#plot: devotion's paralysis

[celtigxr]

THE PINK DREAD - CH. 34 (Masterlist)

Chapter Summary: Dinner with the Valyrians. Goes as well as you'd think. Word Count: 4592 CHAPTER WARNINGS: STILL talking about menstrual blood. Only proof read once again. Not satisfied with this chapter, but it is what it is. Canon Episode Divergence.

Series tags: Aemond x Plus size!OfC, Aegon x Plus size!OfC, Celtigar!ofc, Plot with Smut, mdni 18+, Aemond End Game, Angst, Comedy, The Dragons Don't Dance, slow burn, friends to enemies to lovers, enemies to friends to lovers.

Credits: Lace Banner by Aquazero, pearl divider by Pommecita

Notes: For people who are like me, that need a visual, I have made a google sheets image for you to understand where everyone is seated, lmao. The link the image is here Also, because I fumbled, just in case you missed it, last chapter I forgot to add in the image of Valeana's dress. It's up there now if you didn't get a chance to see it.

Valeana’s eyes trailed over to the statue at the other end of the ballroom, her eyes glued onto the middle dragon head caught in between the two others. She was very much in that position, but she felt less like a dragon and more like a lamb for the slaughter.

“Valeana,” a voice that belonged to neither of the princes that flanked her, snapped her out of her panic-induced paralysis. It was Lucerys, of all people, who had not even acknowledged her existence since the day of his arrival. “Blink twice if you’re in need of rescue.” 

Rhaena elbowed him, but he only chuckled in response. 

Aegon shifted beside her, his arm around her shoulder only loosening when he reached to grab his goblet to take a sip, his eyes never leaving Luke for a moment. 

“I should congratulate you, nephew,” he briefly looked over at Rhaena with a tilt of his head. “You finally get to lie with a woman.” 

Aemond hummed amusingly next to Valeana, his hand still clutched in hers. All she could do was use her right hand to pick at her food in front of her, though now she was too tense to eat anything substantial. 

Luke’s smirk wavered as he regarded Aegon; he was clearly the more imposing son of Rhaenyra’s, but he did not lack insecurities. His legitimacy was the biggest one, but his worthiness of the gifts freely given to him was another. Jace was the honourable one, bound to duty and respect and etiquette. Luke was bound to the need to prove himself, as all second sons were.

Aegon leaned forward into the table, peering up at the Velaryon prince with raised brows, “You do know how the act is done, I assume? At least in principle, where to put your cock and all that.” 

“Let it be, Aegon,” Valeana put a placating hand on Aegon’s arm, but he was undeterred. Though the exchange had not gone amiss by Jace, who leaned in their direction.

“Uncle,” he called his attention, “You can play the jester if you wish, but hold your tongue when there are ladies present.”

Aegon nodded mockingly, “Mhm.” He turned to Valeana, “You don’t mind my tongue, do you, Crab Cake?”

Before Valeana could respond beyond a wide glare and a slight flush to her cheeks, Rhaenyra was suddenly standing, moving slightly so she was not just addressing her table, but the room as a whole. Her arm was up, hand cradling a goblet in the air to present a toast.  

“I wish to raise my cup to her Grace, the Queen,” The princes started, her voice loud enough to be heard by all. “I love my father. But, I must admit that no one has stood more loyally by his side than his good wife. When he was at his weakest, she tended to him with… unfailing devotion, love and honour. In our youth I always believed that our children would be destined to unify us, and it seems that it is in the Crone’s will that it be true. For my father, you have my gratitude, and my love… But you also have my apology.”

Alicent’s bottom lip wobbled as she looked up at her, her brown eyes glossing over so much that she had to turn away demurely to her plate, the ends of her lips tugging downward. 

“Your graciousness moves me deeply, Princess,” she sniffed as Rhaenyra slowly descended into her chair. Finally Alicent looked up, “We are both mothers… and we love our children. We have more in common than we sometimes allow.” At this point, Alicent ascended from her seat, her own goblet raised. “I raise my cup to you, and to your house. You will make a fine queen.” 

Alicent’s final statement sent a ripple throughout the room. Six words that ended a decades old feud. Six words that ended the threat of usurpation. Aegon did not want to be King, he made that clear to his mother the other day, and Alicent was tired of fighting. Tired of plotting. In the end, they both won; her victory lay within her daughter, and Rhaenyra’s within her son, both destined to be one house once and for all. 

At their own paces, everyone raised their goblets to Alicent’s tribute and took a sip as smiles were shared amongst friends. Valeana tipped her glass towards Jacaerys, and he to her, and then she did the same with Helaena. Aegon and Aemond did the same, though grudgingly before returning their cups to the table un-sipped. 

Aemond’s hand hadn’t left Valeana’s the entire time. The heat of his palm was all encompassing, almost numbing to the point that she had forgotten it almost completely. It wasn’t until she felt him move her hand from the table that she realized it was still trapped in his. Valeana turned just in time to see Aemond bring the back of her palm to his lips, giving it a gentle kiss before returning it back to its original spot. His smile was kind, his gaze was loving, and Valeana was all nerves and fluttering moths.

Aegon downed his wine in one swallow and looked at the bottom of his cup with disdain. Valeana felt him move next to her, pushing back his chair and silently padding around until he was hovering at the end of the table next to Luke, and reached for the pitcher of wine that was sitting between him and Rhaena. 

“I, um,” Aegon looks down as he pours himself a drink into his empty cup. His eyes lifted up to catch Rhaena’s before he continued. “I regret the disappointment you are soon to suffer. But, if you ever wish to know what it is to be well satisfied, all you have to do is ask–”

Fists bagged on the table, effectively shaking it from north to south. Lucerys stood abruptly, fiery onyx eyes on Aegon as he moved slowly back around the table, not a care in the world. The fair-haired prince settled back into his seat, flashing a displeased Valeana a faux innocent smile. 

Aemond stood up, slowly and foreboding like the shadow of the Stranger. Valeana’s hand fell from his, her fingers suddenly became stiff and cold. Both he and Lucerys stared at each other from across the table, three threatening eyes between the two. Everyone in the room was now looking over at them, with baited breath and on the edges of their seats should something happen.

“Luke,” Rhaena placed a placating hand on her betrothed, which effectively pulled Luke’s attention away from Aemond and onto her. His thinned mouth eased, his cheeks dimpling as he smiled disingenuously. 

Then Luke swiped his goblet, the remains dwindling down to mere drops after so many tributes. Silence befell the room once more, the peace that was once sowed now destroyed by the hubris of youthful male bravado. But mostly by Aegon, really.

Aemond watched Luke closely, his one lilac eye wide with anticipation, as if to say: give me a reason.

“To Prince Aegon, Prince Aemond, the Celtigar sisters, and my future good-sister, Princess Helaena. We have not seen each other in years, but I have fond memories of our shared youth,” Valeana narrowed her eyes up at him. His words sounded sincere to those who could not see his face, that fox-like expression. “And as men and women, I hope we may yet be friends and allies,” Luke gestured to the two princes that sat in front of him. “To the health of my uncles, my sweet aunt and my old friends. And to Lady Valeana, I wish to say: Sȳz biarves (good luck).” 

She felt Aemond move next to her. It was so subtle, that it would not be noticeable to anyone else that wasn’t directly beside him. Valeana reached for Aemond’s sleeve, silently imploring him to back down. With a slight tug, he finally relents and slowly sits back down, eye trained on Luke as he also descends into his seat. 

“Issa daor pretium ziry (he is not worth it),” She whispered to him once he was sat.

“What did that bastard say?” Aegon whispered when he leaned into her space, his mouth was pinched and his gaze was fixed on the wood of the table. 

Valeana hesitated before divulging that information. The table on the platform seemed unsure what to make of Luke’s little speech, particularly the last bit to those that didn’t understand Valyrian. She could spot Rhaenyra’s turned head, glaring at her son the way mother’s do, and Daemon biting his lip to contain his amusement. 

Their own table was thick with unease and judgement. She could feel Clement’s eyes on her from above Helaena’s head, like some lurking gargoyle with amethyst stones for eyes. 

“Good luck,” Valeana answered, then shook her head dismissively. “He is just being provocative… Because you were.” 

Aegon rolled his eyes, “I can be more—”

“Please don’t.”

The sound of another chair being pushed against the flagstone alerted everyone once again to the long table. For a moment, she braced herself for a confrontation with her brother, since the sound came from his direction. So imagine Valeana’s surprise when she looked up and saw it was Helaena, of all people, holding a goblet and wearing a contented smile on her lovely face. 

“I would like to toast to my betrothed, Jacaerys. He was always kind and patient with me as children, and did not shy away from my bugs,” Helaena spoke with an innocence about her that was both endearing and calming to watch. It was clear that she was the most beloved person in that room, and the most gentle and fragile. “So, I believe our marriage will not be so bad. It will be good, I think. Oh, and the eggs on the milkweed plant you gave me have hatched into two healthy caterpillars. I’ve named them Jaehaerys and Jaehaera.” 

And with that, she sheepishly sat back down in her chair. There was a gentle applause and claps around the room, accompanied by smiles of adoration and appreciation that her simple little tribute had eased the tension berthed by the arrogant princes in the room.

“Well done, my girl,” Viserys said from his table, raising his glass to his youngest daughter. 

Jacaerys smiled broadly, then leaned forward into the table, “Mayhaps those are the names we can give to our future children?”

Helaena paused to consider, and then shook her head decidedly. “No, I think not. They are from another life… a sadder one. Here, I would like them to be free.”

The first course was cleared from the table, and Aemond’s plate was removed to make room for a fresh one. He had nothing on it other than oyster shells on them anyway – still void of any pearls. The music seemed to pick up, something a little louder, and a little more merry in an attempt to liven up the room. Aemond was stewing in his seat, one hand poised on the back of Valeana’s chair, the other one tapping on the table as he watched the room like a patient hawk. 

With all the tributes and toasts, the House of Valyria was already feeling the effects of wine and spirits. Faces flushed, conversations loud, laughter was heard. Even his dear mother seemed to be in a good mood, which admittedly made him feel… content. It wasn’t often that he saw Alicent genuinely happy, and even longer since he last heard her laugh. 

Aemond wasn’t entirely convinced that peace had truly been found there that eve, but it was a start. Otto Hightower was still a piece on the board, and he doubted his grandsire would just simply roll over and give up the potential of having full power. Helaena may be his granddaughter, but he knew very well that she would not be a queen in practice, and that Jace wouldn’t be one to be manipulated or coerced by Green influence. No, for Otto, it wasn’t a win-win situation. 

The servants were still clearing the table and bringing in the larger platters – roasted duck, lamb shanks, meat pies, and various vegetables that have been steamed and rubbed with herbs and sauces. A pile of snow crab legs were placed in front of Aegon, red and steaming, dripping with melted garlic butter. Insufferably, he turned to Aemond with a smug look. 

Jacaerys raised from his seat, moving around the table until he got to Helaena’s chair, his hand extended for her to take. She seemed surprised for a moment, but immediately took it and allowed him to lead her onto the empty dance floor. 

Aegon rolled his eyes so heavily, that they momentarily disappeared into the back of his head. He loathed the idea of Jace marrying his sister almost as much as he loathed the idea of him marrying Valeana. He was relieved, in a sense, but now he was given another, different misfortune. He worried as a brother too, knowing his sister’s nature and doubting that his nephew was equipped with handling it. 

After that, more couples joined the dance floor. Shyla pulled Daeron up and dragged him to join in, though he didn’t seem to mind. He had a large stupid grin on his face. Then, in an interesting turn of events, Clement and Baela joined in, followed by – Oh, he nearly laughed when he saw it – Rhaena and Joffrey. Aegon’s mouth twitched when he witnessed Luke watch with clear annoyance at Joffrey (three and ten!) when he asked his betrothed to dance. 

Aegon felt so utterly satisfied and gitty over this, that he decided he wished to sow displeasure amongst present company. He turned to his fair maid and scooped up her hand to pull her up without so much as a request. 

“Come on, my darling,” He pulled Valeana’s hand to his mouth to give it a kiss before practically dragging her onto the dance floor. She was in the middle of putting food on her plate when she was whisked away, her eyes wide in surprise, the fork clattering on the plate when she was forced to let go. 

Aemond twisted in his chair to glower at his brother, though he made no move to stop them. Instead, he tried to calm himself by focusing on her alone. The sway of her hips, how her vermillion dress swept around her elegantly; the curve of her back, framed by the lace of her well fitted bodice. The glimpse of her pale arms through her red veiled sleeves, just a hint of scandal in its reveal. The way her braids swung to and fro with every movement, eventually one landing over her shoulder, and the other hanging behind her back. He longed to kiss every inch of her skin, to commit every piece and corner of her body to memory so he would never forget her again. But most of all, he wanted to be the one to dance with her, to be able to publicly be seen with her, letting everyone know just who she truly belonged to. 

But, no… That privilege belonged to his eldest brother. 

At least for now.

“So,” Aegon drawled out as he and Valeana swayed to the music, keeping a fair distance away from the other dancers, particularly Clement who kept on sending heated glances their way. “You’re the one responsible for Helaena and Jacaerys. You’ve ruined my life, I hope you’re happy.” 

“Immensely,” she answered with equal sarcasm.

He catches her glance at the two in question, a small little smile creeping on her face. Truly, Aegon did not enjoy the idea of Jace of all people marrying his sister— he thought of no one marrying his sister, frankly. For years he had simply been anticipating the impending nuptials that he and Helaena would have to share that the idea of her being a bride to anyone else never occurred to him. But at the look Valeana gave them, he couldn’t help but concede to her good judgement. Politically, it was sound. It merged both houses and took Aegon off the chessboard, which he always wanted. If anything, he should be thanking Valeana. 

When she turned back to him, she raised a curious brow at his little smile, “What?”

Aegon gave a tiny shrug of his shoulder, “Just thinking.”

“About what?” 

His smile grew a little before moving their bodies so they were blocked by the other dancers, away from prying eyes of the adults that watched them all. He leaned into her ear, “About how beautiful you’ll look when I peel that dress off you.” 

Val’s eyes flashed and flickered around to make sure no one one heard that, “Aegon–”

He softly chuckled at her reaction, his fingers on her waist rubbed her side tenderly yet suggestively. Aegon pulled her in closer to his body, so his chin hovered over her shoulder, lips near her ear. “Tonight, do not fall asleep. I intend to spend another night with you under the stars.” 

Aegon felt an immense satisfaction when he heard her breath hitch and her fingers curl around his shoulder. Valeana bit her lip when she lifted her chin to look up at him, her eyes fretful, yet bashful, as evidenced by the sheepish smile she was trying to withhold. 

“I switched rooms,” she told him, and when Aegon merely stared back at her, unsure of what she meant, she elaborated. “With Floris.”

The realization dawned on him in blink, and soon he was smiling wolfishly. Humming in his elatedness, he dipped his dance partner in a flourish and pulled her back up. Aegon chuckled at the look on her face, then pulled her flush against as he dipped in close to her ear. “Well then, my life just got simultaneously more interesting and easier all in one go. And–” he pulled back a bit so he could look at her, “We do not have to do… anything you don’t want. Though, if it doesn’t make you uncomfortable, you should know…” He trailed off, the corner of his lips tugging upward as he whispered in a lower tone. “I do not mind blood.” 

“Wha–”

His violet eyes flickered downward, and she froze for a moment, eyes flashing in sheer embarrassment. Valeana sighed, her hand leaving his shoulder for a moment to rub her thumb on the space between her brows. 

“How did you know?”

“You left me a little present.”

She grimaced and turned away, the tips of her ears pinked. Clearly amused, Aegon pulled at her chin so she could look at him again. “I told you, I don’t mind. Sometimes it adds a little extra lubricant–”

“I’m not bleeding anymore.”

“.... You’re not?”

“Are you disappointed?” 

Aegon’s eyes flickered off to the ceiling to contemplate the answer to that question, “...no?”

She pinched his shoulder, making him hiss. 

The main course dishes were beginning to pile on the tables. The King’s table had already begun their feasts, having been served first, and now the dancers were starting to return to their seats. All save for Jacaerys and Helaena, who remained dancing, creative and improvised and not at all traditional. That was possibly the most carefree Aemond has ever seen his sister, and as he loathed to admit it (like, very much loathed), it made him quite happy to see Jacaerys bring out that side of her.

“Ooh, hells,” Viserys suddenly said from his table, one hand grabbing his cane, and the other bracing the armrest as he pushed himself from his seat. “All those toasts are catching up with me. Excuse me for a moment, as nature calls.”

“Allow me to accompany you, your Grace,” Bartimos stood up as well, “I have the same ailment.” 

Everyone stood up as the King left the table, followed by Bartimos at his side. Once the two had left the room, everyone resumed their seats or their dancing. Chatter continued as more servants poured in one at a time to bring platters of the main meal. Two came in holding a large one, heading towards the end of the longer table to slide it in between Aemond and Lucerys before walking away. 

It was a full roasted pig, still sizzling as it sat there on the platter, waiting to be sliced and eaten. 

Valeana settled in her seat beside Aemond, who was facing away from the table, his leg casually crossed, his eye trained on his sister and Jacaerys dancing. Aegon sat down after he tucked Valeana’s seat in, the feet of his chair scratching softly against the flagstones. The sound of utensils being used as people picked at the platters became background noise, ones that did nothing to drown out the chuckle that Aemond heard from across the table. 

Slowly he turned around, his one eye peeking over at Luke over the bridge of his nose. His nephew was laughing; eyes squinting in a mischievous glint as he stared at Aemond, and then back at the roasted pig…  And then onto Valeana, who was unaware of it all. 

Suddenly the table jostled, the bang of Aemond’s fist on the table immediately halted everyone’s chatter and movement, bringing their collective attention to his side of  the table. 

Fisting his cup, Aemond ascended from his seat and extended his arm, his eye trained on his nephew in front of him, “Final tribute.” 

 The music stopped, Jace and Helaena ceased dancing. Everyone turned to him, surprised and apprehensive over Aemond’s voice. He was the stoic prince, more keen on observing than in conversing, least of all with most of the people present. The sudden presence of his voice felt like a single arrow leading the charge of a barrage of them that would pelt everyone on the battlefield. 

“To the health of my nephews: Jace,” he looked over at the prince in question on the dance floor. The brunette looked tense and unsure, sharing a look with Helaena and then at his brothers at the table. 

“Luke…” When Aemond’s eye returned to the one in question, the muscles in his face hardened like steel. All his intentions were poured into his one lilac eye, wide and challenging. “And Joffrey…Each of them handsome, wise…”

The tension grew as he trailed off; everyone was holding their breaths. Every second felt like an hour long as he simply pursed his lips and kept his blazing eye trained on Lucerys. 

Finally, he hummed and subtly nodded to himself, “...Strong.”

“Aemond–” Valeana’s plea tried to reach for him, but he was too far gone. He hadn’t even registered that she had spoken his name.

“Come–” He turned to the crowd, his goblet brandishing like a sword, but his ironic smirk was sharper and more dangerous. “Let us drain our cups to these three… Strong boys.”

Aegon, ever the reveller in chaos, raised his cup high in the air. Valeana shot him a warning look, but he didn’t seem to notice or really care either. This was probably the first time the two brothers had been on the same page since she had arrived in King’s Landing. The closest thing she’d ever see to brotherly support for each other. 

“I dare you to say that again,” Luke challenged, standing up from his seat, Rhaena was quick to grab his sleeve, but he was undeterred by the attempt. Actually, he pulled away from her and started to move around the end of the table. 

“Why?” Aemond moved as well, goblet still in his hand, but his eye still held unwavering challenge. “‘It was only a compliment,” As he said this, the two moved towards each other like two rival wolves trying to assert dominance. “Do you not think yourself Strong?”

That is when all hell broke loose. A string of reactions all overlapping each other, it was difficult to see everything happen all at once and know who reacted and when. But what was certain was that Luke punched Aemond across his left cheek, which resulted in a reaction in both Aegon and Joffrey, having been nearest to their brothers. Joffrey strode over to them, hellbent on entering the fray, but Aegon grabbed hold of the back of his neck and pinned him against the table before he could reach Aemond.

Aemond took the punch as if it was a swat of a kitten. Taller and more muscular than his nephew, all it took was one rough shove in the shoulder, and Lucerys was down on the floor. Watching the dark-haired prince scramble there to get to him delighted Aemond like nothing else. He had a smug sense of satisfaction of reducing Luke to a pathetic pile on the floor; the boy who had left him half blind with no consequence. As he placed the goblet back on the table, Aemond turned away from him and darkly chuckled, his smile dimpling his cheeks as he shared that cruel amused glint with Aegon. 

Valeana is standing now, having successfully pried Aegon off of Joffrey with the help of Rhaena just as the guards started to interfere. Jacaerys had also attempted to get involved, but Rhaenyra and Alicent were there in an instant, both collecting their sons like a shepherd dog collecting their herd. 

Alicent gripped on Aemond’s shoulder as she yanked him off to the side, “Why would you say such things in front of all these people?”

Aemond turned to his mother, casual and uninspired by her question, “I was merely expressing how proud I am of my family, mother.” His light tone dripped with sarcasm like tar. He hummed, blinked and turned away from her to look towards his nephews that continued to struggle against the restraint of the knights. “Though it seems my nephews are not quite proud of theirs,” he said this while yanking his hand from his mother’s grip, and stalking towards the Velaryons. 

At that moment, Jacaerys frees himself from the knight’s hold and is bounding towards Aemond with steely determination. But another strode forth, his long legs cutting between the battling princes like a dragon cuts through wind. 

“Wait, wait,” Daemon held up a finger, effectively stopping Jace from moving another inch. Daemon stepped in front of his step sons, pushing them back into the fringes of the room next to their mother with their tails tucked between their legs. Then Daemon turns around and faces his nephew, a sigh filtering through his open mouth and his hands clasped in front of himself. 

Aemond and Daemon just stared at each other; an immovable object and unstoppable force. Everyone was holding their breath, creating a thick silence throughout the room. The tension was so thick, no one could move, but it was clear in the slight twitches of Aemond and Daemon’s fingers that they desperately wanted to. It was a battle of wills at this point; who was going to take the first step to the challenge, who was going to blink, who was going to walk away…

“Enough.” 

A phantom in vermillion cut in between the two black princes. Valeana first looked at Daemon, her viperous eyes wiping the smirk off his face and causing the muscles in his cheeks and forehead to slack. Then she turned to Aemond, and her brows turned upward, looking up at him with disappointment and something that he could not place…

Something that was so disarming that his eye widened with panic.

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE SNEAK PEAK “Where are you taking me?” He asked with a sly grin, already knowing the answer. She turned to him with that innocent little smile of hers.  “Nowhere special,” The slight curve of her lips turned into a grin as she pulled him into an alcove before pulling the drapes that framed it tightly closed . 

Notes: I never want to write that damn dinner scene again, lol. For those of you that might be ??? on why Valeana is upset, don't worry, next chapter we get into it.

Tag: @queen-of-elves, @keylin1730, @anakilusmos, @weepingfashionwritingplaid, @sugutoad, @desireangel, @t0biasparabatai

( if you wish to be tagged for this story, just give me a reply! )

Please do not re post, redistribute or plagiarize my work. The only other place this story is posted on is ao3 under the same username.

