#have i really not seen any of these guys for 90 chapters?

[peachycrisis]

Human Again

Chapter 6

—————

Angel and Alastor talk, and Alastor Opens Up.

Angel makes a discovery.

—————

Alastor looked around his new radio tower. It had the same spark and feel as his older one, but seemed to be a lot more modernized. Gold accents littered the walls, red vines hung from the ceiling. On the far right side of the studio was a huge console, perfect for broadcasting his radio shows, and on the far left was a comfy couch stained blood red, modernized but also still retro, just the way Alastor liked it. Alastor stood and took in everything he was seeing. Even though they didn’t know that he was alive, they still took the time to rebuild his precious tower.

Even though he could have been dead, they still made it for him regardless.

Why?

“Hey, smiles..?” Angel asked, tapping on the man’s shoulder. “You okay? You’ve been kind of.. standing there for a hot moment.”

Alastor sighed, then smiled, wiping the now dried tears off of his cheek. The walk to the tower had been relatively silent, besides the occasional sniffles and hiccups from the former deer man. Alastor ran his hand through his curly locks and turned his head to face the spider, who was directly next to him.

“Why?”

Angel paused.

“What do you mean Al?”

“Why did you do this?” Alastor asked softly, he turned away from Angel and looked down at the ground, his hands started fidgeting.

His hands hadn’t done that in nearly 90 years.

“I mean, I could of been dead… I should have been dead- I… I…” the man stuttered, he dropped the smile once more as he began to scratch his arms in attempt to ground himself- to gain control once more. “You guys didn’t know that I was alive, and you still rebuilt this for me… why?”

Angels breath hitched at the vulnerability that was radiating from the former demon, no one knows what truly happened to him- but one thing is for sure, his stubborn ass has suddenly become capable of ‘human emotions.’

or as close to human emotions as a psychopath could have.

“Huh,” Angel softly chuckled, “seems like the stick has finally shot out your ass, huh smiles?”

Alastor shot him a glance, tears in his eyes.

“You know I don’t understand your… millennial, gen.. f y z- whatever it is terminology, Angel Dust.”

“Al, we lived around the same time, I died like 10 years after you-“ Angel looked down to see the man’s hands scraping away at the skin on his already scared forearms- each scratch leaving a new red mark on his tanned skin.

How did he get those scars? He has always been covered up, showing even the slightest amount of skin is seen as scandalous on him.

But that isn’t important, the important thing right now is comforting his… friend…?

Angel moved to stand in front of Alastor, and softly grazed his hand on top of the others. The man’s hands were warm and clammy- yet soft and strong. He grabbed the man’s hand, preventing it from doing any more damage to his forearm, and squeezed it tight, he could feel the man’s hands shake in his grip, so he began to attempt to soothe him by running his thumb up and down across the soft skin of his outer hand. This seemed to work well enough, as he was able to see the man in front of him begin to relax.

God, he looks actually… really adorable…? Angel thought to himself as he used his other hand to grab Alastors other hand, holding them in front of him, between the two men. He squeezed both of the man’s hands.

“I know you’re scared Smiles, and that is okay. If any of us were in your situation, we would be scared too.” His glance moved from the hands that separated the two, to the man in front of him- making eye contact with Alastors brown eyes.

“And we rebuilt your tower because we care about you, and we wanted to you have something familiar to come back to when you came back to the hotel, whether that had to take weeks, months, or even years. We did it not because we felt bad, but because we care about you. We want you to feel comfortable and we all knew deep down that even if you didn’t show it, or even think about it directly- we knew, and I think you know too, that you do deeply care about this hotel, whether you believe in Charlie’s dream of redeeming sinners or not. We know deep down you wouldn’t give up on us, so we will never give up on you- whether your the radio demon, or your true self.”

Angel moved his left hand from Alastors, and placed it on his chest.

“And I believe that this experience has allowed you to finally figure out who you are again, rather than the image of what you want people to think you are.”

Alastor stared at Angel, mouth wide open and glistening with tears, he looked away from the spider.

“My mother always used to tell me “We just gotta think good thoughts and hope that everything passes. A smile is a valuable tool, it assures that through anything that comes our way- we will always be the ones in control,” My mother was my best friend. You know, people like me weren’t treated very well during my time of living, dear. It was really her and me against the world.”

Alastor sighed, and used his newly free hand to wipe some stray tears that had escaped.

“When she died, I promised her that I would never let me feel inferior ever again. And that’s exactly what happened, in life- and in death. I became a smiling psychopath in life, just like many of the people that were brought down here, but down here I had become a monster, and there’s no redeeming that.”

Alastor sadly chuckled, as Angel listened, watching his face as he opened up. He was nearly unrecognizable.

“Even though I don’t want to admit it, occasionally I do think about what she would think of me… heh, she would probably think I was a monster, which is reasonable. She would probably be pissed off at the fact that I have used the radio accent for nearly 90 years.”

“Radio accent?” Angel asked, was the transatlantic accent not his actually accent? What?

“Yes, this is not my original accent- I have just spoke long enough with this one that I had practically forgotten how to speak in my natural voice. I grew up in a Creole family in Louisiana, which is surprising considering how I looked as a demon. I tried so hard to… as kids these days would say, “white wash” myself in order to fit in more with the people around us, which I seemed to be eternally cursed with once I got to hell… the white wash, the smile, the accent, the works.” Alastor chuckled, running his hands, once again through his curly locks.

“Being back in this body brings back some… conflicting feelings, especially when it comes to my life and death. It feels like reverse puberty.” Alastor sighed, finally escaping the grip of Angel Dust- finding the nearest chair to him- which happened to be the blood red couch, and practically fell into it.

Angel watched as the man’s hair bounced with the movement with his head, how his smile began to slightly resurface- showcasing his pink lips. He watched as the man’s eyes fluttered closed as he sighed, finally relaxing after a while. He took note of the man’s shirt, half undone- and his sleeves rolled up half wa-

Oh no.

No. No. No.

Angel can’t.

Or maybe, just possibly he has changed enough.

#alternate universe #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel fanfiction #alastor hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel alastor #human alastor #charlie hazbin hotel #alastor #charlie morningstar #hazbin hotel charlie #angel dust hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel angel dust #angel dust #radiodust

[internallyinarticulate]

Sally Face lore from the Sally Face: Strange Nightmares Kickstarter

I haven’t seen anyone do this yet (as far as I can tell!) and I’ve always admired the sally face community. With how lovely the community continues to be and with the revitalization it’s been given due to the sally face kickstarter; I’ve decided to come out of my shell and give back to the community I admire! I’ve gone through every single scrap of info through the entirety of the kickstarter (streams, lore given to backers, and some questions he answered on twitter!) to put all the lore revealed by Steve Gabry himself into one place for everyone to use however they wish! If anyone would like to watch the streams then please go to:

Beneeta_K (Twitch Streamer)’s 2 streams they did with Steve Gabry:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1739974869  (Where they play the board game from the kickstarter)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1752120791  (The kick off Q&A they did at the start of the kickstarter)

And the 4 streams on Steve Gabry (Portable Moose)’s youtube channel will be located under the ‘Live’ tab. Here’s a link to his channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PortableMoose/streams

This is made with love from a sally face fan who’s been around since chapter one came out all those years ago, thanks for making such a wonderful game Steve! I hope you all enjoy! <3 (Sorry it's so late!)

Pink is Steve Gabry answering questions and Black is the Questions!

-THE STREAM LORE-       (in no particular order)

:Q: “Are any of the gang in a band?”

A: “They tried to start a band together at some point, but they didn't do much with that.”

Q: “What instrument does each character play?”

A: “Sal plays the guitar, Todd plays the keyboard,Larry plays the drums, Ash sings and plays bass.” Steve at the end says, ‘By the way, I didn’t say they play well. They loved it though.’

Q: “What kind of music did the band make and what were they named?”

A: “They would have played grunge rock with a 90’s vibe with the keyboard.” 

(Steve says in the stream that they did not pick a band name, he would imagine that they would have a long piece of paper with a lot of band names on them, some crossed out some not, but they wouldn’t have been able to pick one lol.)

Q: “What song would Sal absolutely love?”

A: “Before he met Larry, he was mostly into rock, grunge, and punk, And then when he met Larry he started really getting into metal.”

Q: “What is Sal's favorite baked good?”

A: “You know what, let’s make it cinnamon rolls.”

Q: “Is Gizmo okay?”

A: “Gizmo is fine, he’s doing good.”

Q: “What is the story about the homeless man on floor 5?”

A: “Well he’s a man, he is homeless, he is on floor 5, sometimes he’s not on floor 5; how ‘bout that?”

Q: “Who was the intended person for Travis’s note?”

A: “I’ve answered this question many times, but people don’t like the answer, so they keep asking. So the answer is, I have someone in mind, but I purposely left it open for you guys to think about who you want it to be.”

Q: “What is Sal’s ideal date night?”

A: “Having a date.”

A: “I think he would enjoy doing something in nature, he would also enjoy just going to see a horror movie, playing video games, going to a concert, something like that.” 

Q: “What is Larry’s ideal date?”

A: “Definitely listening to metal, in some form, going to a metal concert, getting some pizza.”

Q: “What is Travis’s ideal date?”

A: “I feel like getting far away from Nockfell and doing something outside the city, getting away from his parents and school. Just a place where he doesn’t have to be around people he knows.”  

Q: “What is Ashley’s ideal date?”

A: “She probably would like to go to an art museum or some sort of art exhibit or maybe going to see a play.”

Q: “Todd’s ideal date?”

A: “Definitely going to some sort of science center, going to see some kind of new technology, some educational thing you would enjoy doing or going to a paranormal convention.”

Q: “Did the four horsemen have sleepovers?”

A: “Oh yeah, 100%, all the time.”

Q:“What is the story between Janice and Ray?”

A: “They’re Todd’s parents, they are a little bit ‘burned out’, you know? They’re very loving, open-minded, and kind hearted. They’re a little bit ‘burned out’, they’re spacy, Janice is a little more ‘burned out’ than Ray you may have noticed. She gets ‘burned out’ and forgets what she’s talking about a lot.”

Q: “Is Ash emo?”

A: “No, I mean you have to remember when they're in high school it’s like the 90’s it wasn’t really, you know… there’s Daria hahaha.”

Q: “If Travis survived from the hole,what do you think he’d be up too?”

A: “What do you think he’d be up to?”  

Q: “What are the kiddo’s favorite colors?”

A: “Sal’s is blue or pink, Larry is red or black, Ash is purple, Todd is green, Travis likes black.”

Q: “Why did Jim’s puzzlebox turn into a rubix cube?”

A: “Why did that happen?”

Q: “Where did Gizmo get all those stickers from?”

A: “Where does anyone get stickers from?”

Q: “Is Gizmo a salmon guy or chicken guy?”

A: “He loves both, Gizmo just likes to eat.”

Q: “What is Larry’s love language?”

A: “Larry’s is physical touch.”

Q: “What is Sal’s love language?”

A: “Sal’s love language is definitely quality time.”

Q: “Does Sal have a game cube?”

A: “Yeah, he has a game cube.”

Q: “What flavor is Addison Tea?”

A: “It’s Addison flavor.”

Q: “What is the vending machine’s love language?”

A: “Physical touch.”

Q: “What is the homeless guy on floor 5’ love language?”

A: “Here’s the thing with the homeless guy, before it would have been giving gifts, before the way he is now.”

Q: “How often does Travis cry?”

A: “I think he probably cries frequently but secretly and intensely.”

Q: “Is Todd autistic?”

A: “You know he might be on the spectrum, he’s very socially allowed and very blunt. He doesn’t have a lot of social cases.”

Q: “What was Todd and Neil’s first date?”

A: “They met in the library, their first date, probably would have just been going for a walk somewhere and talking.”

~Backer Bonus Lore Given~

-Waiting for Chocolate: In episode two, chug is downstairs waiting for the vending machine guy to come and refill it with delicious snacks. He usually comes every other Saturday and Chug is always there to greet him. However, this time, the vendor does not show up. I originally had a side story planned about the vending machine guy going missing and Chug being very concerned about that. Even though that story didn't make it into the game, the detail is still there. The vending machine guy is gone and his machine remains empty for the rest of the game.

-The Open Road: Ash's dad, Adam Campbell, was a mechanic and always had some project going on in the garage. One of his prized possessions was eventually passed down to Ashley, once she was old enough. It was something she had her eye on for a long time: his motorcycle. Adam even taught Ash to to ride at a young age. So she was already comfortable riding it by the time she was legally allowed to. It became second nature to her. Sometimes she goes out riding, just to clear her head. Ash loves the freedom of the open road.

-Nutmeg: Grieving Mrs.Gibson recives an unwanted gift from a relative. It's a little brown rabbit. Somehow this animal is meant to fill the hole left by her late husband. The rabbit was seen as a burden to Mrs.Gibson, just another thing to take care of. She was too old for this. She didn't even bother to name it at first. Then, slowly, she found herself growing attached to the little critter. When the rabbit was one year old, Gibson made a special meal for her and finally gave her a name. She decided to call her Nutmeg. A nickname that Gibson's husband used to call her.

-Twitter Spontaneous AMA-

Q: Did Travis know about the Devourers of God and Kenneth's involvement in it, or was he kept in the dark about it until he joined?

A: He didn't know when he was younger.

Q: Did the characters come first or were they designed after you came up with the concept for the game?

A: Sal came first, then Larry with the basic idea, then the story and other characters came at the same time.

Q: Two very important questions: Would you consider making it possible to pet gizmo in sally face two (if he's still alive) and do you have this wedding photograph in higher quality?

A: Maybe! And it was drawn at that small scale, so this is the in-game asset is as high res as it gets-

Q: When is the next video game coming?

A: I'm HOPING to release a small project with Wither Studios (nothing SF related) MAYBE towards the end of this year. These things are very hard to predict in advance. Which is why games are always being delayed. So I try not to make promises until I know for sure.

Q: Will we get the $250k stretch goal on the Kickstarter even if we don't reach it?

A: I think we'll definitely pass that goal (The goal at the end was $306,947!)

Q: Is Sal legally allowed to drive since he is missing an eye?

A: Yes!

Q: Did you write and sing all of the Sanity's Fall songs?

A: Yeah, I did all the music including everything for the SF songs.

Q: What program did you use to make the sally face art?

A: I used Photoshop and a Wacom drawing tablet.

Q: Why were Chug and Soda dull when cleansing the apartment?

A: You can actually find this answer in the game! If you play close attention during that part.

Q: 1) Why does Sal grab his pigtails in Packerton's apartment when he thinks they're about to get caught? Is that something he does for comfort? 2) When did Sal first start expressing himself with his hair, and what did Henry initially think?

A: 1) It's a nervous response. Just like someone may cover their face or mouth when scared. 2) Once his mom die, he let his hair grow out. Soon after it got long enough, he started with the pigtails. Henry thought it was a little odd at first but was fine with it.

Q: Did it ever cross your mind to add voice acting to the game? Recently watched Featherfall studio's fan-dub and the game looks even more interesting with voices.

A: It's something that I've thought about but I would be SO picky about getting the right voices. So idk. Plus it'd be a big pain to add retroactively. Maybe more likely in the second game, if I decide to add voices.

Q: We know Travis and Todd are gay, but what about the other characters? Do you have any idea?

A: I will say that Sal is purposely left ambiguous so that players can project their own feelings onto him. Though I have my own ideas about him too.

Q: What was your favorite part about developing Sally Face (Or making the board game)?

A: I love creating the world and seeing it come to life. It's also something truly special to see people connect with my work on an emotional level.

Q: One of my favorite Youtubers just finished the game, ad i was wondering when the second Sally Face is going to come out because it did say it'll be continued.

A: It's very early in development, so I don't have any timelines right now. If you're interested, I made a retrospective of the development history and some more insight here; https://youtu.be/JZPOx2jMLxE?si=r-N4mcDZC40MrtJr

Q: Is there a reason why Sal has long hair instead of short hair?

A: Because he likes it long.

Q: If I were to make a video playing the game Sally Face would you take down the video for copyright?

A: I'm always happy to see people playing Sally Face. I wouldn't copyright strike any content creators for playing or streaming the game.

Q: Why were there so many empty letters addressed to Sal?

A: They may not be so empty after all.

Q: What's in Addison's Tea?

A: You don't wanna know.

Q: Is Lisa Johnson a Latina?

A: Her family is mostly from Spain and Italy.

Q: Do you think some people would actually believe Sal on trail since it was close to the satanic panic era, or the satanic panic era was already dead then?

A: There might be some people out there who believe him.

Q: Are you planning on adding more official language translations into the game, and what ethnicity is Travis intended to be, if he has any?

A: I don't have any concrete plans right now, it just takes a lot of time and effort. But I'd like to add some more language support in the future, if possible. And Travis is multiracial.

