#like when your subject moves in multiple directions or there are multiple subjects

[napoleon-usher]

KEYFRAME TUTORIAL FOR THOSE WITH A WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF PHOTOSHOP AND GIFMAKING

This is my gif with the coloring I want it to have eventually (including the manipulated color). I changed the yellows and reds in the scene to be purple. I want the majority of the gif to be purple and cyan, but do not want it to be on her skin.

First add a layer mask to the adjustments that are creating the color you want to remove. I used several layers to create the purple coloring, so I grouped them together and added the layer mask to the group instead of having to do them individually. In this case, I erased anywhere the purple was on her skin.

She is walking away in this scene, so this layer mask alone is not enough. This is where keyframes come in.

In the timeline window, scroll to the layer that your layer mask is on (or in my case, group). On the far left side, each of the layers should have an arrow which toggles a drop down menu. Click it and it will list options for Opacity, Layer Mask Position, and Layer Mask Enable. Make sure the current time indicator (small blue arrow and red vertical line in the timeline window) is positioned at 00:00:00 and then select the clock icon next to Layer Mask Position. It should place a small yellow diamond at the same place as the indicator. Each successive move of the mask will place a grey diamond at the timestamp that you move it.

CMD+click on the layer mask in the Layers window so that the area of the mask becomes outlined with a dotted line in the main workspace. Click the chain icon next to the layer mask in the Layers window to unlock the mask's movement.

The next steps are the most tedious. You have to manually move the layer mask every few frames to a new position that follows the movement of the gif. I usually zoom the timeline in so that each second is broken into six sections and pick a new layer mask position at approximately each section. If there is more rapid movement in the gif, you may have to pick new positions at more frequent intervals and vice versa.

After the initial layer mask is set at the 00:00:00 point in the timeline, select the next interval that you want the layer mask to move to. Do this by moving the time indicator to your chosen point. Now with the move tool, click within the layer mask and drag it to where it needs to be to keep coverage on your desired area. The longer/more frames in the gif, the more keyframe points you will have to select. This gif was about 2.5 seconds long and I used 14 different points.

These are just a few of the keyframes I made on this gif. You can see here that the original area that I erased in the layer mask doesn't quite cover all of her skin throughout the movement. I just erase a bit more until I'm satisfied with the coverage.

Once you have mapped all the points out, deselect the mask area and click the blank space where the chain icon was to make it reappear and return the mask to a locked position.

Scrub through the gif to make sure that the mask covers everything you want and also that the keyframes make it move smoothly. Shorter intervals and minor position changes between keyframes usually keeps choppiness (this normally presents as the mask noticeably jumping to a new position) to a minimum. You should not be able to notice the mask's movement except in the way it removes color from specific areas as intended.

Export and save the gif as normal.

This is my finished result:

#userfanni #omgari #usersunny #userbells #userkraina #tuserabbie #tusergabriela #useroli #userangelic #supervalcsi #userphe #keyframes #*tutorial #tagging a couple of you who have been like ‘how tf did you make this’ on sets that i used this technique hope you dont mind #idk how coherently this reads or if it even explains it well enough but feel free to ask for clarification #there are also other keyframe tutorials on here that are written much better so check those out too if mine doesnt make sense #but yeah this is how i make my vibrant gifs that have movement in them #i'm going to make a tutorial explaining the actual coloring process too eventually #might make a part two of this explaining how to use this method for more complicated movements #like when your subject moves in multiple directions or there are multiple subjects #riah.gif #riah.txt

[blacktabbygames]

Slay the Princess Concept Art

We shared a bunch of concept art on Twitter today. Sharing it here, too, where you can find it all in one post. Post contains spoilers, so proceed with caution (or just play the game already if you haven't 😉)

Going to start with the first piece of concept art Abby drew for the game.

In the earliest stages of development, we toyed around with the concept of there being multiple "end game" forms of the Princess.

The initial outline, rather than being tied together by an overarching metanarrative, structured a full playthrough as a 5-6 chapter long, self-contained journey down a single route, determined by your decisions in chapter 1. Here's an alternative late-game form:

The idea of deviating end-game forms didn't lost for very long, though. As we explored the game's themes more deeply, it made the most sense for there to be a singular "true" form.

If your reality is shaped by subjectivity and perception, then the "truth" has to be what's left when that subjectivity is swept away. the Shifting Mound's final design feels like that initial truth for the Princess, though there's also another truth if you push back against her and press on into the final cabin.

We really liked this "void" design, and I played around with the idea of it being an intermediary to the final form. The "void" Princess would be what you saw upon encountering the final Princess without understanding your own truth, but once you had that understanding, you would see her as the Shifting Mound, as depicted in the game.

That gave way to the intermediary design of the SM being a sea of disembodied limbs, and we also took parts of both designs and incorporated them into the protagonist (particularly the wings.) You can see the eyes and feathers for this void form in the ending card of the original trailer below:

You can see extremely early concept art for the spectre (top), nightmare (top-right), stranger (left), beast (bottom) and ??? (right) as well!

The eyes became a motif in the Nightmare route (Paranoid's manifestation of the fear of being watched), but I also like to think of them as a part of The Long Quiet's truth. You are space and emptiness, but you're also that which observes those things, and it's your perceptions that give the Shifting Mound shape.

Anyways, on the note of the original original concepts for the game, the Princess was initially going to remain human for several loops before taking on more monstrous forms. Some concepts of that are below. Had to get Abby to tone down some of the more horrifically cartoonish designs because they creeped me out and I didn't want to romance them in a video game.

We had to hold our cards close to our chest in the non-metanarrative early drafts, which is part of why, even in the first demo, the cabin doesn't really change much in chapter 2. More room to subtly play with the concept of transformation over time.

There were a lot of reasons we moved in a different direction for the full release. The branching was unmanageably large to write, and the game felt like a slog to write.

Using an overarching narrative as a framing mechanism in the final version gave us a lot more freedom to explore wildly divergent ideas within routes while still driving the player towards the originally planned finale.

Anyways, now we've got some concept art for individual princesses. There's a lot more than this lying around somewhere, but it's all in sketchbooks, and we'll probably wait until we make an art book to show it off.

First is the tower, who really didn't change much at all. (She got a little thicker, I guess. All of the Princesses did)

Not a lot to say about her, other than the fact that we knew we wanted a set piece where she gets so big that the trees and cabin orbit around her.

The stranger went through many many redesigns over the course of development. Here, she was a "princess skin" filled with a hive of sentient bugs. The script wasn't working for me, though, so instead she became a peak behind the curtains without the necessary context to know her.

A lot of people ask how these earlier drafts of the Stranger route would have played out, and the answer is I can't tell you, because I couldn't figure out something worth writing.

The writing process for individual routes didn't really start with outlines or plot beats. Rather, the routes started from a theme and a relationship dynamic, and I organically found their outcomes by exploring actions within those themes, and then seeing if those passed Abby's editor brain.

Neither of us found actions we wanted to explore with those versions of the Stranger, at least actions that weren't a beat-by-beat retelling of chapter 1, which contained way too much variation to put on a single chapter 2 route.

If each princess examines a relationship formed by perception and first impressions, the Stranger examines one that's fundamentally unknowable. One where you've seen too much, too quickly.

An insect hive-mind pretending to be a person seemed like a good starting point, but it was too difficult to write any interactions that didn't immediately feel knowable, if still strange. So the final version of the Stranger was designed in such a way where her unknowability makes interacting with her on a human level fundamentally impossible, and you don't get to have a real conversation with her unless you satisfy extremely specific criteria.

Anyways next up is the razor's final form. We decided she needed more swords.

Hearts became an accidental motif very quickly in the development process, too. (The fact that it is only strikes to the heart that fell her in the demo was accidental, but it felt poetic so we extended it to the rest of the game.)

So on top of adding more swords, we made her heart visible. This is something we did with the fury as well, as a way of showing their emotional (and physical) vulnerability.

Here's an early version of the Adversary and what would eventually become the Eye of the Needle, back when she was still called the Fury. Originally her hair was going to be fire (as seen on the right), but it didn't feel right in its execution.

She's hit the gym since this concept art. Good for her :)

And we're going to end with the Beast, who at this point was called the Adversary. I think this was before the Witch was added? The Beast was originally designed to be a Questing Beast who lurked in the shadows, where you'd only see glimpses of her, and where each glimpse would make her appear to be a different animal. This was too difficult to execute, though we gave her a more chimera-like appearance in the final game.

This design was from when we still has the Voice of the Obsessed, and the route was going to be a more feral mirror of what eventually became the Adversary, but it felt too thematically similar while being less interesting, so we moved in the direction of making the Beast about consumption as a form of love.

Anyways, that's all we've got for you right now. Hope this was fun!

#slay the princess #interactive fiction #character design

[xxsabitoxx]

Pale Blue [Part One]

Geto Suguru x AFAB Pregnant Reader

READ PART TWO HERE

Warnings: THIS FIC IS CANON COMPLIANT, if you are not caught up on Jujutsu Kaisen's manga, or at the very least if you have not seen "gojo's past" you WILL be spoiled. This story contains darker themes, heavier topics, pregnancy and all the lovely details of it, and lastly explicit sexual content. Read at your own risk!

A/N: Here it is!! Part One!! This fic is super self indulgent for me and I'm very excited for y'all to read it. The idea literally came to me in a dream like a month ago and I woke up and immediately started writing. It's been a long ass time since I've written a plot heavy fic, and it's been well over a year since I've actively planned a multiple part story and gone through with it. So, this fic is kinda like... my baby lol.

Word Count: 19k | Playlist

September 2007

Your mouth felt like chalk, hands trembling ever so slightly as you set the small wand on the countertop in your bathroom. You couldn't think straight, but that unfortunately wasn’t anything new, it had been that way for the last three weeks. Ever since he left, you had felt like your head was stuck in a fishbowl. People eyeing you with pity at the world you had been dropped into, their whispers muffled into incoherent nonsense as you walked by. Satoru was no better off, but he could at least tug his emotions off of his sleeves and place them in his heart where nobody could see them, except for you. At least you would be able to see them if he didn’t shut you out. 

Not that you had been any kinder, you had withdrawn too. 

The only one who seemed alright was Shoko, her reaction to Suguru’s deflection was nothing out of character. Not many things could shock her to her core, even something as absurd as what Suguru had done couldn’t wipe the gentle smile from her face when she saw him again. You envied her for that level of composure. You envied her for getting to see him again, just as you envied Satoru. For some reason, the man evaded you as if you were the plague. Or perhaps it looked like you were merely chasing after a ghost, a figment of your imagination. You kind of wished that it was true, that Geto Suguru had been someone you conjured up in your mind. 

But he wasn’t, he was a real, breathing human who had taken over one hundred lives…. Including his parents. The thought made your mouth taste like metal, everytime you zoned out too long and thought too hard, you’d bite your inner cheek until it bled. Three weeks later you still felt like you were moving on autopilot, the only thing that could pull you out of it would be his gentle embrace. You blinked a bit, the metallic taste coating your tongue as you unclench your jaw and look in the mirror. You hardly recognize yourself, for a moment  you think you look just like him, and it's enough to steal the little air you had in your lungs. 

You had never thought you'd experience a heartbreak as severe as this one, and you especially didn’t think it would be dealt to you by Suguru. Though you saw all of the signs, the hundreds if not thousands he put out and never let you touch. No, his cries for help were always directed at Satoru. The white haired man never seemed to catch them, and if he did, he never said a thing. Suguru had refused to acknowledge his issues when he was with you, no matter how many times you tried to sit him down and get it out. He’d change the subject and move on. 

He’d sweet-talk you, making you forget why you had been so concerned in the first place because there, for a fleeting moment, was the boy you had fallen in love with two years prior. He’d fill your mind with nothing but good things, pretty noises, good feelings. Not stopping until his name was all you could utter, not stopping until you fell asleep in his arms, content and sedated. He was a master at avoidance, trying so hard to keep things perfect just for you. You were beginning to hate him for it, but even the idea of hating him made bile burn your throat. 

You were left in emotional turmoil, love mixing with hate mixing with rage and depression. No matter how many times the word hate flashed through your mind, it was never truly directed at Suguru. Rather the jujutsu world, the things they had forced upon him, the pressure he had been made to feel. You especially felt that bubbling hate for a certain man by the name of Fushiguro Toji, who caused this whole spiral. He was long gone now, Satoru had effectively put the man down and he would not be getting back up. Though it killed you to no end that he got the easy way out. You almost wished that Satoru had kept the man alive. 

You couldn’t stomach it as your back pressed into the cold wall of your bathroom, arms folded over your chest as you stared at nothing in particular. Eyes refusing to focus on anything of importance but making a point to avoid the developing test on the counter. 

Suguru had left you a note, shortly after his final conversation with Satoru. You had returned to your dorm to see it on your bed and you recognized his handwriting before you even read your name on the envelope. You could still feel your hands trembling as you ripped the paper, flinching as it cut your skin, crumbling as tears dripped down your cheeks. You read it three times before finally comprehending the words, the paper littered with tear drops and your blood. Every word was written with care, you could hear his voice as your eyes passed over each sentence, see his face before you as if he was speaking. 

It was an apology, his resolve and a goodbye all in one. Leaving you more empty than you had felt before. Still, it sat on your nightstand, you couldn’t throw it away. As if his sweaters weren’t still hanging in your closet, like the blanket he got you wasn’t still sitting on your bed. You held onto that letter like it was the last thing you had of him. Mourning him as if he had died, like he wasn’t still alive and breathing and walking around within the very city you were in now. You almost thought it would be easier if he had died. At least you’d feel some sort of closure, knowing he’s not coming back. But this, this was a form of torture for you. 

To know that you could bump into him at a restaurant, or even pass him on a busy street. He wasn’t gone, if anything he was doing better than he ever was. Leaving you, Satoru, Shoko, and everyone else behind to pick up the shattered pieces. Still, you couldn’t hate him for that. No amount of anger would mend the torn pieces of your broken heart. You were fairly certain nothing would, the only cure was the one man you could no longer call your own. You’d spend the rest of your life with your heart ripped wide, an empty void filling the space. 

You inhaled deeply, pushing off the bathroom wall and taking a hesitant step towards the counter. The test was upside down, you couldn’t see the small little window that would show you the results, for a moment you wanted to pick it up and throw it in the trash without even looking. There was nothing stopping you from doing so either, but you held back anyways. The only reason you were taking a pregnancy test in the first place was because your period was two weeks late. You could easily chalk it up to stress, but at the same time you knew all too well that you and Suguru often went without protection. Idiot. 

Somehow, despite his inner battles, Suguru’s sex drive never slowed down. Maybe it was the craving for physical touch or maybe sex was a great way for him to forget about his issues for a while. Regardless, you had always been eager to oblige, even if it meant falling into his traps and luring your attention away from the real issue at hand. You had no idea how long it had been and if the damn thing was positive you were sure it would show up by now. So you picked it up and flipped it over in your hand, tired eyes scanning it. Your forehead creased for a moment, eyes squinting in frustration because you couldn’t tell if there was a second line or not. 

If it’s positive, it's too early to tell. Your grip tightens around the small plastic test, anger flooding your heart as you chuck it in the trash can with such force it rattles as it hits the wall. Once again you are left with uncertainty. It seemed nobody could give you a straight answer anymore. Truth be told, you weren’t sure what you wanted that test to say. The thought of being pregnant with his child would have elated you two months ago. Now the thought made your insides twist and turn, for a moment you thought you were going to puke again. At the very same time, the idea of the test being negative felt like a rug being pulled out from under you. 

As if you didn’t know that feeling well enough. 

In a twisted way, you thought that being pregnant would bring him back to you. As if it would erase every heinous crime he had committed and bring the man you loved back into your arms. You were foolish, but not foolish enough to really believe in those daydreams. You hauled yourself out of your bathroom and back into your dorm room, falling into your disheveled bed with a soft thump. His t-shirt was hanging loosely on your body, it still smells faintly of him. It’s the only shirt of his that you’d been wearing, too afraid to lose his scent on the others. 

It was still early enough for you to sleep for a few more hours before Shoko was knocking on your door and hauling you into the world. You hated it, but she assured you that you’d thank her for it in a couple months. You doubted it, and for some reason you felt like she did too. 

Your sleep was dreamless, it had been since Suguru left you. You weren’t quite sure if you were thankful for that or not. Suguru was still the last thing you thought about before falling asleep and the first thing you thought of when you woke up. His absence consumed your every thought, impossible to ignore, unable to forget. There had been a few tough nights where you dragged yourself down the hall towards Satoru’s room. The man was usually still up, sitting on his bed with a book in hand that you could tell he wasn’t reading. Just an attempt at distraction. 

He welcomes you without a word, scooting over a bit so you could sit beside him, head on his shoulder as he tosses the book to the floor. You remain like that until you fall asleep, no words spoken but nothing needed to be verbalized to understand you were both mourning the loss of a man who wasn’t even dead. In an odd way, you felt as if you were mourning Satoru as well. His smile, his jokes, the way his eyes seemed to sparkle, all of those things had dwindled. To his credit, he was managing to pull himself back together, at least better than you had been. 

A harsh knock at your door signaled that Shoko was there. You hadn’t even realized that you fell asleep, but you felt even more groggy than you had a couple hours prior. “I’m up.” It’s hoarse and unconvincing but you hear Shoko utter a small “ok”. You know she’s still there, she always waits for you to get dressed and emerge from your room yourself. If you make her wait any longer than fifteen minutes she's usually barging in herself to pull you from your bed. Your body aches as you sit up, stumbling across the room to the bathroom because you need to pee yet again. 

The air almost feels stale as you get your routine done in the bathroom, the test is still sitting in the small can beside your sink. It’s presence is heavy, to the point you question if you should take it out with you despite only having a couple tissues accompanying it. You decided against it when she knocked again. “Just getting dressed.” You mumbled softly, listening for her small “Hmph.” At least letting you know she heard you. Your uniform still felt foreign on your skin, it had for the last three weeks but you tried to ignore it. “About time.” Shoko smiled as you emerged, Satoru beside her. “Oh? You’re both here?” Your tone was questioning but not mad. 

“Yeah, Yaga said we should take the day to be normal or something like that.” Satoru drawled, circular glasses sliding down his nose as he rolled his eyes. “Us? Normal?” You snorted, pulling your door shut as Shoko began walking down the hallway. “He just doesn’t know what to do with us at the moment.” Satoru offered in a low tone, Shoko would scold him for speaking like that, especially to you. The thing is, he wasn’t saying anything that you hadn’t already thought of yourself. “I don’t know what to do with us either.” You could assume Yaga was being vigilant, the guilt of not seeing what was happening with Suguru was weighing on him too. 

The flick of Shoko’s lighter was heard as you stepped into the morning air, laughter bubbling in your chest as you looked at her. “It was killing you, wasn’t it.” Yaga had been cracking down on her bad habit, trying to limit her by saying no smoking in the dorms. “Just a little.” She teased back, inhaling deeply before blowing the gray smoke past her lips. “Shoko, gimme one.” Your eyebrow cocked as Satoru stuck his hand out. Her eyes met you for a moment before begrudgingly handing the lighter and pack to him. “New habit?” You commented softly, watching as he stuck a cylinder between his lips and held his hand up to block the flame from the wind. 

Satoru shrugged, inhaling a bit before blowing out, moving to hand the pack to you. You hesitated, the test in your dorm trash can still lingering in the back of your mind. “I’m good.” You took them anyway, handing them to Shoko. Neither of them said anything but they shared a knowing glance, they couldn’t be mad at you for trying to quit a bad habit. “So where are we going?” You didn’t like the prolonged silence as the two of them puffed away. “I didn’t think you’d want to go anywhere, but if you want we can go get breakfast.” Shoko’s eyes flickered over both you and Satoru, as if she was looking at two temperamental children. 

“Breakfast sounds good.” Satoru offered, shoving one hand in his pocket while the other plucked the cig from his lips. “It does.” You added softly, stomach turning at the very thought of food but you couldn’t let them know that. You had lost your appetite shortly after he left, but you still forced yourself to eat at least one substantial meal a day. The nausea that had settled in your gut most days usually deterred you from anything else but plain rice and maybe some soup. Still, it was food and the only thing you could keep down at that. “Alright, I’ll call for a driver and we can go get something to eat.” Shoko pulled out her phone, clicking on a number she saved. 

“You’ve been eating, right?” You jumped a little, eyes sliding over to Satoru. His tone was low, just low enough for only you to hear. “Yeah, I’ve been eating… you?” He looked the same, tall and lean with broad shoulders. Satoru nodded, pushing his glasses up to sit on the bridge of his nose. “The car will be at the gates for us in five minutes so let's get going.” Shoko started walking, like always you and Satoru followed behind her like ducklings. Satoru’s question still lingered in your mind, his ability to read your thoughts nearly rivaled Suguru. 

You had to wonder just how much those six eyes of his could see. 

The three of you clamored into the car, Satoru taking the passenger seat while you and Shoko took the back. You had no idea where you were going, not even when Shoko gave an address to the driver. It was somewhere in the city, you knew that much, but you trusted her judgment and prayed they would have something plain for your stomach. None of you spoke as the car barreled forward, your eyes glued to the surroundings zipping past you, as if you’d catch him walking down the street on a busy morning. You knew you’d always be looking for him, everywhere you went, your eyes would search for him. 

You tore your eyes from the window, glancing at Satoru in the passenger seat. You couldn’t see his eyes, but his head was turned towards the window. If you had to guess, he was doing the very same thing. Looking for someone who would never appear. Unless you were Shoko of course, you still felt your throat tighten at the thought. You knew Suguru had chosen to reveal himself to her for a couple reasons. One being that she wasn’t nearly strong enough to take him down single handedly. The other being her easy going nature, he knew there would be little to no conflict or questions to answer with her. If roles were reversed, you’d do the same. 

“Hello?” You blinked, looking at Shoko with parted lips. “You okay?” her head tilted, brown eyes lingering over your features. “I… yeah.” You swallowed, the car was still moving so you didn’t space out for that long. “What are you in the mood to eat?” She repeated the question she had asked seconds prior while you were clearly on another plane of existence. “Something plain.” You offered lamely, hands clasping together in your lap. “Plain?” Satoru questioned, eyes shifting to look at you through the rearview mirror. “My stomach has been sensitive. Plain foods are all I can really get down right now.” You shrunk into the seat. 

Shoko hummed, eyes observing you intently now. You could almost hear her silently listing all of your physical symptoms, noting in her head the various things that could cause them. Most could be answered with heartbreak, but that didn’t typically make you sensitive to certain foods. Shoko and Satoru knew of Suguru's relationship with you. They knew you were serious about each other, that you often slept in the other’s dorm depending on the day. They knew you went on dates and bought each other gifts. They knew you had long since confessed your love to one another and were not strangers to holding hands when you thought nobody was looking. 

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the two of you slept together as well. 

~

“Quiet.” You sunk your teeth into the side of your cheek, struggling to stifle your noises as Suguru’s fingers curled inside of your tight heat. “You don’t want them to hear us, right?” he cooed again, lips ghosting the shell of your ear as he pressed you harder into the empty desk, nearly pushing it into the wall of the classroom with the ferocity of his hunger. 

You shook your head, not trusting your voice in that moment to make any coherent sounds. Your nails dug into his bicep, legs splayed hazardously over the sides of the desk as you used your free hand to brace yourself. Two fingers continued to plunge in and out of you, curling perfectly and sucking the air from your lungs as he found that one particular spot. 

Suguru watched in fascination, dark eyes glazed over as they flickered between his hand and your face. Each draw back revealed the slick shine of your arousal on his digits, each push forward was accompanied by a squelch. It made his throat tight, arousal making him feel hot all over as he continued to fuck you with his fingers. 

“Sugu…” You choked, face warming considerably as you realized how desperate you sounded. “Hmm?” a gentle hum, his fingers burying deep and massaging your walls until your thighs twitched. “I need you.” Your head fell back, hand leaving his bicep to slap over your mouth in an attempt to silence the cry that left you. “You…need me?” 

