#ALSO i just noticed the other thing about this which is

[vincentbriggs]

so i am newly in a wheelchair which has been a Massive gain in my ability to go out and about. but i realized that i have aprox 0 clothes that look Good while seated. its a completely different silhouette and i am at a loss as to what to do for it. do you have any suggestions for what could look good seated? preferably no skirts or dresses.

Edit: Check the notes for more people's input, including actual wheelchair users who know much more about what works than I could!

Congrats on chair acquisition!!

Since you're sending this to me specifically I am working under the assumption that you mean to do some amount of sewing.

A high waisted silhouette definitely works best for sitting. I make all my pants with the waistband at my natural waist, and a bit of pleating or gathering at the back just like they did on 18th century breeches, and I've never noticed any particular discomfort from sitting in them. (I think high waisted pants are more comfortable in general, and that low rise jeans are evil.)

It's something I've never really thought about before, but sitting is a very legs-forward position, so perhaps a colourful or fancy stripe down the side would work well.

(I made this pair 10 years ago and they didn't fit well and are long gone, but I should do a better version someday...)

Or some other form of side seam decoration, like these fabulous button tabs.

(I don't know what the source for this mid 19th century fashion plate is.)

Cropped jackets would also be good. The first thing that comes to mind for me is the Carmagnole, which was a style worn by French revolutionaries. It's got a pretty similar cut to a regular 1790's coat, just shorter.

(Source)

(Source)

And there are other styles of short jacket, like this one from a few decades later.

I think it might be possible to get a similar effect from cutting down a thrifted corduroy jacket, depending on the pocket placement? It's not something I've done myself though.

A fancy little bolero could be a lot of fun too! I quite like these ones made by Marlowe Lune. Super easy to sew, and could be patterned by cutting down a bigger pattern that fits the torso.

They'd be a good thing to try if you have a smallish piece of fancy fabric, or a small bit trim to use, or want to try a small amount of embroidery.

There are lots of historical styles with sleeves too, and all sorts of decorations.

(Dunno the source for this one either, unfortunately, but the pin says 1880s reception dress. I think a little jacket like that would look good with a puffy shirt and pants.)

Short capes might be practical too, and the late 19th and early 20th century have tons of fancy capelets for inspiration, like this one.

Or this one.

I hope this is somehow helpful! I don't know if you're looking to sew things from scratch or to buy and alter stuff or what, and I have no personal experience using a wheelchair, but these are the best things I can think of for a suitable silhouette. Dramatic sleeve/shoulder puffs would also be shown off to great effect, if that's something you'd like to wear.

[coldfanbou]

Be Sure Of It

Here we are with Eunha. In the end, I kept it as only her because I had this idea. Honestly, though, I may use the building mentioned for some other smuts. It would be pretty easy to insert other idols there and just have a universe around it. Also, it was a little tricky to write this because I had to think about whether to refer to Eunha using the stage name versus her real name.

Length 3.2K

Eunha X Mreader

You waited nervously at the restaurant, tapping your fingers on the table as you waited for your date's arrival. You peered out the large windows, hoping to spot her; her profile was on your phone, so you didn’t mistake someone else for her. Then, you saw her across the street, her bag slung over her shoulder as she hurried towards you. Relief washed over you as you recognized her, and she noticed you, too, waving with a bright smile. She walked around the corner, stepped inside, and headed straight toward you. “Hi! I’m Eunbi; sorry for keeping you waiting!” She exclaimed, slightly out of breath, as she sat down and reached over the table to shake your hand.

“It’s nice to meet you too. I was a little worried you wouldn’t show up,” you admit, feeling a mix of relief and nervousness. Your heart was pounding, and you couldn't help but wonder if she felt the same way.

“I’d never no-show a date. It’s hard enough to get one with my job.” 

You nod your head, trying to remember what her job was. “It was as a-”

“A health girl,” Eunbi interrupts, “I’m glad you remember,”

“Yeah, I tried to remember everything you had on your profile. I must have gone over it a hundred times before today.” You feel immediate embarrassment as those words leave your mouth, and you hang your head, feeling like you just made a big mistake.

Eunbi laughs, though, “Really? Were you that interested in me?” Looking up, you see Eunbi resting her head on her hand, her cheek squished. 

“Um, yes,” You say quietly, feeling a warm flush spread across your cheeks as Eunbi's laughter fills the air. You could feel your cheeks turning red, and you were sure she could see it, too.

“Don’t be shy; that makes me pretty happy. I don’t get many matches because of my profession. Those that I do get usually only want one thing. So, what made you interested in me?

“I thought you were cute and saw all the pictures of you cosplaying. I thought it was cool.” You say shyly. 

“Ah! You looked at them?!” The excitement in her voice was evident, “Which one was your favorite?”

“I liked you as Haruko from Slam Dunk,” you reply, pulling up the picture. “I liked your smile; you looked really happy in it.”

Eunbi purses her lips, trying to hide her smile. “Thanks,” she giggles. “No one really likes those old shows anymore, but I think they’re pretty fun.” You and Eunbi spent the date discussing old shows and sharing that interest. It was enjoyable; the two of you enjoyed sharing your thoughts about which shows should be remade and which should remain classics. As your time together came to a close, you ordered an ice cream and headed out the door together. You walked around, continuing your chat until you found yourselves in the city’s central park. 

Eunbi came to a stop, sitting on a nearby bench and waiting for you to sit next to her. “Tonight has been really fun, and I want to go on another date.” She says quietly, her happy energy from earlier fading as she becomes serious. “But are you sure you are okay with dating someone like me? It’s just- I mean, a lot of guys say they’re okay with it, but they really aren’t. They try to get me to quit as soon as we’re together.” It’s clear to you this was something Eunbi had gone through multiple times; the anxiety in her voice and the fact she was staring at the ground the entire time she spoke was enough. “I-I just…”

“Eunbi, I’m okay with it.” You say, placing your hand on hers. Eunbi raises her head, turning to face you. “It must be hard on you, looking for someone, but I’m okay with you having that sort of job. I’ll never make you quit; that’s your decision.” You take a deep breath, “I’d like to take you on another date, Eunbi.”

Eunbi sniffles, and a small smile appears on her face. “Thanks for saying that, but,” she pulls her hand away and reaches into her bag, pulling out a small business card. “I think you should see me at work before you decide if you want to go on another date with me.” Eunbi pushes herself off the bench and stands up. “Anyway, thanks for tonight. I had a lot of fun. You know where to find me, " she says softly. 

You rise slowly and walk over to Eunbi with the business card still in hand. “Yes, I do. Thanks for tonight, Eunbi.” You wrap your arms around her and hug her, feeling her arms hesitantly wrap around you before cinching in. After a moment, the two of you break apart and head separate ways for the night.

That night, you looked at the card before going to bed, feeling excited about the next step. You wanted to go on another date with Eunbi, so you had to visit her first. You notice the name change on it; she didn’t use her real name. She used Eunha.

A few nights passed when you decided to visit Eunbi at her workplace.  While the place was open all day, Eunbi worked in the evenings and nights, so that’s when you had to go. It was in the red-light district. You weren’t familiar with it and wandered around, trying to find the place. Neon lights glowed from every building, painting the street with various colors. You continued past the barkers, trying to get you to walk into their establishment. You turn your head, viewing both sides so you won’t have to do another lap. Then you spotted it; it was a large building that took up an entire block. Much like the other buildings in the area, it bathed the street in bright pink neon lights. You cross the street, getting closer, when you notice the women dancing inside, inviting men to enter. They wore revealing outfits, from bunny suits and sexy maids to wedding dresses, with some just in lingerie. The ground level had them separated into their own rooms. You come to a stop, though, as you pass by a crowd; glancing at the window, you see one of the women having sex, fucking like a rabbit in heat with her breasts pressed against the glance. You pry your eyes away and look ahead, noticing she isn’t the only one. Other women in the rooms ahead were also having sex. 

You refocused yourself and continued toward the entrance, heading inside and finding a similar situation, with women in rooms, some dancing and others having sex. On occasion, there would be room blacked out, giving you the hint that some people wanted to be watched. Once down the hall, you found a board of faces—a picture of a woman and their face on it. Some were greyed out, signifying they were with a client. “You have to put money in first, sir.” You hear from behind you. Turning around, you find a staff member sharply dressed in a suit behind the counter. The man repeats himself, pointing to the bottom left of the giant screen. You notice a smaller pad was there to take payment. “If you’d like any information about the ladies before choosing, please feel free to ask me.” 

“Is Eunha here?” You ask nervously. 

The staff member looked down at something before meeting your gaze and responding matter-of-factly, “Yes, she is. She is on the top left-hand side of the board.” You nod and pay for an hour's session before returning to the larger screen and looking for Eunha. You spot her picture at the top and press it, confirming your choice after.

“Good choice, sir. Here is your room key, " the staff member says, pulling out a keycard. “She is on the second floor; once up the stairs, go to the right side at the end of the hall, turn to the left, and she will be at the end of that hall.” The man extends his arm, showing you the staircase. You take the keycard and give the man a nod before heading up the spiral staircase, finding a large lounge with a couple of men sitting idly. You glance at the other two hallways before heading to the right. You feel your heart beat faster as you make the final turn and head to the end of the hall. You stand outside the door and take a deep breath before tapping the keycard and opening it. You step inside and find Eunha waiting on the other side. She’s in a school uniform that’s been cropped and is wrinkled. The skirt, if you could call it that at this point, ended a few inches from the waist. Eunha had on a pair of crotchless panties, and you could see how slick her thighs were with her; there was cum running down her legs. On the top half of her body was an open button-up shirt that she had tied together in a loose knot, her nipples poking through the thin fabric.

“Oh! It’s you!” Eunha says with a smile on her face. “You actually came.”

You nod, “I said I would.”

Eunha chuckles, “I guess you did.” You both stand there awkwardly, unable to continue. “Please have a seat.” Eunha moved back to the kingsized bed. She throws herself on it and pats the spot next to her. After sitting beside her, Eunha places her hand on your thigh. “I guess you can see what my last customer did to me,” Eunha says, looking between her legs. “I barely had time to get the room ready again.” She sighs, looking down at the floor and kicking her feet softly. “This is what I meant; I understand if you don’t want to date me. Who would want to have a girlfriend that’s constantly getting fucked by others.” You feel the sadness begin to seep through into her voice. 

You shake your head, “Eunbi, I told you I don’t care. I knew that going into this, I’d have to be okay with you having this job. Look, I know we’ve just been on a single date, but I like you, and I want to see where this goes.”

“You mean that?” Eunha asks, her voice wavering. You nod at Eunha and place your other hand on hers. Though small, your action was enough to give Eunha some confidence in you. She sniffles before giving you a bright smile. “I guess we should get started then, right?”  

“I guess so.” Eunha presses her lips against yours, pushing you onto the bed and straddling you. You feel the passion behind the kiss, the corners of her mouth pulled into a smile. She lifts your shirt past your arms and over your head. Eunha was confident in every action. She moved down slowly, raising her ass in the air as she worked at getting your pants down, unbuckling your belt, and unbuttoning your pants. She stares you down as she bites down on the zipper tab and pulls it down. You can see a growing hunger in her eyes as she crawls over you and steals another kiss from you. You feel her hands move down your side as she tries to pull your pants off you.

You help her get them off, along with your underwear. Eunha’s hand grasps your shaft, moving up and down slowly as she meets your gaze. “You’re already nice and hard for me.” She whispers, her grip growing tighter. You see her smile grow as you moan her name. Eunha moves her other hand down, cupping your balls. “These are so big and heavy. I haven’t eaten all day. You have a lot of cum for me, right?” She gives you a pout before moving down your body and pressing her face against your cock, letting the tip rest against her forehead. She kisses the shaft and takes in your scent before wrapping her hand around it again. Eunha shuts her eyes and presses her lips against the base of your cock, inching upward toward the tip. She was moving toward more sensitive areas, and with each kiss, precum leaks from the tip of your cock.

Finally reaching the tip, Eunha opens her eyes again. She smiles at you before pushing the tip against her lips, slowly spreading them and allowing you inside her warm mouth. You feel her tongue run up and down your shaft as she rubs the head against the inside of your cheek. Her hand strokes the base of your cock, ensuring you’re getting the most out of it. She pulls back slowly, letting her saliva drip onto your cock, her tongue sticking out. 

Running her hand up and down your shaft, Eunha spreads her saliva across your cock. “This is going to be good,” she mutters, leaning down and wrapping her lips around your cock. You groan, enjoying as Eunha bobs her head, her tongue running along the underside of your shaft. You rest on your elbows, watching Eunha, noticing as she moves one hand down and fingers herself, occasionally pulling out to rub her clit. You place your hand on her head, earning you a glance from Eunha. She continued, slowly down and taking more of you in. You lean back and groan loudly as you feel yourself hit the back of her throat. 

Eunha pulls back slowly, slobber running down her chin and onto your cock. She slaps herself with it, dirtying herself further. She strokes your cock quickly as she speaks, “You’re so close; I felt your cock twitch. You can cum whenever you want; you don’t even have to warn me. I’ll be able to drink it all up.” Eunha smiles at you before making your cock disappear again. 

You struggle to hold on as her tongue lashes at the tip of your cock. Eventually, you’re forced to cum; you buck your hips upward into Eunha’s mouth and cum inside. She presses her hand against your pelvis, pushing you down as her lips form a seal around your cock, and she drinks every drop. She bobs her head slightly as you cool down from your climax. Eunha slowly comes to a halt and leaves your cock with a pop, “Ahh, that was so good,” She moans, licking her lips. 

Eunha places her hand on your cock, stroking it to get you hard again. “That must’ve felt really good for you; you came a lot.”

