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ag-updates-and-archives · 5 months ago

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L.S. Dunes’ Anthony Green and Travis Stever Talk “Magick” For New Sophomore Album ‘Violet’ [Q&A] | THE NOISE

photos: Moe Horta

Since their captivating debut at Chicago's Riot Fest in 2022 and the release of their exhilarating first album, Past Lives, L.S. Dunes has evolved into something truly magical. Born during COVID chaos and shaped by challenging time constraints, they have consistently defied the odds, expanding their fanbase with each new breathtaking track. They have become not just an exciting but an essential supergroup – featuring members of My Chemical Romance, Thursday, Coheed And Cambria and more – a journey we've all been a part of and can take pride in.

By any measure, the band's latest album, Violet, once again helmed by Grammy-nominated producer Will Yip, lives up to the legacy they continue to build. In many ways, it opens up an opportunity to rediscover L.S. Dunes in a different light. Where Past Lives takes its oxygen from the thrill of frenzy and impulsiveness, Violet breathes deeper with a more open and expansive palette. Whether it lives in the confident and steady pulse of a song like "Machines," in the rousing lyrical empowerment of "Paper Tigers," or in the way that "Forgiveness" forges itself as an anthem for love and unconditional acceptance in the face of our personal failures, this is a body of work that not only offers hindsight but also instills hope and a sense of magic. And isn't that what the world needs more of?

The Noise had the opportunity to chat further with frontman Anthony Green and guitarist Travis Stever about the magic of the album as well as maintaining a healthy work-life-balance shredding alongside fellow self-proclaimed “workaholics,” guitarist Frank Iero, drummer Tucker Rule, and bassist Tim Payne.

Violet feels like a shift from Past Lives in terms of sound in some aspects. How would you describe the musical progression between these two albums?

ANTHONY GREEN: My perspective of it is so narrow from my vantage point, and I see a growth relative to our personal relationship growth. When we were writing and putting together Past Lives, we were figuring out how we operated creatively, and you got to hear that in real-time on Violet. With this album, I can't really speak to what other people would have experienced while listening to the first one, but I know that on this record, it feels like we know each other better, and I hope that comes across.

TRAVIS STEVER: I absolutely agree with everything he said. We also got to be around each other.

Anthony: Oh yeah.

Travis: I mean, it's like a whole different language you speak when we're together. I have video footage that I was going through to kind of remember some of the stuff that we did, also to try and remember parts. But just looking at it, we had this one part that we were working on in Violet – okay, and I'm working on it, Frank's across, you can't even see him, but you see Anthony behind, and he's doing this smile. He's doing this smile and dancing, but then I hit this bum note, and he's all of a sudden, like, [makes cringe face].

Anthony: Haha, yeah, I remember. [laughing]

Travis: But you didn't mean it! The best part is that you did not even mean it! It's just the natural language of music that when something happens, it's inevitable, and I died laughing because I was like, "I would have done the same thing." We were like-

Anthony: You were just trying stuff out.

Travis: Yeah, I was trying stuff out, but we had gotten somewhere where we were all excited with the melody, and he had already done some vocal melodies; it was just this exciting moment. And it was like, “That's how you work.” There are things, such as body language and everything that goes together in the studio. I mean, I love Past Lives, I love how it came about. There's some beauty to creating art like that, which was something new for all of us. It was like painting a wall from a distance. But this was doing it together.

Anthony, the lyrics on Past Lives were profoundly personal. As you know, many of the lyrics on all of the projects you have worked on together and individually feel like lyricism is a crucial aspect of the music. How do the themes of Violet compare to those on the debut album? Are you exploring new emotional territories or continuing from where you left off?

Anthony: Well, thanks for saying that stuff about the lyrics. I think that when I was writing Past Lives, I was sort of just kind of, you know, you're like “I can't help making things sort of autobiographical.” And I try really hard even when I intend to write a song where I'm like, "Okay, this is from someone else's vantage point, or this is about this story.” Or even there's been songs where I'm like, "This is inspired by a movie or something, and it still ends up becoming autobiographical.” There's my narcissistic nature or something, and how it just goes that way. But I feel like this stuff that came out for Past Lives, I was running and gunning in my life at that time, and it all kind of came out like that. There was stuff that even after it got written, I was like, "Whoa." I was desperate for connection at that point in my life, and when we were writing Violet, I really wanted to make sure that there was intention behind the songs and that there weren't these cliffs that you drop off of, you know?

I feel like this antenna when I'm working, and after a while, when you're tuned to a certain frequency that's very negative, you find yourself in this loop. So this record for me was a lot of trying to break out of that loop and find silver linings in the worst, most destructive aspects of the things I've created in my life to keep moving forward.

Let’s circle back for a second about band chemistry, working through the pandemic, and now working together post-pandemic, which feels silly to say because I feel like the world is still kind of burning. But anyway, with Past Lives being your debut, how has chemistry within the band evolved since then? You went from working on an album during a global pandemic to now having free reign once restrictions were lifted. How has the way you've worked together changed, and in what ways have you all bonded as a band to create this stronger cohesion in Violet?

Travis: I don't know if this answers your question, but it was very clear from the moment that we were all in the same room that no matter what, if we started playing any melody, then we were all off to the races. It's very hard to find that in a group of people where everybody's not afraid to jump in and start creating together, and that's what we have. That's the one [thing] I've never experienced with this band where there's no hesitation in starting to create when we're around each other. You know what I mean? We can lean on each other if one person's pretty burnt out.

For instance, I remember coming back from Australia and meeting up on the last Dunes tour, and everybody was working on something in sound check. I just felt so burnt out, and I didn't know if I could do it, and they all comforted me and made me feel like I was safe to hold out, wait for it, and then they worked on it. And when I came in to work on it, it was like, "Oh, wow, I could just jump right in. It'll be okay. I'm okay here. I'm not like failing everyone, right?” When we give each other that, probably because of what we've been through before it, not throwing shade at any of the other bands we're part of or anything like that. It's just we grew up playing music. We have a maturity that hopefully, or I assume, we all bring to this, that I don't know, it's just it makes a different kind of scenario coming into it that perhaps it's hard to even bring to the other things we're part of because we're so used to the roles. But we can come here and say, “Oh, this is how we started this, and this is what we do for each other,” the trust thing, you know, we do that for each other. So, how has that differed? It's gotten better, consistently better, and even in the distance, like from the long-distance writing, it's constantly happening. We've already been doing that, and I know [Anthony] already has millions of melodies, everything that we send, and that's what we do.

That's great to hear.

Travis: That's my take on growing, you know?

Anthony: Maturity was a cool word that stood out to me. We were saying that whatever our intentions were in building this – it was like how people get together to have a club, how people will play sports, or like a group of dads getting together to play music. Most of the challenges have come from, like, "Okay, how do we share this with the world? How do we make this more than just like, what it is for us and allow other people in and do it like a band,” you know, maybe like a real band. And getting to know each other, getting to have each other's back in situations where it's like, "Yeah, we're gonna do a tour. We're gonna do things." Ultimately, I think that, at the core, we want each other to be happy. Because we know if we're happy or taken care of, we're gonna make something really fun together. Having that be the nucleus, everything's built around it, and it makes it very challenging, and again, this doesn't bring anything that other projects are lacking. I just think that this is a new thing that exists outside of certain pressures that we all have, you know?

Travis: Well said, that's it.

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There's a lot of instability in the industry right now, where artistic expression feels more like a survival tool than a form of catharsis. So many artists seem pressured to release music just to get by. What do you think about this shift?

Anthony: I think with this project, we all cross-pollinate with whatever else we're working on, you know? I know that as soon as I'm done writing a Dunes song, it keeps your creative muscles strong and to have something where you can always just express yourself and know that there's a bunch of people that are gonna be like, "Fuck yeah, that's sick."

Travis: It's interesting, and watching him answer that and say it like that, I just can't wait to work on new stuff.

Yeah?!

Travis: Already! That's what's hilarious. It's like, we get together and work on stuff in the room together, but also, like, work on all the things that we have already, you know, like, there's --

Anthony: There's a bit of enabled workaholism in this group.

Travis: Oh yes, totally.

Anthony: All of us, I think, are like dealing with different, you know – I've definitely had my experiences with, like, compulsion and addiction and all that stuff. And I think a lot of it for me has been finding things you can put that same energy into that aren't as destructive. And, like, there's a little bit of workaholism in us that probably isn’t healthy. But we’re wrangling it in together as a group. When you like what you do, it can be very challenging to know when to stop.

What did you learn from making Past Lives that influenced the creation of Violet? Were there things you wanted to do differently this time around?

Travis: I don't think we had – we weren't like, “We have to do it this way.” There were intentions just to be together, and we were able to do that. I know that Anthony shares this, too. The goal was that eventually, hopefully, we could be in a room for a few days and have some fresh, brand-new ideas. There were road maps for songs already there and some ideas that were more spur of the moment.

Anthony: Not all the structural changes, though. The dropout in “Violet.”

Travis: Yeah!

Anthony: Us all in the room talking about that and then trying it out at different lengths. Like, where does it feel? And I remember at first I was like, "It just doesn't feel right there," yeah. We had to listen to it and, like, settle into it.

Travis: Absolutely. So I kind of am going to go against what I'm like, I'm going to agree with Anthony. I mean, even the beginning of the album, the song, “Like Magick,” that's a song that Anthony had sitting around. He was just plucking and singing that melody over and over, and it just got in our heads, and we were like, "We need to use that," and it became a band song. And that happened with our 2022 record. But you know I kind of contradict myself by saying that that can happen from a distance, but there's like this, this beauty of it happening in person.

Right.

Travis: That we hadn't experienced yet together.

Anthony: We also hadn't written where we knew each other creatively, but we're just sending files back and forth, and before writing Violet we got to experience playing all of the songs live and seeing how that evolved, and adding parts. There were times when sitting in practice, where you would jam on something, and Tuck would start playing, and we could all tell our creative sense, our navigational sense as a group towards whatever we like creatively, is very strong. It's weird, you go to capture that, and it's like you can capture that so many different ways, but it's almost like grabbing this flow state that's so great, and trying to then limit it, putting in a structure, putting in a boundary, and just kind of kill everything but the littlest spark about it. Then you get all these little sparks together, and it's like, it represents something that represents the song. But like, I don't know, I'm like, not trying to talk shit on any of our other projects, but even just in playing the songs that we recorded for this record live now, I'm like, "Oh, I could have done this. I could have done that…”

Travis: Yeah, we can do it! Like, that's the cool thing.

Anthony: Playing “Machines” live, I was like, "Oh my god." And we're still evolving and growing. I feel like this is just the foundation of what we're able to experiment and do together. Everybody sort of trusts each other to bring their own freakiness too. I don't ever have to worry, "Okay, we need to work on this." Like, I'll think of something I need to work on or want to write something, and I want to push myself. I know Travis is doing the same thing with everything he plays. Everybody brings that energy to push themselves.

It sounds like that evolution just happened very naturally.

Anthony: Yeah, definitely. It's like when you're like, I just need a haircut. I don't know exactly what I gotta do, but it's gotta just-

Gotta be different.

Anthony and Travis: Gotta be different!

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Is there a specific concept or theme you focused on for Violet that differs from Past Lives? How did you build on the foundation of your debut album?

Anthony: Lyrically, I think magic was something I thought about a lot, magic and light and the idea of what magic is and what feels like magic and how the concept of mysticism in music gets strangled out. Where putting a record out and making a recording even – like, back in the day, there were people that when they started recording music, people were like, “Fuck, no, you can't do that to the listening experience.” And we experience that now with every kind of thing that comes up, I don't know. I just think that the music alchemizing your pain and suffering into something tangible and giving hope is something that I wanted to think about when we were writing this album. The idea is that it can be therapeutic.

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Are there any tracks on Violet that stand out to you personally? I loved the intro track "Like Magick," midway point "Machines," and "Holograms."

Travis: Oh, so many songs on the record right now are my favorite! I can’t pick.

What about you, Anthony?

Anthony: I've been listening to "Violet" so much, and I started trying to play it on acoustic; it's such a good song; it's so good. We also were practicing it, and you know, I sing the majority of the stuff on the record live or on the record, but like, Frank will sing with me, and like, he sings with me on that live, and I'm excited to play that. I don't know, I can't pick a favorite, honestly. This sounds so stupid, but for every one of these songs, I had this experience writing and crafting with this group, where I was so personally invested in every little part of it that it was such a joy to be a part of all the steps, watching everything get created, even from the sidelines, when they were working out musical stuff. I was like, "Okay, cool. I could fill something in, cool here. I can give this space here." I can't pick a favorite, you know?

And that's okay. They're all your favorites!

Travis: Oh yeah, it's always subject to change.

Anthony: "Like Magick" is cool, just because it gives me this charge where whenever I'm with the group where I have something and where they're like, "Hey, I want to work on this. It's an idea that I was messing with,” and they take it and make it cool, that always makes me feel really good.

How do you hope Violet will be received by your fans, especially those who followed you since Past Lives and throughout your separate work? Is there a particular message or feeling you want them to take away from this album?

Anthony: I've honestly divorced myself from the outcome.

Yeah?

Anthony: Yeah.

That's probably the healthiest thing to do.

Travis: I think that's the healthiest thing you can do. It's the healthiest thing any of us can do. Are we gonna look? Yeah, we're gonna see what people say.

Anthony: I have this faith that the people who have been so supportive up until now truly want you to have harmony within what you're doing. So I know that that's there, and I have faith in that, but for the better of myself, I find all my victory in just having the record be something the whole band could put our hands in a circle and go, "Woooo!" And then sharing it with the world is, like, it's like, a big bonus, you know?

Travis: Yeah. I agree.

Anthony: I hope, I always hope, like, if I'm cooking something for somebody, like, I hope they enjoy it. I hope they enjoy it as much as I do. But this is kind of a different scenario, I guess. It's hard to say.

How do you plan to bring the album's energy to the stage? What can fans expect from your live shows this time around? Are there any songs that you're super excited to perform live for people?

Travis: Yeah, we already started working on a couple of them that we'll be doing out on tour with Rise Against in Europe, and we have some headlining shows out there in the UK and Europe. I imagine once we're out there, I'd say that we already have five or six of the ten songs ready to play live, and then we'll work on the other four. Frank was writing us all yesterday about "You Deserve To Be Haunted" and even trying to mess with that, which would be a seventh that we would already have ready.

Anthony: We started playing that "Fatal Deluxe" song on the Rise Against tour, too, and that song, oh my gosh, is my favorite. It was my favorite song to play in the set; we closed the set with it, and that song was transformative for me. It takes me someplace else; I feel confident when I play that. Something about that, everything about that song, it just is so fun to play. The same thing happened when we started playing "Machines," and I got lost in it every time; you know, it took me somewhere. Yeah, it's cool.