Those words were jarring to him, as if a chain of firecrackers had been ignited under his skin. You nodded, helpless and at his mercy as you prayed Satoru and Shoko wouldn’t wander off to figure out where the two of you had gone. You couldn’t quite comprehend what happened next, the sudden retreat of his fingers left you feeling empty, clearing your foggy mind for a second. 

They were quickly replaced with something else, something wet and soft. Your eyes widened considerably when you looked down to see Suguru on his knees, hands gripping the plush of your thighs with his face buried between. He would have given you more if it weren't for his damn pants, he was too impatient to struggle with the high waisted fashion choices he made. 

You couldn’t think again, mind immediately fogging over as you focused solely on Suguru’s head between your legs. The flat of his tongue licking up your folds before delving further, bumping your clit with his nose and earning a strangled noise from you. You bit down on your fist now, not hard enough to draw blood but enough to silence yourself for a bit. 

Suguru didn’t mind, if anything he wanted them to hear you. He wanted to see the shocked look on Satoru’s face when he realized what was happening. He couldn’t lie, this whole rendezvous had started because of an offhand comment Satoru made. One about how he was likely better at pleasing women than Suguru. You knew that's why you were in here too, you felt like you needed to thank Satoru for pushing Suguru to this point, whether that was his intention or not. 

Heat continued to build in your gut, if you could trust yourself to stay balanced you would have let go of the desk and buried your hand in his hair. You wanted to tug the silky black locks from the confines of the bun he always kept them in, watch them cascade around his handsome face and turn messy because of your fingers. Then again, that may make it a little too obvious to your two awaiting friends. “Sugu…” 

You gasped, hand flying from your mouth to grab the desk as you nearly lost your balance. Suguru had started to stand, knocking you back as his arms wrapped around your lower half in a bear hug. Suguru was standing at his full height now, your knees bent over his shoulders while only your mid-back and shoulders pressed into the desk. You could have melted into a puddle the moment his eyes met yours, his mouth still pressed firmly to your cunt. 

“Suguru…” You choked again, hands moving to grip the sides of the desk for some kind of grounding. You could feel him smirk, eyes burning into yours as his tongue lavished you. It was all too much, too lewd, too risky. Your orgasm was building faster than you anticipated, the tingling arousal shooting down your spine and making your legs tense as he teased you. You came with a choked cry of his name, eyes squeezing shut as you rode out your orgasm. 

~

“We’re here.” You blinked, eyes scanning your surroundings as Satoru got out of the car. “Are you sure you’re okay? We can get the food to go and head back to campus.” Shoko’s words were out of concern but her tone was still relaxed. “I’m alright, I could use some time in a busy space.” You lied, the quiet of your dorm room had never sounded so inviting. “Thank you.” You muttered softly to the driver, his small smile told you he was well aware of what was going on. Satoru was already by the front door of the cafe, putting out the butt of his cigarette on a nearby trash can before dropping it in. Shoko did the same, following after you as you entered. 

Satoru’s looks tended to come in handy, his glasses sliding down his nose to show the startling blue of his eyes was all that was needed to get the three of you a seat and bypass the wait. “At least you’re good for something.” You teased him, watching him roll his eyes before smiling. “It’s my duty to get the two of you quick service and good food, even if I have to whore myself out.” For some reason, that had laughter bubbling in your chest, the genuine kind. “Such a noble sacrifice.” You laughed, the menu in your hand shaking as your shoulders bounced. You were too distracted to see the way Satoru’s shoulders seemed to sag in relief as he watched you, for a moment it was like nothing had changed.

If it weren't for the gaping, empty space in the booth beside him, he would have been convinced. 

“What are you going to get, Shoko?” She was the only one actively looking over the menu. “I’m not sure yet, but they do have some options that would be easy on your stomach.” You weren’t sure why but it made your heart ache just a bit, she had been more concerned over your meal than her own. At the very same time, it made you feel small, like you were a bit of a nuisance for having stomach issues… or whatever they were… in the first place. “Oh, alright.” You focused on the menu, aware of their eyes on you as you tried to find something small but appealing. You settled on tamagoyaki and asked for it to be made on the salty side rather than sweet. 

Shoko went for a traditional meal as well while Satoru ventured into their “western” cuisine. His choice sounded so sweet that the thought of it made your teeth hurt. “I don’t know how you do it, Satoru.” you sipped your tea slowly, letting the hot liquid slide down your throat and settle in your stomach. He only shrugged, smiling softly “I’ve yet to find something too sweet for me to handle.” Normally he would have added something flirty but he decided against it. Despite knowing you and Suguru were a couple, it never stopped Satoru’s flirtatious comments. It only bothered Suguru a little bit but he knew his best friend would never cross that kind of line. 

“You may go into cardiac arrest before you meet your match, Satoru.” Shoko snorted, sipping her coffee as she took in the surroundings of the busy cafe. For a moment, you wondered if she was doing what you and Satoru had been subconsciously doing for the last three weeks. “I keep waiting for him to appear.” Your tone was just barely above a whisper, as if even bringing up his existence would cause the world to implode around you. “Me too.” Shoko spoke softly, eyes still looking anywhere but the two of you. Satoru kept quiet, face unusually somber as he sipped his coffee. “I think I’ll eventually go insane.” 

You tried to sound lighthearted but the crack in your voice gave the opposite effect. 

Satoru’s eyes flickered up at that, making your shoulders shrink into the booth. You had quickly come to learn that both of your friends were treating you like fragile porcelain. Though you partially felt the same when talking to them, especially Satoru. Despite the frequent and long nights with each other, little to no words were ever spoken. “I’m fine.” You tried, voice a little stronger than before. “We can talk about these things without falling apart.” It sounded like you were trying to convince yourself more than them. Before anyone could speak, the waiter was walking over with your food, effectively stopping any further discussion. 

“Satoru…” You choked as the waiter walked away, eyes focused on the sugary, gooey concoction on the plate before him. “That’s your ticket to the ER.” Shoko was gawking at it too, a bite of food already halfway to her mouth. Satoru, on the other hand, looked like a kid on christmas morning, glasses sliding down his nose with a smile on his face. Your stomach grumbled as he cut into the pancakes, the feeling making you jump just a bit. You actually felt hungry, mouth watering as you looked down at your own plate and moved to take a bite. 

Silence fell over the table as you all ate, within minutes half of your food was gone and you were quietly wishing you had ordered something a little bigger.

“You need a napkin.” You laughed softly, handing Satoru your spare napkin so he could wipe the syrup off of his cheek. “Thanks.” For some reason you couldn't help but think he looked like a little kid. For another reason you couldn’t quite explain, it made sadness sink into your shoulders. He should be here with the three of you, eating and laughing and bringing you the comfort you always looked for in him. Your hands shook as you moved to eat more, not willing to let the surge of emotion get rid of the appetite you rarely had nowadays. 

As you finished your plate, you felt the bubbling wave of nausea build in your stomach. You inhaled slowly, trying to find a way to ease your worries and keep your food down. “Are you okay? You look a little green.” Shoko eyed you with concern, not even a second later Satoru was signaling the waiter for the check. “Y-yeah… told you my stomach was sensitive. That’s the most I've eaten at once in the last three weeks.” You couldn’t stand the embarrassment of making a scene or wasting money on the food you had just consumed. “I’ll be back.” You slipped out of the booth, your friend’s concerned eyes zeroing in on you as you disappeared for the bathroom. 

Luckily for you the bathroom was empty, the fluorescent lights making you flinch as you stumbled to the sink and turned the water on cold. You leaned over it, hands and wrists submerged under the running stream, chest heaving with the effort to remain calm. You were desperate to keep the food down, so desperate you could feel sweat forming on your temple as you tried to focus on anything but the nausea. Suguru’s face flashed through your mind and for a moment you were convinced your knees would give out from under you. 

~

“I told you to take it easy.” He huffs softly, fingers running through your hair as he rakes it away from your face. Carefully, he’s looping one of his elastics around your hair to keep it in place. Your head is still buried in the toilet, you had just finished throwing up for the third time in the last hour. “Are you still with me?” His hand is on your back now, rubbing slow but deliberate circles. Feebly you give him a thumbs up, throat burning from the sting of alcohol coming back up. 

“You didn’t eat much today and then you went and got shit-faced with Shoko.” Suguru stated the obvious, trying not to scold you because he knew you weren’t doing good right now. “I don’t think you have anything else to puke up, do you want some water?” You lifted your head now, reaching for toilet paper to wipe your mouth. “Water sounds good.” Your voice was weaker than Suguru had expected it to sound, his heart aching a bit as he sat beside you on the bathroom floor. 

“I’ll be right back, okay? Just yell if you get scared and I’ll be by your side before you know it.” You nodded, thanking him softly as he got up and disappeared out of your bathroom. You were only seventeen at the time, acting far older than you were and thinking you could get away with it. Now, you are facing the consequences of being naive. Typical for someone your age. Suguru had returned in under two minutes, handing you a glass of room temperature water. “It’ll be easier on your stomach at this temperature.” He chuckled as you grimaced. 

He moved to grab a washcloth from your cabinet, turning the sink water on cold. “And this…” he wrung it out twice before turning off the water “will help focus your attention on something other than the nausea.” He placed the cloth on the back of your neck, watching your shoulders sag in relief as something finally cooled your clammy skin. “Thanks, Sugu.” 

~

“Sugu… I’m scared.” Your voice was barely audible, tears burning your eyes as you squeezed them shut. Somehow it was working, your pain outshining the nausea as you tried to stop yourself from sobbing in the middle of the restroom. A year had passed since that moment in time, you were only eighteen now and yet you felt as if you had grown a decade. Yet, you were reduced to a scared and crying child because of nausea. Get it together. You forced yourself to straighten, hands slightly numb under the current of cold water. 

You forced yourself to make eye contact with your reflection, observing how stark the dark circles were under your eyes. Shoko had been right, you did look a bit green, but it was fading steadily as everything subsided. You let your hands sit under the water for a minute longer before bending over the sink and splashing some on your face. The door to the restroom opened as you straightened again, Shoko was looking at you with worry. “Did you get sick?” you shook your head, turning the water off and reaching for the paper towels. 

“Managed to fight it off… for now.” 

“Satoru paid already, there is a convenient store a couple shops down. We can get you some nausea meds and a barf bag for the ride back… just in case.” You nodded, smiling a bit. “That would probably be a good idea.” you followed her out of the bathroom and through the restaurant, Satoru was standing on the sidewalk with a new cigarette between his lips. “Damn, you really did develop a new habit.” He only shrugged, inhaling deeply before blowing more out. “I’ll get over it at some point.” Knowing him and his will-power, he probably would. 

“I’ll call for the driver, Satoru take her to the convenient store and I’ll catch up.” Satoru nodded, saluting her with a quick “yes ma’am” before grabbing your hand and dragging you along. You didn’t speak until Shoko was out of earshot. “Do you think it’s going to get better?” You appreciated the weight of his hand in yours, though you were certain he could feel how clammy it was. “I think it’ll get more bearable with time.” not better, but tolerable. The thought had your chest feeling heavy as you stepped inside of the small store. 

“Nausea meds and barf bags.” Satoru chuckled, reading the signs above each aisle until he spotted one that seemed like a good start. “You’ll have to see a doctor if this doesn’t ease up… how long has it been going on anyways?” You shuffled behind him, arms crossing due to him letting them go a moment prior. “Shortly after he left, after I found the letter.” Only Satoru knew about the letter that had been left behind. How Suguru managed to get back onto campus and leave it in your dorm was beyond him. You had even let him read it, breaking his heart again. 

“Shoko!” Satoru called, noticing her walk down the aisle before you could even turn your head. “I’m not good with this stuff, what should we get?” Satoru had already grabbed a box of blue cylindrical barf bags for you but the actual meds were basically foreign to him. “I’ll handle it from here, Satoru. You can wait in the car, he should be upfront by now.” Satoru’s brows furrowed, so did yours, but the look in Shoko’s eyes had him shrugging and handing the box to you. “Alright then, I’ll see ya out there.” 

He whistled as he strolled by, your eyes narrowing on Shoko. “What’s this about?” you watched her shuffle through the shelves, picking up one and reading the box before setting it down and moving onto the next. “I don’t know what you mean.” She commented offhandedly, plucking another box and reading it before sighing. “This one should work.” She turned, handing it to you while motioning you to follow her down the aisle. You read it over, nothing out of the ordinary so you truly couldn’t figure out what made this one different from the others. 

You stopped short when Shoko did, eyes scanning the aisle and feeling your stomach drop. “Shoko–” You sighed, she was standing in front of the pregnancy tests. “Listen, I know it’s probably the last thing you want to even think about but I think you should take one.” She was grabbing a box of the cheap tests, the same test that was still residing in the trash can of your bathroom. “Shoko, it's not necessary.” You couldn't bring yourself to tell her you already took one, for some reason you couldn’t tell her it was negative either. 

“I’ll buy them, and you’ll keep them. If this nausea doesn’t subside in like two weeks, I’m forcing you to take them.” You felt your face burning, clutching the nausea meds tightly in your hands as you looked away from her. “Fine.” You sighed, head tilted at her shoes as you followed her up front to the register. Everything was placed neatly in a brown bag so nobody could see the contents. Once in the car, you popped open the barf bags just to keep one ready in the event your nausea returned full force. “I figured you would forget this.” 

You looked up to see Satoru handing you a bottle of water, your lips parting in surprise. “You know me well, Satoru. I did forget.” you took it from him, grabbing the box of nausea meds and ripping them open. You took them and sighed, gulping down water when you realized how thirsty you had been. “If we have nothing else to do today, I think I’ll take a nap.” You were aching for your bed, more tired now than you had been after any missions. “Alright but we’ll wake you up for dinner if we don’t hear from you.” Shoko smiled, cracking the window to light a cig. 

“It’s not even 11am yet.” you snorted. “Yeah but you can sleep like the dead when you really need it, if we don’t wake you, you’ll sleep straight through till tomorrow.” You opened your mouth to deny it, about to use your frequent bathroom breaks as an excuse but stopped yourself. Saying that would only confirm the very thing Shoko was suspicious of. “Alright, fine, whatever.” You resigned with a playful huff, arms crossing as you turned to look out the window. Luckily for you, you managed to make it through the ride without needing to use the bag. 

“I’ll see you later.” You called after them, waving as you headed for the dorms. They both waved back, finding shade under a tree to enjoy more of the sunny morning. You felt your shoulders sagging with each step, your social battery diminished far faster now that Suguru wasn’t always by your side. You had almost grown a bit too dependent on him, thinking he would be a constant in your life. You inhaled shakily, the brown bag crumbling between your fingers as your emotions bubbled to the surface yet again. You couldn't seem to get yourself to your dorm fast enough, hot tears slipping down your cheeks as you shoved the key in the lock. 

It came in heavy waves, making you feel weak as you could only succumb to the sadness festering in your chest. You dropped the bag by the door, kicking off your shoes and shouldering off your uniform jacket. Moving on autopilot, you drew your curtains shut and took off the rest of your clothing, sliding his shirt over your head until you were enveloped in his scent. You were gasping for air by the time your body hit the mattress, curling in on yourself as you sobbed. “I miss you.” You hiccuped, rubbing your eyes as if it would stop the tears. 

God dammit, Suguru, why did you have to do this?

You buried your head in your pillow, trying to drown out your own feelings before sadness turned to anger and you ripped your whole room apart because of it. 

~

“Stop wiggling so much.” His voice sounded like gravel, rumbling the back of your head as he spoke. “Can’t help it.” You retorted, trying your best to settle into a comfortable position. Suguru had you wrapped in a bear hug, his favorite form of affection, especially since he knew you couldn’t get out of his grasp. His arms were covered in thick muscles, something you initially didn't expect because his uniform and choice of baggy clothing typically hid them.

 You could use all your strength and his grip wouldn’t falter.  

“Why not?” he mumbled again, if you had to guess, his eyes were closed as he spoke. “Cause it’s warm, Sugu.” you were both laying on top of the covers, little to no clothing on because of the heat and the broken air conditioning that the school was still trying to fix. Nothing but an old fan swiveling side to side to create some sort of relief. Still, Suguru couldn’t sleep unless you were pressed flush to him, warm or not. “It’s not that bad.” 

“Oh it absolutely is.” you immediately countered, turning your head back to try and look at him. “It could be way worse.” he tried again, fingers thrumming against your side. “Yeah, it could, but it could also be better. Like if you let me go for example.” You wiggled a bit, trying to create space before he pulled you tightly to him again. “Nice try, it’s not happening.” You groaned, going limp in his arms as he began to laugh. “I could totally make it worse for you.” He added softly, lips ghosting your ear. Despite the heat, you shivered. 

“The weirdest things turn you on, Sugu.” 

“Hey, it’s not nice to call yourself weird.” 

You slapped his arm, earning another rumble of laughter as he moved to hover over you. “C’mon, if I make you sweat, it’ll make the breeze from the fan feel colder.” You rolled your eyes, studying his features as he looked down at you, hair framing his face and ghosting yours. “That’s counterproductive, you know.” Your hands were running up his biceps anyway, moving to wrap around his neck and pull him close to you. “Maybe it is, but you can’t say I’m wrong.” 

His head was lowering, giving into your pull with no hesitation. “You’re right, I can’t say you’re wrong. But… I want to.” You smile, pulling him further until your lips melt together. He was radiating warmth, his teeth grazing your bottom lip to ask for entrance. Your lips parted, hands snaking up into his hair and tugging at the strands until he groaned. Suguru braced himself on one hand, making the mattress dip just by your head. The rest of his weight was settled on his knees, caging your hips in so you truly couldn’t get away from him. Not that you wanted too now. 

You felt small beneath him, his bare skin radiating warmth as he used his free hand to push your shirt up. You could ignore the heat for the time being, more focused on the steady beating from between your thighs. “Sugu…” You parted with a gasp, watching him lean up and pull you with him, allowing him to drag your shirt over your head and toss it to the floor before pushing you down again. His lips didn’t return to yours, instead they moved to your neck, kissing along your pulse point until you were whining. “Quiet, baby, don’t forget we’re in my room.” 

Satoru was asleep next door, that realization set in like ice water being dumped over your head. “Suguru.” You choked as his head dipped lower, licking along your collarbone before moving to one of your breasts. He wasn’t going to answer you, and you knew that for a fact by the way his lips curled into a smirk against your skin. “You’re evil.” You gasped, hand fisting his hair tightly as he scraped his teeth along your breast, nipping at the soft skin. Your other hand found its home on his shoulder, nails scratching lightly as his muscles flexed under your grasp. 

You sunk your teeth into your cheek when his lips wrapped around your perked nipple, arousal making it pebble slightly as he sucked. Suguru’s tongue lavished your skin, flicking the bud until your back was arching into his touch. It wasn’t nearly enough, your breath coming out in short pants as you tried to pry him off and focus on your other breast. “These would look so pretty if they were full of milk.” You choked, eyes wide as he looked up at you through his lashes. “Don’t you think?” You couldn’t breathe for a moment, stunned into silence by his comment. 

“C’mon baby, don’t act so shocked.” He cooed softly, the tip of his tongue trailing up your sternum. He didn’t stop until he reached your lips, kissing them softly before dipping his head again. His hand toyed with the breast he had just teased endlessly, brown eyes observing the rate of your breathing before lowering onto your other breast. He repeated the same motions, nipping and sucking the senstive skin until you were squirming from the wetness between your legs.

“You haven't answered me, sweetheart.”

“B-because I don’t know how to answer that, Sugu.” You knew exactly what he was implying, but you couldn’t form a coherent response for him. “You just have to tell me if you agree, it’s pretty simple.” He chuckled, pushing himself up to look down at you. Your hands fell to your sides, his neck just out of your reach. “Just think about it, pretty girl.” You watched him, completely entranced as he pulled his briefs down and his erection sprang free. “Because I’ve been thinking about it a lot.” 

“You have?” You sat up a bit, fingers shakily pulling off your own underwear to save time. “I have.” He confirmed, cheeks turning a shade of red that you could see even in the moonlight. His hand slid along his length, spreading the precum drooling from his tip while his boxers rested at his mid-thigh. “Take those off, Sugu.” You smiled a bit, reaching for the waistband and pulling them taut before letting them snap back against his thigh. “So demanding.” He snorted, letting himself go to push the material off, tossing it to the floor just as you had done with your underwear. 

“So are you, demanding an answer for something so…so…” you couldn’t find the right words, not when his eyes were on you, devouring you whole. “…so what? How does it make you feel?” He redirected, pumping himself leisurely as your thighs fell open for him, still supporting yourself on your elbows as you waited. “How does what make me feel?” A stupid question but you were still reeling from the initial statement. Suguru laughed, hand still gliding over his length as he sat on his knees.

“How does it feel knowing I think about getting you pregnant… all the fucking time.” You couldn’t deny the thought made you feel hot, hotter than you felt from the heat and arousal mixing. Like molten lava was running its way through your bloodstream. “F-feels fucking…” you squirmed a bit, legs moving to close involuntarily until his hand shot out and stopped them. “Go on, pretty girl. Tell me.” You sat up, glaring at him with warm cheeks. “How about you fuck me. Then, maybe, I’ll tell you how I feel about your little fantasies.” Suguru groaned, head falling forward for a moment. 

“Sounds like a good deal to me.” He moved forward, pressing you back into the mattress as he pulled your thighs towards him. Your lips found his neck, sucking on it harshly as he ran the dull head of his cock between your slick folds. You let him move you however he pleased, your legs being pushed almost painfully to your chest as he pressed into you. You gasped in unison, his cock stretching you open easily despite no prep. “Shit…” his head fell forward again, nearly bumping yours as he bottomed out, no space left between the two of you. 

Suguru stayed in place, eyes shut as he focused on the way your walls fluttered and squeezed around him, unable to stay still. Your nails dug into his scalp, pulling a groan from his lips as you tried to relax but couldn’t. He was big, bigger than any fling or partner you had in the past. No matter how easily your cunt accepted him, it still stung for the first few seconds. You had grown to love the deep ache, the weight of him inside you, the way his tip would brush your cervix depending on the position. Like now, with your legs pressed so tightly to your body. 

“Can I move?” his voice was soft, eyes peering into your own once he gained his composure. “Y-yeah.” You breathed out, the feeling of his hands on your skin still sent shockwaves of arousal through you. Especially when his grip tightened, bracing himself on you as he drew his hips back half way before rolling into you again. You moaned, eyes squeezing shut as Suguru found his rhythm, hips meeting yours with a soft slap. “D-Don’t forget Satoru is…” You wailed softly, pleasure building quickly as he moved. “I know…” 

But the smirk on his face told you he no longer cared, he’d gladly listen to his white-haired best friend bitch and moan in the morning about being woken up by you. Suguru’s rhythm only sped up, hips angling perfectly to brush along that one particular spot as he thrust into you, cock head brushing your cervix every few thrusts until your vision was blurring. The pleasure ebbing through your body was more than enough to block out how uncomfortable your current position was. 

A wet squelch started to emit between your legs, loud enough to be heard over the drone of the fan as Suguru pounded into you. “So…” he started, voice strained as sweat dripped down his temple. “... can you tell me how it makes you feel now?” You blinked, awestruck that he was still hooked on getting an answer from you. “S-suguru…” you whined, head falling further into the pillows. “I’m not letting it go…ha… Tell me how it makes you feel.” he ground out, hips slowing just a bit. When you didn’t speak, he pressed more of his weight into you so one hand could break free. 

You moaned, loud and unrestrained as his fingers ghosted across your swollen clit, the sudden contact making you see stars. “Tell me how it makes you feel.” he repeated, watching your face go slack as his fingers and hips worked in tandem. “Makes me hot…” You admitted with a heavy breath, eyes struggling to focus on him. “I want you to do it, Sugu… fuck me till I’m pregnant.” The look on his face had you shrinking further into the mattress, an almost animalistic look taking over his eyes as he stopped moving all together. “Say it again.” 