Q: What are the SF character's favorite IRL songs?

A: Larry's favorite song is a Sanity's Fall on you haven't heard yet.

Q: How and when did Todd and Neil meet?

A: They met in the library.

Q: What was the idea behind different art styles in the game?

A: I've been obsessed with the idea of alternate realities since I was in high school (before all the cool kids were doing it lol) and for a long time I've wanted to make a game with multiple art styles, revolving around this idea of different realities.

Q: Since Lisa's family is from Spain, does Larry speak or know any Spanish?

A: He knows some but isn't fluent.

Q: Will the second part of the game be released in episodes like the first.

A: Still debating on this. I'm curious to see what fans think, I'll make poll! (He did create a poll, staggered episodes was what won the poll on twitter.)

Thank you very much for reading this post! Have a Great Day or Night!

#sally face #sally face lore #sal fisher #larry johnson #ashley campbell #todd morrison #sally face neil #travis phelps #portable moose #steve gabry #sally face community

[ryuichirou]

Replies

Alright, let’s talk about Kalim (related to the latest comic), new official stuff, Idia being annoying and Lilia being possessive over Silver! And some other stuff, I think…

Anonymous asked:

So you seen the latest chapter of 7 ENG. If you do, any particular thoughts on two certain individuals with helmets.

We haven't watched ch7 at all yet, Anon. There are certain spoilers that are unavoidable, but since we didn't watch the story itself, we can't really say anything. We also don’t follow ENG updates, more on that in a reply below.

hipsterteller asked:

the only dorm leader who didn't overblot and same time the only sunshine

Yep, that’s our Kalim! He’s just here to have a good time :)

Anonymous asked:

Kalim, the only housewarden not to overblot.

Jamil, the only vice housewarden to overblot.

Aren’t they just perfect for each other? 🥰

Anonymous asked:

Good thing Jamil is not part of it...actually, I think he already did before the meeting.

I guess it depends on whether Kalim has asked him about how he is doing or not this day 🤔 Check on your friend, Kalim!

Anonymous asked:

Kalim (walking to his room): Oh, wow! That housewarden meeting was wild! Six people overblotting all at the same time... What are the odds of that?? I sure am glad to be finally back to the peaceful familiarity of my dorm, where I can rest after such a stressful day!

Scarabia student: Housewarden, please! Come quick-

Kalim (still walking): We're not doing this today :)

LOL sorry, Kalim, you have no choice but to deal with this, Jamil is clearly not dealing with this well on his own. Oh wait. Kalim probably shouldn’t intervene, he’ll just make things worse lol

asteampvnk asked:

Love your newest drawing. Although, to be fair, with how much Kalim gaslights himself that everything’s fine I half expect him to overblot.

I don’t know, to be honest it’s still very difficult for me to picture Kalim overblotting over anything other than Jamil getting seriously hurt because of him, but maybe it’s Kalim’s gaslighting that’s so powerful that it completely skewers my perception of his overblot chances…

Anonymous asked: I don't know why, but I find Kalim's eyes so cute the way you draw in the latest comic.

Thank you so so much, Anon!! ❤️

Anonymous asked:

Ryuichi and Katsu, you guys probably only play the EN Version of Twist but i wanted to ask if you guys had heard of the new JPN Event 'Red Carpet in the Shaftlands'! Have you seen the new cards and outfits? Especially Vil and Azul look very handsome!

Hi Anon! We don’t play the EN version, or any version for that matter; we just watch the main story + events on youtube. We also prefer fan translations over the official ones :) This isn’t what you asked about, but I thought I’d mention that. So yeah, we did hear about the new event! Even though we don’t have time to watch events these days, we’ll probably and hopefully get to it eventually; so I have really high hopes for this one! I already said it the other day, but: show us Eric Venue god damn it >:(

As for the cards…

Anonymous asked:

HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW OUTFITS FOR ACE, JAMIL, AND AZUL!?!? I NEVER THOUGHT AZUL WOULD LOOK SO GOOD IN THAT COLOR SCHEME!

AZUL LOOKS LIKE A MEAN RICH AUNTIE, ACE LOOKS LIKE THAT ONE DOUCHE FROM A RICH FAMILY THAT ALWAYS ASKS FOR MONEY (AND HIS RICH AUNTIE DOESN’T GIVE HIM SHIT), JAMIL LOOKS LIKE THE MEANEST GIRL IN A HIGH SCHOOL MOVIE FROM 90-00S, AND IT LOOKS GREAT!!

Azul does look good, although I am a bit conflicted about his hairstyle: I can’t quite figure out whether I like it or am just okay with it; but even if it’s the latter, I’m always excited to see new hairstyles. And this shape of glasses looks so stupidly good on him! He is indeed very handsome, this style of clothing suits him a lot.

Vil is gorgeous, I can’t even yell about him anymore. The richest mom in Hollywood.

Ace looks very good; Jamil does unimaginable things to my psyche, I can’t quite put it into words. I think the colour scheme of the new outfits suits him the most, but I might just be biased.

Anonymous asked:

Ryu they released the choreography of absolutely beautiful, did you see???? Im soso normal about it LOOK AT MY WIFE SPITTING BARS AND LOOKING ALL CUTE I watched it so many times already i was pacing around my room for an hour

I honestly can’t believe they did, this is so nice of them?? Now people can actually perform the dance themselves, this is so cool.

Jamil’s rap is one of my favourite parts of the song (original, I know), so it’s great to actually see him shine. But also? Also?

Epel short.

Anonymous asked:

I’m so sorry but in reference to the ask about Idia getting into a verbal sparring match with someone: imagine they’re both getting ruder and nastier and then, they somehow end up in bed together????

YES this is basically how we write Sebek/Idia LOL But also Azul/Idia to be honest, these two argue and get annoyed with each other a lot…

This is one of our favourite tropes in general, and with Idia it suits him to perfectly lol He always ends up verbally sparring with someone and getting someone heated over the argument, it’s like he’s begging for it (absolutely unintentionally though).

Anonymous asked:

Your art is really wonderful! (I love how you draw Lilia.) Sililia is a bit of guilty pleasure for me as well. I think you mentioned in a previous post about yanderes that Lilia’s trying not to get attached to anyone at this point in his life. So, if someone else were to hit on Silver or tried to woo him, would he reluctantly accept it? Or would he instantly act possessive once he sees someone moving in on his?

Thank you so much, Anon!! I am very happy you like our Lilia and that you enjoy his relationship with Silver <3

I think I talked about it in one of our previous LiliSil posts, but I’ll reiterate: in theory, Lilia would absolutely encourage Silver to spend time with someone else, even if this is just a little high school fling and not something serious. He does want Silver to socialise more and to have a lot of people around him, because unfortunately Lilia won’t be around forever, and he isn’t cruel to the point of wanting Silver to be loyal to him even after his death. That would just ruin the young one’s life forever, wouldn’t that be a waste?

But in actuality, I think Lilia would still get somewhat jealous and possessive if Silver found someone for himself. Lilia might try to rationalise it by thinking that he just doesn’t want any rascal to hurt Silver’s feelings, he might even enjoy acting like a strict dad for a short while, but he’ll very soon realise that he is just being super jealous and doesn’t want to share Silver with anyone lol It might be easier for him is Silver starts dating Sebek, at least Sebek knows his place… in Lilia’s eyes, at least.

Anonymous asked:

*looks at violet art*

*looks at Idia art*

Now we need a universe where those two meet each other because I swear some alternate universe thing is happening here.

I absolutely should’ve replied to this one as soon as we got it, sorry for fucking up the chronology of this whole thing, for some reason I just couldn’t shut up about Idia and Violet LOL

Ah, these two. Artsy goth Idia and Otaku tech-nerd Gregory.

Honestly, I wonder how these two would interact. The easiest thing would be to assume that they’ll just sit in their own corners doing their own thing because neither of them is particularly chatty. Also, at first it seems like despite their similarities, they are the opposites of each other, because of the whole arts vs tech thing… but in actuality, Idia is one of the most artistic people in NRC?? With good taste and outside-the-box creative thinking?? Considering how much he loves a good design and how even Vil praised the ceremonial gear he made for Ortho. As someone who likes anime and stuff, he is definitely a connoisseur of art lol

So yeah, it’d be funny to think about them getting weird vibes from each other from the start, maybe seeing some of their own “bad” qualities and being annoyed by them, getting weird uncanny-valley feeling, but ultimately ending up creating something together. I just want them to create something together…

Although…both of them are such individualists, they might have creative disagreements and do their own things separately from each other. God damn it boys you were supposed to have fun interactions!

#replies #lilisil

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Manga ch.88-90

The 2023 Dragon Ball Apocrypa Liveblog concludes with the DBS manga's adaptation of the Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero motion picture.

First up, we have this three-chapter prologue/prequel thing starring Goten and Trunks in their lankey teen bodies. It's well-made, but I'm not impressed. Find out the reason why... inside!

Okay, as the image above shows, this is all about the boys' playing superheroes while they're in high school... just like Gohan did way back in Dragon Ball Z. The main difference seems to be that there's two of them doing it this time, and their motives are a little more frivolous. Gohan came up with Great Saiayaman because he just couldn't help but foil crimes, and the costume allowed him to save the day without giving away his identity. Goten and Trunks also want to keep a low profile, but they mostly seem to be doing this shtick because they're on a superhero kick lately. They call themselves "Saiyaman X1 and X2", but their act mainly imitates their hero, Cleangod, who has a franchise of movies, video games, and so forth.

The added wrinkle is that they're also trying to keep this thing a secret from their families, as Bulma and Chi-Chi wouldn't approve of the boys screwing around like this when they should be studying. I guess it was okay when Gohan did it, but times have changed, and Trunks in particular isn't doing so hot on his report cards.

That does keep things mildly interesting. For example, you'd expect the boys to use costume changing watches like Great Saiyaman had, except they don't want Bulma to find out. So Trunks asks Pilaf to make them instead, and Pilaf can't make them as quickly, so Trunks doesn't get his until chapter 88 is half-over, and Goten's isn't ready until chapter 89. And you know, it probably would make things a lot simpler for Goten and Trunks to avoid the Saiyaman stuff altogether if they don't want their moms to find out, since they've seen this trick before. But they're doing it anyway, I guess because they're just that deep into the Cleangod fandom.

However, this still feels like a retread of a storyline we've already seen. Reading this, I feel like I've gotten too old for Dragon Ball. I know that isn't true. I'm looking forward to whatever happens in Chapter 101 onward, and Daima seems promising, even if it wasn't what I had in mind. There's always something interesting around the corner... but I see stories like this one that are more interested in rehashing older material, and it just feels tired and stale. Younger fans may not mind at all, but I see this and wonder if all we have left is just rehashing ideas we've already seen before.

Besides all of that, I'm not a big fan of high school stories, and there's a healthy dose of Trumai... and let's just get this out of the way before we go any further: I'm not that interested in the whole "next generation" thing.

I know there's a lot of fans who really dig the whole idea of exploring what happens to Goten, Trunks, Marron, Uub, Bulla, and Pan. I respect that, but I've never been very invested in any of them. I liked what we got out of them in DBZ, but that's about it. Let me kind of single out Goten so I can discuss this more easily. For the sake of argument, let's just call the "next generation" concept "Big Goten", since it features the teenage or adult version of the character, as opposed to the little guy in the Buu Saga and most of Super. Trunks, Marron, and the rest can be lumped into this, but it's easier to just refer to one character.

Basically, this 3-chapter arc is probably the best "Big Goten" story by default. Your other options are the End of Z episodes which barely do anything with him, or that one GT episode where he fights Baby and gets possessed. Or the Super Hero movie, where he's barely in it.

And yet, we have this 3-chapter arc, and Goten's basically playing sidekick to Trunks. That's not a huge problem in itself. You'd expect these two to be side-by-side, but it's mainly a Trunks story. He's trying to get Mai to go out with him, but she's part of the Pilaf gang living at Capsule Corp, and they have to be useful or Bulma will kick them out. So she's too busy repairing these "helper robots" that malfunctioned recently. Trunks thinks he can investigate the case as Saiyaman X-1 and get Mai the weekend off so she can date him. Goten's just sort of along for the ride. He enjoys the superhero bit, and he likes goofing off with Trunks, so it's all good.

And honestly, you could probably switch these two around and have Goten be the one trying to solve crimes to go on a date, while Trunks is the supportive wingman. But that's the problem. We have this one story, and they both kind of have to share it, and it really doesn't matter which one of them gets the lead.

Like, in this arc, we learn a little more about Teen Trunks. He's not doing well scholastically, he lacks Bulma's talent with computers or science, and... he's still carrying a torch for Mai for some reason. Oh, and he's afraid of ghosts now. It's not much to go on, but at least he gets something. All we find out about Goten in this thing is that he likes Cleangod, just like Trunks. Oh, and Teen Marron has a brief appearance where it turns out she really likes Cleangod too. Also several of Goten and Trunks' classmates enjoy Cleangod. And Dr. Hedo likes Cleangod. You know, that's how you develop your characters, right? You make them all like the same thing.

The point I'm getting at is that for years I've heard that Big Goten is this untapped well of great story ideas and this arc finally gets around to that and... it's pretty underwhelming. That's the big idea? Superheroes? Again? It worked for Gohan because it was a fresh idea when he did it. And it worked for Dr. Hedo because it helped set him apart from Dr. Gero. But all it does for Goten and Trunks is give them another set of clothes. Trunks is still pining for Mai and Goten is still just happy to be here. It's not enough. It's not nearly enough.

So let's move on. The boys head into town one night to investigate the Helper Robots that are mysteriously disappearing. Turns out they've been hijacked by Dr. Hedo's Alpha series androids. Strictly speaking, the Alphas are just corpses stolen from a morgue, reanimated with cybernetics. Remember those goons working at the convenience store in the beginning of Super Hero? Well this is the same group of guys. Hedo's problem is that he's fare more brilliant than Gero ever was, but he lacks the resources and funding to make the kinds of androids that he wants to make. The Alphas are functional, but only just. Their brains are defective, and you can probably only steal so many bodies from the morgue before the cops get wise to you. So Hedo's big idea is to hijack the Helper Robots and use them to manufacture sushi packages for profit. He could build something more efficient for this, but this will have to do until he gets the cash.

Oh, I forgot to talk about how Pilaf built the Helper bots. I'm not clear on what they do, but there's a lot of them in the city, and apparently Pilaf pitched the idea to Bulma and she okayed it. At first I was surprised to read this, but then I remembered that Pilaf had his own Dragon Radar way back in the day. It wasn't as sophisticated as Bulma's, but it goes to show that Pilaf knows his way around technology. This isn't some new thing they slapped onto his character, like Trunks suddenly being afraid of ghosts.

For a second, it looks like Goten and Trunks are discovered by the Alphas, but it turns out Trunks' pals from school have snuck into the production floor, and they're the ones who get discovered, so Trunks has to go in and save them. Except his superhero wristwatch malfunctions, so Goten has to take out the lights to cover for him.

Trunks cleans house, even defeating Alpha 12, who was the strongest guy on Hedo's team. When Hedo himself arrives to find his base wrecked, his only clue is that it was trashed by someone who goes to "Blue Hal" High School. It's a major setback for Hedo, but what really upsets him is that Trunks took an important disc from his safe. Hedo wants to recover it above all else. Ironically, Trunks isn't even that concerned about the disc, since all he really cares about is disrupting whatever Hedo was doing to the Helper Robots. That way he can get his date with Mai, except it won't. Even more ironically, Mai still has to work on Saturday night, because she and the Pilaf Gang have to repair all the Helper Robots Trunks smashed in Hedo's base. Whoops!

Later, Trunks tries to use Bulma's computer to access the data on the disc he took from Hedo's sushi packaging shop. He briefly sees information related to Cell, but he doesn't recognize its significance, probably because he only knows Cell from hearing about it through his family. Anyway, the disc gives the computer a virus, which Bulla removes because that's her big character defining moment in this story. She's basically a carbon copy of Kid Bulma from the Jaco manga, but at least she's not another Cleangod fan.

Anyway, Bulma had decided to start sending Mai to school along with Trunks. Apparently she realized it might be awkward if anyone noticed Mai working for Capsule Corp. and not going to school. This just now came up? I mean, the Pilaf Gang have been here for a few years at least. If anything, it would have been more awkward when Mai was younger, right? I mean, I get it, this is just a way to get Mai involved in the story, but still...

There's also another new student in Trunks' class: Baytah. Trunks' friend Rulah takes an immediate liking to him, but this is pretty clearly a new android created by Dr. Hedo. The Alpha series was no match for Saiyaman X-1, so he created a new Beta class to infiltrate Blue Hal High School and find out who X-1 really is. Beta begins to suspect Trunks, since he displays some above-average performance on the basketball court, but he can't find a way to prove it without giving himself away.