[a-d-nox]

lenormand cards: key phrases and an example of a card combo (part 2)

this is just a beginners guide to the lenormand. these are key phrases that come to mind when i think of the cards - NOT how they should be directly applied. they needs to be thought about situationally - the card / when it is in specific combos can change or alter its meaning in a reading.

paid reading options: astrology menu & cartomancy menu

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child: innocence, nativity, spontaneity, seeing only the good in people, carefree attitude, an actually child, smallness, newness, beginnings, playing, immaturity, etc.

child + heart = young love, blind devotion, puberty, just happy to be around others, small joys in life, parallel play, nostalgia, an olive branch, etc.

fox: plotting, protection, security, stealth, deviousness, treachery, manipulation, deception, trickery, loyalty, work, routine, obligation, responsibility, duty, cons, etc.

fox + child = white lies, feigning ignorance/innocence, impulsive actions based on opportunity, pretending to be better than you are, avoiding responsibilities, etc.

bear: defensive, fierceness, resourcefulness, power, strength, courage, protection, maturity/matriarchy, stability, security, management, finances, investments, income, possessions, diet, food, etc.

bear + fox = protective yourself, a fierce loyalty, seven of swords energy, white collar crime, savings account, etc.

stars: peacefulness, tranquility, guidance, direction, happiness, hope, encouragement, perseverance, confidence, etc.

stars + bear = protecting your peace, the power of ones mindset, seeing a way out of the red / debt, etc.

stork: esteem, admiration, respect, babies, fertility, fruitfulness, productivity, birth, renewal, change, movement, new job, new home, new person in your life, extra money, improvements, pregnancy, adoption, new activity, new projects, progress, advancement, renovations, evolution, etc.

stork + stars = good self-esteem, becoming pregnant soon, encouragement from the universe to get a new job, don't lose hope in a project/task, etc.

dog: best friend, companionship, protection, loyalty, fidelity, guidance, sincerity, partnership, acquaintanceship, therapist, boyfriend/girlfriend, an affair, advisor, doctor, reliability, etc.

dog + stork = your best friend is pregnant, meeting a new friend, renewal of vows, a reliable new source of income, real estate agent, taking things to the next level in a relationship, etc.

tower: shelter, protection, confinement, imprisonment, government, corporation, judicial system, military, guarding, ego, ambition, isolation, guidance, schools, law, hospitals, high self-esteem, condos, movie theaters, office building, mall, airports, chain businesses, legal matters, bureaucracy, etc.

tower + dog = a sheltered friend, a friend you protect, roommate, an egotistical friend, water cooler encounters at the workplace, needing to visit the doctor for testing, etc.

garden: courting, public gatherings, harmony, beauty, relaxation, birthday parties, concert, play, movies, restaurants, public/private occasions, reunions, conferences, seminars, meetings, crowds, audiences, celebrations, abundance, etc.

garden + tower = little to no dating experience, solitude, hotel stay, movie theater, cafeteria, airport reunions, a convention, etc.

mountain: immobility, resistance, standing still, endurance, blockage, obstacles, what must be overcame, challenges, delays, interruptions, burdens, postponement, procrastination, remoteness, faraway retreats, etc.

mountain + garden = stage fright, an enduring relationship, social anxiety, social burden, secrets, a rain date for an event, etc.

crossroads: options, choices, free will, multiple directions, doubts, hesitation, double lives, cheating, etc.

crossroads + mountain = analysis paralysis, the many ways to overcome an obstacle, challenges within a relationship ("where do we go from here"), etc.

mice: sickness, fast, smart, group work, damage, reproduction, stress, worry, restlessness, agitation, palpitations, anxiety, nervousness, apprehension, tension, fatigue, lost items, small problems, tediousness, repetitiveness, excitement, eagerness, agitation, etc.

mice + crossroads = options of treatment, anxiety, paranoia, worrying about doing the wrong thing or picking the wrong choice, decision fatigue, etc.

heart: love, passion, devotion, affection, emotions, connections with others, appreciation of others, happiness, joy, contentment, satisfaction, fulfillment, gratification, peace, harmony, delight, pleasure, enjoyment, kindness, charity, generosity, hospitality, feelings, desires, fondness, intentions, fidelity, etc.

heart + mice = heart break, a wave of emotions, instant gratification, manifesting, etc.

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[sun-and-moon-mushroom]

Day 18: Too Weak to Move

AO3 link

Without-A-Cure was something that Shen Qingqiu could usually manage fairly well. Liu Qingge would have to clear the qi blockages occasionally, and it would sometimes act up and prevent him from using his cultivation, but as long as he took the medication that Mu Qingfang had prescribed him, those were the only effects. If he forgot…

It started with a tingling sensation in his extremities, at the tips of his fingers and toes. Then his skin started to numb, and his tongue would feel heavy in his mouth, making it harder to speak, harder to call for help. Finally, the numbness would spread through his limbs, leaving them limp and useless, too weak to do anything but twitch as he lay there. After that, if it was allowed to proceed, the paralysis would eventually reach his organs, stopping his heart, and resulting in his death. He’d only experienced the full effects a few times, and only after he’d pushed Luo Binghe into the Abyss, his mind too distracted by thoughts of his disciple returning to remember the medication.

When he saw Luo Binghe again — two years early, and surrounded by Huan Hua cultivators — he’d panicked. Too busy thinking about the plant body plan and what Luo Binghe was plotting, he forgot to take the medication when it was due. Instead, he only noticed the numbness creeping up on him much later into the night — and right before Luo Binghe stepped into his room, clearly set on confronting him.

He tried to flee, but his limbs failed him, sending him to the ground in a display that was far from the image of the graceful cultivator he usually maintained. Luo Binghe pulled him up of the ground, ignoring his weak attempts to get up himself. Shen Qingqiu was unable to resist as Luo Binghe held his body against his own, lifting up his chin to force Shen Qingqiu to look him in the eyes. There was something off about them — not the burning hate he expected to see, but not the devotion he’d seen in his young disciple either. It was something like obsession, tinged with delight — did Luo Binghe see this as a chance to torture his traitorous master before he’d even taken him captive?

“Shizun… Shizun can’t fight like this, can he?” muttered Luo Binghe, which made sense. His next words were confusing though, muttered as he ran his hand over the arm where the sower’s rash had sprung up — “So shizun won’t get himself hurt this way”.

Shen Qingqiu twitched as he tried to pull away from Luo Binghe, but he was still too weak to do anything, as he held up a bloody hand to his lips. The moment the blood parasites entered his body, he could feel them moving within him, trying to fix what the poison had broken — but still his limbs remained limp and unresponsive, even as sensation returned to them, and he felt his tongue move in his mouth once more.

“Bingge… why?” was the only thing he could think to ask. Luo Binghe looked almost guilty for a moment.

“I know… that this disciple is someone that shizun hates. But this disciple doesn’t care… if it would keep shizun safe, he would do anything… even if shizun disagrees”.

Before Shen Qingqiu could speak, could ask him what he meant, he began to feel faint, before suddenly falling unconscious.

[unassumingcavegoblin]

soooo

tell me about your current WIP

what's it about? who are the characters? what's that one little detail you're really proud of?

holy guacamole ilysm /p

so it’s a novel that i’m writing with a friend about this sorceress who was told by a god who she’s been a devoted follower of for over a thousand years that they’ve bestowed upon her the honor of bringing a plague down upon humanity, so she spends a while engineering it and then disguises herself as a high school student in this really big, densely populated city. so in this big city, there’s the main character, and she ends up falling in love with the sorceress, and there’s a romance between them. but turns out the sorceress is actually just using the mc to be a prototype to see how the disease affects humans, and the disease nearly kills her. THE DISEASE THAT SHE DOESNT KNOW HER HOT GOTH GF INFECTED HER WITH ON PURPOSE WHILE HER GF SITS BY THE SIDE OF HER BED EVERY DAY AS SHES LIKE DYING. HOWEVERRRR the sorceress is feeling SO MANY mixed up emotions - does she actually love the mc??? that wasn’t supposed to happen! - that her own magic accidentally messes with the disease in the mc’s system, making it less lethal.

from here the plot isn’t super laid out yet, but basically the sorceress like febreezes the whole city with plague mist or smth, and people start dropping like flies. the disease is super infectious - a very small amount can make a very large area dangerous, and it stays in the air for a long time - and it’s incredibly contagious - one infected person’s respiratory droplets can almost immediately infect anyone nearby.

not exactly a little detail, but i’m so proud of the disease! the disease itself is still a wip, but i have 7 pages of a sketchbook filled with stuff on it. here’s some lil tidbits abt it:

- it mainly affects your brain

- it gradually reduces your body’s ability to do simple things like tell you if it needs water or food, etc - it also affects your nerves, so someone’s skin can suddenly become hypersensitive or almost completely numb

- some people die simply because they can’t discern their bodily needs - eg., dying of thirst because they don’t feel thirsty

- it eventually stops your body’s ability to do automatic functions, like breathing and your heartbeat. that’s when a lot of people die

- it also affects hearing and sight in very rare instances

- it can also lead to paralysis every so often

- most of the time, it primarily affects the white matter in the brain

- it also causes things like shaking, spasms, sometimes seizures, and jerky, sharp movement

here’s some lil tidbits abt the story itself:

- mc is scene

- sorceress is goth (like VERYYY goth)

- the sorceress behaves almost cultishly in regards to the god i mentioned earlier

- the sorceress may be just a wee bit crazed

- the disease was created as a potion, primarily based on a flower (name is tbd)

- mc has adhd and anxiety

- the sorceress is probably gonna be lesbian, maybe grayromantic? i’m getting that vibe from her

- the mc might be bi, not sure yet

there’s also a couple of diseases i drew inspiration from for the fictional disease!

- covid-19, for its impossibly quick spread and how potent and long lasting the particles are

- bubonic plague, for how quickly it spreads

- polio, because it’s spread respiratorily yet affects the nervous system

- creutzfeld-jakobs, for the neurological effects

- the plague of athens, cause that shit was insane

this ended up being just a wee bit longer than i intended, but that’s my fav of my current wips :)

tysm for asking!! <3333

[ao3feed-itafushi]

no need to be brave

by electricboywrites When Megumi cannot wash his hair for himself, Yuuji is there to help him do it. Words: 2044, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga), 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Itadori Yuuji, Fushiguro Megumi Relationships: Fushiguro Megumi/Itadori Yuuji Additional Tags: Hair Washing, Bathing/Washing, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Itadori Yuuji Loves Fushiguro Megumi, Itadori Yuuji is a Good Friend, Fushiguro Megumi Needs a Hug, Fushiguro Megumi is So Done, Paralysis, megumi cant use his arms because of a curse for the plot, Showers, Winter, Fushiguro Megumi Loves Itadori Yuuji, Acts of Kindness, Devotion, Declarations Of Love, Forehead Kisses, itafushi taking care of each other is so special to me no one will ever understand, Comfort, Song: I Will (Mitski), Literal Sleeping Together from AO3 works tagged 'Fushiguro Megumi/Itadori Yuuji' https://ift.tt/G0yAJsa

[meret118]

The Dragon Prince’s second season — which dropped on Netflix in February — shows the strain of a lore-dense show operating under false time constraints. There are so many moving pieces that it feels like the audience doesn't get enough time with any one plot. The first three episodes of Season 2 feel well-paced, balancing plot with character development, but by the fourth episode, it's as if the show suddenly realized it only has a handful of episodes left to cram in the rest of the narrative, and so the sprint begins. That cool fight between General Amaya and the Sunfire elf? No time to expand, gotta go fast. Feel like Ezran (Sasha Rojen) needed more time to process his grief? No time, gotta go fast! Weirded out by how fast that paralysis subplot got resolved? No time ... you get the point.

Let me be clear: I do not blame the creators of The Dragon Prince for this Yakety-Sax pace. I blame Netflix. Back in ye olden days, animated shows for kids were ordered in bulk. Sure, this gave us a lot of cheap cartoons with recycled animation and filler episodes, but it also gave writers a large canvas upon which to do something deep and fulfilling. For example, Avatar: The Last Airbender seasons each ran for 20-21 episodes a piece. That's more than double the amount The Dragon Prince has to work with, which explains why the latter doesn't have the time to devote to anything that isn't driving the plot forward.

Other Netflix shows have suffered from uneven story pacing while trying to clock in on time for a 10-episode season, but for some reason the cracks in Netflix's system are more pronounced this time. Perhaps it's because The Dragon Prince inexplicably only received 9-episode orders per season. Maybe it's because the episodes are basically half-hour chunks instead of a full hour. Or it could have something to do with how dense the world of The Dragon Prince is. Honestly? It's all of the above.

Netflix's logic makes even less sense when you realize the strain this kind of turnaround puts on creators. Animation is labor intensive, with a single episode usually taking between one and three months to complete. And that doesn't count storyboarding, script-writing, or voice acting. You don't announce the second season of a cartoon one month after the first becomes a hit and then drop said second season four months later unless you want your creators to burn out. Which they will.

More at the link.

[ladystormcrow]

📓

Oh wow, okay!

Years before I got into The Dark Crystal, Megamind, and most recently Phantom of the Opera, my online fandom of choice was SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron. I had a whole fan continuation series planned out that never got past the first chapter of the first fic, but one particular ongoing plot would have gone like this:

OC Carmen Cascabel, an ambitious and misanthropic biochemistry grad student, gets captured by Dr. Viper while out collecting field samples (and her fellow student gets killed by Viper's monsters). She manages to impress Viper with her scientific knowledge, and he decides to make her a henchperson rather than a test subject. She develops an infatuation with him (think Harley Quinn, but much less perky and without the fun costumes), and he has her convinced that when his plan to take over Megakat City finally succeeds, he'll turn her into a snake mutant as well and she'll rule by his side.

After one attempt to take over the city ends with Viper arrested and Carmen in the hospital (the Enforcers thinking she was an innocent bystander), she reconnects with some of her estranged family, and starts to consider being no-longer-evil. But in the end, she decies to help Viper escape from prison -- partly because during this time, she finds out she's pregnant by him.

Carmen spends the next couple of years torn between her devotion to Viper and the power he can offer her, versus wanting to keep her family safe from his plans, as well as trying to keep her baby daughter Reyna's mutant features hidden (she told her family the pregnancy was the result of a one-night stand with a married tom kat, hence why she won't contact the father). Eventually, she helps Viper with one last attempt to take over the city (it involves taking over the citizens' minds with mutated Cordyceps spores, TLOU-style), but they get thwarted by the SWAT Kats, and in the final battle, Viper gets killed once and for all.

Since Carmen was seen helping Viper during this plan, the Enforcers are now hunting for her, and her family turns against her -- there would have been a scene where she sneaks into her stepmother's apartment late at night, planning to take little Reyna with her when she flees the city, and her stepmother tells her things like "give me one good reason I shouldn't call the Enforcers right now", "what did you think would happen when you threw your lot in with monsters?", and when Carmen says she can't go to prison, telling her that that's where she belongs. The stepmother does let Carmen escape, out of love for Carmen's late father, but she also convinces her to leave Reyna behind in the stepmother's care, so the child can have a stable life instead of being on the run.

Carmen then disappears from the story, and the focus switches to Reyna growing up. Her snake mutant features become more obvious as she gets older, and she's fearful and ashamed of them, as well as for the things her parents did (Reyna herself is a sweet kid). As a teenager, she starts seeking a way to cure her mutation so she can be normal, and she manages to track down Dr. Zyme -- he survived the bacteria attack, but has been paralyzed and wheelchair-bound ever since.

Between his injuries and his guilt over the part he played in Viper coming into existence, Zyme has become reclusive and bitter in the last 20-some years. He doesn't want to meet with Reyna at first, but she's persistent, and eventually he explains that he can't cure her -- he destroyed all his notes related to the creation of the Viper Mutagen formula, so he couldn't come up with a cure even if it was possible.

Reyna realizes that, like Viper, she carries the mutagen in her blood. Zyme, now starting to warm up to her, accepts a sample, and together they're able to reverse-engineer the serum and get rid of the flaws that caused the snake mutations in the original formula. He uses the new, revised formula to cure his paralysis, and with a new, happier outlook on life, he takes Reyna as a student and assistant. Reyna's no longer ashamed of her mutation after seeing the good it can do, and she and Zyme form a father-daughter relationship (he's definitley more of a father to her than Viper ever was) and embark on a happy future of making the world better through science.

(Reyna also eventually forms a romantic relationship with Skyler, Chance and Callie's son, which causes a whole bunch of other awkwardness, but that's another story.)

[0gl1tch0]

I’m gonna try to write down my methods for writing a Campaign. Every game is a delicate balance between world building, rail roading, and improv.

I use what I call the puzzle piece method of world building. For example, I had this idea a long time ago of a vampire who built a hotel and fed off the guests. However, the vampire is so old that the road he put his hotel on, and the town that he built his hotel in, are very rarely used now. So there’s a random side road that has a hotel and nothing else on it, anyone who stays there has their blood fed to an emaciated vampire trapped in the basement, and if it ever gets enough food it escapes.

This is a great puzzle piece, because it can literally slot anywhere in your world that is barren. No matter what wilderness the party is walking through, you can just slap a random hotel that doesn’t belong there in the wilderness, and you’ve got yourself an encounter. As follow ups to the encounter, It can l stand as a hint towards an ancient city or road that was destroyed for some reason that the party needs to learn about. You can also put a coffin for a different extra vampire in the hotel, and if the party destroys it they have a new antagonist.

My vampire hotel is complete in my mind with what the vampires living space is like (he has four drow as a string quartet, cursed to eternally play. Their fingers are dripping with blood from always using the strings, and while the rest of their body is perfectly polite, their eyes beg for death) the kind of treasure he has (powerful but cursed books in the library, and trophies taken from other slain monster hunters on display), and the traps in his domain (mostly illusions, as vampires are immune to those. There’s also a Medusa head mounted over his inner sanctum, people who stare at it turn to stone but vampires are immune to paralysis. Finally, his emergency door is solid stone with no handle, but with small square slits at the bottom so if he turns to most, he can get back to his coffin.)

I have a lot of puzzle pieces in my repertoire at any time, and it’s just stuff I saw in real life I found inspiring. I have a side-villain based off John Mulaney’s cameo character in the TV show The Bear. I’ve got a weird horror encounter based on all of the creepy empty offices is my post-Covid workplace. The city of “Corpse” is the orcish capital city, it’s built inside a dead giant’s skeleton, and their primary commerce is breaking off pieces of its humongous mithral armor and selling them. Whatever inspires you, build it into a portion of a session. Maybe just an NPC, maybe just a location, whatever.

Then, you want to take all of these puzzle pieces and overlap them, even if they don’t make sense together. If you’ve got like five partial ideas for games, surprise! Slap all five of them into one story and the world will feel complicated and full. If you rally like the theros god cards from Magic the Gathering but were more interested in an island hopping pirate game? Maybe each god has their own island with its own culture devoted to it. What would that look like?

The more puzzle pieces you jam together, the clearer the picture of your world will look like, and the more prepared you’ll be if the party does wild shit. That’s world building.

The next step is rail roading. Giving your party too much free reign isn’t always the best idea. This is a collaborative storytelling game, and you have to bring enough of a plot for the players to latch on to so the story isn’t aimless. Knowing who your player characters are helps a lot, because a large part of the game is character growth and fantasy fulfillment. If you find out one of your PCs is an anarchist, you’re going to want to tweak your government so it’s evil and oppressive and needs to be overthrown, even if that wasn’t your original idea.

The nice thing about world building by fluid puzzle pieces, as opposed to drawing a map that’s set in stone, is you can remove pieces that don’t fit. If one of your PCs is playing as a goblin, you can remove the evil goblin pieces and slot in other things instead.

I use milestone leveling rather than experience, and my goal is to get players to level up 10 times in any given campaign (sometimes I run high level campaigns from 11-20 where players get to revisit their old favorite characters). That means you need 10 levels worth of milestones to tell your story.

Of those 10, 4-5 of those are the climax of your players personal stories. Rescuing someone important to them, defeating a rival, whatever. The last level (from 10 to 11), is defeating. The antagonist. So you actually only need to write 4 or 5 story beats, your players will provide inspiration for the other half. The story beats you MUST have are:

Why do the party group up.

Why do the party care at all about your villain.

Good story beats to have, but that aren’t necessary:

Retrieving the McGuffin. Making the McGuffin powerful weaponry is also really cool. For example if your villain is werewolves, then one part of the quest can be retrieving silvered weapons, and the party will feel a lot stronger once they’ve earned them.

Learning a surprise twist! One of my players is a bastard, and the BBEG is actually their father. Figuring out one man is actually behind what appear to be several unrelated evil organizations, and then learning it’s daddy, is going to be a fun session.

Clearing a homebase! Having a castle or a ship the players are based out of let’s them upgrade that base in ways that are cool and fulfilling.

Rescuing a pet! Players, especially new players, get very invested in their pets, which is good because they can struggle to get invested in games in general.

Removing a curse! This comes with the added bonus that you the DM get to curse the players, always a good time.

Acquiring a truly unreasonable amount of money. This one’s great to pull out if your party isn’t meshing well, because almost all players like taking money from the evil who hoard it.

Start with grouping your party. They’re all hired for the same quest and it gets out of hand, they’re all on the same boat that crashes in an unexpected place, they’re all in the same teleportation spell that goes wrong, whatever. They’re a group, they know each other, they find themselves in danger, encounter, level 2.

Next introduce them to the villain in some way. Maybe not the actual BBEG, maybe a representative, but good stories have dialogue and so taking to someone who’s evil is never a bad story choice. Or maybe they just come across evidence of misdeeds or victims of whoever. This is your starter thread, and if your players aren’t interested, you can drop the whole thing and try a different antagonist instead. Maybe your players are of a more chaotic neutral persuasion and want to run a heist adventure. That’s fine! If the players aren’t enticed by the evil dragon they met this session, you can have them meet a douchebag wealthy casino owner next session. And you can have the casino owner be an ally of the evil dragon if you wanna bring that plot line back later.

Throw in a couple puzzle pieces as they come up, whatever you as the DM thinks is fun. As you figure out your players, figure out what their session is going to be, boom.

You’ve got a rough layout to follow.

Writing an actual session is pretty simple. Write a dot on top of a piece of paper with where the party is. Write a dot on the bottom of a piece of paper with the next step in your loose framework, and then write dots between those until you’ve got an idea for how your session should go. This dotted line is the railroad your party drives down.

The final step is improv. That’s just about being flexible with your puzzle pieces and your railroad. If your party decides they hate an NPC you were expecting them to like, maybe he’s a villain. If you really wanted your party to go to the circus but they’re more interested in the docks, maybe the circus is near the docks.

The key to improv is going “yes and”. Whatever weird shit your party does, your goal as a DM is to say yes to it. I think dungeons and dragons is about the “Yes also”. Yes, you guys throw a feast for the impoverished citizens in the capital. Also, the villain you were supposed to meet as my next dot on my railroad? He hates the feast, he tries to shut it down.

Yes, you successfully make a pirate fleet and they’re off sailing around earning you money. Also? They come across a weird cursed island they think you should check out (please go to the cursed island I have remove curse as the next milestone for leveling, and I can put my villains backstory as the cause of the curse).

With these three powers combined, you’ll have yourself a great D&d game that will fall apart for scheduling reasons.

Go get ‘em

DnD DM's of tumblr: how tf do you come up with a campaign. I have no idea what I'm doing plz help

[furymint]

FFXIVWrite2021 | header | wc: 425

Nolanel Feran was not a jealous man. Impatient, irrational, vengeful---yes--but not jealous. He tolerated Elliot's bullshit engagement with less complaints than he was justified to give, and when it was demanded that Elliot meet for scheduled public appearances with the witch herself, he shrugged and obeyed and allowed himself to be hauled to-and-from Ishgard like a child that couldn't be left unattended. In a way, that was what he was now.

Josseloux babysat him this sun. They sat on the terrace of a restaurant, an overhang above them and pastries between them, and gossiped like old men.

"It would be easier to talk with you if you whined about something." Josseloux tipped his rosé at him. "There's no point to this without bitching involved."

Nolanel ate half of a fruit tart in one bite. "I'm not allowed to talk with my mouth full," he said with his mouth full.

"Look, if you're going to be a part of this family, you need to know how to bitch." Josseloux took his spoon and jangled it against the side of his tea cup. "If you asked him, Elliot would say he was frolicking about the Hoplon with evil itself this morning."

"Aye, and he's resolved to do so or he'd've squirmed out of it."

"You don't know how this predicament with Miss Mol will end?"

"No--only that it will once Elliot puts a stop to it. Could've raised hell if he wanted to. Turned the tables. Have me challenge Xanadu, force her to call in favors to resolve the dispute--mayhap force her damned suitor to step up--and not have to parade a farce around that'll take too long to clean up after."

Josseloux deliberately poured Nolanel tea to indicate that he wasn't going to talk.

Squinting--but knowing the routine--Nolanel plunked sugar cube after sugar cube into it. "He wants to help her--and put the conclusion off as far as possible to get me better afore it comes to blood. If that's where it goes. I don't care so long as it's over."

"The Pillars will require something else to talk of soon. As amusing as it is, one can't watch the fluttery Cadieux boy and his promenading harpy pretend to smile at each other forever."

Nolanel looked up from the fading sugar to see two familiar figures turn into the adjacent street. He tried not to smile. "Father, you rotten bastard."

"Thank you," Josseloux said, lounging and hooking an arm over the terrace's fence. "I'm not tired of the spectacle yet."

Seconds later, Elliot's resounding gasp sounded.

