#honestly the mystery seems like its all... eh.

[writer-of-the-shack]

pls can u write ANYTHING for a pretty boy x gn! reader? no one writes 4 him n im so desperate u don't understand 😭

In all honesty, I can agree with this. The lack of Intersection Pretty Boy fics just makes me- GGGGGGGGG

Also, sorry for the long wait!! Honestly, I had to rack my small brain for some prompts that would make a good scenario so- Ehe..??? HOW MANY YEARS??? THIS IS THE LONGEST I THINK THAT A BLOG HAS RELEASED ITS FIRST POST AND I'M HONESTLY SO SORRY I PROMISE I'LL DO MY BEST WITH THE OTHERS IT WOULDN'T BE A YEAR LONG WAIT I SWEAR--

Within the Fog

The town of Nanchou-Shi was eccentric in its own right. With the obsession of the townsfolk over intersection fortune telling and the rumors of the ghost that haunts the town's tradition, the Intersection Pretty Boy. Though intersection fortune telling was something that people mostly do in search of that one seed of hope, the circulating cases proved otherwise. If not, it proved to be more dangerous than helpful.

In truth, the strange problem of the town seemed to have beckoned a morbid curiosity within you. The fact that these unfortunate souls met their ends when all they wanted was hope for their romantic struggles was a tragedy in its own right. Yet not only were they caused by random strangers that happened to pass by, but the most intriguing part was that the victims would often talk of a beautiful boy in black wearing red lipstick. He was an unknown entity that piqued the fear and interest of many.

With the mystery of the Intersection Pretty Boy's origin and identity, all fingers are pointed at your unfortunate friend, Fukata Ryusuke, claiming he was the Intersection Pretty Boy. But doubt would always wrap your mind in its shadowy cloak as you think of the connection between the Intersection Pretty Boy and Ryusuke. He never wore earrings, nor had you seen him owning red lipstick. Yet the tension of his posture and the sweat trailing down his face roused your suspicion.

As usual, the rumors regarding Intersection Fortune telling had been one of the school's favorite topics to gossip about, and your piercing gaze with the worried glances of Midori was of no help as Ryusuke struggled through the day.

Through the classroom window, it was easy to know that it was another gloomy day in Nanchou-Shi. Though the school had sheltered the students from the fog, they couldn't stay in school for long. But it was a thought that barely reached their restless minds, for what drowns their caution was the overpowering curiosity and temptation of Intersection Fortunetelling. Ryusuke never seemed to do it for the sake of his struggles, but it seemed more of a responsibility for him, one that seemed to come at the price of his well-being. As the fog hung in the air, he'd walk through the town, passing through intersections and giving advice. As days went by, curiosity crept from behind, slowly engulfing your mind as the image of what remained of your friend, Ryusuke, would occasionally flash within your mind. How thin he had become, how dull his eyes would come. He seemed like a dead man walking.

Your thoughts continued to dive deep into the intriguing mystery of Nanchou-Shi. But with the chilling hush of the wind, you were dragged back into reality, your view obscured by the overwhelming fog. "Tsk… Lost. I shouldn't have spaced out like that." Frustration clung from the back of your head as you internally scolded yourself. Helpless, you tried to navigate through the fog, wishing for something to enter your line of sight, perhaps a wall or a sign. And so, your wish came true as gray walls entered your line of sight, concealed by a veil of fog. Towards the wall, you walked. Mind running through memories to see if this wall was a puzzle piece to a place you've walked past at some point. But to no avail, your thoughts froze as your fingers made contact with the sharp turn of the wall.

You were at an intersection.

Cold realization struck as you froze in your spot. It felt like the wall was absorbing your hand, refusing to let you escape. The silent atmosphere of Nanchou-Shi felt more ominous as your eyes darted around the fog, paranoia creeping in like a silent predator. Was that figure walking towards you just a figment of your imagination? A hallucination? A tall, slim figure walked through the fog, seemingly unaffected by the heavy fog. It wasn't in a hurry like a businessman running late for work or a daydreaming student idly walking from school with their bag in hand or shoulder. The figure strolled casually, the rhythmic clack of their footsteps growing nearer and louder.

Paranoia turned to panic as your silently wary mind exploded into a flurry of thoughts. Whether you believed in the tales of the Black-Clothed ghost or thought it was just an elaborate cover for someone's crimes, you knew the outcome was inevitably grim.

The fog soon made way for the figure, revealing an otherworldly beauty. Eyes devoid of life, red-stained lips curved in a small yet mysterious smile, he wore no other color than black. The fog didn't seem like an entity of its own, but rather, it was akin to a veil that lovingly embraced him.

And as your eyes found him, it felt as if your heart froze. It was a contrast to your mind running in a storm of frenzy. Yet like the calmness in a storm's eye, one thought echoed in your mind like a voice lost within a looming cave.

Run.

With sudden courage, you ran from the intersection. Your beating heart echoed in your ears as the heaving of your breath grazed past your auditory senses. Yet none of those seemed to drown the echoing footsteps of the Intersection Pretty Boy. The image of the tall ghost was carved in your mind as you ran through the streets of Nanchou-Shi, using every turn to your advantage. But no matter how many turns you took, the chill that clung to your back didn't fade.

With the doubtful reassurance of your mind, you finally slowed your pace as you leaned on a lamp post for support, catching your breath. As you looked up, your eyes met the all-too-familiar gaze of Ryusuke. His confused gaze set upon you as he approached you with caution. "(Y/n)..?" The sickly-looking boy gazed at you, cold sweat trailing down his cheek as he took in your disheveled appearance. With the haunting image of the Intersection Pretty Boy flashing in your mind, you chuckled as you smiled at Ryusuke. Finally, in the presence of a familiar face, the veil of caution and fear slowly slipped from your mind, leaving only a tiny stain of vigilance within your mind.

"Ryusuke! " A sigh of relief escaped from your lips which curled into a smile that Ryusuke reciprocated with an uneasy smile, shoving his hands in the pocket of his uniform slacks. The fragile smile on his face dropped, unease flooding through his eyes as he looked at you as he spoke. "I didn't expect that I'd see you here…" With his hands still in his pocket, he walked past you. The Black-Clothed Ghost loomed over you, and he stood with his back straight. Ryusuke, though he hid his hands in his pocket, walked with a slouched back and heavy shoulders.

"… The fog's heavy. You should go home." He said as he looked at you over his shoulder. Unlike the ghost, who seemed at home in the fog, Ryusuke seemed like a fearful prey within the heavy fog. As his figure disappeared into the heavy fog, you struggled to take in your surroundings through the heaviness of the fog. Relief flooded over you the moment you recognized the streets.

You were finally near your home.

Finally, inside the safety of your home, you hurried towards the privacy of your room and into the comfort of your bed. After your eventful walk back home, you were too tired to get back up from your bed to change out of your uniform. The softness of the bed was just too comforting for you to leave as your eyes shut, slipping into your dreams.

Opening your eyes, you found yourself on the cold streets of Nanchou-Shi. Upon noticing the familiar fog surrounding you, your eyes widened as you sat up and looked around. Echoes of steady footsteps reached your ears, sending your blood running cold as you turned your head to see the all-too-familiar silhouette of a looming figure.

As the silhouette grew nearer and nearer, your mind began to yell at you to run. But as you tried to stand and run, you couldn't. Your body felt as if it was frozen, glued in place. Why? You couldn't move your own body, and he was nearing you. His eyes were an empty void of lifeless white. With his red-stained smile, you could feel his gaze on you.

At last, you managed to stand to your feet, taking your steps back, away from him. Set on running away from him, you finally turned away and ran deeper into the endless fog. You couldn't tell where you were going. Your mind plagued with fear as the sounds of his footsteps didn't seem to disappear the more you tried to run from him.

It only seemed as if your attempt was futile. Wordlessly, he appeared from within the fog and walked past you. Each time he opened those red-colored lips, you ran faster, not wanting to hear any words coming out of his mouth. The more you ran, the more it seemed like you were in a desolate town. You expected to run into someone, perhaps Ryusuke, but there was no one except the Black-Clothed Ghost.

Feeling your heart hammer through your ribs as you ran deeper within the fog, breathing felt heavy as your body gave out. You didn't know how long you were running, and the more you ran, the more pointless it seemed. Countless turns and intersections greeted you, and it only seemed like you were running in circles. No matter how many turns you took, he's always there.

Leaning on a wall as you tried to catch your breath, you lifted your head to find the heartless ghost walking past you with an eerie smile. As you watched him walk past an intersection, a sigh escaped your lips. The momentary relief washed over you as you thanked your luck that you stopped on the length of the walls and not its corners.

Resting your head against the wall behind you, you closed your eyes in hopes of waking up. This was a dream, you were sure of it…

… And you woke up. Not on the streets, and most certainly not on your bed. Turning your head to look over your shoulder, you found yourself leaning against a person's leg. Standing with the back facing you, you let your eyes wander upwards only to find him again. His hands hidden in his pockets, his lithe figure loomed over you who remained on the ground.

Turning his head, he looked over his shoulder. Though his eyes were empty, you felt his gaze at you, felt him staring at you with the seemingly amused smile still on his red-stained lips.

And as his red lips parted, his voice rung to your ears, his words echoing in your mind.

"Never return."

#Intersection Pretty Boy #Lovesickness Dead #junji ito #junji ito x reader #Intersection Pretty Boy x reader #Seriously I'm sorry for taking A G E S

[zahri-melitor]

Batman Eternal

I think for a weekly, event comic that was promising to deliver the Bat Family, it underperformed. Some people had a good event, some people had a mediocre event and were underused, and there were a few absolute shockers.

The Good:

In terms of a 'push Bruce to the limit' event, it was interesting in that this one pushed Batman, the Bat Family AND Bruce, separately, to their limits. I'm used to events being 'pick two of the three'. That said, it still underestimated the effectiveness of its supporting cast.

Bruce had a solid event, in that it was focused on him and broke him down to build him back up by running him ragged and keeping him guessing on 'who caused this'. Honestly I don't have a lot to say about Bruce's plot, sorry. It was an okay mystery running through various rogues? I think making Cluemaster Who Dunnit was not the right choice (Arthur should always be a bit pathetic), but I can see why they picked him in the story that's returning Steph and after making Riddler the big bad for Zero Year.

Selina actually had a reasonable event. She got her entire backstory rewritten and ended up controlling crime in Gotham at the end of it, but eh, the former happened to a lot of people during n52 and the latter is something Selina ends up doing every now and then. Her plotline involved organised crime and Carmine Falcone, so it was even something associated with her long term story arcs.

Jim Gordon: look, once we get past the incredible miscarriage of justice that was Jim being arrested and convicted for manslaughter (please, please, explain to me how Jim shooting the signal box input was what caused the trains to crash, rather than the railway routing that meant there was timetabling and no fallback override for two trains SHARING TRACK while running in opposite directions), it was essentially just an excuse to put Jim in Blackgate and start up the plots there. Which you know, went pretty well. Jim got to be the strong man, show off his personality, and presumably this all sets up the Superheavy plotline (sigh).

Julia Pennyworth. Look, I don't hate the idea of Julia, so much as am confused by the very tight timeline constraints required for her existence (post about this coming), and I resent that DC let the team basically invent a new Oracle without being allowed to acknowledge that Oracle is Barbara Gordon. It's like it's an important role in Gotham! Anyway. In terms of what Julia brought to the page, I did appreciate that the writing team seemed committed to increasing the number of women characters populating Gotham, I am happy to have someone not Alfred running comms for the Bats, and I can see several ways she'd be an interesting character to have around, long term, for storytelling. I could grow to like her. But man. I had a really hard time swallowing her existence while Barbara's in the same event having her character destroyed.

Harper Row is so clearly Scott Snyder's pet. Honestly, I really enjoyed her design and the general arc of her story; adding an electrical engineer to the group is actually a relatively unoccupied niche and gives her points of differentiation, but by handing her such a major part of the plot while other, fan favourite characters were appearing and getting not much at all was setting her up to fail in the eyes of the audience.

Steph ranks up in the 'had a good event' category. She essentially reran her origin story combined with aspects of her War Games plot (before everyone yells at me, I particularly noted the correlation with the part of the story where Selina hid her with Holly coming through here with Steph hiding from Arthur and her getting dumped at the Rows for protection. Go actually read War Games). I liked the concept of the Spoiler blog being what she used as her name inspiration here. I again wouldn't have minded if she had actually interacted more with other Bat characters (everyone got very siloed here) but you know what? The story brought her back and set her back up in her default sort of background state. Seriously, they picked from Steph's biggest stories here (her origin, War Games, and actually parts were in conversation with War Crimes, which is a phrase I never thought I would say), and that was a reasonable decision imo.

The Mediocre:

Luke Fox got an interesting plotline with Jim Corrigan and the Spectre. Unfortunately it rarely interacted with the rest of the story (apart from leading to Arkham blowing up). This could have been a separate mini.

Tim got to appear in actual Bat titles, doing actual Bat things, and while being abrasive I could squint at him and see his original characterisation. Tragically despite this he basically didn't get to interact with existing characters he knew for most of the plot. Got handed the idiot ball on occasion to show off Harper. I wish he'd had more opportunities to spend time with characters I know and enjoy him with.

Kate Kane was there, for this event. She got to spend some time with Barbara and Jason. She also really didn't do much of anything. It felt like an obligatory 'you currently have a solo' appearance.

Jason Bard: look this is where I'm conflicted. If this was simply Random Cop #34, I'd have probably bumped it up to good but unrealistic (in terms of the speed run to Commissioner), but as a Jason Bard story? About all they kept or knew of Jason was that he's a cop, he was mentored by Jim Gordon, and that he Has A Limp. I am still outraged they made Babs give him the limp, I think making him a minor antagonist of this was a waste of bringing back Jason Bard, and the endpoint left him in a position where he's moderately unusable by other writers (there was a slight set up for 'transition him over to a detective agency' but there was no resolution on why anyone in Gotham either among the GCPD or the Bats would trust him after this).

The Bad:

Hush. No, not so much in his story (it was boring, it was Tommy being Tommy, yawn), but in the fact for no apparent reason Tommy is running around with his head bandaged. WHY? No reason was given. Using the bandages as his 'costume' is actually painfully irritating, because he wore the bandages during the original Hush as he was healing from facial reconstruction surgery. Here, he was imported into New 52, with his face wrapped in bandages, and no reason given. He wasn't trying to become Bruce and steal his identity. He was just...in bandages. Because that's how he looked in Hush and the fanboys think of him, despite the fact he basically never appeared in bandages again AFTER the initial Hush storyline. I'm infuriated in the pointless iconography that misses the original intent that this is.

Barbara had a terrible event. Even if I excuse everything as she was still grieving over Dick's 'death' and Jim being in jail, and the fact she was undergoing personality surgery in her own title (Batgirl #35 sigggghh), a complete random 'ship Barbara and Jason together' plotline came out of nowhere premised on the fact Barbara was missing Dick? Or something? And their age gap in n52 nonsense is only a couple of years, rather than Babs being ABOUT TEN YEARS OLDER and having babysat Jason. Ugh.

Speaking of: Jason Todd did somewhat better than some of the others in that he got to actually hang out with Barbara and Kate for a storyline, and honestly pairing him up with Kate is a route DC should look at more often in terms of character mediation, but lost 1000 points for the Jason/Barbara stuff. Also had a terrible costume (but what's new there).

Crystal Brown I am so sorry. Not only did you get yet another completely new look and personality, you lost all the few characterisation elements we had for you, you collaborated with your ex-husband, and you betrayed Steph at one point. You should be awarded damages for pain and suffering.

Lincoln March/Owlman: you were in this event SOLELY to confuse Steph and delay her cooperation with everyone else. I resent your entire existence in this timeline and it irritates me that Scott Snyder set up an entire previous event essentially to introduce you to the main universe and then waited going 'did you get it?' You are not Thomas Wayne Jnr sorry.

#z canon read throughs #reading new 52 #this was certainly an event #things happened #I wish the plots had interacted more often #batman eternal

[okaystoptellingmetomakeanaccount]

Okay alright part 2 ive seen now. I think i can start to scribble down some rambly thoughts. Spoilers for Oceanic Magica against the volcanic witches part 1 and 2.