“It was amazing,” you groan, her grip tightening as you get hard again.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it. Now it’s time for the best part.” Eunha straddles you, rubbing your cock between her folds as she aligns you to her entrance. She reaches forward, grabbing your hands and interlacing her fingers with yours as she lowers herself onto your cock. You slip in easily, her warm and slippery walls snuggly wrapping around your cock as she rests against your pelvis. Eunha’s soft moan fills the room, and you move up her body until you meet Eunha’s gaze. She gives you a soft smile that you can’t help but return. She keeps her hands with yours as she begins to bounce on your cock, soft moans flowing from her lips. Eunha leans against you, your hand holding becoming the only thing keeping her up. You lowered your eyes, noticing the knot that kept her shirt together come loose. Your eyes became glued to Eunha’s chest, watching her tits bounce as she rode you. “Ah, hold on,” she moaned, letting you off your hands to throw off her shirt. Eunha placed her hands on your chest and began moving again, her slow movements picking up speed with time. You placed your hands on her waist, holding her as she rode you. Eunha kept her eyes shut and threw her head back, groaning as she felt your cock go deep inside her. “You’re…going to… make me cum,” Eunha said, struggling to get her words out.

“I’m going to cum too.” You grunted, your cock throbbing against her tightening walls. You begin thrusting into Eunha, going deeper as your bodies collide. “I want us to cum together,” Eunha nods her head, biting her bottom lip as she nears her climax. You both cry out as you reach your peak; Eunha slams herself down on you, impaling herself on your cock and cumming with you. You pull Eunha into a kiss as she collapses on top of you, her chest heaving as you both slowly come down. 

“That was amazing,” she says, still out of breath. Eunha unmounts you and places herself on your bicep, taking a few deep breaths before looking into your eyes as you lay there together. 

“I’ve seen you at your work now. So I can ask you out on another date, right?” After a few minutes of staring into your eyes, her face turns red. She covers it with her hands and turns her back to you. “Eunbi? What’s wrong?” You ask, trying to turn her back around.

“It’s embarrassing!” She shouts into her hands.

“What?”

“Ahh! I said all those things in front of you!” Eunbi buries her face into the mattress and kicks her feet. 

“Those things?” You ask curiously.

“Those things about your cock and balls. It’s so dirty!” You laugh at her answer, making her raise her head. “Don’t laugh! I only say those things here because people like to hear that!” She explains, her tiny fists knocking on your chest. “You’re never going to hear me repeat those things! They’re too embarrassing to say to someone I’m dating!” 

You laugh again, enjoying how embarrassed she was. “So, does that mean we’re going on another date?” Eunbi pauses her tantrum, realizing what she said. She peers up at you, and you ask again, “Eunbi, would you like to go out on another date?”

Eunbi feels a warmth in her heart as she hears your question being asked so sincerely and nods. “I’d like that; yeah, let’s go on another date,” she says softly before embracing you. You spend the rest of your time lying together. When your time runs out, and you're forced to separate, Eunbi kisses you on the cheek. “I’ll text you, okay?”

“Yeah, of course.” You respond before kissing Eunbi one more time before you go. “Have a good day at work.” She smiles and waves as you shut the door behind you. You get home sometime past midnight and lay in bed. You couldn’t sleep, though; your body was filled with energy after your night with Eunbi. You thought you would feel tired, but that wasn't the case, and just as your mind began to drift, you got a single-word message from Eunbi. 

“Breakfast?” It made you chuckle, and you agreed to meet her for breakfast in the morning. The two of you met for breakfast, chatting about old cartoons like you had on your first date. Eunbi felt content, happy to have found you, and hoping the relationship continues. The wariness of a new relationship was still on her mind, but seeing that you went further than many others had dared to, she felt a sense of comfort with you.

[gojoidyll]

stubborn heart ch. 5

yan!capitano x wife!reader

summary | or in which capitano is told he needs a wife. and he begrudgingly agrees.

previous | next

You found yourself tossing and turning in the bed. Your body eventually landed on your side as you could only find yourself staring at the side of Capitano’s face. At least one of you could sleep next to a total stranger. Then again, you doubted that Capitano would be afraid to sleep next to anyone. To you, he had no equal when it came to other humans. Sighing to yourself for what seemed to be the millionth time, you turned over to your side and gently reached for your nightstand where one of your old favorite books laid.

Then, turning a small knob on the gas lamp, a light flickered before igniting creating a small flame. Looking to Capitano to see if he woke up, you were glad that he didn’t. So you smiled slightly and turned back to the lamp while also opening your book.

Back at the Hearth, you did this plenty of times. You would always light a lamp with a small enough fire to be able to read in, then you would huddle up into your covers and delve deep into the fictional world that managed to paint itself across the pages.

It was the only way that you could put your heart and mind at ease so you could fall asleep. It also helped when the nights were too cold, or when your stomach was too empty, or when your hands would bleed or when tears would dry.

A good book was a good book.

And just as you were about to turn the page, you felt the bed shift on your right.

“What are you reading?”

It was odd how quiet his voice was in the night. It wasn’t soft per se, but it wasn’t his usual harsh tone either. Maybe he’s sleep talking?

“Wife.”

Ahhh, never mind. There is that demanding tone of his.

“It’s one of my books that was brought from the Hearth. It’s about a princess who…,” you trailed off. You were not exactly sure if Capitano wanted the full details of what you were reading.

“Go on. What is it about?”

He just keeps surprising you.

“It’s about a princess who falls in love with a knight. But she isn’t supposed to because her parents tell her that she is already betrothed to a prince in a faraway land.”

“You said it was one of the books from the Hearth, did you read it a lot?”

“I have.”

There was a brief silence before he spoke up again, “what happens next?”

You wondered if his question was genuine, but you decided to ignore the thought as you turned towards him and noticed how he was also sitting up in his bed, giving you his full attention.

“The princess ends up being sent to the faraway prince, but at her request she is allowed to take one guard, And that guard ends up being the knight she falls in love with. To her, as she lives in her new home and prepares herself to be married to the prince, she thinks she will be able to live happily as long as her love was right by her side. But… she realizes it to be impossible. She ends up sad over everything that even her knight can’t cheer her up. And the prince doesn’t like how sad she looks. He only wanted her for her beauty and the radiant smile she was known well for. Tired with how he can’t get her to smile as beautifully as he wants, he plans to kill her and dispose of her and find a new bride who he could call beautiful. The knight, learning of this plot, cuts down the prince with one strike and takes the princess away to live peacefully in a small, unknown village.”

“Does the princess smile again?”

“She does.”

Capitano “hmmed” in response before holding out his hand, your eyebrows scrunched together at the gesture before it finally clicked.

You handed the book to him, and he opened it to the first chapter.

“What… what are you doing?”

“I am going to read to you.”

Huh?

“I have been told that doing things together can make a relationship go smoother.”

“And that includes reading to me?”

You couldn’t hide your confusion.

“If it must.”

With how he was waiting for you to get comfortable, the hold on the book, and how he was scanning the page, it was clear that you weren’t going to read on your own. So, you laid back, your head hitting the too soft pillows as you pulled the covers more up to your chin.

Capitano looked at you briefly before looking back to the book.

“The world will only turn when she smiles…”

Out of all the things that have happened to you in the past two days, this would most definitely take the cake.

Though, your thoughts soon ceased as Capitano’s voice lulled you to sleep. One chapter became two, and two chapters became three. And before you knew it, you were fast asleep.

Sensing your breath evening out, Capitano closed the book and got out of bed to walk over to your side to turn off the lamp before going back to his side. Then, getting under the covers once more, he looked to you who was finally fast asleep.

“Books, huh?”

The next morning, just as Capitano had said, he was nowhere to be found. His side of the bed has long gone cold and the book he had been reading to you the night before rested gently on his nightstand, under it was a note. A slip of paper that peeked out just from under the book. Frowning at it, you flopped across the bed and stretched. Your arms reaching out as your fingers managed to snag against the slip of paper and gently pulled it out.

Quickly unfolding the note, you read through it quickly.

“Wife,

There is a library within the manor, but no books occupy it. I have left mora for you on the kitchen table. Feel free to go to town to buy as many books as you wish and fill the library to your heart’s content. Take your maid with you when you go out.

We will see each other again in two to three weeks. I expect you to hold true to our marriage despite not consummating it as I will do the same.

If you run out of mora for your books, go to the bank. Your name is attached to mine, so my mora is yours. Before you decline, do know that I do nothing with it. The mora merely sits there collecting dust. Put it to use.

-Capitano”

You found yourself rolling onto your back and rereading through the letter over and over again. It wasn’t romantic and it honestly felt like he was ordering you rather than offering a suggestion. And despite it being a simple note, it still had that authoritative tone and intimidating aura in it. Honestly, you wondered what an official letter from Capitano would be like. Like what it be if he was writing down orders or writing down a punishment?

You shivered at the thought as you rolled to the side of the bed and moved to sit on the edge of it. Your feet lightly kicked back in forth as you reached for your nightstand drawer and opened it before slipping the note inside and closing it right back up.

“I wonder what books I am going to get today!”

taglist

@nas-ha @simp-simp-no-mi @emmathecouchpotato4583 @sendria @riotakire @littlekohai77 @lvtuss @kreishin @floffytofu @nastylilcvnt @mikoslightnovels @feral-childs-word @barbatoss-bitch @venicecherryblossom @squirrelboxer @temperamentupgrade @avalordream @immahuman @xavlyzn @greensunflowerjuna @sarah22447 @naviabestgiirl @nevermoresworld @depressedbearblogs @ppancakesforu @0vendettaself

some say "no blogs found" when I try to add them </3

[lelengerine]

pairing. jeno x reader

synopsis. based on this req <3

genre. friends to lovers au, very much situationship vibes at first, a LOT of overthinking being done >:D, honestly they're a little dumb for not realizing eo's feelings... lmk if anything was missed!

wc. 1.0k words

notes. ahhh i absolutely loved writing this TAT i really feel like jeno would be the type of person you'd be in this kind of situation with,, u are so right for this anon!! likes and feedback are highly appreciated!

m.list

it was one of those things you never gave much thought to in the beginning—a brush of fingers as you passed jeno a drink, the occasional accidental graze of hands when you walked side by side. but lately, it was happening more often, and the frequency was something you noticed more often than not. your pinkies would always linger in each other’s proximity just a beat too long, like they were waiting for permission to stay, yet despite this, neither of you ever said anything to address it. what was there to say? you told yourself not to overthink it. jeno was your best friend, and best friends were allowed to be close. right?

but now, the subtle touches had turned into something else. you’d been holding hands, and not just in fleeting, momentary grasps, but in quiet moments where neither of you dared to pull away. it started with using little things as an excuse—safety while crossing the street, blaming the chill of the weather, sitting close enough that his hand would somehow find yours, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. 

that also meant it had become impossible to ignore. 

today, you sat across from jeno at the café you both loved, the one with the worn, wooden tables and the smell of fresh pastries that made the place feel like home. the late afternoon sun filtered through the large windows, casting a soft golden glow over everything. it should’ve been relaxing, like usual, but today there was an undercurrent of something different in the air. the conversation flowed like usual—random topics, the comfortable back and forth you both were so good at, but you kept getting distracted.

your hand rested next to jeno’s on the table, the space between them feeling charged with unspoken words. you hadn’t noticed it at first, but now every shift, every little movement, felt like a dance—as if you were both painfully aware of how close you were but too afraid to do anything about it. 

your gaze eventually flickered to the sight of your hand, coming to realize that your hands were unknowingly inching closer to each other again. jeno had large hands, littered with callouses from countless hours of playing video games at midnight. yours were much smaller and had that delicate look to it, but somehow the contrast seemed just right when they were together.

you shook yourself out of your thoughts, forcing your attention back to what jeno was saying; something about the latest hobby he picked up from his friend, photography, and how he was trying to capture the little details that people often overlooked for the past week. you tried to focus—you really did—but the weight of your own thoughts kept pulling you back.

“hey,” the sound of his voice cut through your reverie, and you blinked, startled to find him watching you. his eyes, which were usually playful, held something deeper, like he was trying to figure something out. “you okay?”

“yeah,” you replied too quickly for your liking, feeling your pulse quicken. “just... spaced out for a second.”

but jeno didn’t seem convinced. his gaze lingered on you a moment longer, then drifted down to where your hands still rested—close, but not quite touching. his lips quirked up into a small, almost nervous smile. “can i ask you something?”

“sure.” if his goal was to rub off his nervousness onto you, then he surely succeeded because you were beginning to sweat buckets on the inside, a painful anticipation bubbling within you.

he rubbed the back of his neck in that way he always did when he was about to say something serious. you’d seen that look before—before exams, before difficult conversations about the future, but this felt different. “what are we?”

“what do you mean?” you asked, your voice betraying the calm you were trying to project. you knew exactly what he meant, but hearing it out loud was something else entirely. it was the question you had been avoiding, the one you thought maybe, just maybe, would never need to be asked.

jeno's eyes searched yours, as if he were looking for the answer that neither of you had dared to say. he hesitated, his hand finally shifting closer, fingers brushing against yours so lightly it sent a shiver down your spine. “i don’t know,” he admitted softly, “but we’ve been—” he stopped, glancing down at your hands again. “we’ve been coming to cafes together, sharing bites of our meals, even holding hands in public and... it doesn’t feel like something best friends normally do anymore.”

“i noticed,” you admitted quietly, your breath catching as your thumb brushed over his without thinking.

he nodded, his gaze never leaving yours. “so… what are we doing? are we just—” he paused, searching for the right words, “—pretending this doesn’t mean anything?”

you couldn’t help but laugh softly, though it was tinged with nervousness. “i don’t know,” you whispered. “i don’t know what we are.”

your mind was racing, trying to piece together all the feelings you’d been pushing down. you’d convinced yourself that it was nothing, that you were just overthinking things. but now, looking at him, feeling the way his fingers curled around yours like he was afraid to let go, you couldn’t lie to yourself anymore.

you closed your eyes for a brief second, willing the courage to surface. “but i do know that i like you,” you confessed, your voice barely above a whisper. “probably more than i should if you only see me as a friend.”

the weight of your words hung between you, and for a terrifying moment, you thought you’d made a mistake—that maybe you’d just ruined everything. but when you looked up, jeno wasn’t pulling away. if anything, he was leaning closer, his expression softening in a way you hadn’t expected.

