeper and deeper into your heart every time he could stay.

When your eyes fluttered open again you allowed yourself to take him in a little more. His makeup around the creases of his eyes and along his laughter lines was partially smudged, whose traces could be found the same amount both on his pillow and on the inside of your thighs. Your tummy tickled at the memory of it. Aimless patches of paint haphazardly seathed his every features, emphasizing even more the dimples and wrinkles that marked his skin.

His tousled hair, which fell wildly on each side of his face in a uncombed mantle, for his liking were surely as messy as his make up was. Deep forest green locks that more often than not he preferred to keep neatly slicked back for the eyes of the outside world. He cared about the way he looked, and he wanted to look good, like for a performance on a stage he want to get right; but he didn’t feel like he had to pretend with you, who could see him in a way that no one else could, who loved him in a way no one had ever done before. Who'd noticed him even when anyone didn't, since the very beginning.

He wanted to willingly show you a part of himself that he saved only for you, hidden within those bedroom walls. The disheveled, private part, the part of him with puffy eyes and sleepy face, who left wrinkled old cardigans on the chair or dirty white socks on the floor when he was too eager to taste you. The most vulnerable part of him, the one of the man of the house he'd always been, the one everyone were convinced he lacked of. Yet it’d always been easy for you to notice it.

“Good morning Mr. Handsome,” you coaxed with a grin before emitting a soft yawn. He was always beautiful to you. With make up smeared all over his features, bedhead and the blanket tangled around his hips, his morning beauty was beyond compare. “How long have you been awake watching me sleep?”

“Not that long,” a caught red-handed smile replaced his usual red-painted one, dimples spread across his cheeks as he toyed with the hem of the bedsheet that was covering your side. “Sleeping gets easier when I’m with you,” he concluded sincerely.

You hummed in understanding, bringing your hand to his arm to caress softly the tender inside of his elbow where you could feel the outline of his vein running across his biceps like a river, then you brought your fingertips to his face to caress him around his eyes, content to see that the tiredness you’d caught in his eyes the night before had diminished. It wasn’t always easy, but often your presence and the warmth of your body in contact with his granted him some rest.

He was looking at you with amused curiosity under your pads brushing tenderly along the puffiness below his eyes, so beautiful that his beauty confused you, so beautiful that he appeared an angel of the sun, and you marveled at him. The sun beginning its ascent across the horizon, slowly but surely, and the blushes of the first rays of sunshine seeping through the curtains in pink and amber pecks of light, pooled beyond his shoulders like a glowing halo and fell along his curves, emphasizing his diagonal ribs and the tip of his protruding scapula, the case where he kept his angel wings. Not being the windows fully open, throught each slot Gotham was filtering into the room the sunlit, best part of the city. He was attractive under the first dim rays of daylight, and while your hand kept caressing his features you found yourself eager to have more of him; to have a taste of his beauty, a kind of beauty that did not belong to this world.

“Give me a kiss,” you pouted.

A delighted crooked chuckle followed, before he leaned forward and gladly captured your lips, sending your mind over the farthest stars when his morning lips finally lay on yours.

You savored attentively the taste and sensations that lingered inside his mouth. The warm moisture of his tongue, the distant hint of paint you were so accustomed to onto his lips, the weight of his hand around your back as he held you close to him and guided you backwards, down to the mattres for him to settle on you. The unusual absence of smoke in his breath – life-long trademark of his kisses when you would kiss him before he had the first cigarette of the day – made you feel lightheaded, dionysiac in your actions when your tongue swiped across the back of his teeth.

Every time he spent the night over you would always try to memorize what his kisses in the early morning tasted like, to be remembered during those days when you had to wake up without him. Every time it would turn out a failed attempt, for as soon as you kissed him again in the early hours of the day you found his taste sweeter and more addictive than what you remembered, making you crave for more of him – any part of him. Impossible to forget, and even more impossible to remember.

Your tongue reached the roof of his mouth and wandered quiet eagerly, until you felt his smile against your lips. You didn’t waste time and licked his crooked tooth.

When he pulled away, the unique twinkle in his irises radiated a kind of warmth filled with tenderness, overflowed with the love he had for you. His thumb went to swipe over the corner of your mouth, a shy smile rising through your lips beneath his touch as he looked down at you, with the emerald of his eyes pouring a kind of affection that you couldn’t tell if your heart was threatening to stop or to beat faster.

Silence befell you as your eyes bore into each other’s, clearly overwhelmed for being with each other in the daylight, not running away from dawn but waiting impatiently to kiss over and over again basking together in bright sunlight. There was simply too much to say, none of the words you knew seem to measure up to your feelings. The joy of being together and not having to part from each other the night prior was beyond any attempt at describing what it was like to have a taste of the life you could have, had if things had gone differently, and the need for all your mornings to be like this. Your hand came up to bury itself into his locks and the words vanished, leaving you with only the thick lump in your throats of not being able to give voice to your love, that was so vast.

“Come take a shower with me,” he coaxed gently after a while, the tip of his nose slightly brushing yours. A simple whispered invitation as he braced himself over you, with that soft grin and gentle eyes hard to resist even if you tried.

That was the only thing he managed to say as you stroked his hair, with a cautiousness that made him feel the most loved man in Gotham City. He thought he was.

At the excitement he saw lighting up in your eyes as you nodded sleepily he pecked the corner of your mouth and got off of you before you could reply. You let out a whine when he crawled out of bed way too soon and you felt the ghost of his weight on you, but it quickly turned into a radiant smile when he streched out his hand for you to take.

With his hand in within your hold’s reach, you felt your heart flutter as you got rid of the bedsheet and flew towards him. Palpable contentment floated in the air, the echo of your stirring laughter resonated within the walls of your apartment when you took his hand and let him guide you into the bathroom.

It wasn’t uncommon for you to end up together in the shower when he came back home in the middle of the night, spent and dirty. You washed away any unwanted trace of the city on his skin, made sure he wasn’t bruised, touched him with gentle care. Another way for your hands to stay on his body a little longer, to take care of him. The time you had on hand wasn’t much, and you tried to make the most of it.

But while you loved sharing this kind of intimacy with him, you didn’t get lots of chances to take showers together early in the morning. When you finally could, you loved every second of it.