So here we have this weird scene where they're getting soup for lunch, and Trunks is sad that he can't get extra. Then Beta pretends to trip or something, and throws his soup into the air. I guess the idea was that Trunks would have to use super powers to dodge it, or he'd get it all over his nice school clothes. But instead Trunks just sort of shifts to one side and the soup miraculously lands in his bowl. And he's happy because he gets extra soup? How does it all fit in one bowl, though? Is the lunch lady only filling them up halfway? This whole bit is really contrived, is what I'm trying to say.

Somewhere along the way, Mai figures it out and explains it to Trunks, so they know Beta is looking for Saiyaman X-1. So he knows to be careful about showing off his powers, but Goten just picks up a truck during recess to get a tennis ball back for his classmates. See, Trunks, this is how you get the ladies. Mai is like 55 years old. She doesn't care, but if you pick up a truck or two, all these teenage girls will go wild. Right now, these two girls are thinking about how much they wish they were trucks, being held in Goten's mightly-yet-gentle hand.

Anyway, now Beta is convinced that Goten is the one he's after, and Hedo tells him to attack and get the disc.

So Beta reveals he has a goofy superhero suit of his own, but Goten can't fight seriously because he doesn't have a transformation watch yet. Fortunately, Trunks does, so he shows up as X-1 and quickly slips Goten the new watch Pilaf must have made last night.

I'm not thrilled with Beta's design, but I like the concept. Faced with both Saiyamen, he deploys Beta 2, which is a robotic exosuit that can separate and fight in two modules. The Betas are here for the disc, but neither Goten or Trunks has it. Mai does, because Trunks gave her his bag while he ran off to pee or whatever excuse he had to switch costumes.

So Trunks has to save Mai from the Betas, and as he catches her, she briefly mistakes him for Future Trunks, the only version of Trunks Mai seems to have any interest in. The Saiyamen clean house, and the day is saved. Trunks very nearly tells Mai that he was X-1 all along, but Goten stops him before he can spill the beans in front of the whole school.

Okay, but what's the point? I mean, Goten just lifted a truck with one hand a minute ago? More importantly, Great Saiyaman was revealed to be Goten about ten years earlier. Not that I expect these students to remember that, but that's my point: Gohan was worried about everyone finding out he had super powers, and in the end no one cared.

I mean, there's still the matter of not wanting Bulma and Chi-Chi to find out what they're up to, but that sort of doesn't matter? I mean, the moms just want their kids to study more and screw around less. It doesn't really matter if they're playing superhero or going fishing. Their moms know they aren't studying, because they've got the report cards to prove it.

Back at Hedo's (other) base, he realizes he underestimated the Saiyamen, and realizes that he'll have to build even better androids to defeat them. And he's taken a liking to the Saiyamen's costumes, particularly their capes, so the implication here is that the Gammas' designs were inspired by Goten and Trunks' antics in this story.

Later, we finally get to that convenience store we saw briefly in Super Hero. Hedo still needs money, especially if he plans to build something to defeat the Saiyamen, so he puts three of his Alphas to work at the "Mammal Mart". It's Krillin who makes the bust, and for some reason Mai is there too.

Despite his lofty plans for better androids, the best Hedo can manage is to send more Beta series androids after Goten and Trunks. Beta 7 looks like an Elvis impersonator, and he intercepts Goten's school bus, but Goten changes into X-2 and beats him. Apparently this sort of thing has been going on for a while now.

Mai takes Goten aside and reveals to him that they're being watched by a tiny spy-robot. After the Beta-1 incident at school, Mai investigated and learned that Dr. Hedo is a famous scientist in the area, and she believes he's behind all of this. Apparently he's already figured out Goten and Trunks are the Saiyamen, since he's been sending Beta androids to harass them.

Mai's plan is to defeat Hedo by using the school dance to lure him into a trap. The organizers have arranged for a live appearance by Cleangod at the dance, which... seems kind of odd for a high school dance, but nothing about this super-hero business really makes any sense to me.

Like, okay... I've been a comic book fan for over thirty years. I just read a bunch of Golden Age Captain Americas a few months ago. I think I know the genre pretty well, and nothing Dragon Ball Super does with the concept really rings true to me.

In the first place, the Dragon Ball characters are already superheroes. I went from Batman to Superman to Marvel to Dragon Ball Z, and it was a pretty smooth transition. I never stopped liking the other stuff that came before, so it's not like my tastes changed all that much. I just see DBZ as a natural extension of the same stuff I liked in Marvel and DC.

It made sense when Gohan became Great Saiyaman because the only trope he hadn't done yet was the secret identity thing, and the only reason it had never come up before was that he'd never needed one before then. Once he got into high school, he suddenly had friends he wanted to keep secrets from, so he did the same thing Clark Kent did in 1938.

But then you have Goten and Trunks doing it because they think it's neat, and they're fans of Cleangod, who is a fictional character to them. And this is probably because Hedo was doing the same bit in the movie, where he would wear a costume and do the poses because he was imitating other fictional superheroes. So the idea seems to be less about the superhero genre as I know it, and more of this ironic "Let's be comic book nerds and do cosplay, and also we have super powers so we can do more than just pose in the suits."

Which... fine, I guess. The thing is, I don't understand the fascination with Cleangod. I mean, it makes sense for Hedo to be an enormous fanboy, because he's a nerdy scientist. I'm a nerdy scientist, so I can relate. He wants Cleangod's autograph, and I'm running an anime blog in my late 40's.

But Goten and Trunks are not nerds. Neither, it seems, are most of their classmates. They all seem like fairly normal teens, mostly interested in dates and school stuff and snooping around abandoned factories or whatever. But this high school dance is going to feature a live appearance by a man in a superhero costume. That's the sort of thing a circus would do to get small children to show up.

Is this an ironic thing? Like, did Goten and Trunks start out thinking Cleangod was cringy kidstuff, and they just kept getting deeper into the fandom until they started liking it for real? Is that what's happening?

Sorry, I was explaining Mai's plan. Okay, so Cleangod will be doing a meet-and-greet at a high school dance party. Okay. Dr. Hedo is a huge mark for Cleangod, so Mai is certain he will crash the party just to meet Cleangod and get his autograph. And she plans to be there when he does, so she can shut him down once and for all.

And she gets to go to this dance, because she's attending with...

...Trunks. He wanted to ask her to this thing, but she asked him instead, so he's all a-flutter over this, never realizing that she's just using him to get at Hedo. Except.... she's attending this school now. She doesn't need a date to get in. Hedo is the one who has to find some way to get access to the building, because he's not a student.

I like Mai's armor in this scene, although it really never comes into play. Also, Trunks brought Hedo's disc with him, because.... I have no idea. Maybe he doesn't want to risk losing it?

As expected, Hedo does show up for this thing, and I guess it's because Beta-1 is still registered as a student? I'm more confused about this signing event in the middle of a dance floor. This just feels like a hot mess. Trunks and Hedo bond over their mutual love of Cleangod... wait, I thought Trunks was excited about getting to go on a date with Mai? Priorities, Trunks!

Anyway, Hedo confides to Trunks that he had a Cleangod autograph before, but it was stolen, so he's here to get another one. Hold on, doesn't Hedo know Trunks is X-1? I mean, he was sending androids after Goten, so he must know he's X-2, right?

Mai tries to get Hedo, but then Beta shows up, and Rulah explains that he got back into the school, so she asked him to the dance. I really like Rulah. She doesn't know what's going on, but there's a new boy in town and she's gonna make time with him. She's like an Archie character.

Then the cops show up. Yeah, just draw your guns in a big crowd of children, Krillin, that makes a ton of sense.

Hedo uses a smokebomb to escape and everyone chases after him. By the time Cleangod comes out to make his big appearance, everyone is gone except Mai, who isn't impressed. That's the thing I can't square with all of this. The running gag seems to be that superheroes are both cool and uncool at the same time. People were lining up to see this guy, but the punchline is that he totally sucks? I guess? Characters will praise Goten and Trunks' costumes and then later characters will call them corny.

Like, which is it? That's the thing about superhero comics, at least from my perspective. In the real world, you either think Batman's awesome or he's a giant dork in a fursuit. Fine. But in the Batman mythos, just about everyone takes him seriously because he's a mysterious badass. I get it, Cleangod's basically Adam West working car-shows in the 1970's, but Saiyaman X-1 and X-2 are the real thing. They fought robots in the middle of the football field in front of everyone. I mean, no one called Goten corny when he lifted that truck.

Oh, by the way, Dr. Hedo's jalopy is awesome.

Krillin (reluctantly) brings Goten and Trunks along to chase down Hedo, and he fills them in on the situation. The cops have been after Hedo because they think the Red Ribbon Army is trying to stage a comback and they want to contact him. That.... doesn't quite square with the movie, but we'll talk about that later.

Anyway, they get to Hedo's (third?) base and he's got a dinosaur android to stop them. This is the biggest, strongest one he's made so far, but it's still not very sophisticated, simply because Hedo lacks the resources to build anything better.

It gives the Bio-Broly Buster Crew a little trouble, but Krillin disables it with a kienzan, and then Goten and Trunks take it out with a double-team move. And Hedo's going to jail.

So what about that disc? Turns out it never mattered. Hedo memorized all the information on it a long time ago, so the disc itself had no value to him. What he wanted was the case, which contained, in addition to the disc, his prized Cleangod autograph. Remember? The one he told Trunks got stolen? They didn't know it at the time, but Trunks was the one who stole it in Chapter 88.

And that's really dumb, because Trunks did try to investigate the disc in Chapter 89. He didn't get very far, but he still had to open the case it was in, so you'd think he would have noticed the Cleangod autograph inside. I mean, another character might not have paid any attention to it, but Trunks is a huge fan of Cleangod himself.

And if Hedo truly had no use for the disc, why didn't he throw it away a long time ago? In this scene, he says he discarded it, but he must have only done that in the last few minutes, before Krillin showed up to arrest him, since Trunks had the disc before the dance. This whole thing is supposed to be clever, but it's kind of dumb.

Anyway, this whole caper explains how Hedo got sentenced to prison at the beginning of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. He could have been given a longer sentence, but according to this story, he agreed to return some of the Alphas back to the families of the corpses he built them out of. This is supposed to be funny, but it's just kind of bizarre. Like, are we saying Hedo resurrected the corpses? I thought the idea was he just used a dead body to build Alpha 12. But this seems to suggest Alpha 12 remembers his former existence. That's kind of fucked up.

Like I said at the beginning, there's a lot that is well done here. Toyotaro's art is on-point as usual, and there's some great action scene with Goten and Trunks. I think the big highlight of the arc were all of the side characters we see at their school, like Rulah and the others. Trunks' math teacher looked pretty cool. The problem is that they were never going to be the focus of this or any other story. It's taken years for Toei or Shueisha to do anything with Goten or Trunks, so their pals may never see the light of day again.

And that's what disappoints me about this arc, because it may have been the one chance of getting a good teen Goten and Trunks arc, and they blew it on this. Did we really need a backstory on Hedo's prison sentence? Did anyone leave the theater not understanding why he was in jail? Was anyone confused as to how he came up with the designs for Gamma 1 and 2's costumes? No. We didn't need this.

One of these days, there will be an official Big Goten story that gets it right. But this ain't it, chief.

#dragon ball #dragon ball super manga #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #goten #trunks #mai #bulma #emperor pilaf #shu #bulla #dr hedo #rulah #beta 1 #beta 7 #cleangod #alpha 12 #i forgot the names of goten's friends sorry

[niragis-thot]

Niragi’s Favorite Toy

Part 3

Part one [X]

Part two [X] 🌶️

Niragi X female reader

Warnings: CNC, Dubious consent, smut, knife play, gun kink, and manipulative relationship in future chapters, basically everything you would expect from Niragi. Warning for threats of violence in this chapter

“You fucking dick,” you screamed. You cursed yourself for having fallen for this. “You really slept with me just to steal my gun”

“Don’t get me wrong princess, I wanted that sweet pussy too. And don’t act like you didn’t get anything out of it when you were just whimpering on my dick two minutes ago.”

“Then just fucking take it and go.” You just wanted this interaction to end, but he seemed to be savoring your discomfort.

“Tell you what. Since we had so much fun in that game together, I’ll give you an option to get it back. You can give me everything useful you have, all your ammo, plus your cards, and walk away now. Or you come with me, join the militant corps, and I get to keep you as my plaything.” He used the tip of his gun to poke underneath your chin, “We could have so much more fun together.”

“What’s the militant corps?” damn it y/n you thought to yourself. You should be handing your things over before running away as quickly as possible, not seriously considering this offer.

“We work to keep the peace at the Beach. Which by the way has hot showers, food, a clean bed, oh and a 24/7 pool party.”

You thought about how hard it had been to find food here, what games you had barely escaped death in before finding your shotgun. You thought about how you had slept the past couple of days outdoors because even though you could still get into your old apartment, it felt impossible to fall asleep in the hot summer with no air conditioning. You just had to play sex toy to this deranged man, and you could get all the things you needed to survive these games. And that didn’t seem too difficult given how attractive he was. You knew you shouldn’t be trusting anything he said, but if there was even a chance of a better life here you should take it.

“You know you could have just led with the hot shower part and nearly every person would say yes to that” you raised your hands up before walking up to him. “It would be a lot easier to follow you if you stopped pointing that at me” He didn’t lower the gun though.

Right then his radio went off “Hey Niragi, some of us have actually been working while you fuck around. Get over here and help us load up.”

You walked a few blocks away where three of the men from the game were raiding a police station. “Alright Y/N, I’d like you to meet our boss Aguni”

The muscular man wearing camo and a black tank top looked up, “What’s this about Niragi”

“Don’t look at me like that, I was just busy getting us another weapon. He handed the shotgun to him. “Plus you know from the last meeting we’ve had a higher than average casualty rate at the beach this week. Hatter’s gonna need some fresh blood to collect cards for him.”

Aguni gave him the side eye, “How altruistic,” he quipped sarcastically. That was enough to tell Niragi to start working loading the car up.

That was another surprise for today since you hadn’t known there were any working cars here.

When they were done Niragi got in the passenger seat before turning to wink at you. “Full car, guess you’ll have to sit on my lap.” You guessed that arguing to squeeze between the guys in the back seat wasn’t going to fly.

You climbed onto him and he wrapped his arms around you, immediately beginning to tease at your thigh.

Niragi talked with the tattooed man wearing a tattered hoodie, you think he had referred to him as Last Boss, they sharedtheir exploits from the past couple of games. Although it was Niragi who did 90% of the talking. Last Boss seemed like someone who barely talked, while Niragi seemed like he was in love with hearing his own voice.

Then the conversation shifted to the hearts game. “You should have seen her. Girl was knocked out cold and Y/n just kept loosing it. I bet she would have bashed her entire face in if there were a few more seconds on the timer.”

You blushed and started stuttering. Had you really been that out of control that you didn’t notice when the girl went unconscious? “Oh, I…”

“Sheesh.” Niragi interrupted, “you better not be about to apologize. You did great. There’s no place for the weak in this world.”

“She would have done the same thing to me if she were able to.” You muttered.

“Now you’re getting it princess.”

When you arrived at the beach you still couldn’t believe a place like this existed in this world. Aguni led the way through the pool area where people were drunk, partying, playing loud music, and you think you even spotted someone getting their dick sucked.

One man cheered as he saw the militants walk in, “I knew I picked the right team to bet on”

“That’s because you always bet the safe way. Let’s not include Aguni’s group next time and see how your win streak does”

“They left with four and came back with five, I should win double”

Were these people betting on who would die or survive in the games? You didn’t have time to eavesdrop anymore as Niragi was dragging you along.

“Welcome to paradise baby.” He whispered in your ear. You were starting to feel like the risk you were taking coming here might be worth it.

From there you were taken to the gift store which was filled with swimwear. Niragi gave you the run down that everyone at the beach was required to wear swimsuits. You wondered if he might be messing with you to get you to walk around half naked, but you hadn’t seen anyone outside of the core militant group not wearing one.

You looked through the racks a bit before Niragi announced, “This one is going to look ravishing on you.” He held up an impossibly small red bikini with lots of straps.

You guessed that he didn’t intend to let you pick one out for yourself.

He leaned in and kissed your neck, “I’ve got some militant business to take care of. Go up to my room and put this on.”

You nodded, and were surprised that he was leaving you alone. It seemed like all evening he had either had his gun pointed at you, or was grabbing your wrist to drag you along. He didn’t seem to trust that just because you said you were coming with him you wouldn’t turn and bolt at the first chance.

Then you saw that just outside the room Last Boss had been hunched over while watching you. So you weren’t being left alone after all. He didn’t say a single word to you as you walked up the stairs.