So this is going in a very different direction than I was expecting. First chapter, I wasn’t a big fan of this whole oceanic and volcanic witches segregation thing. Thought it was quite silly and that it made the witch part of the universe feel less diverse. Now my stupid ass is realizing that’s exactly the point.

So world of ice is currently more of a fantasy political drama. The world of the witches is divided between two parties that already don’t get along well which each other. They try their best to cooperate and make the magic world inhabitable and not destroy their entire system, but as we saw in the court of law in chapter one, it’s difficult. Both sides are screaming at each other during a legal session, can you imagine how their political debates are??

Their legal system is in shambles, as we saw when they tried to prosecute Magica and Grilla. The judges are 2 people, both incredibly biased to their own side, trying to make every session come out in their own favor. Magica literally gets a lighter sentence because she personally knows one of the judges.

The tensions between sea and volcanic witches are pretty high throughout their entire society (it seems they just get out more in court. Kinda like with football in our world), as we see in the second chapter as well. When the 7-2 volcanic witches arrive at Roberta’s (LETS GOOO BTW ROBERTA GOATED why is she so tall though) house and a bunch of sea witches arrive to help her, they immediately grab the chance to insinuate negative assumptions about them. And to make it even more clear, we have our villain proclaiming everything is going according to plan. Like it wasn’t obvious enough.

So let me lay it down ever more obviously. Basically it’s: witch society= two party system that doesn’t work. Bad guy is trying to stir up as much polarization as possible by framing two people from both factions as having committed a terrible crime. Those two people are Magica and Grilla fugitive lovers running away together trying to bring justice to the table and fix society. The whole ice world thing is just a metaphor for problems that we refuse to solve because we’d rather make the other look bad than working together.

So thats the basic gist of it for now. Im especially curious to see how Enna will handle it at the end. Now lets talk about the other fun stuff.

Grilla and Magica are still gay

Some nice character moments that are probably set ups for later (like how magica completely changes character the moment she sees the number one dime. Great scene now that i looked at it again)

Of course it’s not all politics. We also have a lot of great action sequences. And its still a MAGIC society in which this stuff is happening, and its all delightful.

AND ROBERTA KSKSBEKSKSM For some reason Facciotto made her like twice Magica’s height. Look at this.

They used to be the same height now magica has to stand on a stone WHAT DID THEY FEED HER

But I like Roberta she’s a sea witch which eh we’ll see how that turns out. Interesting that she has a whole island for herself. I thought she was more of a traveler. But nothing actually matters except for the fact that shes here and i love her.

Irma is in the magic equivalent of Coral Island. (OR IS SHE??? Oooooohh mysterious who is the figure walkinga round in her house then?) She looks like Juniper from pkna. I guess prison just makes you look younger. I’m gonna sit in a cell for a few weeks and see if my skin has gotten nicer.

The prison looks cool. I wouldn’t mind if it’s gonna be the main setpiece for next week. It honestly looks more interesting than Coral Island already but that could also be recensy bias.

Scrooge is a huge dick which is fun. Feels very Barks. Magica’s line to him: “I’m not a good person, but I would never want to get rich by profiting off a dying world”(very loose translation but thats the general vibe) is great. I’m not expecting anything special with him (he’a just a side character here after all), and you already know when he comes back he will have realized what is right and use what he got for good, but it’s still a nice classic Scrooge thing. It’s at least not DT17 or Rosa Scrooge. I’m sorry I love Gervasio but I’ve just seen too much Rosa Scrooge lately, so this is nice.

Have we talked about Facciotto yet? I feel like I have but I forgot. Doesnt matter because Facciotto deserves all the praise he can get. This is 100% his best work yet. Every single panel looks absolutely stunning. Feels like a completely different art style compared to like 10 years ago. New Facciotto begins here guys.

His designs for the new ocean witches are great too. Character wise i don’t really care that much, same with the volcanic witches. They kind of all blend together except for obvs Grilla.

So that was weekly rambly magica thoughts from me. Remember to ocean your witches okay love you bye

#magica de spell #disney comics #magica and the world of ice #ducktales #duck comics #who would have thought that magical political drama with magica de spell would be a good idea #only #bruno enna #guys i love him have i talked about how much i love bruno enna already #giuseppe facciotto

[cararolime]

13 septembre 2023

In honor of officially reaching the one week mark of my stay here in France, I will be rating all of the new foods I've tried while being here. (And this is no hate against my host mom, she's an amazing cook and I'm so grateful for everything she's done for me during my stay here :))

1.) Salmon - 3/10

Wrote on my forms that I hated seafood, but was served salmon on the first night. Honestly, it wasn't the worst thing ever. What WAS the worst thing ever, was the lemon-y cucumber concoction that it was served with. *shiver* I feel like I got the worst out of the way eating that meal first.

2.) Mushrooms - 6/10

I knew I didn't like them going in but I've been served them multiple times and honestly? Not terrible. They don't seem to have a huge flavor and everything I've eaten with them in it must have masked them pretty well. Most of the points subtracted here are for its weird texture.

3.) Cantaloupe - 4/10

My dad buys cantaloupe often but I've never liked it. My host mom has given it to me many times and I obviously eat it as to not be rude. I have to take a sip of water after every slice but despite how much I dislike it its definitely not the worst thing that could be served to me.

4.) Ham and cheese galette - 5/10

I've had two; one that was just ham and emmental cheese and one that had ham, cheese, mushroom, tomato, and probably other things. Both were eh. Wouldn't mind eating it again just because it could be worse.

5.) Whatever it was my host mom made for dinner two nights ago - -2/10

Let me set the scene. I walk into the dinning room and on the table there is... something. It is long, bright green, and spongey like a cake. It is hot and has chunks of what I believe was salmon. A mysterious liquid seeps out the bottom and onto the plate. It smells and tastes like a reheated microwave hotdog that has been sitting in an open package in the refrigerator for too long. The texture, as expected from the observation from before, is like a very moist sponge cake. I did not feel very good after dinner.

6.) Ratatouille- 6/10

Idk what that food critic was on in that movie, ratatouille is not that great lol. I'm starting to think I just don't like a lot of vegetables. Hmmm.....

7.) Tirimasu - 11/10

I LOVE TIRIMASU!!!!!! SOO GOOD!!!!

#language learning #studyabroad #french #france

[lostsoulaltair]

Owari no Seraph Chapter 120 - Personal thoughts

P.S: Just me and my thoughts, feel free to share yours as well

When you think a chapter might at last focus on something such as:

-Answering mysteries from the cast

-Going to the past and finding the main root of the problem

-Some development of other parts involved.

We go back to the same formula over and over:

-Yuu being Yuu

-Yuu getting power ups when in the past it was stated he had no knowledge in spell tags and illusions

-Mika had no knowledge in spell tags

-The whole "we kill, no big deal, we revive them later". For real? At first the story gives insight of the value of life for just going in like eh whatever.

-Yuu still being all greedy with the whole "I'll revive everyone"

-Shinoa saying she'll kill Mika when Mika is not even the one suggesting things but Yuu; furthermore, how can she even kill him? The boy no longer has a normal body.

-Yuu being a Mary Sue

Honestly, the whole manga is losing its appeal. Yeah at first it was known Yuu was constantly experimented on so it is logical but at this point, this is just giving him random power ups without a base. You might ask why, reason lies in the chapter.

-There's just one sole panel that I did like and that was Shinoa using spell tags. It's been goddamn ages since she used spell tags to battle, last time was when the LNs were active.

That has a base of why she knows how to use them but with Yuu suddenly learning how to use them...it just feels off.

I really wish that instead of getting more reckless panels, we dwelved more into the past but that seems so far and distant close to impossible.

Those are my thoughts about the chapter. You can share your thoughts about it, of course, always keeping respect as a principle.

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #sote #ons #owari no seraph spoilers #ons chapter 120 #ons 120 spoilers #why why why

[tyrantisterror]

Wizard School Mysteries Trivia

My fourth novel, Wizard School Mysteries Book 1: The Meddlesome Youths, released a few months ago, and I didn’t do a trivia thread for it like the two ATOM books because... I forgot, honestly.  I mean, I did do a couple posts about its inspirations and how it plays with the mystery solving teens genre tropes, but I didn’t do an ATOM-style “here’s a bunch of my silly little allusions and in-jokes.”

But since there’s a TV Tropes page for it now, I think it might be fun to go ahead and do that.  I mean, it definitely will for me, but maybe also for you!

Warning: There will be a great deal of discussion of Harry Potter, because in some ways Wizard School Mysteries is to Harry Potter what Lord of the Flies is to The Coral Island.  Also there’s a lot of spoilers ahead, so, you know, read the book first if you’re worried about that sort of thing.

Read on after the cut!  Or don’t.  I’m not your boss.

- One of the reasons I decided to make this the first Midgaheim novel I published was that the school setting naturally lent itself to showcasing a great deal of Midgaheim’s various quirks as a setting.  But we could probably do with some elaboration anyway, right?

- Midgaheim is divided into countries in the medieval sense rather than the modern.  Each country is further divided into kingdoms, which are divided into various duchies, earldoms, baronies, etc., which are further separated by the vast amounts of wilderness separating individual towns and cities from each other.  It results in a somewhat different relationship to nationality than most of my readers are probably familiar with.

- The countries in Midgaheim are primarily based on different European mythologies: Germanor = Norse Mythology, Ruslovak = Slavic Mythology, Mediterra = Greco-Roman Mythology, Celpict = Celtic Mythology.  The sort-of exceptions are Francobreton and Castalan, which are based more on variations of folklore than specific mythologies.  Like, there were a LOT of different mythologies in Spain during the middle ages, because Spain was this big travel hub, so you get stuff like Basque mythology intermingling with Arthuriana and Celtic mythology and the result is really too fascinating to easily summarize, so rather than try to separate those ingredients I decided to keep its Midgaheim counterpart this wonderful melting pot of different cultures.

- Francobreton/Francane and Bretonce is simultaneously two countries and one country because the folklore traditions it’s inspired by were so intricately tied up in the weird on-again off-again relationship France and Britain had with each other in the middle ages.  Like, Arthuriana is probably the most authentically British folklore around (even if it was originally ripped off from Welsh legends), and yet a huge part of Arthurian canon comes from France, because during all the times France and Britain were united by way of royal marriages, the nobility of France REALLY liked these stories of knights and round tables.  And, again, the real life stuff going on behind the evolution of the folklore seems too interesting to me to cast aside, so we get Francane and Bretonce, aka Francobreton, the will they/won’t they country/countries.  I even decided to be cheeky and reference it in how the countries are named - Bretonce is basically Britain with the “ce” of France, and Francane is France with the “ain” of Britain.  People in Francane speak Frankish (France + the ish of British), and people of Bretonce speak Bretonch (Britain + the “ch” of French).  Of course, Frankish is already an archaic way of referring to people/things from France, but eh, it still works well enough for me.

- The Mediterran Empire's many wars of conquest are inspired by the Roman Empire, which repeatedly tried to conquer all of Europe, and which historians have romanticized for centuries for some fucking reason (and subsequent empires have tried to imitate it with less-romanticized results).  Unfortunately for them, Magic adores underdogs, so the Mediterrans have never reached the same level of success in world-conquering as their real world inspiration.  But they keep trying, the little imperialist shitheads!

-  The prologue of book 1 is called “He’s Leaving Home as an homage to the Beatle’s Song “She’s Leaving Home,” which also gets directly referenced by some of the action in the chapter.  It’s one of my favorite songs because it has so many different feelings in it, and which is most prominent kind of depends on your mood.  It’s also, you know, the story of a young person running away from home so they can finally be the person they want to be and live the life they want to lead, which is more or less James Chaucer’s situation at the start of the book.

- Ok, first of the “This is a Harry Potter rebuttal” bits: I wanted to handle the nature of abuse differently in this story than Rowling did.  Both James Chaucer and Harry Potter come from abusive households, but while the Harry Potter series revels in showing this over-the-top, Roald Dahl-style exaggerated caricature of abuse, I decided to just... not show it, at least not explicitly.  Like a lot of effective horror, I decided to keep the gruesome details in your imagination rather than in the text.  We get glimpses from disquieting things James says when he slips and lets his trauma seep out in normal conversations, which hopefully is enough.  I feel like that’s honestly a bit more of a common experience for people than seeing an abusive family at its worst - I’ve had a number of friends from bad home situations, and honestly the moments when they accidentally described some traumatic shit they encountered in a blasé tone as if it’s something everything experienced was horrifying enough for me to grasp, and hopefully it works that way for the reader as well.  I don’t think fiction needs to recreate trauma in agonizing detail to show the effect it has on people.

- James Chaucer, our protagonist, is obviously a riff on Harry Potter, with his glasses and messy black hair and abusive domestic life.  His first name is the same as Harry Potter’s dad’s, but that’s not the only reason I chose it - it’s also a reference to King James, who was terrified of witches and wrote one of the most important texts about magic in Britain as a result of it, Demonology.  James Chaucer’s last name is a reference to Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of the Cantebury Tales, which is hugely important piece of Medieval British literature.  James Chaucer’s deadname follows this pattern: Elizabeth was the name of the monarch of England that preceded King James, and Marlowe is the name of a British playwright who probably would have been the most famous of his time if he hadn’t died young and been outshined by a young upstart named William Shakespeare.

- Helseng, the ambiguously (in?)human character wearing blue who offers helpful if cryptic advice to the main character is, in fact, a reference to the Persona series.  She was almost named Inga, because all the blue-clad ambiguously human advice givers in Persona are named after characters from Frankenstein, with their leader being called Igor while the rest are named after characters from the books.  Since the Persona series has gone on long enough to be running pretty low on characters from the book to take names from, I’ve wondered if later installments will have to take from Frankenstein movies instead, and thus almost decided to name my blue-clad advice giver after a character from Young Frankenstein.  But that seemed a bit too close to the inspiration, so I decided to switch gears and draw a name from a different Gothic Horror novel that has just as much influence on culture, i.e. Dracula.  ‘Cause I fucking love Dracula.  I then warped the spelling a bit, and so Helseng got her name.

- James meeting Gretchen (a nerdy girl with bushy hair) and Ivan (a goofy guy who’s kind but also very insecure and a little clingy) on the way to the wizard school is a pretty obvious riff on Harry Potter.  The aim was to feel familiar, but off - Gretchen is significantly more acerbic than Hermione, yet also integrates into being a friend to the other two way quicker, and while Ivan shares Ron’s insecurity, he’s, you know, not a jealous dick about it, and James takes a leadership role out of the three not because he’s a famous chosen one, but because he’s charismatic and driven in a way the others recognize.

- Yes, Gretchen is trans too.  It’s not as explicit in this book as James’s trans status because she’s not the protagonist of the series, but it’s something I plan to explore more in later entries.  Both James (the equivalent of Harry Potter’s titular main character) and Gretchen (the equivalent of Hermione, aka J.K. Rowling’s self insert character) being trans was a choice made both for thematic reasons and for sheer, petty spite towards J.K. Rowling.  I transed your wizards, bitch!

- So, in Slavic folklore, the name “Ivan” has roughly the same connotations as the name “Jack” does in British folklore, i.e. it’s a common name for everyman protagonists who, while unassuming on the outside, prove wily and quick-on-their wits when confronted with a supernatural obstacle.  That’s the sort of character I wanted Ivan to be: a simple small-town boy who’s capable of a lot more than anyone (himself included) thinks he is.  His last name, Muromets, comes from a more specific hero in Slavic mythology, Ilya Muromets.

- I was trying to think of names that sounded both nerdy and either German or Scandinavian for Gretchen, and arrived on her first name without fully understanding why it felt nerdy to me.  It was only when I was about halfway through draft 1 of the book that I realized Gretchen was the name of the nerd girl in Disney’s Recess, a show I put on as background noise in the morning during middle school.  Her last name, Pappenheimer, comes from a real life family that was found guilty of witchcraft and executed in Germany.