The bathroom, at other hours of the day, was the brightest room in the apartment. But with the sun still low in the sky and its rays only now beginning to stretch across the highest skyscrapers of Gotham, the still bluish atmosphere faintly dotted with barely-there yellow flecks that welcomed you as soon as you reached the bathroom told you that the city was still fast asleep, along with the total silence that permeated the neighborhood. Most likely it was still possible to discern the morning moon in the sky, right there, near the rising sun; less bright then a few hours earlier but still visible and as beautiful as it was at night, and perhaps even more.

The steam began to gradually rise upward as soon as Arthur flipped on the shower handle. You waited for the water to get warmer and took off your clothes in front of each other, taking your time, the pile of your clothes one over the other messily scattered on the tiled floor. Truthfully, your clothes had already been removed in large part the night before, but while you helped him to pull himself out of his underwear and he stripped you of his brown shirt you’d slept with, for each item of clothing going to join the pile on the floor nevertheless you were growing eager to be close without any of the smallest barrier of clothing to keep you further away.

Your bodies slowly exposed themselves to the cool air, and you took in how the only one ray of sunshine that had managed to reach you from the window fell along your naked skins, a single slash of pale glowing light cutting through the bluish of early sky.

You climbed in the tub when the steam was thoroughly filling the room, covering every nook and cranny and heating it up; the cool air that used to settle during the night when the sun wasn't there to heat up the apartment by now had vanished completely, making room for the foggy clouds of steam condensed above your heads and all around you.

As soon as you climbed in the water hit your skin, enveloping in its hot pressure. Standing across from each other you lay your hands flat on his back and pulled him into you, waiting for the water steam to wrap you up wholly. He let you guide him compliantly and invited the small of your back in within his arms, flush against each other your breats squeezed to his chest. You stayed there in his embrace, didn’t move, and let your fingers fold around the protrusion of his shoulder blades. Loving glances and complicit, soft smiles swam between you as you looked into each other’s eyes without asking for words, knowing they weren’t needed as you rejoiced in the contentment of being together and relished the sensation of the water falling on your bodies, anchoring you to each other closer like only one essence.

The water flow was the only sound you could hear, surrounded by a city that didn’t emit any noise, and it was easy for you to imagine you as the only awake people in all of Gotham; that the city and the rising sun, even if for just a while, were gifting you this moment of early morning bliss which belonged to you alone.

You wondered how people in Gotham could aim for anything but love, when for you the presence of the person you loved simply standing in front of you was enough to feel such intense happiness.

You pressed your lips on his collarbone, enjoying the warmth that his body emanated under the running water as it dampened your lips, and let them drag along the elegant curve until your mouth sank into the dip at the base of his neck where his collarbones met, where you planted an unhurried, soundly kiss. You felt him shiver beneath you, a soft sound past his lips that was a mixture of a bashfull giggle and a sigh.

His reactions to your caresses were the same as your first night together, when he'd been shown that not all hands were meant to hurt him. That some hands, your hands, longed to be gentle with him and make him feel every delicate caress that had been taken from him over the years.

The touches he got from you were still so different from those he continued to encounter on certain nights, when the city wanted him all to itself and its ferocity kept him away, that for every touch he received during those nights did increase your willing to show him that there was something else his body was intended for, and the significance of your caresses expanded.

Your grip on his shoulder blades tightened as you held him closer, and blinking your eyes shut you inhaled deeply his morning scent once again that engulfed all of your senses, your nose resting against the tender skin of his neck, until you felt the gentle tug of his hand under your chin which prompted you to lift your head up to him.

His lips were a whisper from yours, already parted as he angled his head and cupped your cheek in search of your mouth.

He kissed you, under the crashing water passionately did he kiss you, making you feel under your lips the taste of his makeup that on its way of melting away went to transfer on your lips without strain. One of your hand flew up to the nape of his neck, the warm wetness of his curls met your fingers as they adapted to the curve of your palm. He deepened the kiss even more, his tongue rolling around yours with a thoughtful slowness that made you sigh into his mouth.

So much expression was not as much in unneeded words as in that one kiss, in your saliva mingled with the water and each other’s, in your hot tongues seeking one another repeatedly and emitted low hums; expression of what it meant for you to be together as intimately as you were.

You pulled away when your hair was completely soaked and your bodies heated up, in equal amounts by the water and by your bodies so close touching one another. When you opened your eyes you noticed that his hair had flattened and darkened, looking almost ravenous under the shower flow patiently wetting each lock even when it was dyed green, modest curls taking shape above his shoulders all the while and glued to his forehead.

The remains of his make up weren't going to resist for too long, slowly beginning to dissolve in small droplets of paint-colored water along his cheekbones and jaw, a sole uneven patch found where your mouth had met his. The sight of it felt ticklish, but he seemed to be used to the feeling and didn’t give him much of a thought.

He looked so silly, with wet curls matted around his face and make up raining over his features, that you couldn’t hold back an enamored giggle when you smoothed back the stray curls covering his forehead.

Your hand lingered on his cheek, and thumb-tracing his faded-crimson laughter line the red paint easily brushed off and stained your skin. His white eyelashes had started to take possession of their natural raven color, their lushness beaded with white-coloured droplets caught along the lenght.

You stood for a few heartbeats under the showerhead, with no rush to break the loving bubble which had formed and wrapped you close under the water falling on you, warm and soporific, muffling even further the city that on its own was already entombed in a long silence, and keeping you together as one.

A kiss on the tip of his nose later you grabbed washcloth and soap, but he stopped you, halting you mid-movement.

“Let me,” he offered, his thumb grazing around your wrist. You happily did, holding them out for him with a gentle nod. Your smile grew quizzical as you watched him put the washcloth back in the soap dish hung on the wall. He chose to use his own hands, instead.

Anticipation sparkled within you as he lathered his cupped palm with a copious amount of soap, determination steering each of his actions. You wondered if he'd been craving to do it since he'd woken up, if while looking at you sleep he was thinking of his hands slipping on your wet skin, of taking care of you like you did with him, through these little ways that weren't little at all.

And then his hands were on you, gently touching you, rubbing the soap against your skin. Enveloping hints of sandalwood dispersed themselves in the air around you as soon as his hands began to roam over your body, smearing on you the same smell you loved so much to feel on his own skin. Instantly your tongue recalled how it tasted on him.