“I want you to fuck me ‘til I’m pregnant, Suguru.”  

~

You woke up in a sweat, gasping for air as you stumbled out of bed and barreled to the bathroom. You couldn’t stop the nausea this time, knees hitting the tile floor with bruising force as you heaved into the toilet. You hadn’t even remembered falling asleep, but your dream was enough to send you into a death spiral. Tears burned your eyes as the little bit of breakfast you hadn’t digested came back up. Luckily for you, you had slept long enough that your food from this morning wasn’t a total loss. Nothing more than bile was left as you finally calmed down. 

You reached for toilet paper, wiping your tears and blowing your nose until you could at least breath without difficulty. Aching, you got up, flushing the toilet and washing your hands and face. You had no idea what time it was but you assumed it wasn’t late enough for dinner if Shoko never came to wake you up. At least that’s what you thought as you stumbled back into your dorm room slightly sweaty. That’s odd… The sun had begun to set just beyond your window, your eyes flickering to your alarm clock. 7:23pm stared back at you in big red numbers. 

I slept for over eight hours? You looked for your phone, seeing the missed text from Shoko. 

Shoko: I decided against waking you up, I figured you could use the sleep. Just text me when you’re awake and I can bring you dinner

You were partially grateful for her decision, your face still warm as your dream lingered in your mind. Dreaming of the past, how cliche. You sighed, sitting on the edge of your bed. You had woken up so suddenly, adrenaline blocking out the sleepiness at first. Now, your body seemed to thrum with a dull ache, the headrush coming back around to kick you while you were down. You reached over to turn on the small lap residing on your nightstand, eyes squinting for a moment as you adjusted. Your eyes focused on the brown bag from earlier, the one you discarded on your floor after coming back. 

You knew there was water in there still, so you got up and grabbed it, looking at the bag contents in disdain. You emptied it on your desk, nausea meds, barf bags and the box of pregnancy tests. You studied then as you gulped down some of the water, easing the burn in your throat. The pregnancy tests Shoko had insisted on were identical to the one you took this morning. Weirdly enough you wished she had grabbed the more expensive digital ones. That way you wouldn't have to strain yourself trying to figure out if a second line was present or not. 

“Fuck it.” you sighed, dropping the now empty water bottle in the small barrel you kept beside your desk. You still had one more test in the box from this morning, you’d take another one just because of the memories lingering on your mind. Your face felt warm as you recalled that particular night from a few months back. Suguru had been pretty adamant after that, fucking you raw and in ernest with every intention of knocking you up. You, stupidly, let him because you love him and loved the idea of having a family with him. “Idiot.” 

You scolded yourself again, ripping the foil wrapper and tossing it in your trash with the now empty box. You went through the same process as you did that morning, peeing into a cup and dipping the absorbent end into it for ten seconds before capping it and discarding the rest of the contents. You forced yourself to leave the bathroom this time, convinced it would make time go by faster. The text Shoko had sent was still left unanswered, you couldn’t even bring yourself to feel hungry at that moment in time. 

You’d text her in a little while though, or else she’d likely come breaking your door down thinking you had run away. Just then, your phone vibrated with the ringtone you had set for Satoru. You grabbed it, flipping it open to see what he had to say. On the screen there was a message from him, asking if you wanted to hang out on the rooftop to watch the stars later on. You smiled a bit, it was rare for Satoru to ask things so formally. You clicked out a message, telling him yes and that you could use some fresh air. 

It took him no time at all to send a happy emoticon, one that had you rolling your eyes as you typed back that you’d meet him at his dorm when you were ready. You backed out of the chat, eyes lingering on a particular contact, your message to him was naturally left unanswered. You had given up texting Suguru’s number when the messages no longer got delivered. You figured he’d discard his phone, throw away any direct contact he had with the three of you. You snapped your phone shut a moment later, you’d text Shoko after you got dressed.

Opening your closet was still proving to be a bit difficult, especially as your fingers trailed over the material of the clothing Suguru had kept in your room. They smelt like the laundry detergent he used as well as his cologne, it took your breath away for a moment. You forced yourself away, grabbing some comfortable clothes that were actually yours before shutting the door. You didn’t think you’d ever be able to discard his clothing, despite knowing he wasn’t coming back to you. 

You pulled his shirt over your head, grabbing your own and replacing it. You pulled on a pair of shorts after, rubbing your face with your hands as you looked at your appearance in the mirror. No amount of sleep seemed to help the dark circles under your eyes or the sickly look to your complexion. You could only hope Satoru was right, with time it would become more manageable. You glanced at your alarm clock, 7:48pm stared back at you now. The sky outside your window had turned indigo, the sun minutes away from being completely out of sight. The summer was coming to an end, filling your chest with melancholy.

You couldn’t stand being alone in that moment, grabbing your phone and shoving it in your pocket as you made a beeline for your door. You made your way down the hall, remembering as you passed Shoko’s dorm that you needed to text her. Stopping in your tracks, you figured it would just be easier to see her in person. “Shoko?” you called, fingers tapping the door softly because she hated when people knocked too loud. “Coming.” You heard her rustling around her room before the door opened, a half smoked cigarette hanging from her lips. 

“Thought Yaga told you no smoking inside.”  

“What he doesn’t know won’t kill him, and my window is open.” 

You smiled, “I’m hanging out with Satoru on the roof if you wanna join us.” Shoko exhaled, puffing just a bit of smoke in your direction. “I’d love to but I spent the whole afternoon with him ‘cause you were sleeping.” You sighed, rubbing the back of your neck “my bad.” but Shoko was waving you off. “Don’t apologize, you need sleep… I’ll trust Satoru to feed you if you’re hungry.” She smiled as you rolled your eyes “Alright alright, enjoy the rest of your bad habit and I’ll take Satoru duty.” The look in Shoko’s eyes made your smile falter for just a moment. 

They looked oddly wistful, but it vanished just as quickly as your smile faltered. “Aye aye captain.” Shoko started to shut the door as you turned to leave, watching you go for just a moment before shutting it completely. “Satoru.” You drawled, banging on his door so you could be heard over the music he was playing. “Oi, keep it down!” the door swung open a moment later, a cheeky grin on his face as he looked at you. “Ready to go?” He looked cozy in an oversized black hoodie and sweats, sunglasses resting on top of his head. 

“Sure am.” you returned his smile, the ache in your chest easing just a bit. It was more bearable when you had someone who understood the pain you felt deeper than surface level. You watched him turn, shutting off his music and the lights before stepping into the hallway. “Are we going to take the normal way or are you going to test out your blue?” Satoru’s eyes seemed to sparkle as you suggested he use his curse technique. “If you insist on blue…” You couldn’t even make a sound as his arm wrapped around your waist, hauling you off of your feet. 

In the blink of an eye, you were exposed to the cooling night air. “Damn.” You laughed as he set you down, shuffling over to the small lock box you kept up here with spare blankets and, as Shoko claimed, “necessities”...Which were just two cartons of emergency cigarettes. “Didn’t disorient you, right?” Satoru was standing on the edge, observing the glow of the city in the distance. “Not even a little, you’ve improved a lot, Satoru.” your back was turned to him, so you missed the way his eyes widened slightly, cheeks turning pink. 

“Thanks” 

You turned back to him, blankets in hand. “So…” You walked over to where he was standing, taking a seat just before the edge and letting your legs dangle off. “...So?” Satoru looked down at you, watching you settle. “Why did you want to come up here… I’d love to gaze at the stars but it’s not like we’ll actually see any with all the light pollution.” Satoru sighed, dropping down to squat beside you. “I guess I just wanted your company… ya know since you’re probably the only other person that understands this.” his tone was awkward, it wasn’t often that you were sentimental… or serious for that matter… with each other. 

“Your welcome to have my company any time, Satoru. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you.” It was so heartfelt it made you feel strange. “Sorry.” You added, a bit meeker than before when he stiffened a bit. “Don’t be sorry, just not used to being so… serious with you.”  He sat fully now, shoulder brushing yours as a silent invitation for you to rest your head. You did, just as you always had, watching the lights of the city a few miles away. “It’s strange, isn’t it?” You spoke in a gentle tone, hoping he knew what you meant. 

“It is. Knowing he’s there, that he’s okay… while we’re sitting here sulking like idiots.” There was a small bite to his tone as he finished, one that quickly left when he exhaled. “It pisses me off.” It made you upset too, anger bubbling in the back of your mind like a pot of boiling water that was going to overflow at any second. “It pisses me off too, because I truly can’t understand it. I’ve killed myself over the last three weeks trying to understand, to make sense of it. I can’t and I don’t think I ever will. But it’s not my place to reason with it, you know?” 

Satoru was silent, waiting for you to continue. “It’s not my life, it’s his. I tried for months to get it out of him, I tried so goddamn hard to get him to open up and he never did. Always redirecting, always avoiding.” You sounded defeated by the end, blinking away the tears that blurred your vision so you could regain composure. “Why didn’t you come to me?” Satoru questioned softly, letting your words sink in like an anchor. 

“He gave you so many signs, Satoru. If you couldn’t see them, it wasn’t my place to assist.” 

Satoru felt like that should have made him angry, but it didn’t. Mostly because you were right, it had been obvious from the start but he had naively pushed them to the side, pretending it wasn’t true. He was just as much at fault, if anything he was willing to shoulder all of the blame. Because at least you tried. He couldn’t say the same, and he knew that far too well. “Suguru made up his mind the moment he entered that village. There is no stopping a man who is set in their resolve. You said it yourself, Satoru. He looked healthier, happier, content.” 

Satoru took in a shaky breath, leaning into you just as you leaned into him. “I just don’t get why he needed to kill his parents.” Your eyes closed, that was the thought weighing heaviest on your mind. “He needed to prove to himself that he was doing the right thing. That nobody, not even his parents, were an exception to his newfound ideology.” It killed you to say it, especially since you had met his parents last winter break. They were kind, at least his mother was. His father was a bit colder but there was still an undeniable love for his son. They had welcomed you so openly, they were proud of the son they had raised. 

Now they were gone, nobody but Suguru was to blame. 

“In a fucked up way, I don’t care that he killed those people.” The words felt bitter on your tongue, but his letter flashed through your mind and for a moment you understood him. Those two little girls, beaten and caged, scared and facing death for things they never did. Hell, had you gone on the mission with him, you may have encouraged his choices. That realization felt weird as it settled in your gut. “I… I don’t really care either.” Satoru admitted softly, thinking back over the last year, thinking about Amanai. He had been seconds away from doing the same thing. 

But Suguru had been his voice of reason, stopping him with a simple command. It should have been obvious then, that Suguru’s life was completely altered from that moment forward. “It was so obvious.” He hissed softly, head falling forward just a bit as anger squeezed his heart. “There is nothing we can do now, Satoru. Nothing we can do will reverse the damage that has been done.” You wished you could believe your own words, part of you wanted to catch a train into the city and barrel into that religious group he took over. 

You weren’t even sure what you’d do if you did. Hit him, yell at him? Crumple into his arms like the sucker you were. Maybe a mix of all three, no, it would definitely be a mix of all three. You couldn’t help but wonder how he would react if he saw you again. He made it clear in his letter that he loved you, he still loved you, he would always love you. If you made the choice to leave, would he welcome you in with open arms. Or was he resenting you already for not doing so sooner. Was he waiting for you? Or was it nothing more than sweet-talk. 

“You’re not breathing.” Satoru muttered softly, tilting his head just a bit to look down at you. “Oh…” You inhaled deeply, laughing a bit  as you exhaled “got lost in thought.” You felt Satoru relax again, head resting against yours. “I get it.” You fell into a comfortable silence, watching as the sky steadily turned from a deep blue to pitch black. There, if you squint hard enough, you could make out a couple of sparkling stars. 

You knew if you asked, Satoru could probably whisk you somewhere far away. Somewhere clear so you could actually see the stars with no obstructions. 

Yet you were too comfortable, too warm. 

Sitting where you were now was more than enough for the time being. That feeling of content actually took the air from your lungs for a moment, blinking steadily as you took in your surroundings. There was a fleeting moment where your heart felt light, that aching heaviness that had been plaguing it for the last three weeks wasn’t present. You wondered quietly if Satoru felt it too. Given the way his body seemed completely relaxed into yours, you assumed he did. 

~

You were stumbling down the hall like a drunkard. Your mind felt numb as you moved, head tilted down and expression blank. If anyone were to cross your path at that given moment, they probably would have been unsettled by the sight of you. A zombie moving on autopilot, your brain moving so quickly that it had reduced everything to a quiet, droning buzz. 

Murder. 112 people. His parents too. He’s gone. He snapped. He’s a murderer. Suguru is gone. 

Nothing made sense, not a single bit of the information you had received made any sense. The fact that Suguru wasn’t answering your frequent texts wasn't making sense. The fact that you had woken up to an empty bed wasn’t making sense. The fact that people were telling you Suguru, your Suguru, had taken over a hundred lives in the span of one night wasn’t making any fucking sense. 

Your knees nearly gave out the moment your hand met the wood of your door, pushing it open so quickly it slammed into the wall with a loud thud before coming back at you. Not that you cared, at that moment you could be set on fire and you wouldn’t blink an eye. 

You stood in the middle of your dorm room, eyes scanning the room as if it were something foreign. Nothing was making sense, not even your bed looked like your own. It was the pressure cracking down on you already, sinking its claws into your shoulders and forcing you to your knees as the weight of your new reality hit you like a freight train. You couldn’t even bring yourself to cry in that moment, too shell shocked over the report Yaga had read to you and Satoru. 

Satoru. 

You had stumbled away shortly after the report was finished, barely registering the way he had started to yell. You hadn’t looked back, but it wasn’t like either of them tried to stop you. Despite having just stumbled away from him, you found yourself moving to leave and find him again. At least you would have if your knees didn’t give out on you. You gasped, more out of surprise than pain as your legs made contact with the wooden floor. You sat there for a moment, arms feeling equally as weak as you pushed yourself into a sitting position. 

You felt your chest tighten, every breath felt strangled as you tried to inhale. A cold sweat seemed to cover your skin, fingers shaking slightly as you pushed your hair from your face. You couldn’t move, completely paralyzed by shock. It felt like your heart was shattering, every shaky inhale deepening the wound. Still, your tears would not come. Not even as black spots began to obstruct your vision, chest heaving as you began to hyperventilate. 

Despite your body vibrating in distress, you felt a nearly silent calm. Like someone had flicked off the switch and stole your ability to hear.

Nothing and everything all at once. 

~

“Hey? Y/N wake up…” You jumped a bit, hand coming up to touch the wetness on your cheeks. “You were crying in your sleep.” Satoru muttered softly, hand smoothing over your hair as he cradled you. “I-I was?” You didn’t even realize the change in position or the change in scenery. You were no longer sitting by the roof’s edge, instead you were sitting in Satoru’s lap, his arms holding you tightly as he looked at you with worry. 

“You were.” he confirmed, letting you go just as you woke up fully. “Sorry for worrying you, I was just thinking about him… it’s so strange. I’ve been having such intense dreams of the past… I've had dreamless sleep for the last three weeks… so why now?” Satoru sighed, watching you get up to stand and stretch your limbs. “I don’t know. I’ve been having odd dreams about him but I don’t really remember how most of them go by the time I wake up.”

“It’s the universe’s way of torturing us… as if we haven’t been tortured enough. Wait, how long have I been asleep?” The temperature had dropped significantly, the moon was shining high in the sky now. “About an hour or so, I was actually going to bring you back inside but you started to cry and… well here we are now.” Satoru got up, stretching dramatically as you sighed. “You’d think after sleeping for eight hours I wouldn't be tired.” 

You walked to the edge of the roof again, feet pressing firmly to the ledge as you looked down. “Being depressed will suck the soul out of you.” For some reason you couldn’t help but laugh. “You seem pretty wide awake, Satoru.” He joined you on the ledge, pushing you a bit to the side. Your training gave you quick reflexes so you didn’t flinch when he did it. “Oh please, you know I’m right.” You glanced at him, laughing softly. 

“You are, but so am I. We can be depressed morons together.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm, earning another laugh as you punched his shoulder. “Touche, Gojo” 

“Yuck, never call me that again.” His face had morphed into a scowl as you used his last name. He never liked hearing you call him anything other than Satoru. “Fine.” you crossed your arms over your chest, inhaling the cool air. “I think I’m gonna go shower and maybe make something small for dinner… Just so Shoko doesn’t string the two of us up on a lamppost.” Satoru nodded, watching you step off the ledge and move about the roof to put the blankets away. 

“I’ll accompany you.” he jumped down, trailing behind you as you moved to open the door that would bring you downstairs. “In the shower? I’m flattered but–” the way his eyes rolled were enough to stop you mid-sentence. “Joking, Satoru.” he sighed out an “I know” closing the distance to haul you up. “Using the stairs is boring.” Within the blink of an eye, you were back inside and standing in front of your dorm room. 

“Text me when you’re done showering and we can go get food.” 

You nodded, one of the perks of attending school in Tokyo was the fact that the city never slept. You could go find a place to eat at three in the morning and they’d still serve you hot food. Your body sagged against the door of your dorm after shutting it. Flicking on the lights lit the room in a warm, golden glow. For the last three years you considered your room a sanctuary, it was your happy place after a long day of training. Now, it feels oddly cold. 

You walked over to your dresser, pulling the top drawer open to grab a fresh pair of underwear and pajamas for after. You tossed them on your bed, reaching down for your bottom drawer to grab a particular towel you liked. It didn’t take you long to put your hair up, not in the mood to wash it just yet, and head to the bathroom. You squinted a bit as the nearly white fluorescent lights filled the room, if you had your way you’d change them to something softer. 

It took all of five seconds for your world to come crashing down around you again, eyes zeroing in on the pregnancy test sitting on your counter. I fucking forgot about it…

You set your towel down on the counter, holding your breath as you took the step and reached for the test. You gave yourself no time to prepare, eyes scanning the results once before it hit you like a ton of bricks. You dropped it, letting it clatter on the porcelain counter as a jagged sob ruptured from your chest. Your hand came up to cover your mouth, the other resting on your chest, your heart thumping so wildly you were certain it would burst. 

There, on the test, were two lines. It was positive. 

You nearly fell forward, dropping down to the trash can beside your sink and rummaging through it without hesitation. Your fingers wrapped around the plastic test from this morning, yanking it up and looking at the results again. There, on the initial test from that morning, were two lines. You didn’t drop it this time, eyes staring at the results as if they’d change. Positive, this whole time it had been positive. You just hadn’t let the first test develop long enough. 

“When… How…” You uttered softly, the logical part of your brain screaming at you to be realistic for a second rather than acting so surprised. The irrational side of your brain was still reeling from the revelation. As if Suguru hadn’t been adamant in trying to knock you up for months. “You fucking bastard… you get your way and leave me with the aftermath.” You were struggling, there was no way you’d be able to pinpoint when it happened until you found out how far along you were. For some reason, that was what made reality really set in. 

Hot tears streaked your face, sobbing so harshly that it felt like your lungs would collapse on you. You moved in a blur, legs carrying you out of your dorm and down the hall until you were pushing open Satoru’s door. “Woah there, sounds like someone’s hun…” He looked up, the teasing tone in his voice dropping immediately when he saw the tears streaming down your face. “What the fuck happened? Are you hurt?” Satoru crossed the room in two long strides, hands cupping your face as your lips wobbled. 

You couldn’t get the words out, crying harder as he ran his hands over you searching for some type of wound. “C’mon, what happened?” His tone had more of a bite to it than he intended but you were causing panic to seep through his veins. You couldn’t breathe, legs nearly buckling under the weight of your reality. Satoru seemed to catch this, hands shooting out to support you as he brought both of you to the floor. “Y/N, please.” he urged you, throat feeling tight. 

You shook your head, still sobbing as you raised your hand meekly, the positive pregnancy test out in the open for him to see. Blue eyes widened significantly when he saw it, he didn’t even need to see the two lines to understand why you were so hysterical. “Oh…oh.” he swallowed, hand shakily taking the test from your hand to look at it. “Oh fuck.” it was just barely above a whisper, arm holding you just a little tighter as you cried into his chest. 

At least part of you was aware of the possibility, Satoru on the other hand felt completely blindsided. “You two didn’t use protection?” He uttered softly, rocking you slightly without thinking as your cries continued, you couldn’t think at that moment, unable to calm yourself down. You managed to shake your head in response, unable to feel embarrassed as you admitted to not using condoms when with Suguru. “Fuck… did you ever use protection with him?” 

He knew the answer, of course he fucking knew the answer. Suguru was utterly obsessed with you, so in love it was nearly nauseating. You shook your head again, confirming that you’d never once used protection with him. “Hey… c’mon…” he started softly when your body shook with the force of your cries but you were no longer making any sounds. He wanted to say it would be alright but he wasn’t sure if it would be. 

That answer relied on you. 

He couldn’t expect you to be alright, you had your heart broken three weeks prior by the man who often talked about proposing to you as soon as you all graduated. If those were the kind of conversations Suguru was having with him, he couldn’t imagine the conversations Suguru had been having with you. Well, that was a bit of a lie. Considering your reaction to the test results, it seemed this was a long sought after goal. Your cries were from heartbreak, not fear. 

~

“I’ve been looking at rings.” Satoru glanced up, noodles dangling half way from his lips. “Hah?” He watched Suguru grimace a bit, some broth splattering as Satoru questioned him. “I’ve been looking at rings for Y/N.” Suguru stated again, a little more cautiously now, watching Satoru slurp the rest of the noodles into his mouth. “Suguru, we haven’t even entered our third year.” 

“I know, but…” he shrugged, unable to formulate the right way to say it. “...But? You’re not even eighteen yet, neither is she.” It wasn’t that Satoru didn’t think it was okay, he just figured you were both way too young to even fathom those things. “I don’t intend on proposing to her until we’ve graduated. Listen I know it seems fast but…” Suguru's hands fidgeted with his utensils for a moment, eyes avoiding Satoru until he was ready.

“I love her, Satoru. I didn’t even think it was possible to love someone as much as I love her.” 

Satoru blinked, a bit taken back by such a bold declaration over a bowl of cheap ramen. “I’m not doubting that you love her, Suguru. I just think it’s a bit crazy to think about these things so young.” Suguru sighed, watching Satoru with weary eyes as he moved to eat more noodles. 

“We’re sourcers, Satoru. A long life isn’t guaranteed.” 

~

“Breathe, please. You’re going to pass out.” Satoru’s hand was slapping your back as you coughed, the tears had finally begun to slow but you still weren’t able to form a coherent sentence. “Please…” he tried again, watching you try your best to take a deep breath. It was followed by another, this time it wasn’t superficial. After a couple more, you were able to rub the tears from your eyes and look at him without blurry vision. 

“S-satoru I’m so so-sorry.” you hiccuped, your throat feeling raw from your crying. “You have nothing to apologize for, stop feeling like you have to apologize for everything you do.” he let you go a bit, motioning for you to get up with him and sit on his bed rather than the floor. He watched you crawl under his covers, curling up against his pillows, sniffling softly. Despite the weight of the conversation you were about to have, Satoru couldn’t help but chuckle. 

He crawled onto his bed as well, sitting beside you but above the covers. “So… I guess the best place to start is… how did this happen. By that I mean, was it intentional?” You sighed, toying with the end of his pillow case as you spoke. “Suguru had been trying to get me pregnant for months now.” You felt warmth flood your cheeks, it felt awkward admitting something like that. “I knew the bastard had a breeding kink.” Satoru said it more to himself than you, but that didn’t stop the shrill yell of his name as you slapped his arm. 

“I’m being honest! He just seemed like the type.” Satoru shrugged, holding back laughter as you rolled your eyes and settled back into sulking. “I shouldn’t be so blindsided by this, but it’s fucking ironic that he got what he wanted after he fucking left me… us.” you corrected softly, feeling selfish for being so focused on yourself when Satoru was hurting too. “The universe knows how to play cruel jokes, I’ve thought that my whole life. But, that’s beside the point. We can’t sit here and sulk over it, we need to talk about what to do next.” 