- Gernderf Dermberder is a satirical deconstruction* of the “wise wizard mentor” archetype, as subtly hinted by the fact that his name sounds like two of the most famous examples of that archetype if you tried to say their names after stuffing your cheeks full of marshmallows like some sort of human squirrel.

*I say “deconstruction,” but one of the oldest arguably the most famous examples of this trope, Merlin, isn’t too far from Gernderf in terms of overall incompetence, as most versions of Arthuriana show Merlin to be a well-intentioned but ultimately flawed teacher whose own inability to truly understand goodness is instrumental in Camelot’s downfall.

- Harry Potter Rebuttal 2: Albus Dumbledore is one of the worst school administrators in all of fiction.  He’s SUPER good at grooming a child into becoming a loyal assassin to use against wizard Hitler, sure, but when it comes to running a school he’s just absolute dogshit.  He hired Gilderoy Lockhart!  He allowed Snape to routinely abuse students without any repercussions!  He threw Hagrid, a first-time teacher, to the fuckin’ wolves after giving him no real training in education AND no safety net!  As the main administrator of the school, all of these and other bits of fuckery fall on Dumbledore’s shoulders, and the narrative more or less glosses over it.  I bring this up because in many ways this is the crux of Gernderf Dermberder’s character: what would the wizard school narrative be like if we acknowledged how shitty it would be to have an admin who cares more about his vendetta against a cartoonishly evil supervillain than actually running a good school?

- Speaking of Dumbledore, the sleazy, used car salesman-esque take on him from A Very Potter Musical definitely had more than a little influence on how I wrote Gernderf Dermberder.  It’s a fun take!

- I wrote Gernderf’s lines with Matt Berry’s strange vocal inflections in mind, so there’s a little gift for you when you read the series from now on.

- So, remember in the second Harry Potter book where the ghost of Voldemort’s teenage diary reveals that he picked his supervillain name by creating an anagram from his real name - “Tom Marvollo Riddle” becomes “I am Lord Voldemort” - and how that’s, like, hilariously stupid and asinine for a character who is later more or less Hitler if he was a wizard?  I peppered Wizard School Mysteries with characters whose names are anagrams as a fun little riff on that.  For example, take Lord Dhenregirr’s name, remove the word “lord,” and rearrange the letters!  You might find something illuminating about his role in the narrative!

- You can also find a fun anagram in the first name of Lornwig Kayjay, the student in Fair Folk Studies class who seems to actively antagonize the professor with her steadfast commitment to the idea that people and creatures belong in strict categories that can be written off as pure good or pure evil depending on her whims.  Heck, the last name might also be illuminating, albeit not as an anagram.

- Harry Potter Rebuttal 3: the whole idea of being sorted into houses that are defined by easily digested character traits was a huge part of Harry Potter’s toyetic appeal, and while as a young Harry Potter fan I did buy into the conceit, I also always thought it was weird that people only were friends with kids in their same house (until the later books, anyway).  I mean, it makes sense in a plot structure way, as it gives all your hero kids a quick reason to always be together and whatnot, but it just feels counterintuitive to the nature of people, especially kids.  When an authority figure tells you “you have to be friends with these random strangers we’ve assigned to you,” the natural impulse is to say “fuck that” and go find people you actually like on your own.  With this in mind, I had my sorting ceremony specifically break up the core trio - James, Ivan, and Gretchen all end up in different dormitories and are forced to room with people they haven’t pre-established a relationship.  It’s intended to continue playing with the expectations Harry Potter set up for wizard school stories - rather than belonging to the Hero House, our three heroes end up in separate places, and have to build their friendship in spite of lacking that commonality connection.

- A more shallow riff on Harry Potter also occurs in the sorting ceremony, with the sorting hat being replaced with four fairy corpses whose restless ghosts call out to students when they’ve decided which dormitory they belong to.  I think magic should have an inherent creepiness/danger to it, and I thought this was a quick way to establish that Midgaheim is a setting where messing with the arcane if fucking dangerous.

- Polybeus Antony is obviously a riff on Draco Malfoy, being a pompous blonde boy who looks down on our hero’s first male friend while also demanding the hero form a friendship with himself instead.  As some readers have noted, James bucks tradition by refusing to take Polybeus’s enforced rivalry seriously.  I wanted the pair of them to have a similar dynamic as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, with Polybeus trying too damn hard to make trivial drama happen and James undercutting it with trickster shenanigans.  Really, Polybeus is more akin to the Very Potter Musical version of Draco Malfoy than the actual canon version.

- Polybeus’s first name comes from the urban legend video game cabinet, Polybius, with just a slight change in spelling to make it feel more Greek Mythology-y.  His last name comes from Mark Antony from, uh, real life world history, for no particular reason other than I wanted each Meddlesome youth to have at least one name that felt kind of modern and normal, even if it’s spelled a bit weird.

- James Chaucer’s roommate, Rodrigo Cervantes, takes his last name from Miguel Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, which is one of the first and most famous works of literature that is an explicit parody of a specific fantasy genre.  His first name has no significance, I just think “Rodrigo” is a cool name.

- Harry Potter Rebuttal 4 (I told you there’d be a lot of these): there’s no shortage of bad teachers in Harry Potter, both because J.K. Rowling made a lot of them terrible on purpose and because she clearly doesn’t know a lot about education and made many of her “good” teachers pretty terrible on accident as a result, but the narrative generally seems to think this is just an inevitability that no one needs to do anything about.  Snape’s out here traumatizing kids so bad that magical creatures who become a person’s deepest fears turn into him around certain students, and he’s never faced any disciplinary action for it?  What the fuck, dude?  I mean, yes, this is definitely something that occurs in the real world, but the fact that all the “good” characters feel there’s nothing to be done about it is pretty screwed up, and as a person who’s worked in education, it feels like a huge missed opportunity for a story about kids in a school where some of the teachers are abusive to just... do nothing with that plot point.  So that’s where the Sorcery Studies plotline of this book came in - if we’re going to bring in abusive teachers, then let’s actually treat that abuse as a serious problem.

- Alys Evelina is... well, not a deconstruction per se, but a... riff, I guess, on Severus Snape.  Like Snape, she’s highly knowledgeable on the subject she teaches, has a clear prejudice against certain people that she’s very vocal about, has a personal grudge against one student in particular that she gets increasingly obsessive over, and is well-liked by the chief administrator of the school and as such gets a free pass to do whatever she likes, more or less.  Most of the ways she’s different actually make her a bit less awful - Alys is actually pretty good at teaching when not bullying a student, forgoing the lectures that Snape (and most of the Hogwarts teachers) utilize in favor of a more student focused teaching style that allows for greater participation on the class’s part.  She’s genial to most of her students, breaks down her subject in an easy to digest way, and can be very good at positive reinforcement.  She just also happens to be a bigot who bullies people that don’t fit her narrow view of what a “good” student should be.  Like a lot of real-world bullies, Alys thinks she is in the right because the victim of her abuse has broken an unspoken social contract by existing in a way she doesn’t find proper, and feels both morally justified and entitled to bully her victim as a result.  While it’s not necessarily more realistic than Snape’s general purpose assholery, I do think it’s more chilling in some ways to see Alys act genuinely kind and nurturing to most of her students while simultaneously being unthinkingly cruel to the one who doesn’t fit her standards.  And while Snape’s flagrant abuse of his students is just, well, a character quirk I guess, Aly’s abuse is a prominent subplot and force of conflict that has to be resolved.

- Actually Lord Dhenregirr could also be considered a riff on Severus Snape, since he’s the obviously-evil character introduced early on to draw your suspicion only to prove more or less harmless (I mean, Snape isn’t harmless, but the narrative treats the harm he does as trivial for some fucking reason).

- Margot d’Francane’s first name comes from Margot de la Barre, a French woman who was accused of witchcraft, while her last name is a reference to Marie de France, a poet who wrote several excellent ballads, including Lanval, a satirical romance about the shittiest knight in King Arthur’s court.  Shortening the “de” to d’ is an homage to Joan of Arc/Joan d’Arc, another woman who was accused of witchcraft, and also just a huge historical badass who accomplished amazing things in spite of others’ bigotry.  The early name for Margot was even Joan d’Francane, making the Joan of Arc homage more explicit, but then I realized that Joan is very close to Joanne, i.e. the “J” in “J.K. Rowling,” and I just couldn’t have that, so a different witch’s name was subbed in.  Margot’s a more fun name, anyway, showcasing the French Language’s weird obsession with not pronouncing consonants.

- Margot’s uncontrollable magic is intended to be read as a disability, albeit a fantastical one without a direct analogue in real life.  Magic is capable of removing so many problems in a narrative, so I feel it’s kind of necessary to show that it also causes some problems as well to balance things out, and part of the fun of imagining a world with supernatural bullshit is speculating on how different aspects of our world would crop up within that supernatural framework.  So Margot has a literal magic disability - part physical, part psychological, requiring both a material prosthetic AND a great deal of mental fortitude to overcome.  It’s not a straight allegory/metaphor, but a more messy sort of symbolism.  I wanted this to be tied to the “bully teacher” storyline because students with disabilities/special needs are the most likely to be abused, purposely or not, by teachers, often for the very same reasons that Alys Evelina uses in the story to justify her treatment of Margot.  It’s much more common than a teacher picking on a kid because he wanted to fuck that kid’s mom, at any rate.

- Oomlowt Schwaa is based on a D&D character I played.  His name’s sort of vestigial at this point, as the original Oomlowt Schwaa was a kobold who became an adventurer after being exiled for trying to learn about the languages of non-kobold cultures, and as such his name is two different linguistic terms: an umlaut and a schwa.  WSM Oomlowt isn’t a kobold linguist, but he is an academic who’s also a diminutive dragon, so the spirit of the original character is still there.

- As a competent yet outspoken teacher, Oomlowt probably owes a bit to Remus Lupin, one of the few teachers in Harry Potter who doesn’t completely suck ass at his job.  He definitely owes a lot to many of the real life teachers I’ve had who were fantastic, though there’s not any one in particular who I could cite as his chief inspiration.

- James getting obsessed about a project to the point of suffering extreme sleep deprivation is based on real life experience.  Multiple real life experiences, actually.  College all-nighters are fuckin’ brutal, man.

- Charlotte Bolshe the ettercap continues my goal of making spiders more likable to general audiences.  Her first name is obviously a nod to Charlotte’s Web, while her last name is an anagram of Shelob, perhaps the most famous spider in fantasy fiction.  It’s also similar to the word bolshy, which means “rebellious” or “radical,” which Charlotte certainly is.

- Fafgander the dragon has a name that’s a portmanteau of two of the most famous Norse dragons: Fafnir and Jormungandr.  I originally used this name for my first dragon in the web-game Flight Rising, which I sadly stopped playing once I reached the point that doing anything required me to send the game-makers, like, fifty bucks a day or whatever.  Though it’s far from the most original name, I have affection for it, and thought it was a good fit for the AAAM’s cantankerous dragon groundskeeper.

- All of the Meddlesome Youths are designed to fit different wizard aesthetics.  James Chaucer is kind of the standard D&D adventuring wizard, Ivan is the bumbling sorcerer’s apprentice, Gretchen a “wicked” witch, Margot an armored dark lord with dangerous magic powers, Rodrigo the magic chancellor with a hidden agenda, Charlotte a pleasant little “good” witch, and Polybeus a warrior wizard.   Serena Takeuchi, then, is a fairly obvious homage to the magical girls of Japanese pop culture.  I wanted one of the main characters to pay homage to the tradition of Japan’s own unique takes on Medieval European Fantasy, since those made a huge impact on how Midgaheim came to be.

- Serena’s name is specifically a Sailor Moon homage, with Serena being Usagi’s name in the English dub, and Takeuchi being the last name of Sailor Moon’s creator.  In terms of costume design and personality, though, she takes more after Lina Inverse from Slayers.

- Mr. Mackers the nuckelavee takes his name from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which, because of its supposed curse, is sometimes referred to by the nickname “Mackers” to avoid incurring the wrath of evil spirits or whatever.  A horrifying Scottish play provides the name for a horrifying Scottish fairy.

- A lot of modern media is leaning very heavily on the idea of “Seelies = good fairies, Unseelies = evil fairies,” which I dislike both for its oversimplification of fairy folklore and for, you know, just being a trope where one side can be written off as Always Chaotic Evil.  That’s why I decided to have one of the most benign fairies in our story be a nuckelavee, one of the most evil-coded Unseelie fairies in folklore, and to have the main villain be a classic pretty boy elf from the Seelie court.

- A lot of modern fiction also likes to portray the Fair Folk as unanimously evil and terrifying, in the same way that people like to believe like Biblical Angels were intended to be morally ambiguous eldritch abominations.  I didn’t want to fall into that trope either.  The Fair Folk in Midgaheim are strange, with different customs and values than those we’re used to as a result of living in a world where the laws of reality are easily bent and broken, but they’re ultimately people at the end of the day, with all the moral complexities that brings.  Some are nice, some are cruel, some are in between.  The fairy threat in WSM is a result of one bastard in charge deciding to do something horrible, and a bunch of the people forced to work for him carrying out the order, regardless of whether they agree with it (which some do, and some don’t).

- The line about royals producing “jelly-boned blob babies” is inspired by an actual real life medieval text about a deformed prince (literally called “the blob baby”) that I heard discussed at a Medieval Studies Congress in college.  The obsession with producing pure-blooded royal heirs led to a lot of incest, which in turn led to some horrible genetic defects among royalty that it took an astoundingly long time for royals to realize might mean they should stop doing so much incest.  It’s one of those horrible details about the reality of the middle ages that never shows up in fantasy fiction that claims to be realistic because of how un-sexy it is.

- Fairyland takes a great deal of inspiration from both Wonderland and the works of Dr. Seuss.  If you read the descriptions closely, you might spot the lawyer-friendly cameos of the Trufula trees from The Lorax.  I wanted it to feel dangerously whimsical, the kind of place where the stakes are simultaneously really high and really ridiculous.

- The Queen of Night takes her name from the antagonist of The Magic Flute, though she’s otherwise her own character, more or less.  The rest of the Francobreton Fairy Court’s names spun off from there, with a dash of the card and chess courts from Alice in Wonderland put in for good measure.  It worked well for the villain of the book, as most stories depict summer as an idyllic time, when in reality its an overly hot, humid, and nasty little season that’s had too much good press for far too long! ...in my humble opinion, anyway.

- Someone on this hellsite made a story prompt post ages ago about a trans person selling their dead name to the Fair folk and my brain latched onto it as a great story beat, and that ultimately became the climax of this book.  While I may have initially made James Chaucer trans out of spite, I tried to make his status as a trans boy as structurally important as possible, to the point that you couldn't’ remove it without irreparably damaging both the plot and themes of this novel.  The entire climax hinges on it.

- One of my favorite tropes hails from one of my least favorite genres of fiction, police procedurals.  It’s the trope of the authority figure who’s butted heads with the heroes for most of the narrative finally seeing their value at the end when the heroes have saved the day - the “You’re a loose canon, but you get results!” moment.  It’s just a good moment!  Hell, the original teaser trailer for Mulan (the cartoon) used that moment as its audience hook.  So I used it at the end of this book without shame.  But for my sake, please know the Meddlesome Youths are not cops.  They’re private detectives.

- One of the details I still like from the Harry Potter books were the times when Harry chose to stay at Hogwarts during winter break rather than return to his shitty home, and especially the times when Ron and/or Hermione chose to stay behind with him.  It’s just a very sweet detail that makes you feel for the protagonist and the setting, that for all its peril, the wizard school has succeeded in becoming a loving home.  So I will cop to the fact that I kinda stole that outright, without any satirical bent or counterargument attached.  But, to be fair, it’s also a very common part of the college experience.  I know I felt a huge attachment to my life at school and my friends there, and I actually liked my original home.  College became my second home, and even to this day I pine for it sometimes.

That’s all I can think of at the moment, but I’m sure there’s stuff I forgot - most likely a bunch of joking little references to things in dialogue, because I pepper a lot of little homages and allusions in there for my own amusement, and WSM has a lot of dialogue in it.

#Wizard School Mysteries

[2n2n]

I was just thinking about something...