Your first shower since arriving in the borderlands felt like heaven. Every ache in your body melted away under the heat. The past couple of weeks you had only been able to clean yourself with bottled water and a sponge. Just having this one basic thing felt like regaining a bit of your humanity.

Afterwards you looked at yourself in the mirror with you new outfit. The red straps that sat above your hip bones really emphasized your curves, but what really stood out to you was how every hickey that Niragi had left on your body was completely visible. He had made sure everyone was going to know.

When he got back to the room you were sitting up in bed. For once he wasn’t talking, instead he just stared you down with those dark eyes while he hovered over you. There was something predatory about it. Like you were prey and he was about to devour you.

He climbed over you licked your neck, followed by planting a long kiss on your lips. “I’m so mesmerized by my new toy,” he said before rolling off of you. He cupped your face gently in his hand “I picked up a few things to help get you settled in here.” Where had this sweet side suddenly come from?

You went over to the bag he had brought in. He had gotten you some makeup and a bar of Chocolate.

“Thank you,” you said while crawling back into bed again.

Niragi pulled you into him and began to stroke your hair. “Get some sleep, you’ll need meet Hatter in the morning, and the executives will want to test you”

You curled up next to him. Being with him felt so exciting, but also dangerous. He wasn’t the type of guy you’d go for back in the real world, but in this one where you were probably going to die in the next week anyways you wanted to chase that bad boy fantasy.

Once you could tell Niragi was asleep you felt alone with your thoughts for the first time that day. The pit in your stomach grew when you thought about the girl. Your mind kept coming up with scenarios of how you could have found the extra chairs first, and no one would have died. As if replaying those thoughts would somehow change the past. But how could you have known to look for them?

You clung to the man who told you that you didn’t do anything wrong.

#niragi suguru #niragi x you #niragi x y/n #niragi x reader #niragi fanfiction #niragi alice in borderland

[emperorbubblegum]

This is gonna be another long-ish spoiler post for F/SR, so don't click if you haven't learned Rider's True Name yet

Also slight spoilers for Fate/Extra CCC Foxtail and maybe Shimousa but those are old enough that I doubt people care

I really need to hear the opinion of someone who doesn't know much about Fate play Samurai Remnant. I feel like most of us where able to guess a lot of the new Servants based off connections they had to pre-established ones. Rider's probably one of two exceptions because her reveal is supposed to be this huge "what the fuck" moment - and it is, but I feel like that mostly hinges on the player knowing Fate's version of Minomoto-no-Raikou.

Ushi Gozen has been teased for years. Raikou's always been one of the many Servants that mentions how her Berserker Saint Graph isn't the only one we might aee of her (edit 1: I didn't play FGO when it first released so I didn't know this, but apparently Ushi actually shows up in the same event Raikou's introduced in). In Foxtail, we see her used as a prarallel to Suzuka, since both have connections to Oni. The most prominent tease is in Shimousa, where we actually see Ushi Gozen appear, but with the same design as Raikou for budget reasons I guess (edit 2: No we don't, that's just Raikou, but she has the Rider class so I misremembered her there as Ushi Gozen). And now she's actually here! She gets her own game! And she looks...

Girl what the fuck happened to you

I really like both of her designs to be honest. She's one of the few Servants to be wearing actual samurai armor, and she's the first to wear the helmet too I'm pretty sure. Then after Saber kicks the shit out of her, the armor falls apart and we see that she's in a much worse state than any of us expected. Her hair's cut short, her eyes are dead with noticeable bags, her skin's paler than it was before, and she barely looks like she's eaten anything. Those last two could also be said about Raikou (Raita for the love of god learn to draw human women properly) but on Rider they're noticeably worse. Also she seems crazier than her Berserker form, albeit a different kind of crazy.

When we fight her the second time in Chapter 5, she shows up with these awesome robot-like spider legs reminiscent of what Ushi-oni are usually described with. She doesn't look human because her humanity was seemingly beaten out of her. Raikou tends to suffer from what I like to call "the Altera Problem", where if used right she can be a really genuine and badass character, but 90% of the time she's used for jokes and to get people's dicks hard. However in things like Foxtail, or Shimousa (which is even more apparent in the manga), or Heian-Kyo we get to see her for how she really is, which is A) terrifying and B) a hero worthy of going down as one of humanity's best. Rider is only that first one. No jokes, no big tits, just pure unadulturated "you're gonna die" energy.

Rider's the first Servant we ever see in Samurai Remnant. She's the first one Iori encounters, leveling his house in the prologue and acting as the tutorial boss to show the player "hey you can't fucking take these guys on", and in the teaser trailer (which shows that scene) she's one of three Servants who are actually shown to us - the other two being SR's Saber and everyone's favorite bisexual dimension hopper, Musashi. I could write a whole other post about Shousetsu and Iori (maybe I will who knows) but Rider follows their dynamic. She's a strong parallel to Saber. Fuck she basically is Saber if they didn't have people like Ototachibana-Hime and Iori to keep them grounded.

All of the new Servants are super cool (with the exception of Caster that bitch ass nerd), but I think Rider's possibly the coolest. I mean, I've been wanting Samson since I got into Fate and you haven't seen me make any real posts about him because Minamoto-no-Raikou, one of my least favorite Servants, has got me in a vicegrip. I don't know if she's my favorite, but I'll definitely be saving for if she ever comes into FGO

#fate series #fate samurai remnant #fsr #fsr rider #fate samurai remnant spoilers #fsr spoilers

[canmom]

read about 40 chapters of One Piece (up until they get their ship), inspired by all the One Piece fever in the air.

[actually the impetus for this was my boss talking about Netflix One Piece being very successful, to which I thought, it's against my religion to watch a Netflix live action adaptation of a manga without first reading the manga. so I guess I finally read some One Piece.]

it would be absurd to judge it on <0.5% of the run, but my general impression is that so far... it's solid but conventional, kinda old-school shōnen. each arc so far has mostly seemed to set up... some characters for Luffy's party to protect, a new party member, and some suitably wacky antagonist with a gimmick worthy of a weekly toku show. which, to be fair, is completely fine - I love Berserk, but it sure has a lot of chapters that are just 'a scary guy shows up and Guts fights him'.

it feels very confident - it's kind of hard to believe it's so early in Oda's career, actually! there are a lot of manga storytelling devices that by now feel like old friends - ah, you have a 'treasure' that's precious to you, a place or object that stands as a material symbol of your connection to someone? ah, you're a wacky and weak guy but you're willing to die in a futile battle to defend your home, inspiring our nigh-invincible protagonists into action? lo, a flashback to the definitive moment that lays out your motivation? and i'm not complaining, this stuff works, it is used over and over for a reason! but I sometimes feel like I can hear the Final Fantasy XIV 'a flashback is happening now' music kicking in and it's like hehe, here we go...

I guess this feeling is sort of like the people who watch Citizen Kane and don't see what's so special about it. but then, One Piece began mid-90s - I haven't read enough old shōnen to have a sense of what was new in its formula. if you wanted to be very reductive, you could say Berserk's big trick was to mix a heavy dash of shōjo storytelling into a gritty seinen battle manga, so you have affects of tragedy, wistful longing, even light BL to ground the action chapters. as yet I don't have a sense of how to sum up One Piece's 'thing'.

mostly what i feel like it's missing for me is perhaps a certain level of bleakness and nihilism to counterbalance all these classic romantic devices. it feels kind of like a panto - indeed some of the villains feel like they could launch into an oh no you didn't/oh yes you did routine at any moment. but then as far as shōnen goes, I have perhaps been a little spoiled by Tatsuki Fujimoto! I'm not sure at what point you would say One Piece 'really gets going', its 'Golden Age arc' if you will.

honestly it could just be that I don't super get on with Oda's art style lol. it's definitely not bad on any technical level (well ok there are some funky arm proportions in places) - he's got a clear set of artistic focuses, like big grins and very rounded character shapes, that gives it an instantly recognisable identity - but it's just not my thing. although I still like it a lot more than the later style seen in e.g. One Piece Film Gold.

#manga #one piece

[personasintro]

Jey just wanted to tell you that I *very chaotically" commented on mh54 here a few days ago when it dropped. I know you're taking a break off these asks, I just wanted to make sure my feedback was not lost forever, bc your asks were closed at the time❤

I’ll respond to it here if you don’t mind :)

First of all, thank you for this super long feedback! I love reading everyone’s thoughts in depth so this it definitely right up my alley hahah. What I want to apologize is for taking so long to answer. So long that another chapter is out 🥲 but responding to long messages takes me a lot of time, purely because I want to take the time to sit down and properly read it and answer it (which I haven’t had for the longest time 😭) but here we are and I hope you don’t mind it!! 🫶

She definitely realized her jealousy at the beginning, we could see it (more like read it) when they were still at Tae’s place 🥺 but she didn’t really think about it in more depth and the conversation she had with Maya made her get answers, deep down she knew but always shut down any thoughts about it before that.

Yoongi’s character is complicated (simply said haha). It’s tough for me to describe him in a few sentences but I think we could get to know him a lot throughout the story, while he managed to be slightly mysterious at the same time. We don’t know what’s going on inside his head lol. He’s not heartless, rough around the edges for sure but he’s not a monster (I think that sums it up)

With Ester, I think she’s happy to find a new friend and someone who has similar interests like she does. Jk in general is very caring and kind as a friend. Does she have a crush on him? Hm, even if she did I don’t think she’s a person who would let it show. She’s more on the shy side and if she had a crush on him, there’s a chance jk wouldn’t notice it or he would after being very attentive and noticing the small details 🤔 again… jk has similar interests, is good to her and is attractive. What’s there not to like? Hahaha. She’s not blind and even tho I do think not everyone has to find him super attractive or have a crush on him, I believe she does appreciate all the sides she could’ve seen so far. However, I’d say she’s not any threat in this sense lol. She’s happy to have him as her friend and what their relationship is now. That’s more important than anything else!

The wood scene wood 🪵 oh boy! Not gonna lie, I did think 90% of readers would see it as angry sex only! And would be like “yeaaah we got angry sex” lmao. I’m surprised to see most of you thought about it in more depth and where analyzing it. Which I absolutely don’t mind!! It was interesting to see the change in this particular smut scene.

You know what? She does drive him insane in any sense. She really does test his patience a lot lmao.

You’ve probably read the new chapter by now and if you haven’t, I hope you enjoyed it! I can’t wait to hear more feedback about that too 💘🫶 thank you again! I appreciate you guys putting so much time into writing these.

#ask #ask: mutual help

[queenofbaws]

Hey! Can I ask request 6, 11 & 14 for Wringing Blood from A Stone? ^^

well hey yourself!!! oooh, you know i'm always more than happy to rant and rave about those crazy ol' hacketts... ;)c hehehe

6. Does this chapter/fic have any twists that you’re proud of?

this upcoming chapter, no; the fic itself, yesss. i won't get into them specifically, obviously, but one of the things i'm really trying to capture the most in this fic is just...the nature of the hacketts being a family. like an actual-factual (obviously exaggerated) family, complete with all the tangles and snares any real family has. you guys already know what supernatural stuff is on its way, and the extra supernatural stuff i'm throwing in there, i think you can probably draw some conclusions about too, but there are for sure a few family-based twists i'm very, very, very excited to reveal in due time.

twists that - i very much hope - won't end up coming out of left field, but will make horrible, horrible sense in retrospect ;)c

11. What scene are you most hyped for this chapter/fic?

for the upcoming chapter, i'm super hyped for one caleb & kaylee interaction in particular. there's so much dysfunction in the family, and lord knows the interactions with the hackett brothers themselves can sometimes feel a little less than friendly, so i really relish in writing caleb and kaylee sort of being besties first and siblings second. plus, we might just get a peek at caleb's wolf story............

in terms of scenes i'm most hype for across the whole fic, GOD HELP ME. there are. a lot coming up. so here are some out of context spoilers for scenes i'm very excited to get to: a big ol' family brunch gone wrong; old men fighting, parts 1 and 2; jack eats the world's sloppiest sloppy joe; the worst damn church service you've ever seen; and they're all gonna laugh at you. genuinely, there are........so many pieces of this story i just cannot wait to share, and i wish i could just pop my head open and shake the words out like loose change aslkdjfalskdjf

14. What have you been finding frustrating with writing this chapter/fic?

alas, as happened when i was writing the (almost)s, and what i think is probably the case with most longfics in general, like wringing blood has become a very personal project that's sort of reflective of some family stuff i'm going through currently. on the one hand, that's super therapeutic, because it's a place where i can channel a lot of my emotions and frustrations and hopes and disappointments about my own family in a way i can control...but on the other hand, the reason i've suddenly gotten so slow with updating is because my family stuff does suck currently, it is sucking up a lot of my energy and sanity, and when i have a break from them, the idea of jumping into sharing my brain with the hacketts isn't, uh, immediately welcoming, let's say XD

which leads to a SECONDARY frustration, of course: i'm so, so, so, so, SO excited for this story, there's nothing i want more than to get it all to paper and SHARE, but i'm in a spot right now where things are slowed and sort of gunked-up. i can't stress enough how i have. every. major. beat. of this story plotted out, i have about 90% of it outlined in VIVID detail, i know EXACTLY what's going to happen in every chapter until the end, i have an embarrassing amount of it already written, but man. ya gurl is tired. so wanting to get everything out into the world but knowing i don't have the brainspace for it atm is also incredibly frustrating, but i'm very much hoping once the holidays have passed, maybe - MAYBE!!!!!!!!! - things over here will chill out and i can spend a little less time with my bonkers appalachian family and a little more time with theirs hahahaha!

wips, wips, wips, ask me about some wips!!!

#durorholmes #asks #the hacketts #hehehe ty for the ask!!! :D hope you're doing well in your neck of the woods!!! #god help me my wip folder is full of so many hackett docs.....and the phone notes for this fic are like. miles long alskdjfalksdjf

[mandatory-blog-stop-asking]

I'll miss Akira Toriyama.

It is suddenly very important to me that you understand how good Dragon Ball actually is.

Because I get it, not everyone lived under the Equator and not everyone cares about battle shonen, but you have to understand that at some point, someone whose art you love probably loved Dragon Ball.

Akira Toriyama managed to influence more than just his medium. He influenced action media worldwide, every week. Almost every comics artist, writer, producer or otherwise industry person, in any country, owns some of their income to Toriyama.

From Jorge Jimenez drawing on the Father-Son Kamehameha for his beautiful tribute to Superman's family during his time drawing Justice League, to Rebecca Sugar making dance explicitly matter to fusion, to fucking Cloud in Final Fantasy 7 just doing his best SSJ2 Gohan cosplay throughout the whole game, anyone creative who liked action cared about Dragon Ball, with 2 degrees of separation being the maximum you could go before your specific 90s-early aughts references reached back to it as well.

And the memes and fame the thing accrued over the years don't quite make that make sense, because if you've never seen it, it just looks and sounds like a run-of-the-mill bad shonen show where people scream all the time and don't really grow as characters. But that's not what that series actually is. The anime is what got popular, sure, but as a manga, Dragon Ball is one of the most well-executed, funniest, fast-paced pieces of literature Shonem Jump has published, and it's crazy to think how much of it is just Toriyama improvising.

It's not perfect, obviously -- it's rote and it's old and it's repetitive, but it never stops being a good, read. It never stops being interesting, or well-designed, or fun. You'll open a chapter and something about it will make you smile, or make you laugh, or just keep you entertained enough that you have to read the next one. The fact this man made all of this weekly, without a grander plan than "I want to draw a martial arts comedy" and then codified the way we think about transformations, power struggles, action paneling in general-- there's quite literally no one else with that kind of range on their contributions to modern pop comics. We start talking Tezuko or Oda when we start talking about who's had as much an impact on the genre, and then you find out of course Oda is a Dragon Ball kid, and Kishimoto is a Dragon Ball kid, everyone whose manga you love after the 90s is a Dragon Ball kid.

And look, it's not like you have to love Dragon Ball or anything: it's art and like any art it won't connect to certain people, and it will be poison to others. You not being into Dragon Ball is fine and it's valid, and it's definitely not the first work of that nature to have a worldwide impact. Akira didn't invent manga, he just made a really good one.

But, fuck, the world is a less interesting place without Akira Toriyama in it. He brought out something so many people identified with nearly effortlessly. The guy just wanted to make us laugh and have fun; all the yelling and violence and world-ending threats came later. I need you to keep that somewhere in your head when the subject is Dragon Ball. It's fun first.

Everyone, at some point, got together and loved and lived a series that was about hard work paying off, and had a blast with it. But more than that, everyone loved a really funny, fun-loving series that could always put a smile in your face first and foremost, no matter what the villain of the arc did to Earth or the heroes. And that changed the world more than any of the thousands of edgy manga about fights always getting bigger and the protagonist always getting stronger did. Because Dragon Ball isn't just that. It is that in some level, of course, but more importantly, it's a kid stepping on poo and screaming about how gross that is. It's Majin Buu hanging out with Mr. Satan and a puppy because he loves having friends. It's a Super Saiyan bargain sale, it's Bulma shooting Goku startled, it's Kuririn not having a nose and being able to beat some dude who smells. And that's fucking hilarious.