You looked up at Satoru, eyes red from crying. It hurt his heart, you looked like a kicked puppy. In that moment he realized how heavily he relied on Suguru, because even now he found himself itching to grab his phone and call him for advice. What was worse, you were now looking to him for help, when really he was just as scared as you. “The next logical step is I need to find a doctor who can run a blood test and confirm the store bought tests are accurate. After that, they need to tell me how far along I am so I can pinpoint when this happened.”

Satoru nodded, you’d both have to fill in Shoko in the morning, she’d be able to help with all the medical bits. “I… I know this seems a bit invasive so please don’t take offense… but are you going to keep it?” Satoru fidgeted a bit, eyes watching as you seemed to zone out and think. Your initial answer was yes, of course, but were you really capable of raising a baby on your own? Then again, you didn’t think you could stomach giving them away for adoption, and you certainly didn’t want to get rid of them. Not after you chased this goal for months, regardless of the way things were right now. “Yeah, as terrifying as it is, I want this baby, Satoru.” 

“Okay, so we got two of the biggest things out of the way. Now, the hardest…” you huffed as he trailed off, you weren’t entirely sure you were ready to answer the next question. “What do we do about Suguru, that’s what you’re going to say, right?” It was Satoru’s turn to huff now, nodding as he looked away from you to stare at his hands.

“He… he needs to know.” 

“No the fuck he doesn’t.” 

You both stared at each other, completely scandalized by the other’s response. “Satoru… He needs to know… he…he’s the fucking dad? How am I supposed to jus–” Satoru shook his head, hands coming up to rub his face before letting them fall back to his lap. “Suguru is a fucking criminal now, he murdered people. Hundreds of people I should fucking remind you and you just want to waltz back into his fucking life and tell him that shit?” You sat up now, eyes burning holes into his skull as you waited for him to at least look at you. “Do you hear yourself?” 

You were seething, that same anger you held for Suguru leaving was now bubbling at Satoru for uttering his name like it was pure filth. Satoru stiffened, eyes turning to glare at you. But, every ounce of anger seemed to drain from his body when he saw nothing but hurt glowing in your tired and puffy eyes. “I fucking get it, Satoru. I know what Suguru did but fuck, how am I supposed to just get over him? How am I supposed to carry his child for nine months and push it out of my body just to raise it on my fucking own and never tell him? He’s the one that wanted this in the first place!” Tears glossed your eyes over, hands shaking as they fisted in his sheets.

His mouth opened before closing again, eyes looking away from you because he knew he'd never be able to try and talk sense into you when you looked at him like that. “And what if the child is unable to see curses?” he sounded defeated. “What then, Y/N? What if you give birth to this baby and they lack the ability to see them? That baby would be the very thing Suguru hates.” You froze, it felt like someone had poured ice water down the back of your neck. “If he didn’t spare his own parents, he won’t spare his own child.” Satoru swallowed, looking like he wanted to say so much more but didn’t. He let the words hang there, heavy and dark. 

The silence stretched on between the two of you, mostly because you knew he was right. Just because both parents had the ability to see into the curse world and use curse energy, it didn’t guarantee that their offspring would also carry the same blessing. You blinked, hand subconsciously moving to rest over your stomach, as if it would do anything to protect them. “Suguru he… he wouldn’t…” Your words were weak and at that moment Satoru couldn’t bring himself to really fight with you. “But he would, y/n that’s the fucking issue, he would.” his voice was breaking, unsure if he should say what he wanted to say next. 

“Then what am I going to do?” You were going to dissolve, tears burning your eyes again as the harsh reality began to sink in. “Let me help you, let me help you raise the baby. I can easily provide for the two of you.” He turned to look at you now, eyes burning with such intensity it stole the air from your lungs. “What?” you hadn’t meant for it to sound offended, you were shocked to say the least, but still the hurt that flashed through his features made you feel the urge to reach out and hug him. “Satoru I didn’t mean for it to come out so harsh…” You moved forward, arms wrapping tightly around his neck and hugging him. 

It took a second but his arms came up to wrap around your middle, holding you tightly. “It’s okay, it was a bold statement to make so suddenly.” he soothed you when really you felt that you  should be the one soothing him. “No it’s fine, really it just caught me by surprise and…” you hugged him a little tighter, burying your face in his neck. For a moment you nearly stiffened, that was something you usually did to seek comfort from Suguru. In that moment, you couldn’t bring yourself to pull away, finding comfort in Satoru’s reassuring embrace. “You don’t have to answer me tonight.” He hushed you, hand coming up to smooth your hair as he kept you close. “I doubt you have an appetite now, how about we just sleep?” 

“I still need to shower.” You pulled away, laughing softly when you remembered what you had been in the process of doing before your world flipped. “Okay, then go and shower but please come back to me when you’re done.” His tone was quiet, something in it held no room for you to disagree. So, you let go of him reluctantly, nodding as you crawled over him to stand. “Again, you don’t have to answer me tonight, or tomorrow, or even next week. But please, think about what I said.” He stayed on his bed, watching you shakily grab the pregnancy test before heading for his door. “I will, Satoru. Keep my spot warm.” you smiled at him over your shoulder, heart still heavy as you disappeared through the open door. 

The hot water on your skin wasn’t enough to wash away the dread growing in your chest. You found your hands absentmindedly running along your abdomen, still finding it hard to believe something was there, something that would grow into a living breathing human in a few months time. A mix of you and Suguru, how strange. This wasn’t how you imagined it would happen, nor were these the feelings you expected to experience when the time came. If anything, it made you more upset. You should be happy, you should be fucking estatic. You should be basking in the euphoric state of knowing you’d be having a child with the man you adored. 

Instead, you had sobbed in the arms of his best friend, completely hysterical. And the man you loved had no idea you were even pregnant, that the very thing he wanted had been achieved and he wouldn’t even get to know. At least not yet. You had taken Satoru’s words into consideration, of course you did. But in the back of your mind, you knew there was no way you’d be able to go on with your life without ever telling Suguru. He would know, he would know of his child, you were already set on that. You twisted the knob, the water turning off a second later as you got out and dried yourself off a bit before wrapping the towel around you. 

Your body was aching from the events of the last few hours. Returning to Satoru’s room and sleeping in his warm bed sounded like heaven to you. Sleeping next to someone again felt like heaven to you. You had to wonder what Suguru would think if he knew you were sharing his best friend’s bed – albeit nothing sexual was occuring between the two of you. And even then, Suguru had broken up with you in that letter, you were technically no longer his. The thought made you feel sick as you reached for the clothing you had laid on your bed. You pulled the shorts on first, reaching for the oversized shirt second, trying to ignore the nausea building in your gut. 

You moved around your room without thinking, flicking the lights off before heading out the door and back down the hall. Satoru had changed into his own pajamas, hair damp from the shower he must have taken while you went to take yours. He only had his bedside lamp on, the pace beside him vacant and waiting for you. “Are you sure you don’t want food?” he questioned softly as you shut the door behind you. “I’ll eat a good breakfast if my morning sickness allows.” Those words felt foreign, referring to your nausea as morning sickness felt so bizarre. “Alright but if you wake up in the middle of the night starving don’t hesitate to wake me up.”

You laughed softly, huffing out an “okay” as you crawled over him and under the covers once more. Satoru pulled the blankets up over both of you before reaching over and flicking off the light. “Goodnight.” he spoke softly, settling into his bed as you rolled onto your side to get comfortable. “Night, Satoru.” You whispered back, eyes already feeling heavy, the comfort his bed offered was no match for the gnawing reality you were facing. For now, you were thankful for it. 

~

“Think fast!” You laughed, hurtling one of the poles directly in Satoru’s direction. He turned, using infinity to block it just before it hit his face. “Nice! Your reflexes are getting faster.” You picked up another weapon, Suguru was watching you intently, an easy smile on his face. “Sugu!” You called, aiming to throw another pole. “Think fast.” you repeated, arm going back before using every ounce of strength to beeline it straight at him. Suguru smiled, summoning a curse easily to deflect it. “Not bad.” you winked, watching him roll his eyes as the curse disappeared.

“Y’all are gross.” Satoru drawled, pushing his glasses up his nose. “We didn’t even say anything?” Suguru countered, stepping out of the shade and into the sun. “You don’t need to say anything, the tension is almost unbearable.” Shoko chimed, twirling her lighter around her fingers as she watched the three of you. This time you couldn’t help but laugh, letting Suguru close the distance and wrap an arm around your waist. “See, gross!” Satoru sighed dramatically as you kissed Suguru’s cheek. “It’s called being in love, something you wouldn’t get, Satoru.” You stuck your tongue out at him, laughing as he rolled his eyes. 

“Well if you’re gonna be all gross and lovey with one another, go do it in private.” 

“Okay.” 

You and Suguru spoke in unison, a shrill laugh leaving you as he bent down and hauled you up and over his shoulder. Naturally Shoko faked a gagging noise, watching as he carried you away with a smile. “They’re so gross.” Satoru commented again, eyes following the two of you until you were completely out of sight. Though, he couldn't deny the small smile tugging at his lips. 

“Suguru.” you slapped his back lightly, he was still carrying you over his shoulder even after entering the dorm buildings. “Hmm?” he paid you no mind as he climbed the stairs, his end destination would be your dorm room… more specifically your bed. “You can put me down now.” You knew he wouldn’t, so you opted for running your hands along his back, feeling his steps falter for a moment before composing himself. “I’ll put you down when I’m good and ready.” 

You rolled your eyes, playfully swatting at his ass. “Alright, that's it. You’re getting punished.” His words were very matter-of-fact, so much so that you couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Okay dad.” Suguru didn’t miss a beat, stalking down the hallway towards your dorm room. “Yeah, I’m trying to become one so it would help me out if you cooperated.” You made a strangled noise, it had been three weeks since Suguru admitted to wanting to get you pregnant. Needless to say, he wasn’t giving up any time soon. 

“You just want a reason to fuck me.” You tried to counter, jumping a bit as he pushed into your dorm room and kicked the door closed behind him. “I don’t need a reason to fuck you, baby.” You couldn't describe the noise you made, whiplash taking over as he tossed you onto your bed. “I guess that’s true…” You pushed up on your elbows, watching him pull his white shirt up and over his head, knocking his hair out of his bun in the process. “You’ll be good for me right?” He was dropping to his knees before you, a gentle plea of his name leaving your lips.

“Atta girl.” he murmured, warm fingers hooking in the waistband of your shorts and pulling them down. You watched him with parted lips, watching the way his eyes observed you. “Already wet? How fucking filthy.” his hands splayed along your thighs, pushing them wide open so he could really look at you. “Just because I picked you up? Or maybe it was from wrapping my arms around your waist?” He teased, pulling one hand from your thigh to spread your cunt open instead. “Tell me, pretty girl… what has you so worked up already?” 

“All of it.” You’re breathless as you look at him, no shame in your eyes as you admit how badly you want him. Suguru smiled, fingers keeping you spread as he watched the arousal pool at your entrance. “All of it, hmm? I make you that horny?” His tone was light but the look in his eyes was anything but. You could feel him devouring you whole. “Yeah, you fucking do.” You tried to keep your hips still, praying he’d do something other than watch you grow wetter by the second. “Tell me something, would you?” he pulled his eyes away to meet yours. 

“Anything.” You comment softly, waiting to hear what he had to say. Suguru smiled, fighting the urge to reach up and tuck some of your hair behind your ear. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.” His voice was barely a whisper, pupils blown wide as he looked at you. You audibly groan, face feeling warm as your head falls back. “Eat me out, Suguru.” You drawl, no longer embarrassed by the things he makes you say. “As you wish.” He couldn’t even tease you for such an honest answer. Suguru’s head dipped lower, tongue licking up your inner thighs, teeth grazing the skin eagerly. 

“Sugu…” You whined out, his lips growing closer to your aching cunt. “... can I suck you off after?” 

Suguru’s whole body jolted as you uttered those words, mouth moving to lick and suck along your folds as his honest answer. You took that as a yes. You couldn’t help but squirm as his hands began kneading the flesh of your thighs, all the while his tongue was lapping at your cunt. Each movement sent electricity up your spine, one hand shakily reaching out to hold his head as his lips wrapped around your pulsating clit. “Oh fuck… Suguru…” you were embarrassed by how quickly he had learned to make you cum, the pressure already building in your gut. 

He didn’t slow, rather he slipped two fingers into your slick entrance and scissored them in time with his sucking. He loved to put on a show for you, going as far as to slurp your juices just so he could hear you cry out. You couldn’t think straight when his tongue was wiggling against your clit, stopping every few seconds to suck until your back arched. Suguru continued this until he felt your fingers tighten in his hair, pulling harsh as your moans turned into breathy gasps. He pulled away with a slick pop, smiling deviously as your head shot up to glare at him. “Suguru!” You wailed, letting go of his hair angrily. 

“Not yet, I don’t want you coming yet.”  

“No fucking fair!” you whined, head falling back against the mattress in defeat. “So selfish.” Suguru laughed as he pushed himself off the floor, now making a show of pulling the rest of his clothing off. “There goes your chances at getting head.” you chided, watching as that shit eating grin remained on his lips. “You think this is funny!” you whined again, the echoes of your denied orgasm making you close your thighs to try and alleviate the pressure. Suguru watched you, cock throbbing as he kicked his pants off the rest of the way and tossed them to the side. 

“I do think it’s funny, mostly because you look so cute when you’re so worked up.” his hands wrapped around himself, pumping languidly as you spread your thighs again, eager for more. Suguru smirked, always defiant until his cock was out. “Nah baby, I don’t think you deserve this right now.” he continued to stroke himself, head falling back just a bit as his own aching arousal was finally being relieved. “Sugu…” you choked out in a hushed whisper, mouth watering as he let out a breathy sigh, fingers toying with the sensitive tip. You were regretting your earlier statement. 

“Sugu…” you spoke softly, watching him lift one leg to plant his foot on the mattress, hand still gliding along his shaft as his jaw slackened. He ignored you, continuing to get himself off. He was waiting for you to do something, that realization had you pushing yourself up, pulling your shirt up and over your head and tossing it to the ground. You pulled your legs off the side of the bed, maneuvering yourself until you sat on your knees before him. “Let me suck you off.” breathless, hands folded neatly on your lap as you waited for his response. 

Suguru smiled at you, watching the mattress move as your hips squirmed. “I thought you said the chances of me getting head were gone.” he teased, hand massaging just before the head of his cock, making his own voice falter as he spoke to you. “I never said that.” which was kind of true, you didn’t say those exact words. Suguru cocked an eyebrow, unable to maintain his stern demeanor as your tongue moved to wet your lips, eyes completely focused on his fist. “Please, your hand is so boring Suguru, especially when you could have my mouth.” you tried again, eyes sliding up his torso, admiring the dips and plains of his muscles. 

“When you put it like that, it’s hard to say no.” he murmured softly, letting his cock go. You scooted closer, until your knees were nearly off the edge of the mattress. “Thank you.” You whispered softly, watching his face flush a shade of pink, eyes quickly looking away from you to try and regain some sort of composure. The first touch was always enough to make him weak in the knees, your tongue gliding gently over his weeping tip before lowering to the underside of his shaft. He met your eyes, face still flushed as you looked at him with such adoration. All the while your mouth was doing sinful things to him, your duality was enough to induce whiplash. 

His fingers came up to rake through your hair, guiding you as your jaw slackened, head moving to engulf him in the wet heat your mouth had to offer. “Oh fuck…” Suguru choked when you didn’t stop moving, throat constricting as your nose brushed the unruly mess of black hair at his base. You held yourself there, drool dripping down your chin as your cheeks hollowed. Slowly you dragged yourself back, watching the shiny coat of saliva covering his shaft in your wake. You repeated those motions, finding a comfortable place to bob your head at, his length heavy on your tongue. “So good for me… fuck you’re so good for me… I don’t know what I did to deserve you…” 

You merely hummed, ignoring the slow but steady ache building in your jaw as your hand moved along his shaft. You could tell he was starting to really feel it, his cock twitching every few motions, head tilted back as his eyes fluttered shut. You had to admit you were impressed he managed to stay on his feet. Most times, when Suguru dared to eat you out while you were standing, you were nearly a dead weight in his grasp by the end. The only thing keeping you up was the wall he stuffed you against and his shoulders because he tossed your legs over them. You stopped when you felt him twitching violently, jaw clenched tight as his head shot forward to look down at you.

“Gonna make me cum, pretty girl.” He choked out, hands cupping your cheeks to guide you as you moved your head again. Your hands shot out, holding his thighs tightly as you let him use your head how he pleased, guiding you to a pace that made your eyes water before he stilled all together. You forced yourself to relax as Suguru spilled down your throat, letting you greedily swallow all of it before pulling off of him with a lewd pop. “Fuck…” he nearly fell into the bed, dick still hard as he crawled onto the matress with you. “How about we do this…” he sounded breathless, laying on his side and guiding you to do the same. You knew what he wanted, swollen lips parting as you sighed, settling with your back just barely touching his front. 

You let Suguru grab one leg, lifting it up slowly to create enough space for himself. “Lazy boy…” You teased over your shoulder, letting his arm hook under your neck, large hand resting on your chest. “Maybe I am, but you fucking love it.” You couldn’t complain, not when he was angling his hips and pressing the weeping tip of his cock at your entrance. He pressed into you, adjusting both of your bodies until he found a comfortable position to properly rut his hips into you. All you could do is let him, whining loudly as he split you open, stuffing you full. “How’s that, hmm? Does it feel good?” Suguru whispered against your ear, panting as your walls constricted around him and tried to push him out at the very same time. “F-feels so good…so good…” You whined loudly. 

Suguru didn’t give you a verbal response after that, instead focusing all of his attention on finding a good rhythm to fuck you too. You couldn’t stop the noises that spilled past your lips, each drag of his cock in and out of your heat was enough to make your vision blurry. It took everything in you to at least keep your head up, tilted downwards to watch where he disappeared and reappeared between your legs.  “Suguru…” a breathless plea, one that turned into a steady mantra as all you could think about was him and what he was doing to you. Had you not been so overwhelmed you would have heard his quiet grunts of praise each time your bodies connected. 

Suguru watched a shaky hand slide down your front, in your whimpering daze you managed to slip two fingers down there to rub sloppy circles on your clit. “Gonna cum, aren’t ya?” Suguru gasped, his cock twitching violently as your cunt suctioned to him, nearly making his thrusts falter. “Y-yeah…” you managed to get out, no longer having the strength to keep your head up. You let it fall, resting snuggly in the crook of the arm he was using to support you. “Then come for me, pretty girl. I wanna feel you come all over my cock… then maybe I’ll fill you up, yeah? You’d love that…” you responded with a loud whine, walls fluttering around his length each time he pushed it back in. 

“There we go, come for me.” He encouraged again, warm breath ghosting the shell of your ear and earning a shiver in response. You could feel it, the aching build of a damn that was on the verge of breaking, every breath you made was nothing but a labored pant. Your heart was beating erratically, just as you were about to fall over the edge, Suguru gasped. You couldn’t help but gasp with him, his release pumping into you, hot and sticky. “F-fuck sorry…” he grounded out, his own orgasm sneaking up on him and completely catching you by surprise. Not that it mattered to you, that strained and embarrassed apology was all you needed before you felt yourself coming as well. 

You both essentially collapsed, Suguru holding you tightly as he angled himself to remain inside of you, to keep his cum inside of you. “You okay?” he mumbled softly, hand lazily reaching for the one you had used to rub your clit and bring it to your lips. You whined as he popped the shiny fingers in his mouth, cleaning them with his tongue. “Yeah, I'm good…great really.” You chuckled, eyelids feeling heavy as he hummed. “Good.” he mumbled softly, pulling your fingers from his mouth to kiss them gingerly. “You know I love you, right?” Suguru’s voice was tender, so tender it nearly pulled the air out of your lungs. “Yeah, of course I know that Sugu… you know I love you too, right?” 

“I know.” was all he said in reply, you had to wonder why he was suddenly so sentimental. Suguru was typically softer with you after sex, aftercare was one of his specialties. But something about his tone felt different, something about his question felt like there was more meaning behind it. You had been noticing the bags under his eyes for the last few weeks, but every time you asked he always brushed you off. “Is everything okay?” you tried to turn your head to look back at him, but the angle he had you in proved to make movement difficult. “Mmhmm, just want to make sure you’re okay.” but he hadn’t  been that rough with you. “Yeah, I’m okay… but you haven’t answered me.” He stopped kissing your hand, setting it down gently as he moved to kiss your shoulder. 

“I haven’t?” 

“I asked you if you were okay.”

“Well, I did answer you. I said yes.” he didn’t sound offended, more or less he sounded amused. “Mmhmm isn’t a yes, Suguru.” You, on the other hand, sounded a little less enthused. “I’m okay, baby. Is that better.” you couldn’t see it but you could hear the smile on his lips. “Yeah, that’s better.” But for some reason, you couldn’t shake the worry clinging to your heart. 

~

“Hey… hey…” you woke with a gasp, eyes wet as you tried to remember where you were. “You okay? You started crying in your sleep again.” A worried but groggy voice was speaking to you, one that was familiar but your brain couldn’t seem to catch up. “Y/N? It’s me, it’s Satoru.” There it was, you nearly fell back into the pillow with relief as he spoke. “Shit I’m sorry… I was dreaming and it just… fuck it felt so real. I couldn’t remember where I was…” you wiped your eyes, slowly adjusting to the dark room again. “It’s okay… you’ve been dreaming a lot.” Satoru sighed, he remembered you saying that your nights had been pretty dreamless for the last three weeks so why was that changing now? 

“I know… it just started happening too. Maybe it's because of the baby.”

Your hand lowered to your stomach, palm resting flatley against it. You still couldn’t process the fact that there was something in there, something that was growing, a mix of you and him. “Can pregnancy make you dream more?” Satoru chuckled, blue eyes shifting to read his alarm clock. It was just past four in the morning. You had slept pretty well until a few minutes ago. He had been watching you, woken up by your body growing restless. He woke you up the moment he heard you start to sniffle. “I dunno, maybe.” you sighed, eyes feeling heavy again. “Sorry for waking you, Toru.” You didn’t hear the way his breath hitched, your yawn effectively shutting it all out. 

You hadn’t called him by that nickname in weeks, he hadn’t really realized how much he missed it. “Don’t apologize, I told you to stop that.” Not stern, just tired, he wanted you to go back to normal but he knew that was impossible. Things would never go back to how they were. “Oh, yeah… I guess you have told me that.” You chuckle, turning on your side to face him in the dark. “I won’t apologize for forgetting this time, okay?” You grinned, eyes closing and unaware that he was able to see it in the dark. “Okay.” He sighed, a grin creeping up his own face as he let his eyes shut again. Hopefully you’d sleep through to his alarm at 8:30am, you had a busy day ahead. 