[1kook]

espn & bdsm

this is part 6 of my netflix & chill collection !

summary; You would like to personally thank every loud-mouthed, ESPN commentator out there for saving you from Jungkook’s dangerous seduction skills.  warnings; smut (18+) in the forms of brief femdom, handcuffs, nipple clamps, blindfolding, flogging/use of a riding crop, soft dom kook, cunnilingus, spitting, unprotected but passionate, degradation, as always it starts horny n then turns into I love u kink miscellaneous; kook has a swollen ankle so idk how he did all this, jk abuses the fuck outta pet names part 7, revenge gone wrong tbh, this was honestly a beginner’s intro to vanilla bdsm word count; 12.7k

notes; this is like… a healing fic… for the part before lol. also i did not know what was going to happen next as I was writing. anyway entire smut scene was based off THIS bad boy ur welcome fellas and the Jungkook described here is from in the soop episode 2... cutie... yes every single 1 of those words is a link

lmk what you think! a simple ask goes a long way <3

You're at the nail salon with Doyeon when she first mentions it.

“Have you ever, like,” she pauses, making a vague, swivel gesture with her head. You furrow your brows and she sighs. “Topped him. Have you ever been the one to take control?”

Your nail artist blushes, furiously filing away at your nails until the most perfect stiletto shape stares you back in the face. “Oh. Not really,” you admit, wiggling your wet toe nails around in the styrofoam flip flops issued by the salon. “I mean, sometimes I talk him through it.”

Doyeon snorts. “Babe, talking him through it and being the boss are two completely different things,” she says rather dryly, seemingly unbothered by the fact your two nail techs are being subjected to this more than intimate conversation. But you’ve had weirder talks with Doyeon in public; this doesn’t phase you. “Listen,” she says suddenly, dropping her voice down to a whisper that has you leaning closer to hear her. “You know how I’m a member of that site, right?”

You nod. “Oh yeah— Sexuality Unleashed: The Best Toys Worldwide!, right?” She kicks your shin, but the jab is muted by the bottom of her own styrofoam flip flop.

“Yeah, just tell everyone here my credit card number while you’re at it,” she hisses. Her anger fades soon enough. “Well, they’re always sending me all sorts of freebies for my devoted patronage,” she explains. She quirks her lips to the side, throwing one brief glance at the blushing nail artists in front of you. Eventually she seems to come to a conclusion. “Long story short they sent me some cuffs and I’m gonna give you them.”

Your jaw drops. “Woah, really? I don’t know… Don’t those usually run kinda pricey?” you ask tentatively. You’re trying to play it off, act like this isn’t something you want, but the reality is so much worse.

The minute the word cuffs had slipped through her lips it’s like a door opened before your eyes. A big, wooden door with chains strapped across it and a padlock you swore you’d never open.

Somewhere in your mind, you had always convinced yourself handcuffs in bed was something you’d like to have done to you. But, because she was your best friend and by extension a personified version of all your freakiest, often filtered, thoughts, it was like Doyeon had reached straight into your cranium and extracted your most secret fantasy— and that was Jungkook in handcuffs.

Your nail artist pats your hand, motioning you to head over to the drying station. Before you can be separated from Doyeon, you whip around to throw her one desperate look. “I have never wanted anything so bad in my life.”

She cackles loudly, easily garnering the attention of every employee and nail enthusiast in the salon with the evil witch vibes she exudes.

Truth be told, your argument with Jungkook had brought upon a newfound appreciation for him. Weird to say, considering you had wanted to kill the dude when it had originally happened. But the great thing about you and Jungkook was that you were flexible people— both in bed and out. A few long conversations later and you had reached the root of the problem.

And that root was your apparent lack of communicating when something was wrong. It was weird to think that anything could ever be wrong when Jungkook was involved. He was your honeybun, sugar plum, pumpy-umpy-umpkin. Your sweetie pie, for lack of better wording, and he could do no wrong—

—is what you’d like to say. But if there’s anything you’ve learned in the past year of dating Jungkook, it’s that perfection was a made up belief that revolved around the idea that someone’s flaws couldn’t possibly be a good thing. And as you’ve come to realize, Jungkook wasn’t the perfect gentleman you’d initially chalked him up to be. He was human, just like you, with his own list of worries and thoughts, and sometimes those thoughts manifested into flaws. They could be ugly or they could be beautiful, but at the end of the day, they all made Jungkook into the person he was— and you loved that person. Disgustingly so.

You had your moments, and he had his. Everything would not always be sunshine and rainbows for the two of you, but it was fine so long as you learned to play in the rain and stomp in the puddles.

Still.

You were you.

A slightly mean, slightly conniving, petty ass human who had been plotting his revenge since the day the two of you made up. I mean, you weren’t actually just going to let him get off the hook like that, were you? He had saved himself last time with a gooey, heartfelt apology and confession, followed by some extraordinary dicking down that had left you Naked and Afraid for three days after.

But you weren’t that easy! No, ma’am. You had to let him know that some gorgeous demon dick was not enough to satisfy you after a fight like that.

Jungkook was in for a desperately needed reality check, one that jingles in your purse when you step out of the Uber that drops you off at his place. You know he’s home because his front light is on, and also because he’d texted you that he was watching some soccer match on tv tonight. He’s a pretty big fan, especially of the club playing tonight, so you decide it’s a perfect night to strike.

Your copy of his key slips right into the keyhole. Your slippers are in the same place they always are, neatly set off to the side right by the stairs. He’s not in his living room, undoubtedly the most perfect place to watch any type of sporting event with that huge Jumbotron of his. The damn thing made it feel like you were in the stadium itself.

There’s a quiet hum coming from upstairs. You creep up the steps, carefully rounding the corner at the landing until you’re staring right into his dimly lit bedroom.

The way Jungkook’s got his bedroom set up is so that you can look directly at his door from the bed, terribly inconvenient for when that sleep paralysis demon hits in the middle of the night and you’re left staring into the dark hallway. He’s snuggled comfortably over his sheets, about three pillows supporting his back. The light of the tinier, more acceptable television he keeps in his room is dancing across his features in bright shades of green. You almost throw yourself onto his mattress like a starfish until you spot the carefully placed foot on the bed.

“What the hell did you do?” you blurt. A wrong move, considering he hadn’t seen you yet and your sudden appearance makes him jump nearly ten feet into the air, almost knocking down the bag of ice that sits on his ankle. “Oh my god, it was that damned Pilates class, wasn’t it?” you fret, rounding the bed until you’re on his side.

“Oh hey,” he says as if you’re not currently pulling the first eight seasons of Grey’s Anatomy to the forefront of your head to treat him. “When’d you get here?”

“Cut the crap, who did this to you?” you ask, sitting beside him with the utmost care. You drop your bag off to the side, the loud clatter of the inside contents vaguely registering in your head. The ice pack comes off easily, revealing a relatively okay looking ankle save for the slight swell towards the more medial aspect of it.

Jungkook takes the moment to sit up, joining you in your inspection of his injury. “No one,” he answers, using his new position to drop a kiss against the side of your head. “I fell off the ladder helping Mrs. Jung across the street.”

You choke. “You fell off a ladder?” you squawk, eyes wide as your gaze shifts from his ankle to his entire body.

He places a hand on your shoulder, “babe, I was on like the third step. It was one of those old wooden ones,” he explains with a nonchalant shrug. “The step just happened to snap on my way down.”

You scoff. “That old lady is out to get you,” you warn him. “Remember the time she almost had you plug in those burnt out Christmas lights for her? The ones that would have electrocuted you to death.”

Jungkook laughs, settling back into his stack of pillows. “In her defense, she’s old,” he offers. He’s wrapped up in a black hoodie, fluffy bangs parted down the middle. He’s got on some blue shorts, a huge difference from his usual dark-toned clothing. He looks so good and warm, and you’re suddenly hit with the fact you can’t possibly handcuff this poor, injured angel to his bedpost and ride his cock into the sunset. “You didn’t tell me you were coming over.”

You deflate, wild fantasies thrown out the window. “Yeah, well,” you sigh, ditching your pants and climbing over him until you’re snuggled into his side. “Wanted to show you my nails.”

It’s a lame excuse. But he buys it, so.

“They’re cute,” he says, taking your hand in his. He turns your hand over, inspects your pretty new acrylics like he actually has any idea how much they cost or how sexy they look. He raises your hand to his face, pressing a smooch against your knuckles that has you heart thumping embarrassingly loud in your chest. God, you hated this fool.

You turn your nose up at him, like you’re some snooty rich girl who couldn’t give him the time of day. Except it’s not like that, and Jungkook knows.

“What’re you watching?” you ask instead.

He’s got that stupid dopey smile on you, the one that takes one nudge against his side to snap him out of. “Ah, just the game.”

You squint at the screen. “Is this Fox Sports?” you ask in disgust.

He pinches your side. “This is ESPN,” he corrects. “And you don’t know shit about sports channels,” he points out. “So sit this one out.” You give in with a huff, cuddling closer into his side while trying to jostle him as little as possible. Jungkook seems to have no deeply rooted concerns about his injured ankle if the way he hauls you into his arms is any indicator. “How did nails with Doyeon go?”

“You know, the usual,” you respond, idly toying with one of the strings on his hoodie as your eyes focus on the little figures running across the screen. He hums, gesturing for you to elaborate. “Talked about sex, how much better than you at life she is, some more sex.”

He scoffs at that. “Doyeon is not better than me, and I have a whole trophy case to prove it.”

“Okay, but have you singlehandedly Twitter beefed with an entire sorority in your freshman year of university and won?”

He frowns. “No.”

You give him a look, one that says stand down now unless you want to lose to my best friend and get your feelings hurt. Jungkook understands. “Anyway,” he announces, turning his attention back to the screen with you. You think his team might be winning—you vaguely remember seeing him wear a similar jersey once—so he’s pretty relaxed for now. “They’re doing pretty good considering they just lost their main striker.”

You have no idea what that means. “Who? Messi?”

Jungkook knows you don’t know. “He doesn’t even play in this league,” he explains anyway.

“Oh, I saw him trending on Twitter last week. Thought he died or something. Whole time it was just a bunch of soccer nerds crying about him leaving his team.”

He laughs. “You should be a sportscaster,” Jungkook decides after your ever-so-eloquent recap, tucking his head cutely against your shoulder. There was a study once that claimed the incessant need to squeeze a baby’s cheeks or hug puppies tightly was actually the innate human response to kill something they felt threatened by. Oddly enough, you find yourself thinking of that as Jungkook’s citrusy shampoo floods your nostrils.

“Oh, speaking of Doyeon,” he says suddenly. “Did you give her my address? I got a weird package from that store she likes that I genuinely don’t remember ever ordering.” You frown, sitting up slightly until you can look at the side of his face, the cute mole on his cheek calling your name.

“What?” you ask. “Was it in her name?” Jungkook nods. You’re about to tear the roof off his house and go hunt that evil wench down when realization dawns on you. “Oh, no, yeah I gave her your address. My mom stayed over last weekend and Doyeon needed to order something nasty. Guess it got delayed until now.”

Jungkook nods and then doesn’t say much else, which is weird considering the circumstances. You expected him to gently scold you for carelessly giving the psycho that was Kim Doyeon his address, but she’s been here a few times to pick you up, even came over for beer night once. She probably knew it anyway, but you still expected some type of reaction of disapproval from him.

Something’s off, and you know better than to leave it at that. You poke his cheek, right where that mole you’d been eyeing was. “Did you open her package?” you ask, grin slowly consuming your features at the fact Jungkook was apparently a mail snooper.

He looks away. You laugh. “Oh my god, you did,” you cackle, sitting up beside him to get a good look at the blush growing on his cheeks. “What did you see?”

“Nothing,” he huffs, pretending to be overly invested in his soccer match again, but that ship died the moment you stepped into his room. “Babe, I can't see the match.”

You roll your eyes, purposefully shifting in front of him so he’s forced to look at the maniac look in your eyes. “What did you see, Jeon Jungkook, and are we going to steal it from her again?”

His cheeks bloom impossibly darker at that. “No!” he coughs, pointedly avoiding your gaze.

But your curiosity is at its peak now, his reactions only exacerbating it. You grab him by the shoulders, hands balling the material of his hoodie as you give him one firm shake. “What did you see,” you demand.

“Oh my god,” he gives in. You release him and he flops back onto his pillow mountain. “They were things,” he explains slowly, cheeks rosy. “For your, y’know,” a vague gesture over his chest.

You frown. “A bra?” you guess. “I’m not gonna lie, Kook, think I just lost a little respect for you.”

“No!” he huffs. “They were… little clamps. For your nipples.”

If this was a cartoon, you’re almost certain you’d be that character with the object in question in their eyes, heart fluttering in your chest at the words that leave his mouth.

Immediately, two things become obvious to you.

One, Kim Doyeon was a bigger freak than you’d expected who obviously dabbled in an assortment of trades. Clamps, your brain screams, overwhelmed with the image that appears in your head, the one that has a shiver running straight to your core. You would have to thank her for this gracious, unintentional gift she’s bestowed upon you.

Two, you’re gonna have to write her the best, most plausible apology letter tomorrow when you inform her those clamps have been lost in the mail, never to be seen again. Or you could just straight up tell her you snatched them up the moment you found out what they were, but you doubt that’ll go over well.

Jungkook groans. “You have that look in your eye,” he points out. You snap your attention back to him. “And I just wanna say in advance that I don’t think i can give you the fun night you deserve, baby,” he apologizes, motioning towards his still swollen ankle.

Something distinctly mean switches on inside of you.

You flash him a sweet smile that has him letting down his guard. You lean forward, pressing a soft peck to his cheek as you climb down the bed towards your forgotten purse that’d been resting on the floor until that point. “Who said I needed you to have fun?” you throw over your shoulder, carefully slipping Doyeon’s first gift close to your body so he won’t see.

Jungkook levels you with an unimpressed look. “Really,” he says dryly, “you think you can have fun without me?” He almost sounds cocky, as if the idea of you even enjoying yourself the teensiest bit without his help seems unfathomable.

You grin, padding over to his bedside, where you carefully pick up his hand. You mirror his actions from before, pressing a sweet kiss against his knuckles that makes that conceited look slip off his features for a second, eyes soft.

Click.

Jungkook frowns. “What the—“ before the sentence can leave his mouth you’re lunging forward, wrestling his hands above his head, until they’re both secured at his headboard by the soft cuffs Doyeon had given you that afternoon at the salon. Jungkook’s wide eyes stare back at you, briefly leaving to glance up at the silver chain that wraps behind one of the rungs of his headboard. “Babe,” he says slowly. “What the fuck.”

You beam at him, leaning down to snatch a pillow from beneath him so he’s better positioned, leaning back more. “So cute,” you gush, taking in the way his raised arms have the hem of his hoodie lifting at the waist. There’s a faint trail of hairs around his belly button that disappear beneath the elastic of his shorts. “Do you like them?”

Jungkook blinks. “Baby,” he says a second time, much slower and a little too calm for your liking. It almost gets swallowed by the roar of the fans on TV. “What is this?”

You ignore him, scampering around his room until you find the hot pink Sexuality Unleashed packaging peeking out from beneath his bed. Sure enough, it’s in Doyeon’s name but his address. A whole complicated mess just for some nipple clamps she’ll never see again. It’s what’s inside anyway, not that you thought Jungkook was lying, but there’s something about the actual, carefully wrapped packaging that makes your heart and pussy flutter.

“Oh! Aren’t these the prettiest things?” you exclaim, whirling around to where Jungkook is shaking up a storm with his cuffs, pout growing on his features the longer you leave him there. The ice pack slips off his ankle, falling onto the comforter beside him from all his movement.

Jungkook doesn’t seem the least bit interested in the silver nipple clamps in your hands, too busy trying to free himself from the sudden trap you sprung on him. “Sweetheart, we can play with those tomorrow, alright?” he tries, relaxing his arms and finally looking your way. There’s a frustrated furrow to his brows, one you rarely see but adore very much. “Just undo these cuffs for me, yeah?”

You tilt your head to the side, placing a hand on the inside of his calf that you trail all the way up as you move to stand beside his hip. His thighs flinch at your touch, tensing when you stop just before the crotch of his pants. “Mmm, don’t think so,” you smile, dropping the thin chain beside him.

Your shirt goes first, peeled over your body until you’re left standing in your bra. It’s nothing too special this time, just your average run of the mill comfort bra hugging your chest. But that doesn’t really matter, especially not with the way you’re hoping things play out tonight. You’d discarded your jeans a few moments prior, so the shirt joins them on a pile on his floor.

As much as he tries to act irritated by your refusal to release him, there’s a slow stirring beneath his shorts. It’s emphasized by that bright blue material, cock swelling as he watches you take off your clothes. “Baby,” he warns, possibly for the last time. But you won’t know unless you push some more, you tell yourself, placing one knee on the edge of the bed, the other thrown across his lap.

“Wow,” you marvel, picking the chain up once more. Jungkook shifts beneath you, half hard cock brushing against the cleft of your cheeks. “Don’t you wanna see what it’s like, Jungkookie?”

He says nothing, watching you with solemn eyes that leave no room for reading him. Behind you, the game commentator is chattering up a storm.

Doesn’t matter, especially not when this flimsy metal had you so completely hypnotized. You reach behind yourself, unsnapping your bra with one fluid motion that has the cups falling onto your lap, soft chest on display for the man before you. Your breasts spill out slowly from their cage, pretty hardened buds slowly coming into his view. They make him pause his fussing, half-lidded gaze falling to the swell of your chest hungrily. His hands jerk, the cuffs doing their job of keeping them there.

You grin, placing a hand on his chest, over his hammering heart. “Do you wanna see me wear them?” you croon, tugging the material of his hoodie up his stomach, until your thighs are sitting directly on his tiny waist, thin thong just over his belly button. You trail your hand up, letting it brush up the side of his neck and bury into his scalp. You give an experimental tug that has his eyes squeezing shut. “Yes or no, Jungkookie?”

He’s being a huge brat for you, eyes scrunched up together like the sight of you enjoying yourself sans his touch is unimaginable. Another tug of his hair and he’s exhaling shakily, a quiet, “yes,” slipping past his lips.

The chain drops onto his chest with a quiet thud, shocking him enough to blink his eyes back open. Releasing your hold on his hair, you sit back on his lap, towering over his fidgety body like a goddess at a temple, him the lowly worshipper beneath you.

Your hands crawl over your body, starting somewhere around your waist. The glide up over your tummy, caress the underside of your breasts teasingly. Sure Jungkook knew your body well, but you knew your body best. One hand rubs teasingly over your breast, palm pressing down slightly against where your nipple lies, while the other drops down between your thighs, slowly grinding against your mound.

“Look, Jungkookie,” you gasp, body twitching at your own hands. You take a hardened nub between your fingers, rolling it back and forth until it’s standing at its peak. “I can do it without you,” you tease, rolling your hips against him slowly. The thin material of your thong does nothing to save you from the delicious swell of his cock against you. “F-Fuck,” you whimper, circling a finger over your clit. “It’s, it’s even better.”

His restraints jiggle against the bed frame, an obvious look of distress crossing his features. “No,” he huffs out a whine, tugging at the cuffs as you slowly unravel on his lap. They don’t give, no matter how much he pulls. You know he’s holding back, afraid of damaging his headboard, and you take advantage of the fact as you move to roll both nipples between your fingers. He groans harshly, jaw tight. “Hate you,” he hisses, hips wiggling beneath you. “Hate you, hate you.”

You breathe out an airy chuckle. “R-Really?” you ask, trembling hands finally reaching back for that second gift of the day. Your breath is shallow, so thoroughly wound up from your own playful hands, and you tremble at the mere brush of the cool metal. “Oh fuck,” you whimper, bringing them up to your chest, “I’ve never done this before,” you confess.

There’s a sense of amazement that consumes you at the thin chain you hold in your hands, the pretty gold painted clamps on each end. It makes you shiver, body unconsciously grinding down against Jungkook’s lap where his engorged cock was fighting against the material of his shorts.

“Then let me help you,” he tries, the childish tone from before melting into his usual silky smooth baritone. Jungkook even softens his gaze at you, let’s his tongue peek out to wet his lips as you almost seriously consider his request.

Had it not been for the sudden loud shout from the sports commentator behind you, a long obnoxious gooooooaaal, you probably would have fallen victim to that honey-eyed gaze. You would like to personally thank every loud-mouthed, ESPN commentator out there for saving you from Jungkook’s dangerous seduction skills.

Without a second thought, you bring one of the little camps close to your chest, giving it a few experimental squeezes until the nerves are replaced with an overwhelming wave of horniness that even Jungkook can sense. “Fuck,” he groans, shaking his restraints back and forth like a wild animal as you slowly get to clamping your left nipple.

You’re not sure what you expected; part of you had thought it was going to be an excruciating pain, one that would make you want to scream and shout in sheer agony. The other part had reduced it to a barely there pinch that would never live up to your fantasies. As it stands, the sensation of the clamp around your swollen nipple sits right in between, drawing in a choked gasp that makes your eyes roll into the back of your head.

“Baby, sweetheart,” Jungkook gasps alongside you, eyes zeroed in on the pinched off bundle of nerves. There’s a sudden grinding sound that fills the air, like the sawing off of wood that definitely doesn’t sound good, and it’s a direct result of the fight he puts up against his headboard. “Please, please,” he begs, muscled arms tugging back and forth. “I have to touch—“

The second clamp goes on, making your entire back arch as if you were possessed. You're not, just extremely overwhelmed by the prickle of pain on your tits that makes you grind down against his cock, hands fisting the front of his hoodie like it’s the only thing grounding you right now. “Oh,” you shudder, thighs quivering at the heightened stimulation you receive from the clamps sitting on your nipples. “Kook, I-I can’t.”

He growls, hips bucking beneath you in a crazed effort to better situate you on his lap. “You gotta take these off me,” he rasps out. The next buck of his hips makes the chain dangling between your breast brush dangerously close to his face. He’s unintentionally goaded on by the TV in the room, the annoying drone of the commentator shouting something about never giving up. “Can make you feel so much better, sweet girl,” he cooes, jutting his head out like he needs a kiss.

Your head feels woozy, pussy throbbing at the sensations being channeled down into your core. Your eyes flutter shut, and before you can think it through, you're blindly reaching for the chain, giving it one light tug that has you mewling like a kitten. “O-oh, fuck,” you sob, looping your finger around the thin chain carefully. Another tug that pulls against your nipples sends a gush of wetness down between your thighs. “Cock,” you slur dazedly, “need your cock.”

Jungkook shudders out a long breath. “Le-Let me go then, sweetheart,” he chokes out, “let me fuck that pretty little pussy for you.”

“Uh uh,” you disagree, bringing another angry buck out of him, metal cuffs rattling loudly. “Want you to watch,” you pant, reaching behind you for his shorts. “Watch me, Jungkookie.” It takes three tries for you to get a grip, the elastic material slipping from your fingers before you finally gain some semblance of control and paw them down . The shorts and the boxers came off together, his engorged cock springing up to tap against your ass. “W-Watch,” you repeat dazedly, leaning forward with one hand on his shoulder to line him up with your dripping hole. Behind you, the commentator is droning on about core balance or something of the sort. It takes two tries as you blindly have to tug your panties to the side as well, and just as you have his fiery red tip against your entrance, something else happens.

He catches you, pearly teeth biting down on the chain that connects your clamps in a motion you can only liken to a bloodthirsty shark jumping out of the water, jaws snapping to catch its prey. It dangles in his face, the same way his own necklaces have done to you so many times before. But the difference between you and Jungkook was that while you let his assortment of necklaces hypnotize you, drag across your face painfully, he doesn’t. He snaps forward, catches it between his teeth.

You mewl loudly, foggy vision turning onto him. Jungkook’s got this unreadable look on his face, likes he’s pissed off and turned on all at once. “You’re not in charge,” he murmurs around the chain, the s and c sounds all slurred together. “You will never be in charge, silly girl, you got that?” he spits, yanking his head back like an animal, pulling your upper body with him by the two golden clamps on your nipples.

There’s tears in your eyes, lining your waterline and threatening to fall with each tug his mouth gives against the chain of your nipple clamps. He’s got his neck craned back as far as he possibly can with a pillow beneath him, chain links digging into his bottom lip. “Y-Yes,” you sob, your entire body quivering at the way he so easily manages to overthrow you, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he says, solemn eyes flickering across your twisted features once more. He gives another purposeful tug, head snapping back just the tiniest bit, but it’s enough to tug you forward again, a loud whimper torn from your throat. “Undo these cuffs for me, sweet girl,” he commands softly, jiggling the same restraints he’d spent the better part of fifteen minutes fighting against.

“Y-Yes,” you whimper, hands wildly slapping down on his bedside table. You had had half the mind to leave the key there when you had retrieved the cuffs, telling yourself it would be easy access afterwards. It’s not, apparently, the silver pick falling just out of reach. For some reason— it’s probably the sensitivity and horninesss, the pinpricks of pain that originate from your nipples —this fact frustrates you to the point of tears.