“more than a friend?” he asked, his voice tinged with something between disbelief and hope.

you nodded slowly, your heart in your throat. “yeah. more than a friend.”

jeno was quiet for a long moment, his eyes never leaving yours, and when he finally spoke, his voice was gentle. “good,” he whispered, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “because i feel the same.”

[alpaca-clouds]

BG3 fans, we gotta talk CPTSD

Okay, I have spend about a week considering writing this blog, but I really gotta say, that it is something people really need to understand. See, I mostly see this issue with Astarion and his depiction in fandom. However, I would argue that it is a thing that affects literally all characters that play some sort of bigger in this entire game. Including many NPCs.

But let me start with Astarion. See, I wrote the blog two weeks ago about people being judgy on people, who do not want to have graveyard sex with him. Mostly people will argue how Astarion should be allowed to have his agency in that moment - while I argued that whoever the player is playing should have also agency in that scene. Including the agency to say "no" for whatever reason. I also included that my Tav absolutely denied Astarion, because he was not trusting that Astarion in the scene really was ready for it, for a variety of reasons. Which is very much a valid reason for someone not to want to sleep with someone else. (Literally every reason is a good reason for that, mind you.)

And obviously there came the comment, that went basically: "As someone who was raped I am very appalled by you saying that raped people cannot consent." Which is very much not what I said.

What I said was, that my Tav did not consent. Yes, he did not consent because he thought Astarion was not ready for it - but he is the one not consenting. It does not matter for this whether his assumption about Astarion is true or not. Tav does not feel comfortable in the scene, so Tav does not want sex right there.

However... If you consider the drow orgy scene, Tav is also very much right. If you do that scene after defeating Cazador, Astarion is enthusiastically consenting to that orgy, but he still ends up dissociating during the scene. (And in that scene, even if your character notices it, you cannot go "Stop!" Which I hate.)

Here is the thing. If you are in the BDSM scene, you might actually have encountered a scenario in real life where someone was enthusiastically consenting to something - only to them realize, that they were not into it at all. And people can withdraw their consent IRL at this point. Only that in this game, obviously you can't. So within the game choices I will just start out with "no" for this character.

Still, that is actually not what I mainly wanted to talk about. No.

What I wanted to talk about is the other thing. I absolutely know that for a variety of reasons a lot of SA survivors do identify with Astarion, and I do not want to take that from anyone. I think it is amazing that we got a character with whom we see this issue portrayed seriously. And let's face it. Especially in tumblr fandom circles, we will have a lot of SA survivors, because the userbase of this website is majority afab, and many are queer. And we know from statistics that queer afab people are even more likely than non-queer afab people to experience SA at some point in there life. So, yes, Astarion is going to be embraced by this community makes sense - even without his dashing looks.

But here we get to the actual meat of the issue: Astarion was not just raped. Astarion was abused in a variety of ways - some of them sexual - over the course of 200 years. He went not through a single traumatic event, but an ongoing trauma that, again, lasted for 200 years.

Or to put different: Astarion does not have PTSD. He has C-PTSD. Complex trauma. The kind of trauma that develops when the trauma lasts over a long, long time, without the survivor getting a chance to ever really properly ever relax. Something that was very true for Astarion's time under Cazador. He was under constant threat of rape, torture, and other forms of violence.

While CPTSD is a form of PTSD, it has some differing symptoms - and additional symptoms from plain old PTSD.

I found this graphic on this blog here, and found it fairly good in the depictions. (If you google CPTSD you will find several graphics like this.) It shows very well the additional symptoms, compared to normal trauma.

Generally speaking, CPTSD brings a lot stronger issues with self-worth, interpersonal problems, and emotional regulation. CPTSD folks are often prone to emotional outbursts (this graphic names anger, but technically it can be all other kinds of emotional outbursts - which is why at times CPTSD gets confused with BPD).

And Astarion is written like this. He shows very much all the symptoms of CPTSD. And let's be honest: That is an issue he will have to deal with for a long, long while.

But... As I said, the same is actually true for pretty much all the characters.

If you look at the companions, it is obvious.

Gale spent at least a year in constant fear of blowing up. While Mystra's abusiveness towards him within the relationship prior the orb is more fanon than canon (though the relationship was defnitely not an easy one), the "one year in constant fear of death" is very likely going to instill some form of CPTSD in him.

Karlach was a slave for 10 years, forced to fight in the hells. While she will also probably suffer from certain forms of PTSD more common in soldiers. Additionally I would argue that she also has some CPTSD from tiefling-racism. While she does not bring it up often... She does seem to have a thing there.

With Wyll it is a bit more complicated. Yes, for him I would see the kind of CPTSD I have - parental abuse related. Ulder was not openly abusive, but neither was my mother, and guess what fucked me most up in my childhood, despite experiencing some really bad violence elsewhere.

Shadowheart was abused by Viconia and midwashed and tortured and was forced to kill her fucking pet mouse. Bonus points that a lot of it happened during her childhood. She very much is gonna suffer the consequences.

Lae'zel... Do I really need to say something about her upbringing among the Gith?

Then we have Halsin. We know fairly little about his background, given that he is very coy in talking about it. But his "three years as a drow slave" definitely make it likely that he has developed some form of CPTSD.

And then we have Jaheira and Minsc. For whom just the... Well, look folks, the adventuring lifestyle would logically also leave you with CPTSD of some sort.

Even if you play a Tav who entered the game after having a very untraumatic life... They will spent what has to be at least two months with a tadpole in their head threatening to kill them - while half of Baldur's Gate is trying to do the same. They'll have PTSD after this at the very least, if not CPTSD. (Even though, let's face it, chances are we all gave our Tavs more than enough background trauma to go along with it, right?)

And same goes for so many other characters. The tiefling refugees. Our main villains (especially Gortash and Orin). Cazador. The other vampire spawn (duh). The list goes on.

So, what am I trying to say here?

Well, for once I just want to make sure folks understand that CPTSD is a thing that exists and while being similar to normal PTSD differs in some points. Including the fact that people with CPTSD have a high likelihood to make very rash decisions driven by instable emotional states, that might be harmful to them on the long run.

And mind you. In real life most people with CPTSD have it because either they were bullied for a long time, or were in an abusive relationship of some sort. (Abusive parents, abusive partners, abusive friends/roommates.) But even in those heightened scenarios the game represents for the most part - the issues are gonna be still mainly the same.

[potatomountain]

CIY- CH 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

📍Pairing: detective ateez ot8 x detective afab reader 📍Summary: "Turning Point" 📍WC: 3.3k 📍AU: detective/mafia 📍Genre: action, dark themes, poly romance 📍Warning(s): 18+ rating, some angst, dark themes implied, oral (male receiving), body piercings, cum-eating, semi-public sex, slight voyeurism/exhibitionism 📍Nets: @pirateeznet | @mirohs-aurora-society 📍Beta readers (and sole motivation): @flurrys-creativity , @candypop1611 , @yourfatherlucifer , @skteezcursed and edited(usually) by the amazing: @daemour 📍dividers made by: @cafekitsune 📍AN: As a birthday gift to me (9-24) I am posting this hecka early. But also annoucing that there will not be another CIY posting until after October (most likely. who knows, i might get impatient myself) as ill be focusing on Kinktober and some fics i have planned for October! There are 6 chapters left (roughly) so please enjoy <3

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Three weeks. Three weeks had gone by and you had to admit, you missed them. Well, some of them. Wooyoung’s incessant need for you. San and his flirting- his dimples. Yeosang’s cute little lisp and the sound of him tapping away on his keyboard. Hell you even missed hearing Mingi fuck others and keeping you awake at night. You might even miss Jongho’s constant scowl in your presence.

Seonghwa had been taking you to and from the club every night, five nights a week, and would tell you to rest the other two. You wouldn’t come into the office but now you wanted to. Maybe then you could do something about this odd bundle of emotions in your stomach. Yeosang sent you instructions on how to fill out a report of your undercover work on the program he installed in your laptop, which automatically stored the vital information and categorized and compared it with the rest. So in short, now you couldn’t even tell them about the new rumors you’ve picked up at the club.

At least now you knew why they were so busy, far too busy for you. The Vipers and the Wolves were still at each other’s throat, fucking up cash grabs, stealing product, or raiding known businesses of the other. San told you he was cleared to head back to fighting soon, and it worried you that the Wolves would hit the fighting ring while he was there.

But, what could you do about it? Undercover work was something that took months to years to gain enough influence to make a difference. You were nothing more than a fly on the wall gathering information, searching for weaknesses to use against the big players. A slip up that could get them behind bars.

Once more you thought of the dead boy in the alley. Once more you pictured someone else as that dead body. And once more you realized that, as a detective, there was nothing you could do to prevent that. It was a frustrating feeling.

And that’s why you found yourself heading to the gym on your next free day, ready to punch the frustration out or work up enough of a sweat that your muscles would be screaming at you until tomorrow.

It was a nice sweet surprise to find Hongjoong there, working on one of the machines, a thin sheen of sweat coating his bare arms and calves. He was wearing a hat, black tank and black gym shorts with an airpod in as he was chatting with someone. He didn’t notice you at first, but when you got close enough to hear his conversation, you frowned at how quick he hung up when he did notice you. “I’ll call you back later.” The weights dropped as he let go of the handles to turn the call off, shifting to look up at you with a bright and charming smile despite your deepening frown. “Firecracker, lovely to see you here.”

“Cut the bullshit” you weren’t having it today. Had the three weeks away changed something? Had your observations just been wishful thinking? Why was he hiding things from you? They still didn’t trust you fully did they? Ah, that hurt. Hongjoong seemed to catch on by your tone and stance, the smile softening to something more genuinely welcoming. “It was San, he was giving me an update on the Vipers I-” “Am I not allowed to hear what you had to say?” You cut him off, still staring him down. You shouldn’t be getting so worked up, you really shouldn’t.

But Hongjoong seemed good at reading you, reaching out and holding his hand palm up. “Would it ease your mind to know what is going on? What he was telling me? Or can I ask you to trust me on this, and you can learn all about it later?” You stared at his hand for a moment, eyes running up his arm to the tattoos that covered his bicep. Briefly you glanced at the ink before meeting his eyes. “It’s a delicate matter?” You decided to ask, arms uncrossing to rest at your sides. “Yes. The war they have going on is turning into a bloodbath.” He didn’t elaborate, just smiled wider when you did take his hand finally. Gently he pulled you closer.

Relaxing a bit further, you let him. He didn’t need to explain, because you realized what he meant. The Vipers were losing everything, and the Wolves would take what they could from them. Killing, maiming, or selling off each member or even associate. “I see… what are we doing about it?” He lifted a brow at your choice of words, pulling you right between his knees and holding both of your hands. You don’t know why he insisted on this sort of touch, but you didn’t mind one bit. “Nothing we can do. We can’t pull San out safely, but there isn’t a way we can stop the Wolves either. Not without risking more. Did you come here to blow off some steam? Worried about him?” Slowly you nodded, staring at your joined hands. “I don’t want to punch anything, just not think. The Boas don’t care much for either, but I hear how ruthless the Wolves are. They’re scared of them much more than the Vipers and-” Your words were cut off as he pulled you onto his lap. “Captain?” “How do you think San can get out of this unscathed? I’m worried too, Firecracker, and even if we can’t do much, it’s better to have some hope that something can happen to save him. Right?” He was comforting you, wasn’t he? The notion had your cheeks warming, mind shifting to the question. With everything you knew, what needed to happen for San to be truly safe from the Wolves? “I… well the Vipers are no match for the Wolves alone but if they had help… then San’s chances of- well you know. The Guardians are the only ones who can stop the Wolves, but I don’t see how they would get involved. Not unless this war causes significantly more damage, or they believe it will.” Your original thought was the Guardians getting rid of the Wolves anyways. After all, the more you learned about them, the more you realized that the biggest, scariest monster out there was the Wolves. The Vipers would be easier to take down, same with the Goblins. The Golden Circle could just be bought out, most of them just greedy cowards. And the Guardians and Pirates? They cared more for regulation to an extent than chaos.

The Wolves enjoy being cruel for cruelty’s sake. Sadists, killers, men who wanted to see the world burn and wanted to be the hands responsible for it. People were toys to them. Ones they wanted to break and use any way they saw fit.

You’d rather see San with his busted lip and black eye from a fight in the ring rather than the possible torture the Wolves would put him through. “The Wolves won’t stop until every last Viper is dead or turned to them or sold. I’d rather the Vipers win, and that can't happen without the Guardians. Either working together or the Guardians step in to apply pressure to the Wolves to back them off.” Hongjoong’s sudden bright smile threw you off and you were on your feet in a second. “What?” He chuckled, just to pull you back down with enough force you tumbled into him, hands on his chest and lips suddenly on his. He swallowed up your squeak, pulling you fully onto his lap as his tongue sought yours. You hadn’t expected it, but he tasted so good that you didn’t want to pull away. Yet as soon as melted into him, he was separating your mouths. “You really are a genius, I think. That’s something we never thought of.” You blushed at his compliment, staring up at him as his fingers carded through your hair. “What ideas did you have?” “Ones that involved what the Vipers alone could do, or we as detectives. Sometimes we forget to take a step back and see all this from a different angle.” “I see… but can we really do anything like that?” He shrugged. “We could have Wooyoung or San suggest it. If the Vipers are smart, and want to survive, they’ll latch onto that idea hopefully before it’s too late.” Pride swelled through you, as well as respect. Hongjoong did respect you, to go from easing your worries, to turning your thoughts into something productive, and then backing your idea as an equal. All while he was kissing you, touching you, melting you in his arms like you were his lover.