He laid his palms on your cleavage and elegant fingers followed the curve of your collarbones, mirroring what yuor mouth had just done on his, aimed to the roundness of your shoulders, your arms, and then downwards to the small of your back. His gestures were attentive, the strokes of his fingers careful to coat you thoroughly with sweet-smelling detergent. Its slickness lessened the friction of his fingers, making it easier for them to move smoothly on you and soon they got lost in the pristine suds that descended along your feminine forms, soapy tufts embellishing your naked skin like small, puffy clouds of a mid-summer sky.

When his palms reached the shape of your hips he let his fingers be led by your curves to any part of you, testing blindly every road where your body carried him.

His eyes hadn’t lost sight of you for a moment, alert gaze and lashes extended towards your silhouette willing not to miss even a reaction of your skin flexing beneath his pads, the tiny dimple on his chin deepening whenever he gave you smiles as soft as his caresses that made your heart swell in your chest.

You almost felt shy under his gaze focused on you, under his touch that was cautious, looking innocent as he passed over and followed the map carved from your curves, yet your body could recognize his hands anywhere. It recognized which hands were touching it, who the tapered fingers belonged to, the familiar sensation of the callousness of his pads rivaling with the slipperiness of the soap that eased his wandering on you, and those areas that had came alive only for him so many times could only react to his manners in the only way they know how to.

Thus, although the water was boiling hot, goosebumps arose upon feeling his touch anywhere on you, trails of shivers awakened beneath his fingers as they made their way through the slippery wetness of your skin.

Before him, you didn’t believe that intimacy could be like this. That your body would someday make its own every small and big way of loving he saved just for you, that one day it would learn which paths his touch used to take to travel on you. That one day you would be touched by someone who only wanted to take care of you. You’d never been touched the way he touched you.

“I’ve missed this,” his voice hoarse and soft, still coated with sleep, echoed within the tiled walls and broke through the soporific running water and the stream of your own thoughts. “I’ve missed touching you. Being here with you.”

His hands ghosted on your chest, drawing slow patterns over the valley of your breasts as a confirmation of what he’d told you, leaving behind them a soapy trail that signaled their passage on you. You tried to muffle the little sigh of pleasure his hands caused. While headed to your ribs he momentarily reveled in their smoothness, a sweet treat as he allowed himself to pause for a few seconds his journey on you and his hands changed course, to reach your rear and then land on the squishy crease of the back of your thigh. The damp roughness of his fingers caressed you, holding and squeezing you tenderly more into him.

Following his request to have you closer your mouth nuzzled his jawline as your palms fell on his love handles out of instinct, humble but certainly present, that were so dear to you, and you gave them a gentle squeeze.

“I’ve missed this, too,” you hummed contently, the tip of your nose brushing against the red-colored corner of his elongated smile, the paint continuing to melt away all along. The smell of greasepaint was even stronger when his skin was wet, when you were so close. “I’ve missed us.”

His eyes softened when you spoke, twinkling irises framed by heavy brows dotted with blue and white teardrops. His dimple grew against your nose in a coy smile, his heart stilled. He let your words hang in the air and didn’t reply, preferring that it be his hands to do it for him as he basked in their significance and they continued their previous descent, headed further downwards your belly, which he massaged cautiously.

The sensation of his feathery touch on the sensitive skin below your navel tickled you lightly, a pleasant whisper of fingertips that made your lashes flutter closed. “This feels so nice,” you said, prompting a low giggle from him.

When his hands drifted further down between the two of you he lowered his eyes to your inner thighs, and suddenly a proud grimace flashed through his lips when he took in the mess he’d made of you the night before, red and white paint that had pristinely painted his skin now coating yours, with strokes that were definitely much more erratic than the unblemished patterns he used to put on with such mastery.

That was the direction his hands were meaning to follow when they slid down to the inner corner of your thighs, and replicating his past moves he rubbed his careful touch onto the areas where his make up tinged your skin, washing it off as reverently as he had transferred it to you.

You muffled a sigh and reveled in how good his hands felt on you, falling into his touch even more, still expecting to feel his hands crawling down across your legs and up all over you again to wash all the soap off till the last drop.

But while his attention was on the crease of your thigh one of his hand moved deeper to reach your vulva at once, making you whimper instinctively at the sudden new sensation of his palm splay over your folds.

Not lingering, he traced the outlines of your labia in adoration before spreading you open for him, teasing a line across your slit with his middle and forefinger, marveling at your slickness already present.

He searched for your eyes and looked at you, the previous grimace already gone, replaced by the soften angularity of his features radiating only tenderness as he focused on the subtle change of your expression and you give yourself to his hands. His gaze was full of intent, wanting, and revealed the nature of his desire. Taking note of your reactions elicited by his touch he leisurely began to caress you, his fingers moving slowly and drowsily on you.

He hadn’t stopped following the path on you, but now, it was with a new sense of exploration that was almost aching as you felt your legs go weak in eagerness and his proximity ever-closer.

Between the boiling water that tickled your skin, his fingers hidden in your hot folds and your drowsy-morning mind still clouded by sleep, the wide range of stimuli overwhelmed you and it didn’t take long for your consciousness to fall into a dizzy haze, where only your darling lover managed to cut through its clouds as he trailed lazy circles around your clit and you felt the light press of his pads, smearing over you tiny clouds of soap that went to mix with the craving pooling between your legs, taking over you completely.

And then he was all around you. He was all around you all of a sudden like running water, enfolding you in his affection, enveloping you in the sweet grip of his roving on you. His caresses fell out of his hand to find a land on your inside like small, descending downpours, and you didn’t know if your skin was being wetted from the water or from his body that contained you in so many more ways than one; in the same overwhelming, ever warmer way that had wrapped you in his hold.

You braced yourself and your arm flew up around his neck by extension, his other arm clutched around your waist almost immediatly as you balanced yourself to hold you securely on to him, grounding you as your hips began to roll over his finger out of instinct and your chests met.

Emboldened by your reaction he dipped a finger inside you and suffused moans muffled by the water tumbled from your lips on an uncontainable trail, echoing within the tiled walls as you sank into his touch and lost yourself in all that he was making you feel.