I really liked your analysis on the scene where Hanako pins Nene down in Chapter 16--specifically how you mentioned that it being a "ptsd flashback" is a widely accepted idea by the fandom for no good reason.

There's another idea that goes around about paralleling the two scenes of Nene breaking down and pushing Hanako to the ground (to the... cloud?) in Chapter 57, and the Chapter 16 scene. In reality they don't hold a ton of parallels in either dialogue or the way the panels are set up... BUT...

I was wondering if you ever talked about these two scenes? :O Nene gets fed up with Hanako and tries to get him to speak to her--to tell her what he wants. While Hanako remains silent in the scene where he pushes down Yashiro, I wonder what he's thinking on the inside? He looks so upset, and hurt--like he doesn't understand. What if both Yashiro and Hanako exploded in a similar way? Either a past Amane or the current Hanako was or is confused (both!?) and they just want to know what Tsukasa wants. Why he's doing... whatever he's doing!!!

I really liked your analysis about how Nene pushing him down and asking if he wants her to "stay here forever" gives him a wake-up call (makes him realize he's repeating the same mistake he made with Tsukasa!?), so maybe in the end these are superficial comparisons, but I like the idea of Amane getting very frustrated in wondering what Tsukasa wanted... maybe with much more deadly results than yashiro (💀)

Anyway! Do you have any thoughts? Did you already write a post about this?

I may or may not have! I'll dig into my unconventional theory for the rooftop scene with Tsukasa, sure! I agree that I don't grock the fandom's theories regarding it, and they've never updated with new information either.

With a dearth of alternates, here's my own thought from my own brain I've had for a while:

Maybe Tsukasa put a 'spell' of a kind on Nene. Iro is never one to write a useless or frivolous scene, and Tsukasa specifically witnesses all of the Misaku Stairs as the crane, and sees Amane place the protection spell on Nene. As of yet this 'spell' concept has never come back around or been explained. I think it will, eventually, come into play again....

however, it took us until Picture Perfect to even learn that Amane secretly has the same 'sleep' power as Tsukasa in Hell of Mirrors (though, Tsukasa's seems to be much stronger then, while Amane's is pretty weak, and doesn't last nearly as long; maybe due to the seal limiting his powers, which Tsukasa doesn't suffer from?)

its kind of really funny to me Amane overestimates his sleep power...

anyway! Tsukasa grabs Nene's wrist and draws her close, and smiles. It's similar to Hanako bestowing his spell.

Whatever face Tsukasa makes, we don't see, but I don't think it's menacing like we (and Nene) expect; Nene is very stilled and confused by it, even looks emotional in some way …? not terrified, just confused. Eh? I feel like we'll get to later see what expression Tsukasa made here-- maybe a tear in his eye? Maybe it'll be like Rasphard's mysterious loaded smile with the deep eyes.

Amane isn't looking at Nene when he goes to attack her, he looks at the space where Tsukasa was, and is out of it, dazed. He honestly seems like he hardly 'sees' her….

He coincidentally grabs the same wrist as Tsukasa had, first.

I don't think Amane's 'target' was Nene, I think his 'target' was Tsukasa. I think he has a delayed response to Tsukasa being there... but I also think Tsukasa... did something, some kind of spell, something to maybe put himself in Nene's place? Maybe Amane is seeing Tsukasa, here? Some illusory thing? At this phase of the Manga we're limited by Nene's knowledge ... so it's possible we'll see Hanako's perspective on this event later.

Given that Hanako later grabs and thrashes Tsukasa into a wall with a similar intensity, I think at least the whole fandom sortof agrees this gesture was 'meant for' Tsukasa. But, I think there may just also be an element of Tsukasa instigating that intentionally, since he can't stick around....

Hanako looks like he doesn't understand what's happened, like he suddenly 'snaps' to and Nene is, there, maybe where he saw Tsukasa only a moment ago? I think Hanako's got a lot of fear about his own instability and craziness, so.... I think it's a horrifying moment for him, feeling delusional, like he lost touch with reality. Unable to understand why, when, he got so confused. Thought he wasn't this far gone, right now.

I always think Hanako's "you can't stay with me long" belief isn't only "because I'm a kaii" but also "because I'm crazy". after such a bizarre lapse in reality he slinks off to go huddle and be ashamed.

One could also imagine this with no 'spell' contingency at all (just genuinely Hanako hallucinating), but I want to think there's significance to Tsukasa grabbing Nene close, that he wanted to do one thing before leaving.

thats the rooftop theory I have, but its not related to the Picture Perfect scene mentioned or those parallels.

There's a lot of loadedness to 'the future' for Amane, so Nene shoving him down and forcing him to think about her future dreams is, like bitter medicine to Amane (time to remember you're only a small part of Nene's life, and she has vast dreams and ambitions that don't factor you in). If anything I think Tsukasa in general had the same feelings about Amane-- that Amane had such grand dreams of traveling, becoming an astronaut, going to the moon, that he made it his mission to secure that possibility for Amane, to gift him with a bright future, at his sacrificial expense. Of course, Amane wants things much bigger than Tsukasa himself could ever provide. That sense of insecurity (''what point is there, to a life shared with me? I'm a dead end; no good for you'') is shared between the Yugi... "better off without me".... Amane is doing what Tsukasa had done to him... (he should know better though, hypocrite, because he clearly fought Tsukasa so hard about this and ended their lives together to stay with him.... its his karma that Nene threatens suicide later in the Far Shore to be with him..... grrr).

Wish we could have seen Hanako finish his thought on the roof. Maybe because Tsukasa was at that moment, still cobbling himself together and had few yorishiro returned to his power, his spell was quite flimsy, and had no staying power?

Wish we had a whole compendium of whatever the heck the Yugi can do.... Hanako's never gonna tell us .... grrrrr....

your bonus shitpost: this leg position is so crazy.

a leg shoved between her thighs, straddling one thigh...

is that really how you pin someone, Amane? wwww...

#avvy's JSHK

[eldragon-x]

If you want, can you explain your most liked and/or most disliked episode, but to someone who haven't watched the show?

Anon I just rewatched one of my least favourite episodes in the show for you because honest to God on my last rewatch this was the one episode where I let it play while doing something else and paying zero attention.

Anyway, Roadside Attraction is a mess.

Honestly the episode itself would be fine as a Season 1 or maybe even early Season 2 episode (which seems to be the intended placement) but it's just a whatever episode that ended up having very unfortunate placement being the fifth-to-last episode in the series and between two much more plot-relevant and compelling episodes.

So the plot is basically that Stan goes on a roadtrip with the twins + Soos + Mabel's besties because he wants to ruin the tourist traps of his rivals but that's just the backdrop.

The actual conflict comes with Dipper still not being over his crush on Wendy which was a conflict that was resolved in God damn season two epsiode two in an episode that was actually Fun and Interesting and Utilized Wendy as a character.

Anyway in RA Stan is like oh how about you talk to some girls during the trip so you can get over wendy. also you have to be a jerk and feign confidence to impress them. and then one of mabels besties gets a crush on dipper and it all falls apart because they spend time together but then the other girls he met on the trip also show up yadda yadda the lesson for both stan and dipper is to not be jerks but also that dipper should try to be more confident and use that for good which is never brought up again. it's just not compelling enough to justify being at this point in the show, its obvious that it just got placed there because it needed to, and the only supernatural or mystery element in this episode is a creepy spider lady which is cool Ig but eh.

And now Get This: There's Journal 3, which provides a ton of extra-canonical material by filling out blanks, adding context, ect and it's great, it's really good, I recommend it to anyone who's a fan of the show, I'll link you a transcript right here if you can't/don't care to buy the physical book.

That being said, J3 is willing to contradict show canon which is fine, I can live with it, but APPARENTLY Roadside Attaction absolutely has to be chronologically correct because in the previous episode the Pines family set up a barrier around the Mystery Shack that would protect the building from the influence of Bill. Y'know, the evil space demon that Ford especially is wary of because he literally manipulated him and betrayed his trust to get him to build a world ending machine.

So yeah, J3 then goes on to canonize that Ford was like "Hey Stan now that we made sure the Shack's save from the Evil Space Demon why don't you and the kids take a trip to get As Far Away From The Shack As Possible." HUH??????

literally half of this post is about that little tiny bit in j3 now but whatever it's so so stupid. why did we need to acknowledge and canonize that roadside attraction takes place at this point in the show and that Stanford "Bill cannot be trusted and would trick and possess anyone to get what he wants and I know this from personal first-hand experience" Pines suggested the road trip

#gf

[sapphorarelyreads]

19/2/21 Notes from my diary?

I want to love. I want to love someone. No, I’m not desperate, it’s just I want someone so hard like it’s stopping me from functioning as a person. I do realize that at the core of this lies the reason that is I want someone who tells me how they truly feel about me, someone who likes me and I can like them back, someone I can be honest with, someone who sees me for who I am and doesn’t adjust with/ endure my presence rather who celebrates it and loves it and someone who wants to spend time with me, someone who is not embarrassed of me. Like literally fucking love I guess idk shit about it anyways. I want someone who loves me like Patroclus loves Achilles, someone who loves me like 1D fans love the band, or someone who loves me like Patrick loves David or how Ted loves Alexis. I can’t fathom the feeling when I hear songs about heartbreak or love, because I can relate to them but not, like its confusing cause I’ve never been in such a situation. Sometimes I feel like I’m sick of myself, I’m tired, sickly, useless, worthless and honestly, I’m just a speck of dust in the universe waiting to mysteriously disappear. Like my presence or absence won’t affect anyone like if you remove me from an equation, it still remains the same, it isn’t altered or progressed or anything. And no, I think that self-worth/confidence is something made up to basically feel better about yourselves. Like, my problem is kind of like, eh, there are two peaks, overconfidence and underconfidence?? So, like, most people, that I know of, seem to exist in-between or like, it’s basically a spectrum for them. I find it impossible to exist in-between, though I of all people should know better given the fact that I was average in every single fucking thing in my entire time spent here, I can’t. So when given the option, I opt for the extremes. And overconfidence is just ego, pride and all that shit and I know that once I get into it, I can’t control myself from messing things up (not intentionally) whereas with underconfidence, there is no risk involved and I just shrivel into a ball in the corner and float away, not into a world of my own but a world where everyone exists and I just don’t.

Like, not killing myself or something but like my non-existence would be the happiest thing that will have ever happened to anyone. Sometimes my mind tells me to eat too much of something, be it food or medicine or sometimes I like to light tiny stuff on fire and smell the gases released. I feel like I’m not me. My face is not mine neither is my body. My face looks like that of someone who is mean or the ‘bad’ type or the ‘boastful’ type and its hard for me to conform to that notion. I want to love my body, I want to learn to love my body but I can’t, it’s like a shield is stopping me from passing through. I just want to confirm that this ‘rant’ isn’t due to the fact that I’m having my periods right now but rather a locked or an unknown cave or a dungeon being discovered. I read books, watch movies, listen to songs, where people, people like me, fall in love, go through stuff and I want to be there, in that position, experiencing the things they do, because honestly, my entire life and not to forget, my existence, feels like a complete lie, made up to satisfy a role like that of a tree or rock in school plays. I honestly wish that I don’t deserve all these good things, good people and kind stuff. Like I deserve to be pushed off a fucking cliff for not contributing to the development of humanity. I can’t think on my own. All I do is assimilate stuff and I keep copying others’ behaviors and habits and try to find or complete me as a person. Like, I’m not kidding, every single aspect of my behavior and personality is widely influenced, more like counterfeited from people I know or people I met. I can’t even differentiate or side with stuff and I get influenced by every single person I talk to and I pick up their behavior or habit. For instance, if you’re reading this you would’ve noticed that I used the word ‘like’ frequently. I picked it up from a person. And when I text, I always start with lowercase, again, picked it from a person; my hair, my clothes, and every fucking thing about me, except my physiology, gender and sexuality, I picked it from a person. The lack of originality makes me aghast and amuses me like why am I this human who is never original. Like the only ‘original’ thing I did was probably right this shit as an essay and like I (sighs), can’t deal with it right now. I’m going to sleep, i.e., lie on the bed, shut my eyes, try not to hurt/harm myself and others, thinking about pretty girls and wlw songs and try to have a dream where I date a girl. 

#sapphorarelyreads

[jawsofbalmung]

my final (detailed) thoughts on the two most controversial games in the aa series, now that im done with them (contains spoilers):

dual destinies

overview: dd is one of those games that is decently fun, but not really that good. you can definitely see the difference in the writing style, and while i think all ace attorney games are good, and i did enjoy playing it, this one is by far the worst one in the whole series. i love simon though, prosecutors are always perfect.

my biases: i had to play dd on a very slow emulator which ran at 30-50% speed the ENTIRE game (slower on trials) so this game, especially monstrous turnabout, took me absolute AGES to finish. also i was... a little spoiled about fulbright, but not that much, honestly.

turnabout countdown: as far as first cases go, this one is fairly alright, but overall just kinda eh. its a bad mix of both predictable and confusing, but it's actually kinda funny in spots and not too egregiously horrible. 3.5/10

monstrous turnabout: i have a personal vendetta against this case. it took me two whole weeks to finish, when a case usually takes me two to five days on average with my pace. the actual content of the case was negligable, i liked the tenma family as characters, but the end result was very predictable (the fact that we were shown the killer in the beginning animation is inexcusable in my opinion). i could blame the length of the case on just the shitty emulator, but the fact is monstrous turnabout took me way longer than any of the other cases in this same game on the same emulator, and i can only blame its penchant for endlessly dragging out every single point, and throwing in many compounding twists when they're really unneeded and the case would be a lot better if it was simpler. they tried to make up for you knowing the killer right away by making it impossible to predict anything else, but it ended up just making the whole case frustrating and obnoxiously long. 2/10

turnabout academy: this is probably one of my favorite cases in the two games. its twists are a lot more satisfying and understandable than monstrous turnabout, and the character value of this case is very high. i love hugh robin and juniper, and i like how their friendship ties so deeply and intrinsically into the mystery of the case. a little cheesy, and as is expected with dd, not the best writing ive seen in ace attorney, but overall a pretty good case, and has probably the funniest killer breakdown. also klavier cameo is very much appreciated. 6.5/10

cosmic turnabout: i feel like there's not really much to this case, since it mostly serves as a bridge into turnabout for tomorrow, so they didn't put a lot of love into writing the episode itself, but honestly i think that's okay, cosmic turnabout does its job well, and i like how it takes the time to introduce important characters and concepts without stuffing too much into turnabout for tomorrow. as for the case itself, its honestly so hard to separate it out, and i feel like it was pretty short compared to the other episodes. 5/10

spirit of justice

turnabout for tomorrow: probably the most controversial case out of the two games in terms of fan opinions, but i frankly love this case. it's engaging, it's high stakes, it's got all the punch and intrigue that a final case should have, and on its own it's definitely one of the best. unfortunately, i wish the fulbright reveal was foreshadowed even a little bit. a mutual of mine said that since they were spoiled about fulbright being evil, they enjoyed turnabout for tomorrow a lot, but someone who went into it blind would probably find it confusing and out of left field, and i have to agree with that. it's definitely a case you want to spoil yourself just a little bit for it to be satisfying as you figure out the rest, because dual destinies seems to be allergic to Actual foreshadowing, and seems to be made up along the way. im also probably pretty biased in a weird way because ive seen a lot of fan content and meta about turnabout for tomorrow that makes it Better and Cooler and Make More Sense in a way that it certainly is not in canon, so that makes me both love it more for what fans have extrapolated out of it, and simultaneously resent that it didn't live up to its full potential. 8/10

turnabout reclaimed: this case sure was.... dual destinies. turnabout reclaimed is one of those cases that gets a lot of publicity in the fandom just for being absurd, but is actually not one of the good ones if im being honest. the twists fall flat, it drags on a bit too long, and it's honestly pretty forgettable. it wasn't awful to play, i certainly had some fun with it in spots, and it was nice to go back and play it after i finished spirit of justice mostly just to see simon again, but overall it's a very mid case, and im not too stoked about how they represented marlon rimes either tbh. 3/10

overall (averaged) score for dual destinies: 4.5/10

overview: everyone seems to hate spirit of justice and i don't know why. honestly, soj is way up there in my list of favorite ace attorney games ever. it feels more based in the feeling of the original trilogy, i love the way all the existing characters are written, and love the introductions of the new ones. nothing wrong with soj in my book, especially once i figured out that the portrayal of khura'in isnt nearly as racist as initially expected. the divination seances are a very fun mechanic that had a lot of potential beyond how they used them, and i would have liked to be able to do them every case if you ask me.