“Captain-” “Please call me Hongjoong, or something like that outside the office. Especially when you’re in my arms like this.” He stopped you, arm tightening on your waist while his other hand massaged your scalp a bit. He chuckled at the pleased sound you made at the touch.

“H-Hongjoong… did Seonghwa- ah Hwa- tell you about…” You trailed off, eyelids getting heavy the more you relaxed in his embrace. He nodded. “S-so you know how much this means to me?” “I do, Firecracker. And he told you how things work, and his unofficial invitation?” When you nodded, his hand tightened in your hair enough to pull an unexpected moan from your lips. “I’m going to take how pliant you are in my arms as an acceptance of that if you keep this up. Wooyoung might be the most vocal about his desire for you, but I feel it just as intensely.” Your hands gripped his tank tightly, lips parted as you enjoyed the way he was getting a bit rough with your hair. Massage, then tug. Smooth then tug harder. “Then why pull me onto your lap?” “To treasure you, though I didn’t think you would let me.” He admitted, shifting you on his thighs a bit until you could feel his hard on against the side of your thigh. “Yeosang is going to get another show at this rate.” Laughing under your breath softly, you shifted on his lap. “Good. I’m not too happy about him telling you all about San and Chan. He likes to watch and then run his mouth to you all? I should show him what he’s going to miss because he’s always hiding behind those screens.” Detaching yourself from Hongjoong, you stood back up between his legs, wrapping your arms loosely around his shoulders to card your fingers through his hair at the base of his neck, just under the cap. Latching your lips onto his to keep him from questioning you, your mind wandered to Yeosang and the expressions he made when he had been watching you and Wooyoung. Would he make those now? Better yet… What expressions would Hongjoong make?

With your lips still attached, brushing over his soft ones, letting him chase yours with each stroke, your hands ran down his chest. His shirt stuck to him with damp sweat, muscles tensing under your fingertips: first over his pecs, which had a nice curve to them, and then over his stomach. The lower they got, the more desperate his lips on yours.

The sound he made, the breathy whine as you cupped his sizable bulge in his shorts, turned you on even more. So eager to see just how far you could push him.

In a way, this was your first time initiating with them. As you slipped down onto your knees, palming at his hardening cock through the material of his shorts, you acknowledged the fact he hadn’t asked for this, or done much to make you want him: you just wanted him, and wanted to do this. Wooyoung had begged and begged. And Mingi had wanted to prove to you how much he wanted you. You just let them have the opportunity, reaping the ecstasy they gave you. And as much as you loved taking what they had to offer, you wanted to give back as well. In particular to the man before you. The man who was trying so hard not to pull your hair too much. Who was gripping the seat beneath him as his hips rolled up into your hands, pretty lips parted and swallowed from your kisses.

If Hongjoong had turned you away, or tried to block you at every turn like you had expected him to do before meeting him, you wouldn’t have this growing warmth in your heart at every thought of them. The swell of pride at your ongoing work. You wouldn’t have a confidant in San and Seonghwa. Wouldn’t have the eager lovers Wooyoung and Mingi. The witty banter of Yunho and Yeosang.

And perhaps, pressing your lips to where you could feel his tip twitching beneath the material, you wanted to convince them that they had to have you, just as you had to have them.

Selfish, greedy, maybe a little manipulative: that’s what you thought of yourself as you pulled his shorts down enough to expose his cock, staring up at him with a question in your eyes. 

Maybe you were all those things, but it was worth it as he tightened his hold on your strands significantly and pulled you against his cock, smearing the bit of precum and sweat on your lips and cheek, pleading with you. “Take what you want, gorgeous, I’m yours to use.”

How could you deny him- deny yourself- when he looked so delectable like this? 

Taking the invitation for what it was, your tongue ran up his length as your hands worked his pants down further. His words rang in your head, the adoration mixed with lust in his expression adding to the pit of emotions coursing through you.

With your lips wrapping around his tip, eyes focused on his expression, you marveled at the warm metal now clicking against your teeth. Quickly you pulled away and glanced down, breath hitching at the metal bar on the underside of his tip, right through the soft flesh in between the twi curves of his hood. “Oh fuck-” Mingi and him? Different places but you could remember how the piercing felt… if you took Hongjoong inside, you’d feel the metal scraping against your walls and the thought had you dripping in your underwear.

Wanting him to want that just as much, you took him back in your mouth, humming as you quickly took as much of him as you could. His eyes rolled back momentarily, breath hitching and fingers curling in your hair. He could fuck your mouth right now and you’d let him.

You’d let him do a lot of things if he continued to let out sweet whines like the one that just fell from his pretty lips. He wasn’t small, but definitely not Mingi’s size. But Hongjoong never needed size to get his point across, or for you to notice him- there was much more about him and the man utilized that to command a room and gain a grip on anyone he wished. 

Right now you were the one in his grip, both figuratively and literally, as you pushed his shorts down and spread his thighs wider. Shuffling a bit closer, you took more of him in, humming around his cock once more as it hit the back of your throat, nose so close to his pelvis, but you managed. The sweat didn’t bother you, neither did the feel of the hard floor under your knees, not when he seemed to be unraveling at your touch. You were enjoying him so much you swore you could suck him off for hours without a reprieve. So what if your throat was sore? If you were tasting his cum and sweat for hours after with every drink and food you devoured? Pressing your tongue up as you pulled off his length, sure to add even more pressure to the piercing and was rewarded with a whiny moan as his body reacted: hips bucking and hand tightening in your hair to hold you still.

Oh so it made him sensitive?

Bobbing your head back down, taking as much of his length as you felt comfortable with, you focused more attention on his tip. Every time you pulled away you added pressure, letting your teeth scrape against it or twisting your head just enough as you pushed back down.

Hongjoong was noisy, between high pitched pants, to low curses under his breath, his fingers in your hair a give away to what he liked best. You used that to your advantage, nails digging into the inside of his thighs when you realized he liked that.

“Ah- fuck- gorgeous- Gunna make me- mmm fuck fuck~” His head kept rolling back but he would push forward to watch you as much as he could, mouth hanging open, teeth clenching in little hisses of pleasure. You hummed and moaned around his cock, picking up pace and pressure as your own need was clouding your thoughts. Have him cum first then maybe you could convince him to fuck you in the showers.

Your nails dug into his thighs more when he started pushing you, just slightly as if guiding, down on his cock. His head rolled back again, moans gaining volume as your name and praise joined the sweet sounds.

In awe of him you nearly choked when his thick cum hit the back of your throat in spurts. You pushed away a bit, lips still latched onto his twitching tip as he emptied his pretty balls on your tongue.

He lifted his head once he was spent, panting heavily and meeting your gaze. He slipped out of your mouth with a loud pop, your tongue lolling out to show the bit of cum still pooled there before you made a show of swallowing it.

“Fuck, Firecracker… I didn’t expect you to do this.” He smoothed out your hair, your scalp a little sensitive from how hard his grip had been.

Smiling, you rested your head on the inside of his knee, smoothing over the crescent marks you had made with your nails and admiring the piercing on his softening cock. “I wanted to. Wanted to show I want you too. I know I wasn’t as… vocal about it. Maybe with work but not in this way.” You tilted your head to look up at him, licking your lips and still tasting him on them. “If you have time… would the showers be private enough? I think Yeosang got enough of a show.” He chuckled, pushing the hair out of your face before gently tapping your cheek. “I should. Stand up for me?” 

Once you did you watched as he pulled up his underwear and shorts. Now you had a moment to admire the work on his arm, you liked learning about them and most people got tattoos that represented a part of them. Plus, tattoos were big in the underworld, often a way to show your rank or who you belonged to.

You noted a few portraits, black rimmed hats and masks, the eyes sharp. There were eight, you counted, surrounded by waves with… with a pirate boat detailed on the upper part of his arm. 

He called your name, moving just as you took note of a few letters on his arm. Sex was no longer on your mind, your brow furrowed as your mouth fell open to speak the first question that formed instead.

But the words were overshadowed by an alarm ringing through the gym and Hongjoong cursing. “Fuck- there’s an emergency.” He quickly pecked your cheek. “Head back to your apartment and wait for a call? I’ll let you know when everything’s okay.” He started grabbing his other things, but you were in shock.

The alarm turned off once he was gone but you were still rooted in place.

From the letters you had been able to make out, two of them had been “B” and “P”, just like Mingi had. 

Were they part of the Black Pirates? Were they… the enemy?

Taglist (Capped): @mingsolo | @wowie-hockey | @crispybaguettes | @tiny-apocalypse

| @philijack | @lelaleleb | @isiloiale | @vannabanana1995  | @piratequeen-queenofgames

| @starstruckforyou | @minheeskitten | @amphiroxx  | @cloudysannie | @sugarnspice630

| @sanhwalvr | @plutoneu |  @sousydive |  @fatalt | @iwishiwasrichasfuck

| @bitchwhytho | @st4rhwa | @thesafecafe | @alextheweeb7 | @ddaeing

Taglist will be continued in a reblog!!

[chiiyuuvv]

bathing with riize ★

boyfriend!riize 1k words

notes! rewriting this because i found my previous version very explicit :')

▸ 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺?

shotaro 🫧

you’re immediately dragged to the dinner table as soon as you return home later than usual

taro gives you his classic sweet smile as he pulls your chair open so you can sit and enjoy the warm meal he prepared for you while you were gone

a little disappointed when your boyfriend leaves you to eat dinner alone, but you know it isn’t in spite when you hear him running a bath in the background

carefully strips off your clothes because you’re his precious girl, then leads you to the warm tub so you can relax from your stressful day

thoroughly washes your body, stopping at certain areas to massage any sore spots as you ramble about your day

not to mention the random forehead kisses he gives you as you talk, receiving his full attention 

when you’re done, he dresses you in your favorite pajamas (an oversized shirt of his) and tucks you into bed <3

eunseok 🫧

the exact opposite as shotaro’s.. whoopsie

instead it’s you preparing his meal and bath

which he stares at you like 😐 because no no no! it’s supposed to be HIM giving you princess treatment, not the other way around

hates you so much because why does it feel so good being the center of attention? you’re hands lathering soap up and down his shoulders as you whisper sweet ‘you did so well today’’s in his ear

he’s falling for you so hard as if you aren’t already dating. you have no idea how whipped he is for you

because he’s such a brat that can’t have nice things, he splashes water in your face when you go to kiss him

about to burst out laughing when suddenly he’s drenched in water

water fight!!

sungchan 🫧

when sungchan invites you to the bathroom, you don’t like calling it a shower

it’s more so “chani hugging you so tightly you can barely move, so you just stand in the raining water”

don’t get me wrong,, you still enjoy it though!!

sungchan’s arms firmly wrapped around your waist as his nuzzles his wet hair against your neck, placing kisses on your skin from time to time

you like to talk about each other’s days during this time, or discuss future dates

loves loves loves to dry your body once you’re done “showering”, his eyes littered with adoration as he mumbles how pretty his girl looks

also loves when you return the favor <3 looks down at you as you dry his hair, his hands going back to hold your waist

looks at you like you hung the stars above your apartment roof, a soft smile tugging at his lips because he thinks you’re sooooooo cute it’s almost pathetic 

wonbin 🫧

i noticed male idols with longer hair always complain about how high maintenance their locks get

wonbin was that way too, until you suggested washing his hair for him

he’s so whipped from the feeling of your hands tangled in his curls that he would happily turn into rapunzel so he can return to that feeling every night (no pun intended hehe)

he looks so damn cute with his head resting against your lap when you’re washing him over the tub, his eyes closed as soft hums leave his lips when you scratch his scalp

leans into your warmth when you’re drying his hair, looking up at you like the happiest man in the world

seunghan 🫧

seunghan, being the observant boyfriend he is, always notices you use your sunday’s as your spa day

realizes how much you fancy spending hours in the bathroom lavishing yourself with sweet scents from your soaps / lotions, or shaving hairy body parts

seunghan loves how attentive you are to yourself, and he can’t help but want to accompany you during your special time

carefully spreads shaving cream all over your legs, tracing little hearts and stars into the foam before shaving it away

sometimes he feels mischievous, like giving you a bubble mustache or tickling your feet when he’s shaving you

his nose always scrunches when he hears your cute laughter, giggling like a lovesick boy internally 

honestly just happy to be there, the room filled with his sweet words as he watches you take care of yourself with hearts in his eyes

sohee 🫧

BUBBLE BATH !!

why sohee wanted one in the first place, the world will never know. but it did know how excited you got from the idea

while sohee’s busy running the bubbly bath water, you’re scurrying around the house to find bath bombs, rubber ducks, and literally anything else that could go in your tub

sohee makes himself a bubble hat and you’re busy making yourself a beard

if anyone walks in the bathroom y’all are cookeddd 💀🙏 but it doesn’t matter because they’re just haters that don’t know how to have fun 🤣

actually one of the reasons why you love sohee and his energy so much because he always entertains your inner child and encourages you to be a little silly for once

“who cares what other people think? nothing matters as long as i’m with you” and vise versa <3

anton 🫧

anton doesn’t partake in any washing, but it’s still cute so shush

wind down = doing everything together

that means eating dinner together, matching pj’s, heck even falling asleep at the same time

(which is a lie because anton likes to spend a couple extra minutes admiring your sleepy face)

loves to watch you brush your teeth at the same time, his eyes forming into small crescents as he wraps his arm around your shoulder to pull you closer to himself

also loves being dangerously close to your face to apply lotion and chapstick to your skin and lips so you don’t wake up feeling dry

(the chapstick part is useless because he always kisses it off of you)

instead of immediately going to bed, sometimes you like to have a small pillow fight which ends with him on top of you on the floor as he tickles your sides until you’re crying from laughter

other times you have soft makeout sessions because anton can’t keeps his hands and lips to himself

you still fall asleep with anton’s head nuzzled into your neck, his arms wrapped around your waist like a birthday bow as his breath fans your skin

that’s still a win in my book 🤷

︴bonus! planning to draft a xikers hc pretty soon .. schedule is slowly clearing up!