Travis: "Fatal Deluxe" is something Anthony mentioned before; that's a good example of us taking a song and adding a whole new ending. Something that maybe we'd be like, "Oh, we wish we did this in the studio," but that's what's cool, as a band, we'll take things like that, and we'll add it to the live set. So that's what's cool about once we're all together and we're on tour, we'll start working out these little nuances, and people that come to our shows will start to see them evolve as they come to the show.

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How do you see the future of L.S. Dunes? Are there specific directions you're excited to explore next? Is there something that you feel the need to just accomplish with this project other than just make fucking great music?

Travis: I mean, I think that's just it. To continue to make music with them.

Anthony: Yeah, that's it. I mean, like I said, everybody gets to kind of witness our club of dads who don't get together to play music together, you know what I mean? As long as we can maintain the nucleus of how much fun it is just to be together, make music together, let each other explore, and keep it growing. I hate looking into the future with anything too much, you know?

The future should be a surprise.

Anthony: Yeah, and I feel really lucky to be a part of this. Like really lucky, like, every day of my life, even when the shit is happening with it, where there is the hardest shit that we go through with it. I'm still just so grateful to be participating. I know that music is healing, and there's this other aspect to it, so just throwing it out there, you're just participating. No outcome is needed to keep us apart from caring about each other and nurturing each other's strengths personally and professionally; that's my goal. We can make another ten records. We can make one record, whatever there is, just as long as we stay loving and supportive as a unit; who knows?

Author: Alessandra Rincon January 30, 2025

#anthony green #travis stever #ls dunes #moe horta #alessandra rincon #interview alert #Youtube

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pheonixxfoxx · 1 year ago

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Introductions!

I decided to set-up one of those StrawPage things too: pheonixxfoxx.straw.page Hi, so how about some introductions? I am Pheonixxfoxx or Phe as my friends call me. It's nice to meet you! I'm a rather shy individual, suffer from mental illness and have spent the past 17+ years in a mentally abusive relationship. At the age of 43, I'm slowly regaining my freedom, rediscovering myself and once again enjoying the things I love as I work to start over! With this blog, I hope to share these things with others and maybe make a friend or two along the way. At the end of 2023, many tragic eye opening events happened in my life. I began watching the anime One Piece, which became a great source of inspiration and comfort. The theme of freedom, that thing I need most, obliviously speaks to me on so many levels. Out of a large cast of unique and wonderful characters, I ended up adoring Buggy the Genius Jester. He has become rather special to me for reasons I can't fully explain. As a result, I now have a rather interesting collection of him. A collection, that I hope to not only add more to, but share with you all! I also make art, which is my own personal therapy. I create mostly World of Warcraft themed 3D art in Blender, but I want to expand my horizons and learned to sculpt my own models. I've also been itching to start drawing again, after going years without doing so! Right now, I am having some serious pain issues in my left arm, so art is on hold temporarily.

Animals are an important part of my life too. I've been around them since before I was born. Be warned, I will probably spam pics of my "kids" from time to time.

#introduction

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catoblepon · 2 years ago

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Hi, I'm Catoblepon!

I have a lot of hobbies and I keep finding myself unable to stick with only one, so expect me to talk, ramble, or follow stuff related to spreadsheets, CSS, digital art, videogames & TTRPGs, worldbuilding, web development, etc.

I've been on Tumblr before, but I've barely done more than follow a couple posts, doom scroll, and then leave again. This time I have friends backing me up and I hope my stay is more permanent than temporal. I just hope I don't forget about this again. I also have no idea what I'm doing but I saw there's an HTML editor and I'm a happy web nerd.

I love languages, both natural speaking (like English, Spanish, etc) and artificial (such as C++, Java, Python, etc). I have two beautiful dogs whom I love with my life. I'm not good at intros and I dunno what to add.

Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding as of right now is the "main" hobby I'm focused on (other than playing video games but I don't do much other than playing them xD). Most of the art, CSS, and spreadsheets (and perhaps other stuff) are related to my worldbuilding worlds. So far, I have four (working on starting a fifth) settings.

What do I enjoy reading in worldbuilding?

Conditions/diseases

Lava related worldbuilding

Wild Magic

Magic and technology!

Species (especially animals)

Settlements (tell me all the weird details!)

Daeliha

Daeliha is a dark world filled with magic and your typical fantasy species but with twists, such as Elves having a symbiotic relationship with bacteria. Its people are constantly quarrelling, with anger and fear brewing for centuries. Now, however, people are rediscovering forbidden knowledge that had been hidden away in dusty temples, threatening to release old powerful magic upon the world.

Iphars

Fifty years ago, magic appeared in the world, and with it, new places, flora, fauna and worse, people. As those newcomers start to claim lands for themselves, the people indigenous to Iphars have to fight to adapt and keep what is theirs.

Khulgran

Humanity always dreamed of interacting with aliens. When no aliens arrived on Earth, humans decided to take matters into their own hands and travel themselves to new planets. There, they become aliens to meet other people, the technologically advanced society invading other worlds. But humans did not confine themselves to physical worlds; they also discovered access to a dimension of dreams. Of course, they immediately started to transform and adapt it for their own needs and entertainment. Thus, Altrea dimension was born. Will they manage to mess it up?

Shattered

Shattered is a place of brokenness, as its name says. It is composed of many islands and giant animals floating in space and surrounding a single star-like object, which has three states: light, dark, and rain. On these islands, one finds life, civilized and not-so-civilized societies; outside of them, one finds death and corpses of unknown creatures floating in a never-ending state of decay.

Games?

I enjoy games! Videogames, tabletop games, all the games! I mainly play solo games or games I can play with my friends (with them, of course!).

Favourite videogames

Skyrim

Minecraft

Borderlands

Dishonoured

Pokemon (the last good for me was the fourth-gen)

Legend of Zelda

Favourite TTRPG

D&D 5e

Fragged Empire

Vaesen

Solo journaling ttrpg (Even made one!)

I love trying new games!

#pinned intro #introductory post #video games #ttrpg stuff #worldbuilding #world anvil #i dont know what im doing

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yanakkie · 7 months ago

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30 Days of Otherkin Challenge - Day One + Day Two

Hello all! My name is Ko, but I also go by Iris. I am Fictionkind, which means I have a kintype of somebody from a fictional setting. In my case, my kintype is Iris. Specifically, the Iris from the Pokemon Black & White anime.

For the next thirty days, I'm going to be challenging myself to write along with these prompts made by TheHornedGate on Wordpress, who I believe was also @meirya on Tumblr - however they don't post on that blog anymore.

Without further ado, let's begin!

So since I've missed the first day of this challenge unintentionally, I'll be combining the first and second prompt of this challenge into one. Quite frankly, I would have done that regardless as I find it difficult to explain my current identity without first providing background into how I got to where I am.

Prompts 1+2: Current, History/Development

HISTORY

I believed I first learned of the term Fictionkin when I was fourteen. I was moderating a Skype roleplay group and became fast friends with one of the people apart of it. They told me part of the reason they roleplayed the character they did was because they held a kintype in that character. Confused, I asked them to elaborate and they did.

My first interpretation of their explanation was that this phenomenon they were explaining was when somebody just really really liked a character. I repeated this belief back to them and they went further into detail with their explanation. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but I filed the information away in the back of my mind for future reference. The furthest I think I got to processing the information was telling my then boyfriend about it.

In 2015, I rediscovered the term after the first month of Undertale's release. I was looking for art of Flowey on Tumblr to reblog when I saw an aesthetic post with the character. Then I saw the term again. "Kin". And that conversation I had came back to me. I was intrigued that a community like that had now developed around Undertale, so I decided to dive in and explore what it was like.

The definition of Fictionkin was relatively the same as how my friend explained it. I looked into it a bit more here and there but after scrolling through the tag and reading explanations, I got the overall gist of the idea. Full disclosure: I didn't fully understand how seriously others took this belief at first. I dipped my toe into the pool and cautiously started to swim.

The first kintype (I don't think I can really call it that now?) I thought had was Flowey the Flower from Undertale. An alternate universe Flowey where he'd been brought back up to the surface after the events of the game. That was it as far as details went. I assimilated into Fictionkin spaces and befriended other people who held similar beliefs. I learned more about the Fictionkin community as I went along and started to fully grasp the importance of their beliefs, and most importantly of all, how others felt connections to their characters.

I realized then that I was wrong in my assumption I was Flowey. But in the time I had realized that, I had come to adopt a strong connection to another character. In 2015, when this was all taking place, my then boyfriend at the time had forced me to sit down and listen to him read Homestuck for hours at a time. I hated every second of it but for the sake of maintaining that relationship (and being a teenager), I lied and told him it was one of the best pieces of media I'd ever experienced.

I have no opinions on Homestuck now, I haven't tried reading it since 2015.

Anyway, while he read Homestuck to me, I developed a very close attachment to Nepeta. So, for the next several months, I took on Nepeta's character and identity as my own. There are pictures of me dressed similarly to Nepeta, I would often speak in her typing quirk when I was younger, and I even went as far as to insist those at my new school at the time call me Nepeta. I am grateful that I was only at that particular school for three days before transferring to another.

At the time, I didn't really understand Homestuck's quadrants or whatever their relationship system is. So I tweaked character's relationships in my mind to suit my own personal preference. For instance, I liked Equius, so I changed the relationship Nepeta and Equius had from Moirails to Matesprits (I think that's how you write those words.) My boyfriend at the time hated this and often vented to one of my friends behind my back about how I "didn't get it" and things along those lines. That boyfriend of mine was particularly judgmental when it came to the subject of Otherkin, so when I had started to fully come into my own and embrace my identity - he tried to push me back into my shell.

The bastard broke up with me on my birthday, about two months after I'd started to fully surround myself in the Otherkin community, and to be honest it was for the best as much as it fucked me up real bad at the time.

In hindsight, I can fully understand what that phenomenon I was going through was. I don't think I could properly call Nepeta a kintype, given the very specific circumstances that younger me was placed under.

Time passed. My attachment to Nepeta slowly faded away when I learned to let go of the relationship I'd had with my ex. I fizzled out of the Otherkin community for a while afterwards. Burnt out. The summer of 2016 flew by and the school year picked back up. I started at a new school again after being kicked out of my previous one for my grades. Although I held false hope that I could go back if I got my grades back up and had my teachers write me letters of recommendation. (My grades never picked up.)

I can't remember what domino tipped to start this, but I developed a strong fascination with the Danganronpa series around this time. Maybe it was because the Danganronpa 3 anime was airing around that time??? That's just a guess, though. But I started to really feel something when I looked at Makoto Naegi, the main character of the first game. I wanted to be him, I realized. I had strong emotional attachments to the people he had relationships with, particularly his sister, Kiyotaka Ishimaru, and Kyoko Kirigiri.

Makoto Naegi's existence opened the gate to me exploring more about myself and my identity. I identified as male for a short period of time, I changed my name both online and in real-life.

"Oh, is that why you call yourself, Ko?"

Partially, actually!

I got particularly sensitive being around other Makoto Naegis. I was sensitive about others who shared the kintypes I had at the time (I am not so adverse to doubles anymore). I got touchy over talking about the twist villain of Danganronpa. From 2016 to 2017, participating in the Otherkin community was my every day.

I'd post about memories I had, I talked to sourcemates daily, it was a lot of fun for me! Given the strong connection I had with Makoto Naegi at the time, I would say that could be considered my first awakening. I'm not as connected to my Makoto Naegi kintype anymore (hence his lack of presence on my Fictotypes list) due to my overall disinterest in Danganronpa as a franchise now, but I'm not one to forget my roots.

While Steven Universe was still airing, I had this strong feeling in the back of my head. That I had a kintype in Pink Diamond's pearl. At first I thought it was the Pearl shown in the series, the main character Pearl. Though something about this line of thinking didn't exactly sit right with me. At the time, though, it was the only information I had to work with. But, then White Pearl showed up on screen. And the second I saw her, I knew she was originally Pink Diamond's Pearl. Sure as shit, I was right.

Any memories I may have had as Pink Diamond's Pearl, Volleyball, are gone. Much like she says in the show "Eight thousand years just *Bwoop!* gone!" The only thing I can really tie to that kintype is the close connection I had with the main character Pearl. I very much enjoyed the Steven Universe Future episode that aired, I'm sure you can imagine. But anyway, this is another kintype that isn't listed due to me feeling disconnected with the kintype.

I have a bit of imposter syndrome over both my Makoto Naegi and Pink Pearl kintypes, honestly. For starters, being as young as I was, I don't know for absolute certain if the "memories" I remember writing down were legitimate memories or me coming up with headcanons. As for Pink Pearl, my lack of memories troubles me.

I had other kintypes. Callie from Splatoon, for instance, was another big one for me. As was Monotaro from Danganronpa v3 and Keiichi from the Higurashi anime. Although, again, these are kintypes I have a sort of imposter syndrome with as I'm unable to ascertain whether the memories I had were true. The lack of connection I have with these characters now likely doesn't help either.

I try to be very cautious nowadays when placing a kintype on my list. Over the years, I've developed new criteria for what I consider to be memories or spiritual connections to characters. I guess, for example, I take into consideration the length of each individual interest. If the interest persists, then I consider it deeper and look further into it. If it doesn't persist after a long period of time, then I don't really think further into it. Maybe this isn't the right way to go about it, but this is my personal method.

I took a step away from the Otherkin community for a few years in 2018 due to some very unfortunate circumstances in my life!! To make a long story short, I got into another relationship with somebody who ridiculed me for my beliefs (among other things, but this post isn't about him) so I stopped going on Tumblr and mostly just ignored any growing connections that stirred inside me. I found out the other people in my life who I'd told about this experience had harboured secret judgmental feelings all along but kept it to themselves. So needless to say, I wasn't eager to return to the community at first.

In 2020, I returned to the Otherkin community after what I believed was me awakening to Cozy Glow from My Little Pony. Though, this was another instance where I had no memories of being the character, and only had personal feelings to work off of. Regardless, that was enough for me at the time and I developed some very strong friendships with people apart of the My Little Pony Fictionkin community at the time. It was a very wonderful experience - but in being there I was able to learn more about what the "average" Otherkin experience is like.

I didn't know what an awakening was, despite being in the community for multiple years at that point, until I joined that Discord. And I realized the phenomenons they were speaking about were foreign to me, which made me feel pretty out of place. I questioned why I didn't have memories as Cozy Glow. I tried meditating, even buying a crystal at another member's recommendation that swore they got memories after purchasing one all the time.

I wore it around my neck for months and still, nothing. Despite my own doubts, I still believed. After all, it felt right to call myself Cozy Glow. So I let it be. I wrote various stories and fanfictions around Cozy Glow getting redeemed and Chrysalis and Tirek following shortly afterwards. There was a lot of found family themes around the three. But overtime, I fizzled out of the community again.

Unlike the other kintypes (or whatever they were) I had, Cozy Glow is still one that remains near and dear to my heart.