my biases: i am in love with nahyuta to a worrying degree, and dhurke is one of my favorite characters as well. the character value, which is what i automatically focus on the most, is very high in this game, so while im trying to rank these cases by how well-written they are, i can't help but adore spirit of justice for its character work. i also had a few spoilers, but nothing too strongly story-based.

foreign turnabout: once again, a first case is a first case, and foreign turnabout does its job in that respect. it establishes khura'in well, and helps lead into the complex opinion of it that you're eventually supposed to form throughout the game, but i do have to say it starts in a pretty deceptively xenophobic place in this case. kind of an underwhelming case, but ahlbi is adorable and it's certainly a fun start to throw phoenix into a new place out of the blue, and again it does its job as a first case satisfactorily. 4/10

magical turnabout: this case was fun! i like how the second case, while not connected to the overarching plotline, still had the spirit of the rest of the game imbued in it, and while i do think ace attorney shouldn't rely on the Twin Twist as much as they already do, they seem to handle it pretty well and it often makes sense when they slip it in. many funny moments, high stakes, good twists, fits in well with the game, and i love that we get to see trucy as a defendant, because it felt like a long time coming on that. 6.5/10

rite of turnabout: this case is more emotionally hard hitting than the final case of this game, if you ask me. it's juicy, it's strongly tied to the plot of the game, all the twists make so much sense and everything ties together so well, and it comes to a supremely satisfying end, which keeps hopes high for the last two cases. intrigue and immersion are high in this case, i love love love the introduction of rayfa as a weird little girl investigative assistant, and the revisualization sequence in this case is one of the only ones out of the two games where it exists that actually surprised me, and felt both satisfying and exciting at the same time. i haven't gotten a lot of those yelling "OH!!!!" as the pieces suddenly slide together moments since the original trilogy, so this case has to go down as one of the best ones in my book. 8.5/10

turnabout storyteller: y'all, i know this is a filler case, but god damn is it good!! it's enjoyable as hell, the perfect amount of challenging for me, a nice bitesize length that a filler case should be, not too predictable or too random (though i will admit i was spoiled about geiru because of the iconic tumblr posts about her whoops), and i got to see simon again, so i'm very happy with it! plus, the only realistic and respectable portrayal of DID i have ever seen, especially in murder mystery media! i could say so much about this case, and i already have on this blog before, but i do adore it. it's one of my faves tbh, especially for a very non-plot relevant case. 9/10

turnabout revolution (the name of this case still makes me laugh): learning that this was the longest case in the whole series, tied at 12 hours with rise from the ashes, came as no surprise. this is an absolute GIANT of a case. i think it's fun and fresh to split it up between two related trials in two different places the way they did, but i have to say i had a lot of expectations that went unfulfilled. the civil case and its investigation were very fun to do, especially how it seemed to bleed into more of a story-based visual novel format for a while, but i feel like they missed the opportunity to show us everything from phoenix's point of view as well. i adore dhurke, i love how he interacts with apollo and nahyuta, i love slowly parceling out the reveal of his death in a way i haven't really seen in aa yet, i think this case is very carefully and lovingly written and takes its time to stop fucking around and deliver the real meat of this game. unfortunately, i think the very end seemed kind of rushed and flat, and the characterizations of ga'ran and amara needed more work and at times were confusing or annoying. whereas dual destinies was a kinda underwhelming game with a fantastic ending (had it been foreshadowed more), spirit of justice was a fantastic game with a kinda underwhelming ending (that was properly foreshadowed, just not well excuted). but i don't think all of turnabout revolution suffers because of the very end of it, i think its a phenomenal case that brings the spirit of the old games along with the new ideas of the modern ones, and for the most part caps off the game in a way that makes sense with all the other information in all the other cases and closes it out as a very good game. 7.5/10

turnabout time traveler: compared to the other dlc case, this case is a lot more fun and engaging, though it doesn't have the gimmick that everyone talks about like turnabout reclaimed does. the killer is a little predictable right away from the first investigation, but i think the path to get there is fun anyway, and it's a pretty solid aa case with good characters and interesting twists, miles is there, and pierce nichody is hot as fuck, so i'd say it was a pretty good case! 6/10

overall (averaged) score for spirit of justice: 7/10

conclusion: i see a lot of hate and a lot of love for both these games, and while i definitely don't hate either of them, because i do love all aa games, i see where the animosity for dual destinies comes from and can somewhat agree. i think both have their merits, spirit of justice moreso than dual destinies, and their shortcomings. i love all the new characters though and always will, i adore how the waa is expanding and how phoenix interacts with new characters and old, and i think these two games do have a proper home in the aa series and in my heart <3

#dont like. kill me for my opinions or anything pls cjskdkf #as always the dgs duology ranks the highest in my heart #followed closely by trials and tribulations #but spirit of justice is up there #dual destinies is probably.... my least fave so far if im being honest #but thats just my opiNION #ace attorney #ace attorney spirit of justice #ace attorney dual destinies

[agentnico]

Monkey Man (2024) review

Reading up about the behind the scenes of this film, I must say this underwent quite the troublesome production. From filming during COVID to Patel breaking his foot during the shoot to the cameras breaking forcing them to film certain scenes on iPhones to Patel’s mother dying…. Honestly talk about pouring your heart and soul into something, eh! Bet Patel was recalling the words of his character Sonny from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - “Everything will be all right in the end... if it's not all right then it's not yet the end.”

Plot: A young man ekes out a meagre living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he's beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, he discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city's sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.

It’s hard not to root for Dev Patel. He just seems like such a solid dude, so of course we want him and his little new movie to do well. Naturally Jordan Peele buying the project from Netflix and putting it in theatres is a great way to market it and I’m so happy Patel is getting the recognition for it, as for a while there it did feel like he fell off the face of the Earth. Last time we saw him was in Green Knight that came out in 2021. Wait. 2021? That cannot be right. Green Knight was released 3 years ago??! I’m sorry, I need a minute, as I just realised I’m growing old really really fast. You know who isn’t getting old? Dev Patel apparently as turns out he’s a straight up action star in his thirties! He beats the hell out of a lot of folks in this movie. Like the dude straight up knife kills a goon with his teeth! That’s some John Wick-pencil killing level shiz! Patel doesn’t pull his punches here, and Twitter referring to him as ‘the Indian John Wick’ is very accurate.

That being said Patel not only stars, but is also on writing, producing and directing duties here. This is very much a star-turning moment for him, as he calls for Hollywood and the audience to accept his new image. Again - as the action hero totally believable. From a writing standpoint too he seems to have a lot to say, as Monkey Man is imbued in Indian culture and tradition, as well as a lot of social political commentary, as well as giving a nice nod to the trans community. That being said it does also seem like he has too much to say. As in the movie feels really messy with so many themes and ideas, that especially the first half feels really all over the place and it’s so difficult as a result to connect with anything that’s going on and even so much as care. In the last third the movie does find its groove, however it does take its sweet time to get there.

As a director too Patel definitely takes inspiration from other filmmakers he worked with in the past such as David Lowery, Neil Blomkamp and Danny Boyle, in the way he stylises this movie, and a lot of it does look good. But, and of course there was going to be a but! But there is a lot of shaky cam. Yes ladies and gentlemen, as much as this is the great comeback of Dev Patel, this too happens to be the major return of shaky cam. And unlike Patel, this is an unwelcome one. Like why? Why I ask?? Who the hell was craving the return of shaky cam!? So much of the action in this movie is missed due to the camera frenetically jumping around like a monkey high on cocaine, and in fact not only in the action sequences. Dev Patel also seems obsessed with filming close ups, so much so that 90% of the movie I found myself staring up someone’s hairy nostril. Whilst still in shaky cam mode!! This movie was honestly so dizzying and that very much hindered the overall experience.

All in all this is an ambitious directorial debut for Dev Patel that primarily works as a showcase for his action star potential, whilst when it comes to his directing even though there are a lot of flaws, I believe give the man a few more projects and he’ll be able to create something truly special. Look, everyone needs to start somewhere. Also special shout out to my man Sharlto Copley who’s only in about 5-10 minutes in this movie, yet he brings his usual excitable charismatic South African energy, that he still made me chuckle whenever he did literally anything. The guy’s just amusing to watch. Anyway, Dev Patel keep it up - you’ve definitely got something. However I must say for all the teasing of him being the so-called monkey man, when it came to the final fight he comes wearing the mask, but then takes it off before entering battle mode. Like what the hell? You promise us monkey man so I expect and want to see a man fight in a monkey mask at all times!! Why hast thou forsaken that from me??

Overall score: 5/10

#monkey man #movie #movie reviews #film #film reviews #action #thriller #the green knight #dev patel #jordan peele #2024 #2024 films #2024 in film #cinema #India #monkey man review #John wick #Indian John wick #sharlto copley #sikandar kher #vipin sharma #makrand deshpande #lgbt #lgbtq #gore #shaky cam

[angeltism]

YEAH BEING ON ANON FOR A WHILE WILL BE FUN and i did stay up like a lot last night but don't worry about it im actually super used to doing that LMAO alright ALRIGHT TIME FOR THE QUESTIONS oh lord you cant add a read more in asks. uh. sorry to all aqua followers HSJSHSJHS

1- i think we share like a Lot of fandoms actually! basing this off of your extended media you know rentry btw. UHM im a huge huge fan of prsk, honkai star rail, tbhk, bsd, milgram, vocaloid, undertale/deltarune and i think that's it? i wont go into much detail about other fandoms im in because one specific interest of mine could give away the whole answer to my mystery to some of our shared mutuals JSHSHSHDH but aside from that one im also into enstars bandori and some other rhythm games! not really sure what else to add to that list honestly i forgot everything i have ever liked in my life, i also have many irls from those medias :3

2- honestly? i have been having the biggest labels crisis of my life these past few weeks so pronouns aren't something i really have the ability to specify rn, just use whatever you feel like at the moment and i will be more than happy! curious to see what your perception of my gender ends up being so i can get closer to an answer to my, uhm, current dilemma! HSJSHSHJSJSJ

3- OH UH ITS ALL VOCALOID I THINK i can't really say i have specific artists i like outside of that... maybe will wood and that's, really it. aside from just those two its all specific songs from different artists yeah. BUT IT'S DIFFERENT WITH VOCALOID BECAUSE I CAN KINDA DISCERN WHICH PRODUCERS I LISTEN TO MORE! also some utaites i listen to like a looot, one example is Ado! onto vocaloid producers my favorites ever are Syudou (producer of Usseewa!) and Van De Shop (producer of Pheles!), aside from those two i listen to like a lot more just not with that much frequency (its mostly just one specific song or songs i like from those producers. yeah)

4- i have like a gazillion but lately i have grown very attached to periwinkle blue!

5- FOR LIKE A MONTH OR SO? I HONESTLY DONT REMEMBER JSSHSJSSHJSH as for the reasons... in many ways i realized we are like extremely similar (mostly with the yearning and the love and all that yknow) and that just made me start feeling more and more attracted to you because hey! she gets almost all of the things i experience! and well here we are now

6- i can confidently say fried chicken is my favorite food in this whole wide world, as for sweet stuff im kinda. basic. yeah its chocolate HSJSHSJSHDH

- 💌 anon (honestly sometimes i get scared i might end up not pressing the anon button and then ruin the whole surprise. eek!)

LMAOOOO it's ok the mewtuals will forgive uu . they have to or else /silly j

although WOWW OMG YEAH WE DO SEEM KINDA SIMILAR ?? W taste in media and music and colors (<- loves blue . is it obvious ehe) and wowow for like a month . . . wowowowow . . . . that's honestly impressive n kinda endearing wow <3

also i'll purrobably be defaulting to they/them i suppose since idk . for me . i can't rlly assume genders esp for beings i know online ? like my brain soorta can sometimes but other times just . nope . n i can't rlly think if uu give me more masc or fem or just neu vibes . . . like loveletter anon is loveletter anon . to me . y'know . but i hope uu figure out uur identity soon , lol , i know questioning can be kinda eeeh to go through (<- started calling myself genderqueer/multigenderqueer to avoid trying to find out any specifics bc i'm just Me and i'm just Queer Of Gender and other than that idfk lol)

also fried chicken is so good . . . i can't rlly handle bone-in stuff bc of my sensory issues (icky gross for my brain) but flavor-wise it's soo good omg . i just have to like , cut/rip it off of the bone before i eat it . and chocolate is a simple but rlly good pick honestly . it's like 90% of the sweets i eat bc ice cream takes freezer space , baked goods need to actually be made , etc etc . . . ooo wait i'm curious do uu like dark , milk or white better . purrsonally i like dark n milk :3

#➳ the fool's mail box #➳ sender; 💌 anon #long post #<- ?

[anime-dub-transcripts]

Hetalia: World Stars Episode #8: Industrial Revolution Part 4 Transcript

This episode has the fourth part of the Industrial Revolution arc.

Narrator: England industrialized first, and yet…

Britain: Switzerland, elegant yet practical. Germany, sturdy. Italy, with its eye-pleasing curvature. America…can make several. Got it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Italy: You’re really asking me to teach you art?!

Britain: Oi, don’t trouble yourself over it, mate. It’s just that I’ve recently realized that even industrial products need appealing designs and it seems I haven’t quite got the knack for it, I guess.

Italy: But why ask me?!

Britain: Honestly, I’ve always thought highly of your aesthetic sensibilities.

Italy: Neahahah…

Britain: And I’m sorry if that came off a little bit weird.

(Italy: …ahahah!)

Italy: No, it’s not weird. I mean, someone thinking I could be useful for something is a bit weird, since even my own brother’s never asked.

Britain’s thoughts: Well, that’s unexpectedly sad.

Cat: Neah…

Italy: Welcome all to Intro to Design with Professor Italy!

(Cat: Meow!)

Italy: Your first assignment is to gently pet a kitty or doggy!

(Cat: Neah…neah…)

Britain: Cool, looks like I’ve enrolled in the easy section. Right, pet the cat, then.

(Cat: Neah…neah…)

Italy: And next, you come up with an image of the product inside your head!

Britain: Hm…I understand the theory of it, but this is the bit that eludes me.

Italy: Ve! When I get stuck, it helps to go “aaaahhhh”!

Britain: You what?!

Italy: Then you make your brain bing bong the image into your arms because your arms will use your hands to make it into a thing!

Britain: Bing bong?

Italy: You can also yabba dabba dooble it, or schween it, or whatever works for you. Wooh! There, you are done.

Britain: THOSE WEREN’T REAL WORDS!

Narrator: After Japan opened up in the late 19th century, the common folk started developing a taste for goods and culture from the west.

America: Daaaamn! Seems like you’ve done a lot to the place since the first time I showed up!

Japan: The world powers won’t see me as an equal unless I can change with the times.

{Text on note: Up for grabs}

America: Hey, Japan…what’s all this stuff here for?

Japan: Oh, this? I am getting rid of old household goods, trying to free up space. My hope is that someone will find them of use.

(America: Ah-haahah!)

Japan: Help yourself.

British man: I say, me lad!

Japan Dmhm?

British man: Fine workmanship and all around, and what’s all the good stuff, right then, pip pip, I’ll have it all and bob’s your uncle, I’m off to be the envy of all me friends back home!

(Japan: Goah! Eh eh eh eh…oh! Eh, uh?)

British man: Been a pleasure, mate; cheerio!

Japan: Ehah, I cannot possibly accept this much, sir! It would not be right! Deuh…oh.

America: Wow! That salesmanship!

Japan: I could not get a word in, yet it feels like I deceived him.

British man: And the vibrant colors, and the simple but elegant patterns…

Britain: The feeling radiating from this…

(British man: It’s all very brilliant, isn’t it?)