▸ taglist 📬 @cake1box , @wccycc , @babigriin , @soul-is-a-strange-kid , @riize119 ,

@mxlly143 , @yeosayang , @lecheugo , @hanajm , @addictedtohobi ,

@yuniniverse , @yoiiwonn , @bambisnc , @skyblue84

🎬 navi

@chiiyuuvv on tumblr . do not steal works/headers/line dividers

[dreemurr-skelememer]

Hello :D

I have been following you for the last year or so (a few days after I got my Tumblr lmao) and I absolutely love your art!

I have been wanting to study your art style for a while but don't really know where to start,,,

Could you please show me a small portion of your art process, if it isn't too much trouble of course. Thank you and have a nice day!

hello. oh my god. this took forever to find. im sorry it took 2 WHOLE FUCKING MONTHS for me to respond to this but i wanted to put it off until i felt happy with my art process again, so here it is

my fall 2024 rendering tutorial! (this will be very very long)

FLATS AND WHATEVER YOU WANNA DO WITH LINES GIRL. then make sure to recolor the lineart to better match your base. trust me it helps, bold dark lines are Not your best friend when rendering. wait for that post-rendering

i start off with a doodle or a sketch, and then filling it in with flats and other details such as blush

FIGURE OUT YOUR LIGHT SOURCE. FIGURE IT OUT GIRL YOU CAN DO IT you can make it as simple as possible, make it as big as possible, dont even THINK about the details.........just make it really fucking big so you at least know where the shadows and the light goes THEN add smaller shading details LISTEN TO ME. LISTEN TO ME OKAY!!!!!!!!

my key point with this is for you to learn lighting fundamentals. it's SOOO ANNOYING but alas......they are all correct. it helps a lot.

one thing i also really want to point out is that i like creating a big shadow shape first before fixing up the little details (such as folds and whatever) because it helps me focus on the way the lighting actually works instead of tunnel vision-ing into making the shading make sense on the clothing.

contact shadows (i dont remember if thats what theyre called okay) theyre fucking ugly because im not actually thinking sorry 💔

okay so basically: contact shadows (if that's what they're called) are the spots in shading and lighting where light will NEVER hit.

shadows are still influenced by the colors and lights around it (it's why a blue shadow and a yellow shadow feel completely different, despite both being shadows) so it's not always COMPLETELY dark. BUT! there are small points in shadows where light never hits, and they're almost always super dark or pitch black.

it's hard to explain shadow and light so briefly for a tutorial, but you'll notice it when watching fundamental studies and when trying it out for yourself

YES i unclipped the multiply layer YES its ugly and terrifying but it makes coloring the multiply layer easier okay the colors merged w multiply so now it looks cool and has depth overlaying colors that actually make sense

so basically what i did was color the multiply layer that i used to shade the overall drawing

adding a band of red/orange/yellow around where the light hits, and blue where the shadows get big and wide, gives it a fake ambient occlusion effect in the way that a person would get if they stood under the sun with a clear blue sky

the colors don't have to make sense, especially because i never draw backgrounds, but coloring the shadows really help it give a sense of depth and extra subtle detail and effect that just helps make the painting look nicer

around the end, i also put in colors (in an overlay layer with a low opacity brush) that actually make sense in context of the drawing, which is the lit cigarette and the yellow eyelights mostly because none of the colors were making sense and i needed to actually make use of the lighting that DOES exist in the drawing lol

adding a muddy golden yellow pin light layer (opacity turned down to like 40-50%) to make the light colors less ugly lol

i SWEAR by the fucking pin light layer style. it's so useful and so so underrated.

i used an almost brown-ish gold color on stop of all the layers, and with the pin light layer, it helped make the bright (almost blue-ish) white colors more warm and more yellow. it just helps make things more warm (something i prefer)

i could probably show what it looks like without adjusting the layer opacity to truly show off what i mean (like in the coming section) but i sadly forgot to do that lol

make a layer on top of your drawing with this color in these ranges YES the drawing is fully merged NO don't be afraid, the base was fucking ugly anyway 💔 make this layer into an exclude/exclusion layer style TRUST turn down your exclusion layer opacity from a range of 10% to 40% literally until you're happy with the contrast and the way the color over the drawing. use your eyeballs. i know you can do it im so proud of you

this is pretty self-explanatory instruction-wise, so i'll go into why i do this instead

i really like art that seems like it has low contrast, with almost mid-gray shading and lines. i don't personally use dark and bold lines and shading, unless i find it necessary for the tone of the piece, so using this method helps lower the contrast of the art and make it look "pleasantly muddy" in the way that it's easier and softer on the eyes.

the inverted blue color also helps makes things warmer! the exclusion layer style is still a bit of a mystery to me but i really like the effect it gives, even if i don't completely get how it works lol

if you want an alternative method to this, and if you have access to it (because i primarily use sai and sai only), i absolutely encourage you to play around and experiment with gradient maps. there are so many out there you can make yourself or even get from others that just give the painting an extra amount of depth and color variation. they're SO fun.

personally, if sai2 gets a gradient map update, it's over for y'all it will literally be so over no one will be able to stop me

then i merged everything and actually adjusted the contrast back up because it was looking too muddy for me 💔 but the color adjustments are still there so all hope is not lost here's a comparison of the adjusted contrast in black and white (adjusted on the left) (newly merged layer without adjusting the contrast on the right)

as you can see, i actually turned the contrast back up (despite talking all about how i liked things with less contrast lol)

i wanted to demonstrate that doing adjustments should be done in moderation, and is why i adjust layer opacity often when making color effects you are free to play around with colors to help your style, but don't lose your initial idea and colors along the way. you still need to trust your own colors and intuition!

along with that, i just want to say that it's completely okay to change your mind mid-painting, and it's okay to make somewhat drastic changes. don't be afraid to change things you don't like or change your mind about certain aspects way later on that's basically the whole thing of this!!! don't be scared!!!

now im gonna hold your hand when i say this..........but you need to learn how to render by yourself. it seems like i can teach you but i literally can't, because rendering is different on every piece and depending on how clean your base is. i have to render A LOT because of how fucking ugly my sketches are LMAO to simplify it, think of it as obsessively cleaning up every detail you can see, but with a color picker and a clean, hard edged brush. if you have shit lineart, you don't have to redraw it cleanly over and over, just paint over it. that's basically what rendering is

THIS especially is where you need to be brave and stop being scared. like i said, i can't teach you how to render, and it's something you have to discover yourself because rendering is something that will always be personal to every single piece you make. the way you render on every piece is different. on one piece, you will barely need to render, and on another, rendering is more than half of your ENTIRE process.

don't be afraid to paint over your old art. rendering is a process that's both very perfectionist yet also very careless. find your balance and just go for it.

and then that's it……..u did it………..now yuo know how to paint and render. it's literally just layering shading and lighting knowledge until you think it makes sense and looks okay lol additional note: since i render in only one layer (you don't HAVE to do this, but it'll be harder for you…), i also made slight adjustments with the transform (and liquify, if you have it) tool to make things more proportionate. (i drew the head too big lol)

if you compare the finished piece to the final unrendered base, you can see that a LOT changed, including a bit of subtle proportion adjustment. particularly, the sleeves changed A LOT (because i really didn't like them) but it's also over all cleaner and more coherent, instead of having haphazard colors and shading just thrown about.

rendering is when you finally use all 100% of your brain to finalize and figure out where the shading should go, where to clean up your lines, where to ERASE or ADD BACK in lines, and make sure all your colors look coherent.

it's not as intimidating as it seems, i only use a hard edged brush with a little bit of color mixing and my color picker. it's like dragging and dropping colors to cover up mistakes, it's really quite fun when you get used to it i wish i could explain it clearer but it's hard to describe without visuals!

i hope this helped, and i hope all my yapping isn't annoying (art as a special interest beloved)

have fun studying and trying to render in my art style!

[whumpster-fire]

Yet another reason T. T. Sutherland is a coward and a fool for going "Peril has never been touched in battle before, the dragonflame cactus was her first time experiencing real pain" and I refuse to accept it as canon:

Cooler Headcanon: the reason Peril immediately had the idea of burning the venom out of Clay's wound when he got bitten by the Dragonbite Viper was because she's had to do that to herself after getting puncture wounds from sandwings that injected venom past the superheated layer of skin. It didn't do as much damage to her as it did to Clay because Peril's pretty much completely fireproof even under the skin, so the scars are pretty small and not that noticeable, but she does have a few.

The couple times she de-venomed herself during a battle were pretty much the most metal thing ever to happen in Scarlet's arena. A dragon getting an apparently mortal wound, jamming her claws right into the open wound, writhing on the sand in apparent death throes, and then after like a minute getting back up with "smoke" rising from her eyes and nose as well as the bloody, sizzling puncture, and proceeding to limp across the arena and utterly destroy her terrified opponent.

The dragons she was fighting didn't try to finish her off because they'd already severely burned their tail barbs and probably talons and wings doing it and weren't going to risk getting hurt even worse by a dying dragon. Then of course when their one hope of killing her turned out not to work they kind of lost the will to live.

This contributed significantly to Peril's reputation as an invincible monster, but on the other hand seeing the queen's champion curled in a fetal position, screaming, sobbing and obviously trying not to pass out, made some of the spectators present for those fights somewhat remember that this was a 2-3 year old dragonet being thrown in the arena with full grown adult enemy soldiers, which was pretty messed up even if the small child kept winning. These feelings of sympathy were often diminished a bit by what Peril did to her opponents afterward, but Queen Scarlet was still not pleased, and after it happened two or three times she got a supply of the antidote cactus for "if a guard accidentally gets gotten by a sandwing prisoner" purposes.

Ruby absolutely never saw this because she made a point of watching fights in the arena as little as possible, especially Peril's for obvious reasons.

On the other hand I just thought of the perfect explanation for why Carnelian was like "I wonder if she remembers me?" when Peril showed up at JMA instead of freaking out like most of the dragons there. At some point, early in her career as a child soldier before she ended up in Ruby's unit, she was working in the palace and got voluntold to help out during an incident when Peril got stabbed in the shoulder or something where she couldn't reach with her claws so somebody had to very carefully burn the venom out with a red hot nail and a pair of tongs. Carnelian's actual job was probably something like holding a bucket of water and pouring it on the spear haft a third dragon was holding Peril's wing closed with, but she met Peril in a vulnerable state when she wasn't trying to perform for the crowd, and also saw her trying really hard to avoid accidentally injuring anyone, which led to her being one of a small number of skywings who are capable of being normal about Peril.

[nthspecialll]

Bill Williamson shaped by an army knife

(This post is a casual explanation(ish), not meant to defend but rather explore and discuss Bill Williamson's character and how it is shaped by the army, it has also been sensitivity and proof read by a native to ensure that I did not accidently word anything in a way that would hurt the native community)

As many knows, Bill Williamson was in the army, and if you look closer you can see the many different ways in which it formed him, the ways in which a constantly stressful envioment filled with death shaped the person he is.

I am going to mention the one thing that stood out to me first, racism. Now hang on when I say this, he isn't, he is not racist, but you know what he is? A parot who got fed words and repeats them. And why would I say that? Do I have evidence? Yes.

The two characters we see Bill go after is Javier and Lenny, he calls Lenny "boy" and says "come over here!" or "I don't like your attitude", meanwhile with Javier he straight up calls him a slur. But something to notice is that Bill praises both of those characters at other times. Bill calls Lenny "son" and yells to everyone about how amazing he is and the proud almost fatherly instrict is oozing. With Javier there is a similar interaction where he is drunk and he is yapping Sean's ear off about how amazing Javier is.

We do not see that with Micah (That I can find), the only possitive thing Micah says to either of them is "you aren't so bad, for a greaser". Another thing to point out is that Micah is constantly belittling both Lenny and Javier, saying things like "you can write and everything, unusual for one of you. Oh you know, hoodlums," Bill does not, he does not belittle them.

So why would he say such things? Because he was angry, and why would he say that because he is upset?

Bill was in the army, common knowledge, uncommon (or at least commonly forgotten) is the fact that he fought the American Indian War. He did not fight other white people, he fought the native americans, and they were scary. He tells that story himself in a camp interaction, talking about how scary it was, and I do think he was frightened and not just empty words as he at the end jumps at the sound of a neighing horse.

Bill saw people get murdered, he saw his friends get slaughtered and he was told by the army to turn that anger towards the natives. The army implimented racist ideologies to excuse the genocide they were making and to rile their armies.

I often think of the line between Bill and Dutch where Bill says "I saw things!" and Dutch says "I am sure you do! But I don't think you could understand it" and I think that is spot on. Bill saw his friends dying, he saw his comrades dying, people he was likely as close to as he was the VDL gang (I will return to that later) dying. All he saw were these people murdering his friends, not that those people were fighting for their right to exist, and for every body the army framed it all on the natives, that it was all their fault, without mentioning anything that the army was doing to the natives.

The only times Bill acts out in a racist manner is when he is angry and he is often angry at himself, but he has always been told that when he is angry he should direct it towards people of color by the army, so he does. He does not believe it, but he does it anyways. There are a few times, like in the camp interactions mentioned, where he is not angry, but that is simply the brainwash that the army put him under to justify killing. He is saying those things because he has been told to.

He says the words but they seem empty as his actions are more supportive of his friends than anything.

Another thing I noticed is how protective he is of the gang, not just of Dutch, but the gang, even though he is painted as lazy, many times he is not, especially when it comes to protection. I often see him standing at the edge of camp even when he is off guard, and in that one camp interaction where strangers find camp, he is there, he is watching over them, in the Valentine robbery he was also smart enough to know to bring backup, he knew that if things were to go wrong, he needed to have someone there, Arthur.

Now some people are going to come and say "Oh but he didn't realise the security job was a trick," no, he did not, do you know who also did not? Dutch, Lenny, Karen, characters whom it was mentioned in front of. The only ones who did realise were Arthur and Sean, and despite Bill trying to throw the blame off himself at first, he does blame himself, there are interactions of him saying he blames himself for Sean's death. Similarly when Angelo Bronte offers up money, he is not planning to take it, he is making sure no one else is, I got a whole post on that.

