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#i might do image descriptions for these eventually....

sunbedo · 7 months

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Heres part 2 of the pokemon card haul post!!

Once again lists will be left -> right, and up -> for ease of viewing, and the cards are under the cut (i might change that actually, these posts aren't as long as i thought they'd be bc of the image limit. look at my cards boy)

Anyways heres the second batch of cards sorted by my favorite artworks of the bunch + some close ups, and the foil teddiursa card i forgot to put in the group photos by type. :')

And now here's some sorted by the matching artists i could find! (deffo not all of them, but I didn't feel like checking eeevery single one, y'know?)

In order they are Yuka Morii (big fan of their clay work and unique style!), Kouki Saitou (with the Medicham and Staravia, if it was hard to tell), Migumi Higuchi, Saya Tsuruta (who i will talk abt later, hehe), Shigenori Negishi, Shibuzoh (whose art style i really really like but accidentally cut off one of their cards... whoops), Yuu Nishida (whose art i also really love, and kinda wanna start collecting their cards :3), and Naoyo Kimura

Heres some closeups!

Look how pretty that Celebi card is ough... and the Swirlix is so cute and vivid and bright, it might be my favorite out of the whole bunch!

Anyways, fun fact! Saya Tsuruta also made my favorite pokemon card ever that I keep in my phone case, their Yamper card! Here it is with the other two cards :3 (dont mind if it looks kinda dirty, like i said, i keep it in my phone case 😅)

#pokemon cards #pokemon card collection #pokemon tcg #cherry chortles #i might do image descriptions for these eventually....#anyway thanks for reading!!

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andthebeanstalk · 1 year

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"The Professor's Workshop"

An excerpt from my graphic novel script drafts, posted here without beta bc it motivates me to write. In this chapter, the protagonists David and Kuruk are being given a tour of Armadillo Island by its mayor.

"Just wait til you meet them!" RJ exclaims excitedly. "They're the mind of a generation - maybe two!" He now adds an additional spring to his step, and David has to jog to keep up with him, despite them both being very short men. Kuruk follows behind, looking deeply skeptical.

RJ leads them down a winding forested path to a more remote part of the village, continuing to talk about the island the whole time while occasionally asking friendly questions of his guests.

They arrive at a secluded building tucked away in the bright green foliage of the island. The building is made in the same unique colorful architectural style as the rest of the island, but it has an odd overall shape - as though it has seen many small additions and renovations over the years. Paint chips in a couple places, but otherwise it looks well-cared-for. Shiny metal vents and chimneys emerge from the roof and sides, gently emitting white smoke. A stone pathway leads from the sign to the door, nearly hidden in untamed tall grass.

Out front, a high-quality colorful carved wooden sign reads:

Doctor Professor Xosha Zapata, PhD

Chemist & Architect Extraordinaire

"The sign was a gift from me," RJ chirps, stopping for a moment to admire it.

"No kidding," David deadpans politely, obviously hiding a smile.

(Behind him, the side of Kuruk's mouth twitches upwards a little for just a moment.)

RJ is marches up the overgrown stone and knocks confidently on the door, which turns out to not be fully closed; it creaks open from his knocking.

RJ stands just outside of the doorway and shouts inside cheerfully, causing Kuruk to wince at the volume. "OH, PROFESSOR!!! Are you in, Professor? I've met the most lovely chaps and I'd love to introduce them to our island's premiere scientific mind!"

There is a distant muffled sound from within.

"... PROFESSOR?" RJ shouts again, looking slightly concerned, "ARE YOU ALRIGHT?"

An indistinct wobbly speech bubble comes from inside, ending in question marks.

RJ looks both worried and like a man on a mission. "WE'RE COMING IN TO CHECK ON YOU - ALRIGHT, PROFESSOR?" He shouts loud enough this time that David and Kuruk both wince.

RJ hustles in and our heroes follow hesitantly behind.

The small entryway opens into a large room with high ceiling. It appears to be a lab or a workshop of some kind. Skylight windows light the room with soft sunlight, and dust motes float in the air in the brightest of the rays of light.

In terms of the contents of the room, the place looks like if a cartoon professor somehow had even more ADHD than usual:

There are dozens of beakers and vials on a number of desks and tables. A few of the beakers sit on lit bunsen burners, bubbling with colorful substances and sending white smoke up into the vents above them. At least one beaker has bubbled over and created an unidentifiable burnt mass at its base.

There are multiple architectural drafting tables with designs and blueprints on them in various states of completion.

There are several chalkboards full of notes in messy handwriting.

Books, papers, notebooks cover nearly every flat surface and several of the non-flat ones. Many torn notebook pages have been taped to the walls. [I guess this fantasy world has an equivalent to scotch tape now. ... I'm fine with that.]

The only decorations are a cluster of very nice painting on a small section of the wall. (Readers looking very closely will notice they all have the same artist's signature - Epa, who runs the inn.)

There is nothing to suggest nefarious scientific activity. Real "absentminded professor" energy.

In the far corner of the room, a set of scaffolding and a ladder block off a small space.

"H-hello? RJ, is that you?" says a small speech bubble from behind the scaffolding.

"Aha!" RJ leaps in that direction impressively quickly for a tiny man in his 50s.

Before David and Kuruk catch up to him, they hear RJ's relieved and once again cheerful voice:

"Ah, professor! There you are, thank goodness!!! You had us worried for a moment there!"

"...'Us' ?" says the unknown person in a pinched voice.

David and Kuruk round the corner to see three things:

One: an incomplete 8-foot-tall architectural model of a building,

Two: a fallen ladder, and

Three: a very embarrassed-looking non-binary person whom they recognize as the amateur vigilante they last saw getting shoved into the town square fountain by Armadillo Woman. Ze is wearing overalls, safety goggles pushed up on zyr head, a white shirt with some almost neon-colored stains on it, and a safety harness.

Ze appears unharmed, but they are suspended in the air by a cord attached to the back of the harness, and they look exceedingly uncomfortable. Zyr feet are dangling high off the ground, and ze is slowly and involuntarily rotating in place.

"Oh." Ze says weakly at the sound of additional footsteps. "There's... more people to witness this. ...My lucky day." They look as though they'd rather melt away into the earth. As they speak, they continue to spin, and they miss their initial chance to look at David and Kuruk, not seeing their faces until spinning slowly back around.

RJ, however, continues with his introductions, gesturing grandly and earnestly. "Mister David, Mister Kuruk - please meet the esteemed Doctor-Professor Xosha Zapata! Professor, these are my new friends Kuruk and David! They're here for the festival!"

Behind RJ, Kuruk squints at being called RJ's "new friend." David just looks amused.

"Y-You can just call me Xosha actually I'm not really--"

Xosha stops as ze finally catches sight of David and Kuruk - zyr face somehow falls even further. "Ah. We've, uh, met, actually," they say with a pained smile.

RJ is delighted. "Really?!? Fantastic! You must tell me all about it! How you met, what everyone was wearing! Every detail!"

"Um, actually, do you think maybe somebody could get me down first, please?" Xosha says in a small voice.

RJ looks surprised to find Xosha still in the air; he presses his hand to his forehead. "Oh! Oh my! Of course of course - my apologies! - I just get so carried away! Gentlemen, would you assist me?"

David and Kuruk nod. Kuruk looks like he's questioning how his life has come to this.

"Tell us what to do, Professor!" RJ says with his hands on his hips.

What follows is a ridiculous comical sequence in which Xosha explains how this happened and the men help zyr get down.

Ze was standing on a tall ladder and working on the architectural model. The safety harness they're wearing supports their torso and pelvis, and it connects to a rope from a clever pulley system on the ceiling. The early light of dawn indicates that this was probably a few hours ago.

They lean too far to reach for something and lose their balance, kicking the ladder out from under them while simultaneously knocking the pulley controls out of their reach.

Their legs kick in the air as they tried to release themselves from the harness, but in their struggles they manage only to somehow tangle the straps of their overalls and cause a lot of discomfort.

The final flashback panel is a distant wide shot of the whole workshop with the lonely defeated figure of Xosha hanging comically from the harness in the background.

Per Xosha's direction, RJ and David find the pulley controls and begin to lower zyr down in stops and starts. The pulley system is not cooperating with them, and Xosha yelps in a mix of alarm and discomfort with each small drop. It looks very painful, and David winces in sympathy. RJ looks similarly apologetic.

After the first small drop, Kuruk moves quickly to stand under Xosha.

"I will catch you," he says, looking entirely unsure of himself, but ready nonetheless.

"Thank-- you," Xosha squeaks, "It's-- YAAHH--!!!"

They let out a final yelp as they drop the last few feet. Kuruk catches them from behind [either under the arms or by the harness] and slows their fall so they land safely on their feet. Kuruk continues to support them for a few seconds until they seem steady.

As soon as Kuruk lets go, however, Xosha whimpers and lowers zyrself to the ground in a comically pained ball. Evidently, hanging from a pelvis harness hurts one's crotch and hips like a motherfucker, and Xosha is too exhausted to pretend otherwise. They are still clearly embarrassed, but they seem to have accepted their humiliating fate.

RJ hurries over to help them take the harness off, crouching on the ground next to them and patting their shoulder consolingly. He asks them what happened, and he asks if they need help taking the harness off. Xosha accepts his help and explains, accompanied by 3-5 cartoony flashback panels:

In the flashback, ze is standing on a tall ladder and working on the architectural model. The safety harness they're wearing supports their torso and pelvis, and it connects to a rope from a clever pulley system on the ceiling that can be manually adjusted by the user. The early light of dawn indicates that this was probably a few hours ago.

Xosha leans too far to reach for something and loses their balance, kicking the ladder out from under them while simultaneously knocking the pulley controls out of their reach.

They are caught by the harness and the expression of pain on their face is ridiculous and exaggerated for humor.

Their legs kick in the air as they tried to release themselves from the harness, but in their struggles they manage only to somehow tangle the straps of their overalls and cause more discomfort.

The final flashback panel is a distant wide shot of the whole workshop - with the lonely defeated figure of Xosha gently swaying in the background.

In the present, Xosha buries their head in their hands and lets out a loud long groan; they lament how stupid their mistake was, and RJ reassures them that even geniuses make mistakes! Xosha insists that ze is not a genius. RJ declares that they are too modest. It is clear that this is not the first time they have had this conversation.

David takes in the absurdity of it all and he smiles at Kuruk across the room. Kuruk doesn't smile back, but he does meet David's gaze and there is a hint of a twinkle in his eye amongst his general bewilderment.

Finally, Xosha manages to get the harness off and sit in a chair, letting out a long sigh.

On the final page of the chapter, a large panel shows Xosha in a detailed, fully-rendered (shaded, inked, colored, etc.) shot with warm natural lighting. Ze looks up from their chair with an attempt at a smile that lands a little closer to a wince. The shot is framed to make them appear endearing in their awkwardness. They are both cute and anxious.

"So, uhh, I'm guessing you have some questions about yesterday?" ze says.

Below that panel, a banner with large font reads:

Tune in next time for Part 3, Chapter 7:

"The Professor."

[End.]

If you liked this and want to read the published scripts with concept art on AO3, you can do that! I get a comment on those like once every 3 months and every time it gives me serotonin for like 3 weeks tbh. If you don't mind an unusual reading format, then you can find sexy men tied up and rescued, gay sky pirates, budding friendships, autistic/ADHD friendship, so many Trans people, sexy fat characters, empowering disability representation, a group of actors who would fit right in with The Ember Island Players, a haunted mop, a magical trauma recovery library, a lesbian biker gang that robs imperialistic museums - AND SO MUCH MORE

Note to self: I think maybe I'll change Xosha's pronouns to they/them and zey/zem, instead of they/them and ze/zyr. Seems to fit better.

#original #the blacksmith #original character #original characters #I might delete this later #but I will eventually publish a more polished version of this scene with concept art on AO3 #graphic novel #short story #my graphic novel consists of about 13 parts/arcs that come together into one story #scripts and concept art for parts 1 and 2 are up on ao3. pt 1 is lots of hurt and some really juicy comfort. pt 2 is GAY SKY PIRATE TIME.#this is an excerpt from part 3. which is called The Amazing Armadillo woman and which i am frankly very impatient to finally finish!#This excerpt is from a chapter in which the guys get a tour of the town from the mayor. - RJ is the mayor. ('But please! Call me RJ!')#RJ is the real deal tho. He is based on Gomez Addams. RJ stands for Raul Johnston - after my two favorite Gomez actors #who are Raul Julia and John Astin - from the 90s movies and the 1964 tv show #fun fact! John Astin is the father of Sean Astin aka Sam Gamgee!#anyway all of RJ's his enthusiasm is 1000% genuine - he is just Like That.#and yes of course he loves his wife and children SO MUCH #also the concept art all has full image descriptions for visually impaired readers.#the finished novel will either have full image descriptions or - even better - an audiobook!#NOTE TO JACK: do not edit this post; this is not the most updated version of the script.

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astraltrickster · 11 months

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What frustrates me about disability advocacy is that...of all the people I've seen talk about it, 99% of them - even ones who are disabled themselves - have eventually proven that their support has limits. Really stupid and arbitrary ones, at that.

You support disabled people...but if you see an adult with a DIAPER BULGE in their pants in public it's ON SIGHT, get your kink out of my face! Actually, even if it's not a kink, that's still gross and, like, it's not like the diaper exists to CONTAIN waste, you're a biohazard! Just stay home!

You support disabled people...but, ugh, you're so sick of masks, they feel so icky, the CDC isn't advising them anymore so really how bad can it be, if you don't want to be permanently disabled even worse than you already are then why don't you just stay home forever?

You support disabled people...but if you see anyone using a non-conventional straw that someone's billed as "anti-aging" on TikTok you proudly declare that you'll smack them, because what do you mean it might be a motor control or sensory thing?

You support disabled people...but no one is REALLY so disabled that they can't manage their lights conventionally, clean their homes by themselves, or hold a pen for extended periods of time or at all; that's just something people make up as an excuse for Bad Tech and exploitative luxury services.

You support disabled people...but, god, control your by-definition-uncontrollable tics, they're SOOOO annoying and rude!

You support disabled people...but when someone stops masking or runs out of spoons and starts speaking in a choppy, hard-to-understand way, it's a joke.

You support disabled people...but AAC is, like, sooooo annoying and hard to understand, learn to talk like a normal person instead of pointing like a baby or whatever, geez.

You support disabled people...but you hate image descriptions and video transcriptions because they're, like, sooooo ugly and transcriptions SPOIL things. (Not to be confused with "frequently not having the spoons to translate images and videos into text, which is a skill; one which everyone should try to develop, but a skill nonetheless" - I get that, it happens to me, but if you take issue with OTHER people adding them to your posts for Aesthetic Reasons, you're...kind of a dick! I'm not sorry for saying it!)

You support disabled people...but you think teehee funny joke annotations are a much more valuable use of caption tracks than, you know, actual captions are.

You support disabled people...but you still concern-troll people with armchair diagnoses of heavily stigmatized disorders for harmless weirdness, or try to paint them as icons of some kind of horrible social ill.

You support disabled people...but you're still convinced that every asshole is mentally ill, probably A Narcissist, and what do you mean that's a loaded thing to call someone when a heavily stigmatized disorder is rudely misnamed as such too, isn't it easier to, like, change the name of the disorder throughout the whole system than it is to just stop using that word as your go-to Bad Person Pathologizing Word, which you definitely need? (Or worse, you see no problem with this clash because you're convinced it IS Bad Person Disorder...)

You support disabled people...but you see someone mumbling to themself on the bus and you get as far away from them as possible because it's "scary".

You support disabled people...but you constantly try to pull "gotcha"s about people telling you not to touch people's assistive devices.

You support disabled people...but someone being okay with their delusional disorder and talking about that is BAD and PROMOTING SELF-HARM.

You support disabled people...but your body positivity still focuses exclusively on "people can be healthy and fat at the same time!" as if people who ARE fat because of health issues and/or have health issues BECAUSE of their weight don't exist or deserve support.

You support disabled people...but you declare that advocates who want us all to have more access to things that improve your quality of life are the REAL ableists for acknowledging that those things that you currently can't do tend to improve quality of life.

You support disabled people...but your advocacy for yourself involves distancing yourself from people with more support needs than you.

You support disabled people...but you treat addiction of any kind, or use of anything with known addictive tendencies, as a moral failing.

You support disabled people...until the accommodations they need clash with your own, then it's not just a benign incompatibility that sucks just as much for them as it does for you; no, you are an innocent victim and they are a horrible ableist.

You support disabled people...until it's too inconvenient. Too weird. Too scary. Once that line is crossed, it's not a disability issue anymore, they're, conveniently, just a Bad Person.

It's fucking exhausting and I'm sick to death of it.

#disability #serious tag #bitching #and even after i posted this i keep thinking of more shit people have said #not gonna edit them in because this post is long and has already been reblogged a couple of times #but might keep track of them in the tags or add more in a reblog #because. i can keep going.

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headkiss · 1 year

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give you the moon

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader

summary: had you known getting your first tattoo would end up with you being in love with eddie munson, you might have gotten it a lot sooner.

word count: 17.8k

warnings: smut, probably inaccurate descriptions of tattooing processes (i tried my best!), strangers to friends to lovers, fluff

a/n: this one took forever but it’s finally done!!!! i’m sorry for the wait but hopefully u guys like it enough to forgive me :D

༄

You’ve always wanted a tattoo, and you figured now was as good a time as ever. Having just moved to Indianapolis, all by yourself, one change could lead to another.

New city, new apartment, new tattoo.

It may be irresponsible of you, but you settled for the first shop you found, the one closest to where you lived. A short walk away, harder to back out of. You knew you wouldn’t regret getting it, you just had to force yourself to sit through it, to commit.

The wind whips at your cheeks as you make your way to your consultation. You pull your sleeves over your hands and hope that it’ll be warm enough.

Once you’ve made it, the bell above the door rings to signify your entrance. A girl with brown curly hair sits at the front desk, a warm smile on her face. The place has dark floors, walls covered with different sketches that distract you for a moment.

“Hi! How can I help you?” The girl says, drawing your attention back to her. You walk the few steps up to the front desk.

“Hi, um, I’m here for a consultation,” you give her your name and the time of the appointment. “With Eddie.”

She shuffles about for a few seconds before finding what she was looking for, “yep, perfect. I’ll let him know you’re here. I’m Nancy, by the way.”

“Thanks, Nancy.”

She goes to the saloon type doors next to the desk, you watch them swing back and forth. You’re eventually drawn back to the art on the walls, eyes scanning the different styles and images. Your hands fidget with the ends of your sleeves.

A picture of the staff steals your attention next, Nancy standing next to a girl with shorter hair, their hands interlocked. Then, there’s a boy with brown hair and a kind smile. The one who really keeps you looking is the boy with long dark hair, his tattoos the most prominent.

A second later, that same boy is walking through the doors and calling your name.

“Oh, hi. That’s me,” you reply. Then wince at your awkwardness.

“Hi, I’m Eddie,” he gives you a close-mouthed smile, barely there. He’s even prettier in person than he is in that photo. “Follow me.”

He seems distant, sort of cold and you’re not quite sure what to do with it. Your nerves pick up even more.

He ushers you through the saloon doors, then through a room with three tattoo beds that’s filled with the buzzing of the machines and the other people from the picture and their clients. You end up in an office type room, certificates hang on the wall behind the desk.

Eddie takes a seat behind the desk that’s presumably his, papers scattered about and a cup overflowing with pens and pencils sitting atop of it. You stand by the door, shifting on your feet.

“You can have a seat,” he offers, gesturing to the chair facing him. He waits until you’re settled to continue. “So, is this your first tattoo?”

“Yes,” you feel nervous and you’re not sure if it’s the prospect of committing to the tattoo or if it’s the way Eddie’s gaze doesn’t move away from you.

“Well, I’m honored to be your first,” he winks, your heart stumbling at the innuendo. “So, what are we thinking?”

“The moon, on the back of my shoulder,” you pause, but he nods for you to keep going, to give more detail. “I wanted it to be a gibbous moon, almost full but not quite.”

“Alright. Got an idea for size?”

“Uh, kinda small. I think?” You huff, frustrated with your lack of an answer, “sorry I’m not so prepared.”

You stuff your hands under your thighs so that they’ll stop twisting in your lap. You cross your ankles and look down, slightly embarrassed at the way you’re acting in front of him. You were meant to grow in the city, to be better, but so far, not much has changed.

You don’t have friends, your job is slow, and you’re terrible with new people.

“‘S fine,” you think he’s being reassuring. “How’s this sound: we can try some circle stencils on for size now, then we’ll know for your appointment.”

“Okay. Thank you, Eddie.”

“‘Course. I’ll be right back.”

His exit gives you a couple of minutes to try and sort yourself out, to calm down. You want to be able to do this without the stumbles or hiccups that you’re so used to. You blow out a breath and wait for him to come back.

The way he carries himself confuses you, his almost detached nature making you overthink way too much. Although, he’s not being cruel or unkind, he’s just… you’re not sure if there’s a word to describe it.

He comes back with a couple of stencils, some sort of solution, a disposable razor, and paper towels.

“You’re gonna have to take your sweater off,” he says, setting everything down on the desk. When you don’t move to do so right away, he stares at you, waiting.

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

You slip off your sweater, your tank top underneath riding up ever so slightly with the movement. You pull it back down and set your discarded sweater on the chair behind you.

“Which shoulder?” He asks, putting on a pair of medical gloves and grabbing the razor.

“Here,” you slip the straps of both your shirt and your bra off the shoulder you choose, turning in the seat to face away from him so he’s able to do what he needs to.

He brushes your hair towards the front of your shoulder, clearing the spot he needs. He cleans off the area, then shaves it to make sure the stencil will stick, all in silence. He’s quick to apply it, his hands gentle and his breath hitting your skin in a way that has you shifting.

“Don’t move,” he chides quietly.

“Sorry.”

He doesn’t say anything more until he’s done, “okay. Have a look.”

There’s a mirror on one of the walls, and you walk over to get a good look at the size of the circle. You know it’s only the first one, but you think it’s perfect. It looks right and you’re excited to see it when it’s actually the design you want.

“I want this size,” you say, turning to face him.

“Are you sure? It’s only the first one.”

“I know, but it’s good. I like it.”

“I don’t want you changing your mind, okay?”

“I won’t! I’m sure, promise.”

He sighs, then wipes the stencil away and takes off the gloves with a snap. He takes his seat again as you put your sweater back on, goosebumps prickling your skin.

“When did you wanna book it for?” He asks.

“Whenever you’re free is fine, I’m not picky.” You don’t have anywhere else to be, really.

“You’re not the best at answering questions, huh?”

You think he’s trying to make a joke but all you manage to say is, “no, sorry.”

“You apologize a lot. You don’t have to,” he grabs something that looks like a planner then says, “I have a spot next week, if that works.”

Eddie tells you the specific day and time, and you tell him that it works. He hands you some papers to sign and read and bring back with you for next time. “Nancy will sort out payment and stuff at the desk. That’s it for today.”

“Okay. Thank you so much,” you make your way back to the front quickly, eager to go home and try and forget the entire interaction. He certainly wasn’t what you were expecting, and you didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. He was quiet, reserved, and hard to read, but he was good, you knew from the drawings in his office. He was also intriguing; a puzzle you wanted to solve.

You sort out everything with Nancy, who makes you feel a ton better about your consultation. “You look far too worried,” she says.

“I just don’t think he likes me very much.”

“No, trust me, that’s just Eddie. He’ll warm up to you, I’m sure.”

“I hope so. Anyway, thanks, Nancy.”

“See you,” she says as you walk out the door.

That night, you cuddle up and fall asleep thinking about Eddie and his demeanor, his warm hands on your skin.

He couldn’t get you out of his head, and that rarely happened to Eddie. He was used to meaningless things and he can’t remember the last time he felt anything for someone.

Not that he felt anything for you. You’d only met once.

Eddie spent the night after your consultation drawing way too many moons in his sketchbook, staining his hands with ink and pencil.

It’s two days later when you hear from Eddie again.

Your phone rings just as you’re about to shower before bed, the sun long gone though the city stays bright with lights. You hug your robe tighter around yourself and walk to where the phone hangs on the wall.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” an utterance of your name, a tone you recognize. “It’s Eddie… from Corroded Coffin Tattoos.”