Britain: It’s like I can sense it brimming with some mysterious energy that’s lacking in my own work.

{Caption: Experts}

Britain: Oi! Taste-makers! All my products are a bit crap, and I want to know why! I’ll need you to help me! I tried taking some inspiration from France’s work and I made these, which…as you can see…

British man #2: Bit crap, innit?

Britain: As I mentioned, but thank you.

British man #3: My heavens, is our industry…

(British man #4: Ooh)

British man #5: A deconstruction of the traditional floral pattern!

(British man #3: …in a death spiral?)

British man #4: Oh!

Britain: Ahem. Therefore, I’ve hired a tutor in order to help develop my design skills. All the way from the far east.

Japan: You have done me a great honor.

Britain: This is my friend Japan.

Japan: Hello. I am Japan. You humble me by asking me to train you in my craft.

British man #2, #3, #4, #5: Woah, it’s Japan!

Japan: You are too kind.

British man #5: My venerable sir.

Japan: I’ll do my best to meet your expectations and earn the undeserved praise you lavish on me.

British man #5: Cor, your top knot comes off?

Japan: Thank you for having me.

British man #3: Tell me about the wabee sabee; do they mix it into the soy sauce or---

Britain: That’s enough of all that, Jeffrey.

British man #2, #3, #4, #5: Duoh!

Britain: I brought Japan here to tutor me in art and design, not to answer your nonsensical questions.

Japan: It is really no trouble.

Britain: Well, you’re a trooper, mate. You won’t make use of ninja techniques or throwing stars while you’re here, right?

Japan: No…

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Japan: When painting ceramics, notice that each brush is suited to particular steps, such as this one for detailing the border.

Britain: Goodness!

Japan: What is wrong? Have I pushed you too hard?

Britain’s thoughts: A teacher who actually explains what he’s doing using real words!

(Dream Italy: Ahh…)

Britain: Well, I’ve followed your instructions to the letter, and I got something approximating your style.

Japan: So glad to be of help! Will you please show it to me?

Britain: I’m sure it can hardly hold a candle to the original work…

{Text on plate: World}

Japan: I must buy it! I will pay whatever price you ask without a moment’s hesitation!

Britain: Ack, mate, just take it! I couldn’t imagine charging you for it!

Japan: I am grateful beyond words!

Britain: Not sure why you’d want my bad version of your design, but I won’t argue the point.

(Japan: Hm…hmhm!)

Japan: Hmhm!

Narrator: And strangely enough, in Japan, England’s bootleg Japanese goods sold like hot-o cakee.

(Japan: Hm! Hmhm!)

#anime #anime transcripts #anime dub transcripts #hetalia #hetalia dub transcripts

[theunquenchablethirst]

Joyride (Jerome X Reader)

Smut, NSFW, 18+, porn without plot, honestly just hot, nasty filth 

Do not read unless you are a deviant!

Reader is walking home down a street she knows just like the back of her hand, but today there's an unfamiliar car parked up. Paying it no mind she continues past it, but soon discovers today is not going to be any regular day when a sinister voice calls to her from the mysterious car behind her.

Vaginal fingering, blowjobs, rough sex, semi-public sex, car sex, bondage, chocking, spanking, dom/sub undertones, dub-con, strong language, murder, kidnap

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Masterlist

I walked that street nearly every day, to and from Gotham High. I had for years. This would be my last year as I was 18 and about to graduate.

Everything seemed as normal as ever. The pretzel cart, the lady that walked her little dog, the kids playing jump rope. A fairly quiet street. I didn't know it then, but that day would be anything, but normal.

I was approaching the end of the street where I would cross the road. There was a car parked up I hadn't seen before. Big, black with tinted windows. I didn't pay it much attention and wasn't hesitant to carry on my walk past it. I reached the end of the street and stood waiting for the traffic to quiet so I could cross over, then behind me I heard the familiar sound of a car window winding down.

"Hey, princess." A sinister voice called.

I turned to look and peering out of the black car window was him. The most dangerous, most wanted man in Gotham city. Jerome Valeska.

I'd only seen him on the news and in papers before, but even then, he had scared me. He'd brought the city to its knees and left a trail of bodies and madness wherever he went. And now he was right in front of me.  

"Can I give you a ride?" He asked with his signature smile plastered on his scarred face, voice dripping with menace.

I froze still. I wanted to run as fast as I could, but his stare glued me to my spot.

"Come on, doll. I'll be nice."

I took a step back, weighing the risk of making a run for it. He sucked his teeth and looked down for something.

"I'd offer you candy, but uh..." He pulled a gun up to the window and pointed it at me.

"... Something tells me I won't need to." His smile somehow grew bigger as he locked his eyes on mine.

My heart was beating so loud I thought the whole city would be able to hear it. I had no choice. Knees weak, I nervously walked around to the passenger side door and opened it. I sat in the seat next to him, but pressed myself as close to the window as I could. I wanted to be as far away from him as possible, even if it was only by a few inches.  

"Ah, safety first. Seatbelt." He said dropping his smile and cocking his head.

Not caring weather or not he was joking, I pulled down the belt and buckled myself in. I did not want to make him angry. He grinned eerily and panic rose in my chest as his eyes burned holes in me.  

He reached a gloved hand out to my face. I flinched as he brushed a stray lock of hair behind my ear and stroked his knuckles down my jaw line and neck. His hand moved lower still down my arm, only stopping when he got to my shaking hand. I was grasping my bag so tightly my knuckles had turned white. He tugged at it a few times wanting me to let go. I released the bag and he pulled it off my lap and into his.

"Let's see what we got here."

He started to rummage through my possessions pulling each one out, mostly dubbing them boring and dumping them out of the window.

"Pain killers, boring. Pencil case, extra boring. Ooh, Jolly Ranchers! Don't mind if I do!"

He popped a sweet in his mouth, threw the rest over his shoulder into the back seat and got back to snooping.

"Keys, boring. Oh! A diary! I'll save that for later! A can of mace...."

He paused then let out a loud cackle as he held the mace.

"Oh, princess! Bet you wish you'd switched this out for a gun right about now!" He continued to giggle as he dived a hand back in.

"Aha! Phone!" He dropped my bag back in my lap and opened up my flip phone.

"You won't be needing this." He smirked and snapped it, letting the two halves fall and disappear under the driver's seat. Dread began to settle in as it dawned upon me that I now had no way to call for help and my mace was lying in the street. Not that it would've been much use against him anyway.

"Ok! Let's get this party started!" His giggled as he turned the key in the ignition. He turned towards me and revved the engine.

"Vroom, vroom." He mocked.

I sat there clutching my bag, waiting for the car to start moving. He fiddled with the gear stick and then slammed his foot down on the pedal as if there was a deadly bug that needed to be squashed. The tyres screeched like they were taking a layer of tarmac with them and he took off like a boy racer.  

I let out a scream as the sudden, fast pace sent a shockwave right through me. I sent my hands searching for something, anything to hold on to. There was a turn coming up, but I noticed it too late and I was flung into the side of the door like a ragdoll. All the time the loudest noise in my ear was maniacal laughter coming from Jerome in driver's seat. He was driving like he stole it, but then again, it was entirely possible he did.

"More?" He looked at me with a mischievously.

I shook my head, breathlessly, praying to any god that was listening that he actually cared about my answer.

"I think more." He sharply turned into an empty car park and spun around and around and around. I was pressed right up against him as I clung to the bottom of my seat. He laughed and banged his hand on the wheel, continuing to spin us around.

"You stupid son of a bitch!" I screamed forgetting myself.  

"Oh, I love 'em with fire!" He laughed again.  

Then all of a sudden, he stopped. I jolted forwards like a crash dummy so hard I thought I would hit the windshield. He'd been right about the seatbelt. I stared straight ahead and tried to catch my breath, when I heard angry shouting. An employee of the restaurant that owned the car park was making his way over to us with a red face.

Jerome stuck his head out of the window.

"What's that, pal?"  

I heard more shouting.

"Ok." Jerome reached for the gun and shot the employee straight in the head. I gasped at the sound and he fell down like a sack of bricks.

"Problem solved." Jerome grinned and pocketed the gun.

I felt my stomach turn. I'd just seen a murder right in front of me. That poor man. Jerome started the car again and left the car park, where he'd left a dead body and certainly tyre tracks.

"Some fun, eh kid?" He smiled at me. I couldn't find any words to reply. He sighed.

"I hate awkward silences." He reached down and turned on the radio. He flicked through a few channels until he found one playing music he seemed to like. An old rock station.

"Now this is better!" He looked at me with a satisfied smile, but dropped it when I still didn't reply.

"How do I get you to talk? Do I gotta drop a quarter in ya?" He turned another corner onto a straight, quiet road.

"I know." He smirked with a menacing look in his eyes.  

He pushed the pedal down, once again picking up speed. He was driving like there was money on it, but I'd at least managed to brace myself this time. He slowed a little as he got in place to drive side by side with the only other car on the road. He chuckled darkly to himself and then I realized why. Fear took my senses when I saw in the not too far distance, heading straight at us was a giant truck. The driver in the car next to us began to honk the horn and flash obscene hand gestures as the truck grew closer, but Jerome simply turned the radio up and began singing along with the words.

"Jerome..." I said tugging at his arm.

Nothing. And the truck was now honking at us to move.  

"Jerome!"  

The truck was too close for comfort. The sense that I was about to be flattened because of the idiot at the wheel filled my body.

"Jerome, move the damn car!" I shook his arm fiercely and slammed my fists in my chair.

He finally burst out cackling maniacally with an outrageous smile.

He slammed down the pedal and pulled forward in front of the car beside us, missing the truck by a hair. He laughed and howled like it was the funniest thing he'd ever experienced, whilst I sighed the biggest sigh of my life and slid low down my seat. He pulled over and parked.

"Nothing like a little near-death experience to get the blood flowing, eh doll?"  

I had melted into my seat and wasn't really paying attention.

"So, how'd you like me so far?"

"Is that a serious question?" I replied breathlessly. I didn't know where I got the confidence for it, but the words were coming out.

He just giggled.

"Ok, how about I behave... For a while."

"How about you let me go?"

He lifted a long finger at me.

"Tut tut, doll face. Don't make me wiggle my finger at you."

I shuffled backwards in my seat, propping myself upright again.

"So, you know my name? Are you stalking me?" He put his hand on his chest in mock fear.

"Everyone in Gotham knows your name. You're Jerome Valeska. You've terrorised the city and murdered dozens of people. The Gotham Gazette makes sure we don't miss these things."  

"The Gotham Gazette, huh? Note to self, send a gift basket their way." He chuckled to himself then looked at me.

“So, what’s yours?”

I told him my name. I was reluctant, but I was already here in the car with him.

“Hm, cute.” He replied.

I didn’t know why, but him calling me cute made me blush a little. I hoped he didn’t notice.

“You look fun.” He smiled.

“What do you mean?” I asked the question, but I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know the answer.

He pulled my diary out of the door pocket.

“Let’s get to know you, shall we?”  

“That’s private.” I said sheepishly. I really didn’t want him reading what was in there, but I knew I couldn’t stop him.

“Not anymore.” Jerome flicked through the pages, skimming them for interesting thoughts and secrets. It didn’t look like he was finding anything juicy, until he stopped at one page and read it in its entirety.

“I got asked out by a guy in my maths class. He’s nice, but really boring. Just like everyone else in my life. Even if I wanted to go out with him, my dad wouldn’t allow it. He says men are the devil and the only one I can trust is him. Yeah right, Mr it’s 5’oclock somewhere. Even if I took that seriously, he doesn’t have anything to worry about. The only guys in my life are complete clichés. So very predictable, so very dull. I’m so bored of this same old-same old. I want something exciting, an adventure. I need some thrills in this beige goddamn existence!”

He repeated back to me the words I had written just a week prior. He turned to me with a predatory look in his eyes. He let the diary fall from his hands carelessly and I knew then that I would be his prey. He took his gloves off and reached a hand towards my knee. He stroked and squeezed my leg and then journeyed up higher, fingers crawling underneath the hem of my skirt.

“Be careful what you wish for, doll face.” He smirked, darkly.

My breath caught in my chest and I felt a warmth in my core.

"I thought you said you were gonna behave." I peeped.

"I did, didn't I? I guess I lied."  

He pulled my skirt up and ran a finger along my panty covered slit. He was turning me on. I wanted him. He was everything I had been looking for, but it was wrong. I couldn’t give in to this.

"Please... Stop..." I pleaded pathetically.

"Mmm, I don't think I will."  

He softly rubbed my folds through the white cotton. My breath got heavier and I felt the heath build.

"It would be so easy for me to push these little things out of the way and slide my fingers inside you, right now. Wouldn't it?"

"Please... Don't..."

He giggled darkly.

"Oh, princess. You're just too cute."  

He smiled as he moved the material to the side exposing my entrance. He slid his fingers up and down my slit, my juices covering the tips. I squirmed at his touch and tried to scooch back in my seat.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, doll, but you wouldn't be this wet if you didn't really want me inside you." He cooed. His words crashed into me like rocks. He could read my body just as well as my diary. I couldn't hide my desire from him and I didn’t want too.  

He continued to rub for a few more seconds before plunging a finger deep inside me. I let out a gasp at the sudden intrusion and he smirked, seemingly satisfied with my response. He worked me with his finger, pulling out before sliding it back in and deciding to add another. He slowly pulsed his fingers inside me, palming over my clit as he slid in and out, again and again. The swell of warmth in me grew as I rocked my hips.

He pulled his fingers out entirely, leaving me disappointed and empty. I looked at him as he examined the juices coating him. He smiled at me and raised them to his mouth, sucking them clean.

"Mmm. You're so sweet." He said as he lowered them, his voice now deeper and slightly raspy.

He unbuckled his seatbelt, then did mine. He pushed the bag off my lap down to where my feet were and reached his arm around my waist, pulling me backwards, closer to him. He leaned me against him as one hand travelled up from my waist and wrapped around my throat. His other came down, pulled up my skirt and parted my thighs. He pushed my panties to the side once again and introduced his other hand to my wetness. His two fingers sliding in and out, but this time a little faster and much deeper. I let a yelp escape my mouth and his hand squeezed harder around my throat. His hot breath in the crook of my neck gave me goosebumps and sent chills down my spine.  

He explored my walls entirely, hitting all the right spots, hot pleasure pulsing through my muscles as they clenched around his talented digits. He palmed my clit applying a gentle amount of pressure and rubbing in circles. I bit my lip in an attempt muffle my moans.

"Nuh uh. Let me hear you, baby girl." He taunted in my ear.

Two fingers from the hand around my throat pulled my mouth open and played with my tongue.  

"You got something to say, princess?" He pushed his fingers deeper into me until his knuckles stopped him from going any further and pumped them, his thumb circling my clit in sweet slow motions. A loud moan escaped my throat and he smiled evilly.

"That's better." He snarled as he put his full hand back around my throat.  

My legs started to stiffen and I felt my climax build as I tightened around his fingers.

"You wanna cum, baby?"  

He worked his fingers inside my walls and his thumb on my clit, slightly increasing the pressure. His breath came closer to my ear and I felt him take it gently in his teeth. I yelped at the shock of his bite.  

"Mm. So cute."

I rocked my hips against his hand. My release was close, it just needed a little push.

"Cum for me, princess. Cum on my fingers."

As if on his command, the dam burst and my climax washed over me. My legs shook and I moaned as I rode it out. He pulled his fingers out of me slid them in my mouth so I could taste my own juices.

“See, gorgeous. I can play nice.” He buried his face in my hair and took in my scent. He hummed to himself and I felt his grip on my throat tighten. He pulled me forwards and pushed me towards the back seat.

“My turn.” He grinned as he sat up.

I climbed into the back, closely followed by Jerome. I sat down and he straddled me, towering over me with his red hair brushing against the car ceiling. I saw the outline of his hard member pushing against the inside of his trousers. It was right in front of my face and my mouth watered for it. I suppose he caught me looking because he started to palm himself and lifted my chin up so I was looking at him.