~END OF PART ONE~

Thank you for reading! I hope you look forward to part 2 <3333

Likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated ;3

#star dividers are from @benkeibear <3 #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #jujutsu kaisen angst #suguru geto #geto suguru #geto x reader #getou suguru x reader #suguru angst #getou suguru smut #geto smut #geto suguru smut #getou suguru x you #geto x y/n #suguru imagine #geto suguru fanfiction #geto suguru imagines #jjk angst #jjk fanfic #jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk smut #May’s Pale Blue 🩵

[stuckinapril]

how do you fall in love with yourself

unlearn the idea that confidence is conceit. i see this belief imposed on women especially, that if they’re very unapologetic about loving themselves it automatically means they’re narcissistic / think they’re better than everybody else. that’s not true at all. you can love yourself while also acknowledging you’re not inherently better than anyone else. you can love yourself while also being kind & supportive to others. it’s okay to be both of these things at once.

let go of the scarcity mindset. women (everyone really, but especially women) get pitted/compared against each other all the time. you see it w female celebrities in the media, but it’s very prevalent in real life as well. this is very much years of societal conditioning & both women & men partake in this behavior. ignore it. rest easy knowing that there can be multiple beautiful women, multiple smart women, multiple funny women in any environment at any given time. there is enough clout to go around; you don’t need to feel like if there’s another pretty/smart girl it means you no longer have the space to also be a pretty/smart girl. instead operate from an abundance mindset: always (alwaysss) be happy for other girls when they succeed, when they’re praised, when they’re loved, whatever. see them not as competition but as inspiration. envy is such a colossal waste of time bc nobody else’s accomplishments have any bearing on your own!!

get to know yourself more. i love the analogy of dating yourself bc it’s true. i went through a rough period of being around my ex 24/7 to the point i didn’t even know myself, and then i spent the post-breakup year hanging around everyone else constantly to numb my thoughts. now i’m spending more time alone than ever & i’m getting to know myself so much. learning about my taste in fashion, music, everything. and i’ve had so much more time to invest in hobbies & skills, which is very instrumental to building healthy self-esteem. ofc there’s a more balanced way to do this, but make sure you’re not running away from yourself!

what do you like outside of everybody’s opinion? don’t interpret this the wrong way—it’s completely fine to be inspired. every single person you know has copied someone else to an extent. but if you find yourself going too far, not trusting yourself to make the simplest decisions, just following trends blindly and nothing else, you’ve left the inspiration territory and started crossing into plagiarism. move from a place of self-direction and really think about what is naturally appealing to you. it doesn’t matter if it’s not popular or nobody else likes it. if you like it & if it makes you happy, that’s all you need.

practice self-love! i had to do this lol but it works wonders. i started intentionally telling myself that i trust my own taste, that i trust my own choices, that if i think something’s cool it’s good enough, talking to myself kindly etc etc. eventually all this stuff will become natural to you & you won’t find yourself having to expend so much energy into simply loving you for you. don’t give up even if it’s hard to believe at times.

don’t give a fuck. seriously. just don’t give a single flying fuck what someone else has to say. there will always be That One Person who tries to tear you down, belittles you, gaslights you etc etc and if you know in your heart you’re not doing anything wrong, just ignore and keep it pushing. you can’t be everyone’s favorite person (nor should you want to be). think of your favorite celebrity. anyone ever. they probably all got subjected to hate. now think of how they’re successful still & how it didn’t take anything away from them. there you go <3

if literally everyone on this planet starts hating you, loving yourself is still the antidote. to clarify, how others perceive us does hold weight. but if legit every single person i know started hating me, and i still loved myself, i’d probably still live a full life bc my perception is all that really matters in the end. i don’t need anyone else to be my #1 fan—i can do that myself just fine. it technically is actually your world & everyone else is just living in it. so enjoy that! stop giving a hard time to the one person who will always be w you through thick and thin (yourself). eat good food & watch good shows & read good books & just have fun. i love u

#i have a lot to say ab this bc i went from being in a very low place to now being my own favorite girl in the world so #also i refer to women a couple of times here but really this is applicable to everyone!! #ask

[the-trinket-witch]

TWST Signature Spell Effects on the Body

Because I'm a wordy, purple-prose kinda bish, I thought about what each Unique Magic might actually feel like on the body (at least the ones that affect other mages when cast). (SPOILERS FOR BOOKS 5 ONWARD)

(CW: Loss of motor function, scopophobia, senses being messed with, forceful sleep)

Off With Your Head:

The moment it slaps around your neck and shoulders, there's that deafening rush of blood to one's ears. If you and your magic were lightning, the collar just became your glass bottle. Outside of the momentary dulling of senses, one may  have a general difficulty breathing, either from the collar fitting itself or the lack of support without one's magic. Lightheadedness and an internal hollowness make the collar leave you feeling like after a flu.

Bet the Limit:

His magic literally amplifies and pushes back your magic, but to do that he has to rip control of it from you. Bet the Limit gives one that jerking tug on the shoulders, a jab of pain that burns into your neck almost. Sometimes if one resists or tries to wrench control back, they're left feeling like their shoulders have been dislocated. They haven't of course, but the feeling is still enough to keep one from moving them for a while.

Doodle Suit:

There's a metallic, fruity Sichuan peppercorn-like numbing on the senses before it's replaced with what he decides. Pretty straightforward.

(Legit tho: I think his is kinda scary in terms of utility. The possibilities o_o )

King's Roar:

Burning. King's roar doesn't have fire but there's still a dry burn. Rug or rope burn, an allergic reaction, or being splashed with hydrogen peroxide, it all makes the nerves curl away like shriveling plants. Skin on downwards begins flaking like baked mud, falling off into sand like chunks of slate.

Laugh With Me:

Laugh With Me at first feels like the pinch of nerves. But pulling against the bindings is like hyena teeth biting and yanking your muscle and bones; you're not in control. That tugging hurts much less, more of a firm mouthing on your body in whatever direction he wants.

It's A Deal:

Much like his flattering words, his magic leaves one feeling glittery. But there's a cold tentacle-like grip on the heart for a quick moment; a reminder of what lies in the undertow. It's not a memorable sensation, but memorable enough to know what happens when it returns upon failing to fulfill your end of a contract. The resulting Anemone doesn't feel like much until one touches it, like a large zit.)

Shock the Heart:

The sudden wash over you feels like the splash of cold water after getting dumped out of a boat. Pharyngeal jaws scrape and tug on your tongue to reel you in, truth dripping off of you like seawater. 

(Truth is a lot of times subjective so why nerf it further? HC he can use it multiple times but lies cause it works on those unaware)

Oasis Maker:

Rain that's always the perfect refreshing temperature. Never frigid but never feeling hot. A relaxing shower of jasmine and chai, without the stifling steam

Snake Whisper:

A burning cobra bite to the skull. It's venom sears every wrinkle in the brain as you feel yourself get pulled along by the collar of proverbial tail coiled around your neck. Resistance feels like hot sand filling your brain cavity. Eventually the oppressive weight of said sand makes one submit. 

Sleep Kiss:

 Sleep Kiss seems pretty straightforward. It probably feels like sitting in a soundproof glass box, with cold air filtered in. Every chilly inhale acts like anesthesia, or the tug of exhaustion by hypothermia.

Fae of Maleficence:

His 'Blessing' feels like being laid into a patch of semi-prickly twigs; a dragon's nest or roost. It hurts slightly, but the diligence is paid to lay you gently in so they don't prick. Eventually you can somewhat relax, but adjusting or moving reminds one of the thorny poking all around you. It just becomes preferable to sit still, rather than try waking or even attempt at getting comfortable.

Meet in a Dream:

Many mistake Silver to have soft hair, but the only downy lightness about him, I think, is Meet in a Dream. Whatever sensations one feels when dreaming of flying, that fills you to buoyancy as he leads you along the Dream Corridor.

#twisted wonderland #twst headcanons #unique magic #signature spell #twst silver #jamil viper #riddle rosehearts #epel felmier #azul ashengrotto #malleus draconia #leona kingscholar #ruggie bucchi #trey clover #deuce spade #jade leech #kalim al asim

[kombuuuu]

chaotic late night store trips with hobie. like him reaching for things on tall shelves for you, getting lost multiple times to find things, him “borrowing” your favorite snacks for you, just cute couple shit

Late Nights.

Hobie Brown x Fem!Reader

“Love you?” “Don’ sound so sure.”

The jingle of a doorbell interrupted your quiet giggling. The gushing about anything stupid you were doing with your lover getting quieter when the ambience of city streets was lost, stepping inside a large convenience store you and Hobie frequented.

You greeted the store clerk with a loose wave and a sheepish smile, watching as he waved back with a tired smile before Hobie stole your attention again. Crowding over you and slipping a hand around your waist, the level of his tone a whisper when he spoke.

“Stop lookin’ at him. Look a’ me.”

He held a smile on his face, sending it — along with a greeting flick off his fingers— to the store clerk. The attitude contradicting his words.

You grabbed his hand and tugged, walking at a decent speed to the back end of the store, Hobie snickered as you told him off in hushed breath.

“Luv’ it when ya’ demandin’, Babe.”

“Jesus christ Hobie, quiet down!”

—

You had sent him off to go find the laundry detergent. Around 12 minutes ago.

Now he had you going idle by isle, starting at the cleaning supplies — checking every one for the lanky man.

You looked behind the next isle, groaning and snorting to yourself at the man of your subjects. You watched him spin aimlessly in a circle, giving confused looks to the items around him.

He held a large box of laundry powder in his hands, tapping the box rhythmically and bending at the waist. He gave a squint to one of the items and you watched him saunter up next to it, right in front of a worker, and slipped the small item in his sleeve.

He caught a glimpse of you, and winked with a lazy smirk. The sound of your feet tittering against tiled floor alerted the worker of your presence and you gave him an easy smiles, lips forming around a distracting lie as if you had practiced it a million times over.

“Hi! Sorry to bother—,”

“Oh, No stress.” He waved you off and you laughed politely, watching Hobie saunter off, a smug expression on his face.

Your eyes nearly rolled to the back of your head, a scoff playing just behind your tongue — but you refocused, “I was wondering if you could show me where the honey is?,” You laughed sheepishly, feigning obliviousness. Not like you’ve been here a million times or anything. “,I just don’t know which isle to look in, sorry.”

“Oh, again — It’s no bother, Miss.”

He gave you his customer pleasing smile, and started leading you in the direction of the honey, in isle 7 — he said.

When you caught a glimpse of Hobie with his jumper shucked down from its previously fluffed position, enough to hide the pockets of his sweatpants — you averted your eyes once more.

—

“You sly cunt.”

“I ‘ave no clue what you mean, babe.”

You lightly smacked Hobies chest, giving him a stern glare, though, with your lips twitching up into a smile — it really wasn’t very affective.

He twirled away from your attacks, idling the different confections he could chose from, and you promptly gave him a deadpanned look when he flicked his eyes up to the register. He caught your gaze for a second before smirking when his hands slid around your waist, humming to the random pop song playing through the speakers.

Not his tune exactly, but he’d heard it enough times to know the lyrics.

Indoctrination, probably.

“Oi?”

You turned to scan the items, different cans and bottles of whoever-knows-what being ignored by you, until you reached your favourite.

“Yeah?”

His hands squeezed your waist again, and he moved closer beside you, leaning against you lightly.

“Wh— Hobie, behave.”

“I am—…,”

He rubbed small circles over your hips and pulled you slowly, dragging your body closer to his so you were squished up against him.

You tipped your head up, looking at him above you, and he grinned down at you.

“,Just wan’ t’ warm up, y’kno’?”

“Oh, i’m sure.”

You focused back on the drinks, and when you saw your drink of choice, stacked high above all the others — on the top fucking shelf, you sighed exasperated, knowing Hobie would rather hold that shit over your head until the day he died if you asked for help.

Hobie caught onto where you were looking, his smirk only growing wider.

A low hum left his lips and you scoffed, rolling your eyes at him prettily.

You broke off him, and he let you, watching as you reached to the top, begrudgingly bouncing on your tippy-toes, and huffing when your fingers just grazed the drink.

He chuckled, and you continued — your efforts in vain as you even hopped to try and snatch it.

Hobie just watched you, whistling a short wolf whistle to tease as you tried so hard.

“Need help, sugar?”

“No.”

He snorted, quickly approaching behind you and pressing his form over yours. His hips slot nicely against your own.

When people say you fit perfectly with him, you would smile politely — then roll your eyes the moment they turned. But now? when his chest pressed firmly against your back, and the weight of him settled heavily on yours? You might’ve agreed.

“What are you doing?”

“Helping.”

You glared at the poor coke cam in front of you, taking out your embarrassment on the inn once of an inanimate object, subconsciously apologising to it.

Hobie made sure to push up harder against you, laughing under his breath as he muttered a thinly veiled lie.

“Push’t it back, sorry babe.”

You looked up, watching him graze his fingertips slowly along the bottle of your desire, and cursed the way your heart stuck in your throat when he finally closed his hand over it.

He pushed back casually, slipping away from you with practiced ease, and went to search for his own drink — even going as far as to toss your own in the air, and catch it playfully. Like he was bored.

The dumbfounded expression on your face was wiped the moment you got a hold of yourself, taking sure steps quickly towards your partner, while he pretended not to notice you in his peripherals.

“Hobie - Hobart Brown, you little fuck—,”

“,Sorry, sweethear’, im focusin’ ‘ere.”

“Oh my god—,”

“,Lot a choices, y’kno’.”

“I’m gonna beat your ass.”

“Uhuh,” He flicked your forehead and dodged your retaliating punch with a gleeful grin dawning his features, stupidly pretty fling in his eyes.

“,I’ll be sure t’ lay still, maybe you’ll ‘ave a chance.”

You crossed your arms, tipping your head up at him.

“I’d have a chance either way — you just don’t want to admit it.”

“Oh, sugar — lie t’ me, but not t’ yourself too.”

His tone was a sultry tease, expression a mocking pout — you rolled your eyes, the start of fluster making your face warm to touch.

“I’ve never lied ever.”

He snorted, bent to grab at an item, and paused to give you a look.

You gave him one right back.

“Ever.”

He grinned again, and turned away with a shake of his head.

—

BONUS +

“Hobie? Baby did you get the detergent?”

You tipped your head back from your place in the kitchen, looking over at your lover sitting laid back on the couch, watching whatever chic flick he landed on.

He turned his head towards you, looking at the groceries laid out to be put away.

You watched as his face twitched, a small smile fighting its way onto his lips.

“Hobie.”

“Sugar—“

—

BONUS ++

“And this is supposed to make my face softer?”

“It’s a cleanser, baby. It makes you clean.”

You raised your eyebrows, smiling at the brit.

“Hence the name. Cleanser.”

He slanted his eyes, glaring with an amuse of his own.

“I don’ appreciate your tone, love.”

You rubbed the cleanser in soothing circles along the expanse of his cheeks, admiring his high cheeks and perfect bone structure.

“Mm. Be quiet. Works better if you don’t talk.”

He puffed, slouching closer to you.

—

You grabbed a damp face towel, wiping at his face gently.

“Was tha’ true?”

You looked up from his jaw to his eyes, going to pat the excess water from his face.

“What true?”

“The talkin’ thing.”

You laughed abruptly, choking a bit on your own voice.

“No—,” You spoke through your giggles, watching as his face dropped into one of faux offence.

“,—No, that was the most blatant lie—”

Hobie grabbed the towel straight from your hand, whipping it towards your stomach. You only laughed harder.

“You ass’ole!”

“I’m sorry!”

You snatched the towel back off him grabbing his face in your hands again. He softened into a genuine smile, chuckling softly while you quietened down.

“Love you?” You tried, sheepishly trying to rid the remaining giggles.

“Don’ sound so sure.” He jabbed, tone in a light jest.

You snorted, repeating, with a now renewed definite.

“I love you.”

He softened further, hands caressing over your own, and a loving tremble in his bones.

“Love you too, [Name]”

“…You said that so britishly.”

“Give us one damn moment—.”

—

RAHHHHHH LONGER THAN IT WAS SPOSED T BE

also the art you sent im putting it here

anyone know the artist t this 🤭🤭❓⬇️

#hobie x you #hobie x y/n #hobie x reader #hobie brown x reader #spider punk x reader #spider punk #hobie spiderverse #hobie brown atsv #hobie brown #across the spiderverse #hobie my beloved #spiderman across the spiderverse #atsv hobie #hobie brainrot #hobie brown spider punk

[tlouadditc]

hate to hate you.

enemies to lovers abby x reader.

a/n: this was an ask but i forgot to put this under it 😭 anyway thank u anon for asking!! this was so fun to write tbh and also i am not a nursing student so idk how any of this works .... hope you enjoy anyway :,) also might write a pt. 2 depending on how this one does!

warnings: 18+/MDNI, men dni either, mean!abby [kinda], super fem!reader, abby's a bully :,((, switch!abby, switch!reader, clothed grinding [?], oral [a!receiving], dirty talk ;), pussy slaps [?], rushed ending because im crocheting, probably more. NOT PROOFREAD AGAIN.

abby has been your rival since middle school. she was always making fun of you- could be how you had lower grades [by a couple points, to be specific], how you always dressed in pink and in skirts and were a "tryhard", literally anything. hell, when she found out you were interested in nursing, she made it a competition to see who could be the better doctor. eventually, the amount of taunting had gotten to you and you started dressing like everyone else and becoming a quieter person.

ever since then, there's been some silent tension between you two. it was stupid, of course, but neither of you made an effort to end the rivalry. every class you had together in high school was a competition to see who could participate the most, get the most praise from the teacher, highest grades- everything. but no matter what you did, you'd always be second to her. once senior year was over, you were free from this hell and decided to finally be your true self in college.

or so you thought.

it was your first day of freshman year. you were doing your makeup in your bathroom, trying to calm your nerves. you've done this multiple times before, you thought to yourself. why am i still nervous??

you were adding little finishes- a bit more blush, curling your lashes one more time, adding a bit of glitter to your inner corner, etc. you check the time: 8:03am. class starts in 20 minutes, and you have to walk! you quickly check your outfit, straightening out your pink skirt and grabbing your bag before leaving out.

the walk to class isn't bad; a little confusing, but there's staff around to help direct new students, so you easily find your class. you walk in as soon as the class starts. to your horror, all the seats in the front are taken. the professor stops her introduction and walks over to you to speak. "hi, you must be y/n? you're a tad late, but it is your first time here, so i'll let you have a pass. your seat is in the back corner next to ms. anderson."

anderson...? your smile fades as you look towards the seat the teacher is pointing at. there she is- sitting there with her smug smirk and her always-braided hair. fuck my life actually. you turn back to the teacher, crack a small smile, and nervously walk over to your seat.

"didn't think you'd see me, huh?" is the first thing that comes out of abby's mouth, her big smile growing wider after seeing the dread on your face. all you can do is glare at her and get your things out. as you rummage through your bag, you hear the professor say:

"the person you are currently sitting with will be your partner for the semester."

you've LITERALLY have to be joking. the girl who's been borderline bullying you for years is your partner for the rest of the semester?? you debate asking the teacher to change seats, but decide against it.

"can't believe im stuck with you," she mutters, mocking the disbelief on your face. "shut up, abby," you hiss, trying to keep your voice down.

this was gonna be quite a year, huh?

abby was unbearable the entire class. always asking useless fucking questions, moving her braid from one side to another- it all annoyed the fuck out of you. however, to pass this class, you had to work with her and put your feelings aside.

the first assignment was to study and review the human anatomy with your partner. the test on the subject was in a couple of days, making it the first grade of the semester. everyone else in the class was easily discussing plans for studying while you and abby made a horrible attempt for friendly small talk.

"so.. we have a test-"

"i heard."

"goddamnit, abby, i'm trying to pass this class. can you be nice for once?"

"stop staring at me like that and maybe i will."

"i wasn't even- [sigh] just give me your number so we can figure out a time and place. please."

and with that, you two later that night made the plan to meet up at your apartment and study there the next day.

the next day

you spent most of your morning doing your usual routine; cleaning, listening to your podcast, organizing your things- basically a mini-spa day. since abby was coming over, you didn't want to give her any reason to ridicule your space. you also debated on wearing some bland outfit to avoid the bicker, but ultimately decided you shouldn't care anymore. you settled on something casual; a floral tube top, a pink cardigan, and some comfy shorts to match the top. you also threw on some pink bunny slippers to match the ribbons in your hair.

as you finished the kitchen, the doorbell rang. must be abby. you walk to the door, slowly losing your happiness as you turned the doornob. upon opening the door, you see abby, leaning against your doorframe. she's dressed in a black wifebeater and gray sweats. she has a small tote bag and headphones around her neck.

as you study her look, she does the same to you. you suddenly feel small in comparison to her; almost feeling weak in her presence. if you were honest with yourself, in all the annoyance that you felt toward her, you could admit she was hot. she was your lesbian awakening, if you were 100% honest. but since she didn't like you, you suppressed all feelings.

"someone got dressed up," she teases, looking you up and down. "this is just how i dress," you say, rolling your eyes. "come in."

an hour later, you and abby are sitting on your couch, going over flashcards for the test. abby has her information down, of course- you keep missing the same two vocab words.

"you dumbass," she laughs, watching you pout over missing the same word for the 4th time in a row.

"this is so annoying," you say, burying your head in your hands. the frustration you feel is so intense, you feel tears well up in your eyes. you attempt to hide it as abby continues to laugh, but a sniffle gives you away.

"are you- there's no way you're crying right now," abby says, genuine disbelief in her voice. "don't be a crybaby, bun. you can get it."

bun.. ?? what the hell? she's being... nice? no fucking way.

you lift your head, tears running down your face, messing up your makeup as you wipe your face with your hands. abby analyzes your face before sitting back on the couch. she pats her thigh, "c'mere, let me help."

okay, this has to be a dream.

you hesitantly get off your side of the couch and sit on her lap. almost immediately, you feel the warmth radiating off her body, making you shiver a bit. she chuckles lightly, "what, are you scared or somethin'? just trying to help you since you clearly need it." you're still wiping your face, too busy to rebuttal.

she begins to explain. "so, these two are similar, but they aren't the same thing. y'know why? because this one.."

all you can focus on is the amount of contact you two have right now: her right hand slightly touching your inner thigh. her abs resting against your back. her voice, soothing and calming, in your ears. the scent of pine and clean laundry filling your nose. you knew it was wrong, but fuck, you were wet. there was probably a puddle under you by now.

"uh, y/n? you there?"

you snap out of your slutty daze, realizing you're supposed to be listening. "mm, what? can you explain that, uh, again, please?"

she laughs, putting the cards on the coffee table in front of you two. "i'm sitting right here, trying to teach you and you still can't focus that pretty little head on this? god, what am i gonna do with you?"

you turn slightly, face to face with abby. her piercing blue eyes study yours, searching for something. you don't know what comes over you, but you completely turn to face her, move your hands to the sides of her face, and kiss her.

she immediately kisses back, hands finding comfort on the top of your hips. she falls back on the couch, lips still connected as you straddle her lap. you can feel the passion, intent with every kiss you give her. her strong hands push your hips onto hers, grinding through her sweats. a soft moan leaves your lips, giving her the opportunity to insert her tongue into your mouth and deepen the kiss.

you pull back, catching your breath as abby continues to make your hips roll onto hers. "you know how long- hah- i've wanted to do this to you?" she breathes, eyes moving from where you two meet to your flustered face.

you look at her, eyes wide. ".. what?"

"i've wanted to kiss you for forever. wanted to have you close like this. wanted to fuck you. everything." shes now completely focused of your face, trying to read your expression.

"i thought you hated me." you're so confused, you don't know whether to cry, smile, get angry, or whatever.

"fuck- i didn't mean to, i'm sorry," she's desperate, her hands moving to your cheeks to bring you back to her face. "let me make it up to you, yeah?"

after a while, she moves her hand to cup your throbbing cunt, earning a whimper from you. "you're so fucking wet, shit," she hisses, feeling the wet spot on your cotton pink shorts. "who's this for? hm?"

the embarrassment takes over you, making you pitifully whimper as you cover your face. she's quick to swat your hand away and ask in a more demanding voice, "who made you this wet, baby?"

"y-you," you manage to choke out, subconsciously grinding into her hand. she smirks, "good girl."

the praise catches you by surprise, not to mention the way her palm accidentally catches your clothed clit. a soft moan leaves your mouth, feeding into the power dynamic between you two. "oh, you like that name, huh?" she whispers, keeping eye contact with you as she rubs your clothed cunt. "you wanna be my good girl?"