“Of course! Hi, Eddie. Was there something wrong?”

“Oh, no. No,” he pauses, you hear him shuffling around on the other line. “I had a cancellation tomorrow and thought you might want the spot?”

You hate that the fact that he thought of you makes your stomach whirl. Of course, he could’ve called countless clients before you, but you like the idea that he dialed your number first better. You twist the phone cord in your fingers.

“That would be great. Thank you so much for thinking of me.”

If only you knew, he thinks. If only you knew how much he really did think of you—it was almost infuriating. How one person could have such an effect on him when he really doesn’t know them at all. He knows that you’re pretty, and you say ‘sorry’ far too much, and you smell really good, that’s all.

“Yeah. I’ll see you then.”

“Okay, see you-”

He hangs up before you can finish. You stare at the phone for a second after putting it back, wondering if that whole exchange truly happened, if you just dreamt up the whole thing. You pinch yourself until it hurts. You’re definitely awake.

You replay the conversation over and over, wondering why he hung up so abruptly, worrying about how you’re going to act tomorrow.

Eddie called you from his office, even though it was well past closing for the shop. He really needs to get himself together. He can’t be thinking so much about his client. About anyone, really. He can’t.

His head is resting in his arms when the door to his office opens. There’s only one person that never knocks and that’s Steve. He looks up and sees him leaning against the doorframe.

“Why are you still here, Steve?”

“Why are you still here?” He retorts.

“Got some stuff to do,” is all Eddie says.

“Your mood doesn’t have anything to do with the girl you just talked to on the phone, does it?”

Of all the people he could have been friends with, Steve was the most unlikely for Eddie, and yet here they are. Coworkers, and close friends. It’s almost annoying how quickly he can tell what exactly the issue is.

“I dunno. She won’t get out of my head,” Eddie shrugs, glancing down at the sketchbook he has opened on his desk, the one filled with drawings of your tattoo. “It’s annoying.”

“That’s a lot of moons, man,” Steve says as he walks closer.

“Shut up.”

“I’m just saying. Maybe this is a good thing. I haven’t seen you with a girlfriend, like, ever.”

“Who said anything about a girlfriend?”

No, if anything, Eddie’s eager to get your appointment over with, to get you out of his head for good.

“Yeah, okay. Can't wait to say ‘I told you so.’ You know it won’t hurt to open up a little, man.”

Steve means well, Eddie knows he does, but the thing is it does hurt him. Or, it used to. He was used to being judged, someone the town saw as a character rather than a human. The best thing he ever did was move away, but that doesn’t mean he left the hurt behind, too.

You show up about fifteen minutes early for the appointment. You gave yourself far too much time, you think, because now you just have to sit and wait and the anticipation is making you more nervous the longer it goes.

The front desk was being manned by a different person today, “hi! I’m Robin, how are you?”

She talks quickly and with enthusiasm, like every word is exciting and important. You like her already.

“Hi, I’m good, thanks. I have an appointment with Eddie,” she nods in confirmation, looking down at the schedule in front of her. “I’m a little early though so… no rush.”

“Oh, it’s no problem, gives us more time to sort out the paperwork and stuff. He’s just finishing up with someone else so it won’t be too long.” She smiles at you.

“Here, I have these from my consultation,” you hand her the pages Eddie had given you to sign. You chew at the inside of your cheek as she reads over them hoping you filled everything out correctly.

“That’s great! I’ll just go tell him you’re here,” she goes through the familiar saloon doors, the buzzing of tattoo guns and light conversations slipping through.

When she comes back she informs you that he’s only going to be a couple more minutes, and instead of telling you to go take a seat, she asks, “first tattoo?”

“Yeah, I’m nervous. Mostly excited,” you give her a small smile, one that makes hers widen.

“Don’t worry! I had to take like five breaks for my first one and now here I am.” It’s then that you finally notice the ink peeking from her long-sleeve shirt, at her wrists, and on one side of her neck. “Eddie’s great, and I’m sure you’ve got great pain tolerance—I can sense it.”

You laugh, she’s somehow managed to make you feel much better in the short time you’ve been talking to her. Eddie walks out, greeted by the sound of your laughter and he almost stops in his tracks. Almost.

“Robin, stop chatting up my clients,” he says.

“I’m just being friendly, Eddie! You should try it out,” she replies.

You can tell it’s in good nature, because he ruffles her hair as he passes and leaves it there. From what you’ve seen so far, the workers here are close; a tight-knit group of people and you admire that friendship, long for it.

“Follow me,” he says. It takes you a second to realize he’s talking to you because of your distraction, but when you look up you find him staring at you, waiting.

“Okay,” you trail behind him as he leads you to the bed furthest from the doors, the one tucked away in the back of the room.

“You eat and drink water before coming? I don’t want you passing out on me.”

“Yeah. Yes, I’m good.”

He looks at you like he’s unsure, but moves along anyway. Eddie’s only worried because you’re his client and he has to, no other reason. He can’t be worrying because he thinks you’re pretty and sweet and far too kind. There’s absolutely no way.

“So, I did a couple sketches,” a couple is an understatement. “Have a look and let me know which one you wanna go with.”

You take a look at the five he’s laid out, all as you asked. Gibbous moons, both waxing and waning, some shaded more than others, some simple outlines. The one that catches your eye is a happy medium, fine lines with dotting for shading. It’s beautiful, exactly what you envisioned.

“This one. It’s really good.”

He tips his head down, “thanks. I’ll go get my stuff and we’ll get started.”

He’s not gone for very long, though it’s enough time for you to watch one of the artists at work, the boy with the brown hair. You watched the way he moved the needle, only looking away when Eddie came back and grabbed your attention.

“Gonna do the stencil like before, so you’ll need to move your shirt,” he says, looking down at his station and getting everything ready.

“Would it be easier if I just, uh, take it off?”

That makes his hands hover, paused in his task. He tries to shake it off; he’s seen a ton of people shirtless at the job and he’s never been affected by that, so why should he be now?

“Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“Okay,” you decide it must be easier without your shirt—less things in the way—so you take it off and try not to worry about it.

Eddie applies the stencil just as he did a couple days ago. Gentle, precise hands that you’ll feel the ghost of for hours after your appointment, you’re sure. His head bent close as he pushes the edges down so you can feel him breathing, catch his scent for a moment.

When he’s done, he holds up a wide handheld mirror for you to get a look at it without having to walk all the way to the mirror on the opposite side of the room.

Again, you’re impressed by his drawing, and seeing it on your skin makes you realize that you’ll carry a part of Eddie forever after this. His linework, his trace.

“So,” he prompts you to speak as your thoughts have taken you away, “what do you think?”

“It’s great. Really.”

“You’re sure that’s where you want it?”

He double checks every single detail. That you’ve picked the one you want, that it’s the right size, that you really want to do this. He does so until you’re laying on your stomach on the bed, positioned so he can work comfortably at your side.

“Okay, I’m gonna do a small line, just so you see how it feels,” he warns you, and you tense in anticipation. “Relax.”

“Sorry. ‘M just nervous.”

“You’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

He manages to ease you with very few words.

The sound of the tattoo gun sounds louder when it’s so close, more daunting, but you’re eager to get started only to get rid of the anticipation. He draws a short line after giving you a quiet warning of, “here we go.”

It’s not nearly as bad as you’d expected. A scratch, a small sting, but it’s manageable.

“You okay?” He checks.

“Yeah, it’s not that bad.”

“Told you you’d be fine,” he says so softly you almost miss it.

Your head is turned to the side where he sits, and you can see him in your peripheral vision as he works. His legs clad in dark, ripped denim, the tattoos peeking through. The sleeves of his shirt rolled up to show his forearms. You shut your eyes and try to stop staring.

He works quietly, though you can sometimes hear him humming along to whatever song is playing. You don’t try to make conversation because you don’t want to be a distraction.

It doesn’t take too long before he gets to the shading, telling you, “some people find this part a bit more painful. So you know.”

“Okay, thanks.”

He’s right, it is more painful and you find it harder to keep yourself occupied by looking around. You find it harder to ignore the feeling of the needle.

Eddie notices. He doesn’t know how, but he notices. Maybe it’s the way your eyes are squeezed shut at certain points, the hand of the arm furthest from him bunched in a fist. He decides he wants to ease the process for you in any way he can.

“So, why the moon?” He asks.

“Huh?”

“Why’d you choose the moon?”

“Oh, sorry,” you don’t see him shake his head at your unnecessary apology. “I’ve always loved it, how it has a cycle. The way it looks in the sky. Just, everything. Looking at it was a way of reminding myself I’m alive, kind of. ‘Cause I can still see it. I guess I chose this one to remind myself that even if it’s not whole now, it will be eventually.”

He wants to pick at your brain more, because he thinks it must be a beautiful place to be able to describe things the way you just did. You talk like it means a lot to you and the fact that you shared it with him so openly when you’ve been so quiet isn’t lost on him.

“That’s really…wow.”

“Sorry. I kinda rambled there.”

“No, no. I’ve just never looked at it that way.”

He asks you more questions after that, trying his best to keep your mind off of the needle and on the conversation. He asks how long you’ve been in the city, then, why you moved, and you give him honest answers for all of it.

Not long at all. Because I needed to get out, to be somewhere nobody knows me.

That made him think of Hawkins, of every person there who called him a freak, who looked at him like one. He needed to get out, too.

“Alright, you’re all done, just gotta wrap it up for you,” he says, putting the gun down and wiping over your skin one more time. “Do you wanna have a look first?”

“Please,” you nod.

He likes the way the word sounds coming out of your mouth—he gives himself a mental slap for that.

You sit up and he holds the mirror just as he did before. You can't help but gasp when you see it, exactly what you pictured. He did such a good job that you resist the urge to hug him for it.

“Eddie, it’s beautiful.”

So are you, he thinks.

“I’m glad you like it,” is what he says.

“I love it. Seriously, thank you.”

“It’s my job. Let me wrap it and then you’re good to go.”

He does, carefully and with the same gentle hands that have become far too familiar by now. When he’s done, he takes off his gloves with a snap, and hands you a pamphlet and some cleaning products to use at home.

“Thanks again, Eddie. You’re really good,” you say, putting your shirt back on.

“No problem,” he flashes you a small smile, one you’ll hold onto. “Um, here’s the card for the shop. You know, in case you need anything. Just ask for me, okay?”

“I will, thank you,” you take the card from him, your fingers brush his as you do. The name of the shop is written on it in bold, sharp letters: Corroded Coffin Tattoos. Underneath it, the phone number.

You’re led back through the saloon doors and met with both Robin and Nancy by the desk. They’re talking with wide smiles and rosy cheeks, their hands tangled loosely.

“I don’t pay you two to flirt,” Eddie says, retreating back where the two of you just came from.

Robin slips away, presumably done with her shift at the desk now that Nancy’s back. She gave you a kind goodbye, and makes sure that you promise if you ever want another tattoo to go back there.

“How was it?” Nancy asks you.

“Good! I’m really happy with it.”

“That’s what we like to hear! Eddie’s great. He gave me my first tattoo, too. Robin was mad for ages and then made sure she gave me the next one,” she grins. “Anyway, let’s get you taken care of.”

You pay for the tattoo, and then, you’re off.

It’s times like now that you wish you had someone to talk to, because you’re having way too many thoughts about your tattoo artist that you might never see again and you need to know if you’re reading into things too much. You need to know if his hands linger longer than they need to on other clients, if you imagined the way his eyes stayed on you, too.

You settle for overthinking on your walk home instead.

You didn’t think you’d end up using the card Eddie gave you. Not unless you were calling to book another tattoo, but here you were, leaning on the wall by your phone and dialing the number.

It was just a quick question, really, but you were still nervous. You’d only gotten the tattoo yesterday and already you were calling.

You’d realized when reading the aftercare instructions he gave you, that you didn’t have any unscented, gentle lotion like it called for, and you wanted to know if he had any suggestions for what works best. You tried going to the pharmacy, but the options were overwhelming.

You ended up buying something anyway because of how long you spent there. A useless magazine that was the closest thing to you when you noticed how some of the employees were looking at you. Some girl reading way too many lotion labels.

Yeah, definitely embarrassing, and definitely something you won’t let yourself live down.

The phone doesn’t ring for long before someone picks up, “Corroded Coffin Tattoos, Nancy speaking.”

“Hi Nancy,” you tell her your name.

“Hey! How can I help you?”

“Um, Eddie told me to call and ask for him if I had any questions,” you explain. “I was wondering if he’s available for a minute?”

“He did?” She sounds surprised.

“Um. Yeah.”

“Huh. Usually he makes one of us deal with calls instead. I’ll put you on hold and let him know, okay?”

“‘Kay. Thanks, Nancy.”

Desperately, you try not to overthink what she said. That he doesn’t usually get his clients to talk to him for things as minor as this. Why would he want you to, then? You don’t know why every little thing he does sends your mind into a whirlwind of ‘why’s and ‘what does this mean’s.

It’s maybe two minutes—silence filled by your thoughts—before the phone is picked up again.

“Hello?”

You can tell that it’s Eddie.

“Hi. Sorry to bother you but I just had a quick question for you.”

Eddie knows it’s you; he’s not expecting a call from anyone else. Not that he was expecting yours, it’s just that you’re the only client he’s even told to ask for him. He tries to cover that up by saying, “who’s this?”

“Oh, guess I should’ve said. Sorry,” you remind him of your name, as if he could forget it.

“Don’t be sorry. What’s your question?”

He’s quick to get to the point, and you can’t tell if it’s because he’s eager to help, or if it’s that he’s eager to get the conversation over with. Nancy’s words replay in your head. Usually he makes one of us deal with calls instead.

“I noticed that for aftercare, it says to use gentle lotion,” he hums along, urging you to continue. “I wasn’t sure what exactly that meant and I even went to the pharmacy but I didn’t know which one was good-”

“It’s okay,” he cuts you off. “I’ve got some here at the shop. Do you have time today to come pick it up?”

“Yeah! Yes, that’s great. Thanks so much, I promise I’ll get out of your hair after this.”

He doesn’t like the way that sits with him. He doesn’t want you out of his hair. He wants to see you again, he’s realized, and it’s almost too much for him to handle. The way he feels about you is brand new for him—never felt before. He wants to know everything about you.

“‘Course. See you soon, then.”

“Bye, Eddie.”

He hangs up.

You leave a bit after that. Not too soon, because you didn’t want to make it seem like you didn’t have other things to do, even though you didn’t. You’ve memorized the walk to the store at this point, and it doesn’t take you long to get there. You’re greeted by Nancy once again, only in person this time.

“Welcome back,” she says.

“Hi,” you smile at her, you hope it doesn’t look like a nervous grimace. “Um, Eddie told me to come here to pick something up.”

“Right, okay,” she stands, heading in the direction of his office, pausing to say, “he must really like you.”

Great. Some more material for you to analyze about Eddie and how he acts with you. It’s odd to have someone on your mind so constantly, to try and make sense of it. He has something about him that pulls you in, and you’re not sure how, or why, but you let yourself be pulled.

His hair is tied in a low bun when you see him, his bangs and stray strands of hair make it look messy, like he hasn’t had the time to redo it. And yet, he had the time to speak to you on the phone and now.

“Moon girl,” he says, lips turned up just enough to be noticeable.

“Eddie, hi,” your hands twist themselves into the sleeves of your knitted sweater. “Thank you for taking time for me, I know it was a dumb question.”

“It wasn’t. I’m glad you care enough to make sure you’re using the right things,” he says. He holds out the lotion, “speaking of.”

“Perfect. How much do I owe?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He probably shouldn’t make a habit of giving things away for free to girls he thinks are pretty and that confuse him way too much. For you, though, he’ll make an exception. It’s not like anybody else is driving him nuts like you are, anyway.

“No, you’ve done so much already. Please let me pay.”

“It’s fine, I promise that one bottle of lotion won’t hurt me.” But this possibly being the last time I see you might, he thinks.

“If you’re sure.”

“I am,” he confirms. “I’ll see you around then.”

“Bye, Eddie. Thank you.”

“Bye, moon girl.”

You look down at your feet as he walks away, letting your hair curtain your face. You really shouldn’t be feeling so giddy because of a fucking bottle of lotion and a new nickname, but you are.

“Holy shit,” Robin’s voice comes from the front desk. You hadn’t noticed, but she must’ve walked out at some point during your quick interaction with Eddie.

You curse yourself and try to hide the smile that threatens to spread across your face. “Hey, Robin.”

“Well hello,” she’s looking at you like she knows something you don’t, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “I don’t know how you did it but he’s never acted like that with any client. Like, ever.”

You don’t say anything, biting the inside of your lip to distract from the butterflies in your stomach.

“And, I’m so glad you’re here,” she changes the subject, thankfully. “Because Eddie mentioned you’re new to the city and god knows I could use friends who don’t work here and I wanted to know if you wanted to come for drinks sometime?”

Eddie spoke about you? Robin wants to be your friend? You can’t wrap your head around either of those things. It’s been so long since you’ve hung out with someone who wasn’t family. And even then, it was tiring, not fun.

You realize she’s still waiting for an answer when she clears her throat.

“Sorry, um. Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Yay!” She cheers. “What’s your number? I’ll call you next time there’s plans.”

You write it down on a scrap piece of paper for her, and she beams at you when she takes it.

“Eddie‘s gonna be thanking me for this one later,” she teases. “I think we’ll be great friends.”

You look at her smile, at her crooked tie that rests atop an oversized button up. You think she might be right about that.

As soon as you leave Robin and Nancy go to Eddie’s office. An intervention of sorts. They walk in without knocking (the door was open anyway) and stand in front of him with some look.

He’s pretty sure he knows why they’re both staring at him with knowing smiles, but he tries to ignore them and busy himself with some sketches.

Robin’s not having it, so she sits in the chair across from Eddie, kicking her feet up onto his desk.

“What do you want?” He sighs.

“Um, hello? Are we not gonna pretend that you weren’t flirting with her in your own, weird, Eddie way?” Robin starts.

“Dunno what you’re talking about.”

“Come on,” Nancy joins the conversation, on Robin’s side as always. “You’ve never told a client to ask for you, or given them free stuff.”

“Yeah! And, you were all ‘see you around, moon girl, hey let me stare at you and then not do anything about it,’” Robin lowers her voice, imitating him very inaccurately.

“I don’t know. She was nice, that’s all.”

“Nice enough to break your little rule of being mister nonchalant. I think you like her,” she’s right, but Eddie doesn’t even want to admit that to himself, let alone his friends.

He doesn’t say anything, shifting in his seat. He knows they both mean well, but he doesn’t know what to think and an ambush isn’t necessarily helping that. The pit in his stomach he’s had since he realized he might never see you again hasn't lessened, and the memory of your perfume or the feeling of your skin hasn’t faded.

So, maybe you did have an effect on him, but it doesn’t matter anymore. It didn’t matter in the first place because he wouldn’t let it.

“Look, Eddie, we’re not trying to make you admit anything,” Nancy says, “we just noticed that you acted differently with her. Steve did, too, I’m sure. And it was a good different. You seemed less guarded, I guess.”

“What she said!” Robin adds.

“Yeah, thanks guys, but it’s nothing, okay?”

They share a look, one that Eddie doesn’t understand but he’s gotten used to their silent communications over time. He scratches at the back of his neck, nervous about what they’re thinking.

“Anyway, I got her number,” Robin says, holding the small paper you wrote on for Eddie to see.

He grabs it, staring at your handwriting and the small heart you added next to your name. He fights a smile at the sight of it, cute and lopsided and though he doesn’t know you well, it’s very you.

He clears his throat, handing the paper back. “I’ve got her number on file already.”

“It’s not for you! It��s for me and Nance. We’re gonna be friends,” she grins, proud.

“We’re probably gonna invite her next time we go out, and wanted you to know. Just in case you care,” Nancy says, explaining.

Just in case you care.

He does care, he thinks. He cares way too much for someone he’s met three times and knows very little about. He knows you’re pretty, you apologize a ton, you fidget with your hands when you’re nervous, and you like the moon.

He knows that he cares what you think about him, and that when you called the tattoo he gave you beautiful, it meant more to him than most compliments do. ‘Cause it was you who said it. It’s too much for him.

Maybe he’ll skip out on the next outing.

“That’s nice,” he settles for.

“She’s new to the city and she’s cool. Don’t you think, Eddie?” Robin asks.

He swipes her boot-clad feet from his desk in response.

“We just don’t want you to hold yourself back, that’s all. You never go on dates or anything, even though you’ve had many chances,” Nancy says, softer now that she sees Eddie’s mind is full.

“Thanks for caring, you guys, seriously. But I’m fine. I like being single.”

“So, just be friends with her, then,” Robin suggests.

Her and Nancy leave him alone after that, his mind a bigger mess than before and it’s completely surrounding you. He doesn’t understand how someone could make him rethink everything like he is.

I like being single, he’d said.

And yet, when he imagines going on a date with you, giving you flowers, complimenting your dress or your hair, he’s not sure how true that statement is.

Your days drag by. You work in a small café, and whenever you’re not there, you’re either wasting away hours in your apartment or taking aimless walks. It’s a never-ending cycle, a carousel spinning round and round.

The only eventful thing that happened to you (other than your new tattoo) was accidentally spilling coffee all over yourself at work and having to stick out the rest of your shift in wet clothes. Not necessarily something you want to remember.

You’re beginning to lose hope that Robin will ever use your number.

It shocks you when your phone finally rings. You try to convince yourself it’s telemarketers, a wrong number, anything not to get your hopes up. Lucky for you, it actually is Robin.

“Hello?” Is your automatic word when you pick up.

“Hi! Listen, I’m so sorry it took so long to call,” she doesn’t have to say it to know it’s her. Robin has a very distinct way of speaking; rushed and animated. “So, I actually lost the paper. Silly me! But, then I found it and I had to convince the others to want to go out. Anyway, you wanna come?”

“Hi, Robin. That’s okay,” you find yourself smiling. Your first real one in a while. “When?”

“Oh! I forgot to say. Tonight?”

“I can do that,” you try to sound excited, you hope she can tell.

“Perfect! Do you have a pen and paper? I’ll tell you the place.”

You reach for your notepad and pen and do your best not to drop the phone in the process. Somehow, you manage.

“Yep, ready.”

She rambles off an address, a meeting time, and then, “shit. Boss is coming, better act like I’m working. Bye!”

She hangs up, and you know who she means when she says ‘boss.’

You’ve been trying your best not to think of Eddie, but it’s easier said than done. You constantly think you see him in crowds that pass by. A head of long, curly hair here, a worn leather jacket there. It’s confusing and almost embarrassing.

This boy who you barely know, taking up so much space in your life.

You’re reminded that you’ll most likely be seeing him tonight, as long as you’re right in assuming that by ‘the others,’ Robin meant her coworkers. The thought makes you nervous, makes your stomach do things you aren’t used to.

Despite the time you had between the phone call and when you had to leave, you’re in a hurry to get ready. Picking your outfit was the hardest part, because you’d never been to the place before. You decided on a dress that was simple enough, a denim jacket that you’d probably end up taking off (you get warm when you drink), and your trusty Doc Martens.

Your makeup is a little messy, but you don’t have enough time to fix it so you act like the smudged eyeliner was purposefully done. Your hair was left down.

Walking through the doors of the bar, you’re a couple minutes late and a little out of breath from your rushing. You look around in search of a familiar face when waving catches your eye.

It’s Robin, who’s waving the most obviously, her arm swinging back and forth until Nancy pulls it down and says something to her. Probably telling her you’ve seen them and she can stop. It’s sweet.

You make your way through the crowd towards the booth they’d secured. The boy, who’s introduced to you as Steve, is sitting in the corner on one side, Robin and Nancy on the other. Eddie’s absence is noted, and you guess you must’ve looked confused because Robin spoke up and said, “he’s just in the bathroom.”

She beckons you to sit with her and Nancy, and you fall into conversation easily. Even Steve is easy to talk to and you’ve only just learned his name. Sometimes you worry you’re intruding in their group, an outsider. In a way, you are, because you don’t work with them nor have you been friends with any of them for a long time, but they have yet to make you feel that way.

It’s a far cry from the friends (or lack thereof) you had back home, in the best way possible.