CURRENT

2024 has been a mixed year for me. I intend to go more in-depth about it in a later post, but I've done a lot of work on myself this year. A lot of aspects of my personality have changed over the course of the year to the point where I'd say I am fully not the same person I was when I entered the year. I am a lot happier, for one. I've learned to indulge in my interests without shame. I've learned to stop ignoring the things that make me happy. I've learned to embrace who I am without shame.

So, in general, 2024 was a year of self-discovery for me. Or, re-discovery, rather. In June, I lost a good portion of some incredibly close friends due to a domino effect of unfortunate circumstances. To distract myself, I forced myself to complete the last leg of my GED and do my worst subject: math. I completed it in a month but after that project was over, my mind was back to wandering.

My hope was that by forcing myself to think about something else so deeply for a month that I'd completely forget about the pain I'd endured. That was not the case because there are no shortcuts in life. So from July to September, I grieved. I tried taking on another project, learning Japanese, to distract myself from my sadness again - because I'm terrible at learning my lesson the first time, I guess.

I had to really come to terms with the fact that the friendships I had been in were poison. That wasn't going to be a realization I came to while I was ignoring the matter entirely. I guess after that, I picked myself up, dust myself off, and continued forward. I've always been somebody with something of a hyperfixation on self-improvement. So I wanted to learn how I could start loving myself in the way that I deserved.

I clung to the friendships I'd had so hard because they made me feel loved in areas where I didn't love myself. Which meant that I'd inadvertently tied aspects of my self-worth to them. So losing them made me feel like I had failed in some regard. But that was the furthest thing from the truth!

One thing was for absolute certain, though: I had to learn to love myself. The validation of others was nice, but if I couldn't start praising myself and lifting myself up for the things that I liked about myself, I was going to be in massive trouble. This meant tearing down the foundation in which I'd built myself as a person and reworking it from the ground up.

Bear with me here:

I looked to certain fictional characters to imitate for their confidence. Characters like Reko Yabusame from Your Turn to Die. Reko had a strength in her that I so desperately wanted for myself. So I wrote down characteristics I admired in her and they're currently, at this very moment, pinned right beside me on my wall. A common question I ask myself now is: What would Reko Do?

I definitely wish Reko was a kintype. Unfortunately, she's just someone I look up to.

I know the person I want to be now. That was the most important step in this journey. Figuring out the kind of person I want to be and reworking my values and principals to centre in on that. And when I was finally able to do that, the grief of what I'd lost stopped. I'm a lot better now than I was two months ago. I'm happier! (It also helps I moved out.)

So with that all being said:

While I was thinking of fictional characters to imitate, my mind shifted back to the Otherkin community. I knew, of course, that one could not simply pick and choose their kintypes. That had never been how things worked. I knew about the basic idea of synpaths, though. I started to question if I actually ever understood what being Otherkin or Fictionkin actually meant. The definition the people in the My Little Pony discord spoke about was far different from my own experiences, after all.

So I tore down the structure of everything I thought I'd learned and started from the beginning. I scoured through forums, people's writings and experiences, all so I could gain a better understanding of what this experience actually was. And I came out of it with more insight that I'd previously had. Being Otherkin and Fictionkin was a spiritual experience, through and through.

Again, though, I'd always known that. But it was nice to read the writings of others who confirmed that.

One thing kept repeating in my head throughout all of my readings, though. Awakening. It was the one thing I felt I'd never experienced before. I'd never experienced a sense of canon sickness or feeling that something was missing from my body. The closest I'd ever gotten was missing Tirek and Chrysalis while I was in some sort of Cozy Glow shift. And desperately wanting to fly.

There is one individual who joined the Discord I'd been apart of multiple years ago. They spoke at length about their own experiences with being Fictionkin and the awakening they experienced. The intensity and emotions they shared were the main driving factor behind me wanting to do more research into this subject. I felt even then that there was a disconnect in what the people in that server believed and what I believed. I will never forget the stories they shared in there.

I hope they're doing okay.

Anyway, I'd never experienced any sort of awakening before. So, I thought to myself "Alright, so whatever I'd been experiencing before doesn't align with what I'm reading. Therefore, I'm not fictionkin" and I was fully prepared to leave it at that.

Obviously you can see that's not where the story ended.

Quite literally days after going into this deep dive into Otherkin, I began getting back into the Pokemon anime again. There's something that happens to me that I call The Special Interest Carousel. I have a variety of different interests in the back of my mind that fly out at me depending on the different things I interact with. My Pokemon hyperfixation has a tendency to return quite often, all because of one character.

I can't tell you why or how these feelings started. But I know that my fascination with Cilan began when the Pokemon Black & White anime first started airing. I was searching for clips of Team Rocket on YouTube and I saw a compilation of James's moments from the new anime. I clicked it and I listened to it on repeat. Then, I think I clicked on another video which had Cilan in it.

And I recognized the voice.

I believe the Pokemon Black & White anime began airing right after Jason Griffith was released from playing the role of Sonic the Hedgehog. I had taken a hard steer away from my interest in the Sonic games because of the voice actor changes. So I felt a certain connection to Jason Griffith specifically.

I was happy for him! As a kid, it was nice to see that he'd jumped from one role to another so quickly. That's about all I can remember, but I'll take a shot in the dark and guess that one of the only reasons I was willing to give this new season of the anime a shot was SPECIFICALLY because of Jason Griffith. I felt that watching the anime would support him.

And by "watch the anime" I mean "watch clips here and there" since I didn't know how to find episodes online for free and I wasn't really supposed to be watching Pokemon as a child (I grew up in a pretty religious household and my Mom thought Pokemon were secretly demons).

Once again, I don't know how this happened, but all at once I was completely hooked on Cilan as a character. Here's where things get interesting:

I am and always have been a very self-shippy kind of person. Practically all of my long-term OCs were created for the sole purpose of shipping them with a canon character. Cilan was one of the FIRST characters who EVER inspired an OC that wasn't made to ship with him. I adored Cilan VERY much. I adored his brothers VERY much! Yet, I made no OCs to ship with any of them. Even at that age, the only person I shipped Cilan with was Iris.

And no matter how much time passed, that never changed. Fics I wrote with my OC (My OC was the Striaton Trio's secret fourth sibling, younger than the trio. I'll probably have a fic about her out someday) always kept in mind an Iris/Cilan endgame. I returned to this OC and these characters over and over again over the course of multiple years. My OC has been around for twelve years.

As a child, I would spend literal hours deep diving into Cilan and his brothers. I would read fanfiction after fanfiction about them, studying up on the wiki about them, and in this obsessive deep-dive is how I discovered the Bulbapedia page that described the ship between Iris and Cilan: Wishfulshipping. One of my favorite things to do was read that page on repeat, then scroll through the episodes containing hints on Bulbapedia to read about them.

After being a diehard Team Rocket fan for multiple years, after Team Rocket was singlehandedly the reason I'd ever taken an interest in the Pokemon anime at all Cilan and the characters in the Pokemon B&W anime captivated me in ways that I could not explain as a child. I wanted to watch the anime, so badly, but I couldn't find a way to do so - not without risking being caught by my Mom.

Over the years, it's been the same routine. Return to the OC story idea, write about it for a bit, watch the anime, etc. My adoration was neverending and returned multiple times a year. Now that I'm writing it, Pokemon has always been an exception to the rule when it comes to my hyperfixations. The only other interest with potential for this to happen is the Kirby: Right Back at Ya anime. (But that's a story for another day and I have no experiences with that show that align with the experiences I've had with the Pokemon anime.)

I never considered once over the years that I may have had some sort of deeper connection with Iris. It always felt natural for me to ship her and Cilan together - two halves but when together, make one whole. It's honestly a bit difficult for me to get into hyperspecific details of how I came about even concluding that I could be Iris, but I'll say the thought first crossed my mind in early 2023. That's about as much as I feel comfortable saying so let's jump forward to the present!

I'll give you some insight into how I used to determine my kintypes. The first thing I'd look at were my own deep emotional connections to the characters in the media I was considered. I've since set higher standards for what I'd consider to be "deep emotional connections". What do I mean by this? I mean feelings that persist regardless of the passage of time.

I went through a pretty strong phase where I absolutely adored Jax from The Amazing Digital Circus. I'm fairly certain that has potential to come back as the series continues. I've run through my usual checks on the series, but I know I likely don't have a kintype in the series as I can't really reinvigorate the emotions I had toward Jax even while watching new episodes or listening to songs where he sings.

Compare that to Cilan, where seeing a picture of him revives my Pokemon obsession entirely. If it's not that, then at least once a month I'm passively thinking about the story I've worked on in my head for over a decade. And in thinking about the story, I think about Cilan and that revives my Pokemon obsession.

TO THIS DAY I STILL HAVE NOT SEEN A SINGLE EPISODE OF THE POKEMON ANIME BEYOND BLACK AND WHITE.

Well, okay, that's not entirely true. I've seen the Pokemon Journeys episode where Cilan appears. That's it. I haven't even seen the Masters Eight tournament :'D You know, the episodes where Iris is featured prominently?

You probably get the picture. So, I ran my usual emotional connection test and obviously there was something there. I went "Huh. Okay. Well, that's probably as far as that goes."

Not even a day later, I started getting Iris memories.

As I said earlier, I'm not somebody who easily gets memories. I tried so hard to meditate and otherwise just to get a glimpse into my life as Cozy Glow. Now I can be doing something as simple as washing the dishes and I'm seeing memories of my life as Iris that persisted far beyond the end of the anime.

I have memories of a complete shift in how the Unova Region was run, the rise of tag battles/double battles all because Cilan and I continued to tie in our Championship match. I have memories of a future beyond being the Champion, losing my position, and going off to be with Cilan. I have memories of a married life with Cilan. I have memories of the brothers giving up their Gym and pursuing their own desires in life.

When I did get memories in the past, it only extended to what was shown within the piece of media itself with a only a few anomalies like canon discrepancies. Never in my life have I EVER experienced something like this. I've never had a sense of homesickness before, but each and every day I find myself wanting to return to the Pokemon world. I know that time is gone now. While that world may persist, my soul's moved onto this life and I have to make the most of it.

Time moves forward regardless of where your soul may be.

It hasn't been easy coming to this realization. The homesickness and missing people from my life as Iris has been difficult to handle. I've found comfort in watching the anime, playing the Pokemon games, and recently: writing fanfiction. I speak to other people who have kintypes from the Pokemon anime occasionally, which is nice. It makes me feel a little less alone overall.

It's difficult being part of this life when I had such close people in my past life. I think I'd be a lot better off if I could find those people again and reconnect with them. Unfortunately, though, not many people have kintypes from the Pokemon anime. So I might be without canonmates for a while.

I'm fine with waiting. I know that with enough time, I'll see them again. I'll continue to exist and fully embrace who I am. Then, one day, maybe others will have their awakenings and find their way to me.

Until that day comes, I'll be here waiting, no matter how long it takes.

#Ko's words but longer #Fictotype Files #Otherkin #Fictionkind #Fictionfolk #30 days of Otherkin #Pokekin

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lodecoen-renaissance · 7 months ago

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Lode Coen • A New Digital Renaissance • by Dottore Salvatore Russo

The Renaissance was an artistic period between 1400 and 1500, characterized by the renewal of artistic language, which concerned architecture, sculpture and painting. The first to speak of "Renaissance" was Giorgio Vasari, who can be considered as the first art historian. The artists of the first Renaissance period were: the architect Brunelleschi, the sculptor Donatello and the painter Masaccio.

The artists of the Renaissance considered themselves the heirs of the great classical civilization and considered the previous artists (medieval) insignificant artists of a dark and barbaric period. They therefore looked not at Gothic but even at Greek and Roman works. The artists of the Renaissance considered it an obligation to go to Rome at least once.

They measured the buildings and drew the sculptures they saw, returned to Florence they showed them to those who could not go to Rome so that they could study them. Renaissance man places himself at the center of the world, in harmonious relationship with the surrounding reality, which he can understand and dominate with the right use of reason, scientific knowledge and the wisdom of tradition and the ancients.

Scientific progress also leads to the discovery and exploration of new geographical areas starting with the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492. The medieval idea of a cosmos ordered by divine will with the Earth at its center, as depicted in the Ptolemaic system, is thus overturned: man thus becomes a part of the universe, which acts and influences nature, but is also conditioned by it. It is the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) who first formulates the heliocentric theory, which will inspire Galileo Galilei (1564-1642).

In the art of Lode Coen we witness a return of the Renaissance, but this time in the "garment" of computer graphics, or a Digital Renaissance. During this “New Renaissance” by Coen, the human eye learned to know human and cosmic spaces and their laws by rediscovering their perspective structure.

Renaissance culture introduced into the figurative arts the increasingly accurate study of both human anatomy and man’s interiority, through the investigation of facial expressions and gestures; it is precisely from here that Lode Coen starts to create his works of art. In works such as “Adam & Eve” the artist takes us back to a hypothetical new “earthly Eden” where Adam is no longer represented by the classic “statuesque man” of Greece during the first Olympics, but is replaced with a modern “migrant” who, after having made a journey similar to that of Ulysses, lands, not on Ithaca, but on our land and finds his Penelope.

Even more evident is the key role that the concept of Human Anatomy occupies in Coen's works in the work "The Artist & his Model" where a painter is in front of his model and after having portrayed her he gives her a last look to try to bring the girl's soul into his drawing.

150 years after the birth of Surrealism, a work dedicated to this theme could not be missing; so Lode Coen decides to create a work that takes us to the rooftops of Paris to observe the flight of a woman who stretches her arms to the sky.

In his "New Renaissance" Coen gives a lot of space to themes typical of great French authors such as Moliere or Baudelaire.

In my opinion, Coen's work that tells us about an old man, now dying, destroyed by alcohol, alone and with a figure of a young she-devil in the background, could easily be compared to one of Baudelaire's most significant texts: "The Flowers of Evil".

This is one of the works that best expresses the complexity and depth of the human soul, addressing themes such as sin, death, decadence and the search for beauty. Baudelaire tries to extract beauty even from the darkest and most cursed experiences, giving life to a work that reflects the torment and rebellion of the author against the morality and social conventions of his time.

Lode Coen does not lack references to great French painters such as Delacroix. In his works "Liberté" and "Fraternitè" Coen takes us to the same scenario as the work "Liberty Leading the People" but changes the characters.

Next to "Liberty" he once again inserts a male figure, a young black man, holding a rainbow flag. The Belgian artist through these works shows us how computer graphics is making giant steps, but at the same time, without the genius and the human mind, nothing interesting could be created.

To the palette of colors, the canvas, and the brush, used in the Renaissance, Coen replaces computers, mice, and graphics processing programs.

In a contemporary world that has seen man arrive on the moon, and in a few years go to Mars, artistic evolution must go hand in hand, for this reason I find Lode Coen's research very interesting and certainly capable of conquering any observer.