“Do you have something sweet for me?” He leaned down closer to me, his grip on my face tightening.

I swallowed and felt the lump in my throat. He crashed his lips onto mine. The kiss was hard and forceful, just like he was. His tongue pushed into my mouth and fought for dominance over mine. It was an easy win for him. He tasted sweet, like the Jolly Ranchers. I assumed that wasn’t the first candy he’d eaten that day. He pulled away from me and smiled, studying my face with hooded eyes.

“Yummy.” He whispered.  

He rose back up and unbuckled his belt. He pulled it from out of its loops, held it in front of him and snapped it quickly. I flinched at the loud sound of the leather.

“Hands.” He ordered in a serious, intimidating tone that aroused me all the more.

I held my hands up to him and he looped the belt in and around my wrists, tightly bonding them together.

“No hands for this. I wanna see how that pretty little mouth works.” He smirked lifting my chin again, tugging my bottom lip with his thumb.

He palmed himself a little more and then unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers, letting them fall around his knees. I could see through his boxers that he was fully erect already. He slid them down and they joined his trousers. Jerome was big. I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to take it all, especially without the use of my hands. He balled my hair in his hand and gripped hard. I gasped at the sudden pain.

“Come on, princess. You know what to do.” He pulled me forwards and plunged into my open mouth. He let out a hiss of pleasure.

He raked his free hand through my loose hair before clenching it in his fist. He used his grip on my head to move me up and down his shaft, prompting me to start. I swirled my tongue around him and started sucking. He hissed again through gritted teeth and pushed in further. My tongue climbed up and down his shaft, licking the sticky coating of precum from him and teasing the head. I hollowed my cheeks and bobbed up and down, letting my saliva cover him.

“Oh, yeah... Fuck, pretty girl.” He groaned in his throat and bucked his hips forwards with force.

He hit the back of my throat and I gagged. The noise seemed to please him so he did it again and again and again. My lips touched his base as he assaulted my throat, gripping tighter on my hair with each thrust. I looked up at him, tears streaming down my face and eyes begging for breath, but it just pushed him further.

He let out a primal growl and pushed my head right into the back of the seat. He held me steady and started to thrust into my face fast and hard. My throat was aching and my jaw was locking. His breath was shallow and erratic. I could tell he was close. I sucked harder for him and my throat clenched tightly.  

“Fuuuuck...” He groaned finally coming to a stop.  

I felt him throb and twitch in my mouth as his climax shot straight down my throat for me to swallow. He was still for a few seconds, then he pulled out with a pleasing pop. He looked down at me catching his breath with a smile.

“Don’t have to tell you twice, huh?” He laughed and lowered his head to kiss me.

He didn’t seem to care he’d just cum in my mouth and kissed just as rough as the first time. This time biting my lip as he pulled away. He slid his hand back up into my hair and balled it again.

“As great as that was princess, I’m still harder than Chinese algebra. So...” Jerome climbed off my lap and shoved me down onto my front.

“All fours.” He commanded.

I positioned myself on my knees and elbows, which was difficult considering my wrists were tied. I felt him roll my skirt up and part my legs. I swallowed. After having him go so rough on my mouth, I was nervous about how he was going to be with this.

“I gotta say, this is some view back here. Shame I don’t have a camera.” He said caressing my thighs.

He hooked his fingers under the band of my underwear and slid them down around my knees. I felt so exposed and my face started to heat up and turn red with embarrassment. I couldn’t believe I was allowing myself to be this vulnerable for a criminal lunatic.

He started to rub my entrance with two fingers. Warmth welling in my core, any thoughts of reservation vanished from my mind. I felt a fast, harsh sting as he brought a hand down to spank me. I gasped at the smack and he stroked the spot where it landed, where there was sure to be a red handprint.  

“Now I really wish I had a camera.” He giggled darkly.  

I squirmed at his touch and tried to close my thighs, desperate for friction, but he kept them spread by sliding his knee between them.

“Oh no, gorgeous. I need you open wide.” He smirked.

I whimpered needily, wanting nothing more than to take him inside me.

“You want something, baby girl? Speak up.” He taunted evilly, sliding his fingers along my slit. He raised his hand back up and then... another spank.

All I could do was whimper. I didn’t want to say what I wanted from him.

“I can’t hear you....” He sing-songed. “What do you want?”  

He circled a finger over my clit teasingly. He was purposefully not giving me enough. Just baiting me. He brought his hand down again for another swift spank. I was sure there was a bruise forming.

“I want you...” I whispered.

“What’s that?” He mocked, sliding his fingers in the slickness of my entrance.

“I want you! I want you to fuck me!” I snapped. I couldn’t take the teasing and taunting any longer. I just needed him.

He chuckled menacingly.

“You want me to fuck you? You wanna take me?”

“Yes! Yes! God, yes!”

He laughed at my neediness. I felt pathetic.

“Sure thing, doll.”

He lined himself up so he could enter me and pushed forwards, grasping hard onto my hips. I moaned loudly as he filled me for the first time, making a low, throaty groan. He reached deep into me and set me on fire in places that I didn't even know were there.  

He kept a quick rough pace, digging his fingertips into my flesh tighter to keep me still and steady. I knew he was leaving marks, but I couldn’t have cared in the slightest in that moment. His thrusts made me whine and whimper for him, to have more of him. He growled like he was letting out some kind of inner beast.

He let go of one of my hips and slid his hand up my back and into my hair. Once he had a good fistful, he pulled it like a leash, tugging my head up and back. I gasped at the sharp pain, but the sound only seemed to feed more into his sadistic wanting and he pounded harder into me. The feel of how deep he was inside me banished all the pain and replaced it with pure pleasure and I bit down hard on my lip to stifle wanton cries. I felt another rough tug on my hair.

“Don’t you dare, little girl. Let me hear it. I wanna hear everything.” He demanded through short, quick breaths.

He pulled back on my hair again and I released a squeal of half pain and half pure elation. I could feel myself tightening around him. I was getting ready to burst.

“I... I’m...I’m gonna...” I panted.

“Oh, no you fucking don’t.”  

He gripped the back of my scalp and pulled me backwards, slamming me down onto my back and climbing on top of me.

“I wanna see it this time.”

He had acted so fast, I barely had time to register what he was doing and he was back inside me almost as soon as he had pulled out.

He buried his head in the crook of my neck, sucking and kissing, his teeth leaving delicious hickeys and bitemarks. When he came back up for breath, he wrapped his hand around my throat and pushed my bonded arms above my head, which I was grateful for as they were getting squashed between us. He crashed his lips onto mine for a rough kiss. His tongue demanded entrance to my mouth, which I gladly allowed.

With his other hand he caressed and stroked his hand down my thigh and under my calf. He then pulled it up and pushed it back so far it almost reached my shoulder. He adjusted himself to straddle my lower thigh and picked up a faster, harder pace. With my leg like this he was able to plunge deeper. He was forceful and powerful and I relished in every thrust. I cried out completely taken by my lust for him, closing my eyes to savour it all. I felt the sting of a slap on my cheek and flashed them back open.

“Right here, princess. Eyes right here.” He said, his voice low and raspy.  

His pupils were completely dilated, leaving only the thinnest ring of green around them. He seemed to be an apex predator that was in the midst of ravaging its prey and I was only too willing to be led to the slaughter.  

“Exciting enough for ya, sweetheart?” He smirked with a fiendish giggle.

“Uh huh...” I nodded dazedly.  

His laugh continued through the onslaught of fierce, deep thrusts pounding intensely into my lower regions. I tensed around his pulsing erection as I felt my climax creep back up on me. I let out loud erotic moans, as he built up more and more of that blissful warmth in my core.

“That’s right. Cum for me.” He grunted through gritted teeth, tightening his grip on my throat.

His pounding got faster and rougher, hitting my sweet spots exactly right. I was right on the edge of what I could tell was going to be a fantastic release. I got louder and louder as I came closer and teetered the brink.

“Yeah.. I... I’m.. Yeah... I’m gonna...”

“Go on, princess. Cum. Cum for me.”  

My orgasm shattered through me like a rock through glass. My body convulsed as my moans turned into lustful screams. The ferocity of it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. The sheer ecstasy took me higher than I’d ever been before. I was on a cloud and I could have stayed there forever. Jerome followed shortly after, growling like a beast as he exploded inside me. He collapsed breathlessly on top of me as I gently floated down from that little piece of heaven.  

“Oh, baby girl. I’m keeping you!” Jerome dropped a kiss on my lips and lifted himself up.  

I came to my senses and started to register the severity of what I had done. Or had it happened to me?  

“What does that mean?” I asked, nervous of his answer.  

He pulled up his underwear and trousers and tidied himself up, even taking time to straighten his tie.

“It means, baby doll, that this is gonna be the start of a beautiful friendship.”  

He laughed his signature maniacal cackle and hopped back in the driver's seat.

“Hey! Are you gonna untie me?” I called to him starting to get very worried.

“I don’t know, doll. I kinda like you like that.” He laughed.

He turned the key in the ignition and revved the engine.  

“Hold on, doll!” He cackled again, before speeding off again.

What have I gotten myself into?

#Gotham #Jerome Valeska #Jerome X Reader #horrible nasty smut #Gotham smut #Jerome Smut #Valeska smut #quite lemony #jerome x reader smut #jerome valeska smut #jerome valeska x reader #jerome valeska x reader smut #gotham smut

[astaroth1357]

The "No Longer Undateable, Totally Attainables" Fanclubs at RAD (Said I'd Call Them That, I'm Not Budging)

Every story needs a resolution and the italics blurb is ready to bring its struggles to a close. It’s found that, in the end, it was not nearly as pointless as once thought. Not only did it have a function - it had substance - and made the most of its existence for what it was… Through its journey for purpose, it became all it ever wanted to be… worthwhile. Having finally lived its story, the italics blurb is now at peace...

Diavolo

Fanclub? Why just a club? Shouldn't everybody love their king??

Eh, just kidding. Take a passing glance at the fervor around the English royalty you’ll see that there’s a fascination with royalty among some of  the “common folk” and the Devildom is no different.

Oddly enough, though, Diavolo really doesn’t dislike his fans at all. Quite the opposite, in fact! Part of him kind of likes that he has subjects that would like him that much and he would probably interact with them more but…

Barbatos absolutely will not let him slack off from his princely duties just to pay attention to such “pointless matters.” So, whether Diavolo wants to meet them or not, his hands are pretty tied…

Occasionally one or two will slip through the cracks at RAD and offer him gifts or simply wish him  a nice day and honestly he couldn't be happier when that happens (if for no other reason than it breaks up the monotony of his royal obligations). 

Lucifer is, unfortunately, also on the “Princes Don’t Talk to Groupies” squad so between his interference and Barbatos’... Barbatos-ness interactions very rarely ever gets to happen… It’s a shame, really, let this man have friends, dammit!!

Barbatos 

The fanclub of Barbatos are few but oddly passionate…

Look, Barbs does not pay ANY attention to his fanclub because he’s too busy working for his Young Lord. He's pretty much always by his side at RAD to start with… but yet…

Barb's fans are absolutely all behind this man, even if they have to be so from afar.

...and I do mean AFAR. Chances are they can't ever get too close to him so they pretty much have to crowd around doorways and windows just to get a glimpse.

Braver ones will try to break into the Castle… not to steal anything or even to stalk him indoors. It's because it's nearly impossible for anyone to break into the Castle without Barbatos knowing about it.

Admittedly, this is kind of a dumb way to get his attention because he'll be far more focused on "escorting" any trespassers into the Castle dungeon, but hey, if it work, right?

No one, not even Diavolo, knows how Barbs truly feels about them. Any time he's asked he only smiles and changes the subject… To spare either his or their embarrassment is really anyone’s guess.

Simeon 

What? Do you think it's weird that an angel would have a fanclub full of demons? Have you seen this man?

Simeon fans come in two forms, the ones who love him for being just the picture of perfection and those who admire his work as an author.

In truth, he's not all that unfamiliar with having a fanclub (again, author), though he's never had the chance to interact with them before…

He's as gracious as ever. He always accepts their gifts and signs their books or poses for a picture or two (though he will a little flustered when asked).

Levi also absolutely heads one of his clubs. The man loves TSL more than anything and, of course, he'd start a club to celebrate the guy who wrote it!

Thanks to his position, and technically being Simeon’s friend, Levi also got Simeon to record an auidobook-style reading of a few of his favorite chapters and that sent the whole club into orbit.

Though Luke constantly reminds Simeon not to let all the popularity go to his head, there's really no fear of that happening. This is Simeon we're talking about!… right?

Solomon

Unlike Barbatos who just ignores his fans, Solomon truly doesn’t seem to register he has a fanclub - or least he's very good at acting like it...

Nobody really knows just how much Solomon cares about his fanclub, he's… hard to get a read on.

He's the kind of guy who will pull shit like:

"Solomon, have you checked on your fans recently? I think they spiked the courtyard fountain with some kind of potion… Levi got turned into a frog."

"What fans?"

"The people in your club."

"What club?"

"Solomon…"

"You mean the people walking around in replicas of my cape?"

"Yes, Solomon."

"What about them?"

"You know what? I give up..." 

They all kind of share his mad energy, so they'll do weird pranks and stuff  to try and get his attention.

Not surprisingly a decent chunk of them already have a pact with the guy anyway, so at least they have that going for them. Those who don't, actively ask him but Solomon works in mysterious ways… They could have to keep asking for a while.

Luke

Little boy kind of hates having a fanclub… First because they were demons and then later because they treat him like such a child…

Look, Luke is adorable and there's a subset of people who want to take in and dote on adorable people: demon and human alike.

His fanclub is largely made up of girls who do things like pinch his cheeks, pat his head, bring him cookies… that sort of thing.

He always whines to Simeon about it, but the older angel never takes him too seriously because he can tell that he doesn't actually dislike his fans nearly as much as he says he does.

One of the girls got sick once and he was so concerned that he brought her soup and get-well cupcakes… What? He's still an angel! Illness is no laughing matter...

Honestly, if Luke's fans were to go on and leave him alone like he says he'd be quite sad… So he lets them coo and coddle him as much as they like (within reason, of course).

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me attainables #obey me undateables #obey me simeon #obey me diavolo #obey me luke #obey me barbatos

[alfredosauce50]

The anatomy of the obsessed artist [2p! Italy x reader]

Synopsis: You have the golden opportunity to display your art at a newly opened gallery. Nobody stops to look at your work until an eccentric connoisseur praises it, even asking you if he can buy it. Touched and fascinated by his personality, you agree to meet him over coffee. Now that he’s no stranger, he keeps inviting you over to his lavish estate until he realizes it’s not the art he’s so obsessed with. It’s the artist. Wordcount: 3, 686 The reader is referred to as she/her. “Nihilism represented a crude form of positivism and materialism, a revolt against the established social order; it negated all authority exercised by the state, by the church, or by the family.” - Encyclopedia of Britannica

“It's hideous.” He murmured, his eyes narrowed with contempt. They were a hot magenta hue, quick-moving and critical of everything they fixed on. How much he wished to say he was standing back to admire a masterpiece. Tossing his paintbrush into the kitchen sink with a sigh, he sauntered to the couch and plummeted down on it.

A loud clang was heard, but it never fazed his companion, who barely dodged the trajectory of the brush. “Oh, really?” They snorted. “It looks the same as every other painting you've done.”

He whipped his head to him and glared.

“Like you'd have an eye for these things, Lutz.”

Said man gave a shrug. This was probably the hundredth time they had this conversation, so he could practically predict what Luciano was about to say—and how he would wind up listening unwillingly to his passionate spiels.

“Just listen to me speak for once.”

Lutz scoffed and poured himself a hot cup of coffee. “Here we go again...” He grumbled with a distinct droop to his features.

Rolling his head back to the pristine, white ceiling, Luciano threw his hands up in emphasis. “It's the only damn thing that gives this room some color. I need to do better, Lutz. Otherwise, I'll tear this whole place down!” Even then, his animated movements were minuscule compared to the tall walls that surrounded him.