He kept his gaze on you as his finger curled within you and he watched you intently, following a pattern that long ago his body just as his spirit had memorized. The imposition of his lashes over his dilated pupils, a dark dot eclipsing the emerald of his hooked eyes with raw desire for you, was in contrast with the drowsy softness his look was giving you while trying to carve the vision he had of you in the memory of his heart, catching every way your body shifted in response to him, feeling lucky and grateful to be the only person who could look at you at a time when your pleasure overcame you.

You suddenly became more conscious of his hardening cock while his body took over and he pressed himself against your thigh, sending a jolt in the midst of the fog that was still clouding your mind. You wasted no time and ran your free hand across his torso, traveling with your knuckles the coy dips of his knitted abs, the relaxed curve of his tummy. Shivers blooming where you caressed him, your fingers found and then immersed themselves into the dark curls below his navel to fell further down, between the two of you.

He felt warm and slippery when you took him solid in the palm of your hand and massaged him gently through the slow slid of your wrist, feeling his cock growing erect in your fingers wrapped around him, taking note of his breath becoming heavier in correspondence of your strokes.

You could almost picture your specular figures mirror one another as you caressed each other and your hips rocked in tandem. It felt like looking at your bodies from the outside and, at the same time, being grounded in his own roots that held you close, as you held your gaze on each other and your faces got ever closer, bringing everything out of focus except the two of you – and the loud sound of running water still keeping you together as one.

There was a shared rhythm in the undulation of your matching movements as you slipped into each other’s hands in mutual sharing, in a way that wanted to take all the time you have on hand. That morning you did have all the time in the world, of the duration of a sunny morning.

Your open mouths brushed against each other’s, your own breath spilling hot over his own and he swallowed your sounds, soft sighs occasionally falling from his lips as he listened to your every invocations and showed you that yours was as much of a pleasure for him as his own was.

Your eyes stuttered in closure as your hips accompanied his movemenets, your head threatened to fall backwards – but he leaned his head towards you and instead of falling backwards fell forward onto him when his lips captured yours in a greedy kiss and his touch settled into a steady pace.

Tongue swirling over the other tongue, low moans passing from one mouth to another, the taste of melted paint mixed with water and the sweetness of his breath invading your taste buds as your other hand went to dig into his wet green curls to feel as much of him as you could.

“I need you inside of me,” you breathed in a broken kiss, the well-known flame building up in your tummy eager to sparkle around him.

He groaned with a soft smile, and with his hand around your waist he applied a gentle pressure to walk you backwards, feet clumsily sliding and tumbling down the shower floor. You laughed silly at each other when your feet collided one step from losing your balance as he pulled you. You winced when your back touched the cold tiles, but it was only a brief sting for you felt his heated body reaching for you again.

He drew his face closer to yours, eyes lingering over your features coated with sleep as he took you in. His breath was falling soft on your face. He brought his fingers to your mouth, dragging the tip of his thumb across your bottom lip to reveal the wet inside, which he caught with a chaste, tender kiss. “Hold on to me if you think you’re falling,” he said. You nodded. You always had.

Settled comfortably, you leaned your hips into his to bring you closer to one another, and watched him as he slowly nestled himself inside you.

You relished in the way he was filling you so sweetly, your walls stretching around him odorous in the early hours of the day, his presence so warm and comfortable as you felt him find a place of belonging in every part of you.

Now that he was as close to you as was physically possible the knowledge of his presence grew stronger, reinforcing the relief that having him beyond the faded hours of the day gave you as you shared with him this secret awakening and your own body, which felt his absence in different ways every hour you weren’t with him. Every time you felt him so close and your body welcomed him so tenderly, he filled you with a kind of magic that only he could give you.

You nimbly hooked your leg over his hip to secure him inside you – secured him to stay, in any way he could. He met your gesture with one of his own and his hand slipped down to squeeze your thigh, holding your calf over him to get a better angle as he inched deeper inside you with a low grunt.

Now, with him buried deep inside you and your frame tangled aroung him, the only thing that served as a barrier between the two of you were the tiny drops of water running along your bodies, humid and fevered with passion and the yearning to join together for as long as you could.

Your hands found space on the sides of his back when his hips withdrew and he entered you again, his thrusts slow and monitored punctuated with throaty moans as he began to slide in and out of you, prompting the first endearing hints of your whines for every time his narrow waist pressed snuggly between your legs and he bottomed out.

His eyes stayed on you, long eyelashes hooded above his irises until he bowed his head to capture the sensitive spot of your neck, his favorite one. Your head lolled back against the tiled wall as you arched into him and his mouth began to follow the cords of your neck.

He sensed the beat of your heart pound under his lips when he caught the pulsating point with a greedy tongue kiss, and the love he had for you washed over him at the knowledge that every heartbeat of yours was beating for every heartbeat of his, and always would.

The tip of his nose urged onto your skin as he thrusted into you with a heavy sigh, asking you to give him more access, and you quickly angled your head in response as your eyes fluttered in pleasure. Your gaze swiped briefly towards the rest of the room, remembering that there was an outside world you’ve forgotten waiting for your return from your love-land. You noticed that the sun had started to dye your shared bathroom saffron that slowly slurped in the blue of the night prior, on its way rising and reaching the interior of all the habitations at last.

You closed your eyes, melting into the feeling of making love to the man you loved more than anything else in the early golden hours of the sunrise, and of his mouth, moving further down to cover your collarbones with open-mouth kisses full of heat and a kind of reverence that no man ever made you feel it was possible to find. His hips landed flush against yours with each thrust, going to settle in the cranny between your thighs like the piece of a puzzle that had finally found its other half.

You tried to memorize every little detail in the bliss of this moment, not knowing when you would be lucky enough to be together again in such a profound way. His groans and the slippery sound of your skins resounding in your ears, the freshness of his saliva coating your cleavage, his grease-painty scent mixed with sandalwood, the fullness of his girth that with each disconnected groan from his throat reached the farthest parts of you.

“Arthur,” you moaned, suddenly missing the weight of his gaze on you. Your hand went to his cheek to lift his head up and encourage him to look at you. His eyes were curious and hazy when you, again, finally, were under the tenderness of his gaze. You nuzzled his face, softly brushing the tip of your nose against his and making him smile. “Arthur, I love you,” you said. “Song of my life, I love you.”