Article written by Dottore Salvatore Russo (curator / art critic / art historian) for the catalogue/book for the solo exhibition in Paris 17-21 December

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flowersdaggersviolasandblood · 2 years ago

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Blood, Flesh, and Tears

Name: Torment (He/Him)

Race: Zariel Tiefling

Class: Paladin (Oath of Vengence)

Background: Haunted One

WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD!

After speaking with Jaheira and getting acquainted with Last Light Inn, the crew decided to go meet Isobel. After a brief conversation, we, of course, fought the traitorous Flaming Fist who attempted to take Isobel away. I was nearly tempted to let that happen, but because I decked out my peeps and just did too well lmao. However, the urge to harm Isobel was an ever present desire within Torment. With Last Light still standing, Torment agrees to reach Moonrise Towers and go renegade while also figuring out what magic was used on the parasites.

To further assist in our journey, the Harpers intend to ambush a traveling Absolute cult group who has access to a lantern that will help further against the darkness. This is where we are on the opposite spectrum of the fight between the Absolute cult vs the Harpers where we can fight with the Harpers instead of the Absolute cult. Once we obtained the lantern, I decided to let the pixie go, despite Torment wanting to kill the small creature.

While resting at camp, Mizora decides to pay us a visit asking that Wyll go free a devil that's currently trapped at Moonrise Towers. Unlike Pero, Nalanthar, and Admaer who were able to see that Mizora was in a desperate situation where she NEEDS Wyll to succeed; Torment is silly and wasn't to sus her out.

As he went to sleep, we got another visit from our imp-goblin butler.

Sceleritas Fel, ever the most dutiful butler, comes to use with a proposition that we should go after Isobel and murder her in cold blood. Despite Torments' arguments against this, Fel gives a warning against not harming Isobel as he reminds him of the fate of poor Alfira and how he killed her after spending so long not killing an innocent life. It's becoming a reoccurring theme that murdering those who deserve death isn't enough for Torment and his urge. He needs the blood of lambs, to torture and stomp out the hopes of innocents.

During another night after exploring for a bit, apparently, Wyll and Torment are on exceptionally good terms lol. Wyll offered a dance with Torment, and despite the Tieflings' push back, he joins Wyll. In Torments mind, he wants to experience a semblance of normalcy so dancing with Wyll, while it might've was making him sick because he wanted to snap the guys' legs, it did make Torment feel good. However, Torment saw the indicators that Wyll wanted something more from the relationship and silently refused his advances.

Afterwards, while speaking with Withers, Withers made note of Torment not having any maidens, which Torment expresses that he wouldn't want to burden anyone with his bloodlust.

While explore more of the Cursed Lands, we stumbled upon a curious sight! I've never met this individual with Pero since I explore the most of the Cursed Lands with her. They call themselves, He Who Was (We'll nickname them HWW) and they're hellbent on getting vengeance for some victims that were killed by a individual whom they were speaking with. The only thing is, the killer is already dead. But HWW wants to find further evidence of their crime so that they may be judged again. Torment agrees to help and places it in his back pocket to look for any clues about this past murderer. Also, HWW's bird is fucking hilarious XD.

While exploring, we also met the kid Oliver. Ok, imma admit, I had to look up a guide for this kid because I wasn't sure if I was doing anything right. I wasn't doing anything wrong, just looking in the wrong place since the answer to Arts' blight right now can be found at the House of Healing. But, for the sake of the future, I had Torment play hide & seek with the kid. As we inched closer to Reithwin, we rediscovered Rolan and saved his sorry hide. Much like Pero who wasn't taking his shit, Torment asked if it was better that he left Rolan to die. Regardless of the Tiefling's complaints, they ran back to Last Light Inn.

Once we reached the town, I made a beeline to go after Arabella because I thought I saw somewhere online where it's possible to save the girls' parents. After inviting her to camp, I immediately went to the side building not too far to see if I could save them. But nope, they're still dead. I even checked some game articles to see if I was missing something, but nope, poor girl is doomed to loose her parents apparently. Unless I'm missing something. Torment, like Pero, decided to be forth coming about her parents death, though he could've handled it better since he decided to speak in detail what happened to their corpses lol.

I decided to kill the nurse there and that might be want I will do on this gameplay with Torment and see how many of the Thorm family I can kill myself instead of telling them to KYS. Before ending this, Torment had a brief conversation with Astarion about his scars and whom else Cazador assaulted. Astarion talks about his other "brothers and sisters" and explains how he was the favorite of them all.

#baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 spoilers #bg3 spoilers #bg3: the dark urge #the dark urge #the dark urge: torment

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retrievablememories · 4 years ago

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matched | ten (m)

title: matched pairing: alien!ten x black!reader genre: sci-fi, angst, fluff, romance, smut summary: the quest for love leads you to a new dating app with a slight twist—and straight into the inbox of someone who’s light-years out of your usual dating pool. word count: 9.7k warnings: familial conflict, strained parental relationship, mentions of cheating, prejudice/discrimination based on species, body modifications/alien biology, unprotected sex, oral (female receiving), dom!ten, photography during sex, cumshot, squirting, some spanking a/n: as always, i lose all impulse control whenever i get a ten request so i have finished this sooner than i expected

i decided to lean more into the romance plotline than stress too much over the realism of the science-fiction elements with this fic, so there are some inaccuracies/impossibilities...but that’s fiction for you 🙃

AM 2074 (After Migration)

You are lonely.

Your last breakup did not end well, to say the least, and you haven’t dated for a while since then. It seemed like a smart move—a safe one—to shun all romantic relationships until you felt ready again. At the beginning, you were glad to be alone for a while, to regroup and rediscover yourself worrying about another person’s opinions on everything you did. To not have to deal with someone else’s drama.

The toll of not having companionship is gradually getting to you, though. Even if your last relationship was a mess more often than it wasn’t, you still long for those good moments, like going on night dates on the weekends and sharing pillowtalk into long hours of the early morning. You hadn’t realized how much you’d missed those things until all the emotions of it crashed down on you at once.

Your friend Malika claims to have a solution for your loneliness. Now, sitting at this outdoor cafe, you’re simultaneously eager and hesitant to hear what she has to propose, knowing her track record for silly plots.

With twinkling eyes, she looks at you and says, “You should try a dating app.” She clasps her hands together and puts them on the table like she’s made a grand announcement. You absorb her words for a few moments, looking out at the street across from you and watching cars—some hovering above the asphalt, some driven autonomously, and many still with human drivers—pass by.

You eventually sigh, your shoulders slumping. “That’s the big solution you called me out here for? People have been using dating apps for decades, that’s nothing new.”

“Exactly! The fact that they’re still popular even in 2074 is proof that they work, Y/N. You can put yourself out there and talk to dozens of guys without even meeting them in person. If one connection doesn’t work out, you don’t have anything to lose, and you don’t have to see the guy ever again.”

“Maybe I’ll lose my sweet time and patience during the process, though.”

Malika shakes her head and types something into her hologram pad, then holds it up for you to see. The hologram displays a dating app called matched—it reminds you of what Tinder was supposedly like before it became eclipsed by more advanced platforms, though that happened years before you were even born. “This one is kinda new, but it’s gotten popular fast and has good success rates. I’ve tried it before and met some nice guys. Give it at least one chance before you hate on it.”

“Ugh, I don’t know...there are always so many weirdos hanging out on those apps. What if I meet someone who keeps a collection of severed alien tentacles in an icebox in their house? Like that one guy who showed up on the news?”

“...Really?” Malika rolls her eyes. “You’re so dramatic. Stop getting in your own way and just take a risk for once.”

You shake your head at her optimism. “I’ll do it because I know you won’t leave me alone about it, but don’t expect me to find some great love story on this app.”

Once you download the app and start making an account, it becomes pretty obvious that this isn’t just a regular dating platform.

Choosing your gender and age preferences is normal enough, and you pass through those screens quickly until you get to one that gives you two new options.

➤ Species Preference ❐ Human ❐ Extraterrestrial

Whoa. Aliens? An alien-friendly dating app?

You weren’t overly familiar with the mechanics of dating apps, and you certainly didn’t consider that ones allowing aliens might’ve existed until now. It had been 15 years since the first contact with aliens was established, and a little less than a decade had passed since aliens began migrating to Earth and taking up permanent residence—and vice versa.

Humans had little problem with accepting aliens’ technological adaptations and claiming them as their own, though they were far less welcoming of the aliens themselves. That resulted in strained interactions between the two species, with aliens trying their best to assimilate and humans questioning their every motive. As far as personal relationships went, interspecies mingling between humans and extraterrestrials was still fairly uncommon—something that only people who were considered to be on the fringes of society participated in. There were “normal citizens of society” who built relationships with aliens, but many of them also kept it solely as a kink or fetish to be done only in the dark.

You decide to check both options. It feels a little scary, like diving headfirst into the unknown, but you are open to it either way. You’ve interacted with aliens before, both as kind acquaintances and near strangers, and they’ve always been relatively normal in the grand scheme of things—beings trying to survive and make a life for themselves like anyone else. Certainly not plotting how to take over Earth as many people have speculated. If they really wanted to, they possess the technology to have done that ten times over already.

You take a while trying to come up with a clever bio and spend an even longer time mulling over which pictures of yourself to choose, but you eventually complete your profile.

The first few matches you make are not very successful.

Whether it’s human guys feeding you terrible pickup lines or alien guys who can’t make it past the language barrier—or who ask you to move back with them to their home planet after two days of talking—you don’t see any potential love interests during your first two weeks of using the app.

You’re not sure what kind of skills Malika used to make multiple good matches, but maybe you need to interrogate her so you can sharpen your own. So you decide to do exactly that.

“Don’t give up on it just yet. Just be yourself—which also means not being afraid to cuss someone out if they come at you crazy. Some of these dudes lowkey like the mean girl shit, though, which is kinda weird.” Malika speaks from the shimmering translucent mirage of your hologram pad as you walk through the park one afternoon. She couldn’t make it out to meet you today, but you managed to snatch a moment to talk to her even if it couldn’t be face-to-face. “You probably shouldn’t expect to find a boyfriend in the first few days—”

“Girl, I don't think anyone was expecting that. Duh.”

“I’m saying, just give it time!”

“Okay, but listen. You didn’t tell me it’s also for aliens. Have you dated one before? You never told me!” You lower your voice then, not wanting anyone nearby to eavesdrop on your conversation and hear that part. You feel kinda bad for even thinking that way, but it’s hard to shake the stigma associated with interacting with aliens.

“Yes, and it was the best sex I ever had, but maybe I’ll tell you about that later.”

“Sis. Don’t withhold tea from me!”

“Someday when you’re not literally standing in the middle of the park, okay?” Malika shakes her head, smiling.

“Don’t forget about it, either.”

“I won’t. And you know what to do if you find a guy. I want to be the first to know!”

“Sure, sure. I wouldn’t hold my breath on it, though.”

You decide to spend some more time on the app after that conversation instead of just deleting it like you’d planned to initially. And one day, you get another new match that catches your eye out of the many others.

“Ten? Like the number…?” Besides the interesting name, you immediately see that he’s an extraterrestrial. From the Sommu race, as it says in his bio.

You click on his profile.

You’re a little surprised by how pretty he is, which isn’t to say the other aliens you matched with were all hideous. But he doesn’t have tentacles coming out of his face or two sets of eyes, either. The most noticeable thing about his alienness is his blue skin.

“Likes...dancing, art, music, okay so we have an artist type here...dislikes...fruit. Huh. That’s...interesting.”

The pictures of him on his profile are all deliberately artistic, as in they aren’t just some half-baked selfies he took with a hologram pad. You grow increasingly curious. It’s safe to say he’s either super into himself or just appreciates the art of good photography, and you figure there’s only one way to find out. You decide to take the first step and message him.

➤ Nice pictures :)

You don’t know when or if you’ll get a message back, since he’s not online when you send it, so you try not to get your hopes up too much. Maybe you should’ve tried to come up with something more cool and funny—nice pictures?—but you try to remember Malika’s advice and roll your eyes to yourself. There’s no point in getting stressed over a dude you don’t even know yet.

You eventually get a reply back from Ten.

➤ thank you 🙏 are you into photography too? you have talent for taking beautiful photos

You giggle quietly to yourself; another line, but it’s definitely one of the tamer ones you’ve received. Why not see where this one goes?

The first conversation you have consists mostly of the regular getting-to-know-you talk, such as your personal interests and favorite things. You get him to talk more about his photography hobby, which he’s eager to tell you all about—as well as his penchant for art.

To your optimism, you and Ten quickly get comfortable with each other. You soon forget about all the other potential matches you have, but those don't matter much to you anymore. So far, you’ve connected the most successfully with Ten, which means you’re more than glad to stop spending your time reading boring messages from guys who’ve only pretended to have things in common with you.

Things go so well, in fact, that he asks you to meet in person not long after you begin talking to each other.

For your first meetup, you decide to meet at a park nearby—the same one you’d been walking through the day you were talking to Malika about that very dating app. You and Ten have talked through the hologram pad on multiple occasions, so you’re more reassured that you’re not starting from scratch with some faceless being. Still, the thrill of seeing each other in person for the first time is undeniable.

“Y/N?” You turn your head at the sound of your name, and you see Ten walking towards you.

“Ten!” You give him a smile, waving at him. You feel a little more nervous than you usually would on a date, though you can’t tell if it’s the good kind of nervousness. You mostly chalk it up to not having been out with anyone in a while.

Ten’s just as pretty up close as he was in the photos and on camera, if not even more attractive; he’s breathtaking in the light of the sun. His hair is styled nicely, meticulously-place strands curling over his forehead, and his clothes perfectly outline his slim body. He looks pleased to see you, his lips curving into a coy smile.

“You could’ve given me a warning,” he says as he outstretches his arms to you. You hug him, but not without a questioning glance on your face. He is warm and smells good, like juniper, which almost makes you forget about your question.

“Warned you about what?”

“How you’re even more beautiful in person.” He says this at your ear before pulling away, and it makes the back of your neck bloom with heat.

“Oh, you’re laying it on thick.” You giggle nervously, shifting on your feet.

“Are you ready to go?” he asks.

“Yes, let’s go!”

You leave the park to go to an aquarium nearby, which is the biggest one in the city. You find out quickly that Ten is easily fascinated by the wide range of creatures there. Despite living on Earth for a few years now, he hasn’t seen a lot of them until now.

You walk through the blue-lit hallways together, surrounded by water everywhere you turn. You observe the different animals up close and from far away, reading information about them from the signs beside their tanks.

“What the hell is that?” Ten says through laughter, looking at the squished-up mouth of a stingray as it floats in front of the glass, baring its pale underside to you both.

“It’s a stingray!”

He scrunches his nose up. “It’s ugly. But kinda cute, too…”

You both end up staying at the aquarium longer than you expected, with Ten wanting to see practically every animal they had on display; plus, you got to see some you weren’t familiar with before either.