Teach that dinosaur how to ride a ball, Toriyama. You earned it.

#dragon ball z #akira toriyama #writing #shonen #anime and manga

[leefi]

TFTBN Read-through | Part 3: Chapters 22-34

Part 1: 1-14 | Part 2: 14-22 | Part 3: 22-34 | Part 4: 34-64 | Part 5: 64-80 | Part 6: 81-90 | Part 7: 90-100 | Part 8: 100-127 (caught up here)

I was flipping through the pages, looking for interesting parts, when a sheet of parchment suddenly came loose from another section much deeper into the book. Unlike the rest, the material looked new, probably only replicated in the last year or two.

Curious, I lifted it up, and folded it open. To my surprise, the text was dark red, and said--

YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER

DO NOT TRUST ANY WITHIN THE INNER CIRCLE

FIND THE ARCHIVE ON THE TOP FLOOR OF THE MAIN BUILDING

REMEMBER YOUR OATH ⬇️ SHES GONNA GET MURDEREDDDDDDD WOOHOOOOOOO SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP

actually I wonder if Theodoros chan’s gonna get murdered actually. Son of a high-ranking member, asked Su to go to his room last night in front of everyone, was walking around alone with Su and Bardiya and milf mentor. Su would be the prime suspect with only Ran to vouch for her.

He was a young man, though not resembling of the others in our class. He had ear length, light brown hair, a light-bronze complexion, and quite delicate-looking features... Yet they somehow didn't come across as immature. In fact, he was surprisingly good looking, to the point that there was something reminiscent of a statue in his appearance. ⬇️ LUKA???????? Oh my god this guy acts exactly like Luka too Su said he was looking at her funny...does he recognize her, but she doesn't recognize him? I know a luka when i SEE ONE. THAT BOY KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON. HE IS A LOOPER LIKE SU!!!

or maybe he's just silly idk!!! hehe

but why does he seem to remember/recognize her and she doesn't? does it have something to do with her request in the first chapter??? did she REQUEST TO FORGET??? how could u leave ur looping bestie like that wtf su that's so mean did he leave the note for her? he wasn't at the dinner!! maybe he slipped it into the book and knew she would read it then! hmmm but the note could have also been placed there long before they met and that wouldn't really explain the timestamp on when it was written...what was it 1-2 years ago? i guess not. omgggg iim so excited to see more of him i hope he doesnt die in five minutes ill be so sad forever

Falafel, pita bread with various stuffings, steak and egg porridge, cheese salad; high quality Ysaran food, all well prepared by Yantho, SWANA CUISINE SWEEPING THE NATION I still remember the shakshuka and lahmebajeen from ran and su’s lunch

I feel like kam has a crush on su and has no idea how to contextualize it beyond an academic rivalry — su is hopelessly in love with ran and completely unaware of the fact that she is — ran holds a dislike for su for some reason, but still cares for her. her feelings seem extremely complicated.

The ransu(? no names given but assuming) childhood scene on the beach omg…that was cute oh noooo 😭 ok they did get my ass with that one.

hmm idk if that was ransu because the other girl's personality was very different from ran's. but also this could have been long enough ago that ran's personality has drastically changed since then

Big brother is very good at his role! Sekhmet said. Unfortunately, he is also extremely stupid. He can only really think about the things he has been told to do. I have seen him try to think about other things, and it is slow and bad and embarrassing for everyone. ⬇️ Kindest younger sibling interaction

Ok here’s my death prediction list 1. Utsu (botched - she’s meant to be killed but someone dies in her place) 2. milf mentor 3. Theo 4. Another inner circle member/staff (probably a combination with 1+2) Regrettably I think kam is going to live forever

I’ve disagreed with kam on literally everything so far but especially this aversion she has towards solving a problem she won’t get to benefit from (“let us be the last”). She’s so…childish? It’s a very childish point of view.

this adherence to gender a lot of characters hold really surprises me...i figure this far out in the future everyone would be a lot more fluid!!! what's with this obsession with antiquity (@ the characters/setting not lurina)

What I also don’t understand is why humanity didn’t just clone from the original 10k then continue having children biologically (or like test tubeically. ykwim). Are 10k humans enough to avoid a genetic bottleneck? whats the minimum viable population size for humans I’m not a biologist

Ok according to one article the number is 98. That is too low. who said that. lets kill him Another says 14,000 ok if you average those two guys out you get 7k 🙄 they’re fine. assuming good genetic diversity from the source group you probably wouldn’t even need to monitor for inbreeding. Why are they doing this complicated shit and causing mental prolapse.

THAT BRINGS ME BACK TO THE POINT ABOUT THE CLONES TOOOOO CLEARLY THEY HAVE THE TECH TO MAKE VIABLE CLONES WITH A CLOSED & SAFE SOURCE SUPPLY WHY ARE YOU WORKING AGAINST BIOLOGY…UR EFFORTS WOULD BE BETTER SPENT DEVELOPING A WAY TO TRANSFER HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS FROM ONE BODY TO ANOTHER RATHER THAN MAINTAIN AN AGING BODY!!!!

Hmmm. Actually I wonder if Su’s grandpa had a similar idea. Considering the weird identity thing she has going on. Nothing to explicitly suggest this yet i think? just somethign to keep in mind considering he was voted off the polycule

I also wonder if that was related to the conversation regarding the Phoenix and the Dragon. maybe transfer of consciousness leads to loss of memory? But that wouldn’t make sense if the tech was perfect, everything would move over, leaving the old body a blank slate…what would that do to a brain, psychologically, seeing one’s former body in a dead state? also what would it do to an empty brain to suddenly be inhabited by foreign electrical synapses harboring thousands of memories preferences likes/dislikes etc. would it fight back/resist?

Im thinking back to those scratches on the wall in the kitchen. Obviously super freaky shit like 10 chapters ago but we had no context to it (we still don’t) so it was like whoops! There’s that. lol. Couple things: - did someone bake the missing chef into 🤔 a roast? - those tally marks may have been the missing chef’s and she was trapped in that room for years (thousands of marks, I think they said. Denoting days, maybe?) and then she died - But that doesn’t explain the distinct lack of skeleton in the room. Or in the roast - who would have it out for the chef - why - Hmmmm - You guys ever read that short story in high school english about the lady with the rack of lamb and the officers

Anyways that chef is definitely deads. In the kitchen? Probably not. In their tummies? Noooo (<- secretly hoping yes). Floating in the abandoned plane ocean? Yassss

Lurina is AMAZING at dropping really disturbing nuggets in the middle of a passage then distracting the characters/keeping things going. I just wish I was more engaged with the pacing :(

Good heavens," Kam exclaimed. "Are these guns?" They were, and in no small number. I could see at least fifteen rifles and ten pistols, and they weren't antiques. They looked like refractor weapons, the bronze still carrying the vivid sheen of recent production ⬇️ If this story turns into a COD lobby in the next 5 minutes im reading it forever

WTF DEAD CHEF SWEEP

Ok I have to put a bookmark on where I am in the story so far. Chapter 33! I will continue to read through it slowly but am done with the reactions for now :) bye byeeeeee

#tftbn #bro this story really got me thinking about how like. existence is horror 😔 #because like. #horror is fundamentally about a lack of information -> you exist and will one day die -> #you lack information on the reasons or means for this occurrence -> #you are hardwired to protect your own existence at all costs -> #this is eventually an impossible task -> #the mind evolved to understand its own mortality but not its own existence -> #horror is fundamentally about a lack of information -> #ugh that was so annoying to type out and doesnt even mean anything. does anybody want to see my cat #woof

[tea-cat-arts]

Being a haters exhausting. Here’s some things I actually liked in the recent chapters:

Seele and Senti! They are perfect and can do no wrong. They also make a surprisingly good comedic duo

Kiana and Durandal being sisters. This is one of the few times I’m actually really glad Mihoyo went down the no-angst route. I think it would’ve been really easy and cheap to have made Durandal resent Kiana in some way for taking over her life (I’ve seen other media do that), so I found it incredibly refreshing to have Durandal take the mature route, acknowledge none of that was Kiana’s fault, and immediately accept her as her sister.

The environment design. The moon base is a pain to walk through, but an absolute Easter egg hunt of tiny details. It’s also always nice to head back to the deep and saint freya. The project stigma space is also very neat to look at

Kevin and Fu Hua’s conversations. It might just be because they’re two of my favorite characters in the game, but I really found the scenes of these two former friends asking the other to back down or join them while having this silent resignation, knowing that nothing they can say will work, genuinely heartbreaking. Man, I just want my blorbos to be ok 😭

Seeing Siegfried and Theresa hang out. I always kinda forget that those two have been friends for a long time, so it’s nice to actually see that friendship in action (also, hoyo, why do you keep making these very fun to play male characters that are only available for one chapter)

The attempt to make project stigma more nuanced. Though I don’t think they really succeeded, I appreciate them trying to expand project stigma to more than just a shitty vaccine (for those who are still confused about what project stigma does, it takes everyone without an awakened stigmata and puts them in a dream. Those dreams are all slowly merging into the collective consciousness. Once they’re in the consciousness, the original person effectively dies and is reborn into a being like Hare {or at least this is what I’ve gathered}). I think this makes more sense than just straight up killing 90% of the population, and I can kinda get why people would support it or see it as a better alternative to death.

The shift to making Grey Serpent the main antagonist. So uh, past his introduction arc, Kevin just doesn’t make a good antagonist. He’s kinda disconnected from most of the main conflicts and the vast majority of the time we’ve seen him (be it him, his sim, or the Kaslana stigmata), he’s been on the protagonists side. Grey Serpent on the other hand- that guy has pissed EVERYONE off at some point or another. Even Seele is wary around him. I think if Mihoyo doesn’t want to do morally grey antagonists anymore, then going with the Disney villain is a better choice than demonizing another victim

Any time Li Shushang and Susannah are on screen together. Mihoyo really said “if you don’t know what to do with this side character, then make interesting by giving her a girlfriend,” and they were so right

Mei’s little amusement park space. I can’t really think of why I liked this section, I just did. It was fun

#honkai impact #ok so this was actually WAY more things than I was expecting #reminds me why I keep playing the game #reminder that this is all strictly MY OPINION #If you’re about to repond with some reason I’m objectively wrong for liking something- shut up #these are things I liked #not necessarily things I think are objectively good #feel free to repond with things you liked that weren’t on this list

[bluestripedspeedo]

Indiscreet - 03. Last Night in... Pairing: Writer/Producer!Javi Gutierrez x you (Hollywood AU) SERIES MASTERLIST

Chapter summary: Finding a moment alone together is hard. Chapter warning: Vomiting, excessive drinking, fluff, and dirty flirting. 18+, as usual. New OCs introduced. Word count: 7k

Playlist: Rainy South Kensington

✧✧✧

JANUARY

You watch the party going at full swing downstairs from the second floor balcony, perfectly content with sitting alone with a glass of champagne, away from the action. Óscar brought you here, to his friend’s birthday party at his mansion just outside of London. Guy’s a major rockstar in the 90s so the crowd skews older and their children already found their cliques, so you end up alone after finding this quiet corner in the guest bedroom. You’ve decided to ditch the party until whenever Óscar would come looking for you to leave. 

The door to the room opens again - the nth person going in and out to use the bathroom. But this time you don’t hear it open for the second time to signal their exit.

“Hey,” says a familiar deep voice. It makes you look up. “Why aren’t you downstairs?”

You try to hide your surprise (and dismay) from him. “It’s been a long day.”

“I was looking for you.” Javi approaches you, smile getting bigger with each step towards. 

“Were you really?” You counter curtly, not believing the audacity of this man.

On your last day in Tokyo over a month ago, you were functioning on autopilot, sleep deprived from listening to your friend Anya all night about her not-quite-boyfriend that she had been on and off with. You tried to be pleasant, you really did, but after essentially being cockblocked you couldn’t even find the effort to do beyond barely listening to her. It didn’t help that you woke up with more messages from her asking why you were laughing with Javi in the background of Óscar’s costar’s Instagram reels. You explained that you didn’t even know the guy that well (not that you owed her any explanation), and of course everyone involved in the Forces franchise went to the premiere, so of course everyone hung out, duh. She didn’t need to know that you were spending all of your time with him in the past week and that you’d be spending more time with him for work. 

Then upon landing in New York you were faced with a new barrage of messages from her about that last day. You, Javi, Óscar, and some of his co-stars went for lunch served by a famed sushi chef - very private and exclusive, but everything’s possible with Javi. You didn’t expect a casual group picture would cause such a reaction from her. You couldn’t be bothered to read all of her texts, but you got the gist of it: it was because Javi’s arm was around you. It was as if she didn’t see his other arm was around Óscar. And she demanded to know why you were wearing his gloves in your picture from the other day, which she had noticed from… you honestly didn’t remember. You just thought it was creepy that she’d notice. You couldn’t understand why she cared about Javi so much. You didn’t even have time to think about what her thought process was because you were faced with a new filming schedule Óscar gave you.

Then it kept piling up. You barely spent a day sorting and packing to leave for London when your parents called you to spend the holidays with them. Which you obliged, but that meant not having time off for yourself at all before you were needed on set… and that meant canceling your plans to spend time with Javi road tripping in England after Christmas.

You haven’t seen him since the day you left for the island you spent your holidays at. That was almost a month ago. He didn’t seem to miss your presence much though, in contrast to what he said in his messages. “Looks beautiful, wish I was there” meant “I’m only saying this to keep the conversation going”. “I’ll show you around the set, don’t worry” meant not showing up at all for weeks because he’d decided to stay in LA until it’s time for the actual shoot. “I have to stay a few more days” meant bringing someone who looked around your age to an award show that he never even mentioned until you saw it all over social media.

“Yeah, c’mon, let’s go get some drinks. Let’s catch up…” Javi doesn’t have to ask you to know what you’ve been up to. He obsessively checked your Instagram while you were apart, careful not to let it show whenever he texted you. He wanted so badly to make a comment about the white dress you wore on New Year’s Eve, or the red swimsuit that has been occupying his mind at all hours…

“I’m good.” You make no eye contact with him, eyes occupied with the half empty champagne glass in your hand.

Javi moves closer to you and leans on the wall. “Let’s go anyway, I’ll introduce you around.”

“Óscar beats you to it, don’t worry. And he showed me around on my first day too.”

“I’m sorry about that…” So that’s why you’re not enthusiastically greeting him after all this time apart. “I had to stay behind for awards season.”

“Looks like you had fun.”

“Would’ve been more fun with you,” Javi winks, the corner of his mouth forming a half smirk.

“Seriously, Javi? What would your girlfriend say?” You stand up to your full height and look at him right in his eyes. 

“Hm?”

“Don’t ‘huh’ me. We were texting almost everyday, the least you could do was mention it once.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your date!”

He looks at you confused. “...Emma?”

“I don’t know, the one in the blue dress, whatev–” Who kissed and hugged you in front of cameras.

“She’s just a friend. From another movie, a long time ago.” Yeah, how comforting, after what he said about dating his actresses. 

“A long time ago? She looks my age.”

“A couple of years older, but yeah. What about her?”

“You should’ve told me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t wanna step on any boundaries,” you firmly say. “Would be nice to know if you’re… with someone.”

“Is that all?” His eyebrow quirks up. Now, why do you care if he’s with anyone? Javi feels a sense of pride blooming at your admission. “I have no relationship with her whatsoever – never had – and she actually got married over the holidays.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, very private, normal guy. They don’t want to announce yet. She needed a date, and that’s where I came in. Happy?” Javi lays it all out with a pleased smirk. Seeing you flustered and so, so bothered at the prospect of him being with someone else satisfies something in him.

He stares at you as you stand, thinking it over, with your arms crossed. After a few moments you finally take a deep breath and hang your head. Now you feel foolish about the weeks you spent being frustrated over your theories and your feelings. “I guess.”

Relief is obvious on your face and Javi thinks: you care. You care. He comes closer to you and touches your arm, his own opening in invitation for a hug. “I’ve missed you.”

✧

A couple of days later you find yourself in a small coffee shop in Soho with him, waiting for the rain to stop over your hot chocolate and his triple shot espresso when an hour turns to two and you decide to brave the weather. He tries to shield you from the worst of it with his height at first and warms your hands with his as you shiver from the cold. The both of you cackling in glee as you run towards the first vacant cab to get to his place all the way in South Kensington.