Your words of love went to mingle and then dissolve with the silence of his kiss when his lips landed on yours with fervent eagerness, his moans wafting around your tongue, and with the sound of the running water continuing to come down on you like a cascade. He loved you, too.

When he pulled away the sun was streaming mercilessly through the window in the lushness of his bright light, painting a golden halo over his shoulders which made him look like an angel the same way it’d done when you woke up. It was possible to catch a glimpse of the beginning of the new day, of the city slowly starting to wake up after you with the first sounds of population muffled by the water and your own panting. The city, the sun itself, cheered and surrounded every bit of your moans fitting perfectly like a sole song, and your hips, chasing one another in cadences that carried the vibration of every gasp that from his open mouth ended hot on yours.

He paid attention to the tiny signs of your body that betrayed that you were near the apex. Your legs trembling, the desperate rotating motion of your hips, your hands gripping around his back to hold onto the little more of him you craved.

Determined to get you off he shifted subtly and his lips fondled around your breast. His tongue flicked across your nipple the way he knew would send you over the edge while his hand snickered down to your clit, simulating the same movements as before.

“Jus- ah, just like that,” you breathed, groans flowing from your mouth agape.

The combination of his cock moving inside you and his fingers circling your clit while his lips puckered around the peak of your nipple did send you over the edge the way he knew you would, yuor movements combined with his own evoking a wave of hot pleasure taking over that went to mix with the water raining on you. Your hand fell up to cling to his bicep in an embrace, hiding from you the part of the world you weren't ready to face yet as your walls clenched around him.

You gently grabbed his hair up to meet his eyes again in the hazy of your climax. A soft, surprised groan tumbled from his lips at the sudden pull, and you grinned.

“I want you to look me in the eye when you come,” you panted.

He grunted, and it didn’t take long for his hips starting to falter along, the edge of his hipbones digging against yours so deliciously once he adjusted into a rhythm that better worked for him, his grip around your calf tightening when he did so.

And then he was looking at you in the eyes.

His jaw dropped in the sweetest sound while his warm essence spilled inside you and down to the crease of your thighs. His eyes didn’t leave yours once. You held him gently in your arms, letting him ride out his orgasm until his hips came to a stop and his face fell to rest onto the hollow of your neck.

“I love you too,” he said in a dissolved sigh of relief, holding you back.

When he withdrew after a while and let go the hold of your leg you burst out laughing at the sight in front of your eyes, which instinctively made him laugh along with you.

The make up had gone completely away from his face, presenting itself only as rivulets of paint falling from his jawline and collarbones, staining and coloring his torso down to his groin throught trails of colored tears, not so different from the blue tear that he usually painted on his cheekbone.

“There’s paint everywhere,” you explained, sure that the same rivulets were also staining you. You stepped closer to admire him.

You had seen him so, so many times without make up, and so many other times you would have. But the revelation of his bare face, unveiled, showing the sweet and kind man he had always been, was a constant remark of how important you were to him. How much he trusted you and how much he loved you, to the point of willingly getting rid of the mask he wanted to wear in any other occasion every night. Continuously, except with you, who had been able to see the man he'd always been beyond the vibrant colors of his make up and his flamboyant attire.

You ran your fingers along his dark, heavy eyebrows, the wrinkles on the corners of his eyes, the scar above his upper lip, and every endearing crease of him you loved terribly, but hid by the paint you couldn’t see all the time.

“Mr. Handsome,” you said, mirroring what you’d told him earlier. You traced the apple of his cheek with your thumb. “Let me take care of it for you.”

So, just as he had soaped you, he gave himself to you, too. You also let your hands wander over every part of his body; over every edge, over every soft, intimate fold that only you knew about, along his narrow hips, his stomach and the expanse of his back, whose forms were more unique rather than rare yet somehow, every time you touched them, you felt like they belonged exactly, solely, to the shape of your hands. His eyes fluttered tenderly all through the time as he melted into the feeling of your caresses touching the most vulnerable parts of him. You made him feel loved in a way no one's ever done before. You rubbed soap on his skin until every trace of make up was replaced by foamy trails of sandalwood. Finally there he was, no stain color anymore to coat the beauty of the man you loved most.

When you both rinsed the soap off each other’s bodies and stepped out of the shower you got caught in the brightest sun that was bathing the bathroom. You wrapped a towel around his hips and laid a feathery caress below his navel, making him smile and whisper a quiet ‘‘thank you,’’ and he helped you put on your bathrobe, gathering your hair in the spongy fabric to let them dry. His gaze was intoxicated with love as he watched you steal a pair of his white socks along with your panties and flip over his white shirt, which you’d washed for him the day before.

While he was reaching for his red suit you stealthily dug out your red lipstick from the top drawer, taking advantage that he wasn’t looking, and wrote “I ❤︎ you” on the steam-foggy mirror with a kind of girlish handwriting that perfectly showed how happy he made you.

When he turned back to you and his eyes caught the mirror, the toothy grin he flashed at you was brighter than the sun currently blinding the whole city. He scooped you up in his arms and drew you into him in enamored playfulness, capturing your lips in the sweetest kiss as you looped your own arms around his neck. He didn’t let go of you when you broke the kiss; instead, his hands found the back of your thighs and held you close.

You rested your forehead on his, breathing him in. “I want to make you breakfast before you’ve to go,” you whispered against his lips, swallowing the melancholy away that was already bubbling in the pit of your stomach at the truth that he couldn’t spend all day with you.

“Pancakes and maple syrup?” He enthused.

“With a cup of black coffee,” you completed, “and a kiss.”

“Mhm, my favorite part,” he hummed dreamily with that incredible soft-spoken voice of his that always made your heart flutter. “You understand me so well.”

His laughter fanned over your own, another stolen kiss on his lips before you unbuttoned your foreheads pressed together and he let go off you. “I’ll be waiting in the kitchen. Don’t be too long, my sweet love.”

He stared at his crimson vest and stood still after watching you walk through the door, his mind dwelling; there was still time to put the make up on and dress up. He knew the bliss of your morning hours was about to run out and he’d better get ready, but it felt too early. And truthfully, it also felt silly. He didn’t need it with you. Instead, reminding himself not to miss the chance to come back to his ordinary clothes whenever he could, that were much more comfortable than the vest and slacks he had to wear all day, he opted for his usual white socks, brief, and the red sweater you loved to see on him – the red color now was a nice contrast to his green hair, according to you, and he looked very handsome.