When Eddie comes back, the first thing he sees is you. He’s shocked. Not because you’re there—he was well aware of you being invited—but because you look like you belong with his friends. You fit right in, and you aren’t even trying. Then, he notices your dress and he wishes he could ignore the feeling he gets.

He’s painfully aware of how pretty you are, and when you look over, as if feeling his eyes on you, you give him a small smile and wave. He walks over and slides into the booth next to Steve as casually as possible.

“You look nice,” he says. It’s the best he can come up with.

“Thank you.”

The two of you are too busy looking at each other and trying to figure out what to say when the others share some kind of look. Knowing.

Your nerves pickup when Eddie’s around and you scold yourself for it. You have no business feeling anything towards him, and yet, his very simple compliment will be the root of your daydreams for days to come.

“I’m gonna get a drink,” you think you need one. “What’s everyone else want?”

“I’ll help you bring them,” Robin says.

You both stand, and everyone tells you what they want. You make your way to the bar and wait your turn. The feelings you have towards Eddie are confusing, and you’re not exactly sure what they even are. Intrigue, attraction, tension. Whatever it is, it’s unfamiliar.

Robin leans on the bar beside you, noticing you looking towards Eddie before even you do. When you pry your eyes away, she’s smirking at you.

“He likes you, you know?”

“Who, Eddie?” You ask even though you know that’s who she’s talking about. “No, he doesn’t. I actually think he dislikes me.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding. I’ve never seen him act like he does around you, and I’ve known him a really long time. Seriously.”

“He’s just being nice,” that’s all it is, you’re convincing her as well as yourself.

“Please. I know he’s hard to read and seems kind of closed-off, but he’s warmer towards you than most people. He barely even talks to clients, usually.”

Everything she’s saying, you can tell she thinks is true, but if you let yourself think it, too, you’d be absolutely fucked. Your mind would go wild with scenarios and imagining what could happen. You’re doing enough of that as is.

“I don’t know, Robin.”

“You’ll see, trust me.”

Unbeknownst to you, a very similar conversation is happening back at the table. Steve and Nancy are trying to knock some sense into Eddie, to get him to realize it’s okay to let someone else in. He denies it all just as you did, his head a mess.

He realizes that you’re not his client anymore, you’re here as a possible friend, and it scares him. There’s no guise to hide under with his urge to care for you.

When you and Robin return with the drinks, you’re the one who hands Eddie his, and when his fingers brush against yours, just barely, he feels them tingle even after the contact ends.

You loosen up a little bit as the night goes on, and you do end up taking your jacket off. The spaghetti straps of your dress leave your tattoo exposed, and Eddie can’t help but look at it. He’s always proud of his work, but seeing it on you is different for him. He likes that his mark is on you.

Nancy and Robin leave first, walking out leaned into each other. The rest of you follow shortly after, Steve slipping out after a quick goodbye. When you stand, you stumble slightly. Eddie catches you, a hand wrapped around your upper arm.

“Let me walk you home,” he says, his hand trailing down your arm lightly before he pulls away completely.

“That’s okay, Eddie. Really.”

You put your jacket back on and struggle to find one of the sleeves, your arm reaching back awkwardly. Once again, Eddie’s quick to help you, pulling your jacket over and guiding your arm to the right spot. You thank him quietly.

“C’mon, it’s dark out.”

“You’re not gonna let me say no, are you?”

He shakes his head, that small smile you so rarely see making an appearance.

The walk is quiet for a bit, the chilled air of the night nipping at your skin, your arms pulling your jacket tight to your chest. He falls into step next to you easily, pace matching yours so he stays right next to you.

He can tell you’re cold, and he resists the urge to throw an arm over your shoulders and pull you closer to warm you up. It’d be weird, he thinks. You barely know him and he’s sure you’d much rather be walking with one of the girls right now than with him.

“Sorry for, like, intruding in your friend group.”

Though you haven’t felt like an outsider, you do feel bad about worming your way into their group that seemed to have stayed the same for so long. You feel bad for the change you caused, the shift.

“What? You’re not,” he says.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, moon girl. I am.”

He knows he might not be the most welcoming person, but he doesn’t mind having you around, really. What he minds is the confusion that comes along with it, which isn’t your fault at all. That’s on him.

“Okay. Thanks for letting me come, then.”

“I think Robin would have smacked me if I didn’t. Besides, you’re nice to have around.”

He doesn’t know if it’s the few drinks or if it’s just a fluke, but the bit of honesty slips out of him with ease. Eddie’s not a trusting person, he’s been through too much for that, but he has never once felt like you were judging him.

The rest of the walk to your apartment is filled with light conversation and small, awkward silences. Having him next to you does make you feel safer, though. You never know what could happen.

He walks you all the way up to your door. You pull out your keys and fiddle with them, your hand shakes when you try to insert it into the lock. You miss a couple of times and feel the embarrassment scorch you. You don’t know if it’s the cold, or the drinks, or if it’s him making your hands unstable. Maybe it’s all of the above.

Yet again, Eddie helps you. He comes up behind you, his chest hovering over your back, close enough to feel the heat of his body, not close enough to touch.

“Here, sweetheart” he wraps his hand around yours and guides the key into the slot, the pet name slipping out without him noticing.

You do notice, though. He says it so softly, and you think it’s your favorite word that’s come out of his mouth so far. It has your heartbeat picking up, a steady thump in your chest.

“Thanks,” you breathe out.

You turn around, leaving the key in the door for now. He’s much closer than you were expecting and he doesn’t back away. Your back against your door, your nose almost touching his.

Then, something shifts, and he’s leaning in and kissing you.

It takes you a second to get over your initial shock, but you recover quickly, winding your arms around his neck and kissing him back. He makes a sound against your mouth when you do, pressing you further into the door. He has a thigh between yours, his hands holding your waist tightly.

He kisses you like he means it, and you forget about everything else. You forget that this Eddie is the same one who puzzles you so much, that not long ago you were convinced that you’d never see him again. And yet, he’s here, kissing you sick in your hallway.

He sucks at your bottom lip, pulling away and letting it snap back into place, opening his eyes to look at you for a second, then he dives back in. Soon enough, he’s licking along the seam of your lips to open you up, and his tongue has your knees weak.

When you whimper into his mouth, he tenses.

He’s snapped back into reality, realizing that he just made out with you against your door. He pulls away, pushing his fingers into his hair. There’s a sudden change, though this one feels much worse than the one where he kissed you.

There are too many things in his head. Thinking he shouldn’t be doing this or that you’ll hate him for it. You’re about to open your mouth and ask him what’s wrong when he speaks first.

“Fuck. I’m sorry,” he steps back until he’s against the wall opposite from you. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Eddie-”

“No, shit. I’m sorry. Good night.”

He’s walking away before you can say anything else. You stand frozen for what could be minutes before finally letting yourself into your apartment. Closing and locking the door behind you, you lean your forehead against the wood and wonder what the fuck just happened.

You’re not sure what you did wrong to make him have to leave so suddenly, and you know it’ll torment you constantly. Replaying in the back of your mind. The worst part is, you were ready to invite him inside, to let him do whatever he wanted with you. He was gone before you could even get there.

Eddie feels awful for leaving the way he did, and he thinks about turning around and knocking on your door the whole way home. He never does, though. He’s sure you don’t want to see him.

You both have a fitful sleep that night. Blocks away, both tossing and turning in bed with that kiss plaguing your minds.

Robin and Nancy’s calls grow more frequent over the following couple of weeks, and in turn, so do your encounters with Eddie. You’ve become closer, would like to say you’ve become friends, even. Though, nothing like the kiss that the two of you choose to ignore happens again.

You chalked it up to his tipsiness, he tries to forget it altogether.

It’s not because it was bad, or unwanted. It’s quite the opposite, actually. Eddie’s so used to kissing meaning absolutely nothing, leading to more every single time. Your kiss, though, was completely different. It made him feel more than he knew he was capable of.

He’s surprised that you have yet to say something about it, especially considering the way that he left. It’s a two way street; he doesn’t bring it up at all, either.

He wants to. He wants to be able to explain himself to you, to tell you why he had to pull himself away so quickly. Only, he’s not sure how. He doesn’t know how to explain the way he finds himself drawn to you, the reason he kissed you, or the feeling that runs through him every time you lock eyes. If he can’t even make sense of it himself, how is he supposed to make sense of it to you?

He can’t even bring himself to tell anyone about it because he knows, as much as they try, it won’t help.

Tonight, you’re all piled on the couches in Steve’s apartment (it’s the nicest one) eating pizza straight from the box and chatting. It’s nice to be a part of a true friend group. You’ve never had anything like it before.

“Eddie, you left your guitar here, you know?” Steve says.

He plays guitar? Fuck.

“Shit, yeah. I did.”

“You know what that means,” Robin draws out the last word, shimmying her shoulders.

“No. Absolutely not,” Eddie shakes his head.

“Please! Serenade us, Eddie.”

They go back and forth for a bit and your gaze switches between the two of them like you’re watching a game of ping pong.

“I’d like to hear you play,” you pitch in.

Robin—of course—wears a smirk. She’s been trying to get the two of you together since she saw how you interacted, and she knows Eddie won’t say no to you. He couldn’t if he tried.

“Really?” Eddie asks softly.

“Yeah. I didn’t know you played,” you shift in your seat, “I’d love to hear it. If you want.”

He fiddles with his guitar pick necklace, which you catch. Maybe that should’ve been a dead giveaway that he’s a musician, but you’d never noticed it before, usually hidden by the collar of his shirt.

Eddie’s not usually a nervous person, but the prospect of you listening to him play has him feeling that way. He’s never worried so much about how someone looks at him, or what they might think. With you, he worries because he wants to impress you, he’s realized.

“Yeah, okay. Just for you, I’ll go grab it.”

Just for you. You turn your face away to try and hide how it affects you.

He asks Steve where he left it, and goes off to retrieve it. You watch him walk away until he disappears behind a corner. There’s something about him that pulls you in, something you wish you could figure out. You know you like him, it’s quite obvious, but it’s the kind that has thoughts of him crowding your mind and that has you overthinking every word.

“You guys are paining me, I hope you know,” Robin says.

“We’re just friends. Seriously.”

“Are you sure about that?” Steve adds on. Nancy tends to just observe when the topic of you and Eddie is brought up. She’s a rational person, and she’s trying to let it work itself out naturally. Though, she’s sure it will work out eventually. Hopefully sooner than later.

Eddie comes back before you can manage a reply, holding an acoustic guitar decorated with messy, white, painted-on lettering that says ‘this machine slays dragons.’

He sits down and tunes the guitar first, focused on his task. It gives you a chance to look at him closely, lets you get away with it because the others are watching him, too. Waiting for him to start to play. When he does, you’re transfixed.

Your eyes don’t stray from him at all throughout the song he plays. His fingers move with so much ease, his rings catching the light. It’s no surprise that he’s talented with his hands, just look at the art he creates on people’s bodies everyday. But, this is another layer to it, a piece of him that made you want to see more. Made you want to collect every jigsaw piece until you had the whole image.

You think you could listen to him play for hours on end and never get tired of his strumming. Yeah, you really do like him.

When he finishes, everyone gives him a round of applause, and he hopes his hair does enough to cover up the blush that blooms on his cheeks. He looks to you first, and you’re beaming, looking at him like he’s just done something groundbreaking.

“That was amazing, Eddie,” you say.

“It’s nothing special,” he replies.

“It is. You’re really talented,” you sound so sincere it squeezes his heart in a fist. “Double talented, actually.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

He lets it slip again, and you soak it up. Eddie tries to avoid the looks from his friends, especially after the pet name. Surely, they’re all wearing smug smiles and plotting ways to talk him into giving whatever the thing between the two of you is a go.

He sets the guitar aside, clearing his throat amidst the awkward silence. You look at your lap and frown at the run in your tights that you just noticed, avoiding being the first to say anything.

Every new detail you learn about Eddie only makes you like him more. You’re still not sure if he even considers you a friend, but you certainly consider him one. You would ask but decide to save yourself the stress of having to bring it up. The worst part is, the idea of him not liking you hurts more than you’d like to admit.

The silence is eventually broken, and the floodgates of conversation have opened back up. You and Eddie both let out a breath of relief, synchronized in secrecy.

When you get up to leave, Eddie suddenly has the urge to go, too, and he offers to take you home. Much like the time before, he doesn’t let you decline the offer. He’s just being nice, you think to yourself, he would do it for anyone.

This time, he drove, and he opens the passenger door for you when you reach his car. It smells like him inside, sandalwood, something sweet, the underlying smokiness of cigarettes that you don’t mind when it comes to him. He has a pair of dice hanging from his mirror, though they’re twenty-sided instead of your average six.

“You’ll have to give me directions back to yours,” he says, starting the car. “I remember the area, but…”

Yes, he remembers the area all too well. It’s where he lingered after he sprung a kiss on you and then walked away. It’s where he jerked himself around mentally trying to decide whether he should go back to you or just go home.

“Don’t worry, I can be your map.”

The drive is silent save for the music humming through the speakers and your occasional instructions on which turns to take. It isn’t awkward, you don’t think. It’s comfortable in the way that you don’t feel the need to fill it.

One of Eddie’s hands reaches out and lightly tugs on your skirt, “this looks really nice on you.”

He pulls it away after he says it and you wish he didn’t.

“Oh,” you look down at the fabric, something you’ve owned for years, worn when you can’t figure anything else out. It’s never been anything special, but now, you feel like it might be. “Thank you.”

Eddie feels inclined to compliment you all of the time, he’s learned, but he often lets them float in his head rather than say them to you.

He parks on the street by your apartment complex soon after, but you don’t get out right away. You unbuckle your seatbelt and place a hand on the door, but he stops you.

The sight of your building has him thinking about the night you kissed for what feels like the thousandth time. He wants to kiss you again and he clenches his fists to ground himself. If you’re any bit as torn up about it as him, he wants to know. He also wants to try and explain himself to you, even if he still isn’t sure how.

“Hey. About that night,” he doesn’t have to specify. You know exactly what he’s talking about. Your hand lets go of the door handle, settling in your lap. “I’m sorry I kissed you.”

“You are?”

You don’t want him to be sorry, or to feel bad about it. You only want to know what you did to scare him off the way you did. You also want him to kiss you again.

“Um, yeah. I shouldn’t have just sprung onto you like that.”

“Why did you?” Is what you say next.

“I dunno. You just looked so pretty, and I had the urge. The drinks gave me the strength to do it, I guess.”

He hadn’t been drunk, not one bit, but he doesn’t want to use the alternate explanation just yet. He doesn’t want to say ‘I kissed you because you confuse me more than anyone else. Because I’ve never felt so bent out of shape because of one person. Because you were looking at me like you wanted me to, and I can’t say no to you.’

He could, but he doesn’t want to.

“You think I’m pretty?”

He nods, almost ashamed about it.

“I think you’re pretty, too, Eddie,” his eyes lock onto yours, “and I’m not sorry you kissed me at all.”

“What?”

“I liked kissing you. I was going to ask you if you wanted to come inside before you left.”

You don’t know where your candidness is coming from, but you can’t stop yourself anymore. You’ve wondered and wondered what could’ve happened that night had he stayed, and by the way his gaze flicks down to your lips, you think you might find out.

The car suddenly feels smaller, the air thicker, when he asks, “does that offer still stand?”

You nod, he shuts off the car. You both get out, walking up to your place in a sort of haze. Neither of you know what will come from any of this, you’re going in blind and it’s as exciting as it is nerve-wracking.

Things slow down once you’re inside. It’s as if a fog has cleared and now, you’re both painfully aware of everything you’re doing, or saying. His eyes flit around your apartment in silence, looking at your bookshelf, noting the lack of personal photos.

You cut in before he can comment on your place, “can I get you anything? Water, or…”

When he responds, it’s not to your question. Instead, he asks you one: “how’s your tattoo healing?”

He’s been curious about how you’re feeling with it ever since he caught glimpses of it that night at the bar. You pause by your small kitchen island, looking him over before you can manage to reply.

“Oh. Good, I think,” you shrug a shoulder, “I don’t know enough about tattoos but it hasn’t bothered me much.”

“I can look at it, if you want.”

“Are you sure?”

You say it as if he would be going through lots of trouble to do so, when in reality he’s using it as an excuse to get his hands on you. Tattoos are familiar, not foreign the way his feelings for you are. It’s an excuse to ease himself into whatever this is.

“‘Course I am, let me see.”

“Okay. Light’s better in the bathroom.”

He follows you into your bathroom, and you wish you’d taken into account how small it is because you’re forced to be close to him and it’s making you nervous. The anticipation and unknown a flutter of butterflies in your stomach.

“Shirt off,” he says, his voice smooth.

You listen, because it’s hard not to when he sounds the way he does. You turn to face the mirror and peel your shirt away, tossing it to the ground when you do. You’re suddenly very aware that your bra isn’t the nicest you own, and your instinct is to cover it with your arms.

Eddie stops you, his eyes meeting yours in the mirror, his hands wrapping around your wrists gently, pulling them down. “Don’t you dare. You’re beautiful.”

He looks away after he says it, but you can tell he means it. It’s in the way he makes sure you’re looking at him when he speaks, the way he squeezes your wrists reassuringly before letting them go.

For a second, he forgot why you’re even in the position you are. He forgets that he’s meant to be looking at your tattoo until you say, “how is it?”

“Right, yeah,” he looks it over, and he’s satisfied to see that it looks exactly how it should at this stage. “Really good, actually. You’re doing a great job.”

The compliment warms your insides.

“Thank you.”

“Want me to clean it for you?”

“Sure, thanks.”

He does, disinfecting it first, after finding your products on your counter. He’s gentle as usual, his hands a welcome feeling. Then, he applies the layer of lotion slowly, almost like he’s trying to tease you. It’s working.

His hands trail down your arms when he’s done, his head dipping down to press a kiss on the top of your shoulder. The first one is soft, a barely-there push of his lips against your skin. The next is a bit firmer, his confidence growing with each one.

They trail over the curve of your shoulder, his hands still running their paths up and down your arms, raising goosebumps in their wake, his chunky rings cold. He kisses his way up your neck, your head lulling to the side to grant him more access and your eyes fluttering shut.

Everything he does is filing you up more and more and he’s barely even begun.

“Eddie,” you sigh when he tugs on your earlobe with his teeth.

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

He has no idea what’s come over him, but there’s no hiding the effect you have over him anymore. As soon as he got his hands on you, even just to clean your tattoo, he knew he’d be addicted.

“What are you doing?”

“Kissing you. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, yes, it’s- feels nice.”

You would be overthinking if you weren’t so distracted by the feeling of his lips on your skin. And when he uses a hand to tilt your face towards his and kisses you, you’re not sure there’s a single thought left in your head.

There’s something about him that makes everything more intense. You feel like all of your senses are captured by him and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. The smell of his cologne, the taste on his tongue, the feeling of his hands on you and his long hair tickling your skin. All of it.

Eddie pulls away to let the both of you breathe only when it’s absolutely necessary. He’s drunk on every kiss he gets from you and he doesn’t mind one bit. He wonders what you’re like in bed, what sounds you’d make for him, and he can’t stop himself from asking, “can I fuck you?”

The words are spoken between heavy breaths, puffed out against your lips.

“Yes. Please.”

Please, you say. As if you would even have to beg him. You have no idea what you’re doing to him and it only makes him want you more. He pushes his hips against your ass, letting you feel how hard he is and you whimper, you fucking whimper and he’s so gone.

He pushes you down to bed over the counter with a hand on the center of your back, and you obey easily. You’re practically squirming with want, the dampness in your panties growing with every move he makes.

Then, he flips your skirt up, his hands running over the tights that cover you before ripping them in the middle.

“I’ll buy you new ones,” he says.

He keeps a hand on your back, though its drifted much lower, and the other sneaks its way between your legs, cupping you over your underwear before pressing his fingers against you. You can't help but moan at the feeling.

“Soaking already, sweetheart?” He taunts.

“Eddie, come on.”

“What is it?”

“You’re teasing me,” you huff out, your cheek pressed against your cool countertop.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”

He hooks his fingers in the fabric covering you, pulling it aside and going right back to his teasing. His fingers run up and down your slit, dipping into where you’re wet only to pull away and circle your clit; just enough to give you a taste, to have you wanting more.

He’s winding you up and up and up and you think you might pass out if he doesn’t make you come soon.

“Eddie.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve got you.”

It’s then that he pushes one finger in, his rings that still sit around his fingers only add to the intensity. He works a second one in quickly, your cunt sucking him in and he can’t even imagine how good it’ll feel when he gets to fuck you for real.

He’s quick to learn what you like, what makes you pulse around his fingers or moan a little louder. You had no clue that things could ever feel this good and when his thumb finds your clit, you’re absolutely done for.

Your breaths come out hot, bits of condensation gathering on the counter, “fuck. Oh my god.”

“Feel good?” He asks even though he knows damn well it does—your reactions are telling enough. He picks up the pace, his fingers pressing against that spot that has your knees going weak. He wraps his unoccupied arm around your waist to hold you up.

“So, so good, Eddie. Gonna come.”

“Go on, all over my hand, sweetness. Then I’ll fill you right up, how’s that sound?”

Your response is caught in your throat, a whine bubbling out instead.

“Quicker you come, the quicker I’ll give it to you,” he tacks on.

The thought of him fucking you after this drives you nuts because if just his fingers feel this good, you can’t even imagine what his cock will be like. Your orgasm washes over you, eyes rolling back.

He works you through it, steadily slowing down and easing away to give you a break. He pulls his fingers away, chuckling at the noise you make when he does, and sucks them clean. Then, softly, he’s leaning down and kissing his way up your spine.

“Holy shit,” you breathe.

“You okay?”

“More than okay. You’re really good.”

“‘M not done yet, babe.”

He stands back up, but he pulls you along with him so you're no longer resting on the counter. Hands on your hips spin you to face him, and as soon as you do he surges forward to kiss you. It’s quick, like he’s making sure it’s still okay to keep going.

His touch trails up to the band of your bra—which is askew, but still on. “Can I take this off?”

You nod, but he waits for a verbal confirmation before unclasping it and pulling it away from your chest. It joins your shirt on the ground.

You’re suddenly very aware that you’re half-naked and he isn’t. You tug on his shirt, eager to even the score, “you too.”

“Well, it’s only fair, isn’t it?”

He peels his shirt over his head, and you realize that you’ve yet to see his tattoos so closely. You reach out, tracing them lightly with your fingertips. First, the bats that adorn his forearm, working your way up to his shoulder, then down his chest. He lets you, happy to have your hands on him.

While you’re occupied with his tattoos, he looks you over, free to stare without worrying if you’ll notice. His eyes travel across your face, the slope of your nose, the shape of your lips. They go down your neck, a canvas he plans to leave his mark on, and down to your chest that’s now bare.

The sight is enough to remind him of how hard he is, straining against his jeans. He kisses you again, heavier this time, and lets his hands cup your tits, squeezing and thumbing over your nipples. You moan into the kiss and he can’t control himself any longer.

He lifts you up to sit on the counter, close enough to the edge that you’re forced to wrap your legs around him.

“You still want this?” He asks.

Your hands go to his jeans, popping the button open and lowering his zipper slowly, “yeah, Eddie. I want this. I want you.”

I want you. Eddie doesn’t know why the words make his heart go all fluttery, why they make him look at you like you’ve put the stars in the sky just for him. He kisses you all over again.

You fit your hand between his jeans and his boxers, and you gasp into the kiss when you feel just how big he is. He’s wide, and you know the stretch of him will be a kind of burn that hurts so good. You stroke him over his boxers first, but quickly grow impatient to see him.

You tuck your fingers into the waistband of his boxers, pulling them and his jeans down enough to free him. You pull back only to be able to look at him properly, leaning your forehead against Eddie’s bare shoulder, your bottom lip bitten between your teeth because he’s pretty everywhere.

He kisses the side of your head, tender in the midst of the heat of it all.

You think, despite his initial distance, Eddie’s one of the sweetest people you’ve ever met. He shows it in the small things he does. Offering to take you home, the gentleness of his hands, his constant checking in on you to make sure this is what you wanted.

Yeah, you like him a whole lot.