“Easy, doll,” Jungkook talks you through, voice low and soft beneath you, “relax and grab it for me, okay?” You nod, angrily blinking away a tear that drips down your face. It splatters on Jungkook’s cheek, bringing a soft huff of amusement from him.

Finally the key brushes your hand, and you sigh in relief, shakily leaning forward to undo the lock above his head. He releases his killer chomp/grip on your chain just as you release his cuffs. “I-I’m sorry,” you sniffle, a sudden need to apologize as you watch him rub at the raw skin around his wrists. “I didn’t—“

“Shhh,” he says, cuddling you into his chest. “It’s alright,” he says simply and you believe him.

Which ends up being a terrible mistake exactly ten seconds later when he’s shoving your face into the sheets, your cries and whimpers muffled by the sounds of the game on TV as he winds your arms behind your back. You struggle for all of five seconds before a soft click resounds from behind you.

“Did you think I’d just let that slide, sweet girl?” he growls against your ear, hot breath fanning across your skin. “I'm not your dog, __,” he spits, suddenly yanking you up by your cuffed wrists. Your chest is heaving, arms aching from the way he’s got you on your knees, blind to whatever he’s doing behind you. “Don’t lock me up, because I’ll always come back to bite.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you stammer, flinching when a hand snakes around your waist, an experimental tug to the chain of your clamps. It sends a shudder down your spine, amplified by the hot press of his body behind you. “I won’t do it again!”

“I know you fucking won’t,” he laughs meanly, trailing his hand down over your mound. One finger circles your clit through your underwear, a shaky sigh exiting your lips at the jarringly light touch. “Because I’m gonna fuck you until you’ve learned your lesson, silly girl.”

“I said sorry,” you whimper, thighs quivering. His cock brushes up against you, the same cock you were about to ride until the sunset. Oh how the tables have turned.

A hand slips beneath your underwear, pad of a finger rubbing against your swollen clit. “Oh,” you exhale, surprised with the suddenly gentle touch following his words. “Th-That’s nice,” you murmur, head lolling forward at the slow rhythm he sets, playing with you like you were a toy that needed warming up.

“Yeah?” he husks out. There’s a yank to your clamps that makes you gasp, chest following the motion as if it’ll reduce the shock. “You think this is about making you feel nice?” he murmurs. Another tug, followed by another, until he’s raining down a series of rhythmic shocks onto your tits that make you shiver and twitch, tongue heavy in your mouth to the point you feel like you’re drooling.

“Wait,” you whimper, arms twisting behind you. “Hurts, hurts” you cry, arching your back like it’ll save you from the steady stimulation against your rock-hard nipples.

“Does it?” Jungkook hums, one hand working away at your clit. He swirls it around his finger, pressing down on the nub in an attempt to distract you. But it only heightens the sting coming from your breasts, the blossom of pain that grows over each mound the longer he plays with you. “Good. Want your pretty little body to hurt for me, baby.”

Right after saying that he releases the grip on your chain, letting it swing back and forth until it eventually rests on your stomach, throbbing nipples spared for now. A breath of relief washes over you now that you only have to worry about the hand playing along your folds. The TV is still flickering to your right, but the commentator's voice sounds fuzzy and so far away, like he’s in a whole different dimension while you and Jungkook are here.

Your reprieve lasts shorter than you expected, as his free hand slowly begins creeping up your waist, fluttering over the little gold clamps pinching your nipples. “Pretty girl,” he compliments, nudging one tender nub with a playful finger. “Pretty, pretty baby,” Jungkook murmurs as he begins massaging the scorching hot skin around your nipples gently. There’s a warm kiss pressed to your shoulder, followed by a trail up the side of your neck. You shudder, trying to focus on the hand that creeps down your folds, teases itself against your entrance.

“Jungkook,” you whine softly, rolling your head to the side so he can suck bruise after bruise onto your skin. You’re definitely drooling, the saliva thick and heavy in your mouth. “T-Too much.”

“Thought you wanted that,” he mumbles, kissing up and up until he’s at your jaw and then he’s at your mouth, languidly kissing you. He’s doing that thing again where he’s hellbent on drowning you in his spit, and if you didn’t know better you’d think he was preparing you for something. “Wanted me to watch you bounce that tight little cunt on me while your tits were like this,” he says, punctuating his statement with a light slap against the side of one breast. It makes you jump, a moan catching in your throat.

The finger that had been playing meanly along your wet folds eases itself past your lips, plunges head first into the aching heat inside of you. He works it against your walls, thumb over your clit as he curls his finger inside of you. You moan loudly, shaking in your restraints. The hand over your chest squeezes, pushes the clamp deeper against your breast until your entire body is short-circuiting.

Your first orgasm comes over you with all the grace of a lightning bolt; it’s sudden and jerky, has every nerve ending wildly spasming as you whimper his name. “No more, no more,” you beg, head lolling back against his shoulder. He shows you no mercy, simply rubs furiously over your clit, until you’re jerking into his maniac hand.

When it’s over, he places a kiss against your jaw, curling his finger inside once more “Play with yourself,” he whispers.

“H-Huh?” you stutter, the rattle of your cuffs loud in both your ears, but not as loud as the breath you were trying to catch post-orgasm. You wonder if maybe he got ahead of himself again—he occasionally did that, thinking ahead to a point you hadn’t reached in your normal progression of sex —but suddenly he’s shoving you back down again, the finger that was slowly driving you insane rudely exiting your cunt.

You flop down against the mattress with a squeal, wiggling around like you actually had a chance of doing anything with him watching you like he is. You struggle for a few beats, every shift against the mattress rubbing harshly against your breasts until you nearly want to cry.

Just as you reach that point, he’s rolling you into your back, hands uncomfortably bent beneath you. It leaves you unwillingly arching to accommodate them, tits practically presented for him to see. “Pretty girl,” Jungkook groans, reaching down for the first time that day to touch himself.

His self restraint was truly unmatched, you realize, watching him squeeze the base of his cock. He runs a palm over his abdomen, up his chest. He drags the material of his hoodie along with it, eventually shucking it off somewhere to the side. His hair, so fluffy and soft, flops over his forehead, a few defined strands tickling his eyebrow.

The mere sight of him alone made you shiver, pussy clenching at the wet dream before you. He’s not an idiot either, obviously aware of what the sight of his body does to you, the tattoos littering his entire right arm that hypnotize you. The faint glow of the TV screen against his side makes him look like the cover star of every middle-aged wife’s erotic romance novel. He reaches said arm down, runs a hand along your thigh until you’re spreading them wide for him.

He doesn’t touch you like you want, only slides over your body until he’s toying with the chain of the nipple clamps that were slowly becoming the bane of your existence. “Open,” he says suddenly, and you do. Your mouth drops open, tongue stuck out slightly even if you don’t know why. He’s ingrained the response into you by now, made you into a desperate slut always ready for anything in your mouth.

This time it’s the stupid, stupid chain connecting your nipple clamps. He tugs it until it’s pulled up, the pull against your nipples making you whimper and writhe. The metal is cool when it touches your lips, but his fingertips are warm. “Good girl,” he praises once you bite down; even this sends a shock of nerves down your spine and to your pussy. “Just like that.”  

A muffled whimper escapes your lips, tears clouding your vision at the stimulation that was quickly overwhelming you again. Part of you thinks no more, please, I can’t. But the other has you spreading your legs for him, quivering pussy desperate to be filled.

The distress must be obvious in your face if the way Jungkook kisses your neck is any indication. He’s got one hand massaging against the underside of one breast, like he’s soothing the striking pain of your pinched nipples for you. If anything, it only strings you along more. “Stupid baby,” he chuckles meanly, a soft puff of laughter against your jaw, “thinking she could push me down.”

He leans back onto his knees, that same careful brush against the inside of your thigh bringing about an embarrassing whimper as he peels your thong away. “But you didn’t really want that, did you?” he eggs on, slowly shifting down against the bed, until his mouth is hovering over your exposed lower lips. His breath is warm, makes you yearn for him to be closer. “You like when I shove my cock into your little pussy, right? Like how it feels when I turn you into my little slut like this,” he sighs, pressing one chaste kiss against your thigh that makes you pull at the cuffs behind your back.

Soon, his mouth is on your clit, the same clit he had previously pampered with his hands but chooses to play with again. He licks an obscenely wet stripe from your throbbing hole to your clit, tongue curling devilishly towards the end. You whimper, though the sound is distorted around the chain in your mouth. Jungkook groans, dives mouth first into your cunt until he’s suffocating himself. His cute nose is pressed against your clit, and he takes advantage of the fact by taking one, dramatic sniff with his eyes rolled back. A soft moan escapes him.

“Fuck,” he shudders, “smell like heaven for me.” You moan at his sweet words, eyes squeezed shut as if that’ll stop the buckets of overwhelmed tears that you’ve been fighting off since the moment the clamps came on. “Wanna give you the world, angel,” he breathes, licking languidly against your folds, tongue occasionally peeking inside.

You mewl and writhe, every movement sending a tug of pain over your nipples. You want that gorgeous cock deep in your cunt, want to feel him in your womb, but you can’t voice any of this with the chain of the clamps between your lips.

Jungkook sits up suddenly, and you’re thinking yes, finally, before the look on his face has you screeching to a halt. There’s something distinctly different about him, a look you don’t think you’ve ever seen in bed before. Your thoughts are only confirmed when his foot slides onto the floor, as if he’s about to leave.

The panic must be evident on your face, because Jungkook is quick to swoop in and reassure you he’s not done with you yet. “Wanna fuck your little pussy,” he admits, carding a hand through your hair. “But the truth is I don’t think you deserve that just yet.”

With that he slinks off the bed, leaving you writhing in confusion as he heads off for the closet behind you. You can’t see what he’s doing, can only hear the shuffling of something back and forth. The TV is still on, the loud cheering of the fans muffling his clattering. You’re suddenly reminded of his swollen ankle, craning your neck to tell him to not overdo it, when something dark covers your eyes.

He’s standing just beside the edge of the bed, his signature teddy bear heat emanating off in waves so thick you could touch them. “Do you trust me?” he murmurs, voice close but not close to your ear.

Something swells in your chest, an emotion so intense your entire pelvis tightens up at the realization that Jungkook was asking for permission to blindfold you. You’re almost certain it’s one of his ties, a silky black thing that covers your vision for the most part, save for a little crack by where your nose juts out. A shuffle to your side, and then he’s gently prying the chain he had pushed past your lips earlier out. “Need an answer, ___,” he says quietly, almost nervously.

“Yes,” you gasp, your entire body set aflame at the sudden turn of events.

If you were being honest you would have never predicted your night would end like this. Maybe you came in a little too cocky, a little too optimistic for the night. It was supposed to be Jungkook handcuffed and powerless, you remind yourself— how on earth did you get here?

“Good girl,” he praises, giving you a little encouraging nudge to raise your head for him to actually tie the knot behind your head. It’s definitely one of his suit ties, you realize, because there’s a distinct cross-stitch pattern that you can feel only when it’s tightened against your skin, pressing against your fluttering eyelids. When he releases you, you’re suddenly all too aware of the sense he’s deprived you of.

“K-Kook?” you call out with a tremble in your voice. The rhythmic pattern of his footsteps rounds the bed again, and then there’s a soft touch against your leg.

“Right here, sweet girl,” he reassures you. The bed dips by your legs as he closes in on you, still tied up and on the verge of a second orgasm that he snatched away before your very eyes; not that you can see it anymore. His hand slides over your stomach, tugs playfully at the clamps. You moan, the sensation magnified tenfold by the fact you can’t see nor anticipate his actions now.

His hands glide like two sailing boats over the broad expanse of sea that is your body, molding against your curves like waves as they go. He hums appreciatively, and you find yourself glad you can’t see him. You can’t possibly imagine with what eyes he’s looking at you now.

You bask in the glory of his attention for another beat before he retracts his touch.

And then, suddenly, something distinctly not hand-like, and weirdly soft traces over the inside of your thighs. “Kook?” you ask tentatively.

No response.

It runs over your skin in the same way his hands just did, a unique shape your brain scrambles to put a name too. It’s soft, so soft. But cold to the touch. Inanimate for sure. It’s a toy, your brain supplies belatedly, but that much you already know.

It’s heart-shaped, you realize, just as it thwacks down against your pussy.

You shriek at the suddenness of it all, thighs clamping shut. Your heart is thundering at a pace of a rabbit’s, chest rising and falling as you blindly piece together what just happened.  “Kook?” you whimper a second time, head craning back and forth in a desperate attempt to track his next move.

He’s not touching you anymore, but the bed is still dipping by your feet, so you deduce he must be there. You test your theory by sliding your foot against the sheets, lower lip trembling at the idea of him not being there.

Jungkook catches your ankle with one warm palm, slightly calloused from years of weightlifting. He raises it up, the cold air of his room hitting your exposed pussy. “You liked it,” he says, not a question but an observation. Your pussy throbs, the phantom strike against it lingering. A kiss to your ankle.

“Wh-What is it?” you cry, unconsciously pressing your leg closer to him now that you have his location. (You don’t see the soft smile on his face at your action.) Ever so slowly you let your thighs open again, now anticipating the next touch of that thing— that riding crop, you realize.

Jungkook confirms. “It’s a riding crop,” he explains, excitement curling around his words. Suddenly, it returns, this time against your stomach. He doesn’t strike you like he did before, simply lets it run across your tummy. “Heart-shaped. It’s so pretty,” he sighs dreamily. “Reminds me of you.”

You nod anxiously, stomach muscles tensed the longer it stays there. Jungkook obviously sees this, lifting it to give you the lightest of taps that still manages to make you gasp. “Cute,” he laughs, trailing it back to where it first touched down.

“Oh,” you tremble, thighs twitching as it pats tenderly over your clit. “Wai-Wait,” you warn, body arching as he runs it down, down your swollen folds. “No,” you weep, going to close your legs. But Jungkook predicts your moves, pressing your thigh down harshly against the bed.

“Shh,” he soothes, tracing the heart down your folds, pressing it flat against you. There’s a distinct lining over it that makes your hips jump, a faux-velvet covering the tip that tickles your skin. “Sit still for me.”

“No!” you gasp. Your back arches, body betraying you as it pushes your pussy against the toy. “I can’t, I can’t, Kook,” you sob, lips contracting around the gaping nothingness in your hole.

He condemns your attitude with a harsh swat of the riding crop against your cunt, tearing another high-pitched squeal from your lips. It’s followed by another against your clit that makes your body spasm. “Bad,” he chides. “Supposed to be my perfect girl.”

“I c-can’t,” you whine, the darkness over your eyes making the sensations ten times more intense. You don’t know where he or the riding crop are if they’re not directly touching you. Even then, the image is fuzzy in your head. “Need you,” you pant.

You try to reach for him, try to pull him into your arms. But you’re reminded of the cuffs holding you back, the metal digging into your skin behind you. You sob at the realization, angrily shaking your hands back and forth like maybe acting like a tantrum-throwing child will save you. It doesn’t.

Instead there’s a tug at the chain resting on your stomach, one that makes you cry out in pain when it pulls at your terribly sensitive nipples again. Jungkook uses it to pull you close, just a small inch off the bed that has you gasping for breath nonetheless.

“N-No,” you wail, nipples throbbing from all the sensations you’ve put them through tonight.

A chaste peck against your trembling lips. “Tell me how it feels,” he purrs, nose brushing against yours. Even with the tie obstructing your vision, the latest version of your boyfriend burns itself into your eyelids, force feeding you his sweaty skin and damp hair until even his breath against your face is enough to bring you to the edge.

“I-It’s scary, Kook,” you sniffle, listening for any signs of a reaction. But even if he did show one, your breathing is too loud and the ESPN channel is still blaring on screen. “Scary,” you whimper, lunging forward in a desperate move to feel the familiar brush of his tongue against yours. You miss.

“Do you want to stop?” he asks carefully, like he’s afraid he’s pushed too far.

He has. But fuck, do you love it.

“No,” you wail, lips smushed somewhere along his cheek, near his jaw and not his mouth like you wanted to. “Feels good, feels so fucking amazing,” you babble, cut off halfway through by a hiccup from your sad cries. “Wanna cum, wanna cum for you like this.”

Jungkook chuckles in relief, tilting his head until you can catch his lips with yours. It’s probably an awkward angle you assume, him adjusting for your vision-less whims, but it feels so good. It sends a shock to your pussy, his plush lips against yours. Without him telling you, you’re opening your mouth for him. “Spit on me,” you beg pitifully.

Jungkook groans, and you can almost visualize the look on his face perfectly— the tensing of his jaw, the push of his Adam’s apple, the pucker of his lips. “God, you’re disgusting,” he sighs, a fat glob of spit hitting the back of your tongue. Without your vision, you don’t see it coming, recoiling with a whiny mewl. The thin trail of saliva that follows trails across your chin when he finally reels back. You swallow greedily, wondering how soon is too soon to ask him to do it again.

With your full permission to move forward, Jungkook wastes no time trailing the riding crop over your wet folds, collecting your oozing pre-cum on the tiny heart as he roves it over your cunt. “Fuck, you can probably cum like this too, can’t you?”

You can’t answer, too caught up in the featherlight brushes. Even if you wanted to say something, one sudden strike against your pussy renders you speechless. “Mmh!” you hiss, biting down on your lip.

“Come on,” Jungkook encourages, resting a hand on your thigh. He presses the crop against you again, pushes down until the flat apex of the heart where it meets the flexible stem of the toy is pressing against your cunt hotly. He grinds it down against you, takes a sick pleasure in the pathetic way you arch up into it, rut against the little heart like it can provide even half the pleasure his hands usually would. “Talk to me, sweetheart,” he murmurs.

Your body is on fire, every nerve, every sensation shooting straight to your most erogenous areas— your cunt and your nipples. Talking seems like the farthest thing from your mind right now, too caught up in the way he roughly pushes the crop against your clit. A whimper rips itself from your throat, shuddering at the sensation. Unconsciously you jerk away from him, only to be scolded with another thwack against your quivering pussy lips. “A-Ahh,” you wail, squirming beneath him like a worm that can’t sit still. “Good— it feels good, Jungkookie,” you weep.

The soft mushy pet name has him raining down two snacks against you in quick succession. “No baby names,” he warns, frown evident in his voice.

Even with you completely under him like this, shackled and blinded with your love, something unmistakably childish and obnoxious curls around your throat, has you biting down on a grin as the coil in your stomach tightens. “D-Don’t like that, Jungkookie,” you choke out hoarsely, wildly bold for someone in your position. “D-Don't like being m-my baby?”

The crop loses its position over your folds, and for a minute you’re left anxiously anticipating its next touch. 

It’s on the side of your breast, harder than the rest, combining with the already powerful pinch of the clamps. It makes you cry out painfully, stomach tightening at what is probably the most unexpected orgasm you’ve ever had. It isn’t like your usual ones that overpower you and make cum trickle out between your folds.

No, it comes in waves— literally. Your pussy spasms, pushes one splurt of cum out between your thighs, almost likes your lower lips are spitting it out. And then again, more the second time, against his mattress. He pushes your legs up to your chest to marvel at the cum coating your lips and thighs. “You’re my baby, stupid,” he hisses. He grabs at your clamps then, twisting the little chain in his hand harshly. You sob at the yank, at the way your nipples feel two seconds away from being ripped off. But you can’t even complain, because the sudden touch has your pussy clenching, before a final trickle of cum oozes out of you.

Even still, your mind babbles on. “N-No,” you choke, shaking back and forth. Despite the tie covering your eyes, they flicker like a mad man beneath it, like you’ll somehow get lucky and develop Seeing Through Fabric Ability if you try hard enough. “My, my baby,” you fight weakly, pelvis trembling from aftershocks of that orgasm. “My idiot b-boy,” you smile dazedly, eyes rolling into the back of your head at the sting you’ve become familiar with by now. “T-Tell me, Jungkookie,” you croon, biting down on your lip to keep a moan from spilling out mid-syllable. “Still the same, r-right?” you stutter, “still think you’re better than me, don’t you?”

He scoffs. “No,” he vehemently denies, brashly landing an unexpected smack against your hip, no warning in sight. “That’s not true,” he defends. You can hear his pout, the little push of his lips when he grows defensive. 

You laugh, every bit the insane lunatic, fueled by your two orgasms and slipping sense of reality. “Ffffuck,” you whimper, rolling your hips up into nothing. “S-Say it again, baby,” you plead, tongue licking across your lips. “Tell me, tell me you don’t care about my problems, Kook-ah,” you whimper.

There’s a hesitant pause on his end, an unexpected lull in your play as he’s torn apart between doing what you want or playing it safe.

You know you’re confusing him, because you’re certainly confusing yourself. You don’t even bother trying to dissect your emotions— you’ve long since accepted your mind was a dangerous place when horny and presented with Jungkook’s sole attention. Well, you knew you were into the whole degradation bit, but this whole having-your-boyfriend-throw-the-words-that-made-you-question-your-entire-worth bit was certainly new and unexpected.

But there’s something in your heart (and in your libido) that needs this, needs him to fix this memory for you that maybe, kinda sorta, has haunted you for days, weeks now, as much as you hate to admit it. Needed him to fix the booboo he gave you with a bandaid, only leave a scar you could look back at and laugh off, not a gaping wound that opened at the slightest mention of it. Because while you forgave, you certainly never forgot*.

(*Unless forgetting meant having your boyfriend overwrite said memory that couldn’t be forgotten with the sheer power of his monster demon cock and wicked tongue. Only then could you forget.)

“Don’t be a fucking pussy, Jungkook,” you spit, feeling the hesitancy in the riding crop that brushes against your skin. It fades away quickly. “S-Say I’ve a dead-end office job; just holding you back,” you beg, trying to pretend the entirety of his little outburst hasn’t been ingrained into your mind for the last couple of weeks. Something flashes in your chest, throat closing off when the toy finally leaves your skin. “Tell me, tell me—“

He looms over you, teddy bear warmth covering the entirety of your body. “Is this what you want?” he asks seriously, lowly, breath fanning across your lips. Your makeshift blindfold feels distinctly damp over your eyes, chest heaving with an exertion that can only be emotional when he speaks so softly to you after routinely raining down brutal thwacks on you for the past half hour. “__,” he says sternly, “is this what you want?”

You gasp on a sob, unsure when these emotions had time to manifest outside your heart like this. You nod your head like a bobble head doll sitting on someone’s dashboard, lower lip trembling on a shameful cry that is not sex-induced like all the other ones until now. “I-I need this, Jungkook,” you admit, voice so tiny and soft, it almost gets drowned out by your shaky exhales and the crowd roaring on screen. “Need to overwrite it.”

He presses a soft kiss to your quivering lips, slow and so devastatingly loving. It’s nothing like the one from before where he’d spit down your throat per your request, and the unbridled adoration he packs into one simple kiss makes you crumble in his arms, sniffles piling on by the dozens.

He leans back after a moment, pulls your thigh over his forearm and finally lets you feel the hard ridges of his cock against your folds. “Stupid girl,” he huffs, trying to sound angry and annoyed, but there’s a lilting tone to his words, a love and trust you wouldn’t have been able to see with or without your blindfold, but can feel nonetheless. He pulls it off you anyway, the warm glow of the TV illuminating his face for you for the first time in about half an hour. Eyes soft, sweat trailing down his body. His body lines up against yours, but so does his heart. You feel it in the way he holds you in his arms, the way he’s careful about sinking into your folds. He slips an arm beneath your waist, uses it to hold you up so you’re not uncomfortably squishing your arms anymore. But if you ask, he’ll pretend he’s doing this for convenience sake only.

“T-Terrible fucking job,” he starts out, the stammer eluding the obvious discomfort he has saying those words, but he does it for you anyway. “Big fucking baby,” he tries again, slowly pushing past your tight walls with a shudder. “C-Can’t look away from you for two seconds because you’re such a fucking kid.”

“Worse,” you choke out. “Meaner. Please, Kook.”

He nods, holds your waist carefully when he finally bottoms out inside of you. “Dead-end office job,” he says, repeating the words that had made you want to crawl into a whole and never come out from. “Got some stupid fucking problems,” he tacks on, slowly withdrawing his hips from your heat. “Always complaining about the stupidest shit,” he hisses, fingers digging into your waist when it’s only the tip of his cock inside of you. “I don’t fucking care about it,” he seethes, forcefully snapping his hips into you.

They’re scrambled fragments of what he’d really said to you that night. Line after line that don’t carry a quarter of hurt or even make coherent sense for that matter. And still. 