"yes, oh my god-" you're chasing your high, overwhelmed by all the feelings you feel. she hums in response, clearly satisfied by your state. she moves a hand to your face, inserting a thumb into your mouth. you suck on her thumb, moaning around it as your hips stutter against her palm. "you gonna cum f'me, bun?" she coos, not slowing down at all. all you can do is nod, too caught up in the knots forming in your abdomen. "go ahead, pretty girl. cum for mommy."

the name pushes you over the edge, making you clench around nothing in your shorts. abby still has her hand over your cunt, feeling the wet spot grow as you pitifully moan. she talks you through your orgasm, mostly praising you for how good you are to her.

as you catch your breath, she removes her thumb from your mouth and peppers small kisses across your cheeks, releasing small praise in between. once you come to your senses, she's still under you, chuckling at your fucked out state. she mutters something along the lines of 'you're so cute' before you start to giggle with her.

you accidentally grind against her while laughing, making abby whine. you immediately realize you haven't helped her at all, making you guilty. you reach a hand down to her heat, feeling her warm cunt under her sweats. she hisses, hips bucking up onto your fingers. you get up and stand in front of her.

"sit up," you say, catching abby by surprise. she hesitantly sits up, looking suspiciously at you. "what for?" she questions, side eyeing you. you chuckle as you kneel in front of her, placing hands on her strong thighs. you reach a hand up to the band of her bottoms, signaling for them to come off. "m' gonna help you."

if her boxers weren't already soaked, they definitely were now. her face heats up as she shyly takes off her sweats, leaving her in just her wifebeater and undergarments. she puts her knees up to her chest, looking away as you assess the wet patch on her boxers.

"i make you this wet, abs?" you say quietly, pointer finger tracing her slit. she slightly gasps at the contact, slightly nodding to answer your question. "use your words. i know you can do it."

"you do, clearly. you've made me this horny for you for years, so yeah." she's being a brat, acting like she's in charge! you give her cunt a small slap, a small surprised moan leaving her lips.

"act like a brat, get treated like one." she stares at you, surprised that you went from such a submissive state to a dominant persona. you tease her, feeling her sensitive bud through her boxers. she whimpers, gripping onto the couch for any stability. "i think it's about time we get these off," you pull at the top of her boxers, "don't you think?"

she immediately gets up and takes them off, sitting back on the couch. she sits and moves her hips to the edge of the couch to reveal her cunt, glistening with slick. you study her sopping cunt, making her nervous under your gaze. "not so cocky now, hm?" you tease, making her face heat up as she huffs and puffs.

"please t-touch me," she almost whispers, barely able to be heard. you could've let up from here, but you don't.

"what was that? i'm gonna need you to be a bit louder, babe."

she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, swallowing her pride. "please touch me," she musters out.

she was such a pretty site to see, how could you possibly deny her? "okay, baby."

you spread her lips apart, revealing her swollen, sensitive clit. she shudders, cold air meeting her core. she's not sure what to expect until you dip your head down and place a flat tongue on her heat, making her gasp.

her reaction makes you smile; you quickly latch onto her clit and suck, still watching her reaction. she throws her head back, moaning loudly.

"oh, you like that," you say, quickly going back to placing kitten licks onto her cunt. she's overwhelmed with pleasure, loud moans and groans leaving her mouth. when you decide to insert your middle finger into her heat, she's going over the edge, babbling your name and please's. her hand comes down and grips the back of your head, pushing your face deeper into her pussy.

her sounds get you wet all over again, making you moan into her pussy. "s-shit, m' cumming- oh, fuck," she cries, gripping your hair and pulling you closer than ever to her as her heat clenches around your finger. tears are streaming down her face as you continue to lap up her juices. after she catches her breath, you pull her into a sloppy kiss, sharing her fluids in between you two.

"shit," she breathes, pulling away from the kiss, "i'm gonna have to fuck you harder next time."

"next time? oh, we're already making dates?"

"yeah, we're gonna have multiple assignments like this later."

you both laugh and get cleaned up before cuddling on your couch and sleeping in each others arms. :,)

taglist [if you're striked out, i can't tag you!!]: @ellabsweet @digit4lslut @macaroni676 @mostlyhornyandsad @yorlenybaires @Pigwideon

#tlouadditc #abby anderson smut #the last of us smut #abby anderson #abby fluff #abby x fem!reader #abby x reader #tlou smut #brook speaks.. i think #this was so fun to write

[thedomesticanthropologist]

What do you think the companions would ask for if Tav owed them a favor?

Oh this is fun! Let's assume it's in camp during their journey. Tav owes a companion a favor! What do they ask for? (This kind of evolved past a favor in a few idk if it counts but I tried)

Assuming no romance, relatively high approvals.

Shadowheart: Very practical, considers your favour repaid when you've performed all of her chores for her. Every day. For a week. She delivers her terms with a sweet smile, and carefully picks over your work to ensure it's up to standard. She may also plop herself down right beside you and watch you work while she lounges. Maybe makes a show of doing her nails or humming.

Wyll: "A favor? You repay me each day just by fighting at my side, friend." Takes a while to convince him you owe him anything, honestly, you'd have to work on it. If you really push it, he tells you you have to create a hero name for yourself and a catchphrase, which must be yelled out in the next battle. The Blade is always at the ready with a heroic word, and you shall be as well! He is chuckling as he suggests it, and if you look horrified, he drops the subject and claps you affectionately across the shoulder. He doesn't hold you to it. ALTERNATE ALTERNATE makes you wash his socks. They're stinky. He grins shyly about it.

Laezel: You have to spar with her. She's allowed to wake you up at any time, or jump you when you least expect it. You must always be ready and on alert. However, she knows this has humor potential, so she spends days sometimes just suddenly moving quickly in your direction only to abort the motion or do something innocuous instead. You jump out of your skin every time, fumbling what you're holding or tripping to try to get into a fighting stance. Her eyes twinkle. It's hilarious. One night she absolutely beats the shit out of you, sorry. Favor repaid.

Gale: Could go one of two ways. One: he demands first pick of the best magical loot, or, undisturbed and no-timelimit access to the next library/book room you encounter. No complaining allowed. Or! He's so excited to have a partner to play lanceboard with. If you don't know how, he teaches you. You must try to beat him as best you can. He absolutely destroys you and makes a big show about it, peacocking around. Then challenges you again. Gives you solid advice on how to do better next time.

Karlach: If she can touch again, she asks for shoulder rubs. Then arm, neck, back, feet, hands. You rub until you cramp up. Then she asks you to brush her hair. She's grinning like a loon and happy as a clam. If she can't touch, she considers the favor repaid when you pull a funny prank on someone else in camp. Whether it fails or not doesn't matter, she just wants to witness it so she can have a good laugh.

Halsin: "There is nothing you could owe me that would take a dent out of the debt I owe you, my friend." Refuses outright that you could ever owe him anything. Won't budge. Absolutely stubbornly will not.

Astarion: comes up with multiple suggestions, if you complete one, claims he was just talking out loud and that wasn't it OR that was just the first part, it's a multi-part favor you see, so really it will be paid back when.... and so on and so forth. Sees how much he can get away with. Alternatively: starts out with a REALLY extravagant ask and has to be whittled down to something you consider fair, whinges that he is doing YOU a favor by being gracious enough to accept the... favor... you just did him.

#baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #astarion #astarion ancunin #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #halsin #halsin bg3 #karlach #laezel #shadowheart #wyll ravengard #bg3 wyll #bg3 companions

[revehae]

monster

pairing ↠ johnny x you (ft. yuta)

genre .. warnings ↠ smut, noncon, choking, use of a gun

summary ↠ with news of a series of local deadly burglaries going around, you’re terrified of being the latest victim, but it’s the fault of your own disobedient nature that subjects you to a more potent kind of danger.

wc ↠ 3.0k

a/n ↠ this is a repost!

don’t like it, don’t read.

breaking: following a series of home invasions in the area, police recommend locals lock their doors.

for the past couple of weeks, the local news channel had mimicked a similar kind of warning. during the span of those weeks, nine burglaries had occurred; two involving death.

you were hoping you wouldn’t be the third. 

authorities reported that the culprit only entered homes with the intention of theft, and only when the occupants became an obstacle were they murdered. as if that was supposed to be relieving. you were no more in favor of being robbed than you were being killed, but you knew which one would be worse.

to make matters worse, that criminal was a damn good one. nine successful home invasions - some even in the same neighborhood - and all the police had on him was a poor quality CCTV footage image of the man in a mask. either he was an excellent thief, or the police were terrible.

lock your doors, they said. as if those innocent people hadn’t kept their doors locked. what use was it when the burglar knew how to pick locks and avoid homes with security? you might as well have left your doors and windows wide open, offered to him your belongings - and your lives - on a silver platter. 

“don’t be silly, babe,” said your friend yuta over the phone. he was assuring you that nothing would happen to you, or at least trying to. “everything’s gonna be fine. you should stay at taeyong’s tonight though just to be safe - you know he’s got good security.”

you bit your lip. it was a great idea. you had to give credit where credit was due; the thief, whoever he was, was meticulous, steering clear of houses where security was present. with multiple of the invasions taking place in the same neighborhoods it was almost like a taunt to the police. “i’ll talk to him,” you said. and much like some of your other neighbors, you made a note to yourself to invest in a home security system.

“don’t be a disobedient soul,” he drawled teasingly. given your tendency to rebel, the nickname was bestowed upon you by your group of friends. 

you rolled your eyes. “i’ll talk to him!”

“good. call me, okay?” yuta told you, and you nodded as if he could see you, a habit you had yet to break. 

“you just nodded, didn’t you?”

“shut up,” you said lightheartedly, giggling bashfully. 

yuta laughed, but positively didn’t stay around to tease you. “talk to you later.”

“buh-bye.”

the call cut and your phone hit the coffee table. you never winded up calling taeyong. you didn’t intend to lie to yuta, but you had already spent the night at taeyong’s - and some of your other friend’s and family with better security than you - too many times before and you didn’t like the feeling it gave you to depend on them so constantly. of course, it was better to be safe than sorry, but one night on your own wouldn’t hurt. 

besides, if someone broke in, you doubted they’d head for your bedroom. you’d just pretend to be asleep and pray it was all over soon.

spoiler alert: that was not what happened.

in the middle of the night you roused from your slumber in pursuit of one thing; water. but upon glancing over to your nightstand, you noticed your glass was empty. 

you almost didn’t move, almost forced yourself to fall right back asleep and not dare move a muscle. but awake, your mouth became dry at the possibilities of what could happen to you and anyone that knew you.

i’ll only be a second, you assured yourself, rushing into the kitchen. nothing’ll happen. everything will be fine.

it all happened so fast. 

a brimming glass of water in your hand, you twisted your body towards the direction of your bedroom yet only made it one step before you heard a noise. never had you paused dead in your tracks so quickly. the noise became clear to you - the sound of your front doorknob. 

you wanted to believe that you were simply so paranoid to the extent of making up sounds in your head, and frankly you had before, but this was different; this was real.

like a bolt of lightning, you struck behind the counter, accidentally spilling water onto the floor, but that was the least of your concerns. you ducked behind the island, pressing your knees to your chest and wrapping your arms around them. regret plagued your heart as now, more than ever, you wished that you would have listened to yuta. you forgot to even call him back, and now there was no telling if you ever would.

the noise didn’t last very long, merely seconds before it turned into that of the front door being opened and shut, followed by footsteps. part of you wanted to peek, though aside from it being awfully risky, you were too stunned to move. your heartbeat throbbed in your ears and you could feel it hammering in your chest against your knees.

so much for locking your doors. you were going to hold your middle finger to the police in a big ‘fuck you’ after this was over - if you made it out alive, that was.

those heavy, unnerving footsteps were the sole noise to cut through the ear-splitting silence. they headed somewhere down the hall and you heaved a big sigh of relief, then drew another in as if that was all the oxygen that the world had left to spare. somehow you were breathing so fast yet not at all. 

in your brief, short-lived fit of relief, your body went slack, and your knee ultimately knocked over the glass that you had forgotten was there. instantly your muscles tensed again, and your fit of relief turned into an outbreak of fear. 

“fuck,” you whispered to yourself and bit your lip. the footsteps returned merely seconds later and you immediately tried to regulate your breath in an effort to remain silent as possible. you prayed to the above that your life wasn’t over.

louder, the footsteps got. quicker. and louder, and quicker, and quicker, and louder. tears began to well from your eyes as terror and your regrets overcame you. you should’ve did this, you should’ve did that. and now that you hadn’t, the price was yours to pay.

all of a sudden, the footsteps paused, and somehow that was more unnerving than the sound of constant moving. you were tucked into yourself, doing your best to be still yet not fully conscious of the fact you were shivering with fear. please, the tiny voice in your head begged for mercy. 

and then, the footsteps continued again. and your heart sank when you saw a shadow from around the island close in on you, until another, masked figure crouched down before you. 

it was when you saw the gun tucked to his side that you lost all hope. it was over.

“found you,” said the masked man through a semi-muffled voice, his tone lighthearted. the vast majority of his face was concealed, though if it weren’t, you would have noticed the smile creep across his face as he saw every ounce of faith in your body instantly die.

found you, he had said in a teasing tone, as if this were hide and seek. maybe that’s all this was to him; a really big, really unfair game.

you said nothing. you were too shocked and far too scared to move a muscle, including your tongue.

“this little hiding spot of yours would have been wonderful,” the stranger began.  “if it weren’t for the mess you’ve made in here.”

the water you spilled earlier. and the pieces of glass that had fallen before you. you hadn’t even noticed that it shattered.

“you should’ve listened to yuta, sweetheart. he told me that you were staying at taeyong’s tonight. i had my suspicions when i saw your car parked outside, but you really are a disobedient soul, aren’t you?”

your heart stilled. only your friends knew about that nickname. and that didn’t explain how he knew yuta, much less what you discussed on a personal phone call. a jarring question emerged in your head. 

with fear heavy in your heart, you whispered, “how did you…?”

the stranger removed his mask; and suddenly he wasn’t such a stranger anymore.

you almost fainted in shock. “johnny?”

johnny flashed you a grin. “that’s my name; don’t wear it out.”

too many emotions plagued your chest and you never would’ve imagined that it would be possible to feel so many things at once. the fear, the dread. the anguish, the betrayal. it was overwhelming.

johnny and you had never been particularly close, though he was in a very specific circle of friends. you met him through yuta, much like everyone else in your friend group did, and whoever yuta trusted, so did you. you were thick as thieves. 

or so you thought. it seemed that in reality, he and johnny were (quite literally) thick as thieves. you couldn’t fathom why yuta would betray you after all you’d been through together.

you shook your head in denial, balking. maybe this was just a nightmare, just a really, really bad dream that you had yet to wake up from.

“you gotta go now,” johnny crooned. then he clawed at you with his large, heavy hands, and begin to drag you out of the kitchen. 

you tried to resist, but he was too strong. it was like fighting with a brick wall. he dragged you into your living room, and when you fell against the floor, you half-expected him to pull out his gun and finish you there, but he didn’t - instead he wrapped his hands around your throat. they were cold against your neck, like a corpse. out of natural instinct, your fingers tried to pry at his hands in an effort to pull him away, but to no avail. it was pointless to try and fight against him, he was larger and stronger and everything in between. you were simply no match for a man like johnny.

and he merely watched. he hovered above you, hands firm around your throat, and watched your trembling hands fall to your side, watched you struggle to speak coherently as you fought for breath, all while his eyes stared into yours and watched the life drain from them. and you were certain that you were on the verge of meeting your end.

but, when you were at the very brink of unconsciousness, he let go.

your chest heaved in pursuit of sucking in as much air as possible, trying to recover from near unconsciousness. he didn’t kill you - at least, not yet. you wanted to be relieved, but you were only confused.

“on second thought,” he whispered, leaning in ever so slightly. “i think i’m gonna keep you. i like the look in your eyes.”

not just the look of fear, but the look of hope and life bleeding from your irises. he liked the power your fear gave him; how he was in control of whether you lived or died, releasing you from his chokehold at the very verge of unconsciousness.

he would be lying dead to your face if he said that it hadn’t gotten him off, if he told you that he hadn’t been tempted to make you his for a while. in return, you had a slight crush on johnny, but it didn’t go anywhere and it sure as hell wouldn’t now that you had been exposed to who he really was.

you were even more confused when johnny slung you over his broad shoulders like you weighed nothing and began to carry you in the direction of your bedroom. your cries of protest went through one ear and out the other, rendering you completely powerless. 

he plopped you down unceremoniously against your sheets and leapt at you hungrily. your pulse sped with alarm when you felt him tug at the band of your underwear, and in spite of your prior futile attempts, you tried to pry him away from you, begging him to stop. 

up until now, johnny’s tone had been lighthearted and taunting, but he switched on a dime when he pulled out his gun and you felt cool metal flush against your temple. “say another word. i fucking dare you,” johnny warned. 

you gulped back every word, effectively silenced. once johnny was certain that you were startled into compliance, he put the gun away and resumed his actions. warm, regretful tears stung your eyes as you lied there helplessly. you closed your eyes, refusing to watch him in fear of the memory being perpetually etched behind your eyelids. 

impatiently, he ripped the fabric off your thighs, venting your bare flesh to the cool air. you shivered, autumn making your skin crawl. the gleam in johnny’s eyes was not lost on you, heavy with lust and nothing but. he had wanted nothing but to destroy you, and ultimately nothing would come in his way. not even yuta. 

“this is all your fault, y’know,” johnny said, smiling at you sinisterly. his teeth clamped into your thigh out of no where, and instead of your eyes wincing shut, they shot open in surprise. johnny snickered and shredded both of you of what remained of your clothes. “all you had to do was listen, baby girl. look where being a little brat gets you.” 

you said and did nothing. you had practically tuned him out, more or less out of preservation for yourself. otherwise, you might have gone insane. but there was no haven for you - no safe place. inward or outward. outside of your body, johnny had full control, but inside, there were plenty of other monsters roaming around in your brain, occupying it with terrifying thoughts. there was nowhere for you to hide. 

johnny was hard - most likely from watching you trembling in fear alone - and used his saliva as a lubricant. you still hissed when he began to thrust inside you, not at all considerably. rivulets of tears bundled together on your cheeks and you clamped your nails into his biceps, trying to anchor yourself on something. your fingernails drew long, irritably red lines on his arms, but he didn’t mind the sting. to johnny, there was no pleasure without pain. 

when your cunt had swallowed him completely, you whimpered, “it’s too big.” 

johnny wiped at the tears on your cheeks and whispered, “you poor thing.” he didn’t do much else. in his mind, you deserved this. you never listened to anyone but yourself, and this was an apt punishment. 

“should we give yuta a call?” johnny asked, noticing your phone lying at your nightstand. if he was being honest, you were a little airheaded. at very least, it would have been smart to bring your phone with you when you ventured out into the kitchen, but of course you didn’t. it was almost like you wanted him to find you, completely defenseless. “i’m sure he would love to hear about this.”

you blinked when he mentioned yuta. you hadn’t called him back earlier, like you were supposed to, but now you weren’t sure if you ever wanted to speak to him again. not after you had learned that he was more or less an accomplice in this mess, no matter how much he tried to protect you. you felt so betrayed and broken. 

though you shook your head, it seemed like you were getting a taste of how it felt to not be listened to, because johnny picked up your phone and forced you to unlock it, then scrolled to yuta’s contact himself and put the phone on speaker. 

yuta picked up after a couple of rings, and skipped the greetings to say, “y/n, what the hell? are you okay?” 

“she’s perfectly fine,” johnny answered for you, though one look at you could obviously show that you were anything but. 

yuta heard his partner’s voice and instantly knew you were in trouble. he exclaimed, “johnny, what the fuck did you do?”

“nothing you wouldn’t want to do yourself,” johnny sang without a care in the world. you watched him silently, face tensing. the emotion that plagued your chest and the thoughts to your mind wouldn’t allow you to speak. “you should feel her yourself. she’s so goddamn tight. it’ll take both of us to loosen her up.”

“i thought i told you to leave her alone,” yuta growled. much to your surprise. maybe he was innocent, but he wasn’t that innocent. he knew half of what johnny was up to all along - he could have done more to protect you from someone he was full aware was dangerous. 

johnny countered, “and i thought i told you no promises.” then, he leaned lower, clamping his teeth into your shoulder to stifle a moan. consequently, you let out a whimper. “don’t act like a saint, my friend. you know you want this just as bad.”

you blinked through your tears. that was news to you. yuta was heavily flirtatious, as were you, but it never went anywhere and you figured it meant nothing. your ears were attentive, waiting to find something in his response to redeem him before he was beyond reclaim. as unforgivable as everything else he had done was, you didn’t want to consider that it was possible for yuta to even want to do anything similar to you.

you heard rushing and fumbling in the background and yuta’s voice said, “y/n, can you hear me? i’m so fucking sorry. i’m on the way.”

johnny simply rammed his hips into you harder, making you squeal from the impact. you closed your eyes and leveled your breath. it was too late for you. johnny was already having as much fun with you as he wanted. 

“yuta’s not gonna save you, baby,” johnny sang to you directly. he did what he pleased, not caring what anyone had to say about it. that was the johnny you knew and had always known. “nobody can.”

#johnny suh smut #johnny suh x reader #nct 127 smut #nct 127 x reader #nct smut #yuta smut #nakamoto yuta smut #tw: noncon #tw: gun use #revehae fics

[0-0malik]

"You often said how excessively lavish everything is in Vere," Laurent says, "yet I find Akielon men to be similarly excessive."

Damen peers at him from his position on the bed, on his front as he cradles his head with his arms. "How so?"

Laurent picks his nails as he hums, "the statues."

Damen directs an amused gaze at Laurent's prone form by the window's ledge. Expect Laurent to nitpick everything.

Shaking his head fondly, he explains. "Multiple have been commissioned to depict Akielon men in their glory."

Laurent snorts, as sophisticated as one can be when doing something unappealing. "How predictably vain."

An amused breath passes Damen's lips before shifting himself on bed. Now, he lays on his back, gazing up at the ceiling.

Teasing, he says, "I prefer Kings' monuments showing them in their glory rather than those sly ouevres mostly hidden in unfrequented annexes."

Laurent rolls his eyes. "Of course you do. But not every art is made to have the public's eyes set on them. They contain messages that aren't easily expressed in words, so they show it instead."

Damen hums contemplatively. "No, the public aren't always the audience" he agrees, "But they're still made to be appreciated by someone nonetheless."

"Then what of the others?" Laurent asks. Damen twists his head to face Laurent, but his lover is looking out the window.

"What others?"

"The pieces that show unusual subjects unlike your glorified Kings." Damen pauses but, unnoticed, Laurent continues. "I saw you looking at one, a statue of a woman crying on her knees, in the gardens earlier. What of pieces like her?"

Licking his lips, Damen answers. "A message, as you've said. She's mourning for her husband before she was turned into a fountain by a God who heard her sorrow."

Laurent's brows rose at this. "How miserable."

Damen nods. "It is. It was commissioned to warn men of a wife's pain if they become careless with their own life."

Laurent nods in understanding, of what, Damen does not know. "And did it?"

He nods. "Some have had practiced caution since."

Laurent diverts his gaze to him, his eyes gleaming a beautiful blue from the moon's light., like water under night's glow.

"But you don't perceive it as a paragon of a mourning wife," Laurent says with a steady and firm gaze.

Damen smiles, shaking his head. "No, not really."

Exhaling, he closes his eyes. "When I looked at her weeping face. I imagined her mourning of another's death rather than her husband's," he quietly admits, "I thought of the life she could've lived and desired it to be her reason for crying. I appreciated her tears."

Laurent pushes himself away from the window and walk towards Damen, who doesn't move when he felt Laurent's shadow covering him, nor when a firm hand pressed on his chest.

Laurent drapes himself over Damen's chest, rising and falling under him.

"What's her name?"

Damen's chest expands with his inhale before he releases it, loud in the quiet of the night. "Egeria."

NOTES: excuse this since everything is rushed. But I just had to contribute something because Damen is lovely, duh.

#damen of akielos #fanart #digital art #captive prince #damenlovefest2023

[fuckyeslilkim]

Lil Kim's Squat Pose Is Iconic. Its Photographer Discusses it for the First Time

In a rare interview, Michael Lavine discussed the day he shot Lil Kim’s Hard Core cover, the booklet, and that feisty, nearly 30-year-old poster we just can’t get enough of.