Your hand wraps around his cock, jerking him slowly at first. A tease, he thinks. And then you pick up your pace just a bit and he thinks he might come before he even gets to be inside you and as much as he would love to see your hand covered in him, it’s not what he wants right now.

He’s never wanted anyone like he does you and he knows that information will have him overthinking later, but right now, it just makes him desperate to have you.

“Fuck,” he grabs a hold of your wrist, “as good as this feels, sweetheart, you gotta stop or I’ll come and this’ll be cut short. You don’t want that do you?”

He tips your chin up with his free hand, pecks your lips quickly before giving you the chance to respond.

“No. Want you to fuck me,” you say.

“Dirty girl.”

He reaches for a condom in one of your drawers when you tell him where to find them. When you bought them, you were almost embarrassed, because what were you expecting? Certainly not this.

He’s back on you before you really feel his absence, running his hands up your thighs, under your skirt, and tearing the hole he’d already made wider.

“You want me to stop, you tell me, okay?”

“Okay.”

Pushing your legs apart further to make room for him, he reaches down to paint himself up and down your slit, pushing himself in only when he’s teased the both of you sufficiently.

It’s a welcome stretch, one that’s better than anything you’ve ever felt in situations like this and you wonder why you didn’t move away sooner, if this is what it led to.

Eddie leans forward, resting his hands on the counter on either side of you, close enough that his arms brush against you. His face is close to yours but he doesn’t kiss you, no, he breathes the air you do, swallowing any sound you make.

His first couple of thrusts are tentative, slow, but when you wrap your arms around his neck and speak a quiet, ‘faster, please,’ he dives right in.

Somehow, he manages to know just what you need, and he wraps his arms around your waist to keep you still as he moves harder, quicker. Both of you are still half dressed, your clothes in disarray and his are pushed to his knees. You’re both so wrapped up in want and it shows.

“Fuck me,” you whine as he hits that spot inside you, like he’s done it a hundred times before.

“Thought that’s what I was doing, sweets.”

“Eddie.”

“I know, baby. You’re doing so good.”

He knows your orgasm is creeping up on you, he can feel it in the way you pulse around him, squeeze him tighter, bury your face in his neck so that your moans are pushed into his skin.

If he could, he thinks he’d get the sound of them permanently etched into his mind.

“Taking it so well. You wanna come, sweet girl?”

You nod against his skin, “yes. Yes, can I?”

He snakes a hand down to rub your clit, to push you over that edge and says, “let go. Give it to me.”

It’s like his words were what you were waiting for, the breaking point to let you finish. It’s enough to make your moans get caught in your throat and your eyes squeeze shut, seeing stars.

“Oh my god,” you choke out.

“That’s it,” he works you through it, and only when he’s sure that you’re on the comedown does he let himself finish, too.

He pulls your head from his neck with a hand cupping the back of yours, kissing you to really seal the deal, coming with a grunt into your mouth.

When he’s spent, he rests his forehead against yours, running his hands up and down your back soothingly, “you okay?”

“Mmm. Amazing,” you reply, dazed with a fucked out smile on your face. “Why’re you good at everything?”

He chuckles, kissing your cheek before pulling out, “maybe I’m just good at them with you.”

Discarding the condom and pulling his boxers back up—removing his jeans completely—he then finds a small towel and wets it in the sink. Meanwhile, you take off the rest of your outfit, figuring he’s seen enough already. He cleans you up first, delicate hands and a soft apology when you wince from the sensitivity.

He picks you up when he’s done, your legs wrapped around his waist and your head dropped against his shoulder. It feels natural, he thinks, to take care of you the way he would a lover. You feel like you belong there, in his hold, and he knows that you’ve changed him in a way.

His reluctance to get into any kind of relationship seems to have flown out the window now.

The door across the hall is the first he tries, and he guessed correctly when he finds your bedroom on the other side of the door.

He lays you down on your bed, and you pull the blankets up over yourself, lazily. You don’t think you’ll ever be able to look at Eddie the same way, but it’s not a bad thing. It’s not because of the sex, though it was notably the best you’ve ever had and you’ll undoubtedly think about it constantly. It’s because you have feelings for him. Real, true, romantic feelings that run far too deep for you to ignore.

He goes to leave, but you catch his wrist, “you can stay.”

“What?”

“I want you to stay with me. If you want to,” you say.

“Yeah, I’ll stay.”

He doesn't even hesitate, and he tries not to think about what that means for this thing he knows is blooming between you, its petals unfurling slow and steady. He slips into bed beside you, welcoming you when you snuggle into his side.

“Goodnight, Eddie.”

“Night, moon girl.”

You’re both fucked, literally and figuratively.

You wake up the most well-rested you’ve felt in a while. Flipping onto your back, you stretch out, and it’s only then that you feel the emptiness on the other side of the bed.

For a moment, you’d almost forgotten Eddie had been there in the first place. Then, you remembered you were, in fact, naked. The slight ache between your legs was enough to have last night coming back to you in a rush.

You wonder if maybe Eddie had to leave for work, but you don’t find a note or any indication of his departure. Instead, you hear the clanking of pans and plates coming from the kitchen.

You throw on a fresh pair of underwear and one of your oversized sleep shirts that sits at the top of your thighs. You’re still groggy, mind slower with sleep, but you’re awake enough to hear Eddie humming when you open your bedroom door and step out into the hall.

There he is, standing by your stove, cooking breakfast. You rub your eyes to make sure you’re not dreaming. Or seeing things.

He moves around like he’s been using your kitchen for ages, and his presence warms the space that you’ve had such a hard time getting used to. You recognize the song he’s humming to be the one he played on the guitar. The corners of your mouth lift up.

“Eddie?” You call quietly, careful not to startle him while his back is turned to you.

“Oh,” he faces you, frying pan in his hand, “morning, sweetheart.”

“Hi.”

“I’m making us breakfast, I hope that’s okay.”

Is he kidding? It’s the most okay thing anyone’s done for you in a long time and you don’t know whether you want to cry or kiss him. He’s unlike anyone you’ve known, and you can’t believe how different he is now compared to when you first met.

His guard was up, short responses and little emotion. It’s a stark contrast to now, to the way he stands clad only in his boxers and his shirt from the night before, flipping a pancake like it’s the easiest thing in the world. You don’t know how he could even keep the saccharine boy hidden, it seems to ooze out of him now.

“It’s- Eddie, this is really sweet.”

The tips of his ears go pink.

He doesn’t know what possessed him to cook for you, or why the sincerity in your appreciation makes him blush. All he knows is that he thought it would be nice to make you smile, and that there’s something in his chest that seems to expand when you do.

“I hope you like pancakes,” he says.

That morning is the moment you realize you’re falling in love with Eddie Munson.

It’s been weeks since that night, that morning. Somehow, rather than put distance between the two of you, you and Eddie have grown closer. You think he’s one of the best friends you’ve ever had, even though you haven’t known him very long.

You’re not falling in love with him anymore. No, you’re deep in it now.

Of course, Robin was able to draw it out of you, and after all of her assuring you that there’s absolutely no way Eddie doesn’t feel the same, you still can't let yourself believe her. You’ll bever come back from it if you find out he doesn’t when you’ve built up your expectations.

So, you keep them low. He’s your friend, that’s all it’ll ever be and you know it. Or, at least, that’s what you keep telling yourself every time you catch yourself getting a little too lost in him.

You’re meant to be meeting the gang at the tattoo shop and then head somewhere for drinks all together. Because you’re not only close with Eddie now, you’ve found yourself friends that are real and true. Sometimes you find yourself wondering what your life would’ve been like had you been in high school alongside them. You think it would have been much, much better, but you have them now and that’s what matters.

You knock on the door when you get there, the shop already closed and locked up. You’re quickly greeted with Robin’s grinning face on the other side of the glass. She lets you in and wraps you in a brief hug.

“I think you should start working here just so I don’t have to miss you at all in between plans,” she says, stepping back and locking the door again.

“We both know I don’t have the skills for that, but I missed you, too, Robin.”

“Not as much as you missed me, I hope,” is how Eddie chooses to announce his presence.

“Hi, Eddie.”

“Hi, sweetheart.”

Robin scoffs at him, “can you not steal my thunder for once, please.”

“I’m not allowed to say hi to my friend?”

He looks at you when he says friend, like he’s sharing a secret. Only, you have no idea what it might be.

“Whatever. I have to go get Nance since she went home to change,” she gathers her stuff from the desk. Then, she points to you and says, “I better get a very detailed life update later.”

“You know you will,” you say.

“‘Kay, see you soon!”

She leaves after that, and Eddie’s gaze is already fixed on you when you turn towards him.

“C’mere,” he nods towards the doors that lead to the back room, where the station he tattooed you at is all set up.

“What’s this?”

“I want you to give me a tattoo.”

Your eyes widen, “sorry?”

“I’m serious. Doesn’t have to be big, it can be a dot if you want,” he gently nudges your chin with his finger, closing your mouth where it was dropped in surprise. “I wanna teach you.”

Your friendship isn’t the only thing that’s grown since that night. Eddie’s become more touchy with you, too. An arm slung over your shoulders, a hand on your thigh or the nape of your neck. Though this touch is small, it doesn’t fail to leave a lasting effect where it was placed, a warmth, like a drop of sunlight. It almost distracts you from what he’s asking.

“Eddie, I can’t. I’ll mess it up.”

“Babe, I’ve got loads of tattoos. Trust me, it’ll be fine,” he moves his hand to your shoulder, gives it a squeeze. “Plus, you’ve got a great teacher.”

It takes a bit longer for him to convince you, but he succeeds in the end. It’s hard to say no to someone you’re in love with, especially if that someone has really good puppy dog eyes.

Before you really even process it, he’s on the tattoo bed, a pant leg rolled up, shaving a small patch for you to use as your canvas. He does all of the prepping necessary, and even goes as far as to put the gloves on for you.

He explains it all slowly, repeats whatever you ask him to, and promises to guide you through it all. You’re incredibly nervous—who wouldn’t be?

“Relax. You’re gonna be a natural, I know it.”

“How do you know that?”

“You’ve got good hands, sweetheart,” he drops one of his eyelids in a wink.

The flirting is something else that’s become more frequent. You think he’s flirting, that is. He doesn’t act the same way with the rest of the group and you know that, but you also need to not get your hopes up. Still, the butterflies come alive.

You draw your stencil, settling on a very simple rendition of the sun. A small circle with short lines as its rays. It’s fitting for him, you think. As much as he seems like midnight on the outside, that boy is dripping in sunshine.

It also goes with the one he gave you, but that’s just a bonus.

Once it’s applied and you’re sat on the stool, in position to begin, he explains it all over again. He knows you’re nervous, but he isn’t at all. He’s excited to have you do this, to wear a piece of you on his skin.

His hand wraps around yours on the tattoo gun for the first line, guiding you so that you can get the feel of it. He lets you take over after that, assuring you that there’s nothing you could mess up enough to have him dislike it, as long as you’re the one doing it.

As he watches you work, your tongue poking out between your lips in focus, he feels his chest swell. He’s never liked anyone the way he does you, and he’s never let someone untrained tattoo him, that’s for sure. There’s something in him that seems to brighten when you’re around, and he doesn’t know how to put it into words.

He wishes he could pluck the moon out of the sky and hold it in his hand, only to be able to give it to you. Since he can’t do that, he hopes his heart will do good enough. He loves you, that he knows, he just can’t bring himself to say the words out loud.

He’s warmed up to you quicker than ever, so much so that the people around him have noticed. That means something and he knows it.

“I think I’m done,” you say after a bit.

“Yeah? Let’s see this work of art then.”

He sits up, bends closer to his leg to get a look at your handiwork. He’s silent at first and it makes you nervous.

“What do you think?”

“It’s perfect,” he says.

You know it’s far from perfect. The lines aren’t even, nor are they all straight. But he says it like he means it, believes it, so you let yourself smile at that.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, sweetheart. I’m super sure.”

He wouldn’t have ever picked out the sun for himself, but knowing that you would has his walls crumbling even more—if that’s even possible with you.

He does the cleaning and the wrapping, and you’re happy to observe. Just as he’s finishing up, Robin and Nancy walk in, Steve not far behind.

“I leave you guys for not even an hour, and now you have a tattoo?” Robin says, though she doesn’t even sound surprised.

Eddie thinks his feelings swell and grow every single time he sees you, and he thinks they might just boil over and pour out of him before he even gets to figure out what to say. That won’t do. You deserve more than that.

You deserve to be taken on a date, to be appreciated and taken care of properly, and that’s what he needs to do. The only problem is, he has no idea how to go about it all.

There’s only one person he can think of who will know exactly what to do. The expert in dating; Steve. Eddie calls him into his office.

“What’s up, boss?” Steve says, leaning against the doorway the way he always does.

“Close the door, would you?”

“Shit. Am I in trouble? I may have spilled some ink the other day but you can barely even see it, swears.”

Eddie shakes his head, making note to take a look around his station later. He’s used to Steve’s clumsiness, though, it’s part of the reason he wanted dark floors in the shop.

“No. That’s not- I need your help.”

“Oh. Okay, hit me.”

“I want to ask her out. I just don’t really know, um, where to take her or whatever.”

Eddie doesn’t even have to say your name for Steve to know who he’s talking about. He’s painfully aware that he’s been quite obvious with his affections, especially ever since the night you had sex. He’s always itching to have his hands on you in some way, stealing you away from other conversations, all of it.

That night was like a wake up call for him, a bucket of cold water dumped over his head. He knew there was something about you before that, but it became concrete.

He’d never felt so connected to someone, nor had he been so eager to take care of them afterwards. Hell, he’s never even slept in the same bed as his hookups. He can count on one hand the number of times he’s slept over at all. Then, there was you, asking him to stay and he couldn’t say no to you. He didn’t want to, either.

“You know her better than I do, man. But, flowers, you gotta do. They love that. Do you know her favorites?”

Eddie shakes his head.

“That’s fine. Get a good mix. Other than that, you should just be honest, that’s what Robin always tells me,” he shrugs. “Why don’t you just call her now?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Come on! She’s gonna say yes. She gives you those lovey-dovey eyes all the time.”

“Okay, that’s enough. Out.”

“Not even a thank you?”

“Thanks, Steve. Bye.”

Steve rolls his eyes as he leaves Eddie’s office, shutting the door behind him again. He, along with Nancy and Robin, knows that you and Eddie will end up together, it’s obvious to everyone except you two, they only want to help it along.

Eddie really hopes that their pestering will be worth it in the end. That you’ll feel the same.

He stares at the phone sitting on his desk for what feels like ages before he musters up the courage to actually call you. He had your file open on his desk, your number written out on one of the forms. He finally picks up the phone and dials it.

Luckily, you weren’t at work. You’d been thinking of Eddie more and more each day it seemed. How he looked at you, the secret smiles that he saved just for you, the way he touched you, the way he felt-

The phone ringing cuts off your train of thought. You walk over and pick it up, prepared for it to be Robin or Nancy since they’re the only ones that ever call you besides your boss. The voice on the other line is neither of them.

“Hello?”

“Hey, sweetheart. It’s Eddie.”

As close as you’ve gotten, for some reason, no phone numbers have been exchanged. You wish they had been, because hearing his voice crackle through the phone is a much nicer sound than most.

“Eddie, hi. How’d you get my number?”

He twists one of his rings around with his thumb. He’s glad you can’t actually see him, because you’d surely be able to tell that he’s nervous.

“It’s on file in the shop. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. I like talking to you,” you say, soft and sincere. “What’s up?”

“I, uh,” he shakes his head, trying to figure out exactly what to say. “Are you busy tonight?”

“No, I’m not. Do you guys want to do something?”

“Not exactly,” he says.

Your heart beats quicker in your chest, because you think he’s about to ask you out, maybe. If not that, then at least ask you to do something with just him, which is close enough for you to consider it a win. You smile like an idiot.

He clears his throat and continues, “I wanted to know if you’d want to go out… with me.”

It’s happening, you think. Something is shifting as you speak, the feelings you’ve tried to suppress for so long are itching to come out.

“Like a date?” You ask. Just to be sure.

“Yeah, moon girl. Like a date.”

“I’d really, really like that, Eddie.”

He thinks you can probably hear the smile in his voice when he says, “yeah? Me too.”

He tells you he’ll pick you up, to wear whatever you like, not to worry about being over or underdressed, ‘you’ll look pretty either way, trust me,’ he’d said.

When you hang up, you’re trying not to jump around and squeal like a thirteen year old. It’s difficult to contain your excitement, your nerves, your hope. It feels as if a door is opening. A door to more nights like that night, more mornings with shared breakfast, more kissing, more than friends. More, more, more.

Meanwhile, Eddie’s wondering how he’ll get through the rest of the work day when his head is filled with the promise of seeing you.

After much debating on what to wear, no thanks to Eddie’s sweet yet vague instructions, the buzzer sounds in your apartment. You make your way over, one shoe on, the other in your hand. You press the button and speak.

“Hello?”

“Hey, moon girl.”

“Eddie,” he only said three words and you’re already smiling. “Come on up.”

You rush to get your other shoe on, luckily finishing up just as he knocks on your door. There’s a moment where you’re almost expecting someone else to be on the other side, to have been dreaming the whole date up. Luckily, it’s real.

Eddie stands in the hall, pretty as ever. His hair is in its usual mess of waves and curls, his classic leather jacket and denim vest duo are on, and in his hand, a bouquet of flowers.

He notices you looking at them and holds them out, “these are for you.”

“This is really nice, Eddie. Thank you.”

You take them from him, holding them up to your nose to smell them (and also to hide how wide your grin is). He stands by the door, a ball of nerves, and watches you put them into a big cup, because you never had a reason to buy a vase until now. He decides next time, he’ll deliver the flowers in a vase just so you have one.

He holds your hand on the way down, opens the car door for you and makes sure your legs are tucked inside before closing it, he tells you in at least three different ways how beautiful you look during the car ride alone, and he drives with a hand resting on your thigh, your fingers toying with his rings.

He’s an absolute dream.

He takes you to a small restaurant, fancy enough for a date—though you think being with Eddie, no matter where, would be enough for you—but casual enough that you aren’t too worried about the people around you being judgemental. You sit in a booth and instead of across, Eddie sits beside you. He keeps a hand on your thigh during your meal, too.

In his car once more, you’re sitting in the parking lot with music playing through the speakers. Eddie hasn’t made a move to start driving you yet, and you haven’t even thought about going home. You haven’t ever been on an official date before, but if you had, you’d say with absolute certainty that this is the best one.

You sit sideways in the passenger seat so you can look at him, and Eddie’s head is turned toward you, his cheek against the headrest.

“Have you had a girlfriend before?” You ask.

You don’t know why the thought comes out of your mouth. You’d been thinking it, though. Robin’s always hinting at how different he is with you, at the fact that Eddie’s never brought a girl he’s liked around his friends. You’re curious.

“No, I haven’t. Why do you seem surprised?”

“It’s just, you’re really good at this.”

“At what, sweetheart?”

“Like, going on a date. And… other stuff, too.”

He shifts in his seat, resting an elbow on the center console and leaning closer to you. Much, much closer. Your noses are almost touching and you can see the way his eyelashes frame his eyes.

He nudges his nose against yours, “what stuff?”

You know he’s teasing you, trying to make you give him more detail because it’ll make you go all shy or embarrassed. To him, it’s cute, and he’s been trying not to kiss you all night. He was going to wait until he dropped you off like a proper gentleman, but he figures making it through dinner is good enough.

“Eddie,” you draw his name out, almost whining.

“Tell me. Come on, please? You can’t just bring it up and not share.”

The hand of his that isn’t resting between you comes up to push your hair over your shoulder, then slides around to hold the back of your neck loosely.

“God, okay. Um, you’re a good kisser. Like, really good,” he leans in and pecks you for that, pulling away just enough to let you keep talking, your lips still brushing against his. “And, I love your hands.”

“My hands?”

“They’re very talented. You know, ‘cause you’re an artist, and all.”

He huffs and shakes his head. Enough of the teasing, he leans in and kisses you deeper this time. Your hands move and grip the sides of his jacket, holding him close to you.

You kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and it’s enough to have you panting and warm all over. His hand squeezes your neck gently before he pulls away, his lips slick with spit, swollen and darker from your kiss. You’re sure yours don’t look much different.

Eddie drops his forehead against yours, takes both of your hands in his, “do you want to go home?”

You shake your head.

“Can I show you my place, then?”

“Yeah, okay. I’d like that.”

He’s not saying it to get you in his bed, though there’s no doubt that would be a bonus, but he doesn’t want this date to end. There’s also a part of him that wants to see you in his apartment, let you into more of his life.

He’s only ever been to yours, and he doesn’t have the whole group over at his, so you’ve never seen it. He thinks, if he’s really going to give this a shot, he might as well let another wall crumble down for you.

The drive there is fairly quick, and yet again, his hand finds your thigh. This time, though, he lets his fingers hold on, rather than just rest in your lap. You like it a lot.

Eddie’s apartment isn’t what you expect. You thought it’d be decorated like the shop: dark colors, black and white art, hints of red. His place is much warmer, much homier. It suits him perfectly.

He has a huge record collection, a whole wall of his living room dedicated to the shelves and the player itself. He also has a shelf for his books. Some more worn than others, letting you know which are his favorites of the bunch.

You trail your fingers along the spines, admiring his collection. He lets you, standing not too far away, enjoying how you look in his space.

His bathroom is much like yours, small and plain, but it’s tidy save for some products of his strewn about the counter. His bedroom is so obviously his that it makes you smile. From the rings and other jewelry sitting atop his dresser, to his dark gray bedding, to the guitars that are displayed proudly, to the desk pushed into a corner with pages upon pages spread about.

You gravitate towards that desk without a second thought.

There’s something so intimate about seeing his art station in his home, much different to his office at the shop. Here, he can let it be a mess, and can draw whatever he pleases.

“Is it okay if I look at these?” You ask.

“‘Course,” he says. He walks up behind you, lets his hands hold your sides loosely and rests his chin on your shoulder. You revel in the warmth of his chest against your back.

You pick up some of the loose pages, looking at the different pieces. Skulls and flowers and landscapes and so much more. He can do it all, you think. You can see so much detail, the strokes of his pencil, and it’s clear how much talent he has.

“These are all beautiful, Eddie.”

He turns his head to peck your cheek, “thank you, sweetheart.”

You reach for a worn sketchbook next, the cover peeling at the edges and the pages nearly full. It flips open to where it seems to have been used the most, the spine broken. What you see makes you gasp quietly, but Eddie’s close enough to hear it.

Covering the pages are drawings of the moon. Over and over again he drew them. Some are big, taking up an entire page, and some are scrawled into corners and empty spaces, like he couldn’t stop adding them. All of these drawings for your tattoo, and he’d only shown you a few.

“It’s weird, right?” Eddie says, hiding his face in your neck.

If he’s honest, he forgot that sketchbook was even there. He couldn’t forget about the drawings you found—you’d taken up so much of his thoughts after meeting that he couldn’t stop drawing the fucking moon for you. There are so many and he’s embarrassed by it, because he really was screwed after the first day even when he refused to see it.

“No, it’s- these are all for me?”

“Couldn’t stop thinking ‘bout you, so I drew these,” he speaks into your skin. “I was trying to avoid my feelings for you, but clearly, that didn’t work. You wouldn’t get out of my head and I had no idea why.”

You turn in his hold, leaving the sketchbook open on his desk. You look at him, the way his cheeks are pink at your finding of his drawings, the way his eyes flick between yours.

“I love them. Every single one,” I love you. “I thought about you a lot, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. So much. You made me nervous at first,” you admit, your hands fiddling with the collar of his shirt.

“I’m not used to, um, opening up to people and all. I’ve never even been in a relationship,” his hands come up and grab yours, like he needs the comfort. “You make me want to try, though.”

You have to say it. There’s no way you can’t, not when he’s looking at you with those eyes filled with something.

“I love you, Eddie,” his eyes widen, he freezes. “You don’t have to say it back or anything, I just really needed to tell you. You’re the first sense of comfort I’ve found since I moved, and I don’t think I would have felt at home without you and I love you.”

No matter how scared he is to be with you, because he wants to be someone worth being with and he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he can’t ignore the fact that he loves you right back. And he hasn’t said those words to many people in his life.

It’s big for him, so big that he’s stumbling over his words but he tries anyway.