He gave himself a once-over in front of the mirror, meeting the sight of your handwritten affection overtake the reflection of himself bare, and eagerly hurried to come back to you, not wanting to waste one more second of you.

By then the sun was high in the sky, and peering from outside the windows of the living room bathed all the furnitures with its royal presence. The kitchen was awash in the golden light of first morning when he stepped into and saw you rummaging with two espresso mugs at the counter.

The softest of his toothy smiles brimming with love and adoration met your eyes when you saw him walk to you in his morning, unadulterated beauty. The way the sunlight caught his green locks took your breath away every time in the most furious, unapologetic way, and you loved how the color of his irises took a different shade in the right lighting. Now, with the sunlight hitting them directly, his eyes looked like crystal blue rather than emerald green.

You couldn’t help but marvel at all the ways his beauty carried to mold to the natural world and all that he was, handsome as though he'd stolen all the beauty of the universe for himself, feeling exuberant at the sight of him wear his homely clothes, and happy that you could savor his raw beauty for a while longer as you glanced at his bare legs and underwear. You couldn't get enough of him.

As you looked at him you realized that, whether was the sunlight or the nightlight to surround your moments of love and your whispered conversations, being in love with Arthur Fleck felt like being wrapped in the embrace of the mouth of the sun in any time of the day. For he was the light of your life, and you wanted to spend the rest of your days under the warm radiance of his love who always made you feel safe, warm, and protected.

He searched for you across the room, hummingbirds and the coffee pot percolating gently in the background, and instantly pulled you into his arms in the morning light to kiss you, and kiss you, and kiss you, over and over again as you fell into his hold and looped your arms around his neck once more, tasting the sunlight on each other's lips and tucking these moments in your hearts for when he couldn’t stay.

•••••

tag list: @arthurflecksgirl @arthur-flecks-lovely-smile @sweet-nothings04 @flowerglitterwoman @forever-fleck @ajokeformur-ray

#I feel very self conscious about posting pieces so long but oh well #jokerownsmysoul #arthur fleck x reader #arthur fleck x you #joker x reader #joker x you #Arthur Fleck #Soul writes

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erabundus · 1 year

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anonymous &&. said... D A M N

i want the records to show i gave milla the option of having me post the dream sequence separately, but they said NO ... so have over 2k of ren vividly hallucinating a metaphor ( for his will to live ) within a metaphor ( for his entire life ) only to wake up and continue vividly hallucinating but in a different way.

we're matching length, right — ? /j

#anonymous #𝟎𝟎𝟏 : 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧-𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. ◟ ooc .◝#( if you clicked on that post w/o realizing how long it was going to be... i'm so sorry. )#( i appreciate milla so very much for letting me just pop off w/o feeling self conscious about how much i ramble )#( they are such a wonderful rp partner & also a wonderful overall friend 🥺💖)#( ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY PUT UP WITH MY NOVELS DJJDK )

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nimeve · 2 years

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Ik I've been rambly w my posts today. Just know I've been dissociating like all day

#And when I wasn't dissociating I was hyperfocused #Basically i apologize for myself #But also it is my blog and I've had such a long period of being self conscious about what I was posting and how I came off and who would se #And I can't be assed to care anymore #It's my blog I get to make stupid posts and talk about personal shit and never shut the fuck up in the tags #Anyway I really need to go fucking sleep n prob take an aleve I feel like I'm gonna fall over #I have to go vote tomorrow bleh being a responsible adult

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vegancas · 2 years

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@strangeskeletonboy tagged me for the top 5 songs i'm listening to at the moment.... well tbh I'm just listening to simple plan's new album on repeat, and then i get music from bridgerton stuck in my head sometimes so, in no particular order

the antidote - simple plan

wrecking ball (bridgerton version)

dancing on my own (bridgerton version)

how deep is your love (bridgerton version)

anxiety - simple plan + best day of my life - simple plan (sorry i'm cheating but i can't pick)

i tag @gay-cajun-vampire-sidepiece @sapphonnaise @horrorfilmlesbian @fourevereatoncheesebuns @allthingssecret @monolithmp3 @felurians @sweetchildofrocknroll remembering urls off the top of my head is hard so anyone else who sees this if you want?

#haven't done one of these for a long time thank you for tagging me <3 sorry my taste in music is #i'll listen to everything anyone posts coz it'll be fun to get to know you all better!#((((don't look at me i feel self-conscious about posting this))))#going out of my comfort zone for the mutuals (beloved)#the desire to not be seen/call attention to myself is strong

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tiktaaliker · 2 years

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@m1sosazai ok ok ok SO i guess this rant is more about pokemon evolution in the darwin sense of the word but i have to talk about that first before getting into the domestication stuff (or i guess i don't have to but i want to)

putting it under a readmore because it really is horrifically long i am so sorry

to start it off, one thing ive thought about a lot is how a pokemon evolving compares to irl evolution. and surface level? not a ton of similarities other than "one creature becomes different creature." like, normally, evolution is VERY gradual, takes place over an EXTREMELY long time, and affects the species over many generations rather than the individual. Pokemon evolution, on the other hand, happens all at once, is instantaneous, and affects the individual and not the species (especially since all pokemon hatching from eggs are base evos? VERY wack when trying to compare it to macroevoltuion)

AND speaking of eggs, egg groups???? VERY wack. usually in an evolutionary sense a split into a different species is defined by members of the different populations no longer being able to have fertile offspring (not gonna get into the weird world of hybrids here because that would make this even LONGER, so im just going to. completely ignore stuff like wolfdogs and domestic/wildcat hybrids for now lol). so, like, if you're trying to fit pokemon into our normal taxonomic system, all pokemon sharing egg groups can TECHNICALLY be considered different breeds of the same species. like dog breeds? rattata is to copporajah as a chiuahua is to a Samoyed. and then you add in the fact that a lot of pokemon have double egg groups and then it gets even MORE complicated and weird

so, yeah, sure, pokemon evolution and irl evolution aren't one to one analogs, and same with pokemon species and animal. seems pretty obvious, looking at it. but then the question is, what IS evolution?

one thing i considered is that it's something akin to metamorphasis in insects and amphibians. and in some aspects, sure yeah it works! there's even some pokemon where the middle evolution is a cocoon. there's some pokemon that are amphibians with a tadpole/larval stage!! but the main thing that makes it kinda weird is that, with the exception of the handful of baby stage pokemon? you can throw the first or second stage into the daycare and still get an egg. one of the biggest things about having larval stages and undergoing metamorphosis is that reproduction isnt possible until the final stage!! like for bugs especially that is the entire point.