You whimper, mind fuzzy from the thrusting pace he picks up, body fluttering at the glide of his cock against your walls. But your heart is thundering in your throat, his willingness to help fix this memory for you tightening around your every being until you can’t breathe. “I-I love you,” you cry, clenching down around him.

Jungkook groans, pulls you flush against his cock until the thin hairs around the base of his cock are tickling your skin. “Stupid, fucking child,” he groans, “immature ass nobody,” he grunts, bucking into you like your words don’t mean a thing.

“I am, I am,” you wail, suddenly hit with the cold hard truth that your body was desperately on edge. From the stimulation your nipples had gotten all night, to the ghost of the riding crop that lingered across your skin; your body was tired, so ready for a final orgasm that you’re certain Jungkook will provide. “T-Tell me y-you—“

“Shut up,” he barks, sweaty skin gliding against yours. “D-Don't tell me what to do,” he huffs, nailing you into the bed. He’s pushing you hard into the mattress, like he wants to brand you into it. “Need to fix this— alone.”

You nod numbly, the crowd behind him cheering loudly. It’s like they’re rooting for him— for the two of you —as silly as it sounds, and as bothersome as it would be any other day, today the obnoxious sounds of the ESPN soccer match only serve to fix a bad memory from before. It’s loud and cringey as all hell, but you’ll look back to this moment and laugh.

And that’s what you want most of all. You want that memory from before, that nasty fight, to go away, to disappear forever and be replaced with this one. Of him, pounding you into the sheets as his TV blares beside you, just another day, another round of sex filled with your usual kinks. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Ffffuck,” you whine when the tip of his hard cock prods against your cervix. He’s going deep, he’s going all out, because he wants to fix this too. Wants to do anything to make it right, and he’ll never know how much you appreciate him for it. “S-So deep,” you whimper, hips jumping when he rams back inside.

“Stupid slut,” Jungkook snarls, tucking his head against your neck the same way he always does. “Making me do stupid shit like this,” he bites, but you know he doesn’t mean it, know he never will again. He rocks his hips into you, no longer concerned with holding you up from uncomfortably laying on your cuffed arms anymore as he pistons into your squelching heat. He’s pressed so close over you, lips brushing against your collarbone with each snap of his hips.

All the pushing and jostling about has the chain of your clamps wildly jumping about, sprawling across the planes of your chest, above your breasts, where he snatches it up between his lips again. “Stupid, fucking—“ he slurs, jutting his head to the side like a wild stallion. You sob at the tenderness of your nipples, at the way he pays them no mercy as he continues rutting into you like a mad dog in heat. “Slut,” he spits. “S-So fuckin’ pretty.”

Your mind is in another universe, and when that last word, that devastatingly familiar term, slips from his lips mindlessly, something inside you snaps. “N-No,” you sob, legs fidgeting around his waist at the orgasm that wracks through your body against your will. “No,” you cry in frustration, “didn’t, didn’t want—“

“Stupid, stupid angel,” he babbles, seemingly unaware of your orgasm as he continues fucking into your leaking cunt, ignorant of the cum that dribbles out, creams his cock as he carries on. “Fuck,” he pants, gnaws against the chain of the stupid clamps like he can’t bare this any longer. “Love you,” he says, though he’s still stuck in that mindset from before and his sweet confession sounds more like a threat. “L-Love that childish side of you,” he confesses, finally dropping the chain— much to your relief —and surging forward to kiss you on the mouth. He tastes weirdly metallic, a thought you can’t ponder too long as he continues ramming himself past your clenched lips and into your pussy. “Your fffucking dr-drive to succeed,” he grunts, mouth smushed uncomfortably against your cheek.

“Kook, sweetheart,” you shudder, sensitive pussy spent as he drills on. His cock is still so achingly hard, and he doesn’t seem anywhere near completion. “Take it easy,” you gently remind him, can’t brush your fingers through his hair like you usually would, so you settle for pressing your lips to his cheek.

“Fuck, fuck,” he heaves, pushing so deep you practically feel him in your womb, swollen mushroom head begging for entry. “Give me it all,” he stammers, “want you—want this forever.”

“I know you do, baby,” you coo, nuzzling your nose against his when he sloppily surges forward, panting and gasping over you like a crazed caveman. “I’m yours,” you gently remind him.

“No,” he chokes out hoarsely, eyes screwed shut. “Need more, all of it,” he mumbles. “Give me yourself, ___, need you for the rest of my life—“ he cuts himself off with a shuddered whine, so airy and wispy it makes you shiver. “Ffffuck, shit,” he howls, each thrust into your walls only unraveling him more and more. “Give me, give me—“

“Anything,” you whimper, body trembling from his excessivity. “What do you want, Kook-ah?”

He says nothing, losing himself in the warmth of your pussy as his orgasm rounds the corner. He’s in the final stretch, the final straight until achieving nirvana alongside you at the finish line. And, as you’ve long since come to understand, a true Jungkook Danger Zone. He loses all sense of self, random syllables and phrases slipping through his lips.

“Fuck, fuck, marry me— marry me,” he moans, snapping his hips into you with a ferocious speed that has you bouncing against the sheets, and that’s despite the tight grip his has on you. “Let me— fuck— let me fuck a baby into you, sweetheart,” he purrs, eyes shining like an absolute psycho, but you’re apparently into that because the idea squeezes around your chest and burrows it’s way in. “A baby,” he marvels like an idiot, eyes big and sparkly, “f-fuck.”

“Wh-What?” you choke, flinching when he bites down against your lower lip. He’s got you trapped beneath him, stuffing your brain with these ideas that make your heart enter cardiac arrest, body tingling like in Mario Kart when you’ve got the star power up. “Kook—“

“Sh,” he groans, digging his fingers into your sides as he rolls his hips against you. “Almost,” he informs you, but the blood rushes to your ears. “Oh, fuck,” he pants, jaw clenching, “oh, baby.”

Jungkook cums with a shivered cry, body hunching over you like some entity has just exited out of his spine. Maybe something did, because afterwards he manages to hold himself above you for exactly three seconds before dropping the entirety of his hefty muscles onto you. “Ouch,” you whine, wrists twisted uncomfortably beneath you.

“Sorry,” he huffs, completely out of breath and dazed as he rolls away from you. He ends up spread out like a starfish beside you, completely fucked out and definitely zooming through the fifth, sixth, and seventh dimensions.

He doesn’t say anything for a hot minute, chest rising and falling like he’s just run a marathon, until you butt in. “Kook. Undo me,” you remind him.

He looks over at you, dark hair falling over his eyes and sprawling around his head like a halo. Oh, he was going to be the death of you. “Oh,” he says, like his brain has just processed the information. “Right.” He sits up, tucking himself back into the shorts he never fully took off. That was his character flaw; never bothers to get completely naked during sex. Anyway, his straight male-equivalent of booty shorts come up around his thighs again, stretching sinfully across the thick muscles.

The five sonnet poem that was gearing up in your head comes to a halt when he touches your breast. “No, no more,” you cry, instinctively withering away.

Jungkook snorts. “I’m just taking them off, baby,” he says, reaching forward again with the same practiced ease you’d use on an animal. The clamps come off, all the nerves suddenly coming back to life. It’s a weird sensation, not having your tits subject to that prickling pain anymore, and it makes you moan softly. Jungkook soothes you with his wannabe masseuse hands, but you think it’s just an excuse for him to fondle your breasts.

“How’re you feeling?” he asks gently, hovering over you like a damned surgeon or something. His voice is so silky and smooth, hands soft against your chest. He’s so careful in the way he turns you over, somehow magically producing the tiny key pick you swore was lost between the sheets after its first use.

Being on your chest makes you tremble like a leaf, the faintest brush of the cotton against your tits enough to make your pussy clench weakly. “ I’ve got you, sweetheart,” he murmurs, carefully detailing his actions like you’re not watching him with your very own eyes. But it’s oddly comforting, having him walk you through the process of rolling your sore wrists. The inside of the cuffs had a plush lining, but it was a pretty cheap thing. After he’s done massaging the skin, he pads over to his dresser and returns with a shirt and undies for you. “Shirt,” he says, helping you into the clothing.

When you’re all snuggled under the sheets again, the television still loud as hell, he mumbles, “wanna talk about it?”

You exhale against his chest, feeling so light and fluttery from your orgasms and the way he runs his fingers through your scalp and the way his heart thunders by your ear. “Hm,” you hum pensively. “Nah. Think I’m fine now,” you admit.

Jungkook chuckles. “A full miracle recovery?” he teases. You nod, taking in the comforting scent of his fabric softener and just him in his entirety.

“Yep.” A beat of silence, the commentator is back to filling the space between you two. He talks about a mile minute, spewing stats and plays you could never understand in a thousand years. But you know Jungkook will get sucked in soon enough, so you strike while the pot is hot. “Do you wanna talk?”

He cranes his neck a little to look at you. “What do you mean?”

You roll your eyes, pushing yourself up to look at him straight on. “Oh, my mistake,” you drawl. “I seem to have missed the part where we were going to act like you didn’t just ask for my hand in marriage and then offered to get me pregnant—,” you pause, the realization suddenly hitting you like a trash can whipping down a hill on a rainy day at a thousand miles per hour. “Pregnant!” you exclaim, cheeks warm at the fact he really just said that to you.

Jungkook’s cheeks fare no better, a Flaming Hot Cheeto shade dusting his skin. “I, it was just…” he tries, poor tiny monkey brain working overtime to offer an excuse. “It-it doesn’t have to be a thing,” he blushes, big Bambi eyes flickering from you to the television to the heart-tipped riding crop by the foot of the bed. “I was just…”

You raise your brows. “Consumed by the spirit of King Henry IV to have fourteen kids?”

He blinks. “Wait, you actually paid attention to that film?”

“That’s not the point!” you exclaim, shifting onto your knees in front of him. “What,” you inhale sharply, heart beating wildly in your chest, “what was that?”

Jungkook can only play the shocked angel card for so long before he’s sinking back into his pillow stack with the sigh of a man who’s worked in construction for the last sixty-four years. “I just,” he mumbles, “I think about it sometimes.” His admission makes your heart lodge itself into your throat, wide eyes watching him spill out his heart to you.

He misreads the expression on your face. “I-Not now!” he hurries to explain. “Like,” he stammers, rosy hue slowly crawling down his neck, over his ears. “Maybe, y’know? In the future…”

You blink, brain reduced to a series of beeps and clicks like that of an old computer trying to compute information that is simply not processing. “Yeah…” you murmur, unsure of what to do with the film reel that suddenly flashes before your eyes, a look into a doorway you had never considered before. “I— me too.”

Jungkook chokes on his own saliva. “Really?” he yelps, has those sparkly anime girl eyes you always tease him about.

The gulp you do sounds loud in your ears. “Yeah,” you breathe, throat drier than the desert, but more confident than the first peabrain response. “I-I’d like that.”

There’s a bright beam of light that shines right in your face, so vibrant and dazzling it makes you flinch and by the time you’ve recovered you realize it’s his smile. “Yeah?” Jungkook mumbles back, pearly teeth framed by his pretty smile, brows raised at your stuttery confirmation. You nod. His lips twist into a smaller grin, a condensed version of the superstar one he gave you just moments before. Before you can brush it off with a joke, he’s snatching your hand up in his, a soft smooch pressed to your knuckles. “Okay,” he says quietly, dark eyes meeting yours. “One day?”

Your heart constricts in your chest, and all you can do is nod. “One da—“

“Goooooaaaaallllll!” the announcer on screen shrieks, the loud sounds of the TV killing your mood instantly.

Any dumbstruck, love struck, idiotic, ditzy expression on your face is wiped clean, replaced with an unimpressed glare you narrow on him. His nose is scrunched up like he wants to laugh, lips pressed into a thin line at your annoyance. He swipes the TV remote off the side table, arms spread open for you to crawl back into. You do so with a huff, pout smushed against the front of his hoodie.

“That’s enough ESPN for today,” he chuckles, switching the channel about a thousand times until Rick and Morty is playing on screen. “I’ll just watch the highlights later.”

“ESPN,” you scoff like an evil villain in a movie who’s just been presented with their mortal enemy, fisting the front of his hoodie.

Jungkook nods. “ESPN,” he repeats. A beat passes. “Kinda like BDS—“

“Go get your ice pack.”

epilogue

Because Jungkook couldn’t sit still for that one eventful night following his ladder injury, he ends up in a medical boot for one week, loudly clunking around the place like a reverse pirate. You snap a picture of him that you post on Twitter for your twelve followers to see, just him pouting at the doctor’s office with his new boot and club jersey on to celebrate last night’s victory.

It’s just a cute pic for you and your friends to laugh at.

Until it’s not, and his handsome face is circulating around the entire internet.

He’s being called the Face of FC Seoul, with desperate women messaging you left and right for his information. Other fans are bragging about the beauty that is an FC Seoul fanboy. It gets to the point where his face appears on the next night’s ESPN Nightly Recap, a special on social media stars posting about the game. Except Jungkook is neither a social media star nor did he even post about the game— you did.

But there he is, all five feet and ten inches of him smiling brightly at you from the ESPN Sports channel, wearing the boot he got from hand cuffing and whipping you to completion. 

Copyright © 2020, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.

[moribundanchor]

The Pelle/Dani Receipts, Post Ten: Plots

After the Ättestupa, stuff moves very, very quickly. Team Hårga ASSEMBLE. Dani has been broken down both by witnessing a gruesome senicide and being forced to look into Pelle’s earnest blue eyes and confront that not only does Christian not love her, but maybe, just maaaaaaybe, she might could love somebody else. Christian is being broken down both by contending with Josh for his mcguffin thesis and being seduced by a cute underage redhead (SO GROSS CHRISTIAN YOU HAVEN’T EVEN TALKED). Plus Simon and Connie, by virtue of completely flipping out and demanding to leave after the Ättestupa, have unwittingly nominated themselves to be off(er)ed first. Once newbloods start disappearing, they disappear at a pretty rapid clip.

Simon and Connie’s disappearances, and Christian’s shrugging indifference to both, trigger Dani big time, as she confronts both how self-absorbed Christian is and how little credit he gives Dani's thoughts. At lunch, after an upset Connie vanishes, Dani is, as usual, seated between Christian and Pelle. As the scene opens, Dani’s back is to Christian and we can’t even see her face because she is looking into Pelle’s smiling eyes. For several seconds. They’re not talking. Just...looking. Like you do. With your buddy what was holding you on your bed and telling you how you deserved better than Christian. And this is the first time we see them since Ari’s impish smash cut from Dani hesitating on the verge of something to Dan’s crushed head.

Dani does eventually ask after Connie, prompting Jarl to give her the super believable official story that she was driven to the train station. Sure, Jarl. And Dani is still having a hard time buying that Simon would just leave without Connie. Especially in the Director’s Cut, we see how Dani notices how devoted they are to each other. But Christian is dismissive, and Dani goes cold. “I could see you possibly doing that,” she says. YASSSS QUEEN. She’s looking straight ahead, jaw set and eyes flinty, as Christian asks her, “What that’s supposed to mean?” She doesn’t answer and Christian should be grateful because the energy is very FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT. As it is, we just see Pelle notice and quickly look away, hiding a spreading smile that is practically another hit of the sunshine motif. Meanwhile, Mark is lured away by Inga, a different kind of fool for love.

Simon, Connie, and Mark down; who’s next? Josh! Thesis Goggles strapped on tight, Josh sneaks into the temple to take pictures of the Rubi Radr and is summarily dispatched by an unknown Hårgan male. (2000 quatloos on Ingemar.) We do get a little gratuitous Pelle shirt changing the next morning (which Dani notices and quickly looks away from), and that’s important, but not as a hint that Pelle killed Josh. To begin with, there’s a bunch of reasons Pelle is unlikely to have killed Josh, not least of which our theory about why he isn’t sacrificed at the end: a) We see Pelle in bed when Josh sneaks out, b) even assuming there’s a secret door, Pelle really would have had to book it to get in there behind Josh and we see Josh make it to the temple without any indication of being followed, and c) assuming Pelle was involved in murdering or butchering Josh, we think he probably would have brought a spare shirt. Come on. He did the cake thing.

Pelle changing his shirt is not just eye candy/misdirection though. It’s actually a clever direction from Ari. If you notice, from this point until the Fire Temple ceremony, Pelle is wearing a different shirt with a different rune, Wunjo in black thread, NOT Fehu in blue. We will get more into this in Post Twelve, but Wunjo (”joy”) is an incredibly positive rune that represents everything we know Dani craves: joy, perfection, harmony, overcoming alienation, kinship and family. It literally describes positive, healthy wishes coming true. Pelle wearing this rune on the day Dani wins the dance competition and he kisses her is incredibly significant and indicates not just his intentions, but it shades the meanings of Dani’s runes as well. He is practically wearing a nametag that says, Hi, my name is Dani’s True Love.

At breakfast, Christian is icy about Josh, butthurt that Josh isn’t letting him steal his thesis with good humor, and Elder Sten announces the Rubi Radr is missing. Pelle, as usual, sneaks a look at Dani, presumably to see whether she’s buying it. The real Pelle/Dani content comes afterward, when Sten and Arne question them about Josh and Mark’s whereabouts and make insinuations about the missing Rubi Radr. (Everyone just step back and consider for a second this is all really for Dani’s benefit. While Christian's [sort of] consent clearly is important, they could have drugged him and gotten what they wanted from him at any point here. Dani is the one they want for keeps, and all these elaborate ruses only further isolate Dani from Christian and cushion her absorption into the family.) Everybody just...sort of assumes Mark is snuggling Inga still, I guess, but Christian cannot sell out Josh fast enough, and Dani and Pelle both look at him with undisguised revulsion. Meanwhile, Pelle does take responsibility for his missing friends and the missing holy text, and thus Odd magically appears (Pelle might be fidgeting his fingers or he might be affekting a secret message to Arne during this scene, too) and he’s given leave to go...look for them. [shifty eyes] 

It’s much like the birthday plot. Pelle gives Christian an opportunity to basically be himself, which makes Pelle doing the right thing, even something as simple and baseline human as not immediately forsaking your friend, a total repudiation.

Speaking of Christian being himself, while we don't believe Pelle killed anyone, he's laser focused on helping Christian get himself sacrificed. He takes every chance to stoke Christian’s most selfish impulses from his very first line, and more than that, he really seems to enjoy Christian’s fall. Again, Ari Aster doesn’t make many things in this film simple and plain, but Pelle’s delight in Christian’s corruption is one of those things. We already talked about the smirking in the Director’s Cut version of the car scene and the birthday setup, but once the plots start spinning, we get so much more. 

First, Pelle encourages Christian to think of Maja sexually by teasing him about her “taking a liking” to him and informing him she is of the age of consent. His affect is so permissive and tempting, as though Dani doesn't exist and Pelle is only being his wingman, and when Christian replies "Good for her" a little too grumpily, we know Pelle's aim was true. Pelle visibly savors Christian’s predicament. And he's aware of every bit of the spellcasting on Maja's end. When Christian eats and drinks the pie and beverage with (ahem) a little love story added by Maja, Pelle restrains a smile and a laugh. (This is the same lunch scene where Dani snipes at Christian, so he must have been high-fiving Ingemar behind the chicken coop afterward.) Later, Pelle smirks and watches from the corner of his eye as Ulla tempts Christian with special tea during the dance competition. This scene is particularly loaded in the Director's Cut, where Siv has made it explicit to Christian that Pelle showed Maja his picture prior to their arrival in Hårga. Yet when Christian takes a seat next to Pelle, he says nothing, knowing everything, and neither does Pelle. The masks are all but off. Christian knows what he’s going to do, and he’s ashamed; Pelle knows what Christian is going to do, and he’s triumphant.

And most sexily damningly, when Christian succumbs to a nice puff of paralysis powder courtesy of Father Odd, we see (and Christian sees) Pelle peep in through the chicken coop door. In the script, Pelle is described as looking away in shame, but that’s definitely not the Pelle we have on film. Film Pelle is HERE FOR IT. Film Pelle is gloating. And we think he really wants Christian to know it was him in the end, not out in front, but behind the scenes. While one could look at all of this as a refutation of Vilhelm Blomgren’s emphasis in interviews that Pelle is full of love or proof positive that Pelle is actually a (gasp) villain, consider that, flashes of annoyance at Mark aside, he doesn’t show that kind of animosity toward the others. Mark is willfully ignorant and gross; Josh is disrespectful in the sense that he wants to mine Hårga for his own gratification and ambition. But Christian is the only one he clearly delights in destroying, and that destruction is consonant with his love. Because of Dani. Soft, love-filled Hårgan boy loves Dani enough to hate someone for her sake, and that is a fucked-up wish fulfillment fantasy, make no mistake, but...it is still a very valid and common and powerful wish-fulfillment fantasy. That chicken coop smirk is, at its core, just as much an act of love as the birthday sketch. Dani is one of his family. He will lure his friends to their deaths for all of them, but he will scheme Christian to death just for her.

What? Just because it’s unhealthy doesn’t make it less true.

For more, click on The Pelle/Dani Receipts Masterpost

[pof203]

Tiger & Bunny Fanfiction: The ghosts of the past haunt best

This is a fan plot for Tiger & Bunny's 10th Anniversary. It was inspired by Chapter 20 of the Comic, All lay loads on a willing horse.

NOTE: Some elements of Ghost Hunters, The Conjuring Universe and other horror movies and scary stories involved.

Meet the Original Characters

Karl Storm Feather

Voiced by Robbie Daymond.

Bio

Karl is a 16-year-old Psychic-Type NEXT with the ability to sense and see aura, reveal aura, and even manipulate aura. He is a student at the Hero Academy. (This story takes place during summer break.) His parents own a grocery store which he helps out at and he loves ghost stories and scary movies. Even though he's being trained to become a hero, Karl's real passion is paranormal investigating. He is the leader of the paranormal research and investigating team, The Groovy Ghosties.

History

Karl's NEXT powers first awaken when he was 8 years old. He and his soon-to-be girlfriend, Beatrice "Bea" Kelleman, were at her apartment watching a scary movie. Then, Bea's older brother, Sidney "Sid", snuck into the dark living room dressed like a bloody ghost with a hideous monster mask and scared the two little kids as a prank. Bea was crying and Karl was mad. So mad that his powers activated for the first time and tried to choke Sid with his own aura. Fortunately, Bea managed to stop him and Sid was spared. Sometime later, Karl started attending the Hero Academy. However, he, with an interest in the supernatural and the occult, really wanted to become a paranormal investigator, following the work of renown demonologists, Ed and Lorraine Warren. (I apologize to the relatives of the Warrens for using them in this story. They'll only appear in it as pictures.) So, he started the paranormal team, The Groovy Ghosties. This team consists of himself as the lead investigator, his girlfriend Bea, her older brother Sid, Sid's best friend Steven Burrow, Bob Lyman the neighbor kid from across the street, his friend from school Darla Torrington, fellow Academy student and Bea's best friend Marcia Fey, and Marcia's girlfriend Sarah Sands. This usually leads to him and Marcia being ridiculed and made fun of by the other Academy students who think that they should focus more on becoming heroes instead looking for ghosts. But they are not giving up. The truth is out there and the Groovy Ghosties will find it!

Appearance

Karl is a 16-year-old Native American teenager with tan skin, black hair, and grey eyes. He wears the Hero Academy's sweatsuit with a Native American necklace. Bea and some of the other Academy students often describe him as a "rather handsome animal". Karl says, "I look more like my dad when I he was young."

Personality

Karl is kind and caring young man who believes in the good in others. However, he is prone to losing his temper when pushed enough.

Trivia

Karl is slightly based off of Jesse Cosay from Infinity Train and Charlies Little Bull from The Casagrandes. Both of them were voiced by Robbie Daymond.

Even though many would say that he would be a fan of Sky High because they both have goofy attitudes, Karl is actually one of the extremely rare fans of Rock Bison. Partly because Karl believes in the underdog (or in this case, the undercow) and partly because Bison's sponsor, Kronos Foods, is one of his parents' grocery store's major suppliers.

Karl is allergic to nuts. Because of this, his parents only sell them in the store when he is away at school, but put them in the back when he's helping them.

If he were to end up on Hero TV, Karl would try to convince Apollon Media to have segments in between episodes where he and his friends would investigate supernatural phenomenon.

Beatrice "Bea" Kelleman

Voiced by Cristina Valenzuela.

Bio

Beatrice, often known by others as Bea, is Karl Storm Feather's girlfriend and a member of the Groovy Ghosties where she is in charge of the team's gear. She is also Sid's younger sister.