“Oh my god,” he kisses your knuckles, “I love you, sweetheart. My moon girl, fuck, I love you, too. I’ve never done this before, but there’s nobody else I’d want. Nobody.”

You feel so many things at once. Relief and happiness and a thousand fireworks in your gut and in your heart. You grab his face with your hands and drag him down to kiss you.

It’s broken by your smiles, your teeth bumping into each other but neither of you care one bit. He holds your wrists gently, returns your kiss with ease. He’s delicate with his touch, so, so perfect with his lips on yours.

He only pulls away to ask, “will you be mine? Be my girlfriend?”

You nod vehemently, “been yours since you kissed me the first time. Probably even before that.”

You’re not worried about the ‘told you so’s you’re sure to get from your friends, or what happens next because you know whatever it is, Eddie’s gonna be there.

“Think you had me the minute you started talking ‘bout the moon.” He just didn’t know it yet.

༄

if you enjoyed, please leave a reblog or let me know what you thought! it helps loads more than you think <3

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buckgasms · 11 months

Text

Doctors' Barnes and Rogers (Part 3)

Part threeeeeee! This kinda gets a bit fluffy at the end so who knows what the heck is happening but I hope you enjoy it!

Doctor kink, breeding kink, dubious doctors behaving dubiously but also sweet so..... Also pregnancy talk so please avoid if that may upset you ❤️

Part One // Part Two

The next week you were inundated with tasks and paperwork to read over before your next session with the Doctors. Copious notes about your cycle, number of times you felt aroused in the weeks and detailed descriptions on what that consisted of.

It was a bit embarrassing to send these off every evening but Dr Barnes insisted it would be helpful. Some of your deepest fantasies, and some more recent thoughts about your recent encounter with two hot doctors. Hopefully they wouldn't judge you too much.

Dr Rogers had emailed you requesting images which you had felt even more embarrassed about, but complied in the name of science. You sent him images of your pretty pussy for the most part, but he also seemed to need pictures of your ass, breasts and even one of your mouth open. It made little sense to you but he said it was all required for the process, so you did it. The more you spoke to them and thought about having a little baby of your own you felt more desperate to get everything right and make them happy. You didn't want to risk them kicking you off the programme just because you didn't send a little picture here and there.

⚕️

Eventually the date arrived where you would go through the first procedure. You felt incredibly nervous but also so excited. You still didn't quite know what the process was going to look like, but if it was anything like your check up you were quite happy with that. Dr. Barnes did say it was quite 'revolutionary' so who knows what was in store?

It was a day time appointment for a change but the whole office was completely empty. "We shut the place for today, it's a special day sweetheart" Bucky said, guiding you into his examination room, a place you were starting to look forward to being. "I'm excited, but I do feel a bit scared Doctor." You mumble as he takes your coat and hangs it up before turning to you and taking your soft hand in his warm one.

"Hey, everything is going to be fine. Steve and I are going to take such good care of you and make sure you feel great the whole time. You've trusted us this far, keep going sweetie." You smiled and squeezed his hand back nodding eagerly. "You're right, it's going to be great..."

At that moment Steve walked in and smiled at the little scene in front of him. "How are we today? Ready to make a baby?" You giggled and nodded again making them smile at you. "Oh did all my pictures come through Dr. Rogers?" You ask, heat flaring in your cheeks as you suddenly wanted to know he liked them, even though that wasn't the point!

"Oh they were marvelous, really helpful. And your little diary was also enlightening. So glad you enjoyed your time with us last time..." You thought you might die from embarrassment but they just chuckled and nudged you.

"Ok sweetie, we're gonna try and few things out today, so if it's uncomfortable just tell us, the better you feel, the more chance it has of working right?" You nod and they start moving round the room as you wait for instruction.

"Right, we need you to undress now honey and we'll get everything set up." Steve said before providing a screen for you to take your clothes off. As you did so, you could hear movement on the other side, equipment being moved and a bit of huffing from the doctors.

You peaked around the screen and watched them set up a bench, with a thin flat leather cushion. It looked quite...kinky and you couldn't help feel a twinge of excitement through your body. They turned around and caught you peeking. "Come here sweet thing, nothing to be frightened of..." Bucky said, holding out a hand for you, which you gratefully took after shuffling over, an arm over your breasts as you approached them.

"This is a sort of breeding bench. You have to lay face down on this soft cushion here and we can stimulate you from either end. We can also tilt the bench once you are inseminated to make sure it really takes. You should be nice and comfortable but if you need to move at any time, you just let us know. Any questions so far?"

"Um, how will the...insemination bit happen?" You say quietly, nibbling on your finger and looking between them. "Well we can do it two ways. Either we can use a machine, but that might be a bit uncomfortable..." Steve said, looking at your seriously and you bit your lip. "Oh, what's the other option?" He rubs your back, making your skin tingle, before brushing your hair away from your face. "Dr. Barnes and I are happy to provide samples directly. That way we can adjust to your comfort and monitor you more closely."

Your eyes widened at the thought. You'd had a little bit of first hand experience with their direct approach. They were both very well endowed and you wondered out loud, "do you think I can take you?" They both chuckled and rubbed your arms and back, "absolutely sweetheart, we've done the tests and you're perfect for us... but it's up to you of course..."

There was a beat in the air until finally you nodded. "Let's do it that way. I don't want to be uncomfortable with a machine. Are you sure that's ok?" They nodded quickly and told you it was absolutely fine with them.

"Good, that's really good honey. Are you ready to start?"

They guided you onto the bench, your breasts hung down on either side of the leather and you rested your chin on your folded arms as they positioned your legs into place. You felt remarkably relaxed for the compromising position you were in, but you were in good hands. Hands that were now running over your soft skin, squeezing gently at you making you sigh.

"Feeling good?" Bucky asks, a clear amusement in his voice as his fingers squeeze at your ass cheeks before running down your leg. "Mmm yeah, this is so comfy" you almost moan.

"Good, anything changes, let us know. We'll get started then, just relax and let us do the work."

You try and watch them but it's difficult from your position, so you decide to close your eyes and try and figure it out from the sensations. You think it's Bucky who is settled between your legs, running his hands along your upper thighs, occasionally rubbing across your folds, making you moan quietly into your arms.

Your moan becomes louder when Steve grips your nipple between his fingers and starts squeezing and twisting. In moments you are humping Bucky's hand as he rubs more vigorously along your wet slit. "Good girl, so responsive for us hmm?" Steve mutters in your ear as he pulls and tweaks at you.

"Tell me how it feels" Bucky says and you whine, "feels good...want more please?" You are begging already, but it only seems to make them happy. Steve attaches a suction cup to your breasts which makes you cry out in delight before you feel his hand brush at your hair. You manage to open your eyes as Bucky sinks a finger into your pussy, his thumb rubbing firmly at your clit. "Want something in your mouth honey?" He asks and you moan, nodding your head and reaching for him.

His cock springs free and you immediately latch on, focusing all your tension and desperation on his thick length, sucking harder than you ever had. "Jesus Christ, she's feeling needy today" Steve growls, gripping your hair tightly as he thrusts slowly in and out of your mouth.

Bucky, unable to retain his impatience anymore, slips his cock free of his boxers and lines up to your aching heat. Thanks to his excellent preparation he glides in until he is flush with your ass, and begins to rut. You are already fluttering and squeezing him like a vice as he grips your ass cheeks and spreads them open.

"That feel good baby? You like that" he mutters, testing a quick spank to your pretty cheeks as he fucks you. Pausing for air you cry out a yes, before Steve guides you back to him. Tears stream down the face as pleasure rips through your body, their unrelenting pace already making you feel like you are floating on air.

"Gonna make us a baby ain't ya? Gonna be a good girl for us and make us a daddy hmm?" Steve says through gritted teeth as he pulls out of your hungry mouth. He crouches down and presses a kiss to your sweaty forehead. "Nothing I'd like more than to see you swallow my come honey, but gotta save it for your pretty cunt right? We're gonna fill you up.."

You nod and reach your hands out for him which he takes, pressing more kisses to your messy lips. "Already drunk on cock honey? We knew you'd be the perfect little candidate. Like a little bunny ain't ya? Just made for getting fucked and full right?"

As he goads you, Bucky rams his cock faster into your aching hole, his fingers rubbing at your clit from underneath. Your hips buck at the sensations but they have you tied down just enough that any movement doesn't get you very far. "Atta girl, gonna make me come, just keep squeezing me like that sweetness" he groans. The tension builds in your stomach until one final swipe has it snapping, your orgasm ripping through you and clamping down on Bucky.

His groans mix with your wails, as you squeeze Steve's hand even tighter until you drop everything, laying there panting as your lower half twitches. When he's satisfied Bucky pulls out but you suddenly feel Steve slide in and continue the steady pace.

"Ah I can't... S'too sensitive" you cry but Bucky has taken position at your head. "Come on sweetheart, we don't want to waste any samples. You can do it. For us, I know you can..." Steve keeps his hips moving steadily, but not too rough to hurt so you can only let the pressure build again. You watch Bucky fiddle with the suction cup on your breast, the vibrations and suction getting stronger until you can't contain your scream as another powerful orgasm rips through you and Steve is filling you up.

After a moment where you think you must have stopped breathing you feel the table tilt forward and a tape is put over your sensitive pussy. "Did so well for us baby. Gonna leave you here for a bit to get that settled, then we'll do it all again."

"Again?" You cry, not knowing how you could possibly manage another round of that. They chuckle and press a little kiss each to your face. "Yes silly, don't you know it takes lots and lots of goes to make sure it all works. Today's the best day to do it. Although we might even keep you in overnight so we can keep going..."

You begin to protest but Bucky presses another kiss to your face and switches on the suction cups, cutting your voice off immediately and replaces it with a groan. "That's better" he says before providing his thumb for you to suck on which you cant resist as he pushes it passed your lips.

"Don't worry, we want to take care of you sweetheart. We know just what you need..."

⚕️

After a few more rounds you needed to change position, so Bucky picked you up in his strong arms and carried you to a more comfortable couch. From there, they both spent what felt like hours fucking you full.

The idea of getting you pregnant seemed to fill them with an insatiable lust. They fucked you until your holes were aching, each flick to your clit was like agony, but you couldn't resist how good it felt either.

"Fuck sweetheart, you're milking me dry?" Steve groaned through gritted teeth, as you could only mewl in delight. "Aw has our pretty girl gone dumb for cock" Bucky mocked softly as he rubbed your clit while Steve filled you up again.

Bucky swiftly takes his place, pushing your aching pussy apart and spitting on your messy heat. "Fuck!" You cry out, already on the edge as he presses in to you. "Don't let it come out sweetheart, dont wanna waste a drop do you?" You shake your head as he slides in and out, every nerve ending on fire as he does.

"See that little bunny" Steve says, tugging at your aching heat, making your squeal. "That's a pussy being used correctly, filled with come and begging for more... Fucking perfect.."

Your whole body shakes as he keeps rubbing while Bucky groans, unable to contain his orgasm as you come yet again.

"Good girl, take it all, every drop" he moans, wrapping a hand around your throat as he fucks through his release.

Finally they decide to move you somewhere more comfortable and in the space of moving you, you fall asleep so they leave you to rest for a little while.

When you woke there was a jug of water, a bowl of fruit and a plate of sandwiches which you tucked into. While you nibbled you glanced down at your aching heat and found it puffy and overused, but not feeling at all bad about it. Your mind drifted back to when you and your ex husband had tried for a baby and you sometimes never even orgasmed, let alone felt like this. You had realised that all along he had lied to you and made you feel terrible when it was him who was the problem. But you didn't want to dwell anymore on him. It was pointless.

You took in the rest of your body, swollen nipples, little marks from their hands and lips as they had kissed, and bitten and sucked at you. You bit your lip remembering how you had written all these things in your diary to them. Clearly they had taken it very seriously, which you appreciated.

As you were beginning to wonder where they were, they arrived back into the office where they left you. There faces full of brightness at the sight of you awake.

"There's our girl! Are you feeling ok sweetie?" They both took time fussing over you, pressing your tummy for any aches, massaging your legs and hands and pressing cold stethoscopes to your chest making you giggle, as they tried to warm them up but failing.

"I feel fine I promise" you said after calming down and gripping their hands. They both leaned in a pressed a kiss to each cheek, but you felt bold and leaned over to Bucky then Steve, stealing a kiss on the lips from both of them.

"Oh sweetie, you really are perfect ain't ya?" Bucky says, pulling you back for a longer kiss before guiding you over to Steve so he could kiss you deeper, making you moan.

"Alright pretty girl, let's get you back in there, you ready?" Bucky says, squeezing your thighs and you nod eagerly. You go to stand but he tuts and slips his arms under you and picks you up, making you squeak and wrap your arms around his neck. "I gotcha" he whispers and you steal another kiss from him, feeling so safe and happy in his arms. Before you are finally released and eagerly climb into place and settle down, wiggling at the anticipation.

⚕️

After a whole day they decide that the work they've done should be enough for now. They take you home in Bucky's car with Steve carrying you up to your apartment, which although you insist ksnt nessecary, you grip him tighter and lay your head on his shoulder. While Bucky unlocks your door Steve presses kisses to your forehead, all of your feeling quite happy with the amount of kisses being passed around.

Seeing the sorry state of your flat you cringe as you go inside. At least you had the forethought to tidy before you went to them the day before.

Bucky finds your pyjamas and once Steve pops down he gently helps you change as if you are precious cargo. You giggle as you tell him so and he smiles at you. "Sweetheart, you are..." He presses a hand to your tummy and you smile back "the most precious as far as we're concerned..."

Your tummy flips with something new but you decide not to worry right now. You feel exhausted despite the many naps you've had. "Ok you gotta sleep, eat and drink as much as possible. Try to leave the shower or bath until tomorrow morning if you can just to be sure." Steve says, placing a big water bottle on your side, with a bag of groceries on your kitchen table, filling up the fridge with healthy but delicious goodies.

"Ok I promise...when do you think I can do a test?" You say, as you snuggle up into your blankets. They explain that you might have to wait until next week, but if it's negative they can just keep repeating the process until it sticks.

You nod, feeling nervous but excited. They both kiss you goodbye and leave. You feel suddenly overwhelmed at the silence, having had such a crazy 24 hours of close, initmate contact. You take a big drink of water before sinking back into your pillows, your eyes fluttering closed as your mind was filled with images of them surrounding you and the pleasure that comes with it.

⚕️

One week later you are waiting nervously in your bathroom, a pregnancy test perched on the sink as you nibble your finger and watch the stopwatch on your phone.

You daren't look. You've been in this position so many times before it just feels horrible. You still have 2 minutes to wait but you feel sick at the thought of what's to come. You fiddle with your phone for a moment until you decide to call Bucky.

He answers almost immediately, concern in his voice. "Hi sweetie, everything ok?" You are a little surprised at his quick answer so you stutter for a bit, which makes him even more worried. Finally you manage to choke out, "I'm fine!" You both take a breath before you restart.

"I'm waiting for a test... Got a few more minutes and I just.... I feel scared..." You say quietly, trying to ignore the tears pricking at your eyes. He sighs at the other end and you know he has a concerned look on his face still.

"It's all ok sweetness. Whatever it says we still got you alright? You don't need to worry becaise Steve and I are with you every step of the way..."

You can only nod as he talks, his warm deep voice filling you with calm. Your phone buzzes as the timer runs out and you take a deep breath. "Ok are you ready?" You say and he tells you firmly that he is and it's going to be fine.

With shaky fingers you turn the test over. A little gasp escapes your lips and he asks with a more stressed voice than he would probably like. "What does it say sweetheart?"

Finally you let out a shaky laugh.

"It's positive"

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky imagine #bucky smut #bucky barnes smut #doctor steve rogers #doctor bucky #doctor rogers #doctor barnes #doctor stucky #stucky x reader #stucky x you

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minkdelovely · 2 months

Text

love and power

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

chapter two

“i come loaded with the

safety switch on.”

Alastor x Fem!Reader ; MDNI 18+ ; [y/n] used sparingly ; Alias in Hell is Sylvie

tags/warnings: blood, sensory overload, vomit, implied cannibalism, descriptions of graphic violence, power dynamics, non-consensual touching, valentino sighting, slow burn eventual: smut

word count: 2.5k

author’s note: i just wanted to give a huge shoutout to @hazelfoureyes for being so gracious to let me tag her here as inspo! if you haven’t already, please go check out her work - she’s seriously sooo talented and awoke my need for more interaction between alastor and valentino lol

prelude ; chapter one ; chapter two ; chapter three ; chapter four ; chapter five ; chapter six ; chapter seven ; chapter eight

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Alastor had insisted that you walk back to the hotel, your arm linked under his as he paraded you through the remainder of the city like a proud parent.

You tried to fight feeling grateful for the support since he could have easily teleported you back to the hotel, but you gripped his arm all the same. The adrenaline dump had left you feeling so depleted and all you wanted was to be back in your bed. Snippets of what happened in the alley raced through your mind’s eye, and you shook your head, trying to keep them at bay. Did you really have the capacity to be that enraged? That violent? Apparently you did…

The blood was drying tight on your face, contrasting with the slick, heavy feeling of fabric latching to the skin of your chest. You could feel yourself winding up, overwhelmed and uncomfortable by the mess you were covered in. There wasn’t a part of you that felt clean and you were desperate with the need to remove your dress. Tears blurred the edge of your vision when you fixated on the taste in your mouth, barely managing to pull away from Alastor before you fell to your knees and vomited.

Bile, blood, and… It was the tipping point.

No longer able to hold it back, the sob you released was closer to a scream. What had you done? You couldn’t fight the images flashing in your mind; the sound of screams and flesh tearing, an airway so saturated with blood it bubbled. How it felt when your teeth punctured flesh, no easier than biting into a piece of fruit. Your mouth filling with blood… and swallowing. And that wasn’t all you had swallowed, was it?

It wasn’t until you started frantically tearing at the collar of your dress that Alastor approached from behind you, grabbing your wrists easily in his large hands.

“Now, now, that simply won’t do,” he chided cooly in your ear, radio static gone, his presence large and stable behind you. “I thought a walk might help you to calm down, but at least you managed to save this episode from prying eyes. Be a big girl now and stop crying, we’re nearly home.”

You couldn’t see through the tears as he pulled you up to your feet, his hands releasing you as soon as you were standing. A throb of pain rocked your head and you choked out a final sob, trying to steady your breath as you rubbed your burning, swollen eyes.

Why was he being so patient with you? He had been in a good mood ever since he found you in the alley, not even bothered by the fact that the clothes you had been sent to pick up were soiled and needed to be returned to the cleaners. And how had he even found you in the first place? Was he following you?

“Oh, my dear, you look like the stuff of nightmares!” Alastor said in his usual static, not sounding at all sorry for you. Hell, he probably meant it as a compliment. “Remind me to ask what that poor creature did to earn your wrath.”

With that, he hooked your arm again and led you up the hill.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

“What the fuck happened to you?!” Angel shouted from the bar when you entered the lobby. Husk nearly dropped the glass in his hand, but managed to recover, his face pale.

Thankfully, your audience was just the two of them. You wouldn’t have known what to do if everyone had been there to see you in this state. Dread came over you then, thinking of what it will be like to finally stand in front of a mirror. Your empty stomach churned.

“Not to worry, Angel, the blood isn’t hers. Poor thing ran into a bit of trouble running errands, but that’s all been taken care of, hasn’t it?” Alastor cooed, resting his hand on your shoulder as he peered down at you.

“Well don’t just stand there, let her get cleaned up before anyone else sees! Niffty’s gonna have a fucking fit when she finds the mess on that carpet,” Husk said to Alastor, shaking his head in exasperation.

Alastor’s fingers dug into you at being rebuked, but you were more focused on the muted plop sounds of blood falling to the carpet from the laundry bag. Had it really just been an hour since you had picked it up? You were so tired it was hard to believe that it was still only morning.

“Yeah, don’t worry, toots. We won’t tell no one about your, uh… day out,” Angel said delicately, raising his hand with a suave smile. “Scout’s honor. Though I gotta say, I think you look fuckin’ badass. Whoever it was got what was coming to ’em.”

You huffed out a small laugh, managing to give him a weak smile before Alastor enveloped you both in shadow.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

Angel and Husk watched as you and Alastor disappeared, giving themselves a moment until they felt like it was safe enough for them to talk again.

“So… what the actual fuck, am I right?” Angel half-laughed, taking a swig from his glass. “I think she fuckin’ ate somebody.”

Husk hummed, nodding his head slightly in agreement. “Definitely not impossible. I just hope he didn’t put her up to it.”

“You really think he’d do somethin’ like that, Husk? I mean, sure, he’s been bossin’ her around but… forcin’ her to eat someone? Seems extreme.”

Husk sighed, giving him a defeated look. Angel shook his head, eyebrow peaked in disbelief. Ignoring the phone buzzing in his pocket, he finished his drink.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

Despite how much you had been looking forward to it, it felt strange to be back in your room. Everything was the same as how you’d left it, but it almost felt like nothing here belonged to you anymore. The room was so still, quiet except for the sounds of Alastor rooting around in your ensuite bathroom. What he could possibly be looking for, you didn’t know, nor did you really care. You were so tempted to just collapse on the bed…

The shower turned on and you sighed, closing your eyes to enjoy the soothing sound it made. It was a peace short-lived, your eyes flying open when you felt fingers at the back of your neck undo the button of your collar, followed quickly by cool air against your spine as Alastor unzipped you. You stiffened and moved away, turning to face him, bringing your arms up to keep the dress from slipping off your shoulders to the floor.

The rebuttal died in your throat when he laughed, stepping towards you in your retreat.

“Testy, aren’t we? I was merely trying to help, and this is the thanks I get?”

His eyes narrowed when you moved farther away in response. Would he ever stop toying with you?

“Alastor, please, I’m too tired for this,” you pleaded, glancing at the bathroom behind you as you fought back a fresh wave of tears. You knew he wouldn’t like it if you started crying again.

“Which is exactly why I’m trying to help! Surely, you aren’t insinuating that my intentions were anything but courteous?” He said it casually enough but you could feel the threat veiled underneath as he continued his way to you. “Seeing how my clothes need laundering again, I figured you’d want me to take the dress as well. It was a gift, after all.”

“I’ll take it myself,” you tried to say evenly, looking away from him. He was hovering over you now, effectively making you feel small. “And I didn’t think you were—”

He tipped your chin to look up at him and licked the pad of his thumb on his free hand. You stood frozen stiff as he used it to wipe your cheek, not daring to upset him more by pulling away. Somewhere in the back of your mind, the truth of how completely in control he was over you sunk in, killing whatever was left of the hope you had of staying under his radar. Silently, you watched as he brought his thumb back to his mouth, but your breath hitched as he sucked off the residue. The look in his eyes made you want to disappear, and you hoped the tear-streaked mess on your face was able to hide the blush now burning your cheeks.

“Sylvie… shouldn’t you be getting in the shower? Or is wasting water another bad habit of yours?” he said, voice low and face smug.

Without thinking, you jerked your face out of his hand and quickly pulled the dress off, shoving it at his chest. Before he could say another word you were in the bathroom, using all the restraint you had left not to slam the door in his face. Leaning against the door, you could hear him laughing as he made his way out of your room. Finally there was silence, and you slid to the floor with your face in your hands, swallowing against the feeling of your heart in your throat. And worse, you weren’t sure if the tightness in your chest was shame… or something else.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

Niffty was already hard at work removing the blood stains in the lobby, mumbling to herself as Alastor passed through to make his way back to Cannibal Town. Making sure to give Husk a knowing, pompous grin, and receiving a scowl in return, he walked out the hotel. Alastor couldn’t recall the last time he had enjoyed himself so much before noon. Whatever else the day had in store he couldn’t know, though it would be tough to beat.

The taste that lingered in his mouth was bordering on cruel, a gamble he wasn’t sure he had properly hedged the bet of. Regret wasn’t something Alastor felt often, if at all, and he would vehemently deny it even if he did. Was it regret he felt at tasting the blood that dried on your face? No. While the blood itself was subpar — it had come from some vile creature, after all — it had been transformed by your skin chemistry and tears, creating a flavor that was robust and surprising. Had it not been for decades of tempering his self-control, Alastor worried briefly in the back of his mind that he might have done something drastic; hence allowing himself just the one taste. And apparently doomed to savor it until opportunity presented itself.