One of the other things about Bill, is that people say he did not care when Lenny died. I do think he did, he has so many camp interactions where he is calling Lenny son, being proud of him and so on, but I do think that the army got to him there too. When in battle people die, people die often and you cannot stop because they do, no matter how much you loved that person, if you are on an open battle field charging towards the enemy, you do not have time to stop.

When in the army you are expected to be a tough manly dude, in chapter six Arthur can ask if Bill is okay and he never gives a real answer, instead he shifts the convosation away. Bill believes he is not allowed to show weakness because doing so in the army was not allowed, anything unmanly was not allowed. I do also believe that is where he gets his fucked up realtionship with his sexuality (I am not even going to explain why I think of him as queer, I do believe others are able to see if, but also if anyone says "No he aint!" that is a fair opinion but the va does hc him to be queer), wanting to flirt (or at least befriend) Kieran but not knowing how to without coming off as unmanly.

Returning to how he would care for the army friends he made, is how he ended after he got thrown out. Bill says his biggest fear as a kid was to be an alcoholic and look at where he ended up. He even says he completely lost himself after the army, that Dutch "saved Bill Williamson."

Well even if it was not everyone whom he liked, there was at least one person. If we look at his letter from the army, he is thrown out for attempted murder and deviancy ("the fact or state of diverging from usual or accepted standards, especially in social or sexual behaviour." aka can be used for homosexuality). An interesting thing to note is that both of those alone is enough to throw someone out of the army, so why is both there unless they happened at the same time? I see it likely that Bill was discovered with a lover and either the person found them attacked Bill and lover or Bill attacked the person who found them to silence them. Either way, Bill did not succeed and instead he got thrown.

Tags: @cupidsbeartrap

[wellnoe]

reading a book that is very interesting in its quantitative analysis but is so weird in its tone!! the place the author chooses to insert emotionality is bizarre and his treatment of mortality of the be all end all of suffering is equally so.

[kanmom51]

I didn't know this

*p.s. - She was his gf then and his wife now, why the need to say "his first girlfriend"? First gf we knew about more like it.

OK, so here's the thing... those are JK's eyes, sue me. And the timing of that billboard falling and the keep going..

I have a draft way back from July, me talking about JM's Who MV shoot sketch. I started writing it and found that I couldn't complete it. And now with this - I didn't know this little ever so important piece of information - maybe I can talk about it a little more (bring up some of the things I was thinking about back then).

Basically a few things stood out to me while watching the BTB.

JM being JM as usual. Beautiful, talented, shrewd.

It's quite obvious that JM is involved in the direction of the MV (we were saying...), and this is one thing that stood out to me:

3 things stood out to me. First was his use of the word people. "...people walk past me...". The second was "for now", as in the MV's "for now". And third was "that's what I'm trying to show". So yes, this was part of JM's vision. The song's meaning chasing that muse, but also the song's MV, which is more about finding that "someone", that "who" in a more understandable language to us, being romantic love.

Song is about the intangible, MV is about corporeal, if you wish.

Watching this had me also go back to the MV itself and notice a few more things I didn't notice first times around, and with that new piece of information about Taeyung and his then girlfriend now wife, and knowing just how huge ENL was back in the day and JM's close friendship now days with Taeyung, well, it just fits so so well.

Just bringing this back for a sec before moving on:

Back to Who MV and me trying to connect some of the dots.

The scene JM is talking about, with the people, men and women, passing him by and none of them are the person he is looking for, it comes right after this:

NO QUESTION MARK ON THERE!!!

I also noticed that before this screen falls JM's interactions, the 'people' passing him by are only women, where as after the screen falls and tells him to keep going, well, then it's not only women passing him by. Now he's not limiting himself only to finding "her"? Maybe now he's looking for "him" too? Maybe "him" is the "who" he's looking for and not "her"?

But we know that the billboard has a specific "him" on it. And even though the hers and hims are crossing his path, at this point he isn't interacting with them, they aren't the who he's looking for.

Another interesting thing I found was that when it comes to those one on one's they are only with women. We have them before the screen falling, and after it fell and he is walking down the street people walking him by, even then, the only ones he interacts with are women. But as he is doing that, this appears on the screen as well:

This is also right after the huge screen falls from the sky. Is this again someone or something telling him to go back, rewind, that the screen he just walked away from has the answer he's looking for?

That he missed something, or someone...

And we know NOTHING is a coincidence when it comes to these two, especially in their artistic decisions.

This either:

We weren't sure at the time what it all meant.

What was JM hinting to?

What were the editors of AYS hinting to?

I know not everything about their art is about them as a couple. I've said that multiple times. Not every song is about one or the other or them and their love for each other. Not at all.

But...

That doesn't mean we should ALWAYS dismiss the possibility that it may just be about them. That some of their lyrics do have to do with each other, that some of their songs (even if they did not write the lyrics themselves) do have representation of their relationship in them, that some of their artistic decisions are about them showing their true selves and their love for each other.

We have seen songs that we just KNOW are written for the other, about the other, about their love for each other, about a moment they shared with one another, about what the other means to them. And sometimes when the song isn't there are things surrounding them that are. It can be photoshoot concepts or hints within their artistry that pay homage to the other, or that they are agreed upon hints to what they mean to each other. We have seen this with both of them during their solo journey as well.

And now with this new piece of information, which I was not aware of, coming to light I'm thinking that this isn't about a collab or a song (although I would love for there to be a Jikook song). I'm thinking that our first knee jerk reaction to this could have been the right one. That this was all about the Who. That the eyes on that screen, the one JM doesn't get to see in the MV, those are the eyes of his "Who". In the MV, but more so, you know, in real life.

*Another p.s. - I know I've been silent since the last AYS episode has dropped. It's been a hectic week, but more so it's been hard for me to even try and put into words how I felt coming out (pun most definitley intended) on the other side of this episode. I am working on my post at the moment. The words are not coming easy, I can tell you that much. But it will come. Eventually.💜💜

[youremyheaven]

Jupiter & Rahu Influence Among Popstars

When I look at pop-stars across industries, I have noticed them all often having the same planetary influence showing up one way or another (usually nakshatra's ruling planet but less often, rashi lord as well).

Now, lets look at what or who a "pop-star" is. The simplest definition is that "a pop-star is a highly successful singer of pop music". Some would say that being a pop-star is the pinnacle of fame. They are at the very top of the entertainment industry food chain.

Actors pretend to be other people for a living but a pop-star is one who has to pretend to be an exaggerated version of themselves for a living. Most pop-stars have an alter ego or stage persona that they project, sometimes these alter egos have different names, other times they don't.

If you think about it, being exalted to the status of a superstar, akin to a God or deity and being adored, worshipped and obsessed over by millions of people, for being "you" is a bit bizarre in itself. Actors spend months making movies and playing a character, someone singing and dancing on stage and "being" themselves sounds simpler even though, in truth, it is a much harder job. If your full time job was being an exaggerated version of you, you'd struggle immensely with your sense of self. Most people would have some kind of breakdown, being unable to distinguish between what is "really" them and what belongs to the persona.

I'm by no means suggesting that Jupiter influenced people are exempt from having an identity crisis. In fact, I would say its the opposite. I think due to the expansive and boundless nature of Jupiter, which has a tendency to exaggerate the effects of whatever it touches, most Jupiter natives kind of permanently live in a state of "in-between-ness" , this feeling of being stuck in limbo is reflected in how each Jupiter ruled nakshatra falls between two rashis, one air and another water.

Punarvasu- Gemini & Cancer

Vishaka- Libra & Scorpio

Purvabhadrapada- Aquarius & Pisces

These 2 elements are very different from one another, Air element is typically associated with the intellect and ideas, whereas the Water element is associated with emotions, spirituality, wisdom etc. So, Jupiter, the planet of luck and abundance, the "Guru" (teacher) is one that is "well rounded" in the sense that it is both practical as well as spiritual and emotional. This also insinuates that, in order to amass abundance and be fortunate in life, one has to have a mixture of opposite qualities and be "well rounded". Duality is an innate theme of Jupiter, and whilst many think of duality as having opposite qualities, its wiser to think of Jupiter as the union of opposites. Light and dark, good and evil, feminine and masculine, peace and violence, love and hatred, all co-exist together here. Due to the scholarly "Guru" nature of Jupiter, it becomes the duty of its native to rise above the lower manifestations of these energies and embody the principled nature of it. In this sense, its not just the "meeting" of good and evil but the triumph of good over evil.

I had already explored in a previous post about how having an alter ego/multiple identities is kind of a Jupiter thing. Most Jupiter influenced individuals majorly struggle with their identity simply because they feel like they're "all things" and this sort of commercial marketing of "aesthetics" and "niches" is very limiting. They're all things, all at once. This can be disorienting for others who struggle with their identity for other reasons (Nodals who struggle with over-attachment and detachment, Malefic gworls who don't have very many hobbies/interests/passions to base their personality off of). Its hard to explain what "being everything" is like to people who don't have a sense of self/reality to begin with, or those who have a very narrow or rigid understanding of themselves. We're familiar with Rahu mania but Jupiter mania often flies under the radar because they seem so put together on the outside, unlike Rahuvians who wear their madness on their sleeve.

Most people would have a tough time figuring out how a Jupiter native actually felt or if they were going through something in their personal life because they're usually stoic af and very well kept. Their world could be falling apart but they will never lose their etiquette or their manners. This can lead to scenarios where they're either not given adequate consideration for their suffering because they dont "look/seem" like they're going through it OR people tear them apart for seeming too "cold/nonchalant" even in the face of crisis. People like to see vulnerability because it makes others more humane and relatable and sometimes the stoicism of Jupiter natives can irk others because it makes them seem robotic or beyond human.

How does all of this tie into Jupiter being the most common planetary influence among pop-stars?

I had already mentioned that pop-stars are idolized for simply existing. Having the expansive energy of Jupiter helps one become a vessel for the projections of others. You can be anything or anyone to everyone. I have observed Jupiter influenced individuals code switching irl, in the sense that they have an entirely different personality depending on who they're interacting with and usually have several different friend groups that have nothing remotely in common with each other.

Many anons have mentioned dating Jupiter men who seem very sweet and giving and then being mindblown when they turn out to be insane party animals who smoke and drink till they drop and go batshit insane at the club. They seem too "goody two shoes"-y to be about that life, yet they are.

Being a performer/pop-star seems to suit Jupiter natives because it gives them an outlet to channel their manyyyy sides. Even their alter egos have alter egos and if they had to live normal lives, it would kinda drive them crazy unless they found some phenomenal ways to compartmentalize all that stuff. Not to rely on anecdotal evidence (I'll cite more "celebrity" examples after this) but there's a guy I know whose chart is heavily Jupiter influenced and he is the most responsible family man ever and provides for his whole family but he is also extremely passionate about weed, does not say no to a drink and LOVES to party. He lives in an apartment complex with a lot of people our age and mf is always at someone's house party 😭😭 I am in no way implying that these things CANNOT co-exist, that you can't both be a hardworking family guy who looks after everyone AND drown yourself in booze but typically the kind of person you associate with one kinda lifestyle is not who you associate with the other, if ykwim

There are many examples of these "contradictions"

Miley Cyrus, Vishaka Moon

She is known for her wild, freaky stage performances and her no-nonsense personality but beyond all that, Miley is a homebody who has a gazillion animals and lives a very "simple" (or simple, for a celebrity anyway) life.

Beyonce, Vishaka Moon

Beyond all her glamour, Bey is veryyyy lowkey and raises honeybees in her backyard and harvests her own honey. She's very spiritual and is all about her family and minding her own business. I know this isn't news to anyone but isn't it interesting how the biggest pop-star of our time, known for her fierce performances and larger than life persona, is actually a tradwife? A proper Southern lady, if you will.

Jennie, Vishaka Moon

In a recent interview, she said:

"Anyone who meets me will say I’m so far from what I represent as me onstage...it's a part of me , a switch inside of me that I can just click.”

(This is SOOO Jupiter coded of her)

Jennie's friend Deb Never described her as:

“She’s shy and really humble and very sweet,” she says. “And then as soon as it comes to music and how she performs, it’s this flip side, this opposite person where it’s like in your face and very outspoken. It’s not like she’s acting. It’s being able to let out a whole other side of you that you don’t get to in real life. There’s a vulnerability in that.”

I had mentioned a few times previously about how Jupiter and Rahu's energies can be veryyyy similar. Jupiter has more structure and can keep the mania and obsession under wraps a bit more than the average Rahuvian (Jupiter is a benefic, Rahu is a malefic, so the limitless energies are channelled in more "beneficial" ways by a Jupiterean and in less beneficial ways by a Rahuvian). Looking at the charts of entertainers who were/are highly successful, the Jupiter + Rahu influence recurring is crazyyyy.

Frank Sinatra is considered one of the earliest pop-stars. He is a Shatabhisha Moon.

Elvis Presley, Shatabhisha Moon

Aretha Franklin, Punarvasu Moon, Vishaka Rising

Billy Joel, Punarvasu Rising

Michael Jackson, Shatabhisha/Purvabhadrapada Moon

I am not trying to imply that people without Jupiter influence can't be pop-stars, they can!! But when they aren't Jupiter influenced, they're usually Nodal

Mariah Carey, Punarvasu Moon

Whitney Houston, Shatabhisha Rising

Celine Dion, Venus atmakaraka in Purvabhadrapada and Mercury amatyakaraka in Purvabhadrapada

Taylor Swift, Ardra Moon

Diana Ross, Vishaka Rising

Eric Clapton, Swati Moon

The shapeshifting ability of these natives is what allows them to flourish in an industry where you're essentially selling yourself as a product.