History

Bea lived in one of the apartments above The Storm Feathers' Grocery Store with her parents and her older brother, Sid. Like Karl, she also has a love for the paranormal. She was also there when Karl's NEXT abilities first awoke and nearly shocked her brother to death. Fortunately, she managed to calm him down and saved Sid. Sometime after Karl started attending the Hero Academy, he introduced Bea to Marcia Fey and they became best friends. They later formed the Groovy Ghosties. Her job on the team is to create and inspect their ghost hunting equipment.

Appearance

Bea is a 16-year-old teenager with black hair which she dyed blonde blonde, though some it is still black, and brown eyes. She also has a charm bracelet she got as a birthday present from Karl, Marcia, and Sarah.

Personality

Bea is a nice person. She is very optimistic and is willing to do what she can to help her friends. She can also be very driven, but devoted.

Trivia

On Hero TV, her favorite hero is Barnaby. Though, she likes Dragon Kid, too.

Bea's parents are plastic surgeons (mostly nose jobs).

If she were not a paranormal investigator, Bea would either make movies or become a dermatologist.

Bea is actually how Karl became interested in becoming a paranormal investigator. She gave him one of the Warrens' books.

Sidney "Sid" Kellemen

Voiced by Grant George.

Bio

Sidney, often known as Sid, is Bea's older brother. He is a member of the Groovy Ghosties as the skeptic of the group. He mainly joined them to keep an eye on his little sister.

History

Sid has always thought that his sister and her boyfriend's interested in the paranormal is just silly as he doesn't believe in that sort of stuff. So as a prank, he dressed up as a bloody ghost with a monster mask, snuck into the dark living room while Bea and Karl were watching a scary movie, and scared them good. As a result, Bea was crying and Karl lost his temper which lead to him activating his NEXT powers for the first time and nearly killed Sid by choking him with his own aura. Fortunately, Bea managed to calm him down and Sid was spared. Since then, he came to distrust Karl. Sometime later, Karl started the Groovy Ghosties. Bea joined and so did Sid. He did not want to, but his parents said he had to to watch over Bea. Sid is the skeptic of the group. His job is to try and find a more logical explanation for every supernatural case the group investigates. He and his best friend, Steven Burrow, are in a band, The Blue Rose Experience, together who do parodies of Blue Rose's songs.

Appearance

Sid is an 18-year-old man with black hair with a bang that covers one of his dark brown eyes. He has a fine build, but not very strong. He often dresses in a grey short-sleeved shirt and black pants.

Personality

Sid is a self-proclaimed realist. He believes that everything that everything has a scientific and logical explanation. He appears to be a bit apathetic, but he truly cares about his family and little sister. Though he won't admit it, he is also very close to his friend, Steven.

Trivia

Sid is slightly based off of Shinjiro Aragaki from Persona 3. They also share the same voice actor.

Many would imply that Sid and Steven's relationship is romantic. However, they are probably just real good friends as both are fans of Blue Rose. But this remains to be seen.

Sid's skepticism comes from simply being scared of the unknown. Though, he doesn't want to admit it.

In the band that he and Steven are part of, Sid plays the bass.

Steven Burrow

Voiced by Bumper Robinson.

Bio

Steven is Sid Kelleman's best friend and fellow member of the Groovy Ghosties. He is the public relations, responsible for finding cases, and providing spiritual and religious insight for the group. He and Sid are also members of the band, The Blue Rose Experience.

History

Steven and Sid have known each other since the 6th Grade. When they got into high school, they both joined The Blue Rose Experience, a band who are fans of Blue Rose and do parodies of her songs. They later joined Karl and Bea's paranormal research and investigation team, The Groovy Ghosties. At first, Steven's highly religious parents objected to their son joining a group they deem "doing the Devil's work". However, Steven assured them that he will be very safe and they will be very safe, so they let him join. Sid's job on the team is PR, finding cases for the group to solve, and provide them with spiritual and religious insight.

Appearance

Steven is an 18-year-old African American young man with black hair and black eyes. He has a tattoo of the Holy Mother on his back.

Personality

Steven has a positive attitude and isn't afraid to say what needs to be said. Like his family, he is very religious, but isn't afraid to try new things.

Trivia

Many would imply that Steven and Sid's relationship is romantic. However, they are probably just real good friends as both are fans of Blue Rose. But this remains to be seen.

Steven is also a fan of Barnaby. Whenever he's not with the band or the Ghosties, Steven is doing volunteer work at the same orphanage that Barnaby visits.

Steven is actually the grand nephew of the CEO of Titan Industry.

Bob Lyman

Voiced by Bryce Papenbrook.

Bio

Bob is a 13-year-old member of the Groovy Ghosties as the cameraman. He was actually the Groovy Ghosties' first client.

History

Bob was the Ghosties' first client. Less than a month after they began, Bob had what he described as a paranormal experience. One night while he was in bed, he woke up, but couldn't move or speak. Then, he saw a shadowy figure come out of his closet and stare at him for about a minute before leaving the room. After they left, Bob finally got free of his trance and went out the room after the figure, but they were nowhere to be found. The next morning, Bob and his parents found their living room, which was nice and tidy the previous night, a total mess, but none of them heard anything. Bob went to Karl, Bea, Sid, and Steven about this. Karl reveals that Bob's trance was sleep paralysis which is sometimes caused by ghosts, which was probably the shadowy figure. Sid, however, simply says that Bob just has a nightmare and nothing else. But Bob asks how that could explain the living room being a mess when no one heard anything. It was time for the team to investigate. They set up cameras and things and waited that night. Then, odd things began to happen. First, they could hear footsteps going around. Sid said it was probably somebody upstairs or next door. Bob said the upstairs apartment is vacant their neighbors on both sides are either on a date or on vacation. Then, the temperature of the room started to drop. Sid said that because it is winter, of course the temperature would be cold. However, it was actually in mid March so winter would be near over and the weather getting warmer. They could hear voices saying something like, "There are two." Then, Karl could have sworn he saw one of the pillows on the couch move on its own. Until was about midnight or so, they decided to call it a night. A few days later, they concluded that whatever was in the house means no harm and that Bob and his parents have nothing to fear. Since then, the odd occurrences stopped, though they had a feeling that it was not over. Since then, Bob became interested in what the Ghosties do and convinced them to let him join the team as their camera man to help record footages of ghosts and chronicle their cases. Later on, Bob's friend from school, Darla Torrington also joined on.

Appearance

Bob is a 13-year-old boy who has tan skin, light brown hair, and blue eyes. He often wears a t-shirt with a picture of Wild Tiger and Barnaby on it.

Personality

Bob is a happy-go-lucky kind of kid who loves his friends and want to help them whenever he can.

Trivia

Bob is named for Bob Papenbrook, the late father of Bob's voice actor.

Bob is a fan of both Wild Tiger and Barnaby. His dream is to join Apollon Media and become a camera man so he can record the many adventures of his favorite heroes.

Bob often sleeps with a teddy bear. It's also where he keeps his secret savings.

Darla Torrington

Voiced by Sandy Fox.

Bio

Darla is a 12-year-old girl who is friends with Bob Lyman from school. She is the youngest member of the Groovy Ghosties as the sound manager and researcher.

History

Darla is a friend of Bob from school. When Bob told them about the Ghosties, she joined them out of curiosity. Her main job is to handle the sounds (this including making sure every sound is recorded, including ghosts they might encounter on investigations).

Appearance

Darla is a 12-year-old girl with blonde hair and green. She wears a suit-like dress complete with tie, sweater vest, and and a grey skirt that reaches down her knees.

Personality

Like Sid, Darla is also a bit of a skeptic. However, she wouldn't mind trying something new. She is brave and understand.

Trivia

Even though she is younger than Bob, they are in the same grade. She was skipped ahead.

She is a fan of Dragon Kid.

She is Orlando Cooper's niece.

Marcia Fey

Voiced by Erin Fitzgerald.

Bio

Marcia is a NEXT with powers similar to magic. She can a lot of things. She is a student at the Hero Academy with Karl Storm Feather. She is in a same-sex relationship with Sarah Sands and is Bea Kelleman's best fiends. She is also a member of the Groovy Ghosties where she is the team's occult consultant.

History

Marcia's NEXT powers first awoke when she was about 3. She was watching a witch anime and became interested in what they did and did them herself. When her parents saw her levitating above her bed, they thought she was possessed by a demon. However, hey later found out that she was actually a NEXT who just came into her powers. For many years, she had to keep her powers secret by her parents. Later, she was accepted into the Hero Academy where she met Karl. They both had an interest in the occult. Later, Marcia met Sarah and they became a couple. Then, Karl invite them to join the Groovy Ghosties on their paranormal cases. They agreed. Marcia is the team's occult consultant and user. She provides magic where it is needed.

Appearance

Marcia is a 17-year-old lady with blonde hair with red and blue highlights and brown eyes. She wears the Academy's sweatsuit.

Personality

Marcia is described as a nice-but-tough girl who is willing to do the right thing. But don't get on her bad side, she will express herself the best way she can when it happens.

Trivia

Marcia is a mixture of Chie Satonaka from Persona 4 and Sana Chikage from Mind Zero.

The anime they Marcia was watching when her powers activated was Witch Craft Works.

Marcia's favorite heroes on Hero TV are Dragon Kid and Fire Emblem as they prove that anyone can be a hero.

She is not a big fan of scary things, but she joined the Groovy Ghosties in hopes of changing that.

Sarah Sands

Voiced by Cree Summer.

Bio

Sarah is Marcia Fey's girlfriend and a member of the Groovy Ghosties as the team's equipment manager and the team's secondary driver.

History

Sarah has always been a fan of heroes. One day, she and her mother were working the cafeteria of the Hero Academy when she met Marcia. The two fell in love and have been a couple ever since. Then, Karl invited them to join the Groovy Ghosties on their cases and they agreed. Sarah's job is equipment manager and drive's the team's van whenever Sid cannot.

Appearance

Sarah is a 17-year-old African American woman with short brown hair and grey eyes. She also wears a pair of red glasses. She also has a ring which was a gift from Marcia.

Personality

Sarah is nice, but a bit sassy. But, she is brave and is willing to do what needs to be done.

Trivia

Sarah is actually the one who came up with the name Groovy Ghosties based off some cartoon her mother used to watch. This implies that the Scooby-Doo cartoon exists in the Tiger & Bunny Universe.

Sarah is a fan of Dragon Kid and Fire Emblem since they prove that anyone can be a hero.

Sarah's mother is the head cafeteria worker at the Hero Academy.

Sarah's father who is a preacher actually knows Steven, his parent and Barnaby since the orphanage Steven and Barnaby volunteer at is owned by the church Reverend Sands preaches at.

Reverend Sands also helps the Groovy Ghosties either to bless a haunted place or object, or perform an exorcism if they're are dealing with something evil. He also performs a blessing in the Ghosties' artifact room.

The Groovy Ghosties (in general)

The Groovy Ghosties are a ghost hunting team who go around Sternbild City solving paranormal, supernatural, and occult cases. Karl started it out of an interest in the supernatural. Karl is the lead investigator, Bea is the tech specialist, Sid is the skeptic and driver, Steven is the PR officer, case finder, and spiritual and religious expert, Bob is the cameraman and expert, Darla is the sound manager and researcher, Marcia is the occult consultant, and Sarah is the equipment manager and secondary driver.

The Groovy Ghosties' man headquarters is an old warehouse where they meet up a few times a week. They also have an artifact room where they keep items they collected from some of their cases. In the words of Ed Warren, "Everything in this room is haunted, cursed, or have been used in some ritualistic practice. Nothing here is a toy. Not even the toy monkey." Due to the growing evil in that room, Sarah's father, who is a priest, come in to bless the room every week or so.

Tiger & Bunny Characters who will star in this story

Kotetsu T. Kaburagi/Wild Tiger

Barnaby Brooks Jr.

Keith Goodman/Sky High

Antonio Lopez/Rock Bison

Ivan Karelin/Origami Cyclone

Ryan Goldsmith/Golden Ryan

Agnes Joubert

Cain Morris

Mary Rose

Orlando Cooper

Mario

Alexander Lloyds

Ben Jackson

Saito

Yuri Petrov/Lunatic

Mr. Legend

Robin Baxter

Kaede Kaburagi

Muramasa Kaburagi

Plot

Our story begins with Karl Storm Feather who just got out of the bathroom after taking a shower when he saw his parents watching Hero TV. Wild Tiger and Barnaby had just captured another criminal. Then, Mario announces that another open submission will be open for a wish to be granted by them. Remember that the Groovy Ghosties will be having a live stream while investigating an abandoned orphanage which is believe to be haunted the ghost of it matron, Karl decides that this would be an opportunity to get more recognition for the team.

So, he goes to his computer and writes a letter:

Dear Apollon Media,

My name is Karl Storm Feather. I’m a student at the Hero Academy.

I’ve heard of this time you had to help some guy look after a cursed tea set. You know, me and my friends have been doing some investigating into the supernatural ourselves. We are a team of paranormal investigators known as the Groovy Ghosties.

I know it’s not something you guys would normally do, but we were hoping that maybe you could do something for our live stream. We are investigating the old orphanage which is just a little way from the orphanage that Barnaby Brooks Jr. lived. Our PR, Steven Burrow, said that it’s supposed to be haunted by the ghost of its matron, Reverend Mother Clarice Dellaway, after she died falling from the window. They say since she died, odd things happened. Some were so terrifying that they had to close it down. According to Steven, they’re thinking of reopening the place since the current orphanage is getting too full. They want to move there, but they’re afraid of the ghost and what she might do.

We would like to do it, but I think we might need a little more help with this case. So we’re hoping that you could come and help us with this. I know that we and the orphanage would be so happy. Meet us at our headquarters: Warehouse 13, Bronze Stage.

Please help us. Thank you.

-Karl Storm Feather, Lead Investigator of the Groovy Ghosties

Karl finished the letter and printed it. He put it in an envelope and was ready to send it. However, he remembered that at the Hero Academy, the other students made fun of him because of his love for the paranormal. This lead him to be scared that it would only embarrass him, the team, and even the heroes. So, he decides not to send it and goes home.

The next day at the Grocery Store, Darla Torrington comes in with Antonio Lopez. They notice Karl looking down. They asked what was wrong. He said that he could not bring himself to submit a wish to Wild Tiger and Barnaby about investigating the orphanage. Darla thinks it that is a shame. However, Antonio tells him that no matter how ridiculous his wish may sound, there is still a good chance it could be granted. Karl is still a bit unsure, but is willing to go on with the investigation. However, Darla decides to submit the wish for him through her uncle, Orlando Cooper, who is a cameraman for Hero TV. Antonio secretly decides to help as it it the least he can do for one of his favorite neighbors.

The next day at Apollon Media, Kotetsu Kaburagi, Barnaby Brooks Jr., and Agnes Joubert are looking though some submissions (most of which are for Barnaby). Then, Orlando and Antonio added one more submission to their pile. At first, Agnes did not think it would be worth their time, but Kotetsu said that because Antonio is his best friend, they should at least take a look. Barnaby also decides to take a look when Orlando said it came from his niece and her friends. They read the note. At first, Kotetsu was not sure, however, Barnaby assured him it would be fine, especially since this involves the orphanage that he grew up in and now helps in. Besides, Agnes said this would be a perfect way for Barnaby to make up for the cursed tea set. Barnaby groans saying that she is still not going to let that go. Antonio tells Orlando to tell Karl, Darla, and the others the good news.

Later that day, Kotetsu is at the train station when the train pulls up. Then, his daughter, Kaede, and his older brother, Muramasa, get off. Kotetsu is happy that his daughter will be spending two weeks with him. Kaede said that she only came in hopes that her won wish would be granted: To spend more time in Sternbild and with Barnaby. Later at a restaurant, Kotetsu, Kaede, and Muramasa are having dinner when Barnaby shows up. Kotetsu and Barnaby explain that they are going to investigate a haunted orphanage. Kaede, out of curiosity, wants to go, too. Kotetsu and Muramasa say that may be a bad idea saying that if she gets her, her grandmother would never forgive them. Kaede was disappointed.

At Bar Number 06, Antonio is hanging out with Keith Goodman and Ivan Karelin when Antonio tells them about what happened. Ivan wonders if it would be alright if he came as well, since he knows a thing or two about the occult. Antonio is not sure, but Keith said that he might convince Agnes as he is the King of Heroes. Antonio thinks that may work, but he wants him to convince her to let him come as well since Karl is a fan of Rock Bison.

Back at Apollon Media, Agnes, Orlando, Cain Morris, and Mari Rose are talking about the wish they were going to film. Alexander Lloyds, Ben Jackson, and Saito hear them. Lloyds reveals that one of his children watches the Ghosties' videos and that he would like to come as well, mainly to get a picture of the team and their autographs. Saito decides to come too. But this, being a man of science, is only out of skepticism whispering that there are no such things as ghosts. Ben, however, is a believer and would like to see this for himself. They agree to let them come.

At Justice Tower, Yuri Petrov was about to get ready to return home for the night when Lloyds called. He said that he will be joining Kotetsu and Barnaby to investigate a haunted house and to let the sponsors know that he may not come tomorrow, but will try to come the day after. Yuri agrees. After the call ends, the ghost of Yuri's father, Mr. Legend appears. Yuri asks if he's ever going to stop (appearing to him). Mr. Legend just smiles and asks if what he's doing (going around as Lunatic and killing criminals) is really justice to anyone. Yuri tries to block him out, but flashes of the day his powers first activated and killing his father keep rushing through his head. He looks into the mirror to see that he accidentally rubbed off the makeup that hides his scars. He looks to see his father is still smiling. Then, he looks back to his computer to see call history. Curious, he goes to his computer and goes to the Groovy Ghosties' website where he watches an episode of them investigating an abandoned diner that was used as a front for a cult to lure virgin women with a waitress job only to kidnap them and drag them down to the basement where they would sacrifice them to their dark masters. The cult was found out and arrested by Stealth Soldier (whose powers are finally revealed to be the ability to shroud an area in fog). Down in the basement, Karl finds the knife that was used in the rituals. He he then activates his powers and reveals a dark aura coming from it. Later in the episode, Karl, Marcia, and Steven take the knife and place it in the team's artifact room with Marcia reciting some kind of spell and Sarah's father, Steven, and Steven's parents reciting a prayer. Karl then turns to the camera and says, "The evil has been contained." When the episode ended, Yuri just stares for a moment. Then he looks up to see Mr. Legend not there. Yuri takes out his phone and texts Lloyds saying that he will be coming as well.

At Abbas Prison, everyone is on high alert saying that a prison has escaped. The warden is yelling at a guard who says that only loosened the restraints on his eye-covering mask because he kept complaining that he was sweating in the face, he didn't know he could just shake it off and end with the guard in the cell. In a public bathroom at a park, Robin Baxter comes out of a stall just after changing out of his prison uniform and into his roller suit. He casually glides out but quickly hides behind a bush as some kids come around. He hears them talking about rumor that Wild Tiger and Barnaby going to work with the Groovy Ghosties. Another kid wonders if they would get to see the team's artifact room saying that even though they have weird meaning, some of them are actually quite priceless and would be worth a king's ransom on the market if they weren't so creepy. This gives Robin an idea.

The next day, some cars were coming in carrying Wild Tiger, Barnaby, Kaede, Rock Bison, Sky High, Origami Cyclone, Agnes, Cain, Mary, Orlando, Lloyds, Ben, Saito, and Muramasa. (Yuri was behind them in his own car.) Kaede had managed to convince her father and uncle to let her come saying that if she didn't, she was going to complain to her grandmother, their mother. Barnaby said he doesn't mind since he gets along with Kaede and Agnes thought that the daughter of a hero and now a future hero would up the ratings. They arrive at the warehouse that's used as the headquarters by the Ghosties. Darla is outside waiting for them. She calls the rest of her team out and Karl screams in excitement that they actually came, especially Rock Bison.

Inside the warehouse, Karl, Bea, and Sid explain what they do and the things in the warehouse. Origami asks Karl why he wants to become a paranormal investigator when, as a NEXT, he must become a hero. Karl states that not all heroes go around wearing a costume and be on TV, some of them don't have have powers. Agnes thinks that's just ridiculous as only NEXT can be heroes. Origami also states that at the Hero Academy, the other students make fun of him and Marcia for what they do. Marcia says, "Let the naysayers say nay like the dumb horses they are. This is what we do and we love it... Except for Sid." Both Bison and Tiger commend Karl and Marcia for their faith. "And besides," said Barnaby. "Even ghosts need to be saved... Speaking from experience." Karl assumes that he's talking about the cursed tea set, but Barnaby blushes with his eyes on Tiger saying that it's something like that while Tiger is just confused. Agnes has everyone taking pictures while Yuri wonders off and finds the artifact room. He finds that one of the Ghosties accidentally left their key in the keyhole. At first, Yuri is tempted to unlock the door and go inside, but refrains himself from doing so. But then, he sees his father's ghost appear next to him. Reluctantly, Yuri finally gives in and unlocks the door and goes inside. Inside, Yuri looks at all the objects inside, including:

a pack of poker cards

a white satin evening gown

a pair of red shoes

an Asian music box

the melted remains of a candle

a wooden mask

and a golden locket.

Suddenly, Yuri happens upon the knife he saw from the video. Yuri gets closer for a better look. He was about to pick it up when someone grabs his arm and pulls it away. At first, Yuri saw it was his father, but it was quickly revealed that it was Karl who gabbed it and said, "Didn't your mother tell you to look with your eyes and not your hands?" Yuri also saw that Tiger, Barnaby, Bison, Agnes, Cain, Mary, Orlando, Lloyds, Saito, Bea, and Sid where in. Sky High, Origami, Kaede, Muramasa, Ben, Darla, Marcia, and Sarah were still out taking pictures. Outside the door, Steven was scolding Bob for leaving his copy of the key in the door where someone could unlock it and enter. Yuri says he saw the knife in the episode and Karl says he's happy to know a justice of the peace has taken in interest in what the Ghosties do. Tiger is a bit skeptical about the items in the room. Karl explains that everything in the artifact room is either haunted, cursed, or have been used in some ritualistic practice and reminds him not to touch anything. Each of the visitors take an interest in the listed items.

Lloyds is attracted to the cards.

Cain and Mary are attracted to the gown.

Agnes is attracted to the shoes.

Bison is attracted to the music box.

Tiger and Barnaby are attracted to the melted candle.

Saito is attracted to the mask.

Yuri is attracted to the knife.

You'll know about the locket soon.

Karl notices this and tells them about the items.

The cards belong to Jimmy "The Gambler" Gambino who made a bet on a boxing match and lost which lead to him to be killed by some gangsters he owed money to. Since then, the ghost of his cut-up remains haunted the cards, earning him the name "The Torso". The Ghosties found the cards while they were investigating the ruins of a glass mansion which was owned by Cyrus Kriticos. Sid's skeptical conclusion was that people were scared of the stories and made them imagine seeing a cut-up body and that Kriticos was a crazy old man.

The gown belonged to a young woman who died and was burred with it because she didn't want anyone else wearing it. However, it was taken by graverobbers who sold it to a shop here in Sternbild. That shop rented the gown to another young woman who need something to wear to his school's prom. That night, when she had it on at the dance, she felt sick and went home. The next morning, her mother found her dead. The mother could not bring herself to give the gown back to the shop out of fear that the ghost of the gown's original owner would kill someone like she killed her daughter and has been on a dummy in the attic for many years. When the Ghosties came to investigate it, the mother gave them the gown in hopes that it would give the mother peace of mind and keep others safe from the gown. Sid's skeptical conclusion is that the gown had some kind of bacteria that came from the woman's rotting corpse that when introduced to living flesh would cause some kind of lethal reaction.

The shoes belonged to in old lady who lived on the Silver Stage. The shoes have been in her family for years dating back to when they were living in Denmark. The shoes have a curse on it. When they are put on, they stick and never come off and force the wearer to dance whenever music is played. Sid's skeptical conclusion is similar to the gown, but the deadly bacteria caused something similar to the dancing plague of 1518.

The music box belonged to a Chinese woman named Lu Mei who lost her family to a plague. She made a pact with a demon known as a yaoguai which gave the box the power to grand seven wishes. However, the first six wishes come with a price: the lives of the owner's friends and family. Then, after the final wish, the yaoguai claims the owner's soul. Sid received box from his pen pal, Ryan, before his mysterious death. (Most likely from making his seventh wish.) Sid has yet to come up with a logical explanation.