He couldn’t help passing by the alley as he made his way through the city, unsurprised to see that your victim was still lying there, stripped of clothes and whatever possible valuables he had possessed. It would be at least a week before he recovered from the attack. A thought passed through Alastor’s mind and his antler’s grew in response to the idea, mouth curling up in a fanged, sinister grin. Passersby ran away in horror.

It wasn’t until Alastor walked into the dry cleaners that the armor of his good mood chipped. Of all the fiends in Hell, Valentino was the least of whom he ever expected to run into here. Cannibal Town wasn’t a sanctuary in the true sense, but its culture did manage to deter most of the demons Alastor deemed undesirable. A peace he was not willing to part with. Though clearly someone had tipped Valentino off about how to blend in here, as he was without his gaudy trademark robe, instead donning a shockingly respectable black suit.

Alastor had no grudge with Valentino, he simply just didn’t respect him. Getting sinners to sign themselves over to you in promise of fame was so trite. How Valentino could be proud to call himself an Overlord was a mystery, unless he was truly that shameless. Or more likely, from what Alastor had overheard Angel saying to others in passing, oblivious. Both seemed correct. While Alastor could suffer a fool, anyone who would bend under Vox’s will really wasn’t worthy of his concern or energy.

Valentino turned at the ringing of the bell over the door, with what could only be described as a shit-eating grin as he took in the sight of The Radio Demon.

“Well fuck me, if it isn’t the big, brave hero! I thought Adam sent you to Super Hell, but I guess you would be too stubborn to die,” Valentino said haughtily, taking a drag off his cigarette. “How’s the wound, flaco?”

Internally Alastor bristled, but he maintained his facade of nonchalance. It wasn’t surprising that the Vees had found out about what happened between him and Adam. Of course it irritated him all the same, considering that the battle between the two of them wasn’t quite public knowledge. For now, all Alastor could do was keep the fact that the Vees knew in his back pocket and work on a plan of action to counteract it, should need arise.

“Wound is a bit strong, Valentino, but as they say: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! You’re too kind, inquiring after my health,” Alastor responded jovially, though the smile on his face was cold and menacing. “I must say, I never thought I’d see you here. I didn’t think Cannibal Town would be an ideal place for you to… scout.”

Valentino scoffed through a strained smile. “No shit. There are a lot of kinks out there, but ‘ragtime cannibal freaks’ isn’t one of them.” He paused to take another drag, continuing as he exhaled red smoke, “But this is the only place that can actually get all the stains out of my shit. Looks like I’m not alone in that department. Busy morning?” He gave a pointed look at the bloody laundry bag hanging off Alastor’s arm.

“You could say that,” Alastor teased, finally making his way up to the counter. The employee took the bag with a smile and removed the suit from its paper covering. Your dress was hanging in an armoire back in Alastor’s suite. He never intended to get it laundered. “Send my regards to Velvette. I haven’t had the chance to tell her how much I enjoyed her input at the last meeting you were apparently too busy to attend.”

Before the moth demon could say anything his cell phone rang, and Valentino answered as he gave Alastor the finger in response, opening the door to leave. “What do you mean, Donny hasn’t fucking showed up yet?!”

And then he was gone, yelling at his phone in the middle of Cannibal Town. Bold.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

When you woke up your room was dark, save for the light of a sconce near your door, the throbbing in your forehead making itself immediately known. The headache wasn’t surprising considering how much you had cried, nor was the pang of hunger you felt. You didn’t feel ready to eat anything yet though, but you definitely needed to get some water in your system.

Slowly, you got yourself out of bed, pausing for a moment to breathe through the stiffness in your body. Even when you had fled from Alastor earlier, your bathroom had never seemed as far away as it did now. It wasn’t until you were practically in front of it that you noticed the red dress hanging from your bathroom door, a note peaking out from the left pocket of the white, ruffled apron attached to its waist. It was a brief message, but impactful all the same.

I believe red suits you best. - Alastor

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tag list: @fairyv-ice

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel fan fiction #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor x reader #alastor x female reader #alastor smut #hazbin hotel smut #slow burn #song fic #if i can’t have love i want power #love and power #x reader #alastor the radio demon #the radio demon #hazbin hotel slow burn

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blueberry-pride · 1 year

Note

hi, can i ask for a part two for this with Floyd,Azul,Riddle,Malleus and Ruggie please?

If u accept request rn?

Don't Deny It Babe~ Part 2

warnings: semi-proof read Berry: I didn't think that the previous post would gain a 2nd part so thank you for the chance! as always, enjoy! <3

"W-wait, are you sure?" Riddle would have a brief mental pause. He'd then have that cute pouty expression when he's embarrassed thus furthering your point. *cue his blush*

Riddle would be a bashful and stuttering mess especially if he's present or within earshot of you talking about his 'cute' qualities to others. He has a reputation of being the strict dorm leader after all!

There would be times that you'd find this young gent to be quiet and a lil timid as you continue to ramble on cuz slowly overtime he'd like this approachable view that you see in him.

Eventually, He'd slowly accept your image of him but I'd imagine you would catch him puffing up his chest as he tries to make himself more refined in the mirror. (Why do I lowkey see him getting "manly" advice from Trey and Cater?) Antics aside, he'd get all warm and fuzzy thinking about your comments, putting a very soft smile to his face whenever he thinks about it <3

If there's anyone who doubts your views, He'd simply watch you debate or argue from afar cuz he enjoys seeing you be so passionate even if the topic is about him. If the others laugh or starts making fun of either you or him tho ...just remember, he IS watching *looks to Ace*

"Uh...what?" Ruggie's ears flattened at the comment. "You think I'm CUTE?" he spoke with wide eyes. I feel like this wouldn't be the first time this hyena was called that compliment. Most likely his grandma. Meemaw Bucchi: *pinches his cheeks* awww you look so cute all dressed up in that uniform!

He'd be the type to ask you the why's, when's, and how's or just whatever type of reasoning you've had to decided out of all descriptions, you chose 'cute' for a guy like him. I see him also being the type to check himself out in front of mirror but in a very confused state.

He'd at first don't want ANY of the Savanaclaw guys hear about this. (he might as well be chopped meat if Leona ever got a word of this) So the moment he'd sense that you're about to go in one your tangents about him, he'd start messing with ya like tickling or hell even spinning you around just to whisk the two of you away from curious eyes and ears.

But I supposed overtime, this hyena beastman would be curious enough to try and use his this 'cute' side to soften people up for opportunities. (Outside of campus most likely) Of course he'd first test it out on you and often times you'd let him cuz after all, who couldn't say no to such a face?

But here's the thing, you're definitely not safe from HIM calling you cute and all~ Imagine he'd playfully steal your pen or something after class and as you try to grab for it he'd give a fleeting peck on the cheek. "Oh would you look at that." He chuckled. "Guess we're both the cute ones now eh (Y/N)~?" goodluck

"eh...HEH?" He stammered. He tries a little too hard to regain his composure afterwards but you'd know that your comments shot through to his classy exterior. Now you're left with a blushing and babbling octo-man.

Similar to Ruggie, our boi also has a lot of questions but the key difference is that he deals with them...internally. You, along with the rest of Octavinelle and even Jamil would notice his scrunched up face at random points throughout the day. A million and one questions running through his mind on why you'd think of him like that.

It was already too late for him because he already overheard you talking about this with the leech twins. He might as well evaporate at that point. You know the gif of the dog smiling while the room is on fire and saying 'This is fine'? That's our boi Azul right there

It takes a while for him to open up to the idea. He takes baby steps by also teasing you and showing you his perceived 'cute' side to you in private just to entertain you and see his precious pearl smile.

Overtime, he'd enjoy it and thinks it's also the best thing ever to rub it in people's face as you talk their ear off especially Jamil. "My precious pearl that is (Y/N) lovingly proclaims that I am the cute one, so that is now law."

"Hmm...You mean" Floyd tilt his head to the side. "Koebi-chan thinks I'm...cute?" He mostly says this out loud to confirm it to himself. After a few seconds he smiles gleefully towards you. Get ready for a wild ride (Y/N)!

Every time he thinks about it or you'd say it again. He'd chuckle and spin you around like as if there weren't any other people around. THAT'S how happy he is. His classmates and the rest of his dorm would find it a lil terrifying seeing this man just humming, kicking his feet in glee during class or in the lounge repeating the words "They think I'm cute~ my Koebi-chan thinks I'm cute~"

I could see him sometimes using this as an excuse to skip his shift at the lounge. Poor Azul cutting his lifespan in half every time he heard Floyd utter the words "Because Koebi-chan said so, wouldn't want to ruin a cute face like mine from all the stress. Maybe you should try it sometime Azul~"

You guys probably already see this one coming but he would be the scary shadow looming over you as you explain your side that your boyfriend is in indeed the cute one out of the two of y'all. 'You dare say otherwise to my (Y/N)?'

Threats aside, I know that Floyd genuinely does love it when you call him cute. I also know that he's clever enough that people would find him scary due to his height and his personality so he lowkey gets all soft when it comes to you, acting all bashfully as he hugs with all the adoration he has for you <3

"Could you please repeat what you've just told me?" He'd ask. "You find me...cute, Child of Man?" Genuinely surprised and has the shooketh or cute dumb-founded expression we all know and love.

This dark Fae overall finds it amusing, chuckles to himself from thinking about it from time to time. The memory of you semi-debating to him, that he, one of the most strongest and formiddable mages in Twisted Wonderland, is adorable.

Diasomnia or just the entirety of NRC is often concerned and question about your state of mind but then you'd shoo them off or rather, they 'unexpectedly have a change of heart and mind' and totally not from the dark aura with horns behind you.

He likes watching you debate about it especially if its his family in Diasomnia (looking at you Sebek) He thinks that when you're like this, he finds it sweet and endearing to defend your case about your judgement of him.

As the mischievous Fae that he often is, I see him doing small tests for you, showing off terrifying magical shi like shaking the ground beneath you, skies littered with thunder and lightning or hell surrounding you in a circle of green flames all to see if you still call him cute afterwards. (GG Night Raven College )

#twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #twstファンアート #twst wonderland #twst headcanons #twst x y/n #twst x reader #twst x mc #riddle rosehearts x reader #ruggie bucci x reader #azul ashengrotto x reader #floyd leech x reader #malleus draconia x reader #riddle rosehearts #ruggie bucci #azul ashengrotto #malleus draconia

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geoffrard · 2 years

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My Chemical Romance, Hardcore Sexual Repression, and the Lemon Stealing Whore

[Content warning for non-graphic references to pornography, sex, sexual violence, and negative attitudes towards sex work. There is no explicit nudity but you might not want to read this in front of your boss. All images have descriptions in alt text. See sources here. Read this essay on my Dreamwidth here.]

It’s the setup of a joke: Gerard Way, Mikey Way, Frank Iero, Matt Pelissier, and a porn actress huddle around a leather couch in a dingy room as a camera rolls. The actress, a young and bright-eyed Joanna Angel, asks each member of My Chemical Romance in the room, “Do you guys watch porn?”

Most of us have seen the interview. If not, stop and watch it now, because nothing else I say will make sense otherwise. (And here, just for you, I’ve reuploaded the video with at least 10% more pixels. Watch below, or read a transcript here.)

youtube

The fact that My Chemical Romance, whose faces have decorated shirts at Hot Topic for over fifteen years, whose songs have saved lives and inspired memes, who all have wives and children, would end up associated with an alt porn website like Burning Angel often baffles fans watching the interview for the first time.

For example, see these comments left on the original video uploaded to YouTube:

These comments, though more than a few years old, generally represent how a lot fans understand the interview. Other people think it’s funny and perhaps a little out of left field, but don’t question how four members wound up on a porn site like Burning Angel. Both attitudes are a pretty typical example of the MCR fandom’s ignorance about the New Jersey hardcore scene, as well reflecting general weirdness about sex work.

Since I cannot turn my historian brain off, I wanted to provide some of the extremely interesting historical context behind the video. The post I had originally planned to make very, very briefly outlined how MCR ended up being interviewed by Joanna Angel, founder and longtime CEO of Burning Angel. But the more I looked into it, the more I fell down a rabbit hole. This eventually turned into something of a mammoth manifesto about women and sexuality in the late 90s hardcore scene that gave My Chemical Romance and Joanna Angel careers. I will warn you: this is long. But it’s also important historical background information that rarely gets discussed at all—especially by MCR fans.

(So, with all that said, please feel free to ask any questions about anything I say here! Sources for will be posted on a different post which I will link at the end, and I have been quite thorough, though not as thorough as I could have been.)

Tl;dr: Joanna Angel came up in the exact same scene as My Chemical Romance, Thursday, and Midtown, a scene which stigmatized open sexual expression, at the expense of women and queer people—especially those involved in sex work. When she started her porn site, Burning Angel, she applied the same DIY values that her peers did to their own bands, but faced violence and ostracization from a subculture much too repressed to embrace such blatant expression of female sexuality. In this context, the My Chemical Romance interview with Burning Angel in 2004 was not only a group of guys doing a favor for someone they had probably known for years at that point; it can also be read as a somewhat controversial act that pushed back against this aversion to sexuality, and that helped legitimize and popularize both the site and Joanna Angel’s career.

Burning Angel: the Movie (2005)

Say you’re a diehard My Chemical Romance fan in 2005—if you really want to watch your favorite band discuss their porn-viewing habits, you’ll have to travel to either your local adult entertainment store or go to the hardcore porn site BurningAngel.com and order their first DVD, appropriately titled Burning Angel: The Movie. Once you have the disc, you’ll have to fast forward through several sex scenes and interviews with other bands before you arrive at what you wanted: the actress who you’ve just seen in hardcore sex scenes asking Gerard, Frank, Mikey and Otter questions about their preferences in adult entertainment.

The DVD was Burning Angel’s first attempt at more professional pornography, and Joanna’s first foray into full participation in filmed, live-action sex. Joanna Angel would later go on to be one of the most well-known porn stars of our time—in Virgin Territory (2006), for example, she played a lemon stealing whore; you might have seen the video—and Burning Angel would be credited with the popularization of the “alt” porn genre, which broke from the exploitative mainstream porn model and typically featured models representative of subcultures.

But in 2005 her alt porn empire was still in its infancy, and Joanna was still struggling to rectify her recent full expulsion from the local New Jersey hardcore social scene with her enduring devotion to DIY values—and the fact that members of the sexually repressed subculture that had ostracized Joanna were her site’s target audience.

Joanna Angel on the Scene

Any thoughts of a future career in adult entertainment and the last name Angel were far from her mind when Joanna Mostov enrolled in Rutgers University in 1998.

Though she often pushed back against the wishes of her religious orthodox Jewish family, the extent of her adolescent rebellion had ended at sneaking out to punk shows and getting piercings her mother wouldn’t approve of. At Rutgers, Joanna quickly became enmeshed in the New Brunswick hardcore scene, putting her in the same circles as a host of people whose names you might recognize: Geoff Rickly of Thursday (who ran hundreds of shows out of his basement), Gabe Saporta of Midtown and Cobra Starship, and Alex Saavedra of Eyeball Records.

Geoff Rickly: Well, you know, the funny thing is that, at the time, Joanna, who would later go on to form Burning Angel and become a famous porn star in her own right, was playing in her goth bands with chelsea haircuts and the basement shows. Like, her local goth band would play. And they’d bring out people and stuff, and I’d put touring bands on that show, and so it’s funny to me how, weirdly, DIY punk hardcore scenes and porn had weird associations then. [source: Going Off Track: Geoff Rickly, 2012]

The NJ hardcore scene was close-knit enough that while she only has documented friendships with some of these people, she had to have crossed paths with most of them multiple times (for example, Joanna was at the show on December 31, 1998 where Thursday and Midtown played their first real sets). She went to every show she could and hosted some in her own basement.

While we don’t necessarily have a written record of her friendship with Frank Iero and Mikey Way of My Chemical Romance, the fact that Joanna attended plenty of shows in the North Jersey area and also spent a lot of time at the Eyeball House (Alex was a close friend; and Pencey Prep was on his label) suggests that, at the the very least, Joanna, Frank, and Mikey were aware of each other’s presence in these early years. They were peers in the same scene, just as they were with everyone else who frequented the same venues or played in the same basements.

For years, the hardcore scene mattered to her more than anything else; it was her social life and what she based her values upon.

Those hardcore values and a growing curiosity about her own sexuality lead Joanna to sex-positive feminist activism and a writing internship with Nerve.com, an online magazine which explored topics related to sex and romantic relationships. From there, her interest in expressing her own sexuality continued to develop.

[Suicidegirls in 2001]

So, in 2002, when her roommate and friend asked her if she wanted to start a porn site that offered more explicit content than sites like SuicideGirls, which featured punk aesthetics and band interviews but stayed away from anything more than simple nudity, Joanna agreed.

BurningAngel.com went live in April 2002. It wanted to do things differently than other porn sites. While not necessarily pushing the boundaries of beauty standards, the site used models who were beautiful but in a more approachable, average sense. Joanna has said that since she had little experience even watching porn prior to starting the site, she wanted the site to mimic the kind of sex she was having with actors who looked like the people she was having sex with.

Joanna: When we started the website, it was a reflection of ourselves. It still is to this day. There's band interviews on the website, the style of girl that we use is not your average typical porn star and the personality on the website is a little bit different. All the members interact with each other, all of the girls have blogs and profiles, and people become friends with each other. It's more of a community and a reflection of a subculture rather than just being a website with content to jerk-off to and never think about again. [source: Complex: Interview: Joanna Angel Talks Alt Porn, Piracy, And Her Blow-Up Doll, 2011]

[Burning Angel’s homepage in June 2002]

Hardcore Punk Reacts to Hardcore Porn

Her longtime involvement in the scene and her application of DIY ethics to her porn business did not mean that the hardcore culture actively nurtured Joanna Angel’s career in porn. In reality, many parts of the scene were actively hostile towards Joanna and the site once Burning Angel went live.

This backlash isn’t incredibly surprising within the context of late 90s hardcore, a subculture that by and large refused to acknowledge sexuality of any kind.

The sexual repression in hardcore reflected several different aspects of its culture: a negative perception of women active in the scene; a reaction against the violence of tristate hardcore in the early 90s; and, more than anything else, the general privilege of those involved in the underground.

Like Joanna, Geoff Rickly, and Frank Iero, most people involved in New Brunswick hardcore were enrolled at Rutgers, and white, middle-class male college students dominated the scene. For many of them, applying DIY values to their own lives meant distancing themselves from their socioeconomic upper-hand. Consequently, the scene as a whole developed an attitude of asceticism, rejecting anything that served no purpose beyond pleasure or personal enjoyment. (Of course, it was easy for them to reject their social privileges, especially when they could just as easily cast off their aesthetic of poverty and self-denial for an adulthood of relative comfort.)

To do anything just because you enjoyed it, or because it brought you happiness in the moment, was seen to be a betrayal of hardcore’s higher intellectual goals—and that included sex. You can see this trend, for example, in lyrics from NJ hardcore bands, which focused on things like political issues or childhood traumas instead of the common themes of sexual and romantic desire found in mainstream music.

Joanna spoke about finding comfort in the general sexual repression of the scene because of her own adolescent insecurities:

Joanna: Me being very sexually not advanced and insecure, [90s hardcore] was the perfect place for me, because I could ignore [sexuality]. I was getting older, I don’t know, I wanted to explore myself more. So I began to write these graphic sex stories. My roommate, Mitch, knew about it, and I remember him getting a kick out of it. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

For another salient example, Geoff Rickly of Thursday has spoken about his own struggles with the hardcore scene’s repression, especially in regards to the shame he felt about writing sexually explicit stories for pay:

Geoff Rickly: You have to think, this is the 90s punk scene. It's not now. Nobody would openly talk about sex in DIY punk. It was such a repressed PC time, where — I mean, a lot of that stuff is my heart, like the political activism that was still such a part of punk, and actually just giving a shit about things that matter, and modes of how you're doing what you're doing. Those things seemed to matter back then, and I appreciated that side, but it was also so uptight. So repressed. [source: Going Off Track: Geoff Rickly, 2012]

While its general aversion to sexuality might have been born out of an initial desire to reform the violent misogyny of other hardcore cultures, it created the conditions for certain social problems to go completely unaddressed. After all, how can you address the rampant misogyny, homophobia, and sexual violence in your community if any acknowledgement of sexuality is taboo?

(For a brief but interesting perspective on the impact of hardcore sexual repression upon queer people in the scene, check out Episode #4 of Geoff Rickly’s podcast Dark Blue, in which Steve Pedulla and Norman Brannon discuss their experiences as gay musicians in the scene.)

Of course, these issues aren’t confined to the New Jersey hardcore, nor were they unique to the late 1990s. This particular brand of sex-averse misogyny reflects important threads within the feminism of the time which villainized open female sexuality—especially when it concerned sex work. Left-leaning spaces like music undergrounds adopted this sex-negative, misogynistic attitude as a part of their feminism—not in opposition to it.

In particular, the Riot Grrrl movement of the late 80s/early 90s pushed back against a culture (and a subculture) that shamed women for publicly expressing their sexuality. Following that, early fanzines and performance practices addressed the mistreatment of sex workers in hardcore as one way that female bodily autonomy was limited and women’s bodies were policed. Bikini Kill frontwoman and Riot Grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna has spoken about her past in sex work, the hostility she endured for openly discussing it, and the importance of that experience in shaping the form of Riot Grrrl’s protest.

Kathleen Hanna: “Whenever we were written about in the press, I wanted my sex-work history to be part of the description, because I wanted other women whom I danced at clubs with (and who never knew my real name) to see themselves reflected in some way. A lot of women who are doing music now have been sex-trade workers, prostitutes, dancers; I thought it was really important that I didn’t hide that. But I also didn’t want to glamorize that experience in being a super-cool thing in itself. I just wanted other women who work in the sex industry to remember that we can be sex-trade workers and be philosophers, writers, musicians, artists, or whatever. [Andrea Juno, Angry Women in Rock (1996)]

Riot Grrrl gained significant traction and nation-wide attention. In the decade or so after Kathleen Hanna and her peers catalyzed the movement, bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile remained incredibly popular, and likely contributed a lot to shifting attitudes towards sexuality in music subcultures.

Still, these sex-negative attitudes prevailed among enough people involved in local underground scenes that, when Burning Angel launched in 2002 and Joanna started marketing it in local hardcore spaces, the site received a lot of attention—both good and bad. The positive attention fueled the site and allowed it to expand beyond just photographs, text interviews, and low-budget personal sex tapes that characterized its early content.

However, the negative attention Joanna and her site received was vocal, targeted, and occasionally involved literal physical violence. As Kathleen Hanna had faced moral condemnation for her time in sex work, Joanna Angel faced criticism from fellow members of her subculture who thought sex work to be completely antithetical to their social justice goals. She has spoken about how difficult it was to see a community she had cared about for years turn her back on her completely for engaging in a type of work that she found enjoyable, and that she thought could be done with moral integrity.

Joanna Angel: People were calling me ugly, calling me all sorts of mean shit, how [Burning Angel was] making a profit, [we were] exploiting women, blah blah blah. And I was so bummed. I was like, you know, this isn’t fair! I always support every fucking band in the punk scene. Even if I don’t like the band, I support them—I go to their shows, I would hand out fliers for their shows. I thought it was like a code, in the punk scene, that it doesn’t matter whether you like it or not. If this is part of the scene, you accept it, and you help it, and you love it—and I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. I remember being very hurt, you know? I was like, dude, I didn’t violate any punk laws by starting this. My friend from my computer class is the one who put it online. All the other girls on the site—all three of them— were punk chicks and part of the scene. And I felt really bad; people were insulting the other girls, and I really thought I was starting this cool thing where girls could just explore their sexuality. And mind you, at the time, the beginning of Burning Angel was just photos, not even videos. People were getting all up in this upheaval because of a handful of naked photos on the internet. It’s crazy to think about now. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

Amidst the mounting antagonism and after an incident at Hellfest 2004, Joanna officially decided to leave the hardcore scene that she’d been involved with for over five years.