Adele, Ardra Rising

Lady Gaga, Swati Moon

Ariana Grande, Ardra Sun

Rihanna, Shatabhisha Sun

Dua Lipa, Ardra/Punarvasu Moon

Katy Perry, Swati Sun/Mercury/Rising and Vishaka Moon

Billie Eilish, Purvabhadrapada Rising

Shakira, Punarvasu Moon

Lana Del Rey, Ardra Sun, Vishaka Rising

Halsey, Punarvasu Moon & Mars, Vishaka stellium (Venus/Jup/Rahu) and Swati Mercury conjunct Rising

Janet Jackson, Ketu conjunct Rising in Vishaka

Lorde, Vishaka Sun & Mercury

Sabrina Carpenter, Purvabhadrapada Moon & Rising (she's also Bharani Sun and that's why she's an it girl)

Chappell Roan, Shatabhisha Sun/Jupiter/Ketu

Charli XcX- Ardra Rising

[heart-eyed-love]

Your Stupid Little Fucker

Summary | Eddie teases you about a said stuffed animals that turns out you don't have anymore and he takes that to heart.

Contains | Fem!Reader, Friends-to- Lovers (eventually), Cursing…

Word Count | 1.3k

An | Soooo, I kinda want to make series of oneshots and drabbles and what not for a bestfriend!eddie and bestfriend!reader, so i think this will be my first installment of that… and i’ll write stuff for the timeline that will be put out, out of order but i’ll make a masterlist so everything can be ordered correctly @_@ (which is also heavily inspired by the way wheels-of-despair sets up her amazing evil woman series)

“And you still sleep with it?” Jeff laughs as he questions Gareth, whose face only seems to be getting redder. But you’re not sure whether it’s from embarrassment or building anger.

“No, I don’t sleep with it, Asshole.” Gareth glares over at the boy, “Just because I still have it doesn’t mean I sleep with it.” 

“Then why do you still have it?” Grant questions with a grin. As he lifted the stuffed animal off of Gareth's bed as he seemed to inspect it.

Gareth was 100% not enjoying the interrogation on the stuffed rabbit that he had had since he was a baby. If he had known that everyone would have ended up in his room after band practice he would’ve hidden the ratty old thing.

“My mom is making me keep it.” It was a lie, and obvious one at that, but just in time Eddie cut in. Ultimately it wasn’t to benefit Gareth, but rather to put you on the spot.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, man. (Y/n) still sleeps with one too!” He looks over to you with a smirk, teasing tone he knows will piss you off. And he’s proud to be met with a glare already staring back at him.

“No, I don’t.” The other boys giggle, but Gareth feels your pain so he stays quiet.

“So, you don’t still sleep with that stuffed bat?” He eggs you on.

Ah. The stuffed bat. One that Eddie himself had so proudly won for you back in your freshman year. He was pleasantly surprised with himself that night at the fair, an “athletic” game that involved him throwing? And actually successfully knocking down all the pins? Yeah, he was pretty stoked, he was able to pull that off on the first try. If he had missed those with you standing next to him that experience would have been all too humbling.

But no, he had successfully won you a prize. A stuffed bat he picked, and he turned to you with an overly cocky smile for a guy who had gotten lucky with his shots.

But the bat seemed fitting, something he’d selfishly hoped you would see and immediately think of him.

“For me?” You ask with a smirk as he hands the plush over to you.

“Yeah, well I don’t have much use for it…” He’s trying to act all cool about it, but he knows he only even purchased tickets to play that game for you.

“Well, thank you, kind sir.” You smile up at him.

“Yeah, whatever, dork.” He shoves your head playfully and turns away before the slight redness of his cheeks can be noticed by you.

To say the least, that night was a night both of you remembered fondly. One of your favorite memories is Eddie gifting you that stuffed bat, and now he’s using it to try to embarrass you?

“No, I actually don’t, Eddie. I got rid of that thing.” Lie, big lie. It currently sat smack dap next to the pillow you slept on but you weren’t going to admit that. It probably wasn’t the best thing to lie about but right now, you didn’t care, he was trying to embarrass you and you weren’t going to let him get the satisfaction.

But why should you be embarrassed? Is it weird that you kept it after all this time? Is it weird that you feel so attached to it because Eddie gave it to you?

But in the slight blinded anger you felt, the fall of Eddie’s cheeky, teasing attitude had gone unnoticed by you. 

“You got rid of it?”

“Yeah, kinda just outgrew it I guess.” He watches you shrug like it’s nothing, like he had won that thing especially for you.

And truthfully, as Eddie thought back to it he couldn’t actually recall if it had been in your room the last time he went in there, he really just couldn’t remember. 

Thankfully for you though, cause yeah, it was still in there then too.

The boys have already moved on to another subject, and Jeff and Grant recklessly went through Gareth's comics as he screeched at them to be careful snatching it away from Grant. You walk past Eddie and over to the boys, taking your own time to look through the piles, trying to forget lying directly to Eddie’s face.

He stood moderately frozen at the news you just broke to him, but he pulled himself out of it and rejoins the groups, staying rather quiet as he went through the comics.

Staying way quieter than Eddie normally would all the way until pulling back up to your house that evening. And you finally crack…

“What’s wrong?” You asked with a brow raised in confusion as you looked over at the boy. 

“Nothing, wrong. Why would something be wrong?”

“Cause you’re barely talking… and while I do love this peace and quiet…” you tease but to no avail, “it’s not like you…”

“Did you actually get rid of it?” He turns to you suddenly, and you’re partially surprised by the harsh tone.

“What?” You know exactly what but you don’t know how to get into this right now.

“Did you actually get rid of it? Like did you give it away or did you just throw it in the garage or something?” His tone becomes more annoyed by the second, and you actually fear you might have made him mad. Which wasn't what you had even wanted in the first place, you just wanted him off your back.

“I never said-“ But he’s quick to cut you off.

“Because honestly it’s kinda shitty if you did either way.”

Now you’re rolling your eyes and he’s widening his. Why don’t you care about this?

Why isn’t he letting you speak? Instead of even trying to explain you just slide out of the van as Eddie watches with furrowed brows. 

Were you actually walking away from him right now?

“Are you coming?” You ask over your shoulder as you approach your front door, and you stand there as you watch Eddie scrambling to turn his van off and hop out to meet you at the door.

You both walk to your bedroom silently, and Eddie trails behind you kind of confused but ultimately letting this play out. And as you open your bedroom door you walk a few feet in and you point to the soft plush sitting next to your pillow.

“Where it literally sits every single time you come over, where it sits every single day. I don’t know how you actually believed me.”

“Why did you lie…?” He asks softly.

“Cause you were obviously trying to embarrass me for still having it.”

“What? No! I was just messing around, I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad about it, (Y/n)…” He tries to defend, “Sorry… I’m glad you still have it, relieved actually.”

“Yeah, Well no shit, I thought you were about to start crying in the van…” You tease, lightening the moment.

“I was not about to cry.” He glares, “It’d just be pretty rude, considering I almost threw my back out trying to win that stupid thing for you.”

“Almost threw your back out?!” You cackle out at his dramatics, “Eddie, the pins weren’t even 10 feet away from you.”

“Yeah, I put my athletic abilities to the test for you and this is the thanks I get?” You pull fingers into quotes as he mentions his athletic abilities, and he rolls his eyes at you.

“You did all that just for me?” You tease with a smirk, “You really won that for me?” 

“Yeah, whatever. Thought it would be nice.” He rolls his eyes again and plops onto your bed, purposely knocking the stuffed bat off your bed, causing you to let out an audible gasp.

“Oh my Gosh, you did not just do that!” You screech as you dramatically pick him up and cradle him to your chest with faux shock.

“What? That stupid fuckers causing a lot of drama.” He smiles playfully.

“Yeah, well, he’s my stupid fucker.” You say setting the bat back down in its rightful spot. Smiling down at Eddie as you do.

And he can’t help but smile back. 

God, he hopes he can be your stupid fucker too.

[1moreff-creator]

Select Two, Choose One: How will the Culprit get Found?

Since the latest DRDT chapter seems to have narrowed down the suspect list to just two people, many have speculated on how exactly the cast is going to pin down the correct suspect, and whether or not the audience has the tools to do so. I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring too! And while I’m still really 50/50 split, there is one piece of evidence that could change the murder method… in a way that points us to the culprit. Very inconclusive evidence, but it’s there. Let’s get into it.

Spoilers up to CH2 EP14. CW: Hanging, murder, blood, Eden and Ace!Culprit discussion

As a starting point, I’ll assume that the deduction that the culprit must be one of Eden or Ace is accurate, to simplify things if nothing else.

I will start with what I’ll call “meta only” arguments. In other words, things that characters can’t reliably use to narrow down the suspect, but that we the audience can take into consideration for theory-crafting.

-Mindset post-Nico murder attempt: Immediately after Nico runs out of the gym, the killer needs to be in the correct mindset to grab the tape, and they also need to be able to more or less figure out what Nico did to replicate it with Arei. Although, importantly, the killer doesn’t need to come up with the full plan on the spot, and they don’t need to fully understand what Nico was doing. At the end of the day, the only real similarities are the general idea of a pulley and a hanging.

Here’s more or less the train of thought Eden might have had if she’s the killer.

Eden: Hmm… The fan is broken and there was wire on it, Ace’s neck looks cut… Maybe Nico used some kind of pulley to hang him and it broke? Maybe I could do that… This tape looks useful for that.

Meanwhile, since Ace woke up in the middle of the murder attempt, he has to do a little less deducing.

Ace: Did I just get knocked- HOLY SHIT NICO IS HANGING ME WITH SOME SORT OF FUCKING SPINNING DEVICE AAAA-! Ooh, tape! :D

The actual planning of a murder would come later in the morning for Ace, once he sits down and has A Thought about it. Grabbing the tape in that context seems insane, but there may be precedent for Ace being prone to stealing the weirdest shit (we’ll get to it), so…

I think both of these are plausible. I wouldn’t say either can be disqualified like this, so we keep looking.

-Ripping/reconstructing the note: The note to Arei was ripped up and thrown into the trash, then Eden, Rose and Whit put it together.

Ace has no real reason to destroy the note, he could have just left it as it was. Maybe throw it in the trash since “it’s what Eden would have done”, but destroying it runs the risk of people not being able to put it together to point at Eden/Arturo. Although, you could argue Ace was trying to frame Nico specifically, so the note wasn’t useful and he threw it away because it made sense in his mind.

Here’s where we get introduced to a pretty big problem of having Ace as a suspect; that thing Teruko said, that sometimes assuming people will always act logically is a bad idea. Ace is the prime example; a lot of shit in this case makes a lot more sense if you assume Ace did it because he’s not smart enough to notice the problems with it. Such as using the method to frame Nico when only a few people in the class know what the method is; he maybe wouldn’t have noticed that that could point towards him as well. Ace is erratic, it’s very difficult to pin down why he does half the shit he does.

Eden, at least, makes sense. By destroying the note, then rebuilding it herself, she throws off suspicion with the exact argument she used in the trial; if she’s the killer, why do that? Just leaving the note as it is runs the risk of someone finding it and presenting it, which removes that argument, meaning tearing it is imperative.

And she would want the class to find it, not just because it makes her look more innocent if she talks about a building friendship with Arei, but because the note is where we get the “7:30” time, which combined with the fish making people think the murder was at nighttime, appears to give Eden an alibi.

In conclusion, the note being ripped makes more sense with Eden as the culprit… but it doesn’t disqualify Ace because he’s an idiot. And speaking of that…

-Fish Paradox: As outlined in my Ep13 murder theory revision, the problem with the fish is that everyone who benefits from the fish being at the crime scene only benefits if they have an alibi for nighttime, but that coincides with the time the fish disappeared, as Nico fed them and counted all of them after having dinner, so they couldn’t have taken it. Meanwhile, people like Ace who could have taken the fish, wouldn’t have a reason to as they don’t benefit from the nighttime alibi.

Except, it’s fucking Ace. It’s genuinely possible he thought people would see fish and instantly jump on Nico for some reason. See the problems that arise when you can no longer assume the killer is acting rationally?

Anyways, inconclusive (we’ll talk Eden later).

-No blood on tape: This heavily depends on exactly how Ace could grabbed the tape. His hands sorta get covered in blood instantly, so it’s hard to imagine he’d be able to do that without staining the entire roll of tape with blood. He couldn’t have easily washed it, either, since he passes out shortly after, and the blood would have likely dried by the time he woke up. This is definitely a point towards Eden, but can the cast use this? I don’t think so, because it relies on what we saw during the episode, which is not easy to prove in a trial setting.

-Dialogue and trial behavior: This one’s difficult, and as you might expect, inconclusive.

I would argue Eden has a higher amount of outright suspicious lines (“Teruko, wait—“ haunts me), but she also has a higher amount of seemingly anti-suspicious lines that make her look very innocent (see: the entire speech at the end of Ep 14).

She also has a moment where she steers the trial in the right direction by denying that Arei could have committed assisted suicide, but it’s worth remembering that if the class thinks that’s what happened and they learn of Eden’s relationship with her, they might assume Arei and Eden worked together to get Eden out. In other words, by denying the notion of assisted suicide, Eden!Culprit avoids the class reaching the right conclusion through the wrong method. Of course, if she’s innocent, it’s just genuine.

Comparatively, Ace operates at a much more stable level of suspiciousness I can only call “Ace level.” He’s constantly throwing suspicion on Nico, who the killer seemingly tried to frame with the method; he kept David and Arei’s conversation hidden; and was one of the first to jump on the “David’s the culprit” bandwagon. In a vacuum, this is super suspicious; hell, Levi was the fandom’s prime suspect for less.

But… it’s Ace. His behavior isn’t too different from the first trial. So while it’s possible he’s doing all this because he’s the culprit, it’s also possible he’s just being Ace.

Impossible to tell, I fear.

-Eden’s Night 2 paranoia: You might recall Eden being very worried someone was following her in night 2, which could suggest she was doing something suspicious (eg setting up the ball of clothes, more on this later) and was scared she’d get found out.