After visiting the aquarium, you go downtown—which is otherwise known as food truck central, where you can get pretty much anything you’re craving. This area is always quite busy this time of evening, especially on the weekends. Food in hand, you and Ten end up walking through a few of the quieter back streets where there’s not as many people—streets where the closely-packed buildings give way to the grassy yards and paved roads of nearby neighborhoods.

“Should we talk about our families now, or is it too soon?” you say jokingly. “You know, that seems to be the only thing we haven’t mentioned after talking about everything else under the sun.” You’re not entirely sure why you bring this up while knowing your own relationship with your parents isn’t great, but you are curious to hear about Ten’s family.

“I don’t really know mine,” he replies.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” You feel a little bad about it, thinking there was definitely a reason why he never mentioned the topic.

Ten looks confused for a moment before shaking his head. “No, it’s not like that. Sommu never form close bonds with their parents or siblings.”

You give him a curious look. “Why not?”

“Well, we aren’t born or raised the human way,” he explains. “Our parents have a bunch of us at once, raise us for the first couple of years, and then go off to reproduce again and continue the population.”

You’re startled at that. “Just for a few years? How do you survive?”

“We age faster...both physically and mentally. We become independent around 4 or 5 years old, and we can live without our parents.”

“That’s...definitely very different.” You try to wrap your mind around that information, though it’s difficult. Even with your not-so-healthy relationship with your parents, you couldn’t imagine having no family whatsoever at such a young age. You also can’t even begin to comprehend what it’d look like to be taking care of yourself at only 5 years old, fast aging or not. “But, you said a bunch at once...how is that possible?”

“We are formed inside things like eggs. It’s not like your form of childbirth. See?” And you become flustered when he lifts his shirt up to show his lack of a belly button, right there in the middle of the street.

“Uh, wow.”

“The human concepts of ‘family’ and ‘relationships’ are...very new to me.” He seems a little embarrassed to admit this. “That’s why I, um, joined a dating app, for more experience...I was told I need to learn to be more…” He searches for the word. “Im...pertinent?”

“...Empathetic?”

“Yeah, that.”

“So, did that come from a previous partner, or…?”

“Yeah, I’ve had two relationships since I’ve been here.” He seems wistful now, maybe a little sad. “They didn’t work out well. Maybe we were too different.” Before the mood can shift too far into negativity, Ten turns to you with a soft smile. “But maybe that’s not the kind of thing you want to hear while we’re on a date.”

You shake your head and smile. “I don’t mind, it’s interesting to know about.” More than interesting. You want to ask him a hundred more things about what his life was like when he first got to Earth. “Anyway, you can never have too many new starts in life. Let’s enjoy this one.”

At the end of your date, Ten walks with you back to your place. It’s almost midnight at this point, with you both walking all the way back from downtown. You’d drawn more than a few skeptical stares over the course of the day, but you both did your best to ignore those and just focus on each other.

“I’m really glad we got to go out today, it was fun,” you say, hugging your arms to yourself to shield against the cool spring breeze.

“I think I haven’t had that much fun in a while,” he agrees. Ten smiles wide then, the tip of his tongue sticking out from between his teeth, and you have to do a double take.

“What—”

“Oh, that. Sometimes I forget everyone doesn’t have this...” And when he sticks his tongue out, you see clearly now that it’s split halfway down the middle. Sort of like how a snake’s would be. “D’you like it?” His expression is wicked when he asks this, and a strange heat sweeps through your body.

“Wow.” You cringe at your lackluster answer, but that’s the only thing you can muster up at the moment, too busy internally questioning yourself. You’ve seen body modders with split tongues in documentaries and on the internet, but it’s never appealed to you like this before, and you don’t know what to do with that new realization.

“It’s okay, it takes some getting used to.” He gives you a smile that might be called innocent by anyone else, but to your eyes it’s quite obvious he’s proud about making you flustered.

“Getting used to...yeah, I’m sure.” There are about 15 different questions you want to ask him about that, too, but you aren’t going there on the first date.

“So...can I expect to see you again?”

“Of course.” You smile again at the hopeful note in his tone. “Just let me know whenever you want to go out again.”

Before Ten leaves, he places a hand on your shoulder and kisses you on the cheek. It’s a simple and short kiss, but it still makes you blush beneath your brown skin.

You wave goodbye to him from your doorstep as he goes, feeling like you’ve finally done something right for the first time in a long time.

You’d taken a chance with dating an extraterrestrial, someone so different from yourself and your species, and you figured it would be a new experience. Obviously. What you did not bet on, however, was the idea that you’d fall for Ten so fast.

After three months of dating exclusively, you feel like you could say you love him, which is frighteningly quick for you; though you don’t tell him this yet.

You’ve decided to bring him to meet your family. The idea frightens you, because your parents have never been very receptive to the aliens’ migration. But you are still holding out some hope that maybe they’ll realize all their assumptions were wrong, and that you’ve found a nice man who you love and who you’re sure loves you just as much. Whether he’s human or not shouldn’t matter.

You manage to set a date when all your schedules match up so you can bring Ten over to your parent’s house. Ten is nervous—more nervous than he was when you went on your first date—which you find a little surprising. You’ve gotten used to him being the one who you can lean on, who always seems to know the right answer.

“Do you think it will go well?” he asks, his tone implying he’s not confident of the answer.

“I hope so.” You give him a smile that you hope is reassuring and squeeze his hand.

When your parents open the door, there’s visible surprise on their faces. You’d already told them your boyfriend was not human, which drew doubtful responses when you first said it, but they’re acting as if they never knew that information—as if this is the first time they’re seeing an alien, period.

“Um…hi, mom, dad.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Ten says, though his own tone is overly formal, like he doesn’t know how he should speak. “I’m Ten.”

Your parents pause for a few moments longer. Finally, the awkward quiet is broken. “We thought you were just messing,” your dad says, though he steps out of the way to let you both come in, if a bit reluctantly.

“I—no.” You’re uncertain how to respond to that, though you don’t feel optimistic about what it entails. Your mother doesn’t say anything at all, just stares at you and Ten like you’re both strangers who’ve just waltzed in uninvited. She goes back in the kitchen to finish dinner once the door is closed, not saying anything to either one of you, and you already feel a cold pit settling in the bottom of your stomach.

Your dad sits in the living room with you and Ten, and another awkward silence ensues as your dad gives a stiff smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He clasps his fingers together and pulls them apart repeatedly, like they’ll give him the answers for what’s going on.

“This is just a fling, right? Of course you won’t be staying with this ma—” Your dad almost says man but then stutters, thinking maybe the term isn’t appropriate since Ten isn’t human. He makes a vague gesture to fill in the space of the missing word.

“It’s not a fling,” you say, feeling like you’ve had cold water poured down your back. You’re sitting straight and still on the couch, and it’s not comfortable, but you’re too tense to move. Ten is almost equally stiff beside you.

“Y/N, we just want you to make good decisions for yourself.” That’s what your dad says out loud, though the look in his eyes finishes the rest of that sentence: And I don’t think this is a good decision.

“I am,” you insist. “I don’t need to be told that over and over again.”

“Me and Y/N are happy together,” Ten explains, and your dad seems a little shocked that he’s decided to speak.

“Do you truly think you’re what she needs?” your dad asks. You’re not sure what makes you more angry; the question itself, or the fact that he keeps his tone non-accusatory and light, as if he’s only asking something like where do you work? Like the answer doesn’t matter because he’s already made up his mind.

“As long as Y/N wants to keep seeing me, there’s no reason to stop our relationship.”

A sound of displeasure comes from your mother in the kitchen, and your skin prickles. Your dad nods to Ten’s answer, but he does so in a way that conveys he just wants this conversation to be over rather than consider anything that was said.

You deeply regret not leaving straight after that failed discussion, but you soon find out just how bad it can get once you all make it to the dinner table. Your mother is chillingly silent for the first half of the dinner, acting like neither you nor Ten exist, while your dad attempts to make awkward small talk about how things are going.

There comes a point where you can no longer handle the cold sweat and the nerves, and you put your utensils down. Not that you had much of an appetite anyway.

“Why won’t you even talk to me?”

Your mother glares. “You can’t guess? What kind of question is that to ask?”

You falter. You don’t know why she always does this to you. Ask ridiculous rhetorical questions that you both already know the answer to. Now you must sit here and explain why you asked like it isn’t already obvious.

“I’m visiting after I haven’t been here in a while. With my boyfriend. I thought...I don’t know. The least you could do—” Your mother shakes her head at the word “boyfriend,” and you already know everything else you said went in one ear and out the other.

“I still don’t know why you didn’t just stay with Christian?” she interrupts. “He had a decent job, came to see us often, and was NOT an alien.”

“But he cheated on me,” you say, a sickness rising in you.

“That’s what men do sometimes, Y/N. You deal with it and move on. You’re supposed to be strong—fix whatever is making him do it.”

You and Ten exchange a tense look, and there is clear confusion whirling in his eyes, but you don’t say anything to each other. “That relationship is over. I’m trying to do something for myself for once, not whatever you think I should do.” Even saying those words makes you internally recoil, unsure of what the reaction will be, but you don’t take them back.

“You may be an adult but we’re still your parents. Frankly, you need to be with a man of your own race and species—not this blue Martian here. How would you even have kids?”

Ten gives a humorless laugh, like he wants to respond but doesn’t want to make the situation worse or offend you. “You know what, I should just leave,” he says abruptly, rising from his seat.

You get up quickly after he does, but your mom slams her hand on the table. “Y/N, you better not walk out of here.”

You feel defeated and exhausted, like you always do when dealing with your parents and their objections to every single thing you do, but you decide not to give in this time. “Stop treating me like I’m still a child, ma.”

“What does being an adult matter when you still act childish? Don’t come back here crying when this doesn’t work out. I’ve already warned you more than enough.”

“That isn’t going to happen.”

“So now you think you know better than me, when you couldn’t even keep a man the first time around.”

“This is hopeless,” you sigh, feeling wounded and angry at all these cheap shots.

“Y/N, please just listen to your mother for once…” your dad interjects, but you try your best to ignore their protests as you grab your things and follow Ten to the door. You can still hear your mother’s angry complaints as you close the front door behind you, though you’re surprised—but grateful—that neither of them attempt to follow you outside.

The ride back home is uncomfortable and mostly quiet.

“I’m sorry, Ten,” you say, feeling like you’ve been frozen from the inside out despite it being nearly summer. You’re near tears when you speak. Ten shakes his head, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

“It’s not your fault…” he replies weakly, though his words aren’t very persuasive to either of you.

He still walks you up to your door when you arrive back at your place, trailing slightly behind you. The night air is distractingly humid, wrapping around the both of you like a physical thing. Neither of you know what to say to each other.

When you get to your front door, you turn to look at him. “I shouldn’t have made you come. I should’ve known...”

“I wanted to come,” he points out. “You didn’t make me do anything.” Ten’s tone isn’t outright harsh, but the words are noticeably sharp. Maybe he realizes it, because his face softens as if he’s said something wrong.

You nod. It’s as if there’s a mountainous gap between you two that you just can’t cross right now. “I get it.” You say this almost mindlessly, because you’re not sure what you’re getting, exactly. Your hand rests on the doorknob. You don’t want to end the night on this awkward and painful note, but neither of you are making any progress with this lack of a real conversation. Maybe now isn’t the right time to try to talk about it.

“I think...I’ll just go home tonight.” You expected he’d say that, but the words still make your heart hurt, even if you don’t want them to. He looks like he might say something else, but he just gives you a small nod before starting off.

“Ten…” You don’t know what you want to ask of him or tell him, if anything, but his name slips from your lips like it’s something you can’t keep inside.

Ten stops for a moment and turns back to you. He steps closer again, leaning forward to give you a soft kiss on the lips. When he pulls back, his eyes hold you in place.

He mumbles, “I’m not mad at you,” before leaving.

More than anything, you want to know how Ten is doing, but you’re too ashamed to contact him for the first couple days after that mess of a night. Maybe he thinks you’re just like your parents and doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore. His reassurance at the door wasn’t enough to soothe your worries, and you end up tearing yourself up internally over it—repeatedly recalling the warmth of his lips and wondering if that’s maybe the last time you’ll ever feel it.

Similarly, nothing but radio silence comes from his end. He doesn’t respond even after you finally muster up the nerve to send him a text—a short text, but still a message all the same—and you fear he must really be done with you.

On Ten’s part, he does have one justification for it; he’s preoccupied with dealing with the avalanche of unpleasant memories and emotions that incident resurfaced. Everything about what your parents said and how they looked at him reminds him of his past and ongoing struggles with trying to assimilate on Earth.

Even though he’s often very sure of himself and what he wants, he begins wondering if he’s “enough” for you. Maybe you’ve just been humoring him this whole time, or you’ve decided your parents are right and you’d be better off with another human.

Those thoughts keep him up into the early morning hours, and he soon realizes he doesn’t want to let you go. In fact, he’s not sure what he’d do with himself if you decided to walk out of his life right now, and the idea of it makes him ill. Which makes him feel even more foolish for tuning you out.

Ten’s anxiety over losing you culminates in him standing on your doorstep again after almost a week of emptiness and not knowing how you were thinking or feeling—which has been killing him in its own way.

You’re not quite sure how to feel when you open the door and see him on the other side, but relief shoulders its way to the forefront.

“Y/N, I’m sorry—”

“Can you please—”

You both speak at the same time, your words breaking afterwards.

“You can talk first,” Ten says.

“Come in.” You let him in the door, and the words start spilling before you know how to stop them. “Ten, I-I’m...really sorry. I should’ve known better than to put you in that situation, but I thought…” Your words trail off. You don’t want to let him know just how desperate you still are for your parents’ approval sometimes. Even though it’s a fruitless case. “I just wanted it to go well. I want things to work now, for us. I really, really want things to work for us.”

Ten surprises himself with how quickly he moves to take you in his arms before the last words have even finished settling in his mind. He hugs you tightly. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want me anymore,” he whispers, like he’s telling you something forbidden.

“That couldn’t happen.” You’re saddened he’d come to that conclusion. “But...it’s not fair for you to leave me in the dark, either. I want to help you...so would you please let me?”

Ten squeezes you a bit tighter, as if you might disappear from his arms. “I’m sorry I ghosted you...it brought back bad memories of how things were when I first got here. When people were more open about treating me like some kind of enemy. I didn’t know how to deal with it.” You tuck your chin into his shoulder and listen to his breathing, his heartbeat, the sound of his words. “Y/N, I’m not sure if I’m very good at love, or if I even know enough about it. Maybe the others were right and I’m kidding myself with something I’ll never properly learn. But, I…” His voice cracks. “I-I think I love you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Entirely overwhelmed, you answer his admission with a long kiss, cupping his face in your hands. His response to your kiss is automatic, the knots of tension unraveling in your embrace.