Joanna Angel: I remember going to Hellfest one year. Maybe it was like 2004?…these girls were throwing water balloons at us because we had a booth there. Because we used to get booths at some of these shows and sell tshirts. We didn’t even have any DVDs—we’d literally get in a booth and sell tshirts and hand out fliers and stickers. And these other girls were throwing water balloons at us and calling us sluts. I was like, “Hey, that sucks, can you stop doing that?” And one of my friends—he owned a record label. He owned Eyeball Records, Alex…he saw the girls picking on us, and he went over to the girls, and said, “Hey, can you cool it? They have a booth here—let them do their thing. They’re not gonna get in your way.” And then those girls and their boyfriends beat him up, and he wound up in the hospital. He almost died. It was terrible. And I was like, we have to get out here. Let’s just stay away. If we’re a porn site, let’s just be a porn site. Let’s promote ourselves with other porn companies; let’s step away for a little while. Everyone in the punk scene knows who we are. They’ve made their decision about if they like us or not. I’m still gonna interview bands, still gonna do that thing—but I’m done. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

Joanna and Burning Angel’s separation from the NJ hardcore scene in 2004 finally brings me to Burning Angel: The Movie, My Chemical Romance, and that interview.

So, 2004: after over two years spent largely behind the camera and slowly expanding her porn site, Joanna finally decided to get in front of the camera and produce a more intentionally crafted alt porn video that retained the feel of the website. Thus Burning Angel: the Movie was born.

As Joanna explains in the interview, the general idea of the DVD was that different self-contained pornographic scenes would be interspersed with band interviews. One of the key features of Burning Angel, like Suicide Girls before it, was the band interviews subscribers could access alongside the porn, so it made sense to preserve this aspect of the site on the DVD experience. Joanna interviewed five bands in early 2005: Killswitch Engage, Eighteen Visions, Shadows Fall, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and, of course, My Chemical Romance—all bands that Joanna admired, and who had been involved in the same scene that she had recently left because of very real threats to her emotional and physical well-being.

Within this context, My Chemical Romance’s decision to participate in the Burning Angel interview was a statement, as they put their support behind an enterprise that was highly controversial within the social circle most immediately relevant to them.

Fresh off the 2004 Warped Tour and promoted Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, My Chemical Romance might have appeared to be largely divorced from their scene of origin, but they still acted in response to those politics—politics that impacted American culture at large more than you’d think—in both intentional and incidental ways.

That is not to say that MCR was being overtly political; they’ve made a clear effort to distance themselves from the clear-cut political imagery and goals of some of their peers in hardcore. Still, the band (Gerard especially) very obviously cared a lot about using their music and stage presence to express shades of sexuality that they perceived to be lacking from some forms of music.

Gerard: I also wanted, at the same time, [for] the record to be a testament to self-expression, and putting stuff in there like that, while not being a homosexual myself, but expressing myself in a homosexual way, is either going to push your buttons in a negative way or you’re going to identify with it. [AP: Well, this whole scene wants you to be sensitive, but not too sensitive.] It is extremely homoerotic, especially the whole emo-sensitive thing. Everyone’s wearing women’s pants; everyone’s got women’s haircuts; everyone’s wearing youth-medium shirts. I don’t want to come out and say it. It’s blatantly obvious. Wearing a leather jacket is an extremely masculine thing to do in this scene. Even the hardcore bands, the really hard ones, you see them in makeup and stuff. I like that. I think it keeps it dangerous. It keeps it exciting. In a way, sex has really been missing from rock, especially because of all the sensitivity. That’s what I really wanted to convey on the record, too. I wanted the record to be very dangerous and sexy at the same time. There’s such a lack of sex in music. It’s been more about getting in touch with your feelings and being there for each other, which is great, but it’s definitely lacking this sexual duality. [Source: Alternative Press #193, Aug 2004; emphasis mine]

Additionally, many of their moments of explicit sexuality on stage were designed to be somewhat incendiary and polarizing.

But it’s important to remember that, just as late 90s New Jersey hardcore was not the first subculture with issues of sexual repression, My Chemical Romance does not represent the first attempt to push back at this asexual culture and definitely weren’t leading that particular conversation. Gerard took inspiration from artists already pushing those boundaries and incorporating sexual expression into their art. He has spoken, for example, about the impact of Riot Grrrl acts upon his music and stage presence (Joanna Angel has similarly pointed to bands like Bikini Kill as significant influences). These bands had already incorporated resistance against harmful sexual repression, values which Gerard and his band mates took on when they adopted their styles into My Chemical Romance.

(I also want to mention briefly that other significant people in the hardcore world have spoken out against pornography, such as Ian MacKaye of the formative post-hardcore band Fugazi. MacKaye owned Dischord Records, the definitive underground music label, to which a young Frank Iero unsuccessfully attempted to get his band Sector 12 signed. The matter of pornography and its role within the hardcore world was not one upon which you could maintain a neutral stance after, say, appearing on a porn DVD.)

As shitty as it was that they needed approval from the men in the scene, My Chemical Romance, along with other bands, supported Burning Angel, a new kind of porn, and helped legitimize Joanna Angel’s claim that what she was doing was not backwards or exploitative but had integrity.

Have you had an issue with people you grew up with when they find out you're in the adult industry? Joanna: At first people had problem[s], but not anymore. Once the cool kids in bands said, "I think what she's doing is cool" all the others turned around. Everyone I ever respected didn't have an issue with it and all the stupid, annoying hardcore kids had a problem. For as much shit as I got, I also got a lot of support. [Source: Hustlerworld Interview: Joanna Angel]

I don’t mean to glamorize the porn industry or to depict Joanna Angel as some savior of female sexuality in the early 2000s. But, as Kathleen Hanna points out, sex work is legitimate work, and sex workers deserve to have workplaces that treat them with dignity and communities that recognize their humanity. The reality was that NJ hardcore as a community did not support sex workers. Fundamentally, these were the barriers that caused Joanna and Burning Angel to make an exodus from the local hardcore scene—and they are the attitudes we risk reproducing when we express discomfort that a band we admire has interacted with a sex worker.

My intentions with this post (which turned out longer than I had ever anticipated, so Jesus, thank you for reading) were to shed light on the historical context of one moment in My Chemical Romance’s history. I’ve found that the average MCR fan, even those with a specific fondness for their early years, doesn’t actually know much at all about it—so I hope this has given some clarity.

I’ll end on this note: Without bands supporting Burning Angel, who knows—we might have never seen the lemon stealing whore. At the very least, the culture surrounding porn would look a lot different. That might not mean it would look better or worse—though you can’t deny the role that Joanna Angel played, nor the role that bands from the New Jersey Hardcore scene like My Chemical Romance played in shaping the American culture of pornography.

Find sources for this post here.

[acknowledgements: thank you so much for reading! my forever thanks, as always, to nic @raytorosaurus, sophia @sendmyresignation, vyn @bringmoreknives, and maddy @8thnotes for their continued cheerleading as i spent over a month writing this long, long post. additional thanks to wes @killrockstar for very kindly offering some incredibly helpful guidance about riot grrrl and sending me resources about kathleen hanna. and much gratitude to merlin @void-flesh and @transmascfrankiero for their feedback on the final draft of this essay.]

#mcr #my chemical romance #joanna angel #mcr meta #my post

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imtotallyokandnormal · 7 months

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I would kill for some hurt/comfort headcannons about what John Doe does when he realizes that stabbing humans does in fact kill them. I assume he probably panicked real bad when he figures that out, and frantically resets the timeline. Probably would be really careful with You after that.

UGH NO YOU'RE SO RIGHT THOUGH OK OK I'M ON IT ANON I'M RIDING THE HURT COMFORT TRAIN LET'S GO

This ended up being way more sad than comforting but I hope you like it anyway I did my best

Reader: gn reader

Warnings: stabbing, death, angst, description of a corpse and blood, it gets pretty fucked up and sad actually

Image link: howdy!

》☆John Doe After Killing You☆《

- It was the moments after that made him realize. An accumulating number of seconds where you laid limp, staring up at him with those eyes. Those horribly glassy eyes, once full of emotion and now hollow of anything at all.

- After his frantic breathing slowed enough, he would grab your shoulders again, starting on a second wind of manic praise before he noticed something.

- You weren't moving.

- At first they thought you were playing some kind of human joke they didn't understand, chuckling and sitting you up as your lifeless body flopped over. "Oh you are funny, dearest! I may not understand the joke- but you're very good at staying still!"

- When you didn't respond, they tilted their head like a confused puppy. "Dearest? Could you explain the joke to me? I don't really understand."

- The silence was deafening. All you did was lay there, head flopped over with your neck bent at a weird angle. In the silence John took notice to something else; you haven't taken a breath this entire time.

- That's when the panic set in. At first they were in denial, trying to shake you awake as your limbs only swayed under their own gravity. More blood spills from your gaping maw and John's heartbeat quickens again, not from excitement but from fear, a primal fear erupting in him as he continues to shake and grab and plead for you to please wake up.

- But you don't. All you do is lay there. Cold, bloody and dead.

- The guilt ravaged him, all he could do was hold your bloody corpse close and howl in pain as he squeezed you. Or what you used to be, rather.

- He had promised himself to love you, to cherish you. He didn't think his actions were that of harm, he thought they were of love. To be able to see the inside of you, to be close enough that their hands can feel your blood pumping out from your heart, to feel your life force in their hands, becoming one in a way. But they found out too late that humans can only take so much.

- They could only sob violently as they cradled you, tugging at their hair and vowing over and over and over again that they can't let this happen again, not ever again.

- The reset was different.

- Seeing you, moving, breathing...it was different now. A hesitancy came when he stalked you at work, scared that he might hurt you again. Showing his love unbridled and uncontrolled led to the scene that flashes in front of him whenever he sees your face now. The smile he loves only to be interrupted by a vision of blood. So, so much blood.

- It took many resets for them to even let themselves touch you again. Eventually the loneliness became too much. Once you got home one day, there was suddenly a pair of arms wrapped tightly around you, squeezing as if you might slip away as easily as the wind.

- John didn't say anything to you then. They didn't need to. The vow they had made was apparent.

- John would never, never see you that way again.

#normal headcanons!#john doe x you #john doe x reader #john doe #john doe visual novel #house hunted visual novel #house hunted game #x reader #f/o community #f/o imagines #imagine your f/o #f/o #tw death #angst #tw angst #gn reader

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duckchu · 6 months

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Duckyyyy, I seriously need a change from the KDA!reader stuff going around, could I mayhaps beg of you for anything romantic with whatever heartsteel boy you feel like writing for with a Pentakill reader?

(I seriously recommend listening to Pentakill if you like old metal, I can also help give a brief description of Pentakill if you need it)

-🎃

While Pentakill is (musically) my least favourite band from lol, I'm a Sona main and a Mordekaiser simp, I know them by heart, 🎃 (this sounds way more threating than it was meant to lmao) (and I do not know them by heart, I just love Sona and Mordekaiser and would very much enjoy being stuffing to a sandwich if they're the bread if you know what I mean

And you know what? I'm feeling like writing them all so enjoy my lovely pumpkin

Also sorry for kinda insterting Battle Academia Yone in there but I couldn't stop myself

Enjoy 🖤

(mmm wife gif)

Kayn

You're a hottie AND you're in THE Pentakill? He was instantly hooked on you when you two met

Though you weren't as keen on him, thinking of him as just another fanboy

After some time of him bugging you and trying to impress you as much as he can, you warmed up to him

Eventually landing yourself into a relationship with him

Everyone in both bands thought you two were just a short phase

But then the public learned about you

And my god, was it a storm

Especially since everyone suspected you were dating someone...more like you

But you two are still going strong

He loves your style, especially if your outfits include some chains (he's a kinky man what can I say)

Though he also enjoys your style outside of the stage, no matter how much it differs from your metal queen image

Honestly he just loves when you look happy

Probably wrote a few songs about you, which he will never show you, since he thinks you're too cool for love songs

Aphelios

Honestly? Wasn't interested at the beginning

You're from Pentakill? Ok, don't care

Honestly you were the one who fell first

He had no idea, untill he noticied you telling Sona you thought he was cute using sing language

After that he started noticing you in his surroundings more often

Especially if you wore tight clothes

I mean he's not a pervert, but you look really good

Finally Alune made him realise he's in love

Oh shit he is

So after some time to gather courage he goes in an confesses

Thought it wouldn't be a problem to do it in front of Kayle, since why would she know sing language

SHE'S IN THE BAND WITH SONA TOO FUCK

He may be stupid but you still love him

But rumours spread fast

So next day the press was on the asses of both of you

Honestly doesn't care. He loves you and that's what matters

Though the rest of Heartsteel might care

Oh well

Yone

You two met before Pentakill was even a thing

So he isn't intimated by you being in the band

He's actually very happy for you

Though he does miss the days when you two were just teenagers and could hang out more frequently

Especially since now you usually were with the band or touring

I mean he was happy with you

But he might not have gotten past his little high school crush on you

Ah, the old days, when he thought dying his hair pink would impress you

Now he knew he just had to tell you that he liked you in that special way

You two might have lost some time, but now you have plenty of it to make up for it~

Ezreal

Him? With you? Nooo, this had to be joke

A joke so good Karthus spilled his morning coffe out laughing

Oh wait, you actually were? Oh shit

No one ever thought the intimidating metal diva would be with someone like him

Everyone was sure he would be dating another popstar to break up after a week

But it's been half a year since the news broke out and you two are still going strong

He loves seeing you on stage

You're so...

He secretly wants you to step on him and call you mommy

But he can hold back

For now

Sett

Holy shit

The hottie from Pentakill

And him

It's like a dream come true

Although he is worried what his mom will think

She doesn't care

As long as you treat him well, she will welcome you with open arms

Sett loves how ferocious you are

He finds it so hot how intimidating you look on stage

Especially since you have such an effect, even against Mordekaiser and Yorick, who look...well scary

K'Sante

Won't tell you that, but you inspired him so much

He just loves when you mix up your stage style and home style

Like wearing just a normal blouse with that gorset belt? You look great!

He of course loves you for so much more

For example how you always take care of him

Turning into a big softie whenever he needs your help

Or the way your eyes light up when you see in the crowd at a concert

Though the music is not his taste, he will do anything for his partner

He won't admit it, but in the depths of his files there's a whole set of outfits he designed for Pentakill, inspired by you of course

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slavonicrhapsody · 9 months

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a closer look at the weapons of Mt. Gelmir

Do you ever get possessed by the uncontrollable urge to catalogue every weapon related to Mt. Gelmir, overanalyze both their visual design and their purpose, and then arrange them in a rough timeline reflecting Mt. Gelmir’s history? Because I do! There might be something wrong with me. Anyway, I ended up grouping the weapons into three main eras: the ancient cult of the great serpent, the Inquisition era under Praetor Rykard, and Rykard’s war of blasphemy against the Erdtree. This analysis became ungodly long, so I’ve put everything under a read more:

CULT OF THE GREAT SERPENT

Long before Rykard took up residence on Mt. Gelmir, the volcano was inhabited by a civilization who worshipped the Great Serpent: they practiced pagan hexes of poison and magma, and offered up blood sacrifices to their Serpent God. The weapons associated with this civilization can be identified by the following characteristics: an association with pagan magic and ritual sacrifice, dull-colored metal or wood material, and serpent imagery.

Serpent God’s Curved Sword

“Curved sword fashioned in the image of an ancient serpent deity and tool of a forgotten religion practiced on Mt. Gelmir. Formerly used to offer up sacrifices, this sword restores HP upon slaying an enemy.”

This weapon helps establish the distinct visual style of the serpent cult, since the cult is specifically referenced in the description.

Serpent Bow and Arrows

“Malformed bow in the shape of a pair of poisonous snakes. Imbues arrows with poison through pagan magic, revealing its true worth when used with poison-infused arrows. Used by assassins known as the Formless Serpents.”

“Arrow carved to resemble a flying snake. Used in tandem with the Serpent Bow. Loyal minions of the Formless Serpents, their fangs are daubed with deadly poison.”

Who are the formless serpents? Who the hell knows. But what tells me that these weapons are from the same era as the serpent cult is both the style and the mention of “pagan magic,” which brings to mind the ancient magma “hexes” that Rykard eventually rediscovered. We find the bow in the Caelid Abandoned Cave, among a hoard of ruined abductor virgins… this seems to be a case of Rykard utilizing the weapons of the serpent cult in tandem with his own modern inventions.

Serpentbone Blade

“Sinister katana modeled after a serpent bone. The densely packed row of spines that jut away from the cutting edge are coated in a lethal poison.”

A quest reward from Tanith, which implies that Volcano Manor has many of these serpent cult weapons stashed away somewhere. This weapon is likely infused with the same poison-imbuing pagan magic as the serpent bow. Notice how the hilt is decorated with coiling serpents in a dull metal color.

Devourer’s Scepter

“Scepter in the shape of a serpent devouring the world. This weapon will one day become the very symbol of the Lord of Blasphemy. A vision of the future briefly seen by Rykard in his final moments before being devoured by the great serpent.”

I believe this weapon was crafted by the serpent cult as a premonition or a prophecy of their god that they had glimpsed, which Rykard himself glimpsed in his final moments. The description says the weapon “will one day become” his symbol, implying that it had existed long before him. We also know that this weapon can’t have been made after Rykard was devoured because, since we know that Tanith was “the only human to remain by his side when he became the serpent of blasphemy,” the only ones who could’ve created the weapon are the man-serpents — and as we’ll later see, the three weapons we know they created have a uniform design that’s entirely different from the Devourer’s Scepter. Lastly, the serpent depicted on the weapon does not have Rykard’s face, while his personal sigil does depict both his and the serpent’s head.

INQUISITION ERA

Now, we skip forward in time to the weapons created under Rykard’s tenure as Praetor, during which he enforced a brutal inquisition involving the imprisonment and torture of people most likely presumed to be heretics (ironically, this inquisition in the name of the Golden Order was itself physically built upon a hotbed of ancient heresy). We can distinguish the newer weapons from the ones of the serpent cult based on a few factors: they were made to be instruments of torture, they are decorated with loopy flourishes, and there should be no serpent imagery — I don’t believe that an Inquisition of the Golden Order would be using weapons decorated with snake imagery due to their society’s view of the serpent as a “traitor to the Erdtree,” especially because the previous heretical denizens of the volcano had been crafting weapons in the serpent’s image.

Inquisitor’s Girandole

“Instrument of torture used on nobles behind the curtain at the Volcano Manor of Mt. Gelmir. Its numerous spikes pierce the flesh, then singe the wounds with flame. The smell of burnt blood induces despair in the victim. A candlestick conceived by a thorough mind.”

Unfortunately, this is really the only example of a purely inquisition-era weapon in the game, but it is immediately noteworthy that there is no snake imagery here whatsoever. The loops and flourishes are consistent with other design work we see throughout Volcano Manor, such as on the mechanized metal bridge:

Ghiza’s Wheel

“Great iron wheel lined with flesh-flaying blades. Device of torture used by Inquisitor Ghiza. As the wheel spins it causes severe pain and blood loss. The design was adopted for use as the iconic weapon wielded by Iron Virgins.”

We know that Ghiza’s Wheel was created as a weapon of the inquisition. The wheel itself is also decorated with a loopy design, but the handle is interestingly covered in golden snakes. However, the description also reads that the design of the wheel was “adopted for use” on the iron virgins: the handle of the wheel matches the gold coiling snakes of the abductor virgins, so I propose that the special handle was added later on, when the iron virgins were likely created as machines of war for Rykard’s blasphemous crusade. Perhaps Ghiza worked on them too, and made adjustments to his wheel’s design himself?

WAR OF BLASPHEMY

When Rykard declared his treason against the Golden Order and the Erdtree, it’s likely he embraced the serpent as a symbol of his blasphemous intentions. For this reason, I theorize that Rykard only started actively using serpent imagery after his treason, which is also why we don’t see serpent imagery in the architecture and design of Volcano Manor itself.

Abductor Virgins

Looking at the abductor virgins, we see serpents throughout the design mixed with intricate swirls and flourishes, which in my opinion places their creation after Rykard's treason. We also don’t know for sure if they were created before or after Rykard fed himself to the great serpent, but I’m inclined to believe it was before: The iron maiden is a notorious real-world torture device, so it would make the most sense if Rykard’s own torturers had a hand in its creation, and we know that they had abandoned him after his devouring. It's also possible that they were altered after the fact by the man-serpents, however.

Magma Weapons of the Man-Serpents

After Rykard’s devouring and the subsequent birth of the man-serpents, we have a new subset of weapons that appear — all of these weapons make use of Rykard’s innovations in magma sorcery based on the old hexes of Mt. Gelmir. They are all made of filigreed gold and embedded with glintstone, and are created and wielded by the man-serpents.

Magma Blade

“Curved sword with a blade fashioned from the lava of Mt. Gelmir. An armament of the man-serpents, impossible for a human to have made.”

This description implies that this trio of magic weapons must have been created by the man-serpents, which makes sense as we know that Tanith was the only human left on the Volcano Manor’s staff. The man-serpents are clearly capable of forging complicated weapons.

Gelmir Glintstone Staff

“Staff with a forked tip, embedded with red glintstones. Enhances lava sorceries. The Man-Serpents of Mt. Gelmir draw from faith in addition to intelligence to enhance the potency of their sorcery.”

Again, this description identifies this as a weapon of the man-serpents, and tells us that they are adept sorcerers who have followed in Rykard’s footsteps. The design references a serpent’s forked tongue.

Magma Whip Candlestick

“This ritual implement is a three pronged candlestick with solid flames formed of the magma of Mt. Gelmir.”

Volcano Manor sure loves its candles!

Man-Serpent’s Shield

“Small copper dome-shaped roundshield carried by the man-serpents of Mt. Gelmir. Said to have been tempered in lava, it boasts great resistance to fire.”

This one isn’t technically a weapon, but it’s still worth examining. Notice the embedded gems and the bright gold snake imagery, consistent with other weapon designs of this era.

CONCLUSION

The art in this game is extremely deliberately designed, and it can tell the story beyond what just the words on the screen say. Many of the specific details are my own conjecture, but I think it’s quite clear that these weapons are consciously designed with similar features in order to place them within the game’s world and history.

#elden ring #elden ring lore #rykard #rykard lord of blasphemy #btw I didn’t include the blasphemous blade because I think it’s possible that rykard brought it with him to mt. gelmir #as opposed to creating it there #also let me know if I missed any weapons! there are so many

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idoodlestuffsometimes · 1 year

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DRAWING BACKGROUNDS: TIPS AND TRICKS

So many people are afraid of drawing backgrounds and I think it's a shame, so here's some tips and tricks, because I'm not perfect at it myself but I think the hardest part is really just knowing where to start.

First off: Perspective

Yeah, yeah, that's the scary word. But I promise you, once you're familiar with the basics, backgrounds are a LOT less intimidating. Don't get discouraged if WHEN you have trouble with it. Even professional artists struggle with it. I promise you, screwing it up is good and normal. That's how you learn after all!

Now I'm not going to go into detail on how to do it here, because honestly there are a thousand and one free resources online and in libraries that can explain it far better than I ever could in a singular broad-strokes tumblr post. But I AM at least telling you you should familiarize yourself with these basics:

Important Terms: Horizon Line: A horizontal line across your canvas, showing your viewer's eye level and providing a location for most of your vanishing points. Vanishing Point: Integral to drawing in perspective. The sides of a 3D object get smaller as they become farther away from the viewer in space. This point is where the parallel lines of a side eventually meet.

The Basic Types of Perspective: One Point Perspective: Good for drawing things that you're looking at straight on. Two Point Perspective: Good for drawing things at an angle. Three Point Perspective: Good for drawing things the viewer is looking up or down at, especially at an extreme angle.

[Click images for ALT descriptions]

And if you're comfortable with these and serious about improving your skills for use in storytelling, I also might suggest looking up:

4 Point Perspective: Great for extra wide or tall shots and for camera tilts if you're doing an animation or animatic. I think some other names for this in animation include "banana pan" and "warp pan."

5 Point Perspective: Fish-eye lens. Good for all your angsty anime boy slipping into madness needs!

Some perspective tips I wish someone had told me earlier:

Objects' relation to the horizon line is constant. A super helpful tip to remember when placing a character or object in space is that they will always (assuming they aren't changing in size or moving up or down) have the same relation to the horizon line no matter how far or close they are. If your horizon line is at shoulder height for your focus character in the foreground, any character of the same height in the background will still line up with the horizon line at the shoulders.