The other sipped on his mug. “If you're so stuck—” He smacked his lips. “—how about going to the new art gallery downtown? Anything to get you to shut up.” Lutz grinned at that, half-expecting him to launch a few throwing knives his way. But he never did. Instead, he jumped up and extended an index to point at him accusingly.

“You think you're so smart, huh, cazzo? Well, I might just go. Just to prove you wrong.” Grabbing his coat hanging over the couch, he threw it on and marched downstairs. As the echoes of his footsteps faded, he gave one final reckoning. “You can't rush art, dumbass! I'll turn the place upside down, and I still won't find anything worth my time.”

The volume of his thoughts had never been so loud. It was the only thing he heard in this quiet institution during its downtime. Nobody was around, save for him, but that allowed him to ramble to himself--whatever he was staring at, it was everything he had been looking for.

“This was definitely worth my time.” He muttered with a pistol grip on his chin. As he scanned over the canvas to take in the brushstrokes, he shook his head. “I hate to think he said something smart for once.” They were so violent, yet so gentle. A unique balance of nihilism and faith. Reaching up to his dark maroon hair, he dug through it and laughed in awe. “This is magnificent. Bellisima!”

“I hope you mean what you say, sir. That means a lot to me.” He turned to the voice ended up gawking at a woman. As he processed the words, he was at a loss for his own.

“Oddio--you don't mean you painted this, do you, signorina?”

She nodded coyly, much to his delight.

“Mhm. The name on the label is mine.”

At the sound of that, he gleamed and took both her hands into his own. “How much?”

She blinked, unsure of whether she heard him correctly. Was he offering to buy her work? “Sorry?”

“How much do you want for your painting? I'll pay you handsomely. One grand. Ten grand. However much you desire! I just need this in my living room. Whatever you ask for, it's a done deal!”

In your short career, you never imagined capturing someone's attention so passionately with your work. Your initial impression of the man was a rich art collector of some kind--an eccentric enthusiast--and not a connoisseur by any means. He even dressed the part, having adorned himself in a loose, silky blouse with a coat tied around his waist. His fashion was flashy and exuded confidence, though nothing else could have suited his personality.

As you talked to him over a coffee, however, it became clear to you he was much more than that.

“I've never seen somebody use color like that! You must've done lots of practice to get that good, eh?” He mused, watching you light up at his praise. There was no denying the sincerity in his voice, so you couldn't help being drawn to him and his zeal. “I'll be honest with you, bella. I'm not letting you run off before we settle on something.”

He could tell from the way you leaned in so subtly, never once breaking your eye contact as you listened to him. And knowing this did wonders--he slowly found himself drawn to you.

“Thank you, Luciano. I'm really flattered, but I can't just sell it to you. It's part of the gallery now.” You smiled gently, curling your fingers around the cup handle. Even as you sipped on your beverage, your gaze on him never faltered. And before you could catch any disappointment on his part, you waved your hands at him.

“I don't mean anything by it, honestly. I'm glad that you understand what I'm trying to say--like, you could've interpreted it completely differently. I wouldn't be able to stop you, either. But the fact that you didn't...” He followed you attentively with those sharp and mysterious orbs, but you were strangely comfortable under his scrutiny.

“Maybe we have similar minds.”

The man had been studying you as you spoke. While he did, this one, singular thought occurred to him. There was nothing in the world he loved more in the world than being heard.

“Hearing you talk is the same as being listened to,” Luciano admitted with a small laugh. Deep inside, he knew Lutz always listened. Unwillingly, that was. But being heard and understood was another story. “You take the words right out of my mouth, bella. I don't know how you do it, but you have to stop reading my mind. It's invasive.” He darted his eyes over your expression that morphed into dumbfoundedness--which served as a prelude for embarrassment.

So he couldn't help but smile flirtatiously. “Take me out to dinner first. Only then will I let you finish my sentences.”

You furrowed your brows together, but his smile was far too contagious to be staved off. The end result was an endearingly stupid face that was a cross between a frown and a grin. “Does lunch count then, you impossible little man? I mean, it's around noon.”

He shook his head, amused. Luciano expected you to pull away, but it seemed like he bit off more than he could chew. You were a handful. He was never a fan of handfuls or really anything that required his energy, but he'd be damned if this was the last time he saw you.

“But seriously, (F/N). I need your paintings. And it doesn't have to be something you've already painted.” Standing up at that, he neared your side lowered himself to your level. He settled a hand on your shoulder, much to your surprise. But you never tried to pull away. “I want you to paint for me at my place. I'll do whatever it takes. I'll drink my weight in this mediocre coffee if I have to.”

With his intoxicating personality, all he needed was a few more espressos to do the convincing.

“I can tell from your taste that you're pretty nihilistic.” You commented with a hint of disbelief. “But this is just crazy! What do you even do for a living?” All the expensive decor and extravagance of his stupidly large mansion must have costed a fortune! Lifting your head to take in the sheer size and height of his living room, you then shot him an incredulous look. “Well? I'm curious.”

Luciano leaned against the couch and folded his arms. “Oh, you don't want to know, trust me.” He grinned devilishly.

“What, are you in the mafia or something?” You joked.

He craned his head from right to left.

“Eh. Something like that.”

You blinked, not expecting him to be so frank. Then, you laughed sheepishly, suddenly feeling as if you've walked right into a trap. “... Are you serious?” The man sensed your uneasiness and walked over promptly. Before you could react, he held your arm, but it was much too gentle to stir any panic.

“Don't worry. Nobody would go after an artist I hired.” He leaned in to keep you hostage to his piercing eyes. The close proximity only heightened the tension you didn't know existed. What he said next, however, would have you blushing like a bride. “To have a target on your head means you're a liability. So unless we were an item--”

He smiled contently at the sight of your reddening cheeks. “--nothing will happen.”

Fortunately, your mortification was short-lived as you remembered your circumstances. Giving him a light shove, you walked off to his hallway. While your back was turned to him, he bit back a sharp grin, but to no avail. Man, were you feisty.

“Stop being such a womanizer and show me your studio, Luciano.” You mused, pausing in the doorway to glance at him over your shoulder. Was that playfulness he saw in your eyes?

“It isn't very professional.”

He hung his head and threw his hands up. Being scolded and ordered around was his worst pet peeve. But when you did it, he was only more compelled to misbehave.

“Mi dispiace. But I was only kidding. If I was part of the mob, my windows wouldn't be this big. Nor this abundant.” Making his way to your side, he walked with you to the said studio.

“And Luciano is a bit of a mouthful, no? You call me Luci.”

Unbeknownst to the two of you, someone else had entered the kitchen to pour themselves a drink. And boy, were they in for a show.

“You got it, boss. You call the shots.” A voice spoke in a gravely-exaggerated mobster accent.

“You're milking it...”

“I'm just joking, Luci. Let me have this moment.”

“Fine. Maybe I should've kept pretending. That'll get you to be a little more obedient.”

“And where's the fun in that?”

“Hmph.”

Lutz narrowed his eyes once the voices faded into silence. And he thought he hated being called Luci.

A mischievous smirk plastered across his face.

“Looks like somebody's found their inspiration.”

A few hours later, he appeared in the studio with a canned beer in hand. Even in such a lavish estate, no form of entertainment could beat pestering an old friend. Waltzing inside like he owned the place, he grinned toothily at what he saw. You and Luciano were busy working on a painting. But rather than using brushes, you both used your fingers.

“Hey.”

Luciano glanced at him and immediately felt the beginnings of anger simmer inside. “What do you want?”

Lutz laughed breathily. “Heh. No knives today?”

“If you don't get out, there will be!” The other whisper-shouted.

You stopped painting and turned to the newcomer with nothing short of curiosity. “... Hi. Are you Luci's henchman?” The joke was probably long dead, but you couldn't resist. Not when the stranger was built on six feet of pure muscle. “Nice to meet you.”

So this was the mysterious artist who managed to tame the bastard, huh? Lutz flattened his lips thoughtfully. “... In a way.”

“No, he's not. Now, get out. Your presence is ruining the mood... And killing my brain cells.” At the sound of that, you exploded into a burst of hearty laughter. Seeing Luciano push him out and leave colorful handprints on his tank only intensified those laughs. Once he managed to get his henchman out of the room, he whipped his head to you with a flustered glare.

“What's so funny?” He frowned. For one, he was rather taken aback at how he wasn't annoyed at you. At all. If someone like Lutz pushed their luck by teasing him, there would be more than one scar marring that punchable face of his.

“Nothing, nothing. I just thought... Maybe we could ask for his top and sell it. That was definitely a masterpiece.” You sighed, catching him off guard yet again. “It's the best work you've done today...”

The blush on his face deepened. A comment like that should've ticked him off, but he only found himself thoroughly infatuated. But that was preposterous! He was only letting this slide because you weren't that German bastard of a bum. That had to be it. But no matter what you did, he didn't have a single mean bone in his body for you. And he was about to test that theory.

“If you thought that was a masterpiece, I'll make you some more.” Marching over and undoing your apron, he wiped his fingers all over your once crisp white shirt. Looking down with a gasp, you weren't prepared for him to clap your cheeks and leave two brown handprints.

“You bitch!”

In his whole life surrounded by the worst potty-mouths, himself included, he'd never heard somebody cuss with so much sincerity. So the most logical reaction was to return the favor, if not be a little annoyed. But even as you ruined his blouse, which happened to be more expensive than everything in the room, he was cackling hysterically.

By the time you both calmed down, he had settled his chin atop your head and wrapped two arms around your neck. The paint on his face was drying up, but he was in no hurry to wash it off. Giving you a squeeze, he leaned down and pressed his cheek to yours. “You're coming tomorrow, aren't you?”

“Mhm.”

“And the day after that?”

“I don't see why not.”

“Then what about the day after that?”

You faced him and pinched his cheek affectionately, but he never complained. “If I was, what's the point of leaving, hm? I have something on that day, but I'll update you.”

Standing up at that, you felt his arms slide off of your shoulders. Luciano pulled away reluctantly, and as you left his studio, he found himself trailing after you against his own will. As quiet as he was, inside, he was tearing himself apart, torn between asking you to stay in the guest room and driving you home. But in the end, he got in the car.

Once he arrived outside your house, his body acted out unexpectedly when he shot his hand out to grab yours. The sudden contact startled you, though you could only gleam at his paint-smeared face that stifled back a thousand words. “What, do you miss me that much already?” You chuckled, much to his pleasure.

“You're just missing me too less.” He closed his eyes for a satisfied look. When he opened them again, he added this. “I'll pick you up here. Same spot. 9 am. If you don't show up in five minutes, I'll break inside and pull you out of bed.” Only then did he let you go.

“You got it, boss.”

With that said, you waved at him and made your way inside. Once the door clicked shut, he returned his gaze to the dashboard and shook his head with a defeated smile. “Oh my god.”

When he climbed the flight of stairs to appear next to the kitchen, the hiss of an espresso machine was heard. Rolling his head to it absently, he dropped his keys on the island and dug his hands through his sticky hair. Without addressing the blonde, who took an obvious interest in his disheveled appearance, he sauntered to the couch and flopped down on it.

“... Luciano.”

“What do you want?” He muffled his voice into the cushion.

Lutz walked over with a mug in hand and sipped it. Pointing to his own face, he swirled his index in circles. “You have a little something there.” When the other rolled his head to him, so did their colorful face.

The next two days saw steady progress in the project he paid you to do. While the painting moved closer to completion, he cared less and less about the finished product. At the same time, his eagerness for you to come grew exponentially. He could never admit it, but that didn't mean Lutz couldn't see right through him.

A single glance at him working in the studio was more than enough to deduce the conclusion that he was hopelessly head over heels for you. For one, it wasn't right to say he was even working anymore. Instead, he was staring at you, and sometimes, for twenty minutes or more if you were particularly immersed in your art.

This was only confirmed in due time.

Trotting downstairs to the cellar, he discovered that over ten bottles of wine had disappeared. And the culprit promptly made an appearance when he returned to the living room. Luciano was holding an empty bottle when they bumped into each other, the contact on his shoulder causing him to drop it. When it shattered on the marble floor, so did his patience.

“What the fu--watch where you're going, you fucking idiot!” He hissed, giving the other a strong shove back.

Beer fizzed out of the can and splashed onto his white tank. Lutz couldn't care less about ruining his clothes, but wasting beer? He pulled back with a growl. “I could say the same for you. I'm not the stumbling drunk here cuz' I can actually hold my weight.”

Luciano rolled his eyes and inhaled a deep breath.

“You know what, just leave me alone.” He huffed, kicking the shards on the ground. Once he scattered the glass all over the hall, he stormed off to his studio. Letting out a frustrated string of colorful words, he tore through more canvases than he cared to count. Punching a hole in one, then using another as target practice, half of the artwork was completely destroyed by the time Lutz showed up.

“I don't get it! Why am I so angry? Why can't I paint something like this?” Luciano exasperated, gesturing forcefully to the painting you were working on. Then, he marched up to the man and gripped the front of his tank. “Am I just that shit? But that can't be!”

At this point, Lutz was done with arguing.

“... You know what I'm about to say.”

Luciano threw his hands up as they chorused the same line simultaneously. “It looks the same as every other painting you've done--yeah, I know! I didn't really expect you to give me any useful advice. I just wanted you to listen to me.”

“Don't I always listen to you?”

“No--”

“Wasn't it me who suggested for you to go to that art gallery?”

“Yeah, but it's not like--it's not like you knew she was gonna show up! (F/N) being there only happened once in a blue moon. You were just lucky, so don't think you're a genius or anything, ha!”

Lutz scoffed, but his unimpressed expression quickly morphed into a shrewd one. “Accept it, liebling. You're down bad. Down astronomically. Just invite her over, and when she comes, you'll know what I mean. It's not the paintings you're making a fuss over.” He watched Luciano's hair spike up like a cat, then him light up like a Christmas tree. That little man was many things, but an honest person was not one of them.

“You think you're so smart, huh, cazzo?” Luciano pointed at him accusingly. “Well, I might just do it. Just to prove you wrong.”

When he left, Lutz clicked his tongue with raised brows.

“That's what you said last time...”

And invite you over he did. When he spotted a silhouette on the other side of the blurry glass, he sprung up from the couch and swung open the door with great gusto. There you were, as effortlessly charming as he remembered, and a little startled. You never had the chance to knock, nor process his scruffy appearance.

“Luci--hey! You look... A little more tired than I remember.”

Without a shred of hesitation, he grabbed your hand and pulled you to his bedroom. Yet again, his body was acting against his will, but perhaps, this was what he wanted in the first place. He just never admitted it. As he slowly came to terms with it, his eyes widened to dinner plates, and his heart pounded obnoxiously in his chest.

“Hey, what're you--”

He pointed wordlessly to the bed.

You shook your head, unable to figure out what he meant. “What do you want me to do?”

Luciano glowered at you, but it served as a stark contrast to the softness in his voice. “I'll pay you. As much as you want. Just stay there.” Seeing that you had yet to go along with his requests, he marched over to you and laid you down. Before you could object, he threw the blanket over you and tucked you in.

Sliding himself in from the other side, he scooted in and coiled his arms around your stomach. “Now, sleep.”

Breathing out a soft sigh, you rolled to him and brushed his mussy bangs back. “For someone so straightforward, you're not very honest, are you?” Sitting up to unzip your jacket, you proceeded to take your shirt off. When you stripped down, blood rushed to flush his cheeks as he came to realize he was completely love-struck.

“... Holy shit.”

Climbing onto his lap, you laughed over his lips and squeezed his neck. “You're really bad at hiding things. But like you said, I can read your mind.”

Luciano knitted his brows together. Then, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to your mouth. “And it's very invasive. Please stop it.”

“Only if you promise to pay me in the morning.”

“... You're not a prostitute.”

“Oh, but you are one too. We're all whores, if you think about it. We just sell different parts of ourselves.”

“Go to sleep, idiota.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

#hetalia fanfiction #hetalia fanfic #hetalia x reader #x reader #reader insert #xreader #2ptalia #2p! italy x reader #2pitaly #2p italy x reader #2p!italyxreader #2p hetalia #hetalia world series #aph #axis powers hetalia #request #ask answered #alfredosauce50