“I love you, Ten,” you whisper against his lips after you separate. Here and now, it doesn’t feel too soon at all; there couldn’t be a better time to say it. His expression is a lot of things at once. Relief, happiness, contentment...he’s blushing, but it shows up as a darker blue on his already blue skin. When he smiles, it turns his whole face into a picture of joy.

“I want to go away.” Quietly, you tell him this as you rest your head in his lap.

You’re both lying on your couch, the room dim and the sound of rain occupying the silence. A downpour started coming down soon after Ten got to your place. You’ve sat there just like that and listened to the rain on the windows for the past couple hours, not wanting to do anything else or separate from each other. You knew he wouldn’t want to go home, and you didn’t even have to ask him to stay.

Ten’s been petting your hair the whole time. The motion of his fingers in your kinky strands makes you sleepy, but now the movements pause at your words.

“Go where?” he asks.

“Away from all this. My parents hate me, and they won’t let me have any peace as long as I’m with you. I just want to go away for a while.” Despite you overflowing with love after finally getting your feelings out in the open, the thought of your parents’ disapproval has lingered steadily in the recesses of your mind. You close your eyes against the tears that begin to well up. Ten’s quiet for a few more moments, and then begins stroking your head again.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

A few tears fall despite you trying to keep them in, and your eyelids flutter when you feel Ten’s fingers on your face, wiping them away. “Then we’ll go away.”

Ten’s homeland is a planet where the sun—or rather, a star called Proxima Centauri that’s much like the sun—is always out, no matter what time of day it is. There are days where it rains or gets cloudy, but night never falls and the star never dips any lower in the sky, always staying pinned in that same spot like a tack on a corkboard. That everlasting light throws your body clock off, and combined with this weird new form of jet lag associated with space travel, you are a mess for the first week or so after your arrival.

Ten makes a few jokes about fragile human bodies, but for the most part he tends to you as best as he knows how and tells you stories about how he grew up to get your mind off the discomfort. He feeds you these neon green drinks that don’t look like anything on Earth you’ve had before, and although they do make you feel better, you begin to think maybe you should’ve had a wellness plan before running off-planet.

You aren’t the only human who’s ever visited or even lived there, though, which gives you reassurance about adjusting to everything. By now, there’s a small population of human beings living here due to the interplanetary exchange initiated by Earth.

Before you left, Ten told you he had a small home in his homeland. You didn’t quite expect to hear this, since he’d been on Earth for a while now and had no family to return to. Though he’d migrated, he still expected to come back to his planet every so often, if only to visit. Now was as good a time as any.

Although many differences exist, the scenery is much like Earth’s; there are ecosystems with plants and animals and other living beings—like the Sommu themselves. Ten’s homeland is not filled with wall-to-wall technology like you’d expect an alien city to be, based on the small examples you’ve seen on Earth. You might compare it to the tropics back on Earth, with the Sommu yielding to nature’s rightful place in their ecosystem instead of clearing out whole forests or continually mining for resources. Ten is amused by your struggle to comprehend the newness and unfamiliarity of it all.

When you feel good enough to explore, he starts taking you to the beach often. It looks mostly like any other beach, but there are large coral forms that grow out of the ocean, reaching up towards the impossibly blue and constantly illuminated sky. Because there is no moon to guide the tides, the water is eerily still, the surface mirror-like—like a huge lake or pond that extends in almost every direction for miles. You’d almost believe it was a mirror if you hadn’t seen a bird-like creature skimming across the surface as it flew by, creating fleeting ripples.

You swim around a little in the still waters after Ten convinces you that you aren’t going to turn into a fish or something equally scary. He has to hold both your hands the entire time to get you to step in, and he doesn’t let go until you’re confident enough to explore the water on your own.

“Just focus on me, okay?” His smile is bright and shining against his blue skin, and he looks you directly in the eyes as he backs into the water, breaking the surreal stillness of it with his movements. “It’s just like the water on Earth.”

“Okay, okay,” you say uncertainly, gripping his hands and stepping in tentatively. The water does feel like any other water you’ve touched throughout your life, which helps you calm down slightly. His hands stay tight around yours as you get waist-deep into the water.

When you’re finally able to let go of him, he claps his hands more enthusiastically than the situation probably calls for. “Yay, you’re a big girl now!”

You roll your eyes at him. “You’re not funny, Ten.”

On a bright afternoon, Ten lets you into a room of his house you haven’t entered before. You’ve passed by this shining white door several times, but it’s always remained firmly shut until now.

“What’s in here?” you ask as you hold his hand.

“That’s what I’m going to show you.” He laughs and pushes the door open.

You think it’s a darkroom at first, seeing nothing but dim light and the shiny surfaces of what looks like photographs as your eyes adjust. But when he touches his hand to a panel on the wall and the lights come on, you realize it’s not a darkroom. More like a small gallery for all his pictures.

The “pictures” are physical, but they aren’t like the old Polaroids or film photos that have begun fading out of existence on Earth. They’re small crystalline squares that play eternally-moving videos on their glossy surfaces—a bit different from the translucent holograms Earth adopted. You step further into the room to look at them. It’d probably take days to explore them all, there are so many. Different scenes play out as soundless movies, and when you look for long enough, you realize they’re split into different categories. Numerous events within a life.

Many are of the beach, other scenic places around his homeland, oddly-shaped buildings, and plants in colors that there are no names on Earth for. You step closer to one of the walls to look at the collection of images more closely. You actually do “recognize” a select few, linking them together with old memories Ten had shared with you only weeks ago. There’s so much happening in these small snippets of time, so many stories you haven’t yet heard, that you feel like you could look at them forever and not get enough.

“This is...something else.” Your words seem inadequate, but you don’t quite know how to express your sheer wonder.

“I could take some of you,” Ten suggests, from somewhere behind you. “I want to.”

You glance back at him. “Hm, yeah.”

“I’m serious.” Ten comes up behind you to clasp his arms around your waist. He tucks his chin into your shoulder. His lips are close at your neck, and you let them linger there. One of your hands goes to his own hand that’s over your waist, and you run your fingertips over his knuckles as you gaze at the photo wall before you. “I think you’d be the perfect muse.”

“You could do that.” You’re still entranced with it all, and you already know you’ve made up your mind to let him take as many photos of you as he wants.

The next time you go to the beach, Ten takes some photos of you standing near the huge coral forms—or at least as close as you are willing to get—and he laughs at your lingering hesitation.

Still, the crystalline photos he takes of you are the embodiment of perfection. When you look over them later, watching yourself twirl around and strike silly poses in the water, you can almost hear the sound of your laughter twining together and feel the warmth of a star that’s not the sun on your skin.

“What if we stayed here?”

You ask Ten this while you’re lying in his bed, watching a kaleidoscope of shapes on the ceiling. The bedroom window is open to allow the breeze to come in. The ceiling of the bedroom—and every other room in the house—is more like an ever-changing reflection of shapes and colors than an actual ceiling. You might compare it to a mirror, like the surface of the ocean, but you think it’s much more complex than that. Sometimes you can see the distorted outline of yourself in it, like a funhouse mirror. Other times, you see the sky above.

Ten lies beside you with one hand behind his head and the other resting on his stomach, and he turns his head to look at you.

“Stayed?”

“If we just decided not to...go back to Earth.”

He pauses for a few moments. “Is that a good idea? You have a whole life there...and your friends…” Ten doesn’t mention your family, which you are grateful for.

You sigh. Nothing like a quick injection of reality after letting your imagination get ahead of you. “We’d have to go back. I’d have to tell them goodbye. And sort some other things out. Maybe it wouldn’t happen right now. But, after I do everything I need to do on Earth...maybe I could migrate here.”

“That’s a big decision to make...and it should be yours to decide.” Ten pauses again, like he’s weighing his words. “You know I don’t have many connections on Earth…” In other words, leaving Earth and returning home for good might not be as big of a deal for him as it would be for you.

You sit up and look out the window, seeing how the warm wind stirs the trees outside. “I want to.” You say it almost inaudibly, your words nearly carried off by the breeze. You turn back to him only to find him already there, sitting across from you and looking at you closely. Your faces are only inches from each other’s as he searches your eyes. “What do you want to do?”

“I’ll do anything you want to.” Ten’s voice is earnest, like he’d follow you to Hell and back if you asked, and you believe him.

Resting your hand on his cheek, you kiss him.

This kiss is a little different from the ones you’ve shared before—more yearning. More desperate. You kiss like there won’t be enough time to do all the things you want to do with each other—to each other. His split tongue bumps against yours, caresses it, and it causes a shiver to go down your spine, like it always does.

You end up lying back on the bed again with Ten’s body crowding yours in, legs tangling together and hips pressing against one another’s. Neither of you have made a move to take the other’s clothes off yet, but then he separates from your lips for a long moment and studies your features, from your eyebrows down to your mouth.

“Touch yourself for me.”

Your mouth drops open slightly.

“I want to see it.” He takes one of your hands and guides it up under your skirt and between your legs, pressing your fingers against your sex through your underwear, and you look at him with wide eyes, taking a deep breath. He lets go of your hand, and you keep yours right where it is. You’re slightly nervous about his black gaze trained on you, unrelenting and prying, but you begin to move your hand anyway.

Over your underwear, you press your finger between your lower lips, sliding between them and over your clit, and a little tremor goes through your body. You find yourself getting wet more quickly than you normally would with Ten watching you as you tease your entrance. You breathe a little heavier but make no sound yet. One of Ten’s hands reaches out for your ankle, though he doesn’t do anything other than keep his fingers there, a light touch that keeps passing back and forth over your ankle bone.

You circle your fingers across your clit more insistently, your legs tensing as the pleasure mounts higher. Ten’s lips part as he watches you, a heavy breath escaping from his chest. The hand on your ankle slides higher up your leg, just below your thigh, like he wants to slide his fingers into the mix and take over, but he doesn’t make a move to do so just yet.

Finally, Ten reaches under your skirt to pull your sticky panties off, sliding them slowly down your legs and leaving them somewhere on the floor. You want him to touch you again, the brush of his hands against your hips not enough, but he doesn’t grant your desire. “Keep going,” he says, leaning back on his hands, and you can see he’s growing hard.

You bring your hand back to its original place between your thighs, sliding through the wetness more easily and shuddering when your fingertips graze over your clit. You slide a finger into yourself then. A small moan slips out, and you close your eyes, but Ten’s fingers pinch your chin—not enough to hurt, but the sudden touch makes you look at him. “Keep your eyes open.” His thumb presses into your lower lip, and he stares at your mouth for a moment like he’s imagining sliding something hard and hot between your lips.

Ten kisses you on the lips again, and this time he trails the kisses down your body until he’s gripping your thighs on either side of his face. You pause in your movements when he reaches the junction of your thighs, and you watch as he grabs your hand and slips your finger out of yourself. He sucks the slick digit into his mouth, and you cannot tear your eyes away from him.

He lets your hand go and pulls you a few inches closer to his face, dragging you across the bed, and you can barely get your bearings back to sit up again when he slips his tongue through your lower lips. You moan, and he responds to that by repeating it again, catching your clit between the split in his tongue, and wiggling both sides.

“Oh Jesus...oh fuck.” Your hands go to Ten’s hair, pulling on it as you push your hips closer to his mouth, your back curving up. He is alluring tucked between your thighs like this, teasing and sucking your clit with his split tongue and prodding his fingers at your hole until he chooses to slide two of them inside.

His free hand keeps you close against his face as he eats you out, that wondrous tongue sliding against the most sensitive part of your body and making you gasp with boundless pleasure. Little droplets of moisture bead at the corners of your eyes from how good it feels, your stomach tensing and releasing as you try your best to keep still.

He has to keep his grip on your body tight when you come, as you try to squirm away from his tongue because of how stimulated you are. He only lets you go after he’s satisfied himself with licking up all the wet that’s spilled from you.

Then he strips your skirt off for you, because he knows you’re not quite in a state to do it for yourself right now. He peels the rest of your clothes off similarly, which doesn’t take much time or effort to do; you’ve dressed lightly for the weather.

Ten looks at you lying beneath him on the bed, his gaze stuck somewhere between awe and lust.

He slips out of his own clothes with a certain practiced ease. Yes, he’s really blue everywhere. He looks mostly human-like everywhere, too, except for the lack of a belly button.

Ten kisses you deeply as he slips into you, and you clutch at his sides. He tries to keep his pace slow at first, maybe for your sake or to just savor how it feels, but he gives into the feeling of you squeezing around him and starts thrusting into you faster. There is already sweat sliding down to his jaw, though you think it might be because of the heat, too.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” comes out of you in a voice you hardly recognize as your own.

His pelvis sliding against your clit from the proximity of your bodies makes you curl your fingers into the strands of his hair, wanting to touch every part of him you can. His lips go to the sweat-slicked skin of your shoulder, leaving little wet kisses behind as he wraps an arm around your waist and simply fucks into you, his shaft dragging against your walls.

He eventually separates himself from your neck, though it comes with some effort, to gaze at your face again. However, he finds that your eyes have drifted shut.

“Do you wanna come?” Ten asks, softly, gently, like you might break apart if he speaks too loud.

You’re a little winded from how he’s thrusting into you and can’t yet see the motive behind this question—because of course you do—but you answer with a shaky “I-I want to.”

“Then don’t look away from me.” His voice becomes harsher on these words.

“I…” Your lips move without any real words behind them as he thrusts into you harder, sinking all the way into you before pulling out to the tip. You want do what he’s just told you, but you find it difficult with the way he’s intent on burying himself into you, his eyes piercing into your own. “Mmm, I-I…”

You don’t know if you can, but the way he’s kindling your rising heat with each thrust makes you want to try very, very hard. Ten keep his hands on the sides of your face so you cannot look anywhere but at him.

The pleasure bears down on you more with each second, and you try to keep your breathing steady as another climax approaches.

“You’re almost there, come on baby,” he coaxes you, sloppily kissing the corner of your mouth before slipping his tongue in again. The way you gasp against his lips and tighten around him signals him to your orgasm, and he sits back to watch it play across your face, smirking at how you moan his name desperately.

Ten’s continued thrusts make you shiver from the flood of sensations overcoming your body, and you whimper at his movements until he pulls out and comes on your abdomen.

Ten gives you time to recover after you come down from your second orgasm, though he makes sure to lay a few more enamored kisses on your weakened body. He gets off the bed and exits the room after that. You don’t bother to ask where he’s going, because you know he’ll be back anyway.

When Ten comes back, he has his camera with him. The teasing tilt of his lips never leaves his face as he points it towards you. He takes a photo of you lying on his bed nude, with the breeze coming in and rustling the tree leaves and your hair, your skin shining bronze under the light of the eternal star. Then he comes closer, making the bed sink under his weight, and nudges your legs apart. He takes more photos of your lower stomach glistening with sweat and his cum—and photos of him sliding his slender fingers between your thighs and bringing you careening into another bout of euphoria.