The brutal shooting hours finally takes a toll on you and you fall asleep on the way, later on woken up by him gently nudging you while he overpays and apologizes to the driver for wetting the seats. He leaves a spare old band T-shirt and shorts outside the bathroom while you change out of your dripping clothes. One movie-and-cocktails night turns into a routine for the following weeks – sometimes at his house, sometimes in your hotel room, sometimes in quiet, independent movie theaters that you’ve made a mission to try each one of. He happily tags along every time. 

✧✧

FEBRUARY

“We’re out of gin!” You sit back up on the sofa, legs close to your chest, the cutest pleading look you could manage in your half-drunk state. “Can we have some wine, please?” 

“That’s the second bottle this week… take it easy.” Javi says with raised eyebrows. It’s barely the middle of the week.

“Pleeeeeeease?”

“One glass, alright?” He gets up off the floor to go to his open kitchen. Observing his stacked wine fridge, he starts listing them off to you and checking on your reaction each time. “I have Chardonnay, merlot, Malbec, Shiraz…”

You make a face. “No rosé?”

He gives you a small shake no. “There’s a Carmenere… cava…”

“What is that? Don’t think I ever had it.”

“Sparkling Spanish wine. Never?” He takes it along with a couple of new glasses. He pours yours first and sits on the opposite end of the sofa. “Didn’t try it in Spain? I thought you drank a lot.”

“I always go with sangria, and uh, not that much.” You start to sip yours, not meeting his eyes. You don’t care for his snarky tone but decide to let it slide for now. “I wasn’t always like this.”

“Late rebel phase?” Javi prompts curiously. Not that late, perfectly normal for your age, but your amount is quite concerning for him.

“More like I just acquired my taste for it.” You make a show of raising and extending your glass to him. “This is really good, Javi.”

“Of course, it’s Spanish.” He winks and refills yours, and the both of you sit in silence while you drink. After finishing his, Javi rolls his neck with a crack and you let out a chuckle.

“You sleepy?”

“Hate to admit it, but yes. Do you wanna go over the script one more time?”

“I think I got it,” you gulp. “Thanks, Jav.”

“Want me to drive you home…” Javi starts to move closer to you.

“Maybe after–”

“…or stay here?” He asks carefully, looking deep into your eyes. 

“I have an early call tomorrow…”

“It’s late, though.”

“Yeah, it is.”

You finish your drink and hold it between your hands, your fingers intertwined on your stomach. You study his profile: strong nose, wavy long-ish hair that curls over his ears, facial hair with a little gray here and there, and a mustache that’d look comical on anyone else, the corners of it damp from the wine. Your eyes travel down to his broad shoulders, to his big arms, to his large hands and long fingers… Months after seeing him for the first time, you’re even more positive this man was made for you – physically, at least. He’s your type to a T. He’s not far off from the dream man you used to make up in your daydreams. It’s not the liquor talking, either…

You never thought you’d have the hots for someone twice your age and you have to admit: it’s sexy. If only he could feel the same. You clear your throat, bringing him out of his reverie too, and nod towards the bottle. “Look, we’re halfway there.”

“Might as well finish it, huh?”

“”One glass,”” you tease him, lifting your legs to sit up straight. The alcohol finally gets to your head and you miscalculate your move… as you’re supposed to plant your feet on the floor, you kick the wine bottle in Javi’s hand and also his glass, causing the gold liquid to spill all over the table, the carpet, the marble floor, and his lap. 

“Fuck!” You gape in horror at the mess you made. You see some of the wine has splashed onto the sofa too. You attempt to stand up to go to the kitchen to get a paper towel, a rag, anything, before you realize there are shards of glass around Javi’s feet. Losing your balance, you awkwardly fall to the floor on your side. “FUCK! Ow!”

Javi is still sitting there shocked for a few seconds before the situation sets in. “Are you okay?!”

“Are you okay?” You ask him back in a defeated voice, still trying to refocus your eyes and endure the throbbing pain in your head. 

Javi pulls you up quickly to a sitting position and it makes you feel even more nauseated than before. You cradle your head between your legs and feel a familiar feeling in your gut. Oh, no… Luckily you grab the empty paper bag of the tacos takeout quickly before you throw up the contents of your stomach into it. Javi doesn’t hesitate to pull your hair out of your face and rub circles on your back. When you’re done, he takes the bag of mess from your hand.

“I’ll clean this up. You use the bathroom, there’s a spare toot–”

You cut him off in embarrassment. “Got it.”

You hobble into the guest bathroom, absentmindedly slamming the door shut and leaning against it. You catch yourself in the mirror: face in disbelief and covered in cold sweat, red and misty eyes, disheveled hair. A mess.

Great. Now he’s gonna think you’re just some silly girl who drinks too much and can’t even handle it. What grown man would want anything to do with someone who still acts like a teenager? Making a mess of yourself and his house. Oh fuck, he mentioned it’s an expensive, custom made sofa… and he had his carpet shipped all the way from Turkey. You stupid, fucking, idi– 

A sudden knock on the door makes you jump. “Hey, are you alright in there?”

“Um, I’m just about done here, I’ll be back out in a sec.” You hear your own voice raspy from the dryness in your throat and your nerves. 

“It’s okay. Take your time.”

This is it. He’s gonna call me a cab and that’s it. No more of these night ins. Defeated, you clean yourself up and swallow your pride. 

Javi is on all fours in the living room, wiping the liquid from the floor and furniture, occasionally wringing the cloth into a champagne bucket. What the hell just happened?! It still hasn’t fully registered to him how you managed to kick everything that was in his hands. She should stop drinking so much, he thinks. From what he could recall, there hasn’t been a single day that you spent together where you didn’t drink throughout or ended up drinking by the end of the night, be it going out or at his house or your hotel room. He’d expected you to be insulted by his question earlier, but your answer just leaves him curious. More than anything, it makes him feel protective. He’s emptying a tray of broken glasses and wine-stained paper towels into a trash can when you reemerge and approach him.

“Javi,” you begin. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have had so much.”

“It’s okay. It happens,” he says, still busy with the task at hand, not quite looking at you.

“Is there anything I could help you with?”

“Just sit there. I got you some water,” he gestures to the kitchen island and your untouched share of tacos. “And eat your food. It’ll help you.” 

You sit on the bar stool and slowly sip your first non-alcoholic drink of the night. Your fingers lightly wipe over the dews on the glass as you close your eyes and feel every pounding in your head. 

“I’ll go get you some aspirin.” You look up to see him staring intently at you. “And I think it’s better if you stay. Just in case you need anything in the middle of the night. You could email me and Óscar tomorrow morning–”

“Jav–”

“–and say you’re not feeling well.” Javi says with finality in his tone.

“I can’t hold up production, Javi. I appreciate it but I can’t. I owe him too much.”

“He’ll understand. He could shoot something else, one day won’t hurt. Wait here – and eat, please.”

Javi comes back with the pills, an old band t-shirt of his that you’ve worn before, and a pair of pajama pants for you to change into. Looks like you’re staying in after all.

✧✧

You wake up the next morning to soft knocks on the door, followed by gentle footsteps approaching the too comfortable bed you’re in. 

“Did you sleep well?” Javi sets down a tray on the nightstand. You mumble a yes, head still heavy from sleep and hangover. “I made you tea and avocado toast.”

“You didn’t have to.” You sit up quickly and immediately regret it because the room starts spinning and you feel like you’re about to turn inside out. 

“Yeah, I did,” he chuckles. “I’ve called Óscar and told him you’re taking the day off.”

“Noooooooooo.” You groan.

“It’s done. I told him you texted me this morning that you came down with something and couldn’t get out of bed. It’s fine.”

“Does he know I’m here?”

“No, I told him you texted me,” he smiles amusingly to himself. You haven’t fully woken up yet. “As far as he’s concerned, you’re just sick in your own room.”

You don’t like that he lied on your behalf without your approval and to his own best friend that easily, but you decide to let it slide for now. It’s still morning and you’re not about to start an argument, especially when that toast looks exceptionally tasty.

 “Okay,” you take a sighing breath. “I’m really, really sorry about last night... I promise you, I’ll pay for the rug.”

“Don’t worry about it. Cleaners already picked it up this morning.”

“This morning? What time is it?”

“Twelve.”

Your mouth pops open. “SHIT!”

“Yeah… well,” he chuckles. “Your clothes are still in the dryer, do you want me to bring them here?”

The thought of him folding your clothes would sound sexy any other time but right now, you’re just embarrassed. “No, I… I’ll get them myself.”

“Okay. Towels are in the bottom drawer. I’ll leave you to it.”

✧

“Rome. By all means, Rome. I will cherish my visit here for as long as I live.”

Javi watches your eyes glisten in the dark as Gregory Peck walks across the hall all alone, never to see Audrey Hepburn again.

“I want a love like that.” You look at him while scooping the last bits of your gelato.

 Javi turns on the lights of his home theater to see your face better. “It’s a sad ending.”

“Sure, but their love is everlasting. Like Mia and Sebastian’s too.”

“Hmm, don’t think theirs is either.”

“No?”

“She’s married. They’ve moved on.”

“They still love each other! And, they could get back together, off-screen.”

Javi raises his eyebrows and starts to laugh.

“Even if they didn’t, they’re still each other’s greatest love! They’ll long after each other, forever.”

He continues laughing at you. “What’s wrong with you?!”

“It’s romantic!”

“They didn’t end up together! Would not!”

“Doesn’t make it any less so!”

Javi is now throwing his head back and clutching his stomach. “I think you need to date more often, if that’s your idea of romance.”

“So why haven’t you asked me out?” You blurt out before you could think twice.

Javi’s laughter stops and he sits straight up. Silence falls between you both. All the humor is gone in his now darkened eyes. “What do you mean?” Panic and anxiety start to bubble in you. “Are you drunk?”

“No?”

“Ugh,” he groans into his hands. “What is this…”

“Oh, okay,” you say shakily, your heart beating out of your chest. “Sorry that I assu–”

Javi raises a hand to interrupt you. “Do you remember that night, the afterparty?” You nod. “What do you remember?”

You look at him in confusion. “We drank and danced on the balcony?”

“After that.”

You shrug. “I went home.”

“Between that, then.”

You stare at him blankly. You can’t say that you remember what happened between being at that party and waking up in your bed the morning after. Not even how you got home - you’d assumed Óscar drove you back, of course. You remember having a massive headache, worse than the one you just had this morning. You remember Javi looking devastatingly handsome, looking every inch the billionaire heartthrob that he is. You faintly remember his scent when he stood close to you and you remember him murmuring in your ear and you remember tugging off his jacket and you remember your lips on–

“Javi…” you gasp. “Did we– did we, um…?”

“No,” he says quickly and clears his throat. “No, no.”

“We didn’t… kiss?”

“Oh. Well… not quite. You did, but–”

“Oh my God.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Javi clears his throat again and looks you straight in the eyes. “I took you home, but you weren’t walking straight at that point… you kept touching me and kissing my neck… I tucked you into bed… and I took off your dress because you said you didn’t want to sleep in it.”

You bury your face in your hands in embarrassment, and he continues.

“I didn’t look – at all – and then you asked me to stay but I left. It wouldn’t feel right. Next day you texted me for coffee, but I was on set, so we went to Grind the day after, right? And we went back here? And, nothing. You acted like nothing happened. You never mentioned it. I thought you thought it was a drunken mistake or I was someone else and you just didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t know what to say.” You breathe out after a few moments. It’s true that you weren’t aware of what you did, but you had been thinking night after night that maybe he’s just not interested in you, that it’s all you being too hopeful. He is kind and personable to everyone and it crossed your mind that you might have been overestimating your interactions. Or maybe the novelty of flirting with you had worn off and being back in LA surrounded by beautiful people made him forget about you. Some nights when you were alone and feeling particularly shitty, you thought that maybe he was going abroad to see someone else, not for business meetings. But never did it occur to you that it was you who embarrassed yourself and made him uncomfortable that night… and last night too. “I… have no recollection of any of that. I’m so sorry, Javi, if I made you uncomfortable and if you don’t feel the same, it’s fine.”

Javi shakes his head. “If you weren’t drunk, I would’ve stayed,” he says sheepishly. “You need to black out less often, though.”

“I know, I’m trying.”

“I’ll help you with that,” he takes your hand in his and interlaces your fingers. A smirk forms on his lips. “So, any suggestions for our first date?”

You pull your hand away. “Oh, no, you don’t have to. Let’s just forget I even said anything about that.”

“So you don’t want to? Because I do.” Javi says earnestly.

“You’re just trying to be nice.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I don’t, no.”

“I would’ve stayed. I mean it. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to… be with you. Been thinking about you since that first day. I’ve gone back and forth about this…” Javi clears his throat, finding his next words. “I thought I’d wait until we wrap this to bring it up, but... no better time than now.”

You want to believe him. You really do. “I’ll be fine, Javi.”

For all you know, this is just his thing… hooking up with whoever he’s working with at the time, but after. He’s told you as much all those months ago. Why would you be any different from them? If anything, this makes you feel even worse.

Javi sees your internal conflict and brushes your hair out of your face, his fingers trailing down until he softly caresses your chin. “I’m serious. I thought you could tell all this time.”

Maybe? You were happily already in the mindset that he was just naturally flirty and not interested in you in any way at all. Sure, you were hopeful, but you also knew it wasn’t possible. “I don’t know.”

“So you wanted to kiss me for nothing?” Heat creeps up on you in response. “There’s gotta be something here, right?”

You shake your head, preparing for the worst. There’s only one way to know for sure. “Is there? How do I know this isn’t just… one of your things? I’ll admit that I find you attractive, obviously, but we can just not do anything about it. Besides, you’re a lot older… you know that.”

Well, Javi didn’t expect the age jab but he refuses to let up, especially when you’re so wrong from where he stands. “This isn’t. I swear. When I told you I never wanted to pursue anything unless I’m really sure… I meant that. And come on, who cares? I don’t think you actually do.”

No, you actually don’t. Not when it comes to him.

“If you give me a chance, I’ll prove it to you.” Javi takes your hands again, his eyes pleading. Please believe me.

And you want to. This is right out of your daydreams. You should be elated, you should feel proud of yourself that he wants you back, you should be jumping up and down and into his arms, but something bugs you. Not just his past habits, or the embarrassment you feel from the way you came on strong to him, or your doubt that he’s just asking this out of pity, but…

You squeeze his hand, and nod your head yes. 

“Yeah?” Javi’s smile could blind you. 

“Yeah.” You confirm. “But Javi…” you look at your joined hands, his almost comically bigger than yours. “What about Óscar?”

“Oh, baby… we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

Next thing you know, this man of your dreams inches closer and closer and closer, your back hits the plush velvet seat, his lips asking for your invitation… which you give him without hesitation.

✧✧

The fireplace must have been put out long ago. You wake up with a shiver, despite being wrapped like a burrito with the blanket that you shared with… 

Javi. You slept with him – in the literal sense – and it was your idea. You know you have a tendency of draping yourself over someone else while you’re sleeping… Is that why he wrapped you up? You only hope that no one in the house saw anything incriminating.

You undo yourself from the folds and reach for your phone to check the time, and the first thing you see is a message from Javi, received hours ago: “Didn’t want to wake you. See you tonight at 8? Daphne’s, as promised.”

You type out a kissing emoji and start to put on your pants when you notice a plate of toast with marmalade and an already cold cup of tea on the coffee table. You carry them outside where you find Ava watching over her son kicking a ball around by himself. 

“Hey, how was your sleep?”

“Too good. I didn’t realize I got up so late. Thank you for these.”

“Thank Javi. He was up before us making breakfast.” You look down to hide your smile. “What are you doing today?”

“I have a fitting at 2. I probably should get going pretty soon.” You sit in silence while eating your breakfast. Ava turns to you pointedly.

“This morning… you and Javi seemed cozy.”

Oh, fuck. “Yeah, I couldn’t let him sleep on the floor, it was really cold.”

“I meant you were snuggling on him, but it’s okay, Óscar didn’t see it.”

Oh, fuck, you knew it. You open your mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out.

“Don’t worry about it. But, woman to woman,” she starts and you can’t help but to meet her eyes this time. “Don’t start anything while you’re still working. I didn’t say anything to Óscar, but this could be difficult for all of us.”

“Uh,” you clear your throat and decide to play it dumb. “It was probably an accident, it’s nothing like that.”

“Óscar doesn’t even see the possibility because he still sees you like a kid, but I’ve noticed.”

“Hm…?” You try to focus on your food, your heart pounding in the back of your throat making it hard to swallow or even taste anything.

“You and Javi.” You hold your breath, ready to deny anything she throws at you. “I don’t care. You’re old enough to know what you’re doing. All I’m saying is please don’t risk anything while you’re still on his set. This is really, really important to him. He’s not gonna react well. All he needs is to be focused on this film, right now.”