ALSO, there's the fact that a pokemon's evolution is STILL a different pokemon than the previous stages. a bullfrog tadpole is still a bullfrog, and a monarch butterfly caterpillar is still a monarch butterfly, but a weedle is not a beedril. im mostly basing this on the fact that later stage pokemon can learn different moves/can get different abilities after evolving, and even get different typing. i guess you COULD argue that a line of pokemon are technically all still the same species of pokemon a la caterpillar and butterfly, and the moves/abilities are just the result of form begetting function, but that's not as fun for me in this fantasy creature scenario so i am opting to ignore that point. so while i like the comparison superficially im not gonna just accept it at face value. there is TOTALLY more going on here.

so, my theory is that its sort of a strange mix of darwinian evolution and larval stages. it's the mechanics of larval stages with the end result being more similar to irl evolution. i think that, both genetically and physically, pokemon are far more malleable than real animals. something i also think is interesting that plays into all this is the fact that pokemon usually evolve via "experience" and "levels," which is basic in a gameplay sense but biologically? absolutely FASCINATING to me. this is already really long and i havent even gotten to what i really wanted to talk about so ill keep this short but i think pokemon are beings with EXTREMELY high amounts of potential energy, and can all somehow harvest energy released by defeating other pokemon, convert it into biomass to become stronger, and can sometimes use that energy to trigger evolution. but that's probably something i should save for a different multi-paragraph ramble in the future lol

and THEN there is actual literal macroevolution happening in pokemon that we can directly see the results of. regional variants!! pokemon that have different typing and appearances and sometimes even evolutions that change in different regions!! and SHELLOS MY FRIEND MY BELOVED SHELLOS. there is direct and stated evidence that populations of pokemon CAN undergo macroevolution. this is a canon thing that happens.

but even then, it occurs WAY faster and WAY more dramatically than how it would occur naturally. like there's some that could be argued mightve happened after a split a very long time ago (aka all the alolan variants, island ecosystems ARE fantastically good at isolating populations after all), but then we have the hisuian forms. so, the hisui region in legends arceus is roughly analogous to meiji era japan (if i recall correctly??) so ill be operating under the assumption that the game takes place sometime between 1870 to 1900. also fun fact because i literally just realized this, the origin of the species was older than the meiji era. the more you know.

ANYWAYS, i would like to talk about sneasel. im focusing on that line in particular both due to the connection to hisui/sinnoh (weavile being introduced in gen IV) and the fact that it's a new evolution INSTEAD of a modern evolution. so, for a lot of pokemon, its not exactly clear where they ACTUALLY originated from; it can't always be assumed that the region where we first see them is where they're ACTUALLY from, like with yungoos being stated to "imported from another region" into alola. so with the other hisuian forms (especially pokemon that can't be found normally in dpp), it's plausible to think that MAYBE these are much older offshoots of pokemon that died out entirely and no longer occupy the region, like with the slugma line, or even the qwilfish line, since it's plausible that after a while after hisuian qwilfish died out, regular qwilfish might've just migrated from somewhere else to the waters around iron island and filled in the nice again. or its like the zoura and basculin lines, which are both. pretty much already dead. or with ursaluna and kleavor, its that the conditions they required to evolve don't really happen anymore. i could go into a whole OTHER rant about electode but im already getting off topic enough

ANYWAYS. sneasel. i believe that of all the regional forms sneaseler is the wildest in terms of implications. first of all, TWO new types, fighting and poison? every other hisuian pokemon other than the zoura line have at least 1 shared typing from the other forms. and unlike kleavor, which evolves ALONGSIDE scizor, sneasel evolves into sneaseler INSTEAD of weavile. a hisuian sneasel cannot evolve into a weavile. so what happened??? what i am trying to imply is that maybe hisuian sneasel came BEFORE the modern dark/ice senasel, and evolved in the darwinian sense to fill a different niche. hisuan sneasel is implied to be a more direct hunter, while the typical sneasel is infamous for stealing other pokemon's eggs. additionally, im basing on hisuian sneasel coming first on the fact that it's REALLY unlikely for a species to re-evolve a trait that was previously lost.

considering that hisuian sneasel and sneasler were around as recently as the 1900s, that's like. a relatively VERY short time for something that major to change. im guessing that sneasel got REALLY close to complete extinction but eventually bounced back as the modern form via a bottleneck situation, but that still seems like a very short time for something that major to happen? so like. to try to sum my thoughts up quickly because i am becoming hyper aware of how LONG this is getting holy SHIT, something about the nature of pokemon as a whole allows them to evolve in a darwinian sense MUCH faster than in real life; since just being in a region can change a pokemon's evolution, its possible that maybe outside conditions can actively cause mutations in the egg, allowing a population to adapt faster and more efficiently to their environment?

and so, FINALLY, i can actually talk about domestication. the whole point of this rant in the first place????? whoops.

in real life, domestication is a VERY long, VERY arduous process. it's pretty much a type of targeted evolution. it's usually either a very deliberate process in terms of selectively breeding for desirable traits, like with a dog's temperament or a sheep's wool production. its NOT something that can be done quickly, and there has to be a trait to select for in the first place. there are also some cases of self-domestication, where the animal directly benefits from being comfortable around humans. for example, domestic cats and house mice are both self-domesticated.

my theory is that, in the modern day, EVERY pokemon is technically domesticated.

so, here's some of my reasoning; for one, you can't just go outside and grab a raccoon from your yard and expect it to act like a pet. it's not a domesticated animal, its WILD. on the other hand, you CAN grab a cat or pigeon off the city street and you have a chance of taming it down if you work at it enough. they're not wild, just feral. in the same reasoning, a wolf is gonna be WAY more dangerous to be around than a stray dog, and a wolfdog (i know i said i was going to ignore those but shhhh its my rant i can pick and choose what i discuss in too much depth) is going to have a SIGNIFICANTLY different demeanor than a dog.