Even though Michael Lavine has photographed OutKast, Ghostface Killah, JAY-Z, Missy Elliott, Foxy Brown and many others, he didn’t start out capturing larger-than-life rap acts. Like multiple moments throughout his career, he just fell into the next phase of artistry, which was deifying a generation of Black storytellers.

Lavine’s interest in photography goes way back. He led his high school’s yearbook committee as the head photographer. Soon after, at Washington’s Evergreen State College, he studied traditional street photography in the style of Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand. While in Washington, he befriended the group responsible for the record label that became Sub Pop, and documented a then-emerging sound that, to this day, continues to inspire chart toppers. He wasn’t interested in being married to any particular genre or group though, because boxing yourself in isn’t the move. “I just never felt comfortable kind of being pigeonholed in anything to my own detriment. It's not good for business to do that,” he said. “You're supposed to kind of dive in, not pull away. But that's just how I was wired. I wanted to do my own thing.”

After fostering the trust of music industry greats (“I started working for Rick Rubin. He was one of my first clients and he hired me to shoot a bunch of his Death American acts because he was starting to do metal at that time,” Lavine recalled) and becoming a Black Book highlight, he fell into shooting some of the biggest rappers on the scene. His knowledge of capturing Black talent helped. “I was very good at skin color and doing warm skin tones and lighting people,” he said. “For some reason, I think there was this problem with white people who didn’t understand how to light Black people, which was just ridiculous.”

In short, he came, he saw, he snapped. Legacies were cemented in the process, most notably with an image of one of the greatest female rappers that has become one of hip-hop’s most beloved and recreated photos — Lil Kim’s iconic squat seen ‘round the world.

Below, the retired photographer gave Okayplayer a rare interview where, for the first time, he discussed the day he shot Lil Kim’s Hard Core cover, the booklet, and that feisty, nearly 30-year-old poster we just can’t get enough of.

This interview, which took place over multiple conversations, has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

When did you first meet Lil Kim?

The date was 7/30/96. The anniversary just passed.

What was your first impression of her?

My impression overall was she was not like she is, as in the present. She was very quiet and under the thumb of Big Un. Remember Big Un?

Are you talking about Lance “Un” Rivera?

Yeah. He was there. He was the man in charge of her and was kind of in control of the shoot. Kim didn't say a word. I don't think I spoke to her once about anything, but we had a nice rapport in front of the camera. She was great and we made a lot of pictures together, but I felt like there was this circus going on around us and it was just me and her. You get this intimate bond with your subject a lot of times. She's in her lingerie and rolling around on a bed. So, I was trying to be my normal, respectable self, and being professional and making the images with her in tandem.

I would direct her like, "Let's try this. How about coming over here? What if we lean this way?" There were a lot of sets. We had rented a brownstone in Manhattan probably. It was a couple floors. It might have been two floors. So there was a bedroom, a little balcony, a fireplace, and those big doors.

I interviewed Kim last year and she told me she just kind of dropped into the squat pose naturally.

It was very spontaneous. When you're doing photo shoots, at least when I was working, it was an organic process and you let things happen. It's like a creative flow. Whenever you have a creative director there holding out a [composition] like, "Here, do it like this," it just was always bad and kind of nothing. It was like the safest way to get whatever it is that they had in their minds. But to make a great photograph you have to let things happen. You just have to go with it.

There was no layout for her to do that pose. It just was natural. Part of it, I spent a lot of time low angle, meaning I was always kind of lying on the floor, crouching down myself. So, it's possible that one of the reasons she did it was because I was probably sitting on the floor looking up at her because that's kind of how I do. My style was based on the hero, meaning my job was to make people look like heroes with iconic style.

My style was based on making people look cool and giving them lots of options. So, we would take a lot of different kinds of photographs. I used different kinds of lighting. We moved very quickly. A lot of things happened and it was very much an exciting experience. Somebody had a set prop person there bringing flowers. For the cover shot, we had all those flowers in front of the fire, and the bear skin rug we brought that in. It was a normal hip-hop shoot. I was intimidated. It was a very hard day. Everybody was being kind of tough and intimidating, and nobody would talk to me.

Were you scared?

I was never scared, but they all had guns. It's not that I was scared..scared is not the right word. It's more like I felt kind of out of place a little bit. I didn't even speak with Kim. I was dealing with Un mostly, and Un had a lot of ideas. So we were trying to do all the things. I was getting coverage for him. He wanted to have her hold the honey bear. Remember, there's a shot of her holding a honey bear on the black satin sheets? We had a lot of props. I had a props guy. His name was Jerry Schwartz. He was very good and we had brought a bunch of stuff.

So, for example, I remember Puffy came in for a shot and I did one shot with Puffy and Kim together. And Puffy, I worked with him many times. He didn't even say hello to me.

I was just like, “Really? Do you have to be that way? You're so cool you don't want to embarrass yourself talking to the photographer, actually acknowledging him?”

I never really felt at home around Puffy. I think at that time, because I don't think he's like this anymore, but at that time he was — and I know this happened to several other people that I've witnessed throughout their careers — they're really striving. It's very hard at the beginning and they'll push, push, push. They're just about their thing and they don't care about you. So, he was yelling at everybody all the time.

On set that day?

Not that day. Other days.

Oh, just in general?

Just in general. Barking orders. But that day he came in briefly and we did the shot and then he left. There's one shot, I don't know if you've seen it, of them together on a wall. I don't even know why he was there. I can't remember. He had something to do with the record, I guess.

"There was no layout for her to do that pose. It just was natural," Lavine said of the image.

The image came out as the poster, “Lil Kim Coming Soon.” When you're there that day, you have no idea what images are going to stand out. Zero. There's just no way anyone could know. It isn't until there's time to contemplate the session when you edit it and you start to live with the images. And the graphic designer who, I can't remember who it was. Maybe you can find that out.

Maybe.

Let's see if there's a name on here. I don't know. Big Beat records? I don't know who that would've been. Atlantic maybe? I think it was Atlantic Records, no?

Lil Kim was [signed to] Atlantic.

It was Atlantic? Maybe it was, I don't know who it was. Liz Barrett? There were a bunch of people in the Atlantic art department at the time. I could probably look at the invoice.

Do you still have the invoice?

I don't know. Let's see if I do. '96...

If you do, you're the best records keeper of all time.

Yeah, there's Kim and Puffy right there. I have the whole job here. Ed and Carl were my assistants. The location was 24 West 10th Street. That's where we shot it. Here's something for you. Ready for this?

Yes.

So, these are notes from my conversation with the manager. "Little Kim. Female. She's the other woman, somersaults in bedroom, not raunchy. Doorway of bedroom, satin sheets. Blouse, undone. Honey in hair, on bed and on phone. Down pants. Unbuttoning pants. No whips and chains. Classy, sexy, lush, lustful. Candles in the background. Fruits and chocolates." There you go.

The notes Lavine was given prior to the Lil Kim shoot.

So, those were the notes that you were given before the shoot?

Yep. Those were the notes I was given before the shoot.

"Not raunchy" really stands out because I think you conveyed that.

"Not raunchy" — peekaboo, sexy shit.

Oh, man. Well, you did it. You accomplished the goal. And that actually flows really well into my next question, which was what do you believe they were trying to convey with the shoot?

It was funny that they hired me because I was known for not exploiting women in my photos. That was one of the reasons I didn't ever shoot women because back in the day, you were expected to shoot women with clothes off. I refused to do that and I never did it. I think this crouching picture was the raunchiest picture that I had ever done. Actually, that's not true. I did one once. But it was not my normal style, shall I say.

But also, it's an empowering image. I just generally felt uncomfortable sexualizing women throughout my career. That shoot was uncomfortable for me because I had to do that, and I think she was a little unclear as to what she was doing herself. I have no idea. I didn't talk to her. I'm not sure what she was thinking. Years later, I talked to her because we were both well complaining about this image being bootlegged.

She did mention that during our interview. That people were making t-shirts and making their own memorabilia.

It's completely illegal what they're doing, and it's got to be the most bootlegged image of mine. It's like whack-a-mole, you can't stop them. You send out your lawyers and then they just shut down and open with a different name. I could probably go out, spend some time and sue them all and she could, too. Who has time for that? If you have a lawyer and you have a lot of money, you could do that.

That sounds like a lot.

I mean, it's unfortunate. But she was talking about trying to do some merch of her own. The smart thing to do would be to get a deal with Merch Traffic or somebody that does merch, and then they would take care of trying to squash the illegal competition. But I thought that she was going to maybe have that happen this year, but I haven't heard from her.

But the image is just getting more and more famous. It's funny, you never know what kind of resonance an image is going to make and impress upon the culture at the time when you make it. It's rare that there's an instant classic. It's very hard to have that kind of impact these days just because of the nature of social media. Back then, there was a poster and that poster was the only poster. There was no other place to see it but the poster.

Now, it's everywhere.

That image really stands the test of time. Very few images stand the test of time like that image that I've worked on. It's one of my more recognizable images and I have a lot of them.

You do.

So, what can I say? It was a perfectly nice day. She was lovely. We had a nice rapport. The pictures came out great. I continued to work for many years after, and I'm retired now.

What made you jump into hip-hop photography?

Well, that's a funny question because I think my whole life, until recently, has been me falling into things that I wasn't planning on. I was driven to do photography so I was on that path. But if you would've told me my senior year, my fifth year of college, I was going to be shooting rock bands for a living for the rest of my life, I would've said, "Really?" I would've had no idea. But that fifth year [of college] I got a job to shoot a rock band and it just turned into —

The rest of your life?

It turned into the rest of my life. I never said, "I'm going to be a rock photographer." I never said that until I was one. Then, I had no plans on shooting hip-hop. It was an up-and-coming market at the time. I didn't know anything about it. I was friends with Kurt Cobain hanging out at rock shows, and really was unaware of a lot of hip-hop.

I did some hip-hop jobs early. I shot De La Soul, who I loved. I shot a few bands and hip-hop acts that were popular around that time. I got to know a lot of people in the business over time because I worked in it for so long. I was really close with Groovy Lou, who I loved as a stylist. June Ambrose. A lot of people.

But this was a defining moment. That shot, that poster when it came out, it made a lasting impact. It's still gaining speed. At that time, nobody knew who she was.

Did you know who she was?

I might've heard her name but not really. I just got hired on jobs. That's how I learned about people. I listened to the record before anybody else heard it. I got it first. But a lot of people were that way — I would learn about them on the job. That's how you learn because if I'm shooting 100 jobs a year, I don't have time to do anything but the job that's in front of me.

Did you listen to the album before the shoot?

Oh, I'm sure, of course. I don't remember the exact moment I listened to it but I always did. But that was part of the job, and we listened to it all day long during the shoot because that's what we did.

When did you realize that photo was really making waves?

Well, I think it happened over time. Obviously, the poster immediately was like, “OK, that's intense.”

Was it everywhere? Was it all over town?

It was everywhere. And when the poster came out it was powerful. It was a dramatic statement and it sent shock waves immediately. It was clearly influential at the time, I will say that. It was shocking and effective. It put her on the map.

Do you think it put her on the map more so than the cover?

Oh, yeah. The cover, who knows what the cover looks like? Nobody does.

#lil kim #lil' kim #rap #queen of rap #rapper #hip hop #queen bee #female rapper #female rap #hiphop #fashion #90s #squat

[aris-ink]

some horror smut with seokjin pls 😭 ppl barely ever write about him

tysm to my 🐋 angel for providing inspiration and supporting me... thank you to @baalsgurl1913 for reading through this and guiding me with her love. and thank you to @yoongsisbae for helping me choose the right direction <3 I am... so sorry for what I am subjecting y'all to lmao

pairing: jin x reader

genre: romance, ghost!au

warnings: mentions of blood and violence (not towards the reader), multiple deaths (+ major character death), implied murder, cheating (not by jin), supernatural elements (hauntings, afterlife), mentions of medication, manipulation and obsession, implied mental and physical torture (agsffhsgsh rip minho), angst, rough sex, dirty talk, praise, mentions of spanking, choking, creampie

"Does it help?"

So cold. His hand felt so cold as it brushed through your hair.

"Does it help you move on? To feel like you've buried me?"

Unable to turn around and look at him - or whatever that thing was - you pulled your knees up to your chest and hid your face in them.

"I did," you whispered. To convince him or yourself, you weren't sure. "I did bury you."

Like a little girl, you gently rocked yourself back and forth on your bed, the chill of the dark room so severe it was making your fingers numb.

"Did you?" He hummed into your ear. "I'm right here."

You could barely hold yourself together, your heart sinking so low you feared he could snatch it from under the ground and keep it there with him forever to rot.

"I promised I'd never leave you, didn't I?"

Despite the fear weighing on your chest, your eyes opened slowly. You woke up in the warmth of your sheets, your vision blurry with tears. Seeking comfort, or at least a confirmation you weren't alone, you turned towards your boyfriend and pressed yourself into his back. You tried to swallow down the lump in your throat, the grief and the guilt of trying to move on. It didn't help. The bitter mixture only seemed to upset your stomach. With a sigh, you sat up and blinked, wiping at your eyes. Outside the window dusk was slowly fading. You reached for your phone, then planted your feet on the wooden floor.

6 am. Looked like you'd have an early start.

*

Grief was... loud. It demanded to be heard. He was sure even the dead could not rest in peace with how you tossed and whimpered in your sleep. He certainly couldn't. But the bastard lying beside you remained oblivious to your suffering. Pathetic, really. Jin couldn't believe this was the man you chose to replace him with. The man who got to see your pretty smile, go to sleep and wake up by your side - when he didn't deserve any of it at all.

He would have felt that way about anyone who went near you, of course, but there was no denying the fact that he held a special kind of contempt for Minho. All those late nights out, the perfume he smelled of when he came home. Surely you weren't that blind? Surely you could see that he wasn't faithful? Always drifting off somewhere, even as you spoke to him. Jin wished he could grab him and break every bone in his body, slowly, make him pay for every sin he's ever committed. The sin of being with you, touching you. The sin of hurting you.

But all he could do was kneel by your bed and run his fingertips down your cheek. He tried to catch the tears that fell, wipe them away like he used to when he was alive. It didn't do much besides inducing a little shiver, making you pull the blankets tighter around your body.

*

A few months have passed since the car accident, yet he continued to appear in your dreams. It felt like any attempts you made at trying to find peace were being torn apart by his shadow, leaving you lethargic and confused... making you pay less attention to your new relationship. During the day, you questioned your sanity and wondered if you should see a doctor.

During the nights, however, in that cold, little dreamland of yours he haunted, you tried to find the answers to questions you wouldn't dare to ask out loud.

"Why are you still here?"

You still couldn't face him, but you felt his presence, a ghostly touch travelling down your sides. The nightmares themselves were distressing enough, but there was something else gnawing at you, a possibility that made you ache.

"Are you stuck? Is there no light there?"

You could feel Jin's arms wrapping around you from behind. Such a chilly, foreign experience, disturbing you in ways you couldn't even understand; everything seemed too realistic.

"There is," he murmured, his voice sounding amused. "And I went right into it."

You swallowed, staring at the wall ahead of you.

"Oh."

You couldn't tell if you felt relieved or disappointed. You chewed on your bottom lip.

"So, you're not real then," you whispered, as if to yourself. "Just my imagination."

"Oh no," Jin protested. "I'm very real, baby."

Your brows furrowed, your heart skipping a beat. You haven't heard him call you that in so long it made you want to curl yourself up to him. Real or not.

"But you said you followed the light."

"Mm, that I did," his lips grazed your shoulder, a hint of ice with velvet, followed by a soft whisper. "You're my light."

A dam inside you cracked, the turbulent waters behind it about to shatter it altogether, along with your willpower and common sense. You missed him so much. You wished you could hide in his arms and stay like that forever, even if they felt so cold. You'd give up the sun and live in eternal winter if it meant that things could go back to the way they were.

But they couldn't. And that wouldn't be living at all.

*

"Ah, don't forget your pills."

You smiled at Minho and grabbed the small, plastic bottle from him. It's been only two weeks since you saw a psychiatrist, but the quality of your life has improved immensely.

And also, it didn't.

While you no longer feared going to bed, closing your eyes was still a struggle. You didn't need to dream to see Jin's face behind your eyelids.

There was an uncomfortable, odd sense of guilt stirring inside you, like you've done something wrong. Like you've shut him out and left him all alone there in the void. And yet that was all the more reason for you to keep taking your medication and trying to move on. Jin was gone; there was no changing that. Sticking to rationality made it easier for you to ignore these feelings, to tell yourself that you didn't feel unusually cold when you entered your bedroom.

You glanced up at Minho when he got up from the table, grabbing his coat.

"Are you going somewhere?"

He smiled at you as he worked on fixing his tie.

"Just work stuff."

You put down your fork, your appetite suddenly gone. Work stuff, at nine pm. On a Saturday night. Again.

"Don't wait up, honey."

You didn't have the mental strength to deal with this and your inner turmoil. Instead of speaking up, you tried to force a smile when he bent down to press his lips to yours. An inch separated you, your eyes fluttering shut.

And then - a sudden crash that made you jump in your seat.

Frowning, Minho straightened up, looking behind you.

"What the hell?"

Your heart thudded in your ears. The fright that pulsed through you spread all the way to your fingertips, making your hands feel weak. You turned your head towards the source of the sound, blood draining from your face.

The frame that held the first picture you took with Jin was lying on the floor, shattered, glass broken into pieces. You hid it inside the cabinet right above the spot, yet now it was wide open, gaping.

Even though your knees felt like cotton, you stood up and rushed towards it automatically. You collapsed onto the floor, barely registering Minho calling out your name. With trembling fingers, you began to pick up the pieces in a hurry, not even fazed when you felt two warm hands curling around your arms.

"Are you crazy?" Minho snapped, pulling you away from the mess.

You struggled out of his grasp, your elbow knocking into his chest roughly. You scrambled back to the broken frame, blinking through the tears. It was so hard to see.

"It's- it's broken," you stammered. "Broken. I need to clean it up."

Minho crouched down next to you, gripping your wrists.

"You're hurting yourself!" He hissed. "Look."

He shook both of your hands. Dazed, you glanced down, brows scrunching when you noted the blood dripping from your fingers.

"But-"

Minho stared at you, a flash of uncertainty in his eyes, like for the first time he was really seeing you. Like for the first time something akin to guilt stirred in his stomach. Keeping your wrists in a tight grip, he wrapped an arm around your waist, gently pulling you up with him.

"Come on, honey. I''ll clean it up in a sec. Hold on."

He guided you to sit back down on your chair. You could still feel your heart ramming against your chest, frighteningly heavy with the weight of stress. Minho left your side to step up to the cabinets, rummaging through them in search of a first aid kit.

Numbly, you observed him uncap a bottle of antiseptic. Only when it came into contact with your skin did you feel the sting of the cuts, a sizzling sensation that made your fingers twitch. He bandaged them up one by one, seven in total, wincing as he cleaned up the blood.

Silently, as he promised, he went to clean up the mess on the floor as well, ensuring to sweep the area thoroughly. With a brief glance at the picture, then back at you, he set it down on the counter carefully. You felt like you were outside of your body, barely there, unable to speak up and tell him to not throw the picture away. He seemed to know that himself, though.

He picked up your bottle of sleeping pills and placed it on the table beside you.

"I'm late now, but I still have to go. Get some rest okay? You can text me if you feel unwell."

You blinked up at him, unsure if you were grateful to be left alone now or if you wanted to beg him not to walk out the door. Still, you couldn't even nod when he leaned down to kiss your forehead. With your hands on your knees, you listened to him leave and lock the door.

Your eyes flickered from the counter where the picture was, then to your pills. Unable to help yourself, you left the bottle behind and went straight to bed. Waiting for the adrenaline to flow off you and the exhaustion to do its job. You couldn't force yourself to swallow the medication tonight, an uneasy feeling intensifying in your chest.

*

This just wouldn't do.

How much more could he take? He stood by your bed and watched your eyes fall closed, fuming. He caught your attention, and that fucker's too, but Minho was probably too stupid to think much of what happened. Even if a frame did fly out of your kitchen cabinet on its own.

The two weeks he spent without being able to contact you were agony. Time didn't seem to exist on the other side. For the living - for you - it flowed like a river. For Jin it was a bottomless ocean and he felt like he was drowning without you. He couldn't stand the fact that you just tried to toss him away and move on with your life as if he ceased to exist. It was clear you still loved him. Why were you so unwilling to believe that he was right by your side? Did you really think something as trivial as death would ever take him away from you?

All the anger inside of him simmered, so powerful it felt like an explosion when he watched you sit in the kitchen with that pathetic excuse of a human being.

Until it overflowed.

He was almost as surprised as you were when the cabinet flew open. He hasn't been able to touch anything on this side of life.

Now, as he stood over your bed, he contemplated what he could do with that newfound power. There were so many possibilities.

With a hum, he brushed your cheek softly. Decisions, decisions.

*

This dream was different from the others. You were still in your bed, but this time Jin didn't sit behind you. You could see his silhouette in the corner of your room, blending in with the shadows. You shivered, relief settling over you for some reason, despite how disturbing the atmosphere felt. At least he was there.

You didn't know what to say. You had a feeling he was angry at you for leaving him behind. Why else would he stand so far away?

"Missed me, baby?"

His voice sounded soft. You hid your face in your hands, confused, unable to tell if the spectre before you was a figment of your imagination, a cry from the grief you tried to escape, or something more sinister. Something more real.

But whatever it was, it was still Jin, in some way. Wasn't it?

When you heard light footsteps approaching your bed, you stiffened, still lacking the courage to look up. For so many reasons. Would he look dead? Would he look normal? Either way seeing him again would break your heart.

You felt him kneel down on the creaky floorboards, slowly taking your hand in his. A chill spread through you, your eyes shut tightly.

"What have you done?" He whispered, pressing a kiss to each bandaged finger. A feather light touch.

"No more suffering, baby. Promise me... Just let go. I'm right here."

*

The next night you drifted off in your armchair for what seemed like a few minutes. You awoke with a sigh, getting up to stretch in the dark and make your way towards your bedroom.

Minho must have still been out somewhere. You tried to ignore that thought.

Strong arms wrapped around you, halting your steps. You froze, the soothing warmth and smell of a cologne that was so familiar to you making your heart thud. You whirled around in shock, for the first time letting yourself look at him. Your hands grasped at his shoulders. He felt so much warmer than usually. Dark, soft hair framing his handsome face, his eyes burning into yours. Wearing the same leather jacket you've seen him in on your last day together.

Was this another dream? It had to be.

"Baby," he muttered lowly, his hands coming to rest on your waist.

The sudden proximity after such a long time of being apart made your stomach swirl. It was strange how solid his hold was on you.

He took a moment to stare into your eyes, the pretty eyes he missed so much, glistening and bright. You were so confused, your chest constricting with pain and love all at once. You opened your mouth to speak, but words failed you. This had to be a dream, right? But why did he feel this warm? His eyes seemed so dark. So much darker than they ever were before. His lips knocked into yours, not allowing you to voice your perplexity and your doubts, or focus on your thoughts at all.

Such hunger. He didn't think the dead could feel hunger, or much of anything, but he was wrong. His soul endured starvation in this ruthless void, starvation for your love, your touch, you. It turned into a dark desperation that dripped and dripped onto you like fire, from his tongue brushing your lower lip, from the fingertips dancing across your ribs.

He groaned, a low, raspy sound that made your thighs clench.

Not for long.

He pried them apart and settled himself between them, his lips pressing soft, wet kisses into your neck.

"Fuck," he sighed, fumbling with the zipper of your jeans, his hands shaking. "I missed you."

You wanted to let him push you into the nearest wall so willingly, you would have any other time. But this still felt so odd. So real.

For a moment, you lost your breath, and the only thing you could focus on was the way he slid your jeans halfway down your thighs, not even bothered to undress you or himself properly.