The melted candle used to magic candle known as the Black Flame Candle, which was made from the fat of a hanged man. It is said that if a virgin lights it on the night of a full moon on Halloween Night, it can resurrect the dead for one that one Halloween Night. The last time this happened, a young teenage boy lit it and brought back a trio of sister witches who wanted to steal the lives of the children of Salem, Massachusetts. The Ghosties brought it back with them from a case they were doing in there. Sid's skeptical conclusion was that it was just a prank as he believed that the story of those witches were just that, a story.

The wooden mask was made by a woodcarver who crafted a it from a tree where a dark spirit was trapped a century earlier by a Cajun medicine man. The mask compelled the carver to kill his family and others in the village until a young woman kills him to stop the killings. Now the cursed mask is rumored to be buried at the woodcarver's grave. However, the mask was found by a camp counselor who donned it and was compelled to kill everyone at the camp. Eventually, the mask was recovered while the Ghosties were searching for ghosts there. Sid's skeptical conclusion was that the mask a natural hallucinogen that puts the wearer into a frenzied state.

Karl was just about to talk about the locket when Steven comes in to say that the orphanage called and that they are ready for them. Karl says he will tell them about it another time. They leave the room and Karl locks it. Steven comforts Bob for making a mistake and reminds him to be careful next. With that, they leave, but Steven leaves his own copy of the key behind on his desk behind a picture of the Holy Mother. Just after they leave, Robin Baxter come into the warehouse through a window. He spots the artifact room, but could not enter because it was locked and needs a real person inside to switch places with and he forgot his lockpick case. Then, he goes over to Karl's desk and tries access his computer. At the orphanage, one of the older nuns tell the Ghosties, the heroes, the crew, and the Kaburagis the story of Mother Clarice Delleway. As a side job, Mother Clarice was a birdkeeper who took care of birds who were sick or injured. But one day, one of the birds got out of its cage and onto a branch out side of her office window. Mother Clarice tried to get it, but the bird taking off surprised her and she lost her balance and fell out of the window to her death. Sometime after her funeral, odd things began to happen. Whispers could be heard at night, objects and furniture were found to have been moved, and rooms would start to get really cold. Then, an orphan girl who despised Mother Clarice started having nightmares about falling from her office window or being under Mother Clarice as she fell. This drove the girl mad as she tried to cut herself. The girl was sent to an asylum where she got better and was adopted. However, this started happening to some of the other orphans, all of which entered her office and disrespected her or her birds (even though they were taken away after her death) in it. The church could no longer take seeing the children suffer like this and decided to close the orphanages. It has been standing empty to this very day.

Barnaby asks how come he never heard the story while he was growing up in the current orphanage. The nun said it was because Barnaby was too young to hear the story without getting scared and the subject was never brought up again until now when the current orphanage was starting to get too crowded. The old orphanage has more room for more children. They were hoping that the money collected by the church, they could fix up the building, but they cannot until they are sure that it would be alright with a mysterious presence there. But then, Steven, who was doing volunteer work at the time, heard about this and told the nuns about the Groovy Ghosties. After thinking about it, they decide to give them a try. The heroes agree to help as well, particularly Barnaby.

Later on at the abandoned orphanage as it starts to get dark, the team (except for Bea and Sarah), the heroes, and the crew (except for Agnes, Cain, and Mary) get ready. Kaede had to stay behind with Muramasa, Yuri, and Saito. Saito, Cain, and Mary, were in the van with Bea and Sarah to monitor the ones going into the orphanage. Inside the orphanage, the remaining team, the heroes, and the remaining crew looks around in the old building. Then, they divide into teams:

Karl with Wild Tiger, Barnaby, and Rock Bison.

Sid and Steven with Lloyds.

Bob and Darla with Orlando.

Marcia with Sky High and Origami Cyclone.

With Karl, Tiger, Barnaby, and Bison, they investigate Mother Clarice's old office. Karl activates his powers and tries to sense any aura. He says there is some faint residual energies coming from a certain part of the office. Barnaby says that the nuns told him that that spot was where the cage that held the birth that escaped used to be before she died. Karl senses that that energy that was given off from the cage is still in the orphanage meaning that the cage might still be there. Karl radios the others.

With Sid, Steven, and Lloyds who are investigating one of the rooms get the message. As they investigate the room they found that the church was originally going to turn this room into a home theater for the children to watch movies when they are unable to go to the city to watch them. But due to the strange happenings and the orphanage closing down, it never happened. Steven says they should hope that after they have given the orphanage and the church peace of mind, they will continue with that plan. Sid, however, believes that the theater was the real reason why they closed down the orphanage because the theatre would cost so much money that they didn't have. So they made up the supposed haunting to get out of paying. Steven disagrees but should be open-minded. Lloyds wonders about doing the same the next time someone like Wild Tiger shows up in his office. Though, chances are it would turn out the same.

With Bob, Darla, and Orlando, they are investigating one of the classrooms. Darla's tablet starts to pick up some odd sounds. She plays it back to hear what sounds like heavy breathing. At first, Bob thinks that Darla was breathing too heavily near the tablet, but then remembers that she was sticking it out that it couldn't pick it up. Orlando then spots something on the camera. He says that it looked like some faded transparent image passing out of the blackboard, but quickly vanishes. Bob takes a look and confirms it to be a semi-apparent specter.

With Marcia, Sky High, and Origami Cyclone, they inspect the dorms. Marcia casts a spell to track movements other than hers, Sky High's, or Origami's. Origami is interested in Marcia's powers saying that it's rare to see a Magic-Type NEXT. Marcia explains that you never know what kind of NEXT will appear. Sky High agrees and says that Marcia will make a great hero. Marcia says she still has a lot to think about that as there are some things about hero works that might scare her a bit. Origami says she know how she feels and that he would get scared sometimes, but he remembers that fears has a way of being made work for (you) than the criminals. Then, he takes out some ofuda (Japanese paper talismans) saying that he too has a way cast spells and begins placing them around.

Outside, Muramasa, who had left, returns with some pizza and coffee. Muramasa asks if they really believe in all this supernatural stuff. Sarah asks if he is a religious person. Muramasa says that whenever his brother goes off doing what heroes do best, he, their mother, and his niece pray for his safety. Sarah says that's good. Mary and Yuri reveal that they are Jewish, Cain is a Christian, and Agnes and Saito are Atheists. Bea said that there are times when even the Warrens have trouble with keeping the faith, but they keep at it. Bea asks Kaede why she wanted to come along. She says that apart from wanting to spend more time with her father and Barnaby, some of her friends have actually watched the Ghosties' webisodes and was a bit curious. Bea says that curiosity killed that cat, but it makes the person a bit more knowing.

Karl, Tiger, Barnaby, and Bison meet up with Bob, Darla, and Orlando in front of the door that leads up to the attic. Karl says that the aura is strongest up there and Bob says that the wispy figure reappears and was headed this way. They go up to the attic where Bison says that his infrared thermometer's number just went down. Karl says they most likely found a cold spot which is known to be caused by the presence of ghosts. They search the place until Barnaby finds something under a tarp. It was a bird cage. Karl uses his powers to reveal that there is a strong aura around the cage. Bob takes a picture and sends it back to the crew outside. Bea and Agnes says that one of the older nuns showed them pictures of Mother Clarice and her office. They find that bird cage is the same cage that the injured bird escaped from. Karl tries to pick up the cage, but another aura swats his hands away. Then, Darla picks up a sound. She plays it back and it sounds like a voice saying "No". Karl suspects that it is Mother Clarice. He asks her if she is there. He then uses his powers to reveal a blueish aura which Karl believes might be her. Darla tries to record the sound, but nothing comes up. Karl assures Mother Clarice that they come in peace and wish to know why she is here. Darla records the sounds and picks something up: "Away". Karl asks if she is talking about the bird that flew away. Tiger asks Barnaby if he asked what became of the bird. Barnaby did ask the nuns that, but they said they are unsure, although, one of the children found the scattered remains of a bird, most likely the bird that got away met its end by a cat or a fox. Suddenly, the room got even colder. Karl suspects that Mother Clarice is upset about what became of the bird. Karl then tries to assure her that even though that bird probably did not make it, her other birds were cared for, the nuns told them that after her death, they birds were sent to a zoo to be well taken care of and that she did a great job taking care of them. The aura responded as if trying to say yes. Barnaby then says that the current orphanage needs a new place to stay since it is getting full and that they want to use this one, but they can't unless they're sure it is safe. Bison then asks if it is alright if they could move to the old orphanage since it has more room. The aura then responds again. Darla even records the sound and plays it back to say "Stay." Tiger, who was getting a little shaky at this point says, "We'll take that as a yes." Karl then asks if they could bring the bird cage with them since her task is done. The aura responds again. However, Karl says it felt more like a no. Karl then says that if Mother Clarice wishes to stay, she must obey that rules of the living and not scare or harm anyone, especially the children. The aura then responds as if to say yes. Then, Darla records something that sounds like "Respect." Barnaby says that the nuns and the children will respect her memory as long as she means them no harm. The aura responds like saying yes again. Then, Karl calls Steven and Marcia to come.

Later, Steven, Marcia, and the rest of their teams arrive. Karl asks Steven to perform a blessing. Marcia was to use her powers with Karl in case something goes wrong and the spirit fights back. Origami says that he will also contribute with his ofuda. He then places the paper talismans on each wall of the attic as Steven begins to pray. The room shakes a bit. Karl tries to assure Mother Clarice that they just want to make sure that she will keep her promise. The shaking dies down a bit. Finally, Steven finishes his prayer saying that the spirit is at peace. Though she is not ready to ascend to the heavens, she assures them that none will have to fear her. Karl says it is time to call it a night and to review what they have found and share what they've learned with the orphanage. So, they regroup outside and leave.

Back at the warehouse, Robin had finally managed to access Karl's computer (the password was Bison which Robin thinks is not very clever). Robin then access the files of previous episodes, cases (on and off the record), and even a few videos. Robin opens one of the videos to see a recording of Ed and Larraine Warren performing an exorcism on a possessed man. Robin thinks that the Ghosties are sick and obsessed. Then, he access another video file about a haunted house on the Bronze Stage. It showed pictures of Karl, Marcia, Marcia's father, and Steven performing an exorcism in front of the house. Then, Robin finds a catalog files of everything in the team's artifact room. He reads them until he find the entry on the gold locket.

The locket is haunted by a banshee, a female Irish spirit whose wails can predict the death of another and can drive even the most virtuous of men to the brink of insanity. The story goes that the locket was a gift from an Irish nobleman to his wife for her birthday. Then, one day, the nobleman said he had to go out to sea to check on one of his farms the next day. That night, they heard a loud wailing that almost shook their entire estate. The looked out to see a woman in a black dress and her face was covered by a black vail. When they went out to see who she was, she vanished. The next day, the nobleman left. But then, a violet storm hit and the ship was lost. Sometime later, the ship was found, but the crew and the nobleman had all drowned. The nobleman's wife was in total grief as the banshee's wailing kept sounding at night. Finally driven mad with grief and the wailing, the wife hung herself in their room. After her death, the servant ransacked the entire estate taking everything: The money, the gold, the jewels, and even the locket. A few nights after taking the locket, the servant who took it started to hear the banshee's wailing. A few days later, the servant died of a heart attack. The locket ended up in the hands of the servants daughter who wore it to her wedding. On her wedding night, she and her new husband heard the banshee's wailing. The next day, the husband, who was riding his horse at the time, lost control of it and they both road off a cliff to their deaths. The wife feared it had something to do with the locket. She put it in a box and berried it near the estate in hopes that the banshee would leave her be. Many years later, someone dug up the locket and sold it to a shop in Kinsale. Sometime later, the locket was bought by Mrs. Cooper, Orlando's mother and Darla's grandmother. She wore it to a party that was thrown by her friend. Then, Mrs. Cooper heard a faint wailing and looked over to see a woman in a black dress and a dark veil standing near her friend. At first, she thought it was just another one of her friend's friends who was probably waring those clothes out of mourning, but less than a minute later, she vanished. The next morning, Mrs. Cooper got word that her friend had been killed by a burglar sometime after the party while the friend was in bed. Over the next two years, similar occurrences happened. Mrs. Cooper finally decided she needed answers. Fortunately, she learned that Darla and her friends are paranormal investigators and contacted them. So, Darla, the other Groovy Ghosties, and even Orlando, came to Kinsale, Ireland. They investigated the locket and it was definitely haunted. Since they could not do much about it, they decided to take the locket back to Sternbild to be locked in their artifact room.

Robin seemed to have taken a great interest in the locket. However, he is still unable to get inside the artifact room. He searches the desks until he arrives at Steven's. He looks at the picture of the Holy Mother and tells her not to judge him. He turns down the picture to find Steven's copy of the key sitting behind it. He picks it up with a smile saying, "Amen." He takes the key and unlocks the door. He goes into the artifact room and looks around until he finally comes upon the locket. At first, Robin was a bit hesitant because of what he read, but shrugs it off as just a silly ghost story and says, "I already lost my marbles the day I decided to become a thief." So, he takes the locket in its box. But for extra cash, he also takes the pack of cards, the white gown, the red shoes, the music box, the melted candle (for some reason), and the knife.

Just after he put the items into his bag, he leaves the room only to run into the team, the heroes, and the crew who just returned from their case. The heroes try to catch him, but Robin just uses his powers to switch places with them to escape. Barnaby says that they have blind Robin first as his power require him to see that person while he is switching places with them.

Outside, Robin stops someplace to take another look at his loot. When he does, he gets a feeling that they are shaking for some reason. Suddenly, a mist comes in. It turns out Marcia was casting a spell. Origami shapeshifts into a ghost to try and scare Robin into dropping the bag. But just as he was about to sneak up to him, Tiger's phone rings. Robin hears this and realizes he is being tricked and flees. Agnes yells at Tiger for leaving the ringer on. Tiger apologizes and answer his phone to find it was a wrong number. The heroes go after Robin again. He manages to allude them until he was caught between Karl and Marcia who both activate their powers with Karl trying to tie him up and blind him with his aura and Marcia ready to cast a knock-out spell. However, Robin manages to see Karl well enough. They two were now charging at Robin, but he activates his powers ready to switch places with Karl. But as he was doing this, all the items in the bags also glow, but not blue like Robin, but a dark purplish color. Then, Robin trades places with Karl and Marcia nearly hits him. They look to see Robin had escaped them. But just as he was about to leave and the heroes and crew arrive when the bag begins to shake violently and explode. When the smoke cleared, they saw that the items in the bag have disappeared except for the locket. They heroes make a go for Robin, but he grabs the locket and switches places with a nearby workman. Robin escapes.

Later back at the warehouse, Steven checks the artifact room and to see if anything else had been taken. Karl also sees that Robin has accessed his computer. Kaede asks why the exorcism video was only of pictures and sounds. Karl says it would make the episode way too scary if they showed actual footage of an exorcism and to respect the victims and their families, they don't have reveal their identities. Karl finds the catalog and identifies what was stolen. Kotetsu asks what just happened with the bag exploding. Karl says that all NEXT have unique aura that become more active when their powers are activated. They discovered that when these powers are activated near the items in the artifact room, it causes some kind of reaction, as if the NEXT's powers were waking the items up. And last Karl and Marcia noticed, three NEXTs activated their powers around them. With that, the haunted, cursed, and ritual items are now fully awake. Karl says they need to find those items before they end up with people who will be endangered by their dark powers. Kotetsu and Barnaby say that they will do whatever they can to find them.

Meanwhile, on a roof somewhere, Robin is look down at the city when he looks at the locket his put around his neck. He is a bit disappointed that this was the only thing he could recover, though it would still fetch a price. However, Robin starts to get curious about what was inside. He tries to open the locket, but to no avail, almost as if it were welded shut. Robin just stares at the locket when he suddenly hears wailing sound. He looks up to the building across him and sees a woman wearing a black dress and a dark veil. Robin was a bit scared an looked away for only a second. He looks back to see she was gone. Robin's face beings to look grim with fear as the sound of the music box can be heard along with the sound of women cackling.

To be continued...

Story Trivia

Most of the items listed above along with the backstories come from different stories and movies.

Jimmy "The Gambler" Gambino, also known as "The Torso", is from 13 Ghosts.

The white satin gown is from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz.

The red shoes come from the story of the same name by Hans Christian Anderson.

The music box is from Wish Upon.

The Black Flame Candle is from Hocus Pocus.

The mask is from You Might Be The Killer.

Sorry if I'm ending the post here. I was afraid that it was getting too long and I already have a lot of things to do. I might continue this, I don't know if it will be before or after the anniversary, but I'll see what I can do. Thanks and thanks again all for taking the time to read this.

Let's believe HEROES

[aethersmoke-and-ash]

LFRP - Milloux Allard

✦ The Basics ––– –

Age: Late 20′s

Birthday: She remains unsure of the exact date - but celebrates yearly when the Moonfire fireworks begins.

Race: Duskwight Elezen

Gender: Female

Sexuality: bisexual

Server: Balmung

✦ Physical Appearance ––– –

Hair: Long, nearly waist-length hair, naturally a deep aubergine color. Highlights change frequently, often favoring dusty pastels or bold saturated hues. Often pulled back into a high ponytail or loose braid for ease.

Eyes:  A bright – almost unnaturally so – magenta with flecks of paler pinks.

Height: Fairly short for an elezen - just under six fulms. This is likely due, in part, to stress and malnourishment during her formative years.

Build: Fit, but softer. Her features have lost some sharpness over the past few years; maturity, regular meals and a lifestyle resembling some form of stability has caused her to fill out a little.

Distinguishing Marks: A faded scar bisecting the bridge of her nose - from forehead to just under the corner of her right eye. A full sleeve of tattoos on each arm, depicting floral motif, mythical creatures, and protective sigils.(When not glamoured away for the sake of propriety- which is frequently the case these days) Freckled cheeks and shoulders - a consequence of ashen-colored skin being exposed to more sunlight than is probably advised for a duskwight.  A series of four jagged parallel scars on her right side/hip; all very old and faded.

Common Accessories: Various hoops and other ear adornments - often sporting a pair of silver ear cuffs. Will accessorize with various bits and baubles, but seems largely unconcerned with excessive adornment.

✦ Personality ––– –

At once earnest and enigmatic, Milloux can be difficult to pin down, and seems to prefer it that way. Her voice, low and pleasant enough, carries the distinct cadence of Limsan salt, though practice seems to have softened it a great deal. Make no mistake, she can still weave a tapestry of profanity fine enough to make a sailor blush... at least in the right company. Those that take the time to get to know her find there is a tempest of emotion underneath the wry humor and composure. A woman fiercely protective of those she has come to call her own and those she seeks to aid, and yet undeniably fragile - someone that has built up high walls to keep the soft parts of her psyche and heart safe from harm.

✦ Personal ––– –

Profession: Former freelance mark-hunter and bodyguard. Absolutely not seeking to help others in a more proactive sense, securing wayward & harmful artifacts, or hunting down dangerous individuals.

Hobbies: This is something she’s still figuring out! Free time has never been something she’s had a surfeit of, though she’s taken to teaching herself how to play the guitar…and knitting. (The latter will be denied vehemently or claim is solely to help her focus and meditate)

Languages: Common

Residence: A rambling ramshackle manor she is slowly restoring on Vylbrand’s coast or her quarters at the Mercier Estate in Ishgard.

Birthplace: A long collapsed cave-network deep in the Shroud that may or may not have had access into Gelmorra.

Religion: She remembers little of the religion of her birth - ancient rituals forgotten by most.  Loosely follows the Navigator, asking occasionally for her fair winds and favor, more recently looking towards the Fury for guidance, after initial hesitance for the halonic faith.

Patron Deity: Nophica

Fears: Abandonment, loss of control, suffocation, being restrained or confined, paralysis.

✦ Relationships ––– -

Spouse: None currently – Divorced.

Children: None.

Parents: Sidoni (mother; presumed deceased, surname unknown) , Toussaint Allard* (father; whereabouts unknown.) *Allard is an assumed name. Both Milloux and her older brother are unaware that their father made this change upon relocation to Gridania, and are unaware of their true surname.

Siblings: Jordain Allard (older brother)

Other Relatives: Unknown; very likely to have relatives still living among various isolated settlements and caves in the Shroud.

Pets: Matilda; a tiny sphynx kitten.

✦ RP Hooks ––– –

Crossroads - Milloux has found herself  staring down uncertainty and an unknown path after the sudden closure of the Ashen Enclave and the seizure of the Clinic by Ul'dahn interest and authority after a series of unexplained aetheric anomalies on the grounds.   She is still reeling from the ordeal, the carefully composed mask of Advocate and Lady peeled away enough to reveal someone unsure of her next steps, of redefining herself after turns of devoting herself wholly to helping others; burying herself within her role, and the responsibilities she's shouldered.  That she was perhaps drowning under the weight of it all, even before then, is something she has been slow to acknowledge. Where there has always been a quiet melancholy about her, there's now a morose edge, tangled within fatalist and reckless inclinations -- no longer tempered by her need to be responsible for the sake of the Enclave, and those who looked to her for guidance. What she seeks now, she isn't certain. A new purpose, distractions, people to help...or even a greater sense of self underneath all of the personas she has attempted to wear and define herself by for the sake of others.  Maybe she just needs trouble, a strong drink, and a sparring partner. It's difficult to say, really.

✧   A full list of hooks & more info about Milloux can be found at:  http://milloux.carrd.co ✧

✦ What I’m looking for ––––

Connections of all sorts! Plots to jump into and help with!

Milloux has worn many masks over the course of her relatively short life, and has likely made as many friends as enemies. I imagine an entire rogue’s gallery in her past - with room for all sorts of characters and interactions - the drama of such characters coming back into her life would be a lot of fun - both as ally or adversary! Maybe both... If your character needs help with a problem, or a drinking buddy from their past with seemingly deep pockets and what appears to be an uncanny influx of good luck, she might be your gal. 

I am looking, in particular, for those with knowledge of thaumaturgy and black magic. Milloux has some connections to the darker arts, and I have been looking for colleagues, rivals, and adversaries in this vein.  Folks to research, delve into mysteries, poke at dangerous artifacts...

If Mill isn’t your cup of tea, I have a whole bunch of other characters as well! (I’ll be making individual posts for them soon)

✦ OOC info ––––

Hi! I’m Dani~ I’ve been RPing for a really long time now! As in, started back on AOL, long time ago. I’m a really laid back and patient RP partner, and I prefer the folks I write with to be the same. I’m a tired lady in her 30′s with a trio of cats.

Due to work obligations, evenings (EST) work best for me for in-game RP!  I do enjoy Discord RP as well, especially for more personal and character-focused scenes.

Darker plots are as welcome as slice-of-life scenes. I value communication with those I am writing with, in order to make sure we stay on the same page and nothing gets thrown at me entirely out of the blue. Please know that, in general, while I’m not opposed to spicier rp or romantic plots, I don’t like to set out with just those aims in mind, and prefer things to develop organically, and then only after I’ve gotten comfortable with an RP partner.

✦ Contact Information  ––– –

Ingame - ‘Milloux Allard’ , Discord: snarksonomy#1313

@balmungrp​ , @crystalxivrp​, @mooglemeet​, @ffxiv-crystal-rp​

[alottanothing]

Left to Ruin Chapter Seven

Summary: Nouke and her family struggle with life in exile. When her mother show’s signs of falling ill, Nouke tries to find away to save her. 

Previous Chapters

Word Count: 4087

Warnings: None

Tag List:  @xmxisxforxmaybe​, @r-ahh-mi​, @theultraviolencefan​, @hah0106​, @rami-malek-trash​, @diasimar​, @sherlollydramoine​, @flipper-kisses​, @ivy-miranda-2390​, @txmel​, @sunkissedmikky​, @concentratedsassandcandy​, @babyalienfairy​, @edteche2 (Let me know if I missed you, or if you would like to be added to the tag list)

A/N:  Alrighty, so timeline wise, by the end of this one we are caught up to where Ahk was the last we saw him in chapter 5 (about a week or two after he’s sent all of his potential brides away)–hopefully that’s not confusing. And as always thank you for your comments, likes and reblogs of last chapter! Also, a couple of you have messaged me about the moodboards and you have no idea how happy those messages made me. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the story, and the totally self-indulgent moodboards. I welcome messages like that! 🥰 You guys rock! Once again as a disclaimer, I am not an ancient Egyptian expert and google only knows so much. So yeah, I took so historical liberties while writing this to make my life easier, but tried to keep it as “authentic” as possible

Years spent among the common people—hours spent cultivating land—was no better, nor was it worse than Nouke thought it would be. There was no extravagance; every day was the same as the last, and the labor was the hardest she ever recalled doing. Each night her body ached, her skin grew rough with callouses and darker from the unyielding sun. And despite it, Nouke felt there was a sense of dignity to all that her family did on their farm. Every effort made was to better themselves versus a lifetime of work to better someone else. Mornings were early and the work was hard, but it could have been worse.