The camera is soon forgotten after you come again. Ten climbs fully back onto the bed now and pulls you into his lap. His dick is hard again, and the length of it nudges against your lower lips, making you whimper from how sensitive you still are. He shushes you with a kiss and lifts your hips so he can slide into you, his shaft nudging that soft spot inside you and making you grip onto his arms.

You’re too mushy and dazed to do anything but let him push his hips up into you while you cling to him, your head lolling back. Ten’s mouth goes to the open expanse of your neck, and he wets your skin with his tongue.

The kaleidoscope of shapes above you on the ceiling morphs into one glistening reflection, throwing the blurred shapes of your bodies back to you. It’s like looking through a dense fog. You’re a little caught off guard by it, and you stare up at your nude forms. Ten looks up as well to see the cloudy figure of you cradled in his lap, and he only grins and thrusts up into you harder and smacks your ass in reply.

He grinds into you while he has you sitting full on his dick, and you think he must have set off your internal “reset” button somewhere between landing slaps on your ass and repeatedly hitting your g-spot. Your mind is blissfully, amazingly blank. The only clear thing you can distinguish is how he feels in and around you.

When you come this time, it comes with a gush of wetness that makes Ten whisper several smug praises into your ear for being such a good girl and making a mess on him.

As you quickly find out, Ten’s refractory period seems to be nonexistent, while his stamina is overflowing.

Ten knows how to mix the pain with pleasure in a way that enhances both feelings, and you don’t know if you’ve ever experienced anything more perfect. One moment, he’ll say something romantic and fairytale-like to you before shoving your head into the pillow and taking you from behind in the next moment, pulling one of your arms behind you for leverage as he thrusts into you hard. You want him to do whatever he desires to you, and so you let him hammer into you until you think your hips and ass will be bruised by the next morning.

You’ve never knew that sex could be so carnal and so loving at the same time, but this is all of those things, and it makes you feel so full that you could split at the seams. You scream, cry, and moan more times than you can count, so enveloped by pleasure that it seems like the atoms of your body will simply dissolve from the intensity.

When you both finally become too exhausted to continue, it’s still daytime. Of course. But Ten draws the blackout shade forward and seals all the light out, and so you know it must be time to sleep. Time blends together here. Even if it’s not yet the midnight hour, it will be as long as you deem it so.

“Come here,” he says, and rolls you over on the bed so you don’t have to sleep in the wet spot. You grin in sleepy amusement against his neck as he hugs you to his body. “Let’s stay right here.”

You know he’s talking about sleeping for the next few hours, but you can also imagine he’s referring to your new life—one you’ll create together.

302 notes · View notes

let-them-read-fics · 5 years ago

Text

Home For The Holidays

Pairing: Lisa x Fem!Reader

Word Count: ~ 3,335

Warnings / Misc. -- Potentially Lethal Fluff, Crying, Holiday Themed

Disclaimer: This writing is a work of fiction, and no disrespect is meant for those mentioned herein.

A/N: Hey everybody! This idea came to me out of nowhere, but it’s definitely gotten me into the holiday spirit. I hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think.

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

“Babe, have you seen my beanie?” Your question rings throughout the air, carrying across the apartment in search of Lisa. Just as you get your earrings put in, her reply comes through: “Mhm, it’s in here.” Before setting off to grab it, you take a long look at yourself in the mirror: the nervousness that you’re harboring is decently masked for the moment, but you pray that your composure doesn’t slip in the next few hours -- after all, that would surely spoil the fun that you have in store for Lisa.

“Aha!” You declare, sliding the material onto your head. She stifles a chuckle, which prompts you to look at her. When you do, all of the air in your lungs swiftly leaves your body; she looks absolutely stunning. She chose a simple outfit, consisting of a regular pair of jeans and a cozy sweater, but she makes it look designer.

“I’m convinced that you can make any and everything look good.” You tell her earnestly, once some of your thought processing skills have returned to you. With a roll of her eyes, she engulfs you in a hug; her perfume washes over you, and you fall into her embrace.

“I love you.”

Even after hearing those words from her as many times as you have, they still managed to send your heart wild. You hide your face in her neck, loving the cute squeal she lets out as you pick her up and twirl her around.

“I love you, jagi. So much.” Her eyes find yours, and the moment is perfect.

~~~~~~~

“Keep them closed! We’re almost there.”

“You’ve been saying that for the past 5 minutes.”

“Just trust me!” You laugh at her impatience, keeping your grip on her thighs steady as you make your way towards the restaurant. She lets her head lay beside yours, resting it on one of her arms that’re wrapped around your shoulders. In any other circumstance, she would’ve been whining more by now; this time, however, she didn’t mind waiting a little longer, considering she was comfortable and content, currently receiving a piggy back ride from you. In competition with the frigid air rushing around, your bodies work to keep each other warm.

After a little more walking, you finally reach your destination.

“Reservation, please?” The hostess requests upon your entrance.

“L/N.”

You gently set Lisa down, back on her feet again, and tell her to open her eyes. The expression that takes over her features is priceless, and you pat yourself on the back for having the foresight to book a table here so far in advance. The holidays always made it difficult to get in anywhere in the city without a reservation, and this restaurant is no exception -- in fact, it’s one of the hardest to get into. After hearing about the reviews, the two of you had been dying to try it out.

“Right this way, ladies.” The hostess says, and you fall in line behind her. Lisa links her arm with yours, and she begins ranting about all the different foods she wants to try.

~~~~~~~

The view from your table is unbelievable; seated next to a row of large windows, you can see the entire city before you, throngs of people walking about, enjoying their night out. You take a minute to think of all the possible things they could be doing, what routes they’re going down, each of them having a unique and beautiful story playing out in front of you.

Against your palm, the surface of the window chills your skin. Once you remove your hand, you see the imprint of it on the glass; a reminder that you had been there.

Lisa notices this, and leans towards the window; at first, you were confused, but soon your heart melts at her actions.

She releases a breath against it, the warm air prepping the surface for her artwork; her finger -- the very one that you’re wrapped around -- draws a heart, complete with your initials and hers inside of it.

“You’re the cutest,” she gushes, looking over your features. You can feel how dopey you look, completely in love and in awe by her. You can’t blame yourself, though.

Her hand finds its way to yours on the table, just as it always does, and you bring it to your lips. She grins at the feeling of your lips pressed against her knuckle, and her heart skips a beat. Both of you are completely whipped for each other, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

~~~~~~~

Stuffed and satisfied with the special anniversary meal you just consumed, you and Lisa make your way out of the restaurant. Next up on the agenda for tonight: ice skating.

~~~~~~~

Waves of fresh snowflakes flurry around the two of you, seemingly in a tango with the breeze that’s drifting by; two lovers rediscovering one another. Her hand is warm within your own, the mittens on your skin keeping the harsh temperatures at bay.

The gentle scraping of your skates can be heard against the ice, little patterns trailing behind in your wake. Yellow and white lights are strewn across the sides of the rink, offering a dazzlingly cozy aura, and you take them in. They remind you of the stars in the night sky, shining brightly, a certain unique twinkle held within each and every one of them.

Lisa gives your hand a squeeze, her silent way of requesting your attention.

“Yes, my love?”

A light blush rises to her cheeks as she begins speaking; you’re amazed that she still reacts to your pet names like that, just as she had when you first started dating. It’s adorable, and you can’t get enough of it.

“Let’s grab some hot cocoa, I’m getting a little cold.”

“Alright, last one there has to clean the litter box tonight!” The last part of the sentence leaves your lips in a rush, an attempt to stall her and give yourself a bit of a head start.

“Uh! Hey!” Her shocked exclamation quickly fades as you dash away from her, set on getting to the stand first.

~~~~~~~

Now armed with your warm beverages, the two of you skate over to the bench positioned directly outside of the rink. Conveniently, the seat is equipped with a heater, and Lisa pulls you in tight.

“Mmm, it’s good.” You tell her, taking another sip. She had spent the trip over here pouting at her defeat.

The two of you carried on with light conversation, reveling in the feeling of having each other so close. The city’s atmosphere was always different around this time of year, the holidays adding an extra charm to everything, no matter what it was. You would be content with doing absolutely nothing, so long as you had Lisa by your side -- and she felt the same way about you. Perhaps that’s why your relationship was so strong; genuine love and understanding ran true in every aspect, and you could never seem to get enough of each other. You still felt the same as you did at the beginning: the happiness upon waking up next to her, that excited blush when she told you she loved you, that familiar rush of desire from your passionate nights spent together -- all of it. She’s everything you’ve ever wanted and more, and you feel beyond blessed to have the privilege of calling her yours.

The night had been perfect so far; memories being made that would surely last a lifetime. The thoughts raced in your mind, swirling around just like the snow had before. They were only stopped by the feeling of her soft lips pressing against your cheek in a sweet kiss.

“Thank you for tonight. I’m so happy.” She leans her forehead against yours, and you brush her nose with your own.

“Of course. There’s no one I’d rather do this with.”

Her eyes are shining with affection, and you nearly get lost in them. Before you can, you stop yourself; your plans for this special night are long from over.

“How about we walk around a bit? I saw more trees and light designs on the way here and I wanna check them out.” She happily agrees, and the two of you change back into your boots before returning the skates. You slip an arm around her shoulders as you begin your journey, and she settles against your side.

You had remembered correctly -- after a short walk, you find the hub of activity from before; a whole block of the city is filled with different vendors and booths, a wide array of services offered. The area is a holiday bazaar, groups of merry people roaming about, lighting up at the different things to do.

Trees line the square, decorated beautifully with various lights and ornaments, their toppers reaching high up into the sky. The moment is too perfect to let slip by, so you retrieve the camera from your bag to capture it all. Lisa cuddles in close to you, smiling widely as you turn the device around to take a selfie of the two of you.

One mini-photoshoot later, you begin your exploration of the square. Quickly, you discover what the places have to offer: some hold arts and crafts, others have face painting, snacks, and even eggnog chugging contests. You grimace at that last one, seeing a group of what appears to be frat boys stumbling around nearby.

Upon spotting a special booth in the distance, you’re quick to remember your reason for suggesting coming here in the first place: Lisa’s next surprise. You do well in acting cool and calmly bringing her attention to the area, being careful not to blow your cover. It doesn’t take much convincing to have her trailing along after you, her hand snuggly tucked into yours.

The booth in question sticks out among the others, a bit out of place in what it offers: for $5, you get the opportunity to knock the city mascot into a dunk tank. The money goes to charity, and everyone has fun in the process. Win-win, right?

The second that you approach the counter, your heart begins racing feverishly -- the plan is coming together. “Just the $5 option, thank you.” You request, and the clerk hands you the balls: $5 gets you 5 opportunities to dunk the mascot into the chilly water below. As you walk over to the tank, you’re afraid that Lisa can see your nervousness; she’s always been able to read you well.

Luckily for you, though, you know just what to do to throw her off your tracks: you pull her in, guiding her lips to your own in a tender kiss. She places her hand overtop of yours, against her cheek, and her fingers lace with yours. She sighs against you, and you smile. Mission accomplished. Before things can get too heated, you pull away, setting the weapons of choice into her hands. “Good luck,” you whisper into her ear, a chill running down her spine at the lowness of your voice.

~~~~~~~

After 3 misses in a row, she’s beginning to get discouraged.

“Ahh, this is rigged!”

As you open your mouth to reply, your phone begins to ring. Right on time. You suppress the smile playing on your lips -- a task much easier said than done -- and tell her that you’ll be right back.

You pretend to answer your phone as you return to the counter, making eye contact with the clerk.

“Are they ready yet?”

“Almost. They’ll be right out.” He smiles back at you, happy to see something like this about to go down. The holidays truly are a magical time of the year.

The moment is interrupted by Lisa’s father walking out of the back room and into your line of sight. “How do I look?” He asks no one in particular, and receives a whistle from his wife, who is also making her way out of the room.

You beam at them, so excited to be with them again. “Those suits look great on you guys.” You tell them, fanning yourself to add to the comical effect. They don the same outfits as the mascot sitting in the tank.

“Alright, so does everyone remember what to do?” You ask, eyes darting between them.

“Once she dunks him, we run out and celebrate.” Lisa’s mom looks to you, waiting for your reassurance of the plan.

“Exactly. Any questions?”

“No, but hurry her up. This outfit is itchy.” You can’t help but chuckle at her father’s words; now, a little weight lifted off of your chest, you make your way back to Lisa.

“There you are! Who was that?” As much as you hate lying to her, you think it’s safe to bet that you’ll easily be forgiven.

“Just someone from work, lame business stuff.”

She accepts your answer right away, and turns the topic back to her mission. With you by her side once again, she resumes her efforts.

After an eternity of careful deliberation and tense preparation, Lisa chucks the next ball through the air; a loud whoosh sound follows behind it, and you hold your breath.

Time seems to move in slow motion; the ball collides with the target, sending confetti into the air and retracting the seat beneath the mascot. Soon he’s submerged in water, everyone in close proximity to the booth now cheering loudly. Lisa turns to you, her arms above her head in triumph, a winning smile on her lips. You lift her up in celebration, and smile against her as you nuzzle your face in the crook of her neck.

With a quick peek over her shoulder, you spot the two “mascots” approaching; you swiftly set her down and attempt to contain your excitement.

Her mother taps her on the shoulder, grabbing her attention. She offers her daughter a balloon -- the customary prize for winning -- and claps when she takes it. Her father gives her a thumbs up and a pat on the head.

As she turns her attention to you, shooting you a look of confusion, her mother stands behind her and removes the mascot head. The subsequent smirk that you don lets Lisa know that something is up, and she spins around once again.

Upon seeing her mother’s face, she drops to the ground, quickly becoming a mess of tears and emotions. The situation is only heightened when her father removes his mask as well, bending down to wrap his wife and daughter up in a long-overdue embrace.

The sight before you has you in tears within an instant; opportunities like this are rare for Lisa, and you feel honored to be the reason for this little reunion. You release a silent thank you to your past self for having the foresight -- yet again -- to squirrel away some money. Something back then had told you you’d need it, and you were beyond thrilled that you had trusted your gut.

Perhaps it was your imagination, but you could’ve sworn that everything shined a little brighter now. The snow sparkled in some majestic way, and the city lights worked together to create a beautiful picture, contrasting with the dark mountains that resided in the distance. Nothing could compete with the view in front of you, though; especially when Lisa raised a hand in your direction, calling you over to their little huddle.

The four of you held each other tightly, simultaneously sobbing and wiping away each other’s tears. No one spoke for a while; everyone was too emotional and content with the happy silence to do so.

Besides, what could she say to you? Lisa knew automatically that you had been the one to arrange all of this and raise the money to get them a flight out. What could she possibly say to repay that? You’re her world, and she’s so happy to have you in her life. People like you are rare, and she cherishes you more with each day you spend together.