in the modern pokemon games, however, you can just catch whatever pokemon you want and you can pet it and dress it in funny hats. you can catch a literal dragon and like 5 minutes later PLAY FETCH WITH IT. additionally, you, the trainer, are never directly attacked by wild pokemon. you have to fight them, but only with your own pokemon. when you run out of pokemon, you are able to flee and get to a pokecenter relatively unharmed!!! no matter where you were!!!

in hisui, on the other hand? these pokemon are actively trying to kill you. most pokemon in the game, when they see you , will either run away or just start swinging. and, yeah, you can catch them, and can use them in battle, but there's a few things different; there's no set turn order, with each pokemon going once per round. you just gotta hope you're fast enough to get a hit or two in. there are NO double battles. the only time you fight more than one pokemon are with diamond/pearl clan, who don't use pokeballs; i like to think that they don't actually directly command their pokemon in these battles, maybe they give a few but its mostly just the pokemon doing their own thing. and in those, you only get one pokemon at a time. this, along with akari/rei's trouble with pikachu not listening, implies that it's typical for a trainer to not have as much... i woudn't call it control, that sounds too harsh, but i think its more like the trainer and pokemon don't have as much immediate understanding on how the whole battle thing is supposed to work, i guess.

so at some point between the time of legends: arceus and modern times, pokemon as a whole became domesticated. i think it's reasonable to think this something that COULD happen in that span of time, since i already explained here my thoughts on how pokemon can undergo change much quicker and at a much larger scale than irl animals.

as to how it happened? for one, i feel like the whole thing the diamond and pearl clans are doing with both nobles and just the pokemon they partner with is like. a perfect example of domestication. like they are probably more likely to keep pokemon that do well with humans around their settlements, and just like. idk i feel like whole noble thing could end up with domestication even if its completely accidental. like im pretty sure the ride pokemon in particular are probably self-domesticated at LEAST.

but ok, my WILDEST theory as to why even in legends you can catch a pokemon that wants to rip your arms off and five minutes later chill out with your new buddy? and how pokemon as a whole went from being potentially deadly to a mild inconvenience while traveling between towns? pokeballs. it was pokeballs.

so, like, i think catching a pokemon in a pokeball is kinda similar to evolution in pokemon, in that the energy involved in the process allows for rapid and dramatic change. like, ok, a big motif with evolution? the pokemon is shrouded by a glowing bright light. what happens to a pokemon when it's caught? there's a bright light before it enters the pokeball. its definitely WAY less of that energy than with evolution, but i think it's probably VERY similar. so pretty much part of the whole appeal with pokeballs is that it speeds up the domestication process in the same way evolution speeds up... evolution. it's the pokemon universe's equivalence of selectively breeding wolves to make a dog (and falling into my previously proposed theory of an individual pokmeon acting almost like a species in terms of evolution)

and then, in legends arceus, you're expected to catch a LOT of pokemon. you're probably going to catch multiple of most of the pokemon. and you're ALSO gonna be releasing these pokemon. those are no longer wild pokemon, they're feral, and mixing in with the rest of the population. over time, this mass catching and releasing for research ends up adding a LARGE amount of domestic pokemon to the wild. with pokemon being so adaptable, its possible that these pokemon pass their better temperament towards humans onto their offspring, and now there are pokemon that are more domestic without ever being caught, and all this compounds over several generations until pokemon are no longer trying to murder every person they make eye contact with.

ok hm i think all that might sound a bit colder than i wanted it to? im mostly just having a moment about how being a pokemon trainer is inherently an act of love and trust going both ways. you have to trust your pokemon! your pokemon has to trust you! and a pokeball is a symbol of that trust and also the result of people trying to form a bond with these strange creatures!!!! and i just think that it would be really, REALLY cool if, the pla protag's effort to make people trust pokemon more is also causing pokemon to trust people more!!!! it goes BOTH WAYS.......

ok ok ok and as a final note, my thoughts on starter pokemon!! i think they were the earliest attempts at domesticating pokemon, and the process was a lot more similar to irl domestication rather than the pokeball theory. I like to think that maybe the Cyndaquil at least was captive bred (its kinda a mouse and kinda a ferret and BOTH of those are domesticated animals). the Oshawott is a bit iffy, but based on the final evolution im guessing it was chosen specifically for battle prowess. ROWLET tho. ROWLET. IT'S FALCONRY. IT'S FALCONRY!!!!

falconry is a REALLY old practice that i find EXTREMELY fascinating because. yeah those are still completely wild animals even today pretty much every falconry raptor is going to be wild caught. but falconry is also a thing of trust and understanding the bird's wants and needs and!!! it just fits SO well with the themes of pokemon!!! literally the whole reason why i started thinking about pokemon domesticity so much was because i could NOT stop thinking about decidueye falconry ever since the starters for legends arceus was revealed.

EDIT because i forgot to mention!! so i think that with the starters, by modern times they're all 100 percent completely domesticated to the point of no longer naturally being found in the wild. sure, youll find some wild ones sometimes, but theyre gonna be random, small clumps of pokemon probably released by a trainer that was breeding them. like feral cat colonies. typically you're only gonna be finding a starter from a pokemon professor, or a breeder specifically focusing on starters. they used to have wild populations in the wild (ie sinnoh starters found the wild in legends arceus) but all eventually just. stopped existing in the wild for some reason or another?

anyways thank you for coming to my ted talk

#howling #yeah. yeah when i said 10 paragraphs i mightve been underestimating myself #long post #pkmn #pkmn hc #<- gonna be using that tag for my pokemon headcanon rambles from now on just to keep it in one place #also a lot of this was from the top of my head so some of the shit i say probably isnt accurate but like. whatever.#its my headcanon i get to make the rules #sorry if any of the stuff i explained seems obvious i just really enjoy explaining shit like this #writing it out makes it make more sense in my own brain #this is about the same length as some of the history offers preservation chapters. whoops.#hahaha little self conscious about this but whatever. i am trying so hard to not care about if people dont like my ideas #like. cringe culture might be dead but posting shit like this makes me feel like its going to come back but just for me in particular #speculative pokescience

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