She still had her mother and her father—her life—despite the toil they all had suffered. All things considered, everything lost or gained; it was her family that mattered the most to her, and she still had them. 

Nouke thrived on that routine and for five years life was truly blissful. 

The workday was drawing to a close, Nouke could tell by the dull ache beginning to settle in her feet and back. It had been abnormally hot, and her skin was sticky from hours of sweat creating a protective film over her flesh. She wanted nothing more than to wash up for the evening and rest. 

She and the two stable boys were finishing up with the livestock in the lower part of their dwelling when a cry came from out in the field. Immediately, Nouke dropped her sack of feed and ran to investigate, finding her father doubled over and clutching his abdomen in pain. Nouke gasped and ran to his side. 

“Father!” Concern rapidly contorted her face as she knelt beside him, cradling his head as he writhed, the shock forcing her into a momentary state of paralysis. “What’s wrong?”

The strain on his face was evidence enough for her to know he was in pain. She watched helplessly as Ramentukah opened his mouth to speak, only for strangled grunts to form in place of his words.

Worry settled deeper, and suddenly her own aches were forgotten. Nouke called for the farmhands to help her father up the stairs and inside. They were quick and strong, easily positioning themselves to support her father's weight.

 “Thank you,” her father choked out, doing his best to walk with them.

Nouke helped guide them as best she could, scaling the staircase backward skillfully, shouting for her mother.

“I’m fine, Nouke,” Ramentukah assured her with a weak smile.

She could still see the pain in his features, and it made her own concern even more apparent.

“What happened?” her mother spoke, her expression a mirrored image of her daughters concern.

“He fell over. He’s in pain mother,” Nouke told her.   

Maketatan rushed to help guide her husband into the room where the three of them slept on separate mats, gently laying Ramentukah on his. She never strayed from his side, lulling him and brushing the rough strands of hair from his face with one hand as she held his in her other.

Nouke dismissed the boys back to their chores and thanked them for helping. She lingered in the doorway for a moment, feeling somewhat helpless as she watched her mother fuss over her father. She could feel the onslaught of tears beginning to brew behind her eyes, but she held them back, taking a moment to steady her composure. 

“We need to get him to a healer,” she said softly, stepping into the room.

Maketaten nodded, but frowned, “We don’t have money for a healer.”

“What about the money we’ve put away?”

“Not enough.” 

Nouke’s frown fell deeper as she searched her mind for a way to help her father.

“Some of the crop will be ready for the market come the week's end,” she stated. “Perhaps that will bring in enough to add to what’s been putting away?” 

On a good day, they made a significant sum at the market—which alone could help buy her father the care he obviously required. But that was only if they could sell every bushel for the price they asked. Most people liked to barter lower.

After a moment of thought, her mother nodded.

“It could be enough,” she said, still sounding unsure.

Maketaten’s focus fell from her daughter to her husband as she dabbed at the droplets of sweat dotting his forehead with a piece of clean linen. Even through his pain, Ramentukah held his wife in his gaze, as though she were the only person in the world—a creature of astounding beauty. And her mother looked at him much the same. 

Nouke watched them quietly, the love and admiration radiating from them filling the small space with warmth as well as a sadness that made her heart heavy.

“Hold on, my love,” Maketaten murmured, kissing the back of her husband’s hand. “You mustn’t leave me yet. I will not let the gods take you.”

A soft, strained chuckle rasped past Ramentukah’s lips as he smiled up at his wife, bringing her hand closer so he could lay a kiss to it.

“I could never, truly, leave you,” he rasped. 

Tears welled in Nouke's eyes, overcome with the radiance of their love, suddenly feeling as though she was imposing. She left her parents in search of distraction, letting them have that moment to themselves. Her feet carried her back outside and down into the stable, though she could hardly recall the journey. There was so much to be done still, yet the knots in her stomach kept her mind from focusing on much else. Mechanically, she picked up the sack of feed she’d abandoned and willed herself not to think about whatever malady had stricken her father.

Three days—She reminded herself as she worked. Three days of heavy routine, a trip to the market and back. Three days and she could get her father the help he needed. Just three. 

It was the longest three days of Nouke’s life; every moment spent hanging by a thread. Never had she worked so hard towards a goal that never came to pass.

At dawn on the third day, before she’d woken to ready the cart to take to market, Nouke was pulled from her sleep by the sounds of her mothers crying. An emptiness fought to consume her when she heard those sobs; she knew what they meant. Her father passed in his sleep, holding his wife’s hand.

Nouke laid frozen with grief, shedding silent tears until bottling up the raging emotion to be expressed later. She needed to be strong; her mother’s grief would be worse than her own. Maketaten's love for her husband had the potential to destroy her upon his death—Nouke couldn’t let that happen. Such a notion made Nouke wonder if loving someone so deeply was worth the inevitable heartache—would she ever know? She hoped so. Her mother and father were so happy together.

Maketaten refused to let go of her husband's hand for hours despite all of her daughter's gentle coaxing. Her mother’s devastation was even worse than she would have imagined.

“Okay…” Nouke conceded easily, kissing her mother on the temple before she stood.  

A sharp pang of woe stabbed into her as she took in the picture of her mother and father. The sight made her heart break even more, and she wasn’t sure if it was due to the loss her mother was feeling or her own. Nevertheless, tears started to breach the cold façade she’d built to guard her mother as she realized the money they’d saved would now be needed to cover a modest burial, and Nouke would have to see to it all. Her mother was not strong enough with grief crippling her to organize such formalities.

On the day Ramentukah was laid to rest, Nouke was certain she had never seen someone more inconsolable then her mother. The priest did little more than utter one or two blessings; her father’s coffin was a simple wooden box that she herself painted with blessings to see him into the afterlife. The farmhands dug the plot themselves, and they helped to lay her father in the ground where his body would remain for the rest of time.  

It was simple and somber, and not nearly enough for a great man like her father. However, Nouke also knew that Ramentukah would be happy to rest on the farm he had built for them—with his family forever until they joined him in death. And that notion was enough.

In a matter of days, the routine Nouke had come to master significantly shifted. With their money all but spent, they had to dismiss the farmhands in their employ, unable to provide for them as well as herself and her mother. Nouke could only devote so much time to the land to make a truly lucrative harvest; her mother needed her care. And while her mother did her best to assist in the field with chores, it was simply too much for her to keep up with.  

Maketaten’s spirit was amiss, and Nouke could not bring herself to lay blame upon her. She had to be strong for her mother. Not once in those initial months following her father’s death did Nouke ever let on how much her bottled-up stress and grief was ripping away at her from the inside—screaming to be set free. Nouke knew if she let her mother see her break, Maketaten would slip back into the void she was trying desperately to climb out of. She refused to be the reason her mother suffered any more pain.

Her only release came when the sky was as black as the emptiness her father’s death had left, and after her mother was sleeping. Nightfall was when Nouke could sneak away to the rooftop of their home and nestle herself among the makeshift bedding, clutching cushions to her chest as she let her emotions spill until her eyes were bloodshot and every last nerve in her body was frayed.

It took years before life started to resemble a fraction of what they’d once had. Time, Nouke feared, would never truly heal the pain her mother endured, but as the seasons passed, Maketaten’s grief let go of more of her.

The farm survived too, be it out of Nouke’s own stubbornness to not let it fail after the work her father had put into it, or simply the fear of what would become of she and her mother if they lost anymore. It was a strenuous undertaking for only the two of them, but Nouke knew there were few choices.

“Maybe it’s time I marry…” Nouke thought aloud as she and her mother were finishing up their work in the stable.  

Her own face twisted, the taste of her words sour. The notion was not a sudden revelation; it was something Nouke had sacrificed many nights of sleep to mull over. Marriage offered stability as well as another hand to help: more crops meant more income. It seemed such an easy and logical solution to their struggles, but it remained the most daunting.

There’d been a few men who’d taken a fancy to her and come calling. Both were farmers—able men who would take easily to the work the farm required. But they lacked something that Nouke could never place each time she was with them; they had no spark, and she doubted she could live happily with someone like that.

Maketaten cast her daughter a look of disbelief, mouth popping open, as though she wanted to rebuttal but couldn’t find the words.

Nouke ignored her mother’s shock and continued her reasoning, unsure if it was for her mother’s benefit or her own.

“We could use another hand, mother. And we can’t afford to pay anyone.”

A series of emotions drifted onto her mother’s face, each one turning her lips into a deeper, more shameful frown.  

“I am sorry I am not more help, Nouke.”

“That’s not what—” Nouke sighed, immediately regretting having brought up the topic. “It’s not that you haven’t been a help—you have. We need stability. We are barely getting by.”

Maketaten sighed too, her expression one of sorrow.

“It was never your father and I’s wish to marry you off for the prospect of stability—stability is built, not bought.” Her expression softened, and Nouke could almost see her mother slipping into a fond memory before she spoke again.  

“I, unlike so many others, was promised to no one. I met your father, and we fell in love. Only with love can one truly prosper.”

Nouke felt a tug on her heartstrings seeing the wistful expression take hold of her mother. It was so close to an air of happiness that she didn’t dare interrupt it. Instead, she watched the memories drifting in her mother’s eyes: memories of her husband, the love and light of her life.

She wanted that for herself, as greedy as perhaps it was. The devotion and adoration she’d witnessed all her life was something she craved to hold. However, the gods had a habit of destroying every dream she’d ever wanted for herself.

“Mother…” Nouke choked out softly, suddenly overwhelmed with a sadness she was unsure of.

There were tears shimmering in her mother’s eyes when she met them, tears, and resoluteness that Nouke had not seen in a long time.

“No, Nouke,” she said adamantly. “I will not see you live even more miserably. This world has already taken so much from you…”  

Her mother’s words stilled her, and she knew then there would be no sense in arguing. Nouke responded with a sad smile; her words lost amidst the mess of thoughts in her head.

A silence fell between them as they tended to the rest of their chores. Nouke did her best to push her focus on her work, wanting it to consume her, afraid her thoughts would stray to the piles of things she’d fought for years to forget.

Night was falling when their work was done and Nouke followed her mother up the stairs, her mother’s steps growing more labored near the top until she began to fall. Nouke quickly braced and caught her, helping her mother stabilize on the stone railing.

“Are you alright?” Nouke asked, concern evident in her tone.

Maketaten chuckled lightly. 

“Just a little dizzy from a day in the heat,” she reassured her daughter.

 Nouke led her mother to a stool in the common area of their home, skeptical about her mother’s reasoning. An irritating twinge of panic began twisting familiar knots into her stomach as her mind filled with images of her father collapsed in the field.

“Does this happen…often?” Nouke asked, unable to mask the crack in her voice.

Her mother shrugged, “Only recently.”

Nouke’s panic settled deeper, knot's tightening.

“I’m not young anymore. I assure you; I am fine.” Maketaten’s voice was calm and exuded assurance, but Nouke didn’t miss the faint glimmer of fear in her eyes. 

That restrained fear was enough to tie a knot in Nouke’s throat she tried to swallow before it drew tears to her eyes. She could gauge her own expression from the one her mother held, knowing that her own fear was rapidly taking shape on her features.

“Maybe…” Nouke said as softly as she could. “You should see a healer.”

Maketaten reached to caress her daughter's face, smiling gently.

“My sweet girl. You are full of worry…” she spoke, tracing the lines on her daughter's face, looking sad. “I will be fine.”

Nouke cupped her hand over her mother’s and held it to her face, relishing in the warmth her touch offered.

“I cannot lose you, mother.” 

Maketaten placed a lingering kiss to Nouke’s forehead.

“I’m tired. It’s time I rest. Goodnight.” Her mother said, without more to say about her supposed sickness.

“Goodnight.” 

Nouke watched her go, allowing her fear to settle in a room by herself. Her father was taken too suddenly for them to remedy whatever it was that ailed him. She would not let the same fate befall her mother. She didn’t know if she had the strength to lose everyone she loved.

During the week that followed, Nouke’s concern took root in her stomach a little deeper as every day slipped by balefully to remind her that time was working against her. And while her mother didn’t seem to be in any pain, the knots in her stomach wound tighter with the sense something was not right. Meals went uneaten and the labor it took her to do the simplest of the chores was evidence of her failing health.

Every passing moment felt more critical than the last, dread an ever-present cloud in her thoughts bringing with it the fear of waking to find her mother had passed in the night. The notion ate away at her night after night, keeping her from sleep before, finally, Nouke couldn’t waste another minute—she had to try something.  

It was late afternoon when Nouke ventured into the market while her mother rested. The familiar thrum instilled her with a much-needed boost to keep her head focused on her task. She knew of two people who could help her if they were feeling kind: one took patients and both sold vials of curatives. The jingling of coins in the bag tied at her hip, and the sack of fresh harvestables slung over her shoulder, reminded her that she had little to offer for services—a few coins and the best bushels from their farm.

In her heart, she knew that wouldn’t be enough, but she kept walking with her chin up.

The market was busy for the lateness of the hour, the glow of lamps and torches lighting the shadowy streets. Nouke maneuvered through the hordes of people with practiced agility, making her way to the first stall, going over what she was to say silently in her head.

He was a younger man, older than herself, dressed fashionably in robes of finer linen indicating that he was skilled in his profession. The man was carefully packing up his stall, ready to turn in for the night when Nouke approached.   

“May I ask you a few questions?” Her heart was beating in her throat.

The healer turned and glanced at her with a raised brow and a smug curl on his lips.

“You may,” he said, his beady eyes looking her up and down several times, before deciding that she was worth his time.

“My mother is sick—though she won’t admit it. Would you be willing to—”

The man held up his hand to silence her, looking disinterested.

“Payment,” he demanded holding out his hand.

Nouke swallowed and glanced at the small coin purse on her hip, and the sack of goods she’d brought. Before she even worked the satchel of harvestables from her shoulder, the man scoffed with a mirthless chortle.

“No,” he told her.

“Please?” Nouke reached for the purse of coins, spilling them into her palm. “This is all I have.”

“All you have is not enough,” he scoffed, turning to pack up the rest of his market stall.

Any other day, Nouke would have acted on his slight, letting him know the gods would not take kindly to his cruel heart, but she was exhausted from her ceaseless worry. Instead, she sighed a wrothful puff, accompanying it with a scowl she hoped conveyed the level of insult she felt.

The next man was much older and adorned like most of the other merchants: as common as she. When he welcomed her into his stall with a kind smile, Nouke found herself smiling back in relief.

“What can I help you with?” he asked in a warm voice that was a stark contrast to the last man she had spoken to.

“My mother is sick,” 

“What signs of malady does she show?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

“Um, weakness, no appetite, fatigue—I don’t know of any pain.” Nouke swallowed, throwing another mournful look at the payment she had to offer. “I don’t have much in return for your services, but it’s all I have. Will you help me?”

The man looked at her with a sad, apologetic smile.

“I am no healer, child.” He confessed. “I sell ointments for skin, burned from long hours in the sun, honey’s that help heal cuts. I know not what ails your mother. I sincerely wish I could help you, but I cannot provide the remedies you seek.”

Nouke’s entire body wilted under the weight of defeat.

“Thank you,” she murmured, offering the man her coin purse as payment for his time. “Sorry to have troubled you.”

“No, no,” he declined waving his hands. “Save it to help your mother.”

Nouke gave the man a warm smile and thanked him again.

The walk back to her farm seemed longer somehow, made that way by the weight of defeat she carried with her. Maketaten was sleeping when Nouke returned, venturing into their shared room to be sure she had not suffered the same fate as her husband. A tiny wave of relief washed over her when she heard her mother's soft snores, and the sound coaxed the ghost of a smile to tint her features.

Nouke didn’t even try to go to sleep that night; the grace of deep, dreamless slumber was elusive. When she did find sleep her mind was plagued with memories that soured into nightmares. Most nights, though, she spent staring at the ceiling. The day had brought only more worry, which left her mind too preoccupied for the wish of restfulness. Nouke instead took refuge on the roof.   

Tears brimmed her eyes the moment she nestled herself in her makeshift nest, feeling the full weight of fate upon her. She sat with her knees pulled to her chest, hugging them, feeling as though she was going to burst if she didn’t keep herself wound tight. For the first time in a long time, Nouke let herself drown in the sea of emotions she’d kept at bay longer than she wanted to admit. She cried until her head ached and throbbed with every beat of her breaking heart; until her tears ran dry leaving only soft whimpers. She knew sulking would get her nowhere but releasing all that pent-up turmoil cleared her head, and Nouke felt a sense of calm letting go of so much.

As the tears dried on her cheeks, the pulsing slowed enough to let her mind focus on a new plan to find a solution for her mother’s ailment. It would be months before most of the crops could be harvested to make any substantial profit, and as much as it pained her to think, Nouke knew her mother could not spare that kind of time.   

She sighed, trying to fight off another wave of defeat from pulling her back under the water, the heel of her hands rubbing her swollen eyes. When her vision adjusted, her focus settled on the distant horizon, and a glint caught her eye: the pharaoh’s palace was shinning like a beacon in the distance.

“Ahk…” she whispered breathlessly, feeling her heart flutter at the sound of his name falling easily from her tongue.

All at once, her mind flooded with the memories she’d locked away to keep from missing him. His kindness filled every trace of those memories, feeding her waves of foolish hope. Ahk would have healers and priests waiting to serve him, but he was pharaoh. The title loomed like a dark cloud to cast a shadow over the sweet prince she remembered. Power had a funny way of spoiling kindness. If his crown had not tainted him, he would help her—she knew he would.

Even getting inside the palace wouldn’t be difficult if the garden wall still held the passageway she’d found in her youth. All that was stopping her was Kahmunrah’s warning. If he or his guard recognized her, that would be the end. The thought should have frightened her more than it did, but the threat of her own death didn’t seem so daunting if it meant she could save her mother.

As long as she could avoid Kahmunrah and find Ahk, there was hope something good could come from such a foolish decision.  

Next Chapter-> Chapter Eight: The Boy From the Palace

[roseguidedarc]

𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑺𝑯𝑬𝑬𝑻

repost, don’t reblog !

𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

FULL NAME.   lilian  “lily”  adora marsh

 NICKNAME.   “stardust” by her father , “dora” by her parents from her middle name ,  “lil” by bellamy

GENDER.   cis female

HEIGHT.  5′3″ 

AGE.   16 , pre-series.  22-28 ,  depending on plotline. 

ZODIAC.   scorpio. 

SPOKEN LANGUAGES.   english, trigedasleng , learning.

𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

HAIR COLOR.  light brown 

EYE COLOR.   green

SKIN TONE.   pale , but with warm undertones.

BODY TYPE.  on the slim side , thicker in the thighs. hourglass.

VOICE.  medium toned , soft in most situations but can be more rough when needed. voice gets higher when she has something to hide , is in pain , or is trying not to be upset.

DOMINANT HAND.   right 

SCARS.  her body is littered with numerous scars from the procedures done to her in the lab. they vary in size , color , && how long they’ve been healed.  some internal scars from procedures && testing.   one distinctive scar not covered with cloths can be seen on her cheek , it’s a scar that starts near the water line of her eye && goes downward until almost the middle of the cheek on the right side.

TATTOOS.   none. 

BIRTHMARKS.  a medium sized birthmark near her left clavicle . 

MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S).    cheek scar , kind eyes.

𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝 !

PLACE OF BIRTH.   lily was born on the ark , in space.

HOMETOWN.   space. 

SIBLINGS.   none

PARENTS.   emilia marsh  ( mother , deceased )   ,  jonathan marsh  ( father , deceased ) 

𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 !

OCCUPATION.   was studying to work in medical.  became a lab experiment for the effect of radiation && other things in the secret lab on the ark.   does whatever is asked of her on the ground.

CURRENT RESIDENCE.  verse despendent. anywhere from space, to earth, to sanctum. 

CLOSE FRIENDS.  clarke griffin, octavia blake , raven reyes , monty green , emori , bellamy blake

RELATIONSHIP STATUS.  verse dependent. most known relationships include bellamy blake  ( pre-series , plotting dependent afterward ) 

FINANCIAL STATUS.    verse dependent. t100 verse : n/a / modern verse: stable. 

DRIVER’S LICENSE.   verse dependent. t100 verse : no, but is able to operate a vehicle. / modern verse : yes.

𝐬𝐞𝐱 & 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 !

SEXUAL ORIENTATION.  pansexual , demi-romantic.  

PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE.   submissive | dominant | switch 

PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE. submissive | dominant | switch 

LIBIDO.  medium to high

TURN ON’S.    someone who’s willing to stand up for others / speak up , kindness , someone who’s strong  ( not limited to physically , more so strong willed ) , someone being able to speak their emotions , esp. if it pretains to her .  more tba. 

TURN OFF’S.   disloyalty , liars.

LOVE LANGUAGE.     physical touch , acts of service. 

RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES.   devoted, loyal , passionate.

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬 !

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG.   this is me trying   -   taylor swift 

HOBBIES TO PASS TIME.  reading ,  learning something new , helping others , drawing , being productive. 

MENTAL ILLNESSES.    suffers from ptsd, nightmares , anxiety

PHYSICAL ILLNESSES.    sleep paralysis , her right leg from the upper thigh downward has nerve damage from one of the procedures done to her in the lab && is immobile--lily wears a brace in order to walk.

PHOBIAS.  losing those she cares about most , trypanophobia  ( fear of needles or procedures involving them )  ,   iatrophobia  ( fear of doctors ) . 

SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL.  between a 7 or 8 .

tagged by :   stolen from @hisagony​

tagging : @hlliday​ , @hauntyng​ , @peacemakr​ , @headsaves​ , @inuyaksha​ , &&  you. !!

[seasaltmemories]

Initial thoughts about Three Houses

it is taking me a while to get truly on board with it but it has been an enjoyable experience, I have kinda mixed feelings about the silent protag thing, it isn’t done badly, but I wonder if Byleth will be able to carry the emotional weight of a plot as I can’t see their characterization getting any more interesting than Robin or Corrin, who even though they were also acting as self-inserts also carried their own personality

so the beginning was a bit rough, especially with all the exposition dump, let me tell you if you read the profiles of the units ahead of time you are not getting spoiled at all, in fact you’re probably saving yourself time from having to individually talk to everyone, while you aren’t choosing based off box art the choice for which house is so early that nothing but first impressions can really fuel it

And at the start a lot of introducing the different units is all about laying out their “identifiable quirk” which grated with me a lot, more or less per a scene everyone would get at least one line to remind you of what their thing is, and while Fates got a lot of hate for gimmicky characters, this was way more grating than anything I found in Fates bc there was no ignoring them

Still I’m only just about to start the fourth or so mission, still very early game, and already I think the house structure does a great job of endearing you to your team, outside of neutral units now I don’t think I’ll consider recruiting anyone bc a lot of what I enjoy is the close knit feel, part of the bond is bc you are constantly micromanaging them to make sure they are maximizing their study time to the best interest, honestly it is less overwhelming than I thought (although I did prior research ahead of time so I won’t get choice paralysis) another thing I think going in blind might hurt people, but while customization does exist (managed to make Petra a lance girl after a lot of pulling teeth) you gotta work hard so I think anyone who doesn’t care too much can get by with the auto stuff (I’m trying so hard to make Doreathea a sword girl but she just doesn’t have the strength)

As I think there is a lot of room for characters to grow, again eight is feeling like a magic number bc I’ve already unlocked quite a few supports for some characters and I think that is enough for you to show a character in different scenarios and feel consistent without getting repetitive, I either have close to or all of the C supports for Bernedetta and Hubert and while there are common threads, the game takes advantage to show the specific dynamics, also with the way supports work here, I feel much more likely to start and finish all support chains around the same time, which might allow characters to have growth beyond their initial personality and not just keep having it restart

I think what will make me start to fall for characters is if we get more a sense of history among them, I think part of the reason I so loved Echoes’ cast was that each army came with an already established dynamic, you mainly learned about the characters by seeing them bounce off each other, and you got to see that outside of supports too, and your allies were added in a slow enough drip you could see what relationships they brought plus how they interacted with new characters

There are seeds of it, Hubert’s character is largely devoted to his devotion to Edelgard, but in his C support we mostly see reaffirming of that devotion rather than exploration, if we get more specific details, get to learn how they got to this point I think that will be interesting, at the moment a more fitting example is Caspar’s and Petra’s C support, not only is it set up to look more at their characters but also at their world as well, and it could def be a highlight

On a less analytical note, Linhardt and Edelgard’s C support was the epitome of distinguished bi versus disaster bi lmao

May have started out negatively but it is growing on me, and I can see potential for it