None of you really kept track of how much time had passed, but you had made your way into one of the enclosed tents, seeking shelter from the cold and dying to fill each other in on all that's happened since your last visit.

You watch them in awe, loving the way that they light up when they talk to each other. It warms your heart, the way they're all holding hands and looking at each other with so much love. It’s easy to see that this is just what they needed; you can practically see their worries being lifted and cast away.

With one last swig of your drink, you begin to mentally prepare yourself for your final surprise.

In one motion, you accidentally drop your phone into the floor, and crouch down to retrieve it. Lisa gives you a quick look but soon does a double take when she sees you still on the floor, now down on one knee, a small box in your hand.

You’re sure her eyes are about to pop out of her head.

As you clear your throat and swallow your nerves, you glance up at her parents; they’re already looking to you, proud expressions written plainly on their faces. That silent gesture alone is encouragement enough, and it prompts you to begin.

“Lisa…” Wow. One word in and your voice is already failing you. Your eyes shyly scan up to hers, only to find her recently dried cheeks now covered in tears once again. Her hand is clasped over her mouth in an attempt to stifle her cries.

“I knew from the moment we met that I wanted to marry you someday, and I can’t think of a better way to ask than this. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone, and I’m so glad we get to share this day with your parents. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to properly thank them for making you, but I’ll spend my life trying, as long as you’ll have me. So, whaddya say?”

Lisa has always made it clear how much she loves you; despite knowing that, you can’t help but feel nervous as you wait for her answer. Her head is swimming with just about every different emotion imaginable right now, and she’s doing all she can to hold in her tears long enough to respond to you.

“I love you so much. Let’s get married, Y/N.”

A loud whoop leaves your mouth upon her reply, the sound echoing around the space.

You surge forward, eagerly pressing your lips against hers, and she cheerfully takes you into her arms. Once the ring is on her finger, you walk around to the other side of the table and embrace her parents. Having their approval and support means the absolute world to you, and you take a minute to think about how perfect everything turned out.

Now, once again cuddled into Lisa’s side, one of your hands playing with the ends of her hair, you look up into her eyes.

“How did I get so lucky?” She asks, looking down at you, utterly overjoyed with what went down tonight.

“It was written in the stars, baby.”

Lisa’s heart swells at your words, and she pulls you in impossibly closer. Wanting to give the two of you some private time to celebrate, her parents leave the table and go to order some food from across the tent.

Now alone, her lips find yours again, and they take their sweet time in showing you all of the things she didn’t know how to verbalize to you. She peppers kisses across your face; starting with your cheeks, then your nose, and finally, your forehead. You let out a squeal as she grips your waist, her fingers gently toying with the fabric of your sweater.

Sitting there, in the arms of the love of your life, you’ve never felt more content. What a night, you think to yourself, smiling at her parents once more.

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

Thanks for reading!

#lalisa manoban #lisa manoban #lisa x reader #lalisa #blackpink #blackpink oneshots #blackpink imagine #lalisa imagine #blackpink x reader #lisa x fem reader #let-them-read-fics

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twilighthomunculus · 4 years ago

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How abt Shingo? or Hojo rin?

<3 <3 <3 Hello!!! Thank you <3 <3 <3 <3

my two murder hobos, how I love them so

So Shingo, my stinky rat man. First impressions where honestly the same as everyone else "evil man, evil, I hate. but hey at least that eurobeat intensifies meme comes from his race. and now,,,well,,,,, :)

Favorite moment-Sayuki's snot nosed Shingo comment in the extra stage. Idk if its different subbed but I think about it sometimes

Idea for a story- As some of you hopefully know, prologue mechaAU Night Kids were once a team(more than a team) but broke up after a devastating loss caused a rift in their ideologies. Rn I've been trying to figure out how write or show off them getting through their differences and rediscovering their passion as a certain junker reminds them of what they once were but I don't like to write too often and comics take too long for me to stay interested in finishing them. Will probably do a single page piece, Might just commission a drabble at this point but my ventures in the fanfiction world is limited.

Unpopular opinion-The only opinions I've seen of him are HATE or hehe stinky rat man so idk what to say here

Favorite relationship-I mean Takeshin is otp, but I also really enjoy the idea of He, Mako, and Sayuki all being a chaos trio in high school getting into racing with each other and being that lesbian/pure of heart, dumb of ass dynamic

Favorite headcanon-lets seeeee I mean I've got so many HCs for him, especially AU version, where I could probably pull a WattPad original movie, give him a different name, and make him my own OC but i will not. Some favorites include-He owns pet rats, his wound from his race v Takumi never heals properly, trans shingo, he does graphic art sometimes(designed the team logo and half of his tattoos in AU ver).

Now for Rin, gonna be a little short cause unfortunately there's not as much

First impression- stinky old man(derogatory)

Impression now- stinky old man(affectionate) ah yes the 20 y/o calling the 30 y/o old man, classic

Favorite moment-Shinigami Race(derogatory) dude I laughed out loud with this one because I'm a sick bastard ig, but its the only race I remember from 5th stage, and the only one I feel gives the same amount of characterization to the race as the ones from 1st and 2nd stage i need to read the manga

Idea for a story- Still working on White Comet v Grim Reaper, in which I'm rewriting the backstory to be Rin, Kaori, Ryosuke, and Fumihiro were once a team until a mech designed by Ryosuke failed killing Kaori and damaging Rin to the point where he's an angry cyborg now

Unpopular opinion- hard to have unpopular opinions on the guy when I know only ~4 other people in the english speaking fandom who actively have opinions on him

Favorite relationship- Him being a cursed uncle to Shinji is the best one, him having cartoonishly unbridled hatred for Ryosuke is also fun.

Favorite headcanon(s)- He was kinda a jerk older brother in a Rodrick Hefley kind of way and he's also the one who started the goth/punk boy trend for Gou(and eventually Shinji), he's the embodiment of wrath for a more less light hearted HC

#twi answers #spooky man #rat man owo #initial d

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jimalim · 5 years ago

Text

Based off @idontlikedots wonderful Christmas holiday headcanons post! I hope you don't mind I had a little fun expanding! Note: I wrote this/and posting this from my phone cause it's Christmas morning and I'm too tired to get out my laptop. Enjoy!

...

It was their first holiday off the island, well technically second. Though they were so engrossed in bureaucracy and legal shit they hadn't even noticed the season passed. This year, they all agreed to get together to celebrate.

It was a rather easy task considering the large number of girls. Most had paired off since leaving the island in various forms of living arrangements. Shelby and Toni the obvious couple got a place together after Shelby was legally emancipated from her bigoted parents. Nora and Rachel found a nice studio apartment, that although they aren't really on speaking terms, their parents help pay for. A kind of way to apologize to their daughters for their mistakes. It doesn't really move the needle, but Rachel gladly accepts the money as a form of reparation. Fatin followed through on her plan to sell what remained of her father's fancy watches and got a place in California, the one they were currently gathered in today. She asked Dot to move in with her partially because of their conversation on the island, though mostly because Fatin couldn't be alone following all they went through. Leah was the only one of the group of either who decided to finish school and pursue higher education at a college nearby Fatin and Dot's place. Though she lives on campus, she's almost always at the girls condo. Martha chose to stay with her family, really needing the connection after being gone for so long. She rediscovered her love for dancing and has been teaching at the rec three days a week.

None of the girls were super religious, even Shelby's faith has been a work in progress. Trying to find the balance that best works for her is an ongoing affair. But the holiday was still something they enjoyed celebrating. The time spent together and the gifts exchanged. It was all about their new found family, and the love they had for each other.

Martha and Shelby spend most of the day in the kitchen cooking and baking. The two excitedly shared recipes they'd found online back and forth the past month planning the menu for today. Toni spends most of her time in the kitchen as well, though refusing to do any work, just wanting to spend time with her two favorite people in the world. It's funny how much she loves how well they get along, when she thinks back to how much she hated it those first few weeks on the island. When the cookies finish cooling Martha pushes, "make yourself useful, your girlfriend will appreciate it." Shelby throws her a wink so Toni obliges.

Leah spent weeks decorating the place in between classes and in the evenings much to Faitn and Dot's chagrin. Her obsessive behavior, though being channeled into something good for a change, could still be annoying as hell. Especially when the girls jusy wanted to relax for the night. Leah would force them to help her hang all kinds of lights and garland and art. There was always a point where they'd just go to bed, leaving Leah to her own devices. They even made her a spare key so she could work while they were out, in hopes they wouldn't have to help. A decision they are still unsure if they should regret.

When the twins arrive, Rachel is quick to gather everyone up so she can hand out the gift she'd brought for the girls. "We're doing gifts after dinner!" Shelby objected at first, all it took was for Toni to whisper something in her ear for her to visibly perk up and agree.

Matching holiday sweatshirts! A tradition she explained thay Nora and her were forced to take part in growing up, as twins. "As silly as it is, I look back at all those photos and it reminds me how close and important our sibling relationship is," Rachel go's on as she pulls Nora into a side hug, "and you're all my family, my sisters, I want to share that with you." There's not a dry eye in the place. Fatin immediately jumps up to run off to fix her makeup, though not before hugging Rachel and Nora tightly.

Hugs all around as everyone is finally gathered! Dot breaks out her homemade mulled wine, which is so fucking good the girls rave! The music is turned up, Oh Holy Night leading off the playlist, Dot raises a glass in a silent toast. "He'd be really proud, you know." She hears Fatin whisper next to her, her glass also raised. They clink their glasses and drink together whole the other girls spread across the open concept space excitedly chat and catch up.

When the food is finished and the tables all set, the girls eagerly fill their plates. Shelby says a quick prayer to herself, though not of the other girls eat till she does out of respect. Even Toni holds her hand as she does for support. She's insanely proud of how much Shelby has grown and admires the way she devotes herself to the greater good, even if she's still working on what it all means to her.

They put on their sweaters after dinner and take several silly and nice group pictures. An affair that takes ages with how many of them there are to satisfy. Throughout the whole day Toni had been surprising Shelby with mistletoe kiss attacks, which the girl always enjoyed. "You know you don't need that to kiss your girlfiend." Fatin deadpans.

"True. But I do for this!" Toni laughs as she holds the plant above her and Fatins head and places a kiss in her cheek. Fatin rools her eyes, "oh no, no." And pulls Toni in and kisses her properly, showing her how it's done. All the girls laugh merciliessly at Toni's shocked demeanor. She all but runs into Shelby's arms who was laughing along with them. She kisses Toni and reassures her it's all good, fully understanding the whole things a joke.

Fatin, now graced with the mistletoe decides to have some fun. She stalks around the girl's tauntingly like she's playing duck duck goose. She settles on Leah and to her surprise the girl is almost eager in her kiss. Really playing it up for the crowd, earning several "ow owws!" Amongst the giggles. She may have had too much of Dot's wine already.

Fatin's next mark is Nora. A short but sweet kiss. When Fatin turns her attention to Rachel, she objects "I'm not kissing you after you just kissed my sister. Too close man." This makes the rest of the girls, Nora included loose it! Martha calls an end to the silly game by announcing she has a boyfriend. News that makes all the girls squeal in excitement, a reveal that not even Toni was privileged too. They immediately all start asking questions and cooing over how sweet he sounded.

Fatin notices Dot leave the room, walking down the hall. She follows her without the girls even looking up. Dot, sitting on her bed looks a little flustered. Fatin sits next to her, "hey, what's going on?"

Dot is embarrassed by how upset she is over something so silly, and doesn't want to explain it. She tried to shrug it off, but Fatin places a hand on her knee and it makes her weak. She caves, "you didn't kiss me, I don't know, seeing you kiss everyone else, I guess I just felt left out" It's a quiet admission. So much that if they weren't sitting as close as they were, Fatin might have missed it.

They've gotten so close since living together, Fatin doesn't need to ask her to clarify anything. She knows why it's really upsetting her. So she suck it up and admits something of her own, "Dottie," the use of the nickname is reserved for serious moments, and Dot is aware of this fact so she immediately has her attention, eyes focused on her roomamte as she continues, "I didn't kiss you because I actually WANT to kiss you. I didn't want it to be some joke. I want it to be special."

Dot visibly blushes at this and Fatin gently strokes her thumb across her cheek. "I'd like to take you out, on a proper date. Do it the old fashion way." She nods in agreement to the proposition, and Fatin kisses her cheek before standing up, hand extended to help Dot off the bed.

After opening gifts, the girls all cuddle around the TV watching Christmas movies, drinking spiked cocoa and eating cookies. Leah falls asleep halfway through the second movie. The girls put a Santa hat on her head and draw a beard on her face. They take a couple photos and giggle, before returning their attention to the movie marathon.

Rachel gently cleans the marker off Leah's face (which is much easier because she convinced them to use a dry erase marker instead of a sharpie like Toni wanted) and covers her up with a blanket.

Shelby gathers everyone's empty mugs during the transition to the 4th movie and takes them to the kitchen. Toni follows shortly behind to have a moment of alone time with her girlfriend. "Hey." She whispers in Shelby's ear as she hugs her from behind. "You were amazing today. Thank you for the food, and the gifts."

Shelby hums as she turns in Toni's arms so she can see her girlfriends face. "Well I do have one more small gift for you at home, so you'll just have to wait."

Toni pulls her in for a kiss and holds her close. "I love you." It's the first time she's said it. Though they've been together for a long while. They both were really trepidstious with how to pace things. Their life in the island was a totally different set of circumstances. They both needed to really learn who they were off the island after all that trauma before dicing head first into their relationship. Shelby going through a long and rough emancipation battle, while Toni waited to age out of the foster care system. They had many demons to face, ones they had to face alone.

They took things very very slow in the beginning. Only ramping things up once paperwork was finalized and they were legally set to move away and start an new life together. They were still cautious, taking each day one at a time. But the feelings Toni have been cultivating, have been there from the beginning.

Shelby grins wide, not even self conscious about her teeth not being in at this time of night. Her smile as bright and beautiful as with them on, hell even more so. "I love you too." They kiss again, full of passion and trust. Toni pulls apart to suggest they "get out of here" as much as Shelby wants to oblige, she reminds Toni that all the girls agreed to a sleepover. "Come on, it's not like it's the first time we've left them hanging." Toni poles reminded of the time on the island they were tasked to find food, finding the lychee tree, and then having their own feast, so to say, before sharing.

Shelby giggles at the memory, "meet me in Dot's room in 5." Before walking back into the living room, noting Rachel had fallen asleep her head atop Leah's. Martha too was out, Nora next to her looking like she could go next.

When it's just Dot and Fatin awake and watching the movies, Dot questions "so I'm just supposed to be cool with them having sex in my room?" All too aware the couple disappeared.

"Shh, you can stay in mine tonight. I could use some extra warmth." Fatin winks before cuddling up closer into Dot's side and wrapping an arm around her waist.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

#the wilds #shoni #dot x fatin #all the girls!

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