You sip on the cold, bitter tea in a futile attempt to warm yourself. “Why do you think–”

“I’ve known him for a long time, as long as I’ve known Óscar. I just had to see how he reacts to you.”

You sniffle. “That doesn’t mean a–”

“I saw him kiss you before he left.”

You feel your blood draining from your entire body.

“Like I said, I don’t care if you’re both happy. Do what you two want. But wait. Just for a little more time. You have, what, a month left?” You shrug in defeat and she nods. “There you go, no time at all.”

You cross your arms and bury your shaking hands in your side pockets, the cold increasing tenfold with each passing second, although you’re not sure if it’s from the weather or your shock. 

✧✧

Your mind is everywhere else but in the showroom as the seamstresses fuss over the beautiful dress hanging on your figure. The designer, who’s known for dressing A-listers and supermodels on the red carpet, was brought in to create custom pieces for key scenes. He’s also decided to make you the new face of his brand next year as a joint promotion for the movie and his involvement in it. Normally you would’ve fawned over the clothes and made small talks with everyone but today you’d rather fast forward time so you could be with Javi.

“Done.” The senior seamstress announces and you snap out of your thoughts.

“Turn around,” the designer orders you. “Perfect. Now the other one, thank you.”

As they fix the hem and who knows what else of another dress on you, your mind drifts to his thicker and longer fingers trailing up your thighs that one movie night. How his hands parted you as you keen and arch under his touch. It’s funny, how one moment you were doubting him, and the next you thought nothing has ever made as much sense as you two together. His lips peppering you with kisses in return, and you beckoning him closer and closer with each one. You grabbing his hair at one particular ravenous kiss, him involuntarily bucking between your legs at your gasp. He told you he wanted to do this since that very first day but he wanted to do right by you and take you out properly first. You were right about one thing - he’s a generous lover, and you haven’t even gone past second base yet. He took his time getting you all hot and bothered, “proving” that he wasn’t just bullshitting you.

But you know men. You’ve been hurt before. They’d say anything to get what they want, and you’re a bit inclined to believe Javi is not that different, as much as you desperately need him too. You know it’s best to not rush into things, as skillful as he and his hands are… and his voice… 

And before all that you have to talk to him. On the way from the cottage you thought about what Ava said. All things considered, and as much as you hate to admit it, she’s right, and you shared that concern too that night. Óscar brought you here and to do this behind his back would hurt him. Technically, nothing serious happened, but if Óscar found out about that night or even the night of his friend’s party… you don’t even dare imagine it.

✧✧

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you tell him with a sigh, but it’s more for you trying to convince yourself. Two hours have been spent on choosing the right outfit and even better underwear when he calls to tell you about a sudden meeting he has to have with some studio executives.

“It could be huge. I’m talking about a major deal for me and Óscar.”

“Yeah, I said it’s fine.”

“You don’t sound fine, baby.”

“I’m a little sad about it and I’m already dressed, so I’m just gonna find some friends to go out with. What time will you be done?”

“What are you wearing?” His voice drops an octave.

“Something pretty.” You haven’t actually put on the dress you’ve chosen but you have a feeling he’s more interested in what you’re wearing underneath it. 

“Tease,” he tsk’s.

“You deserve it.” You say as a matter-of-fact. 

“Agree. I promise to make it up to you. Tomorrow.”

“Promises, promises…” you tut. 

“I’ll make it worth it.”

“Yeah? What do you have in mind?”

“Something dirty.”

You laugh. “Tease!”

✧✧

It’s already past midnight when the meeting is finally over. It didn’t go as well as he’d hoped. He had risked disappointing you to woo other people instead to expand his production company. He was hoping to bring in a few experienced people in the industry to help him, but alas, their creative differences are too vast. Óscar immediately leaves to go home to his family but Javi decides to stay for something a little stronger than the vintage wines he bought for the table. He glances at the crowded outdoor area to find an empty seat when he sees you in the middle of the room. What are the odds? He wants to make a straight line to you, but decides against it... you deserve a nice night out he robbed you of. He’s not going to interrupt you lest you think he wants you available to him at all times at his convenience. He’s about to turn around and find a place inside when he feels long acrylic nails gripping his arm.

“Heyyyy,” a slurred voice greets him as her pointed edges dig into his bicep.

“Hi.” He replies curtly, shrugging her touch off of him. He hates to sound like a douchebag, but doesn’t this place have a rule against bothering other guests?

✧

You see your friend Anya walking – no, stomping – towards you, almost slamming straight into a waiter.

“Bitch, Javi fucking Gutierrez is here!” she screams. “Shouldn’t you know?” She challenges you smugly.

You’re too confused to come up with a snarky response. Javi? He’s not in a meeting?

“Where?!” One of her friends asks.

“Inside! Anyway, he was sooooo flirty and he asked me for my number. He was looking down at my dress too. I told you my tits look nice.”

You roll your eyes discreetly at her obvious attempt at fishing for compliments – you’re used to it. While her friends start bombarding her with questions, you excuse yourself from the table to find him. If he was really here. Javi didn’t say anything about being here. Is he here for you? Impossible, you didn’t tell him where you were going. You walk past the numerous themed rooms and finally find him at the quieter bar upstairs.

He’s already looking at you walking towards him, the mischievous glint in his eyes more apparent the closer you get to him, as if he sensed your presence before you even made yourself seen. His hair is slicked back messily and he’s taken off his suit jacket, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a fresh glass of top shelf whiskey halfway done between his fingers. 

“You look familiar,” you say once you seat yourself next to him.

“Mmm. You too, gorgeous. Reminds me of my girlfriend,” he plays along. Girlfriend? Oh, he’s bold.

“Girlfriend? Let’s hope she won’t hear about you asking another girl out.”

“You?” He winks.

“White dress, heavy eye makeup? That was my friend. I didn’t buy for one second that you asked for her number. Did you?”

“No,” he says, pointing to a damp ball of tissue he’d used to wipe the dew off his fingers. “She wrote hers down and shoved it to me. And I think I have scratches on my arms.”

“And I take it you didn’t look down her top either?”

“No,” he puts his hands up. “Her necklace looks familiar, though. Yours?”

“Good eye.”

“It looked better on you,” he smiles. “Honestly, I didn’t even think about looking at hers. There’s a better pair waiting for me at home.”

“Uh huh. How would you know?”

“‘Cause every inch of you I’ve seen already turns me on,” he whispers in your ear. “Fuck babe, what are you wearing?”

You slightly turn your back to face him and get your hair out of the way, giving him a full view of the elaborate thin straps of your almost backless silk dress. He reaches and takes one in between his fingers.

“Think if I tug this it’ll take the whole thing off? Fuck me.”

“Better keep your promise tomorrow then,” you purr.

“Let’s go now. You didn’t drink, right?”

“No, just water.”

“That’s great. Proud of you, baby.”

“I can’t bail, though. They think I’m in the bathroom and if I don’t come back they’re gonna wonder and Anya’s gonna ask questions. I don’t want that drama right now. And, they’re not even my friends for me to trust.”

“When you said you were going out with friends I thought you meant with… what do you call them? Belgravia Blondes?”

“Yeah.” You like that he remembers the name you gave for the three very blonde and bougie group of friends that includes Elise, your co-star. “I was going shopping with them. Then as we were leaving, Anya called me to say that she was in Harrods too, and–”

“Harrods?!” He balks. You’re usually the one to avoid huge crowds. 

“Poppy needed something! To be fair she took us to the private rooms but anyway, I shouldn’t have posted anything, because Anya saw my story and demanded that we meet up, and… here we are.”

Javi thought that you didn’t look like you were fully enjoying yourself and now it’s obvious why. “And where are the blondes?”

“Left as soon as they got us in.” There were too many of Anya’s friends to get in only by your membership. It wasn’t even your idea to bring them here, it was hers and she put you on the spot in front of them. Elise, the actual famous person in the group, had a ‘nice girl’ reputation to uphold too, so she had to go along with it lest being called a rude snob. They bailed as soon as they finished their first round of drinks but not without swarming your texts with apologies.

“We should leave too. You make up some excuse for them while I finish my drink. Driver’s outside.”

“Oh, did you know I was here?”

“No. I had the meeting upstairs, at Matteo’s. I thought I’d pick you up first thing tomorrow morning and then we’d spend the day eating and sleeping.” He winks at you, his innuendo clear.

You bite your lip. “How did it go?

Javi shrugs. “It didn’t work out. Doesn’t matter.”

“Javi, I’m sorry…” You put your hand over his, and he takes yours to grasp it in comfort. It doesn’t last long because you drop his hand, cautious of the people around you. Nothing would leak anywhere because privacy is prioritized here, but being careful is never wrong.

“You never mentioned your friend was in town.” Javi changes the subject.

“I didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t look like you want her to be here either.”

“I mean… yeah, not really.” You feel bad saying it, but it’s true. You’re not a very social person to begin with, and being with Anya and her massive personality and her equally loud friends takes a toll on you fast. You’ve been friends with her for years because most of it is long distance, through text, and you could live with that. Great in small amounts, you once told Javi about several people you know. Plus, her friends are strangers to you, so you’re a lone wolf. You don’t quite vibe with their show off-ness either. 

“Alright, so, let’s go.” Javi finishes his drink in one swift gulp. “Make your excuses, I’ll text you when to come out.”

“Okay,” you nod. “Wait for me.”

✧

You wait and wait and wait back at your table and you find out that Anya had promised her friends that you’d give them a tour of Óscar’s set. You never even brought that up. Fueled by annoyance, you promptly announce that you’re going to the bathroom again and that you’re leaving soon and they couldn’t stay if you’re not with them – club rules. Fifteen minutes pass and you come back to everyone gone, only Anya returning from smoking outside. Before you know it, another 15 minutes has passed and there’s still nothing from Javi. Twenty minutes later when she’s left too, you’re still waiting for him by the entryway.

“May I help you, Miss? Are you looking for a cab?” The doorman who’s been watching you pace around asks.

“No, I’m waiting for a friend. Actually, have you seen him? Tall, curly hair, mustache, green-ish suit?”

“If you’re referring to Mr. Gutierrez, I’m afraid he already left, Miss.”

“Yeah, are you sure? That was him?”

“Yes, Miss.”

“When?”

“Around thirty minutes ago.”

You barely register your surroundings as your ears ring and your breathing picks up. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Anytime, Miss. Have a good night. Do you need the cab?”

He stood you up.

How silly of you to think he takes you seriously.

✧✧✧

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#fic: indiscreet #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal x reader #the unbearable weight of massive talent #javi gutierrez fanfiction #javi g fanfiction #javi gutierrez x reader #javi gutierrez x you #javi g x reader #javi g x you #pedrostories #pedro pascal smut #hollywood au

[crescentmooninjuly]

i’m a nepotism, baby, you can trust me (chapter 1)

Summary: When the success of his film is threatened by a personal scandal, famous actor Aemond Targaryen has to fake-date his costar/nemesis.

Notes: Aemond & the original character from my other fic! (linked here)

Daemon is not related to Viserys in this fic to avoid incest between Daemon/Rhaenyra & Aemond/OC

TW: references to Sam Taylor-Johnson💀

Word Count: 3,118 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So is his dick really as big as they say it is?”

  Lyra coughed on the piece of kale she’d just forked into her mouth. “What?” 

 Baela raised her eyebrows suggestively. “How long is it?” 

 Lyra rolled her eyes. “You know we didn’t actually have sex, right?”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Rhaena grinned. “That sex scene was realistic as fuck.”  

 “But you at least saw him naked, right?” Baela asked eagerly. 

 “No!” Lyra laughed. She threw a fry at her sister across the table and it clung to her silver-blonde curls. Baela flicked some of her lemon water (room temperature, obviously) at Lyra in retaliation. 

 “Would you call it a porn addiction, hypothetically, if you just want to watch the same, tasteful, “how-can-it-be-considered-an-R-rated-movie-if-there’s-hardly any-nudity” sex scene over and over again?” Rhaena asked genuinely, chin contemplatively in the palm of her hand.

 “Gross,” Lyra smirked good-naturedly, popping a fry into her mouth. “You guys are a bunch of perverts.” 

 “How can you blame us?” Rhaena giggled. “He’s so  hot."

 Lyra rolled her eyes in response.

 Their current topic of conversation (as most of them had been recently), revolved around Lyra’s costar/nemesis, Aemond Targaryen. 

 Lyra and Aemond had spent most of last year filming an epic, World War I era, tragic romance, called The Great War. The movie was scheduled to be released in two months, and Lyra had just returned to LA after seeing the premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The lead actors were praised for their performances, earning award-season buzz for their incredible on-screen chemistry. But what the press had yet to find out, (and the production company certainly wasn’t keen on leaking the information) was that the two stars had been at each other’s throats for most of the shoot. They had constantly bickered on-set, disagreeing about almost everything. The studio had been forced to bring a moderator in during filming. But their off-screen hatred hadn’t ruined their characters’ relationship. If anything, it had elevated the passion between them. As soon as filming wrapped, Lyra and Aemond gratefully went their separate ways. And besides the film festival, where he spent most of the night ignoring her, they hadn’t seen each other since. 

  “Oh, did you see that Rolling Stone article? They placed you second on their list of favorite current nepotism babies.” Baela said. She was Lyra’s media and marketing manager. One summer, when Lyra was off filming an Indie movie in a remote part of Europe, Baela had been entrusted to update her Instagram account every few days. Lyra had gained five million followers in less than a week, and Baela had been in charge of her social media presence ever since. 

 “Who was number one?” Lyra asked, although she had a feeling she already knew the answer. 

 Baela smirked. “Aemond Targaryen, of course.” 

 Lyra furrowed her brows. “That seems sexist.” 

 “At least when people bring up the nepotism conversation, his name will always come up first,” Rhaena said. 

 Lyra’s mother was Evera Lys, an actress from the 90’s. Evera and her co-star, Daemon Prince, from the popular teen drama  Westeros High, had begun dating right after the show finished airing. Their whirlwind relationship had been plastered on every magazine cover and tabloid at the time, and they got married after only six months of dating. But tragedy struck a few years later, when Evera died from complications in the hospital after giving birth to Lyra. 

 Despite never getting to meet her mother, Lyra had had a mostly happy childhood. She had grown up in Malibu with Daemon, his second wife, screenwriter  Laena Velaryon, and their twins, Baela and Rhaena. And they had all become very close.  

 Daemon rose to even greater fame after starring in the period piece, The Iron Throne, with Oscar-winning actor, Viserys Targaryen. Aemond’s father. Hence the nepotism. Daemon and Viserys had played brothers, and became best friends during filming. After his amicable divorce from Laena, Daemon married Viserys’ oldest child, Rhaenyra, his daughter from his first marriage. Viserys had been initially hesitant about his daughter dating someone who’d been like an uncle-figure to her, but had grown to accept and respect the relationship after seeing the love they had for each other firsthand. Viserys’ second marriage to supermodel Alicent Hightower (Rhaenyra’s former best friend) had apparently caused quite the scandal back in the day. And it was rumored that Rhaenyra was his favorite child over the four he’d had with Alicent.  

  Since Lyra’s father was best friends with Aemond’s father, and Lyra’s stepmom was Aemond’s oldest sister, Lyra and Aemond had known each other long before they had been casted in The Great War. They had gone to the same private schools, and had seen each other often through the years at family gatherings and holidays. Even though Aemond was two years older than her, they had competed in the same acting classes and extracurriculars throughout their childhood. When Lyra got the part of Sandy in their school’s production of Grease, Aemond was casted as none other than Danny Zuko. And the same week Lyra had finally gotten a call-back audition for an actual speaking role in a network show, Aemond had booked his first movie. Granted, his character ended up having only two lines, but still. The small role landed him a SAG card and an IMDb page.

 Lyra couldn’t remember a time they hadn’t been competing against each other.

 “Speak of the devil,” Lyra muttered as her phone buzzed with Aemond’s contact name, sliding the screen to answer his call. “What do you want?”

 “Nice to hear from you too,” he said. She could tell from his tone that he was smirking. Asshole. “You busy?”

 “I’m having lunch with Baela and Rhaena.”

 “Hi, Aemond,” Baela cooed into the phone’s microphone. 

 Lyra rolled her eyes at her sister’s enthusiastic greeting. As if his ego needs more boosting. “So, what’s up?”

 She could practically hear the leather of his jacket crinkling in the background. Aemond had claimed it was fake, but the $800 receipt Lyra had found in his trailer begged to differ. 

 “Have you checked Twitter recently?” he asked warily. 

 “Only every hour of every day,” she said, mocking the insult he’d thrown her way months earlier.  “It’s called interacting with your loyal fanbase,”  Lyra had said defensively, when he’d scoffed that she was on her phone too much.  “You should try it sometime!”

 “So you haven’t seen it then,” Aemond deadpanned. 

 “Seen what?”