How to pick the distance between your vanishing points: 2 pt perspective uses 2 vanishing points, 3 pt uses 3, etc, etc, but how close should they be? Well, first of all, for anything that isn't one point perspective, one or more points will usually be off the canvas. Super annoying, I know, but the closer your vanishing points are, the more warped your drawing will become. Second, a helpful thing to know is that choosing the distance between your points is basically the illustration equivalent of picking your camera lens! Photography buffs will know that wider (shorter focal length) lenses show more space and make the distance between foreground and background more dramatic, while longer focal length/telephoto lenses are flatter, and more focused and intimate. The same is true of vanishing points that are closer (shorter focal length) or farther apart (longer focal length).

2 point/3 point/etc doesn't actually mean you're limited to that many points total on your page. this one confused me a lot when I was getting started, lol. A lot of examples will show you drawings of nice, neat cities or something, in which all the buildings are facing the same way in order to demonstrate perspective drawing. But in real life, buildings don't all face the same direction. They're at all sorts of different angles. So how do I do that??? Answer: Just because you're drawing in 2 point perspective or whatever doesn't mean you... have to actually keep your 2 points in the same spot. You can move them around, just keep them the same distance apart, so you're not screwing up your camera lens.

Other Tips:

Use reference! The instant you try to draw a house, you're going to forget every house you've ever seen. That's just how it goes. Buildings are complicated. Do yourself a favor and collect a few reference images first, buddy!

Consider details (like architectural style, amenities, and materials) Your building will look more like a building when you keep in mind that buildings have gutters and door knobs and light switches and paneling and stuff, and aren't just boxes with roofs on them. Again: reference! You will forget electrical sockets and baseboards exist immediately. Art brains are dumb.

Use details and texture to fill in negative space Giant stretches of blank space tend to be boring and distracting. Put a few suggestions of wood grain or something on that wall back there, bud, just don't overdo it.

Line weight Darker, thicker lines draw more attention, look heavier, and look closer to the viewer than lighter, thinner lines do. Take advantage of this to draw the viewer's attention to your focal points, de-emphasize less important details, and imply depth. It's up to you to decide how you want to use this and what your style is, especially once you start getting into combining or replacing it with shading, values, and color, but a helpful rule of thumb is to try reserving your thickest lines for focal foreground characters and use thinner lines on backgrounds, especially details in the far distance.

Perspective guides If you're drawing digitally, take full advantage of any perspective tools you have access to! A lot of art programs lately have begun adding perspective guide features that let you set up vanishing points and then literally guide your hand as you draw so you stay in perspective. Some of these include Procreate, Clip Studio Paint, and Adobe Fresco. (still sadly none in Photoshop as far as I'm aware, what the heck, Adobe!). Check through the settings of yours to see if it gives you any perspective guides or other similarly useful tools. They're 100% worth it! And for god's sake, if you've got any skew or perspective warp tools, draw your complicated shapes flat and then warp them instead of spending an hour on it! Don't make my mistakes!

#backgrounds #art tips #tutorial #art reference #drawing tips #perspective drawing #the owl house #hunter toh #doodle art #doodletext #rambling topic #yes i'm using my blorbo to demonstrate art tips what about it #this took longer than i meant it to lol. i got really into the examples #thank you for your patience guys #this turned out to be a GREAT exercise for me as an artist too actually. Trying to explain things is rlly good practice #I didn't even get into values and such. I can only ramble so much I'm afraid

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mezz-merizing · 10 months

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language, hypnotism, and you!

here in the Hypnokink Zone we tend to center our focus on inductions. and for good reason!! they're the purest form of hypnosis, the intentional induction of someone, an endeavour designed exclusively to take someone into trance. but what if we didn't want to do an induction, or even take someone into trance, but still have a hypnotic effect on them? as it turns out, this is extremely doable, and extremely cool!

if you've been here for a while now you might have seen this post from me, my first proper ramble about all this stuff, and you might remember that bit at the end, when i talk about just how hot i find the words "hypnotized" and "brainwashed" themselves, and how i sometimes just find myself repeating them over and over when i'm really feelin' it. i think that's a good representation of how just single words can fuck with our minds, and it's not just those two <3

so like, let's think for a second about what language actually is; we tend to take for granted the fact that we make air do silly tricks with our mouths and our throats in order to put ideas and concepts into other people's heads. really, a word isn't just a word- it's not just the funny shape that air takes on when you make just the right tongue movements, it's the idea that word actually is. and ideas are extremely powerful!! when you think of the word "brainwashed" you don't just think of the individual letters, you think of helpless subjects, spinning spirals, and complete, devoted obedience. and that has more effects on you than you might realise :3

sometimes people in the hypno sphere call this "neuro-linguistic programming" or "NLP" but that's kind of a misnomer, (actual NLP is a silly and weird pseudoscience largely invented by "pickup artists" to sell courses, so, y'know, i try and avoid the association) i prefer to just use "hypnotic language" because it's just as descriptive! the basis of hypnotic language is this: when you say words, you incept ideas into someone's head. if you have the skill, time, and familiarity with the person you're talking to, you can use this to control their thoughts nearly as effectively as if they were in trance!

a lot of this relies on what words mean the most to the individual you're talking to. let's take me as an example!! the word docile makes me fucking weak. it conjures up images of blank-face, calm-smile obedience, of gently nodding and going about the commands i'm given, of empty-headed servitude. the images it conjures in my head are vivid and hot as hell, and it's just a single word. use it a little bti around me, and you'll ensure i have all those thoughts swirling around in my head! thoughts of servitude. thoughts of enslavement. and so it comes naturally that i'd be easier to control <3

tone matters too! if you speak to someone authoritatively, they'll come to see you as an authority. even in tiny matters, insignificant ones, even in little ways- saying "hey, grab me a glass of water" is more authoritative than "hey, can you get me some water?" obviously, this is a double-edged sword! too much authority and you might give your intentions away, or just come off as kinda bossy, and that's more likely to make people actively resist you than let you in. once again, it's all about knowing your target! you gotta know what your subject's tolerances are for this kinda thing

take all this together, and you can have almost as much of a grip on someone's mind as you would if they were completely hypnotized :3 you break them down overtime, get them hanging on certain words, widen their tolerance for authority... and eventually, with a lot of effort and patience, they're yours. obedient to you- brainwashed, in all but process

can you imagine it? like, from the subject's perspective- being completely under someone's hypnotic control without ever having been hypnotized. maybe looking back at a long time ago and thinking "i sure acted different then", but not worrying about it at all. you're a thrall, and as far as you're concerned, that's just who you are!! that's just kind of how the world works

i dunno about you but i can't imagine a fate i'm more desperate for <3

#hypnosis #brainwashing #hypnotism #mind control #mind conditioning #hypnok1nk #hypnoslut #covert hypnosis

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kaiowut99 · 3 months

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youtube

A Special Announcement~ | Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V Tag Force Special Re-Translation Project!

I've been itching to get around to posting about this for a few months now, but wanted to wait until I'd worked on enough for it, but also had the idea to create an announcement trailer to go with it for added good measure--after recording and editing clips for a couple weeks and leveling the audio last night, heremst we are! (For some clips, I forgot to turn off the PPSSPP emulator's DevMenu option so that shows up in the top-left, buuut I didn't feel like re-recording those, lmao.)

Details worth reading below the cut here, but tl;dr work has been in progress for over a year in between things, work will continue to be in progress for a while, and the release will happen when everything's ready, but stay tuned, fun's getting started etc etc~

So, I'm sure most of us are familiar with the as-yet-unlocalized-by-Konami TFSP, the seventh and last entry in the Tag Force series on the PSP that came out early in ARC-V's run (featuring the first five series which was a cool first), as well as the current translations out there originally worked on by the guys at XenoTranslations (omarrrio and ScrewTheRules/ClickClaxer01 at GBATemp handling the card and story/etc translations, respectively) and how there are... some issues with what's out there. Everything from the DM story mode being loaded with YGOTAS references (no shade to YGOTAS and much respect to LK/Martin for his ongoing work on it still making me laugh sometimes, ofc) to the off-the-cuff edginess of 2014-2015-era internet culture and the problematic (in some cases, derogatory) language that permeated it--though to its credit, some parts do have some level of translation attempted, but taken as a whole, it can definitely turn people off from giving the game a try and seeing what it brings to the table (which is still a good amount despite the corners Konami cut here/there compared to prior TF games).

I actually did attempt a translation of my own back in 2015 (if you've been following me for a long time, you might remember it lol), tackling the GX story text starting with Judai's heart events, but eventually put it on the backburner as I focused more on my GX subbing work and beginning to finalize everything (which I'm still doing). Sometime in 2022, a friend over on NeoArkCradle (the "anonymous YGO fan" in the opening screen) was poring over the story text and patching it up the best he could to remove the references and inaccuracies with more coherent work, and after a while of seeing what he was working with in the Discord, I was a bit blown away by just how inaccurate much of it was--so alongside him, and using the better tools available since then (including some really awesome work from both nzxth2 [who did a proper re-translation of 5D's TF6 not too long ago and was kind enough to release his tools for it] and our coding helper Xan1242 who we eventually reached out to for some help), I decided to *cracks knuckles* get involved and help give everything a more accurate and professional translation, much like I do with my GX subs, working directly off the Japanese text and files. I've been taking cracks at everything in between the GX episodes I've been finalizing going back to at least last January (and I'd used my little hiatus after finalizing GX Season 2's subs to really get at some other stuff throughout the game), starting with re-translating DM's story text but also properly translating other aspects of the game, from the character names (using the original Japanese names, including those of the TF-exclusive characters, partly since Konami made a whole mess of them in English TF1-5), in-duel dialogue, pack descriptions, and more to images with Japanese text (such as localizing the in-duel cut-in onomatopoeia as you see in the video above, or other little images throughout) using some Photoshop skills I've picked up. And it's been a joint effort, as said NAC friend and I have been bouncing off how we'd like to see this go between us to stay on the same page and all, while also checking with other translators there for second/third opinions as needed.

Our plan is to release two versions of a translation--one which uses the OCG [translated] card names in Story Mode, in-duel, and other text but not in the game's card system (mainly to deal with story-relevant notes like Osiris vs Slifer with the Gods or things like not-Utopia Hope being symbolic between Yuma and Astral, akin to how I do my GX subs), and one which uses the TCG card names in everything (like how the official subs go about it). While we're mostly working with the Japanese game files due to how the Xeno team went about decoding everything, we'll be using the card-system-related files from the fixed ISO provided by FLSGaming which fixed some issues that had been present there. And Xan has helped us with a plugin that will be used to apply our translations to the system files that were hard to edit otherwise (things like the character and recipe names, as well as the pack names pulled from for the Card Description screen), but more on how that'll work once this is ready for release, lol. At some point, I'd like to also look at HDifying textures and things, but that's definitely a bonus-level thing for after the main work here is done.

SO.

Currently, Story-Mode-wise, I've gone through everything up to Yusei's events--so Dark Yugi/Kaiba/Jounouchi/Ishizu/Mai in DM, Judai/Manjoume/Asuka/Misawa/Ryou in GX, and Yusei in 5D's have been fully retranslated, though I took initial cracks at Yuma and Yuya's events to get content for this video lol (I've also been intentionally holding off on as much ZEXAL as I can until I've properly watched the whole show so I have context). I haven't tackled overworld text yet, though (like pre-duel or the tournament-related text, which is all in the same file as all the story text). I've also been handling the in-duel dialogue as I go through the character stories, so also just up to Yusei, though I did take initial cracks at Aki's, Yuma and Shark's, and Yuya and Yuzu's for the video.

Other things tackled that were sprinkled into the video, along with some other notes:

Pack names and descriptions have been retranslated, though the descriptions may see minor edits closer to release for a little variety between worlds given the different characters at the shop. Character recipe names were also retranslated, with Yugipedia's translations for them used as an occasional second opinion, though ones based on pack names had to be abbreviated in spots.

Menu text, from the Options to Help screens and stuff in between, has been retranslated, as have in-duel text strings (so, you'll see a full "Activate Effect" instead of "Activate" or "Switch to Attack/Defense Position" instead of "Switch to ATK/DEF Position", etc--also fixed the "BATTELE PHASE" graphic typo, and NAC friend created a new translation for the "Turn Change" graphic for accuracy since ENG TF1-5 made that into "Next Player's Turn").

Database stuff, such as the Sound Test, Tutorials, Duel Missions, etc., have been retranslated closer to the Japanese text; originally I retranslated the Tutorial text via hex editor, with compromises done on quite a bit of it due to the space limits, but as Xan recently updated a text extractor tool of theirs to more cleanly pull out and reinsert that text, I've been going through and fleshing out those translations more (on my commutes to/from work mostly, to be productive lol).

As mentioned, I've been localizing/translating Japanese-text images throughout the game as I come across them, like with the in-duel onomatopoeia that come up during cut-ins or images in the shop/duel/etc screens using Japanese text, to make sure the game is fully translated.

The series logos, used during the title sequence and in the Series Select screens, were updated with translated fan edits shared on Deviantart (which we'll credit in the final release) for DM and GX, while the 5D's-ARC-V logos were edited to enlarge the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" text on them that was pretty hard to see originally.

The game's original opening sequence starts on an anti-piracy message before going into the Konami logo and then a "From Yu-Gi-Oh!..." screen before the opening animation for each series logo--the original team decided to use the first image to vent their frustration at Konami for not localizing this game, and while that's valid (to some extent), we thought we'd use the opportunity to dedicate this project to Kazuki Takahashi for inspiring our love for YGO and the place it's had in our hearts for all these years.

We'll be updating the names of cards that had TCG releases after the original patch was worked on/updated by FLSG to those corresponding names.

Xan has been working on many UI fixes for us to apply with this, among them 3-line dialogue box text as is used in the ENG TF1-5 games--once implemented for TFSP, I'll be going over everything to make full use of that extra space where needed, so things might not look as they do in the video by then.

Character bios will be worked on after I've done the story stuff, though I've taken initial cracks at it for Yuma and Yuya's bios for the video, along with translating the location/affiliation names ("Domino High School," "Satellite," etc).

Currently no release date is planned, as I'm working on this between my GX-finalizing work and actual IRL work, though we'll see how later this year looks as more work gets done--but as noted in the video, all things being equal, it will be released when everything is ready. I'll try to post regular updates or rambles now that this announcement's been made, lol, but do try not to constantly check in on a release date. 🙏🏽

All that said, I think that covers just about everything I wanted to put out there with this, lol. It's been fun to work on this so far and getting to see what I've re-translated in-game is definitely neat; looking forward to us being able to release everything when ready.

Stay tuned for more; the fun's just getting started!

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transhuman-priestess · 9 months

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Lesson

A short story, by Ivy Michaels.

The following story contains a graphic depiction of surgery, with all the drugs and violence involved. It also includes graphic descriptions of pain. That is, in fact, the idea behind writing it.

And yes, this is smut.

“You know, dear, you’ve been such a good pupil these last few weeks.” Her voice comes to me through the curtain. I hear the click-clack of her heels on the linoleum floor, making an off-beat rhythm with the beeps and hums of monitors and pumps. She draws closer, and continues, “I think we’ve worked enough on theory, it’s time to move on to your practical lessons.”

The curtain is drawn back and I open my bleary eyes to see her. She’s dressed in the uniform she always wears. Rubberized olive drab canvas, sleeves pulled over the gloves, all seams taped over. Her face is mostly obscured by a surgical mask. Her hair is tied up under a paper hair net, though I can see a few strands of raven hair. All this despite the hood she wears with the clear face plate. I think she likes hiding her face from me, she’s never let me see it. Not all of it, not all at once.

“My darling,” she says, as kind and bubbly as ever, “you did so well on your nephrology unit last week, that I thought I’d give you a little treat!”

Images flash in my head. A slideshow of dissections. Parts of organs labeled. Ureter, renal artery, nephrons.

“Ah!” she says, approvingly, “I see you remember well!”

This is how it always is. She always knows what I’m thinking. I don’t know how that works. I have vague memories of sitting in a chair with my head in a device to immobilize it, but I can’t remember if that was a dream or an actual procedure. Memories are like that here. I know I haven’t been here long, but it feels like forever.

“I know you don’t understand, honey,” her voice falls to a gentle coo, “but don’t worry, I promise you will, eventually.”

I don’t mind it here, really. She’s very sweet to me. She teaches me things about myself I never knew. The other day, I think, she showed me where the vagus nerve is. I had forgotten what the bones in my palm are called, so she showed me how easily I could be disabled simply by applying a small electric shock to that nerve. The name of the bones was “metacarpals”.

That might seem harsh but she means well. Not in the sense that I’m rationalizing, either. I may not be able to remember why I’m here, but I sense that I am here by choice. I know it in my core It is, in fact, the only thing I know for certain.

“So, dear, are you ready?” she asks, “I’ve prepped room #5. The one with the seafoam green tile. I know it’s your favorite."

I hardly have to think about an affirmation. The bed thunks beneath me as she releases the brakes and begins rolling me into the hallway. One of the few things I recall from my time outside is this sensation, when I was very small, of being rolled through a hospital corridor on a cot. I can’t remember why I was there.

We turn a corner and my eyes come to rest on a pair of two-way doors, steel painted beige, with thin sheets of stainless to protect the doors from the impact of a gurney. Small windows of reinforced glass. The doors swing open and the cart jolts with the transfer of momentum.

Inside there are three other figures, all dressed identically to her, save for tinted, opaque faceplates. They are standing off to the side. Sometimes, they observe closely, sometimes they aren’t present at all, but always they listen to her commands, and never do they touch me without her explicit instructions. It makes me feel safe, knowing that she is the one in charge.

“Alright, dear, hold still while we move you to the table.” She grabs me by the shoulders, gently cradling me. One of the other figures grasps my legs, and together they move me onto the operating table. A second figure connects an IV line to the port in my arm. There’s a large mirror on the ceiling, so that I can observe.

“For this one, dear, you have a choice. Would you like the pain, or no?”

I want the pain. I always want the pain.

“Very well then. Paralytic only.” She nods to one of the figures, who hangs the appropriate bag on a hook above the table.

“Flex your fingers, dear.” She commands. I comply. After a few seconds I experience the sensation, curious as always, of being unable to move. An electric thrill of anticipation flies through me. It is almost time.

She unbuttons my gown, starting from the top, exposing first my breasts, then my stomach, and finally my groin. “Oh!” she says, “someone’s excited.” Of course I am. She’s never taken off my whole gown. This is something special.

“Oh,” she says, “I almost forgot, we’ll need to intubate.” One of the trio of assistants wheels over a cart with a ventilator. She takes a tube from it and tilts my head back, ever so sweetly. I feel the tube go down my throat, down past the epiglottis, my body trying to fight but finding itself disarmed by the paralytic. For ever so brief a moment I cannot breathe, and then I feel the beautiful sensation of air returning into my lungs.

“You did so well. I’m so proud of you!” she praises me as she applies tape hold the breathing tube in place.

“You know, this hood is very warm.” She says, and reaches up to unzip the hood from her suit. This is new. She hands the hood to one of the assistants, before bending down next to my ear and whispering, “I’m so proud of you.” And then she kisses me on the forehead, through her mask.

Standing back upright she says, “Okay, I’m going to make an incision…here.” she traces a line gently with her finger, from my sternum down, around my navel, ending at my pubic bone. “Are you ready?”

I am so ready that, if not for the paralytic, I think I might sob. She looks at me through the overhead mirror. I can see her smile through the surgical mask. “Very well then.”

She presses the scalpel to my flesh. Just a light pressure at first. Then, a stinging, and finally the burning, electric sensation of nerve endings being torn from their neighbors. It is the most incredible, all-consuming feeling. I can feel my brain trying desperately to force my limbs to push her away, to run from the room. I don’t want to, but I cannot, by myself, suppress the survival instinct. I feel tears well up in my eyes and flow down my cheeks.

“Very, very good.” she tells me, reaching up and stroking my hair. “You’re doing so well. Now, let’s see if you can tell me the names of everything in here.”

And gently, ever so tenderly, she slips her hand into my abdomen. I can’t remember what sex feels like, but I’m sure it doesn’t even come close to this. Knowing she’s so close to me is intoxicating. I feel her hand touch my small intestine.

“Very good!” she says, as she works her way up, to my stomach.

“That’s right” before moving on to my liver.

“That’s three for three! Very good!” the warmth in her voice fills my heart with joy. She’s so gentle. The pain is incredible, but it feels so good, because I know she’s the one causing it. I know she loves me, and I love her.

“Moving further down,” she continues, pulling her hand out, much to my disappointment. “Oh dear, don’t worry, I’ll be right back in in one moment”

And once again she plunges into my abdomen. The white-hot fire of the incision has faded slightly to merely red-hot smoldering. I feel her touch my sigmoid colon. “Excellent.”

Her hand moves to my left kidney. “Very good!”

I feel her grasp my bladder. “Perfect.”

She sighs, “It’s a shame I can’t reach your prostate from here, love.” A laugh.

“But that will be for later.” She stands and looks at one of the assistants. “Okay, sew her back up. Be gentle.” She must sense my disappointment, though, because she turns back to me. “Oh don’t worry, my dear, there’s one more thing left.”

It takes a while for the assistant to finish closing the incision in my abdomen. Time moves strangely in here, so I couldn’t say how long. By this point my body has numbed the incision area all on its own, leaving only the faint pulling and tugging of the sutures to be sent to my brain.

She walks back over and stands at the foot of the table. “You did so well there. I’m so proud of you. As a reward for how well you’ve done so far in your lessons, I’m going to perform one last procedure today.”

And with her most gentle touch yet, she pulls my legs to either side. “I know how much these bother you.” For a moment I panic, but she’s quick to reassure me. “Oh, not your legs, hon.” And it clicks.

“I’m going to cut right here.” she traces a line down the center of my scrotum. “And you’ll be rid of these forever.”

I feel the cold steel of the scalpel press in. The faint sting followed by the roaring thunder of pain. That high, heady feeling of endorphins rushes in again. I feel her, very faintly, reaching in and grabbing my right testicle.

"So, I know you hate these things. I hated mine, too.” She squeezes, hard, sending yet another rush of pain up and into my abdomen. “So I figured, why not simply take them away?” I feel the odd sensation of cold steel on my vas deferens. “Are you ready?”

I am.

I feel, for the briefest moment, a zing of pain and then the loss of signal that indicates a part of my body was severed. I feel her tying off the end.

“That’s one down. Time for the other.” Another hard squeeze on my left. “You’re taking this all so well! I’ll be sure to reward you when you’ve healed.” That same zing, that same loss of signal. I feel tears welling up. Not tears of pain, but joy, and love. I feel the repeated sting and tug and sting and tug as she sutures me back up.

“Okay love,” she says, at my side now, stroking my hair. “we’re going to push the painkillers now, and bring you out of the paralysis.” And with that, I feel the rush and the heady fuzz of opioids entering my system, the relief washing over me like a cool shower on a hot summer day.

“I want you to flex your fingers. Just keep flexing them.”

At first I can’t. I try and I try. But slowly, I start to feel them twitching, and after not too long I feel myself able to make a weak fist.

“Very good. You’re such a good girl.” Before I can say or even think anything, she reaches up, and removes first her cap, and then her hair tie. A shoulder-length crop of raven curls falls out. And then, to my amazement, she reaches up to her ear and removes the mask.

I see her face for the first time. I’m able to take in her sculpted jaw, her chin. She has a beauty spot on her right cheek. Her green eyes fill with warmth and, for the first time, I see her smile. “Let’s get that tube out.” She removes the tape on the tube. “Okay, I need you to take a deep breath. On three, I want you to exhale as hard as you can. One, two, three!” I blow and the tube slides out. I cough quite a bit.

Rather uncharacteristically, she tosses the tube aside. “You did so good today babe.” She comes in close, leaning over me, and our lips meet. Her kiss is so soft, so tender. I’m so lucky to have her. After what might be hours, or maybe no time at all, she pulls away.

Shakily, with a voice that hasn’t seen use in a long time, I say, “Thank you, Teacher.”

#Ivy Michaels Writing

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