"Missed you," he repeated in a whisper.

When you heard him unbuckling his belt your pussy clenched around nothing, leaking through your panties. There was a soft grunt as his trousers pooled around his ankles, one hand hooking your leg around his waist.

"Missed you too," you gasped, your head tilting back when you felt a sharp tug and heard the cotton material of your underwear being ripped in half.

"I know, baby."

The tip of his cock brushed through your slick folds, the slight pressure of the hard, thick length causing a shiver to erupt down your spine. Jin hissed, squeezing your thighs as he spread you open.

"Missed me here too?"

He emphasized the question with a teasing thrust, rubbing against you. Very fleetingly, the thought of Minho tickled the back of your mind, like a butterfly. You weren't a cheater. But... this wasn't real, was it? Even if it was, you weren't sure if you were able to overcome the shock of it, the need and the yearning burning inside you.

As if sensing your hesitation, Jin rolled his hips, entering you harshly and knocking all air out of your lungs. You felt so full of him, pulsing hotly around his cock.

"Don't think about him," he seethed. "Don't think about anything. Only me."

He didn't make that task very difficult. All your thoughts turned to ashes when he gripped your throat with his hand and started to fuck you, slamming you into the wall behind you with every aggressive snap of his hips. Like he wanted to take all of his frustration and love out on your body, make you suffer from pleasure.

"You're only mine," he groaned into your ear. "Your heart is mine. This pussy is mine. I should beat your ass raw for fucking forgetting that."

Your knees quivered, a whine tearing out of your throat. He tightened his hand around it, cutting the sound off.

"Say you're sorry."

You clenched around him. Somehow, the aggression only made your head spin more, because if he didn't feel real before, he definitely did now.

"Say you're sorry," he demanded sternly, "you little fucking brat, s-shit."

"Sorry!" You breathed, barely audible with how hard he was choking you, your eyes stinging and pussy fluttering. "Sorry."

Jin grunted and let go of your neck, burying his hand in your hair instead. You felt lightheaded, barely able to catch the air he allowed back into your lungs, panting with how close you were.

"Good girl," he whispered, strained, a moan following the praise. "Fuck, missed you so much, not g-gonna last, shit-"

You weren't going to, either, but he busied himself with pulling on your hair and slipping his other hand in between you. He pressed his finger into your clit to rub it roughly, causing even more slick to flow out of you, making his thrusts sloppier.

"So wet. So pretty. I love you so much, ah, fuck."

His breathing sounded just as harsh as his thrusts in your ear, growing desperate, louder than your own cries.

"Haven't been fucked how you deserve to be in so long, my love," he mumbled, plump lips brushing against your skin. "Come for me, please. Come on, doll. Need to feel you," he groaned. "Shit! Come on. I'll fill you up so, so good."

You couldn't help the sudden, violent snap in your stomach that made you shake and cream his cock. Jin threw his head back, revealing his attractive, tanned neck, his adam's apple bobbing. His groans were carnal, filthy, his cock twitching inside of you, filling you up with a rush of his cum. If possible, you felt even fuller, your chest glowing and your cunt sticky from his orgasm. With a hiss, he rested his forehead on your shoulder, his embrace tighter around you, keeping your knees from giving out.

You floated in his arms, barely registering the fact that he picked you up and carried you towards the bed you used to share, his own knees feeling weak.

So he was able touch you. So he was able to love you. He watched you fall asleep, hope blooming in his chest only to wither away into disappointment. So what? In the end, what did that matter? You couldn't have a life together, grow old, have children. He would never be able to take you out to an expensive restaurant or buy you a gift, and who knew how long this would last? Could he only touch you when he was angry, overwhelmed, empty?

This just wouldn't do.

*

It took a mere few days for the opportunity to arise.

It was so hard to tell what was happening around you. Your eyes blinked open to a bright light blinding you. You had no idea where you were. Was this another dream, again? You squinted, trying to cover your face. The light felt warm and safe, calling to you, like it wanted to pull you into its pearly embrace.

Instead, a darker embrace enveloped you.

"Don't go," a sweet murmur. "Not yet, baby. Stay with me."

You lifted your eyes towards the light, still squinting, although it seemed to be fading in its intensity little by little. For some reason you felt like you were running out of time.

Something was wrong.

"Stay with me," Jin repeated quietly. "You know there is no me without you. Don't go where I can't follow."

You hesitated. Weren't you on your way to see your mother with Minho? An image flashed through your head, leather seats and the low hum of music on the radio.

No, you were definitely in a car. So where the hell were you now? The last thing you remembered was the same bright light that was dimming in front of you now. You turned your head to the side, coming face to face with Jin.

The puzzle pieces clicked into place and you looked towards the enchanting source of illumination again. It was dwindling, though its call still felt just as enticing and loud, urging you to follow.

You turned your head back towards Jin.

"Did we... crash? Am I dead?"

A hint of sorrow glimmered in his eyes. He nodded meekly, his arms tightening around you, strong and secure.

"Stay with me," he pleaded, leaning in, his lips a breath away from yours. "I'll take care of you," he murmured.

His hand slid down your side, moving to your hip. Your breath caught in your throat.

"But... but-"

You tried to take a peek at the light in front of you, but he lifted his hand and placed it on your cheek, unwilling to let you look away from him.

Something felt so wrong; like your only chance for real, heavenly peace was slipping through your fingers. Like this wasn't where you were supposed to be, even if you ached to be with him.

"Jin..."

He shushed you, pressing a warm, affectionate kiss into your lips, his thumb brushing away your tears.

"We'll be together. Forever. I won't let you go again."

You sniffled, the space around you growing dark as night, his lips still inches from yours when he spoke again.

"You're okay, baby. I promise."

His grip on your face softened. You nodded, wiping at your eyes. He smiled at you, something you haven't seen in so long. It made your heart flip, for so many reasons.

"Good girl," he praised, stroking the top of your head affectionately. He ignored the trembling of your body, only pressing you closer to himself, trying to soothe your anxiety and pain away.

Even if he was the one who caused it.

He placed a gentle kiss on the shell of your ear. You promised to always be his.

Promises were made to be kept.

*

In a small, well lit room, Minho sat in a bed, eyeing the two figures in white lab coats standing before him suspiciously.

"I don't want to talk to you," he grumbled. "You're just here to treat me like one of your crazy patients."

The tall, dark haired man with glasses took a seat in the chair at the foot of the bed, crossing his legs.

"I don't consider any of my patients crazy," he answered calmly. "It's important to remain open minded and find a solution if a problem arises. I'm only here to listen and help you feel safe. I promise."

Minho narrowed his eyes, his gaze flicking from the elderly nurse who still stood by his side to the doctor.

The psychiatrist gave him a kind, dimpled smile.

"My name is Kim Namjoon. How about we start with that?"

"I don't care about your name," Minho huffed. "You have no idea what happened to me. You would never believe it either."

A pen clicked, its tip pressing into a notebook resting on the man's lap.

"Why don't you try me?" He coaxed gently. "Let's start at the beginning. As you're aware, the security footage shows your car swerving violently to the right. The doctor said you were trying to avoid hitting someone."

"I- I was."

Namjoon raised his eyebrows.

"But the roads were empty."

Minho flushed.

"Your tests also came back negative for any signs of drugs or alcohol in your system," Namjoon continued. "Have you been under a lot of stress lately?"

"I wasn't hallucinating because I was stressed," Minho snapped. "I saw someone!"

"Who did you see?"

Heaving a sigh, Minho glanced up at the nurse, who gave him an encouraging smile, as if to say: it's okay. He fiddled with the cool sheets covering him.

"My girlfriend's ex. He... died seven months ago."

"Ah," Namjoon said softly, steering his focus onto you, as if the revelation of seeing a ghost didn't faze him. "I'm sorry for your loss, Minho."

Another sigh, heavier, glassy eyes burning into the doctor helplessly.

"It was his fault!" Minho stressed. "He killed her and now he's going to kill me."

After a moment of soft scratching of pen against paper, Namjoon leaned forward, tilting his head to the side.

"What makes you think that?"

Minho hesitated.

"I... saw him in the hospital room as well. It was like a dream," he sniffed. "But I couldn't move."

Namjoon hummed, waiting.

"...He... said something to me."

Straightening up, Namjoon grabbed his pen again and pressed it into the white page.

"What was it?"

Minho pursed his lips, sighed once more. Cringed at his own words.

"He... he said," he gulped, "that- that I'm already ugly but he's going to fuck me up so bad my own mother won't recognize me."

Silence.

The nurse coughed into her hand.

Namjoon just hummed again, trying to hold back, trying so hard not to laugh, but a snort escaped him anyway, his lips curling into a smile while he wrote the words down.

"Jin really enjoyed fucking with you, huh?"

Minho frowned, his face flooding with heat, his hands curling into fists.

"Do you think this is funny?! How dare you sit here and-" he paused abruptly, the rest of his outburst forming into a big knot in his throat.

How did the psychiatrist know Jin's name?

Namjoon set his notebook and pen down, looking up at Minho.

"Don't worry," he murmured. "I promise he's not going to hurt you."

Minho leaned back into the bedframe, trying to sink into it as the man stood up. His aura did not seem so gentle anymore, but rather intimidating as he stalked over to him, disturbingly so.

His head momentarily snapped up to the nurse. She gave him a grin so crooked and strange it made his heart sink.

"Where the hell am I?" He whispered. "I thought this was a mental hospital."

"It was," Namjoon nodded, taking a seat beside him. "Many years ago."

As soon as he was closer, Minho froze, unable to move. A horrible thought occurred to him.

"Did I die?"

Namjoon tsked.

"Of course not. How would that be any fun?"

His hand reached out towards Minho, unusually cold knuckles brushing his cheek, making him flinch.

"I wouldn't be able to hurt you much if we were both dead, would I?"

The room seemed to darken somehow, its shape distorting with dim, sickly green flashes and black shadows. The logical part of him wanted to ask if he was drugged, but deep down, he knew the truth was much worse. His hands trembled violently, a cold, dark feeling spreading through his veins, rendering him weak. He was starting to grow dizzy.

"What did I do to deserve this?" He mumbled hoarsely through dry, shaking lips.

Namjoon bent over to the chair and grabbed his notebook, flipping through the pages. His image was becoming blurry, his voice an odd echo.

"Oh, let me see. Jin noted it all down here."

He settled on a random page.

"You're a liar," he listed, "you always forget your mum's birthday... Oh my, you're a republican as well."

Minho blinked, trying to keep himself afloat, too terrified of what he would wake up to if he fainted.

Namjoon's dark, amused eyes turned towards him, his deep voice eerily calm.

"What do you think you did wrong? Hm? You took his girlfriend, and then you cheated on her as well. Repeatedly. That's not nice, Minho."

He patted his shoulder.

"Sleep well, my friend. I've been so very bored, and I want to have fun with you. I'll see you when you wake up."

Minho shook his head, like he could protest against the workings of his own body, of what was happening around him. But there was only so much distress his pounding heart could handle before it gave out altogether. White as a sheet, his eyes rolling to the back of his head, he fainted.

The last thing he saw before the darkness took him into her arms, like a mother cradling her child, was Namjoon's chilly smile.

Reported missing two days after the accident, his case remained unsolved.

💌 taglist: @wonyuknow @imnotlauriane @bucketofhiros @baalsgurl1913 @silv3rswirls @osakis-gf @iceprincessviviane

#jin x reader #yandere bts #bts x reader #bts imagines #bts smut #bts scenarios #bts reactions #SORRY LMAO

[icarus-at-nightfall]

SAW!The Gost Face/ Danny 'Jed Olsen' Johnson x SAW!F!Reader

TEASER!

[...]

As Jed eyed the water covered floor, the TV that has been nothing but static so far, clicked to life. You tried to turn your head in its direction, but the restrains made it impossible to move.

Fuck, what is happening?!

Jed hushed your attempts at turning around. ''Shut up, there's something happening on here...''

A gravelly voice sounded from behind you.

''Hello Mr. Johnson. Or perhaps you would prefer to use one of your many aliases in this scenario. But I don't think you want to put your mask on for this - potentially last - design.

You have spend your life in the shadows. Waiting. Stalking. Killing.

You call yourself an artist at night and a reporter when the day arrives.

For you, killing the innocent is an act of mercy. You give your readers stories - horrible and true stories - that make them appreciate their life. Appreciate that it wasn't them that felt your cold hands snap out their life like throwing a candle into ice cold water.

In that sense, our goals aren't so different.

But that is a little unfair, isn't it? How about I give you the chance to be on the other side of the story? How about you give up your role as the author and become... the subject?

I want to play a little game.

In front of you is a young lady. Perhaps you already know her? Or, may I correct myself, one of your aliases may know her.

A young, smart and loved woman - nobody deserving to die. Yet she will, should you fail to open her restrains. But this time - her end will be your own as well.

After this tape ends, you will have two hours to find the keys for her restraints which are hidden in the glass containers underwater. Dive to them, shatter the right ones and retrieve the keys. Should you destroy the wrong glasses, flammable liquid will be released into the water.

Should you fail to save the woman in time and escape through the metal door on your left, both of you will be electrocuted and burned until there is not a single bone left and this room will become your tomb.

Good luck.''

The ticking of a clock broke the eerie silence after the tape endet.

[...}

I planned this for a long time, I hope you're ready for the full thing. :)

This is just a teaser. The AU will have multiple parts - 29 so far!

Stay tuned! <333

#ghostface x reader #danny jed olsen johnson #danny johnson x reader #saw au #dead by daylight #dbd #dbd au #dbd x reader #dead by daylight x reader #the ghostface #female reader #saw #danny johnson #ghostface #the ghost face

[strixcattus]

...And now I'm thinking about the time travel conlang and how I might want that to work.

I looked up the phrase just to see if I could get inspiration from other time travel–related languages and found Mpiua Tiostouea, the language of all time. It's got some neat concepts, though it was designed to have an... interesting... phonology and I'd definitely make some different choices—which is good! It means I won't be copying ideas when I make my own conlang.

A conlang for time travellers needs to be able to express some complex and seemingly self-contradictory tenses. For instance, I might tell you this sentence:

"After I go to my date with the time worm, I'll text you how it went."

Except today is Thursday, and my date with the time worm, which I'm going to tomorrow, is Wednesday (yesterday), and I plan on jumping again afterwards, but I'm not sure in which direction or how long it'll take me to get around to texting you, and at any rate you only experience time forwards and will certainly receive the text in the next few subjective and objective days.

...Also, while I, the person talking to you, am going to be going to the date and sending the text, I'm not dating the time worm—the date is between myself from three years into the future (as opposed to an alternate version of myself whom I never have been and never will be), I'm spying on it, and also the time worm experiences all of time simultaneously in every universe and thus has no time clones or past/future selves.

...And the groupchat has like three versions of you in it.

A properly time travel–inclusive language should encode all of these things efficiently through the use of creative agreements, pronouns, and tenses.

It should also be inclusive towards people who experience time in reverse. Not those who've lived backwards all their lives—they can learn any language just fine, the same way everyone else does—but people who've found themselves temporarily moving the wrong way through time, despite having learned the language forwards. I think this can be settled by having two acceptable word orderings—one the reflection of the other—and employing asymmetrical particles that indicate important things like proper nouns and sentences, and maybe having a necessarily asymmetrical syllable structure.

Like CV. Every syllable necessarily has one consonant followed by one vowel, unless you're experiencing time backwards relative to your conversation partner, in which case all their speech will sound to you like every syllable is VC, and the same from you to them. That ought to work and to be simple enough that anyone, with any native language from anywhere across time, can pick it up with relative ease.

Then we get to pronouns. Mpieua Tiostoeia has an impressive set of seven grammatical persons, numbered 1–7. I understand and respect the reasoning behind such a choice (and a dedicated grammatical person for antimemes is pretty darn cool), but I'd rather go in the opposite direction:

1st person: I, the one talking to you. 1.5th person: Me, but a different instance of me than the one talking to you. 2nd person: You, the one listening to me. 2.5th person: A different instance of you than the one listening to me. 3rd person: That guy, the one I'm pointing to. 3.5th person: That guy, but an instance of them that's not right here. 4th person: The time worm, which experiences all of time and the multiverse simultaneously.

...Which coincidentally is also seven grammatical persons.

Due to the need to stress subjective and objective time experience for multiple entities, basically everything that can take agreement will agree with the person and gender of whatever it can agree with—most crucially, verbs, which might include tense markings that have to agree with any number of people:

"I'm having a party with these guys last week, do you want to come?"

Where I'm going to the party in the future and inviting you to come along in your subjective future (while acknowledging you may have already been), but some of the people I'm gesturing to have already been to the party and others have yet to go. Also one of them is the time worm. I think this party might be where we met... will meet.. whichever. Both.

Now, when I say gender, I don't mean male vs. female. Time travellers can come from any timeline. Some of them have only one acknowledged gender. Others have three. A few have as many as sixteen, or even more. Some of them plot gender on a four-dimensional spectrum encoded in the phonology of their gender pronouns. The only way to please everyone's idea of what gender trappings deserve encodement is to encode them all equally—that is to say, not at all.

Besides, we're all time travellers here. I don't need to specify how you identify with each word. I want to know if this is you, or your future self, or your evil alternate universe self. That's the kind of gender I'm concerned with.

Which means you can have a mixed-gender group (the three versions of you in the groupchat) that needs to be referred to with... essentially, it'd be something like you (2sg) and you (2.5pl), where you (2.5pl) is gendered both for your past self and for your alternate universe self, which are two different genders.

I think this ought to be my next conlang project. It's been way too long since I really got into one—right now, Yvelse is my only conlang that's not either dead or been in cold storage for the past year+.

#conlang #time travel #time travel conlang

[pokemoncenter]

On Time Travel

Before I begin, I wish to state very clearly that this is not to be taken as fact or a dedicated primer on the subject. This is my own attempting to sort out the information I learned from Bill on the subject, by writing it out in a clear form. There may be mistakes, inaccuracies, and misunderstandings in this text.

Bill created the Time Capsule system in 1999. This system only allows for the transfer of Pokeballs up to three years into the past, and only within the Kanjoh region. The reasons for this are energy- The further something is moved in time, the more energy it takes. The further it is moved in space, the more energy it takes. And most importantly, the more mass it has, the more energy it takes- The other two are more workable, but the mass-energy requirement increases exponentially.

A single Pokemon in its Pokeball can be sent three years across time with the electricity a Pokemon Center has. Something larger, such as a Machop outside of its ball, would take an entire city's energy for a week to make the same trip.

An adult human would take enough energy to power all of Galar for a hundred years, and they would likely cease to exist in transit. We will get back to that part.

Time is not a straight arrow that can only move one direction. It is simply another axis of movement. We all move through time at one second per second, without accounting for relativity, from past towards future. However, as it is a single axis, movement can be achieved along that axis in both directions. Thinking of it as a fourth spatial dimension can help visualize it. Time's ongoing nature is not an inherent aspect of time, but of the beings that interpret it this way.

According to the Many-Worlds Interpretation, there are near-infinite timelines. Anything that could happen in multiple ways, happens in every possible way in different timelines. Thus, as time moves forward, time branches into infinite possibilities. However, according to Bill, there are two important notes to that.

First, it is not only forward. Time actually branches out in both directions. It branches backwards, such that 'every possibility that could lead to this moment' is a branch. Furthermore, there is a principle he calls 'path of least resistance'.

The same way water moves in space according to the path of least resistance, he says that time follows its own path of least resistance. To move from one instant to the next, things that would require too much change or a change of information cannot happen. Thus, when sending a Pokeball back in time, one does not actually need to worry or account for alternate timelines- By sending things backwards in time, it will branch into the timelines where the reception is possible, by following that path of least resistance.

However, the greatest problem of this is information.

By following the path of least resistance, things that did not exist in the recipient era cannot be sent there. Not just objects, or creatures, but information itself cannot cross the gap. Knowledge would be forgotten, or be scrambled. Discoveries cannot be made.

The key principle to understanding this is that there is no omnipotent, intelligent force overseeing things. Time does not have a guardian which keeps the timeline in order. It is simply a matter of energy- The energy to overcome the 'path of least resistance' to cause a paradox with information does not exist in our world, and possibly not in our universe. Thus, time itself will 'correct' the paradox, by forcing it out of your head. This is because forgetting it is 'possible', and so it would be slid into a timeline where that forgetting does happen.

If forgetting was not possible- If there is simply too much information to be forgotten, that there is simply no way it could possibly be lost- Then there will be no timeline that can receive that time travel. At which point, the outcome is...

Either total cessation of existence, or perhaps something else. A non-timeline. Either way, once this occurred, that information is lost to us, as surely as if it fell into a black hole.

... This is all I could understand. I hope any of you can understand this as well.

#pokeblogging #pkmn irl #unreality #science with sophora

[sreegs]

Would you be willing to share your sources relating to the submarine/submersible technology? I believe you, but I’d love to a. read more on the subject and b. Share something that isn’t a tumblr post with a family member

i linked wikipedia articles in my reblog which, themselves, have sources in their references, but i'm not sure what specifically you're asking for a source on.

i presume you're asking why i asserted a sphere is safer than a cylinder which is more or less just physics and not strictly related to subs. a cylinder has more surface area than a sphere of the same diameter therefore it has more surface for pressure to act on. moreover the nature of material manufacture means that a cylinder has more seams (2) than a sphere (1).

spherical pressure hulls are usually made of two halves of forged titanium or steel then fused together along one seam. the titan was two halves of a titanium sphere attached to the ends of a carbon-fiber tube. where the tube was joined to the spheres it made two seams. this is really oversimplifying it but the point is to highlight that seams can provide a point of failure because they're not part of the same continuous material. the more seams the more potential points of failure

if you're asking about the DSVs themselves, when it comes to functional deep-sea capable vessels i guess it's important to point out the difference between a "submarine" (the long tube shape you see used in the military) and a deep-sea vessel like a bathysphere (which is not a submarine because of its lack of mobility).

submarines, especially modern ones, can handle some pretty impressive depths but they don't go anywhere near as deep as vessels designed to travel to the deep sea. military sub max operational depths are probably classified but their reported depths are in the hundreds of meters

modern dsv's dive past ten thousand meters. which is way, way more pressure.

so to understand modern DSVs, here's the description of the batysphere concept and some of the original designs, which which were the first deep-sea capable vessels just much more primitive. they were lowered on cables and didn't travel on their own power. so they weren't really vehicles

here's the next logical step, the bathyscaphe, which allowed it to move up and down under its own power, however the crew cabin is still a sphere. you can see them protruding from the bottom of the vessel in some photos

"deep-submergence vehicles" (which i linked in that reblog) are a bit more closer to submarines in terms of design and mobility, but their crew cabin designs are still spherical, with few exceptions. the deepest-traveling ones are spherical

crew cabins are pressure vessels. meaning they're built to withstand the force of the pressure of the water outside the vehicle. DSV's may have multiple components in compartments that don't look spherical at all from the outside but it makes sense when you realize some of these compartments aren't pressure vessels. some are solid foam. some even flood with sea water by design

take a look at this diagram of the Alvin with crew inside:

the largest pressure vessel is the crew cabin. there's a few other smaller pressure vessels to provide variable ballast (flooded with sea water or pumped with air) and some mercury vessels to provide leveling trims (to tell which way is up)

the rest of the vehicle is either pressure-resistant foam or empty space in which water can get in because the components inside are small enough and engineered to withstand the pressure. remember, because water pressure acts in all directions, the less surface area you have, the less pressure you need to worry about to maintain whatever function you need to perform. since the crew compartment is so big and so important, it's the thickest titanium and probably engineered to more exacting safety standards than some of the other parts

a couple people have already commented more on what i posted with good insight into things i can't explain as well. here's someone going into detail about the sphere vs cylinder issue:

and here someone linked a very informative youtube about the manufacture of the DSV Limiting Factor including footage of the crew compartment being forged from titanium

#titanic #oceangate #deep sea vehicles #submarines #infodump #physics