 He sighed into the speaker. “I think you should probably just look it up.” 

 That was never a good sign when you worked in the entertainment industry. “Shit,” Lyra said, putting him on speaker and opening up Twitter. She quickly went to the Trending section and her stomach plummeted. #AemondandLyra was number one. 

 She clicked on the top article, headlined  Aemond Targaryen Cheated on Ex with Co-Star Lyra Lys.

  New York Socialite Alys Rivers, 40, claims that her relationship with actor Aemond Targaryen, 25, recently ended because he was having an affair with his co-star, Lyra Lys, during the shoot of their upcoming movie,  The Great War.  It’s no secret that the two actors had amazing chemistry, with one source even stating, “They spent so much time together, even when the cameras weren’t rolling. They’ve been close for a really long time and the long distance took a toll on his relationship with Alys.” The two stars have yet to confirm the dating rumors, but were seen “hanging out” at the Cannes Film Festival last week…

  “What the fuck?” Lyra frowned, completely forgetting that Aemond was still on the line. 

 “I know,” Aemond sighed. “It’s not great…”

 “Not great?” Lyra nearly shrieked. She took the phone off speaker as some of the surrounding restaurant patrons started to glance in her direction. “Alys just told the entire internet that you cheated on her…with me.”

 Baela and Rhaena widened their eyes from across the table and immediately pulled out their phones.

 “Okay, but have you read what people are saying?” Aemond asked. “Did you see what’s also trending?”

 Lyra looked under #AemondandLyra. The second most trending topic was #HesFree. Curious, she clicked on the hashtag and pulled up the top tweets.

 Justaholeforaemondtarg: lmaoooo Aemond finally dumped granny💀 #hesfree

  Sleeplysinseattle: Aemond Targaryen is the only person i will forgive for cheating. Thank you @lyralys, our lord and savior🙏 #hesfree

 wolfdaddy12: okay but is anyone talking about lyra’s dating history?? She literally bagged Cregan mf Stark and now Aemond Targaryen, she’s really God’s favorite huh😭😭 #hesfree

 Aemondtstan4life: is meemaw really trying to make us hate Aemond for finally getting out of their toxic relationship? She literally groomed him lol, as far as i’m concerned Lyra saved his goddamn life #hesfree

  “Holy shit,” Lyra said as she scrolled through the tweets. Based on the twins’ frequent gasps and laughter, they were reading them as well. 

 “I know,” Aemond said.

 “Wait, so let me get this straight,” Lyra began, getting up from the table so Baela and Rhaena wouldn’t overhear. “Alys told the press that you guys broke up because you cheated on her…but the internet is…happy about it?” 

 “Mostly,” he answered. “Listen, my publicist wants to get ahead of this. Can I meet you at your place in an hour?”

 Lyra glanced back at the table, the twins furiously typing on their phones. She let out a long sigh. “Sure, let me text you my address.” 

 “No need,” Aemond said. “I know where you live.”

 “Funny, I don’t remember telling you…” Lyra trailed off. She supposed Helaena must have told him. As much as Aemond seemed to exist only to drive her crazy, Lyra had always gotten along very well with his siblings.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Lyra drove through the Hollywood Hills in a daze. She hadn’t seen Cregan Stark, her boyfriend of almost three years, since their breakup a few months ago. It had happened shortly after she’d returned from filming The Great War in the UK. He was a rising Indie musician, and his album from earlier that year, Dragonfire (his old nickname for her based on her signature red hair), had been a huge success. He’d had a steady following before its release, but his fanbase had tripled in the months since. Most of the songs had been about her, of course. Love songs about their relationship. But the long months apart on separate continents had been difficult, and they would have only had a few weeks together before he was set to embark on his year-long tour. So they’d decided to take a break. 

  When she pulled into her private drive, after the security guard at the gate buzzed her through, she immediately noticed a familiar car parked in front of her expansive garden. 

 “Jace!” Lyra exclaimed, throwing her arms around his neck when he opened the car door for her. “What are you doing here?” 

 “Just wanted to take advantage of your giant house and hot tub, obviously,” he grinned. But his face fell as he noticed something behind her. 

 She quickly turned and spotted Aemond’s black Lamborghini pulling into her driveway. Because of course he had one. 

  “That’s actually why I’m here,” Jace frowned, watching Aemond intently as he casually slid from the driver’s seat and made his way toward them. He threw his leather jacket over his shoulder and pulled off his Ray-Ban sunglasses. 

 Lyra internally fumed at how attractive he was. It was much harder to hate him. 

 “Like what you see?” Aemond smirked at her expression. And before Lyra could come up with a snarky comeback, he wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her cheek, dangerously close to her mouth. 

 “What the hell, Aemond?” Lyra breathed, pulling away. They’d kissed lots of times while filming the movie, of course, but this was different. She suddenly felt dizzy…and infuriatingly not in a bad way. 

 Jace stared at the two of them in shock, mouth agape. 

 Aemond shrugged. “Our little secret’s out, Lyr. We don’t have to hide anymore.”

 “So it’s true?” Jace shrieked. “You guys are…together?” 

 “Jace—” Lyra began in a panic. 

 “I came over here to make sure,” he sighed dejectedly. “How could you do this to Cregan? Did you cheat on him?”

 “No! I would  never —”

 “You know how close I am with him,” Jace said, running a hand through his shaggy, dark hair. 

 Lyra felt her throat start to tighten up. “Yeah…”

 Cregan was Jace’s best friend. That was how Lyra had originally met him. And up until now, Jace had done a pretty good job of not bringing him up around her. 

 “So how is he?” Lyra couldn’t help but ask. Aemond snorted from beside her. 

 “He’s not seeing anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

 “That’s not what I was asking…” she mumbled unconvincingly. 

 “Well, he’s not,” Jace said. “But he thinks you’re dating Aemond now. And I guess he’s right.” 

 Lyra wanted to bury herself under her covers and never come back out. “Listen, I never would have done that to him. Okay? Aemond and I aren’t—”

 “—Aren’t ready to talk about our relationship,” Aemond interrupted hurriedly. 

 Lyra glanced at him in confusion. What was he playing at?

 “But neither of us cheated, I swear,” he said seriously. “Alys just made that shit up to get back at me for dumping her.” 

 Jace looked between the two of them skeptically for a few moments before nodding in resignation. “Alright, I believe you.”

 “Great,” Aemond said, slapping a hand on Jace’s shoulder and steering him back toward his car. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we just want to finally be alone.”

 Jace huffed in annoyance, but obeyed, sending Lyra one last, small smile and a promise to call later. 

 As soon as his car disappeared from the end of her driveway, Lyra stormed inside her house without looking back. She slammed the front door shut, but Aemond managed to stop it before it closed completely and made his way in behind her without an invitation. 

 “What the fuck was that?” Lyra yelled, turning to face him. 

 And to her fury, the prick had the audacity to smirk. “Just wanted to spend some quality time with my girlfriend.”

 He lazily slumped onto her living room couch and wasted no time in making himself comfortable. 

  She crossed her arms. “What are you talking about? This isn’t funny—”

 He sighed and leaned forward in the chair. “Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sprung that on you. But I have an idea to fix this situation. Before it gets worse.”

 Morbidly curious, Lyra took the seat across from him and waited for him to continue. 

 “If we say nothing,” he said, “If we ignore the rumors or even try to deny them, the majority of people will assume we’re lying to cover up an affair. A spur-of-the-moment, reckless decision that resulted in not one, but  two breakups.”

 “Cregan had nothing to do with this,” Lyra frowned. “We broke up before you dumped Alys. ”

  “But no one will see it that way,” Aemond sighed. “We shot a movie together for several months. In a different  country.  As soon as filming wrapped, both of us just happened to break up our respective relationships? It’s unfortunately very coincidental.”

 Lyra just scoffed, too hurt to reply. 

 “I know, this sucks,” he said gently, his tone suddenly more sympathetic. “But we could spin this story to make it seem…romantic. Understandable.” 

 Her eyes widened, slowly starting to put the pieces together. “You want us to fake a relationship?” 

 He nodded.

 “But how would that fix things?” Lyra asked. “Wouldn’t that just confirm the cheating rumors?” 

 Aemond rubbed the back of his neck anxiously, his smug and arrogant tone from before completely gone. “You know how the media works. Once something’s out there, people accept it as fact. But if we revealed that we fell in love while filming the movie…”

 “...they wouldn’t necessarily blame us?” Lyra finished.

  “Exactly,” he grinned. 

 “But I thought the internet was already on your side.”

 He shrugged. “Some, maybe. But it’s never the man’s fault, is it?” 

 She quickly pulled out her phone and opened Twitter again. In her shock earlier, she had failed to notice some of the more negative comments. About her. Hundreds of people calling her a homewrecker. A cheater. A slut.

 Because everyone assumed Aemond had cheated on Alys, they were now questioning the true reason for Lyra’s breakup with Cregan.

 Aemond noticed her sad expression, and his tone turned uncharacteristically sad. “I know, I’m sorry. But we can fix this.”

 “You really think this would work, though?” she asked quietly. “I mean, we could barely shoot a movie without almost killing each other.”

 The corner of his mouth twitched upward. An almost smile. “If we managed to convince the casting directors that we have good chemistry, we can convince anyone.”

 She let out a long sigh, still unconvinced. “You do realize that we’d have to lie to everyone we know.”

 “I know,” he said, running a hand through his long hair. “We couldn’t afford another scandal if the truth was leaked. But we worked too damn hard on the movie for it to be ruined by this. I need your help. Please?”

 “Okay,” she finally answered. “But I think we need to establish some ground rules.”

 “Like what?” he snorted. 

 “No kissing,” she said, crossing her arms.

 He scoffed. “You didn’t seem to mind when we were filming. This would be no different, we’d be acting.” 

 Lyra rolled her eyes. “I was being paid to do it before. It would be…weird now.”

 “Fine, whatever,” he muttered. “Anything else?” 

 She thought for a moment. “We can’t see other people, even secretly. It’d be too suspicious.”

 Aemond nodded in agreement. “Deal. Should be easy enough for you,” he smirked. 

 “Shut up,” she glared, throwing one of her couch pillows at him. “I’ve been asked on tons of dates since Cregan and I broke up,”

 “Mmm hmm,” he hummed sarcastically. 

  He stood up and stretched, revealing a thin strip of his defined lower abdomen as his shirt rode up. Lyra quickly looked away before he could notice her staring and her face beginning to flush. It was bad enough she’d had to endure seeing him shirtless while having to make out with him during the film shoot. It’s just pretend, it’s just pretend, she repeated over and over in her head as she followed him outside back to his car. 

 Aemond was already busy typing in his phone, making plans with his publicist for their official relationship reveal. “I’ll keep you updated,” he promised. “See you later, baby.” 

 And with one final smirk, he revved his engine obnoxiously loud and squealed out of her driveway. 

#aemond targaryen #aemond/oc #modernau #modernaemond #hotdfic

[ikkaku-of-heart]

Mmmmmmmmm so not even the Heart Pirates tag is safe from this current chapter’s bullshit (I shouldn’t be surprised really, yet somehow I am) but while I’m not going to get into the spoilers or anything, I am going to address something I’ve seen a few people imply or even straight-up say, as it’s an argument I’ve had to endure for far too fucking long.

“Oh, the Heart Pirates are surely weak because we haven’t actually seen them fight!”

Hey, you know what other crew we haven’t really seen fight, but no one questions their strength or power? The fucking Red-Hair Pirates. We saw Lucky Roo shoot a guy and Benn beat the crap out of some mountain bandits in Romance Dawn. That’s it. Hell, Whitebeard even mocks Rockstar because he’d never heard of him! But no one can (or should) try to claim that Shanks is the only powerful one on that crew. They are the crew of an Emperor of the Sea and that automatically gives clout, even to a newbie like Rockstar.

Now, I’m not saying the Hearts are as strong as the Red-Hair Pirates; what I’m saying is that screen time does not equal strength. But we do have evidence that they’re not weak. Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin remained standing and conscious when Rayleigh unleashed his Conqueror’s Haki back in Sabaody. This was before the fucking timeskip, remember? And then there’s the fact that the crew helped keep Jack and the Beast Pirates at bay during Zou. Or how about how they were willing to rush Big Mom with the Kid Pirates to protect their captain? And don’t try to use the time Shachi, Penguin, and Bepo got captured as an indicator of weakness - we’ve seen powerful characters get captured before, and Hawkins’ powers were pretty much designed for taking hostages.

Yes, the Hearts can be comical, and besides Law we don’t have any confirmed Devil Fruit users, but I’m just so fucking tired of people going “Law’s the only powerful one on the crew!” or “The Hearts are useless!” We don’t see 90% of the other Worst Generation’s crews in action but they don’t get nearly the same crap.

So just shut the fuck up already about them being weak. Regardless of how strong the captain is, weak crews don’t survive that far into the New World. They are the crew of the Surgeon of Death. Law absolutely loves his nakama, and they love him back, and you had better believe they would have been training as hard as the Straw Hats to help him achieve his dream.

#Time for Maintenance (OOC) #Join the Hearts: We Have Uniforms #Heart Pirates #trafalgar D. Water Law #one piece ikkaku #bepo #penguin one piece #shachi one piece #op chapter 1063 #one piece spoilers #(well not really spoilers but this anger has come to a head because of them so we're tagging anyway) #(trust me I have so much fucking anger about that whole chapter but this argument in particular grinds my gears tonight) #(I am just so tired)

[staysuki]

when a new guy moves to your country, your empathetic heart forced you to reach out and help him—even when he wants nothing to do with you. (ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS)

TAGALOG VERSION -> here

pairing: bang chan x y/n (ivy league au)

genre: crack, fluff, angst, college/uni kid au (they're in their 3rd-4th year)

warnings: A LOT A LOT OF extreme cussing and vulgarity, including some corny, distasteful jokes. edgy(?) humor. filo humor(?) extreme suggestiveness!! lot's of mentions of sex/hook-up culture but no smut. still, R-16/17.

a/n: the translated version of When In Manila! because of the smau's plot and concept, i understand that some jokes and references may get lost in translation or it'll be difficult to fully capture the vibes of the whole "new guy in a new country" feelz + how absolutely unhinged the chaos of the group actually is (which makes me sad). but that's the challenge i'm going for!!

chapters

one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten | eleven | twelve | thirteen | fourteen (1) | fourteen (2) | fifteen | sixteen | seventeen | eighteen | nineteen | twenty

twenty-one | twenty-two | twenty-three | twenty-four

cultural setting notes:

the story will still take place in the 🇵🇭PH, it's simply just the dialogue that'll change (and i'll try to make the references universally understandable). but because there might still be some filo culture references, this'll serve as a glossary for those!! (will be constantly updated). nonetheless, lmk if there's anything confusing still! (in any case, i'll add a glossary to every chapter as well!)

TRANSPORTATION - students having cars are uncommon here in the PH and is mostly seen as a sign of wealth. thus, "commute" is the go-to means of transportation (i.e. trains, buses, "jeeps", or taxis)

UNIVERSITY BELT / U-BELT - in the PH, we have an entire area where a LOT of universities are relatively next to each other (around 20-30 mins drive away). just imagine harvard, yale, and etc. being streets away from each other lolz.

UNIVERSITIES - most, if not all, universities/colleges in the PH require you to take an entrance examination before you could enroll. there are a lot of schools around the U-BELT but the most prominent ones that will be mentioned in the fic are:

ATENEO - probs the most "high-end" one with the expensive tuition and known for very rich (but also smart) students with an acceptance rate of 10-20%

LA SALLE - like ateneo, it's known for its expensive tuition and rich students but has an acceptance rate of 70+%. though the education quality is still good, there's a running joke that "la salle students only go there because they failed the entrance exam in ateneo/U.P."

ADAMSON - still expensive but not as much. kinda has their own world. despite being a catholic university, they're known for being an accepting and supportive school when it comes to their students (recently, they were the first big-name university to offer a "mental health break" so students can cope with the post-election stress)

U.P. - (short for "University of the Philippines"), known for "smart scholars" with a 10-15% acceptance rate which is our country's main university! it's cheaper than the first three and offers the most access to free-ride scholarships unlike the others. most UP students are scholars!!

to be updated...

(mm/dd/yy)

date started: 5/16/22

date finished:

taglist: open!

mastertag: @leagreenly @90s-belladonna @fuzzylard @loveliebri @chimmybaek7 @todorokiskitten @lilacdreams-00 @ethereallino @ninjaleeknow @trials--error @hey-i-really-miss-you @multifandomizer @aerastus @caratinylyfe @kdhvier @hibuki-chan @blaaiissee @skzoddinaries @suhnnyskiess @beaann

#when in manila #when in manila eng #wim skz #skz smau #skz #stray kids smau #stray kids #stray kids social media au #skz social media au