The problem is that there’s a perfectly fine explanation for Spotless!Eden. This is the night after her confrontation with Arturo, and Teruko did enter the same room as her; she could have just been paranoid because of the former, and felt someone was following her because of the latter. Moot point.

(I don’t think anyone else was following Eden because Teruko would have presumably seen them. Then again, I have overestimated our protag’s perceptiveness in the past)

-Eden’s strength: Eden is the weakest of the cast, so it’s very possible that half the Arei murder method is just impossible for her. But… we can’t know for absolutely sure what “weakest of the cast” means, and it’s not evidence that can be used in a trial. Ignorable.

-Motive, character writing and themes: I’m lumping these in together because I’ll give the same answer to all of them: the dev can just add an explanation in the inevitable post-trial trauma dump. We don’t know absolutely everything there is to know about these characters, or the way the narrative is going, so it’s impossible to confidently argue based on this. Physical evidence will always take precedence over these things in my books.

And that kinda settles it for that. There’s minor arguments like “Eden won’t die before we explore the Fork CG” (well, Xander did, so) or “if the Scrum Debate is Ace vs Eden then Ace is probably safe” (we don’t know what the Scrum Debate will be), but I’ll skip them to get to the more pressing matters.

That being trial-worthy evidence. What can the most dysfunctional cast of any fangan ever (/affectionate) use to fully commit to a culprit?

-Fish Alibi: If Ace has the problem of “no reason to bring fish,” Eden has the problem that her alibi literally starts directly after dinner. If Nico ate dinner with her and Hu, she couldn’t have taken the fish.

Except, of course, Nico could have had dinner earlier, and this point is completely moot. We can’t know yet.

-BDA: This is very obviously not what the cast will use to come to the conclusion given the discussions we’ve had, but I’ll bring it up anyways. This was explained in the episode though, so…

-Playground floor: sorastar6’s idea; since the floor of the playground is made of the same stuff as the relax room, it’d become sticky after getting wet from the water in the jugs, and thus, the culprit could have some stuck to their shoe. Unfortunately for some of you, we can’t easily look at the cast’s feet all the time, so this would only work for the characters, not us. However, Hu does mention heels as an example of something that can scuff the floor, and Ace wears heels, so small point to him.

-Missing glove: I still have no idea where this thing went. My only guess would be that the killer removed it to more easily put tape on Arei’s wrists, but by the time they’d strung her up, they decided putting the glove back on would take too much time (? I have no concept of how hard it’s be to properly put a glove on a dead person’s hand), and they wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. If true, that would mean they still have the glove on them, as it wasn’t in the trash. Again, if I’m right about this, the cast can use this, we can’t.

-Random garbage:

Something here. Rose would remember everything about it, so it’s usable. Maybe Ace’s gloves were damaged and he had to use the needle and thread to fix them? Maybe one of those napkins is the cloth with turpentine Nico used and only Ace would have identified and used it (assuming it wouldn’t have dried and MonoTV wouldn’t have thrown it out for some reason)? What even is that pink paper thing? Who knows.

-Ball of clothes: Held together by something Teruko identified as starch, there’s been around three hundred theories involving this thing. The only one that’s actually incriminating (for the two possibilities being discussed) is thebadjoe’s idea of the starch being from the enriched formula of the relax room, which could implicate Eden as she was acting suspiciously around the dress-up room on night 2.

I’ve seen it argued that the clothes would be dirty in that case, but that can be solved with an extra layer of clothes under the clothes that actually get starched up, which would later be either discarded, washed, or simply put inside the ball itself.

(This might be the last murder diagram I make for this case. Holy shit I can’t believe that)

Which is all well and good, but this is still ultimately assuming both that the cast has some way of making sure Ace couldn’t have done this, which I’m not sure exists, and that the starch comes from the relax room in the first place.

Because something I learnt, like, last week, is that people put starch on clothes. Like that’s a thing they do. So it’s entirely possible there’s starch for clothes in the dress-up room and anyone could have done this. If that’s the case, this cannot be used to argue at all. I don’t love the idea, since we don’t know if there really is starch there or not, but it’s there.

-Grammar: The letter to Arei pretty famously misspells “responsibel” (responsible), has horrible punctuation, etc. It’s possible someone in the trial will realize, ask Ace and Eden to spell the word, and whoever gets it right is cleared. We can’t know, but it’s a possibility. This also has the benefit of being obscenely funny.

-Custom weapon: If the killer used their custom weapon, it may point to them as guilty, as only they have access to it. However, I fail to see how a riding crop (Ace) or a wrench (Eden) would help in the slightest.

There is, however, one more item that only one of these characters has access to. And while I am very unsure of this assumption, if you ask me right now what is the decisive piece of evidence that will close the case once and for all, I will tell you:

-The shoulder band thingy:

Ace: Too fucking bad. Mine now. I’m keeping it.

Yep. This one.

For starters, remember that thing I said about the tape? That Ace has precedent of stealing completely random shit for no reason, and so it’s plausible he grabbed the tape just because? This is the precedent.

More importantly though, it’s something only Ace has access to, so if it can be determined it was used in the crime scene, it’s curtains.

And there is actually one place I could see it being used. Followers of my method theories know that, through the fire and the flames, there’s been one deduction that’s remain constant: the rope was tied to the ball of clothes, which was thrown over the railings to get the rope as high as needed. The ball also hit the lights, displacing the bulb and causing it to flicker.

(He he I snuck the image into a fourth post >:D)

I’ve always sorta assumed DRDT takes place in a physics exercise where air drag is ignored, but it’s true that this might be harder than I’ve been presenting it as.

So, we get the use for the shoulder band; a slingshot. I’m unsure on how it would be constructed (swingset maybe? seesaw?), but the idea is that. Create a slingshot, throw the clothes, badabim badabum, Ace is the culprit.

I’m not the only one to think of this btw. Reddit user (yes we’re cross-platforming for this) Makatrull seems to have arrived at the same conclusion. Great minds think alike ig.

Of course, this comes with its own issues. Mainly, how do you connect the shoulder band to the crime scene? The only way I see that happening is if the cast determines this is literally the only way the lights get broken, which… yeah, I’m gonna have to let them do the math on that one.

It’s impossible to judge without existing in the DRDT world. Is the ceiling higher than I’d previously assumed? Then it’s possible to come to this conclusion. Is it lower, and possible that even Eden would have managed to just throw the ball over the railing? Certainly. So, for now, inconclusive. When I say it’s the most likely to be the decisive evidence, I mean by like, 0.1%, I really have no clue.

———

There’s probably more, but that’s all I can think of for now.

Seeing as we’re reaching the end, I’m gonna say that regardless of the outcome, this might be one of my favorite trials in all of both canon and fan-made Danganronpa. So much shit happened. I’ll save my full thoughts for a more dedicated post, but goddamn, I can’t wait to see the conclusion!

Hope you enjoyed! If you made it this far, you deserve a shoulder band thing. Do with it as you please. See you!

[shepherds-of-haven]

How would the ROs rate their own attractiveness? Like do they consider themselves attractive?

Huh, good question!

Blade: he is distantly aware that other people/society in general considers him to be good-looking in some capacity. (By Ket standards, he and Gladius both are considered to be blessed with markedly good looks, but almost in a 'pretty boy' kind of way. Gladius is considered like stunningly beautiful while Blade has more of 'effortlessly hot' aura). So he would say other people probably think he's "above-average" in looks (but he also believes it to be more of a muscularity/strength thing than things like his facial features. Like women, if they do find him attractive, probably think so because he looks like a strong provider LMAO). But he himself doesn't think about his own attractiveness or appearance beyond what good hygiene and proper presentation dictate... he hardly spares himself a glance in the mirror most days. As you can tell by his haircut choices

Trouble: he considers himself to be average in looks, neither particularly handsome or particularly ugly, just exactly in the middle of the road! If asked to describe his own attractiveness in more detail, he'd probably say something like, "I clean up okay. I'm a decent-looking working-class guy? *shrug* I don't think anyone would be mad if I showed up at their doorstep with a bouquet of flowers, but artists aren't swooning over my cheekbones, either"

Tallys: Tallys considers herself to be a good-looking woman, probably an 8 if we're using a scale, a 9 if she put more effort into being conventionally beautiful (doing things like growing out her hair (!), using makeup or perfume, dressing well, etc.). She's confident in her own attractiveness and doesn't find much fault with her own features or body, but she also knows that doesn't mean she's everyone's specific cup of tea, either! She just believes that, according to a general standard, she rates highly in most areas, and no one could sincerely call her ugly. It helps that she's an Elf, since most of them have a high standard of confidence when it comes to their natural beauty!

Shery: before she joined the Shepherds, she believed herself to be average or below-average, and believed herself to be "mousy": hiding behind her bangs and spectacles was not something she ever saw conventionally beautiful people doing, so she grew up thinking she was forgettable or unremarkable, though not necessarily ugly or outright unattractive. Just sort of "plain." However, since joining and noticing that there are people who seem to compliment or even crush on her, she's since come to tentatively revise that opinion and thinks she could probably be considered "cute" by some people's standards, but she still thinks that her personality makes it hard for anyone to really notice her or become completely enthralled by her... so she would say she's probably like a 6 or 7 by looks alone, which she's content with!

Riel: as like a work of art or a painting (so judging by pure aesthetics alone, devoid of other considerations), he believes he rates around an 8 just going by the symmetry of his facial features, his taste in clothes, the fact that he's well-groomed, but he's a bit self-conscious of how he rates in terms of desirability or sexual appeal, which is a different thing entirely (in his own mind). Like, you can admit a painting is beautiful, but you don't want to fuck a painting? In those terms, he believes he falls well below the standards of the masculine ideal, probably resting at a 5, though he believes he makes up for it in other areas (wealth, intellect, uniqueness, etc). It doesn't bother him that much, but it is something that he is aware of at the back of his mind!

Chase: He thinks he's pretty good-looking (🙄), but that the effect is best felt and supplemented by his in-person charisma, charm, aura, and general personality. This is an extremely topical/dated example, but it's sort of like how a lot of people were largely indifferent to Glen Powell going strictly by looks alone, but then they saw him acting in Twisters or Top Gun or whatever and saw his chemistry with his co-stars and were suddenly like "oh 😳" Like he needs to be seen in action to really feel attracted to him?? Anyway, Chase thinks that if you were to see a perfect painting of him in a gallery, he's good-looking enough alone to make you stop and admire him, so probably like an 8... but his magnetism in person brings that to a 10 LOL

Red: He "doesn't really think about it" (🙄)--he more spends time grooming and styling himself to his own standards rather than really fretting over what other people would perceive or rate him as, but if you really pressed up, I think he'd say he's an 8 on a good day, potentially a 9 if he were to try very hard, but he'd sort of vaguely look around at everyone else to confirm if this was an arrogant thing for him to say lol, so he's definitely not totally sure about it! There aren't too many things he finds fault with when it comes to his physical appearance or body--he's generally satisfied and content in that department--but he also would never argue he's some great show-stopping beauty or gorgeous model: he just quietly lives with the idea that most people think he's a naturally pretty handsome guy!

Ayla: this is sad, but she probably rates herself a 3, maybe a 4 on a good day. 😕 Ayla thought she dispensed with thinking about her own appearance or attractiveness long ago, having accepted the fact that most people perceived her as this ragged, scrappy loner who mostly lived on the road and was lucky if she could find a stream to wash her hair in. She never possessed a mirror and, the rare times she stayed in a room that had one, she used it to check herself over for hidden injuries or things on her back and then went on her way... and none of this really mattered to her because she spent so much of her time alone. No one was really looking at her, she wasn't looking at herself, so who cared if she looked like a half-drowned rat with her hair growing into her eyes while she shook sand out of her clothes? Since joining the Shepherds, however, her private consciousness of her appearance has naturally increased, and sometimes she can feel quite down about it (especially when faced with the elegant grace of Tallys, the feminine cuteness of Shery, or the show-stopping beauty of Lavinet). Part of being in a group that she avoided was the vulnerability of natural comparison: no one's comparing you to anyone if you stand alone, but with the Shepherds, of course that's going to happen, even if only in her own mind... Anyway, this is a lot to say that she considers herself to be below-average in attractiveness, but is filled with a sullen self-loathing and pride when she considers doing anything to try to change that fact, so she just... resigns herself to feeling that way forever, if that makes any sense!

Briony: she thinks she's cute and can edge over into pretty when she tries really hard, so she'd probably say she hovers between a 6 and a 7 on an average day? While she thinks she has advantages like her striking hair color and eyes, she has areas that she privately feels a bit insecure about: she feels her face is too round, her nose is too short, feels like she's a bit short and compact and boyish in body when she's rather be tall and leggy like Tallys or buxom and curvaceous like Lavinet, etc. etc. It's not something that really bothers her--she figures that everybody feels that way about themselves--so she's happy with being "above-average" on most days. It's only when she's crushing on somebody and isn't sure of how they perceive her that she gets really unsure and self-conscious about it, and then she really obviously throws herself into styling herself to appear more feminine!

Lavinet: don't hate her, but she definitely thinks she's a 10 LOL. This is partly due to the fact that, by Blest beauty standards, she pretty much is a paragon of desirability, and everyone in her life has treated her as if she were a 10 or even outright said so... so there's really no reason for her to think otherwise! There are always small things she would tweak if she gave any thought to it, but in general she's been very happy with her appearance and how she's been able to use it as a tool to accomplish her goals in life!

Halek: he is well aware that he's gorgeous... he wouldn't say this out loud because he knows he'd get endlessly ragged on, but he'd probably say he's a 10 LMAO, maybe 9 so as to give the appearance of some humility... It's not even something he's arrogant about, he's just like aware of general beauty standards and is like 'yeah by no choice of my own and by complete accident of birth, i happen to fit these really well? *shrug*" It's nbd... and it's part of where his bde comes from, I'm sure